EMILE EXAMINES THE PORTRAIT OF THE MARQUISE DE BOISGUILBAULT.Nothing could be more refined and charming than that youthful face; doubtless it was Madame de Boisguilbault, and our hero forgot himself altogether as he gazed with deep interest at the features of that woman, whose life and death must have had so vast an influence on the destiny of the recluse.
EMILE EXAMINES THE PORTRAIT OF THE MARQUISE DE BOISGUILBAULT.
Nothing could be more refined and charming than that youthful face; doubtless it was Madame de Boisguilbault, and our hero forgot himself altogether as he gazed with deep interest at the features of that woman, whose life and death must have had so vast an influence on the destiny of the recluse.
The lady was dressed in the style of the Empire; but a sky-blue shawl richly embroidered and draped over her shoulders, concealed the apparent deformity produced by the fashionable short waist of that period. The arrangement of her hair, in so-called natural curls, was most becoming, and the hair itself was of a magnificent golden hue.
Nothing could be more refined and charming than that youthful face; doubtless it was Madame de Boisguilbault, and our hero forgot himself altogether as he gazed with deep interest at the features of that woman, whose life and death must have had so vast an influence on the destiny of the recluse.
But it rarely happens that a portrait gives us a just idea of the original; indeed, in the majority of cases one may say that nothing resembles the person so little as his image.
Emile had thought of the marchioness as a pale, melancholy creature; he saw a fashionable beauty, with a proud, sweet smile, with a noble and triumphant bearing. Was she like that before or after her marriage? Or was hers a nature entirely different from what he had supposed?
One thing of which he was certain was that he had before him a most fascinating face, and, as it was impossible for him to look upon the image of youth and beauty without thinking instantly of Gilberte, he began to compare the two types, in which it seemed to him that he discovered points of resemblance. The light was rapidly failing, and, as Emile dared not take a step toward the mysterious study, the outlines of the portrait soon became very indistinct. The white flesh and golden hair, standing forth from the shadow, produced so powerful an illusion upon him, that he thought that he had a portrait of Gilberte before him, and when he could no longer see aught but a sort of mist filled with dancing sparks, he had to make a strong effort of his will to remember that in his first impression, the only reliable one under such circumstances, there had been no thought of a resemblance between Madame de Boisguilbault's face and Mademoiselle de Châteaubrun's.
He left the chalet, and, meeting no one in the park, went on to the château.
The same silence and solitude reigned in the courtyard. He mounted the stairs in the turret, but did not as usual meet Martin coming to announce him in that ceremonious tone from which he never departed, even with the only habitué of the house.
At last he reached the salon, which was always very dark, the blinds being closed night and day; and, seized with a vague alarm, as if death had entered that house in which there was so little life at the best, he ran through the other rooms and at last found Monsieur de Boisguilbault lying on a bed. He was as pale and motionless as a corpse. The last rays of daylight cast a vague and melancholy reflection into the room, and old Martin, whose deafness prevented him from hearing Emile's approach, had every appearance of a statue as he sat at his master's pillow.
Emile darted to the bed and seized the marquis's hand. It was burning; and as the two old men awoke, one from the troubled sleep of fever, the other from the drowsiness of fatigue or inaction, the young man soon satisfied himself that the marquis's indisposition was in itself of little consequence. However, the ravages which two days of illness had wrought in that feeble, worn out frame were most disquieting for the future.
"Ah! you have done well to come!" said Monsieur de Boisguilbault, pressing Emile's hand feebly; "ennui would soon have consumed me if you had abandoned me!"
And Martin, who had not heard his master's words, but seemed to receive his thoughts on the rebound, repeated in a louder voice than he supposed:
"Ah! Monsieur Emile, you did well to come! Monsieur le marquis was suffering terribly from ennui because you didn't come."
Thereupon he told him that monsieur le marquis had been taken with the fever as he was about to go to the park two nights before, and had tranquilly made up his mind that he was going to die. He had insisted on going to bed in that very room, although he was not accustomed to sleep there, and he had given him instructions as if he never expected to get up again. He had a very restless night and the next morning he said to him:
"I feel much better; this will not amount to anything; but I feel as tired as if I had made a long journey and I need to rest a little. Perfect silence, Martin; little light, little nursing and no doctor; those are my orders. Don't be alarmed about me."
"And as I couldn't help being frightened," continued the old retainer, "monsieur le marquis said to me:
"'Never fear, my dear fellow, my time hasn't come yet.'"
"Is monsieur le marquis subject to such attacks?" Emile inquired; "are they serious? do they last long?"
But he had forgotten that Martin could hear nobody but his master, and, at a signal from the latter, he had already left the room.
"I allowed the poor old deaf fellow to have his say," said Monsieur de Boisguilbault, "for it would have been of no use to try to interrupt him. But don't take me for a coward from his story. I am not afraid of death, Emile; I used to long for it; now I await it calmly. I have been conscious of its approach for a long time; but it comes slowly, and I shall die as I have lived, without haste. I am subject to intermittent fevers which take away my appetite and my sleep, but which no one ever discovers because they leave me enough strength for the little I have to do. I do not believe in medicine; thus far it has found no means of curing disease without attacking the vital principle. In whatever form it assumes, it is empiricism, and I prefer bending under God's hand to leaping and capering under the hand of a man. This time I was harder hit than usual; I felt weaker mentally, and I will confess without shame, Emile, that I realized that I could no longer live alone. Old men are like children for falling in love with a new pleasure; but when it comes to losing it, they are not easily consoled like children. They become old men again and die. Don't be embarrassed by what I say: it is the fever that makes me so talkative. When I am cured, I shall not say it, I shall not even think it; but I shall always feel it as an instinct beneath my apathy. Do not feel that you are chained henceforth to my sad old age. It is of little importance whether I live a year more or less, or whether a friendly hand closes the eyes of him who has lived alone. But I thank you for coming again. Let us talk no more of me, but of you. What have you been doing during these sad days?"
