"Witness Monsieur de Châteaubrun, who does it still," said Monsieur de Cardonnet, ironically.
"As long as he doesn't trespass on your estates, what harm does that do you?" retorted the peasant in an irritated tone. "However, for shooting a hare and catching two rabbits in a trap I was taken again and sentenced to pay a fine, and to imprisonment. But I escaped from the claws of the gendarmes as they were taking me to the governmentinn, and since then I have lived as I choose, and haven't chosen to hold out my arm for the chain to be put on."
"Everyone knows very well how you live, Jean," said Monsieur Cardonnet. "You wander about night and day, poaching everywhere and at all seasons, never sleeping two nights in succession in the same place, but generally in the open air; sometimes accepting hospitality at Châteaubrun, whose châtelain was nursed by your mother. I do not blame him for assisting you, but he would act more wisely, from the point of view of your own interests, to preach work and a regular life to you. But come, we have had enough of these useless words, and now you must listen to me. I am sorry for your lot, and I am going to restore your liberty by becoming surety for you. You will get off with a few days' imprisonment, just for form's sake. I will pay all your fines, and then you can hold up your head once more. Isn't that clear?"
"Oh! you are right, father," cried Emile; "you are kind and just. Well, Jean, did I deceive you?"
"It seems that you have met before," said Monsieur Cardonnet.
"Yes, father," replied Emile warmly. "Jean rendered me a great service last night; and what draws me to him even more strongly is that I saw him this morning risk his life seriously to pull a child out of the water, and he saved him. Jean, accept my father's offer and let his generosity triumph over misplaced pride."
"That is very well, Monsieur Emile," replied the carpenter. "You love your father; that is as it should be. I respected mine. But let us see, Monsieur Cardonnet, on what conditions will you do all this for me?"
"That you work on my buildings," replied the manufacturer. "You shall have the superintendence of the carpentering."
"Work on your factory, which will be the ruin of so many people!"
"No, but which will make the fortune of all my workmen, and yours, too."
"Well," said Jean, somewhat shaken, "if I don't do your work others will and I shan't be able to prevent them. I will work for you then, until I have earned a thousand francs. But who will keep me while I am paying my debt to you day by day?"
"I will, for I will add a third to your day's wages."
"A third is very little, for I must dress myself. I am stripped bare."
"Well! I will double it. Your day's wages would be thirty sous at the current rate hereabout; I will pay you three francs and you shall receive half of it every day, the other half going toward your indebtedness to me."
"Very well; it will take a long while—at least four years."
"You are wrong; it will be just two years. I think that two years hence I shall have nothing more to build."
"What, monsieur, I am to work for you every day—every day in the year without a break?"
"Except Sunday."
"Oh! Sunday—I should think so! But shan't I have one or two days a week to pass as I choose?"
"Jean, you are growing lazy, I see. There's one result of a vagabond life already."
"Hush!" exclaimed the carpenter, proudly, "lazy yourself! Jean was never lazy, and he won't begin at sixty. But I'll tell you, I have an idea that induces me to take your work. I have an idea of building myself a little house. As they've sold mine, I prefer to have a new one, built by myself alone, to suit my taste, my fancy. That's why I want at least one day a week."
"That is something I will not allow," replied the manufacturer stiffly. "You will have no house, you will have no tools of your own, you will sleep under my roof, you will eat under my roof, you will use no tools but mine, you——"
"That's quite enough to show me that I shall be your property and your slave. Thanks, monsieur, the bargain's off."
And he walked toward the door.
Emile considered his father's terms very hard; but Jean's plight would become still harder if he refused them. So he tried to bring about a compromise.
"Good Jean," he said, retaining him, "reflect, I implore you. Two years are soon passed, and with the little savings you will be able to make in that time, especially," he added, looking at Monsieur Cardonnet with an expression that was at once imploring and firm, "as my father will keep you in addition to the wages agreed upon——"
"Really?" said Jean, shaken once more.
"Granted," said Monsieur Cardonnet.
"Well, Jean, your clothes are a small matter, and my mother and I will take pleasure in replenishing your wardrobe. At the end of two years, therefore, you will have a thousand francs net; that is enough to build a bachelor's house for your own use, as you are a bachelor."
"A widower, monsieur," sighed Jean, "and a son killed in the field."
"Whereas, if you use up your salary every week," said the elder Cardonnet, unmoved, "you will waste it, and at the end of the year you will have built nothing and saved nothing."
"You take too much interest in me; what difference does that make to you?"
"It makes this difference, that my work, being constantly interrupted, will progress slowly, that I shall never have you at hand, and that, two years hence, when you come and offer to work longer for me, I shall not need you any longer. I shall have been compelled to give your place to some one else."
"There will always be work to be done keeping the plant in order. Do you think I mean to cheat you out of your money?"
"No, but I should prefer being cheated to being delayed."
"Ah! what a hurry you are in to enjoy your prosperity! Well! give me one day a week and let me have my own tools."
"He seems to think a great deal of this day of freedom, father," said Emile; "let him have it."
"I will let him have Sunday."
"And I accept it only as a day of rest," said Jean, indignantly; "do you take me for a pagan? I don't work on Sunday, monsieur; that would bring me ill-luck, and I should do bad work for both you and myself."
"Well, my father will give you Monday——"
"Hush, Emile, not Monday! I don't agree to that. You don't know this man. Intelligent as he is and prolific in inventions, sometimes successful, often puerile, he never enjoys himself except when he is working at absurd things for his own use; he is something of a carpenter, a cabinet-maker, Heaven knows what! He is clever with his hands, but when he abandons himself to his own whims, he becomes idle, absent-minded and incapable of serious work."
"He is an artist, father," said Emile, smiling, but with tears in his eyes; "have a little compassion for genius!"
Monsieur Cardonnet cast a contemptuous glance at his son, but Jean took the young man's hand.
"My boy," he said, with his strange and noble familiarity, "I do not know whether you really do me justice or are laughing at me, but what you say is true! I have too much of the spirit of invention for the sort of work he would have me do here. When I work for my friends in the village, for Monsieur Antoine or the curé or the mayor or poor beggars like myself, they say: 'Do as you please, carry out your own ideas, old fellow! it may take a little longer, but it will be all right!' And then I take pleasure in working, yes, so much pleasure that I don't count the hours and spend part of the night at it. It tires me, it gives me the fever, it almost kills me sometimes! but I like it, you see, my boy, as other men like wine. It's my amusement. Oh! you laugh and make fun of me, Monsieur Cardonnet; your sneering is an insult, and you shouldn't have me, no, you shouldn't have me, even if the gendarmes were here and my head was in danger. Sell myself to you, body and soul, for two years! Do what pleases you, watch you plan, and not give my opinion! for if you know me, I know you too: I know what sort of a man you are, and that there isn't a nail driven on your premises until you've measured it. And I shall be a day-laborer, working to pay my taxes as my dead and gone father worked for the abbés of Gargilesse. No, God forbid! I will not sell my soul to such tiresome, stupid labor. If you would give me my day of recreation and compensation, to satisfy my old customers and myself! but no, not an hour!"
