The Max Brand Megapack. Max Brand
Читать онлайн книгу.
of the fingers. It seemed to her that this was an ideal hand for a painter—it must be both strong and supple.
He sighed again and stirred; she caught up the weapon with feverish haste and poised it.
“Ah, it is well,” said the sleeper in his dream.
She made sure that he was indeed unconscious and then leaned low, whispering: “Adieu, my dear.”
At some happy vision he laughed softly. His breath touched her face. Surely he could never know; he had so short a moment left for living; perhaps this would pass into his latest dream on earth and make it happy.
“Adieu!” she whispered again, and her lips pressed on his.
She laid the muzzle of the revolver against his temple, and, summoning all her will power, she pressed the trigger. It seemed as if she were pulling against it with her full strength, and yet there was no report. Then she realized that all her might was going into an inward struggle. She summoned to her aid the voice of the prince as he had said: “We put a mask on nature and call it love; we name an abstraction and call it God. Le Dieu, c’est moi!” She placed the revolver against the temple of the sleeper; he stirred and disturbed the surety of her direction. She adjusted the weapon again.
Up sprang the man, shouting: “Treason! Help!”
Then he stood silent a long moment; perhaps he was rehearsing the scene of his seizure.
“This is death,” he muttered at last, “and I am in hell. I have always known what it would be—dark—utter and bitter loss of light.”
As his hand moved, the chain rattled. He sprang back with such violence that his lunging weight jerked her to her feet.
“It is useless to struggle,” she cried.
“A woman! Where am I?”
“You are lost.”
“But what has happened? In God’s name, madame, are we chained together?”
“We are.”
“By whose power? By whose right and command?”
“By one against whom we cannot appeal.”
“My crime?”
“None.”
“For how long—”
“Three days.”
He heaved a great sigh of relief.
“It is merely some practical joke, I see. That infernal Franz, I knew he was meditating mischief! Three days—and then free?”
“Yes, for then you die.”
Once more he was silent.
Then: “This is a hideous dream. I will waken from it at once—at once. My dear lady—”
She heard him advancing.
“Keep the chain taut, sir, I am armed; I will fire at the slightest provocation.”
He stopped and laughed.
“Come, come! This is not so bad. You have been smiling in your sleep at me. Up with the lights, my dear. If Franz has engaged you for this business, let me tell you that I’m a far better fellow than he must have advertised me. But what a devil he is to rig up such an elaborate hoax! By Jove, this chain—this darkness—it’s enough to turn a fellow’s hair white! The black night gets on my nerves. Lights! Lights! I yearn to see you; I prophesy your beauty by your voice! Still coy? Then we’ll try persuasion!”
His breast struck the muzzle of the revolver.
She said quietly: “If I move my finger a fraction of an inch you die, sir. And every word I have spoken to you is the truth.”
“Well, well! You do this finely. I shall compliment Franz on rehearsing you so thoroughly. Is this the fair Daphne of whom he told me—”
And his hand touched her shoulder.
“By everything that is sacred, I will fire unless you stand back—back to the end of the chain.”
“Is it possible? The Middle Ages have returned!”
He moved back until the light chain was taut.
“My mind whirls. I try to laugh, but your voice convinces me. Madame, will you explain my situation in words of one syllable?”
“I have explained it already. You are imprisoned in a place from which you cannot escape. You will be confined here, held to me by this chain, for three days. At the end of that time you die.”
“Will you swear this is the truth?”
“Name any oath and I will repeat it.”
“There’s no need,” he said. “No, it cannot be a jest. Franz would never risk the use of a drug, wild as he is. Some other power has taken me. What reason lies behind my arrest?”
“Think of it as a blind and brutal hand which required a victim and reached out over the city to find one. The hand fell upon you. There is no more to say. You can only resign yourself to die an unknown death.”
He said at last: “Not unknown, thank God. I have something which will live after me.”
Her heart leaped, for she was seeing once more the artist from Rembrandt’s brush.
“Yes, your paintings will not be forgotten.”
“I feel that they will not, and the name of—”
“Do not speak of it!”
“Why?”
“I must not hear your name.”
“But you know it already. You spoke of my painting.”
“I have never seen your face; I have never heard your name; you were brought to me in this room darkened as you find it now.”
“Yet you knew—”
Her voice was marvelously low: “I touched your face, sir, and in some way I knew.”
After a time he said: “I believe you. This miracle is no greater than the others. But why do you not wish to know my name?”
“I may live after you, and when I see your pictures I do not wish to say: ‘This is his work; this is his power; this is his limitation.’ Can you understand?”
“I will try to.”
“I sat beside you while you were unconscious, and I pictured your face and your mind for myself. I will not have that picture reduced to reality.”
“It is a delicate fancy. You are blind? You see by the touch of your hands?”
“I am not blind, but I think I have seen your face through the touch.”
“Here! I have stumbled against two chairs. Let us sit down and talk. I will slide this chair farther away if you wish. Do you fear me?”
“No, I think I am not afraid. I am only very sad for you. Listen: I have laid down the revolver. Is that rash?”
“Madame, my life has been clean. Would I stain it now? No, no! Sit here—so! My hand touches yours—you are not afraid?—and a thrill leaps through me. Is it the dark that changes all things and gives eyes to your imagination, or are you really very beautiful?”
“How shall I say?”
“Be very frank, for I am a dying man, am I not? And I should hear the truth.”
“You are a profound lover of the beautiful?”
“I am a painter, madame.”
She called up the image of her face—the dingy brown hair, long and silken, to be sure; the colorless, small eyes; the common features which the first red-skinned farmer’s daughter could overmatch.
“Describe