JULIE AT THE CONVENT AT CHAILLOTJulie obediently took the quinine, walked about the garden of the convent, consented to receive visits from several nuns, impressed them as a very attractive person.
JULIE AT THE CONVENT AT CHAILLOT
Julie obediently took the quinine, walked about the garden of the convent, consented to receive visits from several nuns, impressed them as a very attractive person.
It did amount to nothing, except that the heart was dying and the life fading away with it. Julie obediently took the quinine, walked about the garden of the convent, consented to receive visits from several nuns, impressed them as a very attractive person, promised to read some new books which Marcel brought her and which she did not open, prepared a piece of embroidery which she did not begin, lived almost unnoticed in the cloister, thanks to her unobtrusive manners, and continued to waste away, slowly, without paroxysms, but without remission.
Marcel was deceived by appearances. Seeing that she was so placid mentally, and mistaking that sudden disappearance of the will for the symptom of a struggle between a mighty will-power and nature itself, he sought the remedy where it was not. He turned his attention to her physical health. He hired a small country house at Nanterre, and, giving Julie to understand that he had purchased it for her, carried her thither; then, having made sure of Camille's discretion and devotion to her mistress, he sent for her. He supplied her with enough money to enable her to hire a peasant woman who could cook, and he made arrangements that the countess's table should be daintier and more substantial than that at the convent. The little house was located in an airy spot, with a garden of considerable size surrounded by walls, and with not sufficient shade to keep the sun from doing its healthful work. He supplied the salon with books, little articles to provide occupation or amusement, and Julie's harp—every woman in those days performed on that instrument more or less. Marcel having taught her her lesson, Camille deceived her mistress as to what had happened at the hôtel D'Estrelle, and as to the means at her disposal. She made her believe that everything was extremely cheap at Nanterre, and that she could afford to live comfortably without exceeding the limits of her small income. Julie wished to be poor and to owe nothing to Monsieur Antoine. That was the only point on which Marcel had found her resistance invincible. He had been forced to lie, and to let her believe that Monsieur Antoine had taken possession of her house, her diamonds and everything that belonged to her.
The diamonds were in Marcel's custody, the house was kept in excellent condition. The horses were in the stable, well cared for, and the carriages in the carriage-house. The servants had been paid off and discharged, under orders to return, upon advantageous terms, as soon as Madame d'Estrelle should return. The concierge took care of the house, groomed and exercised the horses. His wife dusted the rooms, opened and closed the windows. Monsieur Antoine's head gardener attended to the flowers and lawns. Monsieur Antoine himself visited the place every morning. The pavilion, after Madame Thierry had gone away, was closed and silent. But nothing was changed in Julie's abode. Every piece of furniture was in its place, and the sun shone through the windows of her empty salon.
Two months had passed since the day that Julie left the hôtel. Uncle Antoine was simply the caretaker and painstaking administrator of the property. He had retained his privilege of being admitted there, pending the time when it should please Julie to resume possession. He desired to return it to her intact, and to reëmploy such of her servants as she might wish to have about her. The concierge was ordered to inform visitors that madame continued to own her house for the present, and that she had gone to inspect her estate in the Beauvoisis and to make some definite plans for the future; that is to say, Monsieur Antoine, in concert with Marcel, having in view thewhat will people say?represented Madame d'Estrelle's situation as the continuation of an armistice with her creditors; and as she had been in that situation for more than two years already, that was really the most plausible explanation. They would see about inventing a perfectly convincing one when Julie should consent to return.
It is true none the less that Julie's friends, the old Duc de Quesnoy, madame la présidente, Madame Desmorges, Abbé de Nivières and the rest, began to be much surprised that they did not hear from her. Her sudden departure had been accepted with reasonably good grace, thanks to the hints adroitly strewn about by the solicitor; but why did she not write? She must be very lazy; or perhaps she was ill? Was she really in the Beauvoisis?—But the old duke had to go to take the waters of Vichy; madame la présidente was engrossed by the marriage of her daughter; the abbé was like the household cat—he forgot everything when the fire on the hearth died out. Madame Desmorges was indolence personified. The Marquise d'Estrelle alone would have been likely to investigate the subject seriously, but her malice was suddenly paralyzed by a sharp threat from Monsieur Antoine to disclose her conduct and demand his money, if she ventured to make the slightest investigation or the faintest derogatory remark concerning Julie.
As will be seen, Monsieur Antoine behaved with extraordinary fairness, prudence and loyalty, in everything that concerned the reputation, the comfort and the pecuniary interests of his victim. He listened to Marcel's advice, discussed it with him as if the question at issue were what it was best to do for his own daughter, and followed it exactly. Touching the fundamental question as to which Marcel did his utmost to bend him, the union of the two lovers, he was inflexible; and as he lost his temper when Marcel pressed him too hard on that subject, sulked and shut the door in his face, Marcel was compelled, in his client's interest, to submit to delays of which he could see no end.
Madame Thierry and Julien were luxuriously established in their pretty cottage, for the best part of the furniture had been left there, as well as divers artistic objects of considerable value which Uncle Antoine had disdained to notice because he had no idea of their value. Julien had no confidence in this unexpected generosity, for which he had been warned not to thank Monsieur Antoine, and which was surrounded with inexplicable circumstances. He was so disturbed about it that, except for the duty of sacrificing his own pride to his mother's repose, he would have refused everything. Their position was excellent from a material standpoint. The income of five thousand francs enabled them to live modestly without awaiting anxiously the avails of Julien's feverish labor at the end of each week. Madame Thierry could not help feeling the most heartfelt delight in being restored to her house, her most cherished memories, her former habits and connections. The latter were less numerous than in the days when her table was always laid, but they were more reliable. Her only true friends came forward once more. Knowing that she had no more than was absolutely necessary, they exerted themselves to provide an advantageous market for Julien's pictures. Not until one has ceased to suffer from poverty can one make the most of his talent. Julien no longer needed to hurry; his customers came unsolicited, through the intervention of enlightened and kindly friends. He consoled his mother for the secret dissatisfaction she still felt in being Monsieur Antoine's debtor, by saying to her:
"Never fear, I will pay your debt to him, against his will, if need be; it is simply a question of time. Be happy; you see that I am not disturbed by Julie's silence, but that I am waiting confidently and calmly."
Julien had changed neither in bearing, nor manner, nor feature, since the fatal day of Julie's disappearance. At first he had believed what Marcel said; but, as no letter arrived from his mistress, and as he knew beyond doubt, as the result of inquiries he had made secretly, that she was not in the Beauvoisis, he had gradually detected a part of the horrible truth. Julie was free, for Marcel had sworn it on his honor, again and again; but as to certain other points he did not swear. He asserted nothing; he simply left them to their presumptions. He refused with shrewd persistence to listen to any confidential communication, which made it easier for him to evade many questions. Monsieur Antoine's machiavelian plan was too eccentric to be fathomed by Julien's straightforward mind. He did not suppose that jealousy was possible without love, and he would have considered that he insulted Julie's image by admitting that the old man was in love with her. The old man was not in love, that is certain; but he was as jealous as a tiger of Julien, and jealousy without love is the most implacable form of jealousy. Julien believed that he was mad. Can anyone divine the schemes of a madman?
