CHAPTER XVII

THE DUEL

When I read over again the preceding pages I find nothing in them to eliminate, for they truthfully set down the intolerable situation in which I found myself after Surdon informed me of Patrick’s presence in Venice. In my belief I had good reason for suspecting that my beloved’s ego had yielded without any great resistance to the whims of culpable hypnotic suggestion. And when I conjure up the vision of the meeting in the little room in the Grand Hotel, I see myself again as I was then, that is to say, less distracted by rage against Patrick than tortured by Cordélia’s apparent acquiescence.

Fool that I was! Ought I not in my ignorance of the tremendous nature of psychic mystery, or in my mistrust of it as an entirely new initiate, to have warned Cordélia of all that appeared suspect and impossible to understand in it? And yet I took a bitter pleasure in my misery!

In short, my blood was fired by those fatuous words: “It wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t wanted it to happen.” And it was with these words on my lips and this injustice to her in my heart, that I hastened back to the Hotel Danieli.

* * * * *

Cordélia, whom I found still lying on the sofa, had just awakened from her sleep, and was wrapping a piece of linen round her finger, an incident to which in my agitation I attached no importance. The chamber maid was offering her a thread of cotton. I requested her to leave us.

At the sound of my voice Cordélia gave a start and raised her head, and I perceived that she was deadly pale.

“Patrick is here and you know it,” I cried savagely. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She contemplated my wrath first with dumb amazement, and then with dismay. She seemed no longer to know me. I had ceased to be her Hector. She wisely remained silent. What could she say to a raging lion who neither heard nor understood reason?

Then I went on wildly:

“You deny yourself nothing. Trips in gondolas, art galleries, churches—the Santa Maria della Salute!”

At these last words she murmured:

“Oh, good gracious, so it was true! I thought it was only a dream.”

Her words ought to have enlightened me and taught me that she was still the victim of the endless machinations of that man. But I had set out to make us both suffer, and I was not to be stopped mid-way.

“You meet every day between five and seven o’clock.”

“What do you say?”

And Cordélia lifted herself, and opened her eyes wide with wonder, as if she began to discover from the sound of my voice now that she was awake, the impressions which had been transmitted to her polygon while she was asleep.

“I say that you take advantage of my confidence. While I thought that you were resting here, you were off having a meal with Patrick in his room in the Grand Hotel.”

She uttered a cry and covered her face with her hands.

“Oh don’t deny it. I saw you. I heard you.”

“What did you hear? Did I tell him that I loved him?” she asked in a voice strained with anxiety.

“I didn’t hear you say that,” I returned, surprised at the tone in which she asked the question, “but you know quite well that I cannot hear your ‘silent voice.’”

“If I didn’t say that I said nothing,” she declared gazing at me with staring eyes. “All else is beyond me.”

So saying she lay back on the sofa, her whole body shaken by a fit of sobbing.

I fell on my knees. The horror of my conduct and at the same time Cordélia’s innocence, became manifest to me. Dear, dear, dear Cordélia!

I hated myself. I strove to assuage her grief. I took her hand, and then I saw that the strip of linen round her finger was quite red.

“Your finger is bleeding, Cordélia. Have you cut it?”

“I suppose I knocked it against a piece of furniture when I woke up,” she said between her tears.

“It’s not imagination,” I said with a tremor, unwinding the linen, for Dr. Thurel’s explanation of the meaning of the externalization of sensibility flashed through my mind. “No, it was not imagination, unfortunately, and here we have the sad proof of it. When you, in mind, were at the Grand Hotel, I burst into the room with such violence as to disturb everything, and a knife which was on the table fell to the floor and Patrick exclaimed: ‘She is wounded!’”

This time Cordélia rose to her feet so white-faced, that she might have been taken for her own ghost.

“How could you think that I did not love you?” she breathed. “It’s my heart’s blood that is flowing from the wound which you inflicted on me in Patrick’s room. Do you understand what I mean?”[2]

[2] The following note was discovered among Hector’s papers:

In regard to pains and wounds transmitted to a subject from a distance as in the peculiar case of the glass of water mentioned by Dr. Rochas, see also instances quoted by Dr. Chazalin in his work on “Materializations.” Cases have been known where violent blows have been transmitted from a distance to subjects in profound trance, in plain daylight, with the result that these subjects have borne marks of the hand and scratches and bruises on the face. Author’s note.

I was still on my knees, and when I heard those glorious words I clasped her in my trembling arms and implored her to forgive me, but her mind was possessed with some other thought, and I realized that it was this thought which was the cause of her pallor.

“What did you say to each other afterwards?” she asked.

I was at a loss for an answer and could but stammer a falsehood.

“Swear to me, that there will be no fighting.”

I was constrained to swear that there should be no fighting, but she was unconvinced.

“You have sworn falsely. That’s too bad of you. Never mind. I don’t want you to fight each other. You mustn’t fight each other. I shall go with you everywhere.”

I could have wished that she had said: “I don’t want you to fight him.”

She so managed that it was impossible for me to leave the hotel, and as I was bent on getting rid of my adversary, once for all, I was obliged to send Surdon to him, without her knowledge, in order to let him know what was happening, and to request him to take upon himself the burden of providing weapons, seconds and so forth. I asked that the duel should take place at dawn, for I intended to slip away while Cordélia was in her morning sleep which would not fail to be a heavy one after the excitement through which she had passed.

Surdon came back to tell me that there was no need for me to trouble about anything except to appear at daybreak at the Comte de C——’s house, which stood at the far end of what are called the “public gardens.”

