MONSIEUR DE BOISGUILBAULT TRIES EMILE'S HORSE.He gradually quieted his steed without punishing him, and riding him about his great bare gravelled courtyard as if it were a riding-school, he tried him at all his gaits, and with extraordinary ease made him go through all the various evolutions and changes of foot which he would have required from a well-schooled horse.
MONSIEUR DE BOISGUILBAULT TRIES EMILE'S HORSE.
He gradually quieted his steed without punishing him, and riding him about his great bare gravelled courtyard as if it were a riding-school, he tried him at all his gaits, and with extraordinary ease made him go through all the various evolutions and changes of foot which he would have required from a well-schooled horse.
"I had no idea that he knew so much!" said Emile, by way of flattering the marquis.
"He's a very intelligent beast," was the modest reply.
When Emile was in the saddle, Corbeau reared and plunged furiously, as if to revenge himself upon a less experienced rider for the wearisome lesson he had received.
"That's a strangedead man!" said Emile to himself, as he rode rapidly along the path that led him back to Jean Jappeloup, thinking of that asthmatic marquis, who was covered with confusion before a child, and subdued a spirited horse. "Can it be that corpse-like face and that dead voice belong to a character of iron?"
He found the carpenter exceedingly impatient and anxious; but when he had given him an account of the conference, he said:
"That is first-rate; I am obliged to you and I place my interests in your hands. But a man must do what he can to help himself, and that is what I propose to do. While you go and write to the authorities, I will go and see them. Your writing will take time, and I cannot sleep until I have embraced my friends at Gargilesse in broad daylight, after vespers, on the steps of our church. I am off to the village——"
"And suppose you are arrested on the way?"
"I shan't be arrested on a road which I know and the gendarmes don't. I will arrive at night and slip into the king's attorney's kitchen. His cook is my niece. I have a good tongue and I will explain my position; I will tell my reasons for what I do, and before sunset to-morrow I will enter my village with my head in the air."
Without awaiting Emile's reply, the carpenter darted off like a flash and disappeared in the bushes.
When Emile informed his father that the carpenter had found a protector, and told him how he had employed his day, Monsieur Cardonnet became thoughtful, and for some moments maintained a silence as problematical as Monsieur de Boisguilbault's pauses and sighs. But the apparent coldness of the two men indicated no resemblance between their respective characters. In the marquis it was due to instinct, habit and incapacity, whereas, in the manufacturer it was a quality acquired by a powerful exertion of the will. In the marquis it was due to the slow and embarrassed working of the mind; in the other, on the contrary, it served as a veil and a curb to the activity of a too impetuous mind. In a word, it was assumed in Monsieur Cardonnet. It was a borrowed dignity, a rôle assumed in order to make an impression on other men; and, while he seemed thus to hold himself in check, he was calculating feverishly the best method of venting the wrath that was about to explode, and its effects. And so, while Monsieur de Boisguilbault's vexed irresolution resulted only in a few mysterious monosyllables, Monsieur Cardonnet's deceptive calm covered a storm, the explosion of which he postponed to suit himself, but which found vent sooner or later in significant and unambiguous words. It may be said that the life of one was nourished by its energetic manifestations, whereas the other's wore itself out in repressed emotions.
Monsieur Cardonnet was very well aware that his son was not to be easily convinced, and that it was impossible to intimidate him by violence or threats. He had come in collision too frequently with that energetic will, he had had too much experience of his power of resistance, although it had hitherto been only in regard to trivial matters pertaining to young men, not to realize that it was essential first of all to inspire a well-founded respect. He made few false moves therefore in his presence, but, on the contrary, kept an extremely close watch upon himself.
"Well, father, do you regret poor Jean's good luck?" said Emile, "and do you blame me for meeting his protector's kind intentions half-way? I felt absolutely certain of your approval, and this suspicious carpenter must be taught to know you, to respect you, yes, and to like you."
"All this," said Monsieur Cardonnet, "is mere talk. You must write in his behalf at once. My secretary is busy, but I presume that you will be willing to take his place sometimes in confidential matters."
"Oh! with all my heart," cried Emile.
"Write then, and I will dictate."
And Monsieur Cardonnet dictated several letters overflowing with zeal and solicitude for the delinquent, and couched in terms of rare propriety and dignity. He went so far as to offer himself as security for Jean Jappeloup, in case—although he said it was impossible—that Monsieur de Boisguilbault, who had anticipated his own intentions, should recede from his undertaking. When these letters were signed and sealed, he bade Emile despatch them at once by a messenger, and added:
"Now I have done as you wished; I have interrupted my business so that your protégé should not be subjected to the slightest delay. I return to my work. We shall dine in an hour, and then you must stay with your mother, whom you have neglected a little to-day. But to-night, when the men have stopped work, I trust that you will hold yourself at my disposal and that I may be able to talk with you on serious subjects."
"I am at your service, father, this evening and my whole life, as you know very well," said Emile, embracing him.
Monsieur Cardonnet congratulated himself for not yielding to an angry impulse; he had recovered all his influence over Emile. In the evening, when the factory was closed and the workmen dismissed, he betook himself to a part of his garden which the flood had failed to reach, and walked there a long while alone, reflecting as to what he should say to this child who was so hard to manage, not intending to summon him until he should feel that he was in perfect control of himself.
The feverish fatigue which follows a day of giving orders and overlooking others, the spectacle of devastation which he still had before his eyes, and perhaps the state of the atmosphere as well, were ill adapted to soothe the nervous irritation which had become habitual with Monsieur Cardonnet. The temperature had indulged in such a sudden and violent change that the result was abnormal and enervating. The warm air was laden with vapors, as in November, although it was midsummer. But it was not the cool, transparent mist of autumn, but rather a suffocating smoke which exhaled from the ground. The path where the manufacturer strode was bordered on one side by rose-bushes and other brilliant flowers. On the other there were only débris, boards piled in disorder, huge stones brought thither by the water; and from that point, at which the flood had stopped, to the bank of the stream, several acres of garden, covered with black mud streaked with red gravel, resembled an American forest flooded and half-uprooted by the overflow of the Ohio or Mississippi. The young trees that had been overthrown lay with their branches interlaced in pools of stagnant water, which could find no outlet under those fortuitous dikes. Beautiful plants, crushed and besmirched, tried in vain to rise, but remained lying in the mud, while, in the case of some others, the abundant moisture had already caused superb flowers to bloom triumphantly upon half-broken stalks. Their delicious fragrance struggled against the brackish odor of the slime, and when a faint breeze raised the mist, that fragrance and that strange odor reached the nostrils alternately. A multitude of frogs, which seemed to have fallen with the rain, were croaking with disgusting energy among the reeds; and the roar of the factory, which it was not yet possible to stop, so that the machinery was constantly running and wearing itself out uselessly, made Monsieur Cardonnet feverishly impatient. Meanwhile the nightingale sang in the thickets that had been left unharmed, and saluted the full moon with the nonchalance of a lover or an artist. It was a medley of happiness and consternation, of ugliness and beauty, as if omnipotent Nature laughed at losses ruinous to man but trifling to herself, who needed but a day of sunlight and a cool, damp night to repair them.