"I have been sad myself because I have passed them away from you," Emile replied.
"Is it possible! Such is life, such is man. To make oneself suffer by making others suffer! That is a convincing proof of the brotherhood of souls."
Emile passed two hours with the marquis, and found him more confidential and more affectionate than he had ever been. He felt that his attachment to him became stronger, and he determined that he would cause him no more suffering. And when, upon taking his leave, he expressed some anxiety because he had allowed him to talk so earnestly, the marquis replied:
"Never fear. Come again to-morrow and you will find me on my feet. That is not the kind of thing that tires one; it is the absence of opportunities for pouring out one's heart that dries up and kills."
The marquis was in fact almost well on the following day, and breakfasted with Emile. Thenceforth nothing disturbed that curious friendship between an old man and a very young man; and, thanks to Monsieur de Châteaubrun's final declarations, the painful apprehensions of insanity no longer impaired the pleasure which Emile took in Monsieur de Boisguilbault's society. He refrained, as he had promised Antoine, from ever mentioning his name, and made up for it by opening his heart to the marquis concerning all his other secrets; for it was impossible for him not to describe his past life, not to impart to him his plans for the future, and, as a consequence thereof, the suffering, allayed for a time, but inevitably lasting, which his father's opposition had caused him and was certain to cause him at the first provocation.
Monsieur de Boisguilbault encouraged Emile in his projects of respect and submission; but he was amazed at the pains Monsieur Cardonnet had always taken to stifle the legitimate instincts of a son so well inclined to work and so richly endowed.
The liking for agriculture and the intelligent understanding of it displayed by Emile seemed to point to a noble and generous vocation for him, and the marquis said to himself that if he had had the good fortune to possess such a son, he would have been able to make use in his lifetime of the great fortune which he had destined for the poor, but of which he had been unable to make any use in the present.
He could not refrain from saying with a sigh that a man was blessed of heaven who found in a son, in a friend, in another self, a mind fertile in invention and the means of completing in all seriousness the work of his destiny. In his heart he accused Cardonnet of seeking to consecrate to evil purposes the forces and the instruments which God had given him to assist him in doing good, and he looked upon him as a blind and obstinate tyrant, who placed money above the happiness of his fellows and his own, as if man were the slave of material things and not the servant of truth before all else.
Monsieur de Boisguilbault was not however essentially religious. Emile found him always too indifferent in that respect. When the marquis had said: "I believe in God," he thought that he could dispense with saying: "I adore Him." When his thoughts, taking the highest flight of which he was capable, rose to a sort of invocation which was not so much prayer as homage, he said to God: "Thy name is wisdom!" Emile added: "Thy name is love!" Whereupon the old man would reply: "It is the same thing;" and he was right.
Emile could hardly contradict him; but in that disposition to insist upon the sublime character of the divine logic and rectitude, one could but be conscious of the absence of that exalted passion for the inexhaustible loving-kindness of the Omnipotent, which Emile bore in his bosom. But, when the facts, the miseries of life, human weakness, and all the evil that is done on earth seemed to give the lie to that theory of a merciful Providence, and Emile became in a measure discouraged, the old logician triumphed in the superiority of his faith.
He never doubted, he could not doubt. He did not need to see in order to know, he said, and the coming and going of the plagues of this world no more disturbed in his eyes the moral order of eternal affairs than the passing of a cloud over the sun disturbed their physical order. His resignation was not due to a feeling of humility or affection; for he admitted that he had never been able to reconcile himself to his own sorrows except outwardly; but he believed in a well-spring of optimistic fatalism for the universe at large which was in striking contrast with his personal pessimism, and which formed the most unique feature of his mind and his character.
"Just see," he would say, "logic is everywhere! It is infinite in the works of God; but it is incomplete and intangible in everything, because everything is finite, even man himself, although he is the most impressive reflection of the infinite on this little earth. No man can understand infinite wisdom except as an abstract idea; for, if he looks within himself and about him, he cannot grasp it or fix it in his mind in any way. You often call me a logician; I accept the name: I love logic and cultivate it. I have a tremendous craving for it and I care for nothing that is not akin to it. But am I logical in my acts and my instincts? Less than any one on earth. The more I test myself, the more conscious I am of the abyss of contradictions, the chaotic confusion within me. Very good; I am a special example of what man is in general; and the more illogical I am in my own eyes, the more strongly I feel that the logic of God is soaring over my poor feeble head, which would go astray without that celestial compass and would foolishly hold the earth responsible for its own weakness."
Once he took Emile into the country and they explored, on horseback, the marquis's vast estates. Emile was struck by the small income produced by such territorial wealth.
"All these farms are let at the lowest possible price," said the marquis; "when one is unable to escape from the present economical notions, the best he can do is to bear as lightly as possible on the hard-working cultivator of the soil. These people are grateful to me, as you see, and wish me long life. God save the mark! They consider me very kind, although they do not much like my face. They do not know that I do not care for them as they understand the word, and that I see in them only victims whom I cannot save, but whose executioner I do not choose to be. I know very well that, under logical legislation, this estate should produce a hundred times as much as it does. My dissatisfaction is allayed when I think of it; but in order to think of it and to sustain myself with the certainty that it will some day be the instrument of the voluntary labor of a multitude of prudent men, I must avoid seeing it in its present state, for this spectacle saddens me and turns me cold; for this reason I very rarely expose myself to it."
