Meanwhile, evening was closing in and I was feeling increasingly uneasy and anxious.
Cousin, I’m not sure I can tell you exactly what happened that night. And you won’t demand that I do so, will you? Nothing could be more terrible than to have to set out my crime in vivid detail. Forgive my confused words and my unsteady handwriting.
It was ten o’clock at night: I went to the house. Rytmel had already arrived. He looked pale, I thought, and a shiver instinctively ran through me. We talked. While he was speaking, I watched him keenly, trying to spot where on his person he might keep that wallet containing all those letters. At the same time, with my hand damp with perspiration, I kept feeling the glass bottle in my pocket: the bottle of opium. It was a green cut-glass bottle with a metal top. Rytmel’s words that night were exceptionally sweet and loving, still full of passion as he tried to explain his letter. Did those words really come from the depths of his heart, I wondered. Or was it just empty rhetoric, as false as a theatre backdrop? How could I know? Only his letters could reveal that to me, and he had them there in his pocket! I could see the shape of the wallet now in his breast pocket! Therein lay the verdict on my life: endless grief or a future of boundless peace! How could I possibly hesitate? Rytmel was still talking. I was trembling all over. Now I could not take my eyes off a glass that was there on the table beside a carafe of water. The curtain to the bedroom was drawn; it was dark.
Betty, who had come with me, had remained elsewhere in the house, in a room that opened onto a plot of vacant land.
‘What if it all goes horribly wrong?’ I thought. ‘There are people who have succumbed completely and whose sleep has ended in the cold grave.’
But all the time, the knowledge that his wallet was there within my grasp kept luring me on like some splendid, living thing. Perhaps I could go over to him, seduce him with the ardour of my words, and then stealthily, slyly, seize the wallet from him and run away, leap into my carriage and escape. But what if he were to resist? What if he forgot his dignity and my frailty? What if he were to subdue me violently and snatch back the letters?
No, that wouldn’t work. He had to be sleeping soundly. If the letters were innocent, unemotional and cool in tone, then how I would kneel beside his sleeping body, how I would wait for him to wake! What a sublime dawn he would find in my eyes when he opened his! But what if the letters spoke of guilt, treachery, abandonment, what then?
I stood up. Rytmel had a glass of water beside him, from which he sipped as he smoked. I let him continue to smoke. However, I didn’t know how best to find a moment long enough to put one drop of opium in the glass.
I invented a feeble, trivial excuse.
‘Rytmel,’ I said, in a ridiculously cheery voice, like a character out of one of Scribe’s comedies, ‘go and tell Betty that she can go home, if she wants. The poor thing has hardly slept, she’s not well.’
He left the room, and I got to my feet. But when I went over to the table and stood looking at the glass, I froze, unable to move. I remained like that for what seemed like an eternity, but which could only have been a matter of seconds, with my hand gripping the bottle in my pocket. But it had to be done. I could hear his voice, he was coming back, I could hear his footsteps, he was about to come into the room… Biting my lip so as not to cry out, I hurriedly took the bottle from my pocket and emptied it into the glass.
He entered. I dropped onto a chair, trembling, bathed in sweat, and at the same time, I’m not sure why, I was filled with a great tenderness for him. Smiling and almost in tears, I said:
‘Ah, I love you so much! Come and sit beside me!’
Rytmel smiled. And – oh dear God – he came towards me, still smiling, I think, and he picked up the glass, and with the glass in his hand, he said:
‘No one knows that better than I. If it weren’t for your love, how could I live?’
He still had the glass in his hand. I sat as if under a spell. I could see the water glinting; it seemed to have a greenish tinge to it. I could see the light sparkling on the cut-glass surface.
Finally, he took a sip!
From that moment I was terrified. My God! What if he died? But why should he? Don’t we give opium to children, to the sick? Isn’t it the merciful solution to pain? There was no danger. When he woke, I would be extra tender, extra loving, to absolve myself from that imprudent adventure! Even if he is guilty I will still love him, I said to myself. The poor man. Wasn’t it punishment enough for him to have to be lured into that heavy, unnatural slumber? Yes, I would still love him if he was guilty. I would still love him if he had betrayed me!
For now, though, he lay silently on the sofa with his head back. Suddenly, he seemed to turn very pale, to wince or to smile. I don’t know what happened next. I don’t remember whether we spoke, whether he quietly fell asleep, whether he was seized by convulsions. I remember nothing.
It must have been midnight when I found myself kneeling at his side. He was lying motionless on the sofa. Two hours had passed. He felt cold, his face was ashen. I didn’t dare call Betty. I paced back and forth in wild distraction. I spread a shawl over him.
‘He is going to wake up,’ I kept repeating to myself.
I gently smoothed his slightly dishevelled hair. Suddenly, the clear and terrifying idea came to me: he was dead! I felt as if everything had ended. But gently, sweetly, I called to him:
‘Rytmel! Rytmel!’
And I tiptoed around so as not to wake him! I stopped abruptly, looked at him with frantic eyes, then flung myself on his body, sobbing:
‘Rytmel! Rytmel!’
I raised him up: terror gave me sudden strength. His head hung lifeless. I untied his cravat and cradled him in my arms. At that point, my hand touched the wallet in his breast pocket. I had forgotten about the letters. And I had done all this just so that I could read them. I took off his jacket, with some difficulty, because his muscles were already growing stiff. Along with the wallet there were other papers and a bundle of banknotes. Some of the papers and letters fell to the floor. I gathered everything up, wrapped it all in his white cravat and stuffed it in my pocket.
All this was done in a blind, unthinking panic. Then my eyes met Rytmel’s, and for the first time I saw his dead face. I called his name. I spoke to him. I was in a frenzy! Why didn’t he wake up? I shook him, got angry with him. Why was he doing that? Why did he want to upset me so? I felt an urge to slap him, to hurt him.
‘Wake up! Wake up!’
No response. Nothing! He was dead!
I heard a cart rattle by along the road. At least someone was alive!
Suddenly, I don’t know why, I realised that I had emptied the whole contents of the bottle into Rytmel’s glass! It should have been just one drop! He was dead!
‘Betty! Betty!’ I shouted.
She came in, and I threw myself into her arms. I cried. I went back to him. I knelt down. I called to him. I wanted to kiss him. I pressed my lips to his forehead. It was cold as marble. I screamed. He filled me now with horror. I was afraid of his ashen face and his icy hands.
‘Betty, Betty, we must leave!’
Conscience, willpower, reason, shame, all fell away from me. I was left only with fear, a vile, base fear.
‘Betty, we must leave!’
I don’t know how we got out.
From the front door, I could see a light approaching from the far end of the street. It was coming closer, getting larger. Someone dressed in red was carrying it. To me, that red looked like blood! The light grew larger. I waited, trembling. It was coming towards me. I shrank back into the doorway, into the shadows, feeling as cold as stone. The light drew level with us. Now I could see that it was a priest, accompanied by another man wearing a red surplice and carrying a lantern. They were on their way to administer the last rites to someone.
I leaned on Betty’s arm and I began to walk, with no idea where we were going, as if I were mad…*
*Here follow some lines in which the countess describes her encounter with me. I have omitted this passage because it describes events that appear in my own account and that are, therefore, already known to you. A.M.C.