The thing that moves and charms us in the song of birds is not so much the melody, opposed to all our musical conventions, or the extraordinary power of their flexible organs, as a certain accent of primitive innocence, of which nothing in the language of men can convey an idea. It seemed, on listening to Gilberte, that the same comparison could be aptly applied to her, and that the most indifferent things acquired, on passing between her lips, a meaning much deeper than that which they expressed by themselves.
"We saw our friend Jean this morning," she said; "he came at daybreak and carried away all my father's tools, in order to do his first day's work; for he has found work already, and we have strong hopes that there will be no lack of it. He told us all that you did and tried to do for him last evening, and I assure you, monsieur, that, for all the pride and perhaps roughness of his refusal, he is as grateful as he ought to be."
"What I have been able to do for him amounts to so little that I am ashamed to speak of it," said Emile. "I am especially grieved that he allows his obstinacy to deprive him of a certainty of employment, for it seems to me that his position is still very precarious. To begin a life of toil, at sixty, and to have neither a house, nor clothes, nor even the necessary tools, is a terrifying prospect, is it not, mademoiselle?"
"Still, I am not terrified," replied Gilberte. "Brought up as I have been in uncertainty, and living from day to day, as it were, perhaps I have myself fallen into the habit of looking upon poverty with that same happy indifference. Either I am naturally of that disposition, or Jean's heedlessness reassures me; it is certain that none of us felt the least uneasiness in the congratulations we exchanged this morning. It takes so little to satisfy Jean! He is as sober and as healthy as a wild man. He has never been better than during these two months that he has lived in the woods, walking all day and sleeping most of the time in the open air. He declares that his sight has grown keener, that his youth has returned again, and that, if the summer would last all the time, he would never need to come back to the village to live. But in the bottom of his heart he has an invincible affection for his native place, and furthermore he would not be satisfied to be idle long. We urged him this morning to settle down here with us, and to live as we do, without thought for the morrow.
"'There is room enough here and plenty of material for you to build yourself a house,' said my father. 'I have all the stone you need and enough old trees for your frame, and I'll help you to put it up as you helped me with mine.'
"But Jean wouldn't listen to that.
"'Very good,' said he, 'but what in heaven's name should I do to kill time when you have set me up as a country gentleman? I can't live on my income, and I don't propose to be a burden to you during the thirty years that I still have to live, it may be. Even if you were rich enough to support me, I should die of ennui. It's all right for you, Monsieur Antoine, you were brought up to do nothing. Although you're no sluggard and you have proved it—it costs you nothing to resume the habit of living like amonsieur; but there's no more hunting and coursing for me; pray, am I to sit with folded arms? I should go mad at the end of the first week.'"
"So," said Emile, thinking of his father's theory of incessant toil and no repose in old age, "so Jean will never feel the longing to be free, although he makes so many sacrifices to his alleged freedom?"
"Why, are freedom and idleness the same thing?" said Gilberte, in a tone of surprise. "I think not. Jean is passionately fond of work, and all his freedom consists in choosing the work that pleases him; when he works to gratify his inclination and his natural inventiveness, he works with all the more ardor."
"Yes, mademoiselle, you are right," said Emile, with sudden melancholy, "and that is the whole secret. Man is born to work always, but to work according to his aptitudes and in proportion to the enjoyment he derives from it! Ah! if only I were a skilful carpenter! with what joy I would go and work with Jean Jappeloup, for the benefit of such a wise and unselfish man!"
"Well, well, monsieur," said Janille, as she returned to the room, ostentatiously balancing her earthenware pitcher on her head, to display her strength, "you talk just like Monsieur Antoine. If you'll believe it, he wanted to go to Gargilesse this morning with Jean and work with him as a journeyman, as he used to do! Poor dear man! his kind heart carried him to that length.
"'You helped me to earn my living long enough,' he said; 'now I propose to help you earn yours. You refuse to share my table and my house; accept at least the price of my work, as I don't need it.'"
"And Monsieur Antoine would have done as he said. At his age and with his rank, he would go and hammer away like a deaf man on those great blocks of wood!"
"Why did you prevent him, Mère Janille? Why did Jean obstinately refuse? My father's health would have been no worse for it, and it would be consistent with all the noble impulses of his life. Ah! why cannot I too wield an axe and serve my apprenticeship to the man who supported my father so long, while I, knowing nothing about our means of existence, learned to sing and draw to please you. Really, women are good for nothing in this world!"
"What's that! what's that! women good for nothing!" cried Janille; "very good, let us both start out, climb up on the roofs, square timber and drive nails. Upon my word I could do better at it than you, old and small as I am; but meanwhile, your papa, who's about as clever with his hands as a frog with his tail, will spin our flax and Jean will iron our caps."
"You are right, mother," replied Gilberte; "my wheel is loaded and I have done nothing to-day. If we make haste we shall have cloth enough to make clothes for Jean before next winter. I am going to work and make up for lost time; but it's true none the less that you are an aristocrat, not to want my father to be a workman again when he pleases."
"Let me tell you the truth then," said Janille, with a solemn, confidential air. "Monsieur Antoine never succeeded in being a good workman. He had more courage than skill, and my only reason for letting him work was to prevent him from getting depressed and discouraged. Ask Jean if he didn't have to work twice as hard to mend Monsieur's mistakes, as he would have done if he'd been working alone. But Monsieur always seemed to be doing a lot of work, so the customers were satisfied and he was well paid. But it's true all the same that I was never easy in my mind in those days and that I don't sigh for them. I always shuddered for fear Monsieur Antoine would hit his arm or his leg instead of a timber, or would fall off his ladder when, in his absent-minded way, he would sit down on the rung as if he were by his own fireside."
"You frighten me, Janille," said Gilberte. "Oh! if that is the case, you did well to disgust him, by your joking, with the idea of working again, and in that, as in everything else, you are our Providence!"
Mademoiselle de Châteaubrun spoke even more truly than she knew. Janille had been the good angel of Antoine de Châteaubrun's existence. Without her prudence, her motherly domination and her shrewd judgment, that excellent man would not have passed through the slough of poverty without deteriorating a little morally. At all events he would not have retained his external dignity as well as the generous purity of his instincts. He would often have sinned by too great resignation and self-abandonment. Being naturally inclined to effusiveness and prodigality, he would have become intemperate; he would have acquired as many faults of the common people as of their good qualities, and perhaps he would have ended by meriting in some degree the disdain which fools and vainglorious parvenus felt justified in entertaining for him, even as it was.
But, thanks to Janille, who, without thwarting him openly, had always maintained the equilibrium and instilled moderation, he had emerged from the test with honor and had not ceased to deserve the esteem and respect of judicious people.
The sound of Gilberte's spinning-wheel interrupted the conversation, or at least made it less coherent. She was unwilling to interrupt her work again until her task was completed; and yet she seemed to display more ardor than the apparent motive of her activity called for. She urged Emile not to subject himself to the tedium of listening to that monotonous clattering, but to go with Janille and explore the ruins; but, as Janille also wanted to finish her spinning, Gilberte unconsciously worked even faster than before, in order to finish as soon as she, and to be one of the party.
