Arsène had not realized how weakened by illness he was until he began to descend the white fluid ribbon of the gilt and marble staircase, which curved and swung exquisitely through the center of the hôtel of the Marquis de Vaubon. It appeared to the young man that the staircase had lost its moorings, that it flowed and rippled through space, rising and falling, fluttering and streaming. He had to grip the golden banisters, and close his eyes, in order to keep from falling headlong. When he opened his eyes, finally, he was bathed in sweat. He was halfway down the staircase now; its lower reaches were shining in golden sunlight. He was face to face, on this landing, with the portrait of his grandfather, Étienne de Richepin, Marquis de Vaubon, heroic, and long dead of a stern martyrdom.
The portrait hung in the shining silence against its background of rose-silk walls, recessed in its gilt frame. Arsène had often wondered, cynically, why his father had permitted this portrait to be displayed, for Étienne de Richepin had been one of the most ferocious enemies of Holy Mother Church. But finally he had come to the conclusion that vanity prompted this display, and not a secret fidelity and mournful conscience. For Étienne de Richepin, slender, dark and fiery, with eyes that glowed and pierced, was a compelling personage even in his portrait. There was both delicacy and strength in that aristocratic countenance, which a short pointed beard and black mustaches could not hide. Under his plumed hat his eyes were alive and vivid, and his brows were sharp and stern. Like most Huguenots, he had affected somber garb. His collar had no lace upon it, but was made of the stiffest white linen, as were the cuffs showing at his wrists. His coat, his doublet, were of dark crimson cloth, the buttons of plain gold. His white hand, slender and strong, rested on the hilt of his jewelled sword, the same sword that hung at Arsène’s hip.
Arsène had always admired that portrait, though later he had smiled at the vivacious fanaticism of his grandfather’s eyes. Étienne de Richepin had believed ardently, and to the death, in something. Arsène believed in nothing. So he had smiled. Once, Armand, who spoke rarely of his father, had impulsively quoted him as saying: “Take from me all things, even life, but leave me faith in God and man and I shall still have everything.” Only a few months ago, Arsène had found those passionate words pathetically amusing. How naïve had been Étienne de Richepin!
Now, as he paused, panting, beneath the portrait, it seemed to him that a clear loud voice had called him, and that the voice came from his grandfather’s thin stern lips. He looked into those glowing and austere eyes, and a living soul commanded him to listen, to meditate, to understand. Visitors had often declared that Arsène resembled his grandfather to a disconcerting degree, but Arsène had not believed it. He believed it now. The face that gazed down upon him was his own face, older and bearded, but surely his own.
I am feverish, he thought, passing his hand over his wet forehead, and steadying himself by pressing his other hand on the wall beside the portrait. But he could not free himself from the eyes that both implored and imperiously demanded of him. The portrait took upon itself a third dimension. It was a living man, of flesh and blood and ardent spirit, who stood in that frame, and the breast under the white collar and crimson cloth stirred and breathed.
Arsène could hear the voice he had never heard in life. Its intonations were crisp and firm, arrogant yet patient, uncompromising yet oddly gentle. The words he did not hear. But the voice sank into his soul. He began to pant a little, in his agitation and weakness. He was caught up into swimming light and shifting shadow.
Then, at the bottom of the staircase, which appeared to descend into eternity, he saw his brother Louis, standing calmly and watching him. The sun lay on that chaste and inexorable face, in those forbidding pale blue eyes like bits of lifeless but gleaming porcelain. It shimmered on that pale flaxen head, revealed the marble-like contours of his still lips. He was a statue in black robes.
Surely, there was nothing forboding in that presence to the casual eye, yet Arsène suddenly found it sinister, inhuman. And, contrasted with the living portrait, strangely dead, significant and portentous. Dead, yes, but none the less potent and baleful. Arsène had the mysterious sensation that there was some intense spiritual meaning for him in the juxtaposition of the portrait and the priest, something revealed and tremendous. His breath stopped in his throat.
Then, recovering himself, he slowly descended the staircase. Louis watched every step. There was a peculiar glitter in his eyes, like sun on icicles. Without a word, then, he moved, with his tall and stately tread, into the rose and blue frivolity of the reception room, and stood there, waiting for his brother.
