1 files changed, 5384 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/3348.txt b/3348.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..13ae528
--- /dev/null
+++ b/3348.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5384 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wandering Jew, Book X., by Eugene Sue
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wandering Jew, Book X.
+
+Author: Eugene Sue
+
+Release Date: October 25, 2004 [EBook #3348]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WANDERING JEW, BOOK X. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger and Pat Castevens
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WANDERING JEW
+
+By Eugene Sue
+
+
+
+BOOK X.
+
+
+XXXIII.   Confessions
+XXXIV.    More Confessions
+XXXV.     The Rivals
+XXXVI.    The Interview
+XXXVII.   Soothing Words
+XXXVIII.  The Two Carriages
+XXXIX.    The Appointment
+XL.       Anxiety
+XLI.      Adrienne and Djalma
+XLII.     "The Imitation"
+XLIII.    Prayer
+XLIV.     Remembrances
+XLV.      The Blockhead
+XLVI.     The Anonymous Letters
+XLVII.    The Golden City
+XLVIII.   The Stung Lion
+XLIX.     The Test
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+CONFESSIONS.
+
+During the painful scene that we have just described, a lively emotion
+glowed in the countenance of Mdlle. de Cardoville, grown pale and thin
+with sorrow. Her cheeks, once so full, were now slightly hollowed, whilst
+a faint line of transparent azure encircled those large black eyes, no
+longer so bright as formerly. But the charming lips, though contracted by
+painful anxiety, had retained their rich and velvet moisture. To attend
+more easily to Mother Bunch, Adrienne had thrown aside her bonnet, and
+the silky waves of her beautiful golden hair almost concealed her face as
+she bent over the mattress, rubbing the thin, ivory hands of the poor
+sempstress, completely called to life by the salubrious freshness of the
+air, and by the strong action of the salts which Adrienne carried in her
+smelling-bottle. Luckily, Mother Bunch had fainted, rather from emotion
+and weakness than from the effects of suffocation, the senses of the
+unfortunate girl having failed her before the deleterious gas had
+attained its highest degree of intensity.
+
+Before continuing the recital of the scene between the sempstress and the
+patrician, a few retrospective words will be necessary. Since the strange
+adventure at the theatre of the Porte-Saint-Martin, where Djalma, at
+peril of his life, rushed upon the black panther in sight of Mdlle. de
+Cardoville, the young lady had been deeply affected in various ways.
+Forgetting her jealousy, and the humiliation she had suffered in presence
+of Djalma--of Djalma exhibiting himself before every one with a woman so
+little worthy of him--Adrienne was for a moment dazzled by the chivalrous
+and heroic action of the prince, and said to herself: "In spite of odious
+appearances, Djalma loves me enough to brave death in order to pick up my
+nosegay."
+
+But with a soul so delicate as that of this young lady, a character so
+generous, and a mind so true, reflection was certain soon to demonstrate
+the vanity of such consolations, powerless to cure the cruel wounds of
+offended dignity an love.
+
+"How many times," said Adrienne to herself, and with reason, "has the
+prince encountered, in hunting, from pure caprice and with no gain, such
+danger as he braved in picking up my bouquet! and then, who tells me he
+did not mean to offer it to the woman who accompanied him?"
+
+Singular (it may be) in the eyes of the world, but just and great in
+those of heaven, the ideas which Adrienne cherished with regard to love,
+joined to her natural pride, presented an invincible obstacle to the
+thought of her succeeding this woman (whoever she might be), thus
+publicly displayed by the prince as his mistress. And yet Adrienne hardly
+dared avow to herself, that she experienced a feeling of jealousy, only
+the more painful and humiliating, the less her rival appeared worthy to
+be compared to her.
+
+At other times, on the contrary, in spite of a conscious sense of her own
+value, Mdlle. de Cardoville, remembering the charming countenance of
+Rose-Pompon, asked herself if the bad taste and improper manners of this
+pretty creature resulted from precocious and depraved effrontery, or from
+a complete ignorance of the usages of society. In the latter case, such
+ignorance, arising from a simple and ingenuous nature, might in itself
+have a great charm; and if to this attraction, combined with that of
+incontestable beauty, were added sincere love and a pure soul, the
+obscure birth, or neglected education of the girl might be of little
+consequence, and she might be capable of inspiring Djalma with a profound
+passion. If Adrienne hesitated to see a lost creature in Rose-Pompon,
+notwithstanding unfavorable appearances, it was because, remembering what
+so many travellers had related of Djalma's greatness of soul, and
+recalling the conversation she had overheard between him and Rodin, she
+could not bring herself to believe that a man of such remarkable
+intelligence, with so tender a heart, so poetical, imaginative and
+enthusiastic a mind could be capable of loving a depraved and vulgar
+creature, and of openly exhibiting himself in public along with her.
+There was a mystery in the transaction, which Adrienne sought in vain to
+penetrate. These trying doubts, this cruel curiosity, only served to
+nourish Adrienne's fatal love; and we may imagine her incurable despair,
+when she found that the indifference, or even disdain of Djalma, was
+unable to stifle a passion that now burned more fiercely than ever.
+Sometimes, having recourse to notions of fatality, she fancied that she
+was destined to feel this love; that Djalma must therefore deserve it,
+and that one day whatever was incomprehensible in the conduct of the
+prince would be explained to his advantage. At other times, on the
+contrary, she felt ashamed of excusing Djalma, and the consciousness of
+this weakness was for Adrienne a constant occasion for remorse and
+torture. The victim of all these agonies, she lived in perfect solitude.
+
+The cholera soon broke out, startling as a clap of thunder. Too unhappy
+to fear the pestilence on her own account, Adrienne was only moved by the
+sorrows of others. She was amongst the first to contribute to those
+charitable donations, which were now flowing in from all sides in the
+admirable spirit of benevolence. Florine was suddenly attacked by the
+epidemic. In spite of the danger, her mistress insisted on seeing her,
+and endeavored to revive her failing courage. Conquered by this new mark
+of kindness, Florine could no longer conceal the treachery in which she
+had borne a part. Death was about to deliver her from the odious tyranny
+of the people whose yoke weighed upon her, and she was at length in a
+position to reveal everything to Adrienne. The latter thus learned how
+she had been continually betrayed by Florine, and also the cause of the
+sewing-girl's abrupt departure. At these revelations, Adrienne felt her
+affection and tender pity for the poor sempstress greatly increase. By
+her command, the most active steps were taken to discover traces of the
+hunchback; but Florine's confession had a still more important result.
+Justly alarmed at this new evidence of Rodin's machinations, Adrienne
+remembered the projects formed, when, believing herself beloved, the
+instinct of affection had revealed to her the perils to which Djalma and
+other members of the Rennepont family were exposed. To assemble the race
+around her, and bid them rally against the common enemy, such was
+Adrienne's first thought, when she heard the confession of Florine. She
+regarded it as a duty to accomplish this project. In a struggle with such
+dangerous and powerful adversaries as Rodin, Father d'Aigrigny, and the
+Princess de Saint-Dizier, and their allies, Adrienne saw not only the
+praiseworthy and perilous task of unmasking hypocrisy and cupidity, but
+also, if not a consolation, at least a generous diversion in the midst of
+terrible sorrows.
+
+From this moment, a restless, feverish activity took the place of the
+mournful apathy in which the young lady had languished. She called round
+her all the members of her family capable of answering the appeal, and,
+as had been mentioned in the secret note delivered to Father d'Aigrigny,
+Cardoville House soon became the centre of the most active and unceasing
+operations, and also a place of meeting, in which the modes of attack and
+defence were fully discussed. Perfectly correct in all points, the secret
+note of which we have spoken stated, as a mere conjecture, that Mdlle. de
+Cardoville had granted an interview to Djalma. This fact was untrue, but
+the cause which led to the supposition will be explained hereafter. Far
+from such being the case, Mdlle. de Cardoville scarcely found, in
+attending to the great family interests now at stake, a momentary
+diversion from the fatal love, which was slowly undermining her health,
+and with which she so bitterly reproached herself.
+
+The morning of the day on which Adrienne, at length discovering Mother
+Bunch's residence, came so miraculously to rescue her from death,
+Agricola Baudoin had been to Cardoville House to confer on the subject of
+Francis Hardy, and had begged Adrienne to permit him to accompany her to
+the Rue Clovis, whither they repaired in haste.
+
+Thus, once again, there was a noble spectacle, a touching symbol! Mdlle.
+de Cardoville and Mother Bunch, the two extremities of the social chain,
+were united on equal terms--for the sempstress and the fair patrician
+were equal in intelligence and heart--and equal also, because the one was
+the ideal of riches, grace, and beauty, and the other the ideal of
+resignation and unmerited misfortune--and does not a halo rest on
+misfortune borne with courage and dignity? Stretched on her mattress, the
+hunchback appeared so weak, that even if Agricola had not been detained
+on the ground floor with Cephyse, now dying a dreadful death, Mdlle. de
+Cardoville would have waited some time, before inducing Mother Bunch to
+rise and accompany her to her carriage. Thanks to the presence of mind
+and pious fraud of Adrienne, the sewing-girl was persuaded that Cephyse
+had been carried to a neighboring hospital, to receive the necessary
+succors, which promised to be crowned with success. The hunchback's
+faculties recovering slowly from their stupor, she at first received this
+fable without the least suspicion--for she did not even know that
+Agricola had accompanied Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+
+"And it is to you, lady, that Cephyse and I owe our lives," said she,
+turning her mild and melancholy face towards Adrienne, "you, kneeling in
+this garret, near this couch of misery, where I and my sister meant to
+die--for you assure me, lady, that Cephyse was succored in time."
+
+"Be satisfied! I was told just now that she was recovering her senses."
+
+"And they told her I was living, did they not, lady? Otherwise, she would
+perhaps regret having survived me."
+
+"Be quite easy, my dear girl!" said Adrienne, pressing the poor hands in
+her own, and gazing on her with eyes full of tears; "they have told her
+all that was proper. Do not trouble yourself about anything; only think
+of recovering--and I hope you will yet enjoy that happiness of which you
+have known so little, my poor child."
+
+"How kind you are, lady! After flying from your house--and when you must
+think me so ungrateful!"
+
+"Presently, when you are not so weak, I have a great deal to tell you.
+Just now, it would fatigue you too much. But how do you feel?"
+
+"Better, lady. This fresh air--and then the thought, that, since you are
+come--my poor sister will no more be reduced to despair; for I will tell
+you all, and I am sure you will have pity on Cephyse--will you not,
+lady?"
+
+"Rely upon me, my child," answered Adrienne, forced to dissemble her
+painful embarrassment; "you know I am interested in all that interests
+you. But tell me," added Mdlle. de Cardoville, in a voice of emotion,
+"before taking this desperate resolution, did you not write to me?"
+
+"Yes, lady."
+
+"Alas!" resumed Adrienne, sorrowfully; "and when you received no
+answer--how cruel, how ungrateful you must have thought me!"
+
+"Oh! never, lady, did I accuse you of such feelings; my poor sister will
+tell you so. You had my gratitude to the last."
+
+"I believe you--for I knew your heart. But how then did you explain my
+silence?"
+
+"I had justly offended you by my sudden departure, lady."
+
+"Offended!--Alas! I never received your letter."
+
+"And yet you know that I wrote to you, lady."
+
+"Yes, my poor girl; I know, also, that you wrote to me at my porter's
+lodge. Unfortunately, he delivered your letter to one of my women, named
+Florine, telling her it came from you."
+
+"Florine! the young woman that was so kind to me!"
+
+"Florine deceived me shamefully; she was sold to my enemies, and acted as
+a spy on my actions."
+
+"She!--Good Heavens!" cried Mother Bunch. "Is it possible?"
+
+"She herself," answered Adrienne, bitterly; "but, after all, we must pity
+as well as blame her. She was forced to obey by a terrible necessity, and
+her confession and repentance secured my pardon before her death."
+
+"Then she is dead--so young! so fair!"
+
+"In spite of her faults, I was greatly moved by her end. She confessed
+what she had done, with such heart-rending regrets. Amongst her avowals,
+she told me she had intercepted a letter, in which you asked for an
+interview that might save your sister's life."
+
+"It is true, lady; such were the terms of my letter. What interest had
+they to keep it from you?"
+
+"They feared to see you return to me, my good guardian angel. You loved
+me so tenderly, and my enemies dreaded your faithful affection, so
+wonderfully aided by the admirable instinct of your heart. Ah! I shall
+never forget how well-deserved was the horror with which you were
+inspired by a wretch whom I defended against your suspicions."
+
+"M. Rodin?" said Mother Bunch, with a shudder.
+
+"Yes," replied Adrienne; "but we will not talk of these people now. Their
+odious remembrance would spoil the joy I feel in seeing you restored to
+life--for your voice is less feeble, your cheeks are beginning to regain
+a little color. Thank God! I am so happy to have found you once more;--if
+you knew all that I hope, all that I expect from our reunion--for we will
+not part again--promise me that, in the name of our friendship."
+
+"I--your friend!" said Mother Bunch, timidly casting down her eyes.
+
+"A few days before your departure from my house, did I not call you my
+friend, my sister? What is there changed? Nothing, nothing," added Mdlle.
+de Cardoville, with deep emotion. "One might say, on the contrary, that a
+fatal resemblance in our positions renders your friendship even dearer to
+me. And I shall have it, shall I not. Oh, do not refuse it me--I am so
+much in want of a friend!"
+
+"You, lady? you in want of the friendship of a poor creature like me?"
+
+"Yes," answered Adrienne, as she gazed on the other with an expression of
+intense grief; "nay, more, you are perhaps the only person, to whom I
+could venture to confide my bitter sorrows." So saying, Mdlle. de
+Cardoville colored deeply.
+
+"And how do I deserve such marks of confidence?" asked Mother Bunch, more
+and more surprised.
+
+"You deserve it by the delicacy of your heart, by the steadiness of your
+character," answered Adrienne, with some hesitation; "then--you are a
+woman--and I am certain you will understand what I suffer, and pity me."
+
+"Pity you, lady?" said the other, whose astonishment continued to
+increase. "You, a great lady, and so much envied--I, so humble and
+despised, pity you?"
+
+"Tell me, my poor friend," resumed Adrienne, after some moments of
+silence, "are not the worst griefs those which we dare not avow to any
+one, for fear of raillery and contempt? How can we venture to ask
+interest or pity, for sufferings that we hardly dare avow to ourselves,
+because they make us blush?"
+
+The sewing-girl could hardly believe what she heard. Had her benefactress
+felt, like her, the effects of an unfortunate passion, she could not have
+held any other language. But the sempstress could not admit such a
+supposition; so, attributing to some other cause the sorrows of Adrienne,
+she answered mournfully, whilst she thought of her own fatal love for
+Agricola, "Oh! yes, lady. A secret grief, of which we are ashamed, must
+be frightful--very frightful!"
+
+"But then what happiness to meet, not only a heart noble enough to
+inspire complete confidence, but one which has itself been tried by a
+thousand sorrows, and is capable of affording you pity, support and
+counsel!--Tell me, my dear child," added Mdlle. de Cardoville, as she
+looked attentively at Mother Bunch, "if you were weighed down by one of
+those sorrows, at which one blushes, would you not be happy, very happy,
+to find a kindred soul, to whom you might entrust your griefs, and half
+relieve them by entire and merited confidence?"
+
+For the first time in her life, Mother Bunch regarded Mdlle. de
+Cardoville with a feeling of suspicion and sadness.
+
+The last words of the young lady seemed to her full of meaning
+"Doubtless, she knows my secret," said Mother Bunch to herself;
+"doubtless, my journal has fallen into her hands.--She knows my love for
+Agricola, or at least suspects it. What she has been saying to me is
+intended to provoke my confidence, and to assure herself if she has been
+rightly informed."
+
+These thoughts excited in the workgirl's mind no bitter or ungrateful
+feeling towards her benefactress; but the heart of the unfortunate girl
+was so delicately susceptible on the subject of her fatal passion, that,
+in spite of her deep and tender affection for Mdlle. de Cardoville, she
+suffered cruelly at the thought of Adrienne's being mistress of her
+secret.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+MORE CONFESSIONS.
+
+The fancy, at first so painful, that Mdlle. de Cardoville was informed of
+her love for Agricola was soon exchanged in the hunchbacks heart, thanks
+to the generous instincts of that rare and excellent creature, for a
+touching regret, which showed all her attachment and veneration for
+Adrienne.
+
+"Perhaps," said Mother Bunch to herself, "conquered by the influence of
+the adorable kindness of my protectress, I might have made to her a
+confession which I could make to none other, and revealed a secret which
+I thought to carry with me to my grave. It would, at least, have been a
+mark of gratitude to Mdlle. de Cardoville; but, unfortunately, I am now
+deprived of the sad comfort of confiding my only secret to my
+benefactress. And then--however generous may be her pity for me, however
+intelligent her affection, she cannot--she, that is so fair and so much
+admired--she cannot understand how frightful is the position of a
+creature like myself, hiding in the depth of a wounded heart, a love at
+once hopeless and ridiculous. No, no--in spite of the delicacy of her
+attachment, my benefactress must unconsciously hurt my feelings, even
+whilst she pities me--for only sympathetic sorrows can console each
+other. Alas! why did she not leave me to die?"
+
+These reflections presented themselves to the thinker's mind as rapidly
+as thought could travel. Adrienne observed her attentively; she remarked
+that the sewing-girl's countenance, which had lately brightened up, was
+again clouded, and expressed a feeling of painful humiliation. Terrified
+at this relapse into gloomy dejection, the consequences of which might be
+serious, for Mother Bunch was still very weak, and, as it were, hovering
+on the brink of the grave, Mdlle. de Cardoville resumed hastily: "My
+friend, do not you think with me, that the most cruel and humiliating
+grief admits of consolation, when it can be entrusted to a faithful and
+devoted heart?"
+
+"Yes, lady," said the young sempstress, bitterly; "but the heart which
+suffers in silence, should be the only judge of the moment for making so
+painful a confession. Until then, it would perhaps be more humane to
+respect its fatal secret, even if one had by chance discovered it."
+
+"You are right, my child," said Adrienne, sorrowfully, "if I choose this
+solemn moment to entrust you with a very painful secret, it is that, when
+you have heard me, I am sure you will set more value on your life, as
+knowing how much I need your tenderness, consolation, and pity."
+
+At these words, the other half raised herself on the mattress, and looked
+at Mdlle. de Cardoville in amazement. She could scarcely believe what she
+heard; far from designing to intrude upon her confidence, it was her
+protectress who was to make the painful confession, and who came to
+implore pity and consolation from her!
+
+"What!" stammered she; "you, lady!"
+
+"I come to tell you that I suffer, and am ashamed of my sufferings. Yes,"
+added the young lady, with a touching expression, "yes--of all
+confessions, I am about to make the most painful--I love--and I blush for
+my love."
+
+"Like myself!" cried Mother Bunch, involuntarily, clasping her hands
+together.
+
+"I love," resumed Adrienne, with a long-pent-up grief; "I love, and am
+not beloved--and my love is miserable, is impossible--it consumes me--it
+kills me--and I dare not confide to any one the fatal secret!"
+
+"Like me," repeated the other, with a fixed look. "She--a queen in
+beauty, rank, wealth, intelligence--suffers like me. Like me, poor
+unfortunate creature! she loves, and is not loved again."
+
+"Well, yes! like you, I love and am not loved again," cried Mdlle. de
+Cardoville; "was I wrong in saying, that to you alone I could confide my
+secret--because, having suffered the same pangs, you alone can pity
+them?"
+
+"Then, lady," said Mother Bunch, casting down her eyes, and recovering
+from her first amazement, "you knew--"
+
+"I knew all, my poor child--but never should I have mentioned your
+secret, had I not had one to entrust you with, of a still more painful
+nature. Yours is cruel, but mine is humiliating. Oh, my sister!" added
+Mdlle. de Cardoville, in a tone impossible to describe, "misfortune, you,
+see, blends and confounds together what are called distinctions of rank
+and fortune--and often those whom the world envies are reduced by
+suffering far below the poorest and most humble, and have to seek from
+the latter pity and consolation."
+
+Then, drying her tears, which nosy flowed abundantly, Mdlle. de
+Cardoville resumed, in a voice of emotion: "Come, sister! courage,
+courage! let us love and sustain each other. Let this sad and mysterious
+bond unite us forever."
+
+"Oh, lady! forgive me. But now that you know the secret of my life," said
+the workgirl, casting down her eyes, and unable to vanquish her
+confusion, "it seems to me, that I can never look at you without
+blushing."
+
+"And why? because you love Agricola?" said Adrienne. "Then I must die of
+shame before you, since, less courageous than you, I had not the strength
+to suffer and be resigned, and so conceal my love in the depths of my
+heart. He that I love, with a love henceforth deprived of hope, knew of
+that love and despised it--preferring to me a woman, the very choice of
+whom was a new and grievous insult, if I am not much deceived by
+appearances. I sometimes hope that I am deceived on this point. Now tell
+me--is it for you to blush?"
+
+"Alas, lady! who could tell you all this?"
+
+"Which you only entrusted to your journal? Well, then--it was the dying
+Florine who confessed her misdeeds. She had been base enough to steal
+your papers, forced to this odious act, by the people who had dominion
+over her. But she had read your journal--and as every good feeling was
+not dead within her, your admirable resignation, your melancholy and
+pious love, had left such an impression on her mind, that she was able to
+repeat whole passages to me on her death bed, and thus to explain the
+cause of your sudden disappearance--for she had no doubt that the fear of
+seeing your love for Agricola divulged had been the cause of your
+flight."
+
+"Alas! it is but too true, lady."
+
+"Oh, yes!" answered Adrienne, bitterly; "those who employed the wretched
+girl to act as she did, well knew the effect of the blow. It was not
+their first attempt. They reduced you to despair, they would have killed
+you, because you were devoted to me, and because you had guessed their
+intentions. Oh! these black-gowns are implacable, and their power is
+great!" said Adrienne, shuddering.
+
+"It is fearful, lady."
+
+"But do not be alarmed, dear child; you see, that the arms of the wicked
+have turned against themselves; for the moment I knew the cause of your
+flight, you became dearer to me than ever. From that time I made every
+exertion to find out where you were; after long efforts, it was only this
+morning that the person I had employed succeeded in discovering that you
+inhabited this house. Agricola was with me when I heard it, and instantly
+asked to accompany me."
+
+"Agricola!" said Mother Bunch, clasping her hands; "he came--"
+
+"Yes, my child--be calm. Whilst I attended to you, he was busy with your
+poor sister. You will soon see him."
+
+"Alas, lady!" resumed the hunchback, in alarm. "He doubtless knows--"
+
+"Your love! No, no; be satisfied. Only think of the happiness of again
+seeing your good and worthy brother."
+
+"Ah, lady! may he never know what caused me so much shame, that I was
+like to die of it. Thank God, he is not aware of it!"
+
+"Then let us have no more sad thoughts, my child. Only remember, that
+this worthy brother came here in time to save us from everlasting
+regrets--and you from a great fault. Oh! I do not speak of the prejudices
+of the world, with regard to the right of every creature to return to
+heaven a life that has become too burdensome!--I only say that you ought
+not to have died, because those who love you, and whom you love, were
+still in need of your assistance."
+
+"I thought you happy; Agricola was married to the girl of his choice, who
+will, I am sure, make him happy. To whom could I be useful?"
+
+"First, to myself, as you see--and then, who tells you that Agricola will
+never have need of you? Who tells you, that his happiness, or that of his
+family, will last forever, and will not be tried by cruel shocks? And
+even if those you love had been destined to be always happy, could their
+happiness be complete without you? And would not your death, with which
+they would perhaps have reproached themselves, have left behind it
+endless regrets?"
+
+"It is true, lady," answered the other, "I was wrong--the dizziness of
+despair had seized me--frightful misery weighed upon us--we had not been
+able to find work for some days--we lived on the charity of a poor woman,
+and her the cholera carried off. To-morrow or next day, we must have died
+of hunger."
+
+"Die of hunger!--and you knew where I lived!"
+
+"I had written to you, lady, and receiving no answer, I thought you
+offended at my abrupt departure."
+
+"Poor, dear child! you must have been, as you say, seized with dizziness
+in that terrible moment; so that I have not the courage to reproach you
+for doubting me a single instant. How can I blame you? Did I not myself
+think of terminating my life?"
+
+"You, lady!" cried the hunchback.
+
+"Yes, I thought of it--when they came to tell me, that Florine, dying,
+wished to speak to me. I heard what she had to say; her revelations
+changed my projects. This dark and mournful life which had become
+insupportable to me, was suddenly lighted up. The sense of duty woke
+within me. You were no doubt a prey to horrible misery; it was my duty to
+seek and save you. Florine's confessions unveiled to me the new plots of
+the enemies of my scattered family, dispersed by sorrows and cruel
+losses; it was my duty to warn them of their danger, and to unite them
+against the common enemy. I had been the victim of odious manoeuvres: it
+was my duty to punish their authors, for fear that, encouraged by
+impunity, these black-gowns should make other victims. Then the sense of
+duty gave me strength, and I was able to rouse myself from my lethargy.
+With the help of Abbe Gabriel, a sublime, oh! a sublime priest--the ideal
+of a true Christian--the worthy brother of Agricola--I courageously
+entered on the struggle. What shall I say to you, my child? The
+performance of these duties, the hope of finding you again, have been
+some relief to me in my trouble. If I was not consoled, I was at least
+occupied. Your tender friendship, the example of your resignation, will
+do the rest--I think so--I am sure so--and I shall forget this fatal
+love."
+
+At the moment Adrienne pronounced these words, rapid footsteps were heard
+upon the stairs, and a young, clear voice exclaimed: "Oh! dear me, poor
+Mother Bunch! How lucky I have come just now! If only I could be of some
+use to her!"
+
+Almost immediately, Rose-Pompon entered the garret with precipitation.
+Agricola soon followed the grisette, and pointing to the open window,
+tried to make Adrienne understand by signs, that she was not to mention
+to the girl the deplorable end of the Bacchanal Queen. This pantomime was
+lost on Mdlle. de Cardoville. Adrienne's heart swelled with grief,
+indignation, pride, as she recognized the girl she had seen at the Porte
+Saint-Martin in company with Djalma, and who alone was the cause of the
+dreadful sufferings she endured since that fatal evening. And, strange
+irony of fate! it was at the very moment when Adrienne had just made the
+humiliating and cruel confession of her despised love, that the woman, to
+whom she believed herself sacrificed, appeared before her.
+
+If the surprise of Mdlle. de Cardoville was great, Rose-Pompon's was not
+less so. Not only did she recognize in Adrienne the fair young lady with
+the golden locks, who had sat opposite to her at the theatre, on the
+night of the adventure of the black panther, but she had serious reasons
+for desiring most ardently this unexpected interview. It is impossible to
+paint the look of malignant joy and triumph, that she affected to cast
+upon Adrienne. The first impulse of Mdlle. de Cardoville was to quit the
+room. But she could not bear to leave Mother Bunch at this moment, or to
+give, in the presence of Agricola, her reasons for such an abrupt
+departure, and moreover, an inexplicable and fatal curiosity held her
+back, in spite of her offended pride. She remained, therefore, and was
+about to examine closely, to hear and to judge, this rival, who had
+nearly occasioned her death, to whom, in her jealous agony, she had
+ascribed so many different aspects, in order to explain Djalma's love for
+such a creature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE RIVALS.
+
+Rose-Pompon, whose presence caused such deep emotion in Mdlle. de
+Cardoville, was dressed in the most showy and extravagant bad taste. Her
+very small, narrow, rose-colored satin bonnet, placed so forward over her
+face as almost to touch the tip of her little nose, left uncovered behind
+half of her light, silky hair; her plaid dress, of an excessively broad
+pattern, was open in front, and the almost transparent gauze, rather too
+honest in its revelations, hardly covered the charms of the form beneath.
+
+The grisette having run all the way upstairs, held in her hands the ends
+of her large blue shawl, which, falling from her shoulders, had slid down
+to her wasp-like waist, and there been stopped by the swell of the
+figure. If we enter into these details, it is to explain how, at the
+sight of this pretty creature, dressed in so impertinent and almost
+indecent, a fashion, Mdlle. de Cardoville, who thought she saw in her a
+successful rival, felt her indignation, grief, and shame redoubled.
+
+But judge of the surprise and confusion of Adrienne, when Mdlle. Rose
+Pompon said to her, with the utmost freedom and pertness, "I am delighted
+to see you, madame. You and I must have a long talk together. Only I must
+begin by kissing poor Mother Bunch--with your permission, madame!"
+
+To understand the tone and manner with which this word, "madame" was
+pronounced, you must have been present at some stormy discussion between
+two Rose-Pompons, jealous of each other; then you would be able to judge
+how much provoking hostility may be compressed into the word "madame,"
+under certain circumstances. Amazed at the impudence of Rose-Pompon,
+Mdlle. de Cardoville remained mute; whilst Agricola, entirely occupied
+with the interest he took in the workgirl, who had never withdrawn her
+eyes from him since he entered the room, and with the remembrance of the
+painful scene he had just quitted, whispered to Adrienne, without
+remarking the grisette's effrontery, "Alas, lady! it is all over. Cephyse
+has just breathed her last sigh, without recovering her senses."
