The Genius (Carl Grosse)/Chapter 26
CHAP. X.
Scarce could my tottering feet sustain the weight of my body. A sudden giddiness almost bent me to the ground. But the imminence of the danger restored me all the strength, which the dread of the former had wrested from me. Despair roused me from the swoon of furious rage. I laid held of my loaded gun; I cocked it; one and the same slug was to exterminate both of the adulterers.
But some guardian angel watched over Adela's life. In the very moment I pulled the trigger, my thumb accidentally got between the cock and the pan. The clattering made Bernardos, who already held my wife claspt in his arms, draw sideways. Struck with fear, he stretched his neck. But not a moment would I grant him to recollect himself. The trigger is pulled a second time; the cock flies—and down he drops with his brains blown out, on the victim of his infernal lust!
Adela laid beneath him in a deep swoon. In the first ebullition of my fury I was not satisfied with shooting one; I went and shook Adela: "Accursed woman!" cried I with a thundering voice, "awake, awake to thy punishment!" She gave several signs of returning reason. I then pressed the bloody corpse of her guilty paramour closely into her arms, and went out to pacify those of the servants, whom the report of the piece might have drawn into the outer apartments.
I met some of them with candles in their hands. I told them, that my gun had only gone off by accident, and hurt my thumb a little. The women, especially the marchioness's confidential Abigail, wanted to force their way into the apartment of their mistress: but I sent them all back to their room, where I ordered them to be locked up. Having got my thumb dressed, I ordered the men down stairs with my valet, to whom I gave orders to take a gun and shoot the first fellow that should offer to stir contrary to my directions.
On my return to the marchioness, I found her quite recovered. She had risen from the sopha, rejected the gory remains of Bernardos, and kneeling before a chair at some distance from him, awaited her own fate. She was; quite sure of death, and wished for it. How could she ever have looked again into my face, without finking to the ground overwhelmed with shame?
On my entering the room she startled. Every feature of her countenance was altered, and she was the picture of horror and despondence. Her hair stood frightfully an end, and some locks dyed with the blood of her gallant hung over her forehead. The lustre of her eyes was extinct, and blinked quite ghastly at her supposed executioner. Her lips contracted by grief, only opened to give vent to her agonizing moans.
Instead of being moved by this horrid spectacle, my indignation only became the more vehement. I laid down my piece, which I was still holding in my hand, went to the window, threw it up, seized the corpse by the throat, and furiously flung it into the garden.
"Rise, madam," cried I. She tried to get up, but funk several times exhausted on the floor. I then laid hold of her by the arms to raise her by force. She must surely have thought that I wanted to throw her after her villanous paramour. Collecting her breath, she whispered with a faint voice, "I thank you, Don Carlos, pray be quick and dispatch me."
I got her at last to stand on her feet, and thus continued, "Behind yon screen is your washing-bason with water. Bring it hither, and wash away this damned blood from the floor."
She reeled obediently to the spot, and not able to find a napkin, pulled out her pocket-handkerchief, first wiped her eyes with it, went down on her knees, and began to scrub off the odious gore. She was several times obliged to stop in this operation, to draw breath. A flood of tears gushed from her face, and mixed with the clotted blood. I stood by to light her. Between whiles I called out to her, "Rub harder, madam. Here is another stain."
Having done,. she threw, herself with her face on the floor, I raised her anew, and fetching a torch from the next apartment, put it into her hand, saying, "Now go before, madam, and light me." Meanwhile I took the bason with the blood, and we descended into the garden.
I conducted her below the window, out of I which I had flung the dead body, took it myself on my shoulder, and having given the bason to the marchioness, bid her follow me: to the most solitary part of the garden. She was dumb, trembled and shivered, and spilt: a great deal of the blood. "Hold the bason! steady, madam!" cried I, with austere severity. The poor wretch took pains to obey me, but it was in vain.
I found a spade, and having reached the lonely spot, began to dig a hole. The ground being soft, my work was soon done. She had sat down on the trunk of a tree, and lighted me with the torch. Now I snatched it from: her, saying, "Come, madam, give your gallant the parting kiss!" As patiently as the lamb that goes to be slaughtered, the knelt down before the body, and kissed its pale mouth. I contemplated with pleasure the reluctance expressed in her countenance. She rose again, and I buried the corpse. I poured the blood over the rising turf of the tomb, and dashed the bason in pieces. "Thus, Bernardos," added I, "do I devote thee to damnation and everlasting infamy! thou hast robbed thy friend of all that was dear to him!"
