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diff --git a/45200.txt b/45200.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 51c7fe7..0000000 --- a/45200.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6790 +0,0 @@ - THE ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG MAN - - - - -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 http://www.gutenberg.org/license. - - - -Title: The Romance of a Poor Young Man -Author: Octave Feuillet -Release Date: March 24, 2014 [EBook #45200] -Language: English -Character set encoding: US-ASCII - - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG -MAN *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines. - - - - - -[Illustration: Octave Feuillet] - - - - - ENGLISH EDITION - A Library of French Masterpieces - EDITED BY EDMUND GOSSE - - - - THE ROMANCE OF A - POOR YOUNG MAN - - - TRANSLATED FROM THE - FRENCH OF - - OCTAVE FEUILLET - - - WITH A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION BY - HENRY HARLAND - - - ILLUSTRATED BY - SIMONT GUILHEM - - - - London: The London Book Co. MCMVII. - - - - - *OCTAVE FEUILLET'S NOVELS* - - -To be serious seriously is the way of mediocrity. To be serious gaily is -not such an easy matter. To look on at the pantomime of things, and to -see, neatly separated, tragedy here, comedy opposite--to miss the -perpetual dissolution and resolution of the one into and out of the -other--is inevitable when eyes are purblind. _Diis aliter visum_. -Olympus laughs because it perceives so many capital reasons for pulling -a long face; and half the time pulls a long face simply to keep from -laughing. I imagine it is in some measure the Olympian manner of seeing -which explains the gay seriousness of the work of Octave Feuillet. - -Octave Feuillet possesses to an altogether remarkable degree the art of -being serious not only gaily, but charmingly. This, to begin with, -places him and his stories in a particular atmosphere; and, if we -consider it, I think we shall recognise that atmosphere as something -very like the old familiar atmosphere of the fairy-tale. At any rate, -there is a delicate, a fanciful symbolism in Feuillet's work, which -breathes a fragrance unmistakably reminiscent of the enchanted forest. -For an instance, one may recall the chapter in _Un Mariage dans le -Monde_ which relates the escapade of Lionel and his betrothed on the day -before their wedding. A conventional mother, busy with preparations for -the ceremony, intrusts her daughter to the chaperonage of an old aunt, -who is, we might suppose, exactly the person for the office. But old -aunts are sometimes wonderfully made; sometimes they keep the most -unlooked-for surprises up those capacious old-fashioned sleeves of -theirs. This one was a fairy godmother in disguise, and, I suspect, a -pupil of the grimly-benevolent Blackstick. With good-humoured cynicism, -she remarks that the happiest period of even the happiest married life -is the day before it begins, and she advises her young charges to make -the most of it--chases them, indeed, from her presence. "Be off with -you, my children! Come, be off with you at once!" They escape to the -park, where they romp like a pair of truant school-children. That is -all; but in Feuillet's hands it becomes a fairy idyl. It serves, -besides, the symbolic purpose of striking at the outset the note of -joyousness which he means to repeat at the end, though the book is one -that threatens, almost to the last page, to end on a note of despair. -For _Un Mariage dans le Monde_, if far from being the most successful of -Feuillet's novels, exhibits, none the less, some of his cleverest -craftsmanship. He hoodwinks us into the fear that he meditates -disaster, only pleasantly, genially, at the right moment, to disappoint -us with the denouement we could have wished. - -Feuillet's geniality, for that matter, runs through all his books, and -is one of the vital principles of his talent. It is never the flaccid -geniality, the amiability, of the undiscerning person; it is, rather, -the wise and alert geniality of the benign magician, who is sometimes -constrained to weave black spells, because that is a part of the game, -and in the day's work, as it were, but who puts his heart only into the -weaving of spells that are rose-coloured. This is perhaps why Feuillet's -nice people nearly always take flesh and live and breathe, his horrid -people hardly ever--another resemblance, by-the-bye, between him and the -writer of fairy-tales. The nice women, with their high-bred lovers, who -step so daintily through his pages, to the flutter of perfumed fans and -the rustle of fine silks, are as convincing as the palpitantly -convincing princesses of Hans Andersen and Grimm; but Feuillet's -villains and adventuresses, like the ogres and the witches we never very -heartily believe in, are, for the most part, the merest stereotypes of -vice and wickedness, always artificial, too often a trifle absurd. - -In _Monsieur de Camors_, for example, we have an elaborate study of a -man who has determined to live by the succinct principle, "Evil, be thou -my good"--a succinct enough principle, in all conscience, though -Feuillet requires a lengthy chapter and a suicide to enunciate it. The -idea, if not original, might, in some hands, lend itself to interesting -development; but not so in Feuillet's. From the threshold we feel that -he is handicapped by his theme. It hangs round his neck like the -mill-stone of the adage; it checks his artistic impulses, obscures his -artistic instincts. The quips and cranks, the wreathed smiles, of -Feuillet the humourist, were out of place in a stupendous epopee of this -sort; so, for the sake of a psychological abstraction, which hasn't even -the poor merit of novelty, we must look on ruefully, while our merryman, -divested of cap and bells, proses to the end of his four sad hundred -pages. There are novelists who must work with an abstraction, who can -see their characters and their incidents only as they illustrate an -abstraction; and these also achieve their effects and earn their -rewards. But Feuillet belongs in a different galley. A handful of -human nature, a pleasing countryside, and Paris in the distance--these -are his materials. The philosophy and the plot may come as they will, -and it really doesn't much matter if they never come at all. To give -Feuillet a subject is to attach a chain and ball to his pen. He is -never so debonair, so sympathetic, so satisfying a writer, as when he -has something just short of nothing to write about. - -In _Monsieur de Camors_ he has a tremendous deal to write about; his -subject weighs his pen to the earth. The result is a book that's a -monstrosity, and a protagonist who's a monster. Louis de Camors is as -truly a monster as any green dragon that ever spat fire or stole king's -daughters (though by no means so exciting a monster), and he hasn't even -the virtue of being a monster that hangs together. For, while we are -asked to think of him as destitute of natural affections, he is at the -same time shown to us as the fond idolater of his wife, his wife's -mother, and his son. On his son's account, indeed, he goes so far as to -spend a long cold night in a damp and uncomfortable wood, only to be -dismissed in the morning without the embrace, in the hope of gaining -which he has violated his philosophy and taken the chances of -rheumatism. Altogether, a man devoid of affections, who loves his son, -his wife, and his mother-in-law, may be regarded as doing pretty well. -Again (since we are on the chapter of inconsistencies), in that dreary -and pompous letter written to Louis by his father, which expounds the -text of what becomes the son's rule of conduct, he is gravely charged to -fling religion and morality out of the window, but to cherish "honour" -as it were his life. "It is clear that a materialist can't be a saint, -but he can be a gentleman, and that is something," complacently writes -the elder Comte de Camors. Louis, however, though he makes loud acts of -faith in this inexpensive gospel, never hesitates to betray his friend, -to seduce the wife of his benefactor, nor to marry an unsuspecting -child, who loves him, for the sheer purpose of screening an intrigue -with "another lady," which he still intends to carry on. Feuillet, -perhaps, saves his face by heaping upon this impossible being's head all -the punishments that are poetically due to crime, but he doesn't save -_Monsieur de Camors_. It is a dismal volume, uncommonly hard to read. -And yet--art will out; and dismal as it is, it presents to us one of -Feuillet's most captivating women, Louis de Camors' ingenuous little -wife. Listen to her artless pronouncement upon Monsieur's evangel of -"honour." "Mon Dieu," she says, "I'm not sure, but it seems to me that -honour apart from morality is nothing very great, and that morality -apart from religion is nothing at all. It's like a chain: honour hangs -in the last link, like a flower; but when the chain is broken, the -flower falls with the rest." - -If, however, Feuillet's villains are failures, his adventuresses and bad -women are grotesquer failures still. And no wonder. His reluctance to -fashion an ugly thing out of material that would, in the natural course -of his impressions, suggest to him none but ideas of beauty, is quite -enough to account for it. Octave Feuillet is too much a gentleman, too -much a _preux chevalier_, to be able to get any intellectual -understanding of a bad woman; the actual operations of a bad woman's -soul are things he can get no "realizing sense" of. So he dresses up a -marionette, which shall do all the wicked feminine things his game -necessitates, which shall plot and poison, wreck the innocent heroine's -happiness, attitudinize as a fiend in woman's clothing, and even, at a -pinch, die a violent death, but which shall never let us forget that it -is stuffed with saw-dust and moved by strings. Madame de Campvallon, -Sabine Tallevaut, Mademoiselle Helouin, even Julia de Trecoeur--the more -they change, the more they are the same: sister-puppets, dolls carved -from a common parent-block, to be dragged through their appointed -careers of improbable naughtiness. You can recognise them at once by -their haunting likeness to the proud beauties of the hair-dresser's -window. They are always statuesque, always cold, reserved, mysterious, -serpentlike, goddesslike--everything, in fine, that bad women of flesh -and blood are not. Octave Feuillet, the wit and the man of the world, -knows this as well as we do; and knowing it, he tries, by verbal -fire-works, to make us forget it. "She charms me--she reminds me of a -sorceress," says some one of Sabine Tallevaut. "Do you notice, she -walks without a sound? Her feet scarcely touch the earth--she walks -like a somnambulist-like Lady Macbeth." It is the old trick, the -traditional _boniment_ of the showman; but not all the _boniments_ in -Feuillet's sack can make us believe in Sabine Tallevaut. - -One can recognise Feuillet's bad women, too, by the uncanny influence -they immediately cast upon his men. "More taciturn than ever, absent, -strange, as if she were meditating some profound design, all at once she -seemed to wake; she lifted her long lashes, let her blue eyes wander -here and there, and suddenly looked straight at Camors, who was -conscious of a thrill"--that is how Mme. de Campvallon does it, and the -fact is conclusive, so far as her moral character is in question. None -of Feuillet's good women would ever dream of making a man "thrill" at -her first encounter with him. But Feuillet's bad women will stop at -nothing. Julia de Trecoeur takes her own step-father, a middle-aged, -plain, stout, prosaic country gentleman, and throws him into a paroxysm -that has to be expressed in this wise: "It was a mad intoxication, which -the savour of guilt only intensified. Duty, loyalty, honour, whatsoever -presented itself as an obstacle to his passion, did but exasperate its -fury. The pagan Venus had bitten him in the heart, and injected her -poisons. A vision of Julia's fatal beauty was present without surcease, -in his burning brain, before his troubled eyes. Avidly, in spite of -himself, he drank in her languors, her perfumes, her breath." - -_Julia de Trecoeur_ has sometimes been called Feuillet's master-piece. -One eminent critic remarks that in writing it Feuillet "dived into the -vast ocean of human nature, and brought up a pearl." Well, there are -pearls and pearls; there are real pearls and artificial pearls; there -are white pearls and black pearls. It might seem to some of us that -_Julia de Trecoeur_ is an artificial black one. Frankly, as a piece of -literature, the novel is just in three words a fairly good melodrama. -Julia herself is the proper melodramatic heroine. Her beauty is "fatal," -her passions are ungovernable, and she dearly loves a scene. Now she -contemplates retirement into a convent, now matrimony, now a leap from -the cliffs; and each change of mood is inevitably the occasion for much -ranting and much attitudinizing. Her history is a fairly good -melodrama. That it is not a tip-top melodrama is due to the -circumstance that Feuillet was too intelligent a man to be able to make -it so. He can't keep out his wit; and every now and again his melodrama -forgets itself, and becomes sane comedy. He can't keep out his touches -of things simple and human; the high-flown, unhuman remainder suffers -from the contrast. - -Why, one wonders, with his flair for the subtleties of the normal, with -his genius for extracting their charm from trifles, why should Feuillet -have turned his hand to melodrama at all? Is it partly because he lived -in and wrote for a highly melodramatic period--"the dear, good days of -the dear, bad Second Empire"? Partly, too, no doubt, because, as some -one has said, the artist can never forgive, though he can easily forget, -his limitations. Like the comic actor who will not be happy till he has -appeared as Hamlet, the novelist, also, will cherish his unreasoning -aspirations. And then, melodrama is achieved before you know it. Any -incident that is not in itself essentially _un_dramatic will become -melodramatic, when you try to treat it, it will become forced and -stagey, if dramatic incidents are not the spontaneous issue of your -talent. Dramatic incidents are far from being the spontaneous issue of -Feuillet's talent; they are its changelings. His talent is all -preoccupied in fathering children of a quite opposite complexion. -Style, suavity, elegance, sentiment, colour, atmosphere--these are -Feuillet's preoccupations. Action, incident, are, when necessary, -necessary evils. So his action, when he is at his best, loiters, -saunters, or even stops dead-still; until suddenly he remembers that, -after all, his story must some time reach its period, and that something -really must happen to advance it. Thereupon, hurriedly, perfunctorily, -carelessly, he "knocks off" a few pages of incident--of incident fast -and furious--which will, as likely as not, read like the prompt-book of -a play at the Adelphi. - -That absurd Sabine Tallevaut, whose feet scarcely touch the earth, with -poison in her hand and adultery in her heart, is the one disfigurement -upon what might otherwise have been Feuillet's most nearly perfect -picture. In spite of her, _La Morte_ remains a work of exquisite and -tender beauty; and I'm not sure whether Aliette de Vaudricourt isn't the -very queen of all his women. If Feuillet was too much a gentleman to be -able to paint a bad woman, he was too much a man not to revel in -painting a charming one. As we pass through his gallery of delightful -heroines, from Aliette de Vaudricourt to Clothilde de Lucan, to Mme. de -Tecle, Marie FitzGerald, "Miss Mary" de Camors, Marguerite Laroque, even -to Jeanne de Maurescamp, we can feel the man's admiration pulsing in -every stroke of the artist's brush. He takes the woman's point of view, -espouses her side of the quarrel, offers himself as her champion -wherever he finds that a champion is needed. And he sticks to his -allegiance even after, as in the case of Jeanne de Maurescamp, she might -seem to have forfeited her claim to it. Of Jeanne he can still bring -himself to say, at the end of _L'Histoire d'une Parisienne_: "Decidedly, -this angel had become a monster; but the lesson of her too-true story -is, that, in the moral order, no one is born a monster. God makes no -monsters. It is man who makes them." - -In this instance, however, Feuillet is, perhaps, rather the apologist -than the champion. His contention is that Jeanne was by nature -virtuous, and that her virtue has been destroyed by the stupidity and -the brutality of her ill-chosen husband. But Feuillet has too fine and -too judicious a wit to insist upon the note of strenuousness. Seeing the -woman's point of view, he sees its humours as well as its pathos. -Admitting that men for the most part are grossly unworthy of her, and -that woman has infinitely the worst of it in the arrangements of -society, admitting and deploring it, he doesn't profess to know how to -set it right; he has no practical reform to preach. His business is to -divert us, and, if he must be serious, to be serious gaily and -charmingly. And perhaps he is most serious, not when composing an -epitaph for Jeanne de Maurescamp, but when he is lightly saying (in the -person of the Comtesse Jules): "Always remember, my poor dear, that -women are born to suffer--and men to be suffered." - -Charmingly serious himself, Feuillet's heroines likewise are always -serious, in their different charming ways. They may be wilful and -capricious, like Marguerite Laroque, or fond of the excitements of the -world, like Mme. de Rias, or wise in their generation, like Mme. de la -Veyle, but they are always womanly and human at the red-ripe of the -heart, and they are almost always religious. A sceptic, scepticlike, -Feuillet utterly discountenances scepticism in woman. Even his most -recusant of masculine unbelievers, the Vicomte de Vaudricourt, proclaims -his preference for a pious wife. "Not, of course," he says, "that I -exaggerate the moral guarantees offered by piety, or that I mistake it -for a synonym of virtue. But still it is certain that with women the -idea of duty is rarely dissociated from religious ideas. Because -religion doesn't keep all of them straight, it is an error to conclude -that it keeps none of them straight; and it's always well to be on the -safe side." Elsewhere Feuillet gives us his notion of the moral outlook -of the woman who is not religious. Evil for her, he tells us, ceases to -be evil, and becomes simply _inconvenance_. 'Tis a very mannish, a very -Frenchmannish, way of viewing the thing. - -One has sometimes heard it maintained that only women can reveal -themselves with perfect grace in a form so intimate as letters or a -diary; that a man's hand is apt to be too heavy, his manner too -self-conscious. Perhaps it is Feuillet's sympathy with women that has -made him the dab he is at this womanly art. In _La Morte_, for -instance, we learn vastly more of Bernard's character from his diary -than we should from thrice the number of pages of third-personal -exposition. The letters from Marie to her mother, in _Monsieur de -Camors_, furnish the single element of relief in that lugubrious -composition. Even those that pass between Rias and Mme. de Lorris, in -_Un Mariage dans le Monde_--though their subject-matter is sufficiently -depressing, though the man is an egotistical cad, and the great lady who -is giving him her help and pity ought rather to despise and spurn -him--are exceedingly good and natural letters; and the letter from Mme. -de Rias to Kevern, which ends the book, is a very jewel of a letter. -But it is in the diary of his poor young man that Feuillet's command of -the first person singular attains its most completely satisfying -results. - -_Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre_ is a tale of youth, for the young; -and the eldest of us may count himself still young if he can still enjoy -it. Here we have romance pure and simple, a thing of glamour all -compact; and the danger-line that so definitely separates romance from -absurdity, yet leaves them so perilously near together, is never -crossed. The action passes in the country, and in the most delectable -sort of country at that--the country of the appreciative and imaginative -cit. Before all things a Parisian, Feuillet is never particularly happy -in presenting Paris. His Paris is correct enough in architecture and -topography, no doubt; but the spirit of Paris, the whatever it is which -makes Paris Paris, and not merely a large town, somehow evades him. -Possibly he knew his Paris too well; familiarity had bred a kind of -inability to see, to focus, a kind of "staleness." Anyhow, it is when -he gets away from Paris that he wakes to the opportuneness and the -opportunities of scenic backgrounds. His eye, "stale" to town, is now -all eagerness, all freshness. Impressions of beauty crowd upon him. He -sees the country as it is doubtful whether the countryman ever sees -it--the countryman who has been surfeited with it, who has long since -forgotten its first magical effect. He brings to the country the -sensitiveness which is the product of the city's heat and strife. Dew -and wild flowers, the green of grass and trees, the music of birds, the -flutter of their wings, the pure air, the wide prospects, the changing -lights--it is to the appreciative and imaginative townsman that these -speak their finest message. - -But Feuillet is more than a townsman: he is a teller of fairy-tales. To -him the country is a free playground for his fancy. There beautiful -ladies and gallant knights have nothing to do but to love and to sing; -and there, without destroying our illusion, he can leave them to live -happily forever after. The Brittany, in which Maxime and Marguerite -meet and misunderstand and woo and wed, is not that northwestern corner -of France that one can reach in a few hours by steamer from Southampton; -it is a Brittany of fairy woods and streams and castles, that never was, -save in the poet's dream. For if others of Feuillet's novels have been -only in part fairy-tales, or only rather like fairy-tales, the _Romance -of a Poor Young Man_ is a fairy-tale wholly and absolutely. The -personages of the story are the invariable personages of the fairy-tale: -the prince disguised as a wood-cutter, in the Marquis de Champcey -disguised as a farm-bailiff; the haughty princess, who will not love, -yet loves despite her will, and is rewarded by the wood-cutter's -appearing in all the prince's splendour at the proper time, in -Marguerite Laroque; the bad prince and the bad princess, in M. de -Bevallon and Mlle. Helouin; the good magician, in M. Laubepin; and the -delightfullest of conceivable fairy godmothers, in Mlle. de Porhoet. -And the progress of the story is the wonted progress of the fairy-tale. -There is hardship, but it is overcome; there are perils, but they are -turned; misconceptions, but they are cleared up. There are empty -pockets, but there is the bag of gold waiting to fill them. The -marvellous never shocks our credulity, the longest-armed coincidences -seem the most natural happenings in the world. We are not in the least -surprised when, at the right moment, the bag of gold appears at Maxime's -feet, enabling him to marry; it is the foregone consequence of his -having a fairy godmother. We don't even raise the eyebrow of doubt when -the Laroques contemplate relinquishing their fortune to the poor, so -that Marguerite may come to her lover empty-handed; that is the accepted -device of the fairy-tale for administering to the proud princess her -well-deserved humiliation. In one small detail only does the fairy-tale -teller lose himself, and let the novelist supplant him; that is where he -implies that the bad prince and princess, after their wicked wiles had -been discovered, took the train to Paris. They did nothing of the sort. -They were turned into blocks of stone, and condemned to look on at the -happiness of the good prince and princess from the terrace of the -Chateau de Laroque. - -But it must not be supposed, because the personages of the _Romance of a -Poor Young Man_ are fairy-tale personages, that therefore they are not -human personages. It is, on the contrary, the humanity of its -personages that makes your fairy-tale interesting. You stick to human -men and women, you merely more or less improve the conditions of their -existence, you merely revise and amend a little the laws of the external -universe--an easy thing to do, in spite of the unthinking people who -prate of those laws as immutable. Then the fun consists in seeing how -human nature will persist and react. Surely none of Feuillet's heroines -is more engagingly human than Marguerite Laroque. It is true that we -see her only through the eyes of a chronicler who happens to be -infatuated with her, but we know what discount to allow for that. We -are confident from her first entrance that if, as we hope, our poor -young man's head is screwed on as poor young men's heads should be, -Marguerite will turn it. We learn that she is capricious, therefore -Maxime will be constant; that she is proud, therefore, in all humility, -he will be prouder; that she is humble, therefore, in all pride, he will -humble himself at her feet. But antecedent to all this, and just -because his ostensible business in Brittany is the management of the -Laroques' estate, no one needs to warn us that his real business will be -the conquest of the Laroques' daughter. We can foresee with half an eye -that the affairs of the estate are affairs which our disguised marquis -will conscientiously neglect. Indeed, Mme. Laroque herself seems to -have been haunted by something of the same premonition. What does she -say to the sous-prefet? "Mon Dieu, ne m'en parlez pas; il-y-a la un -mystere inconcevable. Nous pensons que c'est quelque prince deguise.... -Entre nous, mon cher sous-prefet, je crois bien que c'est un -tres-mauvais intendant, mais vraiment c'est un homme tres-agreable." - -She might have added "un homme tres-digne." For if we have a fault to -find with Maxime, it is that he seems just possibly a thought too -"digne." But that is a fault common to so many men in fiction. French -novelists, like English lady novelists, are terribly apt to make their -men too "digne"--when they don't make them too unspeakably _indigne_. -Maxime, however, we mustn't forget, is his own portraitist, and we'll -hope in this detail the portrait errs. For the rest, we are content to -accept it as he paints it. He is a poor young man, but he is also a -fairy prince. Therefore he can vaunt himself as an ordinary poor young -man could hardly do with taste. He can perform and narrate his -prodigies of skill and valour without offending. He can rescue an -enormous Newfoundland dog from a raging torrent, for example, with the -greatest ease in the world, an exploit you or I might have found -ticklish, and he can tell us of it afterward, a proceeding you or I -might have shrunk from as vainglorious. For Maxime is a fairy prince; -the dog belongs to the fairy princess; and the bad prince, the rival, -who is standing by, doesn't know how to swim. Again, with splendid -indifference, he can accomplish and record his leap from the Tour d' -Elven to save the fairy princess from a situation that might, in -Fairyland, have compromised her; hadn't the princess unjustly impugned -his honour, and insinuated that the situation was one he had -deliberately brought to pass? "Monsieur le Marquis de Champcey, y a -t-il eu beaucoup de laches dans votre famille avant vous?" superbly -demands Marguerite; and we can see her kindling eye, the scornful curl -of her lip, we can hear the disdainful tremor of her voice. Maxime -would be a poor-spirited poor young man, indeed, if, after that, he -should hesitate to jump. And he has his immediate compensation. -"Maxime! Maxime!" cries the haughty princess, now all remorse, "par -grace, par pitie! au nom du bon Dieu, parlez-moi! pardonnez-moi!" So -that, though the prince goes away with a broken arm, the lover carries -exultancy in his heart. - -Is Maxime perhaps just a thought too "digne," also, in his relations -with his little sister--when he visits her at school, for instance, and -promises to convey the bread she cannot eat to some deserving beggar? -At the moment he is the most deserving beggar he chances to know of, but -he is resolved to keep his beggary a secret from Helene. "Cher Maxime," -says she, "a bientot, n'est-ce pas? Tu me diras si tu as rencontre un -pauvre, si tu lui as donne mon pain, et s'il l'a trouve bon." And -Maxime, in his journal: "Oui, Helene, j'ai rencontre un pauvre, et je -lui ai donne ton pain, qu'il a emporte comme une proie dans sa mansarde -solitaire, et il l'a trouve bon; mais c'etait un pauvre sans courage, -car il a pleure en devorant l'aumone de tes petites mains bien-aimees. -Je te dirai tout cela, Helene, car il est bon que tu saches qu'il y a -sur la terre des souffrances plus serieuses que tes souffrances -d'enfant: je te dirai tout, excepte le nom du pauvre." It certainly -_is_ "digne," isn't it? Is it a trifle too much so? Isn't it a trifle -priggish, a trifle preachy? Is it within the limits of pure pathos? Or -does it just cross the line? I don't know. - -I am rather inclined to think that Maxime is at his best--at once most -human and most fairy princelike--in his relations with the pre-eminently -human fairy Porhoet. He is entirely human, and weak, and nice, when he -blurts out to her the secret of his high birth. Hadn't she just been -boasting of her own, and invidiously citing Monsieur l'intendant as a -typical plebeian? "En ce qui me concerne, mademoiselle," he has the -human weakness to retort, "vous vous trompez, car ma famille a eu -l'honneur d'etre alliee a la votre, et reciproquement." He remains -human and weak throughout the somewhat embarrassing explanations that -are bound to follow; and if, in their subsequent proceedings, after she -has adopted him as "mon cousin," he will still from time to time become -a trifle priggish and a trifle preachy, we must remember that mortal -man, in the hands of a French novelist, has to choose between that and a -career of profligacy. - -It is by his _Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre_ that Feuillet is most -widely known outside of France; it is by this book that he will "live," -if he is to live. Certainly it is his freshest, his sincerest, his most -consistently agreeable book. - - -HENRY HARLAND. - - - - - *BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE* - - -Octave Feuillet was born at Saint-Lo, in the department of the Manche, -on the 11th of August, 1821. His father, who belonged to one of the -oldest Norman families, was secretary-general to the prefect, and a -little later, in the revolution of 1830, played a prominent part in -politics. A hereditary nervousness, amounting finally to a disease, -alone prevented him, according to Guizot, from being given a portfolio -in the new ministry. Octave inherited his father's excessive -sensibility, although in later years he held it more under control. -After the death of his mother, which occurred as he was developing in -boyhood, he became so melancholy that, at the advice of the physicians, -he was sent to a school in Paris, where his health gradually became -re-established; afterward, at the College de Louis-le-Grand, he greatly -distinguished himself as a scholar. It was his father's design to -prepare him for the diplomatic career, but already the desire to write -had awakened itself in him. When the moment came for choosing a -profession, Octave timidly confessed his determination to make -literature his business in life; the irascible old gentleman at Saint-Lo -turned him out of the house, and cut off his allowance. He returned to -Paris, and for three years had a hard struggle with poverty. During -this time, under the encouragement of the great actor Bocage, Octave -Feuillet brought out three dramas, "Echec et Mat," "Palma," and "La -Vieillesse de Richelieu," under the pseudonym of "Desire Hazard." These -were successful, and the playwright's father forgave and welcomed him -back to his favour. Octave remained in Paris, actively engaged in -literary work, mainly dramatic, but gradually in the line of prose -fiction also. In 1846 he published his novel of "Polichinelle," -followed in 1848 by "Onesta," in 1849 by "Redemption" and in 1850 by -"Bellah." None of these are remembered among Octave Feuillet's best -works, but he was gaining skill and care in composition. In 1850, -however, he was suddenly summoned home to Saint-Lo by the increased -melancholy of his father, who could no longer safely be left alone in -the gloomy ancestral mansion which he refused to leave. Octave, with -resignation, determined to sacrifice his life to the care of his father, -and in this piety he was supported by his charming cousin, Valerie -Feuillet, a very accomplished and devoted woman, whom he married in -1851. For eight years they shared this painful exile, the father of -Octave scarcely permitting them to leave his sight, and refusing every -other species of society. Strangely enough, this imprisonment was not -unfavourable to the novelist's genius; the books he wrote during this -period--"Dalila," "La Petite Comtesse" (1856), "Le Village," and finally -"Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre" (1858)--being not only far superior -to what he had previously published, but among the very finest of all -his works. By a grim coincidence, on almost the only occasion on which -Octave Feuillet ventured to absent himself for a day or two, to be -present at the performance of his "Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre," when -it was dramatized in 1858, the father suddenly died while the son was in -Paris. This was a great shock to Feuillet, who bitterly and unjustly -condemned himself. He was now, however, free, and, with his wife and -children, he returned to Paris. He was now very successful, and soon -became a figure at Compiegne and in the great world. In 1862 he -published "Sibylle," and was elected a member of the French Academy. A -great favourite of the Emperor and Empress, he was tempted to combine -the social life at Court with the labours of literature. His health -began to suffer from the strain, and, to recover, he retired again to -Saint-Lo, where he lived, not in the home of his ancestors, but in a -little house above the ramparts, called Les Paillers; for the future he -spent only the winter months in Paris. His novels became fewer, but not -less carefully prepared; he enjoyed a veritable triumph with "Monsieur -de Camors" in 1867. Next year he was appointed Royal Librarian at -Fontainbleu, an office which he held till the fall of the Empire. He -then retired to Les Paillers again, where he had written "Julia de -Trecoeur" in 1867. The end of his life was troubled by domestic -bereavement and loss of health; he hurried restlessly from place to -place, a prey to constant nervous agitation. His later writings were -numerous, but had not the vitality of those previously mentioned. -Octave Feuillet died in Paris, December 28, 1890, and was succeeded at -the French Academy by Pierre Loti. Octave was the type of a sensitive, -somewhat melancholy fine gentleman; he was very elegant in manners, -reserved and ceremonious in society, where he held himself somewhat -remote in the radiance of his delicate wit; but within the bosom of his -family he was tenderly and almost pathetically demonstrative. The least -criticism was torture to him, and it is said that when his comedy of "La -Belle au Bois Dormant" was hissed off the boards of the Vaudeville in -1865, for three weeks afterward the life of Feuillet was in danger. -Fortunately, however, for a "fiery particle" so sensitive, the greater -part of his career was one continuous triumph. - - -E.G. - - - - - *LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS* - - -Portrait of Octave Feuillet . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ - - - COLOURED PLATES - -"You do not ask me where I am taking you," she said (see page 123) - -"I fell on my knees, I could not keep back my tears" (see page 245) - -"I felt her lips on mine----I thought my soul was escaping from me" (see -page 246) - - - THE PORTRAITS OF OCTAVE FEUILLET - -In 1850, after a drawing by the engraver Monciau - -In 1879, after a sketch made in Geneva - -After a photograph taken in 1880 - -The last photograph taken in 1889 - -Sketch by Dantan, about 1878 - - - - - *THE ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG MAN* - - - _Sursum corda!_ - - - PARIS, _April 25, 185-_. - -The second evening I have passed in this miserable room, staring -gloomily at the bare hearth, hearing the dull monotone of the street, -and feeling more lonely, more forsaken, and nearer to despair in the -heart of this great city than a ship-wrecked man shivering on a broken -plank in mid-ocean. - -I have done with cowardice. I will look my destiny in the face till it -loses its spectral air. I will open my sorrowful heart to the one -confidant whose pity will not hurt, to that pale last friend who looks -back at me from the glass. I will write down my thoughts and my life, -not in trivial and childish detail, but without serious omissions, and -above all without lies. I shall love my journal; it will be a brotherly -echo to cheat my loneliness, and at the same time a second conscience -warning me not to allow anything to enter into my life which I dare not -write down calmly with my own hand. - -Now, with sad eagerness I search the past for the facts and incidents -which should have long since enlightened me, had not filial respect, -habit, and the indifference of a happy idler blinded me. I understand -now my mother's deep and constant melancholy; I understand her distaste -for society, and why she wore that plain, unvaried dress which sometimes -called forth sarcasms, sometimes wrath from my father.