+
+"Unfortunate girl!" said Adrienne, with emotion; and for the moment she
+forgot Rose-Pompon.
+
+"We must keep this sad news from Mother Bunch, and only let her know it
+hereafter, with great caution," resumed Agricola. "Luckily, little Rose
+Pompon knows nothing about it."
+
+And he pointed to the grisette, who was now stooping down by the side of
+the workgirl. On hearing Agricola speak so familiarly of Rose-Pompon,
+Adrienne's amazement increased. It is impossible to describe what she
+felt; yet, strangely enough, her sufferings grew less and less, and her
+anxiety diminished, as she listened to the chatter of the grisette.
+
+"Oh, my good dear!" said the latter, with as much volubility as emotion,
+while her pretty blue eyes were filled with tears; "is it possible that
+you did so stupid a thing? Do not poor people help one another? Could you
+not apply to me? You knew that others are welcome to whatever is mine,
+and I would have made a raffle of Philemon's bazaar," added this singular
+girl, with a burst of feeling, at once sincere, touching, and grotesque;
+"I would have sold his three boots, pipes, boating-costume, bed, and even
+his great drinking-glass, and at all events you should not have been
+brought to such an ugly pass. Philemon would not have minded, for he is a
+good fellow; and if he had minded, it would have been all the same. Thank
+heaven! we are not married. I am only wishing to remind you that you
+should have thought of little Rose-Pompon."
+
+"I know you are obliging and kind, miss," said Mother Bunch: for she had
+heard from her sister that Rose-Pompon, like so many of her class, had a
+warm and generous heart.
+
+"After all," resumed the grisette, wiping with the back of her hand the
+tip of her little nose, down which a tear was trickling, "you may tell me
+that you did not know where I had taken up my quarters. It's a queer
+story, I can tell you. When I say queer," added Rose-Pompon, with a deep
+sigh, "it is quite the contrary--but no matter: I need not trouble you
+with that. One thing is certain; you are getting better--and you and
+Cephyse will not do such a thing again. She is said to be very weak. Can
+I not see her yet, M. Agricola?
+
+"No," said the smith, with embarrassment, for Mother Bunch kept her eyes
+fixed upon him; "you must have patience."
+
+"But I may see her to-day, Agricola?" exclaimed the hunchback.
+
+"We will talk about that. Only be calm, I entreat."
+
+"Agricola is right; you must be reasonable, my good dear," resumed Rose
+Pompon; "we will wait patiently. I can wait too, for I have to talk
+presently to this lady;" and Rose-Pompon glanced at Adrienne with the
+expression of an angry cat. "Yes, yes; I can wait; for I long to tell
+Cephyse also that she may reckon upon me." Here Rose-Pompon bridled up
+very prettily, and thus continued, "Do not be uneasy! It is the least one
+can do, when one is in a good position, to share the advantages with
+one's friends, who are not so well off. It would be a fine thing to keep
+one's happiness to one's self! to stuff it with straw, and put it under a
+glass, and let no one touch it! When I talk of happiness, it's only to
+make talk; it is true in one sense; but to another, you see, my good
+dear--Bah! I am only seventeen--but no matter--I might go on talking till
+tomorrow, and you would not be any the wiser. So let me kiss you once
+more, and don't be down-hearted--nor Cephyse either, do you hear? for I
+shall be close at hand."
+
+And, stooping still lower, Rose-Pompon cordially embraced Mother Bunch.
+It is impossible to express what Mdlle. de Cardoville felt during this
+conversation, or rather during this monologue of the grisette on the
+subject of the attempted suicide. The eccentric jargon of Mdlle. Rose
+Pompon, her liberal facility in disposing of Philemon's bazaar, to the
+owner of which (as she said) she was luckily not married--the goodness of
+her heart, which revealed itself in her offers of service--her contrasts,
+her impertinence, her drollery--all this was so new and inexplicable to
+Mdlle. de Cardoville, that she remained for some time mute and motionless
+with surprise. Such, then, was the creature to whom Djalma had sacrificed
+her!
+
+If Adrienne's first impression at sight of Rose-Pompon had been horribly
+painful, reflection soon awakened doubts, which were to become shortly
+ineffable hopes. Remembering the interview she had overheard between
+Rodin and Djalma, when, concealed in the conservatory, she had wished to
+prove the Jesuit's fidelity, Adrienne, asked herself if it was
+reasonable, if it was possible to believe, that the prince, whose ideas
+of love seemed to be so poetical, so elevated, so pure, could find any
+charm in the disjointed and silly chat of this young girl? Adrienne could
+not hesitate; she pronounced the thing impossible, from the moment she
+had seen her rival near, and witnessed her style both of manners and
+conversation, which, without detracting from the prettiness of her
+features, gave them a trivial and not very attractive character.
+Adrienne's doubts with regard to the deep love of the prince for Rose
+Pompon were hence soon changed to complete incredulity. Endowed with too
+much sense and penetration, not to perceive that this apparent
+connection, so inconceivable on the part of Djalma, must conceal some
+mystery, Mdlle. de Cardoville felt her hopes revive. As this consoling
+thought arose in her mind, her heart, until now so painfully oppressed,
+began once more to dilate; she felt vague aspirations towards a better
+future; and yet, cruelly warned by the past, she feared to yield too
+readily to a mere illusion, for she remembered the notorious fact that
+the prince had really appeared in public with this girl. But now that
+Mdlle. de Cardoville could fully appreciate what she was, she found the
+conduct of the prince only the more incomprehensible. And how can we
+judge soundly and surely of that which is enveloped in mystery? And then
+a secret presentiment told her, that it would, perhaps, be beside the
+couch of the poor sempstress, whom she had just saved from death, that,
+by a providential coincidence, she would learn the secret on which
+depended the happiness of her life.
+
+The emotions which agitated she heart of Adrienne, became so violent,
+that her fine face was flushed with a bright red, her bosom heaved, and
+her large, black eyes, lately dimmed by sadness, once more shone with a
+mild radiance. She waited with inexpressible impatience for what was to
+follow. In the interview, with which Rose-Pompon had threatened her, and
+which a few minutes before Adrienne would have declined with all the
+dignity of legitimate indignation, she now hoped to find the explanation
+of a mystery, which it was of such importance for her to clear up. After
+once more tenderly embracing Mother Bunch, Rose-Pompon got up from the
+ground, and, turning towards Adrienne, eyed her from head to foot, with
+the utmost coolness, and said to her, in a somewhat impertinent tone: "It
+is now our turn, madame"--the word "madame" still pronounced with the
+accent before described--"we have a little matter to settle together."
+
+"I am at your order," answered Adrienne, with much mildness and
+simplicity.
+
+At sight of the triumphant and decisive air of Rose-Pompon, and on
+hearing her challenge to Mdlle. de Cardoville, the worthy Agricola, after
+exchanging a few words with Mother Bunch, opened his eyes and ears very
+wide, and remained staring in amazement at the effrontery of the
+grisette; then, advancing towards her, he whispered, as he plucked her by
+the sleeve: "I say, are you mad? Do you know to whom you speak?"
+
+"Well! what then? Is not one pretty woman worth another! I say that for
+the lady. She will not eat me, I suppose," replied Rose-Pompon, aloud,
+and with an air of defiance. "I have to talk with madame, here. I am
+sure, she knows why and wherefore. If not, I will tell her; it will not
+take me long."
+
+Adrienne, who feared some ridiculous exposure on the subject of Djalma,
+in the presence of Agricola, made a sign to the latter, and thus answered
+the grisette: "I am ready to hear you, miss, but not in this place. You
+will understand why."
+
+"Very well, madame, I have my key. You can come to any apartments"--the
+last word pronounced with an air of ostentatious importance.
+
+"Let us go then to your apartments, miss since you to me the honor to
+receive me there," answered Mdlle. de Cardoville, in her mild, sweet
+voice, and with a slight inclination of the head, so full of exquisite
+politeness, that Rose-Pompon was daunted, notwithstanding all her
+effrontery.
+
+"What, lady!" said Agricola to Adrienne; "you are good enough--"
+
+"M. Agricola," said Mdlle. de Cardoville, interrupting him, "please to
+remain with our poor friend: I shall soon be back."
+
+Then, approaching Mother Bunch, who shared in Agricola's astonishment she
+said to her: "Excuse me for leaving you a few seconds. Only regain a
+little strength, and, when I return, I will take you home with me, dear
+sister."
+
+Then, turning towards Rose-Pompon, who was more and more surprised at
+hearing so fine a lady call the workgirl her sister, she added: "I am
+ready whenever you please, mademoiselle."
+
+"Beg pardon, madame, if I go first to show you the way, but it's a
+regular break-neck sort of a place," answered Rose-Pompon, pressing her
+elbows to her sides, and screwing up her lips to prove that she was no
+stranger to polite manners and fine language. And the two rivals quitted
+the garret together, leaving Agricola alone with Mother Bunch.
+
+Luckily, the disfigured remains of the Bacchanal Queen had been carried
+into Mother Arsene's subterraneous shop, so that the crowd of spectators,
+always attracted by any fatal event, had assembled in front of the house;
+and Rose-Pompon, meeting no one in the little court she had to traverse
+with Adrienne, continued in ignorance of the tragical death of her old
+friend Cephyse. In a few moments the grisette and Mdlle. de Cardoville
+had reached Philemon's apartment. This singular abode remained in the
+same state of picturesque disorder in which Rose-Pompon had left it, when
+Ninny Moulin came to fetch her to act the heroine of a mysterious
+adventure.
+
+Adrienne, completely ignorant of the eccentric modes of life of students
+and their companions, could not, in spite of the thoughts which occupied
+her mind, forebear examining, with a mixture of surprise and curiosity,
+this strange and grotesque chaos, composed of the most dissimilar
+objects--disguises for masked balls, skulls with pipes in their mouths,
+odd boots standing on book shelves, monstrous bottles, women's clothes,
+ends of tobacco pipes, etc., etc. To the first astonishment of Adrienne
+succeeded an impression of painful repugnance. The young lady felt
+herself uneasy and out of place in this abode, not of poverty, but
+disorder; whilst, on the contrary, the sewing-girl's miserable garret had
+caused her no such feeling.
+
+Rose-Pompon, notwithstanding all her airs, was considerably troubled when
+she found herself alone with Mdlle, de Cardoville; the rare beauty of the
+young patrician, her fashionable look, the elegance of her manners, the
+style, both dignified and affable, with which she had answered the
+impertinent address of the grisette, began to have their effect upon the
+latter, who, being moreover a good-natured girl, had been touched at
+hearing Mdlle. de Cardoville call the hunchback "friend and sister."
+Without knowing exactly who Adrienne was, Rose-Pompon was not ignorant
+that she belonged to the richest and highest class of society; she felt
+already some remorse at having attacked her so cavalierly; and her
+intentions, at first very hostile with regard to Mdlle. de Cardoville,
+were gradually much modified. Yet, being very obstinate, and not wishing
+to appear to submit to an influence that offended her pride, Rose-Pompon
+endeavored to recover her assurance; and, having bolted the door, she
+said to Adrienne: "Pray do me the favor to sit down, madame"--still with
+the intention of showing that she was no stranger to refined manners and
+conversation.
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville was about mechanically to take a chair, when Rose
+Pompon, worthy to practise those ancient virtues of hospitality, which
+regarded even an enemy as sacred in the person of a guest, cried out
+hastily: "Don't take that chair, madame; it wants a leg."
+
+Adrienne laid her hand on another chair.
+
+"Nor that either; the back is quite loose," again exclaimed Rose-Pompon.
+And she spoke the truth; for the chair-back, which was made in the form
+of a lyre, remained in the hands of Mdlle. de Cardoville, who said, as
+she replaced it discreetly in its former position: "I think, miss, that
+we can very well talk standing."
+
+"As you please, madame," replied Rose-Pompon, steadying herself the more
+bravely the more uneasy she felt. And the interview of the lady and the
+grisette began in this fashion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE INTERVIEW.
+
+After a minute's hesitation, Rose-Pompon said to Adrienne, whose heart
+was beating violently: "I will tell you directly, madame, what I have on
+my mind. I should not have gone out of my way to seek you, but, as I
+happen to fall in with you, it is very natural I should take advantage of
+it."
+
+"But, miss," said Adrienne, mildly, "may I at least know the subject of
+the conversation we are to have together?"
+
+"Yes, madame," replied Rose-Pompon, affecting an air of still more
+decided confidence; "first of all, you must not suppose I am unhappy, or
+going to make a scene of jealousy, or cry like a forsaken damsel. Do not
+flatter yourself! Thank heaven, I have no reason to complain of Prince
+Charming--that is the pet name I gave him--on the contrary, he has made
+me very happy. If I left him, it was against his will, and because I
+chose."
+
+So saying, Rose-Pompon, whose heart was swelling in spite of her fine
+airs, could not repress a sigh.
+
+"Yes, madame," she resumed, "I left him because I chose--for he quite
+doted on me. If I had liked, he would have married me--yes, madame,
+married me--so much the worse, if that gives you pain. Though, when I say
+'so much the worse,' it is true that I meant to pain you. To be sure I
+did--but then, just now when I saw you so kind to poor Mother Bunch,
+though I was certainly in the right, still I felt something. However, to
+cut matters short, it is clear that I detest you, and that you deserve
+it," added Rose-Pompon, stamping her foot.
+
+From all this it resulted, even for a person much less sagacious than
+Adrienne, and much less interested in discovering the truth, that Rose
+Pompon, notwithstanding her triumphant airs in speaking of him whom she
+represented as so much attached to her, and even anxious to wed her, was
+in reality completely disappointed, and was now taking refuge in a
+deliberate falsehood. It was evident that she was not loved, and that
+nothing but violent jealousy had induced her to desire this interview
+with Mdlle. de Cardoville, in order to make what is vulgarly called a
+scene, considering Adrienne (the reason will be explained presently) as
+her successful rival. But Rose-Pompon, having recovered her good-nature,
+found it very difficult to continue the scene in question, particularly
+as, for many reasons, she felt overawed by Adrienne.
+
+Though she had expected, if not the singular speech of the grisette, at
+least something of the same result--for she felt it was impossible that
+the prince could entertain a serious attachment for this girl--Mdlle. de
+Cardoville was at first delighted to hear the confirmation of her hopes
+from the lips of her rival; but suddenly these hopes were succeeded by a
+cruel apprehension, which we will endeavor to explain. What Adrienne had
+just heard ought to have satisfied her completely. Sure that the heart of
+Djalma had never ceased to belong to her, she ought, according to the
+customs and opinions of the world, to have cared little if, in the
+effervescence of an ardent youth, he had chanced to yield to some
+ephemeral caprice for this creature, who was, after all, very pretty and
+desirable--the more especially as he had now repaired his error by
+separating from her.
+
+Notwithstanding these good reasons, such an error of the senses would not
+have been pardoned by Adrienne. She did not understand that complete
+separation of the body and soul that would make the one exempt from the
+stains of the other. She did not think it a matter of indifference to toy
+with one woman whilst you were thinking of another. Her young, chaste,
+passionate love demanded an absolute fealty--a fealty as just in the eyes
+of heaven and nature as it may be ridiculous and foolish in the eyes of
+man. For the very reason that she cherished a refined religion of the
+senses, and revered them as an adorable and divine manifestation,
+Adrienne had all sorts of delicate scruples and nice repugnances, unknown
+to the austere spirituality of those ascetic prudes who despise vile
+matter too much to take notice of its errors, and allow it to grovel in
+filth, to show the contempt in which they hold it. Mdlle. de Cardoville
+was not one of those wonderfully modest creatures who would die of
+confusion rather than say plainly that they wished for a young and
+handsome husband, at once ardent and pure. It is true that they generally
+marry old, ugly, and corrupted men, and make up for it by taking two or
+three lovers six months after. But Adrienne felt instinctively how much
+of virginal and celestial freshness there is in the equal innocence of
+two loving and passionate beings--what guarantees for the future in the
+remembrance which a man preserves of his first love!
+
+We say, then, that Adrienne was only half-satisfied, though convinced by
+the vexation of Rose-Pompon that Djalma had never entertained a serious
+attachment for the grisette.
+
+"And why do you detest me, miss?" said Adrienne mildly, when Rose-Pompon
+had finished her speech.
+
+"Oh! bless me, madame!" replied the latter, forgetting altogether her
+assumption of triumph, and yielding to the natural sincerity of her
+character; "pretend that you don't know why I detest you!--Oh, yes!
+people go and pick bouquets from the jaws of a panther for people that
+they care nothing about, don't they? And if it was only that!" added
+Rose-Pompon, who was gradually getting animated, and whose pretty face,
+at first contracted into a sullen pout, now assumed an expression of real
+and yet half-comic sorrow.
+
+"And if it was only the nosegay!" resumed she. "Though it gave me a
+dreadful turn to see Prince Charming leap like a kid upon the stage, I
+might have said to myself: 'Pooh! these Indians have their own way of
+showing politeness. Here, a lady drops her nosegay, and a gentleman picks
+it up and gives it to her; but in India it is quite another thing; the
+man picks up the nosegay, and does not return it to the woman--he only
+kills a panther before her eyes.' Those are good manners in that country,
+I suppose; but what cannot be good manners anywhere is to treat a woman
+as I have been treated. And all thanks to you, madame!"
+
+These complaints of Rose-Pompon, at once bitter and laughable, did not at
+all agree with what she had previously stated as to Djalma's passionate
+love for her; but Adrienne took care not to point out this contradiction,
+and said to her, mildly: "You must be mistaken, miss, when you suppose
+that I had anything to do with your troubles. But, in any case, I regret
+sincerely that you should have been ill-treated by any one."
+
+"If you think I have been beaten, you are quite wrong," exclaimed Rose
+Pompon. "Ah! well, I am sure! No, it is not that. But I am certain that,
+had it not been for you, Prince Charming would have got to love me a
+little. I am worthy of the trouble, after all--and then there are
+different sorts of love--I am not so very particular--not even so much as
+that," added Rose-Pompon, snapping her fingers.
+
+"Ah!" she continued, "when Ninny Moulin came to fetch me, and brought me
+jewels and laces to persuade me to go with him, he was quite right in
+saying there was no harm in his offers."
+
+"Ninny Moulin?" asked Mdlle. de Cardoville, becoming more and more
+interested; "who is this Ninny Moulin, miss?"
+
+"A religious writer," answered Rose-Pompon, pouting; "the right-hand man
+of a lot of old sacristans, whose money he takes on pretense of writing
+about morality and religion. A fine morality it is!"
+
+At these words--"a religious writer"--"sacristans" Adrienne instantly
+divined some new plot of Rodin or Father d'Aigrigny, of which she and
+Djalma were to have been the victims. She began vaguely to perceive the
+real state of the case, as she resumed: "But, miss, under what pretence
+could this man take you away with him?"
+
+"He came to fetch me, and said I need not fear for my virtue, and was
+only to make myself look pretty. So I said to myself: 'Philemon's out of
+town, and it's very dull here all alone: This seems a droll affair; what
+can I risk by it?'--Alas! I didn't know what I risked," added Rose
+Pompon, with a sigh. "Well! Ninny Moulin takes me away in a fine
+carriage. We stop in the Place du Palais-Royal. A sullen-looking man,
+with a yellow face, gets up in the room of Ninny Moulin, and takes me to
+the house of Prince Charming. When I saw him--la! he was so handsome, so
+very handsome, that I was quite dizzy-like; and he had such a kind, noble
+air, that I said to myself, 'Well! there will be some credit if I remain
+a good girl now!'--I did not know what a true word I was speaking. I have
+been good--oh! worse than good."
+
+"What, miss! do you regret having been so virtuous?"
+
+"Why, you see, I regret, at least, that I have not had the pleasure of
+refusing. But how can you refuse, when nothing is asked--when you are not
+even thought worth one little loving word?"
+
+"But, miss, allow me to observe to you that the indifference of which you
+complain does not see to have prevented your making a long stay in the
+house in question."
+
+"How should I know why the prince kept me there, or took me out riding
+with him, or to the play? Perhaps it is the fashion in his savage country
+to have a pretty girl by your side, and to pay no attention to her at
+all!"
+
+"But why, then, did you remain, miss?"
+
+"Why did I remain?" said Rose-Pompon, stamping her loot with vexation. "I
+remained because, without knowing how it happened, I began to get very
+fond of Prince Charming; and what is queer enough, I, who am as gay as a
+lark, loved him because he was so sorrowful, which shows that it was a
+serious matter. At last, one day, I could hold out no longer. I said:
+'Never mind; I don't care for the consequences. Philemon, I am sure, is
+having his fun in the country.' That set my mind at ease. So one morning,
+I dress myself in my best, all very pretty, look in my glass, and say:
+'Well, that will do--he can't stand that! and, going to his room, I tell
+him all that passes through my head; I laugh, I cry--at last I tell him
+that I adore him. What do you think he answers, in his mild voice, and as
+cold as a piece of marble? Why, 'Poor child--poor child--poor child!'"
+added Rose-Pompon, with indignation; "neither more nor less than if I had
+come to complain to him of the toothache. But the worst of it is that I
+am sure, if he were not in love elsewhere, he would be all fire and
+gunpowder. Only now he is so sad, so dejected!"
+
+Then, pausing a moment, Rose-Pompon added: "No, I will not tell you that;
+you would be too pleased." But, after another pause, she continued:
+"Well, never mind; I will tell you, though"; and this singular girl
+looked at Mdlle. de Cardoville with a mixture of sympathy and deference.
+"Why should I keep it from you? I began by riding the high horse, and
+saying that the prince wished to marry me; and I finished by confessing
+that he almost turned me out. Well, it's not my fault; when I try to fib,
+I am sure to get confused. So, madame, this is the plain truth:--When I
+met you at poor Mother Bunch's, I was at first as angry as a little
+turkey-cock; but when I heard you, that are such a fine great lady, speak
+so kindly to the poor girl, and treat her as your sister, do what I
+would, my anger began to go away. Since we have been here, I have done my
+utmost to get it up again; but I find it impossible, and the more I see
+the difference between us, the more I perceive that Prince Charming was
+right in thinking so much of you. For you must know, madame, that he is
+over head and ears in love with you. I don't say so merely because he
+killed the panther for you at the Porte-Saint-Martin; but if you knew all
+the tricks he played with your bouquet, and how he will sit up all night
+weeping in that room where he saw you for the first time--and then your
+portrait, that he has drawn upon glass, after the fashion of his country,
+and so many other things--the fact is, that I, who was fond of him, and
+saw all this was at first in a great rage; but afterwards it was so
+touching that it brought the tears into my eyes. Yes, madame, just as it
+does now, when I merely think of the poor prince. Oh, madame!" added
+Rose-Pompon, her eyes swimming in tears, and with such an expression of
+sincere interest, that Adrienne was much moved by it; "oh, madame, you
+look so mild and good, that you will not make this poor prince miserable.
+Pray love him a little bit; what can it matter to you?"
+
+So saying, Rose-Pompon, with a perfectly simple, though too familiar,
+gesture, took hold of Adrienne's hand, as if to enforce her request. It
+had required great self-command in Mdlle. de Cardoville to repress the
+rush of joy that was mounting from her heart to her lips, to check the
+torrent of questions which she burned to address to Rose-Pompon, and to
+restrain the sweet tears of happiness that for some seconds had trembled
+in her eyes; and, strangely enough, when Rose-Pompon took her hand,
+Adrienne, instead of withdrawing it, pressed the offered hand almost
+affectionately, and led her towards the window, as if to examine her
+sweet face more attentively.
+
+On entering the room, the grisette had thrown her bonnet and shawl down
+upon the bed, so that Adrienne could admire the thick and silky masses of
+light hair that crowned the fresh face of the charming girl, with its
+firm, rosy cheeks, its mouth as red as a cherry, and its large blue
+laughing eyes; and, thanks to the somewhat scanty dress of Rose-Pompon,
+Adrienne could fully appreciate the various graces of her nymph-like
+figure. Strange as it may appear, Adrienne was delighted at finding the
+girl still prettier than she had at first imagined. The stoical
+indifference of Djalma to so attractive a creature was the best proof of
+the sincerity of the passion by which he was actuated.
+
+Having taken the hand of Adrienne, Rose-Pompon was herself confused and
+surprised at the kindness with which Mdlle. de Cardoville permitted this
+familiarity. Emboldened by this indulgence, and by the silence of
+Adrienne, who for some moments had been contemplating her with almost
+grateful benevolence, the grisette resumed: "Oh, you will not refuse,
+madame? You will take pity on this poor prince?"
+
+We cannot tell how Adrienne would have answered this indiscreet question
+of Rose-Pompon, for suddenly a loud, wild, shrill, piercing sound,
+evidently intended to imitate the crowing of a cock, was heard close to
+the door of the room.
+
+Adrienne started in alarm; but the countenance of Rose Pompon, just now
+so sad, brightened up joyously at this signal, and, clapping her hands
+she exclaimed, "It is Philemon!"
+
+"What--who?" said Adrienne, hastily.
+
+"My lover; oh, the monster! he must have come upstairs on tiptoe, to take
+me by surprise with his crowing. Just like him!"
+
+A second cock-a-doodle-doo, still louder than the first, was heard close
+to the door. "What a stupid, droll creature it is! Always the same joke,
+and yet it always amuses me," said Rose-Pompon.
+
+And drying her tears with the back of her hand, she began to laugh like
+one bewitched at Philemon's jest, which, though well known to her, always
+seemed new and agreeable.
+
+"Do not open the door," whispered Adrienne, much embarrassed; "do not
+answer, I beg of you."
+
+"Though the door is bolted, the key is on the outside; Philemon can see
+that there is some one at home."
+
+"No matter--do not let him in."
+
+"But, madame, he lives here; the room belongs to him."
+
+In fact, Philemon, probably growing tired of the little effect produced
+by his two ornithological imitations, turned the key in the lock, and
+finding himself unable to open the door, said in a deep bass voice:
+"What, dearest puss, have you shut yourself in? Are you praying Saint
+Flambard for the return of Philly?" (short for Philemon.)
+
+Adrienne, not coshing to increase, by prolonging it, the awkwardness of
+this ridiculous situation, went straight to the door and opened it, to
+the great surprise of Philemon, who recoiled two or three steps.
+Notwithstanding the annoyance of this incident, Mdlle. de Cardoville
+could not help smiling at sight of Rose-Pompon's lover, and of the
+articles he carried in his hand or under his arm.
+
+Philemon was a tall fellow, with dark hair and a very fresh color, and,
+being just arrived from a journey, he wore a white cap; his thick, black
+beard flowed down on his sky-blue waistcoat; and a short olive-colored
+velvet shooting-coat, with extravagantly large plaid trousers, completed
+his costume. As for the accessories which had provoked a smile from
+Adrienne, they consisted: first, of a portmanteau tucked under his arm,
+with the head and neck of a goose protruding from it; secondly, of a cage
+held in his hand, with an enormous white rabbit all alive within it.
+
+"Oh! the darling white rabbit! what pretty red eyes!" Such, it must be
+confessed, was the first exclamation of Rose-Pompon, though Philemon, to
+whom it was not addressed, had returned after a long absence; but the
+student far from being shocked at seeing himself thus sacrificed to his
+long-earned companion, smiled complacently, rejoicing at the success of
+his attempt to please his mistress.
+
+All this passed very rapidly. While Rose-Pompon, kneeling before the
+cage, was still occupied with her admiration of the rabbit, Philemon,
+struck with the lofty air of Mdlle. de Cardoville, raised his hand to his
+cap, and bowed respectfully as he made way for her to pass. Adrienne
+returned his salutation with politeness, full of grace and dignity, and,
+lightly descending the stairs, soon disappeared. Dazzled by her beauty,
+as well as impressed with her noble and lofty bearing, and curious to
+know how in the world Rose-Pompon had fallen in with such an
+acquaintance, Philemon said to her, in his amorous jargon: "Dearest puss!
+tell her Philly who is that fine lady?"
+
+"One of my school-fellows, you great satyr!" said Rose-Pompon, still
+playing with the rabbit.
+
+Then, glancing at a box, which Philemon deposited close to the cage and
+the portmanteau, she added: "I'll wager anything you have brought me some
+more preserves!"
+
+"Philly has brought something better to his dear puss," said the student,
+imprinting two vigorous kisses on the rosy cheeks of Rose-Pompon, who had
+at length, consented to stand up; "Philly has brought her his heart."
+
+"Fudge!" said the grisette, delicately placing the thumb of her left hand
+on the tip of her nose, and opening the fingers, which she slightly moved
+to and fro. Philemon answered this provocation by putting his arm around
+her waist; and then the happy pair shut their door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+SOOTHING WORDS.
+
+During the interview of Adrienne with Rose-Pompon a touching scene took
+place between Agricola and Mother Bunch, who had been much surprised at
+Mdlle. de Cardoville's condescension with regard to the grisette.
