I pressed his hand.

  “Your love would have been quite enough for me, Gregoriska – you know that!”

  “Very well. Listen! Tomorrow, I will go to the monastery of Hango to make my final arrangements with the superior. He’s holding horses ready for me; these horses will be waiting for us from nine o’clock, concealed a hundred yards away from the castle. After supper, you’ll come up to your room as you did today; as today, you will extinguish your light; as today, I will come in. But tomorrow, instead of me leaving alone, you will follow me; we will find our horses, jump onto them, and the day after tomorrow we’ll have covered thirty leagues by daylight.”

  “If only it were already the day after tomorrow!”

  “Darling Hedwige!”

  Gregoriska clasped me to his heart, and our lips met.

  Oh, he had spoken the truth! It was a man of honour to whom I had opened my bedroom door – but he knew full well that if I did not belong to him in body, I did belong to him in soul.

  The night went by without my being able to sleep for a single moment.

  I could see myself already fleeing with Gregoriska; I could feel myself being carried off by him as I had been carried off by Kostaki! But this time, that dreadful, terrifying, gloomy gallop had been changed into a sweet and ravishing embrace which gained in pleasure the swifter it became – since speed too brings its own pleasure.

  Dawn broke.

  I came down.

  It seemed to me that there was something even more sombre than usual in the way Kostaki greeted me. His smile was not even ironic any more, but menacing.

  As for Smerande, she seemed the same as usual.

  During breakfast, Gregoriska ordered his horses; Kostaki seemed to pay no attention to this order.

  Around eleven o’clock, Gregoriska said goodbye, announcing that he wouldn’t be back before evening and asking his mother not to wait for him at dinner; then, turning to me, he asked me, in turn, to accept his apologies.

  He left. His brother’s eyes followed him all the way to the door, and at that moment there darted from those eyes such a flash of hatred that I shuddered.

  The day went by, interspersed with the most dreadful attacks of anxiety that you can imagine. I had told nobody of our plans; I had hardly even spoken of them in my prayers to God – and yet it struck me that these plans were known to everyone, and that every time anyone stared at me, their gaze could penetrate my heart and read into its very depths.

  Dinner was torture; sombre and taciturn, Kostaki spoke little; this time, he contented himself with addressing his mother two or three times in Moldavian, and each time the tone of his voice made me shudder.

  When I stood up to go back to my room, Smerande, as usual, embraced me; as she did so she uttered those words which for a week I had not heard on her lips:

  “Kostaki loves Hedwige.”

  These words pursued me like a threat; once I was back in my room, it seemed to me that a fateful voice was murmuring in my ear: “Kostaki loves Hedwige!”

  And as Gregoriska had told me, Kostaki’s love spelt death.

  At around seven in the evening, as the day was starting to wane, I saw Kostaki crossing the courtyard. He turned round to look up in my direction, but I quickly stepped back so he could not see me.

  I was worried since, all the time that the position of my window had allowed me to follow his movements, I had seen that he was heading towards the stables. I ventured to draw the bolts on my door and to slip into the room next door, from whence I could see everything he did.

  He was indeed heading for the stables. There he himself brought out his favourite horse, and saddled it with his own hands, taking all the care of a man who attaches the greatest importance to the slightest details. He was wearing the same costume as the one I had seem him in the first time. But his only weapon now was his sabre.

  Once his horse was saddled, he glanced up one more time at my bedroom window. When he did not see me, he jumped into the saddle, ordered the servants to open the same gate through which his brother had departed and through which he was to return, and galloped away, in the direction of the monastery of Hango.

  Then my heart was gripped by a terrible foreboding, and a fateful presentiment told me that Kostaki planned to ambush his brother.

  I stayed at that window for as long as I could still make out the road, which, a quarter of a league away from the castle, bent sharply and disappeared into the outskirts of a forest. But the night grew darker every minute, and the route finally vanished completely from view.

  I continued to stand there.

  Finally my disquiet, by its very excess, restored my strength to me, and as it was obviously in the downstairs room that I would receive news of both brothers, I went down.

  I first glanced at Smerande. I could see, from the calm expression on her face, that she was untouched by any apprehension; she was giving orders for supper, as usual, and places had been set for the two brothers.

  I did not dare ask anyone for news. In any case, whom could I have asked? No one in the castle, except for Kostaki and Gregoriska, spoke either of the only two languages that I did.

  At the least noise, I started with fear.

  It was usually at nine o’clock that everyone sat down to dinner.

  I had come down at half-past eight; I kept my eye on the minute finger, whose movement was almost perceptible on the huge clock face.

  The minute hand crossed the distance that separated it from the quarter hour.

  The quarter chimed. The vibration echoed, sombre and melancholy, then the finger resumed its silent progress, and I again saw it crossing the distance it had to move with the regularity and slowness of a compass needle.