--"You look like a -servant," he would say to her. - -I could not but be conscious that our family life was broken by more -serious quarrels, though I was never an actual witness of them. All I -heard were my father's sharp and imperious tones, the murmur of a -pleading voice, and stifled sobs. These outbursts I attributed to my -father's violent and fruitless attempts to revive in my mother the taste -for the elegant and brilliant life which she had once enjoyed as much as -becomes a virtuous woman, but into which she now accompanied my father -with a repugnance that grew stronger every day. After such crises, my -father nearly always ran off to buy some costly trinket which my mother -found in her table-napkin at dinner, and never wore. One day in the -middle of winter she received a large box of rare flowers from Paris; -she thanked my father warmly, but directly he had left the room, I saw -her slightly raise her shoulders and look up to heaven with an -expression of hopeless despair. - -During my childhood and early youth I had a great respect for my father, -but not much affection. Indeed, throughout this period I saw only the -sombre side of his character--the one side that showed itself in -domestic life, for which he was not fitted. Later, when I was old -enough to go out with him, I was surprised and charmed to find in him a -person perfectly new to me. It seemed as if, in our old family house, -he felt himself constrained by some fatal spell; once beyond its doors, -his forehead cleared, his chest expanded, and he was young again. "Now, -Maxime," he would cry, "now for a gallop!" And joyously we would rush -along. His shouts of youthful pleasure, his enthusiasm, his fantastic -wit, his bursts of feeling, charmed my young heart, and I longed to -bring something of all this back to my poor mother, forgotten in her -corner at home. I began to love my father; and when I saw all the -sympathetic qualities of his brilliant nature displayed in all the -functions of social life--at hunts and races, balls and dinners--my -fondness for him became an actual admiration. A perfect horseman, a -dazzling talker, a bold gambler, daring and open-handed, he became for -me the finished type of manly grace and chivalrous nobility. Indeed, he -would speak of himself--smiling with some bitterness--as the last of the -gentlemen. - -Such was my father in society; but as soon as he returned to his home my -mother and I saw only a restless, morose, and violent old man. - -My father's outbursts to a creature so sweet and delicate as my mother -would certainly have revolted me had they not been followed by the quick -returns of tenderness and the redoubled attentions I have mentioned. -Justified in my eyes by these proofs of penitence, my father seemed to -be only a naturally kind, warm-hearted man sometimes irritated beyond -endurance by an obstinate and systematic opposition to all his tastes -and preferences. I thought my mother was suffering from some nervous -derangement. My father gave me to understand so, though, and as I -thought very properly, he only referred to this subject with great -reserve. - -I could not understand what were my mother's feelings towards my father; -they were--for me--beyond analysis or definition. Sometimes a strange -severity glittered in the looks she fixed on him; but it was only a -flash, and the next moment her beautiful soft eyes and her unchanged -face showed nothing but tender devotion and passionate submission. - -My mother had been married at fifteen, and I was nearly twenty-two when -my sister, my poor Helene, was born. One morning soon afterwards my -father came out of my mother's room looking anxious. He signed to me to -follow him into the garden. - -"Maxime," he said, after walking in silence for a little, "your mother -gets stranger and stranger." - -"She is so ill just now, father." - -"Yes, of course. But now she has the oddest fancy: she wants you to -study law." - -"Law! What! Does my mother want me, at my age, with my birth and -position, to sit among school-boys on the forms of a college classroom? -It is absurd." - -"So I think," said my father dryly, "but your mother is ill, -and--there's no more to be said." - -I was a young puppy then, puffed up by my name, my importance, and my -little drawing-room successes; but I was sound at heart, and I -worshipped my mother, with whom I had lived for twenty years in the -closest intimacy possible between two human souls. I hastened to assure -her of my obedience; she thanked me with a sad smile and made me kiss my -sister who was sleeping on her lap. - -We lived about a mile and a half from Grenoble, so I could attend the -law classes at the university without leaving home. Day by day my -mother followed my progress with such intense and persistent interest -that I could not help thinking that she had some stronger motive than -the fancy of an invalid; that perhaps my father's hatred and contempt -for the practical and tedious side of life might have brought about a -certain embarrassment in our affairs which, my mother thought, a -knowledge of law and a business training would enable me to put right. -This explanation did not satisfy me. No doubt my father had often -complained bitterly of our losses during the Revolution, but his -complaints had long ceased, and I had never thought them well-founded, -because, as far as I could see, our position was in every way -satisfactory. - -We lived near Grenoble in our hereditary chateau, which was famous in -our country as an aristocratic and lordly dwelling. My father and I -have often shot or hunted for a whole day without going off our own land -or out of our own woods. Our stables were vast, and filled with -expensive horses of which my father was very fond and very proud. -Besides, we had a town-house in Paris on the Boulevard des Capucines, -where comfortable quarters were always reserved for occasional visits. -And nothing in our ordinary way of living could suggest either a small -income or close management. Even as regards the table, my father -insisted upon a particular degree of delicacy and refinement. - -My mother's health declined almost imperceptibly. In time there came an -alteration in her disposition. The mouth which, at all events in my -presence, had spoken only kind words, grew bitter and aggressive. Every -step I took beyond the house provoked a sarcasm. My father was not -spared, and bore these attacks with a patience that seemed to me -exemplary, but he got more and more into the habit of living away from -home. He told me that he must have distraction and amusement. He always -wanted me to go with him, and my love of pleasure, and the eagerness of -youth, and, to speak truly, my lack of moral courage, made me obey him -too readily. - -In September, 185-, there were some races near the chateau, and several -of my father's horses were to run. We started early and lunched on the -course. About the middle of the day, as I was riding by the course -watching the fortunes of a race, one of our men came up and said he had -been looking for me for more than half an hour. He added that my father -had already been sent for and had gone back to my mother at the chateau, -and that he wanted me to follow him at once. - -"But what in Heaven's name is the matter?" - -"I think madame is worse," said the servant. - -I set off like a madman. - -When I reached home my sister was playing on the lawn in the middle of -the great, silent courtyard. As I dismounted, she ran up to embrace me, -and said, with an air of importance and mystery that was almost joyful: - -"The cure has come." - -I did not, however, perceive any unusual animation in the house, nor any -signs of disorder or alarm. I went rapidly up the staircase, and had -passed through the boudoir which communicated with my mother's room, -when the door opened softly, and my father appeared. I stopped in front -of him; he was very pale, and his lips were trembling. - -"Maxime," he said, without looking at me, "your mother is asking for -you." - -I wished to question him, but he checked me with a gesture, and walked -hurriedly towards a window, as if to look out. I entered. My mother -lay half-reclining in an easy-chair, one of her arms hanging limply over -the side. Again I saw on her face, now as white as wax, the exquisite -sweetness and delicate grace which lately had been driven away by -suffering. Already the Angel of Eternal Rest was casting the shadow of -his wing over that peaceful brow. I fell upon my knees; she half-opened -her eyes, raised her drooping head with an effort, and enveloped me in a -long, loving look. Then, in a voice which was scarcely more than a -broken sigh, she slowly spoke these words: - -"Poor child! ... I am worn out, you see! Do not weep. You have deserted -me a little lately, but I have been so trying. We shall meet again, -Maxime, and we shall understand one another, my son. I can't say any -more.... Remind your father of his promise to me.... And you, Maxime, -be strong in the battle of life, and forgive the weak." - -She seemed to be exhausted, and stopped for a moment. Then, raising a -finger with difficulty, and looking at me fixedly, she said: "Your -sister!" - -Her livid eyelids closed; then suddenly she opened them, and threw out -her arms with a rigid and sinister gesture. I uttered a cry; my father -came quickly, and, with heartrending sobs, pressed the poor martyr's -body to his bosom. - -Some weeks later, at the formal request of my father, who said that he -was obeying the last wishes of her whom we mourned, I left France, and -began that wandering life which I have led nearly up to this day. -During a year's absence my heart, becoming more affectionate as the -selfish frenzy of youth burnt out, urged me to return and renew my life -at its source, between my mother's tomb and my sister's cradle. But my -father had fixed the duration of my travels, and he had not brought me -up to treat his wishes lightly. He wrote to me affectionately, though -briefly, showing no desire to hasten my return. So I was the more -alarmed when I arrived at Marseilles, two months ago, and found several -letters from him, all feverishly begging me to return at once. - -It was on a sombre February evening, that I saw once more the massive -walls of our ancient house standing out against the light veil of snow -that lay upon the country. A sharp north wind blew in icy gusts; flakes -of frozen sleet dropped like dead leaves from the trees of the avenue, -and struck the wet soil with a faint and plaintive sound. As I entered -the court a shadow, which I took to be my father's, fell upon a window -of the large drawing-room on the ground floor--a room which had not been -used during my mother's last days. I hurried on, and my father, seeing -me, gave a hoarse cry, then opened his arms to me, and I felt his heart -beating wildly against my own. - -"Thou art frozen, my poor child," he said, much against his habit, for -he seldom addressed me in the second person. "Warm thyself, warm -thyself. This is a cold room, but I prefer it now; at least one can -breathe here." - -"Are you well, father?" - -"Pretty well, as you see." - -Leaving me by the fireplace, he resumed his walk across the vast -_salon_, dimly lighted by two or three candles. I seemed to have -interrupt this walk of his. This strange welcome alarmed me. I looked -at my father in dull surprise. - -"Have you seen my horses?" he said suddenly, without stopping. - -"But, father----" - -"Ah, yes, of course, you've only just come." After a silence he -continued. "Maxime," he said, "I have something to tell you." - -"I'm listening, father." - -He did not seem to hear me, but walked about a little, and kept on -repeating, "I have something to tell you, my son." At last he sighed -deeply, passed his hand across his forehead, and sitting down suddenly, -signed to me to take a seat opposite to him. Then, as if he wanted to -speak and had not the courage to do so, his eyes rested on mine, and I -read in them an expression of suffering, humility, and supplication that -in a man so proud as my father touched me deeply. Whatever the faults -he found it so hard to confess, I felt from the bottom of my heart that -he was fully pardoned. - -Suddenly his eyes, which had never left mine, were fixed in an -astonished stare, vague and terrible. His hand stiffened on my arm; he -raised himself in his chair, then drooped, and in an instant fell -heavily on the floor. He was dead. - -The heart does not reason or calculate. That is its glory. In a moment -I had divined everything. One minute had been enough to show me all at -once, and without a word of explanation--in a burst of irresistible -light, the fatal truth which a thousand things daily repeated under my -eyes had never made me suspect. Ruin was here, in this house, over my -head. Yet I do not think that I should have mourned my father more -sincerely or more bitterly if he had left me loaded with benefits. With -my regret and my deep sorrow there was mingled a pity, strangely -poignant in that it was the pity of a son for his father. That -beseeching, humbled, hopeless look haunted me. Bitterly I regretted -that I had not been able to speak a word of consolation to that heart -before it broke! Wildly I called to him who could no longer hear me, "I -forgive you, I forgive you." My God, what moments were these! As far as -I have been able to guess, my mother, when she was dying, had made my -father promise to sell the greater part of his property; to pay off the -whole of the enormous debt he had incurred by spending every year a -third more than his income, and to live solely and strictly on what he -had left. My father had tried to keep to this engagement; he had sold -the timber and part of the estate, but finding himself master of a -considerable capital, he had applied only a small portion of it to the -discharge of his debts, and had attempted to restore our fortunes by -staking the remainder in the hateful chances of the Stock Exchange. He -had thus completed his ruin. I have not yet sounded the depths of the -abyss in which we are engulfed. A week after my father's death I was -taken seriously ill, and after two months of suffering I was only just -able to leave my ancient home on the day that a stranger took possession -of it. Fortunately an old friend of my mother's, who lives at Paris, -and who formerly acted as notary to our family, has come to my help. He -has offered to undertake the work of liquidation which to my -inexperienced judgment seemed beset with unconquerable difficulties. I -left the whole business to him, and I presume that now his work is -completed. I went to his house directly I arrived yesterday; he was in -the country, and will not return till to-morrow. - -These have been two cruel days; uncertainty is the worst of all evils, -because it is the only one that necessarily stops the springs of action -and checks our courage. I should have been very much surprised if, ten -years ago, any one had told me that the old notary, whose formal -language and stiff politeness so much amused my father and me, would one -day be the oracle from whom I should await the supreme sentence of my -destiny. - -I do my best to guard against excessive hopes; I have calculated -approximately that, after paying all the debts, we should have a hundred -and twenty to a hundred and fifty thousand francs left. A fortune of -five millions should leave so much salvage at least. I intend to take -ten thousand francs and seek my fortune in the new States of America; -the rest I shall resign to my sister. - -Enough of writing for to-night. Recalling such memories is a mournful -occupation. Nevertheless, I feel that it has made me calmer. Work is -surely a sacred law, since even the lightest task discharged brings a -certain contentment and serenity. Yet man does not love work; he cannot -fail to see its good effects; he tastes them every day, and blesses -them, and each day he comes to his work with the same reluctance. I -think that is a singular and mysterious contradiction, as if in toil we -felt at once a chastisement, and the divine and fatherly hand of the -chastiser. - - - _Thursday_ - -When I woke this morning a letter from old M. Laubepin was brought to -me. He invited me to dinner and apologized for taking such a liberty. -He said nothing about my affairs. I augured unfavourably from this -silence. - -In the meantime I fetched my sister from her convent, and took her about -Paris. The child knows nothing of our ruin. In the course of the day -she had some rather expensive fancies. She provided herself liberally -with gloves, pink note-paper, bonbons for her friends, delicate scents, -special soaps, and tiny pencils, all very necessary useful things, but -not as necessary as a dinner. May she never have to realize this! - -At six o'clock I was at M. Laubepin's in the Rue Cassette. I do not -know our old friend's age, but to-day I found him looking just the same -as ever--tall and thin, with a little stoop, untidy white hair, and -piercing eyes under bushy black eyebrows--altogether a face at once -strong and subtle. I recognised the unvarying costume, the -old-fashioned black coat, the professional white cravat, the family -diamond in the shirt-frill--in short, all the outward signs of a -serious, methodical, and conservative nature. The old gentleman was -waiting for me at the open door of his little _salon_. After making me -a low bow, he took my hand lightly between two of his fingers and -conducted me to a homely looking old lady who was standing by the -fire-place. - -"The Marquis de Champcey d'Hauterive!" said M. Laubepin, in his strong, -rich, and emphatic voice, and turning quickly to me, added in a humbler -tone, "Mme. Laubepin!" - -We sat down. An awkward silence ensued. I had expected an immediate -explanation of my position. Seeing that this was to be postponed, I -assumed at once that it was unfavourable, an assumption confirmed by the -discreet and compassionate glances with which Mme. Laubepin furtively -honoured me. As for M. Laubepin, he observed me with a remarkable -attention not altogether kindly. My father, I remember, always -maintained that at the bottom of his heart and under his respectful -manner the ceremonious old scrivener had a little of _bourgeois_ -democratic and even Jacobin leaven. It seemed to me that this leaven -was working just now, and that the old man found some satisfaction for -his secret antipathies in the spectacle of a gentleman under torture. -In spite of my real depression, I began to talk at once, trying to -appear quite unconcerned. - -"So, M. Laubepin," I said, "you've left the Place des Petits-Peres, the -dear old Place. How could you bring yourself to do it? I would never -have believed it of you." - -"_Mon Dieu_, marquis," replied M. Laubepin, "I must admit that it is an -infidelity unbecoming at my age; but in giving up the practice I had to -give up my chambers as well, for one can't carry off a notary's plate as -one can a sign-board." - -"But you still undertake some business?" - -"Yes, in a friendly way, marquis. Some of the honourable families, the -important families, whose confidence I have had the good fortune to -secure in the course of forty-five years of practice, are still glad, -especially in situations of unusual delicacy, to have the benefit of my -experience, and I believe I may say they rarely regret having followed -my advice." - -As M. Laubepin finished this testimonial to his own merits, an old -servant came in and announced that dinner was served. It was my -privilege to conduct Mme. Laubepin into the adjacent dining-room. -Throughout the meal the conversation never rose above the most ordinary -commonplaces. M. Laubepin continued to look at me in the same -penetrating and ambiguous manner, while Mme. Laubepin offered me each -dish in the mournful and compassionate tone we use at the bedside of an -invalid. In time we left the table, and the old notary took me into his -study, where coffee was served immediately. He made me sit down, and -standing before the fireplace, began: - -"Marquis," he said, "you have done me the honour of intrusting to me the -administration of the estate of your father, the late Marquis de -Champcey d'Hauterive. Yesterday I was about to write to you, when I -learned of your arrival in Paris. This enables me to convey to you, -_viva voce_, the result of my zeal and of my action." - -"I foresee, M. Laubepin, that the result is not favourable." - -"Marquis, it is not favourable, and you will need all your courage to -bear it. But it is my rule to proceed methodically.--In the year 1820 -Mlle. Louise Helene Dugald Delatouche d'Erouville was sought in marriage -by Charles-Christian Odiot, Marquis de Champcey d'Hauterive. A -tradition a century old had placed the management of the Dugald -Delatouche affairs in my hands, and I was further permitted a respectful -intimacy with the young heiress of the house. I thought it my duty, -therefore, to oppose her infatuation by every argument in my power and -to dissuade her from this deplorable alliance. I say deplorable -alliance without reference to M. de Champcey's fortune, which was nearly -equal to that of Mlle. Delatouche, though even at this time he had -mortgaged it to some extent. I say so because I knew his character and -temperament, which were in the main hereditary. Under the fascinating -and chivalrous manner common to all of his race I saw clearly the -heedless obstinacy, the incurable irresponsibility, the mania for -pleasure, and, finally, the pitiless selfishness." - -"Sir," I interrupted sharply, "my father's memory is sacred to me, and -so it must be to every one who speaks of him in my presence." - -"Sir," replied the old man with a sudden and violent emotion, "I respect -that sentiment, hut when I speak of your father I find it hard to forget -that he was the man who killed your mother, that heroic child, that -saint, that angel!" - -I had risen in great agitation. M. Laubepin, who had taken a few steps -across the room, seized my arm. "Forgive me, young man," he said to me. -"I loved your mother and wept for her. You must forgive me." Then -returning to the fire-place, he continued in his usual solemn tone: - -"I had the honour and the pain of drawing up your mother's marriage -contract. - -"In spite of my remonstrance, the strict settlement of her property upon -herself had not been adopted, and it was only with much difficulty that -I got included in the deed a protective clause by which about a third of -your mother's estate could not be sold, except with her consent duly and -legally authenticated. A useless precaution, marquis; I might call it -the cruel precaution of an ill-advised friendship. This fatal clause -brought most intolerable sufferings to the very person whose peace it -was intended to secure. I refer to the disputes and quarrels and -wrangles the echo of which must sometimes have reached your ears, and in -which, bit by bit, your mother's last heritage--her children's -bread--was torn from her!" - -"Spare me, M. Laubepin!" - -"I obey.... I will speak only of the present. Directly I was honoured -with your confidence, marquis, my first duty was to advise you not to -accept the encumbered estate unless after paying all liabilities." - -"Such a course seemed to cast a slur on my father's memory, and I could -not adopt it." - -M. Laubepin darted one of his inquisitorial glances at me, and -continued: - -"You are apparently aware that by not having availed yourself of this -perfectly legal method, you became responsible for all liabilities, even -if they exceed the value of the estate itself. And that, it is my -painful duty to tell you, is the case in the present instance. You will -see by these documents that after getting exceptionally favourable terms -for the town-house, you and your sister are still indebted to your -father's creditors to the amount of forty-five thousand francs." - -I was utterly stunned by this news, which far exceeded my worst -apprehensions. For a minute I stared at the clock without seeing the -hour it marked, and listened dazed to the monotonous sound of the -pendulum. - -"Now," continued M. Laubepin, after a silence, "the moment has come to -tell you, marquis, that your mother, in view of contingencies which are -unfortunately realized to-day, deposited with me some jewels which are -valued at about fifty thousand francs. To exempt this small sum, now -your sole resource, from the claims of the creditors of the estate, we -can, I believe, make use of the legal resource which I shall have the -honour of submitting to you." - -"That will not be necessary, M. Laubepin. I am only too glad to be -able, through this unexpected means, to pay my father's debts in full, -and I beg you to devote it to that purpose." - - M. Laubepin bowed slightly. - -"As you wish, marquis," he said, "but I must point out to you that when -this deduction has been made, the joint fortune of Mlle. Helene and -yourself will consist of something like four or five thousand livres, -which, at the present rate of interest, will give you an income of two -hundred and twenty-five francs. That being so, may I venture to ask in -a confidential, friendly, and respectful way whether you have thought of -any way of providing for your own existence and for that of your ward -and sister? And, generally, what your plans are?" - -"I tell you frankly I have none. Whatever plans I may have had are -quite impossible in the state of destitution to which I am now reduced. -If I were alone in the world I should enlist, but I have my sister, and -I cannot endure the thought of seeing the poor child subjected to toil -and privations. She is happy in the convent and young enough to stay -there some years longer. I would gladly accept any employment which -would enable me, by the strictest personal economy, to pay her expenses -each year and provide for her dowry in the future." - - M. Laubepin looked hard at me. - -"At your age, marquis, you must not expect," he replied, "to achieve -that praiseworthy object by entering the slow ranks of public officials -and governmental functionaries. You require an appointment which will -assure you from the outset a yearly revenue of five or six thousand -francs. And I must also tell you that this desideratum is not, in the -present state of our social organization, to be obtained by simply -holding out your hand. Happily, I am in a position to make some -propositions to you which are likely to modify your present situation -immediately and without much trouble." - -M. Laubepin fixed his eyes on me more penetratingly than ever. - -"In the first place, marquis," he went on, "I am the mouthpiece of a -clever, rich, and influential speculator. This personage has originated -an idea for an important undertaking, the nature of which will be -explained to you at a later period. Its success largely depends on the -co-operation of the aristocracy of this country. He believes that an -old and illustrious name like yours, marquis, appearing among the -originators of the enterprise, would have great weight with the special -public to whom the prospectus will be addressed. In return for this -service, he engages to hand over to you a certain number of fully -paid-up shares, which are now valued at ten thousand francs, and which -will be worth two or three times that amount when the affair is well -launched. In addition, he----" - -"That is enough, M. Laubepin. Such infamies are unworthy of the trouble -you take in mentioning them." - -For a moment I saw his eyes flash and sparkle. The stiff folds in his -face relaxed as he smiled faintly. - -"If you do not approve of this proposition, marquis," he said -unctuously, "neither do I. However, I thought it was my duty to submit -it for your consideration. Here is another, which, perhaps, will please -you more, and which is really more attractive. One of my oldest clients -is a worthy merchant who has lately retired from business, and now -passes his life with an only and much-loved daughter, in the quiet -enjoyment of an _aurea mediocritas_ of twenty-five thousand francs a -year. Two or three days ago my client's daughter, by some accident, -heard of your position. I thought it right--indeed, to speak frankly, I -was at some trouble--to ascertain that the young lady would not hesitate -for a moment to accept the title of Marquise de Champcey. Her appearance -is agreeable, and she has many excellent qualities. Her father -approves. I await only a word from you, marquis, to tell you the name -and residence of this interesting family." - -"M. Laubepin, this quite decides me; from to-morrow I shall cease to use -a title which is ridiculous for one in my position, and which, it seems, -makes me the object of the most paltry intrigues. My family name is -Odiot, and henceforth I shall use no other. And now, though I recognise -gratefully the keen interest in my welfare which has induced you to be -the channel of such remarkable propositions, I must beg you to spare me -any others of a like character." - -"In that case, marquis, I have absolutely nothing more to tell you," -said M. Laubepin, and, as if suddenly taken with a fit of joviality, he -rubbed his hands together with a noise like the crackling of parchment. - -"You are a difficult man to place, M. Maxime," he added, smiling. "Oh, -very difficult! It is remarkable that I should not have already noticed -your striking likeness to your mother, particularly your eyes and your -smile ... but we must not digress; and, since you are resolved to -maintain yourself by honest work, may I ask what are your talents and -qualifications?" - -"My education, monsieur, was naturally that of a man destined for a life -of wealth and case. However, I have studied law, and am nominally a -barrister." - -"A barrister! The devil you are! But the name is not enough. At the -bar, more than in any other career, everything depends on personal -effort; and now--let us see--do you speak well, marquis?" - -"So badly that I believe I am incapable of putting two sentences -together in public." - -"H'm! Scarcely what one could call a heaven-born orator. You must try -something else; but the matter requires more careful consideration. I -see you are tired, marquis. Here are your papers, which you can examine -at your leisure. I have the honour to wish you farewell. Allow me to -light you down. A moment--am I to await your further instructions -before applying the value of those jewels to the payment of your -creditors?" - -"Oh, by no means. But I should wish you rather to deduct a just -remuneration for your kind exertions." - -We had reached the landing of the staircase; M. Laubepin, who stooped a -little as he walked, sharply straightened himself. - -"So far as your creditors are concerned," he said, "you may count upon -my obedience, marquis. As to me, I was your mother's friend, and I beg -humbly but earnestly that her son will treat me as a friend." - -I gave my hand to the old gentleman; he shook it warmly and we parted. - -Back in the little room I now occupy, under the roof of the _hotel_, -which is mine no longer, I wished to convince myself that the full -knowledge of my misery had not depressed me to a degree unworthy of a -man. So I have sat down to write an account of this decisive day of my -life, endeavouring to preserve exactly the phraseology of the old -notary, a mixture of stiffness and courtesy, of mistrust and kind -feeling, which more than once made me smile, though my heart was -bleeding. - -I am face to face with poverty. Not the haughty, hidden, and poetic -poverty that among forests and deserts and savannas fired my -imagination, but actual misery, need, dependence, humiliation, and -something worse even--the poverty of the rich man who has fallen; -poverty in a decent coat; the poverty that hides its ungloved hands from -the former friends it passes in the street. Come, brother, courage, -courage...! - - - _Monday, April 27th_. - -For five days I have been waiting in vain for news of M. Laubepin. I -had counted considerably on the interest that he had appeared to feel in -me. His experience, his business connections, and the number of people -he knows, would enable him to be of service to me. I was ready to take -all necessary steps under his direction, but, left to myself, I do not -know which way to turn. I thought he was one of the men who promise -little and do much. I am afraid that I have been mistaken. This -morning I determined to go to his house on the pretext of returning the -papers he had given me, after verifying their dreary exactitude. I was -told that he had gone to enjoy a taste of country life at some chateau -in the heart of Brittany. He would be away two or three days longer. I -was completely taken aback. I had not only the pain of finding -indifference and desertion where I had looked for the readiness of -devoted friendship, I had, in addition, the bitter disappointment of -returning, as I went, with an empty purse. I had, in fact, intended to -ask M. Laubepin to advance me some money from the three or four thousand -francs due to us after full payment of our debts. In vain have I lived -like an anchorite since came to Paris. The small sum I had reserved for -my journey is completely exhausted--so completely that, after making a -truly pastoral breakfast this morning--_castanceae molles et pressi -copia lactis_--I was obliged to have recourse to a kind of trickery for -my dinner to-night. I will make melancholy record of it here. - -The less one has had for breakfast, the more one wants for dinner. I -had felt all the force of this axiom long before the sun had finished -its course. Among the strollers whom the mild air had attracted to the -Tuileries this afternoon to watch the first smiles of spring playing on -the faces of the marble fauns, the observant might have noted a young -man of irreproachable appearance who seemed to study the awakening of -nature with extraordinary interest. Not satisfied with devouring the -fresh verdure with his eyes, he would furtively detach the young, -appetizing shoots and the half-opened leaves from their stems, and put -them to his lips with the curiosity of a botanist. I convinced myself -in this way that this form of nourishment, suggested by accounts of -shipwrecks, is of very little value. Still, I enriched my experience -with some interesting discoveries: for instance, I know now that the -foliage of the chestnut has an exceedingly bitter taste; that the rose -is not unpleasant; that the lime is oily and rather agreeable; the lilac -pungent--and I believe unwholesome. - -Meditating on these discoveries, I walked towards Helene's convent. I -found the parlour as crowded as a hive, and I was more than usually -bewildered by the tumultuous confidences of the young bees. Helene -arrived, her hair in disorder, her cheeks flushed, her eyes red and -sparkling. In her hand she had a piece of bread as long as her arm. As -she embraced me in an absent way, I asked: - -"Well, little girl, what is the matter? You've been crying." - -"No, Maxime, no, it's nothing." - -"Well, what is it? Now tell me...." - -In a lower tone she said: - -"Oh, I am very miserable, dear Maxime!" - -"Really? Tell me all about it while you eat your bread." - -"Oh, I shall certainly not eat my bread. I am too miserable to eat. -You know Lucy--Lucy Campbell, my dearest friend. Well, we've quarrelled -completely." - -"Oh, _mon Dieu_! Don't worry, darling, you'll make it up. It will be -all right, dear." - -"Oh, Maxime, that's impossible. It was such a serious quarrel. It was -nothing at first, but you know one gets excited and loses one's head. -Listen, Maxime! We were playing battledore, and Lucy made a mistake -about the score. I was six hundred and eighty, and she was only six -hundred and fifteen, and she declared she was six hundred and -sixty-five! You must say that was a little too bad. Of course I said -my figure was right, and she said hers was. 'Well, mademoiselle,' I -said to her, 'let us ask these young ladies. I appeal to them.' 'No, -mademoiselle,' she replied, 'I am sure I am right, and you don't play -fair.' 'And--and you, mademoiselle,' I said to her--'you are a liar!' -'Very well, mademoiselle,' she said then, 'I despise you too much to -answer you.' Just at that moment Sister Sainte-Felix came up, which was -a good thing, for I am sure I should have hit her. Now, you know what -happened. Can we possibly make it up? No, it is impossible; it would be -cowardly. But I can't tell you how I suffer. I don't believe there's -any one in the world so miserable as I am." - -"Yes, dear, it's difficult to imagine anything more distressing; but it -seems to me that you partly brought it on yourself, for it was you who -used the most offensive word. Tell me, is Lucy in the parlour?" - -"Yes, there she is, in the corner." - -With a dignified and careful movement of her head she indicated a very -fair little girl. Her cheeks, too, were flushed, and her eyes were red. -Apparently she was giving an account of the drama, which Sister -Sainte-Felix had so fortunately interrupted, to an old lady who was -listening attentively. - -Mlle. Lucy, while she talked with an earnestness appropriate to the -subject, kept looking furtively at Helene and me. - -"Dear child," I said to Helene, "do you trust me?" - -"Yes, Maxime, I trust you very much." - -"In that case I will tell you what to do. Go very gently behind Mlle. -Lucy's chair; take her head in your hands--like this, when she is not -looking--and kiss her on both cheeks--like this, with all your -might--and then you will see what she will do in her turn." - -For a second or two Helene seemed to hesitate; then she set off at a -great rate, fell like a thunder-clap on Mlle. Campbell, but nevertheless -gave her the sweetest of surprises. The two young sufferers, at last -eternally united, mingled their tears in a touching group, while the -respectable old Mrs. Campbell blew her nose with a noise as of a -bagpipe. - -Helene came back to me radiant. - -"Well, dear," I said, "I hope you're going to eat your bread now." - -"Oh, no! I can't, Maxime. I am too much excited, and--besides, I must -tell you--to-day a new pupil came and gave us quite a feast of -meringues, eclairs, and chocolate-creams, and I am not a bit hungry. -And I am in a great difficulty about it, because when we're not hungry -we have to put our bread back in the basket, and in my trouble I forgot, -and I shall be punished. But, Maxime, as we're crossing the court when -you go, I shall try to drop it down the cellar without any one seeing. - -"What, little sister!" I said, colouring a little, "you are going to -waste that large piece of bread?" - -"It isn't good of me I know, because, perhaps, there are poor people who -would be very glad of it, aren't there, Maxime?" - -"There certainly are, dear." - -"But what do you want me to do? The poor people don't come in here." - -"Look here, Helene, give me the bread, and I'll give it in your name to -the first poor man I meet. Will you?" - -"Oh, yes!" - -The bell rang for school. I broke the bread in two and hid the pieces -shamefacedly in my great coat pockets. - -"Dear Maxime," said my sister, "you'll come again soon, won't you? Then -you'll tell me whether you met a poor man and gave him my bread, and -whether he liked it? Good-bye, Maxime." - -"Yes, Helene, I met a poor man and gave him your bread, which he seized -and carried off to his solitary garret, and he liked it. But this poor -man had not courage, for he wept as he ate the food that had come from -your dear little hands. I will tell you all this, Helene, because it is -good for you to know that there are sufferings more serious than your -childish woes. I will tell you everything, except the name of the poor -man." - - - _Tuesday, April 28th_. - -At nine o'clock this morning I called at M. Laubepin's in the vague hope -that he might have returned earlier than he intended, but he is not -expected until to-morrow. I thought at once of seeing Mme. Laubepin and -explaining the awkward position I was placed in through her husband's -absence. While I hesitated in a conflict of shame and necessity, the -old servant, alarmed, perhaps, by my hungry gaze, settled the question -by suddenly shutting the door. I made up my mind hereupon to fast until -the next day. After all, I said to myself, a day's abstinence does not -kill one. If this showed an excessive pride, at all events I was the -only one to suffer, and consequently it concerned no one but myself. I -accordingly made my way to the Sorbonne, where I attended several -lectures, trying to fill up my corporeal vacuum by spiritual sustenance. -But when this resource came to an end I found it had been quite -inadequate. And I had an attack of nervous irritation which I tried to -calm by walking. It was a cold, misty day. As I crossed the Pont des -Saints-Peres I stopped for a minute in spite of myself. Leaning on the -parapet, I watched the troubled water rushing under the arches. I know -not what unholy thoughts shot through my worn and weakened brain. I saw -in the gloomiest colours a future of ceaseless struggle, of dependence, -and of humiliation, which I was approaching by the dark gate of hunger; -I felt a profound and utter disgust of life; it seemed impossible to me -under such conditions. At the same time a flame of fierce and brutal -anger leaped up in me. Dazed and reeling, I hung over the void, and saw -all the river glittering with sparks of fire. - -I will not say, as is usual, God would not have it so. I hate these -cant phrases, and I dare to say _I_ would not. God has made us free, -and if ever before I had doubted it, this supreme moment--when soul and -body, courage and cowardice, good and evil, held mortal combat within -me--would have swept my doubts away forever. - -Master of myself again, those terrible waves only suggested an innocent, -and rather absurd longing to quench the thirst that tortured me. I soon -remembered that I should find much purer water in my room at home. I -went quickly towards the _hotel_, imagining that the most delicious -pleasures awaited me there. With pathetic childishness I delighted in -this glorious device, and wondered I had not thought of it sooner. On -the boulevard I suddenly came face to face with Gaston de Vaux, whom I -had not seen for two years. After a moment's hesitation he stopped, -grasped my hand cordially, said a word or two about my travels, and left -me hurriedly. But he turned back. - -"My friend," he said to me, "you must allow me to let you share a piece -of good luck I've just had. I have put my hand on a treasure; I have -got some cigars which cost me two francs each, but really they are -beyond price. Here's one; you must tell me how you like it. _An -revoir_, old man!" - -Wearily I mounted the six flights to my room, and trembling with -emotion, I seized my friendly water-bottle and swallowed the contents in -small mouthfuls. Afterward I lighted my friend's cigar, and smiled -encouragement at myself in the glass. Feeling that movement and the -distraction of the streets were good for me, I went out again directly. -Opening my door, I was surprised and annoyed to see the wife of the -concierge of the _hotel_ standing in the narrow corridor. My sudden -appearance seemed to disconcert her. This woman had formerly been in my -mother's service, and had become a favourite with her, and when she -married, my mother had given her the profitable post she still held. -For some days I had an idea that she was watching me, and now, having -nearly caught her in the act, I asked her roughly what she wanted. - -"Oh, nothing, M. Maxime, nothing," she replied, much confused. "I was -seeing to the gas." - -I shrugged my shoulders and went away. - -Night was falling, so I could walk about in the more frequented places -without being fearful of awkward recognitions. I was obliged to throw -away my cigar--it made me feel sick. My promenade lasted two or three -hours, and painful hours they were. There is something peculiarly -poignant in feeling oneself attacked, in the midst of the brilliance and -plenty of civilization, by the scourge of savage life--hunger. It -brings you near to madness. It's a tiger springing at your throat in -the middle of the boulevards. - -I made some original reflections. Hunger, after all, is not an empty -word. There actually is a complaint of that name, and there are human -beings who endure nearly every day what through a mere accident I am -suffering for once in my life. And how many have their misery embittered -by troubles which I am spared! I know that the one being in the world -whom I love is sheltered from such sufferings as mine. But how many -cannot suffer alone; how many must hear the heart-rending cry of nature -repeated on beloved lips that ask for food; how many for whom pale women -and unsmiling children are waiting in bare cold rooms! Poor creatures! -Blessed be holy charity! - -After these thoughts I dared not complain; they gave me courage to bear -my trial to the end. As a matter of fact I could have shortened it. -There are two or three restaurants where I am known, and where, when I -was rich, I had often gone in without hesitation, though I had forgotten -to bring my purse. I might have made some such pretext. Nor would it -have been difficult for me to borrow a franc or two in Paris. But I -recoiled from such expedients. They suggested poverty too plainly, and -they came too near to trickery. That descent is swift and slippery for -the poor, and I believe I would rather lose honesty itself than the -delicacy which gives distinction to the commonplace virtue. I have seen -too often with what facility this exquisite sentiment of honesty loses -its bloom, even in the finest natures, not merely under the breath of -misery, but at the slightest contact with privation. So I shall keep -strict watch over myself. I shall be on my guard henceforth against -even the most innocent compromise with conscience. When bad times come, -do not accustom your soul to suppleness; it is only too prone to yield. - -Fatigue and cold drove me back about nine o'clock. The door of the -_hotel_ was open. Treading as lightly as a ghost, I had reached the -staircase when the sound of a lively conversation came from the -concierge's room. They were talking about me, for at this very moment -the tyrant of the house pronounced my name with unmistakable contempt. - -"Be good enough, Mme. Vauberger," said the concierge, "not to trouble me -with your Maxime. Did I ruin your Maxime? Then what are you talking to -me about? If he kills himself, they'll bury him, won't they?" - -"I tell you, Vauberger," his wife