Cordélia had regained her composure. We strolled to the Piazzetta, and even went as far as the Café de Florian, where we drank port to the music of the guitar. The scene around us was one of great gaiety. I did my utmost to appear cheerful also, but Cordélia remained gloomily wrapped in thought. When we returned to the hotel she declared that she would not go to bed.

“I don’t believe you. You didn’t speak the truth. If I go to bed you’ll seize the opportunity to leave the hotel and fight a duel. I don’t want you to fight each other.”

I shrugged my shoulders to indicate that it was a matter of indifference to me, but I was intensely annoyed. I had a wonderful and legitimate opportunity of getting rid of the author of my misfortunes—we were to fight with pistols, and I was certain of bringing my man down—and now Cordélia’s obstinacy bid fair to compromise everything. Fortunately I was able to send Surdon again to tell Patrick what was happening, for I saw no way out of the difficulty unless he consented to send Cordélia into a hypnotic trance so that I might be able to get away and fight him. I would never have believed that one day I should be making an appeal of this character to the man whose psychic powers were the cause of my troubles. But let that pass. The whole incident shows once more that whatever conception we may form of the world, and the relation which subsists between spirit and matter, we are but an atom of dust dancing in a momentary ray of the sun.

Surdon came back with a message from the Englishman that he was not less anxious than I was for the duel to take place, and he would carry out my wishes.

I passed a grievous night, a night which seemed interminable. The torture of it! If I had but known what was about to happen! If I had but known! With what dread I should have counted the minutes as they all too quickly sped past!

Cordélia kept her word. Say and do what I might, she would not go to bed. She lay on the sofa reading, or pretending to read. And I—I stood watching her.

I was waiting with impatience for the event which my adversary had promised to bring about. It occurred shortly after five o’clock in the morning. Her eyes closed, her book fell from her hands to the floor, and her body assumed the rigid posture which I recognized only too well.

I locked the door of the room, put the key in my pocket, and then called Surdon. At six o’clock we arrived at the Comte de C——’s house.

Patrick had not yet come, but the doctor and the seconds were already there. Two seconds were allotted to me. I made their acquaintance and was entirely satisfied. The Comte de C——, who belonged to the old Venetian nobility, was away, but he was, it seems, greatly interested in art and artists, and had placed his house at Patrick’s disposal.

The public gardens in Venice are well known. They occupy one of the few islets in the old city which have not been encroached upon by the builder. Nevertheless the Comte de C——’s mansion stood there and possessed a private entrance to the gardens after the manner of private houses in the Monceau Gardens in Paris. Here the Comte de C—— alone enjoyed this privilege, so that at that hour, when the gardens were closed, it was as though we were in the Comte’s own private property.

Meantime Patrick made his appearance, unarmed, as I swore at the Assize Court. The revolvers were in the cases which the seconds brought with them, and which they obtained the evening before at a gunsmith’s. Patrick had no knowledge of the weapons; at least so he declared, and I believe him. Moreover we drew lots and agreed that the revolvers which the seconds had brought with them should be used.

We were now in the great central walk of the gardens. I have heard that in spring it is a lovely spot, an enchantment, with beds of roses which are nothing short of marvelous; but it was the fall of the year, and I beheld in the wan light of early morning a somewhat dreary place, well suited to be the scene of a terrible tragedy.

And, indeed, the thing happened with incredible rapidity. The twenty-five paces which were to separate us were marked out. We were to exchange four shots. But I am a crack shot with a revolver, and I felt certain of bringing my man down at the first attempt. I had made up my mind to it, and I had no scruple of remorse. I felt that there was no happiness for me with Cordélia in this world as long as Patrick was alive. Let him go to the devil!

I was perfectly cool when the words rang out: “Fire! One ... two ... three!” We fired almost simultaneously as the second in charge of the duel shouted: “Two!” Patrick, however, fired in the air uttering a despairing cry. I had already fired my shot on a level with his heart, and yet I must confess that I was conscious that he had not uttered that cry because he was struck by my bullet. Indeed he was not hit. To this cry another cry of unutterable anguish went up. It sprang from my throat, and my heart, and yet I was not hit either. The only person whose cry of agony we did not hear, was the person who was smitten. And I swear before God and man that my cry was torn from me by the vision of Cordélia’s form which suddenly arose between us at the moment when our fingers were pressing the trigger; but Patrick had the time to raise his weapon, while I fired mine.

The image vanished almost as quickly as it appeared. I swear that Cordélia’s astral body, which until then—save in the mirror of the water, and here I must ask myself whether I was not the sport of the water and my imagination—had remained unseen by my physical vision, now appeared before me quite distinctly. This phenomenon, moreover, so fully supported the many other well-known instances where the spirit of a person has appeared to beloved relatives at the very moment when it throws off, for ever, its mortal covering, that I grasped the meaning of Patrick’s cry of dismay, for he too had seen.

“Unhappy man!” he cried. “Unhappy man, what have you done!”

My hair must have stood on end with horror and both of us were conscious only of a feeling of unspeakable dread.

Without concerning ourselves with the seconds, or making the least explanation, we left the entire business of the duel and hurriedly flung ourselves into a gondola. Not a word was spoken on the way. Moreover I felt that I should go mad.

On reaching the hotel we made a rush for Cordélia’s room. Everything seemed quiet, and precisely as I had left it. I was filled with a great hope; and yet my hand shook so much that I was unable to put the key in the lock. It was Patrick who opened the door.

We darted into the room. Cordélia was still lying on the sofa, but her face already wore an unearthly look, and drops of blood stained her dressing-gown near her throat. She had been killed by a bullet through the heart.