"No, not an hour," said Monsieur Cardonnet angrily; for the self-esteem of the artist was now involved on both sides. "Off with you, I'll have none of you; take this napoléon and go and get hanged elsewhere."
"They don't hang people now, monsieur," said Jean, throwing the gold piece on the floor, "and even if they did, I shouldn't be the first honest man who ever passed through the hangman's hands."
"Emile," said Monsieur Cardonnet, as soon as he was gone, "go and send up the constable, that man standing on the stoop with a little iron fork in his hand."
"Great Heaven! what are you going to do?" said Emile in dismay.
"Bring that man back to reason, to respectable behavior, to work, to safety, to happiness. When he has passed a night in jail, he will be more tractable, and some day he will bless me for delivering him from his internal devil."
"But, father, to interfere with personal liberty! You can't——"
"I am mayor since this morning, and it is my duty to lock up vagabonds. Do as I say, Emile, or I will go myself."
Emile still hesitated. Monsieur Cardonnet, unable to brook the slightest shade of resistance, pushed him sharply away from the door and went out, to issue orders to the constable, in the capacity of chief magistrate of the village, to arrest Jean Jappeloup, native of Gargilesse, a carpenter by trade, and without any known domicile.
This mission was extremely distasteful to the rustic functionary, and Monsieur Cardonnet read his hesitation on his face.
"Caillaud," he said, in an imperative tone, "your dismissal within a week, or twenty francs reward!"
"Very good, monsieur," said Caillaud; and he set off at a round pace, waving his pike.
He overtook the fugitive within two gun-shots of the village; it was not a difficult task, for the latter was walking slowly, with his head hanging forward on his breast, absorbed in painful reflections.
"If it wasn't for my wrong-headedness," he was saying to himself, "I should be now on the road to rest and comfort, instead of which I must put on the collar of poverty again, stray like a wolf among the rocks and bramble-bushes, and be too often a burden to poor Antoine, who is kind, who always gives me a hearty welcome, but who is poor and gives me more bread and wine than I can pay for with partridges and hares for his table, taken in my snares. And then what breaks my heart is the idea of leaving forever this poor dear village where I was born, where I have passed all my life, where all my friends are, and where I can never show my face again unless like a starved dog that runs the risk of a bullet to get a piece of bread. And yet all the people here are kind to me; and if they weren't afraid of the gendarmes they would give me shelter!"
As he mused thus Jean heard the bell ringing the eveningAngelus, and tears rolled unbidden down his tanned cheeks. "No," he thought, "there isn't a bell within ten leagues that has such a sweet tone as the bell of Gargilesse church!"—A nightingale sang among the hawthorns in the hedge near by.—"You are very lucky," he said, speaking aloud in his revery, "you can build your nest here, steal from all the gardens I know so well, and feed on everybody's fruit, without any complaint being lodged against you."
"Complaint, that's the word," said a voice behind him; "I arrest you in the name of the law!"
And Caillaud seized him by the collar.
"You? you, Caillaud?" said the astonished carpenter, with the same accent that Cæsar must have used when he saw Brutus strike.
"Yes, it's myself, the constable. In the name of the law!" shouted Caillaud at the top of his voice, in order to be heard by anybody who happened to be within earshot. But he added in a whisper:—"Off with you, Père Jean. Come, stand me off and make your legs fly."
"You want me to resist and so get my affairs into a worse mess than ever? No, Caillaud, that would be worse for me. But how could you make up your mind to do the work of a gendarme, to arrest the friend of your family, your godfather, unhappy man?"
"But I don't arrest you, godfather," said Caillaud in an undertone. "Come, follow me, or I call for help!" he yelled with all his lungs. "Deuce take it!" he added under his breath, "be off, Père Jean; pretend to hit me and I'll fall."
"No, my poor Caillaud, that would make you lose your position, or at least you would be called a coward, a faint-heart. As you have had the heart to accept the commission, you must go through with it. I see plainly enough that you were threatened, that your hand was forced; it surprises me that Monsieur Jarige could make up his mind to treat me this way."
"But Monsieur Jarige isn't mayor any longer; Monsieur Cardonnet has his place."
"Then I understand; and it makes me long to beat you as a lesson to you for not resigning at once."
"You are right, Père Jean," said Caillaud in a heartbroken tone, "I'll go and resign now; that's the best way. Off with you!"
"Let him go! and do you—keep your place," said Emile, coming out from behind a clump of bushes. "Down with you, comrade, as you want to fall," he added, adroitly tripping him up in schoolboy fashion, "and if you are asked who contrived this ambush, you can tell my father that his son did it."
"Ah! it's a good scheme," said Caillaud, rubbing his knee, "and if your papa has you put in prison it's none of my business. You threw me down a little hard, all the same, and I should have preferred to fall on the grass. Well! has that old fool of a Jean gone yet?"
"Not yet," said Jean, who had climbed a knoll and was prepared to take flight. "Thanks, Monsieur Emile, I shall not forget; I would have submitted to my fate, if the law alone had been concerned; but since I know that it's a piece of treachery on your father's part, I would rather throw myself head first into the river than give way to such a false, evil-minded man. As for you, you deserve to have come from better stock; you have a good heart, and as long as I live——"
"Be off," said Emile, walking up to him, "and keep from speaking ill of my father. I have many things to say to you, but this is not the time. Will you be at Châteaubrun to-morrow night?"
"Yes, monsieur. Take care that you are not followed, and don't ask for me in too loud a tone at the gate. Well, thanks to you I still have the stars over my head, and I am not sorry for it."
He darted away like an arrow; and Emile, turning, saw Caillaud lying at full length on the ground, as if he had fainted.
"Well? what's the matter?" the young man inquired in dismay; "did I really hurt you? Are you in pain?"
"I'm doing very well, monsieur," replied the crafty villager; "but you see I must wait for some one to come and lift me up, so that I may look as if I had been beaten."
"That is useless, I will take the whole responsibility," said Emile. "Get up and go and tell my father that I forcibly opposed Jean's arrest. I will follow close behind you, and the rest is my affair."
"On the contrary, monsieur, you must go first. You see I must limp; for if I go on the run to tell that you broke my two legs and that I submitted to it patiently, your papa won't believe me and I shall be dismissed."
"Take my arm, lean on me and we will go together," said Emile.
"That's the idea, monsieur. Help me a little. Not so fast! The devil! my whole body's lame!"
"Really? Why I am awfully sorry, my friend."
"Oh! no, monsieur, it's nothing at all; but that's what I must say."
"What does this mean?" said Monsieur Cardonnet sternly, when the constable appeared, leaning on Emile. "Jean resisted; you, like an idiot, allowed yourself to be bowled over and the delinquent escaped."
"Excuse me, monsieur, the delinquent did nothing, poor man. It was monsieur your son here, who, as he passed me, pushed me without meaning to, just as I was putting my hand on my man; and,baoun! down I went more than fifty feet, head first, on the rocks. The poor dear gentleman felt very bad indeed, and ran to save me from falling into the river; and if he hadn't, I'd taken a drink for sure! But I'll tell you who was well pleased—that was Père Jappeloup, for he ran off while I lay there all in a heap, not able to move hand or foot to run after him. If you should be kind enough to let somebody give me a finger of wine, it would do me a deal of good; for I really believe that my stomach's unhooked."