answered, "it would have made your -heart bleed to see him drain his water-bottle. And if I believed you -meant what you say in that offhand manner--just like an actor--'If he -kills himself, they'll bury him!' I would---- But I know you don't, -because you're a good sort, although you don't like being upset. Fancy -being without fire or bread! And that after being fed on dainties all -your life, and wrapped up in furs like a little pet cat. It's a shame -and a disgrace. A nice sort of government yours is to allow such -things!" - -"But it has nothing to do with the government," said M. Vauberger, -reasonably enough. "And I'm sure you're wrong; it's not so bad as all -that. He can't be wanting bread; it's impossible." - -"All right, Vauberger. I've more to tell you. I've followed him. I've -watched him, and made Edouard watch him, too. Yes, I have. I'm certain -he had no dinner yesterday, and no breakfast to-day; and as I've -searched his pockets and all the drawers, and not found so much as a red -cent, you may be sure he hasn't had any dinner to-day, for he's much too -high and mighty to go and beg one." - -"Oh, is he? So much the worse for him. Poor people shouldn't be proud," -said the worthy concierge, true to the sentiments of his calling. - -I had had enough of this dialogue, and put an end to it abruptly by -opening the door and asking M. Vauberger for a light. I could not have -astounded him more if I had asked for his head. Though I particularly -wished not to give way before these people, I could not help stumbling -once or twice as I went up the stairs. My head was swimming. Usually -my room was as cold as ice. Imagine my surprise at finding a bright, -cheerful fire, which sent a pleasant warmth through the room. I wasn't -stoic enough to put it out, and I blessed the kind hearts there are in -the world. I stretched myself out in an old arm-chair of Utrecht -velvet, which, like myself, had been brought by reverses from the first -floor to the garret. I tried to sleep. For half an hour I had been -dreaming in a kind of torpor of sumptuous banquets and merry junketings, -when the noise of the door opening made me jump up with a start. I -thought I was dreaming still when Mme. Vauberger came in, carrying a big -tray with two or three savoury dishes steaming on it. Before I could -shake off my lethargy she had put the tray down and had begun to lay the -cloth. At last I started up hastily. - -"Well," I said, "what does this mean? What are you doing?" - -Mme. Vauberger pretended to be greatly surprised. - -"I thought you ordered dinner, sir?" - -"Oh, no." - -"Edouard told me that----" - -"Edouard made a mistake; it's for one of the other tenants; you had -better see." - -"But there's no other tenant on this floor, sir ... I can't make out..." - -"Well, it was not for me. What does all this mean? Oh, you annoy me! -Take it away." - -The poor woman began to fold the cloth, looking at me reproachfully, -like a favourite dog who has been beaten. - -"I suppose you've had dinner already, sir," she said, timidly. - -"No doubt." - -"That is a pity, because this dinner is quite ready, and now it will be -wasted, and the boy'll get a scolding from his father. If you hadn't -had your dinner already, sir, you would have very much obliged me -if----" - -I stamped my foot violently. - -"Leave the room, I tell you," I said, and as she was going out I went up -to her. "My good Louison," I said, "I understand, and I thank you; but -I am not very well to-night, and I have no appetite." - -"Ah, M. Maxime," she exclaimed, in tears, "you don't know how you hurt -my feelings. Well, you can pay me for the dinner; you shall if you like; -you can give me the money as soon as you get some ... but if you gave me -a hundred thousand francs, it wouldn't make me so happy as seeing you -eat my poor dinner. You would do me a great kindness, M. Maxime. You, -who are so clever, you ought to understand how I feel. Oh, I know you -will, M. Maxime!" - -"Well, my dear Louison, what am I to do? I can't give you a hundred -thousand francs ... but ... I am going to eat your dinner. All by -myself, too, if you don't mind." - -"Certainly, sir. Oh, thank you, sir; I thank you very much indeed. You -have a kind heart, sir." - -"And a good appetite, Louison. Give me your hand--oh, not to put money -in, you may be sure. There! _Au revoir_, Louison." - -The good woman went out sobbing. - -I did justice to Louison's dinner, and had just finished writing these -lines when a grave and heavy footstep sounded on the stairs, and at the -same time I thought I heard the voice of my humble providence whispering -confidences in hurried, nervous tones. A moment or two later there was -a knock. Louison slipped away in the darkness, and the solemn outline -of the old notary appeared in the doorway. - -M. Laubepin cast a keen glance at the tray where I had left the -fragments of my dinner. Then coming towards me and opening his arms, at -once confused and reproachful, he said: - -"In Heaven's name, marquis, why did you not----" - -He broke off, strode quickly about the room, and then coming to a sudden -halt, exclaimed: - -"Young man, you had no right to do this; you have given pain to a -friend, and you have made an old man blush." - -He was much moved. I looked at him, a little moved myself and not -knowing what to say, when he suddenly clasped me in his arms and -murmured in my ear, "My poor child...!" - -For a moment we said nothing. When we had sat down, M. Laubepin -continued. - -"Maxime," he said, "are you in the same mind as when I left you? Have -you the courage to accept the humblest work, the least important -occupation, provided it is honourable, and that it gives you a -livelihood and preserves your sister from the sufferings and dangers of -poverty?" - -"Most certainly I am; it's my duty, and I am ready to do it." - -"Very well, my friend. Now listen to me. I have just returned from -Brittany. In that ancient province there is a family called Laroque, -who have for many years past honoured me with their entire confidence. -This family is now represented by an old man and two ladies whom age or -disposition render incapable of business. The Laroques have a -substantial income derived from their large estates in land, which have -latterly been managed by an agent whom I took the liberty to regard as a -rogue. The day following our last interview, Maxime, I received -intelligence of the death of this man. I immediately set out for the -Chateau Laroque and asked for the appointment for you. I laid stress on -your having been called to the bar, and dwelt particularly on your moral -qualities. Respecting your wishes, I did not allude to your birth; you -are not, and will not, be known in that house under any name but that of -Maxime Odiot. A pavilion at some distance from the house will be -allotted to you, and you will be able to have your meals there when, for -any reason, you do not care to join the family at table. Your salary -will be six thousand francs a year. How will that suit you?" - -"It will suit me perfectly. You must let me acknowledge at once how -much I feel the consideration and delicacy of your friendship. But to -tell you the truth, I am afraid I am rather a strange kind of business -man--rather a novice, you know." - -"You need have no anxiety on that score, my friend. I anticipated your -scruples, and concealed nothing from the parties concerned. 'Madame,' I -said to my excellent friend, Mme. Laroque, 'you require an agent and an -administrator of your income. I offer you one. He is far from -possessing the talents of his predecessor; he is by no means versed in -the mysteries of leases and farm-freeholds; he does not know the -alphabet of the affairs you are so good as to intrust to him; he has had -no experience, no practice, and no opportunity of learning; but he has -something which his predecessor lacked, which sixty years of experience -had not given him, and which he would not have acquired in ten thousand -years--and that is honesty, madame. I have seen him under fire, and I -will answer for him. Engage him; he will be indebted to you, and so -shall I.' Young man, Mme. Laroque laughed very much at my way of -recommending people, but in the end it turned out to be a good way, for -it has succeeded." - -The worthy old gentleman then offered to impart to me some elementary -general notions on the kind of administration I was about to undertake, -and to these he added, in connection with the interests of the Laroque -family, the results of some inquiries which he had made and put into -shape for me. - -"And when am I to go, my dear sir?" - -"To say the truth, my boy" (he had entirely dropped the "marquis"), "the -sooner the better, for those good people could not make out a receipt -unaided. My excellent friend, Mme. Laroque, more especially, though an -admirable woman in many respects, is beyond conception careless, -indiscreet, and childish in business matters. She is a Creole." - -"Ah! she is a Creole," I repeated with some vivacity. - -"Yes, young man, an old Creole lady," M. Laubepin said dryly. "Her -husband was a Breton; but these details will come in good time.... -Good-bye till to-morrow, Maxime, and be of good cheer. Ah! I had -forgotten. On Thursday morning, before my departure, I did something -which will be of service to you. Among your creditors there are some -rogues, whose relations with your father were obviously usurious. Armed -with the thunders of the law, I reduced their claims on my own -responsibility, and made them give me receipts in full. So now your -capital amounts to twenty thousand francs. Add to this reserve what you -are able to save each year from your salary, and in ten years' time we -shall have a good dowry for Helene. Well, well, come and lunch with -Maitre Laubepin to-morrow, and we will settle all the rest. Good-bye, -Maxime; good-night, my dear child!" - -"God bless you, sir!" - - - CHATEAU DE LAROQUE (D'ARZ), _May 1st_. - -I left Paris yesterday. My last interview with M. Laubepin was painful. -I feel the affection of a son for the old man. Then I had to bid Helene -farewell. It was necessary to tell her something of the truth, to make -her understand why I was compelled to accept an appointment. I talked -vaguely of temporary business difficulties. The poor child understood, I -think, more than I had said; her large, wondering eyes filled with tears -as she fell upon my neck. - -At last I got away. I went by train to Rennes, where I stayed the -night. This morning I took the diligence, which put me down, four or -five hours ago, at a little Morbilian town not far from the chateau of -Laroque. We had travelled ten leagues or more from Rennes, and still I -had seen nothing to justify the reputed picturesqueness of our ancient -Armorica. A flat, green country without variety; eternal apple-trees in -eternal fields; ditches and wooded slopes shutting off the view on both -sides of the road; here and there a nook full of rural charm, and a few -blouses and glazed hats relieving the very ordinary scene. All this -strongly inclined me to think that poetic Brittany was merely a -pretentious and somewhat pallid sister of Lower Normandy. Tired of -disillusions and apple-trees, I had for more than an hour ceased to take -any notice of the country. I was dozing heavily, when I felt suddenly -that the lumbering vehicle was lurching forward heavily. At the same -time the pace of the horses slackened, and a clanking noise, together -with a peculiar vibration, proclaimed that the worst of drivers had -applied the worst of brakes to the worst of diligences. An old lady -clutched my arm with the ready sympathy excited by a sense of common -danger. I put my head out of the window; we were descending, between -two lofty slopes, an extremely steep hill, evidently the work of an -engineer too much enamoured of the straight line. - -Half-sliding, half-rolling, we soon reached the bottom of a narrow -valley of gloomy aspect. A feeble brook flowed silently and slowly -among thick reeds, and over its crumbling banks hung a few moss-grown -tree-trunks. The road crossed the stream by a bridge of a single arch, -and, climbing the farther hill, cut a white track across a wide, barren, -and naked _lande_ whose crest stood out sharply against the horizon in -front of us. Near the bridge and close to the road was a ruined hovel. -Its air of desolation struck to the heart. A young, robust man was -splitting wood by the door; his long, fair hair was fastened at the back -by a black ribbon. He raised his head, and I was surprised at the -strange character of his features and at the calm gaze of his blue eyes. -He greeted me in an unknown tongue and with a quiet, soft, and timid -accent. A woman was spinning at the cottage window; the style of her -hair and dress reproduced with theatrical fidelity the images of those -slim chatelaines of stone we see on tombs. These people did not look -like peasants; they had, in the highest degree, that easy, gracious, and -serious air we call distinction. And they had, too, the sad and dreamy -expression often seen among people whose nationality has been destroyed. - -I had got down to walk up the hill. The _lande_, which was not -separated from the road, extended all round me as far and farther than I -could see; stunted furze clung to the black earth on every side; here -and there were ravines, clefts, deserted quarries, and low rocks, but no -trees. - -Only when I had reached the high ground I saw the distant sombre line of -the heath broken by a more distant strip of the horizon. A little -serrated, blue as the sea and steeped in sunlight, it seemed to open in -the midst of this desolation the sudden vision of some radiant fairy -region. At last I saw Brittany! - -I had to engage a carriage to take me the two leagues that separated me -from the end of my journey. During the drive, which was not by any -means a rapid one, I vaguely remember seeing woods, glades, lakes, and -oases of fresh verdure in the valleys; but as we approached the Chateau -Laroque I was besieged by a thousand apprehensions which left no room -for tourist's reflections. In a few minutes I was to enter a strange -family on the footing of a sort of servant in disguise, and in a -position which would barely secure me the consideration and respect of -the lackeys themselves. This was something very new to me. The moment -M. Laubepin proposed this post of bailiff, all my instincts, all my -habits, had risen in violent protest against the peculiar character of -dependence attached to such duties. Nevertheless, I had thought it -impossible to refuse without appearing to slight my old friend's zealous -efforts on my behalf. Moreover, in a less dependent position, I could -not have hoped to obtain for many years the advantages which I should -have here from the outset, and which would enable me to work for my -sister's future without losing time. I had therefore overcome my -repugnance, but it had been very strong, and now revived more strongly -than ever in face of the imminent reality. I had need to study once more -the articles on duty and sacrifice in the moral code that every man -carries in his conscience. At the same time I told myself that there is -no situation, however humble, where personal dignity cannot maintain -itself--and none, in fact, that it cannot ennoble. Then I sketched out a -plan of conduct towards the Laroque family, and promised myself to show -a conscientious zeal for their interests, and, to themselves, a just -deference equally removed from servility and from stiffness. But I -could not conceal from myself that the last part of my task, obviously -the most delicate, would be either greatly simplified or complicated by -the special characters and dispositions of the people with whom I was to -come into contact. Now, M. Laubepin, while recognising that my anxiety -on these personal questions was quite legitimate, had been stubbornly -sparing of information and details on the subject. However, just as I -was starting, he had handed me a private memorandum counselling me at -the same time to throw it in the fire as soon as I had profited by its -contents. This memorandum I took from my portfolio and proceeded to -study its sibylline utterances, which I here reproduce exactly. - - - "CHATEAU DE LAROQUE (D'ARZ) - - "LIST OF PERSONS LIVING AT THE AFORESAID CHATEAU - -"1st. M. Laroque (Louis-Auguste), octogenarian, present head of the -family, main source of its wealth: an old sailor, famous under the first -empire as a sort of authorized pirate; appears to have enriched himself -by lawful enterprises of various kinds on the sea; has lived in the -colonies for a long while. Born in Brittany, he returned and settled -there about thirty years since, accompanied by the late Pierre-Antoine -Laroque, his only son, husband of - -"2d. Mme. Laroque (Josephine-Clara), daughter-in-law of the -above-mentioned; by origin a Creole; aged forty years; indolent -disposition; romantic temperament; certain whimsies: a beautiful nature. - -"3d. Mlle. Laroque (Marguerite-Louise), the grand-daughter, daughter, -and presumptive heiress of the preceding, aged twenty years; Creole and -Bretonne; cherishes certain chimeras; a beautiful nature. - -"4th. Mme. Aubry, widow of one Aubry, a stock-broker, who died in -Belgium; a second cousin, lives with the family. - -"5th. Mlle. Helouin (Caroline-Gabrielle), aged twenty-six; formerly -governess, now companion; cultivated intellect; character doubtful. - -"Burn this." - - -In spite of its reticence, this document was of some service to me. -Relieved from the dread of the unknown, I felt that my apprehensions had -partly subsided. And if, as M. Laubepin asserted, there were two fine -characters in the Chateau Laroque, it was a higher proportion than one -could have expected to find among five inhabitants. - -After a drive of two hours the coachman stopped at a gate flanked by two -lodges. - -I left my heavy luggage there, and went towards the chateau, carrying a -valise in one hand, while I used the other to cut off the heads of the -marguerites with my cane. After walking a little distance between rows -of large chestnuts I came to a spacious circular garden, emerging into a -park a little farther on. Right and left I saw deep vistas opening out -between groves already verdant, water flowing under trees, and little -white boats laid up in rustic boat-houses. - -Facing me was the chateau, an imposing building in the elegant -half-Italian style of the early years of Louis XIII. At the foot of the -double perron, and under the lofty windows of the facade stretched a -long terrace, which formed a kind of private garden, approached by -several broad, low steps. The gay and sumptuous aspect of this place -caused me a real disappointment, which was not lessened when, as I drew -nearer to the terrace, I heard the noise of young and laughing voices -rising above the distant tinkle of a piano. Plainly I had come to an -abode of pleasure very different from the old and gloomy donjon of my -imaginings. However, the time for reflection had passed. I went quickly -up the steps, and suddenly found myself in the midst of a scene, which -in any other circumstances I should have thought extremely pretty. - -On one of the lawns of the flower-garden half a dozen young girls, -linked in couples and laughing at themselves, whirled in a flood of -sunshine, while a piano, touched by a skilful hand, sent the rhythms of -a riotous waltz through an open window. - -But I had scarcely had time to note the animated faces of the dancers, -their loosened hair, and large hats flapping on their shoulders. My -sudden appearance had been received with a cry of general alarm, -succeeded by profound silence. The dancing ceased, and all the band -awaited the advance of the stranger in array of battle. But the -stranger had come to a halt with signs of evident embarrassment. Though -for some time past I had scarcely troubled my head about my social -claims, I must confess that at this moment I should gladly have got rid -of my hand-bag. But I had to make the best of the situation. As I -advanced, hat in hand, towards the double staircase leading to the -vestibule of the chateau the piano ceased abruptly. A large -Newfoundland first presented himself at the window, putting his -lion-like head on the cross-bar between his two hairy paws; immediately -after there appeared a tall young girl, whose somewhat sunburnt face and -serious expression were framed in a mass of black and lustrous hair. -Her eyes, which I thought extraordinarily large, examined the scene -outside with nonchalant curiosity. - -"Well, what is the matter?" she asked in a quiet tone. - -I made her a low bow, and once more cursing the bag which evidently -amused the young ladies, I crossed the perron hastily, and entered the -house. - -In the hall a gray-haired servant, dressed in black, took my name. A -few minutes later I was shown into a large drawing-room hung with yellow -silk. There I at once recognised the young lady I had just seen at the -window. She was beyond question remarkably beautiful. By the -fire-place, where a regular furnace was blazing, a lady of middle age -and of marked Creole type of feature, sat buried in a large arm-chair -among a mass of eider-down pillows and cushions of all sizes. Within -her reach stood an antique tripod surmounted by a _brasero_, to which -she frequently held her pale and delicate hands. Near Mme. Laroque sat -a lady knitting, whom I recognised at once by her morose and -disagreeable expression as the second cousin, the widow of the -stock-broker who died in Belgium. Mme. Laroque looked at me as if she -were more than surprised, as if she were astounded. She asked my name -again. - -"I beg your pardon ... Monsieur...?" - -"Odiot, madame." - -"Maxime Odiot--the manager, the steward--that M. Laubepin...?" - -"Yes, madame." - -"You are quite sure?" - -I could not help smiling. - -"Yes, madame, quite sure." - -She glanced quickly at the widow of the stock-broker, and then at the -grave young girl, as if to say, "Is it possible?" Then she moved -slightly among her cushions, and continued: - -"Pray sit down, M. Odiot," she said. "I must thank you very much for -placing your talents at our service. We need your help badly, I assure -you, for--it cannot be denied--we have the misfortune to be very -wealthy." - -Seeing the second cousin raise her shoulders at this, Mme. Laroque went -on: "Yes, my dear Mme. Aubry, I do say so, and I hold to it. God sent -me riches to try me. Most certainly I was born for poverty and -privation, for devotion and sacrifice; but I have always been crossed. -For instance, I should have loved to have had an invalid husband. M. -Laroque was an exceptionally healthy man. That is how my destiny has -been and will be marred from beginning to end----" - -"Oh, don't talk like that!" said Mme. Aubry dryly. "Poverty would agree -with you--a person who can't deny herself a single indulgence or -refinement!" - -"One moment, my dear madame," returned Mme. Laroque, "I do not believe -in useless sacrifices. If I subjected myself to the worst privations, -who would be the better for it? Would you be any happier if I shivered -with cold from morning till night?" - -By an expressive gesture Mme. Aubry signified that she would not be any -happier, but that she considered Mme. Laroque's language extremely -affected and ridiculous. - -"After all," continued Mme. Laroque, "good fortune or ill fortune, what -does it matter? As I said, M. Odiot, we are very rich, and little as I -may value our wealth, it is my duty to preserve it for my daughter, -though the poor child cares no more for it than I. Do you, Marguerite?" - -A slight smile broke the curve of Mlle. Marguerite's disdainful lips at -this question, and the low arch of her eyebrows contracted momentarily; -then the grave, haughty face subsided into repose again. - -"M. Odiot," resumed Mme. Laroque, "you shall be shown the place, which, -at M. Laubepin's explicit request, has been reserved for you; but before -this I should like you to be introduced to my father-in-law, who will be -very much pleased to see you. My dear cousin, will you ring? M. Odiot, -I hope that you will give us the pleasure of your company at dinner -to-day. Good-bye--for the present." - -I was intrusted to the care of a servant, who asked me to wait in a room -next to the one I had just left, until he had ascertained M. Laroque's -wishes. He had not closed the door of the _salon_, so it was impossible -for me not to hear these words spoken by Mme. Laroque with the -good-natured irony habitual to her: - -"There! Can you understand Laubepin? He talked of a man of a certain -age; very simple, very steady, and he sends me a gentleman like that!" - -Mlle. Marguerite said something, but so quietly that I could not hear -it, much to my regret, I confess. Her mother replied immediately: - -"That may be so, my dear, but it is none the less absolutely ridiculous -of Laubepin. Do you expect that a man of that kind will go running -about ploughed fields in _sabots_? I will wager that man has never worn -_sabots_; he doesn't know what they are. Well, it may be a prejudice of -mine, dear, but _sabots_ seem to me essential to a good bailiff. -Marguerite, it has just occurred to me, you might take him to your -grandfather." - -Mlle. Marguerite entered the room where I was almost directly. She -seemed vexed to find me there. - -"Pardon me, mademoiselle," I said, "but the servant asked me to wait -here." - -"Will you be so good as to follow me, sir?" - -I followed her. She made me climb a staircase, cross many corridors, -and at last brought me to a kind of gallery, where she left me. I -amused myself by examining the pictures. They were, for the most part, -very ordinary sea pieces painted to glorify the old privateersmen of the -Empire. There were several rather murky sea-fights, in which it was -very evident that the little brig Amiable, Captain Laroque, twenty-six -guns, gave John Bull a great deal of trouble. Then came several -full-length portraits of Captain Laroque, which naturally attracted my -particular attention. With certain slight variations they all -represented a man of gigantic height, wearing a sort of republican -uniform with large facings, as luxuriant of locks as Kleber, and looking -straight before him with an energetic, glowing, and sombre expression. -Altogether not exactly a pleasant sort of man. While I studied this -mighty figure, which perfectly realized the general idea of a -privateersman and even of a pirate, Mlle. Marguerite asked me to come -into the room. I found myself face to face with a shrivelled and -decrepit old man, whose eyes showed scarcely a spark of life, and who, -as he welcomed me, touched with trembling hand the cap of black silk -which covered a skull that shone like ivory. - -"Grandfather," said Mlle. Marguerite, raising her voice, "this is M. -Odiot." - -The poor old privateersman raised himself a little, as he looked at me -with a dull and wavering expression. - -I sat down at a sign from Mlle. Marguerite, who repeated: - -"M. Odiot, the new bailiff, grandfather." - -"Ah--good-day, sir," murmured the old man. - -An interval of most painful silence followed. Captain Laroque, his body -bent in two and his head hanging down, fixed a bewildered look on me. -At last, having apparently found a highly interesting subject of -conversation, he said in a dull, deep voice: - -"M. de Beauchene is dead!" - -I was not provided with a reply to this unexpected communication. I had -not the slightest idea who M. de Beauchene might be; Mlle. Marguerite -did not take the trouble to tell me; so I limited the expression of my -regret at this unhappy event to a slight exclamation of condolence. But -the old captain apparently thought this was not adequate, for the next -moment he repeated, in the same mournful voice: - -"M. de Beauchene is dead!" - -This persistence increased my embarrassment. I saw Mlle. Marguerite -impatiently tapping her foot on the floor. Despair seized me, and, -catching at the first phrase that came into my head, I said: - -"Yes; and what did he die of?" - -I had scarcely asked the question, when an angry look from Mlle. -Marguerite told me that I was suspected of irreverent mockery. Though I -was not conscious of anything worse than a foolish _gaucherie_, I did -all I could to give the conversation a more pleasant character. I spoke -of the pictures in the gallery, of the great emotions they must recall, -of the respectful interest I felt in contemplating the hero of these -glorious scenes. I even went into detail, and instanced with no certain -warmth of feeling two or three battles in which I thought the brig -Aimable had actually accomplished miracles. While I thus expressed the -courteous interest of good breeding, Mlle. Marguerite still, to my -surprise, regarded me with manifest dissatisfaction and annoyance. - -Her grandfather, however, listened attentively, and I saw that his head -was rising little by little. A strange smile lighted up his haggard face -and swept away his wrinkles. All at once he rose, and, seizing the arms -of his chair, drew himself up to his full height; the glare of battle -flashed from the hollow sockets of his eyes, and he shouted in a -sonorous voice that made me start: - -"Helm to windward! Hard to windward! Larboard fire! Lay to; lay to! -Grapple, smart now, we have them! Fire, there above! Sweep them well, -sweep the bridge! Now follow me--together--down with the English, down -with the cursed Saxon! Hurrah!" - -With this last cry, which rattled hoarsely in his throat, he sank -exhausted into his chair; in vain his grand-daughter sought to aid him. -Mlle. Laroque, with a quick imperious gesture, urged me to depart, and I -left the room immediately. I found my way as best I could through the -labyrinth of corridors and staircases, congratulating myself very much -on the talent for _apropos_ which I had displayed in my interview with -the old captain of the Aimable. - -Alain, the gray-haired servant who had received me when I arrived, was -waiting for me in the hall to tell me from Mme. Laroque that I should -not have time to go to my quarters before dinner, and that it would not -be necessary for me to change my dress. As I entered the _salon_, a -company of about twenty people were leaving it in order of precedence on -their way to the dining-room. This was the first time I had taken part -in any social function since the change in my condition. Accustomed to -the small distinctions which the etiquette of the drawing-room grants to -birth and fortune, I felt keenly the first symptoms of that indifference -and contempt to which my new situation must necessarily expose me. -Repressing as well as I could this ebullition of false pride, I gave my -arm to a young lady, well made and pretty, though rather small. She had -kept in the background as the guests passed out, and, as I had guessed, -she proved to be the governess, Mlle. Helouin. The place at table -marked as mine was next to hers. While we were taking our seats, Mlle. -Marguerite appeared guiding like Antigone the slow and dragging steps of -her grandfather. With the air of tranquil majesty peculiar to her, she -came and sat down on my right, and the big Newfoundland, who seemed to -be the official guardian of this princess, took up his place as sentinel -behind her chair. I thought it my duty to express at once my regret at -having so maladroitly aroused memories which seemed to have such an -unfortunate effect on her grandfather. - -"It is for me to apologize," she answered. "I should have warned you -never to speak of the English in my grandfather's presence.... Do you -know Brittany well?" - -I said that I had not seen it till to-day, but that I was perfectly -delighted to know it, and to show, moreover, that I was worthy so to do, -I enlarged in lyric style on the picturesque beauties that had struck me -during the journey. Just as I was hoping that this clever flattery -would secure me the good graces of the young Bretonne, I was surprised -to see her show symptoms of impatience and boredom. Decidedly I was not -fortunate with this young lady. - -"Good! I see," she said with a singular expression of irony, "that you -love all that is beautiful, all that appeals to the soul and the -imagination--nature, bloom, heather, rocks, and the fine arts. You will -get on wonderfully well with Mlle. Helouin, who adores all those things. -For my part I care nothing about them." - -"Then in Heaven's name, mademoiselle, what are the things you love?" - -I asked the question in a playful tone. Mlle. Marguerite turned sharply -on me, flashed a haughty look at me, and replied curtly: - -"I love my dog. Here, Mervyn!" - -She thrust her hand fondly into the Newfoundland's thick coat. Standing -on his hind legs, he had already stretched his huge head between my -plate and Mlle. Marguerite's. - -I began to observe this young lady with more interest, and to search for -the outward signs of the unimpressionable soul on which she appeared to -pride herself. - -I had at first supposed that Mlle. Laroque was very tall, but this -impression was due to the noble and harmonious character of her beauty. -She is really of medium height. The rounded oval of her face and her -haughty and well-poised neck are lightly tinged with sombre gold. Her -hair, which lies in strong relief upon her forehead, ripples at every -movement of her head with bluish reflections. The fine and delicate -nostrils seem to have been copied from the divine model of a Roman -Madonna, and cut in living pearl. Under the large, deep, and pensive -eyes, the golden sun-burn of the cheeks deepens into an aureole of -deeper brown, which looks like the shadow of the eyelashes, or may be a -circle seared by the burning glances of her eyes. - -It is hard to describe the sovereign sweetness of the smile which -animates this lovely face at intervals, and tempers the splendour of the -great eyes. Of a surety, the goddess of poetry, of reverie, and of fairy -realms might boldly claim the homage of mortals under the form of this -child, who loves nothing but her dog. In her rarest creations nature -often reserves her most cruel deceptions for us. - -After all, it matters little to me. I see plainly that I am to play in -the imagination of Mlle. Marguerite a part something like that of a -negro, which, as we know, is not an object particularly attractive to -Creoles. For my part, I flatter myself that I am quite as proud as -Mlle. Marguerite. The most impossible kind of love for me is one which -might lay me open to the charge of scheming or self-seeking. But I -fancy that I shall not require much moral courage to meet so remote a -danger, for Mlle. Marguerite's beauty is of the kind which attracts the -contemplation of the artist, rather than any warmer and more human -sentiment. - -However, at the name of Mervyn, which Mlle. Marguerite had given to her -body-guard, Mlle. Helouin, my left-hand neighbour, plunged boldly into -the Arthurian cycle, and was so good as to inform me that Mervyn was the -correct name of the celebrated enchanter, whom the vulgar call Merlin. -From the Knights of the Round Table she worked back to the days of -Caesar and all the hierarchy of druids, bards, and ovates defiled in -tedious procession before me. After them we fell, as a matter of -course, from _dolmen_ to _menhir_ and from _galgal_ to _cromlech_. - -While I wandered in Celtic forests with Mlle. Helouin, who wanted only a -little more flesh to make quite a respectable druidess, the widow of the -stock-broker made the echoes resound with complaints as ceaseless and -monotonous as those of a blind beggar: They had forgotten to give her a -foot-warmer! They gave her cold soup! They gave her bones without meat! -That was how she was treated! Still, she was used to it. Ah, it is sad -to be poor, very sad! She wished she were dead. - -"Yes, doctor"--she was speaking to her neighbour, who listened to her -wailings with slightly ironical interest--"yes, doctor, I am not joking; -I do wish I were dead. I am sure it would be a great relief to -everybody. Think what it must be--to have been in the position I've -been in, to have eaten off silver plate with one's own coat of arms, and -now to be reduced to charity, to be the sport of servants! No one knows -what I suffer in this house; no one ever will know. The proud suffer -without complaining, so I say nothing, doctor, but I think all the -more." - -"Of course, dear lady," said the doctor, whose name was Desmarets. -"Don't say any more. Take a good drink. That will calm you." - -"Nothing but death will calm me, doctor." - -"Very well, madame, I am ready when you are," said the doctor -resolutely. - -Towards the centre of the table the attention of the company was -monopolized by the careless, caustic, and animated braggadocio of a M. -de Bevallan, who seemed to be allowed the latitude of a very intimate -friend. He is a very tall man, no longer young, of a type closely akin -to that of Francis I. - -They listened to him as if he were an oracle, and Mlle. Laroque herself -showed as much interest and admiration as she seemed capable of feeling -for anything in this world. But, as most of his popular witticisms -referred to local anecdotes and parish gossip, I could not adequately -appreciate the merits of this Armorican lion. - -I had reason, however, to appreciate his courtesy; after dinner he -offered me a cigar, and showed me the way to the smoking-room, where he -did the honours to three or four extremely young men, who evidently -thought him a model of good manners and refined wickedness. - -"Well, Bevallan," said one of these young fellows, "you've not given up -hopes of the priestess of the sun-god?" - -"Never!" replied M. de Bevallan. "I would wait ten months--ten years, -if necessary--but I will marry her or no one shall!" - -"You're a lucky chap! The governess will help you to be patient." - -"Must I cut out your tongue, or cut off your ears, young Arthur?" said -M. de Bevallan, going towards him and indicating my presence with a -hasty gesture. - -A delightful conversational pell-mell then followed, which introduced me -to all the horses, all the dogs, and all the ladies of the -neighbourhood. It would not be a bad thing for ladies if, for once in -their lives, they could hear the kind of conversation which goes on -between men in the effusive mood that follows a copious repast. It -would show them exactly the delicacy of our manners, and the amount of -confidence they are calculated to inspire. I am not in the least -prudish, but in my opinion this conversation outran the limits of the -freest jesting; it touched on everything, gaily outraged everything, -took on a gratuitous tone of universal profanation. My education is, -perhaps, incomplete, for it has left me with a certain reserve of -reverence, that I think should be maintained even in the wildest -extravagances of high spirits. - -But we have in the France of to-day our young America, which is not -happy unless it can blaspheme a little after drinking; we have the -future hopes of the nation, those amiable little ruffians, without -father or mother, without God or country, who seem to be the raw -products of some heartless and soulless machine, which has accidentally -deposited them on this planet not at all to its beautification. - -In short, M. de Bevallan, who had appointed himself professor of -cynicism to these beardless _roues_, did not please me, nor do I think -that I pleased him. I retired very early on the ground of fatigue. - -At my request old Alain procured a lantern and guided me across the park -to my future quarters. After a few minutes' walk, we crossed a wooden -bridge over a stream and found ourselves in front of a massive arched -doorway, flanked by two small towers. It was the entrance to the -ancient chateau. A ring of aged oak and pine shut in this feudal -fragment, and gave it an air of profound seclusion. It is in this ruin -that I am to live. My apartments run above the door from one of the -towers to the other, and consist of three rooms very neatly hung with -chintz. I am not displeased with this gloomy abode; it suits my -fortunes. As soon as I had got rid of Alain I began to write the -account of this eventful day, breaking off occasionally to listen to the -gentle murmur of the stream under my window, and to the call of the -legendary owl celebrating his doleful loves in the neighbouring woods. - - - _July 1st_. - -I must now try to pick up the thread of my personal and private life, -which for the past two months has been somewhat lost among the daily -duties of my post. - -The day after my arrival I stayed at home for some hours, studying the -ledgers and papers of my predecessor, _le pere Hivart_, as they call him -here. I lunched at the chateau, where only a few of last night's guests -remained. Mme. Laroque had lived a great deal in Paris before her -father-in-law's health condemned her to perpetual rusticity. In her -retirement she had kept her taste for the culture, elegance, or -frivolity which had centred in the Rue du Bac when Mme. de Stael and her -turban held sway. She had also visited most of the large cities of -Europe, and had brought away from them an interest in literature far -exceeding the ordinary Parisian curiosity and erudition. She read a -great many newspapers and reviews, and endeavoured to follow, as far as -it was possible at such a distance, the movement of that refined -civilization of which museums and new books are the more or less -ephemeral fruit and flowers. We were talking at lunch about a new -opera, and Mme. Laroque asked M. de Bevallan a question about it which -he could not answer, although he professes to be well informed of all -that takes place on the Boulevard des Italiens. Mme. Laroque then turned -to me with an air that showed how little she expected her man of -business to be acquainted with such matters; but it happened, -unfortunately, that these were the only "affairs" with which I was -familiar. I had heard in Italy this very opera which had just been -played in France for the first time. The very reserve of my answers -excited Mme. Laroque's curiosity; she questioned me closely, and before -long put me in possession of all the enthusiasms, souvenirs, and -impressions she had got in her travels. Soon we were discussing the -most