Adela could weep no more. Perhaps she was too much occupied with the fate that awaited her. Only at certain intervals her dark eyes would dwell on me with secret horror. I studiously avoided those glances, and beckoned her to follow me to the villa.
We returned to her chamber, she fainted, and I put her on the sopha. When she recovered a little, I said, "Here Madam, is the key of the room in which I have thought proper to shut up your women. This instant, get ready your trunk, that we may set out in less than an hour. By the time you are ready, you will tell me, whether you prefer the Penitent Sisters at Seville or some convent in France."
This she had not expected. So much generosity overwhelmed her. She threw herself from the sopha on the floor, and embraced my feet. The transition from the terrors of death to the certainty of life had been too sudden, and Adela could not rise again. I gently lifted her up, put her on the sopha, sprinkled her pallid face with water and rub bed her forehead. Perhaps my features expressed too much of emotion. She was aware of it and wanted to prostrate herself a second time before me; but I held her fast, "For God's sake!" cried she, "kill me not with excessive kindness, I have deserved death. Here is my bosom. Put an end to my hellish torments!"
She bared her breast. I turned away with scornful disdain, that I might not see it. "Be tranquil, Madam," answered I with composure, "and thank Providence that I did not surprise you after the consummation of the atrocious crime. My vengeance is now at an end. I have pardoned you."
At these words I presented my hand to her, which she covered with an hundred eager kisses. "Thanks to your generous forbearance," replied she, "towards a more misguided than criminal woman! Heaven will reward your virtue! for, alas! myself can do it no longer!"
She sobbed violently, and I began to dread for her life. In her first fit of despair, she wanted presence of mind for any resolution, but now the most poignant remorse made her be resigned to every thing. I trembled to see her absorbed in thought. The whole extent of her guilt, her forfeited happiness, her indelible disgrace, her future misery in being for ever banished from my sight and buried in the dreary shades of cloistered seclusion, thronged with bitterness into her mind. How fain would she have met instant destruction! I trembled at every convulsive motion of her body, lest she should make an attempt to put a period to her existence.
I sat down by her side and held both her hands, "Adela," said I, "my poor wife! Abuse not the weakness of thy husband. He has forgiven thee. Give him not reason to repent it. He would deem this despair a mere artifice to blind him once more—employ the future part of thy life to convince him, that if thou haft been misled, it was only for a moment."
She pressed my hands to her bosom, and then leaned her face on them. Her distressed eyes spoke enthusiastic gratitude. She durst go no farther. It was the angel of Repentance, cheered by the distant glimpse of hope revived.
"Now I call your women, Adela," pursued I, "prepare yourself for a journey. We have no time to lose. I am surrounded with base listeners, the next town we come to discharge Isabella, I ask it as a favor."
This Isabella was her confidential servant, and the marchioness understood me. "I am all obedience my most injured husband," answered she kissing my hand. I rose, unlocked the door of the room in which the women were confined, let them out, and desired them to walk up to their mistress. The men had behaved well, and my valet kept a strict eye upon them.
The horses being put before my travelling-chaise, I asked Adela what place she would choose for her future residence? She replied, that she could not think of ever coming before her father's presence, as the overwhelming consciousness of her guilt would render death a thousand times more welcome, than the sight of an austere father. She had no objection to retire to the convent of the Penitent Sifters at Seville, or any other religious house in Spain, to which I might condescend to send her. The abbess of the cloister at Seville being a friend of my late mother's, I told her, that she would be best treated there. She readily consented, and we set out. On the road, I agreed with her, on what we should say to the abbess respecting her separation, and how I would satisfy the enquiries of her own family.
Have I really power enough to describe our parting? Scarce can I imagine how nature could endure it. During the whole journey, Adela never opened her lips, and the deepest, dumbest and even most moanless melancholy had changed her into a mere shadow, but this shadow, still bearing the traces of the sweetest reality, moved every beholder to tears. All our attendants, all those with whom we only stopped for an hour on the road, began to participate in my sentiments. I myself, with all my reasons of hatred and abhorrence, could not help feeling the impression of the secret influence, which a beautiful woman, repentant and distressed, is apt to exert. I endeavoured to console her, but my kind attention only made her the sadder. She thanked me with still tears, and the discreet fervor of a humbled and half-broken heart, shewing me at the same time, that the despaired of every thing.
As soon as the cloister came in sight, she began to break out in loud lamentations upon her cruel fate. She seemed quite inconsolable, but I was sure, that the bosom of solitude would minister more comfort unto her wounded heart, than she really expected.