self-control:
“The name of that woman?” he said.
“I don’t know what it was. As I have said, she was twice
married, once in France, the second time in England.”
“She was young, you say?”
“Twenty-five years old.”
“Beautiful?”
“Ravishingly.”
“Blond?”
“Yes.”
“Abundance of hair — falling over her shoulders?”
“Yes.”
“Eyes of an admirable expression?”
“When she chose. Oh, yes, it is she!”
“A voice of strange sweetness?”
“How do you know it?”
The executioner raised himself on his elbow and gazed with a
frightened air at the monk, who became livid.
“And you killed her?” the monk exclaimed. “You were the tool
of those cowards who dared not kill her themselves? You had
no pity for that youthfulness, that beauty, that weakness?
you killed that woman?”
“Alas! I have already told you, father, that woman, under
that angelic appearance, had an infernal soul, and when I
saw her, when I recalled all the evil she had done to me
—- ”
“To you? What could she have done to you? Come, tell me!”
Page 227
Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
“She had seduced and ruined my brother, a priest. She had
fled with him from her convent.”
“With your brother?”
“Yes, my brother was her first lover, and she caused his
death. Oh, father, do not look in that way at me! Oh, I am
guilty, then; you will not pardon me?”
The monk recovered his usual expression.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “I will pardon you if you tell me all.”
“Oh!” cried the executioner, “all! all! all!”
“Answer, then. If she seduced your brother — you said she
seduced him, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“If she caused his death — you said that she caused his
death?”
“Yes,” repeated the executioner.
“Then you must know what her name was as a young girl.”
“Oh, mon Dieu!” cried the executioner, “I think I am dying.
Absolution, father! absolution.”
“Tell me her name and I will give it.”
“Her name was —- My God, have pity on me!” murmured the
executioner; and he fell back on the bed, pale, trembling,
and apparently about to die.
“Her name!” repeated the monk, bending over him as if to
tear from him the name if he would not utter it; “her name!
Speak, or no absolution!”
The dying man collected all his forces.
The monk’s eyes glittered.
“Anne de Bueil,” murmured the wounded man.
“Anne de Bueil!” cried the monk, standing up and lifting his
hands to Heaven. “Anne de Bueil! You said Anne de Bueil, did
you not?”
“Yes, yes, that was her name; and now absolve me, for I am
dying.”
“I, absolve you!” cried the priest, with a laugh which made
the dying man’s hair stand on end; “I, absolve you? I am not
a priest.”
“You are not a priest!” cried the executioner. “What, then,
are you?”
“I am about to tell you, wretched man.”
“Oh, mon Dieu!”
Page 228
Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
“I am John Francis de Winter.”
“I do not know you,” said the executioner.
“Wait, wait; you are going to know me. I am John Francis de
Winter,” he repeated, “and that woman —- ”
“Well, that woman?”
“Was my mother!”
The executioner uttered the first cry, that terrible cry
which had been first heard.
“Oh, pardon me, pardon me!” he murmured; “if not in the name
of God, at least in your own name; if not as priest, then as
son.”
“Pardon you!” cried the pretended monk, “pardon you! Perhaps
God will pardon you, but I, never!”
“For pity’s sake,” said the executioner, extending his arms.
“No pity for him who had no pity! Die, impenitent, die in
despair, die and be damned!” And drawing a poniard from
beneath his robe he thrust it into the breast of the wounded
man, saying, “Here is my absolution!”
Then was heard that second cry, not so loud as the first and
followed by a long groan.
The executioner, who had lifted himself up, fell back upon
his bed. As to the monk, without withdrawing the poniard
from the wound, he ran to the window, opened it, leaped out
into the flowers of a small garden, glided onward to the