But might not those schemes, whatever they were, affect Julie's determination?
"No!" said Julien to himself, "pecuniary consideration cannot have influenced that noble heart. Julie wishes to break with me; she chooses to bring about the rupture in silence. It is painful to her, but she considers it necessary. She trembled for her reputation; the marchioness threatened to ruin her, and her friends must have succeeded in convincing her that she could never rehabilitate herself after marrying a plebeian. Such is the opinion of society. Julie fancied for a moment that she was superior to such prejudices; her love for me led her to presume too far on her strength. She has a noble nature, but her mind is a little weak perhaps, and now the force of her character is being exerted to bring about the triumph of the prejudice which kills love. Poor dear Julie! She must suffer, because she is kind-hearted—because she understands my suffering. So far as she is concerned, I feel certain that she desires to forget me."
Marcel had stronger hopes of Julien's mental cure than of Julie's. He saw him as infrequently and for as short a time as possible. One day, when he was obliged to go to report to his aunt concerning a small matter which she had placed in his hands, he found her alone.
"Where is Julien?" he asked; "in his studio?"
"No, he is turning his attention to gardening. Since he has had this little plot of land to dig and plant, he is more easily consoled for everything. He has had a great sorrow, Marcel! a sorrow of which you know nothing. He loved Madame d'Estrelle; I was not mistaken; and, more than that——"
"Yes, yes!" said Marcel, who desired to avoid any sentimental scene; "that has gone by, hasn't it? that is all over?"
"Yes," replied the widow, "I think so. If he were deceiving me—But no! after the hopes he has had it is not possible, is it, my boy? You can't cheat the eyes of a mother who adores you?"
"No, of course not. Sleep in peace, dear aunt! I will go to bid Julien good-day.—If he is really deceiving his mother after the failure of his hopes," he thought as he looked for Julien among the shrubbery, "he must be a devilishly strong fellow!"
Julien was digging a little hole in which to transplant a tree. He wore a linen blouse and his head was bare. Standing in the loose earth, with his hands resting on the handle of his spade, like a laborer taking breath, he was musing so deeply that he did not hear his cousin's step, and Marcel, who saw his profile only, was profoundly impressed by the expression of his face. That manly countenance did not as yet bear the marks of sorrow which were already impairing Julie's beauty; but it had the tense, drawn look of despair which Marcel had had an opportunity to study on her face.
Julien spied his cousin, did not start at sight of him, and greeted him with a smile. It was precisely the same smile of lifeless affability with which Julie greeted him, a sweet but terrible smile, like that which we sometimes see playing about the lips of a dying man.
"This looks bad!" thought Marcel. "He is devilishly strong, no doubt, but he is probably the sicker of the two."
Marcel in his distress had not the strength to conceal his emotion. He loved Julien dearly; his prudence deserted him.
"Tell me," he said, "is anything the matter, are you unhappy?"
"Yes, my friend, you know very well that I am unhappy," replied the artist, dropping his spade and walking with his cousin under the trees. "How could it possibly be otherwise? You are well aware that I loved a certain woman, for my mother told you so. That woman has gone away. Don't tell me that she will return; I know perfectly well that she must return; but I know too that it is my duty never to seek her presence again, and to say to myself that she is dead to me."
"And—have you the courage to accept that conclusion?" said Marcel.
"Yes, if it is my duty! You understand, my friend, that a man must always accept his duty."
"Men submit to it with different degrees of courage: a man——"
"Yes, a man is a man. I am terribly unhappy, Marcel! I propose to endure it. I could endure it alone, you may be sure of that, but you can help me a little. Why do you refuse? What you have been doing the last two months is very cruel."
"How can I help you?" said Marcel, suspecting some stratagem devised by passion to discover Julie's retreat.
"Mon Dieu!" replied Julien, reading his friend's thoughts, "it's a very simple matter; you can tell me that she is happier than I am, that is all."
"How can I know?"
"You see her two or three times a week! Come, you have done your duty, my friend! You have endured my anxiety with wonderful courage. You have shown very great devotion to her and to me too, perhaps; but I have discovered several things; I know where she is: I learned yesterday from your son."
"Juliot doesn't know what he is saying; Juliot doesn't know her!"
"Juliot saw her one day at the play; he hasn't forgotten her. He doesn't know her name, so he calls her the country client. He has often spoken to me about her: her sweetness and fascination impressed him."
"Well, what then?"
"What then? Why, last Sunday the child went to the festival at Nanterre with a comrade of his own age, to whose parents you had entrusted him for that purpose."
"True!"
"The two boys eluded the watchfulness of the parents for a few moments, and ran about the village. A tree heavily laden with fruit, hanging over a low wall, tempted their mischievous instincts. Juliot climbed on his comrade's shoulders and attacked the tree; and while he was filling his pockets, he saw a woman whom he recognized pass at his feet. I know the street, I made him describe the woman. I have been to Nanterre and made inquiries in the neighborhood: I have learned that a Madame d'Erlange—that is Julie under an assumed name—lived there with her maid, that she never went out, that no one was watching her, and that she lived alonefrom inclination; that she was not supposed to be ill, although your son thought she had changed. In a word, I know that she is a prisoner on parole, or that she is afraid of my importunities. Tell me the real reason, Marcel. If it is the latter, tell her to come back, to return to her house; tell her to have no fear; tell her that I swear by all that I hold most sacred that she shall never see me again. Do you understand, Marcel? Answer me and relieve me of the torture of uncertainty."
"Well, it is all true," said Marcel after a moment's hesitation. "Madame d'Estrelle is a prisoner on parole; but it is a parole which she herself gave, and which no one compels her to observe. She is at liberty to return; but she cannot see you any more."
"Shecannot, or shedoes not wish to?"
"She neither can nor wishes to."
"Very good, Marcel, that is enough. Carry her my oath of submission and bring her back to her own house. She is in dismal quarters now, and that solitude must be ghastly. Let her come back to her friends, her comforts, her liberty. Go instantly, go, I say! I don't wish her to suffer another moment for me."
"All right, all right, I will go," said Marcel. "I am going; but what about you?"
"As if it made any difference about me!" cried Julien. "What! haven't you gone?"
And he took Marcel by the shoulders, embraced him and pushed him out of the gate.
As soon as he had lost sight of him, he returned to his mother.
"Well," he said, with a smiling face, "everything is going better than I hoped: Madame d'Estrelle is not a prisoner! She will soon return."
He watched his mother closely as he spoke. She uttered a joyful exclamation, but a cloud passed over her brow at the same time. Julien sat down beside her and took both her hands.
"Tell me the truth," he said; "the marriage project worries you a little, doesn't it?"
"How can you think that I do not long most earnestly for anything that will make you happy? But I thought, that you no longer hoped."
"I was entirely resigned, and you said as I did: 'Let us not be discouraged, let us wait. Let us not think too much; perhaps she will forget, and in that case perhaps you would do well to forget also.'"