Despite Cardonnet's efforts to concentrate his thoughts upon the interests of his family, he was disturbed and distracted at every turn by his anxiety concerning his pecuniary interests. "Infernal river," he thought, glaring involuntarily at the torrent that flowed proudly and mockingly at his feet, "when will you abandon an impossible fight? I shall find a way to chain you up and curb you at last. More stone, more iron, and you will flow within the bounds that my hand marks out for you. Oh! I shall succeed in overcoming your reckless power, in anticipating your whims, in stimulating your languor and crushing your temper. The genius of man is bound to triumph over the blind rebellion of nature on this spot. Twenty more men, and you will feel the curb. Money, and more money! It takes a small mountain of money to stop mountains of water. It is all a question of time and opportunity. My product must come to hand on the appointed day, to meet my expenses. A month of carelessness or discouragement would ruin everything. Credit is a pit that one must dig without hesitation, because at the bottom lies the treasure of profit. I must dig on! I must keep digging! The man is a fool and a coward who stops on the way and allows his plans and his outlay to be swallowed up in space. No, no, treacherous stream, feminine terror, lying predictions of the envious, you shall not frighten me, you shall not induce me to abandon my work, when I have made so many sacrifices on account of it, when the sweat of so many men has already flowed in vain, when my brain has already expended so much effort and my intelligence has given birth to so many miracles! Either this stream shall draw my dead body into its slime, or it shall submissively carry the results of my toil!"
And in the painful tension of his faculties, Monsieur Cardonnet stamped his foot on the bank with a sort of frenzied enthusiasm.
Meanwhile the thought came to his mind that from his own blood had come forth an obstacle more alarming for the future than storms and the river. His son could ruin or, at least, sadly embarrass everything in a day. However intense the man's earnestness and the jealousy of his character, he could never be satisfied to work for himself alone, and there is no capitalist who does not live in the future by virtue of his family ties. Cardonnet felt a fierce affection for his son in the depths of his heart. Oh! if he could only recast that rebellious mind and identify Emile with his own life! How proud he would be, what a feeling of security he would enjoy! But this boy, who had superior faculties for anything except what his father desired, seemed to have conceived a conscientious contempt for wealth, and it was necessary to find some joint in his armor, some vulnerable point at which that terrible passion could be forced into his system. Cardonnet was well aware what chords must be touched; but could he counteract or change the nature of his own mental habit and his own talent sufficiently to produce no discord? The instrument was at once powerful and delicate. The slightest lack of harmony in the theory he was about to expound would be detected by a watchful and perspicacious judge.
In a word it was necessary that Cardonnet, a man of violent temper and at the same time of much adroitness, in whom, however, the habit of domination was more powerful than the habit of strategy, should fight a terrific battle with himself, stifle every violent impulse, and speak the language of a conviction that was not altogether genuine. At last, feeling calmer, and deeming himself sufficiently prepared, he sent for Emile and returned to await his coming on the spot where he had lately been absorbed in a long and painful meditation.
"Well, father," said the young man, taking his hand affectionately and with evident emotion, for he felt that the moment was at hand when he should know which was destined to carry the day in his heart, filial affection, or terror and reproof; "well, father, here I am, ready to receive the communication you promised me. I am twenty-one years old, and I feel that I am becoming a man. You have delayed a long while to set me free from the law of silence and blind confidence; my heart has submitted as long as it can, but my common sense is beginning to speak very loudly, and I await your paternal voice to reconcile them. You will do it, I have no doubt, and throw open the doors of life to me; for thus far I have done nothing but dream and wait and look. I have been assailed by strange doubts, and I have suffered much already without daring to mention it to you. Now you will cure me, you will give me the key to this labyrinth in which I have gone astray; you will mark out for me a path to the future which I shall delight to follow; happy and proud if I can walk beside you!"
"My son," replied Monsieur Cardonnet, somewhat disturbed by this effusive exordium, "you have acquired,yonder, a habit of using emphatic language which I cannot imitate. This manner of talking is ill-advised, in that the mind gets heated and excited, and soon goes astray in an outburst of exaggerated emotion. I know that you love me and believe in me. You know that I cherish you above all things, and that your future is my only aim, my only thought. Let us talk reasonably, then, and coolly, if it is possible. Let us first of all review your brief and happy life. You were born in comfort, and as I worked hard and constantly, wealth took its place under your feet, so quickly and so naturally that you hardly noticed it. Each year increased the possibilities of your future career, and you were hardly more than a child when I began to think of your old age and of the future of your children. You showed a praiseworthy disposition to work—but only at useless arts, drawing, music, poetry,—ornamental accomplishments. It was my duty to combat and I did combat the development of these artistic instincts, when I saw that they threatened to stifle more essential and more solid faculties.
"By creating your fortune, I created duties for you. The fine arts are the blessing and the treasure of the poor man; but wealth demands powers of a sterner temper to support the weight of the obligations it imposes. I questioned myself; I saw what my own education lacked, and it seemed to me that we ought to complement each other, since we were, by the law of blood, partners in the same enterprise. I was well versed in the industrial theories to which I had devoted myself; but as I had not had experience in putting them in practice early enough in life, as I had not studied the practical part of my vocation and could solve problems in geometry and mechanics only by instinct and a sort of divination, I was likely to make mistakes, to start upon false scents, to allow myself to be led astray by my own dreams or those of other people, in a word, to lose, in addition to large sums of money, days, weeks, years, that is to say, time, which is the most valuable of all forms of capital. I determined therefore that you should be instructed in the mechanical sciences immediately after leaving school, and you forced yourself to work hard and faithfully, despite your youth. But your mind soon chose to take a flight which carried you away from my goal.
"The study of the exact sciences led you, against my will and your own, to a passion for the natural sciences, and, starting off at random, you thought of nothing but astronomy and of dreaming of worlds to which we can never go. After a contest in which I was not the stronger, I made you abandon those sciences, although I was not able to bring you back to a healthy and profitable application to the others; and, abandoning the idea of making you a mechanical engineer, I looked about to see in what way you could be useful to me. When I say useful to me, I assume that you do not mistake the sense in which I use the words. As my fortune was yours, it was my duty to train you to the work which will probably wear my life out to your advantage before long; that is in the natural order of things. I am happy to do my duty, and I shall persist in doing it in spite of you, if necessary. But should not good sense and paternal affection impel me to make you capable of preserving and defending that fortune, at all events, if not of developing it? My ignorance of the law had placed me a hundred times at the mercy of foolish or treacherous advice. I had been victimized by those parasites of pettifoggery who, having neither any genuine knowledge nor any healthy understanding of business, demand blind submission from their clients, and endanger their most valuable interests by folly, obstinacy, presumption, false tactics, useless subtleties and the rest. Thereupon, I said to myself that with a keen, quick intellect like yours, you could learn the law in a few years and obtain a sufficiently accurate idea of the details of procedure to need no other guide, no other adviser, and, above all, no other confidant than yourself. I had no desire to make of you an orator, an advocate, an assize court comedian, but I asked you to obtain your certificates and pass your examinations. You promised to do it!"
"Well, father, have I ever rebelled, have I broken my promise?" said Emile, surprised to hear Monsieur Cardonnet speak with superb and as it were insulting contempt of that profession of which he had done his best to extol the honor and brilliancy, when it was a question of persuading his son to study it.