celebrated theatres and galleries of the Continent like old -friends, and when we left the table our conversation was so animated -that, to avoid breaking the thread of it, Mme. Laroque almost -unconsciously took my arm. We continued our exchange of sympathies in -the drawing-room, Mme. Laroque gradually dropping the kindly, -patronizing tone which had rather grated on me hitherto. - -She confessed that she was possessed by a mania for the theatre, and -that she thought of having some theatricals at the chateau. She asked -my advice on the management of this amusement, and I gave her some -details of particular plays that I had seen in Paris and St. Petersburg. -Then, as I had no intention of abusing her good-nature, I rose quickly, -saying that I meant to inaugurate my work at once by examining a large -farm about two leagues from the chateau. This announcement seemed to -fill Mme. Laroque with consternation; she looked at me, fidgeted among -her cushions, held her hands to the brazier, and at last said in a low -voice: - -"Oh, what does it matter? You can put it off." - -And as I insisted, she replied with comical embarrassment: - -"But you cannot; the roads are horrible.... You must wait for the fine -weather." - -"No, madame," I said, smiling, "I will not wait a minute; if I am to be -your bailiff I must look after your affairs." - -"Madame," said old Alain, who had come in, "M. Odiot could have _le pere -Hivart's_ old gig; it is not on springs, but it's all the more solid for -that." - -Mme. Laroque darted a withering glance at the miserable Alain for daring -to suggest _le pere Hivart's_ gig to an agent who had been to the Grand -Duchess Helene's theatricals. - -"Wouldn't the buggy be able to do it, Alain?" she asked. - -"The buggy, madame? Oh, no! I don't believe it could get into the -lane, and if it did, it would certainly not come out whole." - -I declared that I could walk easily. - -"No, no," declared Mme. Laroque; "that's impossible. I couldn't allow -it. Let me see ... We have half a dozen horses here doing nothing; but -perhaps you don't ride?" - -"Oh, I ride, but--you really need not--I am going to----" - -"Alain, get a horse saddled for M. Odiot.... Which do you suggest, -Marguerite?" - -"Give him Proserpine," whispered M. de Bevallan maliciously. - -"Oh, no! not Proserpine," declared Marguerite. - -"And why not Proserpine?" I asked. - -"Because she'd throw you," said the girl frankly. - -"Oh, would she? Really? May I ask, mademoiselle, if you ride her?" - -"Yes, I do, but she gives me some trouble." - -"Oh, well, perhaps she'll give you less when I've ridden her once or -twice! That decides me. Have Proserpine saddled, Alain." - -Mlle. Marguerite's dark eyebrows contracted as she sat down with a -gesture that disclaimed all responsibility for the catastrophe she -foresaw. - -"If you want spurs," said M. de Bevallan, who evidently did not mean me -to return alive, "I have a pair at your service." - -Without appearing to notice Mlle. Marguerite's reproachful look at the -obliging gentleman, I accepted his offer. Five minutes later a frantic -scuffling announced the approach of Proserpine, who was brought with -some difficulty to one of the flights of steps under the private garden. -She was a fine half-bred, as black as jet. I at once went down the -perron. Some kind people, with M. de Bevallan at their head, followed -me to the terrace--from motives of humanity, no doubt--and at the same -time the three windows of the _salon_ were opened for the use of the -women and old men. I would willingly have dispensed with all this -publicity, but it could not be helped, and besides, I had very little -anxiety about the result of this adventure. I might be a very young -land agent, but I was an old horseman. I could scarcely walk when my -father put me upon a horse--to my mother's great alarm--and afterward he -took the greatest pains to render me his equal in an art in which he -excelled. Indeed, he had carried my training to the verge of -extravagance, sometimes making me put on the heavy ancestral armour to -perform my feats of equitation. - -Proserpine allowed me to disentangle the reins, and even to touch her -neck without giving the slightest sign of irritation; but as soon as she -felt my foot in the stirrup she shied at once, and sent a volley of -kicks above the marble vases on the staircase; then sat comfortably down -on her hindquarters and beat the air with her forefeet. After this she -rested, quivering all over. "A bit fidgety to mount," said the groom, -with a wink. - -"So I see, my good fellow, but I shall astonish her. See," and at the -same time I sprang into the saddle without touching the stirrup and got -my seat before Proserpine had quite realized what had happened. The -instant after we shot at a hard gallop into the chestnut avenue, -followed by some clapping of hands, which M. de Bevallan had the grace -to start. - -That evening I could see, from the way people treated me, that this -incident, trifling as it was, had raised me in the public opinion. Some -other talents of the same sort, which I owed to my education, helped me -to secure the only kind of consideration I wished for--one which -respected my personal dignity. Besides, I made it quite evident that I -should not abuse the kindness and consideration shown me, by usurping a -position incompatible with my humble duties at the chateau. I shut -myself up in my tower as much as I could without being boorish; in a -word, I kept strictly in my place, so that none should be tempted to -remind me of it. - -A few days after my arrival, during one of the large dinners which at -that season were of nearly daily occurrence, I heard the _sous-prefet_ -of the neighbouring little town, who was sitting next to the lady of the -house, ask her who I was. Mme. Laroque, who is rather forgetful, did not -remember that I was quite close, and, _nolens volens_, I heard every -word of her reply. - -"Please, don't ask me," she said. "There's some extraordinary mystery -about him. We think he must be a prince in disguise.... There are so -many who like to see the world in this fashion. This one has every -conceivable talent: he rides, plays the piano, draws, and does each to -perfection! ... Between ourselves, my dear _sous-prefet_, I believe he -is a very bad steward, but there's no doubt he is a very agreeable man." - -The _sous-prefet_--who also is a very agreeable man, or thinks he is, -which is just as satisfactory to himself--stroked his fine whiskers with -his plump hand and said sweetly that there were enough beautiful eyes in -the chateau to explain many mysteries; that he quite understood the -steward's object, and that Love was the legitimate father of Folly, and -the proper steward of the Graces.... Then, changing his tone abruptly, -he added: - -"However, madame, if you have the slightest anxiety about this person, I -will have him interrogated to-morrow by the head constable." - -Mme. Laroque protested against this excess of gallantry. The -conversation so far as it concerned me went no further. But I was very -much annoyed, not with the _sous-prefet_, who had greatly amused me; but -with Mme. Laroque, who seemed to have been more than just to my personal -qualities, and not sufficiently convinced of my official abilities. - -As it happened, I had to renew the lease of one of the larger farms on -the day following. The business had to be transacted with a very astute -old peasant, but, nevertheless, I held my own with him, thanks to a -judicious combination of legal phraseology and diplomatic reserve. When -we had agreed on the details, the farmer quietly placed three _rouleaux_ -of gold on my desk. Though I did not understand this payment, as there -was nothing due, I refrained from showing any surprise. By some -indirect questions, which I asked as I unfolded the packets, I -ascertained that this sum was the earnest-money of the bargain; or, in -other words, a sort of bonus which the farmers present to the landlord -when their leases are renewed. - -[Illustration: "You do not ask me where I am taking you," she said (see -page 123)] - -I had not thought of claiming this, as I had not found it mentioned in -the leases drawn up by my able predecessor, which had been my models. -For the moment I drew no conclusions from his silence on this point, but -when I handed over the windfall to Mme. Laroque her surprise astonished -me. - -"And what is this?" she said. - -I explained the nature of the payment, and had to repeat my explanation. - -"And is it a usual custom?" she continued. - -"Yes, madame, whenever a lease is renewed." - -"But, to my knowledge, there have been ten leases renewed in the last -thirty years.... How is it we never heard of such a custom?" - -"I cannot say, madame." - -Mme. Laroque fell into an abyss of reflections, in which, perhaps, she -encountered the venerable shade of le pere Hivart. At length she -slightly shrugged her shoulders, looked at me, then at the gold, then -again at me, and seemed to hesitate. At last, leaning back in her -chair, sighing deeply, and speaking with a simplicity which I greatly -appreciated, she said: - -"Very well, monsieur. Thank you." - -Mme. Laroque had the good taste not to compliment me on this instance of -ordinary honesty; but, none the less, she conceived a great idea of her -steward's ability and virtues. A few days later I had a proof of this. -Her daughter was reading an account of a voyage to the pole to her, in -which an extraordinary bird is mentioned---"_qui ne vole pas_."[#] - -[#] "Which does not _fly_." But the French verb _voler_ is also to -steal; hence the application. - - -"Like my steward," she said. - -I sincerely believe that from this time my devotion to the work I had -undertaken gave me a claim to a more positive commendation. Soon -afterward, when I went to see my sister in Paris, M. Laubepin thanked me -warmly for having so creditably redeemed the pledges he had given on my -behalf. - -"Courage, Maxime," he said. "We shall give Helene her dowry. The poor -child will not have noticed anything unusual, and you, my friend, will -have nothing to regret. Believe me, you possess what in this world -comes nearest to happiness, and I am sure you will always possess it, -thank Heaven! It is a peaceful conscience and the manly serenity of a -soul devoted to duty." - -The old man is right, of course. I am at peace, but I cannot say that I -am happy. My soul is not yet ripe for the austere delights of -sacrifice; it has its outbursts of youthfulness and of despair. My life -is no longer my own: it is devoted and consecrated to a weaker, dearer -life; it has no future: it is imprisoned in a cloister that will never -be opened. My heart must not beat, my brain must not think, save for -another. So be it! May Helene be happy! Years are stealing upon me. -May they come quickly! I pray that they will; the coldness that comes -with them will strengthen my courage. - -Besides, I cannot complain of a situation which has, in fact, fallen -agreeably short of my worst forebodings, and has even surpassed my -brightest expectations. My work, my frequent journeys into the -neighbouring departments, and my love of solitude, often keep me away -from the chateau, where I particularly avoid all the more festive -gatherings. And perhaps it is because I go to them so seldom that I am -welcomed so kindly. Mme. Laroque, in particular, shows a real affection -for me; she makes me the confidant of her curious and perfectly sincere -fancies about poverty, sacrifice, and poetic abnegation, which form such -an amusing contrast to the chilly Creole's multitudinous contrivances -for comfort. - -Sometimes she envies the gipsies carrying their children on a wretched -cart along the roads, and cooking their food under hedges; sometimes it -is the Sisters of Chanty; sometimes the _cantinieres_, whose heroic work -she longs to share. - -And she never ceases to lament the late M. Laroque's admirable health, -which prevented his wife from showing that nature had meant her for a -sick-nurse. Nevertheless, she has lately had fixed to her chair a kind -of niche like a sentry-box, as a protection from draughts. The other -morning I found her triumphantly installed in this kiosk, where she -really awaits her martyrdom in considerable comfort. - -I have scarcely less reason to be satisfied with the other inhabitants -of the chateau. Mlle. Marguerite, who is always plunged like a Nubian -sphinx in some mysterious vision, nevertheless condescends to treat me -to my favourite airs with the utmost good-nature. She has a fine -contralto voice, which she uses with perfect art, but at the same time -with an indifference and coldness which I think must be deliberate. -Sometimes, in an unguarded moment, I have heard her tones become -impassioned, but almost immediately she has returned to an icy -correctness, as if ashamed of the lapse from her character or from her -role. - -A few games of piquet with M. Laroque, which I had the tact to lose, won -me the favour of the poor old man. Sometimes I find his dim and feeble -gaze fixed on me with strange intentness, as if some dream of the past, -some fanciful resemblance, had half revived among the mists of an -exhausted memory, in which the images of a century hover confusedly. - -They actually wanted to return me the money I lost to him. Mme. Aubry, -who usually plays with the old captain, accepts these restitutions -without scruple; but this does not prevent her from winning pretty -frequently, on which occasions she has furious encounters with the old -corsair. M. Laubepin was lenient when he described this lady merely as -embittered. I have no liking for her, but, out of consideration for the -others, I have made an effort to gain her good-will, and have succeeded -in doing so by listening patiently first to her lamentations over her -present position, and then to her impressive description of her former -grandeur, her silver, her furniture, her lace, and her gloves. - -It must be confessed that I have come to the right school to learn to -despise the advantages I have lost. Every one here by their attitude -and language eloquently exhorts me to the contempt of riches. Firstly, -Mme. Aubry, who might be aptly compared to those shameless gluttons -whose greediness takes away one's appetite, and who disgust one with the -dishes they praise; the old man, perishing as sadly among his millions -as Job on his dunghill; the good woman, romantic and _blase_, who in the -midst of her inopportune prosperity dreams of the forbidden fruit of -suffering; and lastly, the haughty Marguerite, who wears like a crown of -thorns the diadem of beauty and opulence which Heaven has forced on her -brow. A strange girl! - -Nearly every fine morning I see her ride past the windows of my belfry; -she bows gravely to me, the black plume of her felt riding hat dipping -and waving in the wind; and then she slowly disappears along the shaded -path that runs through the ruins of the ancient chateau. Sometimes old -Alain follows her, and sometimes her only companion is the huge and -faithful Mervyn, who strides at the side of his beautiful mistress like -a pensive bear. So attended, she covers all the country round on her -errands of charity. She does not need a protector, for there is not a -cottage within six leagues where she is not known and worshipped as the -goddess of good works. The poor people call her "Mademoiselle," as if -they were speaking of one of those daughters of kings who give poetry to -their legends, and whose beauty and power and mystery they recognise in -her. - -I, meanwhile, am seeking the key to the sombre preoccupation that clouds -her brow, the haughty and defiant severity of her eyes, the cold -bitterness of her tongue. I ask myself if these are the natural traits -of a strange and complex character, or the symptoms of some secret -suffering, remorse, or fear, or love, which preys on this noble heart. -However slightly one may be interested in the question, it is impossible -not to feel a certain curiosity about a person so remarkable. Last -night, while old Alain, with whom I am a favourite, was serving my -solitary repast, I said: - -"Well, Alain, it's been a lovely day. Have you been riding?" - -"Yes, sir, this morning, with mademoiselle." - -"Oh, indeed!" - -"You must have seen us go by, sir." - -"Very likely. I sometimes do see you pass. You look well on horseback, -Alain." - -"You're very kind, sir. But mademoiselle looks better than I do." - -"She is a very beautiful young lady." - -"You're right, sir, and she's fair inside as well as outside. Just like -her mother. I'll tell you something, sir. You know, perhaps, that this -property belonged to the last Comte de Castennec, whom I had the honour -of serving. When the Laroques bought the chateau I must own that I was -rather upset, and not inclined to stay with the new people. I had been -brought up to respect the nobility, and it went against my feelings to -live with people of no birth. You may have noticed, sir, that I am glad -to wait upon you; that is because I think you look like a gentleman. Are -you quite sure you don't belong to the nobility, sir?" - -"Quite sure, my poor Alain." - -"Well, it's of no consequence, sir, and this is what I wanted to tell -you," said Alain, with a graceful inclination. "In the service of these -ladies I have learned that nobility of the heart is as good as the -other, more especially that of the Comte de Castennec, who had a -weakness for beating his servants. Still, sir, it's a great pity -mademoiselle cannot marry a gentleman with a fine old name. Then she -would be perfect." - -"But, Alain, it seems to me that it only depends on herself." - -"If you refer to M. de Bevallan, sir, it certainly does, for he asked -for her more than six months ago. Madame was not opposed to the -marriage, and, in fact, after the Laroques, M. de Bevallan is the -richest man hereabouts; but mademoiselle, though she didn't positively -refuse, wanted time to think the matter over." - -"But if she loves M. de Bevallan, and can marry him whenever she likes, -why is she always so sad and thoughtful?" - -"It's very true, sir, that mademoiselle has changed a good deal in the -last two or three years. Before that she was as merry as a bird; now she -seems to have something on her mind, but, if I may say so, it is not -love for this gentleman." - -"You don't seem very fond of M. de Bevallan yourself, Alain. But his -family is excellent." - -"That does not prevent him from being a bad lot, sir, always running -after the country girls, and for no good either. And if you used your -eyes, sir, you might see that he is quite ready to play the sultan here -in the chateau itself while he's waiting for something better." - -After a significant pause Alain went on. - -"Pity you haven't a hundred thousand francs a year, sir." - -"And why, Alain?" - -"Because..." and Alain shook his head thoughtfully. - - - _July 25th_. - -During the past month I have made one friend and two enemies. The -enemies are Mlle. Marguerite and Mlle. Helouin. The friend is a maiden -lady of eighty-eight. Scarcely a compensation! I will first make up my -account with Mlle. Helouin, an ungrateful young lady. What she -considers my offences should rather have secured her esteem. But she is -one of the many women who do not care either to give, or to inspire, -such a commonplace sentiment. From the first I had been inclined to -establish friendly relations with her. The governess and the steward -were on a similar footing; we had a common ground in our subordinate -position at the chateau. I have always tried to show to ladies in her -position the consideration which seems to me due to those in -circumstances so precarious, humiliating, and hopeless. Besides, Mlle. -Helouin is pretty, intelligent, and accomplished, though she rather -deducts from these qualities by the exaggerated liveliness of manner, -the feverish coquetry, and the tinge of pedantry which are the failings -of her profession. - -I do not claim any credit for my chivalrous attitude towards her. It -seemed to me a sort of duty when, as various hints had warned me, I -became aware that a devouring lion in the semblance of King Francis I -was prowling round my young _protegee_. This duplicity, which did -credit to M. de Bevallan's audacity, was carried on, under cover of a -friendly interest, with an astuteness and confidence well calculated to -deceive the careless and unsuspecting. Mme. Laroque and her daughter, -especially, are too little acquainted with the wickedness of this world, -and too little in touch with realities to have the slightest suspicion. -For my own part, I was angry with this insatiable lady-killer, and did -my best to spoil his plans. More than once I secured the attention he -desired to monopolize; and I tried more especially to counteract or -diminish the bitter sense of neglect and isolation, which makes women in -Mlle. Helouin's position ready to accept the kind of consolation which -was being offered to her. Have I ever throughout this ill-advised -contest outstepped the delicate limits of brotherly protection? I think -not. The very words of the brief dialogue which has suddenly altered -the character of our relations bear witness to my discretion. One -evening last week we were taking the air on the terrace. During the day -I had had occasion to show some kindly attention to Mlle. Helouin, and -she now took my arm and said, as she bit at an orange-blossom with her -small white teeth: - -"M. Maxime, you are very good to me." - -Her voice was a little unsteady. - -"I hope so, mademoiselle." - -"You are a true friend." - -"Yes, indeed." - -"But what kind of a friend?" - -"A true friend, as you say." - -"A friend who--loves me?" - -"Surely." - -"Much?" - -"Most decidedly." - -"Passionately?" - -"No." - -At this word, which I uttered very clearly and with a steady look, Mlle. -Helouin flung the orange-blossom away and dropped my arm. Since this -unlucky hour I have been treated with a contempt I do not deserve, and I -should have been convinced that friendship between man and woman is a -mere illusion, if I had not had on the following day something like an -antithesis to this adventure. - -I had gone to spend the evening at the chateau, and as the two or three -families who had been staying there for the last fortnight had left in -the morning, I met only the _habitues_--the cure, the tax-collector, Dr. -Desmarets, and General de Saint-Cast and his wife, who, like the doctor, -lived at the neighbouring little town. - -When I came in, Mme. de Saint-Cast, who had apparently brought her -husband a handsome fortune, was in close conversation with Mme. Aubry. -As usual, these ladies were in perfect agreement. In language in which -distinction of form rivalled elevation of thought, they, like two -shepherds in an eclogue, alternately lauded the incomparable charms of -wealth. - -"You are perfectly right, madame," said Mme. Aubry. "There is only one -thing in the world worth having, and that is money. When I had money I -utterly despised every one who had not, and now I think it quite natural -for people to despise me, and I don't complain if they do." - -"No one despises you on that account, madame," replied Mme. de -Saint-Cast, "most certainly not; but all the same there's a very great -difference between poverty and riches, I must confess, as the general -knows well enough. Why, he had absolutely nothing when I married -him--except his sword--and one doesn't get fat on a sword, does one, -madame?" - -"No, no, indeed, madame!" exclaimed Mme. Aubry, delighted with this bold -metaphor. "Honour and glory are all very well in novels, but a nice -carriage is much better in practice, isn't it, madame?" - -"Of course it is, madame; and that's just what I was saying to the -general this morning as we came here. Isn't it, general?" - -"Eh, what?" growled the general, who was playing cards in a corner with -the old corsair. - -"You hadn't a penny when I married you, general, had you?" continued -Mme. de Saint-Cast. "You won't think of denying that, I suppose." - -"We've heard it often enough, I should say," growled the general. - -"That doesn't alter the fact that if it hadn't been for me, general, -you'd have had to travel on foot, and that wouldn't have been a fine -thing for you with your wounds. Your half-pay of six or seven hundred -francs wouldn't have kept a carriage for you, my friend. I was saying -this to him to-day _apropos_ of our new carriage, which is as easy as an -arm-chair. Of course I paid a good price for it; it's four thousand -francs out of my pocket, madame." - -"I can well believe it, madame. My best carriage cost me fully five -thousand, including the tiger-skin mat, which was worth five hundred -francs alone." - -"Yes," replied Mme. de Saint-Cast; "but I have had to be a little -careful, for I've just been getting new drawing-room furniture; the -carpet and curtains alone cost me fifteen thousand francs. You'll say -it's too good for a country hole like this. You're right. But the -whole town is lost in admiration, and, after all, one does like to be -respected, madame!" - -"Of course, madame," replied Mme. Aubry, "we like to be respected, and -we are respected according to the money we have. For my part, I console -myself for not being respected now, by remembering that if I were as -well off as I once was, I should see all the people who despise me at my -feet again." - -"Except me, by God!" cried Dr. Desmarets, jumping up. "You might have a -hundred millions a year, and I give you my word of honour you wouldn't -see me at your feet! And now I'll go and get some air, for, devil take -me, if one can breathe here!" - -So saying, the honest doctor left the room, and my heart went out to him -for the outburst that had relieved my own sense of disgust and -indignation. - -Although M. Desmarets was received at the house as a Chrysostom to whom -great license of speech was allowed, his language had been so forcible -that it had produced a certain embarrassment in the company, and an -awkward silence ensued. Mme. Laroque broke it adroitly by asking her -daughter whether it was eight o'clock. - -"It can't be, mother," replied Mlle. Marguerite, "for Mlle. de Porhoet -has not come yet." - -The minute after, as the clock struck, the door opened, and Mlle. -Jocelynde de Porhoet-Gael entered the room, with astronomical -punctuality, on the arm of Dr. Desmarets. - -Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael, who had this year seen her eighty-eighth spring, -and whose appearance suggested a tall reed wrapped in silk, is the last -scion of a noble race, whose earliest ancestors must be sought among the -legendary kings of ancient Armorica. Of this house, however, there is -no authentic record in history until the twelfth century, when Juthail, -son of Conan le Tort, who belonged to the younger branch of the reigning -family of Brittany, is mentioned. Some drops of the Porhoet blood have -mingled with that of the most illustrious veins of France--those of the -Rohans, the Lusignans, the Penthievres, and these _grands seigneurs_ had -admitted that it was not the least pure of their blood. I remember that -when in a fit of youthful vanity I studied the alliances of my family, I -noticed the strange name of Porhoet, and that my father, who was very -learned in such matters, spoke highly in its praise. Mlle. de Porhoet, -who is now the sole bearer of the name, had always refused to marry, -because she wished to preserve as long as possible in the firmament of -the French nobility the constellation of those magic syllables, -Porhoet-Gael. It happened one day that the origin of the house of -Bourbon was referred to in her presence. - -"The Bourbons," said Mlle. de Porhoet, sticking her knitting-needle into -her blond peruke, "the Bourbons are a good family, but" (with an air of -modesty) "there are better." - -However, it is impossible not to render homage to this august old lady, -who bears with surprising dignity the heavy and triple majesty of birth, -age, and misfortune. A wretched lawsuit in some foreign country which -she has persisted in carrying on for fifteen years, has gradually -reduced a fortune, which was but small to begin with; and now she has -scarcely a thousand francs a year. Privation has not broken her pride or -embittered her temper. She is gay, good-humoured, and courteous. She -lives, no one quite knows how, in her small house with her little -servant, and contrives even to find money for charity. To their great -honour, Mme. Laroque and her daughter are devoted to their poor and -noble neighbour. At their house she is treated with a respectful -attention which amazes Mme. Aubry. I have often seen Mlle. Marguerite -leave the gayest dance to make a fourth for Mlle. de Porhoet's rubber, -for the world would come to an end if Mlle. de Porhoet's whist -(halfpenny points) was omitted for a single day. I am one of the old -lady's favourite partners, and on this particular evening soon found -myself, with the cure and the doctor, seated at the whist-table with the -descendant of Conan le Tort. - -I ought to mention here that at the commencement of the last century a -grand-uncle of Mlle. de Porhoet, who held an office in the establishment -of the Duke d'Anjou, crossed the Pyrenees in the suite of the young -prince, who became Philip V, settled in Spain, and prospered there. His -posterity became extinct about fifteen years ago, and Mlle. de Porhoet, -who had never lost sight of her Spanish relatives, at once declared -herself heiress to their considerable property. Her claims were -contested, only too justly, I fear, by one of the oldest Castilian -families allied to the Spanish branch of the Porhoets. - -Hence the lawsuit which the unfortunate octogenarian maintained at great -expense, going from court to court with a persistence akin to mania, -which her friends deplored and other people ridiculed. Dr. Desmarets, -despite his respect for Mlle. de Porhoet, belongs to the party who -laughs; more particularly, because he strongly disapproves of the use to -which the poor lady has prospectively devoted her fictitious heritage. -She intends to build in the neighbouring town a cathedral in the richest -_flamboyant_ style, which shall perpetuate the name of the foundress and -of a great departed race to all future generations. This -cathedral--dream begotten of a dream!--is the harmless hobby of the old -lady. She has had the plans made; she spends her days and sometimes her -nights brooding on its splendours, altering its arrangements, or adding -to its decoration. She speaks of it as already existent: "I was in the -nave of my cathedral; to-night I noticed something very ugly in the -north aisle of my cathedral; I have altered the uniform of the -_suisse_;" etc., etc. - -"Well, mademoiselle," said the doctor, shuffling the cards, "have you -been working at the cathedral since yesterday?" - -"Yes, of course I have, doctor; and I've had a rather happy idea. I -have replaced the solid wall, which you know separates the choir from -the sacristy, by a screen of carved foliage in imitation of the Clisson -chapel in the church at Josselin. It is much lighter." - -"No doubt; but in the meanwhile what is the news from Spain? Can it be -true, as I think I saw in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ this morning, that -the young duke of Villa-Hermosa proposes to put an end to the case in a -friendly way, by offering to marry you?" - -Mademoiselle de Porhoet disdainfully shook the plume of faded ribbons -attached to her cap. - -"I should refuse absolutely," she said. - -"Ah, yes, you say so, mademoiselle! But how about the guitar that's -been heard under your windows the last few nights?" - -"Bah!" - -"Bah? And that Spaniard who has been prowling about the country in a -mantle and yellow boots, sighing as if his heart would burst?" - -"You are a feather-head, Dr. Desmarets," said Mademoiselle de Porhoet, -calmly opening her snuff-box. "Still, as you wish to know--I may say -that my man of business wrote to me from Madrid a day or two ago that -with a little more patience we should see the end of all our troubles." - -"I can quite believe that! Do you know where your man of business comes -from, madame? Straight from Gil Blas' cavern. He'll drain you of your -last shilling, and then he'll laugh in your face. How much better it -would be to give up this folly for good and all, and live at ease -quietly! What good will these millions do you? Aren't you happy and -respected ... what more do you want? ... As for your cathedral, I won't -speak of it, because--it is a bad joke." - -"My cathedral is not a bad joke to any but bad jokers, Dr. Desmarets; -besides, I am defending my rights, I am fighting for justice; the -property belongs to me. I have heard my father say so a hundred times, -and never, with my consent, shall it go to people who are actually as -much strangers to our family as yourself, my friend, or," she added, -indicating me, "this gentleman." - -I was childish enough to resent this remark, and at once replied: "As -far as I am concerned, mademoiselle, you are mistaken; for my family has -had the honour of being allied to yours, and _vice versa_." - -At this startling announcement Mlle. de Porhoet hastily brought her -cards, which she held spread out fanwise, nearer to her pointed chin, -and straightening her spare figure, looked me in the face as if she -doubted my sanity. By a tremendous effort she recovered her -self-possession, and said, as she carried a pinch of Spanish snuff to -her thin nose, "Young man, you will have to prove what you say to me." - -Ashamed of my foolish boast, and embarrassed by the attention it had -aroused, I bowed awkwardly without speaking. Our rubber was played in -gloomy silence. It was ten o'clock, and I was preparing to slip off, -when Mlle. de Porhoet touched my arm. - -"Sir," she said, "will you be so kind as to accompany me to the end of -the avenue?" - -I bowed again and followed her into the park. The little servant in -Breton costume went first, carrying a lantern; then came Mlle. de -Porhoet, stiff and silent, carefully holding up her worn silk frock; she -had coldly declined the offer of my arm, and I walked humbly at her -side, feeling very much dissatisfied with myself. After a few minutes -of this funeral march the old lady spoke. - -"Well, sir?" she said. "You may speak; I am waiting. You have asserted -that your family is allied to mine, and as an alliance of this kind is a -piece of history entirely new to me, I shall be greatly obliged if you -will enlighten me on the subject." - -I had decided that I must at all costs keep the secret of my incognito. - -"I venture to hope, mademoiselle, that you won't take a mere joke quite -seriously." - -"A joke!" exclaimed Mlle. de Porhoet. "A nice subject to joke upon! -And, sir, what do you people of to-day call the jokes that can be boldly -addressed to an old and defenceless woman, but which you would not dare -to utter in the presence of a man?" - -"Mademoiselle, you leave me no choice; I must trust to your discretion. -I do not know whether the name of Champcey d'Hauterive is familiar to -you?" - -"I know the Champcey d'Hauterives perfectly well, sir. They are a good, -an excellent Dauphin family. What inference am I to make from your -question?" - -"I am the present representative of that family." - -"You!" exclaimed Mlle. de Porhoet, coming to a sudden halt. "You are a -Champcey d'Hauterive?" - -"Yes, the male representative, mademoiselle." - -"That alters the question," she said. "Give me your arm, cousin, and -tell me your history." - -I thought that in the circumstances it would be better not to conceal -anything from her. As I finished the painful story of my family -troubles, we found ourselves opposite a small house, remarkably low and -narrow. On one side stood a kind of low pigeon-house with a pointed -roof. - -"Enter, marquis," said the daughter of the kings of Gael at the -threshold of her lowly palace. "I beg that you will enter." - -The next moment I stepped into a little _salon_ meanly paved with brick; -on the faded tapestry of the walls hung portraits of ancestors gorgeous -in ducal ermine. Over the mantel-piece sparkled a magnificent clock in -tortoise-shell and brass, surmounted by a group representing the chariot -of the sun. Some oval-backed arm-chairs and an old spindle-legged couch -completed the furniture of the room. Everything shone with cleanliness, -and the air was filled with mingled odours of iris, Spanish snuff, and -aromatic essences. - -"Pray be seated," said the old lady, taking her place on the couch; -"pray be seated, my cousin. I call you cousin, though we are not -related, and cannot be, as Jeanne de Porhoet and Hugues de Champcey were -so ill-advised as to leave no issue. But, with your permission, I should -like to treat you as a cousin when we are alone, if only to make me -forget for a moment that I am alone in the world. - -"So, cousin, I see how you are situated; the case is a hard one, most -assuredly. But I will suggest one or two reflections which have solaced -me, and which I think are likely to bring consolation to you. - -"In the first place, my dear marquis, I often tell myself that among all -the charlatans and ex-lackeys one now sees rolling in carriages, poverty -has a peculiar perfume of distinction and good taste. And also I am -inclined to believe that God has brought some of us down to a poor and -narrow life, that this coarse, materialistic, money-grubbing age may -have before it the type of a merit, dignity, and splendour which owes -nothing to money, that money cannot buy--that is not for sale. In all -probability, my cousin, such is the providential justification of your -situation and of mine." - -I conveyed to Mlle. de Porhoet my satisfaction at having been chosen -with her to give the world the noble example it needs so much, and shows -itself so ready to profit by. - -"For my own part," she went on, "I am inured to privation, and I do not -feel it much. When, in the course of a life that has been too long, one -has seen a father and four brothers, worthy of their father, perish -before their time, by sword or bullet; when one has lost, one by one, -all the objects of one's affection and worship, one must have a very -paltry soul to be much concerned about more or less ample meals and more -or less dainty clothing. Certainly, marquis, you may be sure that if my -personal comfort only were at stake, I should not trouble about my -Spanish millions; but to me it seems but right and proper and exemplary -that a house like mine should not disappear without leaving some -permanent sign, some striking monument of its grandeur and its faith. -And that is why, cousin, I have, in imitation of some of my ancestors, -thought of the pious foundation of which you must have heard, and which, -while I have life, I shall not relinquish." - -Assured of my sympathy, the noble old lady seemed to lose herself in -meditation, and as she looked sadly at the fading portraits of her -ancestors, only the beat of the hereditary clock broke the silence of -midnight in the dim room. - -"There will be," Mlle. de Porhoet suddenly resumed, in a solemn voice, -"there will be a chapter of regular canons attached to the church. Each -day at matins, a mass will be said in the private chapel of my family, -for the repose of my soul and the souls of my ancestors. The feet of -the celebrant priest will tread a slab of unlettered marble, which will -form the step of the altar and cover my ashes." - -I bent towards her with evident emotion, with visible respect. Mlle. de -Porhoet took my hand and pressed it gently. - -"Cousin," she said, "I am not mad, whatever they may say. My father, -who was truth itself, always declared that when the direct line of our -Spanish branch became exhausted we should be sole heirs to the estate. -Unfortunately, his sudden and violent death prevented him from giving us -more exact information; but, as I cannot doubt his word, I do not doubt -my rights. However," she added, after a little pause, and in accents of -touching sadness, "if I am not mad, I am old, and the people in Spain -know it. For fifteen years they have dragged me on from one delay to -another; they are waiting for my death to finish everything. And ... -they will not have to wait long. Some morning, very soon now, I must -make my last sacrifice. My dear cathedral--my only love, which has -taken the place of so many broken or suppressed attachments--will have -but one stone--that of my tomb." - -She was silent; her thin hands wiped away two tears that flowed down her -worn face, as, striving to smile, she said: - -"Forgive me, cousin, you have enough troubles of your own. Besides, it -is late--you must go. You will compromise me!" - -Before leaving, I again recommended the greatest discretion in reference -to the secret I had intrusted to her. She replied, a little naively, -that I need not be anxious, and that my peace of mind and dignity were -safe in her hands. Nevertheless, during the next few days, I suspected, -from Mme. Laroque's increased attentions, that my excellent friend had -handed on my confidence. Indeed, Mlle. de Porhoet admitted the fact, -declaring that the honour of her family demanded this, and assured me -that Mme. Laroque was incapable of betraying a secret intrusted to her, -even to her own daughter. - -Our interview had filled me with sympathetic respect for the old lady, -which I tried to express by my actions. The evening of the next day I -taxed all the resources of my pencil in the invention of decorations, -internal and external, for her beloved cathedral. The attention seemed -to please her very much, and I soon got into the habit of working on the -cathedral every evening after our whist, enriching the ideal edifice -with a statue, a pulpit, and a rood-loft. Mlle. Marguerite, who seems -to feel a kind of adoration for her old neighbour, associated herself -with my work of charity by devoting a special album to the Basilica -Porhoet, which it is my duty to fill with designs and drawings. - -And in addition, I offered my old confidant to take my share in the -inquiries and other matters of business connected with her lawsuit. The -poor lady confessed that I should do her a service; that though she -could still keep up her ordinary correspondence, her sight was