"I am ashamed of my inaction," said Emile, who dared not gaze too fondly at the young spinstress's lovely arms or watch her motions too closely, for fear of attracting Janille's sharp little eyes; "haven't you some work to give me?"
"What can you do?" queried Gilberte with a smile.
"Whatever Sylvain Charasson can do, I flatter myself," he replied.
"I might send you to water my lettuce," said Janille, laughing outright, "but that would deprive us of your company. Suppose you wind up the clock, which seems to have stopped?"
"Oh! it stopped three days ago," said Gilberte, "and I haven't been able to make it go. I think there's something broken."
"Ah! that's the job for me," cried Emile; "I have studied mechanics a little—unwillingly, to be sure—and I don't believe that this cuckoo affair is very complicated."
"And suppose you break my clock altogether?" said Janille.
"Oh! let him break it if it amuses him," said Gilberte, with a good-natured air in which he could detect her father's easy-going heedlessness.
"I ask the privilege of breaking it, if that is its destiny," said Emile, "provided that I may be permitted to replace it."
"All right!" said Janille, "if it turns out so, I want one just like it, no finer and no larger; this one suits us: it strikes clear and yet doesn't deafen us."
Emile set to work; he took the little German clock apart, and, having examined it, found nothing more to do than remove a little dust from the interior. Leaning over the table near Gilberte he carefully cleaned and readjusted the rough machinery, exchanging with the two women an occasional remark of a playful turn, which led to a pleasant sort of familiarity between them.
It is commonly said that people become expansive and confidential while eating together; but intimacy comes more readily and naturally to those who work together. All three of them felt it; and when they had finished their various tasks they were almost members of the same family.
"You're right at home at that business," said Janille, when she saw that her clock was going; "you would almost do for a clockmaker. Now let's go for a walk; I will go first and light my lantern to take you into the cellars."
"Monsieur," said Gilberte, when Janille had left the room, "you said just now that you expected to dine with Monsieur de Boisguilbault. May I not ask you what sort of impression that gentleman made upon you?"
"I should have difficulty in defining it," replied Emile. "It is a mixture of repulsion and sympathy, so strange that I feel that I must see him again, examine him closely and then reflect further, before attempting to interpret so odd a character. Don't you know him, mademoiselle, and can you not assist me to understand him?"
"I do not know him at all; I have seen him only once or twice in my life, although we live very near him; and, because of what I had heard about him, I was very anxious to see him; but he was riding on the same road with my father and myself, and the instant that he caught sight of us, he spurred his horse, bowed to us without looking at us, apparently without knowing who we were, and was out of sight in a moment: you would have said he was trying to hide in the dust that his horse's feet kicked up."
"Has Monsieur de Châteaubrun no relations with him, although he is so near a neighbor?"
"Oh! that's a very strange thing," said Gilberte, lowering her voice confidentially, "but I may speak to you about it, Monsieur Emile, because it seems to me that you may be able to solve the mystery. My father was very intimate with Monsieur de Boisguilbault in his younger days. I know that much, although he never speaks of him, and Janille avoids answering me when I question her; but Jean, who knows no more than I do about the cause of their rupture, has often told me that he can remember a time when they were inseparable. That is what has always made me think that Monsieur de Boisguilbault is neither so proud nor so cold as he seems; for my father with his good humor and vivacity could never have been on warm terms with a haughty disposition and a cold heart. I must tell you too that I have overheard some conversation about him between my father and Janille, when they thought that I was not listening. My father said that the only irreparable misfortune of his life was the loss of Monsieur de Boisguilbault's friendship, that he should never be consoled for it, and that he would not hesitate to sacrifice an eye or an arm or a leg to recover it. Janille called his lamentations nonsense and advised him not to make the slightest step toward reconciliation because she knew the man well and he would never forget the affair that had made the trouble between them.
"'Very well,' said my father, 'I would prefer to have an explanation, to submit to his reproaches; I would rather have fought a duel with him, when we were of almost equal strength, than have to endure this implacable silence and frigid persistence which cuts me to the heart. No, Janille, no, I shall never be reconciled to it, and if I die without shaking hands with him, I shall regret that I ever lived.'
"Janille tried to divert his mind, and she succeeded, for my father is impressionable and too affectionate to be willing to depress others with his melancholy. But you, Monsieur Emile, who love your parents so dearly, will understand that this secret grief of my father's has weighed heavily on my heart ever since I discovered it. So that I can think of nothing that I would not undertake to relieve him from it. For a whole year I have been thinking about it constantly, and twenty times I have dreamed that I went to Boisguilbault, threw myself at that unforgiving man's feet and said to him:
"'My father is the best of men and your most faithful friend. His virtues have made him happy in spite of his ill-fortune; he has but one sorrow, but it is a deep one and you can dispel it with a word.'
"But he repulsed me and turned me out of his house in a rage. I woke in deadly terror, and one night when I called his name, Janille got up and took me in her arms and said:
"'Why do you think about that wretched man? he has no power over you and he wouldn't dare attack your father.'
"From that I saw that Janille hated him; but whenever she happens to say a word against him, my father warmly defends him. What is there between them? Almost nothing, perhaps. A puerile sensitiveness, a dispute about hunting, so Jean Jappeloup declares. If that were certain, wouldn't it be possible to reconcile them? My father dreams of Monsieur de Boisguilbault too, and sometimes, when he dozes in his chair after supper, he mutters his name in a tone of profound distress. Monsieur Emile, I appeal to your generosity and prudence to induce Monsieur de Boisguilbault to speak, if possible. I have always intended to grasp the first opportunity that presented itself to reconcile two men who have been so closely attached to each other, and if Jean had been fully taken back into the marquis's favor, I should have hoped great things from his boldness and his natural shrewdness. But he too is the victim of a strange caprice on Monsieur de Boisguilbault's part, and I can think of nobody but you who can help me."
"You cannot doubt that will be my most constant endeavor henceforth," said Emile, with fervor. And as he heard Janille returning, her little clogs clattering on the flagstones, he stood on a chair as if to adjust the clock, but really to hide the blissful confusion born of Gilberte's confidence.
Gilberte also was moved. She had made a great effort to summon courage to open her heart to a young man whom she hardly knew; and she was not so childish or so countrified that she did not realize that she had gone beyond conventional propriety.
The loyal creature was distressed at the thought that she had a secret from Janille; but she took comfort in the purity of her intentions, and it was impossible to believe Emile capable of taking advantage of her. For the first time in her life the instinctive craft of her sex guided her action when the housekeeper returned. She felt that her face was on fire, and she stooped to pick up a needle which she had purposely dropped.
Thus Janille's penetration was routed by two children who were far from adroit in all other respects, and they set forth gayly to explore the subterranean regions.
The passage directly beneath the square pavilion led to a steep staircase which descended to a terrifying depth in the solid rock. Janille went first, at a deliberate gait, with the composure due to her frequent exercise of the functions ofciceronewith visitors. Emile followed her, to feel the way for Gilberte, who was neither awkward nor timid, but for whose safety Janille was constantly alarmed.