  A few minutes before nine, I seemed to hear the gallop of a horse in the courtyard. Smerande must have heard it too, as she turned to look out of the window, but the night was too dark for her to see anything. Oh, if she had looked at me just then, how easily she would have guessed what was going on in my heart!

  Only the trotting of a single horse had been heard; the reason was perfectly plain. I knew quite well that only one rider would return.

  But which?

  Footsteps echoed in the antechamber. These steps were slow and seemed to weigh heavily on my heart.

  The door opened, and I saw the outline of a shadowy figure in the darkness. This shadow stopped for a moment on the threshold. My heart missed a beat.

  The shadow advanced, and as it entered the circle of light, I could breathe again.

  I recognized Gregoriska. One more moment of painful suspense and my heart would have broken.

  I recognized Gregoriska, but he was as pale as death. Just looking at him, it was easy to guess that something dreadful had happened.

  “Is that you, Kostaki?” asked Smerande.

  “No, mother,” replied Gregoriska hoarsely.

  “Ah, so it’s you,” she said. “And how long do you expect your mother to have to wait for you?”

  “Mother,” said Gregoriska, darting a glance at the clock, “it’s only nine o’clock.”

  And just then, nine o’clock chimed.

  “True,” said Smerande. “Where is your brother?”

  In spite of myself, I reflected that this was the same question that God had asked Cain.

  Gregoriska made no reply.

  “Hasn’t anyone seen Kostaki?” asked Smerande.

  The vatar, or majordomo, asked the people around him.

  “Around seven o’clock,” he said, “the Count went to the stables, saddled his horse himself and set off on the road to Hango.”

  Just then, my eyes met the eyes of Gregoriska. I don’t know if it was reality or hallucination, but it seemed to me that he had a drop of blood in the middle of his forehead.

  I slowly raised my finger to my own forehead, indicating the spot where I thought I could see the stain.

  Gregoriska understood; he took his handkerchief and wiped his brow.

  “Yes, yes,” murmured Smerande, “he must have encountered a bear or a wolf that he decided to hunt for fun. That’s why a child makes his mother wait for him. Where did you leave him, Gregoriska? Tell me.”

  “Mother,” replied Gregoriska in a strained but measured tone, “my brother and I did not leave together.”

  “Very well,” said Smerande. “Let dinner be served, let everyone take their place at table and have the gates closed; those who are still outside will have to sleep outside.”

  The two first parts of this order were executed to the letter.

  Smerande took her place, Gregoriska sat on the right of her and I sat on the left.

  Then the servants went out to execute the third part of the order – closing the castle gates.

  Just then, a great noise arose from the courtyard, and a terrified valet entered the hall, saying:

  “Princess, Count Kostaki’s horse has just come into the courtyard, alone and covered in blood.”

  “Oh!” murmured Smerande, rising to her feet, looking pale and menacing. “That is just how his father’s horse returned one evening.”

  I glanced at Gregoriska: he was no longer just pale, but livid.

  Indeed, the horse of Count Koproli had returned one evening into the castle courtyard, all covered in blood, and one hour later the servants had found and brought back his body, pierced with wounds.

  Smerande took a torch from the hand of one of the valets, advanced to the door, opened it and went down into the courtyard.

  The horse, panic-stricken, could barely be restrained by the combined effort of three or four servants.

  Smerande went over to the animal, gazed at the blood staining its saddle and noted a wound on its forehead.

  “Kostaki was killed in face to face combat,” she said, “in a duel with a single enemy. Seek his body, my children; we will seek out the murderer later.”

  As the horse had returned through the Hango gate, all the servants rushed out through that gate, and their torches could be seen wandering across the countryside and plunging into the forest, just as on a fine summer evening you can see the fireflies glowing in the plains of Nice and Pisa.

  As if she had been convinced that the search would not need to last long, Smerande stood waiting at the gate.

  Not a tear fell from the eyes of that heartbroken mother, and yet everyone could sense the muffled cry of despair deep within her heart.

  Gregoriska was standing behind her, and I was next to Gregoriska.

  At one moment, as we left the hall, he had made as if to offer me his arm, but in the end he had not dared.

  After about a quarter of an hour, we saw a torch reappearing at the bend in the road, then two torches, then all of them.

  But this time, instead of being scattered across the countryside, they were massed round one central point.

  This point was composed, as we could soon see, of a litter and a man stretched out on the litter.

  The funeral cortège advanced slowly but steadily towards us. Within ten minutes it had reached the gate. When they saw the living mother awaiting the dead son, those bearing him instinctively bared their heads, then they silently entered the courtyard.

  Smerande followed them, and we followed Smerande. So we reached the great hall, where the body was set down.

  Then, with a supremely majestic gesture, Smerande motioned everyone to move away, and, approaching the corpse, she fell to one knee on the ground before him, brushed away the hair that veiled his face, gazed lingeringly on it, still dry-eyed, then opened the Moldavian robe and parted the bloodstained shirt.

  The wound was on the right side of his breast. It must have been made with a straight, two-edged blade.