too weak -to decipher the manuscripts of her archives. Hitherto she had not -associated any one with her in this important work, for fear of giving -more occasion to the rustic humourists. In short, she accepted me as -counsellor and collaborator. Since this, I have conscientiously studied -the voluminous documents of her lawsuit, and I have been convinced that -the case, which must be sooner or later definitively settled, is -absolutely hopeless from the beginning. M. Laubepin agrees with me in -this opinion, which as far as possible I have concealed from the old -lady. Meanwhile I have pleased her by going through her family archives -piece by piece; she still hopes to find among them some incontestable -proof in favour of her claim. Unfortunately, the records are very -copious, and fill the pigeon-house from floor to roof. Yesterday I went -early to Mlle. de Porhoet's to finish before lunch the examination of -packet No. 115, which I had begun overnight. The lady of the house had -not risen yet, so, with the help of the little servant, I quietly -installed myself in the _salon_ and settled down to my dusty work. -About an hour later, as I was going joyfully through the last sheet of -packet No. 115, Mlle. de Porhoet came in, dragging a huge bundle neatly -wrapped up in a white linen cover. - -"Good-morning, my dear cousin," she said. "I've heard how you have been -working for me this morning, so I determined to work for you. Here is -packet No. 116." - -I must confess that at this moment Mlle. de Porhoet reminded me of the -cruel fairy of folklore, who shuts the princess up in a lonely tower and -imposes a succession of extraordinary and impossible tasks on her. - -"Last night," she continued, "I dreamed that the key of my Spanish -treasure lay in this packet. So you will very much oblige me by -examining it at once. Afterward I hope you will do me the honour to -share a frugal repast in the shade of my arbour." - -There was no help for it. I obeyed, and I need not say that the -wonderful packet No. 116 contained, like its predecessors, nothing more -valuable than the dust of centuries. Precisely at noon, the old lady -came to offer me her arm and conduct me formally to a little -box-bordered garden which, with a bit of adjoining meadow, now -constitutes the sole domain of the Porhoets. The table was set out under -an arched bower of foliage, and through the leaves the sunshine of a -fine summer's day dappled the spotless, sweet-smelling table-cloth. I -had done justice to the chicken, the fresh salad, and the bottle of old -Bordeaux, which made up the _menu_ of the banquet, when Mlle. de -Porhoet, who seemed charmed with my appetite, turned the conversation on -to the Laroque family. - -"I will own," she said to me, "that I do not care for the old buccaneer. -When he first came here he had a large and favourite ape, which he -dressed up like a servant, and which he seemed to be able to communicate -with perfectly. The animal was a nuisance to the whole country, and -only a man without education or decency could have kept it. I agreed -when they told me that it was an ape, but, as a fact, I have always -believed that it was a negro, more especially as I had always suspected -its master of having trafficked in that commodity in Africa. But M. -Laroque, the son, was a good sort of man, and quite a gentleman. As to -the ladies--I refer, of course, to Mme. Laroque and her daughter, and in -no way to the widow Aubry, an extremely common person--as to the ladies, -I say, they deserve every good thing one can say of them." - -Just then we heard the hoofs of a horse on the path that runs outside -the garden wall, and the next moment some one was knocking sharply at a -small door near the arbour. - -"Yes," said Mlle. de Porhoet. "Who goes there?" - -I looked up, and saw a black plume above the top of the wall. - -"Open," said a gay voice outside, full of musical intonations. "Open. -'Tis the fortune of France!" - -"What? Is it you, my darling?" said the old lady. "Quick, cousin, -run!" - -As I opened the door Mervyn rushed between my legs, nearly throwing me -down. Mlle. Marguerite was tying up her horse to the fence by his -reins. - -"_Bonjour_, M. Odiot," she said, without showing any surprise at finding -me there. Throwing the long folds of her habit over her arm, she -entered the garden. - -"Welcome this lovely day, my lovely girl!" said Mlle. de Porhoet. "Kiss -me, dear. You've been riding too fast, you foolish child. I can tell -by your colour and the fire that literally seems to flash from your -eyes. What can I offer you, my beauty?" - -"Let me see," said Mlle. Marguerite, glancing at the table. "What have -you got? Has M. Odiot eaten up everything? Not that it matters. I am -thirsty, not hungry." - -"I utterly forbid you to drink while you're so hot. But wait a moment; -there are some strawberries left in that bed." - -"Strawberries! _O gioia_!" sang the girl. "Take one of those -fig-leaves, M. Odiot, and come with me. Quick!" - -While I chose the largest of the fig-leaves, Mlle. de Porhoet -half-closed one eye, and followed her favourite with the other, as she -walked proudly along the sunlit alley. - -"Look at her, cousin," she whispered, with an approving smile; "isn't -she worthy to be one of us?" - -Meanwhile, Mlle. Marguerite, bending over the bed and catching her foot -in her train at every step, greeted each strawberry she found with a -little cry of delight. I kept near to her, holding out the fig-leaf, in -which she put one strawberry for every two she ate, to help her to be -patient. When she was satisfied with the harvest we returned in triumph -to the arbour. The rest of the strawberries were sprinkled with sugar, -and crushed by the prettiest teeth in Brittany with great relish. - -"Oh, that's done me good!" exclaimed Mlle. Marguerite, throwing her hat -on the seat and leaning back against the side of the bower. "And now, -dearest lady, to complete my happiness, you're going to tell me stories -of the old days when you were a fair warrior." - -Mlle. de Porhoet, smiling and charmed, needed no pressing, and began to -tell us some of the most striking events of her famous expeditions with -Lescure and La Rochefoucauld. And on this occasion my old friend gave -me another proof of her nobility of nature, for she paid her tribute to -the heroes of those troublous wars without distinction of party. She -spoke of General Hoche, whose prisoner she had been, with almost tender -admiration. Mlle. Marguerite listened with an impassioned attention -which surprised me. At one moment, half-buried in her leafy niche, her -long eyelashes a little lowered, she sat as motionless as a statue; at -another, when the story became more exciting, she put her elbows on the -table, plunged a beautiful hand into the masses of her loosened hair, -and fixed the lightning of her brilliant eyes eagerly on the old -_Vendienne_. - -Among the sweetest hours of my dull life, I shall always count those I -spent watching that noble face, irradiated by the reflections of the -glowing sky and the impressions of a valiant heart. - -When the story-telling was over, Mlle. Marguerite embraced her old -friend, and waking up Mervyn, who was asleep at her feet, declared that -she must return to the chateau. As I was sure it would cause her no -embarrassment, I had no hesitation in leaving at the same time. Apart -from my personal insignificance in the sight of the rich heiress, Mlle. -Laroque was quite at her ease without a chaperon. Her mother had given -her the same kind of liberal education she had herself received in one -of the British colonies. And we know that the English method accords to -women before marriage all that independence which we so wisely give them -only when the abuse of it becomes irreparable. So we went out of the -garden together. I held her stirrup while she mounted, and we set off -towards the chateau. - -"Really, M. Odiot," she said, after a few steps, "I am afraid I spoiled -your _tete-a-tete_ in the garden. You seemed to be very happy." - -"Certainly, mademoiselle, but as I had already been there a long time, I -forgive you; nay, more, I thank you." - -"You are very good to our poor friend. My mother is very grateful to -you." - -"And your mother's daughter?" I said, laughing. - -"Oh, I'm not so easily impressed. I am afraid you will have to wait a -little before you get any praises from me. I don't judge people's -actions leniently; there is generally more than one explanation of them. -I grant that your behaviour towards Mlle. de Porhoet looks very well, -but----" she paused, shook her head, and went on in a serious, bitter, -and frankly insulting tone, "but I am not at all certain that you are -not paying court to her in the hope that she may make you her heir." - -I felt myself grow pale. But, seeing how absurd it would be to answer -this young girl angrily, I controlled myself, and replied grandly, -"Allow me, mademoiselle, to express my sincere pity for you." - -She appeared very much surprised. "Your sincere pity?" - -"Yes, mademoiselle, the respectful pity to which I think you have a -right." - -"Pity!" she said, stopping her horse and slowly turning her disdainful, -half-closed eyes towards me. "I am not so fortunate as to understand -you." - -"It is really quite simple, mademoiselle; if disillusion, doubt, and -callousness are the bitterest fruits of long experience, nothing in the -world deserves pity so much as a heart withered by mistrust before it -has even seen life." - -"Sir," said Mlle. Laroque, with a strange vehemence, "you do not know -what you are talking about. And," she added more harshly, "you forget -to whom you are speaking!" - -"That is true, mademoiselle," I answered gently, bowing. "I may have -spoken without much knowledge, and perhaps I forgot, to some extent, to -whom I was speaking. But you set me the example." - -Her eyes fixed on the top of the trees that bordered the road, Mlle. -Marguerite asked, with haughty irony: - -"Must I beg your pardon?" - -"Most certainly, mademoiselle," I replied firmly, "if either of us -should ask pardon, it is you. You are rich, I am poor; you can humble -yourself.... I cannot." - -There was silence. Her tightened lips, her quivering nostrils, and the -sudden whiteness of her forehead, showed what a struggle was going on -within her. Suddenly lowering her whip as if to salute, she said: - -"Very well, I beg your pardon." - -At the same moment she gave her horse a sharp cut and set off at a -gallop, leaving me in the middle of the road. - -I have not seen her since. - - - _July 30th_. - -The calculation of probabilities is never more misleading than when it -has to do with the thoughts and feelings of a woman. After the painful -scene between Mlle. Marguerite and myself, I had not been very anxious -to encounter her. For two days I had not been to the chateau and I -scarcely expected that the resentment I had aroused in this proud -nature, would have subsided in this short interval. However, about -seven o'clock on the morning of the day before yesterday, when I was -working at the open window of my tower, I heard my name called out in a -most friendly way by the very person of whom I thought I had made an -enemy. - -"M. Odiot, are you there?" - -I went to the window and saw Mlle. Marguerite standing in the boat that -was kept by the bridge. She was holding back the brim of her brown -straw hat and looking up at my dark tower. - -"Here I am, mademoiselle," I said eagerly. - -"Are you coming out?" - -After my well-founded apprehension of the last two days, so much -condescension made me think, to use the accepted formula, I was the dupe -of a disordered fancy. - -"I beg your pardon.... What did you say?" - -"Will you come out for a little with Alain, Mervyn, and me?" - -"With pleasure, mademoiselle." - -"Very well--bring your album." - -I went down quickly and hurried to the bank. - -"Ah! ah!" said the girl, laughing, "you're in a good-humour this -morning, it seems." - -I awkwardly murmured something to the effect that I was always in a -good-humour, but Mlle. Marguerite scarcely seemed convinced of the fact. -Then I stepped into the boat and sat down at her side. - -"Row away, Alain," she said immediately; and old Alain, who prides -himself on being a first-rate oarsman, set to work steadily, the long -oars moving to and fro at his sides, making him look like a heavy bird -trying to fly. - -"I was obliged to come and save you from your donjon," said Mlle. -Marguerite, "where you have been ailing for two whole days." - -"Mademoiselle, I assure you that only consideration for -you--respect--fear of..." - -"Respect! Fear! Oh, dear, no! You were sulking, that is all. We -behave much better than you. My mother, for some reason or other, -thinks you ought to be treated with special consideration, and has -implored me to sacrifice myself on the altar of your pride; so, like an -obedient daughter, I sacrifice myself." - -I expressed my gratitude frankly and warmly. - -"Not to do things by halves," she continued, "I have determined to give -you a treat to your taste. So here you have a lovely summer morning, -woods and glades with all the proper light effects, birds warbling in -the foliage, a mysterious bark gliding on the waves. As this is the -sort of thing you like, you ought to be satisfied." - -"Mademoiselle, I am charmed." - -"Well, that's all right." - -For the moment I was fairly contented with my fate. The air was sweet -with the scent of the new-mown hay lying in swaths on either bank; the -sombre avenues of the park, dotted with patches of sunshine, slipped -past us, and from the flower-cups came the happy drone of myriads of -insects feasting on the dew. Opposite me, old Alain smiled complacently -at me with a protecting look at each stroke of his oars, and closer to -me Mlle. Marguerite, dressed in white--contrary to her custom--beautiful -and fresh and pure as a periwinkle blossom, shook with one hand the -pearls of dew from her veil while she held out the other as a bait for -Mervyn, who was swimming after the boat. I should not have wanted much -persuasion to go to the end of the world in that little white boat. - -As we passed under an arch in the wall that bounds the park the young -Creole said to me: - -"You do not ask where I am taking you?" - -"No, mademoiselle, I do not. It is all the same to me." - -"I am taking you into fairyland." - -"I thought so, mademoiselle." - -"Mlle. Helouin, more versed in poetic lore than I am, has no doubt told -you that the thickets that cover the country for twenty miles round are -the remains of the ancient forest of Brouliande, the hunting-ground of -those beings of Gael, ancestors of your friend Mlle. de Porhoet, and the -place where Mervyn's ancestor, wizard though he was, came under the -magic spells of a damsel called Vivien. Now we shall soon be in the -centre of that forest. And if this is not enough to fire your -imagination, let me tell you that these woods are full of remains of the -mysterious religion of the Celts; they are paved with them. In every -shady nook you picture to yourself a white-robed Druid, and in every ray -of sunlight the glitter of a golden sickle. The religion of these old -bores has left near here, in a solitary and romantic place, a monument -before which people subject to ecstasy are usually in raptures. I -thought you would like to sketch it, and as it is not easy to find, I -will show you the way, on condition that you suppress the explosions of -an enthusiasm I cannot share." - -"Agreed, mademoiselle, I will control myself." - -"Yes, please do." - -"I promise. And what is the name of this monument?" - -"I call it a heap of big stones, but the antiquaries have more than one -name for it. Some call it simply a _dolmen_, others, more pedantic, say -it's a _cromlech_, and the country people--I do not know why--call it -the _migourdit_."[#] - - -[#] In the wood of Cadoudal (Morbihan). - - -Meanwhile we glided gently with the current of the stream between two -strips of wet meadow. Here and there, small black cattle with large -pointed horns turned and looked fiercely at us. The valley through which -the widening river crept, was shut in on both sides by a chain of hills, -some covered with dry heather and furze, and some with green brushwood. -Sometimes, at the end of a transversal cleft between two hills, we could -see the crest of a mountain, blue and round in the distance. In spite -of her indifference, Mlle. Marguerite was careful to draw my attention -to all the beauties of this austere and peaceful country, and careful -also, to qualify each remark with some ironic comment. - -For a little while a dull, continuous sound had told us that we were -approaching a waterfall. Suddenly the valley narrowed into a wild and -lonely gorge. On the left stood a high wall of rock overgrown with -moss; oaks and firs mixed with ivy and straggling brushwood rose one -above the other in every crevice till they reached the top of the cliff, -throwing a mysterious shade on to the deeper water at the foot of the -rocks. A hundred paces in front of us, the water boiled and foamed, and -then disappeared all at once, and the broken line of the stream stood -out in a veil of white spray, against a distant background of vague -foliage. On our right, the bank opposite to the cliff had only a narrow -margin of sloping meadow, fringed with the sombre velvet of the wooded -hills. - -"Land, Alain," said the young Creole. Alain moored the boat to a -willow. - -"Now, sir," she said, stepping lightly on to grass, "aren't you -overcome? Aren't you troubled, petrified, thunderstruck? You ought to -be, for this is supposed to be a very pretty place. I like it because -it is always fresh and cool. But follow me through the woods--if you -are not too much afraid--and I will show you the famous stones." - -Bright, alert, and gay as I had never seen her before, Mlle. Marguerite -crossed the fields with a bounding step, and took a path which led along -the hills to the forest. Alain and I followed in Indian file. After a -few minutes' quick walking our guide stopped and seemed to hesitate, and -looked about her for a moment. Then, deliberately separating two -interlaced branches, she left the beaten track and plunged into the -undergrowth. It was very difficult to make way through the thicket of -strong young oaks whose slanting stems and twisted branches were knotted -together as closely as Robinson Crusoe's palisade. At least Alain and I, -bent double, advanced very slowly, catching our heads against something -at every step, and at each of our clumsy movements bringing down a -shower of dew upon us. But Mlle. Marguerite, with the greater dexterity -and the catlike suppleness of her sex, slipped without any apparent -effort through the meshes of the labyrinth, laughing at our sufferings, -and carelessly letting the branches spring back after her into our -faces. At last we reached a narrow glade on the top of the hill. -There, not without emotion, I saw the dark and monstrous table of stone -supported by five or six huge blocks half sunk in the earth, forming a -cavern full of sacred horror. At first sight this perfect monument of a -time almost fabulous, and of a primitive religion, has an aspect of -eternal verity and of a real mysterious presence, that takes hold of the -imagination, and fills the mind with awe. - -The sunshine streaming through the leaves stole through the interstices -in the roughly joined blocks, played about the sinister slab, and lent -an idyllic charm to this barbarous altar. Even Mlle. Marguerite seemed -pensive and brooding. For my part I entered the cavern, and, after -examining the _dolmen_ thoroughly, set to work to sketch it. For ten -minutes I had been absorbed in this work, forgetting everything that was -going on about me, when Mlle. Marguerite suddenly spoke: - -"Do you want a Velleda to enliven your picture?" - -I looked up. She had wound a wreath of oak-leaves round her forehead -and stood at the head of the _dolmen_, leaning lightly against a sheaf -of saplings. In the half-light, under the branches, her white dress -looked like marble, and her eyes shone with strange fire in the shadow -of the oaken crown. She was beautiful, and I think she knew it. I -looked at her and found it hard to speak. - -"If I am in the way, I'll move," she said. - -"Oh, no! please don't." - -"Well, make haste; put Mervyn in too. He'll be the Druid and I the -Druidess." - -I was so lucky--thanks to the vagueness of a sketch--as to reproduce -this poetic vision pretty faithfully. Evidently interested, she came -and looked at the drawing. - -"It isn't bad," she said, laughing, as she threw her crown away. "You -must admit that I am very good to you." - -I did. I might even have added, if she had asked me, that she was not -without a spice of coquetry. But without that she would not have been a -woman. Perfection is detestable, and even goddesses need something -besides their deathless beauty to win love. - -We went back through the tangled underwood to the path in the wood, and -thence returned to the river. - -"Before we return," said the young girl, "I want to show you the -waterfall, more especially as I am looking forward to a little diversion -on my own account. Come, Mervyn, come along, dear dog. Oh, you are -lovely!" - -We soon reached the bank facing the rocks which blocked the bed of the -river. The water fell from a height of many feet into a large and -deeply sunk circular basin, which seemed to be shut in on all sides by -an amphitheatre of vegetation, broken by dripping rocks. But there were -unseen outlets for the overflow of the little lake, and the streams so -formed reunited a little lower down. - -"It is not exactly a Niagara," said Mlle. Marguerite, raising her voice -against the noise of the falling waters, "but I have heard connoisseurs -and artists say that it is rather pretty, nevertheless. Have you -admired it? Good! Now I hope you'll bestow any enthusiasm you may have -left on Mervyn. Here, Mervyn!" - -The Newfoundland ran to his mistress, and, trembling with impatience, -watched her while she tied some pebbles into her handkerchief. She -threw it into the stream a little above the fall, and at the same moment -Mervyn fell like a block into the lower basin and struck out swiftly -from the edge. The handkerchief followed the current, reached the -rocks, danced in an eddy for a minute, and then, shooting like an arrow -past the smooth rock, swept in a mass of foam under the eyes of the dog, -who seized it dexterously in his mouth, after which Mervyn returned -proudly to the bank, where Mlle. Marguerite stood clapping her hands. - -This feat was performed several times with great success. At the sixth -repetition, either because the dog started too late or because the -handkerchief was thrown too soon, Mervyn missed it. The handkerchief, -swept on by the eddies from the fall, was carried among some thorny -brushwood that overhung the water a little farther on. Mervyn went to -fetch it, but we were very much surprised to see him suddenly struggle -convulsively, drop his booty, and raise his head towards us, howling -pitifully. - -"My God! what has happened?" exclaimed Mlle. Marguerite. - -"He seems to be caught among the bushes. He'll free himself directly, no -doubt." - -But soon one had to doubt, and even to despair, of this issue. The -network of creepers in which the dog had been caught lay directly below -one of the mouths of the sluice, which poured a mass of seething water -continuously on Mervyn's head. The poor beast, half-suffocated, ceased -to make the slightest effort to release himself, and his plaintive cries -sounded more and more like a death-rattle. At this moment Mlle. -Marguerite seized my arm, and whispered almost in my ear: - -"He is lost. It's no use.... Let us go." - -I looked at her. Grief, pain, and her violent effort to control herself -had distorted her pale features and brought dark circles under her eyes. - -"It is impossible," I said, "to get the boat down there; but if you will -allow me, I can swim a little, and I'll go and give a hand to the poor -fellow." - -"No, no; don't attempt it. It's too far. And they say it's very deep -and dangerous under the fall." - -"You needn't fear, mademoiselle; I am very cautious." - -At the same moment I took off my coat and went into the water, taking -care to keep a good distance from the fall. It was very deep, and I did -not find a footing till I reached the exhausted Mervyn. I do not know -whether there had been an islet here which had dwindled and crumbled -away, or whether a sudden rising of the river had swept away part of the -bank, and deposited the fragments in this place; but, whatever the -cause, there was an accumulated and flourishing mass of entangled -brushwood and roots under this treacherous water. I got my feet on a -trunk from which the bushes seemed to spring, and managed to release -Mervyn. Feeling himself free, he recovered at once, and struck out for -the bank, leaving me to my fate with all the goodwill imaginable. This -was scarcely acting up to the chivalrous reputation of his breed, but -Mervyn has lived a long while among men, and I suppose has become a bit -of a philosopher. But when I tried to follow him, I found, to my -disgust, that, in my turn, I was caught in the nets of the jealous and -malignant naiad who reigns in the pool. One of my legs was entangled in -the creepers, and I could not free it. It is difficult to exert all -one's strength in deep water, and on a bed of sticky mud. And besides, -I was half-blinded by the bubbling spray. In short, my situation was -becoming awkward. I looked towards the bank; Mlle. Marguerite, holding -to Alain's arm, hung over the gulf, and watched me with mortal anxiety. -I told myself that it rested with me to be wept for by those bright -eyes, and to end a miserable existence in an enviable fashion. Then I -shook off such maudlin fancies vigorously, and freed myself by a violent -effort. I tied the little handkerchief, now in rags, round my neck, and -easily regained the shore. - -As I landed, Mlle. Marguerite offered me her hand. It trembled a -little, and I was pleased. - -"What rashness! You might have been drowned, and for a dog!" - -"It was yours," I whispered in the same low tone she had used to me. - -This speech seemed to annoy her; she withdrew her hand quickly, and -turning to Mervyn, who lay yawning and drying himself in the sun, began -to punish him. - -"Oh, the stupid! the big stupid!" she said. "What an idiot he is!" - -But the water was streaming from my clothes on to the grass. I did not -quite know what to do with myself, till Mlle. Marguerite came back, and -said very kindly: - -"Take the boat, M. Maxime, and get away as fast as you can. You'll keep -warm rowing. I will come back with Alain through the wood; it is the -shortest way." - -I agreed to this arrangement, which was in every way the best. I said -farewell, touched her hand for the second time, and got into the boat. -To my surprise, when I was dressing at home I found the little -handkerchief still round my neck. I had forgotten to restore it to Mlle. -Marguerite, who must have given it up for lost, so I shamelessly -determined to keep it as the reward of my watery adventure. - -I went to the chateau in the evening. Mlle. Laroque received me with -her habitual air of disdainful indolence, sombre preoccupation, and -embittered _ennui_, which was in singular contrast with the gracious -friendliness and playful vivacity of my companion of the morning. - -During dinner, at which M. de Bevallan was present, she spoke of our -excursion in a manner that stripped it of all sentiment, and as she went -on, said some sharp things about lovers of nature, and finished with an -account of Mervyn's misadventure, without mentioning my share in it. -If, as I thought, this was meant as a hint of the line I was to take, -the young lady had been at needless trouble. However that may be, M. de -Bevallan, on hearing the story, nearly deafened us with his cries of -despair. What! Mlle. Marguerite had endured such anxiety, the brave -Mervyn had been in such danger, and he, Bevallan, had not been there. -Cruel fate! He would never get over it. There was nothing for him to do -but hang himself, like Crillon. - -"Well," said Alain, "if it depended on me to cut him down, I should take -my time about it." - -The next day did not begin so pleasantly for me as its predecessor. In -the morning I received a letter from Madrid, asking me to inform Mlle. -de Porhoet that her lawsuit was finally lost. Her agent also informed -me that her opponents would not profit by their victory, as the Crown, -attracted by the millions at stake, claimed to succeed under the law by -which the property escheats to the state. - -After careful consideration, I decided that it would be kinder not to -let my old friend know of the total destruction of her hopes. I intend, -therefore, to secure the assistance of her agent in Spain; he will -allege further delays, and on my side I shall continue my researches -among the archives, and do my best to preserve the poor soul's cherished -delusions to the end. However innocent and legitimate this deception -might be, I could not feel at rest until it had been approved by some -one whose judgment in such matters I could trust. I went to the chateau -in the afternoon, and made confession to Mme. Laroque, who approved of -my plan, and commended me rather more than the occasion warranted. And -to my great surprise she finished the interview with these words: - -"I must take this opportunity of telling you, M. Odiot, that I am deeply -grateful for your devotion to my interests, that each day I appreciate -your character more truly, and enjoy your company more thoroughly. I -could wish--you must forgive my saying it, as you are scarcely likely to -share my wish--I could wish that you could always remain with us ... and -I humbly pray heaven to perform the miracles necessary to bring this -about ... for I know that only miracles can do so." - -I did not quite grasp the meaning of this language, nor could I explain -the sudden emotion that shone in the eyes of the excellent lady. I -acknowledged her kindness properly, and went away to indulge my -melancholy in the fields. - -By an accident--not purely fortuitous, I must admit--I found myself, -after an hour's walking, in a deserted valley, and on the brink of the -pool which had been the scene of my recent prowess. The amphitheatre of -rocks and greenery which surrounds the small lake realizes the very -ideal of solitude. There you are at the end of the world, in a virgin -country, in China--where you will! I lay down among the heather, -recalling my expedition of yesterday, one not likely to occur again in -the course of the longest life. Already I felt that if such good -fortune should come to me a second time, it would not have that charm of -surprise, of peacefulness, and--in one word--of innocence. I had to own -that this fresh romance of youth, which gave a perfume to my thoughts, -could have but one chapter, one page, and that I had read it. Yes, this -hour, this hour of love, to call it by its true name, had been royally -sweet, because it had not been premeditated, because I had not known -what it was till it had gone, because I had had the rapture, and had -been spared remorse. Now my conscience was awake. I saw myself on the -verge of an impossible, a ridiculous love, and worse, of a culpable -passion. Poor and disinherited as I am, it is time to keep a strict -watch over myself. - -I was addressing these warnings to myself in this solitary place--any -other would have served my purpose as well--when the sound of voices -interrupted my reflections. I rose, and saw a company of four or five -people who had just landed, advancing towards me. First came Mlle. -Marguerite leaning on M. de Bevallan's arm; next Mlle. Helouin and Mme. -Aubry, followed by Alain and Mervyn. The sound of their approach had -been drowned in the roar of the waterfall; they were only a few yards -off; there was no time for retreat, so I had to resign myself to being -discovered in the character of the romantic recluse. But my presence -did not excite any particular attention, though I saw a shadow of -annoyance on Mlle. Marguerite's face, and she returned my bow with -marked stiffness. - -M. de Bevallan, standing at the verge of the pool, wearied the echoes -with the clamour of his conventional admiration. "Delicious! How -picturesque! What a feast! The pen of George Sand.... The pencil of -Salvator Rosa!" - -All this was accompanied by violent gestures, by which he appeared to be -snatching from these great artists, the instruments of their genius. - -At last he became calmer, and asked to be shown the dangerous channel -where Mervyn had nearly been drowned. Again Mlle. Marguerite related -the adventure, and again she suppressed the part I had taken in the -denouement. With a kind of cruelty, evidently levelled at me, she -enlarged on the cleverness, courage, and presence of mind her dog had -shown in his trying situation. Apparently she seemed to think that her -transient good-humour, and the service I had been so fortunate as to -render her, had filled my head with some presumptuous notions, which it -was necessary to nip in the bud. - -As Mlle. Helouin and Mme. Aubry particularly wished to see Mervyn repeat -his wonderful exploit, his mistress called the Newfoundland, and, as -before, threw her handkerchief into the current. But at the signal the -brave Mervyn, instead of jumping into the lake, rushed up and down the -bank, barking furiously, lashing about with his tail, showing, in fact, -the greatest interest in the proceedings, but at the same time an -excellent memory. Evidently the head controls the heart in this -sagacious beast. In vain Mlle. Marguerite, angry and confused, first -tried caresses and then threats to overcome her favourite's obstinacy. -Nothing could persuade the intelligent creature to trust himself again -in those dangerous waters. After such high-flown announcements, -Mervyn's stubborn prudence was really amusing. I had a better right to -laugh than any one present, and I did so without compunction. Besides, -the merriment soon became general, and in the end Mlle. Marguerite -herself joined in, rather half-heartedly. - -"And now," she said, "I've lost another handkerchief." - -The handkerchief, carried along by the eddies, had naturally landed -among the branches of the fatal bush, not far from the further bank. - -"Rely upon me, mademoiselle," cried M. de Bevallan. "In ten minutes you -shall have your handkerchief, or I shall exist no longer." - -At this magnanimous declaration I thought that Mlle. Marguerite looked -stealthily at me, as much as to say, "You see, there are others who are -devoted to me!" Then she answered M. de Bevallan. - -"For Heaven's sake, don't be so foolish! The water is very deep.... it -is really dangerous." - -"It is all the same to me," said M. de Bevallan. "Have you a knife, -Alain?" - -"A knife?" said Mlle. Marguerite, surprised. - -"Yes, a knife. Please allow me ... I know what I mean to do." - -"But what do you mean to do with a knife?" - -"I mean to cut a switch," said M. de Bevallan. - -The girl looked at him gravely. - -"I thought," she murmured, "that you were going to swim for it." - -"To swim!" said M. de Bevallan; "excuse me, mademoiselle.... Firstly, I -am not in swimming costume; next, I must admit that I cannot swim." - -"If you cannot swim," she said dryly, "the question of costume is not -important." - -"You are quite right," said M. de Bevallan, with amusing coolness; "but -you are not particularly anxious that I should drown myself, are you? -You want your handkerchief, that is the point. When I have got it, you -will be satisfied. Isn't that so?" - -"Well, go and cut your switch," she said, sitting down resignedly. - -M. de Bevallan is not easily disconcerted. He disappeared into the -nearest thicket, and soon we heard the branches crack. He came back -armed with a long switch from a nut-tree, and proceeded to strip the -leaves off. - -"Do you think you'll reach the other side with that stick?" asked Mlle. -Marguerite, who was beginning to be amused. - -"Allow me to manage it my own way. That is all I ask," said the -imperturbable gentleman. - -We left him alone. He finished his switch, and then set out for the -boat. We at last understood that he meant to cross the river in the -boat, to land above the waterfall, and to harpoon the handkerchief, -which he could easily do from the bank. At this discovery there was an -indignant outcry from the ladies, who, as we all know, are extremely -fond of dangerous adventures--in which they are not themselves -concerned. - -"A pretty contrivance, M. de Bevallan. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" - -"Tu-tu, ladies! Remember Columbus and the egg. The idea is everything, -you know." - -Contrary to our expectation, this apparently harmless expedition was not -to be carried through without some emotions, and some risks, for M. de -Bevallan, instead of making for the bank immediately opposite the little -bay, where the boat had been moored, unluckily decided to land nearer -the cataract. He pushed the boat into the middle of the stream and let -it drift for a moment, till he saw that as the river approached the -fall, its pace increased with alarming rapidity. We appreciated the -danger when we saw him put the boat across the current, and begin to row -with feverish energy. For a few seconds he struggled with doubtful -success. But, little by little, he got nearer to the bank, though the -stream still swept him fiercely towards the cataract, which thundered -ominously in his ears. He was only a few feet from it, when a supreme -effort brought him near enough to the shore to put him out of danger. -With a vigorous spring he leaped on to the slope of the bank, sending -the boat out among the rocks, where it was at once overturned. It -presently floated into the pool keel upward. While the danger lasted, -our only feeling was one of keen anxiety, but when it was over, the -contrast between the comic _denouement_ and its hero's usual coolness -and self-confidence, could not fail to tickle our sense of humour. -Besides, laughter is a natural relief when a danger is happily past. -Directly we saw that M. de Bevallan was out of the boat, we all gave -ourselves up to unrestrained merriment. I should say, that at this -moment his bad luck was completed by a truly distressing detail. The -bank on which he had jumped sloped sharply and was very wet. His feet -had scarcely touched it when he fell backwards. Fortunately there were -some strong branches within his reach. He hung on to them desperately, -his legs beating the shallow water like two angry oars. As there was no -danger, his situation became purely ridiculous, and I suppose that this -thought made him struggle so frantically and awkwardly, that his efforts -defeated their purpose. He succeeded, however, in raising himself and -getting another footing on the slope. Then, all of a sudden, we saw him -slide down again, tearing the bushes and brushwood as he went, and -renewing his wild pantomime in the water in evident desperation. It was -irresistible. Never, I believe, had Mlle. Marguerite been at such an -entertainment. She had utterly lost all care for her dignity. Like -some mirthful Bacchante, she filled all the grove with bursts of almost -convulsive gaiety. Between her shouts of laughter she clapped her hands -and called out in a half-suffocated voice: - -"Bravo! bravo! M. de Bevallan! Very pretty! Delicious! Picturesque! -Salvator Rosa!" - -At last M. de Bevallan succeeded in dragging himself to _terra firma_. -Then, turning to the ladies, he made them a speech which the noise of -the waterfall prevented us from hearing distinctly; but, from his -animated gestures, the illustrative movements of his arms, and his air -of forced good-humour, we understood that he was giving us a reasoned -explanation of his disaster. - -"Yes, yes," replied Mlle. Marguerite, continuing to laugh with a woman's -implacable barbarity. "it was a great success. I congratulate you!" - -When she was a little more serious, she asked me how we should recover -the capsized boat, which, by-the-bye, was the best we had. I promised -to bring some men the next day, and superintend the rescue. Then we -struck across the fields towards the chateau. M. de Bevallan, not being -in swimming costume, could not rejoin us. With a melancholy air he -disappeared behind the rocks above the farther bank. - - - _August 20th_. - -At last this extraordinary girl has revealed the secret of her stormy -soul to me. Would that she had preserved it forever! - -During the day that followed the scenes I have just described, Mlle. -Marguerite, as if ashamed of the impulses of youthful frankness to which -she had yielded, wrapped herself more closely than ever in her veil of -mournful pride, disdain, and mistrust. In the midst of the noisy -pleasures, the _fetes_, and dances that succeeded one another, she -passed like a ghost, indifferent, icy, and sometimes angry. - -Her irony vented itself with inconceivable bitterness, sometimes on the -purest pleasures of the mind, those that come from contemplation and -study, sometimes on the noblest and most sacred sentiments. If an -instance of courage or virtue was mentioned in her presence, she -examined it minutely in search of its selfish motive; or if by chance -one burned the smallest grain of incense on the altar of art, she -extinguished it with a disdainful wave of her hand. With her short, -abrupt, and terrible laugh, like the mocking of a fallen angel, she -seemed determined to blight (wherever she saw a trace of them) the most -generous faculties of the human soul--enthusiasm and passion. I noticed -that this strange spirit of disparagement took on a special character of -persecution--positive hostility--when directed against me. I did not -understand, and even now I do not quite understand, why I have attracted -these particular attentions. True, I carry in my heart the worship of -things ideal and eternal, which only death can tear from me (great God, -what would be left me if I had not that!); but I am not given to public -ecstasies, and my admiration, like my love, will never be obtrusive. In -vain I maintained more scrupulously than ever the modesty which springs -from real feeling. I gained nothing by it. The most romantic fancies -were attributed to me just for the pleasure of combating them, and -perpetually some kind of grotesque harp was thrust into my hands, solely -for the amusement of breaking its strings. - -Although this open warfare against anything higher than the material -interests and sordid realities of life, was not a new trait in Mlle. -Marguerite's character, it had been suddenly exaggerated and embittered -to the point of wounding the hearts most devoted to this young girl. -One day Mlle. de Porhoet, weary of this incessant mocking, said to her -in my presence: - -"My darling, for some time past you have been possessed by a devil which -you would do well to cast out as soon as possible, or you will finish by -making up a trio with Mme. Aubry and Mme. de Saint-Cast. For my part, I -do not pride myself on being, or ever having been, particularly -romantic, but I like to think that there are still some people in the -world who are capable of generous sentiments; I believe in -disinterestedness, if only in my own, and I even believe in heroism, -because I have known heroes. More, I love to hear the little birds -singing under my arbour, and I like to build my cathedral in the -drifting clouds. All this may sound very ridiculous, my dear, but I -venture to remind you that these illusions are the riches of the poor, -that M. Odiot and I have no other kind of wealth, and that we are so -singular as not to complain." - -On another occasion, when I had just received Mlle. Marguerite's sarcasm -with my usual impassibility, her mother drew me aside. - -"M. Maxime," she said, "my daughter teases you a little, but I hope you -will excuse her. You must have noticed that she has changed very much -lately." - -"Your daughter seems to be more preoccupied than usual." - -"And not without good reason; she is about to come to a very serious -decision, and at such a moment young girls are apt to be capricious." - -I bowed and said nothing. - -"You are now a friend of the family," continued Mme. Laroque, "and as -such I ask you to give me your opinion of M. de Bevallan." - -"I believe, madame, that M. de Bevallan has a very handsome fortune--not -so large as yours, but undeniably handsome--about a hundred and fifty -thousand francs a year!" - -"Yes, but what do you think of him personally, and of his character?" - -"M. de Bevallan is what the world calls a perfect gentleman. He has -wit; he is considered an honourable man." - -"But do you think he will make my daughter happy?" - -"I do not think he will make her unhappy. He is not unkind." - -"What do you think I ought to do? I am not entirely satisfied with him -... but he is the only one Marguerite at all cares for ... and there are -so few men with a hundred thousand francs a year. You can understand -that my daughter--in her position--has had plenty of offers. For the -last two or three years we have been literally besieged.... Well, it is -time we decided.... I am not strong.... I may go any day.... My -daughter would be unprotected. Here is an unexceptionable suitor whom -the world will certainly approve--it is my duty to welcome him. Already -people say that I have filled my daughter's head with romantic -notions--which is not the truth. She has her own ideas. Now, what do -you advise me to do?" - -"May I ask what is Mlle. de Porhoet's opinion? She is a lady of great -judgment and experience, and besides, entirely devoted to you." - -"Oh, if I listened to Mlle. de Porhoet I should send M. de Bevallan -about his business. But it is all very well for Mlle. de Porhoet to -talk. When he's gone, she won't marry my daughter for me." - -"But, madame, from the monetary point of view, M. de Bevallan is -certainly a fine match. I do not dispute it for a moment, and if you -stand out for a hundred thousand francs a year." - -"But, my dear sir, I care no more for a hundred thousand francs than for -a hundred pence! However, I am not talking of myself, but of my -daughter. Well, I can't let her marry a mason, can I? I should have -rather liked to be the wife of a mason, but it does not follow that what -would have made me happy would make her so. I ought, in marrying her, -to be guided by received opinion, not merely by my own." - -"Well, then, madame, if this marriage suits you, and suits your daughter -equally well..." - -"Ah, no! ... it does not suit me ... nor does it suit my daughter any -better. It is a marriage ... to speak plainly, it is _un mariage de -convenance_." - -"Am I to understand that it is quite settled?" - -"No, or I should scarcely ask your advice. If it were, my daughter -would be more at ease. Her misgivings disturb her, and then..." - -Mme. Laroque sank back into the shadow of the hood over her chair and -added: - -"Have _you_ any idea of what is going on in that unfortunate head?" - -"None, madame." - -She fixed her sparkling eyes on me for a moment, sighed deeply, and -said, gently and sadly: - -"You may go ... I won't detain you any longer." - -The confidence with which I had just been honoured, had not surprised me -much. For some time it had been evident that Mlle. Marguerite reserved -for M. de Bevallan whatever sympathy she had left for humanity. But she -seemed to show rather a friendly preference than an impassioned -tenderness. And I ought to say that the preference was quite -intelligible. I have never liked M. de Bevallan, and in these pages I -have, in spite of myself, given a caricature rather than a portrait of -him, but I admit that he combines most of the qualities and defects that -are popular with women. He is absolutely devoid of modesty, which is a -great advantage, as women do not like it. He has the cool, mocking, and -witty assurance which nothing can daunt, which easily daunts others, and -which gives to its possessor a kind of domination and a factitious -superiority. His tall figure, his bold features, his skill in athletic -exercises, his reputation as a sportsman, give him a manly authority -which impresses the timid sex. And he has an air of daring, enterprise, -and conquest which attracts and troubles women, and fills their souls -with secret ardour. Such advantages, it is true, are, as a rule, -chiefly impressive to vulgar natures; but though, as usual, I had at -first been tempted to put Mlle. Marguerite's nature on a level with her -beauty, she had for some time past seemed to make a positive parade of -very mediocre sentiments, and I believed she was capable of yielding -without resistance as without enthusiasm, and with the passive coldness -of a lifeless imagination, to the charms of a common-place lady-killer, -and, later, to the yoke of a respectable marriage. - -AH this made it necessary for me to accept the inevitable, and I did so -more easily than I should have thought possible a month ago. For I had -summoned all my courage to combat the first temptations of a love, -equally condemned by good sense and by honour. And she who had -unwittingly imposed this combat on me, had also unwittingly powerfully -helped me in my resistance. If she could not hide her beauty from me, -she also unveiled her soul, and mine had recoiled. Small loss, no doubt, -for the young millionaire, but a good thing for me. - -Meanwhile I had to go to Paris, partly on Mme. Laroque's business and -partly on my own. I returned two days ago, and as I arrived at the -chateau I was told that old M. Laroque had repeatedly asked for me since -the morning. I hurried to his apartment. A smile flickered across his -withered cheeks as he saw me. He looked at me with an expression of -malignant joy and secret triumph; then he said, in his dull, hollow -voice: - -"M. de Saint-Cast is dead." - -This news, which the strange old man had wanted to tell me himself, was -correct. On the previous night poor General de Saint-Cast had had a -stroke of apoplexy, and an hour later had been snatched from the life of -wealth and luxury which he owed to his wife. Directly the news came to -the chateau, Mme. Aubry had started off to her friend, and the two had, -as Dr. Desmarets told us, passed the day chanting a sort of litany of -original and piquant ideas on the subject of death--the swiftness with -which it strikes its prey, the impossibility of preventing or guarding -against it, the futility of regrets, which cannot bring back the -departed, the consoling effects of time, etc., etc. - -After which they sat down to dinner, and gradually recovered their -spirits. "Madame," said Mme. Aubry, "you must eat, you must keep -yourself alive. It is our duty and the will of God." - -At dessert Mme. de Saint-Cast had a bottle of the poor general's -favourite Spanish wine, and begged Mme. Aubry to taste it for his sake. -But, as Mme. Aubry firmly refused to be the only one to partake of it, -Mme. de Saint-Cast allowed herself to be persuaded that God also wished -her to have a glass of Spanish wine and a crust of bread. The general's -health was not drunk. Early yesterday morning, Mme. Laroque and her -daughter, both in mourning, took their places in the carriage. I -accompanied them. About ten o'clock we were at the little town. While -I attended the general's funeral, the ladies joined the widow's circle -of official sympathizers. After the service I returned to the house, -and with some other friends I was introduced into the famous -drawing-room, the furniture of which had cost fifteen thousand francs. -In the funereal half-light I distinguished the inconsolable Mme. de -Saint-Cast sitting on a twelve-hundred-franc sofa, enveloped in crape, -the price of which we were told before long. At her side was Mme. -Aubry, an image of physical and moral prostration. Half a dozen friends -and relatives completed this doleful group. As we took up our positions -in line at the farther end of the _salon_, there was a sound of -shuffling feet and some cracking of the parquet, then gloomy silence -fell again on this mausoleum. Only from time to time a lamentable sigh, -faithfully echoed by Mme. Aubry, rose from the sofa. - -At last a young man appeared. He had lingered in the street to finish -the cigar he had lighted as he left the cemetery. As he slipped -discreetly into our ranks Mme. de Saint-Cast perceived him. - -"Is that you, Arthur?" she said in a lugubrious voice. - -"Yes, aunt," said the young man, advancing in front of the line. - -"Well," continued the widow, in the same plaintive drawl, "is it over?" - -"Yes, aunt," said Arthur, in curt, deliberate accents. He seemed to be -a young man who was perfectly satisfied with himself. - -There was a pause, after which Mme. de Saint-Cast drew from the depths -of her expiring soul this new series of questions: - -"Did it go off well?" - -"Very well, aunt, very well." - -"Were there many people?" - -"The whole town, aunt, the whole town." - -"The military?" - -"Yes, aunt, the whole garrison, and the band." - -Mme. de Saint-Cast groaned, and added: - -"The fire brigade?" - -"The fire brigade too, aunt--certainly." - -I do not quite see why this last detail should have particularly -affected Mme. de Saint-Cast, but she could not resist it. A sudden -swoon, accompanied by infantile wailings, summoned all the resources of -feminine sensibility to her aid, and gave us the opportunity of slipping -away. I was glad of it. I could not bear to see this ridiculous vixen -performing her hypocritical mummeries over the tomb of the weak, but -good and loyal fellow, whose life she had embittered, and whose end she -had probably hastened. - -A few moments later, Mme. Laroque asked me to accompany her to the -Langoat farm, five or six leagues farther on towards the coast. She -intended to dine there with her daughter. The farmer's wife, who had -been Mlle. Marguerite's nurse, was ill, and the ladies had for some time -meant to give her this proof of their interest in her welfare. We -started at two o clock in the afternoon. It was one of the hottest days -of this hot summer. Through the open windows of the carriage, the -heavy, burning gusts which rose in waves from the parched _lande_ under -the torrid sky, swept across us. - -The conversation suffered from our oppression. Mme. Laroque, who -declared that she was in paradise, had at last thrown off her furs and -remained sunk in a gentle ecstasy. Mlle. Marguerite fanned herself with -Spanish gravity. While we slowly climbed the interminable hills, we saw -the calcined rocks swarming with legions of silver-coated lizards, and -heard the continuous crackling of the furze opening its ripe pods to the -sun. - -In the middle of one of our laborious ascents a voice suddenly called -out from the side of the road: - -"Stop, if you please." - -At the same time a big girl with bare legs, holding a distaff in her -hand, and wearing the ancient costume and ducal coif of the peasants of -this country, leaped quickly across the ditch, knocking over as she came -along some of the sheep she was tending. She perched herself with a -kind of grace on the carriage-step, and stood before us with her brown, -self-possessed, and smiling face framed in the window. - -"Pardon, ladies," she said in the quick, melodious tones of her country, -"will you be so kind as to read this to me?" - -She took from her bodice a letter folded in the ancient fashion. - -"Read it, M. Odiot," said Mme. Laroque, laughing, "and read it aloud, if -necessary." - -It was a love-letter, addressed very carefully to Mlle. Christine -Ogadec, ----'s Farm, in the commune of ----, near ----. It was written -by an awkward but sincere hand. The date showed that Mlle. Christine -had received it two or three weeks ago. Not being able to read, and -fearing to trust her secret to the ill-nature of her associates, the -poor girl had kept the letter in the hope that some passing stranger, at -once good-natured and educated, would interpret the mystery that had -been burning in her bosom for more than a fortnight. Her blue, -wide-opened eyes were fixed on me with an air of ineffable satisfaction -as I laboriously read the sloping lines which conveyed this message: - -"Mademoiselle, this is to tell you that my intentions have not changed -since the day we spoke on the _lande_ after vespers, and that I am -anxious about yours. My heart is all yours, mademoiselle, and I wish -yours to be all mine; and if it is you may be sure and certain that no -one alive is happier on earth or in heaven than your friend--who does -not put his name here, but you know quite well who he is, mademoiselle." - -"And do you know, Mlle. Christine?" I said, returning the letter. - -"Very likely I do," she said, with a smile that showed her white teeth, -while she gravely nodded, her young face radiant with happiness. "Thank -you, ladies and gentleman!" - -She jumped off the step and soon disappeared among the bushes, chanting -as she went the deep and joyful notes of some Bretonne ballad. - -Mme. Laroque had followed with evident rapture all the details of this -pastoral scene, which harmonized deliciously with her favourite fancies. -She smiled and dreamed at the vision of this happy, barefooted girl as -if she were under a spell. However, when Mlle. Ogadec was out of sight, -a strange notion came into Mme. Laroque's head. After all, she thought, -it would not have been a bad thing to have given the girl a five-franc -piece--in addition to her admiration. - -"Call her back, Alain," she cried. - -"But, mother, why?" said Mlle. Marguerite quickly, though so far she had -apparently taken no notice of the incident. - -"My dear child, perhaps this girl does not thoroughly understand how -much I should enjoy, and how much she ought to enjoy, running about -barefooted in the dust. It would be nice, at any rate, to leave her -some little souvenir." - -"Money!" replied Mlle. Marguerite. "Oh, mother, don't! Don't soil her -happiness with money." - -This delicate sentiment--which, by the way, poor Christine might not -have appreciated--was astonishing enough in the mouth of Mlle. -Marguerite, who did not, as a rule, pride herself on such subtlety. -Indeed, I thought she was joking, though she showed no signs of -amusement. However that may be, her mother took the caprice very -seriously. It was decided enthusiastically to leave this idyll to -innocence and bare feet. - -After this pretty episode Mme. Laroque relapsed into her smiling -ecstasy, and Mlle. Marguerite fanned herself more seriously than ever. -An hour later we reached our destination. Like most of the farms in -this country, where the uplands and plateaux are the sterile _lande_, -the farm of Langoat lies in the hollow of a valley, with a water-course -running through it. - -The farmer's wife was better, and at once set to work preparing dinner, -the chief elements of which we had been careful to bring with us. It -was served on the natural lawn of a meadow, under the shade of an -enormous chestnut. Mme. Laroque, though sitting in a most uncomfortable -attitude, on one of the cushions from the carriage, seemed perfectly -radiant. She said our party reminded her of the groups of reapers we -see crowding under the shade of a hedge, whose rustic feasts she had -always envied. As for me, I might perhaps at another time have found a -singular sweetness in the close and easy intimacy, which an outdoor meal -of this kind usually creates among the guests. But, with a painful -feeling of constraint, I thrust away an enjoyment that might inflict -regret, and the bread of this transient fraternity was bitter in my -mouth. - -"Have you ever been up there?" said Mme. Laroque to me as we finished -dinner. She indicated the top of a lofty hill which commanded the -meadow we were in. - -"No, madame." - -"Oh, but you should go. You get such a lovely view. You must see it -... Marguerite will take you while they're putting the horses in. Won't -you?" - -"I, mother? I have only been there once, and it was a long time ago ... -However, I daresay I can find the way. Come, M. Odiot, and be prepared -for a stiff climb." - -Mlle. Marguerite and I started at once to climb a very steep path which -wound along the side of the mountain, passing in some places through -clumps of trees. The girl stopped from time to time in her swift and -easy ascent to see if I were following her, and, panting a little, -smiled at me without speaking. On reaching the bare heath which formed -the plateau, I saw, a short way off, a village church, the lines of its -little steeple sharply defined against the sky. - -"That's where it is," said my young guide, quickening her pace. - -Beyond the church was a cemetery shut in by walls. She opened the gate, -and made her way with difficulty through the tall grass and trailing -brambles, which choked the place of rest, towards a kind of semicircular -_perron_ which stood at the farther end. Two or three rough steps, -defaced by time and rather strangely ornamented with massive balls, led -to a narrow platform raised to the level of the wall. A granite cross -stood in the centre of the semicircle. - -Mlle. Marguerite had scarcely reached the platform and looked into the -space that opened before her, when I saw her place her hand before her -eyes as if she were suddenly dazzled. I hastened to join her. The -beautiful day, nearing to its end, lighted with its last splendours a -scene so vast, so strange, and so sublime, that I shall never forget it. - -[Illustration: "I fell on my knees, I could not keep back my tears" (see -page 245)] - -Facing us, and at a great depth below the platform, extended, farther -than we could see, a sort of marsh studded with shining patches, and -looking like a region slowly emerging from a deluge. This great bay -stretched from under our feet to the heart of the jagged mountains. On -the banks of mud and sand which separated the shifting lagoons, a growth -of reeds and sea plants tinged with a thousand shades, sombre but -distinct, contrasted sharply with the gleaming surfaces of the waters. -At each of its rapid strides to the horizon, the sun lit up or darkened -some of the many lakes which checkered the half-dried gulf. He seemed -to take in turn from his celestial casket the most precious -substances--silver and gold, ruby and diamond--and make them flash on -each point of this gorgeous plain. As the planet neared the end of his -career, a strip of undulating mist at the farther limit of the marshes, -reddened all at once with the glare of a conflagration, and for a -moment, kept the radiant transparency of a cloud furrowed by lightning. -I was absorbed in the contemplation of a picture so full of divine -grandeur, and enriched as with another ray of glory by the great memory -of Caesar, when a low, half-stifled voice murmured: - -"Oh, how beautiful it is!" - -I had not expected this sympathetic outburst from my companion. I -turned eagerly towards her with a surprise that was not lessened, when -the emotion in her face, and the slight trembling of her lips, had -convinced me of the profound sincerity of her admiration. - -"You admit that it is beautiful?" I said to her. - -She shook her head; but at the same moment two tears fell slowly from -her great eyes. She felt them rolling down her cheeks, made a gesture -of annoyance, and then throwing herself suddenly on the granite cross, -on the base of which she was standing, she embraced it with both hands, -pressed her head close against the stone, and sobbed convulsively. - -I did not think it right to say a word that might trouble the course of -this sudden emotion, and I turned reverently away. After a moment, -seeing her raise her forehead, and hastily replace her loosened hair, I -came nearer. - -"I am ashamed of myself," she murmured. - -"You have more reason to rejoice. Believe me, you must give up trying -to destroy the source of those tears; it is holy. Besides, you will -never succeed." - -"I must," said the girl desperately. "See, it is done! This weakness -took me by surprise. I want to hate everything that is good and -beautiful." - -"In God's name, why?" - -"Because I am beautiful, and I can never be loved." - -Then, as a long-repressed torrent bursts its barriers at last, she -continued, with extraordinary energy: - -"It is true." - -She put her hand on her heaving bosom. - -"God had put into this heart all the qualities that I ridicule, that I -blaspheme every hour of the day. But when he condemned me to be rich, -he withdrew with one hand all that he had lavished with the other. What -is the good of my beauty? What is the good of the devotion, tenderness, -and enthusiasm which I feel burning within me? These are not the charms -which make so many cowards weary me with their homage. I see it I know -it--I know it too well. And if ever some disinterested, generous, and -heroic soul loved me for what I am, and not for what I have ... I should -never know ... never believe it. Eternal mistrust! That is my -sentence--that is my torture. So I have decided ... I will never love. -I will never pour into some vile, worthless, and venal heart the pure -passion which is burning in mine. My soul will die virgin in my bosom. -Well, I am resigned, but--everything that is beautiful, everything that -sets me dreaming, everything that speaks to me of realms forbidden, -everything that stirs these vain fires in me--I thrust it away, I hate -it, I will have nothing to do with it." - -She stopped, trembling; then, in a lower tone, she said: - -"Monsieur, I did not seek this opportunity. I have not chosen my words -... I did not mean to tell you, but I have spoken ... you know all, and -if at any time I have wounded your feelings, I think you will forgive me -now." - -She held out her hand. When my lips touched that soft hand, still wet -with tears, a mortal languor stole through my veins. Marguerite turned -her head away, looked into the sombre sky, and then slowly descended the -steps. - -"Let us go," she said. - -Another road, longer, but easier than the steep ascent of the mountain, -brought us into the farmyard. Neither of us spoke a single word the -whole way. What could I have said, I who was more to be suspected than -any other? I felt that every word from my overcharged heart would -separate me still further from this stormy, but adorable soul. - -Night had fallen, and hid from every one the signs of our common -emotion. We drove away. After telling us again how much she had enjoyed -her day, Mme. Laroque gave herself up to dreaming about it. Mlle. -Marguerite, invisible and motionless in the deep shadow, seemed also to -be sleeping; but when a bend in the road caused a ray of pale light to -fall upon her, the fixed and open eyes showed that she was wakeful and -silent, beset by the thought that caused her despair. I can scarcely -say what I felt. A strange sensation of deep joy and deep bitterness -possessed me entirely. I yielded to it as one sometimes yields -consciously to a dream the charm of which we are not strong enough to -resist. - -We reached home about midnight. - -I got down at the beginning of the avenue, and took the short way -through the park to my quarters. Entering a dim alley, I heard a faint -sound of voices and approaching footsteps, and saw vaguely in the -darkness two shadowy figures. It was late enough to justify me in -stepping into a clump of trees, to watch these nocturnal wanderers. -They passed slowly in front of me. I recognised Mlle. Helouin; she was -leaning on M. de Bevallan's arm. At this moment the sound of the -carriage alarmed them; they shook hands and separated hurriedly, Mlle. -Helouin going towards the chateau, the other to the woods. - -In my own room, fresh from my adventure, I asked myself indignantly -whether I was to allow M. de Bevallan to carry on his double love affair -uninterrupted, and to let him find a _fiancee_ and a mistress in the -same house. I am too much a man of my age and time to feel the -Puritan's horror of certain weaknesses, and I am not hypocrite enough to -affect what I do not feel. But I believe that the morality which is -easiest and most indulgent in this respect, still demands some degree of -dignity, self-respect, and delicacy. Even in these devious ways a man -must walk straight to some extent. The real excuse of love is that it -_is_ love. But M. de Bevallan's catholic tendernesses exclude all -possibility of self-forgetful passion. Such love-affairs are not even -sins; they are something altogether lower in the moral scale; they are -but the calculations and the wagers of brutalized horse-dealers. - -The various incidents of this evening, combined to convince me, that -this man was utterly unworthy of the hand and heart he dared to covet. -Such a union would be monstrous. But I saw at once, that I should not -be able to prevent it by using the weapons that chance had put into my -hands. The best of objects does not justify base methods, and nothing -can excuse the informer. This marriage will take place, and heaven will -permit one of its noblest creatures to fall into the arms of a -cold-hearted libertine. It will permit that profanation. Alas, it -allows so many others! - -I tried to imagine how this young girl could have chosen this man, by -what process of false reasoning she had come to prefer him to all -others. I think I have guessed. M. de Bevallan is very rich; he brings -a fortune nearly equal to the one he acquires. That is a kind of -guarantee; he could do without this additional wealth; he is assumed to -be more disinterested than others, because he is better off. - -How foolish an argument! What a terrible mistake to estimate people's -venality by the amount of their wealth! In nine cases out of ten, -opulence increases greed! The most self-seeking are not the poorest! - -Was there, then, no hope that Marguerite would see the worthlessness of -her choice, no hope that her own heart would give her the counsel I -could not suggest? Might not a new, unlooked-for feeling arise in her -heart, and, breathing on the vain resolutions of reason, destroy them? -Was not this feeling already born, indeed, and had I not received -irrefutable proofs of it? The strange caprices, the humiliations, -struggles, and tears of which I had been so long the object, or the -witness, proclaimed beyond doubt a reason that wavered, not mistress of -itself. I had seen enough of life, to know that a scene like that of -which chance had this evening made me the confidant, and almost the -accomplice, does not, however spontaneous it may seem, occur in an -atmosphere of indifference. Such emotions, such shocks, prove that -there are two souls already shaken by the same storm, or about to be so -shaken. - -But if it were true, if she loved me, as too certainly I loved her, I -might say of that love what she had said of her beauty: "What is the -good of it?" For I could never hope that it would be strong enough to -triumph over the eternal mistrust, which is at once the defect, and -quality, of that noble girl. My character, I dare say it, resents the -outrage of this mistrust; but my situation, more than that of any other, -is calculated to rouse it. What miracle is to bridge the abyss between -these suspicions, and the reserve they force upon me? - -Finally, granting the miracle, if she offered me the hand for which I -would give my life, but for which I will never ask, would our union be -happy? Should I not have to fear, early or late, in this restless -imagination, the slow awakening of a half-stifled mistrust? Could I, in -the midst of wealth not mine, guard myself against misgivings? Could I -really be happy in a love that is sullied by being a benefit as well? -Our part as the protector of women is so strictly laid upon us by all -sentiments of honour, that it cannot, even from the highest motives, be -reversed for an instant without casting upon us some shadow of doubt and -suspicion. Truly, wealth is not so great an advantage that we cannot -find some counterpoise to it. I imagine that a man who brings his wife, -in exchange for some bags of gold, a name that he has made illustrious, -acknowledged worth, a great position, or the promise of a great future, -does not feel that he is under a crushing obligation. But my hands are -empty, my future is no better than my present; of all the advantages -which the world worships I have only one--my title--and I am determined -not to bear it, that it may not be said it was the price of a bargain. -I should receive all and give nothing. A king may marry a shepherdess; -that is generous and charming, and we congratulate him with good reason; -but a shepherd who lets a queen marry him does not cut so fine a figure. - -I have spent the night thinking these things over, and seeking a -solution that I have not yet found. Perhaps I ought to leave this house -and this place at once. Prudence counsels it. This business cannot end -well. How often one minute of courage and firmness would spare us a -lifetime of regret! I ought at least to be overwhelmed by sadness; I -have never had such good reason for melancholy. But I cannot grieve. -My brain, distracted and tortured, yet holds a thought which dominates -everything, and fills me with more than mortal joy. My soul is as light -as a bird of the air. I see--I shall always see--that little cemetery, -that distant ocean, that vast horizon, and on that glowing hilltop, that -angel of beauty bathed in divine tears! Still, I feel her hand under my -lips, her tears in my eyes and in my heart. I love her! Well, -to-morrow, if so it must be, I will decide. Till then, for God's sake, -let me have a little rest. I have not been overdone with happiness. I -may die of this love, but I will live in peace with it for one day at -least. - - - _August 26th_. - -That day, the single day I asked, has not been granted me. My brief -weakness has not had long to wait for its punishment, which will be -lasting. How could I have forgotten? Moral laws can no more be broken -with impunity than physical, and their invariable action constitutes the -permanent intervention of what we call Providence in the affairs of this -world. A great, though weak man, writing the gospel of a sage with the -hand of a quasi-maniac, said of the passions that were at once his -misery, his reproach, and his glory: - -"All are good while we are their masters; all are bad when we let them -enslave us. Nature forbids us to let our attachments exceed our -strength; reason forbids us to desire what we cannot obtain; conscience -does not forbid us to be tempted, it does forbid us to yield to -temptation. It does not rest with us to have or not to have passions, -but it does rest with us to control them. All the feelings which we -govern are legitimate; all those that govern us are criminal. Attach -your heart only to the beauty that does not perish; limit your desires -by your conditions; put your duties before your passions; extend the law -of necessity to things moral; learn to lose what may be taken from you; -learn to give up everything at the command of virtue!" - -Yes, such is the law. I knew it; I have broken it; I am punished. It -is right. I had scarcely set foot on my cloud of folly when I was -thrown violently off, and now, after five days, I have barely courage to -recount the almost ridiculous details of my downfall. - -Mme. Laroque and her daughter had gone in the morning to pay another -visit to Mme. de Saint-Cast, and to bring back Mme. Aubry. I found -Mlle. Helouin alone at the chateau. I had brought her quarter's salary; -for, though my duties do not, in a general way, trench on the -maintenance and internal discipline of the house, the ladies had wished, -no doubt from consideration for Mlle. Helouin and for me, that I should -pay both our salaries. The young lady was sitting in the small boudoir -near the dining-room. She received me with a pensive sweetness which -touched me. For at that moment I felt in myself that fulness of heart -which inclines us to confidence and kindness. I quixotically resolved -to hold out a helping hand to this poor lonely creature. - -"Mademoiselle," I said, abruptly, "you have withdrawn your friendship -from me, but my friendship for you remains unaltered. May I give you a -proof of it?" - -She looked at me and murmured a timid assent. - -"Well, my poor child, you are bent on your own ruin." - -She rose quickly. - -"You saw me in the park that night!" she cried. - -"I did." - -"My God!" - -She came towards me. - -"M. Maxime, I swear to you that I am a virtuous girl." - -"I believe it, mademoiselle, but I must warn you that in this little -romance, perfectly innocent, no doubt, on your side, whatever it may be -on the other, you are imperilling your reputation and your peace of -mind. I beg you to reflect seriously on this matter, and at the same -time I beg to assure you that no one but you will ever hear a word on -this subject from me." - -I was leaving the room, when she sank on her knees before a couch, and -burst out sobbing, leaning her forehead against my hand, which she had -seized. It was not long since I had seen sweeter and nobler tears, but -still I was touched. - -"Come, my dear young lady," I said; "it is not too late, is it?" - -She shook her head decisively. - -"Very well, my child. Be brave, and we will save you. What can I do to -help you--tell me? Has this man any proof, any letter, I can demand from -him on your behalf? Command me as if I were your brother." - -She released my hand angrily. - -"How hard you are!" she said. "You talk of saving me ... it is you who -are ruining me. After pretending to love me, you repulsed me ... you -have humiliated me and made me desperate. You are the sole cause of what -has happened." - -"Mademoiselle, you are unjust. I never pretended to love you. I had a -sincere affection for you, and I have it still. I admit that your -beauty, your wit, and your talents fully entitle you to look for more -than fraternal friendship from those who see you every day. But my -situation, and my duties to my family preclude my indulging any other -feeling for you without being dishonourable. I tell you frankly that I -think you are charming, and I assure you that in restricting my -sentiments towards you within the limits imposed by loyalty, I have not -been without merit. I see nothing humiliating for you in that; what -might, indeed, humiliate you, mademoiselle, would be the determined -pursuit of a man determined not to marry you." - -She gave me an evil look. - -"What do you know about it?" she said. "Every man is not a -fortune-hunter." - -"Oh! mademoiselle, are you a spiteful little person?" I said, very -calmly. "If so, I will wish you good-day." - -"M. Maxime!" she cried, rushing forward to stop me, "forgive me! have -pity on me! Alas! I am so unhappy. Imagine what must be the thoughts -of a poor creature like me, who has been given--cruelly--a heart, a -soul, a brain ... and who can only use them to suffer ... and to hate! -What is my life? What is my future? My life is the perception of my -poverty, ceaselessly aggravated by the luxury which surrounds me! My -future will be to regret, some day, to weep bitterly for even this -life--this slave's life, odious as it is! You talk of my youth, my wit, -and my talents. Would that I had never had the capacity for anything -higher than breaking stones on the road! I should have been happier. -My talents! I shall have passed the best part of my life in decking -another woman with them, and giving her thereby additional beauty, -power--and insolence. And when my best blood has passed into this -doll's veins, she will go off on the arm of a happy husband to take her -part in the best pleasures of life, while, old, solitary, and deserted, -I shall go to die in some hole with the pension of a lady's maid. What -have I done to deserve this fate, tell me that? Why should it be mine -rather than that of those other women? Because I am not as good as they -are? If I am bad, it is because suffering has envenomed me, because -injustice has blackened my soul. I was born with a disposition as great -as theirs--perhaps greater--to be good and loving and charitable. My -God! benefits cost little when you're rich, and kindness is easy when -you're happy. If I were in their place, and they in mine, they would -hate me ... as I hate them.... We do not love our masters. Ah! this is -horrible--what I am saying to you. I know it, and this is the crowning -bitterness--I feel my own degradation, I blush for it ... and increase -it. Alas! now you despise me more than ever ... you, whom I could have -loved so much, if you would have let me; you, who could have given me -all that I have lost hope, peace, goodness, self-respect! Ah! there was -a moment when I believed that I was saved ... when for the first time I -dreamed of happiness, of hope, of pride! ... Poor wretch! ..." - -She had seized both my hands; her head fell on them, and she wept wildly -under her long, flowing curls. - -"My dear child," I said to her, "I know better than any one the trials -and humiliations of your position, but let me tell you that you increase -them greatly by nourishing the sentiments you have just expressed. They -are hideous, and you will end by deserving all the hardships of your -lot. But, after all, your imagination strangely exaggerates those -hardships. As for the present, whatever you may say, you are treated -like a friend here; as to the future, I see nothing to prevent you from -leaving this house on the arm of a happy husband, too. For my part, I -shall be grateful for your affection throughout my life; but--I will -tell you once more, and finish with the subject forever--I have duties -that bind me, and I do not wish, nor am I able, to marry." - -She looked at me suddenly. - -"Not even Marguerite?" she said. - -"I do not see that it is necessary to introduce Mlle. Marguerite's -name." - -With one hand she threw back the hair which fell over her face, and the -other she held out at me with a menacing gesture. - -"You love her!" she said in a hoarse voice. "No, you love her money, but -you shall not have it!" - -"Mademoiselle Helouin!" - -"Ah!" she continued, "you must be a child indeed if you think you can -deceive a woman who was fool enough to love you. I see through your -manoeuvres. Besides, I know who you are. I was not far off when Mlle. -de Porhoet conveyed your well-calculated confidence to Mme. Laroque----" - -"So you listen at doors, mademoiselle!" - -"I care nothing for your insults.... Besides, I shall avenge myself, -and soon, too.... Oh, there's no doubt you're very clever, M. de -Chamcey! I congratulate you. Wonderfully well have you played your -little part of disinterestedness and reserve, as your friend Laubepin -advised you to do when he sent you here. He knew the person you would -have to deal with. He knew well enough this girl's absurd mania. And -you think you've already got your prey, don't you? Adorable millions, -aren't they? There are queer stories about their origin. But, at any -rate, they will serve very well to furbish up your marquisate, and -regild your escutcheon. Well, from this moment you can give up that -idea ... for I swear you shall not keep your mask a day longer, and this -hand shall tear it from you." - -"Mlle. Helouin, it is quite time we brought this scene to an end; we are -verging on melodrama. You have given me an opportunity of forestalling -you in tale-bearing and calumniation; but you are perfectly safe. I -give you my word of honour that I shall not use those weapons. And, -mademoiselle, I am your humble servant." - -I left the unhappy girl with a feeling of mingled disgust and pity. I -have always thought that the highest organization must, from its very -nature, be galled and warped in a situation as equivocal and humiliating -as that which Mlle. Helouin occupies here. But I was not prepared for -the abyss of venom that had just opened under my eyes. Most -assuredly--when one thinks the matter out--one can scarcely conceive a -situation which subjects a human soul to more hateful temptations, or is -better calculated to develop and sharpen envy, to arouse the protests of -pride, and to exasperate feminine vanity and jealousy. Most of the -unhappy girls who are driven to this occupation only escape the troubles -Mlle. Helouin had not been able to guard herself against, either by the -moderation of their feeling, or, by the grace of God, through the -firmness of their principles. Sometimes I had thought that our -misfortunes might make it necessary for my sister to go as governess -into some rich family. I swore then that whatever future might be -reserved for us, I would rather share the hardest life in the poorest -garret with Helene than let her sit at the poisoned banquets of an -opulent and hateful servitude. - -Though I had firmly resolved to leave the field free to Mlle. Helouin, -and on no account to engage personally in the recriminations of a -degrading contest, I could not regard without misgiving the probable -consequences of the treacherous war just declared against me. -Evidently, I was threatened where I was most sensitive--in my love and -in my honour. Mistress of the secret of my heart, mingling truth and -falsehood with the skilful perfidy of her sex, Mlle. Helouin might -easily show my conduct in an unfavourable light, turn all the -precautions and scruples of my delicacy against me, and give my simplest -actions the appearance of deliberate intrigue. I could not foresee the -form her malevolence would take, but I could depend upon her to choose -the most effectual methods. Better than any one, she knew the weak -places in the imaginations she wished to impress. Over Mlle. Marguerite -and her mother she had the advantage which dissimulation usually has -over frankness, and cunning over simplicity. They trusted her with the -trust that is born of long use and daily association. Her masters, as -she called them, were not likely to suspect that under the pretty -brightness and obsequious consideration which she assumed with such -consummate art she concealed a frenzy of pride and ingratitude which was -eating her miserable heart away. It was too probable that a hand so -sure and skilful would pour its poison with complete success into hearts -thus prepared. It was true Mlle. Helouin might be afraid that by -yielding to her resentment she would thrust Mlle. Marguerite's hand into -that of M. de Bevallan, and hasten a marriage which would be the ruin of -her own ambition; but I knew that the woman who hates does not -calculate, and risks everything. So I awaited from her the swiftest and -blindest of vengeance, and I was right. - -In painful anxiety I passed the hours that should have been given to -sweeter thoughts. All that a proud spirit finds most galling in -dependence, the suspicion hardest for a loyal conscience, the scorn most -bitter to a loving heart, I endured in anticipation. Never in my worst -hours had adversity offered me a cup so full. However, I tried to work -as usual. About five o'clock I went to the chateau. The ladies had -returned during the afternoon. In the drawing-room I found Mlle. -Marguerite, Mme. Aubry, M. de Bevallan, and two or three casual guests. -Mlle. Marguerite did not appear to be aware of my presence, but -continued to talk to M. de Bevallan in a more animated style than usual. -They were discussing an impromptu dance, which was to take place the -same evening at a neighbouring chateau. She was going with her mother, -and urged M. de Bevallan to accompany them. He excused himself on the -ground that he had left his house that morning before receiving the -invitation, and that his costume was inadmissible. With an eager and -affectionate coquetry which evidently surprised even him, Mlle. -Marguerite persisted, saying that there was still time to go back and -dress and return to fetch them. She promised that a nice little dinner -should be kept for him. M. de Bevallan said that his carriage horses -were not available, and that he could not ride back in evening dress. - -"Very well," replied Mlle. Marguerite; "they shall drive you over in the -dog-cart." - -At the same moment she turned towards me for the first time, with a look -in which I saw the thunderbolt that was about to fall. - -"M. Odiot," she said in a sharp, imperious tone, "go and tell them to -put the horse in." - -This imperious order was so little in harmony with such as I was -accustomed to receive here, or such as I could be expected to tolerate, -that the attention and curiosity of the most indifferent were excited. - -There was an awkward silence. M. de Bevallan glanced in surprise at -Mlle. Marguerite; then he looked at me, and got up with a very serious -air. If they thought I should give way to some mad prompting of anger -they were mistaken. It was true that the insulting words which had just -fallen on me from a mouth so beautiful, so beloved, and so cruel, had -struck the icy coldness of death to the very depths of my being. A -blade of steel piercing my heart could hardly have caused me keener -pain. But never had I been calmer. The bell which Mme. Laroque uses to -summon her servants stood on a table within my reach. I touched it with -my finger. A man-servant entered almost directly. - -"I think," I said to him, "Mlle. Marguerite has some orders to give -you." - -At this speech, which she had heard in amazement, Marguerite shook her -head quickly, and dismissed the man. I longed to get out of this room, -where I seemed to be choking, but, in view of M. de Bevallan's provoking -manner, I could not withdraw. - -"Upon my word," he murmured, "there's something very strange about all -this." - -I took no notice of him. Mlle. Marguerite said something to him under -her breath. - -"I obey, mademoiselle," he said in a louder tone; "but you will allow me -to express my sincere regret that I have not the right to interpose -here." - -I rose immediately. - -"M. de Bevallan," I said, standing within a pace or two of him, "that -regret is quite superfluous, for though I have not thought fit to obey -Mlle. Laroque's orders, I am entirely at yours ... and I shall expect to -receive them." - -"Very good, very good, sir; nothing could be better," replied M. de -Bevallan, waving his hand airily to reassure the ladies. - -We bowed to one another and I went out. I dined alone in my tower. -Poor Alain waited on me as usual. No doubt he had heard of what had -occurred, for he kept looking at me mournfully, sighed often and deeply, -and, contrary to his custom, preserved a gloomy silence, only breaking -it to reply, in answer to my question, that the ladies had decided not -to go to the ball. - -After a hurried meal, I put my papers in order and wrote a few words to -M. Laubepin. In view of a possible contingency I recommended Helene to -his care. The thought that I might leave her unprotected and friendless -nearly broke my heart, without in the least affecting my immovable -principles. I may deceive myself, but I have always thought that honour -in our modern life is paramount in the hierarchy of duties. It takes -the place of so many virtues which have nearly faded from our -consciences, of so many dormant beliefs; it plays such a tutelary part -in the present state of society, that I would never consent to weaken -its claims, or lessen its obligations. In its indefinite character, -there is something superior to law and morality: one does not reason -about it; one feels it. It is a religion. If we have no longer the -folly of the Cross, let us keep the folly of Honour! Moreover, no -sentiment has ever taken such deep root in the human soul without the -sanction of reason. It is better that a girl or a wife should be alone -in the world, than that she should be protected by a dishonoured brother -or husband. - -Each moment I expected a letter from M. de Bevallan. I was getting -ready to go to the collector of taxes in the town, a young officer who -had been wounded in the Crimea, and ask him to be my second, when some -one knocked at my door. M. de Bevallan himself came in. Apart from a -slight shade of embarrassment, his face expressed nothing but a frank -and joyful kindliness. - -"M. Odiot," he said, as I looked at him in surprise, "this is rather an -unusual step, but, thank Heaven, my service-records place my courage -beyond suspicion. On the other hand, I have such good reason for -feeling happy to-night that I have no room for rancour or enmity. -Lastly, I am obeying orders which will now be more sacred to me than -ever. In short, I come to offer you my hand." - -I bowed gravely and took his hand. - -"Now," he went on as he sat down, "I can execute my commission -comfortably. A little while ago Mlle. Marguerite, in a thoughtless -moment, gave you some instructions which most assuredly did not come -within your province. Very properly, your susceptibility was aroused, we -quite recognise that, and now the ladies charge me to beg that you will -accept their regrets. They would be in despair if the misconception of -a moment could deprive them of your good offices, which they value -extremely, and put an end to relations which they esteem most highly. -Speaking for myself, I have this evening acquired the right to add my -entreaties to those of the ladies. Something I have long desired has -been granted me, and I shall be personally indebted to you if you will -prevent the happy memories of this day from being marred by a separation -which would be at once disadvantageous and painful to the family into -which I shall shortly enter." - -"M. de Bevallan," I said, "I fully recognise and appreciate all that you -have said on behalf of the ladies, as well as on your own account. You -will excuse me from giving a final answer immediately. This is a matter -which requires more judicial consideration than I can give it at -present. - -"At least," said M. de Bevallan, "you will let me take back a hopeful -report. Come, M. Odiot, since we have the opportunity, let us break -through the barrier of ice that has kept us apart till now. As far as I -am concerned, I am quite willing. In the first place, Mme. Laroque, -without revealing a secret that does not belong to her, has given me to -understand that under the kind of mystery with which you surround -yourself, there are circumstances which reflect the highest credit on -you. And, besides, I have a private reason for being grateful to you. -I know that you have lately been consulted in reference to my intentions -towards Mlle. Laroque, and that I have cause to congratulate myself on -your opinion." - -"My dear sir, I do not think I deserve----" - -"Oh, I know!" he continued, laughing. "You didn't praise me up to the -skies, but, at all events, you did me no harm. And I admit that you -showed real insight. You said that though Mlle. Marguerite might not be -absolutely happy with me, she would not be unhappy. Well, the prophet -Daniel could not have spoken better. The truth is, the dear child will -never be absolutely happy with any one, because she will not find in the -whole world a husband who will talk poetry to her from morning to -night.... They're not to be had. I am no more capable of it than any -one else, I own; but--as you were good enough to say--I am an honourable -man. And really, when we know one another better, you will be convinced -of it. I am not a brute; I am a good fellow. God knows I have faults -... one especially: I am fond of pretty women.... I am, I can't deny -it. But what does it matter? It shows that one has a good heart. -Besides, here I am in port ... and I am delighted, because--between -ourselves--I was getting into a bit of a mess. In short, I mean only to -think about my wife and children in future. So, like you, I believe -Marguerite will be perfectly happy--that is to say, as far as she could -be in this world with ideas like hers. For, after all, I shall be good -to her; I shall refuse her nothing, and I shall do even more than she -desires. But if she asks me for the moon and the stars, I can't go and -fetch them to please her ... that's not possible.... And now, my dear -friend, your hand once more." - -I gave it him. He got up. - -"Good! I hope that you will stay with us now.... Come, let me see that -a brighter face! We will make your life as pleasant as possible, but -you'll have to help us a bit, you know. You cultivate your sadness, I -fancy. You live, if I may say so, too much like an owl. You're a kind -of Spaniard such as one rarely sees. You must drop that sort of thing. -You are young and good-looking, you have wit and talents; make the best -of those qualities. Listen. Why not try a flirtation with little -Helouin.... It would amuse you. She is very charming, and she would -suit you. But, deuce take me! I am rather forgetting my promotion to -high dignities! ... And now, good-bye, Maxime, till to-morrow, isn't -it?" - -"Till to-morrow, certainly." - -And this honest gentleman--who is the sort of Spaniard one often -sees!--left me to my reflections. - - - _October 1st_. - -A strange thing has happened. Though the results are not, so far, very -satisfactory, they have done me good. The blow I had received had left -me numb with grief. This at least makes me feel that I am alive, and -for the first time for three long weeks I have had the courage to open -this book and take up my pen. Every satisfaction having been given to -me, I thought there was no longer any reason for leaving, at least -suddenly, a position and advantages which, after all, I need, and could -not easily replace. The mere prospect of the personal sufferings I had -to face, which, moreover, were the result of my own weakness, could not -entitle me to shirk duties which involved other interests than my own. -And more; I did not intend that Mlle. Marguerite should interpret my -sudden flight as the result of pique at the loss of a good match. I -made it a point of honour to show her an unruffled front up to the altar -itself. As for my heart--that she could not see. So I contented myself -with informing M. Laubepin that certain things incident to my situation -might at any moment become unbearable, and that I eagerly desired some -less lucrative but more independent occupation. - -The next day I appeared at the chateau, where M. de Bevallan received me -cordially. I greeted the ladies with all the self-possession I could -command. There was, of course, no explanation. Mme. Laroque seemed -moved and thoughtful; Mlle. Marguerite was a little highly strung still, -but polite. As for Mlle. Helouin, she was very pale, and kept her eyes -fixed on her work. The poor girl could not have been very much -delighted with the final result of her diplomacy. She endeavoured once -or twice to dart a look of scorn and menace at M. de Bevallan; but -though this stormy atmosphere might have troubled a neophyte, M. de -Bevallan breathed, moved, and fluttered about in it entirely at his -ease. His regal self-possession evidently irritated Mlle. Helouin, but -it quelled her at the same time. I am sure, however, that she would -have played him the same sort of trick she had played me the day before, -and with far more excuse, if she had not been afraid of ruining herself -as well as her accomplice. But it was most likely that if she yielded to -her jealous rage, and admitted her ingratitude and duplicity, she would -ruin herself only, and she was quite clever enough to see this. In -fact, M. de Bevallan was not the kind of man to have run any risks with -her, without having provided himself with some very effective weapon -which he would use with pitiless indifference. Of course, Mlle. Helouin -might tell herself that the night before they had believed her when she -made other false accusations, but she knew that the falsehood which -flatters or wounds is much more readily believed than mere general -truth. So she suffered in silence, not, I suppose, without feeling -keenly that the sword of treachery sometimes turns against the person -who makes use of it. During this day and those which followed I had to -bear a kind of torture I had foreseen, though without realizing how -painful it would be. The marriage was fixed for a month later. All the -preparations had to be made at once and in great haste. Regularly each -morning came one of Mme. Provost's bouquets. Laces, dresses, jewels -poured in and were exhibited every evening to interested and envious -ladies. I had to give my opinion and my advice on everything. Mlle. -Marguerite begged for them with almost cruel persistence. I responded -as graciously as I could, and then returned to my tower and took from a -secret drawer the tattered handkerchief I had won at the risk of my -life, and I dried my tears with it. Weakness again! But what would you -have? I love her. Treachery, enmity, hopeless misunderstandings, her -pride and mine, separate us forever! So let it be, but nothing can -prevent me from living and dying with my heart full of her. - -As for M. de Bevallan, I did not hate him; he was not worthy of it. He -is a vulgar but harmless soul. Thank God! I could receive the -overtures of his shallow friendliness without hypocrisy, and put my hand -tranquilly in his. But if he was too insignificant for my resentment, -that did not lessen the deep and lacerating agony with which I -recognised his unworthiness of the rare creature he would soon -possess--and never know. I cannot, and I dare not, describe the flood -of bitter thoughts, of nameless sensations which have been aroused in me -at the thought of this odious _mesalliance_, and have not yet subsided. -Love, real true love, has something sacred in it, which gives an almost -superhuman character to its pain as to its joy. - -To the man who loves her, a woman has a sort of divinity of which no -other man knows the secret, which belongs only to her lover, and to see -even the threshold of this mystery profaned by another gives us a -strange and indescribable shock--a horror, as of sacrilege. It is not -merely that a precious possession is taken from you; it is an altar -polluted, a mystery violated, a god defiled! This is jealousy. At -least, it is mine. In all sincerity it seemed to me that in the whole -world I only had eyes to see, intelligence to understand, and a heart to -worship in its full perfection the beauty of this angel. With any other -she would be cast away, and lost; body and soul, she was destined for me -from all eternity. So vast was my pride! I expiated it with suffering -as immeasurable. - -Nevertheless, some mocking demon whispered that in all probability -Marguerite would find more peace and real happiness in the kindly -friendship of a judicious husband, than she would have enjoyed in the -poetic passion of a romantic lover. Is it true? Is it possible? I do -not believe it. She will have peace! Granted. But peace, after all, is -not the best thing in life, nor the highest kind of happiness. If -insensibility and a petrified heart sufficed to make us happy, too many -people who do not deserve it would be happy. By dint of reasoning and -calculation we come to blaspheme against God, and to degrade his work. -God gives peace to the dead; to the living he gives passion! Yes, in -addition to the vulgar interests of daily life, which I am not so -foolish as to expect to set aside, a certain poetry is permitted, nay, -enjoined. That is the heritage of the immortal soul. And this soul -must feel, and sometimes reveal itself, whether by visions that -transcend the real, by aspirations that out-soar the possible, by -storms, or by tears. Yes, there is suffering which is better than -happiness, or, rather, which is itself happiness--that of a living -creature who knows all the agonies of the heart, and all the illusions -of the mind, and who accepts these noble torments with an equable mind -and a fraternal heart. That is the romance which every one who claims -to be a man, and to justify that claim, may, and indeed is bound to put -into his life. - -And, after all, this boasted peace will not be hers. The marriage of -two stolid hearts, of two frozen imaginations, may produce the calm of -lifelessness. I can believe that, but the union of life with death -cannot be endured without a horrible oppression and ceaseless anguish. - -In the midst of these personal miseries, which increased each day in -intensity, my only refuge was my poor old friend, Mlle. de Porhoet. She -did not know, or pretended not to know, the state of my heart; but with -her remote and perhaps involuntary allusions she touched my bleeding -wounds with a woman's light and delicate hand. And this soul, the -living symbol of sacrifice and resignation, which seemed already to -float above our earth, had a detachment, a calmness, and a gentle -firmness, which seemed to descend on me. I came to understand her -innocent delusion, and to share it with something of the same -simplicity. Bent over the album, I wandered with her for hours through -the cloisters of her cathedral, and breathed for a while the vague -perfumes of an ideal serenity. - -I further found at the old lady's house another kind of distraction. -Habit gives an interest to every kind of work. To prevent Mlle. de -Porhoet from suspecting the final loss of her case, I regularly -continued the exploration of the family archives. Among the confused -mass I occasionally came across traditions, legends, and traces of -old-world customs which awakened my curiosity and carried back my -thoughts to far-off days remote from the crushing reality of life. My -perseverance maintained Mlle. de Porhoet in her illusions, and she was -grateful to me beyond my deserts. For I had come to take an interest in -this work---now practically useless--which repaid me for all my trouble, -and gave me a wholesome distraction from my grief. - -As the fateful day approached, Mlle. Marguerite lost the feverish -vivacity which had seemed to inspire her since the date of the marriage -had been fixed, and relapsed at times into the fits of indolence and -sombre reverie formerly habitual to her. Once or twice I surprised her -watching me in wondering perplexity. Mme. Laroque, too, often looked at -me with an anxious and hesitating air, as if she wished and yet feared -to discuss some painful subject with me. The day before yesterday I -found myself by chance alone with her in the _salon_, which Mlle. -Helouin had just left to give some order. The trivial conversation in -which we had been engaged ceased suddenly, as by common consent. After a -short silence, Mme. Laroque said, in a voice full of emotion: - -"M. Odiot, you are not wise in your choice of confidants." - -"Confidants, madame? I do not follow you. Except Mlle. de Porhoet, I -have had no confidant in this place." - -"Alas!" she replied, "I wish to believe you ... I _do_ believe you ... -but that is not enough----" - -At this moment Mlle. Helouin came in, and no more could be said. - -The day after--yesterday--I had ridden over in the morning to -superintend some wood-cutting in the neighbourhood. I was returning to -the chateau about four in the afternoon, when, at a sharp turn of the -road, I found myself face to face with Mlle. Marguerite. She was alone. -I prepared to pass her with a bow, but she stopped her horse. - -"What a fine autumn day!" she said. - -"Yes, mademoiselle. You are going for a ride?" - -"As you see. I am making the best of my moments of independence, and, -in fact, I have been rather abusing my liberty, for I am somewhat tired -of solitude. But Alain is wanted at the house.... Poor Mervyn is -lame.... You would not care to take his place?" - -"With pleasure. Where are you going?" - -"Well ... I thought of riding as far as the tower of Elven." - -With her whip she indicated the misty summit of a hill which rose on the -right of the road. - -"I think," she went on, "you've never made that pilgrimage?" - -"I have not. I have often meant to, but until now I have always put it -off. I don't know why." - -"Well, that is fortunate; but it is getting late; we must make haste, if -you don't mind." - -I turned my horse and we set off at a gallop. - -As we rode along, I tried to account for this unexpected fancy which had -an air of premeditation. I imagined that time and reflection had -weakened the first impression that calumnies had made on Mlle. -Marguerite. Apparently, she had conceived some doubts of Mlle. -Helouin's veracity, and had seized an opportunity to make, in an -indirect way, a reparation which might be due to me. My mind full of -such preoccupations, I gave little thought to the particular object of -this strange ride. Still, I had often heard the tower of Elven -described as one of the most interesting ruins of the country. I had -never gone along either of the roads--from Rennes or from -Josselin--which lead to the sea, without looking longingly at the -confused mass rearing up suddenly among the distant heaths like some -huge stone on end. But I had had neither time nor opportunity to -examine it. - -Slackening our pace, we passed through the village of Elven, which -preserves to a remarkable extent the character of a mediaeval hamlet. -The form of the low, dark houses has not changed for five or six -centuries. You think you are dreaming, when, looking into the big -arched bays which serve as windows, you see the groups of mild-eyed -women in sculpturesque costume plying their distaffs in the shade, and -talking in low tones an unknown tongue. These gray spectral figures -seem to have just left their tombs to repeat some scene of a bygone age, -of which you are the only witness. It gives a sense of oppression. The -sluggish life that stirs around you in the single street of the village -has the same stamp of archaic strangeness transmitted from a vanished -world. - -A little way from Elven we took a cross-road that brought us to the top -of a bare hillock. Thence, though still some distance off, we could -plainly see the feudal colossus crowning a wooded height in front of us. -The _lande_ we were on sloped steeply to some marshy meadows inclosed by -thickets. - -We descended the farther side and soon entered the woods. Then we -struck a narrow causeway, the rugged pavement of which must once have -rung to the hoofs of mail-clad horses. For some time I had lost sight -of the tower of Elven, and could not even guess where it was, when all -at once it stood out like an apparition from among the foliage a few -paces in front of us. The tower is not a ruin; it preserves its -original height of more than a hundred feet, and the irregular courses -of granite which make up its splendid octagonal mass give it the -appearance of a huge block cut out but yesterday by some skilful chisel. -It would be difficult to imagine anything more proud, sombre, and -imposing than this old donjon, impassible to the course of ages, and -lost in the depths of the forest. Full-grown trees have sprung up in -the deep moats which surround it, and their tops scarcely touch the -openings of the lowest windows. This gigantic vegetation, which -entirely conceals the base of the edifice, completes its air of -fantastic mystery. In this solitude, among these forests, before this -mass of weird architecture, which seems to start up suddenly out of the -earth, one thinks involuntarily of those enchanted castles in which -beautiful princesses slept for centuries awaiting a deliverer. - -"So far," said Mlle. Marguerite, to whom I had endeavoured to convey -these impressions, "this is all I have seen of it, but if you want to -wake the princess, we can go in. I believe there is always somewhere -near a shepherd or shepherdess who has the key. Let us tie up the -horses and search, you for the shepherd, and I for the shepherdess." - -We put the horses into a small inclosure near and separated for a little -while, but found neither shepherd nor shepherdess. Of course this -increased our desire to visit the tower. Crossing a bridge over the -moat, we found to our great surprise that the heavy door was not closed. -We pushed it and entered a dark and narrow space choked with rubbish, -which may have been the guard-room. We passed thence into a large, -almost circular hall, where an escutcheon in the chimneypiece still -displayed the bezants of a crusader. A large window faced us, divided -by the symbolic cross clearly carved in stone. It lighted all the lower -part of the room, leaving the vaulted and ruined ceiling in shadow. At -the sound of our steps a flock of birds whirled off, sending the dust of -ages on to our heads. - -By standing on the granite benches, which ran like steps along the side -of the walls, in the embrasure of the window, we could see the moat -outside and the ruined parts of the fortress. But as we came in we had -noticed a staircase cut out of the solid wall, and we were childishly -eager to extend our discoveries. We began the ascent, I leading, and -Mlle. Marguerite following bravely, and managing her long skirts as best -she could. The view from the platform at the top is vast and exquisite. -The soft hues of twilight tinged the ocean of half-golden autumnal -foliage, the gloomy marshes, the fresh pastures, and the distant -horizons of intersecting slopes, which mingled and succeeded each other -in endless perspective. Gazing on this gracious landscape, in its -infinite melancholy, the peace of solitude, the silence of evening, the -poetry of ancient days fell like some potent spell upon our hearts and -spirits. This hour of common contemplation and emotions of purest, -deepest pleasure, no doubt the last I should spend with her, I entered -into with an almost painful violence of enjoyment. I do not know what -Marguerite was feeling; she had sat down on the ledge of the parapet, -and was gazing into the distance in silence. - -I cannot say how many moments passed in this way. When the mists -gathered in the lower meadows, and the distant landscape began to fade -into the growing darkness, Marguerite rose. - -"Come," she said in a low voice, as if the curtain had fallen on some -beautiful spectacle; "come; it's over." - -She began to descend the stairs, and I followed her. - -But when we tried to get out of the donjon, to our great surprise we -found the door closed. Most likely the doorkeeper, not knowing that we -were there, had locked it while we were on the platform. At first this -amused us. The tower was really an enchanted tower. I made some -vigorous efforts to break the spell, but the huge bolt of the old lock -was firmly fixed in its granite socket, and I had to give up all hope of -moving it. I attacked the door itself, but the massive hinges and the -oak panels studded with iron stolidly resisted all my efforts. Some -stone mullions, which I found among the rubbish and hurled against the -door, only shook the vault and brought some fragments from it to our -feet. Mlle. Marguerite at last made me give up a task that was hopeless, -and not without danger. I then ran to the window and shouted, but no -one replied. For ten minutes I continued shouting, and to no purpose. -We took advantage of the last rays of light to explore the interior of -the donjon very carefully. But the door, which was as good as walled up -for us, and the large window, thirty feet above the moat, were the only -exits we could discover. - -Meanwhile, night had fallen on the fields, and the shadows deepened in -the old tower. The moonbeams shone in through the window, streaking the -steps with oblique white lines. Mlle. Marguerite's gaiety had gradually -died away, and she had even ceased to answer the more or less probable -conjectures with which I still tried to calm her apprehensions. While -she kept silent and immovable in the shadow, I sat in the full light on -the step nearest the window, still shouting at intervals for help; but, -to speak the truth, the more uncertain the success of my attempts -became, the more I was conscious of a feeling of irresistible -joyfulness. For suddenly I saw the eternal and impossible dream of -lovers realized for me; I was shut in the heart of a desert and in the -most complete solitude with the woman I loved. For long hours there -would be but she and I in the world, but her life and mine. I thought -of all the sweet evidences of protection and of tender respect it would -be my right and my duty to show her. I imagined her fears at rest, her -confidence restored, finally her slumbers guarded by me. I told myself, -in rapture, that this auspicious night, though it could not give me her -love, would at least insure me her unalterable respect. - -As I yielded, with the egotism of passion, to my secret ecstasy, some -trace of which, perhaps, expressed itself in my face, I was suddenly -awakened by these words, spoken in a dull tone, and with affected calm: - -"M. le Marquis de Champcey, have there been many cowards in your family -before you?" - -I rose, and immediately fell back again on the stone bench, looking -stupidly into the darkness, where I saw dimly the ghostly figure of the -young girl. Only one idea occurred to me--a terrible idea--that grief -and fear had affected her reason--that she was going mad. - -"Marguerite!" I cried, without knowing that I spoke. - -The word no doubt put a climax to her irritation. - -"My God, this is hateful!" she continued. "It is cowardly. I repeat, it -is cowardly." - -I began to see the truth. I descended one of the steps. - -"What is the matter?" I said coldly. - -She replied with abrupt vehemence: "You paid that man or child, -whichever it was, to shut us up in this wretched tower. To-morrow I -shall be ruined ... my reputation lost ... then I shall have perforce to -belong to you. That was your calculation, wasn't it? But, I warn you, -it will not serve you any better than the rest. You still know me very -little if you think I would not prefer dishonour, the convent, death, -anything, to the vileness of yielding my hand--my life--to yours. And -suppose this infamous trick had succeeded, suppose I had been weak -enough--which of a surety I never shall be--to yield myself, and what -you covet more, my fortune to you, what kind of a man can you be? What -mud are you made of, to desire wealth and a wife by such means? Ah! you -may thank me for not yielding to your wishes. They are imprudent, -believe me; for if ever shame and public ridicule drove me to your arms, -I have such a contempt for you that I would break your heart. Yes, were -it as hard and cold as these stones, I would press blood and tears from -it!" - -"Mademoiselle," I said, with all the calm I could command, "I beg you to -return to yourself, to your senses. On my honour I assure you that you -do me injustice. Think for a moment. Your suspicions are quite absurd. -In no possible way could I have accomplished the treachery of which you -accuse me; and even if I could have done so, when have I ever given you -the right to think me capable of it?" - -"Everything I know of you gives me this right!" she cried, lashing the -air with her whip. "I will tell you once for all what has been in my -thoughts for a long time. Why did you come into our house under a false -name, in a false character? My mother and I were happy and at peace. -You have brought trouble, anxiety, and sorrow upon us. To attain your -object, to restore your fallen fortunes, you usurped our confidence ... -you destroyed our peace ... you have played with our purest, deepest, -and holiest feelings ... you have bruised and shattered our hearts -without pity. That is what you have done or tried to do, it doesn't -matter which. Well, I am utterly weary of, utterly disgusted with, all -this. I tell you plainly. And when now you offer to pledge your honour -as a gentleman, the honour that has already allowed you to do so many -unworthy things, certainly I have the right not to believe in it--I do -not believe in it." - -I lost all control of myself. I seized her hands in a transport of -violence which daunted her. "Marguerite, my poor child, listen. I love -you, it is true, and a love more passionate, more disinterested, more -holy, never possessed the heart of man. But you--you love me too! -Unhappy girl, you love me and you are killing me. You talk of a bruised -and a broken heart. What have you done to mine? But it is yours. I -give it up to you. As for my honour, I keep it ... it is intact, and -before long I shall compel you to acknowledge this. And on that honour -I swear that if I die, you will weep for me; that if I live--worshipped -though you are--never, never, were you on your knees before me, would I -marry you unless you were as poor as I, or I as rich as you. And now -pray! pray! Ask God for a miracle; it is time!" - -Then I pushed her roughly far from the embrasure, and sprang on to the -highest step. A desperate idea had come to me. I carried it out with -the precipitation of positive madness. As I have said, the tops of the -beeches and oaks that grew in the moat were on the level of the window. -With my bent whip I drew the ends of the nearest branches to me, seized -them at random, and let myself drop into the void. I heard my -name--"Maxime!"--uttered with a wild cry above my head. The branches I -held bent their full length towards the abyss; there was an ominous -crack, and they broke under my weight. I fell heavily on the ground. -The muddy nature of the soil must have deadened the shock, for I felt -that I was alive, though a good deal hurt. One of my arms had struck -the stonework of the moat, and I was in such pain that I fainted. -Marguerite's despairing voice recalled me to myself. - -"Maxime! Maxime!" she cried, "for pity's sake, for God's sake, speak to -me! Forgive me!" - -I got up and saw her in the bay of the window, standing in an aureole of -pale light, her head bare, her hair loose, her hands grasping the bar of -the cross, while her glowing eyes searched the dark abyss. - -"Don't be alarmed," I said; "I'm not hurt. Only be patient for an hour -or two. Give me time to get to the chateau--that is the best place to -go. You may be sure I shall keep your secret and save your honour, as I -have just saved my own." - -I scrambled painfully out of the moat and went to look for my horse. I -used my handkerchief as a sling for my left arm, which was quite -disabled and gave me great pain. The night was clear and I found the -way easily. An hour later I was at the chateau. They told me that Dr. -Desmarets was in the drawing-room. I hurried there and found him and a -dozen others, all looking anxious and alarmed. - -"Doctor," I said lightly as I came in, "my horse shied at his own shadow -and came down in the road. I think my left arm is put out. Will you -see?" - -"Eh, what?