Arsène found him in the center of the room, incongruous against the white and gilt walls, his black robes harsh against the background of blue shimmering rug and dainty rose-damask chairs and love-seats. The hanging crystal chandelier hung over his head, splintering, in the sunlight, into thousands of brilliant and delicate colors. Some of those colors, thin and clear, ran over Louis’ impassive countenance. In a distant corner was a large marble group, a nymph and a satyr, in a most astounding posture, calculated to bring a blush even to a sophisticated cheek. Arsène, his eye touching that group, and then Louis, smiled involuntarily.
“You are ill,” said Louis, in that voice of his which was as cool as snow and as lifeless. His eyes dwelt upon his brother with a remote curiosity in which there was no affection or concern.
Arsène, dark and slender, and taller than average, yet was much shorter than Louis, and more spare of body. But there was vitality in every glance of his glittering and restive eyes under their sharp and tilted black brows. There was impatient animation in his mobile mouth, whose corners turned upwards more than they turned down. Even his nose, curved and slender, dilated of nostril, expressed unresting energy and zest. His movements were swift, ardent with life, full of grace and virility. He was fire in the presence of ice. Louis regarded him dispassionately, hating what his brother was, loathing him for that life-energy which he did not himself possess, and which he feared.
“I have been ill,” said Arsène, indifferently. “But I am recovering. You wished to speak to me, Louis?”
But Louis only gazed at him with his long slow look, a painted look without motion.
Finally he said, coldly: “Yes. I must speak to you. It is extremely important. Important for our father, whose welfare and peace of mind are very close to my heart.”
“Do you have a heart?” asked Arsène negligently. But the words were old and mechanical, for he had spoken them many times. Nevertheless, they brought a gleam to Louis’ face, as they always did.
He said, calmly: “You have changed, Arsène. I cannot tell where the change is, but it is there. Is it too much to hope that this means more sobriety, more responsibility? Or, is it only the result of your illness?”
He studied Arsène, and assured himself again, with faint surprise, that there was indeed a change. Were those restless eyes more steady, the mouth graver, the brow slightly drawn? What did this portend? Surely, there was sternness in the older man’s aspect, a sadness about his lips.
Arsène said nothing. He was surprised himself. He wondered.
“However,” said Louis, “I have little time. What I say must be said quickly. I hope you will give me your full attention, for I doubt that I will have such an opportunity again.”
“You are becoming tedious,” said Arsène, sharply. Louis was putting himself into the ridiculous rôle of a schoolmaster chiding a recalcitrant student. It was intolerable, if amusing. Yet, Arsène felt danger about him. “Speak plainly, and have done. I wish to go to bed. As you can see for yourself, I am not yet completely recovered.”
But Louis only stood in the center of the room, unmoved, in a long silence. Then he said:
“I have heard that your dear friend, Comte de Vitry, is organizer of a nefarious Huguenot conspiracy called Les Blanches. Doubteless he has told you of this?”
Arsène watched his brother closely. “I do not recall,” he murmured, coolly. “But what has this to do with me?”
“You would lie, certainly,” stated Louis, with calm dignity. “That is to be expected. You were always a liar. Too, you would lie unblushingly to protect the Comte de Vitry. That does not concern me overmuch. What does concern me is your possible connection with Les Blanches. Even more than this, I am alarmed for my father.”
“You are making absurd and unfounded accusations!” exclaimed Arsène. “But that is the nature of filthy priests. You think that when you make preposterous accusations, and utter ferocious threats, your victims, in an effort to defend themselves, will blurt out the real truth you suspected. That is a game you cannot play with me, Louis! The tricks of priests are well known to me. You speak of Les Blanches, and accuse Paul de Vitry of a connection with it. What is it? I know nothing about it, nor does Paul, I am certain. Where have you obtained your information? Who is your informant?”
Louis was silent, his face unchanged. Then he began to smile, and the smile was more a convulsion than a human grimace.
“I never underestimated your cleverness, Arsène,” he said, tranquilly. “But in this, you are too obvious, too unsubtle. Did you actually think you could goad me into giving you important information?”
Arsène was both embarrassed and deeply alarmed. He had underestimated Louis, who had long been the butt of ribald jokes between himself and his father. Here was a deathly antagonist, it seemed, to be respected and feared. He assumed a nonchalant attitude, made himself frown in a puzzled way.
