The Wandering Jew — Complete
of your soul to make instantly the fullest confession. Were it even to
exhaust your strength, what is this perishable body compared to eternal
life?"
"Of what confession do you speak, my lord?" said Rodin, in a feeble and
yet sarcastic tone.
"What confession!" cried the amazed cardinal; "why, with regard to your
dangerous intrigues at Rome."
"What intrigues?" asked Rodin.
"The intrigues you revealed during your delirium," replied the prelate,
with still more angry impatience. "Were not your avowals sufficiently
explicit? Why, then, this culpable hesitation to complete them?"
"My avowals--were explicit--you assure me?" said Rodin, pausing after
each word for want of breath, but without losing his energy and presence
of mind.
"Yes, I repeat it," resumed the cardinal; "with the exception of a few
chasms, they were most explicit."
"Then why repeat them?" said Rodin, with the same sardonic smile on his
violet lips.
"Why repeat them?" cried the angry prelate. "In order to gain pardon;
for if there is indulgence and mercy for the repentant sinner, there
must be condemnation and curses for the hardened criminal!"
"Oh, what torture! I am dying by slow fire!" murmured Rodin. "Since I
have told all," he resumed, "I have nothing more to tell. You know it
already."
"I know all--doubtless, I know all," replied the prelate, in a voice of
thunder; "but how have I learned it? By confessions made in a state
of unconsciousness. Do you think they will avail you anything? No; the
moment is solemn--death is at hand, tremble to die with a sacrilegious
falsehood on your lips," cried the prelate, shaking Rodin violently by
the arm; "dread the eternal flames, if you dare deny what you know to be
the truth. Do you deny it?"
"I deny nothing," murmured Rodin, with difficulty. "Only leave me
alone!"
"Then heaven inspires you," said the cardinal, with a sigh of
satisfaction; and, thinking he had nearly attained his object, he
resumed, "Listen to the divine word, that will guide you, father. You
deny nothing?"
"I was--delirious--and cannot--(oh! how I suffer!)" added Rodin, by way
of parenthesis; "and cannot therefore--deny--the nonsense--I may have
uttered!"
"But when this nonsense agrees with the truth," cried the prelate,
furious at being again deceived in his expectation; "but when raving is
an involuntary, providential revelation--"
"Cardinal Malipieri--your craft is no match--for my agony," answered
Rodin, in a failing voice. "The proof--that I have not told my
secret--if I have a secret--is--that you want to make me tell it!" In
spite of his pain and weakness, the Jesuit had courage to raise himself
in the bed, and look the cardinal full in the face, with a smile of
bitter irony. After which he fell back on the pillow, and pressed his
hands to his chest, with a long sigh of anguish.
"Damnation! the infernal Jesuit has found me out!" said the cardinal
to himself, as he stamped his foot with rage. "He sees that he was
compromised by his first movement; he is now upon his guard; I shall get
nothing more from him--unless indeed, profiting by the state of weakness
in which he is, I can, by entreaties, by threats, by terror--"
The prelate was unable to finish. The door opened abruptly, and Father
d'Aigrigny entered the room, exclaiming with an explosion of joy:
"Excellent news!"
CHAPTER XXVIII. GOOD NEWS.
By the alteration in the countenance of Father d'Aigrigny, his pale
cheek, and the feebleness of his walk, one might see that the terrible
scene in the square of Notre-Dame, had violently reacted upon his
health. Yet his face was radiant and triumphant, as he entered Rodin's
chamber, exclaiming: "Excellent news!"
On these words, Rodin started. In spite of his weakness, he raised his
head, and his eyes shone with a curious, uneasy, piercing expression.
With his lean hand, he beckoned Father d'Aigrigny to approach the
bed, and said to him, in a broken voice, so weak that it was scarcely
audible: "I am very ill--the cardinal has nearly finished me--but if
this excellent news--relates to the Rennepont affair--of which I hear
nothing--it might save me yet!"
"Be saved then!" cried Father d'Aigrigny, forgetting the recommendations
of Dr. Baleinier; "read, rejoice! What you foretold is beginning to be
realized!"
So saying, he drew a paper from his pocket, and delivered it to Rodin,
who seized it with an eager and trembling hand. Some minutes before,
Rodin would have been really incapable of continuing his conversation
with the cardinal, even if prudence had allowed him to do so; nor could
he have read a single line, so dim had his sight become. But, at the
words of Father d'Aigrigny, he felt such a renewal of hope and vigor,
that, by a mighty effort of energy and will, he rose to a sitting
posture, and, with clear head, and look of intelligent animation, he
read rapidly the paper that Father d'Aigrigny had just delivered to him.
The cardinal, amazed at this sudden transfiguration, asked himself if he
beheld the same man, who, a few minutes before, had fallen back on
his bed, almost insensible. Hardly had Rodin finished reading, than
he uttered a cry of stifled joy, saying, with an accent impossible to
describe: "ONE gone! it works--'tis well!" And, closing his eyes in
a kind of ecstatic transport, a smile of proud triumph overspread his
face, and rendered him still more hideous, by discovering his yellow and
gumless teeth. His emotion was so violent, that the paper fell from his
trembling hand.
"He has fainted," cried Father d'Aigrigny, with uneasiness, as he leaned
over Rodin. "It is my fault, I forgot that the doctor cautioned me not
to talk to him of serious matters."
"No; do not reproach yourself," said Rodin, in a low voice, half-raising
himself in the bed. "This unexpected joy may perhaps cure me. Yes--I
scarce know what I feel--but look at my cheeks--it seems to me, that,
for the first time since I have been stretched on this bed of pain, they
are a little warm."
Rodin spoke the truth. A slight color appeared suddenly on his livid and
icy cheeks; his voice though still very weak, became less tremulous, and
he exclaimed, in a tone of conviction that startled Father d'Aigrigny
and the prelate, "This first success answers for the others. I read the
future. Yes, yes; our cause will triumph. Every member of the execrable
Rennepont family will be crushed--and that soon you will see--"
Then, pausing, Rodin threw himself back on the pillow, exclaiming: "Oh!
I am choked with joy. My voice fails me."
"But what is it?" asked the cardinal of Father d'Aigrigny.
The latter replied, in a tone of hypocritical sanctity: "One of the
heirs of the Rennepont family, a poor fellow, worn out with excesses and
debauchery, died three days ago, at the close of some abominable
orgies, in which he had braved the cholera with sacrilegious impiety.
In consequence of the indisposition that kept me at home, and of another
circumstance, I only received to-day the certificate of the death of
this victim of intemperance and irreligion. I must proclaim it to the
praise of his reverence"--pointing to Rodin--"that he told me, the worst
enemies of the descendants of that infamous renegade would be their own
bad passions, and that the might look to them as our allies against the
whole impious race. And so it has happened with Jacques Rennepont."
"You see," said Rodin, in so faint a voice that it was almost
unintelligible, "the punishment begins already. One of the Renneponts
is dead--and believe me--this certificate," and he pointed to the paper
that Father d'Aigrigny held in his hand, "will one day be worth forty
millions to the Society of Jesus--and that--because--"
The lips alone finished the sentence. During some seconds, Rodin's
voice had become so faint, that it was at last quite imperceptible. His
larynx, contracted by violent emotion, no longer emitted any sound.
The Jesuit, far from being disconcerted by this incident, finished his
phrase, as it were, by expressive pantomime. Raising his head proudly he
tapped his forehead with his forefinger, as if to express that it was to
his ability this first success was owing. But he soon fell back again
on the bed, exhausted, breathless, sinking, with his cotton handkerchief
pressed once more to his parched lips. The good news, as Father
d'Aigrigny called it, had not cured Rodin. For a moment only, he had had
the courage to forget his pain. But the slight color on his cheek soon
disappeared; his face became once more livid. His sufferings, suspended
for a moment, were so much increased in violence, that he writhed
beneath the coverlet, and buried his face in the pillow, extending his
arms above his head, and holding them stiff as bars of iron. After this
crisis, intense as it was rapid: during which Father d'Aigrigny and the
prelate bent anxiously over him, Rodin, whose face was bathed in cold
sweat, made a sign that he suffered less, and that he wished to drink of
a potion to which he pointed. Father d'Aigrigny fetched it for him,
and while the cardinal held him up with marked disgust, the abbe
administered a few spoonfuls of the potion, which almost immediately
produced a soothing effect.
"Shall I call M. Rousselet?" said Father d'Aigrigny, when Rodin was once
more laid down in bed.
Rodin shook his head; then, with a fresh effort, he raised his right
hand, opened it, and pointed with his forefinger to a desk in a corner
of the room, to signify that, being no longer able to speak, he wished
to write.
"I understand your reverence," said Father d'Aigrigny; "but first
calm yourself. Presently, if you require it. I will give you writing
materials."
Two knocks at the outer door of the next room interrupted this scene.
From motives of prudence, Father d'Aigrigny had begged Rousselet to
remain in the first of the three rooms. He now went to open the door,
and Rousselet handed him a voluminous packet, saying: "I beg pardon
for disturbing you, father, but I was told to let you have these papers
instantly."
"Thank you, M. Rousselet," said Father d'Aigrigny; "do you know at what
hour Dr. Baleinier will return?"
"He will not be long, father, for he wishes to perform before night the
painful operation, that will have a decisive effect on the condition of
Father Rodin. I am preparing what is necessary for it," added Rousselet,
as he pointed to a singular and formidable apparatus, which Father
d'Aigrigny examined with a kind of terror.
"I do not know if the symptom is a serious one," said the Jesuit; "but
the reverend father has suddenly lost his voice."
"It is the third time this has happened within the last week," said
Rousselet; "the operation of Dr. Baleiner will act both on the larynx
and on the lungs."
"Is the operation a very painful one?" asked Father d'Aigrigny.
"There is, perhaps, none more cruel in surgery," answered the young
doctor; "and Dr. Baleinier has partly concealed its nature from Father
Rodin."
"Please to wait here for Dr. Baleinier, and send him to us as soon as he
arrives," resumed Father d'Aigrigny: and, returning to the sick chamber,
he sat down by the bedside, and said to Rodin, as he showed him the
letter: "Here are different reports with regard to different members
of the Rennepont family, whom I have had looked after by others, my
indisposition having kept me at home for the last few days. I do not
know, father, if the state of your health will permit you to hear--"
Rodin made a gesture, at once so supplicating and peremptory, that
Father d'Aigrigny felt there would be at least as much danger in
refusing as in granting his request; so, turning towards the cardinal,
still inconsolable at not having discovered the Jesuit's secret, he