It was in fact about two years since Monsieur de Boisguilbault had visited his farms and made the circuit of his domain. He could make up his mind to do it only in case of absolute necessity. He was greeted everywhere with demonstrations of respect and affection which were not without a touch of superstitious terror; for his solitude and eccentric habits had given him the reputation of a sorcerer with many peasants.
Many a time, during a storm, they had said sadly: "Ah! if Monsieur de Boisguilbault chose to prevent the hail, he could do it! but, instead of doing what he can, he is always looking for something else that nobody knows and that he will never find perhaps!"
"Well, Emile, what would you do with all this, if it were yours?" said the marquis as they rode home; "for in asking you to make this tiresome round of visits with me, I had no other purpose than to question you."
"I would try!" Emile replied, warmly.
"Of course," said the marquis, "I would try to found a genuinecommuneif I could. But I should try in vain, I should fail. And you, too, perhaps!"
"What does it matter?"
"That is the generous, insane cry of youth: what does it matter if you fail, providing only that you are doing something, eh? You yield to a craving for activity and do not see the obstacles. There are obstacles, however, and the worst of all is this: that there are no men. In that sense your father is right in appealing to a brutal but none the less powerful fact. Men's minds are not ripe, their hearts are not well-disposed; I see much land and many arms, but I do not see a single mind detached from theegowhich governs the earth. A little more time, Emile, for the idea to bloom and spread; it will not be so long as people think; I shall not see it, but you will. Be patient, therefore!"
"What do you mean? does time do anything without us?"
"No, but it will do nothing without usall. There are times when one should be consoled for not being at work, if one is learning; then comes the time when one can learn and work at the same time. Do you feel that you are strong?"
"Very!"
"So much the better! And I believe it!—Well, Emile, we will talk some day—soon perhaps, in my next attack of fever, when my pulse beats a little faster than it does to-day."
In such conversations as this Emile found strength to live through the hours that he could not pass with Gilberte. There was something lacking in his friendship with Monsieur de Boisguilbault: it was the being able to speak to him of her and to tell him of his love. But there is in happy love a something superb which can do very well without advice of others, and the time when Emile would feel the need of complaining and of seeking a support under the burden of despair had not yet arrived.
In what did this happiness consist, do you ask? In the first place, he was in love—that is almost enough for him who loves dearly. And then he knew that he was loved, although he had never dared to ask the question and she would have dared even less to tell him so.
Meanwhile clouds were gathering on the horizon and Emile was destined to feel the approach of the storm. One day Janille said to him as he was leaving Châteaubrun: "Don't come again for three or four days; we have some business to attend to in the neighborhood and we shall be away." Emile turned pale: he thought that he was receiving his sentence, and he hardly had strength to ask what day the family would have returned to its penates. "Oh! toward the end of the week, I suppose," said Janille. "Indeed it is probable that I shall stay here; I am too old to run about over mountains, and you might come in as you ride by and ask if Monsieur Antoine and his daughter have returned."
"You will allow me then to call upon you?" said Emile, striving to conceal his mortal suffering.
"Why not, if your heart bids you?" replied the little old woman, drawing herself up with an air in which the distrustful Emile fancied that he could detect a touch of malice. "I am not afraid of being compromised!"
"It's all over," thought Emile. "My assiduity has been observed, and although Monsieur Antoine and his daughter have no suspicion as yet, Janille has made up her mind to turn me out. Her power here is absolute and the critical moment has arrived. Well, Mademoiselle Janille," he said, "I will come to see you to-morrow. I shall take great pleasure in talking with you."
"How well that happens," said Janille; "I am very anxious to talk too! But I have some flax to pick to-morrow and I shall not expect you until the next day. That is understood; I shall be at home all day; don't fail to come. Good-night, Monsieur Emile, we will have a good friendly talk. Oh! you see I too am very fond of you!"
There was no longer any doubt in Emile's mind; the housekeeper at Châteaubrun had opened her eyes to his love. Some officious neighbor was beginning to be surprised to see him so often on the road to the ruins. Antoine knew nothing as yet, nor Gilberte; for the latter, when she told him that her father was going away for a few days, could not have foreseen that Janille would arrange for her to go with him. The shrewd housekeeper had laid her plans well: first to get Emile out of the way, and then to arrange for Gilberte to go away unexpectedly, thus making sure of a few days in which to avert the little outbreak which she anticipated on the young man's part.
"Well, then, I must speak," said Emile to himself; "and why should I recoil from the inevitable end of my secret aspirations? I will tell her loyal governess and her excellent father that I love her and aspire to her hand. I will ask for a little time to broach the subject to my father and come to an understanding with him as to my choice of a career, for I have made none as yet, and my fate must be decided. There will be a fierce struggle, but I shall be strong, for I love. It is not a question of myself alone, so I shall have invincible courage, I shall have the gift of persuasion, I shall carry the day!"
Despite all this confidence, Emile passed the night in horrible perplexity. He imagined the conversation he was about to have with Janille, and he could have written out the questions and answers, so well he knew the little woman's self-possession and outspokenness.
"Ah! but you must speak to your father first of all, monsieur,"—she would surely say,—"and have an understanding with him; for it is quite useless to disturb Monsieur Antoine's mind with a conditional request, with projects that may not be realized. Meanwhile, do not come here any more, or come very little, for no one is supposed to be aware of your intentions, and Gilberte is not the girl to listen to you unless she is sure that she can be your wife."