"Emile," rejoined the manufacturer, "I do not propose to reproach you; but you have a passive, apathetic way of submitting, that is a hundred times worse than resistance. If I could have foreseen that you would waste your time, I would very quickly have thought of something else; for, as I have told you, time is the capital of capital, and here are two years of your life which have had no result in the way of developing your faculties and therefore none in the way of assuring your future."
"I flatter myself that the contrary is true," said Emile, with a smile of mingled sweetness and pride, "and I can assure you, father, that I have worked hard, read a great deal, thought a great deal—I dare not say learned a great deal—since I have been at Poitiers."
"Oh! I know very well what you have read and learned, Emile! I should have found it out from your letters even if I had not learned it from my correspondent; and I tell you that all this fine philosophico-metaphysico-politico-economical learning is of all things the vainest, the falsest, the most chimerical and the most ridiculous, not to say the most dangerous, for a young man. It has gone so far that your last letters would have made me roar with laughter as a judge, if I had not felt a mortal disappointment as a father; and it was precisely because I saw that you had mounted a new hobby-horse and were about to take your flight through space once more that I resolved to summon you here, perhaps for a time only, perhaps for good, if I do not succeed in restoring you to your senses."
"Your sarcasm and your contempt are very cruel, father, and grieve my heart more than they wound my self-esteem. That I am not in full accord with you is possible. I am prepared to hear you deny all my beliefs; but that you should repulse me with ironical jeers, when, for the first time in my life, I feel a longing and have the courage to pour all my thoughts and all my emotions into your bosom—that is a very bitter thing to me, and does me more harm than you think."
"There is more pride than you think in this puerile gentleness. Am I not your father, your best friend? Should I not force you to hear the truth when you are deceiving yourself and lead you back when you go astray? Come! a truce to vanity between us! I think more of your intelligence than you do yourself, for I do not propose to allow it to degenerate by feeding on unhealthy food. Listen to me, Emile! I know very well that it is the fashion among the young men of to-day to pose as legislators, to philosophize on every subject, to reform institutions that will last much longer than they will, and to invent religions and social systems—a new morality. The imagination delights in these chimeras, and they are very innocent when they don't last too long. But we must leave it all on the benches at school, and learn to know and understand society before destroying it. We soon discover that it is far superior to us, and that the wisest course is to submit to it, with shrewd tolerance. You are too big a boy now to waste your desires and reflections on a subject that has no bottom. I wish you to become interested in real, positive life; to study the meaning and application of the laws by which we are governed, instead of exhausting yourself in criticizing them. On the other hand, if such study tends to create a spirit of reaction and of disgust with the truth, you must abandon it and set about finding something useful to do for which you feel that you are fitted. Come, we are here to have an understanding and arrive at some conclusion: no vain declamations, no poetic dithyrambs against heaven and mankind! Poor creatures of a day that we are, we have no time to waste in trying to ascertain our destiny before and after our brief appearance on earth. We shall never solve that enigma. It is our bounden duty to work incessantly here on earth and to go hence without a murmur. We must account for our labors to the generation that precedes us and shapes us, and to that which follows us and which we shape. That is why family bonds are sacred and the rights of inheritance inalienable, despite your fine communistic theories, which I have never been able to understand, because they are not ripe and the human race must still wait for centuries before accepting them. Tell me, what do you propose to do?"
"I have absolutely no idea," replied Emile, overwhelmed by this avalanche of narrow-minded, cold commonplaces, uttered with brutal and arrogant fluency. "You solve with so much assurance questions which it will probably require my whole life to solve, that I am unable to follow you in this ardent race toward an unknown goal. I am too weak and my intelligence is apparently too limited to find in my own energy the motive or the reward of so many efforts. My tastes in no wise incline me to make them. I love mental labor, and I should love bodily labor, if it should become the servant of the other in procuring the gratification of the heart; but to work in order to hoard, to hoard in order to retain and increase one's hoard, until death puts an end to this unreasoning thirst—that has neither sense nor any attraction to me. I possess no faculty which you can employ for that object; I am not born a gambler and the enthralling chances of the rise and fall of my fortune will never cause me the slightest emotion. If my aspirations and my enthusiasm are chimeras unworthy of a serious mind, if there is no eternal truth, no divine reason for the existence of things, no ideal which we can carry in our heart to sustain ourselves and guide our footsteps through the evils and injustices of the present, then I no longer exist, I no longer believe in anything; I consent to die for you, father; but as to living and struggling like you and with you, I have neither the heart nor the arm nor the head for that sort of work."
Monsieur Cardonnet quivered with rage, but he restrained himself. Not without design had he thus awkwardly aroused his son's indignation and spirit of resistance. He had determined to lead him on to speak out his whole thought, and to test his enthusiasm, so to speak. When he realized from the young man's bitter tone and desperate expression that it really was as serious as he had feared, he determined to go around the obstacle and to manœuvre in such a way as to recover his influence.
"Emile," rejoined the manufacturer with well-feigned calmness, "I see that we have been talking for some moments without understanding each other, and that if we continue on this tack you will pick a quarrel with me and treat me as if you were a young saint and I an old heathen. With whom are you in such a passion? I was quite right, at the outset, to try to put you on your guard against enthusiasm. All this warmth of brain is simply youthful effervescence, and when you are as old as I am and have had a little experience and are accustomed to doing your duty, you won't think it necessary to flap your wings in order to be honest, or to shout your convictions so loud. Beware of emphasis, which is nothing more than the language of self-satisfied vanity. Tell me, boy, do you happen to believe that honor, morality, good faith in keeping engagements, humane sentiments, pity for the unfortunate, devotion to country, respect for the rights of others, domestic virtues and the love of one's neighbor are very rare and substantially impossible virtues in these days and in the world we live in?"
"Yes, father, I do firmly believe it."
"Well, I believe nothing of the kind. I am less misanthropic at fifty than you are at one-and-twenty; I have a better opinion of my fellow-men, apparently because I don't possess your lights and your infallible glance!"
"In heaven's name! do not make fun of me, father; you break my heart."
"Very well, let us talk seriously. I will assume with you that those virtues are the religion and the rule of life of a small number of people. Will you at least do me the honor to assume that they are not wholly foreign to your father's character?"
"Most of your acts, father, have convinced me that to do good was your sole ambition. Why then do your words seem to attempt to show me that you have a less noble aim?"
"That is precisely what I want to come at. You agree that my conduct is irreproachable, and yet you are scandalized to hear me appeal to calm common sense and to the counsel of sound logic! Tell me, what would you think of your father if, every hour in the day, you should hear him declaiming against those who do not follow his example? If, setting himself up as a model, and all puffed out with self-love and self-admiration, he should weary you at every turn with his own praises and with anathemas hurled at the rest of mankind? You would hold your peace and throw a veil over that annoying absurdity; but, do what you would, the thought would come that your worthy father had one deplorable weakness and that his vanity detracted from his merit."
"Doubtless, father, I prefer your reserve and your judicious modesty; but when we are alone together, and on the rare and solemn occasions when you deign to open your heart to me, should I not be overjoyed to hear you extol noble ideas and kindle a holy enthusiasm in my heart, instead of hearing you sneer at my aspirations and trample them contemptuously in the dirt."