--put out?" said M. Desmarets, after he had removed the -handkerchief. "Your arm's broken, my poor boy." - -Mme. Laroque started up with a little scream and came towards me. - -"It seems we are to have an evening of misfortunes," she said. - -"What else has happened?" I asked, as if surprised. - -"I am afraid my daughter must have had an accident. She went out on -horseback about three; it is now eight, and she has not returned!" - -"Mlle. Marguerite? Why, I met her..." - -"Met her? When? Where? Forgive a mother's selfishness, M. Odiot." - -"Oh, I met her on the road, about five. She told me she thought of -going as far as the tower of Elven." - -"The tower of Elven! She has lost her way in the woods. We must send -at once and search." - -M. de Bevallan ordered horses to be got ready immediately. At first I -pretended that I meant to be of the party, but Mme. Laroque and the -doctor would not hear of it. Without much trouble I was persuaded to -take to my bed, which, truth to tell, I needed badly. M. Desmarets -attended to my arm, and then drove away with Mme. Laroque, who was to -await the result of the search inaugurated by M. de Bevallan at the -village of Elven. - -About ten o'clock Alain came to tell me that Mlle. Marguerite had been -found. He related the story of her imprisonment without omitting any -details, except, of course, those known only to me and the young girl. -The news was soon confirmed by the doctor, and afterwards by Mme. -Laroque, and I had the satisfaction of seeing that no one suspected what -had actually occurred. - -I passed the night in repeating the dangerous leap from the window of -the donjon with all the grotesque complications of fever and delirium. -I did not get used to it. Every moment the sensation of falling through -emptiness caught me by the throat, and I awoke breathless. At last day -came, and I got calm. At eight o'clock Mlle. de Porhoet came in and -took her place at my bedside with her knitting in her hand. She did the -honours of my room to the visitors who followed one another throughout -the day. Mme. Laroque was the first after my old friend. As she held -my hand and pressed it earnestly I saw tears on her face. Has her -daughter confided in her? - -Mlle. de Porhoet told me that old M. Laroque had been confined to his -bed since yesterday. He had a slight attack of paralysis. To-day he -cannot speak, and they are much alarmed about him. The marriage is to -be hastened. M. Laubepin has been sent for from Paris; he is expected -to-morrow, and the contract will be signed the following day, under his -direction. - -I have been able to sit up for some hours this evening, but, according -to M. Desmarets, I should not have written while the fever was on me, -and I am a great idiot. - - - _October 3d_. - -Really it seems as if some malign power were hard at work devising the -strangest and most cruel tests for my conscience and heart alternately. - -M. Laubepin not having arrived this morning, Mme. Laroque has asked me -to give her some of the information necessary for drawing up the general -conditions of the contract, which is to be signed to-morrow. As I am -obliged to keep my room for some days yet, I asked Mme. Laroque to send -me the title-deeds and private documents in her father-in-law's -possession, as they were indispensable for the clearing up of the points -she had mentioned to me. - -Very soon they brought me two or three drawers full of papers which they -had taken out of M. Laroque's cabinet while he was asleep, for the old -gentleman would never let any one touch his secret archives. On the -first paper that I took up I saw my family name repeated several times. -My curiosity was irresistibly aroused. Here is the literal text of the -document: - - - To MY CHILDREN - -The name I bequeath to you, and which I have honoured, is not mine. My -father's name was Savage. He was overseer of a large plantation in the -Island of St. Lucia (then French), which belonged to a rich and noble -family of Dauphine--the Champcey d'Hauterives. In 1793 my father died, -and, though I was quite young, I succeeded to the trust the Champceys -reposed in him. Towards the end of that disastrous year the French -Antilles were taken by the English or given up to them by the rebel -colonists. The Marquis of Champcey d'Hauterive (Jacques-Auguste), whom -the orders of the Convention had not yet struck down, then commanded the -_Thetis_ frigate, which had been cruising on this coast for three years. -A good number of the French colonists of the Antilles had succeeded in -realizing their fortunes, which had been in imminent peril. They had -arranged with the Commandant de Champcey to get together a fleet of -light transports, to which their property had been transferred, and -which was to sail for France under the protection of the guns of the -_Thetis_. In view of imminent disasters, I had myself received, a long -time back, an order and authority to sell the plantation at any price. -On the night of November 14, 1793, I put out alone in a boat for the -Point of Morne-au-Sable and secretly left St. Lucia, already occupied by -the enemy. I brought with me in English notes and guineas the amount I -had received for the plantation. M. de Champcey, thanks to his intimate -knowledge of the coast, had slipped past the English cruiser and had -taken refuge in the dangerous and unknown channel of Gros-Ilet. He had -instructed me to join him there this night, and only awaited my arrival -to leave the channel with his convoy and make for France. In crossing, -I fell into the hands of the English. These experts in treason gave me -the choice of being shot on the spot or of selling them, for the million -I had with me, which they agreed to leave in my hands, the secret of the -channel where the fleet was hiding. I was young ... the temptation was -too great. Half an hour later the _Thetis_ was sunk, the convoy taken, -and M. de Champcey seriously wounded. A year passed--a year without -sleep.... I was going mad.... I determined to make the cursed English -pay for the remorse I suffered. I went to Guadeloupe; I changed my name; -I devoted the larger part of the money I had received to the purchase of -an armed brig, and I fell upon the English. For fifteen years I washed -in their blood and my own the stain that in an hour of weakness I had -brought on my country's flag. Though three parts of my fortune have -been acquired in honourable combats, its origin was, nevertheless, the -price of my treachery. - -Returning to France in my old age, I ascertained the position of the -Champcey d'Hauterives, and found that they were happy and wealthy. I -kept my own counsel. I ask my children to forgive me. While I lived I -had not the courage to blush before them. My death will reveal this -secret to them. They must use it as their consciences may direct. For -myself I have only one prayer to address to them. Soon or late there -will be a final war between France and her neighbour. We hate one -another too much; there's nothing else to be done; either we must devour -them or they must devour us. If this war should be declared during the -life of my children or grand-children, I desire that they give to the -state a corvette fully armed and completely equipped, on one condition, -that it shall be called the Savage, and be commanded by a Breton. At -each broadside she shall send on to the Carthaginian shore my bones will -tremble with joy in my grave. - - -RICHARD SAVAGE, called LAROQUE. - - -The memories that this terrible confession awakened convinced me that it -was correct. Twenty times I had heard my father relate with pride and -indignation this incident in my ancestor's career. But in the family we -believed that Richard Savage--I remember the name quite well--had been -the victim, and not the contriver of the treason or mischance which had -betrayed the commandant of the _Thetis_. Now I understand the -peculiarities I had often noticed in the old sailor's character, and -especially his thoughtful and timid bearing towards me. My father had -always told me that I was the living portrait of my grandfather, the -Marquis Jacques, and perhaps some dim perception of this resemblance had -penetrated to the old man's troubled brain. - -This revelation threw me into a terrible perplexity. I felt but little -resentment against the unhappy man who had redeemed a moment of weakness -by a long life of repentance, and by a passion of desperation and hatred -which was not without greatness. Nor could I, without admiration, -breathe the wild blast which animated the lines written by this guilty -but heroic hand. Still, what was I to do with this terrible secret? My -first thought was that it removed all obstacles between Marguerite and -me; that henceforth the fortune that had kept us apart would be almost -an obligatory bond, for I was the only person in the world who could -regularize her title to it by sharing it with her. But in truth this -secret did not belong to me, and though I had learned it by the purest -of accidents, strict honesty, perhaps, demanded that I should leave it -to come at its own time into the hands for which it was destined. But -while I waited for that moment the irreparable would be accomplished. -Eternal bonds were to be forged. The tomb was to close over my love, my -hopes, and my sorrowful heart. And should I allow it when I might -prevent it by a single word? And the day these poor women learned the -truth, and blushed with shame to learn it, perhaps they would share my -regret and despair. They would be the first to cry: - -"Ah! if you knew, why did you not speak?" - -No, neither to-day nor to-morrow, nor ever, shall those noble women -blush for shame if I can prevent it. My happiness shall not be bought -at the price of their humiliation. This secret is mine alone. The old -man, henceforth speechless, cannot betray himself. The secret does not -exist; the flames have destroyed it. I pondered it well. I know what I -have dared to do. It was a will, a sacred document, and I have -destroyed it. Moreover, it did not benefit me alone. My sister, who is -intrusted to my care, might have found a fortune there, and, without -consulting her, I have plunged her back into poverty. I know all that, -but I will not allow two pure proud souls to be crushed and dishonoured -by the burden of a crime of which they are ignorant. There is a -principle of equity at stake far superior to mere literal justice. If, -in my turn, I have committed a crime, I will answer for it. But the -struggle has exhausted me. I can do no more now. - - - _October 4th_. - -M. Laubepin, after all, arrived yesterday. He came to see me. He was -brusque, preoccupied, and seemed ill-pleased. He spoke briefly of the -marriage. - -"A very satisfactory business!" he said; "in all respects an excellent -combination, where nature and society both receive the guarantees they -have the right to require in such matters. And so, young man, -good-night. I have to smooth the delicate ground of the preliminary -agreements, that the hymeneal car of this interesting union may reach -its goal without jolting." - -At one o'clock this afternoon the family assembled in the drawing-room -with all the preparations and formalities observed at the signing of a -marriage contract. I could not attend this ceremony, and I blessed my -broken arm for sparing me the trial. About three I was writing to -little Helene, and taking care to assure her more strongly than ever of -my complete devotion to her, when M. Laubepin and Mlle. de Porhoet came -into my room. In his frequent visits to Laroque, M. Laubepin has learnt -to appreciate my venerable friend, and the two old people have formed a -respectful and Platonic attachment, which Dr. Desmarets tries in vain to -misrepresent. After an exchange of ceremonies, of interminable bows and -courtesies, they took the chairs I offered them, and both set about -considering me with an air of grave beatitude. - -"Well," I said, "it's over?" - -"Yes," they replied in chorus, "it's over." - -"It went off well?" - -"Very well," said Mlle. de Porhoet. - -"Wonderfully well," said M. Laubepin. After a pause he added: -"Bevallan's gone to the devil!" - -"And the young Helouin after him!" continued Mlle. de Porhoet. - -I exclaimed in surprise: - -"Good God! what has happened?" - -"My friend," said M. Laubepin, "the contemplated union had every -possible advantage, and it would have without doubt insured the common -happiness of both the parties concerned, if marriage were a purely -commercial partnership; but it is nothing of the sort. As my assistance -had been asked, I thought it my duty to bear in mind the inclination of -the hearts and the agreement of the character just as much as the -relative proportions of the estates. Now, from the first, I had the -impression that the contemplated marriage had one drawback. It pleased -no one, neither my excellent friend Mme. Laroque, nor the amiable -_fiancee_, nor their most sensible friends--no one, in fact, except -perhaps the _fiance_, about whom I trouble myself very slightly. It is -true (I quote here from Mlle. de Porhoet), it is true, I say, that the -_fiance is *gentilhomme_...." - -"A _gentleman_, if you please," Mlle. de Porhoet interrupted severely. - -"A _gentleman_," continued M. Laubepin, accepting the correction, "but -it is a kind of _gentleman_ I don't care for." - -"Nor I," said Mlle. de Porhoet. "There are curious specimens of the -kind. Dissipated stablemen, such as those whom we saw last century -deserting their English stables under the direction of the Duc de -Chartres to come over here and prepare the Revolution." - -"Oh, if they had only prepared the Revolution," said M. Laubepin, -sententiously, "we should forgive them." - -"A million apologies, my dear sir; but--speak for yourself! Besides, -that is not the question; will you go on?" - -"So," continued M. Laubepin, "seeing that every one was approaching this -wedding as if it were a funeral, I searched for some honourable and -legal means, not to break the engagement with M. de Bevallan, but to get -him to withdraw voluntarily. This proceeding was the more justifiable, -as in my absence M. de Bevallan had profited by the inexperience of my -excellent friend, Mme. Laroque, and the weakness of my colleague in the -neighbouring town, to make the most exorbitant demand in his own -interests. Without departing from the wording of the agreements, I -succeeded in materially altering their spirit. But there were limits -which honour and the engagements already entered into forbade me to -pass. And the contract remained favourable enough to be accepted with -confidence by any high-minded man who had a sincere affection for his -betrothed. Was M. de Bevallan such a man? We had to take that risk. I -confess that I was not free from emotion when I began to read the -irrevocable document before an imposing audience this morning." - -"As for me," interrupted Mlle. de Porhoet, "I hadn't a drop of blood -left in my veins. The first part of the contract conceded so much to -the enemy that I thought all was lost." - -"No doubt, mademoiselle; but, as we augurs say among ourselves, 'the -sting is in the tail,' _in cauda venenum_. - -"It was comical, my friend, to see the faces of M. de Bevallan and my -_confrere_ from Rennes, who assisted him, when I suddenly unmasked my -batteries. At first they looked at each other in silence; then they -whispered together; at last they rose, and, coming to the table where I -sat, asked me in a low voice for an explanation. - -"'Speak up, gentlemen, if you please,' I said to them. 'We must have no -mysteries here. What have you to say?' - -"The company began to prick up their ears. Without raising his voice, M. -de Bevallan suggested to me that the contract showed mistrust. - -"'Mistrust, sir!' I replied, in my most impressive tone. 'What do you -intend to convey by that? Do you make that strange imputation against -Mme. Laroque, or against me, or against my _confrere_ here present?' - -"'S-s-sh! Silence! No wrangling!' said the Rennes notary discreetly; -'But listen: it was agreed in the first place that the legal system of -dotation should not be insisted on.' - -"'The legal system? And where do you find that mentioned?' - -"'Oh, my dear sir, you know that you have practically reconstituted it -by a subterfuge.' - -"'Subterfuge, monsieur? Allow me, as your senior, to advise you to -withdraw that word from your vocabulary.' - -"'But, after all,' murmured M. de Bevallan, 'I'm tied hand and foot, and -treated like a school-boy.' - -"'Indeed, sir! What, in your opinion, are we here for at this moment--a -contract or a will? You forget that Mme. Laroque is living; that her -father is living, and that it is a question of marriage, not of -inheritance--at least, not yet.... Really, you must have a little -patience; you must wait a little.' - -"At these words Mlle. Marguerite rose. - -"'That is enough,' she said.--'M. Laubepin, throw that contract into the -fire. Mother, let this gentleman's presents be returned.' - -"Then she rose and left us like an outraged queen. Mme. Laroque -followed her, and at the same time I threw the contract into the -fireplace. - -"'Sir,' said M. de Bevallan in a threatening tone, 'there's some -trickery in this, and I will find it out.' - -"'Sir,' I replied, 'allow me to explain it to you. A young lady, who, -with a just pride, values herself very highly, feared that your offer -might have been influenced by her wealth; she wished to be certain; she -has no longer any doubts. I have the honour to wish you good-day!' - -"Thereupon, my friend, I went after the ladies, and--upon my -honour--they embraced me. - -"A quarter of an hour later, M. de Bevallan left the chateau with my -colleague from Rennes. His departure and disgrace have naturally -loosened the servants' tongues, and very soon his imprudent intrigue -with Mlle. Helouin was revealed. The young lady, already suspected on -other grounds for some time past, has asked to be released from her -duties, and the request has been granted. It is needless to say that -our ladies will secure her future. - -"Well, my dear fellow, what do you say to all this? Are you worse? -You're as pale as death!" - -This unexpected news had aroused so many emotions--pleasant and -painful--that I felt myself on the point of losing consciousness. - -M. Laubepin, who has to leave at daybreak to-morrow, came back this -evening to wish me farewell. After some embarrassed remarks from us -both, he said: - -"Never mind, my dear boy, I'll not cross-examine you on what is going on -here; but if you should require a confidant and a counsellor, I ask you -to give me the preference." - -As a matter of fact, I could not confide in a heart more sympathetic or -more friendly. I gave the worthy old gentleman the particulars of my -relations with Mlle. Marguerite. I even read some pages of this journal -to him to show him more exactly the state of affairs, and also the state -of my heart. I hid nothing from him save M. Laroque's secret. - -When I had finished, M. Laubepin, who had suddenly become very -thoughtful, began: - -"It is useless to conceal from you, my friend, that when I sent you here -I intended you to marry Mlle. Laroque. At first everything went as I -wished. Your hearts, which I believe are worthy of one another, could -not associate without sympathizing, but this strange event, of which the -tower of Elven was the romantic scene, entirely disconcerts me, I must -confess. Allow me to tell you, my young friend, that to jump out of -window at the risk of breaking your neck was in itself a more than -sufficient proof of your disinterestedness. It was quite superfluous to -add to this honourable and considerate proceeding a solemn oath never to -marry this poor girl except in contingencies we cannot possibly expect -to see realized. I pride myself on being a man of resource--but I fully -recognise that I cannot give you two hundred thousand francs, or take -them away from Mlle. Laroque." - -"Then tell me what to do, sir. I have more confidence in you than in -myself, for I see that misfortune, which is always exposed to suspicion, -has made me excessively susceptible on questions of honour. Speak. Do -you counsel me to forget the imprudent but still solemn oath which alone -at this moment separates me from the happiness you had imagined for your -adopted son?" - -M. Laubepin rose; his thick eyebrows drawn down over his eyes, he strode -about the room for some minutes, then, stopping in front of me and -seizing my hand, he said: - -"Young man, it is true that I love you like my own child; but, even at -the cost of breaking your heart and my own, I will not be false to my -principles. It is better in matters of honour do too much than too -little, and as regards oaths, all those that are not extorted at the -point of the knife or the mouth of a pistol, should either not be taken -or should be kept. That is my opinion." - -"It is mine too. I will leave with you to-morrow morning." - -"No, Maxime, stay here a little longer. I do not believe in miracles, -but I believe in God, who seldom allows us to be ruined by our virtues. -Give Providence more time. I know that I am asking a very courageous -effort from you, but I claim it formally from your friendship. If -within a month you do not hear from me--well--then you can leave." - -He embraced me and left me to my quiet conscience and my desolate heart. - - - _October 12th_. - -It is now two days since I have been able to leave my retirement and -appear at the chateau. I had not seen Mlle. Marguerite since we -separated at the tower of Elven. She was alone in the _salon_ when I -entered. Recognising me, she made--involuntarily--an effort to rise. -Then she sat motionless, and a flood of burning crimson dyed her face. -It was infectious, for I felt that I was blushing to the forehead. - -"How are you, M. Odiot?" she said, holding out her hand, and she spoke -these simple words so gently, so humbly--alas! so tenderly too--that I -longed to throw myself on my knees before her. But I had to answer in a -tone of icy politeness. She looked sadly at me, lowered her great eyes -with an air of resignation, and went on with her work. - -Almost at the same moment her mother called to her to come to her -grandfather, whose condition had become most alarming. For some days -now he had lost voice and movement; the paralysis was almost total. The -last gleams of mental life were extinguished; only physical sensibility -and the capacity for suffering remained. The end was not far off, but in -this energetic heart life was too deeply rooted to be relinquished -without an obstinate struggle. The doctor had foretold that his agony -would last a long time. Still, at the first appearance of danger, Mme. -Laroque and her daughter had tended him with the passionate -self-sacrifice and utter devotion which are the special virtue and glory -of their sex. The day before yesterday they broke down exhausted. M. -Desmarets and I offered to take their places by M. Laroque to-night, and -they agreed to have a few hours' rest. The doctor, who was very much -fatigued, soon told me that he was going to throw himself on the bed in -the next room. - -"I am no use here," he said; "the thing is over. You see the poor old -fellow doesn't suffer any more. That lethargic state is not painful. -The awakening will be death. So we can be quiet. Call me if you see -any change, but I think it won't come till to-morrow. I'm dying for a -sleep." - -He gave a great yawn and went out. His language and his conduct before -the dying man had shocked me. He is an excellent man; but to render to -death the respect that is due to it, one must not see only the brute -matter it dissolves, but believe in the immortal essence it releases. - -Left alone in the chamber of death, I sat near the foot of the bed, -where the curtains had been withdrawn, and I tried to read by a lamp -that stood on a little table near me. The book slipped from my hands. -I could think only of the strange combination of events which, after so -many years, gave this guilty old man the grandson of his victim as -witness and guardian of his last sleep. Then, in the tranquility of that -hour and place, I recalled, in spite of myself, the scenes of tumult and -bloody violence which had filled the life that was now ebbing away. I -looked for traces of it on the face of the dying old man and on the -large features defined in the shadow with the pale distinctness of a -plaster mask. I saw only the solemnity and premature peace of the tomb. -At intervals I went to the bedside to make sure that the weakened breast -still heaved with vital breath. Towards the middle of the night an -irresistible torpor seized me, and I slept, leaning my forehead on my -hand. Suddenly I was awakened by a strange and sinister sound. I -looked up, and a shudder ran through the marrow of my bones. The old -man was half-sitting up in bed, staring at me with an intent, astonished -look, and an expression of life and intelligence that I had not seen in -him before. When our eyes met he started, stretched out his arms, and -said, in a beseeching voice, whose strange unknown quality almost -stopped the beating of my heart: - -"Marquis, forgive me!" - -In vain I tried to rise, to speak. I sat petrified in my chair. - -After a silence, during which the dying man's eyes were still fixed on -mine beseechingly, he repeated: - -"Marquis, deign to forgive me." - -At last I summoned up strength to go to him. As I approached he drew -back fearfully, as if shrinking from a dreadful contact. I raised my -hand, and lowering it gently before his staring and terror-stricken -eyes: - -"Rest in peace," I said; "I forgive you." - -Before I had done speaking, his withered face lighted up with a flash of -joy and youth. Two tears burst from his dry and sunken orbits. He -stretched a hand to me, then suddenly the hand stiffened in a -threatening gesture, and I saw his eyes roll between their dilated lids, -as if a ball had gone through his heart. - -"Oh, the English!" he whispered, and immediately fell back on the pillow -like a log. He was dead. I called quickly, and the others came. Soon -he was surrounded by pious mourners, weeping and praying for him. I -retired, my soul deeply moved by this extraordinary scene, which I had -resolved should ever remain a secret between myself and the dead man. - -This sad event brought me cares and duties which I needed to justify me -in my own eyes for remaining in the house. I cannot fathom M. -Laubepin's motives for advising me to delay my departure. What did he -hope from it? To me he seems to have yielded to a vague presentiment -and childish weakness, to which a man of his stamp should never have -given way, and to which I also was wrong to submit. Why did he not see -that besides bringing additional suffering on me, he put me in a -position that is neither manly nor dignified? What am I to do here now? -Would they not have good reason to reproach me with trifling with sacred -feelings? My first interview with Mlle. Marguerite had shown me how -hard and how unbearable was the trial to which I had been condemned. -The death of M. Laroque would make our relations easier, and give my -presence a sort of propriety. - -_October 26th, Rennes_. - -All is over! God, how strong that tie was! How it held my heart, and -how it has torn it as it broke! Yesterday evening about nine, as I -leaned on my open window, I was surprised to see a faint light coming -towards my house through the dark alleys of the park, and from a -direction which the servants at the chateau do not frequent. A moment -afterward there was a knock at my door and Mlle. de Porhoet came in -breathless. - -"Cousin," she said, "I have business with you." - -I looked straight at her. - -"A misfortune?" I said. - -"No, it is not precisely that. Besides, you shall judge for yourself. -My dear child, you have passed two or three evenings this week at the -chateau. Have you noticed nothing unusual, nothing peculiar, in the -attitude of the ladies?" - -"Nothing." - -"Have you not even noticed an unusual serenity in their appearance?" - -"Perhaps I have. Allowing for the melancholy due to their recent -sorrow, they seemed calmer and happier than before." - -"No doubt. Other things would have struck you if, like me, you had -lived in daily intimacy with them for fifteen years. Thus, I have -observed signs of some secret understanding and mysterious agreement -between them. Moreover, their habits have been largely altered. Mme. -Laroque has given up her _brasero_, her sentry-box, and all her little -Creole fancies. She rises at marvellous hours, and at daybreak instals -herself with Marguerite at the work-table. They are both taken with a -sudden passion for embroidery, and have ascertained how much a woman can -earn at that work in a day. In short, there is a riddle to which I -cannot find the answer. But it has been told me, and though I may be -intruding on your secrets, I thought it right to inform you at once." - -I assured Mlle. Porhoet of my absolute confidence in her, and she -continued: - -"Mme. Aubry came to see me this evening secretly. She began by throwing -her wretched arms round my neck, which displeased me very much. Then, -to the accompaniment of a thousand jeremiads about herself--which I will -spare you--she begged me to stop her relations on the brink of ruin. -This is what she has heard, through listening at doors, according to her -pretty habit: The ladies are trying to get permission to transfer all -their property to a community at Rennes, so as to do away with the -difference of fortune which separates you and Marguerite. As they can't -make you rich, they will make themselves poor. I thought it impossible -to let you remain ignorant of this determination, which is equally -worthy of those generous souls and of those Quixotic heads. You will -forgive my adding that it is your duty to put an end to this design at -any cost. I need not point out the regrets it will infallibly bring to -our friends, nor the terrible responsibility it will throw on you. That -you will see at a glance. If, my friend, you can from this moment -accept the hand of Marguerite, everything will end in the best way -possible. But in that respect you have tied yourself by an engagement -which is not the less binding because it was made imprudently and -blindly. There is then only one thing for you to do--to leave this -country and resolutely extinguish all the hopes that your presence here -must inevitably encourage. When you are no longer here I shall have less -difficulty in bringing these two children to reason." - -"Very well. I am ready. I will go this very night." - -"Good!" she said. "When I give you this advice I obey a very rigorous -law of honour. You have made the last moments of my long solitude -pleasant, and you have given me back the illusion of the sweet -attachments of life, which I had lost for so many years. In sending you -away I make my last sacrifice; it is immense." - -She rose and looked at me for a moment without speaking. - -"At my age we do not embrace young people," she continued, smiling -sadly; "we bless them. Adieu, dear child, and thank you. May God keep -you!" - -I kissed her trembling hands, and she left me hastily. - -I hurriedly prepared for my departure, and then wrote a few lines to -Mme. Laroque. I begged her to renounce a decision the effect of which -she could not foresee, and which, for my part, I was determined to have -no share in. I gave her my word--which she knew she could rely on--that -I would never accept my happiness at the cost of her ruin. And I -finished--for the sake of dissuading her from her fantastic project--by -speaking vaguely of a future which might bring me fortune. - -At midnight, when everything was silent, I said farewell, a bitter -farewell, to the old tower where I had suffered--and loved--so much. I -slipped into the chateau by a secret door of which I had the key. -Furtively, like a criminal, I passed along the empty and resounding -galleries, guiding myself as I best could in the dark. At last I reached -the _salon_ where I had first seen her. She and her mother had not long -left it, and their recent presence was revealed by a sweet and pleasant -perfume which transported me. I searched, and I touched the basket -where a few moments before she had replaced her embroidery. Alas, my -poor heart! - -I fell on my knees before the seat she generally occupies, my forehead -against the marble. I wept. I sobbed like a child. God, how I loved -her! - -The last hours of the night I spent in reaching the little town -secretly, and thence I drove to Rennes this morning: - -To-morrow evening I shall be in Paris. O poverty, solitude, and -despair, which I had left there, I shall find you again! Last dream of -youth--dream of heaven, farewell! - - - PARIS. - -The next day, in the morning, as I went to the railway station, a -post-chaise stood in the courtyard of the _hotel_, and I saw old Alain -get out. His face brightened as he saw me. - -"Oh, sir, what good luck! You've not gone! Here is a letter for you." - -I recognised M. Laubepin's writing. He said that Mlle. de Porhoet was -seriously ill and was asking for me. I only allowed time to change the -horses, and threw myself into the chaise, after forcing Alain to get in -with me. I questioned him eagerly, and made him repeat his news, which -seemed incredible. - -The evening before, Mlle. de Porhoet had received an official despatch -through M. Laubepin, announcing her succession to the entire Spanish -property. - -"And it seems," said Alain, "that she owes it to you, sir, for finding -some old papers in the pigeon-house that have proved the old lady's -title. I don't know how much truth there is in this, but if it is so, -what a pity she has those ideas about the cathedral and won't give them -up, for she's more bent on it than ever. When she first got the news -she fell flat on the floor, and we thought she was dead. But an hour -after she began talking about her cathedral, the choir, and the nave, -the north aisle and the south, the chapter, and the canons. To calm her -we had to fetch an architect and masons, and put the plans of her -blessed building on her bed. At last, after three hours of that kind of -talk, she quieted down a bit and dozed. When she awoke she asked for -you, sir--M. le Marquis" (Alain bowed, closing his eyes)--"and I had to -run after you. It seems she wants to consult you about the rood-loft." - -This strange event took me entirely by surprise. Nevertheless, my -memory, aided by the confused details given me by Alain, enabled me to -find an explanation, which more precise information completely -confirmed. As I have before said, the affair of the Spanish inheritance -of the Porhoets had gone through two phases. There had first been a -long lawsuit between Mlle. de Porhoet and one of the great families of -Castile, which my old friend had finally lost. Then there had been a -new suit between the Spanish heirs and the Crown, the latter claiming on -the grounds of intestacy. - -Shortly after this, while pursuing my researches in the Porhoet -archives, I had, about two months before leaving the chateau, laid hands -upon a curious document, which I will here transcribe: - - -"Don Philip, by the Grace of God, King of Castile, Leon, Aragon, the two -Sicilies, Jerusalem, Navarre, Grenada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, -Majorca, Seville, Sardinia, Cordova, Cadiz, Murcia, Jaen, of the -Algarves, of Algeciras, Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, the West and East -Indies, the islands and continents of the ocean, the Archduchy of -Austria; Duke of Burgundy, Brabant, and Milan; Count of Hapsburg, -Flanders, the Tyrol, and Barcelona; Lord of Biscay and Molina, etc. - -"To thee, Herve-Jean Jocelyn, Lord of Porhoet-Gael, Count of Torre -Nuevas, etc., who hast followed me throughout my dominions, and served -me with exemplary fidelity, I promise, by special favour, that in case -of the extinction of thy direct and legitimate progeny, the possessions -of thy house shall return, even to the detriment of my Crown, to the -direct and legitimate descendants of the French branch of the -Porhoet-Gaels, as long as any such shall exist. - -"And I make this covenant for myself and for my successors on my royal -faith and word. - -"Given at the Escorial, April 10, 1716. - -"YO EL REY." - - -Together with this document, which was merely a translator's copy, I -found the original text, bearing the arms of Spain. The importance of -this document had not escaped me, but I had feared to exaggerate it. I -greatly doubted whether the validity of a title of such ancient date, -and prior to so many momentous events, would be recognised by the -Spanish Government. I even doubted whether it would have the power to -give effect to it, even if it had the will. I had therefore decided to -say nothing to Mlle. de Porhoet about a discovery, the consequences of -which seemed to me most problematic, and I had contented myself with -sending the document to M. Laubepin. As I had heard nothing more of it, -I had soon forgotten it in the midst of the personal cares with which I -was overwhelmed at the time. However, contrary to my unjust suspicions, -the Spanish Government had not hesitated to carry out Philip V's -covenant, and at the very moment when a supreme decree had handed over -the vast possessions of the Porhoets to the Crown, it had nobly restored -them to the legitimate heir. - -About nine that evening I stopped at the humble house where this royal -fortune had arrived so tardily. The little servant opened the door. She -was crying. - -From the staircase above came the grave voice of M. Laubepin. - -"It is he," said the voice. - -I went up the stairs quickly. The old man grasped my hand warmly, and -took me into Mlle. de Porhoet's room. The doctor and the cure stood -silent in the shadow of the window. Mme. Laroque knelt at the bedside; -her daughter was arranging the pillow where the pale face of my old -friend rested. When the sick woman saw me a faint smile flickered -across her face. Painfully she moved one of her arms. I took her hand; -I fell on my knees; I could not keep back my tears. - -"My child," she said, "my dear child!" - -Then she looked intently at M. Laubepin. The old notary took from the -bed a piece of paper, and, as if he were continuing to read after an -interruption, he went on: - - -"For these reasons," he read, "I appoint by this holograph will -Maxime-Jacques-Marie Odiot, Marquis de Champcey d'Hauterive, noble by -heart as by descent, sole and universal legatee of all my property in -Spain as well as in France, without reserve or condition. Such is my -will. - -"JOCELYNDE JEANNE, -"COMTESSE DE PORHOET-GAEL." - - -In my astonishment I had risen and was about to speak, when Mlle. de -Porhoet, gently retaining my hand, placed it in Marguerite's. At this -sudden contact the dear creature trembled. She bent her young forehead -on the mournful pillow, and, blushing, whispered something in the dying -woman's ear. I could not speak. I fell on my knees, and prayed to God. -Some minutes passed in solemn silence, when Marguerite suddenly withdrew -her hand with a gesture of alarm. The doctor came up hastily. I rose. -Mlle. de Porhoet's head had fallen back; with a fixed and radiant glance -she looked towards heaven; her lips half-opened, and as if she were -speaking in a dream, she whispered: - -"God! the good God! I see Him there ... up there.... Yes ... the choir -... the golden lamps ... the windows ... the sun everywhere.... Two -angels kneeling before the altar ... in white robes ... their wings move -... God, they are alive!" - -This cry died on her lips, which remained smiling. She closed her eyes -as if she were going to sleep, and suddenly an air of immortal youth -fell on her face, making it almost unrecognisable to us. - -[Illustration: "I felt her lips on mine----I thought my soul was -escaping from me" (see page 246)] - -Such a death, after such a life, had lessons with which I desired to -fill my soul. I begged to be left alone with the priest in the room. -This pious vigil will not, I believe, be unavailing. From that face, -irradiated with a glorious peace, where a supernatural light seemed to -glow, more than one forgotten or questioned truth came home to me with -irresistible force. Noble and holy friend, well I knew that the virtue -of sacrifice was yours! Now I see that you have entered into your -reward. - -About two hours after midnight, yielding to fatigue, I longed to breathe -the fresh air for a moment. I went down the dark staircase and into the -garden, avoiding the _salon_ on the ground floor, where I had seen a -light. The night was profoundly dark. As I approached the arbour at -the end of the little inclosure, I heard a faint sound, and at the same -moment a shadowy form detached itself from the foliage. I felt a sudden -rapture; my heart leaped, and I saw the heavens fill with stars. - -"Marguerite!" I cried, holding out my arms. I heard a little cry, then -my name murmured faintly, then silence ... and I felt her lips on mine. -I thought that my soul was escaping from me. - - * * * * * - -I have given Helene half my fortune. Marguerite is my wife. I close -these pages forever. I have nothing more to intrust to them. What has -been said of nations may be said of men: "Happy are those who have no -history." - - - - - * * * * * * * * - - - - - *THE PORTRAITS OF OCTAVE FEUILLET* - - -In spite of the fashionable popularity achieved by Octave Feuillet as -early as the year 1855, a popularity which never waned to his last hour, -it seems that his life, which we should have pictured excessively -brilliant and public, was in reality quiet and retired. The author of -"M. de Camors" and of the "Roman d'un Jeune Homme pauvre" was, as his -portraits attest, melancholy of temperament and contemplative of mind, a -man who was happiest in his own study, who preferred the distant echoes -of his literary triumphs in his home, to noisy manifestations thereof in -the world of social pleasure. - -[Illustration: OCTAVE FEUILLET (In 1850) After a drawing by the engraver -Monciau] - -Feuillet was the official novelist of the Second Empire, the pet writer -of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. He was received at Court among the -distinguished guests who had the _entree_ at Compiegne and -Fontainebleau. His plays and _proverbes_ were acted in the Imperial -theatres, at fashionable watering-places, and on the miniature stages of -marionettes. The Empress treated him with marked distinction. It is -difficult to understand why an author so honoured and so much sought -after should have left so few portraits--canvases, medallions, -water-colours or engravings. Feuillet evidently was not lavish of his -time in his sittings to artists, for neither Dubufe, nor Carolus-Duran, -nor Winterhalter reproduced his features--a fact we find it almost hard -to believe of a man who enjoyed the popularity of Feuillet. But we must -accept the fact. - -[Illustration: OCTAVE FEUILLET (In 1879) After a sketch made in Geneva] - -Madame Octave Feuillet, to whom I went for final confirmation of this -supposed dearth of artistic documents relating to her deceased husband, -showed me everything she had as mementoes of the delicate psychologist -to whose success she so largely contributed by her feminine diplomacy, -her social observations, and her subtle and very cultivated mind. - -"Alas!" she said, "I do not know why I am not richer in pictures of my -dear lost one, for he had endless opportunities of being painted, but he -was always too nervous and too busy to undertake the sittings proposed -by various artists. This is why I can only show you a little portrait -painted by Bonvin just before 1850, which represents him with a -Musset-like face, and agrees pretty closely with a drawing of the same -period by the engraver Monciau, which could easily be reproduced." - -[Illustration: OCTAVE FEUILLET After a photograph taken in 1880] - -"Beyond these souvenirs of Octave Feuillet as a young man," continued -his widow, "I have nothing but a drawing by Dantan, made at the time of -the great success of the _Sphinx_ at the Comedie Francaise, that is to -say, about ten years before his death, and a large canvas by Hirch, a -full-length, painted after 1880. But isn't it too dark for -reproduction?" - -To these portraits of the author of "Julia de Trecoeur" we may add a -number of photographs, all of them taken after 1860. First, the large -full-length portrait published by Goupil about 1869 in the "Galerie -Contemporaine." In spite of the defects inherent in all photographs, -this is the most like him of all his portraits: it is reproduced as the -frontispiece of this volume. We have given several others, among them -one from Monciau's drawing, which shows us an Octave Feuillet of -thirty-five, who is nevertheless somewhat morose-looking, and various -presentments of the quinquagenarian Academician, with the white hair and -grey beard of a man still in his prime, which offer a much nobler and -more attractive semblance of the writer who has been called "The family -Musset." - -[Illustration: OCTAVE FEUILLET The last photograph taken in 1889] - -After the death of the famous novelist and playwright, the sculptor -Crauck executed a fine bust of him with the aid of instructions given -him by one of the author's sons, Richard Feuillet. Another bust, of -little interest and a poor likeness, is at the Hotel de Ville of St. Lo, -where Feuillet was born, and where he often came to rest at his property -during the summer. - -[Illustration: OCTAVE FEUILLET Sketch by Dantan, about 1878] - -Octave Feuillet's iconological record certainly does not arrest -attention by any curious, startling, or hitherto unpublished elements. -We have no childish or youthful portraits, nothing but the cold -countenance of the man who had already "arrived;" no whimsical artistic -sketch, not even any satirical caricature, to compromise, enliven, or -give a Bohemian touch to the dignified attitude and severe correctness -of the writer of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. It is, we think, to be -regretted. Octave Feuillet remains an over-official figure for us, -bearing too obviously the stamp of the photographer's solemn poses, and -sacramental "Quite still, please." - - -OCTAVE UZANNE. - - - - - - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG MAN -*** - - - - -A Word from Project Gutenberg - - -We will update this book if we find any errors. - -This book can be found under: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45200 - -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. 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