"Take care, my dear," she said at every step. "Hold her if she falls, Monsieur Emile. Mademoiselle is absent-minded like her dear father: it runs in the family. They're a pair of children who would have killed themselves a hundred times over if I had not always had my eye on them."
Emile was happy to be able to share Janille's task. He pushed the rubbish aside, and, as the staircase became more and more dilapidated and difficult, he deemed himself justified in offering his hand, which was declined at first, but afterward accepted as necessary.
Who can describe the violence and ecstasy of a first love in an ardent heart? Emile trembled so when he took Gilberte's hand in his that he could no longer talk and joke with Janille nor reply to Gilberte, who continued to jest at first, but gradually became more and more agitated until she could think of nothing to say.
They descended in this way only ten or twelve steps, but meanwhile time ceased to move for Emile; and when he passed the whole of the following night trying to review the emotions of that moment, it seemed to him that it had lasted a century.
His past life appeared thenceforth like a dream, and his personality was transformed. When he recalled his childhood, the years at school, the tedium or the pleasure of study, he was no longer the passive, fettered creature he had hitherto felt himself to be; it was Gilberte's lover who lived through those years, thenceforth radiant, enlightened with a new light. He saw himself as a mere child, then as an active, impetuous school-boy, and, finally, as a dreamy, earnest student; and those various personages, who had seemed to him to differ like the phases of his life, became in his eyes a single being, a privileged being, who moved triumphantly forward toward the bright daylight where Gilberte's hand was to be placed in his.
The underground staircase led to the base of the rocky hill which was crowned by the Château. It was a means of exit in case of a siege, and Janille was not sparing of encomiums upon that difficult and scientific piece of work.
Although she lived on terms of absolute equality with her masters, and would not have waived the privilege at any price, so thoroughly convinced was she of her rights, the little woman none the less had some strangely persistent feudal ideas; and, by dint of identifying herself with the ruins of Châteaubrun, she had reached the point of admiring everything in their past history, of which she had, to tell the truth, a very confused idea. Perhaps, too, she thought it her duty, to humble the pride of the wealthy bourgeoisie by vaunting loudly before Emile the ancient might of Gilberte's ancestors.
"See, monsieur," she said, escorting him from dungeon to dungeon, "this is where they brought people to their senses. You can still see the iron rings to which they fastened prisoners after their fetters were put on. This is a dungeon where they say three men were devoured by a huge serpent. The great noblemen of long ago had such creatures at their disposal. We will show to you theoubliettesin a moment: it was no joke to get into them! Ah! if you had come down here before the Revolution, perhaps you would have done well to make the sign of the Cross instead of laughing!"
"Luckily we can laugh here now," said Gilberte, "and think of something else besides those horrible legends. I thank the good Lord that I was born in an age when it is very hard to believe in them, and I prefer our old nest as it is to-day, demolished and harmless forever. You know, Janille, what my father always says to the people of Cuzion, when they come and ask him for some of our stone for building purposes: 'Help yourselves, my friends, help yourselves; it will be the first time it ever served any good purpose!'"
"Never mind," rejoined Janille, "it's worth something to have been first in one's province and the master of everybody else!"
"It makes me realize all the more forcibly," replied the girl, "the pleasure of being everybody else's equal and of no longer causing fear to anybody."
"Oh! that is a glory and a joy which I envy!" cried Emile.
If Gilberte had been told a week earlier that a day was coming when the tranquillity of her heart would be disturbed by strange commotions, when the circle of her affections would not only be extended to admit a stranger to a place beside her father, Janille and the carpenter, but would suddenly be broken in order that a new name might be placed among those cherished names, she would not have believed that such a miracle could be and would have been terrified by the suggestion.
And yet she had a vague feeling that henceforth the image of this young man with the black hair, sparkling eye and slender figure, would dog her footsteps and follow her even in her sleep.
She spurned the thought of such a fatality, but she could not escape from it. Her chaste and gentle heart did not go forth to meet the intoxicating emotion that came to seek it; but she was destined to feel it when Emile's hand quivered and trembled on touching hers.
Incredible and mysterious power of attraction which nothing can turn aside and which determines the fate of youth before it has had time to become acquainted with itself and to prepare for attack or defence!
Somewhat excited by the first stings of this secret flame, Gilberte received them playfully. Her serenity was not disturbed on the surface, and while Emile was already compelled to put force upon himself in order to conceal his emotion, she continued to smile and to talk freely, pending the time when regret at his departure and impatience for his return should make her understand that his presence was rapidly becoming imperatively necessary to her.
Janille did not leave them again; but their conversation gradually drifted to subjects which Janille, despite her keen penetration, was far from understanding.
Gilberte had received as thorough an education as any girl educated at a Parisian boarding-school, and it is undoubtedly true that the education of women has made notable progress in the majority of those establishments in the past twenty years. The learning, the good sense and the manners of the women who have charge of them have undergone a similar amelioration, and talented men have deemed it not beneath their dignity to give courses of lectures in history, literature and elementary science for the benefit of that intelligent and perspicacious moiety of the human race.
Gilberte had acquired some notion of what are called "accomplishments"; but, while complying with her father's wishes in this respect, she had given more attention to the development of her intellectual faculties.
She had seasonably reflected that the fine arts would be but a feeble resource in a life of poverty and retirement, that household cares would take too much of her time, and that, as she was destined to work with her hands, it was her duty to train her mind so that she might not suffer from absence of thought and from a disorderly imagination.
A sub-mistress, a woman of much merit, of whom she had made a friend and the confidante of her precarious future, had advised this employment of her faculties, and the girl, impressed by the wisdom of her advice, had followed it implicitly.
This very pleasure in learning and retaining useful information had, however, caused the child some unhappiness since she had been deprived of books in the ruins of Châteaubrun. Monsieur Antoine would have made any sacrifice to procure books for her, if he could have detected her desire for them; but Gilberte, seeing how restricted their means were, and desiring more than all else that her father's comfort should not be impaired, was very careful not to mention the subject.
Janille had said to herself, once for all, that her girl "had learning enough," and, judging her by herself—for the old lady was coquettish still in the matter of dress, with all her parsimony,—she employed her little savings in buying for her from time to time, a calico dress or a bit of lace.
Gilberte feigned to receive these little gifts with extreme pleasure, in order not to lessen the pleasure which her old nurse derived from bringing them to her. But she sighed to herself at the thought that with the modest price of that finery she might have given her a volume of history or poetry.
She devoted her hours of leisure to reading again and again the few books she had brought from her school, and she almost knew them by heart.
Once or twice, without divulging her purpose, she had persuaded Janille, who held the strings of the common purse, to give her the money intended for a new gown. But on these occasions it happened that Jean needed shoes, or that some poor people near by had no clothes for their children; and Gilberte supplied what she called the most urgent needs, postponing the purchase of her books to better days.
The curé of Cuzion had lent her an Abridgment of some of the Fathers of the Church, and theLives of the Saints, upon which she had feasted for a long time; for, when you have no choice, you compel your mind to enjoy serious things, despite the youthful impulse to indulge in less austere amusements.
