第122章

Sunday was as yet two days off; but meanwhile, to beguile his impatience, Newman took his way to the Avenue de Messine and got what comfort he could in staring at the blank outer wall of Madame de Cintre's present residence.

The street in question, as some travelers will remember, adjoins the Parc Monceau, which is one of the prettiest corners of Paris.

The quarter has an air of modern opulence and convenience which seems at variance with the ascetic institution, and the impression made upon Newman's gloomily-irritated gaze by the fresh-looking, windowless expanse behind which the woman he loved was perhaps even then pledging herself to pass the rest of her days was less exasperating than he had feared.

The place suggested a convent with the modern improvements--an asylum in which privacy, though unbroken, might be not quite identical with privation, and meditation, though monotonous, might be of a cheerful cast.And yet he knew the case was otherwise; only at present it was not a reality to him.

It was too strange and too mocking to be real; it was like a page torn out of a romance, with no context in his own experience.

On Sunday morning, at the hour which Mrs.Tristram had indicated, he rang at the gate in the blank wall.It instantly opened and admitted him into a clean, cold-looking court, from beyond which a dull, plain edifice looked down upon him.

A robust lay sister with a cheerful complexion emerged from a porter's lodge, and, on his stating his errand, pointed to the open door of the chapel, an edifice which occupied the right side of the court and was preceded by the high flight of steps.

Newman ascended the steps and immediately entered the open door.

Service had not yet begun; the place was dimly lighted, and it was some moments before he could distinguish its features.

Then he saw it was divided by a large close iron screen into two unequal portions.The altar was on the hither side of the screen, and between it and the entrance were disposed several benches and chairs.Three or four of these were occupied by vague, motionless figures--figures that he presently perceived to be women, deeply absorbed in their devotion.The place seemed to Newman very cold; the smell of the incense itself was cold.

Besides this there was a twinkle of tapers and here and there a glow of colored glass.Newman seated himself;the praying women kept still, with their backs turned.

He saw they were visitors like himself and he would have liked to see their faces; for he believed that they were the mourning mothers and sisters of other women who had had the same pitiless courage as Madame de Cintre.But they were better off than he, for they at least shared the faith to which the others had sacrificed themselves.Three or four persons came in;two of them were elderly gentlemen.Every one was very quiet.

Newman fastened his eyes upon the screen behind the altar.

That was the convent, the real convent, the place where she was.

But he could see nothing; no light came through the crevices.

He got up and approached the partition very gently, trying to look through.But behind it there was darkness, with nothing stirring.He went back to his place, and after that a priest and two altar boys came in and began to say mass.

Newman watched their genuflections and gyrations with a grim, still enmity; they seemed aids and abettors of Madame de Cintre's desertion; they were mouthing and droning out their triumph.

The priest's long, dismal intonings acted upon his nerves and deepened his wrath; there was something defiant in his unintelligible drawl; it seemed meant for Newman himself.

Suddenly there arose from the depths of the chapel, from behind the inexorable grating, a sound which drew his attention from the altar--the sound of a strange, lugubrious chant, uttered by women's voices.It began softly, but it presently grew louder, and as it increased it became more of a wail and a dirge.

It was the chant of the Carmelite nuns, their only human utterance.

It was their dirge over their buried affections and over the vanity of earthly desires.At first Newman was bewildered--almost stunned--by the strangeness of the sound; then, as he comprehended its meaning, he listened intently and his heart began to throb.

He listened for Madame de Cintre's voice, and in the very heart of the tuneless harmony he imagined he made it out.

(We are obliged to believe that he was wrong, inasmuch as she had obviously not yet had time to become a member of the invisible sisterhood.) The chant kept on, mechanical and monotonous, with dismal repetitions and despairing cadences.

It was hideous, it was horrible; as it continued, Newman felt that he needed all his self-control.He was growing more agitated;he felt tears in his eyes.At last, as in its full force the thought came over him that this confused, impersonal wail was all that either he or the world she had deserted should ever hear of the voice he had found so sweet, he felt that he could bear it no longer.He rose abruptly and made his way out.

On the threshold he paused, listened again to the dreary strain, and then hastily descended into the court.As he did so he saw the good sister with the high-colored cheeks and the fanlike frill to her coiffure, who had admitted him, was in conference at the gate with two persons who had just come in.

A second glance informed him that these persons were Madame de Bellegarde and her son, and that they were about to avail themselves of that method of approach to Madame de Cintre which Newman had found but a mockery of consolation.

As he crossed the court M.de Bellegarde recognized him;the marquis was coming to the steps, leading his mother.The old lady also gave Newman a look, and it resembled that of her son.

Both faces expressed a franker perturbation, something more akin to the humbleness of dismay, than Newman had yet seen in them.