+Immediately after the departure of Adrienne, Agricola had knelt down
+beside Mother Bunch, and said to her, with profound emotion: "We are
+alone, and I can at length tell you what weighs upon my heart. This act
+is too cruel--to die of misery and despair, and not to send to me for
+assistance."
+
+"Listen to me, Agricola--"
+
+"No, there is no excuse for this. What! we called each other by the names
+of brother and sister, and for fifteen years gave every proof of sincere
+affection--and, when the day of misfortune comes, you quit life without
+caring for those you must leave behind--without considering that to kill
+yourself is to tell them they are indifferent to you!"
+
+"Forgive me, Agricola! it is true. I had never thought of that," said the
+workgirl, casting down her eyes; "but poverty--want of work--"
+
+"Misery! want of work! and was I not here?"
+
+"And despair!"
+
+"But why despair? This generous young lady had received you in her house;
+she knew your worth, and treated you as her friend--and just at the
+moment when you had every chance of happiness, you leave the house
+abruptly, and we remain in the most horrible anxiety on your account."
+
+"I feared--to be--to be a burden to my benefactress," stammered she.
+
+"You a burden to Mdlle. de Cardoville, that is so rich and good!"
+
+"I feared to be indiscreet," said the sewing-girl, more and more
+embarrassed.
+
+Instead of answering his adopted sister, Agricola remained silent, and
+contemplated her for some moments with an undefinable expression; then he
+exclaimed suddenly, as if replying to a question put by himself: "She
+will forgive me for disobeying her.--I am sure of it."
+
+He next turned towards Mother Bunch, who was looking at him in
+astonishment, and said to her in a voice of emotion: "I am too frank to
+keep up this deception. I am reproaching you--blaming you--and my
+thoughts are quite different."
+
+"How so, Agricola?"
+
+"My heart aches, when I think of the evil I have done you."
+
+"I do not understand you, my friend; you have never done me any evil."
+
+"What! never? even in little things? when, for instance, yielding to a
+detestable habit, I, who loved and respected you as my sister, insulted
+you a hundred times a day?"
+
+"Insulted me!"
+
+"Yes--when I gave you an odious and ridiculous nickname, instead of
+calling you properly."
+
+At these words, Mother Bunch looked at the smith in the utmost alarm,
+trembling lest he had discovered her painful secret, notwithstanding the
+assurance she had received from Mdlle. de Cardoville. Yet she calmed
+herself a little when she reflected, that Agricola might of himself have
+thought of the humiliation inflicted on her by calling her Mother Bunch,
+and she answered him with a forced smile. "Can you be grieved at so small
+a thing? It was a habit, Agricola, from childhood. When did your good and
+affectionate mother, who nevertheless loved me as her daughter, ever call
+me anything else?"
+
+"And did my mother consult you about my marriage, speak to you of the
+rare beauty of my bride, beg you to come and see her, and study her
+character, in the hope that the instinct of your affection for me would
+warn you--if I made a bad choice? Did my mother have this cruelty?--No;
+it was I, who thus pierced your heart!"
+
+The fears of the hearer were again aroused; there could be but little
+doubt that Agricola knew her secret. She felt herself sinking with
+confusion; yet, making a last effort not to believe the discovery, she
+murmured in a feeble voice: "True, Agricola! It was not your mother, but
+yourself, who made me that request--and I was grateful to you for such a
+mark of confidence."
+
+"Grateful, my poor girl!" cried the smith, whilst his eyes filled with
+tears; "no, it is not true. I pained you fearfully--I was
+merciless--heaven knows, without being aware of it!"
+
+"But," said the other, in a voice now almost unintelligible, "what makes
+you think so?"
+
+"Your love for me!" cried the smith, trembling with emotion, as he
+clasped Mother Bunch in a brotherly embrace.
+
+"Oh heaven!" murmured the unfortunate creature, as she covered her face
+with her hands, "he knows all."
+
+"Yes, I know all," resumed Agricola, with an expression of ineffable
+tenderness and respect: "yes, I know all, and I will not have you blush
+for a sentiment, which honors me, and of which I feel so justly proud.
+Yes, I know all; and I say to myself with joy and pride, that the best,
+the most noble heart in the world is mine--will be mine always. Come,
+Magdalen; let us leave shame to evil passions. Raise your eyes, and look
+at me! You know, if my countenance was ever false--if it ever reflected a
+feigned emotion. Then look and tell me, if you cannot read in my
+features, how proud I am, Magdalen, how justly proud of your love!"
+
+Overwhelmed with grief and confusion, Mother Bunch had not dared to look
+on Agricola; but his words expressed so deep a conviction, the tones of
+his voice revealed so tender an emotion, that the poor creature felt her
+shame gradually diminish, particularly when Agricola added, with rising
+animation: "Be satisfied, my sweet, my noble Magdalen; I will be worthy
+of this love. Believe me, it shall yet cause you as much happiness as it
+has occasioned tears. Why should this love be a motive for estrangement,
+confusion, fear? For what is love, in the sense in which it is held by
+your generous heart? Is it not a continual exchange of devotion,
+tenderness, esteem, of mutual and blind confidence?--Why, Magdalen! we
+may have all this for one another--devotion, tenderness, confidence--even
+more than in times past; for, on a thousand occasions, your secret
+inspired you with fear and suspicion--while, for the future, on the
+contrary, you will see me take such delight in the place I fill in your
+good and valiant heart, that you will be happy in the happiness you
+bestow. What I have just said may seem very selfish and conceited; so
+much the worse! I do not know how to lie."
+
+The longer the smith spoke, the less troubled became Mother Bunch. What
+she had above all feared in the discovery of her secret was to see it
+received with raillery, contempt, or humiliating compassion; far from
+this, joy and happiness were distinctly visible on the manly and honest
+face of Agricola. The hunchback knew him incapable of deception;
+therefore she exclaimed, this time without shame or confusion, but rather
+with a sort of pride.
+
+"Every sincere and pure passion is so far good and con soling as to end
+by deserving interest and sympathy, when it has triumphed over its first
+excess! It is alike honorable to the heart which feels and that which
+inspires it!--Thanks to you, Agricola--thanks to the kind words, which
+have raised me in my own esteem--I feel that, instead of blushing, I
+ought to be proud of this love. My benefactress is right--you are right:
+why should I be ashamed of it? Is it not a true and sacred love? To be
+near you, to love you, to tell you so, to prove it by constant devotion,
+what did I ever desire more? And yet shame and fear, joined with that
+dizziness of the brain which extreme misery produces, drove me to
+suicide!--But then some allowance must be made for the suspicions of a
+poor creature, who has been the subject of ridicule from her cradle. So
+my secret was to die with me, unless some unforeseen accident should
+reveal it to you; and, in that case, you are right--sure of myself, sure
+of you, I ought to have feared nothing. But I may claim some indulgence;
+mistrust, cruel mistrust of one's self makes one doubt others also. Let
+us forget all that. Agricola, my generous brother, I will say to you, as
+you said to me just now, 'Look at me; you know my countenance cannot lie.
+Look at me: see if I shun your gaze; see if, ever in my life, I looked so
+happy'--and yet, even now, I was about to die!"
+
+She spoke the truth. Agricola himself could not have hoped so prompt an
+effect from his words. In spite of the deep traces which misery, grief,
+and sickness had imprinted on the girl's features, they now shone with
+radiant happiness and serenity, whilst her blue eyes, gentle and pure as
+her soul, were fixed, without embarrassment, on those of Agricola.
+
+"Oh! thanks, thanks!" cried the smith, in a rapture of delight: "when I
+see you so calm, and so happy, Magdalen, I am indeed grateful."
+
+"Yes, I am calm, I am happy," replied she; "and happy I shall be, for I
+can now tell you my most secret thoughts. Yes, happy; for this day, which
+began so fatally, ends like a divine dream. Far from being afraid, I now
+look at you with hope and joy. I have again found my generous
+benefactress, and I am tranquil as to the fate of my poor sister. Oh!
+shall we not soon see her? I should like her to take part in this
+happiness."
+
+She seemed so happy, that the smith did not dare to inform her of the
+death of Cephyse, and reserved himself to communicate the same at a more
+fitting opportunity. Therefore he answered: "Cephyse, being the stronger,
+has been the more shaken; it will not be prudent, I am told, to see her
+to-day."
+
+"I will wait then. I can repress my impatience, I have so much to say to
+you."
+
+"Dear, gentle Magdalen!"
+
+"Oh, my friend!" cried the girl, interrupting Agricola, with tears of
+joy: "I cannot tell you what I feel, when I hear you call me Magdalen. It
+is so sweet, so soothing, that my heart expands with delight."
+
+"Poor girl! how dreadfully she must have suffered!" cried the smith, with
+inexpressible emotion, "when she displays so much happiness, so much
+gratitude, at being called by her own poor name!"
+
+"But consider, my friend; that word in your mouth contains a new life for
+me. If you only knew what hopes, what pleasures I can now see gleaming in
+the future! If you knew all the cherished longings of my tenderness! Your
+wife, the charming Angela, with her angel face and angel-soul--oh! in my
+turn, I can say to, you, 'Look at me, and see how sweet that name is to
+my lips and heart!' Yes, your charming, your good Angela will call me
+Magdalen--and your children, Agricola, your children!--dear little
+creatures!--to them also I shall be Magdalen--their good Magdalen--and
+the love I shall bear them will make them mine, as well as their
+mother's--and I shall have my part in every maternal care--and they will
+belong to us three; will they not, Agricola?--Oh! let me, let me weep!
+These tears without bitterness do me so much good; they are tears that
+need not be concealed. Thank heaven! thank you, my friend! those other
+tears are I trust dried forever."
+
+For some seconds, this affecting scene had been overlooked by an
+invisible witness. The smith and Mother Bunch had not perceived Mdlle. de
+Cardoville standing on the threshold of the door. As Mother Bunch had
+said, this day, which dawned with all under such fatal auspices, had
+become for all a day of ineffable felicity. Adrienne, too, was full of
+joy, for Djalma had been faithful to her, Djalma loved her with passion.
+The odious appearances, of which she had been the dupe and victim,
+evidently formed part of a new plot of Rodin, and it only remained for
+Mdlle. de Cardoville to discover the end of these machinations.
+
+Another joy was reserved for her. The happy are quick in detecting
+happiness in others, and Adrienne guessed, by the hunchback's last words,
+that there was no longer any secret between the smith and the sempstress.
+She could not therefore help exclaiming, as she entered: "Oh! this will
+be the brightest day of my life, for I shall not be happy alone!"
+
+Agricola and Mother Bunch turned round hastily. "Lady," said the smith,
+"in spite of the promise I made you, I could not conceal from Magdalen
+that I knew she loved me!"
+
+"Now that I no longer blush for this love before Agricola, why should I
+blush for it before you, lady, that told me to be proud of it, because it
+is noble and pure?" said Mother Bunch, to whom her happiness gave
+strength enough to rise, and to lean upon Agricola's arm.
+
+"It is well, my friend," said Adrienne, as she threw her arms round her
+to support her; "only one word, to excuse the indiscretion with which you
+will perhaps reproach me. If I told your secret to M. Agricola--"
+
+"Do you know why it was, Magdalen?" cried the smith, interrupting
+Adrienne. "It was only another proof of the lady's delicate generosity.
+'I long hesitate to confide to you this secret,' said she to me this
+morning, 'but I have at length made up my mind to it. We shall probably
+find your adopted sister; you have been to her the best of brothers: but
+many times, without knowing it, you have wounded her feelings
+cruelly--and now that you know her secret, I trust in your kind heart to
+keep it faithfully, and so spare the poor child a thousand pangs--pangs
+the more bitter, because they come from you, and are suffered in silence.
+Hence, when you speak to her of your wife, your domestic happiness, take
+care not to gall that noble and tender heart.'--Yes, Magdalen, these were
+the reasons that led the lady to commit what she called an indiscretion."
+
+"I want words to thank you now and ever," said Mother Bunch.
+
+"See, my friend," replied Adrienne, "how often the designs of the wicked
+turn against themselves. They feared your devotion to me, and therefore
+employed that unhappy Florine to steal your journal--"
+
+"So as to drive me from your house with shame, lady, When I supposed my
+most secret thoughts an object of ridicule to all. There can be no doubt
+such was their plan," said Mother Bunch.
+
+"None, my child. Well! this horrible wickedness, which nearly caused your
+death, now turns to the confusion of the criminals. Their plot is
+discovered--and, luckily, many other of their designs," said Adrienne, as
+she thought of Rose-Pompon.
+
+Then she resumed, with heartfelt joy: "At last, we are again united,
+happier than ever, and in our very happiness we shall find new resources
+to combat our enemies. I say our enemies--for all that love me are odious
+to these wretches. But courage, the hour is come, and the good people
+will have their turn."
+
+"Thank heaven, lady," said the smith; "or my part, I shall not be wanting
+in zeal. What delight to strip them of their mask!"
+
+"Let me remind you, M. Baudoin, that you have an appointment for to
+morrow with M. Hardy."
+
+"I have not forgotten it, lady, any more than the generous offers I am to
+convey to him."
+
+"That is nothing. He belongs to my family. Tell him (what indeed I shall
+write to him this evening), that the funds necessary to reopen his
+factory are at his disposal; I do not say so for his sake only, but for
+that of a hundred families reduced to want. Beg him to quit immediately
+the fatal abode to which they have taken him: for a thousand reasons he
+should be on his guard against all that surround him."
+
+"Be satisfied, lady. The letter he wrote to me in reply to the one I got
+secretly delivered to him, was short, affectionate, sad--but he grants me
+the interview I had asked for, and I am sure I shall be able to persuade
+him to leave that melancholy dwelling, and perhaps to depart with me, he
+has always had so much confidence in my attachment."
+
+"Well, M. Baudoin, courage!" said Adrienne, as she threw her cloak over
+the workgirl's shoulders, and wrapped her round with care. "Let us be
+gone, for it is late. As soon as we get home, I will give you a letter
+for M. Hardy, and to-morrow you will come and tell me the result of your
+visit. No, not to-morrow," she added, blushing slightly. "Write to me
+to-morrow, and the day after, about twelve, come to me."
+
+Some minutes later, the young sempstress, supported by Agricola and
+Adrienne, had descended the stairs of that gloomy house, and, being
+placed in the carriage by the side of Mdlle. de Cardoville, she earnestly
+entreated to be allowed to see Cephyse; it was in vain that Agricola
+assured her it was impossible, and that she should see her the next day.
+Thanks to the information derived from Rose-Pompon, Mdlle. de Cardoville
+was reasonably suspicious of all those who surrounded Djalma, and she
+therefore took measures, that, very evening, to have a letter delivered
+to the prince by what she considered a sure hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+THE TWO CARRIAGES.
+
+It is the evening of the day on which Mdlle. de Cardoville prevented the
+sewing-girl's suicide. It strikes eleven; the night is dark; the wind
+blows with violence, and drives along great black clouds, which
+completely hide the pale lustre of the moon. A hackney-coach, drawn by
+two broken-winded horses, ascends slowly and with difficulty the slope of
+the Rue Blanche, which is pretty steep near the barrier, in the part
+where is situated the house occupied by Djalma.
+
+The coach stops. The coachman, cursing the length of an interminable
+drive "within the circuit," leading at last to this difficult ascent,
+turns round on his box, leans over towards the front window of the
+vehicle, and says in a gruff tone to the person he is driving: "Come! are
+we almost there? From the Rue de Vaugirard to the Barriere Blanche, is a
+pretty good stretch, I think, without reckoning that the night is so
+dark, that one can hardly see two steps before one--and the street-lamps
+not lighted because of the moon, which doesn't shine, after all!"
+
+"Look out for a little door with a portico-drive on about twenty yards
+beyond--and then stop close to the wall," answered a squeaking voice,
+impatiently, and with an Italian accent.
+
+"Here is a beggarly Dutchman, that will make me as savage as a bear?"
+muttered the angry Jehu to himself. Then he added: "Thousand thunders! I
+tell you that I can't see. How the devil can I find out your little
+door?"
+
+"Have you no sense? Follow the wall to the right, brush against it, and
+you will easily find the little door. It is next to No. 50. If you do not
+find it, you must be drunk," answered the Italian, with increased
+bitterness.
+
+The coachman only replied by swearing like a trooper, and whipping up his
+jaded horses. Then, keeping close to the wall, he strained his eyes in
+trying to read the numbers of the houses, by the aid of his carriage
+lamps.
+
+After some moments, the coach again stopped. "I have passed No. 50, and
+here is a little door with a portico," said the coachman. "Is that the
+one?"
+
+"Yes," said the voice. "Now go forward some twenty yards, and then stop."
+
+"Well! I never--"
+
+"Then get down from your box, and give twice three knocks at the little
+door we have just passed--you understand me?--twice three knocks."
+
+"Is that all you give me to drink?" cried the exasperated coachman.
+
+"When you have taken me back to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where I live,
+you shall have something handsome, if you do but manage matters well."
+
+"Ha! now the Faubourg Saint-Germain! Only that little bit of distance!"
+said the driver, with repressed rage. "And I who have winded my horses,
+wanted to be on the boulevard by the time the play was out. Well, I'm
+blowed!" Then, putting a good face on his bad luck, and consoling himself
+with the thought of the promised drink-money, he resumed: "I am to give
+twice three knocks at the little door?"
+
+"Yes; three knocks first--then pause--then three other knocks. Do you
+understand?"
+
+"What next?"
+
+"Tell the person who comes, that he is waited for, and bring him here to
+the coach."
+
+"The devil burn you!" said the coachman to himself, as he turned round on
+the box, and whipped up his horses, adding: "this crusty old Dutchman has
+something to do with Free-masons, or, perhaps, smugglers, seeing we are
+so near the gates. He deserves my giving him in charge, for bringing me
+all the way from the Rue de Vaugirard."
+
+At twenty steps beyond the little door, the coach again stopped, and the
+coachman descended from the box to execute the orders he had received.
+Going to the little door, he knocked three times; then paused, as he had
+been desired, and then knocked three times more. The clouds, which had
+hitherto been so thick as entirely to conceal the disk of the moon, just
+then withdrew sufficiently to afford a glimmering light, so that when the
+door opened at the signal, the coachman saw a middle-sized person issue
+from it, wrapped in a cloak, and wearing a colored cap.
+
+This man carefully locked the door, and then advanced two steps into the
+street. "They are waiting for you," said the coachman; "I am to take you
+along with me to the coach."
+
+Preceding the man with the cloak, who only answered him by a nod, he led
+him to the coach-door, which he was about to open, and to let down the
+step, when the voice exclaimed from the inside: "It is not necessary. The
+gentleman may talk to me through the window. I will call you when it is
+time to start."
+
+"Which means that I shall be kept here long enough to send you to all the
+devils!" murmured the driver. "However, I may as well walk about, just to
+stretch my legs."
+
+So saying, he began to walk up and down, by the side of the wall in which
+was the little door. Presently he heard the distant sound of wheels,
+which soon came nearer and nearer, and a carriage, rapidly ascending the
+slope, stopped on the other side of the little garden-door.
+
+"Come, I say! a private carriage!" said the coachman. "Good horses those,
+to come up the Rue Blanche at a trot."
+
+The coachman was just making this observation, when, by favor of a
+momentary gleam of light, he saw a man step from the carriage, advance
+rapidly to the little door, open it, and go in, closing it after him.
+
+"It gets thicker and thicker!" said the coachman. "One comes out, and the
+other goes in."
+
+So saying, he walked up to the carriage. It was splendidly harnessed, and
+drawn by two handsome and vigorous horses. The driver sat motionless, in
+his great box-coat, with the handle of his whip resting on his right
+knee.
+
+"Here's weather to drive about in, with such tidy dukes as yours,
+comrade!" said the humble hackney-coachman to this automaton, who
+remained mute and impassible, without even appearing to know that he was
+spoken to.
+
+"He doesn't understand French--he's an Englishman. One could tell that by
+his horses," said the coachman, putting this interpretation on the
+silence of his brother whip. Then, perceiving a tall footman at a little
+distance, dressed in a long gray livery coat, with blue collar and silver
+buttons, the coachman addressed himself to him, by way of compensation,
+but without much varying his phrase: "Here's nice weather to stand about
+in, comrade!" On the part of the footman, he was met with the same
+imperturbable silence.
+
+"They're both Englishmen," resumed the coachman, philosophically; and,
+though somewhat astonished at the incident of the little door, he
+recommenced his walk in the direction of his own vehicle.
+
+While these facts were passing, the man in the cloak, and the man with
+the Italian accent continued their conversation, the one still in the
+coach, and the other leaning with his hand on the door. It had already
+lasted for some time, and was carried on in Italian. They were evidently
+talking of some absent person, as will appear from the following.
+
+"So," said the voice from the coach, "that is agreed to?"
+
+"Yes, my lord," answered the man in the cloak; "but only in case the
+eagle should become a serpent."
+
+"And, in the contrary event, you will receive the other half of the ivory
+crucifix I gave you."
+
+"I shall know what it means, my lord."
+
+"Continue to merit and preserve his confidence."
+
+"I will merit and preserve it, my lord, because I admire and respect this
+man, who is stronger than the strongest, by craft, and courage, and will.
+I have knelt before him with humility, as I would kneel before one of the
+three black idols that stand between Bowanee and her worshippers; for his
+religion, like mine, teaches to change life into nothingness."
+
+"Humph!" said the voice, in a tone of some embarrassment; "these
+comparisons are useless and inaccurate. Only think of obeying him,
+without explaining your obedience."
+
+"Let him speak, and I perform his will! I am in his hands like a corpse,
+as he himself expresses it. He has seen, he sees every day, my devotion
+to his interests with regard to Prince Djalma. He has only to say: 'Kill
+him!'and this son of a king--"
+
+"For heaven's salve, do not have such ideas!" cried the voice,
+interrupting the man in the cloak. "Thank heaven, you will never be asked
+for such proofs of your submission."
+
+"What I am ordered I do. Bowanee sees me."
+
+"I do not doubt your zeal. I know that you are a loving and intelligent
+barrier, placed between the prince and many guilty interests; and it is
+because I have heard of that zeal, of your skill in circumventing this
+young Indian, and, above all, of the motives of your blind devotion, that
+I have wished to inform you of everything. You are the fanatical
+worshipper of him you serve. That is well; man should be the obedient
+slave of the god he chooses for himself."
+
+"Yes, my lord; so long as the god remains a god."
+
+"We understand each other perfectly. As for your recompense, you know
+what I have promised."
+
+"My lord, I have my reward already."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"I know what I know."
+
+"Very well. Then as for secrecy--"
+
+"You have securities, my lord."
+
+"Yes--and sufficient ones."
+
+"The interest of the cause I serve, my lord, would alone be enough to
+secure my zeal and discretion."
+
+"True; you are a man of firm and ardent convictions."
+
+"I strive to be so, my lord."
+
+"And, after all, a very religious man in your way. It is very
+praiseworthy, in these irreligious times, to have any views at all on
+such matters--particularly when those views will just enable me to count
+upon your aid."
+
+"You may count upon it, my lord, for the same reason that the intrepid
+hunter prefers a jackal to ten foxes, a tiger to ten jackals, a lion to
+ten tigers, and the welmiss to ten lions."
+
+"What is the welmiss?"
+
+"It is what spirit is to matter, the blade to the scabbard, the perfume
+to the flower, the head to the body."
+
+"I understand. There never was a more just comparison. You are a man of
+sound judgment. Always recollect what you have just told me, and make
+yourself more and more worthy of the confidence of--your idol."
+
+"Will he soon be in a state to hear me, my lord?"
+
+"In two or three days, at most. Yesterday a providential crisis saved his
+life; and he is endowed with so energetic a will, that his cure will be
+very rapid."
+
+"Shall you see him again to-morrow, my lord?"
+
+"Yes, before my departure, to bid him farewell."
+
+"Then tell him a strange circumstance, of which I have not been able to
+inform him, but which happened yesterday."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"I had gone to the garden of the dead. I saw funerals everywhere, and
+lighted torches, in the midst of the black night, shining upon tombs.
+Bowanee smiled in her ebon sky. As I thought of that divinity of
+destruction, I beheld with joy the dead-cart emptied of its coffins. The
+immense pit yawned like the mouth of hell; corpses were heaped upon
+corpses, and still it yawned the same. Suddenly, by the light of a torch,
+I saw an old man beside me. He wept. I had seen him before. He is a
+Jew--the keeper of the house in the Rue Saint-Francois--you know what I
+mean." Here the man in the cloak started.
+
+"Yes, I know; but what is the matter? why do you stop short?"
+
+"Because in that house there has been for a hundred and fifty years the
+portrait of a man whom I once met in the centre of India, on the banks of
+the Ganges." And the man in the cloak again paused and shuddered.
+
+"A singular resemblance, no doubt."
+
+"Yes, my lord, a singular resemblance--nothing more."
+
+"But the Jew--the old Jew?"
+
+"I am coming to that, my lord. Still weeping, he said to a gravedigger,
+'Well! and the coffin?' 'You were right,' answered the man; 'I found it
+in the second row of the other grave. It had the figure of a cross on it,
+formed by seven black nails. But how could you know the place and the
+mark?' 'Alas! it is no matter,' replied the old Jew, with bitter
+melancholy. 'You see that I was but too well informed on the subject. But
+where is the coffin?' 'Behind the great tomb of black marble; I have
+hidden it there. So make haste; for, in the confusion, nothing will be
+noticed. You have paid me well, and I wish you to succeed in what you
+require.'"
+
+"And what did the old Jew do with the coffin marked with the seven black
+nails?"
+
+"Two men accompanied him, my lord, bearing a covered litter, with
+curtains drawn round it. He lighted a lantern, and, followed by these two
+men, went towards the place pointed out by the gravedigger. A stoppage,
+occasioned by the dead-carts, made me lose sight of the old Jew, whom I
+was following amongst the tombs. Afterwards I was unable to find him."
+
+"It is indeed a strange affair. What could this old Jew want with the
+coffin?"
+
+"It is said, my lord, that they use dead bodies in preparing their magic
+charms."
+
+"Those unbelievers are capable of anything--even of holding communication
+with the Enemy of mankind. However, we will look after this: the
+discovery may be of importance."
+
+At this instant a clock struck twelve in the distance.
+
+"Midnight! already?"
+
+"Yes, my lord."
+
+"I must be gone. Good-bye--but for the last time swear to me that, should
+matters so turn out, as soon as you receive the other half of the ivory
+crucifix I have just given you, you will keep your promise."
+
+"I have sworn it by Bowanee, my lord."
+
+"Don't forget that, to make all sure, the person who will deliver to you
+the other half of the crucifix is to say--come, what is he to say?"
+
+"He is to say, my lord: 'There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the
+lip.'"
+
+"Very well. Adieu! secrecy and fidelity!"
+
+"Secrecy and fidelity, my lord," answered the man in the cloak.
+
+Some seconds after the hackney-coach started, carrying with it Cardinal
+Malipieri, one of the speakers in the above dialogue. The other, whom the
+reader has no doubt recognized as Faringhea, returned to the little
+garden-door of the house occupied by Djalma. At the moment he was putting
+the key into the lock, the door opened, to his great astonishment, and a
+man came forth. Faringhea rushed upon the unknown, seized him violently
+by the collar, and exclaimed: "Who are you? whence came you?"
+
+The stranger evidently found the tone of this question anything but
+satisfactory; for, instead of answering, he struggled to disengage
+himself from Faringhea's hold, and cried out, in a loud voice: "Help!
+Peter!"
+
+Instantly the carriage, which had been standing a few yards off, dashed
+up at full speed, and Peter, the tall footman, seizing the half-breed by
+the shoulders, flung him back several paces, and thus made a seasonable
+diversion in favor of the unknown.
+
+"Now, sir," said the latter to Faringhea, shaking himself, and still
+protected by the gigantic footman, "I am in a state to answer your
+questions, though you certainly have a very rough way of receiving an old
+acquaintance. I am Dupont, ex-bailiff of the estate of Cardoville, and it
+was I who helped to fish you out of the water, when the ship was wrecked
+in which you had embarked."
+
+By the light of the carriage-lamps, indeed, the half-caste recognized the
+good, honest face of Dupont, formerly bailiff, and now house-steward, to
+Mdlle. de Cardoville. It must not be forgotten that Dupont had been the
+first to write to Mdlle. de Cardoville, to ask her to interest herself
+for Djalma, who was then detained at Cardoville Castle by the injuries he
+had received during the shipwreck.
+
+"But, sir, what is your business here? Why do you introduce yourself
+clandestinely into this house?" said Faringhea, in an abrupt and
+suspicious tone.
+
+"I will--just observe to you that there is nothing clandestine in the
+matter. I came here in a carriage, with servants in the livery of my
+excellent mistress, Mdlle. de Cardoville, charged by her, without any
+disguise or mystery, to deliver a letter to Prince Djalma, her cousin,"
+replied Dupont, with dignity.