This necessity is sometimes a salutary thing for healthy minds, and when Gilberte artlessly lamented her ignorance to Emile, he was astonished to find her, on the contrary, so well informed as to certain fundamental matters which he himself had accepted on the faith of others, without studying them.
Love and enthusiasm aiding, he speedily discovered that Gilberte was an accomplished young woman, and proclaimed her, in his own mind, the most intelligent and most perfect of human creatures; and it was relatively true. The greatest and best of mortals is the one who is most sympathetic with us, who understands us best, who is best able to develop and nourish the best qualities of our mind; in a word, the one who would make our life most blissful and complete if our lives could be absolutely blended.
"Ah! I have done well to keep my heart empty and my mind pure hitherto," said Emile to himself, "and I thank thee, O God, for having assisted me! for surely this is the woman who was destined for me, and without whom I should simply have vegetated and suffered."
While talking on general subjects, Gilberte allowed her regret at being deprived of books to appear, and Emile speedily divined that regret was deeper than she cared to reveal to Janille.
He reflected sorrowfully that there was not a single volume in his father's house except commercial and industrial treatises, and that, expecting to return to Poitiers, he had left there what few books he owned.
But Gilberte suggested that there was a very extensive library at Boisguilbault. Jean had done some work long ago in a large room full of books, and it was much to be regretted that the families were at odds, for she might have taken advantage of the proximity of such a treasure.
At this juncture, Janille, who always knitted as she walked, raised her head.
"It's probably a lot of tiresome old books," she said, "and for my part I should be very sorry to put my nose into them; I should be afraid they would make me a lunatic like the man who lives on them."
"Why, does Monsieur de Boisguilbault read very much?" asked Gilberte; "he must be very learned."
"Well, what good has it done him to read so much and be so learned? He has never done anybody any good with it, and it hasn't made him loving or lovable."
Janille, unwilling to expose herself to further questions concerning a man whom she hated, without knowing or caring to say why she hated him, walked toward her goats as if to prevent them from nibbling a vine which grew around the door of the square pavilion.
Emile took advantage of this moment to say to Gilberte that, if there were so many books at Boisguilbault, she should soon have them at her disposal, even if he had to borrow them stealthily.
Gilberte could only thank him with a smile, not daring to add a glance thereto; she was beginning to feel embarrassed with him when Janille was not there.
"On my word!" said Janille, retracing her steps, "Monsieur Antoine is in no hurry to return. I know him: he's chattering somewhere at this minute! He has met some old friends and is treating them at the wineshop, forgetting the time and spending his money. And then, if some whining creature wants to borrow ten or fifteen francs to buy a miserable goat or a brace or two of scrawny geese, he'll let him have it! He'd give away all he has about him if he wasn't afraid of being scolded when he comes home. He took six sheep, you see, and if he only brings back the price of five in his purse, as it happens too often, let him look out forma mieJanille! he won't go to market again without me! Hark—there's the clock striking four—thanks to Monsieur Emile, who fixed it so well,—and I'll bet that your father has no more than just started for home, at the best."
"Four o'clock!" exclaimed Emile; "why that's Monsieur de Boisguilbault's dinner-hour. I haven't a moment to lose."
"Go at once then," said Gilberte, "for we mustn't make him any more ill-disposed toward us than he is already."
"What difference does it make to us whether he bears us ill-will or not?" said Janille. "Do you really mean to go without seeing Monsieur Antoine?"
"I must, I am very sorry to say!"
"Where is that little villain of a Charasson?" cried Janille. "Asleep in a corner, I'll warrant, and not thinking about bringing up your horse! When monsieur is absent, Sylvain disappears. Here, you wicked rascal, where are you hiding?"
"I wish that you could provide me with a charm!" said Emile to Gilberte, while Janille was seeking Sylvain and calling him in tones more vociferous than really angry. "I am going forth, like a knight errant, to enter the wizard's den and try to extort from him his secrets and the words that will put an end to your distress."
"Here," said Gilberte, laughingly, taking a flower from her belt, "here is the loveliest rose from my garden; perhaps its fragrance may possess the salutary power of putting its enemy's prudence to sleep and softening his ferocity. Leave it on his table, try to induce him to admire it and smell it. He is a horticulturist, but I doubt if he has in his great garden so fine a specimen as this product of my last year's graft. If I were a châtelaine of the good old days which Janille regrets, perhaps I could invoke a spell that would impart a magic power to this flower. But, being a poor girl, I can only pray to God to instill mercy into that cruel heart, even as he caused the dew to fall and open this rose-bud."
"Must I leave my talisman, pray?" said Emile, hiding the rose in his breast: "may I not keep it to use another time?"
The tone in which he asked this question and the emotion discernible upon his face caused Gilberte a moment's artless surprise. She looked at him with an uncertain expression, unable as yet to understand the value he attached to the flower taken from her girdle. She tried to smile, as at a jest, but felt that the blood rose to her cheeks; and as Janille reappeared, she made no reply.
Emile, drunk with love, descended with reckless speed the dangerous path down the hill. When he was at the foot he ventured to turn, and saw Gilberte following him with her eyes from her rose-covered terrace, her hands apparently busied trimming her favorite plants.
She surely was not dressed more daintily than usual that day. Her dress was clean, like everything that passed through Janille's scrupulous hands; but it had been washed and ironed so many times that the color had changed from lilac to that indefinable tint which the hortensia assumes just as it withers.
Her superb golden hair, rebelling against the fetters imposed upon it, escaped from its confinement and formed a sort of halo of gold about her head. A snow-white, tightly-fitting chemisette surrounded her lovely neck and suggested the graceful outlines of her shoulders. In Emile's eyes she was resplendent in the sunbeams falling full upon her, for she made no effort to shield herself from them. Sunburn was powerless to impair that rich carnation, and her pale, faded costume made her seem all the fresher.
Moreover, the imagination of a lover of twenty years is too rich to be embarrassed by a mere matter of dress. That faded gown assumed in Emile's eyes a hue more gorgeous than that of all the richest stuffs of the Orient, and he wondered why the painters of the Renaissance had never been able to clothe their smiling madonnas and their triumphant saints so magnificently.
He stood as if nailed to the spot for several minutes, and, except for the impatience of his horse tossing his head and pawing the ground, he would have forgotten entirely that Monsieur de Boisguilbault had another hour to wait for him.
He had had to make several detours to reach the foot of the hill, and the distance in a straight line was not so great that the two young people could not see each other quite plainly. Gilberte observed the hesitation of the horseman, who could not make up his mind to lose sight of her; so she went behind the rose-bushes, to conceal herself from him, but she continued to watch him for a long time through the branches.
Janille had walked in the opposite direction to meet her master. Not until Gilberte heard her father's voice did she break the spell that held her. It was the first time that she had ever allowed Janille to anticipate her in going to meet him and relieve him of his game-bag and his stick.
As he approached Boisguilbault, Emile made and remade a hundred times his plan of attack upon the fortress where that incomprehensible individual lay entrenched.