Then, too, he feared that Janille, who was very matter-of-fact, would treat the possibility of Monsieur Cardonnet's consent as a pure delusion, and would forbid him to make frequent visits unless he should produce satisfactory proof that he was at liberty to choose for himself.
Thus was it fully demonstrated that Emile must enter upon the conflict with his father first of all, and must govern his actions accordingly; that is to say, go infrequently to Châteaubrun until he had reason to entertain a strong hope of victory, or, if he had no ground for hope, to abstain forever from destroying the happiness of the family of Châteaubrun by fruitless overtures—in a word, he must go away and renounce Gilberte.
But it was utterly impossible for Emile to include that alternative among the possibilities. The idea of death would find its way more easily into an infant's head than that of renouncing the woman he loves into the head of a man who is deeply in love.
Thus Emile could more readily conceive the possibility of blowing out his brains before his father's eyes than of yielding to his will. "Very well!" he said to himself, "I will speak to-morrow to this terrible master, and I will speak to him in such a way that I shall be able to appear at Châteaubrun with my head erect."
And yet, when the morrow came, Emile, instead of feeling inspired by all the force of his determination, felt so exhausted by insomnia, and so overwhelmed by sadness, that he feared his own weakness and did not speak. Indeed, what can be more painful, when the heart has revelled in a blissful dream, than to find oneself brought suddenly face to face with a cruel reality? When one has enjoyed all by oneself the delicious secret of a chastely hidden passion, to be forced to reveal it in cold blood to those who do not understand it or who scorn it?
Whether Emile should make the avowal to his father or to Janille, he must lay bare his heart, filled as it was with a modest languor and a holy ecstasy, to hearts that had never known or had long been closed to sentiments of that nature. And he had dreamed of such a sublimedénouement! Should not Gilberte, alone with him under the eye of God, be the first to receive in her heart the sacred word love when it should escape from his lips?
The world and the laws of honor, so unfeeling in such cases, were to deprive the virginity of his passion of all that was purest and most ideal about it! He suffered intensely, and it seemed to him that a century of bitter sorrow had elapsed between his dreams of the day before and the gloomy day that was beginning.
He mounted his horse, determined to seek at a distance, in some solitary spot, the calm and resignation necessary to enable him to withstand the first shock. He intended to avoid Châteaubrun; but he found himself near the ruin, unconscious how he had come thither. He rode by without turning his head, ascended the rough road where, in the howling storm, he had first seen the château by the light of the lightning flashes. He recognized the rocks behind which he had found shelter with Jean Jappeloup, and he could not realize that more than two months had passed since that night when he was so light-hearted, so self-controlled, so different from what he had since become.
He rode on toward Eguzon, in order to see once more the whole of the road he had then passed over, as he had not visited it since. But when he reached the first houses, the sight of the villagers scrutinizing him caused the same thrill of horror and misanthropy which Monsieur de Boisguilbault would have been likely to feel at such a time. He turned sharply into a dark, wooded road at his left and rode into the country, without any definite goal.
This rough but fascinating road, passing now over broad, flat rocks, now over the fresh green sward, now over fine sand, and bordered by venerable chestnuts with furrowed trunks and enormous roots, conducted him to vast moors, where he rode slowly along, content to be alone at last in a desolate region. The road stretched before him, sometimes in zigzag fashion, sometimes straight up and down, through fields covered with broom and furze, and over sandy hillocks intersected by brooks that had no well-defined bed and no fixed course.
From time to time a partridge skimmed along the grass at his feet, or a kingfisher flew like an arrow across a swamp, a flash of blue and fiery red.
After an hour's ride, being still absorbed in his thoughts, he saw that the path became narrower, plunged into the bushes, and finally disappeared under his feet. He raised his eyes and saw before him, beyond steep precipices and deep ravines, the ruins of Crozant rising like a sharp arrow over curiously jagged peaks of such extent that one could hardly embrace the whole at a single glance.
Emile had already visited that interesting fortress, but by a more direct road, and as his preoccupation had prevented him from taking his bearings, he was uncertain for a moment where he was. Nothing could be more consonant with his frame of mind than that wild locality and those desolate ruins. He left his horse at a hut and descended on foot the narrow path that led down to the bed of the torrent by a series of steps cut in the rock. Then he ascended by similar means and buried himself in the ruins, where he remained for several hours, a prey to an intensity of suffering which the aspect of a spot that was so horrifying and so sublime exalted at times almost to delirium.
Few fortresses so advantageously situated as that of Crozant were erected in the first centuries of feudalism. The mountain on which it stands descends perpendicularly on all sides, to two mountain streams, the Creuse and the Sédelle, which unite tumultuously at the end of the peninsula and keep up a constant roaring as they leap over huge fragments of stone. The sides of the mountain are very peculiar, bristling everywhere with long, grayish rocks, which rise from the abyss like giants or hang like stalactites over the torrent.
The ruins of the château have taken on so completely the color and shape of the surrounding rocks that in many places one can hardly distinguish them at a little distance.
It is hard to say which was the bolder and the more tragically inspired in that spot, nature or man, and one cannot imagine, upon such a stage, other than scenes of implacable fury and unending despair.
A drawbridge, several dark posterns and a double encircling wall, flanked by towers and bastions, the remains of which can still be seen, made this fortress impregnable before the invention of cannon. And yet almost nothing is known of the history of a place that was of such importance in the wars of the Middle Ages.
