THE MYSTERY OF
MADELINE LE BLANC.
"She is dead, belike?—Not so; I think she lives."'
—The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
The late M. de Corbière, whom I had the honor to number among my friends, in the year 1885 found himself broken in health, so that he was compelled to retire from his duties at the University of Paris, and seek recuperation in the quiet of some small community. Tired of Paris and the other cities where he had been accustomed to spend his leisure, he migrated to a small town in the south of France. There he remained for seven months, during which time he lodged in an ancient stone house at the northern extremity of the town, with a Madame—Madame—well, since I think of it, he did not tell me her name. In fact, I now remember, he told me that he never heard it himself, and that—strange as it may seem—the daughter of the Madame had asked him to let that part of their acquaintance be omitted, and simply address them as Madame and Mademoiselle.
The old stone house stood opposite a cemetery of so ancient a date that the tombstones were decaying. Many years had passed since this abode of the dead finally ceased to be of interest to anybody; and in a few more generations it would again become a grain field, and its monuments serve as doorsteps and Parisian cobblestones. On the north of the house lay a beautiful valley, where flocks and herds grazed, and where my friend lay in the sunshine for hours gazing at the glorious skies of southern France.
The Madame of the house was a small, slender, white-haired woman of over seventy years of age. Her daughter, who was the only other person in the house, passed her fifty-fourth year during M. de Corbière's sojourn there. She was a woman of no little intelligence; and had it not been for the ugly difference in the color of her eyes, might even yet have been accounted beautiful. One eye—the left—was blue and the other black in such shades as to make one instinctively turn away when both looked into one's face. It soon became evident to my friend that a certain mysterious seclusion hovered about these two women and their odd and ancient abode. They never had any sort of intercourse with anybody; and when he had become attracted by the seclusion of the house in which they lived and had inquired if he might lodge there for a few months, the first question asked was, "Do you live in the town?" Assured that he was an utter stranger, they welcomed him, and did everything in their power to make him feel at home.
He had resided in the house but a short time when he noticed that he had become an object of public curiosity. He never ventured on the street but that the staring eyes of the townspeople were directed upon him; and more than once he noticed persons who passed him turn and look. It was a curiosity that had no humor in it, but more of awe, as if he held the key to an enigma that was or once had been of no small concern. One Sunday morning when he went to mass with the aged mother and the daughter, a sort of silent consternation seized the congregation,.as would come upon one at the sight of a friend whom one had considered long dead. "This is the last time we shall go to church," said the mother, on the way home; and while M. de Corbière lived with them they did not go again. Several times tradespeople with whom he came in contact asked him questions which he could not answer, and which had the ring of mystery, such as, "Is not this, indeed, the daughter of the famous doctor?" "Has she not the eyes of Satiani?" When he protested that he understood not whereof they spoke, they began to tell him what they meant, and why they asked.
The Madame seldom ventured from the house. She went to church once, for a walk another time, and twice or thrice to the cemetery across the way. Beyond these excursions, her steps did not venture farther than the end of the court; and if any one chanced to be passing, she turned her back. She belonged to a former generation; nearly always she talked of events twenty, thirty, and sometimes forty years past, especially those which in that time go to make up the history of Paris. For fifteen years she and her daughter had lived here in the stone house, where they had come to await the Madame's death, which at the time of their arrival had seemed probable any day. It was her last and only remaining desire to be buried in a certain spot in the cemetery across the way.
Beyond these facts, which M. de Corbiére gathered from their conversation, from them he learned nothing more. Their past and inner lives were closed and sealed. Not that they were unpleasantly glum; for they were, indeed, always polite and accommodating—at times to a degree that was painful; they seemed greatly pleased with his company; and on his departure, bade him return sometime. But from the people of the town into whose confidence and friendship he finally made inroads, M. de Corbière learned of a chain of events concerning the stone house that had come to be a tradition, and that had not only made the house famous, but had given the town a sort of luster in the country there-abouts.
His interest in this unwritten piece of local history was not small; but being a man of scientific pursuits, he had not the patience to hold a pen for any considerable length of time, or, as he himself confessed, the necessary skill with language to set it down in any systematic way available for reading. Having delighted his scientific nature by collecting the materials—statements, letters, records, etc.—and having no further interest, he placed the matter in my hands, begging me to give it voice in my native tongue, which I have endeavored to do in the following chapters.