  I recalled seeing that very same day, at Gregoriska’s side, the long hunting knife that served as a bayonet for his rifle.

  I looked for this weapon at his side, but it had vanished.

  Smerande asked for water, dipped her handkerchief into it and washed the wound.

  Fresh, pure blood welled up and turned the lips of the wound red.

  The spectacle before my eyes was atrocious and sublime at one and the same time. That vast chamber, filled with the smoke of resin torches, those barbarian faces, those eyes glittering with ferocity, those exotic costumes, this mother who was calculating, as she gazed at the blood that was still warm, how long it was since death had taken her son, and this great silence, broken only by the sobs of those brigands whose chief Kostaki had been – all of this, I repeat, was an atrocious and sublime sight.

  Finally Smerande placed her lips on her son’s forehead, then rose and threw back the long braids of her white hair which had come undone, saying as she did so:

  “Gregoriska!”

  Gregoriska started, shook his head and, emerging from his daze, replied, “Yes, Mother?”

  “Come here, my son, and listen to me.”

  Gregoriska obeyed with a shudder – but obey he did.

  As he came up to the body, the blood flowed ever more freely and more gleaming red from the wound. Fortunately, Smerande was not looking in that direction, since at the sight of that accusing blood she would have not needed to enquire who the murderer was.

  “Gregoriska,” she said, “I know full well that you and Kostaki did not love each other. I know full well that you are a Waivady on your father’s side, and he was a Koproli on his, but through your mother you were both Brankovans. I know that you are a man of the western towns, and he was a child of the eastern mountains; but still, through the womb which bore you both, you are brothers. Well then, Gregoriska, I wish to know whether we will bear my son to his father’s side without the oath having been sworn; whether, in other words, I can weep in peace, like a woman, relying on you – a man – to carry out the punishment.”

  “Just name my brother’s murderer, madam, and give the order; I swear to you that within an hour, if you so request, he will have ceased to live.”

  “Go ahead and swear, Gregoriska, swear, on pain of my curse – do you hear me, my son? Swear that the murderer will die, that you will not leave a single stone of his house still standing; that his mother, his children, his brothers and his wife or his betrothed will perish at your hand. Swear, and as you swear, call down on you the wrath of Heaven if you fail to observe this sacred oath. If you fail to observe this sacred oath, then doom yourself to misery, the execration of your friends and your mother’s curse.”

  Gregoriska stretched forth his hand over the corpse.

  “I swear that the murderer will die,” he said.

  At this strange oath, whose true meaning only I and the dead man perhaps could understand, I saw, or thought I saw, a dreadful and marvellous sight. The corpse’s eyes opened and stared at me, more alive than I had ever seen them, and, as if the two rays they emitted had been palpable, I felt what seemed like two red-hot irons plunging into my heart.

  It was more than I could bear; I fainted.

  15

  The Monastery of Hango

  When I awoke, I was in my room, and lying in my bed; one of the two women was watching over me.

  I asked where Smerande was; I was told that she was watching over her son’s body.

  I asked where Gregoriska was; I was told that he was at the monastery of Hango.

  There was no longer any question of flight. Was not Kostaki dead? There was no longer any question of marriage. Could I possibly marry the fratricide?

  Three days and three nights went by in this way, amid a throng of strange dreams. Whether awake or asleep, I kept seeing those two living eyes in that dead face: it was a horrible vision.

  It was on the third day that the burial of Kostaki was due to take place.

  On the morning of that day they brought me, sent from Smerande, a complete widow’s costume. I dressed and went down.

  The house seemed empty; everyone was in the chapel.

  I made my way to the meeting place. Just as I crossed its threshold, Smerande, whom I had not seen for three days, came towards me.

  She looked like a statue of Sorrow. With a movement as slow as a statue’s, she placed her icy lips on my forehead and, in a voice that seemed already to be emanating from the tomb, she uttered her habitual words: “Kostaki loves you”.

  You cannot imagine the effect that these words had on me. This protestation of love uttered in the present tense instead of the past, this loves you instead of loved you, this love from beyond the grave that had come to seek me out in life produced a terrible impression on me.

  At the same time, I was overwhelmed by a strange feeling, just as if I had in fact been the wife of the man who was dead, and not the betrothed of the man who was alive. His coffin drew me towards him, in spite of myself, painfully, as they say the snake attracts the bird that it fascinates. I looked round for Gregoriska.

  I saw him, pale and erect, standing against a pillar; his eyes were lifted heavenwards. I cannot tell whether he saw me.

  Monks from Hango were gathered round the body and singing the psalmodies of the Greek rite, sometimes in harmony, but more often in a monotone. I too wanted to pray, but the prayer died on my lips, and my mind was so disturbed that it seemed to me as if I were attending a consistory of demons rather than a gathering of priests.

  At the moment they took the body away, I tried to follow it, but my strength abandoned me. I felt my legs tottering beneath me, and I had to lean against the door.