A vague tradition attributes its construction to certain Saracen chiefs who are said to have defended themselves there for a long while. The frost, which is severe and of long duration in that region, accelerates each year the destruction of those fortifications which cannon-balls have shattered and years have reduced to dust. The great square donjon, however, which has the aspect of a Saracen structure, still stands in the centre, and, being undermined, threatens to fall at any moment, like all the rest. Several towers, of which a single side only is standing, planted upon cone-shaped points of rock, present the appearance of sharp rocky peaks around which clouds of birds of prey scream incessantly.
The circuit of the fortress cannot be made without danger. In many places there is no trace of a path, and the foot trembles on the brink of precipices over which the water plunges headlong.
The approach of the enemy could be detected only from the top of the towers of observation; for on a level with the lower portions of the buildings and the summit of the mountain, the view was restricted by other barren mountains. But to-day there are gaps in their rocky sides, patches of fertile soil where noble trees grow freely, often uprooted by the rising of the waters when they have reached a considerable height.
A few goats, less wild than the wretched children who guard them, cling to the ruins and climb fearlessly over the precipitous cliffs.
The whole spot is so magnificently desolate and so rich in contrasts that the painter knows not where to stop. The imagination of the artist would find a superfluity of material in that gorgeous panorama of terror and menace.
Emile passed several hours there, plunged in the chaos of his uncertainty and his projects. As he had left home at daybreak, he was consumed by hunger, but paid no heed to the physical discomfort which aggravated his mental distress. Stretched out upon a rock, he was watching the vultures hovering overhead and thinking of the tortures of Prometheus, when the distant sound of a man's voice, which seemed not unfamiliar to him, sent a thrill through his whole being. He rose and ran to the edge of the precipice and saw three persons descending the path on the opposite side of the ravine.
A man in a blouse and broad-brimmed gray hat rode ahead, turning from time to time to warn those who came behind to be careful; next to him came a peasant leading a donkey by the bridle, and on the donkey was a woman in a faded lilac dress and a simple straw hat.
Emile darted to meet them, without asking himself if Janille had spoken, if they were on their guard against him, if they were likely to greet him coldly. He ran and leaped like a stone thrown down the steep side of the ravine. He ran as the crow flies, crossing the stream, which bounded with empty threats over the slippery stones, and reached the other slope to receive a hearty welcome from honest Antoine, and to take from the hands of Sylvain Charasson the bridle of the modest steed who bore Gilberte and her sweet smile and her blushing cheek and the joyous air which she tried in vain to restrain. Janille was not there. Janille had not spoken!
How much sweeter joy seems after sorrow, and how quickly love makes up for the time wasted in suffering! Emile no longer remembered the day before and thought no more of the morrow.
When he was among the ruins of Crozant once more, leading his beloved in triumph, he broke off all the branches he could reach and threw them under the donkey's feet, as the Hebrews of old strewed pearls along the track of the divine Master's humble beast.
Then he took Gilberte in his arms to put her down upon the loveliest bit of greensward he could find, although she needed no such assistance to alight from so small and placid a creature. Emile was no longer timid, for he was mad; and if Antoine had not been the least clear-sighted of mankind, he would have realized that it was of no more use to think of holding in check that exalted passion, than of preventing the Creuse or the Sédelle from flowing and roaring.
"Well, I am dying of hunger," said Monsieur Antoine, "and before I inquire how it happens that we meet so opportunely, I should like to hear something about luncheon. One guest more does not alarm us, for Janille has stuffed us with provender. Open your game-bag, you young rascal," he said to Sylvain, "while I go and cut a hole in the bag that my daughter hasen croupe. Then Emile will run to the house yonder and obtain a supply of brown bread. Let us stay by the stream, it is pure water from the rock and is excellent when taken in small quantities with a generous quantity of wine."
The repast was soon spread on the grass, Gilberte took a huge lotus leaf for a plate, and her father carved with a sort of sabre which he called a clasp-knife. In addition to the bread, Emile brought milk for Gilberte and wild cherries which were voted delicious, their bitter taste having at all events the merit of stimulating the appetite. Sylvain, perched like a monkey on an overhanging bough, had as generous a share as the others and ate with the more enjoyment, he said, because Mademoiselle Janille's eyes were not there to count his mouthfuls with an air of reproof. Emile was satisfied in a moment. Laugh as you will at the heroes in novels who never eat, it is very certain that lovers have little appetite, and that therein novels are as true as life itself.
What bliss for Emile, after believing that when he saw Gilberte again, she would be stern and distrustful of him, to find her as he had left her the day before, entirely without constraint and overflowing with dignified trustfulness! And how he loved Antoine for being incapable of a suspicion and for displaying the same open-hearted gayety.
Never had he felt so light-hearted himself; never had he seen a lovelier day than that mild September day, never a more cheerful and enchanted spot than that frowning fortress of Crozant! And Gilberte wore that day her lilac dress, which he had not seen for a long while, and which reminded him of the day and hour when he had fallen madly in love with her!
He learned that they had set out to visit a relative at La Clavière before going to Argenton for two days, and that, finding no one at that château, they had determined to make a detour to Crozant and remain there until evening; and it was only midday! Emile imagined that he had all eternity before him. Monsieur Antoine lay down in the shade after luncheon and slept soundly. The two lovers, followed by Charasson, undertook to make the circuit of the fortress.
The page of Châteaubrun amused the young couple for a few moments with his ingenuous remarks; but he was speedily vanquished by the longing to run, and started off in pursuit of the goats, narrowly escaped having trouble with their keepers, and ended by making it up with them and playing at quoits on the bank of the Creuse, while Emile and Gilberte attempted to follow the course of the Sédelle on the other side of the mountain.