"I do not despise noble ideas, nor do I laugh at your worthy aspirations. What I do spurn and what I desire to stifle in you are the declamation and braggadocio of the new humanitarian schools. I cannot endure their holding up principles as old as the world in the guise of truths unheard of until this day. I would like you to love duty with immovable tranquillity, and perform it with the stoical silence of genuine conviction. Believe me, an acquaintance with good and evil doesn't date from yesterday, and I did not wait to learn justice until you had sucked in the celestial manna while smoking your cigar on the sidewalks of Poitiers."
"All this may be true, generally speaking," said Emile, heated by Monsieur Cardonnet's persistent irony. "There are old citizens who, like you, father, practise virtue without ostentation, and there may be impertinent students who preach it without loving it and, as it were, without knowing what it is. But your last shaft of satire I can not take to my own account or that of my young friends. I do not claim to be anything more than a child and do not pride myself on any experience I may have had. On the contrary, I come with respect and confidence, actuated only by good instincts and good intentions, to ask you for the truth, for advice, example, assistance and instruction. I have on my side only my youthful ideas, and I lay them at your feet. Disgusted as I am by the shocking contradictions which the laws of society recognize and sanction, I implore you to tell me how you have been able to accept them without protest, and to remain an honest man. I confess that I am weak and ignorant, for I cannot conceive the possibility of such a thing. So tell me, I pray you, instead of heaping freezing sarcasm on me. Am I blameworthy in asking for light? am I insolent and mad because I desire to know the laws of my conscience and the aim of my life? Yes, your character is noble and your conduct judicious and wise; your heart is kind and your hand liberal; you assist the poor man and you pay him handsomely for his labor. But whither are you going by this straight, sure road? It seems to me that you sometimes lack indulgence, and your severity has often frightened me.
"I have always said to myself that your sight was clearer and your mind more provident than those of tender, timid natures, that the momentary suffering you inflict was with a view to doing lasting good and to strengthening the foundations of talent; and so, notwithstanding my distaste for the studies you imposed upon me, notwithstanding the sacrifice of my tastes to your hidden purposes, and the constant denial and stifling of my desires at their birth, I made it the law of my life to follow you and obey you in everything. But the time has come when you must open my eyes if you wish me to succeed in this superhuman effort; for the study of the law doesn't satisfy my conscience; I cannot imagine myself ever engaging in legal contests, still less compelling myself, like you, to urge men on to toil for my benefit, unless I see clearly whither I am going and what sacrifice beneficial to mankind I shall have consummated at the cost of my happiness."
"Your happiness then would consist in doing nothing and living with your arms folded, staring at the stars? It seems that work of any sort vexes and tires you, even the study of the law, which all young men learn in sport?"
"You are well aware that the contrary is true, father; you saw me become passionately interested in the most abstract studies, and you stopped me as if I were rushing to my destruction. You know well, however, what my wishes were, when you urged me to seek some material application of the sciences I preferred. You were not willing that I should be an artist or a poet; perhaps you were right; but I might have been a naturalist, or at least an agriculturist, and you forbade that. And yet that was a real, practical application.
"Love of nature impelled me toward life in the country. The infinite pleasure that I took in investigating nature's laws and mysteries led me naturally to the discovery of its concealed forces and to the attempt to guide them and make them more fruitful by intelligent toil. Yes, that was my vocation, you may be sure. Agriculture is in its infancy; the peasant wears himself out in monotonous routine tasks; vast tracts of land are untilled. Science would increase tenfold the richness of the soil and lighten the labor of man.
"My ideas concerning society were in accord with my dreams of such a future. I asked you to send me to some model farm to study. I should have been happy to become a peasant, to work with mind and body, to be constantly in contact with men and things as nature knows them. I would have applied myself with zeal, I would have ploughed farther than some others perhaps in the field of discoveries! And some day I would have founded, upon some desert, naked tract of land transformed by my labors, a colony of free men living together like brothers and loving me as a brother. That was my only ambition, in that direction alone was I thirsty for fortune and glory. Was it an insane freak? and why did you require me to go and work like a slave to learn a code of laws that will never be mine?"
"There you are! there you are!" said Monsieur Cardonnet shrugging his shoulders; "there we have the Utopia of Brother Emile, Moravian brother, Quaker, Neo-Christian, Neo-Platonist and God knows what. It is magnificent, but it is absurd."
"Pray tell me why, father? for again you pronounce sentence without giving any reasons."
"Because, mingling your socialistic Utopias with your vain speculations as a scientist, you would have poured treasures upon the barren rock, you would not have raised wheat from the sterile soil nor would you have raised men capable of living as brothers from the communistic idea. You would have spent foolishly with one hand what I had saved with the other; and, at forty years of age, with your imagination run dry, at the end of your genius and your confidence, disgusted with the imbecility or the perversity of your disciples, mad perhaps—for that is what excitable and romantic minds come to when they seek to put their dreams in practice, you would have come back to me, crushed by your helplessness, angry with mankind, and too old to return to the right road. Whereas, if you listen to me and follow me, we will travel together over a straight, sure road, and within ten years we shall have made a fortune of which I don't dare name the amount, for you would not believe me."
"Let us admit that this is not a dream also, father, for it makes little difference for my present purpose; what shall we do with this fortune?"
"Whatever you choose, all the good that you may then dream of doing; for I am not at all disturbed about your common sense and prudence, if you will wait for experience of life and allow your brain to mature in peace."
"What do you say? we will do good! you must tell me about that, father, and I will be all ears! What is the blessing with which we will endow mankind?"
"You ask the question! In heaven's name, what divine mystery do you expect to find in human affairs? We shall have bestowed upon a whole province the benefits of industrial activity! Are we not already on the way? Is not work the source and sustenance of work? do we not employ more men here in a day than agriculture and the petty uncivilized trades that I propose to put down used to employ in a month? Do they not receive higher wages? Are they not in a fair way to acquire the spirit of order, prudence, sobriety, all the virtues that they lack? Where are these virtues, the poor man's only blessing, concealed? In absorbing work, in salutary fatigue and in proportionate wages. The good mechanic has the family spirit, respect for property, submission to the laws, economy, and the habit and the advantages of saving. Idleness, with all the wretched arguments it engenders, is what ruins him. Keep him busy, overwhelm him with work; he is strong, and will become stronger; he will cease to dream of overturning society. He will become orderly in his conduct, his house will be well kept, he will introduce comfort and tranquillity there. And if he lives to be old and infirm, however willing you may be to assist him, it will not be necessary. He will have thought of the future himself; he will no longer need alms and a protector like your friend Jappeloup the vagabond; he will be really a free man. There is no other way to save the people, Emile. I am sorry to tell you that it will take longer to carry out this plan than to conceive a fine Utopian scheme; but if it be a long and hard undertaking, it is worthy of a philosopher like you, and I do not consider it beyond the strength of a hard worker of my sort."
"What! is that the whole ideal of industry?" said Emile, crushed by this conclusion. "Have the people no other future than incessant toil, for the benefit of a class that is never to work at all?"
"That is not my idea," Monsieur Cardonnet replied; "I hate and despise idlers; that is why I don't like poets and metaphysicians. I think that everybody should work according to his powers, and myideal, as that word seems to please you, is not far removed from that of the Saint-Simonians: 'To every one according to his capacity,' recompense proportioned to desert. But in these days the manufacturing industry has not yet become so firmly established that we can think about a moral system of subdivision. We must look at what is and not speculate as to what is possible. The whole movement of the age tends toward manufacturing. Let it reign and triumph then; let all men work, some with the arm, some with the brain; it is for him who has more brain than arm to direct the others: it is his right and his duty to make a fortune. His wealth becomes sacred, since it is destined to increase in order that there may be more work and higher wages. Society should lend a hand therefore in every way to establish the power of the sagacious man; his sagacity is a public blessing; and he himself should struggle constantly to increase his activity; it is his duty, his religion, his philosophy. In short he must be rich in order to keep growing richer, as you said, Emile, not realizing that you were uttering the most valuable of axioms."