“I do not know what you are talking about,” he said, artlessly, as if perplexed.
Louis sighed. He shrugged. Then his features became stern, inexorable, and full of menace.
“Let us have done with this nonsense. The Comte de Vitry will be dealt with at our leisure. That is nothing to me. As I have told you, my only concern is with my father. Should you be caught in de Vitry’s presence, during a meeting of Les Blanches, my father would die of grief and shock. For,” and he spoke slowly and balefully, “there would be no mercy given to any of de Vitry’s accomplices. You see, I speak plainly. The Cardinal’s Guards broke into a meeting some time ago near the Quai de Ferraile, and there was a fight to the death. Eight of the Guards were killed. Satan, himself, must have been protecting the members of Les Blanches—”
Arsène had paled excessively; his eyes had glittered as he had listened. Now, at Louis’ last words, blood rushed into his cheeks, and he breathed deeply. Louis watched him, and that faint grim smile, so merciless, touched his mouth under-standingly.
“But the next time, evil will not be triumphant,” continued Louis. “We know more, for one thing. It is true that all the members escaped, though not without injury to many. They must be remarkable swordsmen,” he mused. “Far superior to the picked men of the Guards. It is sad that they do not attach themselves to those powerful ones who would appreciate such dexterity and excellence.
“But that is beside the point. As I have said, they will not be so lucky the next time. Plans will be laid too carefully. We have our spies, our informants. Of course,” he said, quickly, “all this is of no interest to you at all?”
“Of course,” murmured Arsène.
“Forgive me if I bore you,” said Louis, and again, he smiled that merciless smile, which was now brightened with irony. “I thought, however, that as a friend of the Comte de Vitry you might be interested. You might warn him, for instance, to desist from his treason and his suspected crimes. I prefer to believe him puerile and childish, for he comes of a very illustrious family who have long given devoted service to France. The Comte, himself, has great gifts. He has been a visitor in this house, and his sister, as you know, is Mother Superior of the Convent of le Sacre Coeur in Marseilles. In the event he is captured with red hands, as he will be captured, not even I could help him, or would help him.”
“I understand that,” said Arsène, with bitter contempt.
Louis ignored this as a childish remark. He resumed, with tranquillity:
“We have the names of many of the members of Les Blanches, but not all. It is only a matter of time until we have them. And after that, we will catch them during one of their meetings. Then there will be no saving any of them, no matter what their names, or their family connections, or their positions. We intend to stamp out this foul conspiracy to the last man. We intend to save France and the Church, and wash them clean in a river of blood—” His face became contorted with a cold and vindictive fury.
“It is an old custom,” said Arsène, with a shrug, but surprised at this unusual manifestation of emotion in his brother. “Fire and blood are the usual weapons of Holy Mother Church. And the rack. That is proof of her eternal affection and solicitude.”
Louis ignored this also. He continued: “The obscene blasphemy of the German Luther shall never pollute France again. We are determined on this. The Church is in the veins and the souls of Frenchmen, No foreign poison shall enter into them.”
All at once, he was filled with madness. He looked at his brother, smiling, nonchalant and watchful in his dark satire, and hatred convulsed him. This graceful jackanapes! This light and colorful and laughing fool! This drunkard and libertine and dancer! This creature without sternness and strength! This, then, was the thing that his father loved and adored, and which must be protected for his sake! Louis’ fists clenched in the depths of his black robe, and all the yearning, all the anguish and bitterness of a lifetime, all the frustration and grief and hunger, welled up in him like a stream of fire! Ah, he could kill now, God help him! He did not know that the roaring about him was the roaring of his own disturbed and riven heart.
Mist was before his eyes, and he could not see that Arsène was watching him, astounded. For his face was no longer human, but mad and black, and his eyes were full-of flame. Arsène, alarmed by something he knew was not of living flesh, and of the emotions of men, stepped back involuntarily, stirred to swift uneasiness. His hand fumbled for the hilt of his sword, for he discerned that in some way he was the object of all this fury.
Louis’ voice came from his lips, choked and strangling: “Beware!” he cried. He turned suddenly, and made for the door, moving with a kind of haste and disorder. But when he had reached the door, the monstrous madness suddenly abated, leaving him with frozen flesh and wildly beating heart and sanity. He pressed his hand against the door, and bent his head. He forced himself to breathe slowly. His forehead was wet, and felt as though fingers of ice had been laid upon it.