Emile, recognizing the fact that this peasant with his simple, wheedling air was much more adroit than he in lying and arranging everything for the best, hesitated whether he should accept his version of the adventure. But he very soon read in his father's piercing eyes that he would not be satisfied with a tacit confirmation and that, to convince him, he must show no less effrontery than Master Caillaud.
"What absurd, incredible tale is this!" said Monsieur Cardonnet with a frown. "Since when has my son been so strong, so brutal, so intent upon following the same road with you? If you are so weak on your legs that a touch of the elbow upsets you and sends you rolling over like a sack of meal, you must be drunk I should say! Tell me the truth, Emile. Jean Jappeloup whipped this fellow, perhaps pushed him into the ravine, and you, who stand there smiling like the child that you are, thought it a good joke, went to the assistance of this idiot here, and consented to assume the responsibility for a pretended accident! That's how it was, isn't it?"
"No, father, that is not how it was," said Emile with an air of resolution. "I am a child, it is true; for that reason there may be a little mischief in my frivolity. Caillaud may think what he pleases of my way of upsetting people by passing too close to them. If I injured him I am ready to ask his pardon and to compensate him. Meanwhile, permit me to send him to your housekeeper, so that she may administer the cordial he desires; and when we are alone I will tell you frankly how I came to do this foolish thing."
"Take him to the pantry," said Monsieur Cardonnet, "and return at once."
"Ah! Monsieur Emile," said Caillaud to the young man as they went downstairs, "I didn't sell you, so don't you betray me, will you?"
"Never fear; drink without losing your wits, and be sure that nobody but myself will be compromised."
"And why in the devil do you propose to accuse yourself? begging your pardon, that would be infernally stupid. You don't realize, do you, that you may be sent to prison for interfering with a public officer in the discharge of his duties and assaulting him?"
"That's my business. Stick to what you said, for you explained matters very well; I will explain my intentions as I think best."
"Look you, you have too kind a heart," said Caillaud in amazement; "you'll never have your father's head!"
"Well, Emile," said Monsieur Cardonnet, whom his son found pacing his study excitedly, "will you explain this inconceivable occurrence to me?"
"I alone am guilty, father," Emile replied firmly. "Let all the displeasure and all the effects of my misconduct fall upon me. I give you my word of honor that Jean Jappeloup had submitted to arrest without the slightest resistance, when I gave the constable a violent push that threw him down, and that I did it on purpose."
"Very good," said Monsieur Cardonnet coolly, determined to know the whole truth; "and the clown let himself be thrown. He let his prey go, and yet, although he is lying now, he must have seen that it was not awkwardness but design on your part, mustn't he?"
"The man did not understand my behavior at all," replied Emile. "He was taken by surprise, disarmed and thrown down; indeed, I think he was bruised a little by the fall."
"And you allowed him to believe that it was an accident on your part, I trust!"
"What does it matter what that man thinks of my intentions and what goes on in the depths of his mind? Your magistracy stops at the threshold of the conscience, father, and you can judge nothing but facts."
"Is it my son who speaks to me in this way?"
"No, father, it is your victim the delinquent whom you have to try and to punish. When you question me on my own account I will answer as I ought. But it is a question now of the poor devil who lives by his humble office. He is submissive to you, he fears you, and if you order him to take me to prison he is ready to do it."
"Emile, you arouse my pity. Let us leave this country constable and his bruises. I forgive him, and I authorize you to give him a handsome present so that he may hold his tongue, for I don't propose to introduce you to this neighborhood by an absurd scandal. But will you be kind enough to explain to me why you are apparently trying to organize a burlesque drama in the police court? What is this adventure in which you play the rôle of Don Quixote, taking Caillaud for your Sancho Panza? Where were you going so fast when you happened to be present at the carpenter's arrest? What caprice impelled you to deliver that man from the hands of the law and from my kindly intentions toward him? Have you gone mad in the six months since we last met? Have you taken a vow of chivalry, or do you propose to balk my plans and defy me? Answer seriously if you can, for your father is very serious indeed in his questions."
"I should have many things to say in answer to you, father, if you questioned me concerning my feelings and my ideas. But this is a question of one particular fact of trifling importance, and I will tell you in a few words just what happened. I was running after the fugitive, to induce him to avoid the shame and grief of being arrested. I hoped to outstrip Caillaud and to persuade Jean to return of his own accord, accept your offers and submit to the law. As I arrived too late, and as I could not with loyalty urge the constable not to do his duty, I prevented him from doing it by exposing myself alone to the penalty of the offence. I acted on the impulse of the moment, without premeditation or reflection, impelled by an irresistible outburst of compassion and sorrow. If I did wrong, reprove me; but if I bring Jean back to you of his own accord, by gentle means and persuasion, within two days, forgive me, and confess that foolish brains sometimes have happy inspirations."
"Emile," said Monsieur Cardonnet, after walking back and forth in silence for some moments, "I should reproach you severely for entering into open revolt, I will not say against the municipal law, as to which I will not play the pedant. There has been in this matter an immense manifestation of pride on your part and a very grave failure of respect for paternal authority. I am not disposed to tolerate such outbreaks often, you must know me well enough to know that, or else you have become strangely forgetful since we parted; but I will spare you a more extended remonstrance to-day, for you do not seem inclined to profit by it. Moreover, what I see of your conduct and what I know of your frame of mind prove to my satisfaction that we must have a very serious discussion concerning the very foundation of your ideas and the nature of your plans for the future. The disaster that has befallen me to-day leaves me no time to talk with you at greater length to-night. You have had considerable excitement in the course of the day, and you must need rest; go and see your mother and go to bed early. As soon as order and tranquillity are restored in my establishment, I will tell you why I have recalled you from what you called your exile, and what I expect from you hereafter."
"And until this explanation, which I earnestly desire," Emile replied—"for it will be the first time in my life that you have not treated me like a child—may I hope, father, that you will not be angry with me?"
"When I first see you again after such a long separation, it would be very hard for me not to be indulgent," said Monsieur Cardonnet, pressing his hand.
"Poor Caillaud will not be dismissed?" queried Emile, embracing his father.
"No, on condition that you never meddle with the affairs of the municipality."
"And you will not have poor Jean arrested?"
"I have no answer to make to such a question; I had too much confidence in you, Emile; I see that we do not think alike on certain subjects, and until we are agreed, I shall not subject myself to discussions which do not befit my rôle as head of the family. Let that suffice. Good-night, my son! I have work to do."
"Can not I help you? you have never believed me capable of sparing you any fatigue!"
"I hope that you will become so. But you don't know how to add yet."
"Figures! always figures!"
"Go to sleep; I will sit up and work, so that you may be rich some day!"
"Ah! am I not rich enough already?" thought Emile as he left the room. "If, as my father has often and justly told me, wealth imposes vast duties, why waste our lives creating for ourselves those duties which may exceed our strength?"