"So, father, you would give to a man only as long as he works? Pray, do you make no account of the man who cannot work?"
"I find in wealth the means of assisting the infirm and the insane."
"But the sluggard?"
"I try to correct him, and if I fail, I turn him over to the law, since he is certain before long to become a nuisance and to incur its penalties."
"In a perfectly constituted society that might be just, because the sluggard would be a monstrous exception; but in exercising authority according to such strict rules as yours, when you demand from the workingman all his strength, all his time, all his thoughts, all his life, ah! how many would be dismissed as sluggards and abandoned to their fate!"
"With the advantages accruing from the increase of manufacturing, we should very soon succeed in increasing the well-being of the poorer classes to such an extent that we could easily found schools where their children would be taught the love of work at almost no expense."
"I think that you are mistaken, father; but even if it were true that the rich would give their attention to the education of the poor, the love of incessant work, without other compensation than the certainty of a pittance for one's old age, is so contrary to nature that you can never kindle it in children. A few exceptional natures, consumed by energy or ambition, will sacrifice their youth; but whoever is simple-hearted, loving, inclined to reverie, to innocent and legitimate pleasures, and under the influence of that craving for affection and tranquillity which is the lawful privilege of the human race, will fly from this jail of incessant toil in which you seek to confine him, and will prefer the chances of poverty to the security of slavery. Ah! father, your rugged constitution, your untiring energy, your stoical sobriety and your inveterate habit of working make you an exceptional man, and you imagine a society formed after your image, you do not see that there is no suitable place there for any but exceptional men. Permit me to tell you that that is a Utopian conception far more appalling than mine."
"Well, Emile, I wish that you believed in it," said Monsieur Cardonnet warmly; "it is a source of strength, and an invaluable stimulant in this society of dreamers, idlers and apathetic creatures in which I am devoured with impatience. Be like me, and if we should find in France, at this moment, a hundred men like us, I promise you that there would be no more exceptions a hundred years hence. Activity is contagious, magnetic, miracle-working! it was through activity that Napoléon held sway over Europe: he would have owned all Europe if he had been a manufacturer instead of a fighting man. Oh! since you are an enthusiast, be enthusiastic for my ideas! shake off your languor and share my fever! If we do not attract the whole race, we shall make great breaches through which our descendants will see it moving about in a sacred frenzy."
"No, father, never!" cried Emile, dismayed by Monsieur Cardonnet's terrible energy; "for that is not the road for mankind to follow. There is in it no trace of love or pity or gentleness. Man was not born to know naught but suffering and to extend his conquests over matter only. The conquests of the intellect in the domain of ideas, the pleasures and refinements of the heart, which, according to your plan, should be carefully regulated accessories in the workingman's life, will always be the noblest and sweetest aspiration of every normally constituted man. Do you not see that you cut off one whole side of the benevolent intentions of God? that you do not give the slave of toil time to breathe and to know himself? that education directed solely to moneymaking will make mere brutish machines and not complete men? You say that you conceive an ideal to be realized in the course of centuries, that a time may come when every one will be rewarded according to his capacity. Well, I say that your formula is false because it is incomplete, and unless we add to it: 'To everyone according to his needs,' it is unjust, it is simply asserting the right of him who is strongest in intellect or will, it is aristocracy and privilege under other forms. O father, instead of fighting with the strong against the weak, let us fight with the weak against the strong. Let us try! but in that case let us not think of making our fortunes, let us renounce the idea of hoarding for our own benefit. Give your consent, for I, for whom you are working to-day, give my consent. Let us try to identify our ideals in this way, and let us renounce personal profit while devoting ourselves to work. Since we cannot by ourselves alone create a society in which all the members have an equal interest, let us be the workmen of the future, devoted to the weak and incapable of the present."
EMILE IN CONFERENCE WITH HIS FATHER.When he realized from the young man's bitter tone and desperate expression that it really was as serious as he had feared, he determined to go around the obstacle and to manœuvre in such a way as to recover his influence.
EMILE IN CONFERENCE WITH HIS FATHER.
When he realized from the young man's bitter tone and desperate expression that it really was as serious as he had feared, he determined to go around the obstacle and to manœuvre in such a way as to recover his influence.
"If Napoléon's genius had been trained to this doctrine, perhaps it would have converted the world; but let us find a hundred men like us, let this fever to acquire wealth become a divine zeal, let the longing to practise charity consume us, let us give all our workmen a share in all our profits, let our great fortune be not your property and my heritage, but the property of all those who have assisted us, according to their abilities and their strength, in amassing it; let the workman who brings his stone be put in a way to know as much of the material joys of life as you who bring your genius; let him too be able to live in a fine house, to breathe pure air, to eat healthy food, to rest after fatigue, and to educate his children; let us find our reward, not in the useless luxury with which you and I can surround ourselves, but in the joy of having made others happy—I can understand that ambition and be carried away by it. And then, father, dear father, your work will be blessed.
"This indolence and apathy which irritate you, and which are simply the result of a struggle in which a few triumph to the detriment of the vast majority who lose their courage and succumb, will themselves disappear in the natural course of things. Then you will find so much zeal and love about you that you will no longer be obliged to wear yourself out alone in order to stimulate all the others. How could it be otherwise to-day, and of what do you complain? Under the law of selfishness each one gives of his strength and his energy in proportion to the share of the profits he receives. A marvellous result, truly, that you, who receive all the profit, should be the only zealous, assiduous worker, while the paid worker, who receives in your employ a trifle more alms than he would receive elsewhere, brings you only a little more of his zeal. You pay higher wages—that is a fine thing, certainly, and you are more to be commended than the majority of your rivals, who would prefer to lower them; but you have it in your power to increase the zeal of your employés tenfold, a hundred-fold, to kindle as by a miracle the flame of devotion, the intelligence of the heart in those benumbed and paralyzed creatures, and you do not choose to do it!—Why not, father? It is not that you care for the enjoyments of luxury; for you enjoy nothing unless it be the intoxication of your plans and your triumphs. Very well; do away with your individual profit; you have only to do it, and I will abandon my claim to it with the greatest joy! Let us be simply the trustees and managers of the common profits. This fortune that you dream of, of which you dare not tell me the amount, will so surpass your anticipations and your hopes, that you will soon have the means to give your workmen moral, intellectual and physical pleasures which will make new men of them, complete men, true men! and such men I have never seen anywhere. All equilibrium is destroyed; I see only knaves and brutes, tyrants and slaves, powerful and greedy eagles and stupid and cowardly sparrows destined to be their prey. We live according to the blind law of the savage nature; the code of savage instinct which governs the brute is still the soul of our pretended civilization; and we dare to say that the manufacturing industry will save the world without departing from that path! No, no, father, all these declamations of political economy are false and misleading! If you compel me to be rich and powerful, as you have said so many times, and if, by reason of the vulgar influence of money, the adorers of money send me to represent their interests in the counsels of the nation, I shall say what I have in my mind; I shall speak, and I suppose that I shall speak only once: for they will put me to silence or force me to leave the hall; but people will remember what I say, and they who chose me will have reason to repent their choice!"