Arsène, his uneasiness ebbing, looked at Louis sharply. He had seen these enigmatic and unfathomable manifestations of Louis’ too often, and if he had ever tried to understand them, indolently, he did so no longer. They were only a part of his brother’s general peculiarity and and esoteric character, amusing but unimportant. But since his own illness, the world had sharpened in his sight, become many-dimensioned, lit with nuances of meaning never discerned by him before. He was like a man recovered from color blindness and dimness of vision, and he was filled with excitement and wonder, racked by sensations that were new and too poignant.
As Louis, with bent head and quivering back, struggled for composure, Arsène said to himself: I have seen these seizures all my life. What do they portend? What is the curse? Often, during the most casual conversations with him, he has been seized by a kind of fit while he looked into my eyes, or quarrelled with me. Am I so hateful to him that his composure cracks? But why should he hate me so, even though he is narrow of mind and brittle of temperament? What have I done to him to arouse such enmity, such loathing? What is there in me to create such madness, such wildness? It is incomprehensible!
An occult and dreamlike sensation came over him, as though he thought and conjectured in the midst of a smothering nightmare. And he was overwhelmed with compassion, for all his bewilderment. Even though I am different from him, he thought, he ought not to hate me so. Divergencies of temperament are no excuse, no cause, for such monstrous emotion, especially in so lofty a mind.
He wanted to speak to Louis, gently, to demand, with impetuousness, the explanation for this great upheaval. But he could not speak. He could only wait.
Louis lifted his head. A deep shudder ran through him. He prayed silently: My God, I have sinned against Thee again, as I have often sinned! I have desired to kill, as Cain desired! I am evil and unregenerate, and a lifetime of prayer and dedication and chastity has not changed me. Forgive me, if Thou canst.
A kind of numbed and frozen calm finally came to him, which was not peace. He turned a still smooth face to Arsène, though its color was mortal and his blue eyes were clouded over with mist and threaded red veins.
“I have said all that can be said. I have given you warning. This is today. Tomorrow, I shall be able to do nothing.” His voice was weak, yet steadfast, and he looked at Arsène. But Arsène had the uncanny sensation that Louis did not really see him. Then, having said this, Louis opened the door and stepped across the threshold.
Arsène spoke in a voice very grave and hesitant for so careless a young man:
“Louis, I too have something to say, if you will spare me a moment.” Louis turned upon the threshold, and regarded him with the blind gaze of stone. He was the priest again, patient;
“Please. You will come into the room, Louis? It is important, at least to me.”
Then Louis saw his brother’s face, discerned its gravity and obscure distress. He slowly reentered the room, quietly closed the door behind him.
“Monsieur the Cardinal is waiting for me,” he said. “However, if it is a matter of extreme importance, I am glad to listen.”
So tranquil was his manner, so stately his voice, that Arsène could hardly believe that it was only a few moments ago that Louis had been contorted with obscure madness. His blue eyes had cleared, and there was the usual polished gleam in them, which seemed rather on the surface than rising from some source within.
Arsène, with his brother’s face bent upon him, hesitated. He ran his hand through his long dark hair, as if embarrassed.
“Louis,” he began, “I have been absent for some time. You have been generous enough not to ask me where I have been.”
An inscrutable flash passed over Louis’ face. He lifted his hand.
“I have not asked. I do not wish to know.”
Arsène shook his head impatiently, but he said in a pleading tone:
“Hear me out. You have said I have changed. This is true. I have been thinking, and perhaps the change is due to this. How can I begin to tell you! I do not know. You are not helping me.”
Interest quickened in Louis’ eye. He approached a step towards his brother.
“You have a confession to make, to me, as a priest?” His voice was incredulous, but hopeful.
Arsène was silent. Then he said, averting his head: “Yes. In a manner of speaking. This is very hard for me, for I have always been careless, living on the surface of things, as a fly dances over a pool in the sunlight. You must bear with me, Louis. These words are strange and unfamiliar in my mouth. I find them hard to say. They are like clumsy boots being forced over feet that not do fit them.”