+
+On these words, Faringhea trembled with mute rage, as he answered: "And
+why, sir, come at this late hour, and introduce yourself by this little
+door?"
+
+"I came at this hour, my dear sir, because such was Mdlle. de
+Cardoville's command, and I entered by this little gate because there is
+every reason to believe that if I had gone around to the other I should
+not have been permitted to see the prince."
+
+"You are mistaken, sir," replied the half-caste.
+
+"It is possible: but as we knew that the prince usually passed a good
+portion of the night in the little saloon, which communicates with the
+greenhouse, and as Mdlle. de Cardoville had kept a duplicate key of this
+door, I was pretty certain, by taking this course, to be able to deliver
+into the prince's own hands the letter from Mdlle. de Cardoville, his
+cousin, which I have now had the honor of doing, my dear sir; and I have
+been deeply touched by the kindness with which the prince deigned to
+receive me and to remember our last interview."
+
+"And who kept you so well informed, sir, of the prince's habits?" said
+Faringhea, unable to control his vexation.
+
+"If I have been well informed as to his habits, my dear sir, I have had
+no such correct knowledge of yours," answered Dupont, with a mocking air;
+"for I assure you that I had no more notion of seeing you than you had of
+seeing me."
+
+So saying, M. Dupont bowed with something like mock politeness to the
+half-caste, and got into the carriage, which drove off rapidly, leaving
+Faringhea in a state of the utmost surprise and anger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE APPOINTMENT.
+
+The morning after--Dupont's mission to Prince Djalma, the latter was
+walking with hasty and impatient step up and down the little saloon,
+which communicated, as we already know, with the greenhouse from which
+Adrienne had entered when she first appeared to him. In remembrance of
+that day, he had chosen to dress himself as on the occasion in question;
+he wore the same tunic of white cashmere, with a cherry-colored turban,
+to match with his girdle; his gaiters, of scarlet velvet, embroidered
+with silver, displayed the fine form of his leg, and terminated in small
+white morocco slippers, with red heels. Happiness has so instantaneous,
+and, as it were, material an influence upon young, lively, and ardent
+natures, that Djalma, dejected and despairing only the day before, was no
+longer like the same person. The pale, transparent gold of his complexion
+was no longer tarnished by a livid hue. His large eyes, of late obscured
+like black diamonds by a humid vapor, now shone with mild radiance in the
+centre of their pearly setting; his lips, long pale, had recovered their
+natural color, which was rich and soft as the fine purple flowers of his
+country.
+
+Ever and anon, pausing in his hasty walk, he stopped suddenly, and drew
+from his bosom a little piece of paper, carefully folded, which he
+pressed to his lips with enthusiastic ardor. Then, unable to restrain the
+expression of his full happiness, he uttered a full and sonorous cry of
+joy, and with a bound he was in front of the plate-glass which separated
+the saloon from the conservatory, in which he had first seen Mdlle. de
+Cardoville. By a singular power of remembrance, or marvellous
+hallucination of a mind possessed by a fixed idea, Djalma had often seen,
+or fancied he saw, the adored semblance of Adrienne appear to him through
+this sheet of crystal. The illusion had been so complete, that, with his
+eyes ardently fixed on the vision he invoked, he had been able, with the
+aid of a pencil dipped in carmine, to trace with astonishing exactness,
+the profile of the ideal countenance which the delirium of his
+imagination had presented to his view.[42] It was before these delicate
+lines of bright carmine that Djalma now stood in deep contemplation,
+after perusing and reperusing, and raising twenty times to his lips, the
+letter he had received the night before from the hands of Dupont. Djalma
+was not alone. Faringhea watched all the movements of the prince, with a
+subtle, attentive, and gloomy aspect. Standing respectfully in a corner
+of the saloon, the half-caste appeared to be occupied in unfolding and
+spreading out Djalma's sash, light, silky Indian web, the brown ground of
+which was almost entirely concealed by the exquisite gold and silver
+embroidery with which it was overlaid.
+
+The countenance of the half-caste wore a dark and gloomy expression. He
+could not deceive himself. The letter from Mdlle. de Cardoville,
+delivered by Dupont to Djalma, must have been the cause of the delight he
+now experienced, for, without doubt, he knew himself beloved. In that
+event, his obstinate silence towards Faringhea, ever since the latter had
+entered the saloon, greatly alarmed the half-caste, who could not tell
+what interpretation to put upon it. The night before, after parting with
+Dupont, he had hastened, in a state of anxiety easily understood, to look
+for the prince, in the hope of ascertaining the effect produced by Mdlle.
+de Cardoville's letter. But he found the parlor door closed, and when he
+knocked, he received no answer from within. Then, though the night was
+far advanced, he had dispatched a note to Rodin, in which he informed him
+of Dupont's visit and its probable intention. Djalma had indeed passed
+the night in a tumult of happiness and hope, and a fever of impatience
+quite impossible to describe. Repairing to his bed-chamber only towards
+the morning, he had taken a few moments of repose, and had then dressed
+himself without assistance.
+
+Many times, but in vain, the half-caste had discreetly knocked at the
+door of Djalma's apartment. It was only in the early part of the
+afternoon that the prince had rung the bell to order his carriage to be
+ready by half-past two. Faringhea having presented himself, the prince
+had given him the order without looking at him, as he might have done to
+any other of his servants. Was this suspicion, aversion, or mere absence
+of mind on the part of Djalma? Such were the questions which the half
+caste put to himself with growing anguish; for the designs of which he
+was the most active and immediate instrument might all be ruined by the
+least suspicion in the prince.
+
+"Oh! the hours--the hours--how slow they are!" cried the young Indian,
+suddenly, in a low and trembling voice.
+
+"The day before yesterday, my lord, you said the hours were very long,"
+observed Faringhea, as he drew near Djalma in order to attract his
+attention. Seeing that he did not succeed in this he advanced a few steps
+nearer, and resumed: "Your joy seems very great, my lord; tell the cause
+of it to your poor and faithful servant, that he also may rejoice with
+you."
+
+If he heard the words, Djalma did not pay any attention to them. He made
+no answer, and his large black eyes gazed upon vacancy. He seemed to
+smile admiringly upon some enchanting vision, and he folded his two hands
+upon his bosom, in the attitude which his countrymen assume at the hour
+of prayer. After some instants of contemplation, he said: "What o'clock
+is it?"--but he asked this question of himself, rather than of any third
+person.
+
+"It will soon be two o'clock, my lord," said Faringhea.
+
+Having heard this answer, Djalma seated himself, and hid his face in his
+hands, as if completely absorbed in some ineffable meditation. Urged on
+by his growing anxiety, and wishing at any cost to attract the attention
+of Djalma, Faringhea approached still nearer to him, and, almost certain
+of the effect of the words he was about to utter, said to him in a slow
+and emphatic voice: "My lord, I am sure that you owe the happiness which
+now transports you to Mdlle. de Cardoville."
+
+Hardly had this name been pronounced, than Djalma started from his chair,
+looked the half-breed full in the face, and exclaimed, as if only just
+aware of his presence, "Faringhea! you here!--what is the matter?"
+
+"Your faithful servant shares in your joy, my lord."
+
+"What joy?"
+
+"That which the letter of Mdlle. de Cardoville has occasioned, my lord."
+
+Djalma returned no answer, but his eye shone with so much serene
+happiness, that the half-caste recovered from his apprehensions. No cloud
+of doubt or suspicion obscured the radiant features of the prince. After
+a few moments of silence, Djalma fixed upon the half-caste a look
+half-veiled with a tear of joy, and said to him, with the expression of
+one whose heart overflows with love and happiness: "Oh! such delight is
+good--great--like heaven!--for it is heaven which--"
+
+"You deserve this happiness, my lord, after so many sufferings."
+
+"What sufferings?--Oh! yes. I formerly suffered at Java; but that was
+years ago."
+
+"My lord, this great good fortune does not astonish me. What have I
+always told you? Do not despair; feign a violent passion for some other
+woman, and then this proud young lady--"
+
+At these words Djalma looked at the half-caste with so piercing a glance,
+that the latter stopped short; but the prince said to him with
+affectionate goodness, "Go on! I listen."
+
+Then, leaning his chin upon his hand, and his elbow on his knee, he gazed
+so intently on Faringhea, and yet with such unutterable mildness, that
+even that iron soul was touched for a moment with a slight feeling of
+remorse.
+
+"I was saying, my lord," he resumed, "that by following the counsels of
+your faithful slave, who persuaded you to feign a passionate love for
+another woman, you have brought the proud Mdlle. de Cardoville to come to
+you. Did I not tell you it would be so?"
+
+"Yes, you did tell me so," answered Djalma, still maintaining the same
+position, and examining the half-caste with the same fixed and mild
+attention.
+
+The surprise of Faringhea increased; generally, the prince, without
+treating him with the least harshness, preserved the somewhat distant and
+imperious manners of their common country, and he had never before spoken
+to him with such extreme mildness. Knowing all the evil he had done the
+prince, and suspicious as the wicked must ever be, the half-caste thought
+for a moment, that his master's apparent kindness might conceal a snare.
+He continued, therefore, with less assurance, "Believe me, my lord, this
+day, if you do but know how to profit by your advantages, will console
+you for all your troubles, which have indeed been great--for only
+yesterday, though you were generous enough to forget it, only yesterday
+you suffered cruelly--but you were not alone in your sufferings. This
+proud young lady suffered also!"
+
+"Do you think so?" said Djalma.
+
+"Oh! it is quite sure, my lord. What must she not have felt, when she saw
+you at the theatre with another woman!--If she loved you only a little,
+she must have been deeply wounded in her self-esteem; if she loved you
+with passion, she must have been struck to the heart. At length, you see,
+wearied out with suffering, she has come to you."
+
+"So that, any way, she must have suffered--and that does not move your
+pity?" said Djalma, in a constrained, but still very mild voice.
+
+"Before thinking of others, my lord, I think of your distresses; and they
+touch me too nearly to leave me any pity for other woes," added Faringhea
+hypocritically, so greatly had the influence of Rodin already modified
+the character of the Phansegar.
+
+"It is strange!" said Djalma, speaking to himself, as he viewed the half
+caste with a glance still kind but piercing.
+
+"What is strange, my lord?"
+
+"Nothing. But tell me, since your advice has hitherto prospered so well,
+what think you of the future?"
+
+"Of the future, my lord?"
+
+"Yes; in an hour I shall be with Mdlle. de Cardoville."
+
+"That is a serious matter, my lord. The whole future will depend upon
+this interview."
+
+"That is what I was just thinking."
+
+"Believe me, my lord, women never love any so well, as the bold man who
+spares them the embarrassment of a refusal."
+
+"Explain more fully."
+
+"Well, my lord, they despise the timid and languishing lover, who asks
+humbly for what he might take by force."
+
+"But to-day I shall meet Mdlle. de Cardoville for the first time."
+
+"You have met her a thousand times in your dreams, my lord; and depend
+upon it, she has seen you also in her dreams, since she loves you. Every
+one of your amorous thoughts has found an echo in her heart. All your
+ardent adorations have been responded to by her. Love has not two
+languages, and, without meeting, you have said all that you had to say to
+each other. Now, it is for you to act as her master, and she will be
+yours entirely."
+
+"It is strange--very strange!" said Djalma, a second time, without
+removing his eyes from Faringhea's face.
+
+Mistaking the sense which the prince attached to these words, the half
+caste resumed: "Believe me, my lord, however strange it may appear, this
+is the wisest course. Remember the past. Was it by playing the part of a
+timid lover that you have brought to your feet this proud young lady, my
+lord? No, it was by pretending to despise her, in favor of another woman.
+Therefore, let us have no weakness. The lion does not woo like the poor
+turtle-dove. What cares the sultan of the desert for a few plaintive
+howls from the lioness, who is more pleased than angry at his rude and
+wild caresses? Soon submissive, fearful and happy, she follows in the
+track of her master. Believe me, my lord--try everything--dare
+everything--and to-day you will become the adored sultan of this young
+lady, whose beauty all Paris admires."
+
+After some minutes' silence, Djalma, shaking his head with an expression
+of tender pity, said to the half-caste, in his mild, sonorous voice: "Why
+betray me thus? Why advise me thus wickedly to use violence, terror, and
+surprise, towards an angel of purity, whom I respect as my mother? Is it
+not enough for you to have been so long devoted to my enemies, whose
+hatred has followed me from Java?"
+
+Had Djalma sprung upon the half-caste with bloodshot eye, menacing brow,
+and lifted poniard, the latter would have been less surprised, and
+perhaps less frightened, than when he heard the prince speak of his
+treachery in this tone of mild reproach.
+
+He drew back hastily, as if about to stand on his guard. But Djalma
+resumed, with the same gentleness, "Fear nothing. Yesterday I should have
+killed you! But to-day happy love renders me too just, too merciful for
+that. I pity you, without any feeling of bitterness--for you must have
+been very unhappy, or you could not have become so wicked."
+
+"My lord!" said the half-caste, with growing amazement.
+
+"Yes, you must have suffered much, and met with little mercy, poor
+creature, to have become so merciless, in your hate, and proof against
+the sight of a happiness like mine. When I listened to you just now, and
+saw the sad perseverance of your hatred, I felt the deepest commiseration
+for you."
+
+"I do not know, my lord--but--" stammered the half-caste, and was unable
+to find words to proceed.
+
+"Come, now--what harm have I ever done you?"
+
+"None, my lord," answered Faringhea.
+
+"Then why do you hate me thus? why pursue me with so much animosity? Was
+it not enough to give me the perfidious counsel to feign a shameful love
+for the young girl that was brought hither, and who quitted the house
+disgusted at the miserable part she was to play?"
+
+"Your feigned love for that young girl, my lord," replied Faringhea,
+gradually recovering his presence of mind, "conquered the coldness of--"
+
+"Do not say that," resumed the prince, interrupting him with the same
+mildness. "If I enjoy this happiness, which makes me compassionate
+towards you, and raises me above myself, it is because Mdlle de
+Cardoville now knows that I have never for a moment ceased to love her as
+she ought to be loved, with adoration and reverence. It was your
+intention to have parted us forever, and you had nearly succeeded."
+
+"If you think this of me, my lord, you must look upon me as your most
+mortal enemy."
+
+"Fear nothing, I tell you. I have no right to blame you. In the madness
+of my grief, I listened to you and followed your advice. I was not only
+your dupe, but your accomplice. Only confess that, when you saw me at
+your mercy, dejected, crushed, despairing, it was cruel in you to advise
+the course that might have been most fatal to me."
+
+"The ardor of my zeal may have deceived me, my lord."
+
+"I am willing to believe it. And yet again to-day there were the same
+evil counsels. You had no more pity for my happiness than for my sorrow.
+The rapture of my heart inspires you with only one desire--that of
+changing this rapture into despair."
+
+"I, my lord!"
+
+"Yes, you. It was your intention to ruin me--to dishonor me forever in
+the eyes of Mdlle. de Cardoville. Now, tell me--why this furious hate?
+what have I done to you?"
+
+"You misjudge me, my lord--and--"
+
+"Listen to me. I do not wish you to be any longer wicked and treacherous.
+I wish to make you good. In our country, they charm serpents, and tame
+the wildest tigers. You are a man, with a mind to reason, a heart to
+love, and I will tame you too by gentleness. This day has bestowed on me
+divine happiness; you shall have good cause to bless this day. What can I
+do for you? what would you have--gold? You shall have it. Do you desire
+more than gold? Do you desire a friend, to console you for the sorrows
+that made you wicked, and to teach you to be good? Though a king's son, I
+will be that friend--in spite of the evil--ay, because of the evil you
+have done me. Yes; I will be your sincere friend, and it shall be my
+delight to say to myself: 'The day on which I learned that my angel loved
+me, my happiness was great indeed--for, in the morning, I had an
+implacable enemy, and, ere night, his hatred was changed to friendship.'
+Believe me, Faringhea, misery makes crime, but happiness produces virtue.
+Be happy!"
+
+At this moment the clock struck two. The prince started. It was time to
+go on his visit to Adrienne. The handsome countenance of Djalma, doubly
+embellished by the mild, ineffable expression with which it had been
+animated whilst he was talking to the half-caste, now seemed illumined
+with almost divine radiance.
+
+Approaching Faringhea, he extended his hand with the utmost, grace and
+courtesy, saying to him, "Your hand!"
+
+The half-caste, whose brow was bathed with a cold sweat, whose
+countenance was pale and agitated, seemed to hesitate for an instant;
+then, overawed, conquered, fascinated, he offered his trembling hand to
+the prince, who pressed it, and said to him, in their country's fashion,
+"You have laid your hand honestly in a friend's; this hand shall never be
+closed against you. Faringhea, farewell! I now feel myself more worthy to
+kneel before my angel."
+
+And Djalma went out, on his way to the appointment with Adrienne. In
+spite of his ferocity, in spite of the pitiless hate he bore to the whole
+human race, the dark sectary of Bowanee was staggered by the noble and
+clement words of Djalma, and said to himself, with terror, "I have taken
+his hand. He is now sacred for me."
+
+Then, after a moment's silence, a thought occurred to him, and he
+exclaimed, "Yes--but he will not be sacred for him who, according to the
+answer of last night, waits for him at the door of the house."
+
+So saying, the half-caste hastened into the next room, which looked upon
+the street, and, raising a corner of the curtain, muttered anxiously to
+himself, "The carriage moves off--the man approaches. Perdition! it is
+gone and I see no more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+ANXIETY.
+
+By a singular coincidence of ideas, Adrienne, like Djalma, had wished to
+be dressed exactly in the same costume as at their interview in the house
+in the Rue Blanche. For the site of this solemn meeting, so important to
+her future happiness, Adrienne had chosen, with habitual tact, the grand
+drawing-room of Cardoville House, in which hung many family portraits.
+The most apparent were those of her father and mother. The room was large
+and lofty, and furnished, like those which preceded it, with all the
+imposing splendor of the age of Louis XIV. The ceiling, painted by
+Lebrun, to represent the Triumph of Apollo, displayed his bold designing
+and vigorous coloring, in the centre of a wide cornice, magnificently
+carved and gilt, and supported at its angles by four large gilt figures,
+representing the Seasons. Huge panels, covered with crimson damask, and
+set in frames, served as the background to the family portraits which
+adorned this apartment. It is easier to conceive than describe the
+thousand conflicting emotions which agitated the bosom of Mdlle. de
+Cardoville as the moment approached for her interview with Djalma. Their
+meeting had been hitherto prevented by so many painful obstacles, and
+Adrienne was so well aware of the vigilant and active perfidy of her
+enemies, that even now she doubted of her happiness. Every instant, in
+spite of herself, her eyes wandered to the clock. A few minutes more, and
+the hour of the appointment would strike. It struck at last. Every
+reverberation was echoed from the depth of Adrienne's heart. She
+considered that Djalma's modest reserve had, doubtless, prevented his
+coming before the moment fixed by herself. Far from blaming this
+discretion, she fully appreciated it. But, from that moment, at the least
+noise in the adjoining apartments, she held her breath and listened with
+the anxiety of expectation.
+
+For the first few minutes which followed the hour at which she expected
+Djalma, Mdlle. de Cardoville felt no serious apprehension, and calmed her
+impatience by the notion (which appears childish enough to those who have
+never known the feverish agitation of waiting for a happy meeting), that
+perhaps the clocks in the Rue Blanche might vary a little from those in
+the Rue d'Anjou. But when this supposed variation, conceivable enough in
+itself, could no longer explain a delay of a quarter of an hour, of
+twenty minutes, of more, Adrienne felt her anxiety gradually increase.
+Two or three times the young girl rose, with palpitating heart, and went
+on tip-toe to listen at the door of the saloon. She heard nothing. The
+clock struck half-past three.
+
+Unable to suppress her growing terror, and clinging to a last hope,
+Adrienne returned towards the fireplace and rang the bell. After which
+she endeavored to compose her features, so as to betray no outward sign
+of emotion. In a few seconds, a gray-haired footman, dressed in black,
+opened the door, and waited in respectful silence for the orders of his
+mistress. The latter said to him, in a calm voice, "Andrew, request Hebe
+to give you the smelling bottle that I left on the chimney-piece in my
+room, and bring it me here." Andrew bowed; but just as he was about to
+withdraw to execute Adrienne's orders, which was only a pretext to enable
+her to ask a question without appearing to attach much importance to it
+in her servant's eyes, already informed of the expected visit of the
+prince, Mdlle. de Cardoville added, with an air of indifference. "Pray,
+is that clock right?"
+
+Andrew drew out his watch, and replied as he cast his eyes upon it, "Yes,
+mademoiselle. I set my watch by the Tuileries. It is more than half past
+three."
+
+"Very well--thank you!" said Adrienne kindly.
+
+Andrew again bowed; but, before going out, he said to Adrienne, "I forgot
+to tell you, lady, that Marshal Simon called about an hour ago; but, as
+you were only to be at home to Prince Djalma, we told him that you
+received no company."
+
+"Very well," said Adrienne. With another low bow, Andrew quitted the
+room, and all returned to silence.
+
+For the precise reason that, up to the last minute of the hour previous
+to the time fixed for her interview with Djalma, the hopes of Adrienne
+had not been disturbed by the slightest shadow of doubt, the
+disappointment she now felt was the more dreadful. Casting a desponding
+look at one of the portraits placed above her, she murmured, with a
+plaintive and despairing accent, "Oh, mother!"
+
+Hardly had Mdlle. de Cardoville uttered the words than the windows were
+slightly shaken by a carriage rolling into the courtyard. The young lady
+started, and was unable to repress a low cry of joy. Her heart bounded at
+the thought of meeting Djalma, for this time she felt that he was really
+come. She was quite as certain of it as if she had seen him. She resumed
+her seat and brushed away a tear suspended from her long eyelashes. Her
+hand trembled like a leaf. The sound of several doors opening and
+shutting proved that the young lady was right in her conjecture. The
+gilded panels of the drawing-room door soon turned upon their hinges, and
+the prince appeared.
+
+While a second footman ushered in Djalma, Andrew placed on a gilded
+table, within reach of his mistress, a little silver salver, on which
+stood the crystal smelling-bottle. Then he withdrew, and the door of the
+room was closed. The prince and Mdlle. de Cardoville were left alone
+together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+ADRIENNE AND DJALMA.
+
+The prince had slowly approached Mdlle. de Cardoville. Notwithstanding
+the impetuosity of the Oriental's passions, his uncertain and timid
+step--timid, yet graceful--betrayed his profound emotion. He did not
+venture to lift his eyes to Adrienne's face; he had suddenly become very
+pale, and his finely formed hands, folded over his bosom in the attitude
+of adoration, trembled violently. With head bent down, he remained
+standing at a little distance from Adrienne. This embarrassment,
+ridiculous in any other person, appeared touching in this prince of
+twenty years of age, endowed with an almost fabulous intrepidity, and of
+so heroic and generous a character, that no traveller could speak of the
+son of Kadja sing without a tribute of admiration and respect. Sweet
+emotion! chaste reserve! doubly interesting if we consider that the
+burning passions of this youth were all the more inflammable, because
+they had hitherto been held in check.
+
+No less embarrassed than her cousin, Adrienne de Cardoville remained
+seated. Like Djalma, she cast down her eyes; but the burning blush on her
+cheeks, the quick heaving of her virgin bosom, revealed an emotion that
+she did not even attempt to hide. Notwithstanding the powers of her mind,
+by turns gay, graceful, and witty--notwithstanding the decision of her
+proud and independent character, and her complete acquaintance with the
+manners of the world--Adrienne shared Djalma's simple and enchanting
+awkwardness, and partook of that kind of temporary weakness, beneath
+which these two pure, ardent, and loving beings appeared sinking--as if
+unable to support the boiling agitation of the senses, combined with the
+intoxicating excitement of the heart. And yet their eyes had not met.
+Each seemed to fear the first electric shock of the other's glance--that
+invincible attraction of two impassioned beings--that sacred fire, which
+suddenly kindles the blood, and lifts two mortals from earth to heaven;
+for it is to approach the Divinity to give one's self up with religious
+fervor to the most noble and irresistible sentiment that He has implanted
+within us--the only sentiment that, in His adorable wisdom, the Dispenser
+of all good has vouchsafed to sanctify, by endowing it with a spark of
+His own creative energy.
+
+Djalma was the first to raise his eyes. They were moist and sparkling.
+The excitement of passionate love, the burning ardor of his age, so long
+repressed, the intense admiration in which he held ideal beauty, were all
+expressed in his look, mingled with respectful timidity, and gave to the
+countenance of this youth an undefinable, irresistible character. Yes,
+irresistible!--for, when Adrienne encountered his glance, she trembled in
+every limb, and felt herself attracted by a magnetic power. Already, her
+eyes were heavy with a kind of intoxicating languor, when, by a great
+effort of will and dignity, she succeeded in overcoming this delicious
+confusion, rose from her chair, and said to Djalma in a trembling voice:
+"Prince, I am happy to receive you here." Then, pointing to one of the
+portraits suspended above her, she added, as if introducing him to a
+living person: "Prince--my mother!"
+
+With an instinct of rare delicacy, Adrienne had thus summoned her mother
+to be present at her interview with Djalma. It seemed a security for
+herself and the prince, against the seductions of a first
+interview--which was likely to be all the more perilous, that they both
+knew themselves madly loved that they both were free, and had only to
+answer to Providence for the treasures of happiness and enjoyment with
+which He had so magnificently endowed them. The prince understood
+Adrienne's thoughts; so that, when the young lady pointed to the
+portrait, Djalma, by a spontaneous movement full of grace and simplicity,
+knelt down before the picture, and said to it in a gentle, but manly
+voice: "I will love and revere you as my mother. And, in thought, my
+mother too shall be present, and stand like you, beside your child!"
+
+No better answer could have been given to the feeling which induced
+Mdlle. de Cardoville to place herself, as it were, under the protection
+of her mother. From that moment, confident in Djalma, confident in
+herself, the young lady felt more at her ease, and the delicious sense of
+happiness replaced those exciting emotions, which had at first so
+violently agitated her.
+
+Then, seating herself once more, she said to Djalma, as she pointed to
+the opposite chair: "Pray take a seat, my dear cousin; and allow me to
+call you so, for there is too much ceremony in the word prince; and do
+you call me cousin also, for I find other names too grave. Having settled
+this point, we can talk together like old friends."
+
+"Yes cousin," answered Djalma, blushing.
+
+"And, as frankness is proper between friends," resumed Adrienne, "I have
+first to make you a reproach," she added, with a half-smile.
+
+The prince had remained standing, with his arm resting on the chimney
+piece, in an attitude full of grace and respect.
+
+"Yes, cousin," continued Adrienne, "a reproach, that you will perhaps
+forgive me for making. I had expected you a little sooner."
+
+"Perhaps, cousin, you may blame me for having come so soon."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"At the moment when I left home, a man, whom I did not know, approached
+my carriage, and said to me, with such an air of sincerity that I
+believed him: 'You are able to save the life of a person who has been a
+second father to you. Marshal Simon is in great danger, and, to rescue
+him, you must follow me on the instant--'"
+
+"It was a snare," cried Adrienne, hastily. "Marshal Simon was here,
+scarcely an hour ago."
+
+"Indeed!" exclaimed Djalma, joyfully, and as if he had been relieved from
+a great weight. "Then there will be nothing to sadden this happy day!"
+
+"But, cousin," resumed Adrienne, "how came you not to suspect this
+emissary?"
+
+"Some words, which afterwards escaped from him, inspired me with doubts,"
+answered Djalma: "but at first I followed him, fearing the marshal might
+be in danger--for I know that he also has enemies."
+
+"Now that I reflect on it, you were quite right, cousin, for some new
+plot against the marshal was probable enough; and the least doubt was
+enough to induce you to go to him."
+
+"I did so--even though you were waiting for me."
+
+"It was a generous sacrifice; and my esteem for you is increased by it,
+if it could be increased," said Adrienne, with emotion. "But what became
+of this man?"
+
+"At my desire, he got into the carriage with me. Anxious about the
+marshal, and in despair at seeing the time wasted, that I was to have
+passed with you, cousin, I pressed him with all sorts of questions.
+Several times, he replied to me with embarrassment, and then the idea
+struck me that the whole might be a snare. Remembering all that they had
+already attempted, to ruin me in your opinion, I immediately changed my
+course. The vexation of the man who accompanied me then because so
+visible, that I ought to have had no doubt upon the subject. Still, when
+I thought of Marshal Simon, I felt a kind of vague remorse, which you,
+cousin, have now happily set at rest."
+
+"Those people are implacable!" said Adrienne; "but our happiness will be
+stronger than their hate."
+
+After a moment's silence, she resumed, with her habitual frankness: "My
+dear cousin, it is impossible for me to conceal what I have at heart. Let
+us talk for a few seconds of the past, which was made so painful to us,
+and then we will forget it forever, like an evil dream."
+
+"I will answer you sincerely, at the risk of injuring myself," said the
+prince.
+
+"How could you make up your mind to exhibit yourself in public with--?"
+
+"With that young girl?" interrupted Djalma.