As the torrent has eaten away the base of the cliff in many places, they had sometimes to crawl, sometimes to retrace their steps, sometimes to step on stones that were level with the water, and all of this not without some difficulty and some danger. But youth is adventurous and love is afraid of nothing.
A special providence protects both alike, and our lovers came bravely forth from all the perils of their undertaking,—Emile trembling with an emotion very different from fear when he lifted Gilberte or held her in his arms; Gilberte laughing to conceal her confusion or to forget it.
Gilberte was strong, active and brave, like a true child of the mountain; and yet, by dint of passing over a constant succession of obstacles, she became breathless, sank on the moss beside the leaping stream, and threw her hat on the grass, having to put up her hair which had fallen over her shoulders.
"Do go and pick me that lovely digitalis over yonder," she said to Emile, thinking that she would have time to rearrange her locks before he returned. But he went and came again so quickly that he found her still inundated by the golden flood which her little hands could hardly gather up into a single braid.
Standing beside her, he gazed in admiration at those treasures which she twisted up behind her head with more impatience than pride, and which she would have cut off long before as being an annoying burden, if Antoine and Janille had not strenuously objected.
At that moment, however, she was grateful to them for refusing to allow it; for, although she was little inclined to coquetry, she saw that Emile was lost in admiration, and she had done nothing to arouse it. If there are some triumphs of beauty, which love cannot refuse to enjoy, they are those above all which are unforeseen and involuntary. That beautiful hair would have been a genuine compensation to an ugly woman, and in Gilberte's case it was a lavish outlay of nature added to all her other gifts.
It should be said that Gilberte, like her father, was industrious rather than clever with her hands, and moreover, she had lost all her pins while running and the heavy braid, hurriedly twisted, twice burst its bonds and fell to her feet.
Emile's eyes were still fixed upon her; Gilberte did not see them, but she felt them, as if the atmosphere were filled with the fire of that passionate gaze. She soon became so confused that she forgot to be merry, and finally, as ordinarily, made an effort to relieve, by a jest, their mutual emotion.
"I wish this hair wasmy own," she said; "then I would cut it off and throw it into the stream."
There was an opportunity for a well-turned compliment; but Emile was careful not to take advantage of it. What could he say about that hair which would express the love he bore it? He had never touched it and he was dying with the longing to do so. He glanced furtively about. A circle of rocks and shrubs isolated Gilberte and himself from the whole world. There was no spot on the mountain from which they could be seen. One would have said that she had selected that sheltered retreat to tempt him, and yet the innocent maiden had not thought of it, nor did she think that she was in any danger there.
Emile was no longer master of himself. Insomnia, alarm, grief and joy had kindled fever in his blood. He knelt beside Gilberte and took a handful of her rebellious hair in his trembling hand; then, as she started, he dropped it again, saying:
"I thought it was a wasp, but it is only a bit of moss."
"You frightened me," said Gilberte, shaking her head; "I thought it was a snake."
Meanwhile Emile's hand was clinging to her hair and could not let it go. On the pretext of assisting Gilberte to collect the scattered locks of which the breeze disputed possession with her, he touched it a hundred times, and at last put his lips to it stealthily. Gilberte did not seem to notice it, and hurriedly replacing her hat upon the ill-assured mass, she rose and said with an air which she strove to render unconcerned:
"Let us go to see if my father has awakened."
But she was trembling; a sudden pallor had driven the brilliant color from her cheeks; her heart was ready to burst; she staggered and leaned against the rock to keep from falling. Emile was at her feet.
What did he say to her? He did not know himself, and the echoes of Crozant did not retain his words. Gilberte did not hear them distinctly; she had the roar of the torrent in her ears, increased a hundredfold by the throbbing of the blood in her arteries, and it seemed to her that the mountain, seized with convulsions, was swaying to and fro over her head.
She had no legs with which to fly, indeed she did not think of it. In vain does one fly from love; when it has found its way into the heart, it takes root there and accompanies it everywhere. Gilberte did not know that there was any other peril in love than that of allowing her heart to be taken by surprise, and, in truth, there were no others for her with Emile. That danger was great enough, Heaven knows, and the vertigo it caused was full of irresistible delights.
All that Gilberte could say was to repeat with a sort of terror, instinct with regret and pain:
"No, no! you must not love me!"
"That means that you hate me then!" rejoined Emile; and Gilberte turned her face away, for she had not the courage to lie. "Very well," he continued; "if you do not love me, what harm does it do for you to know that I love you? Let me tell you so, since I can conceal it no longer. It is a matter of indifference to you, and one does not fear what one despises. Know that it is true then, and if I leave you, if I am to see you no more, at all events understand why it is: it is because I am dying for love of you, because I cannot sleep or work, because I am losing my wits and shall soon find myself telling your father what I am telling you now. I would rather be driven away by you than by the others. So drive me away; but you shall hear me now, because my secret is suffocating me; I love you, Gilberte, I love you so that it is killing me!"—And Emile's heart was so full that it overflowed in sobs.
Gilberte attempted to leave him; but she sat down only a few feet away and began to weep. There was more joy than bitterness behind those tears. So that Emile soon went to her to comfort her and was soon comforted in his turn; for there was naught but affection and regret in the terror that she felt.