He paused. Louis waited, majestical in his black robes, a strangely gentle expression on his features. He was also consumed with curiosity, tinged with malice. Was it possible that this silly courtier, this dancer, this haunter of boudoirs, had experienced a change of heart?
Arsène continued, and now he seemed to be thinking aloud, feeling his way, rather than speaking to his brother:
“I cannot express what has happened to me. The thoughts I think are peculiar, and strange. I am shaken to the soul. I am in a different world. I have seen and heard astounding things.”
He looked at Louis, his mobile face darkening, shining:
“I may seem naïve to you, Louis. I speak to you now as to a priest. Surely you can explain these things to me, help me to understand them, for you must have heard of them, if not experienced them yourself.”
Louis’ large white hand played with the golden cross that hung about his neck. His expression was benign and smooth.
Arsène made a desperate motion with his hands. “You see!” he exclaimed. “I am saying nothing at all to you! The things I have been thinking cannot be put into words! Never before have I thought of religion, of faith, of the power they have in men’s lives, and the miracles they can perform. I have had a glimpse of it—”
Louis was not too astonished. As a priest, he had heard many amazing things. He regarded his brother’s working features with detached benevolence, in which there was still a little suspicion.
“I have often tried to tell you, Arsène, that in Mother Church is the only refuge, the only peace. You have not listened; you have laughed. Is it possible that my words did not fall on stony soil, after all?”
Arsène did not speak. The strangest look stood in his dark and restive eyes as he stared at his brother. Then he said: “I had hoped that you might help me understand the world, understand men, help to find the way to what I must do.”
“The Church,” said Louis gravely, with a quiver in his voice, “is the interpreter of the world, the mouth of God. Deliver yourself up to her, Arsène, with humility, and you will understand all things.”
Arsène’s lips moved. A brilliant point of light appeared in the pupils of his eyes. He said, almost inaudibly: “I feel that there is something I must do—Something I must understand. Something against which I must set my shoulder and my strength.”
Again, he made that desperate gesture. He moved to the window, stared unseeingly down at the heaving and vivacious stream of humanity that poured down the Champs-Élysées. He forgot Louis, who had suddenly become a weariness to him. That obtuse but pathetic priest, who had only banal words to blow against fevered flesh! He felt no impatience with his brother, no animosity, but only a great tiredness.
He said, as if to himself: “The Church can survive only in two ways: by nobly serving the best interests of men, or by serving the powerful. These two ways are irreconcilable. From what I have seen, and heard, she is lackey to kings and oppressors. Can she have a change of heart? Must a man work for that change of heart, or must he work sternly for her destruction, dedicating himself to the service of the oppressed and the voiceless?”
Louis listened. He started. He gazed at his brother’s slender back, disbelieving that he had heard these words. His face moved; his lips worked. Stark anguish leapt into his eyes, and he clasped his hands together as a shudder passed over his flesh. Had Arsène seen these strange manifestations, he would have been amazed.
Louis cried out, and his voice was muffled, yet strong: “One must believe that the Church can do no wrong, that all her servants work only for the good of man and God, and that it is the will of God that she bring all men under her wing! How is it possible to live, if one cannot believe this?”
Arsène did not turn back to the room. It was as though a flash of blinding light had passed over his vision. His dark slender hands clenched, pressed themselves hard against the window-sill. He wished to look at his brother, but something stern and mysterious prevented him, like a pressure upon his shoulders from another who did not wish him to gaze upon a naked and tormented soul.
“One must believe!” cried Louis, his voice rising on the sound of a tempest. “Otherwise, one must die! Or go mad!”
There was a silence, and the air in the bright and frivolous room quivered as though something violent had passed through it.
Then Louis cried out again, and his voice was the voice of a man in the most dreadful of travail, crying out in the loneliness of a desert full of darkness and pain:
“Faith! One must always have the faith! One must refuse to see, knowing that the eyes can lie, the heart deceive. One must clasp the unseen garments of Christ in the blackness of the night, believing always. One must wrestle, always—”
His voice broke. There was a great sigh in the room, as if a heart were assaulted, breaking with a groan that could express itself only in that sigh.
Then Arsène slowly turned and gazed at his brother. He saw his face. He closed his eyes, and a sickening wave of profound compassion and understanding rolled over him. He thought: It is not Calvary which is the tragedy. It is Gethsemene.
When he opened his eyes, Louis had gone.