"He is asleep," he replied in a voice so carefully modulated that the words could only be heard by the lady as a sound is heard in its echo.
The young woman turned pale, her eyes were furtively raised for an instant from the vellum page to glance at an old man whom the youth was studying. What a terrible understanding was conveyed by that look! When the lady had examined the old man, she drew a deep breath and raised her beautiful brow, adorned with a precious jewel, to a picture representing the Virgin; this simple gesture and attitude, with her glistening eye, revealed her life with imprudent candor; if she had been wicked, she would have dissimulated her feelings.
The person who inspired such terror in these lovers was a little old hunchback, almost bald, with a fierce expression of face, and a large dingy-gray beard cut square into a broad fan. The Cross of Saint-Michael glittered on his breast; his hands, which were coarse, strong, and rough, with gray hairs, had no doubt been clasped, but had fallen a little apart in the sleep he had so imprudently allowed to overtake him. His right hand seemed about to drop on to the handle of his dagger, of which the hilt was guarded by a large shell of pierced iron; from the way he had arranged the weapon, the handle was just below his hand; if by ill chance he should touch it, beyond a doubt he would wake and look at his wife. His sardonic mouth and the sharp turn of his chin were characteristic signs of a malignant wit, of a coldly cruel shrewdness, which would enable him to guess everything, because he could imagine anything. His yellow forehead was wrinkled like that of a man accustomed to believe nothing, to weigh everything, to test the exact meaning and value of every human action as a miser rings every gold piece. His frame was large-boned and strongly knit, he might be nervous and consequently irritable—in short, an ogre spoiled in the making.
When her terrible lord would wake, the young lady evidently would be in danger. This jealous husband would not fail to note the difference between the old burgess, whose presence had given him no umbrage, and the newcomer, a young courtier, smart and genteel.
"Libera nos a malo!" said she, trying to convey her fears to the young man.
He, on his part, raised his head and gazed at her. There were tears in his eyes, tears of love or despair. Seeing this, the lady started, and lost her head. They had both, no doubt, held out for a long time, and perhaps could no longer resist a passion encouraged day after day by invincible obstacles, brooded by fears, and emboldened by youth. The lady was not perfectly beautiful, but her pale complexion betrayed a secret grief which made her interesting. She was elegant and had the most magnificent hair imaginable. Watched over by a tiger, she was risking her life perhaps by uttering a word, by allowing her hand to be taken, by meeting his look. If ever love had been more deeply buried in two hearts, or more rapturously confessed, no passion could ever have been more dangerous.
It may easily be understood that to these two beings, the air, the sounds about them, the noise of steps on the pavement,—things utterly indifferent to other men,—had some peculiarities, some perceptible properties which they alone detected. Love enabled them, perhaps, to find a faithful messenger even in the icy cold hands of the old priests to whom they confessed their sins, or from whom they received the Host, kneeling at the altar. It was a deep love, love graven on the soul like a scar on the body which remains for life. As the two young people looked at each other, the woman seemed to say to her lover: "Let us perish, but be one!" and the gentleman seemed to reply: "We will be one, but we will not perish!"
But then, with a melancholy jerk of the head, she pointed out to him an elderly duenna and a couple of pages. The duenna was asleep. The pages were but boys, and seemed perfectly reckless of any good or ill that might befall their master.
"Do not be frightened as you go out, but go just where you are led."
The young man had scarcely murmured these words, when the old gentleman's hand slipped down on to the handle of his weapon. At the touch of the cold iron he woke with a start, and his tawny eyes at once turned to his wife. By a peculiarity rarely bestowed, even on men of genius, he awoke with a brain as alert, and ideas as clear, as if he had never slept. He was jealous.