"And you answered: 'I will forget if necessary.' And now I see that you rely upon her more than ever."
"But don't you think that I have reason to rejoice. Tell me frankly if I am under an illusion, for you must try to preserve me from it."
"Ah! my child, what shall I say to you? She is an adorable creature, and I will adore her with you; but will she be happy with us?"
"You know that Monsieur Antoine proposes to deal almost as generously with her as with us, that he will leave her a competence. So that poverty, which terrified you so, is no longer to be dreaded. What is tormenting you now?"
"Nothing, if she loves you."
"You sigh when you say that. Do you doubt it, pray?"
"I have doubted it hitherto, my child. What can you expect? if I am unjust to her, it is the fault of you both. You had no confidence in me, I did not see clearly the birth of your love, I did not follow its different stages, and when you said to me one morning: 'We love each other to distraction,' it seemed to me too sudden to be very serious. It seemed to me that you hardly knew each other!—When I told your father that I loved him, he had been at work three years decorating our house, and I used to see him every day. Several goodpartishad been proposed to me, but I was very sure that I loved nobody but him. Julie stood in a different position with respect to you. No marriage appropriate to her condition and her ideas about love had ever been within her reach. She was consumed with a craving for love, and was mortally bored without admitting it. She saw you and esteemed you; you deserved it. You attracted her, as it was natural that you should. Peculiar circumstances brought you together, she thought that she loved you passionately. Has she made a mistake? The future will tell us; but she fled just at the moment when she said that she proposed to declare herself, she left you to wait and suffer without sending you a word of consolation. If I have doubted her, you must agree that appearances are against her!"
"Then you think that prejudice has more power over her than love? you think that she lied when she talked to me enthusiastically of the modest life she proposed to adopt, and told me how little she cared for honors and titles?"
"I do not say that, I say that she may have made a mistake concerning the strength of her attachment to you, and the reality of her distaste for society."
"So that if somebody should tell you that you had guessed right, you would not be surprised?"
"Not very much!"
"And not greatly grieved either?"
"If your regret for her should be very great, my grief would be equally great, my poor child. If on the other hand you should bravely make the best of it, I should say that it was better so, and that you can surely find a more prudent and stronger-willed woman to love."
"Poor Julie!" said Julien to himself, "so her love for me was a mistake and a weakness even in my mother's eyes!—Well, set your mind at rest," he said aloud. "She renounces the dream we dreamed together; she no longer believes in it, she is afraid that I will remind her of it. All that you foresaw has proved to be true; Marcel has just told me so. I have given him my word that I will never see her again."
"Great Heaven!" exclaimed Madame Thierry in dismay, "how calmly you say that! Is it true that you are really so tranquil in your mind as this?"
"As you see. I was overwhelmed the first few days, and I did not conceal it from you to any great extent; but as time passed, I understood Madame d'Estrelle's silence. The tranquillity that you observe to-day is the result of two months of reflection. So don't be surprised at it, and believe that I am proud enough and sensible enough to overcome the pain I may have felt."
Julien's resolution was not feigned, he was perfectly honest in it. But he suffered too keenly to half confess his suffering. The better way was to refrain from any confession whatsoever.
In the evening, as it was very warm, Julien went out to take a bath in the river. Ordinarily he joined a number of young artists employed in the porcelain factory, whom he advised and instructed. But on this evening, feeling that he must be alone, he avoided them and went to a deserted spot on the outskirts of a piece of woodland. It was dull, lowering weather; Julien jumped into the water mechanically, and suddenly this thought came to his mind as he was swimming about:
"This is a terrible blow, from which I feel that I can never recover. If I should stop paddling here for a few moments, the water would swallow up my grief and keep the secret of my discouragement."
As he reflected thus, Julien ceased to swim and sank rapidly. He thought of his mother's despair, and when he touched bottom, he pushed himself up with his foot and returned to the surface. He was a good swimmer and could play with death thus without any risk; but the temptation was strong, and the thought of suicide produces a terrible vertigo. Three times he abandoned himself to the temptation, with increasing excitement, and three times he recovered himself, with decreasing resolution. As a fourth paroxysm, more violent than the others, was impending, Julien rushed ashore, afraid of himself, and threw himself on the sand, crying:
"Forgive me, mother!"
And he wept bitterly for the first time since his father's death.
Tears did not relieve him. The tears of strong men are horrible cries and stifling sobs. He blushed to feel that he was so weak, and had to confess that he would be like that for a long while, perhaps forever. He returned home, dissatisfied with himself, and almost cursing the days of happiness he had enjoyed. He raged in his heart, and, wandering alone through the garden, while his mother slept, and the lightning constantly set the horizon on fire, he reproached his mother for loving him too well, and depriving him of liberty to dispose of himself.
"Why!" he exclaimed, "to live always for some other than oneself is downright slavery! I have no right to die! Why have I a mother? They who belong to no one are the happiest; they can, if they still love a broken life, hurl themselves into the dissipation which distracts the mind, into the debauchery which intoxicates. But I have not even that right! Nor have I the right to be depressed and ill. I must burn at a slow fire, smiling all the while; a tear is a crime. I cannot breathe heavily, dream, utter an exclamation in the night without my mother rushing to my side, terrified and ill herself. I cannot depart from my habits, go on a journey, seek oblivion and diversion in motion and fatigue; anything of that sort would worry her. To live without me would kill her. I must be a hero or a saint so that my mother may live! Happy are the orphans and abandoned children! they are not doomed to bear a burden beyond their strength!"
Julien had no sooner given vent to this revolt against destiny than other blasphemies entered his mind. Why had Julie disturbed his dream of self-sacrifice and virtue? Had he not accepted all the duties of his position? had he not performed those duties faithfully? By what right did that woman, because she was tired of solitude, take possession of his solitude? Was it not cowardly and blameworthy of her to give him a glimpse of the joys of heaven, although he neither hoped nor asked for anything, and then leave him to the humiliation of having believed in her?
"You have made me a miserable wretch!" he cried in the depths of his wrathful heart; "you are the cause that I no longer esteem myself, that I no longer love my art, that I curse my mother's love, that I no longer believe in my strength of will, and that I have felt the shameful and idiotic thirst for suicide. You deserve that I should revenge myself on you, that I should go to you among your friends and reproach you with the destruction of my beliefs, my peace of mind and my dignity. I will do it, I will say it to you, I will trample you under my feet!"
Then he thought of the future which Julie apparently had in mind for herself, and all the horrors of jealousy rose before him. He saw her in the arms of another, and he dreamed of the murder of his rival in every possible form.
He went out into the country and walked at random. He found himself once more on the shore of the stream. The storm broke and the lightning struck a tall tree not far from him. He darted in that direction, hoping that another bolt would strike him. He roamed about in torrents of rain, unheeding, and did not return until daybreak, ashamed to be seen in that state of insanity. He slept two hours and woke completely crushed, horribly frightened by what had taken place within him, and resolved not to allow himself to be taken by storm again by a violent passion of which he had not hitherto realized the extreme danger. He had much difficulty in rising; he breakfasted with his mother.
"I have always believed," he said to her, "that love, being the supreme blessing, should exalt us and sanctify us. I see now that love is the very acme of selfishness, and that it may make us bloodthirsty or idiotic. Love must be conquered; but love cannot be broken like a chain; it must be allowed to die out little by little."
Julien had a violent attack of fever and delirium; his mother divined his suffering, and she too cursed poor Julie in her heart.
Meanwhile Marcel had gone to see Julie.
"Madame," he said, "you must return to your own house."
"Never, my friend," she replied, with her heartrending sweetness; "I am very comfortable here, I live on my little income, I lack nothing, I am not unhappy, and unless you want to occupy this house——"
"This house is not mine; I deceived you about it; but you are at liberty to remain here, unless, out of regard for Julien, you will consent to what I ask."
"For Julien, you say? What do you mean?"
"Julien knows where you are. He knows that you do not propose to see him again. He swears that he will not try to disobey you. He submits absolutely to a decision, of the reason for which he is ignorant. You have, therefore, no further cause for remaining in concealment."
"Ah! very well," said Julie, with a bewildered air; "but in that case—where shall I go?"
"To your house in Paris."
"I no longer have a house."
"Possibly; but you are supposed to own your hôtel temporarily. People suppose that you are engaged in arranging a settlement with Monsieur Antoine. You must show yourself, so that a mysteriously prolonged absence may not furnish food for slanderous suspicions."
"What do you expect people will say?"
"All that they can say of a woman who has something to conceal."
"What does it matter to me?"
"For Julien's sake you ought to be most careful of your reputation, which we have succeeded thus far in preserving intact."
"Julien knows perfectly well that I have nothing with which to reproach myself."
"It is because he knows it that he will fly at the throat of the first man who presumes to say a word against you."
"Let us go, then," said Julie, ringing for Camille. "I will do whatever you choose, my friend, provided that I need never see Monsieur Antoine again!"
"Do not say that, madame; I have a single remaining hope."
"Ah! you still have hope, have you?" said Julie with her heartrending smile.
"I should lie if I said that it was very well founded," replied Marcel, sadly; "but I cannot abandon it until the last extremity. Do not deprive me of the means of breaking down Monsieur Antoine's obstinacy."
"What is the use?" queried Julie. "Didn't you tell me that the marriage of a titled woman to a plebeian meant unhappiness, persecution and a horrible struggle for the plebeian?"
"Ah! madame, if the plebeian were very rich, most people would forgive you."
"Then you would have me ask your uncle to enrich the man I love? I must dishonor myself in my own eyes—in Julien's too, perhaps—to earn the forgiveness of a society without honor and without heart? You ask too much of me, Marcel; you abuse my utter prostration. May God give me strength to do but one thing,—resist you; for, after that disgrace, I should feel that I had delayed too long to die."
Poor Marcel was overdone with fatigue and disappointment. He wore himself out in words and efforts of every sort, and he succeeded only in rescuing all his friends from poverty and saving the material comforts of life for them. He could do nothing for their mental condition, and he said to his wife every night:
"My dear love, there is nothing falser than reality! I am moving heaven and earth to provide them with the means of living, and I succeed only in killing them by inches."
Julie returned to Paris. She found there her luxurious surroundings, her carriages, her jewels and her servants. Monsieur Antoine had looked after everything; nothing about her was changed. She paid no heed to anything. In vain did Marcel hope that she would experience a sort of satisfaction, even if it were only a matter of instinct, in returning to her ordinary surroundings. He was alarmed and almost vexed by that immovable indifference. He had notified those of her friends whom he was able to reach, in order to force her to be on her guard before them. She greeted them without warmth, and when they expressed concern at her pallor and her air of depression, she attributed everything to a cold she had taken on the journey, which had detained her in the country an unconscionably long time. It was nothing, she said. She had been much worse; she was better now. She had preferred not to write in order not to make her friends anxious. She promised to see her physician and to get well.
Two days later the Baronne d'Ancourt appeared.
"I did you an ill turn," she said; "I am sorry, and I have come to ask you to forgive me."
"I bore you no grudge," Madame d'Estrelle replied.
"Yes, I know that you are either a great philosopher or a great saint; but you are a woman all the same, my friend; you have been persecuted and you are suffering!"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Oh!mon Dieu!I know that the persecution by your creditors has lasted long enough for you to have become used to it, but it seems that the time came when you were within an ace of losing everything. They say that you obtained another respite, but with much difficulty, and with the certainty that it was merely falling back so as to jump higher. You told Madame Desmorges that, didn't you?"
"Yes, it is true. I am only here now pending a final settlement."
"But you will save something?"
"I have no desire to save anything that came from Monsieur d'Estrelle. It is my duty and my purpose to give up everything."
"Oh! in that case I see why you are so pale and so changed! I had understood that you displayed wonderful resignation, but that you were sick with anxiety. Now, my dear, you make a mistake in rejecting the consolations of your friends. It is a noble rôle that you are playing, but it will kill you! If I were in your place I would shriek and complain! That would not remedy anything, but it would relieve me. And then people would talk about it; society would be interested in me. It is always a comfort to attract attention; whereas you allow yourself to be buried alive without saying a word, and society, which is supremely selfish, forgets you. They were talking about you last night at the Duchesse de B——'s. 'That poor Madame d'Estrelle,' they said, 'you know she is really ruined? She won't have enough to hire a cab in which to pay her visits.'—'What!' said the Marquis de S——, 'we shall see such a pretty woman as she is splashed with mud like a spaniel! Impossible! it's sickening. Is she very miserable over it?'—'Why, no,' Madame Desmorges replied. 'She says that she will get along. She is an astonishing creature.' Thereupon they began to talk about something else. The moment that you show that you are brave, no one thinks of pitying you, especially as it's so convenient to think of no one but oneself."
Julie contented herself with a smile.
"You have a smile that frightens me!" continued the baroness. "Do you know, my dear, I believe you are very ill? Oh! I don't believe in sparing people. If you do that, a person may neglect herself and die, or else drag along in misery and become ugly; and that is even worse than dying. Take care of yourself, Julie, don't abuse your health as you are doing. Your great courage won't carry you as far as you think, I tell you! Everyone knows that it is not possible to lose everything without a regret. Look you, I propose to tell you again, even though I make you angry, that you did very wrong not to marry that rich old fellow, and perhaps it is not too late to change your mind. No one would blame you now; when a woman no longer has anything——"
"Are you entrusted with new proposals from him?" queried Julie, with some bitterness.
"No, I haven't seen him since the day you and I fell out because of him. He has made several attempts to surprise me, but I had barricaded myself against his visits. But I don't say this to turn you against him. If he comes again, don't turn him away, and, if he marries you, be very sure that I will take it on myself to receive him on your account."
"You are too kind!" said Julie.
"Come, come! you are still distant and haughty with me. And yet I am your friend; I have proved it. I broke a lance for you not long ago. Some cowardly wretch of the Marquise d'Estrelle's set ventured to cast a slur on you because of a little painter; you know, the son of the famous Thierry, who lived at the end of your garden, by the way. I imposed silence on him; I said that a woman like you did not dishonor herself by being of a sociable disposition; and then, all of a sudden, I was seconded by Abbé de Nivières, who said: 'That young man doesn't even know her; he has gone to Sèvres to live with his mother. He is an excellent young man; he says that he never saw Madame d'Estrelle in all the time that he lived near her, and it is the truth.'—By the way, you are interested in those people, aren't you, the mother especially? Do you ever see her now?"
"She no longer needs me, I have no reason to see her."
"Then I see that everything is all right, except your health, which disturbs me. Will you come to Chantilly with me? I am going to pass a month there; we shall see plenty of society, and perhaps it will set you up; then, if you recover your lovely coloring, perhaps we shall find a husband for you."
Madame d'Ancourt departed at last, chattering volubly, offering her services, and sympathizing with her friend to the very step of her carriage, abusing egotists, and in reality caring for nothing on earth but herself.
"She is too proud and too suspicious, that Julie," she said to herself. "Faith, I'll not go to see her again very soon! She is distressing. If she needs me, she will know where to find me."
It was almost the same story with all Madame d'Estrelle's acquaintances. She had never understood so well the abandonment which befalls all those who abandon themselves, and she abandoned herself the more completely in that she felt that her heart was becoming withered.
When she had passed several days without apparently giving any thought to the subject of her future action, she roused herself one morning to say to Marcel:
"I have done what you wished me to do; I have shown myself and explained my absence; I have said that I am to go away before long. It is time to have done with it and to turn over the house to Monsieur Antoine. It is my purpose to go to live in the provinces, in some lonely place where I shall be entirely forgotten. I shall take nobody but Camille. Do me the favor to advise me in the selection of an out-of-the-way place and a very modest dwelling."
"There is one great difficulty," said Marcel, "and that is that Monsieur Antoine will not assent to any settlement, that his receipt in full is in my wallet, and that he has not yet any idea that it has not been accepted."
"You took that receipt from him!" exclaimed Julie indignantly. "He believes that I will accept it! You had not the courage to tear it up and throw the pieces in his face! Oh! I beg your pardon, Marcel, I forget that he is your kinsman, that for your own sake you must treat him gently. Very well, give me the receipt, and bring Monsieur Antoine to me. This must be settled to-day; I will undertake to settle it."
"Take care, madame," said Marcel, in whose breast a faint hope revived, as he discovered the vulnerable point in Madame d'Estrelle, at which lightning-flashes of energy could still be produced. "Monsieur Antoine is very irritable too, his self-esteem is bent upon having you for his debtor. Do not so act with him that he will detest Julien."
"Is not Julien's future assured?"
"Yes, if all the conditions of the arrangement are observed; and I should lie if I told you that Monsieur Antoine is aware of your refusal to observe that one in which you are concerned."
"Oh!mon Dieu!what a position you have put me in, Marcel! With your blind devotion to practical affairs, with your obstinate determination to save me from poverty, you have degraded me! That man believes that I have sold my heart, that he has bought it with his money, and Julien also believes that I have betrayed love for wealth! Ah! you would have done better to kill me! To-day I feel that I cannot bear it all, and that I must die!"
Julie sobbed as if her heart would break; it was a long time since she had wept. Marcel preferred to see her so, rather than changed into a statue; he hoped for some favorable result from a violent paroxysm. He tried deliberately to cause it.
"Scold me, curse me," he said to her; "I did it all for Julien."
"That is true of course," replied Julie; "I do wrong to blame you for it. Forgive me, my friend. Are you perfectly sure that if I offend Monsieur Antoine by my refusal, everything that he has done for Julien will be in danger of being undone?"
"Indubitably, and Monsieur Antoine will be justified on equitable grounds. He is waiting, with an impatience which begins to alarm me, for you to proclaim his merits and cease to be ashamed of his benefactions. You must drink this cup, you must drink it for love of Julien, if, as I suppose, that love is not dead!"
"Let us not talk about that; I will drink the cup to the dregs. But how shall we explain to the world the generosity which I am forced to accept? What reason can we give for it? The world will suppose that I have fawned upon that old man, that I have bewitched him by degrading coquetries; perhaps they will say something worse."
"Yes, madame," said Marcel, determined to venture upon one supreme test to make sure of Julie's sentiments, "the evil-minded will say all that, and I do not as yet see any way to prevent their saying it. We will try to find a way; but if we cannot, will your devotion to Julien go so far as the sacrifice I ask?"
"Yes," said Madame d'Estrelle, "I will go on to the end! Tell me, is there not something to sign?"
And she thought:
"I will kill myself afterward!"
"You have to enter into no new engagements," replied Marcel; "but you must consent to receive Monsieur Antoine and thank him. I am certain now that he would really make Julien a rich man if you would agree to a sort of reconciliation."
"Bring Monsieur Antoine here," said Julie.—"I will kill myself to-night," she said to herself when Marcel had gone.
Julie's love had made such progress in her despair that she was no longer capable of sound reasoning. Her love had become an accepted martyrdom; she lived wholly on the excitement of that martyrdom.
She wrote to Julien:
"Here is the key to the pavilion. Come at midnight; you will find me there. I am going on a long journey. I want to say adieu to you forever."
She put the key in the letter, sealed it, ordered the most reliable of her servants to mount and ride at full speed to Sèvres, and bring her a reply. It was five o'clock in the afternoon.
She went out into the garden to await Monsieur Antoine and stopped on the edge of the pond. The water was not very deep; but by lying down at full length!—One who wants to die can always find a way. The variety of suicide which had so tempted Julien a few days before, suggested itself to her with ghastly tranquillity.
"Nobody else on earth cares for me," she thought. "As I cannot be his, I will not be any man's. An infernal hatred has seized me by the throat and strangled me in the midst of my life and my happiness. They are not satisfied to deprive me of love and liberty, they seek to deprive me of honor too. Marcel himself said that I must consent to be reputed that old man's mistress. Ah! if Julien knew that, how he would abhor the comfort in which his mother is living! And if she should suspect it!—They shall both remain in ignorance of it, I am determined; my death will be the result of an accident. It will be impossible to retract the bargain we are about to make. Julien will be rich and honored. No one will ever guess at what price."
Once more the thought passed through Julie's mind that it was in her power and Julien's to shake off all these chains and to be united in spite of poverty.
"He would be happier so," she thought, "and perhaps I am sacrificing myself to his undoing! But who knows where Monsieur Antoine's hatred would stop? A raving maniac is capable of anything; perhaps he would have him murdered. Has he not secret agents, spies, cutthroats, in his service?"
Her brain was in a whirl, she walked round and round the basin as if she were impatiently awaiting the fatal hour. And then, when she thought that she was about to see Julien again, her heart returned to life with a mighty throb, and beat as if it would burst. She had no feeling of remorse, no scruple about breaking oaths extorted from her by the most revolting moral constraint.
"When one is at the point of death," she said to herself, "one has the right to protest before God against the iniquity of his executioners."
At that moment there was an extraordinary power of reaction in that woman, naturally so gentle and submissive. It was like the sudden boiling of a placid lake, caused by a volcanic disturbance, or like the blazing up of a flame just on the point of dying. She was feverish, she was no longer herself.
She saw Monsieur Antoine approaching with Marcel, and she mechanically seated herself, to receive him, on the bench where, three months earlier, the old man had made the strange and absurd proposition, her rejection of which had cost her so dear. As on that day, she heard the foliage rustle and saw the sparrow Julien had tamed flapping his wings and apparently hesitating whether he should light on her shoulder. The little creature had taken a liking to freedom. Julien, being unable to find him as they were going away, had left him behind, hoping that Julie, whose long absence he did not foresee, would be very glad to find him there. Since her return, Julie had seen him several times not far away, friendly but suspicious. She had tried in vain to induce him to come nearer. But this time he allowed himself to be caught. She was holding him in her hands when Monsieur Antoine accosted her.
She smiled and saluted him with a bewildered air; he spoke to her, unconscious of what he was saying, for his long exercise of absolutely despotic power had failed to overcome his timidity at the beginning of an interview. After his inevitable moment of stammering, he could succeed in saying nothing more than this:
"Ah! so you still have your sparrow?"
"It is Julien's sparrow and I love it," replied Julie. "Here, do you want to kill it? Here it is!"
Her manner of speaking, her livid pallor, and the savagely indifferent air with which she offered him the poor little bird, all warm with her kisses, made a profound impression on Monsieur Antoine. He looked at Marcel as if to say: "Is she mad, I wonder?" and instead of twisting the sparrow's neck as he would have done three months earlier, he pushed it away, saying stupidly:
"Psha! psha! keep the thing! There's no great harm in it!"
"You are so kind!" rejoined Julie, with the same feverish bitterness. "You have come to receive my thanks, haven't you? You know that I accept everything, that I am happy now, that I no longer love anything or anybody, that you have done me the very greatest service, and that you can say to God every night: 'I have been good and great like unto Thee!'"
Monsieur Antoine stood with his mouth open, uncertain whether Madame d'Estrelle said these things to make sport of him or to thank him; too cunning to trust, too dull to understand.
"She is going to fly in my face," he whispered to Marcel. "You deceived me, you rascal!"
"No, uncle," Marcel replied aloud. "Madame la comtesse is thanking you. She is very ill, as you see; do not ask her to make long speeches."
Marcel had relied on the impression that the alteration in Julie's features would probably produce on Monsieur Antoine. That impression was in truth profound. He stared at her with a dazed, cruel, yet terrified expression, and said to himself with a joy not unmingled with terror: "That is my work!"
"Madame," he said, after a moment's hesitation, "I said that I would be revenged on you, that I would force you to ask my pardon for your insults. Do you want to get through with it and admit that you were in the wrong? I ask nothing but that."
"What is my offence?" said Julie. "Explain it so that I may know what it is."
Antoine was sorely embarrassed to reply, and his anger, which had almost disappeared, reawoke, as always happened when he had no charge to make which would bear the test of common sense.
"Ah! so you don't think you have insulted me?" he said. "Very good,mordi!you shall ask my pardon in so many words if you don't want Julien to have to pay for you."
"Must I ask your pardon on my knees?" queried Julie, with a heartrending attempt at arrogance.
"Suppose that I should demand that?" retorted the old man, dizzy with anger when he felt that he was defied.
"Here I am!" said Madame d'Estrelle, kneeling before him.
That was for her the last station on the road of martyrdom, the apology which the innocent victim was compelled to make, with the rope about the neck and the torch in the hand, before ascending the scaffold. At that moment of sublime self-immolation, her angered heart suddenly overflowed, her face became transfigured, she smiled the ecstatic smile of the saints, and the ineffable beauty of heaven revealed was reflected in her eyes.
Antoine did not understand, but he was dazzled. His anger subsided, not under the influence of emotion, but before a sort of superstitious terror.
"That is all right," he said. "I am satisfied and I forgive Julien. Adieu!"
He turned his back and fled.
Marcel said to Julie a few encouraging words, which she did not hear or did not try to understand; then he ran after Monsieur Antoine.
"Now, my excellent uncle," he said in the boldest and most stinging tone he had yet adopted with him, "you should be satisfied, indeed; you have killed Madame d'Estrelle!"
"Killed her?" said his uncle, turning abruptly upon him. "What infernal nonsense is that?"
"The nonsense would consist in taking her joy and her gratitude seriously, and you surely are not capable of that. That woman is in despair, she is dying of grief."
"You lie, you are dodging the question! She is still a little angry, she is sick on account of the way I have thwarted her lately; but in reality she is making the best of it, and while she may be chafing at her bit, she sees well enough that I am saving her in spite of her."
"You save her from the chances of the future, it is true, and you take the surest means to do it, by depriving her of life."
"Well, well, there's another dodge! She caught cold passing the nights in the garden with her lover! And then she was bored to death in that convent at Chaillot, and even more in that barrack at Nanterre, where she was absolutely alone! You see that it was no use for her to hide, I know every place she has been to. I never lost track of her. You can't fool me! I saw the convent doctor: he told me that she had a streak of melancholy in her disposition, but that she had no serious disease. I have seen her Paris doctor too; he says that he knows nothing about her sickness. If it was anything serious he'd know what it was, deuce take it!Iknow; she's angry; people don't die of that, and now she'll get better, I give you my word."
"And I," said Marcel, "give you my word that, with another week of the despair in which you are plunging her deeper and deeper, she will be lost beyond recall."
"Oho! so she loves that young dauber of canvas very dearly, does she? How about him, does he still think of her?"
"Julien's as badly off as she is, and in quite as alarming a frame of mind. I determined to make sure of it; I forced a confession from him with much difficulty, for he is not a man to complain. As for her, two whole months have passed and I haven't succeeded in extorting a word from her. To-day, I determined to force her to the wall; I succeeded, and now my mind is made up."
"To what? what do you propose to do?"
"I propose to destroy the two papers I have in my pocket; your receipt, which I have taken back from Madame d'Estrelle, and her promise never to see Julien again, which I have not yet delivered to you. You entrusted both of them to me, telling me to exchange your reciprocal pledges. I place you on your original footing by destroying them both. We must start afresh, and as I know your intentions and hers, I tell you now that Madame d'Estrelle will accept nothing from you, and that you can take possession of everything that belongs to her. Thus far she has followed my advice blindly; I have changed my views, and, as I have no desire to see her die, I advise her to retract her consent to everything."
"Why, you're a miserable knave!" said Monsieur Antoine, stopping short in the middle of the street and shouting at the top of his voice. "I don't know what keeps me from breaking my cane over your shoulders!"
"Knave indeed! when I give you back all your money and recover nothing for my client but the right to live in poverty! Nonsense! Just sue her and have the case aired in court, if you want to cover yourself with ridicule and shame!"
"But Julien! Julien, whom I have made rich, you scoundrel! This is what I foresaw! You have cheated me——
"Not at all, uncle! Julien has been seriously ill of late, he is still, and his mother said to me: 'Do whatever you choose. Let us return everything to Monsieur Antoine, and let Julie be restored to us!' So there you are, uncle. You don't lose an obolus, you recover principal and interest, and you leave us at liberty to live as we please, with no risk of losing our liberty by reason of any stipulation imposed by law or by private agreement."
"Why, you miserable villain, how you recant! I took you for a sensible man, you agreed with me entirely, you disapproved of their marriage, you worked with me to provide for their happiness——"
"True, until the day when I saw that happiness was taking them straight to the tomb."
"They are mad!"
"Yes, uncle, they are mad; love is a form of madness; but when it is incurable we must yield to it, and I yield."
"Very good!" retorted Monsieur Antoine, flattening his hat over his eyes with a vicious blow. "Go and tell that lady to get out of her house, that is to say my house, instantly. I will go to Sèvres and pack off the others. If the whole lot of them are not on the street in two hours, I'll send bailiffs, police agents—I'll set the houses on fire, I'll——"
His frantic threats became inaudible as he rushed madly away. He left Marcel in the street and returned home, unconsciously parodying Orestes pursued by the Furies. Marcel, undismayed, quietly followed him, and disregarded the orders already given to admit no one; he was determined to come to blows with the servants if necessary.
"You mean to go to Sèvres, do you?" he said. "I will go with you."
"That's as you choose," said Uncle Antoine, with lowering brow. "Have you notified Madame Julie to clear out of my house?"
"Yes, that is done," replied Marcel, for he saw that the old man had lost his head completely, and that he did not know how few were the minutes passed since their altercation in the street.
"Is she packing up? Is she taking away——"
"She takes nothing," said Marcel; "she leaves everything for you. Are we going to Sèvres? Have you ordered the cab?"
"My chaise and farm horse will go faster. They are being harnessed."
He sat down on the edge of a table and seemed absorbed by his reflections. Marcel sat down opposite him, determined not to lose sight of him, at times fearing for his reason, at times dreading some diabolical suggestion of his wrath. When they entered the carriage, it was seven o'clock at night; Marcel broke the silence.
"What are we going to do at Sèvres?" he inquired.
"You will see!" Monsieur Antoine replied.
After about fifteen minutes Marcel spoke again.
"There is no need of your going there," he said. "The documents are in my office; it is simply a matter of tearing them up, and I will not allow you to make an absurd scene at my aunt's, I warn you. She is exceedingly anxious, for Julien is very ill, as I told you."
"And you lied like a dog!" retorted Monsieur Antoine.
As he spoke he pointed to a hired cabriolet which was just passing them. Julien, pale and downcast, with contracted brow and preoccupied, determined air, was in the vehicle, and passed close to them without seeing them. He had received Julie's note; he had forced himself to rise, and, as he wished to ask Marcel some questions before keeping the appointment, he was driving in season to Paris.
"If he is the one you want to speak to," said Marcel, "let us turn back; I will wager that he is going to see me!"
"He is not the one I want to speak to," rejoined Monsieur Antoine, satirically, "since he is dying."
"Did you think he looked well?" demanded Marcel.
The uncle relapsed into his sullen silence. They went on toward Sèvres. Did he himself know what he was going to do there? Let us confess the truth—he had absolutely no idea. He was conscious that his mind was in great confusion, and his meditation was simply a sort of painful uneasiness concerning the discomfort he felt.
"With all this," he thought, "I shall be the sickest of the three if I don't look out. Anger is an excellent thing; it keeps one alive, it helps out old age, and it is all up with an old man who allows himself to be led by the nose; but we shouldn't take too big a dose of it at once, and it would be well for me to cool off a little."
Thereupon, with a strength of will which would have made him a remarkable man if he had had better instincts or better guidance, he determined to take a nap, and slept quietly until the carriage entered the streets of Sèvres.
Marcel was strongly tempted to order the coachman to return to Paris without his uncle's knowledge; but would the man have obeyed? Moreover, as Julien was out of the way, would it not be well to find out how Monsieur Antoine proposed to act with regard to Madame Thierry? He stood greatly in awe of her. Would he dare to tell her to her face that he proposed to take back his gifts?
Sleep restored Monsieur Antoine to himself—that is to say to his chronic state of deliberate aversion, jealous self-love, and brooding resentment. They found Madame Thierry in front of a fine portrait of her husband, at which she was gazing earnestly as if seeking in the cheering serenity of that refined face the confidence in the future which had always sustained that fascinating man's happy temperament. Marcel had just time to hurry into the room first and say to her hastily:
"Monsieur Antoine is at my heels; he is in a rage. You can save everything by much patience and firmness."
"Mon Dieu!what shall I say to him?"
"That you give back what he has given you, but that you thank him for it. Julie adores Julien. Everything depends on uncle. Here he is!"
"Will you leave me alone with him?"
"Yes, he insists upon it; but I will be close at hand, ready to interfere if necessary."
Marcel walked quickly into an adjoining cabinet, threw himself into a chair and waited. Monsieur Antoine entered Madame Thierry's salon by the other door. He was less timid when he did not feel Marcel's searching eye fixed upon him.
"Your servant, Madame André," he said on entering. "Are you alone?"
Madame Thierry rose, answered affirmatively, and courteously waved him to a chair.
Her face, too, was greatly changed. She had passed several nights by her son's bedside, and, when he insisted upon getting up and going away despite her entreaties, she realized that the momentous crisis of the drama of his life was at hand.
"Your son is sick?" Monsieur Antoine began.
"Yes, monsieur."
"Seriously?"
"God grant that he is not!"
"Does he keep his bed?"
"He got up a short time ago."
"Can I see him?"
"He has gone out, monsieur."
"Then he isn't so very sick?"
"He was very sick until last night, when he seemed a little better."
"What was the matter with him?"
"Fever and delirium."
"Sunstroke?"
"No, monsieur."
"Unhappiness, perhaps?"
"Yes, monsieur, great unhappiness."
"Because he's in love?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"But it's a stupid thing to be in love when one might be rich."
"It is of no use arguing about it, monsieur."
"Do you know what proposition I have come to make to you?"
"No, monsieur."
"If you will send your son to America, I will place a considerable sum of money in his hands, I will direct his operations, and in ten years he will return with thirty thousand francs a year."
"On what conditions, monsieur?"
"On condition that he says good-bye to a certain lady of our acquaintance, that's all."
"And if he refuses?"
"If he refuses—and that is what I expect, I have been warned—a certain agreement between him and me with regard to that lady is null and void."
"Very good, monsieur, I understand! You have a right to do it, and we submit."
"But you can resist; you weren't consulted about accepting my presents, you didn't know the conditions agreed upon between Madame d'Estrelle and me. There is ground for a lawsuit, and I might lose it by means of a little bad faith on the part of my opponents."
"If you regard my son and myself as your opponents, you may rest easy, monsieur; we renounce your benefactions, without a shadow of hesitation."
"Ah! yes, my benefactions! they are a burden to you, they make you blush!"
"As we did not know that they put fetters on a person who is dear to us, they did not make us blush; indeed—I may say, monsieur," added Madame Thierry, with a mighty effort due to her devotion to her son, "your name would have been blessed in this house, if we had been certain that we owed that generosity to your solicitude for our welfare. Whatever its cause, and brief as its duration has been, we have been happy, amid all our troubles and anxieties, to live in this house once more and to enjoy to the full our most cherished memories. You bid us leave them, and we obey; but it remains for me to thank you——"
"You, madame?" said Antoine, gazing fixedly at her.
"Yes, for me to thank you for the two months you have allowed me to pass here. The idea of never seeing the house again was very painful to me; it will be less so henceforth, and I shall look back to this brief stay here as to a last pleasant dream which will count for much in my life and for which I shall be indebted to you."
Madame Thierry spoke in a sweet voice and with a refined accent which had always made her very fascinating. In his moments of spleen Monsieur Antoine sourly called her thefine talker.He felt none the less the ascendancy of that still fresh voice, which caressed his ear with mild and almost respectful words. He had but little comprehension of sentimental refinement, but it seemed to him that he had found the submissive instinct of which he was so greedy.
"Come, Madame André," he said, with the surly manner he always assumed when his ill humor was beginning to retreat, "you know how to say all you want to say; but, in reality, you can't endure me, you may as well admit it!"
"I do not hate any one, monsieur; but you force me to confess that I am afraid of you."
Nothing could have been more adroit than that reply. To inspire fear was in Monsieur Antoine's opinion the noblest attribute of power. He softened as if by a miracle, and said in an almost good-humored tone:
"Why in the devil are you afraid of me?"
Madame André had the penetration of women who have lived much in society, and the shrewdness of a mother pleading her child's cause. She saw what a long step forward she had taken; she forgot, and this time most opportunely, that she was sixty years old, and boldly decided to play the coquette, although it cost her more dearly to employ that ruse with Monsieur Antoine than with any other man.
"Brother," she said, "it rested entirely with you to retain my confidence. I do not reproach you for betraying it; your intentions were kind, but I misunderstood you. I was very young then, and in a plight where everything made me suspicious. I had had no experience of life. I thought that you were advising me to abandon André, whereas——"
"Whereas I said to you in so many words: 'Save him!'"
"Yes, that is true; your action was dictated by affection for him. Well, you see, I was blind, obstinate, whatever you choose to call it; but confess that you ought to have forgiven me for that, have treated me like the child I was, and become my brother once more as in the past."
"You want me to admit that? Why, you always showed me the cold shoulder after that."
"It was your place to laugh at my coldness, and to take my hand and say: 'Sister, you're a little fool; let us embrace and forget the past.'"
"Ah! you think that I should have——"
"The more entirely one is in the right, the more generous he should be!"
"You talk that way now."
"It is never too late to see what is right and to arrange things that are out of place."
"So—now you are sorry that you wounded me?"
"I am sorry for it; but, if I ask your pardon, will you grant it?"
"Ah! the deuce! it's not the same thing now, my fine lady! You need me now!"
"Yes, Monsieur Antoine, I do need you. My son is mad with grief; marry him to the woman he loves."
"Ah! there we are!" cried Monsieur Antoine, flying into a rage again.
"We have been there all the time," replied Madame Thierry; "I have asked you for nothing since you have been here except liberty of action for Madame d'Estrelle."
"Yes, with plenty of money for everybody?"
"No, no money, nothing! the sacrifice is made. Let us remain here as tenants, we will gladly pay for the privilege. And, if you are not willing—why, your will shall be done; but turn us away without hatred and forgive us for being happy, for we shall be, even in poverty, if our hearts are content with one another, if we can say to one another that our happiness is no longer a source of affliction to you."
Monsieur Antoine felt that he was beaten; he was ashamed of it and clung to the last straw.
"That is your pride," he said; "it's always the same thing however you change it! The rich man's money is the object of your scorn! You snap your fingers at it!—'Take it all back, we want nothing, we haven't any needs! we live on air! What is this money? No better than pebbles to sensible minds!' And yet, my fine lady, money honestly earned by a man who had nothing on his side but his natural genius, ought to count for something! It's the working-bee's honey, it's the tropical flower which is made to bloom in anartificialclimate by the patience and skill of a master gardener. Ah! that is nothing, you think? With all his wit, my poor brother only succeeded in using up the money he earned by working like a hod-carrier. But I know how to make a different use of money; I save it, I add to it every day, and I make people happy when I choose!"
"What are you driving at, Monsieur Antoine?" said Madame Thierry, as she saw Marcel making unintelligible signs to her through the door behind Monsieur Antoine.
"I am driving at this, that you are not so good a mother as you think. You are willing to sacrifice everything to your son except your contempt for the money that comes from me. In heaven's name, do you think I stole it, does my gold stink?"
"But why, in heaven's name, do you say such things to me? why do you suppose that I refuse you the esteem you deserve?"
"Because, if you were a good mother, instead of talking this sort of nonsense to me, you would say: 'Brother, we are unfortunate and you are rich; you can save us. We are a little out of our heads, we want to pay court to Madame d'Estrelle, but that is no reason for leaving us without bread. Come, forgive us for everything at once! indulge us with love and with bread to eat; it is humiliating to us, but no matter! We know that you are a noble-hearted and generous man; you will have pity on us and grant us all we ask!'—Yes, Madame André, that is what you would say, what you would ask on your knees, if, instead of being a great lady, you were really a good mother!"
Madame Thierry was speechless with surprise. She looked at Marcel, who, unseen by Monsieur Antoine, urged her by most energetic pantomime to yield to the old fellow's whim. The poor woman had a sinking at the heart, but she did not hesitate; she slipped from the chair to her hassock, on which she knelt, and said, taking both Monsieur Antoine's hands:
"You are right, brother, you teach me my duty. I surrender. Be the noblest of men, forgive everything and grant everything."
"At last! Good!" cried Monsieur Antoine, rising; "and when people are reconciled, they embrace, don't they?"
Madame Thierry embraced him, and Marcel entered to congratulate them.
"Well," said the horticulturist, "you're a great fool, aren't you, master pettifogger? It was very pretty, your scheme of rebellion! to smash and break everything! What! reduce your client and your family to want, all rather than give way to the rich man, the powerful man, the natural enemy of those who have nothing and don't know how to earn anything! A fine solicitor, on my word, who can't obtain anything for his clients but love and rye bread! Luckily women are brighter than that! Here are two who sent me to the devil, and both of them have bent the knee to me to-night. Well, it is done, madame my sister! I shall never remind you of this, for I am generous, and when people do what I want I know how to reward them. Your son shall marry the fair countess, whom I must turn out of her house because of what the world may say; but the hôtel D'Estrelle with twenty-five thousand francs a year, shall be Julien's marriage portion. That's the way I do things, and I know that you will thank me for it to-morrow in earnest; for I am not deceived by the politics of the present day; but you have done what I wanted, you have submitted, I asked nothing but that."