The following day was devoted to repairing in some degree the confusion caused by the inundation. Monsieur Cardonnet, despite his strength of character, was profoundly disturbed when he discovered at every step some unforeseen damage in one or another of the innumerable details of his undertaking; his workmen were demoralized. The water, which kept the factory in operation and whose power it was yet impossible to control, imparted an irregular movement to the machinery, increasing in force as it struggled to escape over the dams. The proprietor was grave and thoughtful; he was secretly annoyed on account of the lack of presence of mind in the men he employed, who seemed to him more machine-like than the machinery. He had accustomed them to passive, blind obedience, and he realized that, at critical moments, when the will of a single man becomes insufficient, slaves are the worst servants who can be found. He did not call upon Emile to assist him; on the contrary, whenever the young man came and offered his services, he put him aside on various pretexts, as if he were really distrustful of him. This method of punishing him was the most mortifying one to an impulsive, generous heart.
Emile tried to find consolation with his mother; but good Madame Cardonnet was totally lacking in energy, and the ennui which the constant prostration and, as it were, stupor of her mental faculties caused all her friends, became in her son's case an unconquerable feeling of depression, when she tried to divert and entertain him. She too treated him like a child, and by her manifestations of affection arrived at the same galling result as her husband. Lacking sufficient strength of mind to sound the abyss that lay between the two men, and yet possessing sufficient intelligence to realize its existence, she turned from it with terror, and strove to play on the brink with her son, as if it were possible to deceive herself.
She took him through the house and the gardens, making a thousand foolish observations and trying to prove to him that she was unhappy because the river had overflowed.
"If you had come a day sooner," she said, "you would have seen how lovely and neat and well-kept everything was! I looked forward to having your coffee served in a pretty clump of jasmine that stood on the edge of the terrace yonder; but alas! there's no trace of it now: the very ground has been carried away, and the water has given us this nasty black mud and all these stones in exchange."
"Cheer up, dear mother," said Emile, "we shall soon give it all back to you; if father's workmen haven't time, I will be your gardener. You will tell me how it was all arranged; indeed I saw it; it was like a lovely dream. I had an opportunity to admire your enchanted gardens, your lovely flowers from the top of the hill, opposite here; and in an instant they were ruined and destroyed before my eyes; but this damage can all be repaired: don't grieve so; others are more to be pitied!"
"And when I think that you were nearly carried away yourself by that hateful stream, which I detest now! O my child! I deplore the day that your father conceived the idea of settling here. We were overflowed more than once during the winter, and he had to begin his work all over again. This affects him and injures him more than he is willing to admit. His temper is becoming soured, and his health will suffer in the end. And all on account of this river!"
"But don't you think that this new building and this damp air are bad for your own health, mother?"
"I don't know at all, my child. I consoled myself for everything with my flowers and the hope of seeing you again. But here you are, and you have come to a bog, a sewer, when I had looked forward to seeing you walk on a carpet of flowers and turf as you smoked your cigar and read! Oh! this cursed river!"
When night came, Emile discovered that the day had seemed immeasurably long to him, hearing the river cursed by everybody and in all imaginable tones. His father alone continued to say that it was nothing at all, and that six feet more of bank would bring the brook to its senses once for all; but his pale face and his clenched teeth, when he spoke, denoted an internal passion more painful to see than all the ejaculations of the others to hear.
The dinner was dull and cold. Monsieur Cardonnet was interrupted and left the table a score of times to give orders; and as Madame Cardonnet treated him with boundless respect, the dishes were carried out to be kept hot and brought back overdone: he declared that they were detestable; his wife turned pale and red in turn, went herself to the kitchen, took innumerable pains, being torn between the desire to wait for her husband and the desire not to keep her son waiting, who decided that dinner was a very bad and very tedious meal in that wealthy household.
They left the table so late, and the fords were still so dangerous in the darkness, that Emile was compelled to abandon the visit to Châteaubrun which he had planned. He had described his reception there.
"Oh! I would go and call there to thank them!" cried Madame Cardonnet. But her husband added: "You may as well do nothing of the kind. I don't care to have you draw me into the society of that old drunkard, who lives on equal terms with the peasants, and who would get tipsy in my kitchen with my workmen."
"His daughter is a charming girl," said Madame Cardonnet timidly.
"His daughter!" retorted the master scornfully. "What daughter! the one he had by his maidservant?"
"He has acknowledged her."
"He did well, for old Janille would have been sadly embarrassed to acknowledge the child's father! Whether she's charming or not, I hope that Emile won't take such a journey to-night. It's a dark night and the roads are in bad condition."
"Oh no! he won't go to-night," cried Madame Cardonnet; "my dear boy will not cause me such anxiety. To-morrow, at daybreak, if the river has returned to its usual limits, will be all right."
"To-morrow then," said Emile, sorely vexed, but yielding to his mother; "for it is very certain that I owe them a call to thank them for the cordial hospitality I received."
"You certainly do," said Monsieur Cardonnet, "but that, I trust, will be the extent of your relations with that family, with whom it does not suit me to associate. Don't make your visit too long: to-morrow evening I propose to talk with you, Emile."
At daybreak on the following morning, before his parents had risen, Emile ordered his horse saddled, and riding across the still disturbed and angry stream, started off at a gallop on the road to Châteaubrun.
The weather was superb and the sun was rising when Emile found himself opposite Châteaubrun. That ruin, which had seemed to him so awe-inspiring by the glare of the lightning-flashes, bore now an appearance of majesty and splendor which triumphed over the ravages of time and the despoiler. The morning sunbeams bathed it in a rosy-white glow and the vegetation with which it was covered bloomed coquettishly—a fitting garment to be the virginal shroud of so noble a monument.
There are in reality few châteaux with entrances so majestically disposed and so commandingly situated as that of Châteaubrun. The square structure which contained the gateway and the ogive peristyle is of a beautiful design; the hewn stone used in the arch and in the frame of the former portcullis is of imperishable whiteness. The façade of the château stands at the top of the knoll, covered with turf and flowers but built on the solid rock which ends in a precipice, at the foot of which flows a torrential stream. The trees, rocks and patches of greensward, scattered without order or regularity over these steep slopes, have a natural charm which the creations of art could never surpass. In the other direction the view is more extensive and more grand: the Creuse, crossed diagonally by two dams, forms, among the fields and the willows, two gentle and melodious waterfalls in its lovely stream, sometimes so placid, sometimes so frantic in its course, but everywhere clear as crystal and everywhere bordered by enchanting landscapes and picturesque ruins. From the top of the large tower of the château the eye can follow it as it winds in and out among the steep cliffs and glides like a streak of quicksilver over the dark verdure and among the rocks covered with pink heather.
When Emile had crossed the bridge which passes over enormous ditches partly filled, their banks covered with tufts of grass and flowering brambles, he observed with pleasure the cleanliness of that vast natural terrace and all the approaches to the ruin, due to the recent downpour of rain. All the fragments of plaster had been washed away and all the scattered pieces of wood, and you would have said that some gigantic fairy had carefully washed the paths and the old walls, screened the gravel and cleared the passage of all the rubbish of demolition which the châtelain would never have been able to have removed. The flood, which had marred, spoiled, destroyed all the beauty of the new Cardonnet house, had served to clean and renovate the despoiled monument of Châteaubrun. Its immovable old walls defied the centuries and the tempest, and the elevated site they occupied seemed destined to dominate all the transitory works of later generations.