+
+"Yes, cousin," replied Mdlle. de Cardoville, and she waited for Djalma's
+answer with anxious curiosity.
+
+"A stranger to the customs of this country," said Djalma, without any
+embarrassment, for he spoke the truth, "with a mind weakened with
+despair, and misled by the fatal counsels of a man devoted to my enemies,
+I believed, even as I was told, that, by displaying before you the
+semblance of another love, I should excite your jealousy, and thus--"
+
+"Enough, cousin; I understand it all," said Adrienne hastily,
+interrupting Djalma in her turn, that she might spare him a painful
+confession. "I too must have been blinded by despair, not to have seen
+through this wicked plot, especially after your rash and intrepid action.
+To risk death for the sake of my bouquet!" added Adrienne, shuddering at
+the mere remembrance. "But one last question," she resumed, "though I am
+already sure of your answer. Did you receive a letter that I wrote to
+you, on the morning of the day in which I saw you at the theatre?"
+
+Djalma made no reply. A dark cloud passed over his fine countenance, and,
+for a second, his features assumed so menacing an expression, that
+Adrienne was terrified at the effect produced by her words. But this
+violent agitation soon passed away, and Djalma's brow became once more
+calm and serene.
+
+"I have been more merciful that I thought," said the prince to Adrienne,
+who looked at him with astonishment. "I wished to come hither worthy of
+you, my cousin. I pardoned the man who, to serve my enemies, had given me
+all those fatal counsels. The same person, I am sure, must have
+intercepted your letter. Just now, at the memory of the evils he thus
+caused me, I, for a moment, regretted my clemency. But then, again, I
+thought of your letter of yesterday--and my anger is all gone."
+
+"Then the sad time of fear and suspicion is over--suspicion, that made me
+doubt of your sentiments, and you of mine. Oh, yes! far removed from us
+be that fatal past!" cried Adrienne de Cardoville, with deep joy..
+
+Then, as if she had relieved her heart from the last thought of sadness,
+she continued: "The future is all your own--the radiant future, without
+cloud or obstacle, pure in the immensity of its horizon, and extending
+beyond the reach of sight!"
+
+It is impossible to describe the tone of enthusiastic hope which
+accompanied these words. But suddenly Adrienne's features assumed an
+expression of touching melancholy, and she added, in a voice of profound
+emotion: "And yet--at this hour--so many unfortunate creatures suffer
+pain!"
+
+This simple touch of pity for the misfortunes of others, at the moment
+when the noble maiden herself attained to the highest point of happiness,
+had such an effect on Djalma, that involuntarily he fell on his knees
+before Adrienne, clasped his hands together, and turned towards her his
+fine countenance, with an almost daring expression. Then, hiding his face
+in his hands, he bowed his head without speaking a single word. There was
+a moment of deep silence. Adrienne was the first to break it, as she saw
+a tear steal through the slender fingers of the prince.
+
+"My friend! what is the matter?" she exclaimed, as with a movement rapid
+as thought, she stooped forward, and taking hold of Djalma's hands, drew
+them from before his face. That face was bathed in tears.
+
+"You weep!" cried Mdlle. de Cardoville, so much agitated that she kept
+the hands of Djalma in her own; and, unable to dry his tears, the young
+Hindoo allowed them to flow like so many drops of crystal over the pale
+gold of his cheeks.
+
+"There is not in this wide world a happiness like to mine!" said the
+prince, in his soft, melodious voice, and with a kind of exhaustion:
+"therefore do I feel great sadness, and so it should be. You give me
+heaven--and were I to give you the whole earth, it would be but a poor
+return. Alas! what can man do for a divinity, but humbly bless and adore?
+He can never hope to return the gifts bestowed: and this makes him
+suffer--not in his pride--but in his heart!"
+
+Djalma did not exaggerate. He said what he really felt: and the rather
+hyperbolical form, familiar to Oriental nations, could alone express his
+thought. The tone of his regret was so sincere, his humility so gentle
+and full of simplicity, that Adrienne, also moved to tears, answered him
+with an effusion of serious tenderness, "My friend, we are both at the
+supreme point of happiness. Our future felicity appears to have no
+limits, and yet, though derived from different sources, sad reflections
+have come to both of us. It is, you see, that there are some sorts of
+happiness, which make you dizzy with their own immensity. For a moment,
+the heart, the mind, the soul, are incapable of containing so much bliss;
+it overflows and drowns us. Thus the flowers sometimes hang their heads,
+oppressed by the too ardent rays of the sun, which is yet their love and
+life. Oh, my friend! this sadness may be great, but it also sweet!"
+
+As she uttered these words, the voice of Adrienne grew fainter and
+fainter, and her head bowed lower, as if she were indeed sinking beneath
+the weight of her happiness. Djalma had remained kneeling before her, his
+hands in hers--so that as she thus bent forward, her ivory forehead and
+golden hair touched the amber-colored brow and ebon curls of Djalma. And
+the sweet, silent tears of the two young lovers flowed together, and
+mingled as they fell on their clasped hands.
+
+Whilst this scene was passing in Cardoville House, Agricola had gone to
+the Rue de Vaugirard, to deliver a letter from Adrienne to M. Hardy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+"THE IMITATION."
+
+As we have already said, M. Hardy occupied a pavilion in the "Retreat"
+annexed to the house in the Rue de Vaugirard, inhabited by a goodly
+number of the reverend fathers of the Company of Jesus. Nothing could be
+calmer and more silent than this dwelling. Every one spoke in whispers,
+and the servants themselves had something oily in their words, something
+sanctified in their very walk.
+
+Like all that is subject to the chilling and destructive influences of
+these men, this mournfully quiet house was entirely wanting in life and
+animation. The boarders passed an existence of wearisome and icy
+monotony, only broken by the use of certain devotional exercises; and
+thus, in accordance with the selfish calculation of the reverend fathers,
+the mind, deprived of all nourishment and all external support, soon
+began to droop and pine away in solitude. The heart seemed to beat more
+slowly, the soul was benumbed, the character weakened; at last, all
+freewill, all power of discrimination, was extinguished, and the
+boarders, submitting to the same process of self-annihilation as the
+novices of the Company, became, like them, mere "corpses" in the hands of
+the brotherhood.
+
+The object of these manoeuvres was clear and simple. They secured the
+means of obtaining all kinds of donations, the constant aim of the
+skillful policy and merciless cupidity of these priests. By the aid of
+enormous sums, of which they thus become the possessors or the trustees,
+they follow out and obtain the success of their projects, even though
+murder, incendiarism, revolt, and all the horrors of civil war, excited
+by and through them, should drench in blood the lands over which they
+seek to extend their dark dominion.
+
+Such, then, was the asylum of peace and innocence in which Francois Hardy
+had taken refuge. He occupied the ground-floor of a summer-house, which
+opened upon a portion of the garden. His apartments had been judiciously
+chosen, for we know with what profound and diabolical craft the reverend
+fathers avail themselves of material influences, to make a deep
+impression upon the minds they are moulding to their purpose. Imagine a
+prospect bounded by a high wall, of a blackish gray, half-covered with
+ivy, the plant peculiar to ruins. A dark avenue of old yew-trees, so fit
+to shade the grave with their sepulchral verdure, extended from this wall
+to a little semicircle, in front of the apartment generally occupied by
+M. Hardy. Two or three mounds of earth, bordered with box, symmetrically
+cut, completed the charms of this garden, which in every respect
+resembled a cemetery.
+
+It was about two o'clock in the afternoon. Though the April sun shone
+brightly, its rays, intercepted by the high wall of which we have spoken,
+could not penetrate into that portion of the garden, obscure, damp, and
+cold as a cavern, which communicated with M. Hardy's apartment. The room
+was furnished with a perfect sense of the comfortable. A soft carpet
+covered the floor; thick curtains of dark green baize, the same color as
+the walls, sheltered an excellent bed, and hung in folds about the glass
+door, which opened on the garden. Some pieces of mahogany furniture,
+plain, but very clean and bright, stood round the room. Above the
+secretary, placed just in front of the bed, was a large ivory crucifix,
+upon a black velvet ground. The chimney-piece was adorned with a clock,
+in an ebony case, with ivory ornaments representing all sorts of gloomy
+emblems, such as hour-glasses, scythes, death's-heads, etc. Now imagine
+this scene in twilight, with its solitary and mournful silence, only
+broken at the hour of prayer by the lugubrious sound of the bells of the
+neighboring chapel, and you will recognize the infernal skill, with which
+these dangerous priests know how to turn to account every external
+object, when they wish to influence the mind of those they are anxious to
+gain over.
+
+And this was not all. After appealing to the senses, it was necessary to
+address themselves to the intellect--and this was the method adopted by
+the reverend fathers. A single book--but one--was left, as if by chance,
+within reach. This book was Thomas a Kempis' "Imitation." But as it might
+happen that M. Hardy would not have the courage or the desire to read
+this book, thoughts and reflections borrowed from its merciless pages,
+and written in very large characters, were suspended in black frames
+close to the bed, or at other parts within sight, so that, involuntarily,
+in the sad leisure of his inactive dejection, the dweller's eyes were
+almost necessarily attracted by them. To that fatal circle of despairing
+thoughts they confined the already weakened mind of this unfortunate man,
+so long a prey to the most acute sorrow. What he read mechanically, every
+instant of the day and night, whenever the blessed sleep fled from his
+eyes inflamed with tears, was not enough merely to plunge the soul of the
+victim into incurable despair, but also to reduce him to the corpse-like
+obedience required by the Society of Jesus. In that awful book may be
+found a thousand terrors to operate on weak minds, a thousand slavish
+maxims to chain and degrade the pusillanimous soul.
+
+And now imagine M. Hardy carried wounded into this house; while his
+heart, torn by bitter grief and the sense of horrible treachery, bled
+even faster than his external injuries. Attended with the utmost care,
+and thanks to the acknowledged skill of Dr. Baleinier, M. Hardy soon
+recovered from the hurts he had received when he threw himself into the
+embers of his burning factory. Yet, in order to favor the projects of the
+reverend fathers, a drug, harmless enough in its effects, but destined to
+act for a time upon the mind of the patient, and often employed for that
+purpose in similar important cases by the pious doctor, was administered
+to Hardy, and had kept him pretty long in a state of mental torpor. To a
+soul agonized by cruel deceptions, it appears an inestimable benefit to
+be plunged into that kind of torpor, which at least prevents one from
+dwelling upon the past.
+
+Hardy resigned himself entirely to this profound apathy, and at length
+came to regard it as the supreme good. Thus do unfortunate wretches,
+tortured by cruel diseases, accept with gratitude the opiate which kills
+them slowly, but which at least deadens the sense of pain.
+
+In sketching the portrait of M. Hardy, we tried to give some idea of the
+exquisite delicacy of his tender soul, of his painful susceptibility with
+regard to anything base or wicked, and of his extreme goodness,
+uprightness, and generosity. We now allude to these admirable qualities,
+because we must observe, that with him, as with almost all who possess
+them, they were not, and could not be, united with an energetic and
+resolute character. Admirably persevering in good deeds, the influence of
+this excellent man, was insinuating rather than commanding; it was not by
+the bold energy and somewhat overbearing will, peculiar to other men of
+great and noble heart, that Hardy had realized the prodigy of his Common
+Dwelling-house; it was by affectionate persuasion, for with him mildness
+took the place of force. At sight of any baseness or injustice, he did
+not rouse himself, furious and threatening; but he suffered intense pain.
+He did not boldly attack the criminal, but he turned away from him in
+pity and sorrow. And then his loving heart, so full of feminine delicacy,
+had an irresistible longing for the blessed contact of dear affections;
+they alone could keep it alive. Even as a poor, frail bird dies with the
+cold, when it can no longer lie close to its brethren, and receive and
+communicate the sweet warmth of the maternal nest. And now this sensitive
+organization, this extremely susceptible nature, receives blow after blow
+from sorrows and deceptions, one of which would suffice to shake, if it
+did not conquer, the firmest and most resolute character. Hardy's best
+friend has infamously betrayed him. His adored mistress has abandoned
+him.
+
+The house which he had founded for the benefit of his workmen, whom he
+loved as brethren, is reduced to a heap of ashes. What then happens? All
+the springs of his soul are at once broken. Too feeble to resist such
+frightful attacks, too fatally deceived to seek refuge in other
+affections, too much discouraged to think of laying the first stone of
+any new edifice--this poor heart, isolated from every salutary influence,
+finds oblivion of the world and of itself in a kind of gloomy torpor. And
+if some remaining instincts of life and affection, at long intervals,
+endeavored to rouse themselves within him, and if, half-opening his
+mind's eye, which he had kept closed against the present, the past, and
+the future, Hardy looks around him--what does he see? Only these
+sentences, so full of terrible despair:
+
+"Thou art nothing but dust and ashes. Grief and tears art thy portion.
+Believe not in any son of man. There are no such things as friendship or
+ties of kindred. All human affections are false. Die in the morning, and
+thou wilt be forgotten before night. Be humble--despise thyself--and let
+others despise thee. Think not, reason not, live not--but commit thy fate
+to the hands of a superior, who will think and reason for thee. Weep,
+suffer, think upon death. Yes, death! always death--that should be thy
+thought when thou thinkest--but it is better not to think at all. Let a
+feeling of ceaseless woe prepare thy way to heaven. It is only by sorrow
+that we are welcome to the terrible God whom we adore!"
+
+Such were the consolations offered to this unfortunate man. Affrighted,
+he again closed his eyes, and fell back into his lethargy. As for leaving
+this gloomy retreat, he could not, or rather he did not desire to do so.
+He had lost the power of will; and then, it must be confessed, he had
+finished by getting accustomed to this house, and liked it well--they
+paid him such discreet attentions, and yet left him so much alone with
+his grief--there reigned all around such a death-like silence, which
+harmonized closely with the silence of his heart; and that was now the
+tomb of his last love, last friendship, last hope. All energy was dead
+within him! Then began that slow, but inevitable transformation, so
+judiciously foreseen by Rodin, who directed the whole of this
+machination, even in its smallest details. At first alarmed by the
+dreadful maxims which surrounded him, M. Hardy had at length accustomed
+himself to read them over almost mechanically, just as the captive, in
+his mournful hours of leisure, counts the nails in the door of his
+prison, or the bars of the grated window. This was already a great point
+gained by the reverend fathers.
+
+And soon his weakened mind was struck with the apparent correctness of
+these false and melancholy aphorisms.
+
+Thus he read: "Do not count upon the affection of any human
+creature"--and he had himself been shamefully betrayed.
+
+"Man is born to sorrow and despair"--and he was himself despairing.
+
+"There is no rest save in the cessation of thought"--and the slumber of
+his mind had brought some relief to his pain.
+
+Peepholes, skillfully concealed by the hangings and in the wainscoting of
+these apartments, enabled the reverend fathers at all times to see and
+hear the boarders, and above all to observe their countenance and manner,
+when they believed themselves to be alone. Every exclamation of grief
+which escaped Hardy in his gloomy solitude, was repeated to Father
+d'Aigrigny by a mysterious listener. The reverend father, following
+scrupulously Rodin's instructions, had at first visited his boarder very
+rarely. We have said, that when Father d'Aigrigny wished it, he could
+display an almost irresistible power of charming, and accordingly he
+threw all his tact and skill into the interviews he had with Hardy, when
+he came from time to time to inquire after his health. Informed of
+everything by his spies, and aided by his natural sagacity, he soon saw
+all the use that might be made of the physical and moral prostration of
+the boarder. Certain beforehand that Hardy would not take the hint, he
+spoke to him frequently of the gloom of the house, advising him
+affectionately to leave it, if he felt oppressed by its monotony, or at
+all events to seek beyond its walls for some pleasure and amusement. To
+speak of pleasure and amusement to this unfortunate man, was in his
+present state to insure a refusal, and so it of course happened. Father
+d'Aigrigny did not at first try to gain the recluse's confidence, nor did
+he speak to him of sorrow; but every time he came, he appeared to take
+such a tender interest in him, and showed it by a few simple and well
+timed words. By degrees, these interviews, at first so rare, became more
+frequent and longer. Endowed with a flow of honeyed, insinuating, and
+persuasive eloquence, Father d'Aigrigny naturally took for his theme
+those gloomy maxims, to which Hardy's attention was now so often
+directed.
+
+Supple, prudent, skillful, knowing that the hermit had hitherto professed
+that generous natural religion which teaches the grateful adoration of
+God, the love of humanity, the worship of what is just and good, and
+which, disdaining dogmas, professes the same veneration for Marcus
+Aurelius as for Confucius, for Plato as for Christ, for Moses as for
+Lycurgus--Father d'Aigrigny did not at first attempt to convert him, but
+began by incessantly reminding him of the abominable deceptions practised
+upon him; and, instead of describing such treachery as an exception in
+life--instead of trying to calm, encourage, and revive his drooping
+soul--instead of exhorting Hardy to seek oblivion and consolation in the
+discharge of his duties toward humanity, towards his brethren, whom he
+had previously loved and succored--Father d'Aigrigny strove to inflame
+the bleeding wounds of the unfortunate man, painted the human race in the
+most atrocious blackness, and, by declaring all men treacherous,
+ungrateful, wicked, succeeded in rendering his despair incurable. Having
+attained this object, the Jesuit took another step. Knowing Hardy's
+admirable goodness of heart, and profiting by the weakened state of his
+mind, he spoke to him of the consolation to be derived by a man
+overwhelmed with sorrow, from the belief that every one of his tears,
+instead of being unfruitful, was in fact agreeable to God, and might aid
+in the salvation of souls--the belief, as the reverend father adroitly
+added, that by faith alone can sorrow be made useful to humanity, and
+acceptable to Divinity.
+
+Whatever impiety, whatever atrocious Machiavelism there was in these
+detestable maxims, which make of a loving-kind Deity a being delighted
+with the tears of his creatures, was thus skillfully concealed from
+Hardy's eyes, whose generous instincts were still alive. Soon did this
+loving and tender soul, whom unworthy priests were driving to a sort of
+moral suicide, find a mournful charm in the fiction, that his sorrows
+would at least be profitable to other men. It was at first only a
+fiction; but the enfeebled mind which takes pleasure in such a fable,
+finishes by receiving it as a reality, and by degrees will submit to the
+consequences. Such was Hardy's moral and physical state, when, by means
+of a servant who had been bought over, he received from Agricola Baudoin
+a letter requesting an interview. Alone, the workman could not have
+broken the band of the Jesuit's pleadings, but he was accompanied by
+Gabriel, whose eloquence and reasonings were of a most convincing nature
+to a spirit like Hardy's.
+
+It is unnecessary to point out to the reader, with what dignified reserve
+Gabriel had confined himself to the most generous means of rescuing Hardy
+from the deadly influence of the reverend fathers. It was repugnant to
+the great soul of the young missionary, to stoop to a revelation of the
+odious plots of these priests. He would only have taken this extreme
+course, had his powerful and sympathetic words have failed to have any
+effect on Hardy's blindness. About a quarter of an hour had elapsed since
+Gabriel's departure, when the servant appointed to wait on this boarder
+of the reverend fathers entered and delivered to him a letter.
+
+"From whom is this?" asked Hardy.
+
+"From a boarder in the house, sir," answered the servant bowing.
+
+This man had a crafty hypocritical face; he wore his hair combed over his
+forehead, spoke in a low voice, and always cast clown his eyes. Waiting
+the answer, he joined his hands, and began to twiddle his thumbs. Hardy
+opened the letter, and read as follows:
+
+"SIR,--I have only just heard, by mere chance, that you also inhabit this
+respectable house: a long illness, and the retirement in which I live,
+will explain my ignorance of your being so near. Though we have only met
+once, sir, the circumstance which led to that meeting was of so serious a
+nature, that I cannot think you have forgotten it."
+
+Hardy stopped, and tasked his memory for an explanation, and not finding
+anything to put him on the right track, he continued to read:
+
+"This circumstance excited in me a feeling of such deep and respectful
+sympathy for you, sir, that I cannot resist my anxious desire to wait
+upon you, particularly as I learn, that you intend leaving this house to
+day--a piece of information I have just derived from the excellent and
+worthy Abbe Gabriel, one of the men I most love, esteem, and reverence.
+May I venture to hope, sir, that just at the moment of quitting our
+common retreat to return to the world, you will deign to receive
+favorably the request, however intrusive, of a poor old man, whose life
+will henceforth be passed in solitude, and who cannot therefore have any
+prospect of meeting you, in that vortex of society which he has abandoned
+forever. Waiting the honor of your answer, I beg you to accept, sir, the
+assurance of the sentiments of high esteem with which I remain, sir, with
+the deepest respect,
+
+"Your very humble and most obedient servant,
+
+"RODIN."
+
+After reading this letter and the signature of the writer, Hardy remained
+for some time in deep thought, without being able to recollect the name
+of Rodin, or to what serious circumstances he alluded.
+
+After a silence of some duration, he said to the servant "M. Rodin gave
+you this letter?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And who is M. Rodin?"
+
+"A good old gentleman, who is just recovering from a long illness, that
+almost carried him off. Lately, he has been getting better, but he is
+still so weak and melancholy, that it makes one sad to see him. It is a
+great pity, for there is not a better and more worthy gentleman in the
+house--unless it be you, sir," added the servant, bowing with an air of
+flattering respect.
+
+"M. Rodin;" said Hardy, thoughtfully. "It is singular, that I should not
+remember the name nor any circumstance connected with it."
+
+"If you will give me your answer, sir," resumed the servant, "I will take
+it to M. Rodin. He is now with Father d'Aigrigny, to whom he is bidding
+farewell."
+
+"Farewell?"
+
+"Yes, sir, the post-horses have just come."
+
+"Post-horses for whom?" asked Hardy.
+
+"For Father d'Aigrigny, sir."
+
+"He is going on a journey then!" said Hardy, with some surprise.
+
+"Oh! he will not, I think be long absent," said the servant, with a
+confidential air, "for the reverend father takes no one with him, and but
+very light luggage. No doubt, the reverend father will come to say
+farewell to you, sir, before he starts. But what answer shall I give M.
+Rodin?"
+
+The letter, just received, was couched in such polite terms--it spoke of
+Gabriel with so much respect--that Hardy, urged moreover by a natural
+curiosity, and seeing no motive to refuse this interview before quitting
+the house, said to the servant: "Please tell M. Rodin, that if he will
+give himself the trouble to come to me, I shall be glad to see him."
+
+"I will let him know immediately, sir," answered the servant, bowing as
+he left the room.
+
+When alone, Hardy, while wondering who this M. Rodin could be, began to
+make some slight preparations for his departure. For nothing in the world
+would he have passed another night in this house; and, in order to keep
+up his courage, he recalled every instant the mild, evangelical language
+of Gabriel, just as the superstitious recite certain litanies, with a
+view of escaping from temptation.
+
+The servant soon returned, and said: "M. Rodin is here, sir."
+
+"Beg him to walk in."
+
+Rodin entered, clad in his long black dressing-gown, and with his old
+silk cap in his hand. The servant then withdrew. The day was just
+closing. Hardy rose to meet Rodin, whose features he did not at first
+distinguish. But as the reverend father approached the window, Hardy
+looked narrowly at him for an instant, and then uttered an exclamation,
+wrung from him by surprise and painful remembrance. But, recovering
+himself from this first movement, Hardy said to the Jesuit, in an
+agitated voice: "You here, sir? Oh, you are right! It was indeed a very
+serious circumstance that first brought us together."
+
+"Oh, my dear sir!" said Rodin, in a kindly and unctuous tone; "I was sure
+you would not have forgotten me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+PRAYER.
+
+It will doubtless be remembered that Rodin had gone (although a stranger
+to Hardy) to visit him at his factory, and inform him of De Blessac's
+shameful treachery--a dreadful blow, which had only preceded by a few
+moments a second no less horrible misfortune; for it was in the presence
+of Rodin that Hardy had learned the unexpected departure of the woman he
+adored. Painful to him must have been the sudden appearance of Rodin.
+Yes, thanks to the salutary influence of Gabriel's counsels, he recovered
+himself by degrees, and the contraction of his features being succeeded
+by a melancholy calm, he said to Rodin: "I did not indeed expect to meet
+you, sir, in this house."
+
+"Alas, sir!" answered Rodin, with a sigh, "I did not expect to come
+hither, probably to end my days beneath this roof, when I went, without
+being acquainted with you, but only as one honest man should serve
+another, to unveil to you a great infamy."
+
+"Indeed, sir, you then rendered me a true service; perhaps, in that
+painful moment, I did not fully express my gratitude; for, at the same
+moment in which you revealed to me the treachery of M. de Blessac--"
+
+"You were overwhelmed by another piece of painful intelligence," said
+Rodin, interrupting M. Hardy; "I shall never forget the sudden arrival of
+that poor woman, who, pale and affrighted, and without considering my
+presence, came to inform you that a person who was exceedingly dear to
+you had quitted Paris abruptly."
+
+"Yes, sir; and, without stopping to thank you, I set out immediately,"
+answered Hardy, with a mournful air.
+
+"Do you know, sir," said Rodin, after a moment's silence, "that there are
+sometimes very strange coincidences?"
+
+"To what do you allude, sir?"
+
+"While I went to inform you that you were betrayed in so infamous a
+manner--I was myself--"
+
+Rodin paused, as if unable to control his deep emotion, and his
+countenance wore the expression of such overpowering grief that Hardy
+said to him, with interest: "What ails you, sir?"
+
+"Forgive me," replied Rodin, with a bitter smile. "Thanks to the ghostly
+counsels of the angelic Abbe Gabriel, I have reached a sort of
+resignation. Still, there are certain memories which affect me with the
+most acute pain. I told you," resumed Rodin, in a firmer voice, "or was
+going to tell you, that the very day after that on which I informed you
+of the treachery practised against you, I was myself the victim of a
+frightful deception. An adopted son--a poor unfortunate child, whom I had
+brought up--" He paused again, drew his trembling hand over his eyes, and
+added: "Pardon me, sir, for speaking of matters which must be indifferent
+to you. Excuse the intrusive sorrow of a poor, broken hearted old man!"
+
+"I have suffered too much myself, sir, to be indifferent to any kind of
+sorrow," replied Hardy. "Besides, you are no stranger to me--for you did
+me a real service--and we both agree in our veneration for the same young
+priest."
+
+"The Abbe Gabriel!" cried Rodin, interrupting Hardy; "ah, sir! he is my
+deliverer, my benefactor. If you knew all his care and devotion, during
+my long illness, caused by intense grief--if you knew the ineffable
+sweetness of his counsels--"
+
+"I know them, sir," cried Hardy; "oh, yes! I know how salutary is the
+influence."
+
+"In his mouth, sir, the precepts of religion are full of mildness,"
+resumed Rodin, with excitement. "Do they not heal and console? do they
+not make us love and hope, instead of fear and tremble?"
+
+"Alas, sir! in this very house," said Hardy, "I have been able to make
+the comparison."
+
+"I was happy enough," said Rodin, "to have the angelic Abbe Gabriel for
+my confessor, or, rather, my confidant."
+
+"Yes," replied Hardy, "for he prefers confidence to confession."
+
+"How well you know him!" said Rodin, in a tone of the utmost simplicity.
+Then he resumed: "He is not a man but an angel. His words would convert
+the most hardened sinner. Without being exactly impious, I had myself
+lived in the profession of what is called Natural Religion; but the
+angelic Abbe Gabriel has, by degrees, fixed my wavering belief, given it
+body and soul, and, in fact, endowed me with faith."
+
+"Yes! he is a truly Christian priest--a priest of love and pardon!" cried
+Hardy.
+
+"What you say is perfectly true," replied Rodin; "for I came here almost
+mad with grief, thinking only of the unhappy boy who had repaid my
+paternal goodness with the most monstrous ingratitude, and sometimes I
+yielded to violent bursts of despair, and sometimes sank into a state of
+mournful dejection, cold as the grave itself. But, suddenly, the Abbe
+Gabriel appeared--and the darkness fled before the dawning of a new day."
+
+"You were right, sir; there are strange coincidences," said Hardy,
+yielding more and more to the feeling of confidence and sympathy,
+produced by the resemblance of his real position to Rodin's pretended
+one. "And to speak frankly," he added, "I am very glad I have seen you
+before quitting this house. Were I capable of falling back into fits of
+cowardly weakness, your example alone would prevent me. Since I listen to
+you, I feel myself stronger in the noble path which the angelic Abbe
+Gabriel has opened before me, as you so well express it."
+
+"The poor old man will not then regret having listened to the first
+impulse of his heart, which urged him to come to you," said Robin, with a
+touching expression. "You will sometimes remember me in that world to
+which you are returning?"
+
+"Be sure of it, sir; but allow me to ask one question: You remain, you
+say, in this house?"
