His arms struck at the air. For a moment, he seemed to be defending himself against the squalid vision. Then, exhausted, he fainted away for the second time.
“First-rate,” said the prince, with a grin. “A sensitive, impressionable nature. … At present, the brain is out of gear. … Come, this is a propitious moment. … But, if I don’t get the business done in twenty minutes … he’ll escape me. …”
He pushed open the door between the two garrets, came back to the bed, lifted the young man and carried him to the bed in the other room. Then he bathed his temples with cold water and made him sniff at some salts.
This time, the swoon did not last long.
Gérard timidly opened his eyes and raised them to the ceiling. The vision was gone. But the arrangement of the furniture, the position of the table and the fireplace, and certain other details all surprised him … And then came the remembrance of his act, the pain which he felt at his throat. …
He said to the prince:
“I have had a dream, have I not?”
“No.”
“How do you mean, no?” And, suddenly recollecting, “Oh, that’s true, I remember. … I meant to kill myself … and I even …” Bending forward anxiously, “But the rest, the vision …”
“What vision?”
“The man … the rope … was that a dream? …”
“No,” said Sernine. “That also was real.”
“What are you saying? What are you saying? … Oh, no, no! … I entreat you! … Wake me, if I am asleep … or else let me die! … But I am dead, am I not? And this is the nightmare of a corpse! … Oh, I feel my brain going! … I entreat you. …”
Sernine placed his hand gently on the young man’s head and, bending over him:
“Listen to me … listen to me carefully and understand what I say. You are alive. Your matter and your mind are as they were and live. But Gérard Baupré is dead. You understand me, do you not? That member of society who was known as Gérard Baupré has ceased to exist. You have done away with that one. Tomorrow, the registrar will write in his books, opposite the name you bore, the word ‘Dead,’ with the date of your decease.”
“It’s a lie!” stammered the terrified lad. “It’s a lie! Considering that I, Gérard Baupré, am here!”
“You are not Gérard Baupré,” declared Sernine. And, pointing to the open door, “Gérard Baupré is there, in the next room. Do you wish to see him? He is hanging from the nail to which you hooked him. On the table is a letter in which you certify his death with your signature. It is all quite regular, it is all final. There is no getting away from the irrevocable, brutal fact: Gérard Baupré has ceased to exist!”
The young man listened in despair. Growing calmer, now that facts were assuming a less tragic significance, he began to understand:
“And then …” he muttered.
“And then … let us talk.”
“Yes, yes … let us talk. …”
“A cigarette?” asked the prince. “Will you have one? Ah, I see that you are becoming reconciled to life! So much the better: we shall understand each other; and that quickly.”
He lit the young man’s cigarette and his own and, at once, in a few words uttered in a hard voice, explained himself:
“You, the late Gérard Baupré, were weary of life, ill, penniless, hopeless. … Would you like to be well, rich, and powerful?”
“I don’t follow you.”
“It is quite simple. Accident has placed you on my path. You are young, good-looking, a poet; you are intelligent and—your act of despair shows it—you have a fine sense of conduct. These are qualities which are rarely found united in one person. I value them … and I take them for my account.”
“They are not for sale.”
“Idiot! Who talks of buying or selling? Keep your conscience. It is too precious a jewel for me to relieve you of it.”
“Then what do you ask of me?”
“Your life!” And, pointing to the bruises on the young man’s throat, “Your life, which you have not known how to employ! Your life, which you have bungled, wasted, destroyed and which, I propose to build up again, in accordance with an ideal of beauty, greatness and dignity that would make you giddy, my lad, if you saw the abyss into which my secret thought plunges. …” He had taken Gérard’s head between his hands and he continued, eagerly: “You are free! No shackles! You have no longer the weight of your name to bear! You have got rid of that number with which society had stamped you as though branding you on the shoulder. You are free! In this world of slaves where each man bears his label you can either come and go unknown, invisible, as if you owned Gyges’ ring … or else you can choose your own label, the one you like best! Do you understand the magnificent treasure which you represent to an artist … to yourself, if you like? A virgin life, a brand-new life! Your life is the wax which you have the right to fashion as you please, according to the whims of your imagination and the counsels of your reason.”
The young man made a gesture expressive of weariness:
“Ah, what would you have me do with that treasure? What have I done with it so far? Nothing!”
“Give it to me.”
“What can you do with it?”
“Everything. If you are not an artist, I am; and an enthusiastic artist, inexhaustible, indomitable, exuberant. If you have not the Promethean fire, I have! Where you failed, I shall succeed. Give me your life.”
“Words, promises!” cried the young man, whose features began to glow with animation. “Empty dreams! I know my own worthlessness! I know my cowardice, my despondency, my efforts that come