Although he was proud, as befitted a descendant of the ancient bourgeoisie, that intelligent, revengeful, wilful race, which has made such a glorious record in history and which would still be so exalted if it had held out its hand to the people instead of trampling them under foot, Emile was impressed by the majestic aspect which that feudal abode retained amid its ruins, and he was conscious of a thrill of respectful pity as he entered—he, a rich and powerful plebeian—that domain where only the pride of a great name was left to contend against the real superiority of his position. This generous compassion was all the easier to entertain because there was nothing in the feelings and habits of the châtelain either to invite it or to repel it. The excellent Antoine, who was occupied in trimming fruit trees at the entrance to his garden, placid, unconcerned and amiable, greeted him with a fatherly air, ran to meet him and said with a smile:
"Welcome, once more, my dear Monsieur Emile; for I know who you are now, and I am very glad to know you. Upon my word your face took my fancy at the first glance, and since you overthrew the prejudices that Jean tried to instill in me against your father, I feel that it will be pleasant to me to see you often in my ruins. Come with me first of all to the stable, and I will help you to fasten your horse, for Monsieur Charasson is busy grafting rose-bushes with my daughter and we mustn't interrupt the little one in such an important occupation. You will breakfast with me this time; for we owe you a meal that we stole from you the other day."
"I did not come to cause you more trouble, my generous host," said Emile, pressing with an irresistible impulse of friendliness the country gentleman's broad callous hand. "I wished first of all to thank you for your kindness to me, and in the second place to meet a man who is your friend and my own, and with whom I made an appointment for last evening."
"I know, I know about that," said Monsieur Antoine, putting his finger to his lips: "he told me the whole story. But he exaggerated his grievances against your father, as usual. We will talk about that later, however, and I have to thank you, on my own account, for your interest in him. He went away at daybreak, and I don't know if he will be able to return to-day, for he is more hotly pursued than ever; but I am sure that his affairs will soon take a turn for the better, thanks to you. You must tell me what you finally obtained from your father in the direction of my poor friend's safety and satisfaction. I am authorized to listen to you and to reply to you, for I have full powers to arrange the terms of pacification; I am sure that any terms that pass through your mouth will be honorable! But the matter is not so pressing that you cannot breakfast with us, and I tell you frankly that I will not begin negotiations on an empty stomach. Let us begin by feeding your horse, for animals don't know how to ask for what they want, and we ought to look out for them before we look out for ourselves, lest we forget them. Look you, Janille! bring your apron full of oats, for this noble beast is in the habit of eating them every day I am sure, and I want him to neigh in token of good-will every time he passes my gate; indeed I want him to come in in spite of his master, if he happens to forget me."
Janille, notwithstanding the parsimonious economy that guided all her actions, unhesitatingly brought a small quantity of oats which she kept in reserve for great occasions. She was of the opinion that they were a useless luxury; but she would have sold her last gown for the honor of her master's house, and on this occasion she said to herself with generous shrewdness that the present Emile had made her at their last interview and the one he would not fail to make her to-day would be more than enough to feed his horse sumptuously as often as he chose to come.
"Eat, my boy, eat," she said, patting the horse with an air which she strove to render manly and knowing; then, taking a handful of straw, she set about rubbing him down.
"Hold, Dame Janille," cried Emile, taking the straw from her hands, "I will do that myself."
"Pray, do you think I wouldn't do it as well as a man?" said the omni-competent little woman. "Never fear, monsieur, I am as good in the stable as in the pantry and the laundry; and if I didn't pay my visit to the hay-rack and the harness-room every day, that little rattle-brainjockeywould never keep monsieur le comte's mare in decent condition. See how clean and fat she is, poor oldLanterne! She isn't handsome, monsieur, but she's good; she's like everything else here except my child, who is handsome and good too."
"Your child!" said Emile, suddenly remembering a fact which deprived Mademoiselle de Châteaubrun's image of something of its poetic charm. "You have a child here? I have not seen her."
"Fie, monsieur! what are you saying?" cried Janille, her pale and glistening cheeks mantling with a modest blush, while Monsieur Antoine smiled with some embarrassment. "Apparently you are not aware that I am unmarried."
"Excuse me," said Emile, "I have so recently come into this neighborhood that I am likely to make many absurd mistakes. I thought that you were married or a widow."
"It is true that at my age I might have buried several husbands," rejoined Janille; "for I have not lacked opportunities. But I have always had a dislike for marriage, because I like to do as I choose. When I sayour child, it's on account of my affection for a child whom I saw born, as you might say, for I had her with me when she was being weaned, and monsieur le comte allows me to treat his daughter as if she belonged to me, which doesn't take away any of the respect I owe her. But if you had seen mademoiselle, you would have noticed that she no more looks like me than she does like you, and that she has only noble blood in her veins.Jour de Dieu! if I had such a child, where could I have got her? I should be so proud of her, that I'd tell everybody, even if it made people speak ill of me. Ha! ha! you are laughing, are you, Monsieur Antoine? laugh as much as you choose; I am fifteen years older than you, and evil tongues have nothing to say against me."
"Nonsense, Janille! nobody dreams of such a thing, so far as I know," said Monsieur Châteaubrun, affecting an air of gayety. "That would be doing me too much honor, and I am not conceited enough to boast of it. As for my daughter, you certainly have the right to call her what you please, for you have been more than a mother to her, if such a thing is possible!"
As he uttered these last words in a serious, agitated tone, there suddenly came into the châtelain's eyes and voice, as it were a cloud, and an accent of profound melancholy. But it was incompatible with his character that any depressing sentiment should be of long duration, and he soon recovered his usual serenity.
"Go and prepare breakfast, young madcap," he said playfully to his female majordomo; "I still have two trees to trim and Monsieur Emile will come and keep me company."
The garden of Châteaubrun had formerly been on a vast and magnificent scale like the rest of the domain; but a large part of it had been sold with the park, now transformed into a grain-field, and only a few acres remained. The part nearest the château was lovely in the natural disorder of its vegetation; the grass and the ornamental trees, left undisturbed in their vagabond growth, revealed here and there a step or two and a few fragments of wall, which had been summer-houses and labyrinths in the days of Louis XV. There, doubtless, mythological statues, urns, fountains and so-called rustic pavilions had repeated on a small scale the dainty and affected ornamentation of the royal palaces. But now it was all shapeless débris, covered with vines and ivy, lovelier perhaps in the eyes of an artist or a poet than it had been in the time of its magnificence.
On a higher level, surrounded with a thorn-hedge to confine the two goats that grazed at will in the former garden, was the orchard, filled with venerable trees, whose gnarled and knotty branches, escaping from the constraint of the pruning-knife and the espalier, assumed odd and fantastic shapes. There was a curious interlacing of monstrous hydras and dragons writhing under foot and over head, so that it was difficult to walk there without tripping over huge roots or leaving one's hat among the branches.