Impelled by his romantic disposition, he had a sort of presentiment that Gilberte's destiny—and consequently his own—was written in mysterious characters in some obscure corner of that old manor, whose high gray walls rose before him.
Tall, gloomy, melancholy and silent as its aged lord, that isolated abode seemed to defy the bold attacks of curiosity. But Emile was spurred on by a passionate determination. As Gilberte's confidant and agent, he said to himself, pressing the rose, already withered, against his lips, that he would have the necessary courage and address to triumph over every obstacle.
He found Monsieur de Boisguilbault alone on his stoop, idle and impassive as always. He made haste to apologize for delaying the old gentleman's dinner, on the plea that he had lost his way, and, being as yet unfamiliar with the neighborhood, had passed nearly two hours finding it.
Monsieur de Boisguilbault asked no questions as to the route he had taken. One would have said that he dreaded the name of Châteaubrun; but, with refinement of courtesy, he assured his guest that he had no idea of the time and had not thought of being impatient. He had been somewhat disturbed, none the less, as Emile soon discovered from some faltering remarks that he made, and the young man fancied that he could see that, amid the profound tedium of his solitary life, the marquis's sensitive nature would have suffered keenly if he had broken his word.
The dinner was excellent and served by the old retainer with scrupulous punctuality. He was the only servant to be seen in the château. The others, buried in the kitchen, which was underground, did not appear at all. It seemed that this was the result of a sort of standing order, and that their dean was the only one who did not offend the master's eye.
The old man was very infirm, but he was so accustomed to his duties that the marquis had to say almost nothing to him; and when it happened that he did not anticipate his master's desires, a sign was sufficient to convey them to him.
His deafness seemed admirably suited to Monsieur de Boisguilbault's taciturnity, and perhaps the latter was not sorry to have about him a man whose impaired vision made it impossible for him to read his features: he was rather a machine than a servant; for, being deprived by his infirmities of the power of mental communication with his fellow-men, he no longer had any desire or occasion therefor.
One could readily conceive that those two old men were well fitted to live together without a thought of being bored by each other's company, there was so little apparent life in either of them.
The dinner was served with due regularity, but not rapidly. They were two hours at table. Emile observed that his host ate almost nothing, and seemed to have no other purpose in eating than to induce him to taste all the dishes, which were appetizing and toothsome. The wines were exquisite, and old Martin poured them from bottles covered with the dust of ages, which he held horizontally, taking care not to jar them in the slightest degree.
The marquis barely wet his lips, but motioned to his old servant to fill Emile's glass, who, being habitually very abstemious, kept close watch upon himself, to see that he did not allow his reason to succumb to the repeated experiments with the numerous specimens from that seignorial cellar.
"Is this your ordinary fare, monsieur le marquis?" he asked, marvelling that such a sumptuous repast should be provided for two persons.
"I—I really don't know," the marquis replied; "I have nothing to do with it. Martin is my housekeeper. I never have any appetite, and I never notice what I eat. Do the things seem good to you?"
"Exquisite; and if I had the honor of being admitted to your table often, I should beg Martin to entertain me less splendidly, for I should be afraid of becoming a gourmand."
"Why not? it's one variety of enjoyment. Happy are they who have many others!"
"But there are those which are more elevating and less expensive," rejoined Emile; "so many people lack the necessaries of life that I should be ashamed to find that the luxuries were necessary to me."
"You are right," said Monsieur de Boisguilbault, with his accustomed sigh. "Well, I will tell Martin to serve you a simpler dinner another time. He supposed that at your age you would have a large appetite; but it seems to me that you eat like a man who has finished growing. How old are you?"
"Twenty-one."
"I should have thought that you were older."
"From my face?"
"No, from your ideas."
"I would like my father to hear your opinion, monsieur le marquis, and to become imbued with it," rejoined Emile with a smile; "for he always treats me like a child."
"What sort of a man is your father?" said Monsieur de Boisguilbault, with an ingenuous absent-mindedness which removed the sting from what might have seemed at first blush a most impertinent question.
"My father," replied Emile, "is a friend whose esteem I desire and whose blame I dread. I can think of no better way to describe an energetic, stern and just character."
"I have heard it said that he was a very able man, very wealthy and very jealous of his influence. Those are not disadvantages if he makes a good use of them."
"What in your opinion, monsieur le marquis, is the best use that he can make of them?"
"Ah! it would take a long while to tell!" sighed the marquis; "you ought to know as well as I."
And, roused momentarily by the confidence Emile designedly manifested in him in order to induce a similar confidence on his part, he relapsed into his torpor, as if he feared to make an effort to throw it off.
"I absolutely must break this secular ice," thought Emile. "Perhaps it's not so difficult as people think. Perhaps I shall be the first who ever tried it!"
And, while maintaining, as he was bound to do, a discreet silence concerning the apprehensions which his father's ambition aroused in him, and concerning the painful conflict between their respective opinions, he spoke freely and enthusiastically of his own beliefs, of his sympathies and even of his dreams for the future of the human race.
He was certain that the marquis would take him for a madman, and he amused himself by inviting contradictions which would enable him at last to penetrate that mysterious mind.
"If I could only bring about an explosion of contempt or indignation!" he said to himself; "then I could discover the strength or weakness of the citadel."
And he unconsciously adopted with the marquis the same tactics that his father had recently employed with him; he affected to attack and demolish everything that he assumed to be in any degree sacred in the old legitimist's eyes; "the nobility, the money power, large estates, the power of individuals, the slavery of the masses, the Jesuitism of the church, the alleged divine right of kings, the inequality of privileges and pleasures which is the basis of society as at present constituted, the domination of man over woman, who is treated as merchandise in the marriage contract and as real estate in the contract of public morality; in a word, all those heathenish laws which the Gospel has failed to banish from our institutions and which the political scheming of the Church has consecrated."
Monsieur de Boisguilbault seemed to listen more attentively than usual; his great blue eyes were wide open, as if, in default of wine, his amazement at such a sweeping declaration of the rights of man had utterly stupefied him.
Emile glanced at his glass, which was filled with tokay a hundred years old, and resolved to have recourse to it for inspiration if the natural warmth of his youthful enthusiasm was insufficient to avert the avalanche of snow that was about to fall upon him.
But he did not need that stimulant; for, whether because the snow had become too hard to be detached from the glacier, or because Monsieur de Boisguilbault, while seeming to listen, had heard nothing, the rash profession of faith of that child of the century was not interrupted and came to an end in the most profound silence.
"Well, monsieur le marquis," said Emile, amazed by this listless toleration of his views, "do you subscribe to my opinions, or do they seem to you unworthy of being combated?"
Monsieur de Boisguilbault did not reply; a wan smile played about his lips, which moved as if to speak but emitted only the problematical sigh. But he placed his hand on Emile's, and it seemed to the younger man that he felt a cool moisture, which imparted to that hand of stone some symptom of life.
At last he rose and said:
"We will take our coffee in the park.—For I am entirely of your opinion," he added after a pause, as if he were finishing aloud a sentence he had begun under his breath.
"Really?" cried Emile, resolutely passing his arm through his host's.