+
+"What would you have me do? There reigns here a calm repose, and one is
+not disturbed in one's prayers," said Rodin, in a very gentle tone. "You
+see, I have suffered so much--the conduct of that unhappy youth was so
+horrible--he plunged into such shocking excesses--that the wrath of
+heaven must be kindled against him. Now I am very old, and it is only by
+passing the few days that are left me in fervent prayer that I can hope
+to disarm the just anger of the Lord. Oh! prayer--prayer! It was the Abbe
+Gabriel who revealed to me all its power and sweetness--and therewith the
+formidable duties it imposes."
+
+"Its duties are indeed great and sacred," answered Hardy, with a pensive
+air.
+
+"Do you remember the life of Rancey?" said Rodin, abruptly, as he darted
+a peculiar glance at Hardy.
+
+"The founder of La Trappe?" said Hardy, surprised at Rodin's question. "I
+remember hearing a very vague account, some time ago, of the motives of
+his conversion."
+
+"There is, mark you, no more striking an example of the power of prayer,
+and of the state of almost divine ecstasy, to which it may lead a
+religious soul. In a few words, I will relate to you this instructive and
+tragic history. Rancey--but I beg your pardon; I fear I am trespassing on
+your time."
+
+"No, no," answered Hardy, hastily; "You cannot think how interested I am
+in what you tell me. My interview with the Abbe Gabriel was abruptly
+broken off, and in listening to you I fancy that I hear the further
+development of his views. Go on, I conjure you.
+
+"With all my heart. I only wish that the instruction which, thanks to our
+angelic priest, I derived from the story of Rancey might be as profitable
+to you as it was to me."
+
+"This, then, also came from the Abbe Gabriel?"
+
+"He related to me this kind of parable in support of his exhortations,"
+replied Rodin. "Oh, sir! do I not owe to the consoling words of that
+young priest all that has strengthened and revived my poor old broken
+heart?"
+
+"Then I shall listen to you with a double interest."
+
+"Rancey was a man of the world," resumed Rodin, as he looked attentively
+at Hardy; "a gentleman--young, ardent, handsome. He loved a young lady of
+high rank. I cannot tell what impediments stood in the way of their
+union. But this love, though successful, was kept secret, and every
+evening Rancey visited his mistress by means of a private staircase. It
+was, they say, one of those passionate loves which men feel but once in
+their lives. The mystery, even the sacrifice made by the unfortunate
+girl, who forgot every duty, seemed to give new charms to this guilty
+passion. In the silence and darkness of secrecy, these two lovers passed
+two years of voluptuous delirium, which amounted almost to ecstasy."
+
+At these words Hardy started. For the first time of late his brow was
+suffused with a deep blush; his heart throbbed violently; he remembered
+that he too had once known the ardent intoxication of a guilty and hidden
+love. Though the day was closing rapidly, Rodin cast a sidelong glance at
+Hardy, and perceived the impression he had made. "Some times," he
+continued, "thinking of the dangers to which his mistress was exposed, if
+their connection should be discovered, Rancey wished to sever these
+delicious ties; but the girl, beside herself with passion, threw herself
+on the neck of her lover, and threatened him, in the language of intense
+excitement, to reveal and to brave all, if he thought of leaving her. Too
+weak and loving to resist the prayers of his mistress, Rancey again and
+again yielded, and they both gave themselves up to a torrent of delight,
+which carried them along, forgetful of earth and heaven!"
+
+M. Hardy listened to Rodin with feverish and devouring avidity. The
+Jesuit, in painting, with these almost sensual colors, an ardent and
+secret love, revived in Hardy burning memories, which till now had been
+drowned in tears. To the beneficent calm produced by the mild language of
+Gabriel had succeeded a painful agitation, which, mingled with the
+reaction of the shocks received that day, began to throw his mind into a
+strange state of confusion.
+
+Rodin, having so far succeeded in his object, continued as follows: "A
+fatal day came at last. Rancey, obliged to go to the wars, quitted the
+girl; but, after a short campaign, he returned, more in love than ever.
+He had written privately, to say he would arrive almost immediately after
+his letter. He came accordingly. It was night. He ascended, as usual, the
+private staircase which led to the chamber of his mistress; he entered
+the room, his heart beating with love and hope. His mistress had died
+that morning!"
+
+"Ah!" cried Hardy, covering his face with his hands, in terror.
+
+"She was dead," resumed Rodin. "Two wax-candles were burning beside the
+funeral couch. Rancey could not, would not believe that she was dead. He
+threw himself on his knees by the corpse. In his delirium, he seized that
+fair, beloved head, to cover it with kisses. The head parted from the
+body, and remained in his hands! Yes," resumed Rodin as Hardy drew back,
+pale and mute with terror, "yes, the girl had fallen a victim to so swift
+and extraordinary a disease, that she had not been able to receive the
+last sacraments. After her death, the doctors, in the hope of discovering
+the cause of this unknown malady, had begun to dissect that fair form--"
+
+As Rodin reached this part of his narrative, night was almost come. A
+sort of hazy twilight alone reigned in this silent chamber, in the centre
+of which appeared the pale and ghastly form of Rodin, clad in his long
+black gown, whilst his eyes seemed to sparkle with diabolic fire.
+Overcome by the violent emotions occasioned by this story, in which
+thoughts of death and voluptuousness, love and horror, were so strangely
+mingled, Hardy remained fixed and motionless, waiting for the words of
+Rodin, with a combination of curiosity, anguish and alarm.
+
+"And Rancey?" said he, at last, in an agitated voice, whilst he wiped the
+cold sweat from his brow.
+
+"After two days of furious delirium," resumed Rodin, "he renounced the
+world, and shut himself up in impenetrable solitude. The first period of
+his retreat was frightful; in his despair, he uttered loud yells of grief
+and rage, that were audible at some distance. Twice he attempted suicide,
+to escape from the terrible visions."
+
+"He had visions, then?" said Hardy, with an increased agony of curiosity.
+
+"Yes," replied Rodin, in a solemn tone, "he had fearful visions. He saw
+the girl, who, for his sake, had died in mortal sin, plunged in the heat
+of the everlasting flames of hell! On that fair face, disfigured by
+infernal tortures, was stamped the despairing laugh of the damned! Her
+teeth gnashed with pain; her arms writhed in anguish! She wept tears of
+blood, and, with an agonized and avenging voice, she cried to her
+seducer: 'Thou art the cause of my perdition--my curse, my curse be upon
+thee!'"
+
+As he pronounced these last words, Rodin advanced three steps nearer to
+Hardy, accompanying each step with a menacing gesture. If we remember the
+state of weakness, trouble, and fear, in which M. Hardy was--if we
+remember that the Jesuit had just roused in the soul of this unfortunate
+man all the sensual and spiritual memories of a love, cooled, but not
+extinguished, in tears--if we remember, too, that Hardy reproached
+himself with the seduction of a beloved object, whom her departure from
+her duties might (according to the Catholic faith) doom to everlasting
+flames--we shall not wonder at the terrible effect of this
+phantasmagoria, conjured up in silence and solitude, in the evening dusk,
+by this fearful priest.
+
+The effect on Hardy was indeed striking, and the more dangerous, that the
+Jesuit, with diabolical craft, seemed only to be carrying out, from
+another point of view, the ideas of Gabriel. Had not the young priest
+convinced Hardy that nothing is sweeter, than to ask of heaven
+forgiveness for those who have sinned, or whom we have led astray? But
+forgiveness implies punishment; and it was to the punishment alone that
+Rodin drew the attention of his victim, by painting it in these terrible
+hues. With hands clasped together, and eye fixed and dilated, Hardy
+trembled in all his limbs, and seemed still listening to Rodin, though
+the latter had ceased to speak. Mechanically, he repeated: "My curse, my
+curse be upon thee?"
+
+Then suddenly he exclaimed, in a kind of frenzy: "The curse is on me
+also! The woman, whom I taught to forget her sacred duties, and to commit
+mortal sin--one day plunged in the everlasting flames--her arms writhing
+in agony--weeping tears of blood--will cry to me from the bottomless pit:
+'My curse, my curse be upon thee!'--One day," he added, with redoubled
+terror, "one day?--who knows? perhaps at this moment!--for if the sea
+voyage had been fatal to her--if a shipwreck--oh, God! she too would have
+died in mortal sin--lost, lost, forever!--Oh, have mercy on her, my God!
+Crush me in Thy wrath--but have mercy on her--for I alone am guilty!"
+
+And the unfortunate man, almost delirious, sank with clasped hands upon
+the ground.
+
+"Sir," cried Rodin, in an affectionate voice, as he hastened to lift him
+up, "my dear sir--my dear friend--be calm! Comfort yourself. I cannot
+bear to see you despond. Alas! my intention was quite the contrary to
+that."
+
+"The curse! the curse! yes, she will curse me also--she, that I loved so
+much--in the everlasting flames!" murmured Hardy, shuddering, and
+apparently insensible to the other's words.
+
+"But, my dear sir, listen to me, I entreat you," resumed the latter; "let
+me finish my story, and then you will find it as consoling as it now
+seems terrible. For heaven's sake, remember the adorable words of our
+angelic Abbe Gabriel, with regard to the sweetness of prayer."
+
+At the name of Gabriel, Hardy recovered himself a little, and exclaimed,
+in a heart-rending tone: "Ay! his words were sweet and beneficent. Where
+are they now? For mercy's sake, repeat to me those consoling words."
+
+"Our angelic Abbe Gabriel," resumed Rodin, "spoke to you of the sweetness
+of prayer--"
+
+"Oh, yes! prayer!"
+
+"Well, my dear sir, listen to me, and you shall see how prayer saved
+Rancey, and made a saint of him. Yes, these frightful torments, that I
+have just described, these threatening visions, were all conquered by
+prayer, and changed into celestial delights."
+
+"I beg of you," said Hardy, in a faint voice, "speak to me of Gabriel,
+speak to me of heaven--but no more flames--no more hell--where sinful
+women weep tears of blood--"
+
+"No, no," replied Rodin; and even as, in describing hell, his tone had
+been harsh and threatening, it now became warm and tender, as he uttered
+the following words: "No; we will have no more images of despair--for, as
+I have told you, after suffering infernal tortures, Rancey, thanks to the
+power of prayer, enjoyed the delights of paradise."
+
+"The delights of paradise?" repeated Hardy, listening with anxious
+attention.
+
+"One day, at the height of his grief, a priest, a good priest--another
+Abbe Gabriel--came to Rancey. Oh, happiness! oh, providential change! In
+a few days, he taught the sufferer the sacred mysteries of prayer--that
+pious intercession of the creature, addressed to the Creator, in favor of
+a soul exposed to the wrath of heaven. Then Rancey seemed transformed.
+His grief was at once appeased. He prayed; and the more he prayed, the
+greater was his hope. He felt that God listened to his prayer. Instead of
+trying to forget his beloved, he now thought of her constantly, and
+prayed for her salvation. Happy in his obscure cell, alone with that
+adored remembrance, he passed days and nights in praying for her--plunged
+in an ineffable, burning, I had almost said amorous ecstasy."
+
+It is impossible to give an idea of the tone of almost sensual energy
+with which Rodin pronounced the word "amorous." Hardy started, changing
+from hot to cold. For the first time, his weakened mind caught a glimpse
+of the fatal pleasures of asceticism, and of that deplorable catalepsy,
+described in the lives of St. Theresa, St. Aubierge and others.
+
+Rodin perceived the other's thoughts, and continued "Oh, Rancey was not
+now the man to content himself with a vague, passing prayer, uttered in
+the whirl of the world's business, which swallows it up, and prevents it
+from reaching the ear of heaven. No, no; in the depth of solitude, he
+endeavored to make his prayers even more efficacious, so ardently did he
+desire the eternal salvation of his mistress."
+
+"What did he do then--oh! what did he do in his solitude?" cried Hardy,
+who was now powerless in the hands of the Jesuit.
+
+"First of all," said Rodin, with a slight emphasis, "he became a monk."
+
+"A monk!" repeated Hardy, with a pensive air.
+
+"Yes," resumed Rodin, "he became a monk, because his prayers were thus
+more likely to be favorably accepted. And then, as in solitude our
+thoughts are apt to wander, he fasted, and mortified his flesh, and
+brought into subjection all that was carnal within him, so that, becoming
+all spirit, his prayers might issue like a pure flame from his bosom, and
+ascend like the perfume of incense to the throne of the Most High!"
+
+"Oh! what a delicious dream!" cried Hardy, more and more under the
+influence of the spell; "to pray for the woman we have adored, and to
+become spirit--perfume--light!"
+
+"Yes; spirit, perfume, light!" said Rodin, with emphasis. "But it is no
+dream. How many monks, how many hermits, like Rancey, have, by prayers,
+and austerity, and macerations, attained a divine ecstasy! and if you
+only knew the celestial pleasures of such ecstasies!--Thus, after he
+became a monk, the terrible dreams were succeeded by enchanting visions.
+Many times, after a day of fasting, and a night passed in prayers and
+macerations, Rancey sank down exhausted on the floor of his cell! Then
+the spirit freed itself from the vile clogs of matter. His senses were
+absorbed in pleasure; the sound of heavenly harmony struck upon his
+ravished car; a bright, mild light, which was not of this world, dawned
+upon his half-closed eyes; and, at the height of the melodious vibrations
+of the golden harps of the Seraphim, in the centre of a glory, compared
+to which the sun is pale, the monk beheld the image of that beloved
+woman--"
+
+"Whom by his prayers he had at length rescued from the eternal flames?"
+said Hardy, in a trembling voice.
+
+"Yes, herself," replied Rodin, with eloquent enthusiasm, for this monster
+was skilled in every style of speech. "Thanks to the prayers of her
+lover, which the Lord had granted, this woman no longer shed tears of
+blood--no longer writhed her beautiful arms in the convulsions of
+infernal anguish. No, no; still fair--oh! a thousand times fairer than
+when she dwelt on earth--fair with the everlasting beauty of angels--she
+smiled on her lover with ineffable ardor, and, her eyes beaming with a
+mild radiance, she said to him in a tender and passionate voice: 'Glory
+to the Lord! glory to thee, O my beloved! Thy prayers and austerities
+have saved me. I am numbered amongst the chosen. Thanks, my beloved, and
+glory!'--And therewith, radiant in her felicity, she stooped to kiss,
+with lips fragrant with immortality, the lips of the enraptured monk--and
+their souls mingled in that kiss, burning as love, chaste as divine grace
+immense as eternity!"
+
+"Oh!" cried Hardy, completely beside himself; "a whole life of prayer,
+fasting, torture, for such a moment--with her, whom I mourn--with her,
+whom I have perhaps led to perdition!"
+
+"What do you say? such a moment!" cried Rodin, whose yellow forehead was
+bathed in sweat like that of a magnetizer, and who now took Hardy by the
+hand, and drew still closer, as if to breathe into him the burning
+delirium; "it was not once in his religious life--it was almost every
+day, that Rancey, plunged in divine ecstasy, enjoyed these delicious,
+ineffable, superhuman pleasures, which are to the pleasures of earth what
+eternity is to man's existence!"
+
+Seeing, no doubt, that Hardy was now at the point to which he wished to
+bring him, and the night being almost entirely come, the reverend father
+coughed two or three times in a significant manner, and looked towards
+the door. At this moment, Hardy, in the height of his frenzy, exclaimed,
+with a supplicating voice: "A cell--a tomb--and the Ecstatic Vision!"
+
+The door of the room opened, and Father d'Aigrigny entered, with a cloak
+under his arm. A servant followed him, bearing a light.
+
+About ten minutes after this scene, a dozen robust men with frank, open
+countenances, led by Agricola, entered the Rue de Vaugirard, and advanced
+joyously towards the house of the reverend fathers. It was a deputation
+from the former workmen of M. Hardy. They came to escort him, and to
+congratulate him on his return amongst them. Agricola walked at their
+head. Suddenly he saw a carriage with post-horses issuing from the
+gateway of the house. The postilion whipped up the horses, and they
+started at full gallop. Was it chance or instinct? The nearer the
+carriage approached the group of which he formed a part, the more did
+Agricola's heart sink within him.
+
+The impression became so vivid that it was soon changed into a terrible
+apprehension; and at the moment when the vehicle, which had its blinds
+down, was about to pass close by him, the smith, in obedience to a
+resistless impulse, exclaimed, as he rushed to the horses' heads: "Help,
+friends! stop them!"
+
+"Postilion! ten louis if you ride over him!" cried from the carriage the
+military voice of Father d'Aigrigny.
+
+The cholera was still raging. The postilion had heard of the murder of
+the poisoners. Already frightened at the sudden attack of Agricola, he
+struck him a heavy blow on the head with the butt of his whip which
+stretched him senseless on the ground. Then, spurring with all his might,
+he urged his three horses into a triple gallop, and the carriage rapidly
+disappeared, whilst Agricola's companions, who had neither understood his
+actions nor the sense of his words, crowded around the smith, and did
+their best to revive him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+REMEMBRANCES.
+
+Other events took place a few days after the fatal evening in which M.
+Hardy, fascinated and misled by the deplorable, mystic jargon of Rodin,
+had implored Father d'Aigrigny on his knees to remove him far from Paris,
+into some deep solitude where he might devote himself to a life of prayer
+and ascetic austerities. Marshal Simon, since his arrival in Paris, had
+occupied, with his two daughters, a house in the Rue des Trois-Freres.
+Before introducing the reader into this modest dwelling, we are obliged
+to recall to his memory some preceding facts. The day of the burning of
+Hardy 's factory, Marshal Simon had come to consult with his father on a
+question of the highest importance, and to communicate to him his painful
+apprehensions on the subject of the growing sadness of his twin
+daughters, which he was unable to explain.
+
+Marshal Simon held in religious reverence the memory of the Great
+Emperor. His gratitude to the hero was boundless, his devotion blind, his
+enthusiasm founded upon reason, his affection warm as the most sincere
+and passionate friendship. But this was not all.
+
+One day the emperor, in a burst of joy and paternal tenderness, had led
+the marshal to the cradle of the sleeping King of Rome, and said to him,
+as he proudly pointed to the beautiful child: "My old friend, swear to me
+that you will serve the son as you have served the father!"
+
+Marshal Simon took and kept that vow. During the Restoration, the chief
+of a military conspiracy in favor of Napoleon II., he had attempted in
+vain to secure a regiment of cavalry, at that time commanded by the
+Marquis d'Aigrigny. Betrayed and denounced, the marshal, after a
+desperate duel with the future Jesuit, had succeeded in reaching Poland,
+and thus escaping a sentence of death. It is useless to repeat the series
+of events which led the marshal from Poland to India, and then brought
+him back to Paris after the Revolution of July--an epoch at which a
+number of his old comrades in arms had solicited and obtained from the
+government, without his knowledge, the confirmation of the rank and title
+which the emperor had bestowed upon him just before Waterloo.
+
+On his return to Paris, after his long exile, in spite of all the
+happiness he felt in at length embracing his children, Marshal Simon was
+deeply affected on learning the death of their mother, whom he adored.
+Till the last moment, he had hoped to find her in Paris. The
+disappointment was dreadful, and he felt it cruelly, though he sought
+consolation in his children's affection.
+
+But soon new causes of trouble and anxiety were interwoven with his life
+by the machinations of Rodin. Thanks to the secret intrigues of the
+reverend father at the Courts of Rome and Vienna, one of his emissaries,
+in a condition to inspire full confidence, and provided with undeniable
+evidence to support his words, went to Marshal Simon, and said to him:
+"The son of the emperor is dying, the victim of the fears with which the
+name of Napoleon still inspires Europe.
+
+"From this slow expiring, you, Marshal Simon, one of the emperor's most
+faithful friends, are able to rescue this unfortunate prince.
+
+"The correspondence in my hand proves that it would be easy to open
+relations, of the surest and most secret nature, with one of the most
+influential persons about the King of Rome, and this person would be
+disposed to favor the prince's escape.
+
+"It is possible, by a bold, unexpected stroke, to deliver Napoleon II.
+from the custody of Austria, which would leave him to perish by inches in
+an atmosphere that is fatal to him.
+
+"The enterprise may be a rash one, but it has chances of success that you
+Marshal Simon, more than any other, could change into certainties; for
+your devotion to the emperor is well known, and we remember with what
+adventurous audacity you conspired, in 1815, in favor of Napoleon II."
+
+The state of languor and decline of the King of Rome was then in France a
+matter of public notoriety. People even went so far as to affirm that the
+son of the hero was carefully trained by priests, who kept him in
+complete ignorance of the glory of his paternal name; and that, by the
+most execrable machinations, they strove day by day to extinguish every
+noble and generous instinct that displayed itself in the unfortunate
+youth. The coldest hearts were touched and softened at the story of so
+sad and fatal a destiny. When we remember the heroic character and
+chivalrous loyalty of Marshal Simon, and his passionate devotion to the
+emperor, we can understand how the father of Rose and Blanche was more
+interested than any one else in the fate of the young prince, and how, if
+occasion offered, he would feel himself obliged not to confine his
+efforts to mere regrets. With regard to the reality of the correspondence
+produced by Rodin's emissary, it had been submitted by the marshal to a
+searching test, by means of his intimacy with one of his old companions
+in arms, who had been for a long period on a mission to Vienna, in the
+time of the empire. The result of this investigation, conducted with as
+much prudence as address, so that nothing should transpire, showed that
+the marshal might give his serious attention to the advances made him.
+
+Hence, this proposition threw the father of Rose and Blanche into a cruel
+perplexity; for, to attempt so bold and dangerous an enterprise, he must
+once more abandon his children; whilst, on the contrary, if, alarmed at
+this separation, he renounced the endeavor to save the King of Rome,
+whose lingering death was perfectly true and well authenticated, the
+marshal would consider himself as false to the vow he had sworn to the
+emperor. To end these painful hesitations, full of confidence in the
+inflexible uprightness of his father's character, the marshal had gone to
+ask his advice; unfortunately the old republican workman, mortally
+wounded during the attack on M. Hardy's factory, but still pondering over
+the serious communication of his son, died with these words upon his
+Lips: "My son, you have a great duty to perform, under pain of not acting
+like a man of honor, and of disobeying my last will. You must, without
+hesitation--"
+
+But, by a deplorable fatality, the last words, which would have completed
+the sense of the old workman's thought, were spoken in so feeble a voice
+as to be quite unintelligible. He died, leaving Marshal Simon in a worse
+state of anxiety, as one of the two courses open to him had now been
+formally condemned by his father, in whose judgment he had the most
+implicit and merited confidence. In a word, his mind was now tortured by
+the doubt whether his father had intended, in the name of honor and duty,
+to advise him not to abandon his children, to engage in so hazardous an
+enterprise, or whether, on the contrary, he had wished him to leave them
+for a time, to perform the vow made to the emperor, and endeavor at least
+to rescue Napoleon II. from a captivity that might soon be mortal.
+
+This perplexity, rendered more cruel by certain circumstances, to be
+related hereafter, the tragical death of his father, who had expired in
+his arms; the incessant and painful remembrance of his wife, who had
+perished in a land of exile; and finally, the grief he felt at perceiving
+the overgrowing sadness of Rose and Blanche, occasioned severe shocks to
+Marshal Simon. Let us add that, in spite of his natural intrepidity, so
+nobly proved by twenty years of war, the ravages of the cholera, the same
+terrible malady to which his wife had fallen a victim in Siberia, filled
+the marshal with involuntary dread. Yes, this man of iron nerves, who had
+coolly braved death in so many battles, felt the habitual firmness of his
+character give way at sight of the scenes of desolation and mourning
+which Paris offered at every step. Yet, when Mdlle. de Cardoville
+gathered round her the members of her family, to warn them against the
+plot of their enemies, the affectionate tenderness of Adrienne for Rose
+and Blanche appeared to exercise so happy an influence on their
+mysterious sorrow, that the marshal, forgetting for a moment his fatal
+regrets, thought only of enjoying this blessed change, which, alas! was
+but of short duration. Having now recalled these facts to the mind of the
+reader, we shall continue our story.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+THE BLOCKHEAD
+
+We have stated that Marshal Simon occupied a small house in the Rue des
+Trois-Freres. Two o'clock in the afternoon had just struck in the
+marshal's sleeping-chamber, a room furnished with military simplicity. In
+the recess, in which stood the bed, hung a trophy composed of the arms
+used by the marshal during his campaigns. On the secretary opposite was a
+small bronze bust of the emperor, the only ornament of the apartment. Out
+of doors the temperature was far from warm, and the marshal had become
+susceptible to cold during his long residence in India. A good fire
+therefore blazed upon the hearth. A door, concealed by the hangings, and
+leading to a back staircase, opened slowly, and a man entered the
+chamber. He carried a basket of wood, and advanced leisurely to the
+fireplace, before which he knelt clown, and began to arrange the logs
+symmetrically in a box that stood besides the hearth. After some minutes
+occupied in this manner, still kneeling, he gradually approached another
+door, at a little distance from the chimney, and appeared to listen with
+deep attention, as if he wished to hear what was passing in the next
+room.
+
+This man, employed as an inferior servant in the house, had the most
+ridiculously stupid look that can be imagined. His functions consisted in
+carrying wood, running errands, etc. In other respects he was a kind of
+laughing-stock to the other servants. In a moment of good humor,
+Dagobert, who filled the post of major-domo, had given this idiot the
+name of "Loony" (lunatic), which he had retained ever since, and which he
+deserved in every respect, as well for his awkwardness and folly as for
+his unmeaning face, with its grotesquely flat nose, sloping chin, and
+wide, staring eyes. Add to this description a jacket of red stuff, and a
+triangular white apron, and we must acknowledge that the simpleton was
+quite worthy of his name.
+
+Yet, at the moment when Loony listened so attentively at the door of the
+adjoining room, a ray of quick intelligence animated for an instant his
+dull and stupid countenance.
+
+When he had thus listened for a short time, Loony returned to the
+fireplace, still crawling on his knees; then rising, he again took his
+basket half full of wood, and once more approaching the door at which he
+had listened knocked discreetly. No one answered. He knocked a second
+time, and more loudly. Still there was the same silence.
+
+Then he said, in a harsh, squeaking, laughable voice: "Ladies, do you
+want any wood, if you please, for your fire?"
+
+Receiving no answer, Loony placed his basket on the ground, opened the
+door gently, and entered the next room, after casting a rapid glance
+around. He came out again in a few seconds, looking from side to side
+with an anxious air, like a man who had just accomplished some important
+and mysterious task.
+
+Taking up his basket, he was about to leave Marshal Simon's room, when
+the door of the private staircase was opened slowly and with precaution,
+and Dagobert appeared.
+
+The soldier, evidently surprised at the servant's presence, knitted his
+brows, and exclaimed abruptly, "What are you doing here?"
+
+At this sudden interrogation, accompanied by a growl expressive of the
+ill-humor of Spoil-sport, who followed close on his master's heels, Loony
+uttered a cry of real or pretended terror. To give, perhaps, an
+appearance of greater reality to his dread, the supposed simpleton let
+his basket fall on the ground, as if astonishment and fear had loosened
+his hold of it.
+
+"What are you doing, numbskull?" resumed Dagobert, whose countenance was
+impressed with deep sadness, and who seemed little disposed to laugh at
+the fellow's stupidity.
+
+"Oh, M. Dagobert! how you frighten me! Dear me! what a pity I had not an
+armful of plates, to prove it was not my fault if I broke them all."
+
+"I ask what you are doing," resumed the soldier.
+
+"You see, M. Dagobert," replied Loony, pointing to his basket, "that I
+came with some wood to master's room, so that he might burn it, if it was
+cold--which it is."
+
+"Very well. Pick up your wood, and begone!"
+
+"Oh, M. Dagobert! my legs tremble under me. How you did scare me, to be
+sure!"
+
+"Will you begone, brute?" resumed the veteran; and seizing Loony by the
+arm, he pushed him towards the door, while Spoil-sport, with recumbent
+ears, and hair standing up like the quills of a porcupine, seemed
+inclined to accelerate his retreat.
+
+"I am going, M. Dagobert, I am going," replied the simpleton, as he
+hastily gathered up his basket; "only please to tell the dog--"
+
+"Go to the devil, you stupid chatterbox!" cried Dagobert, as he pushed
+Loony through the doorway.
+
+Then the soldier bolted the door which led to the private staircase, and
+going to that which communicated with the apartments of the two sisters,
+he double-locked it. Having done this, he hastened to the alcove in which
+stood the bed and taking down a pair of loaded pistols, he carefully
+removed the percussion caps, and, unable to repress a deep sigh, restored
+the weapons to the place in which he had found them. Then, as if on
+second thoughts, he took down an Indian dagger with a very sharp blade,
+and drawing it from its silver-gilt sheath, proceeded to break the point
+of this murderous instrument, by twisting it beneath one of the iron
+castors of the bed.
+
+Dagobert then proceeded to unfasten the two doors, and, returning slowly
+to the marble chimney-piece, he leaned against it with a gloomy and
+pensive air. Crouching before the fire, Spoil-sport followed with an
+attentive eye the least movement of his master. The good dog displayed a
+rare and intelligent sagacity. The soldier, having drawn out his
+handkerchief, let fall, without perceiving it, a paper containing a roll
+of tobacco. Spoil-sport, who had all the qualities of a retriever of the
+Rutland race, took the paper between his teeth, and, rising upon his
+hind-legs, presented it respectfully to Dagobert. But the latter received
+it mechanically, and appeared indifferent to the dexterity of his dog.