"These are old servants of the family," said Monsieur Antoine, breaking out a path for Emile through these patriarchs of the orchard; "they bear only once in five or six years; but then, such magnificent, juicy fruit comes from that rich, but sluggish sap! When I repurchasedmy estate, everybody advised me to cut down these old stumps; my daughter pleaded for them because of their great beauty, and it was a good thing that I followed her advice, for they give a fine shade, and although some of them yield mighty little in a year, we are sufficiently supplied with fruit. See this huge apple-tree! It must have been here when my father was born, and I'll wager that it will live to see my grand-children. Wouldn't it be downright murder to cut down such a patriarch? There's a quince-tree that bears only about a dozen quinces a year. That's very few for its size; but they're as big as my head and as yellow as pure gold; and such a flavor, monsieur! You'll see them in the fall! See, here's a cherry-tree that has a very good crop. Yes, the old fellows are still good for something, don't you think? It's only a matter of knowing how to prune them properly. A theoretical horticulturist would tell you that you must stop all this development of branches, clip and prune, so as to force the sap to transform itself into buds. But when a man is old himself, his own experience tells him something different. When the fruit tree has lived fifty years with everything sacrificed to increase its bearing qualities, you must give it its liberty and hand it over for a few years to the care of nature. Then it enters into its second childhood; it puts out new twigs and leaves and that rests it. And when, instead of a mere clipped skeleton, it has become a real tree again, it thanks you and rewards you by bearing all you choose. For instance, here's a big branch that seems to be of no use," he continued, opening his pruning-knife. "But I shall respect it, for such an extensive amputation would weaken the tree. In these old bodies the blood is not renewed fast enough for them to stand operations which youth can undergo safely. It's the same with vegetables. I am just going to take away the dead wood, scratch the moss, and freshen up the extremities. Look, it's very simple."
The artless gravity with which Monsieur de Châteaubrun immersed himself in this innocent occupation touched Emile and presented a constant contrast to what took place in his own home with regard to similar matters. While a gardener with a large salary, and two assistants, busily at work from morning till night, were not enough to keep his mother's garden sufficiently neat and gorgeous, while she worried over a rose bud that failed to bloom or an unsuccessful graft, Monsieur Antoine was happy in the proud savagery of hispupils, and in his eyes nothing was more fruitful and more generous than the will of nature. That old-fashioned orchard, with its fine soft turf, cropped by the hard-working teeth of a few patient sheep, allowed to wander there without dog or keeper, with its hardy and capricious vegetation and its gently undulating slopes, was a beautiful spot where no fear of jealous surveillance interrupted one's musing.
"Now that I have finished with my trees," said Monsieur Antoine, putting on his jacket which he had hung on a branch, "let us go and find my daughter and have breakfast. You haven't seen my daughter yet, I believe? But she knows you already, for she is admitted to all of our poor Jean's little secrets; indeed, he is so fond of her that he often goes to her for advice instead of me. Go on,Monsieur," he said to his dog, "go and tell your young mistress that breakfast time has come. Ah! that makes you frisky, doesn't it? Your appetite tells you the time as well as any watch."
Monsieur Antoine's dog answered to the name ofMonsieur, which he gave him when he was pleased with him, and that ofSacripant, which was his real name, but which Mademoiselle de Châteaubrun did not like, so that his master only used it when hunting or by way of stern rebuke, when it happened, as it very rarely did, that he committed some impropriety, such as eating gluttonously, snoring when he was asleep, or barking when Jean came over the wall in the middle of the night. The faithful beast seemed to understand what his master said, for he began to laugh, an expression of merriment very strongly marked in some dogs, which gives to their faces an almost human look of intelligence and kindliness. Then he ran ahead and disappeared down the slope toward the stream.
As they followed him, Monsieur Antoine called Emile's attention to the beauty of the landscape that was gradually unfolded before them. "Our Creuse also took it into its head to overflow the other day," he said; "but all the hay along the banks had been housed, thanks to Jean's advice, for he had warned us not to let it get overripe. Everybody hereabout looks up to him as an oracle, and it's a fact that he has a great faculty of observation and a prodigious memory. By the aid of certain signs that nobody else notices, the color of the water or the clouds, and especially the influence of the moon in the first fortnight of spring, he can predict infallibly what sort of weather we are to hope for or fear throughout the year. He would be an invaluable man for your father, if he would listen to him. He is good at everything, and if I were in Monsieur Cardonnet's position, nothing would deter me from trying to make a friend of him; for it's of no use to think of making him into an assiduous and well-disciplined servant. He has the nature of the savage, who dies when he is brought into subjection. Jean Jappeloup will never do anything good except of his own free will; but just get hold of his heart, which is the biggest heart God ever made, and you will see how, on important occasions, that man rises above what he seems to be! Let Monsieur Cardonnet's establishment be endangered by freshet, fire or any unforeseen catastrophe, and then he will tell you if Jean Jappeloup's head and arms can be too dearly bought and sheltered!"
Emile did not listen to the end of this eulogy with the interest which it would have aroused in him under any other circumstances, for his ears and his thoughts had taken another direction: a fresh young voice was singing, or rather humming, at a little distance, one of those melodies, charming in their melancholy and artless sweetness, which are peculiar to the country. And the châtelain's daughter, the bachelor's child, whose mother's name was a mystery to the whole neighborhood, appeared at the corner of a clump of eglantine, as lovely as the loveliest wild-flower of that charming solitude.
Fair-haired and pale, and about eighteen or nineteen years of age, Gilberte de Châteaubrun had, in her face as in her character, an admixture of good sense beyond her years and her childish gayety, which few young women would have retained in such a position as hers; for it was impossible for her not to be aware of her poverty and of the future of isolation and privations which was in store for her in that age of cold calculation and selfishness. She seemed, however, to be no more affected by it than her father, whom she resembled, feature by feature, morally as well as physically; her fearless, amiable glance was marked by the most touching serenity. She blushed deeply when she saw Emile, but it was the effect of surprise rather than embarrassment; for she came forward and bowed to him without awkwardness, without that constrained and slyly-bashful air which has been too highly extolled in young women, for lack of knowledge as to what it means. It did not occur to Gilberte that her father's young guest would devour her with his eyes, and that she should assume a dignified air in order to place a curb upon the audacity of his secret desires. On the contrary, she looked at him, to see if his face appealed to her as it did to her father, and with ready perspicacity she observed that he was very handsome without being in the least degree vain; that he followed the fashions to a moderate extent; that he was neither stiff, nor arrogant, nor presuming; in short, that his expressive face was instinct with candor, courage and delicacy. Satisfied with this scrutiny, she at once felt as much at her ease as if there were no stranger with her and her father.
"It is true," she said, completing Monsieur de Châteaubrun's sentence of introduction, "my father was angry with you for running away the other day without your breakfast. But I understood perfectly that you were impatient to see your mother, especially in view of the flood when everyone might well tremble for his friends. Luckily, Madame Cardonnet didn't get very much of a fright, we were told, and you lost none of your workmen."
"Thank God, no one was killed at our place or in the village," Emile replied.
"But your property was damaged a good deal, wasn't it?"
"That is the least interesting point, mademoiselle; the poor people suffered much more in proportion. Luckily, my father has the power and the inclination to repair many disasters."
"They say especially—they sayalso," rejoined the girl, blushing a little at the word that had escaped her involuntarily—"that madame your mother is exceedingly kind and charitable. I was talking about her just now with little Sylvain, whom she overwhelmed with kindness."
