The Third Macabre Megapack Read Online Free Page A

outside world were deadened by the dense foliage of the gardens.
    There the two lovers plunged into the ocean of those enjoyments, languorous and perverse, in which the spirit is merged with the mysteries of the flesh. They exhausted the violence of desires, the tremors, the distraught longings of their tenderness. They became each the very heart-beat of the other. In them the spirit flowed so completely into the body that their forms seemed to them to be instruments of comprehension, and that the blazing links of their kisses chained them together in a fusion of the ideal. A long-drawn rapture! And suddenly—the spell was broken! The terrible accident sundered them. Their arms had been entwined. What shadow had seized from his arms his dead beloved? Dead? No: is the soul of the violoncello snatched away in the cry of its breaking string?
    The hours passed.
    Through the casement he watched the night advancing in the heavens: and Night became personal to him—seeming like a queen walking into exile, with melancholy on her brow, while Venus, the diamond clasp of her mourning gown, gleamed there above the trees, alone, lost in the depths of azure.
    “It is Vera,” he thought.
    At the name, spoken under his breath, he shivered like a man awakening, and then, straightening himself, looked round him.
    The objects in the room were now lighted by a glow which till then had been indefinite, that of a sanctuary-lamp, turning the darkness into deep blue; and now the night which had climbed the firmament made it seem like another star in here. It was the incense-perfumed lamp of an ikon, a family reliquary belonging to Vera. The triptych of precious antique wood was hung by its platted Russian esparto between the mirror and the picture. A reflection from the gold of its interior fell quivering on to the necklace, among the jewels on the mantel.
    The circling halo of the Madonna in her sky-blue gown shone, patterned into a rose by the Byzantine cross, whose delicate red outline, melted in the reflection, darkened with a tincture of blood this orient gleaming in its pearls. From her childhood Vera had used to cast her great eyes of compassion on the pure and maternal features of the hereditary Madonna; her nature, alas! allowed her to consecrate only a superstitious love to the figure, but this she offered sometimes, naively and thoughtfully, when she passed in front of the lamp. At the sight of this the Count, touched in the most secret places of his soul, straightened himself, and quickly blew out the holy flame. Then, feeling with outstretched hand in the gloom for a bell-cord, he rang.
    A servant appeared, an old man attired in black. In his hand was a lamp; he set it down before the portrait of the Countess. A shiver of superstitious terror ran through him as he turned and saw his master standing erect and smiling as if nothing had come to pass.
    “Raymond,” said the Count in calm tones, “we are worn out with fatigue this evening, the Countess and I. You will serve supper about ten o’clock. And by the way, we have made up our minds that from tomorrow we shall isolate ourselves here more completely than ever. None of my servants, except yourself, must pass the night under this roof. You will send them three years’ wages, and they must go. Then you will close the bar of the gateway, and light the torches downstairs in the dining-room; you will be enough for our needs. For the future we shall receive nobody.”
    The old man was trembling, watching him attentively.
    The Count lit a cigar and went down into the gardens.
    At first the servant imagined that grief, too crushing, too desperate, had unhinged his master’s mind. He had been familiar with him from his childhood, and instantly understood that the shock of too sudden an awakening could easily be fatal to this sleep-walker. His duty, to begin with, was respect for such a secret
    He bowed his head. A devoted complicity in this religious phantasy…? To obey…? To