"Why not, pray?" rejoined the latter coolly.
"Then all these things are indifferent to you?"
"God grant it!" replied Monsieur de Boisguilbault, with a more pronounced sigh than usual.
Emile had as yet admired the park of Boisguilbault only over the hedges and through the gate. He was more than ever impressed by the beauty of that pleasure-ground, by the luxuriance of the plants and their happy arrangement.
Nature had done much, but art had seconded her with great taste and judgment. The sloping ground was diversified by innumerable picturesque irregularities, and an abundant spring, bubbling up among the rocks, sent forth streams in all directions, keeping all things green under the superb trees.
The valley and the slope on the other side, which also belonged to the marquis, were covered with a dense vegetation which partly concealed the division walls and hedges, so that from all the elevated points, which afforded views of a beautiful and extensive landscape, the park seemed to extend to the horizon.
"This is an enchanted spot," said Emile, "and one needs only to see it to be sure that you are a great poet."
"There are many great poets of my sort," replied the marquis, "that is to say, people who feel poetry but cannot express it."
"Is the spoken or written word alone interesting, I pray to know?" exclaimed Emile. "Is not the painter who nobly interprets nature a poet too? And if that is incontestable, does not the artist who actually improves upon nature, and modifies it in order to develop all its beauty,—does not he produce a grand poetic result?"
"You express that very well," rejoined Monsieur de Boisguilbault, in a tone of indolent indifference, which was not, however, wholly devoid of kindliness.
But Emile would have preferred discussion to this careless assent to everything he said, and he was afraid that his main attack had failed. "What can I invent to vex him and make him come out of his shell?" he said to himself. "There is no one of the famous sieges in history that can be compared to this."
The coffee was served in a pretty Swiss chalet; the exactness of the copy and the scrupulous neatness aroused Emile's admiration for a moment; but the absence of human beings and domestic animals in that rustic retreat was so noticeable that it was impossible to maintain the illusion. And yet nothing was missing: the moss-covered hillside studded with firs, nor the thread of sparkling water falling into a stone basin at the door, and flowing from it with a gentle murmur; the chalet, constructed entirely of resinous wood with a pretty arrangement of balustrades and built against huge granite rocks, the pretty overhanging roof, the interior furnished in the German fashion, even to the service of blue earthenware—all new and clean and glistening and deserted—resembled a dainty Fribourg toy rather than a rustic dwelling.
Even the stiff, lifeless figures of the old marquis and his old majordomo gave one the impression of painted wooden images, placed there to complete the resemblance.
"You have been in Switzerland, I presume, monsieur le marquis," said Emile, "and this is a reminiscence of some favorite spot?"
"I have traveled very little," Monsieur de Boisguilbault replied, "although I set out one day with the intention of making the tour of the world. Switzerland happened to be in my way; the country pleased me and I went no farther, saying to myself that I should probably find nothing better after taking a deal of trouble."
"I see that you prefer this country to all others, and that you have come back here forever?"
"Forever, most assuredly."
"This is Switzerland in miniature, and if the imagination is less keenly aroused by grand spectacles, the fatigues and dangers of travel are much less great."
"I had other reasons for settling down on my own estate."
"Is it indiscreet to ask you what they are?"
"Are you really curious to know, then?" said the marquis with an equivocal smile.
"Curious! no; I am not curious in the impertinent and ridiculous meaning of the word; but to one of my age, one's own destiny and other people's is an enigma, and one always imagines that he may derive valuable information from the experience and wisdom of certain men."
"Why do you saycertain men? Am I not like the rest of the world?"
"Oh! not at all, monsieur le marquis!"
"You surprise me greatly," said Monsieur de Boisguilbault in exactly the same tone in which he had said, a few moments earlier:I am entirely of your opinion. And he added: "Won't you put some sugar in your coffee?"
"I am more surprised," said Emile, mechanically helping himself to sugar, "that you do not realize how solemn and impressive your solitude, your gravity, and I will venture to add, your melancholy, must be to a child like myself."
"Do I frighten you?" said Monsieur de Boisguilbault with a deep sigh.
"You frighten me terribly, monsieur le marquis, I frankly admit; but do not take my ingenuousness in bad part, for it is no less certain that I am impelled by an entirely contrary sentiment of irresistible attraction, to overcome that sentiment of fear."
"That is strange," said the marquis, "very strange: pray explain it to me."
"It is very simple. As a young man of my age goes about seeking the solution of his own future in the present or in the past of men of maturer years, it terrifies him to see an invincible sadness and a dumb but profound distaste for life, written upon austere brows."
"Yes, that is why my external appearance repels you. Do not be afraid to say it. You are not the first and I expected it."
"Repel is not the word, since, notwithstanding the sort of magnetic stupor into which you cast me, I am drawn toward you by a peculiar attraction."
"Peculiar!—aye, very peculiar, and you are the more eccentric of us two. I was struck, the first moment I saw you, by the manifest dissimilarity of your character to that of the men whom I knew in my younger days."
"And was that impression unfavorable to me, monsieur le marquis?"
"Quite the contrary," replied Monsieur de Boisguilbault in that voice, utterly without inflection, which made it impossible to estimate the bearing of his replies. "Martin," he added, leaning toward his old servant who bent himself double to hear him, "you can take all this away. Are there any workmen left in the park?"
"No, monsieur le marquis, nobody."
"In that case, close the gate when you go away."
Emile remained alone with his host in the solitude of the vast park. The marquis took his arm and led him to a seat on the cliffs above the chalet, where there was a lovely view.
The sun, as it sank toward the horizon, projected the shadows of the tall poplars from one side to the other of the ravine, like a dark curtain intersected by brilliant streaks. The violet rays shot up into an opal-hued sky, above an ocean of dark verdure; and as the sounds of toil in the fields died gradually away, the voice of the mountain streams and the plaintive note of the turtle doves could be heard more distinctly.
It was a magnificent evening, and young Cardonnet, turning his eyes and thoughts upon the distant hills of Châteaubrun, fell into a pleasant reverie. He was reflecting that he might venture to indulge in that mental recreation before making another assault, when his adversary suddenly made an unexpected sortie and broke the silence.
"Monsieur Cardonnet," said he, "if, when you told me that you felt a sort of sympathy for me despite the ennui that I cause you, you did not say it simply to be polite, or by way of jest, this is the reason: we profess the same principles, we are both communists."
"Can it be true?" cried Emile, astounded by this declaration and thinking that he must be dreaming. "I thought just now that you answered me as you did simply to be courteous or by way of jest; but am I really so fortunate as to find in you a justification of my desires and my dreams?"
"What is there surprising in that?" rejoined the marquis calmly. "May not the truth make itself known in solitude as well as in a crowd, and have I not lived long enough to be able to distinguish good from evil, the true from the false? You take me for a very matter-of-fact, very cold man. It is possible that I am; at my age a man is too tired of himself to care to examine himself; but, outside of our individuality, there are general realities sufficiently worthy of interest to divert our thoughts from our ennui.
