The Mysteries of Paris, vol 3 | Page 9

brilliant, hardly allows the transparent pale blue of the
eye ball to be seen from the corners of her eyelids, fringed with long
lashes; her chin is perfect; her nose, fine and straight, is terminated by
nostrils dilating at each emotion; her lovely impudent mouth is of a
lively red.
Let one imagine this pale face, with its sparkling black glances, its red,
moist, and glossy lips, which shine like wet coral.
Let us say that this tall Creole, slender, fleshy, strong and active as a
panther, was the type of that sensuality which is only lighted up by the
fires of the tropics. Such was Cecily.
She was once the slave of a Louisiana planter, who designed her for his
harem. Her lover, a slave named David, resisted that design to the only
gain of being flogged, while his loved one was borne away. David was
no common black; he had been educated in France, and was the
plantation surgeon. The story of this high-handed and twofold outrage
reached Rudolph, whose yacht was on the coast. The prince, landing in
the night with a boat's crew, carried off David and Cecily from the
planter's calaboose, leaving a sum of money as indemnity. The two
were wedded in France, but Cecily, won away by a very bad man, had
become so evil, that her new life was a series of scandals. David would
have killed her, but Rudolph, whose physician he had worthily become,
induced him to prefer her life-prisonment in Germany. Out of her
dungeon she was brought by Rudolph, who knew no fitter implement
with which to chastise the notary.
Her detestable predilections, for some time restrained by her real
attachment for David, were only developed in Europe; the civilization
and climatical influence of the North had tempered the violence,
modified the expression. Instead of casting herself violently on her prey,
and thinking only, like her compeers, to destroy as soon as possible
their life and fortune, Cecily, fixing on her victims her magnetic

glances, commenced by attracting them, little by little, into the blazing
whirlwind which seemed to emanate from her; then, seeing them lost,
suffering every torment of a tantalized craving, she amused herself by a
refinement of coquetry, prolonging their delirium; then, returning to her
first instincts, she destroyed them in her homicidal embrace. This was
more horrible still.
The famished tiger, who springs upon and carries off the prey which he
tears with wild roars, inspires less horror than the serpent, which
silently charms, attracts by degrees, twists in inextricable folds the
victim, feels it palpitate under its deadly stings, and seems to feed upon
its struggles with as much delight as upon its blood.
To the foregoing let there be joined an adroit, insinuating, quick
mind--an intelligence so marvelous, that in a year she spoke both
French and German with the most extreme facility--sometimes even
with marked eloquence. Imagine, in fine, a corruption worthy of the
courtesan queens of ancient Rome, and audacity and courage above all
proof, propensities, diabolical wickedness, and one would have a
correct idea of the new servant of Jacques Ferrand--the determined
creature who had dared to throw herself into the den of the wolf. And
yet (singular anomaly) on learning from M. de Graun the provoking
platonic part which she was to play at the notary's and what avenging
ends were to be produced by her artifices, Cecily had promised to
perform her part with a will; or, rather, with a terrible hatred against
Jacques Ferrand, being very indignant at the recital of his having
drugged Louise--a recital it was found necessary to make, in order that
she should be on her guard against the hypocritical attempts of the
monster. Some retrospective words concerning the latter personage are
indispensable.
When Cecily was presented to him by Rudolph's intermediary,
Madame Pipelet, as an orphan over whom she wished to have no
control, or care, the notary had, perhaps, been less struck with the
beauty of the Creole than fascinated by her irresistible glances, which,
at the first interview, lighted a fire which disturbed his reason.
This man, ordinarily with so much self-command, so calm, and

cunning, forgot the cold calculations of his profound dissimulation
when the demon of lust obscured his mind. Besides he had no reason to
suspect the protégée of Madame Pipelet.
After her conversation with the latter, Madame Séraphin had proposed
to Jacques Ferrand, to take the place of Louise, a young girl almost
without a home, for whom she would answer. The notary had gladly
accepted, in the hope of abusing, with impunity, the precarious and
isolated condition of his new servant. Finally, far from being suspicious,
Jacques Ferrand found, in the progress of events, new motives of
security.
All responded to his wishes. The death of