This discussion was prolonged far into the night, and it will be readily understood that Emile did not convert his father. Monsieur Cardonnet was not evil-minded, nor impious, nor voluntarily blameworthy toward God or man. Indeed, certain practical virtues were very strongly accentuated in him, and he had great talent in one special field. But his iron will was the result of the entire absence of idealism in his character.
He loved his son but could not understand him. He was kind and attentive to his wife, but he had never failed to stifle in her any thought capable of interfering with his daily routine. He would have liked to be able to reduce Emile to subjection in the same way; but, realizing that was impossible, he was intensely annoyed and tears of vexation moistened his burning eyes more than once during that stormy interview. He sincerely believed that he was logically right; that his ideas were the only really admissible and practicable ones.
He asked himself by what fatality he happened to have a dreamer and a Utopian for a son, and more than once he raised his powerful arms to heaven, asking with indescribable pain what crime he had committed that such a calamity should be visited upon him.
Emile, worn out by fatigue and disappointment, was moved to pity at last for that wounded heart and that incurable blindness.
"Let us talk no more about these matters, father," he said, wiping away his own tears, which had their source farther down in his heart; "we cannot become identified with each other. I can only continue to show my submission and my filial love, thinking no more of myself and of a happiness which I sacrifice to you. What are your orders? Shall I return to Poitiers and go on with my studies until I pass my examinations? Shall I stay here and act as your secretary and steward? I will close my eyes and work like a machine so long as it is possible for me to do it. I will look upon myself as your employé; I will enter your service——"
"And you will cease to look upon me as your father?" said Monsieur Cardonnet. "No, Emile; stay with me, but be perfectly free. I give you three months, during which, living as you will in the bosom of your family, far from the declamations of the beardless philosophers who have ruined you, you will recover your senses unassisted. You are blessed with a robust temperament, and it may be that absorbing mental labor has overheated your brain. I look upon you as a sick child whom I have taken into the country to cure. Walk, ride, hunt; in a word, amuse yourself in order to reestablish your equilibrium, which seems to me more disturbed than that of society. I hope that you will abate your intolerance when you see that your home is not a hotbed of wickedness and corruption. Before long, perhaps, you will tell me voluntarily that profitless musing bores you, and that you feel that you must help me."
Emile bowed, without speaking, and left his father, after embracing him with a feeling of profound sorrow. Monsieur Cardonnet, having been able to do nothing better than temporize, tossed about a long while in his bed, and finally fell asleep, saying, to himself, contrary to his custom, that one must sometimes rely more upon Providence than upon oneself.
The energetic Cardonnet, entirely engrossed by his daily occupations, or sufficiently self-controlled not to allow the slightest trace of his inward suffering to appear on the surface, resumed his air of glacial dignity on the following day.
Emile, overwhelmed with dismay and sadness, strove to smile in presence of his mother, who was disturbed by his distraught air and altered expression. But she was so overawed that she lacked even the penetration peculiar to her sex. All her faculties had grown rusty, and at forty she was already an octogenarian, mentally speaking. And yet she loved her husband, as the result of a need of loving which had never been satisfied. She had no definite grievances to allege against him, for he had never openly maltreated her or made a slave of her; but every impulse of the heart or the imagination had always been stifled in her by irony and a sort of contemptuous pity, and she had accustomed herself to entertain no thought or desire outside of the circle drawn about her by an inflexible hand.
To oversee all the details of the housekeeping had become something more than a wise and self-imposed occupation. It had been made a law of her existence, so serious and so sacred that she might have been compared to a Roman matron in respect to the trivial solemnity of domestic toil, if in no other respect.
Thus she presented in her person the strange anachronism of a woman of our own time, capable of reasoning and feeling, but who had insanely forced herself to retrograde some thousands of years in order to make herself like one of those women of ancient times whose glory it was to proclaim the inferiority of their sex.
The strange and sad feature of her position was that she did not realize it, and that she acted as she did—so she would say in a whisper—for the sake of peace. And she did not obtain it! The more she immolated herself, the more she bored her lord and master.
Nothing weakens and destroys the intelligence so quickly as blind submission.
Madame Cardonnet was an example of this truth.
Her brain had shrivelled in slavery, and her husband, not realizing that it was the result of his domination, had reached the point of despising her in secret.
Several years earlier Cardonnet had been terribly jealous, and his wife, although faded and worn, still trembled at the idea that he might impute a vicious thought to her. She had acquired the habit of not listening or looking, so that she could say confidently when any man was mentioned to her: "I didn't look at him; I don't know what he said; I paid no attention to him." The utmost that she dared do was look at her son and question him; for, as to her husband, if she was made anxious by the unusual pallor of his cheeks or the increased severity of his glance, he would speedily compel her to lower her eyes, saying: "In heaven's name, what is there extraordinary about me that you should stare at me as if you didn't know me?" Sometimes, at night, he would notice that she had been weeping, and he would become affectionate once more after his fashion. "Tell me, what's the matter? Is something troubling the poor little woman? Would you like a new shawl? Would you like me to take you to drive? No? Then it must be because the camellias are frozen? We will have some sent down from Paris that are more hardy and so beautiful that you won't regret the old ones." And, in truth, he lost no opportunity to gratify his helpmeet's innocent tastes, at any price. He even required her to dress more richly than she cared to do. It was his idea that wives are children who must be rewarded for being good with toys and gimcracks.
"It is certain," Madame Cardonnet would say to herself at such times, "that my husband loves me dearly, and he is very attentive to me. What have I to complain of, and what is the reason that I always feel depressed?"
She saw that Emile was gloomy and downcast, and she could not extort the secret of his trouble from him. She questioned him at tedious length concerning his health, and advised him to go to bed early. She had a feeling that it was something more serious than the result of insomnia; but she said to herself that it was much better to allow a sorrow to fall asleep in silence than to keep it alive by trying to allay it.
That evening Emile, as he was walking near the entrance to the village, met Jean Jappeloup, who had returned several hours earlier and was joyously celebrating his arrival with several friends, in the doorway of a rustic dwelling.
"Well," said the young man holding out his hand, "are your affairs settled?"
"With the authorities, yes, monsieur, but not with poverty. I made my submission, I argued as well as I could with the king's attorney and he listened to me patiently; he said a few stupid things by way of sermon; but he's not a bad fellow and he was just about to dismiss me, saying that he would do his best to prevent any prosecution, when your letters arrived. He read them without making a sign; but he paid some attention to them, for he said to me: 'Well, set your mind at rest, settle down somewhere, don't poach any more, find some work, and everything will be all right.'—So here I am; my friends have received me warmly, as you see, for I have already been asked to lodge in this house while I look about. But I must give my mind to my most pressing necessity, which is to earn something to buy clothes with, and before night I am going to make the tour of the village, to look for work among the good people."