"For a long time I retained the opinions and prejudices in which I was reared; my natural indolence was content not to scrutinize them too closely, and then I had internal anxieties which kept me from thinking about them. But since old age has set me free from all pretension to happiness and from every sort of regret or special interest in anything, I have felt the need of obtaining an insight into the general life of my fellow-men, and, consequently, into the meaning of the divine laws as applied to mankind.
"Certain Saint-Simonian pamphlets fell into my hands by chance, I read them to pass the time, having as yet no idea that they could go beyond the bold theories of Jean-Jacques and Voltaire, with whom careful study had reconciled me.
"I determined to know more of the principles of this new school, and I passed from that to the study of Fourier. I admitted everything, although I did not very clearly distinguish their contradictions, and it still saddened me to see the ancient world crumble under the weight of theories invincible in their system of criticism, confused and incomplete in their principles of organization. It was not until five or six years ago that I accepted with perfect disinterestedness and great mental satisfaction the principle of a social revolution.
"The attempts at communism had seemed to me monstrous at first, on the faith of those who combated them. I read the newspapers and publications of all the schools, and I gradually lost myself in that labyrinth, without being repelled by fatigue. Little by little the communist hypothesis came forth from its clouds; able expositions shed light into my mind. I felt that I must go back to the teaching of history and to the tradition of the human race.
"I had a well-selected library of the best documents and the most serious works of the past. My father had been fond of reading, and I had hated it for so many years that I did not even know what precious resources he had left me for my old age. I set to work all alone. I learned again the dead languages, which I had forgotten; I read for the first time, in the original sources, the history of religions and philosophies, and the day came at last when the great men, the saints, the prophets, the poets, the martyrs, the heretics, the scholars, the enlightened orthodox believers, the innovators, the artists, the reformers of all times, all countries, of all the revolutions and of all the forms of worship seemed to me to be in accord, proclaiming in every form, and even in their apparent contradictions, one eternal truth, as logical and as clear as the light of day, namely the equality of rights, and the inevitable necessity of equality of enjoyment thereof as a rigorous consequence of the first.
"Since then I have been surprised by only one thing, and that is that in the time in which we live, with so many resources and discoveries, so much activity, intelligence and freedom of opinion, the world is still plunged in such utter ignorance of the logical results of the facts and ideas which are forcing it to transform itself; that there are so many self-styled theologians encouraged and supported by the State and by the Church, and that no one of them has ever thought of devoting his life to the very simple labor which led me to certainty; and lastly, that while rushing onward to the catastrophe of its dissolution, the world of the past thinks to preserve itself by the strength and wrath of the destiny which hurries it on and swallows it, whereas those who know the secret of the law of the future have not as yet sufficient tranquillity and good sense to laugh at insults and to proclaim, with head erect, that they are communists and nothing else.
"You talk of dreams and Utopias with eloquence and enthusiasm, Monsieur Cardonnet; I forgive you for making use of those expressions because at your age truth arouses enthusiasm, and one makes of it an ideal which he purposely places rather high and rather far away, in order to have the pleasure of reaching it by earnest effort. But I can not work myself up as you do over this truth, which seems to me as simple, as manifest and as incontestable as it seems to you novel, bold and romantic. In my case it is the result of a deeper study and of a more firmly seated certainty. I do not dislike your vivacity, but I should not blame myself if I were to combat it a little in order to prevent you from endangering the doctrine by over-eagerness.
"Beware of that: you are too happily endowed ever to become ridiculous, and you will please even those people who fight against you; but be careful lest, by talking too fast and to too many disaffected persons of matters so serious and so worthy of respect, you tempt them to resort to systematic contradictions and to defend themselves in bad faith.
"What would you say of a young priest who should deliver sermons at the dinner-table? You would say that he belittled the majesty of his texts. Communistic truth is as deserving of respect as gospel truth, since it is in reality the same truth. Let us not speak of it lightly, therefore, and after the manner of political discussion. If you are excited, you must make sure that you are entirely master of yourself before proclaiming it; if you are phlegmatic, like me, you must wait until you acquire a little self-confidence and mental activity before opening your heart to other men on such a subject.
"You see, Monsieur Cardonnet, people must not have a chance to say that this is all folly, idle dreaming, feverish declamation, or a vision of mysticism. That has been said quite enough, and enough weak minds have given people the right to say it.
"We have seen Saint-Simonism pass through its phase of trances and feverish and disordered visions; that did not prevent the survival of whatever was viable in Saint-Simonism.
"Despite the aberrations of Fourier, the lucid portions of his system survive and will bear a critical examination. Truth triumphs and pursues its way through whatever disguise one views it and in whatever disguise one clothes it. But it would be much better that, in the age of reason which we have reached, the ridiculous manifestations of a blind enthusiasm should disappear entirely. Is not that your opinion? Has not the hour struck when serious-minded people should take possession of their true domain, and when those things that are logically proved should be professed by logicians?
"What does it matter if they are said to be inapplicable? Does it follow, because the majority of men still know and practise only what is wrong and false, that the clear-sighted man must follow the blind over the precipice?
"It's of no use to urge upon me the necessity of obeying bad laws and wrongful prejudices. Although my acts may be forced to conform to them, my mind will be only the more firmly convinced of the necessity of protesting against them.
"Was Jesus Christ in error because, during eighteen centuries, the truths demonstrated by him have germinated slowly, and have not yet bloomed in legislation?
"And now that the problems suggested by his ideal are beginning to approach a solution in the minds of some of us, how is it that we are taxed with madness because we see and believe what will be seen and believed by all men a hundred years hence? Be assured therefore that it is not necessary to be a poet or a seer to be perfectly convinced of the reality of what you are pleased to call sublime dreams. To be sure, truth is sublime, and the men who discover it are sublime as well. But they who, having received it and touched it, conform their lives to it as an excellent thing, have not really the right to be proud; for if, when they have once understood it, they reject it, they would be nothing less than idiots or madmen."
Monsieur de Boisguilbault spoke with a facility most extraordinary for him, and he might have talked on for a long while before the stupefied Emile would have thought of interrupting him.
Emile would never have believed that what he called his faith and his ideal could bloom in so cold and apathetic a mind, and he asked himself at first if it were not enough to sicken himself with it to find himself in the company of such an adept. But, little by little, notwithstanding his moderate way of speaking, the monotony of his accent and the immobility of his features, Monsieur de Boisguilbault acquired an extraordinary influence over him. That impassive man seemed to him an embodiment of the living law, the voice of destiny pronouncing its decrees over the abyss of eternity.
The solitude of that beautiful spot, the cloudless sky which, as the afterglow faded, seemed to raise its blue vault higher and higher toward the empyrean, the darkness gathering under the great trees, and the murmur of the rippling stream, which seemed in its placid continuity, the natural accompaniment of that calm, even voice—all combined to plunge Emile into a profound emotion akin to the mysterious awe which the response of the oracle in the sacred oaks must have produced in the youthful neophytes.
