Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one.
Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella.
" 'Tell me the truth,' he said, in a changed and hollow voice. 'Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara----'
"Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head.
" 'Ah! you are a woman!' cried the artist in a frenzy; 'for even a--'
"He did not finish the sentence.
" 'No,' he continued, 'even /he/ could not be so utterly base.'
" 'Oh, do not kill me!' cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. 'Iconsented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.'
" 'Laugh!' echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. 'Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man's passion--you?'
" 'Oh, mercy!' cried Zambinella.
" 'I ought to kill you!' shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. 'But,' he continued, with cold disdain, 'if Isearched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but--'
"Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away;thereupon he noticed the statue.
" 'And that is a delusion!' he cried.
"Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued:
" 'A woman's heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. Iregret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can Iextort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. /To love, to be loved!/ are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.'