"I am a poor girl," she said, "you are rich and your father, they say, thinks of nothing but increasing his fortune. You cannot marry me, and I ought not to think of marrying in my position. It would be by mere chance if I should fall in with a man as poor as myself, who had received a little education; and I have never counted on that chance. I said to myself long ago that I must make the best of my lot, in order to accustom myself to a sense of true dignity, which consists in not envying others and in forming oneself to simple tastes and honorable employment. So I do not think of marriage at all, since it would probably be necessary to change my way of thinking in order to find a husband. I must tell you that Janille got an idea into her head several days ago that troubles me a great deal. She wants my father to seek a husband for me. Seek a husband! Isn't that shameful and humiliating? Can you imagine anything more repulsive? And yet the dear old soul cannot understand my objection, and as my father was going to Argenton to receive the quarterly payment of his small pension, she suddenly decided this morning that he must take me and introduce me to some of his acquaintances. We can't resist Janille, so we started; but my father, thank heaven! doesn't know how to find husbands, and I shall be so cunning about helping him not to think of it, that this little excursion will result in nothing. You see, Monsieur Emile, that you mustn't pay your court to a girl who has no illusions and who has made up her mind, without regret or shame, to remain unmarried. I supposed that you would understand this, and that your friendly sentiments would prevent you from seeking to ruffle my quiet life. So forget this folly which has passed through your mind, and look upon me simply as a sister, who will forget what you have said, if you promise to love her with a calm and brotherly love. Why should we part? it would be a great sorrow to my father and me!"
"It would be a great sorrow to you, Gilberte?" said Emile; "why is it that you weep when you say such cold words to me? Either I do not understand you, or you are concealing something from me. And do you want me to tell you what I think that I divine? that you have not enough esteem for me to listen to me with confidence. You take me for a young madman, who prates of love without religion or conscience, and you think that you can treat me like a child to whom you would say: 'I forgive you, don't do it again.' But, if you believe that a genuine, serious passion can be allayed by a few cold words, you are a child yourself, Gilberte, and you have no feeling at all for me in the depths of your heart. O my God, can it be possible? and do those eyes that avoid mine, that hand that spurns me, mean contempt or incredulity?"
"Haven't I said enough? Do you think that I can consent to love you, with the certainty that you will belong to another sooner or later? It seems to me that love means living together forever: that is why, when I renounced the thought of marriage, I had to renounce the thought of love."
"I understand it so, too, Gilberte: love means living together forever! To my mind not even death can put an end to it; did I not say all that to you when I told you that I loved you? Ah! cruel Gilberte, you failed to understand me, or else you do not choose to understand me; but if you loved me you would not doubt. You would not tell me that you are poor, you would forget all about it as I do."
"Omon Dieu! I do not doubt you, Emile; I know that you are as incapable as myself of being guided by self-interest. But I ask you again, are we stronger than destiny, than your father's will, for instance?"
"Yes, Gilberte, yes, stronger than the whole world, if—we love each other."
It is quite useless to repeat the remainder of the interview. We might describe certain interludes of dismay and discouragement, when Gilberte, becoming reasonable, that is to say miserable, once more, pointed out obstacles and manifested a pride which, while not strongly marked, was sufficiently intense to lead her to prefer eternal solitude to the humiliation of a struggle against arrogance and wealth. We might tell by what honorable and manly arguments Emile sought to restore her confidence. But the strongest arguments, those to which Gilberte found no reply, are those which we cannot transcribe, for they were all enthusiasm and ingenuous pantomime.
Lovers are not eloquent after the manner of rhetoricians, and their words written down have never had much meaning for those to whom they were not addressed. If we could remember in cooler moments the insignificant remark that caused us to lose our wits, we should not understand how it could be and should jeer at ourselves.
But the tone and the glance find magical resources in passion, and Emile soon succeeded in persuading Gilberte of what he himself believed at that moment: namely that nothing was simpler or easier than for them to marry, consequently that nothing was more legitimate and necessary than that they should love each other with all their strength.
The noble-hearted girl loved Emile too dearly to harbor the thought that he was a rash and presumptuous youth. He said that he would overcome any possible resistance on his father's part, and Gilberte knew nothing of Monsieur Cardonnet except by vague rumors. Emile guaranteed his loving mother's consent and that assurance set Gilberte's conscience at rest. She soon shared all his illusions, and it was agreed that he should speak to his father before applying to Monsieur Antoine.
A selfish or ambitious girl would have been more prudent. She would have made the avowal of her feelings depend upon harsher conditions. She would have refused to see her lover again until such time as he should come prepared to go through with all the formalities, including the request for her hand. But Gilberte's mind never entertained such precautions.
She felt in her heart a something infinite, a faith in and respect for her lover's word, which had no bounds. She was no longer disturbed save by one thing; the thought that she might become a source of discord and affliction in Emile's family on the day that he spoke to his father.
She could entertain no doubt of the victory which he was so certain of winning; but the thought of the battle pained her and she would have liked to postpone the awful moment.
"Listen," she said, with angelic naïveté, "there is no hurry; we are happy as we are, and young enough to wait. I am afraid indeed that will be your father's principal and strongest objection; you are only twenty-one, and he may fear that you have not made your choice with sufficient care, that you have not examined your fiancée's character closely enough. If he talks to you about waiting, and asks for time to reflect, submit to every test. Even if we should not be united for several years, what does it matter, provided that we see each other, since we cannot doubt each other's constancy?"
"Oh! you are a saint!" Emile replied, kissing the edge of her scarf, "and I will be worthy of you."
When they returned to the place where they had left Antoine, they saw him at some distance talking with a miller of his acquaintance, and they went to the foot of the great tower to meet him.
The hours passed for them like seconds, and yet they were as full of events as centuries. How many things they said to each other, and how many more they did not say! Then the happiness of looking at each other, of understanding and loving each other, became so intense that they were seized with a wild gayety, and, joining hands, ran down the steep slopes, leaping like deer, throwing stones to the foot of the precipices, so transported with an unfamiliar joy that they were no more conscious of danger than young children.