+The grenadier's countenance revealed as much sorrow as anxiety. After
+remaining for some minutes near the fire, with fixed and meditative look,
+he began to walk about the room in great agitation, one of his hands
+thrust into the bosom of his long blue frock-coat, which was buttoned up
+to the chin, and the other into one of his hind-pockets.
+
+From time to time he stopped abruptly, and seemed to make reply to his
+own thoughts, or uttered an exclamation of doubt and uneasiness; then,
+turning towards the trophy of arms, he shook his head mournfully, and
+murmured, "No matter--this fear may be idle; but he has acted so
+extraordinarily these two days, that it is at all events more prudent--"
+
+He continued his walk, and said, after a new and prolonged silence: "Yes
+he must tell me. It makes me too uneasy. And then the poor children--it
+is enough to break one's heart."
+
+And Dagobert hastily drew his moustache between his thumb and forefinger,
+a nervous movement, which with him was an evident symptom of extreme
+agitation. Some minutes after, the soldier resumed, still answering his
+inward thoughts: "What can it be? It is hardly possible to be the
+letters, they are too infamous; he despises them. And yet  But no, no--he
+is above that!"
+
+And Dagobert again began to walk with hasty steps. Suddenly, Spoil-sport
+pricked up his ears, turned his head in the direction of the staircase
+door, and growled hoarsely. A few seconds after, some one knocked at the
+door.
+
+"Who is there?" said Dagobert. There was no answer, but the person
+knocked again. Losing patience, the soldier went hastily to open it, and
+saw the servant's stupid face.
+
+"Why don't you answer, when I ask who knocks!" said the soldier, angrily.
+
+"M. Dagobert, you sent me away just now, and I was afraid of making you
+cross, if I said I had come again."
+
+"What do you want? Speak then--come in, stupid!" cried the exasperated.
+Dagobert, as he pulled him into the room.
+
+"M. Dagobert, don't be angry--I'll tell you all about it--it is a young
+man."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He wants to speak to you directly, Mr. Dagobert."
+
+"His name?"
+
+"His name, M. Dagobert?" replied Loony, rolling about and laughing with
+an idiotic air.
+
+"Yes, his name. Speak, idiot!"
+
+"Oh, M. Dagobert! it's all in joke that you ask me his name!"
+
+"You are determined, fool that you are, to drive me out of my senses!"
+cried the soldier, seizing Loony by the collar. "The name of this young
+man!"
+
+"Don't be angry, M. Dagobert. I didn't tell you the name because you know
+it."
+
+"Beast!" said Dagobert, shaking his fist at him.
+
+"Yes, you do know it, M. Dagobert, for the young man is your own son. He
+is downstairs, and wants to speak to you directly--yes, directly."
+
+The stupidity was so well assumed, that Dagobert was the dupe of it.
+Moved to compassion rather than anger by such imbecility, he looked
+fixedly at the servant, shrugged his shoulders, and said, as he advanced
+towards the staircase, "Follow me!"
+
+Loony obeyed; but, before closing the door, he drew a letter secretly
+from his pocket, and dropped it behind him without turning his head,
+saying all the while to Dagobert, for the purpose of occupying his
+attention: "Your son is in the court, M. Dagobert. He would not come
+up--that's why he is still downstairs!"
+
+Thus talking, he closed the door, believing he had left the letter on the
+floor of Marshal Simon's room. But he had reckoned without Spoil-sport.
+Whether he thought it more prudent to bring up the rear, or, from
+respectful deference for a biped, the worthy dog had been the last to
+leave the room, and, being a famous carrier, as soon as he saw the letter
+dropped by Loony, he took it delicately between his teeth, and followed
+close on the heels of the servant, without the latter perceiving this new
+proof of the intelligence and sagacity of Spoil-sport.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+THE ANONYMOUS LETTERS.
+
+We will explain presently what became of the letter, which Spoil-sport
+held between his teeth, and why he left his master, when the latter ran
+to meet Agricola. Dagobert had not seen his son for some days. Embracing
+him cordially, he led him into one of the rooms on the ground floor,
+which he usually occupied. "And how is your wife?" said the soldier to
+his son.
+
+"She is well, father, thank you."
+
+Perceiving a great change in Agricola's countenance, Dagobert resumed:
+"You look sad. Has anything gone wrong since I saw you last?"
+
+"All is over, father. We have lost him," said the smith, in a tone of
+despair.
+
+"Lost whom?"
+
+"M. Hardy."
+
+"M. Hardy!--why, three days ago, you told me you were going to see him."
+
+"Yes, father, I have seen him--and my dear brother Gabriel saw him and
+spoke to him--how he speaks! with a voice that comes from the heart!--and
+he had so revived and encouraged him, that M. Hardy consented to return
+amongst us. Then I, wild with joy, ran to tell the good news to some of
+my mates, who were waiting to hear the result of nay interview with M.
+Hardy. I brought them all with me to thank and bless him. We were within
+a hundred yards of the house belonging to the black-gowns--"
+
+"Ali, the black-gowns!" said Dagobert, with a gloomy air. "Then some
+mischief will happen. I know them."
+
+"You are not mistaken, father," answered Agricola, with a sigh. "I was
+running on with my comrades, when I saw a carriage coming towards us.
+Some presentiment told me that they were taking away M. Hardy."
+
+"By force!" said Dagobert, hastily.
+
+"No," answered Agricola, bitterly; "no--the priests are too cunning for
+that. They know how to make you an accomplice in the evil they do you.
+Shall I not always remember how they managed with my good mother?"
+
+"Yes, the worthy woman! there was a poor fly caught in the spider's web.
+But this carriage, of which you speak?"
+
+"On seeing it start from the house of the black-gowns," replied Agricola,
+"my heart sank within me; and, by an impulse stronger than myself, I
+rushed to the horses' heads, calling on my comrades to help me. But the
+postilion knocked me down and stunned me with a blow from his whip. When
+I recovered my senses, the carriage was already far away."
+
+"You were not hurt?" cried Dagobert, anxiously, as he examined his son
+from top to toe.
+
+"No, father; a mere scratch."
+
+"What did you next, my boy?"
+
+"I hastened to our good angel, Mdlle. de Cardoville, and told her all.
+'You must follow M. Hardy on the instant,' said she to me. 'Take my
+carriage and post-horses. Dupont will accompany you; follow M. Hardy from
+stage to stage; should you succeed in overtaking him your presence and
+your prayers may perhaps conquer the fatal influence that these priests
+have acquired over him.'"
+
+"It was the best advice she could give you. That excellent young lady is
+always right."
+
+"An hour after, we were upon our way, for we learned by the returned
+postilions, that M. Hardy had taken the Orleans road. We followed him as
+far as Etampes. There we heard that he had taken a cross-road, to reach a
+solitary house in a valley about four leagues from the highway. They told
+us that this house called the Val-de-St. Herem, belonged to certain
+priests, and that, as the night was so dark, and the road so bad, we had
+better sleep at the inn, and start early in the morning. We followed this
+advice, and set out at dawn. In a quarter of an hour, we quitted the
+high-road for a mountainous and desert track. We saw nothing but brown
+rocks, and a few birch trees. As we advanced, the scene became wilder and
+wilder. We might have fancied ourselves a hundred leagues from Paris. At
+last we stopped in front of a large, old, black-looking house with only a
+few small windows in it, and built at the foot of a high, rocky mountain.
+In my whole life I have never seen anything so deserted and sad. We got
+out of the carriage, and I rang the bell. A man opened the door. 'Did not
+the Abbe d'Aigrigny arrive here last night with a gentleman?' said I to
+this man, with a confidential air. 'Inform the gentleman directly, that I
+come on business of importance, and that I must see him forthwith.'--The
+man, believing me an accomplice, showed us in immediately; a moment
+after, the Abbe d'Aigrigny opened the door, saw me, and drew back; yet,
+in five minutes more, I was in presence of M. Hardy."
+
+"Well!" said Dagobert, with interest.
+
+Agricola shook his head sorrowfully, and replied: "I knew by the very
+countenance of M. Hardy, that all was over. Addressing me in a mild but
+firm voice, he said to me: 'I understand, I can even excuse, the motives
+that bring you hither. But I am quite determined to live henceforth in
+solitude and prayer. I take this resolution freely and voluntarily,
+because I would fain provide for the salvation of my soul. Tell your
+fellows that my arrangements will be such as to leave them a good
+remembrance of me.'--And as I was about to speak, M. Hardy interrupted
+me, saying: 'It is useless, my friend. My determination is unalterable.
+Do not write to me, for your letters would remain unanswered. Prayer will
+henceforth be my only occupation. Excuse me for leaving you, but I am
+fatigued from my journey!'--He spoke the truth for he was as pale as a
+spectre, with a kind of wildness about the eyes, and so changed since the
+day before, as to be hardly the same man. His hand, when he offered it on
+parting from me, was dry and burning. The Abbe d'Aigrigny soon came in.
+'Father,' said M. Hardy to him, 'have the goodness to see M. Baudoin to
+the door.'--So saying, he waved his hand to me in token of farewell, and
+retired to the next chamber. All was over; he is lost to us forever."
+
+"Yes," said Dagobert, "those black-gowns have enchanted him, like so many
+others."
+
+"In despair," resumed Agricola, "I returned hither with M. Dupont. This,
+then, is what the priests have made of M. Hardy--of that generous man,
+who supported nearly three hundred industrious workmen in order and
+happiness, increasing their knowledge, improving their hearts, and
+earning the benediction of that little people, of which he was the
+providence. Instead of all this, M. Hardy is now forever reduced to a
+gloomy and unavailing life of contemplation."
+
+"Oh, the black-gowns!" said Dagobert, shuddering, and unable to conceal a
+vague sense of fear. "The longer I live, the more I am afraid of them.
+You have seen what those people did to your poor mother; you see what
+they have just done to M. Hardy; you know their plots against my two poor
+orphans, and against that generous young lady. Oh, these people are very
+powerful! I would rather face a battalion of Russian grenadiers, than a
+dozen of these cassocks. But don't let's talk of it. I have causes enough
+beside for grief and fear."
+
+Then seeing the astonished look of Agricola, the soldier, unable to
+restrain his emotion, threw himself into the arms of his son, exclaiming
+with a choking voice: "I can hold out no longer. My heart is too full. I
+must speak; and whom shall I trust if not you?"
+
+"Father, you frighten me!" said Agricola, "What is the matter?"
+
+"Why, you see, had it not been for you and the two poor girls, I should
+have blown out my brains twenty times over rather than see what I
+see--and dread what I do."
+
+"What do you dread, father?"
+
+"Since the last few days, I do not know what has come over the
+marshal--but he frightens me."
+
+"Yet in his last interviews with Mdlle. de Cardoville--"
+
+"Yes, he was a little better. By her kind words, this generous young lady
+poured balm into his wounds; the presence of the young Indian cheered
+him; he appeared to shake off his cares, and his poor little girls felt
+the benefit of the change. But for some days, I know not what demon has
+been loosed against his family. It is enough to turn one's head. First of
+all, I am sure that the anonymous letters have begun again."
+
+"What letters, father?"
+
+"The anonymous letters."
+
+"But what are they about?"
+
+"You know how the marshal hated that renegade, the Abbe d'Aigrigny. When
+he found that the traitor was here, and that he had persecuted the two
+orphans, even as he persecuted their mother to the death--but that now he
+had become a priest--I thought the marshal would have gone mad with
+indignation and fury. He wishes to go in search of the renegade. With one
+word I calmed him. 'He is a priest,' I said; 'you may do what you will,
+insult or strike him--he will not fight. He began by serving against his
+country, he ends by becoming a bad priest. It is all in character. He is
+not worth spitting upon.'--'But surely I may punish the wrong done to my
+children, and avenge the death of my wife,' cried the marshal, much
+exasperated.--'They say, as you well know, that there are courts of law
+to avenge your wrongs,' answered I; 'Mdlle. de Cardoville has lodged a
+charge against the renegade, for having attempted to confine your
+daughters in a convent. We must champ the bit and wait."'
+
+"Yes," said Agricola, mournfully, "and unfortunately there lacks proof to
+bring it home to the Abbe d'Aigrigny. The other day, when I was examined
+by Mdlle. de Cardoville's lawyer, with regard to our attempt on the
+convent, he told me that we should meet with obstacles at every step, for
+want of legal evidence, and that the priests had taken their precautions
+with so much skill that the indictment would be quashed."
+
+"That is just what the marshal thinks, my boy, and this increases his
+irritation at such injustice."
+
+"He should despise the wretches."
+
+"But the anonymous letters!"
+
+"Well, what of them, father?"
+
+"You shall know all. A brave and honorable man like the marshal, when his
+first movement of indignation was over, felt that to insult the renegade
+disguised in the garb of a priest, would be like insulting an old man or
+a woman. He determined therefore to despise him, and to forget him as
+soon as possible. But then, almost every day, there came by the post
+anonymous letters, in which all sorts of devices were employed, to revive
+and excite the anger of the marshal against the renegade by reminding him
+of all the evil contrived by the Abbe d'Aigrigny against him and his
+family. The marshal was reproached with cowardice for not taking
+vengeance on this priest, the persecutor of his wife and children, the
+insolent mocker at his misfortunes."
+
+"And from whom do you suspect these letters to come, father?"
+
+"I cannot tell--it is that which turns one's brain. They must come from
+the enemies of the marshal, and he has no enemies but the black-gowns."
+
+"But, father, since these letters are to excite his anger against the
+Abbe d'Aigrigny, they can hardly have been written by priests."
+
+"That is what I have said to myself."
+
+"But what, then, can be their object?"
+
+"Their object? oh, it is too plain!" cried Dagobert. "The marshal is
+hasty, ardent; he has a thousand reasons to desire vengeance on the
+renegade. But he cannot do himself justice, and the other sort of justice
+fails him. Then what does he do? He endeavors to forget, he forgets. But
+every day there comes to him an insolent letter, to provoke and
+exasperate his legitimate hatred, by mockeries and insults. Devil take
+me! my head is not the weakest--but, at such a game, I should go mad."
+
+"Father, such a plot would be horrible, and only worthy of hell!"
+
+"And that is not all."
+
+"What more?"
+
+"The marshal has received other letters; those he has not shown me--but,
+after he had read the first, he remained like a man struck motionless,
+and murmured to himself: 'They do not even respect that--oh! it is too
+much--too much!'--And, hiding his face in his hands he wept."
+
+"The marshal wept!" cried the blacksmith, hardly able to believe what he
+heard.
+
+"Yes," answered Dagobert, "he wept like a child."
+
+"And what could these letters contain, father?"
+
+"I did not venture to ask him, he appeared so miserable and dejected."
+
+"But thus harassed and tormented incessantly, the marshal must lead a
+wretched life."
+
+"And his poor little girls too! he sees them grow sadder and sadder,
+without being able to guess the cause. And the death of his father,
+killed almost in his arms! Perhaps, you will think all this enough; but,
+no! I am sure there is something still more painful behind. Lately, you
+would hardly know the marshal. He is irritable about nothing, and falls
+into such fits of passion, that--" After a moment's hesitation, the
+soldier resumed: "I way tell this to you, my poor boy. I have just been
+upstairs, to take the caps from his pistols."
+
+"What, father!" cried Agricola; "you fear--"
+
+"In the state of exasperation in which I saw him yesterday, there is
+everything to fear."
+
+"What then happened?"
+
+"Since some time, he has often long secret interviews with a gentleman,
+who looks like an old soldier and a worthy man. I have remarked that the
+gloom and agitation of the marshal are always redoubled after one of
+these visits. Two or three times, I have spoken to him about it; but I
+saw by his look, that I displeased him, and therefore I desisted.
+
+"Well! yesterday, this gentleman came in the evening. He remained here
+until eleven o'clock, and his wife came to fetch him, and waited for him
+in a coach. After his departure, I went up to see if the marshal wanted
+anything. He was very pale, but calm; he thanked me, and I came down
+again. You know that my room is just under his. I could hear the marshal
+walking about as if much agitated, and soon after he seemed to be
+knocking down the furniture. In alarm, I once more went upstairs. He
+asked me, with an irritated air, what I wanted, and ordered me to leave
+the room. Seeing him in that way, I remained; he grew more angry, still I
+remained; perceiving a chair and table thrown down, I pointed to them
+with so sad an air that he understood me. You know that he has the best
+heart in the world, so, taking me by the hand, he said to me: 'Forgive me
+for causing you this uneasiness, my good Dagobert; but just now, I lost
+my senses, and gave way to a burst of absurd fury; I think I should have
+thrown myself out of the window, had it been open. I only hope, that my
+poor dear girls have not heard me,' added he, as he went on tip-toe to
+open the door which communicates with his daughters' bedroom. When he had
+listened anxiously for a moment, he returned to me, and said: 'Luckily,
+they are asleep.'--Then I asked him what was the cause of his agitation,
+and if, in spite of my precautions, he had received any more anonymous
+letters. 'No,' replied he, with a gloomy air; 'but leave me, my friend. I
+am now better. It has done me good to see you. Good--night, old comrade!
+go downstairs to bed.'--I took care not to contradict him; but,
+pretending to go down, I came up again, and seated myself on the top
+stair, listening. No doubt, to calm himself entirely, the marshal went to
+embrace his children, for I heard him open and shut their door. Then he
+returned to his room, and walked about for a long time, but with a more
+quiet step. At last, I heard him throw himself on his bed, and I came
+down about break of day. After that, all remained tranquil."
+
+"But whatever can be the matter with him, father?"
+
+"I do not know. When I went up to him, I was astonished at the agitation
+of his countenance, and the brilliancy of his eyes. He would have looked
+much the same, had he been delirious, or in a burning fever--so that,
+when I heard him say, he could have thrown himself out of the window, had
+it been open, I thought it more prudent to remove the caps from his
+pistols."
+
+"I cannot understand it!" said Agricola. "So firm, intrepid, and cool a
+man as the marshal, a prey to such violence!"
+
+"I tell you that something very extraordinary is passing within him. For
+two days, he has not been to see his children, which is always a bad sign
+with him--to say nothing of the poor little angels themselves, who are
+miserable at the notion that they have displeased their father. They
+displease him! If you only knew the life they lead, dear creatures! a
+walk or ride with me and their companion, for I never let them go out
+alone, and, the rest of their time, at their studies, reading, or
+needlework--always together--and then to bed. Yet their duenna, who is, I
+think, a worthy woman, tells me that sometimes at night, she has seen
+them shed tears in their sleep. Poor children! they have hitherto known
+but little happiness," added the soldier, with a sigh.
+
+At this moment, hearing some one walk hastily across the courtyard,
+Dagobert raised his eyes, and saw Marshal Simon, with pale face and
+bewildered air, holding in his two hands a letter, which he seemed to
+read with devouring anxiety.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+THE GOLDEN CITY.
+
+While Marshal Simon was crossing the little court with so agitated an
+air, reading the anonymous letter, which he had received by Spoil-sport's
+unexpected medium, Rose and Blanche were alone together, in the sitting
+room they usually occupied, which had been entered for a moment by Loony
+during their absence. The poor children seemed destined to a succession
+of sorrows. At the moment their mourning for their mother drew near its
+close, the tragical death of their grandfather had again dressed them in
+funereal weeds. They were seated together upon a couch, in front of their
+work-table. Grief often produces the effect of years. Hence, in a few
+months, Rose and Blanche had become quite young women. To the infantine
+grace of their charming faces, formerly so plump and rosy, but now pale
+and thin, had succeeded an expression of grave and touching sadness.
+Their large, mild eyes of limpid azure, which always had a dreamy
+character, were now never bathed in those joyous tears, with which a
+burst of frank and hearty laughter used of old to adorn their silky
+lashes, when the comic coolness of Dagobert, or some funny trick of
+Spoil-sport, cheered them in the course of their long and weary
+pilgrimage.
+
+In a word, those delightful faces, which the flowery pencil of Greuze
+could alone have painted in all their velvet freshness, were now worthy
+of inspiring the melancholy ideal of the immortal Ary Scheffer, who gave
+us Mignon aspiring to Paradise, and Margaret dreaming of Faust. Rose,
+leaning back on the couch, held her head somewhat bowed upon her bosom,
+over which was crossed a handkerchief of black crape. The light streaming
+from a window opposite, shone softly on her pure, white forehead, crowned
+by two thick bands of chestnut hair. Her look was fixed, and the open
+arch of her eyebrows, now somewhat contracted, announced a mind occupied
+with painful thoughts. Her thin, white little hands had fallen upon her
+knees, but still held the embroidery, on which she had been engaged. The
+profile of Blanche was visible, leaning a little towards her sister, with
+an expression of tender and anxious solicitude, whilst her needle
+remained in the canvas, as if she had just ceased to work.
+
+"Sister," said Blanche, in a low voice, after some moments of silence,
+during which the tears seemed to mount to her eyes, "tell me what you are
+thinking of. You look so sad."
+
+"I think of the Golden City of our dreams," replied Rose, almost in a
+whisper, after another short silence.
+
+Blanche understood the bitterness of these words. Without speaking, she
+threw herself on her sister's neck, and wept. Poor girls! the Golden City
+of their dreams was Paris, with their father in it--Paris, the marvellous
+city of joys and festivals, through all of which the orphans had beheld
+the radiant and smiling countenance of their sire! But, alas! the
+Beautiful City had been changed into a place of tears, and death, and
+mourning. The same terrible pestilence which had struck down their mother
+in the heart of Siberia, seemed to have followed them like a dark and
+fatal cloud, which, always hovering above them, hid the mild blue of the
+sky, and the joyous light of the sun.
+
+The Golden City of their dreams! It was the place, where perhaps one day
+their father would present to them two young lovers, good and fair as
+themselves. "They love you," he was to say; "they are worthy of you. Let
+each of you have a brother, and me two sons." Then what chaste,
+enchanting confusion for those two orphans, whose hearts, pure as
+crystal, had never reflected any image but that of Gabriel, the celestial
+messenger sent by their mother to protect them!
+
+We can therefore understand the painful emotion of Blanche, when she
+heard her sister repeat, with bitter melancholy, those words which
+described their whole situation: "I think of the Golden City of our
+dreams!"
+
+"Who knows?" proceeded Blanche, drying her sister's tears; "perhaps,
+happiness may yet be in store for us."
+
+"Alas! if we are not happy with our father by us--shall we ever be so?"
+
+"Yes, when we rejoin our mother," said Blanche, lifting her eyes to
+heaven.
+
+"Then, sister, this dream may be a warning--it is so like that we had in
+Germany."
+
+"The difference being that then the Angel Gabriel came down from heaven
+to us, and that this time he takes us from earth, to our mother."
+
+"And this dream will perhaps come true, like the other, my sister. We
+dreamt that the Angel Gabriel would protect us, and he came to save us
+from the shipwreck."
+
+"And, this time, we dream that he will lead us to heaven. Why should not
+that happen also?"
+
+"But to bring that about, sister, our Gabriel, who saved us from the
+shipwreck, must die also. No, no; that must not happen. Let us pray that
+it may not happen."
+
+"No, it will not happen--for it is only Gabriel's good angel, who is so
+like him, that we saw in our dreams."
+
+"Sister, dear, how singular is this dream!--Here, as in Germany, we have
+both dreamt the same--three times, the very same!"
+
+"It is true. The Angel Gabriel bent over us, and looked at us with so
+mild and sad an air, saying: 'Come, my children! come, my sisters! Your
+mother waits for you. Poor children, arrived from so far!' added he in
+his tender voice: 'You have passed over the earth, gentle and innocent as
+two doves, to repose forever in the maternal nest.'"
+
+"Yes, those were the words of the archangel," said the other orphan, with
+a pensive air; "we have done no harm to any one, and we have loved those
+who loved us--why should we fear to die?"
+
+"Therefore, dear sister, we rather smiled than wept, when he took us by
+the hand, and, spreading wide his beautiful white wings, carried us along
+with him to the blue depths of the sky."
+
+"To heaven, where our dear mother waited for us with open arms, her face
+all bathed in tears."
+
+"Oh, sweet sister! one has not dreams like ours for nothing. And then,"
+added she, looking at Rose, with a sad smile that went to the heart, "our
+death might perhaps end the sorrow, of which we have been the cause."
+
+"Alas! it is not our fault. We love him so much. But we are so timid and
+sorrowful before him, that he may perhaps think we love him not."
+
+So saying, Rose took her handkerchief from her workbasket, to dry her
+fears; a paper, folded in the form of a letter, fell out.
+
+At this sight, the two shuddered, and pressed close to one mother, and
+Rose said to Blanche, in a trembling voice: "Another of these
+letters!--Oh, I am afraid! It will doubtless be like the last."
+
+"We must pick it up quickly, that it may not be seen," said Blanche,
+hastily stooping to seize the letter; "the people who take interest in us
+might otherwise be exposed to great danger."
+
+"But how could this letter come to us?"
+
+"How did the others come to be placed right under our hand, and always in
+the absence of our duenna?"
+
+"It is true. Why seek to explain the mystery? We should never be able to
+do so. Let us read the letter. It will perhaps be more favorable to us
+than the last." And the two sisters read as follows:-"Continue to love
+your father, dear children, for he is very miserable, and you are the
+involuntary cause of his distress. You will never know the terrible
+sacrifices that your presence imposes on him; but, alas! he is the victim
+of his paternal duties. His sufferings are more cruel than ever; spare
+him at least those marks of tenderness, which occasion him so much more
+pain than pleasure. Each caress is a dagger-stroke, for he sees in you
+the innocent cause of his misfortunes. Dear children, you must not
+therefore despair. If you have enough command over yourselves, not to
+torture him by the display of too warm a tenderness, if you can mingle
+some reserve with your affection, you will greatly alleviate his sorrow.
+Keep these letters a secret from every one, even from good Dagobert, who
+loves you so much; otherwise, both he and you, your father, and the
+unknown friend who is writing to you, will be exposed to the utmost
+peril, for your enemies are indeed formidable. Courage and hope! May your
+father's tenderness be once more free from sorrow and regret!--That happy
+day is perhaps not so far distant. Burn this letter like all the others!"
+
+The above note was written with so much cunning that, even supposing the
+orphans had communicated it to their father or Dagobert, it would at the
+worst have been considered a strange, intrusive proceeding, but almost
+excusable from the spirit in which it was conceived. Nothing could have
+been contrived with more perfidious art, if we consider the cruel
+perplexity in which Marshal Simon was struggling between the fear of
+again leaving his children and the shame of neglecting what he considered
+a sacred duty. All the tenderness, all the susceptibility of heart which
+distinguished the orphans, had been called into play by these diabolical
+counsels, and the sisters soon perceived that their presence was in fact
+both sweet and painful to their father; for sometimes he felt himself
+incapable of leaving them, and sometimes the thought of a neglected duty
+spread a cloud of sadness over his brow. Hence the poor twins could not
+fail to value the fatal meaning of the anonymous letters they received.
+They were persuaded that, from some mysterious motive, which they were
+unable to penetrate, their presence was often importunate and even
+painful to their father. Hence the growing sadness of Rose and
+Blanche--hence the sort of fear and reserve which restrained the
+expression of their filial tenderness. A most painful situation for the
+marshal, who deceived by inexplicable appearances, mistook, in his turn,
+their manner of indifference to him--and so, with breaking heart, and
+bitter grief upon his face, often abruptly quitted his children to
+conceal his tears!
+
+And the desponding orphans said to each other: "We are the cause of our
+father's grief. It is our presence which makes him so unhappy."
+
+The reader may new judge what ravages such a thought, when fixed and
+incessant, must have made on these young, loving, timid, and simple
+hearts. Haw could the orphans be on their guard against such anonymous
+communications, which spoke with reverence of all they loved, and seemed
+every day justified by the conduct of their father? Already victims of
+numerous plots, and hearing that they were surrounded by enemies, we can
+understand, how faithful to the advice of their unknown friend, they
+forbore to confide to Dagobert these letters, in which he was so justly
+appreciated. The object of the proceeding was very plain. By continually
+harassing the marshal on all sides, and persuading him of the coldness of
+his children, the conspirators might naturally hope to conquer the
+hesitation which had hitherto prevented his again quitting his daughters
+to embark in a dangerous enterprise. To render the marshal's life so
+burdensome that he would desire to seek relief from his torments in airy
+project of daring and generous chivalry, was one of the ends proposed by
+Rodin--and, as we have seen, it wanted neither logic nor possibility.
+
+After having read the letter, the two remained for a moment silent and
+dejected. Then Rose, who held the paper in her hand, started up suddenly,
+approached the chimneypiece, and threw the letter into the fire, saying,
+with a timid air: "We must burn it quickly, or perhaps some great danger
+will ensue."
+
+"What greater misfortune can happen to us," said Blanche, despondingly,
+"than to cause such sorrow to our father? What can be the reason of it?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Rose, whose tears were slowly trickling down her cheek,
+"he does not find us what he could have desired. He may love us well as
+the children of our poor mother, but we are not the daughters he had
+dreamed of. Do you understand me, sister?"