"Listen, Jean," said Emile, walking beside him; "I have no large amount of money at my disposal; my father makes me an allowance, but I don't know whether he will continue it now that I am to live at home; however, I have a few hundred francs for which I have no use here, and I beg you to accept them, to buy clothes and provide for your first needs. You will make me feel aggrieved if you refuse. In a few days your ill-founded anger against my father will have passed away and you will come and ask him for work; or better still, authorize me to ask him for you; he will pay you higher wages than you will get anywhere else, and he will relax the severity of his original terms, I am sure; so——"
"No, Monsieur Emile," the carpenter replied. "I will take neither your money nor your father's work. I don't know how Monsieur Cardonnet treats you, nor how much money he gives you, but I know that a young man like you is always embarrassed when he hasn't a piece of gold or silver in his pocket to gratify his whims when occasion offers. You have done enough for me; I am well pleased with you, and, if I find an opportunity, you will see that you didn't offer your hand to an ingrate. But as for serving your father in any way, never! I was very near committing that folly and God would not permit it. I forgive him for the way in which he caused my arrest by Caillaud, but it was a contemptible act! However, as he may not have known that boy is my godson, and as he has since written kindly of me to the king's attorney to obtain my pardon, I must think no more of my grievance. In any event I would trample it under foot now because of you. But as for helping to build your factories—no! you don't need my arms, you will find plenty of others, and you know my reasons. What you are doing is a bad thing and will ruin many people, if it doesn't ruin everybody some day. Already your dams and your reservoirs are drowning all the small mills on the stream above you. Already your piles of stone and dirt have ruined the meadows all around, for the flood carried them all onto your neighbors' land. Thus, you see, the rich man injures the poor man even against his will. I don't choose to have it said that Jean Jappeloup lent his hand to the ruin of his neighborhood. Don't say any more about it. I mean to take up my trade again in a small way, and I shall have no lack of work. Now that your great enterprises employ all my fellows, no one in the village can find anybody to work for him. I shall inherit their customers but must give them back when your work fails. For mark my words; your father greases his wheels by paying a high price for the sweat of the workingman's brow to-day; but he won't be able to continue long on that footing, or his expenses will exceed his profits. The day will come—and perhaps it's not far away!—when he will run his factories at a loss, and then, woe to those who have sacrificed their position on the strength of fine promises! They will be forced to do whatever your father chooses and the time will have come to make them disgorge. You don't believe it? So much the better for you! that proves that you won't be at all responsible for the trouble that is brewing; but you won't be able to prevent it. So good night, my fine fellow! don't speak in my behalf to your father, for I should give you the lie. The good Lord has helped me out of my trouble; I propose to please Him in everything now and to do only such things as my conscience will never blame me for. Being poor myself, I shall be more useful to the poor than your father with all his wealth. I will build houses for my equals and they will make more by paying me small wages than by earning big wages with you. You will see that I am right, Monsieur Emile, and everybody will tell you so some time; but it will be too late to repent of having put their necks in the halter!"
Emile could not overcome the carpenter's obstinacy, and he returned home even more depressed than when he went out. That incorruptible workingman's predictions caused him a vague alarm.
As he approached the factory he met his father's secretary, Monsieur Galuchet, a stout young man, very talented in the way of ciphering, but of very limited capacity in other respects.
It was the hour of repose and Galuchet was taking advantage of it to fish for gudgeons. This was his favorite pastime; and when he had a goodly number in his basket, he would count them, and adding the count to the total of his previous catches, would say proudly as he wound up his line:
"This is the seven hundred and eighty-second gudgeon I have caught with this hook in two months. I am very sorry I didn't count what I caught last year."
Emile leaned against a tree to watch him fish. The fellow's phlegmatic watchfulness and puerile patience disgusted him. He could not understand how he could be perfectly happy just because he had a salary that placed him out of reach of want. He tried to make him talk, saying to himself that he might perhaps find beneath that thick envelope some ray of light, some sympathetic chord which would make that young man's society a source of comfort to him in his distress. But Monsieur Cardonnet selected his subordinates with an unerring eye and hand. Constant Galuchet was a fool; he understood nothing, knew nothing outside of arithmetic and bookkeeping. When he had been at work at his figures for twelve hours he had just enough reasoning power left to catch gudgeons.
However, Emile by mere chance led him to say certain things that cast an ominous light into his mind. That human machine was capable of reckoning profits and losses and of figuring the balance at the foot of a sheet of paper. While exhibiting the most complete ignorance of Monsieur Cardonnet's plans and resources, Constant observed that the wages of the men were exorbitant and that, if they were not reduced by half in two months, the funds invested in the enterprise would be insufficient.
"But that doesn't disturb monsieur your father," he added; "you pay your workmen as you feed a horse, according to the amount of work you require of him. When you double his work you double his pay, as you double the quantity of oats; then, when you're no longer in such a hurry, you cut down the pay or the rations proportionately."
"My father won't do that," said Emile; "he might with horses, but not with men."
"Don't say that, monsieur," rejoined Galuchet; "monsieur your father knows what he's about, he won't do anything foolish, never fear."
And he carried off his gudgeons, delighted to have had an opportunity to set the son's mind at rest concerning the father's apparent imprudence.
"Oh! if that should be true!" thought Emile, as he walked excitedly along the bank of the stream; "if it should prove that this temporary generosity conceals inhuman cunning! Suppose that Jean's suspicions were well-founded! that my father, while following the blind doctrines of society, has no greater store of virtue or intelligence than other speculators have, to diminish the disastrous results of his ambition! But no, it is impossible; my father is kind-hearted, he loves his fellow-men."
But Emile had death in his heart; the thought of all this waste of energy and of life for the benefit of his future made him recoil in horror and disgust. He wondered how it was that all these men who were working to build his fortune did not hate him, and he was ready to hate himself in order to balance the scales of justice.
On the following day, he was still profoundly distressed, but he hailed with something like delight the day which he was to devote in part to Monsieur de Boisguilbault, because he had made up his mind to go and pass the day at Châteaubrun without saying a word to anybody. As he mounted his horse, Monsieur Cardonnet made divers satirical remarks:
"You are starting early to go to Boisguilbault! it would seem that the amiable marquis's society has charms for you; I should never have suspected it, and I can't imagine what secret method you have of keeping awake after each of his remarks."
"If this is your way of informing me that you do not like what I am doing," said Emile, impatiently preparing to dismount, "I am ready to give it up, although I accepted an invitation for to-day."
"I not like it!" rejoined the manufacturer; "why it is a matter of perfect indifference to me whether you are bored there or somewhere else. As your father's house is the place where you find least pleasure, I am anxious that you should derive some recompense from the society of the noble personages with whom you associate."
Under any other circumstances, Emile would have postponed his departure in order to prove, or at least to make him believe that the rebuke was not merited; but he was beginning to understand that it was his father's tactics to rally him when he wished to make him talk; and as he felt invincibly drawn toward Châteaubrun he determined not to allow himself to be trapped.
Although nothing in the world stung him more keenly than the ridicule of those whom he loved, he made an effort to seem to take it in good part.
"I anticipate so much pleasure at Monsieur de Boisguilbault's," he said, "that I propose to go there by the longest road, and my détour will probably extend to five or six leagues, unless you need me, father, in which case I will gladly sacrifice to you the delights of a ride in the hot sun over perpendicular roads."
But Monsieur Cardonnet was not deceived by his stratagem and replied with a clear and penetrating glance:
"Go where the devil of youth drives you! I am not disturbed about you, for a very good reason."