Emile pushed the débris from his path or jumped over it excitedly. One would have said that he fancied that he was confronted by obstacles placed in his way by destiny. Gilberte had no fear, either for him or for herself. She laughed aloud; she shouted and sang like a bird in the air, and forgot to fasten up her hair, which floated in the wind, and sometimes completely enveloped her like a veil of fire.
When her father surprised her in the midst of her excitement she rushed to him and embraced him passionately, as if she wished to communicate to him all the joy with which her heart was flooded. The good man's hat fell off during this sudden embrace and started to roll into the ravine. Gilberte darted like a flash to catch it, and Antoine, terrified by her impetuosity, darted to catch his daughter. Both were in great danger when Emile passed them, seized the flying hat on the wing, and, as he replaced it on Antoine's head, took his turn at pressing that fond father in his arms.
"Vive Dieu!" cried Antoine, ordering them back to a less perilous spot, "you both receive me very warmly, but you frighten me even more! For God's sake did you meet the devil's goat that makes those whom it bewitches with its glance run and jump about like lunatics? Is it the mountain air that makes you so wild, little girl? All the better say I, but don't run such risks as that. What color! What a sparkling eye! I see that I must take you out for a walk often, that you don't have enough exercise at the house. She has made me anxious lately, do you know, Emile? She doesn't eat, she reads too much, and I have been thinking of throwing all your books out of the window if it goes on. Luckily she seems different to-day, and, that being the case, I am tempted to take her as far as Saint-Germain-Beaupré. It's a fine place to look at. We will pass the day there to-morrow, and if you choose to come with us we will have a royal good time. Come, Emile, what do you say? What does it matter if we go to Argenton a day later, eh, Gilberte? And even suppose we spend only one day there?"
"Or don't go there at all?" said Gilberte, jumping for joy. "Let's go to Saint-Germain, father; I have never been there. Oh! what a fine idea!"
"We are on the road," continued Monsieur de Châteaubrun, "but we must go to pass the night at Fresselines, for staying here is not to be thought of. However, Fresselines and Confolens are well worth seeing. The roads are not good, and we must start before dark. Monsieur Charasson, go and give poor Lanterne some oats. She likes journeys, for they are the only opportunities she ever has for feasting. You will take the donkey back to the people who lent him to you, up at Vitra, and then go to wait for us, with the barrow and Monsieur Emile's horse, on the other side of the stream. We will be there in two hours."
"And I," said Emile, "will write a line to my mother, so that she won't worry over my absence, and I will find a child somewhere to carry my note."
"Send one of these little savages so far? that won't be easy. Upon my word! we are in luck, for yonder is someone from your place if I am not mistaken."
Emile turned and saw Constant Galuchet, his father's secretary, who had just thrown his coat on the grass, and, having enveloped his head in a pocket handkerchief, was engaged in baiting his hook.
"Hallo! Constant, do you come as far as this to catch gudgeons?" asked Emile.
"Oh! no indeed, monsieur," replied Galuchet, with a serious air, "I cherish the hope of catching a trout."
"But do you expect to return to Gargilesse to-night?"
"Certainly, monsieur. Your father didn't want me to-day, so he gave me permission to take the whole day; but as soon as I have caught my trout, please God, I shall leave this wretched spot."
"And suppose you catch nothing?"
"Then I shall curse still more bitterly the idea that occurred to me of coming so far to see such a hovel. What a horrible place, monsieur? Can anyone imagine a more melancholy country and a château in worse condition? And to think that tourists tell you that it's superb, and that nobody should live on the Creuse without going to see Crozant! Unless there are fish in this stream, I'll be hanged if you ever catch me here again. But I have no faith in their stream. This clear water is detestable for angling, and the constant noise makes your headache. I am sick with it."
"I see that you haven't had a very pleasant walk," said Gilberte, who had never seen Galuchet's absurd face before, and who was sorely tempted to laugh at his prosaic scorn. "But you must agree that these ruins are very impressive; at all events they are unique. Have you been up in the great tower?"
"God forbid, mademoiselle!" replied Galuchet, flattered by Gilberte's attention, and gazing at her with his wide-open round eyes, which were extraordinarily far apart and separated by a curious little bunch of sandy eyebrows. "I can see the interior of the barrack from here, as it is open on all sides like a lantern, and I don't think it's worth the trouble of breaking one's neck." And taking Gilberte's smile for approval of this stinging satire, he added, in a tone which he considered jocose and clever: "A fine country, on my word! not even dog-tooth will grow here! If the Moorish kings were no better housed than that, I congratulate them! Those fellows had vile taste, and they must have cut a curious figure! Doubtless they wore clogs and ate with their fingers."
"That is a very wise historical commentary," said Emile to Gilberte, who was biting her handkerchief to avoid laughing outright at Monsieur Galuchet's knowing tone and comical countenance.
"Oh! I see that monsieur is very sarcastic," she replied. "He is entitled to be, as he comes from Paris where everybody is witty and has fine manners, while here he is among savages."
"I cannot say that at this moment," retorted Galuchet, shooting a killing glance at the fair Gilberte whom he found very much to his liking; "but frankly, this province is a little behind the times. The people are very dirty. Look at those barefooted, ragged children! In Paris everybody has shoes, and those who haven't any don't go out on Sunday. I tried to get something to eat at a house to-day: there was nothing except black bread that a dog wouldn't eat, and goat's milk that smelt decidedly rank. Those people have no shame, to live so miserably!"
"May it not be that they are too poor to do better?" said Gilberte, disgusted by Monsieur Galuchet's aristocratic tone.