"Monsieur de Boisguilbault," said the young man, deeply impressed by what he had heard, "I cannot better express my submission to your enlightened views than by asking your pardon, from the bottom of my heart, for the way in which I extorted them from you. I was far from believing that you entertained such ideas, and I was drawn toward you by curiosity rather than by respect. But be sure that you will find in me henceforth the devotion of a son if you deem me worthy to manifest it."
"I never had any children," replied the marquis, taking Emile's hand in his and retaining it several moments; for he seemed to be revivified, and a sort of vital warmth enlivened his soft, dry skin. "Perhaps I was not worthy of having them; perhaps I should have brought them up badly! Nevertheless, I have deeply regretted that I have never had that joy. Now, I am entirely resigned to death; but if a little affection should come to me from without, I should accept it gratefully. I am not very trustful. Solitude breeds distrust. But I will make for your sake some effort to overcome my natural disposition, so that you may not be offended by my defects, especially by my surly humor, which horrifies everybody."
"That is because nobody knows you," rejoined Emile. "People look upon you as very different from what you are. You are thought to be proud and obstinately attached to the chimera of ancient privileges. You have evidently taken care, with great cruelty toward yourself, not to allow your real character to be divined by any one."
"Why should I have explained myself? What does it matter what people think of me? for, in the society in which I vegetate, my real opinions would seem even more ridiculous than those commonly attributed to me. If the cause which my mind has embraced would derive any benefit from a public declaration of my homage or my adhesion, no ridicule would turn me from it; but such adhesion on the part of a man so little loved as I am would be more harmful than useful to the progress of the truth. I cannot lie, and if any one had ever taken the trouble to come and question me, during these latter years since my opinions became fixed, it is probable that I should have said to him what I have said to you; but the circle of solitude grows wider about me every day and I have no right to complain. One must be amiable, in order to please, and I do not know how to make myself amiable, God having denied me certain gifts, which it is impossible for me to feign."
Emile strove earnestly and affectionately to allay, so far as he could, the secret bitterness concealed beneath Monsieur de Boisguilbault's resignation.
"It is very easy for me to be content with the present," said the old man with a sad smile. "I have very few years to live; although I am neither very old nor very ill, I feel that my vital thread is worn out, and my blood congeals and thickens every day. I might perhaps complain of having had no joys in the past; but when the past has fled, what does it matter what it was?—bliss or despair, strength or weakness, it has all vanished like a dream."
"But not without leaving traces behind," said Emile. "Even if memory itself should disappear, our emotions, according as they were pleasant or painful, will have deposited their balm or their poison, and our hearts will be tranquil or broken according to the experience they have had. I think that you must have suffered terribly in the past, although your brave heart refuses to descend to lamentation, and that suffering, which you conceal with too much pride, perhaps, increases my respect and my sympathy for you."
"I have suffered more from the absence of happiness than from what is commonly called unhappiness. I agree that a sort of pride has already prevented me from seeking a remedy in the sympathy of others. Friendship must needs come to seek me out, for I could not run after it."
"But in that case, would you have accepted it?"
"Oh! certainly," said Monsieur de Boisguilbault, still in a cold tone, but with a sigh that went to Emile's heart.
"And is it too late now?" asked the young man, with profound and respectful pity.
"Now—why, I should have to believe in it," replied the marquis, "or dare to ask for it—and from whom, pray?"
"Why not from him who listens to you and understands you to-day? Perhaps he is the first who has done so for a long time."
"That is true!"
"Very well, do you despise my youth? Do you deem me incapable of a serious sentiment, and do you fear that you will grow younger by bestowing a little affection on a boy?"
"But suppose I should make you grow older, Emile?"
"Very good; as I shall strive, for my part, to make you retrace your steps, the struggle will be advantageous to both of us. I shall gain in wisdom unquestionably, and perhaps you will find some alleviation of the wearisome monotony of your life. Believe in me, Monsieur de Boisguilbault: at my age one cannot pretend; if I dare to offer you my respectful attention, it is because I am capable of performing the duties that accompany it, and of appreciating the advantages of your affection!"
Monsieur de Boisguilbault took Emile's hand once more, and pressed it very warmly, but made no reply.
By the light of the moon, which was just rising, the young man saw a tear glisten an instant on the old man's withered cheek and disappear in his silvery whiskers.
Emile had conquered; he was happy and proud.
The youth of to-day profess a malignant contempt for old age, but our hero, on the contrary, felt a legitimate pride in triumphing over the reserve and distrust of that venerable and unhappy man. He was flattered by the thought that he had brought some consolation to that desolate patriarch and had made up to him for the neglect or injustice of other men.
He walked with him a long time in his beautiful park, and asked him many questions, the confiding artlessness of which did not offend the marquis. He expressed his surprise, for instance, that Monsieur de Boisguilbault, being wealthy and unhampered by family ties, had not tried to put his opinions in practice and to found some communistic association.
"That would be impossible for me," the old man replied. "I have not a trace of the initiative spirit; my indolence is invincible, and I have never, in my whole life, been able to exert any influence upon others. I should be less fitted for it now than ever, especially as it would not be merely a matter of devising a simple plan of organization applicable to the present time, but we must have moral and religious formulas, an exposition of principles and sentiment. I recognize the necessity of sentiment to convince men's minds; but it is not in my line. I have not the faculty of laying my heart bare, and my heart has not enough vitality to impart eloquence to my words. Nor do I think the time has come—you do not think that it has, do you? Very well, I do not propose to disturb your conviction; you are built for difficult enterprises, may you find the opportunity to act! As for myself, I have projects for the future—after my death. Some day, perhaps I will tell you what they are. Look at this beautiful garden that I have created—I have not done it without a purpose—but I want to know you better before explaining my plans; will you forgive me?"
"I bow to your wish, and I am certain beforehand that your predilection for this earthly paradise is not simply the mania of an idle landowner."
"I began in that way, however. My house had become distasteful to me; nothing gratifies indolence and disgust like immutable order, and that is why the house is so carefully kept and orderly. But I care for nothing that it contains, and I may tell you in confidence that I have not slept in it for fifteen years. The chalet where we took our coffee is my real home. There is a bedroom there and a study, which I did not show you and which no one has entered since they were built, not even Martin. Please not mention this to anybody, for perhaps public inquisitiveness would follow me there. It already besieges the park persistently enough on Sundays. All the idlers of the neighborhood stay here until eleven o'clock at night, and I stay away until the closing of the gates compels them to leave. On Monday I rise very late so that the workmen may have time to remove all traces of the invasion before I have seen them. Martin looks out for that. Don't accuse me of misanthropy, although perhaps I deserve the charge to some extent. Try rather to explain the anomaly of a man thoroughly imbued with the necessity of life in common, and yet compelled by his instincts to shun the presence of his fellow-men. I belong to this generation of individual egotists, and that which is a vice in others is a disease in me. There are reasons for this. But I prefer not to discuss them in order that I may not have to recall them."
Emile dared not ask any direct questions, although he resolved that he would discover one by one all Monsieur de Boisguilbault's secrets, or at least all those in which the Châteaubrun family was interested. But he considered that he had won enough victories for one day, and that he must win the marquis's esteem and affection, if possible, before obtaining his full confidence.