+
+"Yes, yes--that is perhaps what occasioned all his sorrow. We are so
+badly informed, so wild, so awkward, that he is no doubt ashamed of us;
+and, as he loves us in spite of all, it makes him suffer."
+
+"Alas! it is not our fault. Our dear mother brought us up in the deserts
+of Siberia as well as she could."
+
+"Oh! father himself does not reproach us with it; only it gives him
+pain."
+
+"Particularly if he has friends whose daughters are very beautiful, and
+possessed of all sorts of talents. Then he must bitterly regret that we
+are not the same."
+
+"Dost remember when he took us to see our cousin, Mdlle. Adrienne, who
+was so affectionate and kind to us, that he said to us, with admiration:
+'Did you notice her, my children? How beautiful she is, and what talent,
+what a noble heart, and therewith such grace and elegance!'"
+
+"Oh, it is very true! Mdlle. de Cardoville is so beautiful, her voice is
+so sweet and gentle, that, when we saw and heard her, we fancied that all
+our troubles were at an end."
+
+"And it is because of such beauty, no doubt, that our father, comparing
+us with our cousin and so many other handsome young ladies, cannot be
+very proud of us. And he, who is so loved and honored, would have liked
+to have been proud of his daughters."
+
+Suddenly Rose laid her hand on her sister's arm, and said to her, with
+anxiety: "Listen! listen! they are talking very loud in father's
+bedroom."
+
+"Yes," said Blanche, listening in her turn; "and I can hear him walking.
+That is his step."
+
+"Good heaven! how he raises his voice; he seems to be in a great passion;
+he will perhaps come this way."
+
+And at the thought of their father's coming--that father who really
+adored them--the unhappy children looked in terror at each other. The
+sound of a loud and angry voice became more and more distinct; and Rose,
+trembling through all her frame, said to her sister: "Do not let us
+remain here! Come into our room."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"We should hear, without designing it, the words of our father--and he
+does not perhaps know that we are so near."
+
+"You are right. Come, come!" answered Blanche, as she rose hastily from
+her seat.
+
+"Oh! I am afraid. I have never heard him speak in so angry a tone."
+
+"Oh! kind heaven!" said Blanche, growing pale, as she stopped
+involuntarily. "It is to Dagobert that he is talking so loud."
+
+"What can be the matter--to make our father speak to him in that way?"
+
+"Alas! some great misfortune must have happened."
+
+"Oh, sister! do not let us remain here! It pains me too much to hear
+Dagobert thus spoken to."
+
+The crash of some article, hurled with violence and broken to pieces in
+the next room, so frightened the orphans, that, pale and trembling with
+emotion, they rushed into their own apartment, and fastened the door. We
+must now explain the cause of Marshal Simon's violent anger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+THE STUNG LION.
+
+This was the scene, the sound of which had so terrified Rose and Blanche.
+At first alone in his chamber, in a state of exasperation difficult to
+describe, Marshal Simon had begun to walk hastily up and down, his
+handsome, manly face inflamed with rage, his eyes sparkling with
+indignation, while on his broad forehead, crowned with short-cut hair
+that was now turning gray, large veins, of which you might count the
+pulsations, were swollen almost to bursting; and sometimes his thick,
+black moustache was curled with a convulsive motion, not unlike that
+which is seen in the visage of a raging lion. And even as the wounded
+lion, in its fury, harassed and tortured by a thousand invisible darts,
+walks up and down its den with savage wrath, so Marshal Simon paced the
+floor of his room, as if bounding from side to side; sometimes he
+stooped, as though bending beneath the weight of his anger; sometimes, on
+the contrary, he paused abruptly, drew himself up to his full height,
+crossed his arms upon his vigorous chest, and with raised brow,
+threatening and terrible look, seemed to defy some invisible enemy, and
+murmur confused exclamations. Then he stood like a man of war and battle
+in all his intrepid fire.
+
+And now he stamped angrily with his foot, approached the chimney-piece,
+and pulled the bell so violently that the bell-rope remained in his hand.
+A servant hastened to attend to this precipitate summons. "Did you not
+tell Dagobert that I wished to speak to him?" cried the marshal.
+
+"I executed your grace's orders, but M. Dagobert was accompanying his son
+to the door, and--"
+
+"Very well!" interrupted Marshal Simon, with an abrupt and imperious
+gesture.
+
+The servant went out, and his master continued to walk up and down with
+impatient steps, crumpling, in his rage, a letter that he held in his
+left hand. This letter had been innocently delivered by Spoil-sport, who,
+seeing him come in, had run joyously to meet him. At length the door
+opened, and Dagobert appeared. "I have been waiting for you a long time,
+sirrah!" cried the marshal, in an irritated tone.
+
+Dagobert, more pained than surprised at this burst of anger, which he
+rightly attributed to the constant state of excitement in which the
+marshal had now been for some time past, answered mildly: "I beg your
+pardon, general, but I was letting out my son--"
+
+"Read that, sir!" said the marshal abruptly, giving him the letter.
+
+While Dagobert was reading it, the marshal resumed, with growing anger,
+as he kicked over a chair that stood in his way: "Thus, even in my own
+house, there are wretches bribed to harass me with incredible
+perseverance. Well! have you read it, sir?"
+
+"It is a fresh insult to add to the others," said Dagobert, coolly, as he
+threw the letter into the fire.
+
+"The letter is infamous--but it speaks the truth," replied the marshal.
+Dagobert looked at him in amazement.
+
+"And can you tell who brought me this infamous letter" continued the
+marshal. "One would think the devil had a hand in it--for it was your
+dog!"
+
+"Spoil-sport?" said Dagobert, in the utmost surprise.
+
+"Yes," answered the marshal, bitterly; "it is no doubt a joke of your
+invention."
+
+"I have no heart for joking, general," answered Dagobert, more and more
+saddened by the irritable state of the marshal; "I cannot explain how it
+happened. Spoil-sport is a good carrier, and no doubt found the letter in
+the house--"
+
+"And who can have left it there? Am I surrounded by traitors? Do you keep
+no watch? You, in whom I have every confidence?"
+
+"Listen to me, general--"
+
+But the marshal proceeded, without waiting to hear him. "What! I have
+made war for five-and-twenty years, I have battled with armies, I have
+struggled victoriously through the evil times of exile and proscription,
+I have withstood blows from maces of iron--and now I am to be killed with
+pins! Pursued into my own house, harassed with impunity, worn out,
+tortured every minute, to gratify some unknown, miserable hate!--When I
+say unknown, I am wrong--it is d'Aigrigny, the renegade, who is at the
+bottom of all this, I am sure. I have in the world but one enemy, and he
+is the man. I must finish with him, for I am weary of this--it is too
+much."
+
+"But, general, remember he is a priest--"
+
+"What do I care for that? Have I not seen him handle the sword? I will
+yet make a soldier's blood rise to the forehead of the traitor!"
+
+"But, general--"
+
+"I tell you, that I must be avenged on some one," cried the marshal, with
+an accent of the most violent exasperation; "I tell you, that I mast find
+a living representative of these cowardly plots, that I may at once make
+an end of him!--They press upon me from all sides; they make my life a
+hell--you know it--and you do nothing to save me from these tortures,
+which are killing me as by a slow fire. Can I have no one in whom to
+trust?"
+
+"General, I can't let you say that," replied Dagobert, in a calm, but
+firm voice.
+
+"And why not?"
+
+"General, I can't let you say that you have no one to trust to. You might
+end perhaps in believing it, and then it would be even worse for
+yourself, than for those who well know their devotion for you, and would
+go through fire and water to serve you. I am one of them--and you know
+it."
+
+These simple words, pronounced by Dagobert with a tone of deep
+conviction, recalled the marshal to himself; for although his honorable
+and generous character might from time to time be embittered by
+irritation and grief, he soon recovered his natural equanimity. So,
+addressing Dagobert in a less abrupt tone, he said to him, though still
+much agitated: "You are right. I could never doubt your fidelity. But
+anger deprives me of my senses. This infamous letter is enough to drive
+one mad. I am unjust, ungrateful--yes, ungrateful--and to you!"
+
+"Do not think of me, general. With a kind word at the end, you might blow
+me up all the year round. But what has happened?"
+
+The general's countenance again darkened, as he answered rapidly: "I am
+looked down upon, and despised!"
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes I. After all," resumed the marshal bitterly, "why should I conceal
+from you this new wound? If I doubted you a moment, I owe you some
+compensation, and you shall know all. For some time past, I perceived
+that, when I meet any of my old companions in arms, they try to avoid
+me--"
+
+"What! was it to this that the anonymous letter alluded?"
+
+"Yes; and it spoke the truth," replied the marshal, with a sigh of grief
+and indignation.
+
+"But it is impossible, general--you are so loved and respected--"
+
+"Those are mere words; I speak of positive facts. When I appear, the
+conversation is often interrupted. Instead of treating me as an old
+comrade, they affect towards me a rigorously cold politeness. There are a
+thousand little shades, a thousand trifles, which wound the heart, but
+which it is impossible to notice--"
+
+"What you are now saying, general, quite confounds me," replied Dagobert.
+"You assure me of it, and I am forced to believe you."
+
+"Oh, it is intolerable! I was resolved to ease my heart of it; so, this
+morning, I went to General d'Havrincourt, who was colonel with me in the
+Imperial Guard; he is honor and honesty itself. I went to him with open
+heart. 'I perceive,' said I, 'the coldness that is shown me. Some calumny
+must be circulating to my disadvantage. Tell me all about it. Knowing the
+attack, I shall be able to defend myself--'
+
+"Well, general?"
+
+"D'Havrincourt remained impassible ceremoniously polite. To all my
+questions he answered coldly: 'I am not aware, my lord duke, that any
+calumny has been circulated with regard to you.'--'Do not call me "my
+lord duke," my dear D'Havrincourt; we are old fellow-soldiers and
+friends, my honor is somewhat touchy, I confess, and I find that you and
+our comrades do not receive me so cordially, as in times past. You do not
+deny it; I see, I know, I feel it.' To all this D'Havrincourt answered,
+with the same coldness: 'I have never seen any one wanting in respect
+towards you.'--'I am not talking of respect,' exclaimed I, as I clasped
+his hand affectionately, though I observed that he but feebly returned
+the pressure; 'I speak of cordiality, confidence, which I once enjoyed,
+while now I am treated like a stranger. Why is it? What has occasioned
+this change?'--Still cold and reserved, he answered: 'These distinctions
+are so nice, marshal, that it is impossible for me to give you any
+opinion on the subject.'--My heart swelled with grief and anger. What was
+I to do? To quarrel with D'Havrincourt would have been absurd. A sense of
+dignity forced me to break off the interview, but it has only confirmed
+my fears. Thus," added the marshal, getting more and more animated, "thus
+am I fallen from the esteem to which I am entitled, thus am I despised,
+without even knowing the cause! Is it not odious? If they would only
+utter a charge against me--I should at least be able to defend myself,
+and to find an answer. But no, no! not even a word--only the cold
+politeness that is worse than any insult. Oh! it is too much, too much!
+for all this comes but in addition to other cares. What a life is mine
+since the death of my father! If I did but find rest and happiness at
+home--but no! I come in, but to read shameful letters; and still worse,"
+added the marshal, in a heartrending tone, and after a moment's
+hesitation, "to find my children grow more and more indifferent towards
+me--"Yes," continued he, perceiving the amazement of Dagobert, "and yet
+they know how much I love them!"
+
+"Your daughters indifferent!" exclaimed Dagobert, in astonishment. "You
+make them such a reproach?"
+
+"Oh! I do not blame them. They have hardly had time to know me."
+
+"Not had time to know you?" returned the soldier, in a tone of
+remonstrance, and warming up in his turn. "Ah! of what did their mother
+talk to them, except you? and I too! what could I teach your children
+except to know and love you?"
+
+"You take their part--that is natural--they love you better than they do
+me," said the marshal, with growing bitterness. Dagobert felt himself so
+painfully affected, that he looked at the marshal without answering.
+
+"Yes!" continued the other; "yes! it may be base and ungrateful--but no
+matter!--Twenty times I have felt jealous of the affectionate confidence
+which my children display towards you, while with me they seem always to
+be in fear. If their melancholy faces ever grow animated for a moment, it
+is in talking to you, in seeing you; while for me they have nothing but
+cold respect--and that kills me. Sure of the affection of my children, I
+would have braved and surmounted every difficulty--" Then, seeing that
+Dagobert rushed towards the door which led to the chamber of Rose and
+Blanche, the marshal asked: "Where are you going?"
+
+"For your daughters, general."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To bring them face to face with you--to tell them: 'My children, your
+father thinks that you do not love him.'--I will only say that--and then
+you will see."
+
+"Dagobert! I forbid you to do it," cried the marshal, hastily.
+
+"I don't care for that--you have no right to be unjust to the poor
+children," said the soldier, as he again advanced towards the door.
+
+"Dagobert, I command you to remain here," cried the marshal.
+
+"Listen to me, general. I am your soldier, your inferior, your servant,
+if you will," said the old grenadier, roughly; "but neither rank nor
+station shall keep me silent, when I have to defend your daughters. All
+must be explained--I know but one way--and that is to bring honest people
+face to face."
+
+If the marshal had not seized him by the arm, Dagobert would have entered
+the apartment of the young girls.
+
+"Remain!" said the marshal, so imperiously that the soldier, accustomed
+to obedience, hung his head, and stood still.
+
+"What would you do?" resumed the marshal. "Tell my children, that I think
+they do not love me? induce them to affect a tenderness they do not
+feel--when it is not their fault, but mine?"
+
+"Oh, general!" said Dagobert, in a tone of despair, "I no longer feel
+anger, in hearing you speak thus of your children. It is such grief, that
+it breaks my heart!"
+
+Touched by the expression of the soldier's countenance, the marshal
+continued, less abruptly: "Come, I may be wrong; and yet I ask you,
+without bitterness or jealousy, are not my children more confiding, more
+familiar, with you than with me?"
+
+"God bless me, general!" cried Dagobert; "if you come to that, they are
+more familiar with Spoil-sport than with either of us. You are their
+father; and, however kind a father may be, he must always command some
+respect. Familiar with me! I should think so. A fine story! What the
+devil should they respect in me, who, except that I am six feet high, and
+wear a moustache, might pass for the old woman that nursed them?--and
+then I must say, that, even before the death of your worthy father, you
+were sad and full of thought; the children have remarked that; and what
+you take for coldness on their part, is, I am sure, anxiety for you.
+Come, general; you are not just. You complain, because they love you too
+much."
+
+"I complain, because I suffer," said the marshal, in an agony of
+excitement. "I alone know my sufferings."
+
+"They must indeed be grievous, general," said Dagobert, carried further
+than he would otherwise have gone by his attachment for the orphans,
+"since those who love you feel them so cruelly."
+
+"What, sir! more reproaches?"
+
+"Yes, general, reproaches," cried Dagobert. "Your children have the right
+to complain of you, since you accuse them so unjustly."
+
+"Sir," said the marshal, scarcely able to contain himself, "this is
+enough--this is too much!"
+
+"Oh, yes! it is enough," replied Dagobert, with rising emotion. "Why
+defend unfortunate children, who can only love and submit? Why defend
+them against your unhappy blindness?"
+
+The marshal started with anger and impatience, but then replied, with a
+forced calmness: "I needs must remember all that I owe you--and I will
+not forget it, say what you will."
+
+"But, general," cried Dagobert, "why will you not let me fetch your
+children?"
+
+"Do you not see that this scene is killing me?" cried the exasperated
+marshal. "Do you not understand, that I will not have my children witness
+what I suffer? A father's grief has its dignity, sir; and you ought to
+feel for and respect it."
+
+"Respect it? no--not when it is founded on injustice!"
+
+"Enough, sir--enough!"
+
+"And not content with tormenting yourself," cried Dagobert, unable any
+longer to control his feelings, "do you know what you will do? You will
+make your children die of sorrow. Was it for this, that I brought them to
+you from the depths of Siberia?"
+
+"More reproaches!"
+
+"Yes; for the worst ingratitude towards me, is to make your children
+unhappy."
+
+"Leave the room, sir!" cried the marshal, quite beside himself, and so
+terrible with rage and grief, that Dagobert, regretting that he had gone
+so far, resumed: "I was wrong, general. I have perhaps been wanting in
+respect to you--forgive me--but--"
+
+"I forgive you--only leave me!" said the marshal, hardly restraining
+himself.
+
+"One word, general--"
+
+"I entreat you to leave me--I ask it as a service--is that enough?" said
+the marshal, with renewed efforts to control the violence of his
+emotions.
+
+A deadly paleness succeeded to the high color which during this painful
+scene had inflamed the cheeks of the marshal. Alarmed at this symptom,
+Dagobert redoubled his entreaties. "I implore you, general," said he, in
+an agitated mice, "to permit me for one moment--"
+
+"Since you will have it so, sir, I must be the one to leave," said the
+marshal, making a step towards the door.
+
+These words were said in such a manner, that Dagobert could no longer
+resist. He hung his head in despair, looked for a moment in silent
+supplication at the marshal, and then, as the latter seemed yielding to a
+new movement of rage, the soldier slowly quitted the room.
+
+A few minutes had scarcely elapsed since the departure of Dagobert, when
+the marshal, who, after a long and gloomy silence, had repeatedly drawn
+near the door of his daughters' apartment with a mixture of hesitation
+and anguish, suddenly made a violent effort, wiped the cold sweat from
+his brow, and entered the chamber in which Rose and Blanche had taken
+refuge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+THE TEST.
+
+Dagobert was right in defending his children, as he paternally called
+Rose and Blanche, and yet the apprehensions of the marshal with regard to
+the coldness of his daughters, were unfortunately justified by
+appearances. As he had told his father, unable to explain the sad, and
+almost trembling embarrassment, which his daughters felt in his presence,
+he sought in vain for the cause of what he termed their indifference. Now
+reproaching himself bitterly for not concealing from them his grief at
+the death of their mother, he feared he might have given them to
+understand that they would be unable to console him; now supposing that
+he had not shown himself sufficiently tender, and that had chilled them
+with his military sternness; and now repeating with bitter regret, that,
+having always lived away from them, he must be always a stranger to them.
+In a word, the most unlikely suppositions presented themselves by turns
+to his mind, and whenever such seeds of doubt, suspicion, or fear, are
+blended with a warm affection, they will sooner or later develop
+themselves with fatal effect. Yet, notwithstanding this fancied coldness,
+from which he suffered so much, the affection of the marshal for his
+daughters was so true and deep, that the thought of again quitting them
+caused the hesitations which were the torment of his life, and provoked
+an incessant struggle between his paternal love and the duty he held most
+sacred.
+
+The injurious calumnies, which had been so skillfully propagated, that
+men of honor, like his old brothers in arms, were found to attach some
+credit to them, had been spread with frightful pertinacity by the friends
+of the Princess de Saint-Dizier. We shall describe hereafter the meaning
+and object of these odious reports, which, joined with so many other
+fatal injuries, had filled up the measure of the marshal's indignation.
+Inflamed with anger, excited almost to madness by this incessant
+"stabbing with pins" (as he had himself called it), and offended at some
+of Dagobert's words, he had spoken harshly to him. But, after the
+soldier's departure, when left to reflect in silence, the marshal
+remembered the warm and earnest expressions of the defender of his
+children, and doubt crossed his mind, as to the reality of the coldness
+of which he accused them. Therefore, having taken a terrible resolution
+in case a new trial should confirm his desponding doubts, he entered, as
+we before said, his, daughters' chamber. The discussion with Dagobert had
+been so loud, that the sound of the voices had confusedly reached the
+ears of the two sisters, even after they had taken refuge in their
+bedroom. So that, on the arrival of their father, their pale faces
+betrayed their fear and anxiety. At sight of the marshal, whose
+countenance was also much agitated, the girls rose respectfully, but
+remained close together, trembling in each other's arms. And yet there
+was neither anger nor severity on their father's face--only a deep,
+almost supplicating grief, which seemed to say: "My children, I suffer--I
+have come to you--console me, love me! or I shall die!"
+
+The marshal's countenance was at this moment so expressive, that, the
+first impulse of fear once surmounted, the sisters were about to throw
+themselves into his arms; but remembering the recommendations of the
+anonymous letter, which told them how painful any effusion of their
+tenderness was to their father, they exchanged a rapid glance, and
+remained motionless. By a cruel fatality, the marshal at this moment
+burned to open his arms to his children. He looked at them with love, he
+even made a slight movement as if to call them to him; but he would not
+attempt more, for fear of meeting with no response. Still the poor
+children, paralyzed by perfidious counsels, remained mute, motionless,
+trembling!
+
+"It is all over," thought he, as he gazed upon them. "No chord of
+sympathy stirs in their bosom. Whether I go---whether I remain--matters
+not to them. No, I am nothing to these children--since, at this awful
+moment, when they see me perhaps for the last time, no filial instinct
+tells them that their affection might save me still!"
+
+During these terrible reflections, the marshal had not taken his eyes off
+his children, and his manly countenance assumed an expression at once so
+touching and mournful--his look revealed so painfully the tortures of his
+despairing soul--that Rose and Blanche, confused, alarmed, but yielding
+together to a spontaneous movement, threw themselves on their father's
+neck, and covered him with tears and caresses. Marshal Simon had not
+spoken a word; his daughters had not uttered a sound; and yet all three
+had at length understood one another. A sympathetic shock had electrified
+and mingled those three hearts. Vain fears, false doubts, lying counsel,
+all had yielded to the irresistible emotion which had brought the
+daughters to their father's arms. A sudden revelation gave them faith, at
+the fatal moment when incurable suspicion was about to separate them
+forever.
+
+In a second, the marshal felt all this, but words failed him. Pale,
+bewildered, kissing the brows, the hair, the hands of his daughters,
+weeping, sighing, smiling all in turn, he was wild, delirious, drunk with
+happiness. At length, he exclaimed: "I have found them--or rather, I have
+never lost them. They loved me, and did not dare to tell me so. I
+overawed them. And I thought it was my fault. Heavens! what good that
+does! what strength, what heart, what hope!--Ha! ha!" cried he, laughing
+and weeping at the same time, whilst he covered his children with
+caresses; "they may despise me now, they may harass me now--I defy them
+all. My own blue eyes! my sweet blue eyes! look at me well, and inspire
+me with new life."
+
+"Oh, father! you love us then as much as we love you?" cried Rose, with
+enchanting simplicity.
+
+"And we may often, very often, perhaps every day, throw ourselves on your
+neck, embrace you, and prove how glad we are to be with you?"
+
+"Show you, dear father, all the store of love we were heaping up in our
+hearts--so sad, alas! that we could not spend it upon you?"
+
+"Tell you aloud all that we think in secret?"
+
+"Yes--you may do so--you may do so," said Marshal Simon, faltering with
+joy; "what prevented you, my children? But no; do not answer; enough of
+the past!--I know all, I understand all. You misinterpreted my gloom, and
+it made you sad; I, in my turn, misinterpreted your sadness. But never
+mind; I scarcely know what I am saying to you. I only think of looking at
+you--and it dazzles me--it confuses me--it is the dizziness of joy!"
+
+"Oh, look at us, father! look into our eyes, into our hearts," cried
+Rose, with rapture.
+
+"And you will read there, happiness for us, and love for you, sir!" added
+Blanche.
+
+"Sir, sir!" said the marshal, in a tone of affectionate reproach; "what
+does that mean? Will you call me father, if you please?"
+
+"Dear father, your hand!" said Blanche, as she took it, and placed it on
+her heart.
+
+"Dear father, your hand!" said Rose, as she took the other hand of the
+marshal. "Do you believe now in our love and happiness?" she continued.
+
+It is impossible to describe the charming expression of filial pride in
+the divine faces of the girls, as their father, slightly pressing their
+virgin bosoms, seemed to count with delight the joyous pulsations of
+their hearts.
+
+"Oh, yes! happiness and affection can alone make the heart beat thus!"
+cried the marshal.
+
+A hoarse sob, heard in the direction of the open door, made the three
+turn round, and there they saw the tall figure of Dagobert, with the
+black nose of Spoil-sport reaching to his master's knee. The soldier,
+drying his eyes and moustache with his little blue cotton handkerchief,
+remained motionless as the god Terminus. When he could speak, he
+addressed himself to the marshal, and, shaking his head, muttered, in a
+hoarse voice, for the good man was swallowing his tears: "Did I not tell
+you so?"
+
+"Silence!" said the marshal, with a sign of intelligence. "You were a
+better father than myself, my old friend. Come and kiss them! I shall not
+be jealous."
+
+The marshal stretched out his hand to the soldier, who pressed it
+cordially, whilst the two sisters threw themselves on his neck, and
+Spoil-sport, according to custom wishing to have his share in the general
+joy, raised himself on his hind legs, and rested his fore-paws against
+his master's back. There was a moment of profound silence. The celestial
+felicity enjoyed during that moment, by the marshal, his daughters, and
+the soldier, was interrupted by the barking of Spoil-sort, who suddenly
+quitted the attitude of a biped. The happy group separated, looked round,
+and saw Loony's stupid face. He looked even duller than usual, as he
+stood quite still in the doorway, staring with wide stretched eyes, and
+holding a feather-broom under his arm, and in his hand the ever-present
+basket of wood.
+
+Nothing makes one so gay as happiness; and, though this grotesque figure
+appeared at a very unseasonable moment, it was received with frank
+laughter from the blooming lips of Rose and Blanche. Having made the
+marshal's daughters laugh, after their long sadness, Loony at once
+acquired a claim to the indulgence of the marshal, who said to him, good
+humoredly: "What do you want, my lad?"
+
+"It's not me, my lord duke!" answered Loony, laying his hand on his
+breast, as if it were taking a vow, so that his feather-brush fell down
+from under his arm. The laughter of the girls redoubled.
+
+"It is not you?" said the marshal.
+
+"Here! Spoil-sport!" Dagobert called, for the honest dog seemed to have a
+secret dislike for the pretended idiot, and approached him with an angry
+air.
+
+"No, my lord duke, it is not me!" resumed Loony. "It is the footman who
+told me to tell M. Dagobert, when I brought up the wood to tell my lord
+duke, as I was coming up with the basket, that M. Robert wants to see
+him."
+
+The girls laughed still more at this new stupidity. But, at the name of
+Robert, Marshal Simon started.
+
+M. Robert was the secret emissary of Rodin, with regard to the possible,
+but adventurous, enterprise of attempting the liberation of Napoleon II.
+
+After a moment's silence, the marshal, whose face was still radiant with
+joy and happiness, said to Loony: "Beg M. Robert to wait for me a moment
+in my study."
+
+"Yes, my lord duke," answered Loony, bowing almost to the ground.
+
+The simpleton withdrew, and the marshal said to his daughters, in a
+joyous tone, "You see, that, in a moment like this, one does not leave
+one's children, even for M. Robert."
+
+"Oh! that's right, father!" cried Blanche, gayly; "for I was already very
+angry with this M. Robert."
+
+"Have you pen and paper at hand?" asked the marshal.
+
+"Yes, father; there on the table," said Rose, hastily, as she pointed to
+a little desk near one of the windows, towards which the marshal now
+advanced rapidly.
+
+From motives of delicacy, the girls remained where they were, close to
+the fireplace, and caressed each other tenderly, as if to congratulate
+themselves in private on the unexpected happiness of this day.
+
+The marshal seated himself at the desk, and made a sign to Dagobert to
+draw near.
+
+While he wrote rapidly a few words in a firm hand, he said to the soldier
+with a smile, in so low a tone that it was impossible for his daughters
+to hear: "Do you know what I had almost resolved upon, before entering
+this room?"
+
+"What, general?"
+
+"To blow my brains out. It is to my children that I owe my life." And the
+marshal continued writing.
+
+Dagobert started at this communication, and then replied, also in a
+whisper: "It would not have been with your pistols. I took off the caps."
+
+The marshal turned round hastily, and looked at him with an air of
+surprise. But the soldier only nodded his head affirmatively, and added:
+"Thank heaven, we have now done with all those ideas!"
+
+The marshal's only answer was to glance at his children, his eyes
+swimming with tenderness, and sparkling with delight; then, sealing the
+note he had written, he gave it to the soldier, and said to him, "Give
+that to M. Robert. I will see him to-morrow."
+
+Dagobert took the letter, and went out. Returning towards his daughters,
+the marshal joyfully extended his arms to them, and said, "Now, young
+ladies, two nice kisses for having sacrificed M. Robert to you. Have I
+not earned them?" And Rose and Blanche threw themselves on their father's
+neck.
+
+About the time that these events were taking place at Paris, two
+travellers, wide apart from each other, exchanged mysterious thoughts
+through the breadth of space.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Wandering Jew, Book X., by Eugene Sue
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WANDERING JEW, BOOK X. ***
+
+***** This file should be named 3348.txt or 3348.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/4/3348/
+
+Produced by David Widger and Pat Castevens
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.