Four years after the terrible scene we just recounted, that is to say, in the month of may 1816, we find Capitan Felipone a Colonel and the happy husband to Madame Hélène de Kergaz.
The Colonel inhabited, during the summer, a beautiful land of regal appearance, situated in Brittany, on the outskirts of Finistère. Kerloven, was its name, a family estate that the late Colonel Armand de Kergaz had bequeathed to his wife.
The Château was built on the edge of the sea, at the top of a cliff. On the landward side it overlooked a small pretty Breton valley covered in pink heather, and was bordered by a great forest.
Nothing was more wild or more picturesque, more isolated or had a more charming aspect than this feudal manor. Completely restored on the interior to modern tastes, thanks to the immense fortune of Colonel Felipone, while its exterior maintained its mantle of antiquity.
A great park of centuries old elms surrounded the Château on the west and east. The facade was undermined by the sea, that stormy and gray sea, with grandiose rages, that eternally gnaws at the Breton coast.
A balcony, the construction of which dated back to the Crusades, extended from tower to the other.
Several hundred feet below, rumbled the old ocean.
The Colonel had arrived in Kerloven towards the end of April, in the company of his wife, who was nearing the end of her pregnancy, the first fruit of her new marriage, and a child around about five years old who was called Armand, like his father, the unfortunate colonel of hussars that we saw murdered by the Italian.
The Colonel Felipone had been made a Count during the restoration of the monarchy, and through that the widow of Monsieur de Kergaz, a gentleman of old stock, was thus able to gain her title of Countess.
The Count, we will be calling the Italian from now on, the Count, let’s say, would spend his time hunting in the surrounding area, and had become close with all of the local gentry.
The Countess lived in complete seclusion.
Certainly, those who had known the brilliant and beautiful Hélène de Kergaz at the court of the Emperor Napoleon would have had difficulty recognizing her in this pale and withered woman, due to her sorry appearance, weary gait, and sad smile of resignation.
Four years earlier, Madam de Kergaz, who had been suffering for several months with morbid worry about the fate of her husband, had seen enter her home one morning, Capitan Felipone, all dressed in black.
The Capitan, as we know, had loved Hélène, but his love had had no other effect than inspiring in the young woman a profound aversion for him, whose nature she had instinctively divined as false and perverse.
Frequently, since her marriage, she had tried to make Monsieur de Kergaz to open his eyes about his friendship for the Italian. Unfortunately, the Colonel had a blind affection for his friend that nothing would have changed.
At the sight of the Capitan, the Countess let out a cry, sensing something terrible had happened.
Felipone approached her slowly, he took her two hands in his and said, wiping away a hypocritical tear. “God is hard on us Madame. He took from us, from you, your husband, from me, my friend. Let us weep together…”
It was only a few days later that the unfortunate widow became aware of her husband’s will wherein he begged her (The Madman!) to marry the man who was to be his murderer and to his son a second father.
But the aversion the Countess had for the Italian was so great that she was revolted and refused his hand.
The Italian was amenable and patient. He appeared to be astonished by the wish of his deceased friend. He declared himself unworthy to take his place. Instead asking for the humble favor of being allowed to remain as a simple protector, the devoted friend of the poor widow, and the tutor of the young orphan.
And for three years, that man played his role well, he showed himself to be so affectionate, so good, so full of devotion and selflessness, that he finally disarmed the Countess, she thought she had made a mistake and been a bad judge of character.
Then came the setbacks of the Imperial Era.
Madam de Kergaz was tainted by birth with the status of a commoner, she was the widow of an Imperial officer, she found herself the subject of persecution. More than ever she understood the terrible isolation of a widow who is also a mother with an obligation to her son.
Felipone had become a courtier, was well established at court, and could do a lot for the future of an orphan.
That last consideration triumphed in his favor in the mind of the Countess. She finally gave into his entreaties, she married the Italian.
But, strange thing, as soon as she had tied her existence to that man, that first aversion he had inspired in her, and that he had succeeded in extinguishing, was vigorously reborn deep in the heart of the Countess.
Then, the Colonel, having achieved his goal, judged that there was no point in continuing his lengthy role of patient hypocrisy. His hateful nature, his savage and vindictive character, imperceptibly had gained ground, and seemed to drive him to seek revenge on Hélène for her initial disdain.
Thus began for the poor woman that life of isolation and tears that hides the cruel mysteries within conjugal tyranny. Felipone smiled to his wife in the bright light of day and became her tormentor in the shadow of intimacy. The miserable inventor of tortures without name for that noble woman who had believed in him for only one day.
His jealous hatred extended to the child who reminded him of the first husband of the Countess. When she was pregnant with her second child, he dared to make the following infamous calculation:
“If the little Armand were to die, my child would inherit an immense fortune…and it is easy for a four year old child to die!”
It was in meditation on that thought that Count Felipone arrived in Kerloven.
The Countess, consumed in her tears, lived in Kerloven in a state of absolute seclusion, consecrating all of her care to her child, while her husband led a joyful life.
One evening, around the end of May, she was letting the young Armand play on the manor’s balcony and, dominated by the need for prayer and contemplation that wounded souls experience, she was sequestered in her bedroom to kneel before a large ivory Christ placed at the head of her bed.
She had spent a long time in prayer, and night was falling, a nebulous and sombre night one often sees on the misty coasts of old Armorique. The sea wind was blowing violently, the roiling waves roared at the bottom of the cliffs. The Countess thought of her son, and, dominated by a sinister foreboding, went to leave her room, when her husband entered.
Felipone was in hunting dress, boot and spur. He had passed his day in the neighboring forest, and seemed to have just gotten back.
At the sight of him, the Countess felt her vague anxiety intensify and squeeze her heart.
“Where is Armand then?” she asked him with vigor.
“I was going to ask you” the Count responded calmly “because I am surprised not to see him with you.”
The Countess trembled at the sound of that hypocritical voice, and the tightening of heart increased again.
“Armand! Armand!’ Called the Countess opening the window that overlooked the balcony.
The child did not respond.
“Armand! My little Armand!” repeated the mother anxiously.
The same silence.
A lamp was placed on a small table that only partly illuminated the space, in which they had kept their old tapestries, and blackened oak furniture marked with age. However, one of its beams landed on the tanned face of the Italian, which seemed to the Countess to be veiled in a ghastly paler.
“My child!” she repeated with anxiety “what have you done to my child?!”
“Me?” responded the Count with a slight tremor of the voice that did not escape the notice of the worried mother “but I didn’t see your child, I only just arrived on my horse.”
On pronouncing these last words the Italian’s troubled voice had regained its usual tone and perfected calm.
But the Countess nevertheless launched herself outside, agitated by the most sinister thoughts, calling out “Armand! Armand! Where is Armand?!”
D. Cartier 