"Very good," said Emile to himself as he galloped away, "if you're not disturbed about me, I won't disturb myself about your threats."
And, feeling the fire of anger blazing in his breast, in spite of his efforts, he indulged in a long, hard run to calm himself.
"O God," he said after some time, "forgive me for these angry outbreaks, which I cannot repress. Thou knowest that my heart is full of love, and that it asks nothing better than to respect and venerate my father, who makes it his business to stifle all its impulses and to freeze all its affections."
Whether from hesitation or from prudence, he made a long detour before he turned his horse's head in the direction of Châteaubrun; and when, from the crest of a hill, he saw that he was a long distance from the ruins, which stood out against the sky on the horizon, he so bitterly regretted the time he had wasted that he drove the spurs into his horse's sides in order to arrive there more quickly.
He did in fact arrive there from the valley of the Creuse in less than half an hour, almost as rapidly as a bird on the wing, having endangered his life a hundred times leaping ditches and galloping on the brink of precipices. A violent longing, which he did not choose to analyze, gave him wings.
"I don't love her," he said to himself; "I hardly know her; I cannot love her! In any event I should love her to no purpose! It is not she who attracts me any more than her worthy father, his romantic château, his environment of repose, happiness and freedom from care. I long to see people who are happy, so that I may forget that I am not and never shall be!"
He met Sylvain Charasson, who was engaged in stretching cloth in the Creuse. The child ran to meet him with an eager delighted air.
"You won't find Monsieur Antoine," he said. "He's gone to market to sell six sheep; but Mademoiselle Janille's at home, and Mademoiselle Gilberte, too."
"Do you think I shall not disturb them?"
"Oh! not at all, not at all, Monsieur Emile; they'll be very glad to see you, for they often talk about you with Monsieur Antoine at dinner. They say that they think a great deal of you."
"Take my horse, then," said Emile, "I can go faster on foot."
"Yes, yes," replied the child. "Look, just behind what used to be the terrace. You climb the breach, take a little jump and you'll be in the courtyard. That'sJean's road."
Emile leaped down on the grass, which deadened the sound of his footsteps, and approached the square pavilion without frightening the two goats, who seemed to know him already.
Monsieur Sacripant, who was no prouder than his master, and did not disdain to perform at need the duties of sheep dog, although he belonged to the nobler breed of hunters, had escorted the sheep to market.
As he was about to enter, Emile found that his heart was beating so fast—a fact that he attributed to his rapid climb up the side of the cliff—that he paused a moment to recover himself and make his entrée with due dignity. He heard the sound of a spinning-wheel inside, and no music had ever struck more pleasantly on his ear. Then the dull hissing of the little instrument of toil ceased and he heard Gilberte's voice saying:
"Well, it's quite true, Janille, that I don't enjoy myself the days that father is away. If you weren't here with me, I should be bored outright!"
"Work, my child, work," replied Janille; "that's the way to avoid being bored."
"But I do work, and still I am not amused. I know well enough that there's no need of being amused; but I always am, and am always ready to laugh and jump when father's with us. Confess, little mother, that if we had to live long away from him, we should lose all our happiness and good spirits! Oh! it would be impossible to live without father! I should much rather die at once."
"Well, well, those are pretty ideas!" said Janille. "What in heaven's name will you think about next, little head? Your father is still young and well, thank God! so what has put all this nonsense into your head these last two or three days?"
"What do you say? these last two or three days?"
"Why, yes, fully two or three days; several times you have chosen to worry about what would become of us if we should lose your dear father, which God forbid!"
"Lose him!" cried Gilberte. "Oh! don't speak of such a thing; it makes me shudder, and I never thought of it. Oh! no, I could never think of it!"
"Well, upon my word, if you're not crying! Fie! mademoiselle, do you want to make your dear Mère Janille cry too? Oh! Monsieur Antoine would be very pleased to see you with your eyes all red when he comes home! He would be quite capable of crying too, the dear man! Come, you haven't walked enough to-day, my child; fasten up your wool and we'll go and feed the hens. It will amuse you to see the pretty partridges your little Blanche has just hatched."
Emile heard the motherly kiss from Janille which closed this speech, and as the two women would surely find him at the door, he stepped back and coughed slightly to warn them of his presence.
"Someone in the courtyard!" cried Gilberte. "I am so happy; I am sure it's father!"
And she ran eagerly to meet Emile, so fast, that when she found herself face to face with him on the threshold, she almost fell into his arms. But great as her confusion was when she discovered her mistake, it was less than Emile's; for, in her innocence, she threw it off with a hearty laugh, while the young man lost his self-possession altogether at the bare idea that he had been very near receiving an embrace which was not intended for him.
Gilberte was so lovely with her eyes still moist with tears and her rippling, childish laugh, that he was dazzled as it were, and ceased to wonder whether it was honest Antoine, the lovely ruins or the fair Gilberte that he had been in such haste to see once more.
"Well, well," said Janille, "you almost frightened us; but you are welcome, Monsieur Emile, as our master says; Monsieur Antoine will return before long. Meanwhile you must have something cool to drink. I will go to the cellar and draw some wine."
Emile remonstrated, and said, holding her back by the sleeve:
"If you go to the cellar, I will go with you; not to drink your wine, but to see the cellar itself, which you said is so interesting, so dark and deep."
"You mustn't go now," said Janille; "it's too cold there and you are too warm. Yes, you are warm! you're as red as a strawberry. You go and rest a bit, and then, while we are waiting for Monsieur Antoine, we'll show you the cellars, the underground vaults and the whole château, which you haven't examined very thoroughly yet, although it's well worth while. Ah! there are people who come a long way to see it; it's a little bit tiresome to us, and my girl goes to her room and reads while they are here; but Monsieur Antoine says that we can't refuse to admit them, especially travellers who have come a long way, and that, when you're the owner of a curious and interesting piece of property, you haven't any right to prevent other people from enjoying it."
Janille attributed to her master the argument she had put into his mind and his mouth. The fact is that she collected a considerable amount from exhibiting the ruins, which she employed, like everything belonging to her, in secretly adding to the comfort of the family.
Emile, eagerly accepting whatever they chose to offer him, consented to take a glass of water, and as Janille ran to fill her pitcher at the fountain, he was left alone with Mademoiselle de Châteaubrun.
While a practised rake may congratulate himself upon the unhoped-for accident which procures him a tête-à-tête with the object of his pursuit, a pure-hearted young man, who is sincerely in love, is more likely to be confused, almost terrified, when such good fortune comes to him for the first time.
So it was with Emile Cardonnet: the respect that Mademoiselle de Châteaubrun inspired was so profound that he feared to raise his eyes to hers at that moment, lest he should show himself in any degree unworthy of the confidence reposed in him.
Gilberte, even more naïve than he, did not feel the same embarrassment. The thought that Emile could abuse, even by a careless word, her isolation and her inexperience, found no place in a mind so noble and innocent as hers, and her sacred ignorance preserved her from any suspicion of that sort. So she was the first to break the silence, and her voice, as by enchantment, brought tranquillity to the young visitor's agitated breast. There are voices so sympathetic and so penetrating, that to hear them pronounce two or three trivial words is enough to fill one with affection for the persons whose characters they describe, even before one sees them. Gilberte's voice was of this number. On hearing her speak or laugh or sing, you felt that there had never been in her mind an evil or unkind thought.