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I — oh, what do I care about the discovery? I am only here to do her bidding, the bidding of my Clarimonde, whom I love with such tender fear.

Friday, March 25

I have cut the telephone wire. I can no longer stand being perpetually bothered by the silly old Commissioner, least of all when the fateful hour is at hand...

God, why am I writing all this? Not a word of it is true. It seems as if some one else were guiding my pen.

But I do... I do want to set down here what actually happens. It is costing me a tremendous effort. But I want to do it. If only for the last time to do — what I really want to do.

I cut the telephone wire... oh...

Because I had to... There, I finally got it out! Because I had to, I had to!

We stood at the window this morning and played. Our game has changed a little since yesterday. She goes through some motions and I defend myself as long as possible. Until finally I have to surrender, powerless to do anything but her bidding. And I can scarcely tell what a wonderful sense of exaltation and joy it gives me to be conquered by her will, to make this surrender.

We played. And then suddenly she got up and went back into her room. It was so dark that I couldn’t see her; she seemed to disappear into the darkness. But she came back very shortly, carrying in her hands a desk telephone just like mine. Smiling, she set it down on the windowsill, took a knife, cut the wire, and carried it back again.

I defended myself for about a quarter of an hour. My fear was greater than ever, but that made my slow surrender all the more delectable. And I finally brought my telephone to the window, cut the wire, and set it back on the table.

That is how it happened.

I am sitting at the table. I have had my tea, and the porter has just taken the dishes out. I asked him what time it was — it seems my watch isn’t keeping time. It’s five fifteen... five fifteen...

I know that if I look up now Clarimonde will be doing something or other. Doing something or other that I will have to do too.

I look up anyhow. She is standing there and smiling. Well... if I could only tear my eyes away from her!... now she is going to the curtain. She is taking the cord off — it is red, just like the one on my window. She is tying a knot — a slipknot. She is hanging the cord up on the hook in the window-sash.

She is sitting down and smiling.

...No, this is no longer a thing one can call fear, this thing I am experiencing. It is a maddening, choking, terror — but nevertheless I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. It is a compulsion of an unheard of nature and power, yet so subtly sensual in its inescapable ferocity.

Of course I could rush up to the window and do exactly what she wants me to do. But I am waiting, struggling, and defending myself. I feel this uncanny thing getting stronger every minute...

So, here I am, still sitting here. I ran quickly to the window and did the thing she wanted me to do: I took the curtain cord, tied a slipknot in it, and hung it from the hook...

And now I am not going to look up any more. I am going to stay here and look only at this sheet of paper. For I know now what she would do if I looked up again — now in the sixth hour of the next to the last day of the week. If I see her, I shall have to do her bidding... I shall have to...

I shall refuse to look at her.

But I am suddenly laughing — loudly. No, I’m not laughing — it is something laughing within me. I know why, too: it’s because of this “I will not...”

I don’t want to, and yet I know certainly that I must. I must look at her... must, must do it... and then — the rest.

I am only waiting to stretch out the torment. Yes, that is it... For these breathless sufferings are my most rapturous transports. I am writing... quickly, quickly, so that I can remain sitting here longer... in order to stretch out these seconds of torture, which carry the ecstasy of love into infinity...

More... longer...

Again this fear, again! I know that I shall look at her, that I shall get up, that I shall hang myself. But it isn’t that that I fear. Oh, no — that is sweet, that is beautiful.

But there is something else... something else associated with it — something that will happen afterward. I don’t know what it will be — but it is coming, it is certainly coming, certainly... certainly. For the joy of my torments is so infinitely great — oh, I feel it is so great that something terrible must follow it.

Only I must not think...

Let me write something, anything, no matter what. Only quickly, without thinking...

My name — Richard Bracquemont, Richard Bracquemont, Richard — oh, I can’t go any farther — Richard Bracquemont — Richard Bracquemont — now — now — I must look at her... Richard Bracquemont — I must... no... no, more — more... Richard... Richard Bracque—

The Commissioner of the IXth Ward, after failing repeatedly to get a reply to his telephone calls, came to the Hotel Stevens at five minutes after six. In Room No. 7 he found the body of the student Richard Bracquemont hanging from the window-sash, in exactly the same position as that of his three predecessors.

Only his face had a different expression; it was distorted in a horrible fear, and his eyes, wide open, seemed to be pushing themselves out of their sockets. His lips were drawn apart, but his powerful teeth were firmly and desperately clenched.

And glued between them, bitten and crushed to pieces, there was a large black spider, with curious purple dots.

On the table lay the medical student’s diary. The Commissioner read it and went immediately to the house across the street. There he discovered that the second apartment had been vacant and unoccupied for months and months...

Breakdown

by L. A. G. Strong

I

He had planned it all exactly. Muriel was going up to town on the 1:52, and he was supposed to be going with her. They were to be independent of each other till half past four, when he was to meet her for tea at the Chadwickes’; and they were coming home by the 6:05.

He told Muriel to start for the station ahead of him, as he might be kept late at the office. It was a necessary part of the plan that he should not arrive on the platform till a minute or so before the train started. He had taken his ticket beforehand, at the office in the town where they knew him well, and where they entered up the number of each ticket in a ledger.

The train was in when he reached the incline leading up to the station, and the big engine, shining in the sunlight, let off important clouds of steam and uttered every now and again a raucous, sustained snort. Maurice pulled his hat over his forehead, took a platform ticket, and hurried through the barrier.

As he expected, Muriel was in the very front of the train. She gave him the inexpressive smile which she kept for public occasions. “I’ve kept a seat for you,” she said, with a hint of emphasis in her even tones, suggesting that the keeping had caused some resentment to the other occupants of the compartment. She would get her own way; but she was perhaps just as glad that he had turned up to prove that she was keeping the seat legitimately.