[Book V
THE SISTER]
[Chapter I]
PORTENTS
The apartments of the royal palace which we now enter are those farthest removed from the stir and distractions of the court. The perennial austerity of their august occupant seems to have imparted to them a religious gloom. Owners bestow themselves upon their belongings. The human soul leaves back of itself its peculiar track, either luminous or sombre.
The first impression made upon one entering the salons is of absolute silence. Noise would seem there a trespasser, a deep breath an infringing of etiquette. Servants and courtiers smother their voices and footfalls, suppress smiles and even dim the brightness of their eyes on addressing the Duchess,—the sad Duchess, who daily resembles more and more those rigid supplicating forms which guard sepulchres. After passing through a succession of reception rooms, screened from the sunlight by heavy draperies, and of appointments so symmetrically and solemnly arranged that it seems impossible they should ever be moved from their places, we come to the Duchess's boudoir. Passing the dormitory and visitors' room, we lift a tapestry portière and enter the small apartment which is her oratory.
A richly wrought silver lamp is the only ornament, wherein float two burning wicks in perfumed oil. By the pale rays is discernible against a black velvet screen, a large marble figure of the Christ. He is represented at the moment of expiring, just when his head falls on his shoulder and he cries: "It is finished!" At the foot of the altar kneels a woman in fervent prayer. She rests on a crimson prie-Dieu and her eyes are raised to the Christ. The light falls full on her face and we see it is the Duchess.
Beautiful had that face been in youth, but suffering has obliterated all trace of beauty. The hair once pale yellow,—the family color,—and so abundant that it was whispered she wore a wig, has now an ashen, almost a cobwebby look; the skin is yellow and marked with wrinkles; the dry eyes are inflamed with tears that do not flow. The lips are drawn tight,—the lips that neither laugh nor kiss. The clasped hands are emaciated and of waxen whiteness. Bitter thoughts seem to hover around the pale forehead,—cruel doubt and insistent remorse. An expression of appalling incertitude, the terror of faith stripped of celestial consolation are there. Incoherent, rebellious words come from the lips.
At last, heaving a deep sigh, she arose, unclasped her hands and passed the right one over her forehead as though in an effort to banish her thoughts. Approaching the lamp, she unfastened two buttons of her waist and took from her bosom a roll of paper,—a letter. She glanced around, as if to assure herself that she was alone, and then began to read: