CHAPTER III.
One day, Charney was breathing the fresh air in the little court of the fortress, at the accustomed hour, his head declining, his eyes downcast, his arms crossed behind him, pacing with slow and measured steps, as if his deliberation tended to enlarge the precincts of his dominion.
Spring was breaking. A milder air breathing around, tantalized him with a vain inclination to enjoy the season of liberty, as master of his time and territory. He was proceeding to number, one by one, the stones paving the courtyard, (doubtless to verify the accuracy of former calculations—for it was by no means the first time they had put his arithmetic to the test), when he perceived a small mound of earth rising between two stones of the pavement, cleft slightly at its summit.
The Count stopped short—his heart beat hurriedly without any rational grounds for emotion, except that every trivial incident affords matter of hope or fear to a captive. In the most indifferent objects, in the most unimportant events, the prisoner discerns traces of a mysterious project for his deliverance.
Who could decide that this trifling irregularity on the surfacemight not indicate important operations under ground? Subterraneous issues might have been secretly constructed, and the earth be about to open and afford him egress towards the mountains! Perhaps his former friends and accomplices had been sapping and mining, to procure access to his dungeon, and restore him to light and liberty!
He listened! he fancied he could detect the low murmur of a subterraneous sound. He raised his head, and the loud and rapid clang of the tocsin saluted his ear. The ramparts were echoing with the prolonged roll of drums, like the call to arms in time of war. He started—he passed his trembling hand over his forehead, on which cold dews of intense agitation were already rising. Is his liberation at hand? Is France submitted to the domination of a new ruler?
The illusion of the captive vanished as it came. Reflection soon restored him to reason. He no longer possesses accomplices—he never possessed friends! Again he lends a listening ear, and the same noises recur; but they mislead his mind no longer. The supposed tocsin is only the church bell which he has been accustomed to hear daily at the same hour, and the drums, the usual evening signal for retreat to quarters. With a bitter smile, Charney begins to compassionate his own folly, which could mistake the insignificant labors of some insect or reptile, some wandering mole or field-mouse, for the result of human fidelity, or the subversion of a mighty empire.
Resolved, however, to bring the matter to the test, Charney, bending over the little hillock, gently removed the earth from its summit; when he had the mortification to perceive that the wild though momentary emotion by which he had been overcome, was not produced by so much as the labors of an animal armed with teeth and claws! but by the efforts of a feeble plant to pierce the soil—a pale and sickly scatterling of vegetation. Deeply vexed, he was about to crush with his heel the miserable weed, when a refreshing breeze, laden with the sweets of some bower of honeysuckles, or syringas, swept past, as if to intercede for mercy towards thepoor plant, which might perhaps hereafter reward him with its flowers and fragrance.
A new conjecture conspired to suspend his act of vengeance. How has this tender plant, so soft and fragile as to be crushed with a touch, contrived to pierce and cleave asunder the earth, dried and hardened into a mass by the sun, daily trodden down by his own footsteps, and all but cemented by the flags of granite between which it was enclosed? On stooping again to examine the matter with more attention, he observed at the extremity of the plant a sort of fleshy valve affording protection to its first and tenderest leaves, from the injurious contact of any hard bodies they might have to encounter in penetrating the earthy crust in search of light and air.
“This, then, is the secret?” cried he, already interested in his discovery. “Nature has imparted strength to the vegetable germ, even as the unfledged bird which is able to break asunder with its beak the egg-shell in which it is imprisoned; happier than myself—in possession of unalienable instruments to secure its liberation!” And after gazing another minute on the inoffensive plant, he lost all inclination for its destruction.
On resuming his walk the next day, with wide and careless steps, Charney was on the point of setting his foot on it, from inadvertence; but luckily recoiled in time. Amused to find himself interested in the preservation of a weed, he paused to take note of its progress. The plant was strangely grown; and the free light of day had already effaced the pale and sickly complexion of the preceding day. Charney was struck by the power inherent in vegetables to absorb rays of light, and, fortified bythe nourishment, borrow, as it were, from the prism, the very colours predestined to distinguish its various parts of organization.
“The leaves,” thought he, “will probably imbibe a hue different from that of the stem. And the flowers? what colour, I wonder, will be the flowers? Nourished by the same sap as the green leaves and stem, how do they manage to acquire, from the influence of the sun, their variegations of azure, pink, or scarlet? For already their hue is appointed. In spite of the confusion and disorder of all human affairs, matter, blind as it is, marches with admirable regularity: still blindly, however! for lo, the fleshy lobes which served to facilitate for the plant its progress through the soil, though now useless, are feeding their superfluous substance at its expense, and weighing upon its slender stalk!”
But, even as he spoke, daylight became obscured. A chilly spring evening, threatening a frosty night, was setting in; and the two lobes, gradually rising, seemed to reproach him with his objections, by the practical argument of enclosing the still tender foliage, which they secured from the attacks of insects or the inclemency of the weather, by the screen of their protecting wings.
The man of science was better able to comprehend this mute answer to his cavilling, because the external surface of the vegetable bivalve had been injured the preceding night by a snail, whose slimy trace was left upon the verdure of the cotyledon.
This curious colloquy between action and cogitation, between the plant and the philosopher, was not yet at an end. Charney was too full of metaphysical disquisition to allow himself to be vanquished by a good argument.
“’Tis all very well!” cried he. “In this instance, as in others, a fortunate coincidence of circumstances has favoured the developement of incomplete creation. It was the inherentqualification of the nature of the plant to be born with a lever in order to upraise the earth, and a buckler to shelter its tender head: without which it must have perished in the germ, like myriads of individuals of its species which proved incapable of accomplishing their destinies. How can one guess the number of unsuccessful efforts which nature may have made, ere she perfected a single subject sufficiently organized! A blind man may sometimes shoot home; but how many uncounted arrows must be lost before he attains the mark? For millions of forgotten centuries, matter has been triturating between negative and positive attraction. How then can one wonder that chance should sometimes produce coincidence? This fleshy screen serves to shelter the early leaves. Granted! But will it enlarge its dimensions to contain the rest as they are put forth, and defend them from cold and insects? No, no; no evidence of the calculating of a presiding Providence! A lucky chance is the alpha and omega of the universe!”
Able logician!—profound reasoner! listen, and Nature shall find a thousand arguments to silence your presumption! Deign only to fix your inquiring eyes upon this feeble plant, which the munificence of Heaven has called into existence between the stones of your prison! You are so far right that the cotyledon willnotexpand so as to cover with its protecting wings the future progress of the plant. Already withering, they will eventually fall and decay. But they will suffice to accomplish the purpose of nature. So long as the northern wind drives down from the Alps their heavy fogs or sprinkling of sleet, the new leaves will find a retreat impermeable to the chilly air, caulked with resinous or viscous matter, and expanding or closing according to the impulse of the weather; finally distended by a propitious atmosphere, the leaflets will emerge clinging to each other for mutual support, clothed with a furry covering of down to secure them against the fatal influence of atmospheric changes. Did ever mother watch more tenderly over the preservation of a child? Such are the phenomena, Sir Count, which you might long ago havelearned to admire, had you descended from the flighty regions of human science, to study the humble though majestic works of God! The deeper your researches, the more positive had been your conviction; for where dangers abound, know that the protection of the Providence which you deny is vouchsafed a thousand and a thousand fold in pity to the blindness of mankind!
In the weariness of captivity, Charney was soon satisfied to occupy his idle hours by directing his attention to the transformations of the plant. But when he attempted to contend with it in argument, the answers of the vegetable logician were too much for him.
“To what purpose these stiff bristles, disfiguring a slender stem?” demanded the Count. And the following morning he found them covered with rime: thanks to their defence, the tender bark had been secured from all contact with the frost.
“To what purpose, for the summer season, this winter garment of wool and down?” he again inquired. And when the summer season really breathed upon the plant, he found the new shoots array themselves in their light spring clothing; the downy vestments, now superfluous, being laid aside.
“Storms may be still impending!” cried Charney, with a bitter smile; “and how will these slender and flexile shoots resist the cutting hail, the driving wind?” But when the stormy rain arose, and the winds blew, the slender plant, yielding to their intemperance, replied to the sneers of the Count by prudent prostration. Against the hail, it fortified itself by a new manœuvre; the leaves, rapidly uprising, adheredto the stalks for protection; presenting to the attacks of the enemy the strong and prominent nerves of their inferior surface; and union, as usual, produced strength. Firmly closed together, they defied the pelting shower; and the plant remained master of the field; not, however, without having experienced wounds and contusions, which, as the leaves expanded in the returning sunshine, were speedily cicatrized by its congenial warmth.
“Is chance endowed then with intelligence?” cried Charney. “Must we admit matter to be spiritualized, or humiliate the world of intelligence into materialism?”
Still, though self-convicted, he could not refrain from interrogating his mute instructress. He delighted in watching, day by day, her spontaneous metamorphoses. Often, after having examined her progress, he found himself gradually absorbed in reveries of a more cheering nature than those to which he had been of late accustomed. He tried to prolong the softened mood of mind by loitering in the court beside the plant; and one day, while thus employed, he happened to raise his eyes towards the grated window, and saw the fly-catcher observing him. The colour rose to his cheek, as if the spy could penetrate the subject of his meditations; but a smile soon chased away the blush. He no longer presumed to despise his comrade in misfortune.He, too, had been engaged in contemplating one of the simplest creations of nature; and had derived comfort from the study.
“How do I know,” argued Charney, “that the Italian may not have discovered as many marvels in a fly, as I in a nameless vegetable?”
The first object that saluted him on his returning to his chamber, after this admission, was the following sentence, inscribed by his own hand upon the wall, a few months before:
“Chance, though blind, is the sole author of the creation.”
Seizing a piece of charcoal, Charney instantly qualified the assertion, by the addition of a single word—“Perhaps.”