"My mother is perfect," said Emile; "but, on that occasion, it was quite natural that she should manifest much good-will toward that poor child, but for whom I should very likely have lost my life through imprudence. I am impatient to see him and thank him."
"Here he is," said Mademoiselle de Châteaubrun, pointing to Charasson, who was coming behind her with a basket and a little jar of pitch. "We have made more than fifty grafts, and there are some slips there that Sylvain picked up in the upper part of your garden. They were in what the gardener threw away after pruning his rose-bushes, and they will give us some lovely flowers, if our grafting isn't too badly done. You will look at it, won't you, father? for I am not very skilful yet."
"Nonsense! you can graft better than I, with your little hands," said Monsieur Antoine, putting his daughter's pretty fingers to his lips. "That's woman's work, and requires more deftness than we men can manage. But you ought to put on your gloves, little one! Those wretched thorns have no respect for you."
"What harm do they do, father?" said the girl with a smile. "I am no princess, and I am glad of it. I am freer and happier."
Emile did not lose a word of this last sentiment, although it was uttered in an undertone for her father's ear only; and although he had stepped forward to meet little Sylvain and bid him a friendly good-morning.
"Oh! I am doing very well," replied the page; "I was only afraid of one thing and that was that the mare might take cold after such a bath. But by good luck she seems all the better for it, and I was very glad of the chance to go into your little château and see the beautiful rooms and your papa's servants, who wear red waistcoats and have gold lace on their hats!"
"Ah! that is what turned his head more than anything," said Gilberte, laughing heartily and disclosing two rows of little teeth as white and close together as a necklace of pearls. "Monsieur Sylvain here is overflowing with ambition: he has looked with profound scorn upon his new jacket and his gray hat since he saw your gold-laced lackeys. If he ever sees achasseurwith his cock's feather and epaulets, he'll go mad over him."
"Poor child!" said Emile, "if he knew how much freer, happier and honorable his lot is than that of the bedizened lackeys in the large cities!"
"He has no suspicion that a livery is degrading," said the girl, "and he is not aware that he is the luckiest servant that ever lived."
"I don't complain," rejoined Sylvain; "everybody is kind to me here, even Mademoiselle Janille, although she is a little watchful, and I wouldn't like to leave these parts, because my father and mother are at Cuzion, right near the house! But a bit of a costume, you know, makes a man over!"
"So you would like to be dressed better than your master, would you?" said Mademoiselle de Châteaubrun. "Look at my father, how simple his dress is. He would be very unhappy if he had to put on a black coat and white gloves every day."
"It is quite true that it would be hard for me to take up the habit again," said Monsieur Antoine. "But do you hear, Janille, my children? there she is shrieking to us to come to breakfast."
My childrenwas a general term by which Monsieur Antoine, when he was in an amiable mood, often addressed Janille and Sylvain when they were together, or the peasants in his vicinity.
Gilberte therefore was amazed at the involuntary rapid glance which young Cardonnet bestowed upon her. He had started, and a confused thrill of longing, of dread and of pleasure had made his heart beat fast when he heard himself joined with the lovely Gilberte in the châtelain's paternal appellation.
The breakfast on this occasion was a little more luxurious than was customary at Châteaubrun. Janille had had time to make some preparations. She had procured milk, honey and eggs, and had bravely sacrificed two pullets which were still cackling when Emile appeared at the gate, but which had been placed on the gridiron while they were warm, and were very tender.
The young man had found an appetite in the orchard, and the meal was most enjoyable. The praise that he bestowed upon it delighted Janille, who sat as usual opposite her master and did the honors of the table with much distinction.
She was especially touched by her guest's approbation of the wild blackberries preserved by herself.
"Little mother," said Gilberte, "you must send a specimen of your skill with your receipt to Madame Cardonnet, and perhaps she will send us in exchange some strawberry plants."
"Those great garden strawberries aren't good for anything," replied Janille; "they smell of nothing but water. I prefer our little mountain strawberries, so red and so fragrant. But that won't hinder my giving Monsieur Emile a big jar of my preserves for his mamma, if she will accept them."
"My mother wouldn't want to deprive you of them, my dear Mademoiselle Janille," Emile replied, especially touched by Gilberte's frank generosity, and mentally comparing the sincere kindly impulses of that poor family with the disdainful manners of his own.
"Oh," said Gilberte with a smile, "that won't be any deprivation to us. We have plenty of the fruit and we can begin again. Blackberries are not scarce with us, and if we don't look out, the bramble-bushes that bear them will pierce our walls and grow in our rooms."
"And whose fault is it," said Janille, "if we are overrun by brambles? Didn't I want to cut them all down? I certainly could have done it all without help from anybody if I had been let."
"But I protected the poor brambles against you, dear little mother! They make such pretty garlands around our ruins, that it would be a great pity to destroy them."
"I agree that they make a pretty effect," said Janille, "and that you can't find such fine bushes or such big berries within ten leagues!"
"You hear her, Monsieur Emile," said Monsieur Antoine. "That's Janille all over! There's nothing beautiful, good, useful or salutary that is not found at Châteaubrun. It's a saving grace."
"Pardine! complain, monsieur," retorted Janille; "yes, I advise you to complain of something!"
"I complain of nothing," replied the honest nobleman; "God forbid! with my daughter and you, what more could I ask for my happiness?"
"Oh! yes; you talk like that when any one is listening to you, but if our backs are turned, and a little fly stings you, you put on a look of resignation altogether out of place in your position."
"My position is what God has made it," rejoined Monsieur Antoine, with melancholy gentleness. "If my daughter accepts it without regret, it is not for you or me to reproach Providence."
"I!" cried Gilberte; "what regret can I have, pray? Tell me, dear father; for, so far as I am concerned, I should look in vain to find anything on earth that I lack or that I can ask to have improved."
"And I am of mademoiselle's opinion," said Emile, deeply touched by the sincere and nobly affectionate expression on that lovely face; "I am sure that she is happy, because——"
"Because what? Tell us, Monsieur Cardonnet!" said Gilberte playfully; "you were going to say why, and you stopped short."
"I should be very sorry to seem to say anything insipid," replied Emile, blushing almost as red as the girl; "but I was thinking that when one had these three treasures, beauty, youth and amiability, one should be happy, because one could be sure of being loved."
"I am happier than you think, then," said Gilberte, putting one hand in her father's and the other in Janille's; "for I am loved dearly without reference to those other things. Whether I am beautiful and amiable, I don't know; but I am sure that if I were ugly and cross, my father and mother would love me just the same. My happiness therefore comes from their goodness to me and not from any merit of my own."
"We will permit you to believe, however," said Monsieur Antoine to Emile, pressing his daughter to his heart, "that it comes partly from one and partly from the other."
"Oh! Monsieur Antoine, see what you've done!" cried Janille; "more of your absent-mindedness! You've made a mark with your egg on Gilberte's sleeve."
"That's nothing," said Monsieur Antoine; "I'll wash it out myself."
"No! no! that would make it worse; you'd pour the whole carafe on it and drown my girl. Come here, my child, and let me take out the stain. I have a horror of stains! Wouldn't it be a pity to spoil this pretty new dress?"
Emile looked for the first time at Gilberte's costume. He had hitherto paid no attention to aught save her graceful figure and the beauty of her face. She wore a dress of grey drilling, quite new, but coarse, with a little neckerchief, white as snow, about her neck. Gilberte noticed his scrutiny, and, instead of being humiliated by it, seemed to take some pride in saying that she liked her dress, that it was of good material, that she could defy thorns and briers, and that, as Janille chose it herself, nothing could be more agreeable to her to wear.
"The dress is charming, in truth," said Emile; "my mother has one just like it."
That was not true; Emile, although naturally truthful, told this little lie involuntarily. Gilberte was not deceived by it; but she was grateful to him for the delicacy of his purpose.
As for Janille, she was visibly flattered by this testimony to her good taste, for she was almost as proud of that quality as of Gilberte's beauty.
"My daughter is no coquette," said she, "but I am for her. And what would you say, Monsieur Antoine, if your child was not dressed genteelly and becomingly as befits her rank in society?"
"We have nothing to do with society, my dear Janille," said Monsieur Antoine, "and I don't complain. Don't indulge in any useless illusions."
"You have a disappointed air when you say that, Monsieur Antoine; for my part, I tell you that rank can't be lost: but that's just like you; you always throw the blade after the helve!"
"I throw nothing at all," retorted the châtelain; "on the contrary, I accept everything as it comes."
"Oh! you do!" said Janille, who always longed to quarrel with some one, to keep her tongue and her lively pantomime in practice. "You are very good, on my word, to accept such a fate as yours! Wouldn't any one say, to hear you, that you had to have a deal of sense and philosophy for that? Bah! you're no better than an ingrate!"
"What's the matter with you, you cross-grained creature?" said Monsieur Antoine. "I say again that everything is all right and that I am consoled for everything."
"Consoled! there you go again; consoled for what, if you please? Haven't you always been the happiest of men?"
"No, not always. My life has had its mixture of bitterness like every man's; but why should I have been treated any better than so many others who are as good as I am?"
"No, other men are not so good as you are—I insist upon that, as I also insist that you have always been treated better than any one. Yes, monsieur, I'll prove to you, whenever you choose, that you were born under a lucky star."
"Ah! you would please me exceedingly if you could really prove that," said Monsieur Antoine with a smile.
"Very well, I take you at your word, and I will begin. Monsieur Cardonnet shall be judge and witness."
"We will let her have her say, Monsieur Emile," said Monsieur Antoine. "We have reached the dessert and there's nothing that will keep Janille from chattering at this stage of the meal. She will say innumerable foolish things, I warn you! But she is bright and enthusiastic. You won't be bored listening to her."
"In the first place," said Janille, bridling up in her determination to justify this eulogium, "Monsieur was born Comte de Châteaubrun, which is neither a bad name nor a trifling honor!"
"The honor has no great significance to-day," said Monsieur de Châteaubrun; "and as for the name my ancestors handed down to me, as I have been able to do nothing to add to its splendor, I do not much deserve to bear it."
"Nonsense, monsieur, nonsense!" interposed Janille. "I know what you're coming at, and I'll come at it myself. Let me talk. Monsieur comes into the world here—in the loveliest country in the world—and he is nursed by the prettiest and freshest village girl in the neighborhood, an old friend of mine, although I was several years younger, honest Jean Jappeloup's mother; he has always been as devoted to monsieur as the foot is to the leg. He is in trouble now, but his troubles will soon come to an end, I've no doubt!"
"Thanks to you!" said Gilberte, looking at Emile; and with that innocent, kindly glance she paid him for his compliment to her beauty and her dress.
"If you start on your usual parentheses," said Monsieur Antoine to Janille, "we shall never finish."
"Yes, we will, monsieur," she replied. "I resume, as monsieur le curé at Cuzion says at the beginning of his sermons. Monsieur was blessed with an excellent constitution, and, moreover, he was the handsomest child that ever was seen. In proof of that is the fact he became one of the handsomest cavaliers in the province, as the ladies of all ranks lost no time in discovering."
"Go on, go on, Janille," interposed the châtelain, with a touch of sadness in his gayety; "there's not much to be said on that subject."
"Never fear," was her reply, "I'll say nothing that it isn't all right to say. Monsieur was brought up in the country, in this old château, which was great and fine in those days—and which is very comfortable to live in to-day! Playing with the youngsters of his age and with little Jean Jappeloup, his foster-brother, kept him in excellent health. Come, monsieur, now complain of your health, and tell us if you know a man of fifty more active and better preserved than you?"
"That's all very well; but you don't say that, as I was born in a period of civil commotion and revolution my early education was neglected."
"Pardieu! monsieur, would you have liked to be born twenty years earlier and be seventy to-day? That's a strange idea! You were born just in time, since you still have a long while to live, thank God! As for education, you lacked nothing; you were sent to school at Bourges, and you worked very well there."
"On the contrary, very ill. I had not been accustomed to working with my mind. I fell asleep during the lessons; my memory had never had any practice; I had more difficulty in learning the elements of things than other lads in completing a full course of study."
"Very well, then you deserved more credit because you had more trouble. At all events you knew enough to be a gentleman. You weren't intended for a curé or a school-master. Did you need so much Greek and Latin? When you came here in vacation you were an accomplished young man. No one was more skilful than you in bodily exercises; you could bat your ball over the high tower, and when you called your dogs your voice was so loud that you could be heard at Cuzion."
"All that doesn't show hard study," said Monsieur Antoine, laughing at this panegyric.
"When you were old enough to leave school, it was the time of the war with the Austrians and Prussians and Russians. You fought well, for you received several wounds."
"Trifling ones," said Monsieur Antoine.
"Thank God!" rejoined Janille. "Would you have liked to be crippled and go on crutches! You gathered the laurel, and you returned covered with glory and with not too many bruises."
"No, no, Janille, very little glory, I assure you. I did my best; but say what you will, I was born several years too late; my parents fought too long against my desire to serve my country under the usurper, as they called him. I had hardly made a start in the army when I had to return home,trailing my wing and dragging my foot, in utter consternation and despair at the disaster of Waterloo."
"I agree, monsieur, that the fall of the Emperor was not a good thing for you, and that you were generous enough to regret it, although that man never behaved very well toward you. With the name you bore, he ought to have made you a general at once, instead of paying no attention whatever to you."
"I presume," laughed Monsieur de Châteaubrun, "that his mind was directed from that duty by other and more pressing affairs. However, you agree, Janille, that my military career was nipped in the bud, and that, thanks to my fine education, I was not very well fitted to start on any other?"
"You might very well have served under the Bourbons, but you wouldn't do it."
"I had the ideas of my generation. Perhaps I should still have them, if it were all to be done again."
"Well, monsieur, who could blame you for it? It was very honorable, according to what people said in the province then, and no one but your relations condemned you."
"My relations were proud and inflexible in their legitimist opinions. You cannot deny that they abandoned me to the disaster that threatened me, and that they worried very little over the loss of my fortune."
"You were even prouder than they, for you would never go on your knees to them."
"No, whether from recklessness or dignity, I never asked them for assistance."
"And you lost your fortune in a great lawsuit against your father's estate; everybody knows that. But you only lost the case because you chose to."