IXTHE WILL TO LIVE
THE good will of the presiding judge hastened the formalities of liberation, and while the crowd, having left the court-room, massed itself in the space outside the court-house, to watch for Maurice and his defender to come out, and to cheer them, the more enthusiastically because their remorse was tardily shown, Mr. Roquevillard was waiting for his son in the inner court. He was alone, for he had asked Charles Marcellaz to see Mr. Hamel home. The struggle over, he felt tired and worn, and was lost in his meditations. A timid voice called to him:
“Father.”
“Is it you, Maurice?”
Instead of throwing themselves into each other’s arms, quite simply, they stood motionless, as if frozen. The lack of some first gesture is enough sometimes to create separations, to make obstacles. On his son’s face the father read admiration, gratitude, filial piety; on the father’s face the son read love and goodness, but also the new stigmata of weariness and age. They said nothing; sorrowfully, with a shyness they could not overcome.
In the street outside they heard the noise of cheers.
“Come,” said Mr. Roquevillard brusquely.
He led Maurice to the other side of the courtyard, where a gate opened on a public garden, luckily now deserted. He crossed it with rapid steps, hurried quickly over the iron footbridge beneath which rolled the muddy waters of the Leysse, and the two men reached the cemetery presently without having exchanged a word.
The cemetery at Chambéry lies to the eastward of the town, at the beginning of the vast plain which stretches as far as Lake Bourget; over it the rocky hill of Lemenc stands guard, and beyond that the regularly storeyed peaks of Le Nivolet. The shadows of night were already settling down over the sacred field, and little by little reaching the hills, but the setting sun still covered the mountain, stirring its whiteness as with a flow of blood—one of those fine winter evenings that are cold and calm, naked as marble images, and of a divine purity.
Maurice could distinguish, opposite him, the thin columns of the Calvary where his heart’s love had overwhelmed him. A last ray of light threw their outlines into relief, then they seemed to recede against the walls of the little monument and lose themselves in it.
“How far away it all is!” he thought.
Some cypress trees, with branches like lance-heads, sprinkled with hoar-frost, stood grave as sentinels set to guard the enclosure. Passing these, they went on and on, past the graves of the poor, scarcely distinguished by the mounds beneath the snow, until they came finally to the broad avenue of perpetual concessions.
“Father, I know where we are going,” murmured Maurice at last, thinking of his mother.
“We’re going to our family tomb,” explained Mr. Roquevillard; “to thank our dead for having saved you.”
“Father, it was you that saved me,” said Maurice.
“I was speaking in their name.”
As they drew near the end of their pilgrimage, they made out, across the empty graveyard, a black figure kneeling before the gravestone which stood just before a wall covered with inscriptions.
“Father, look; there’s some one there,” said Maurice.
“It’s Margaret! She has got here ahead of us.”
The girl heard the dull noise of their footsteps on the trodden snow, and turned her head. She blushed on recognising them, and rose, as if she would go and not be in the way at their first interview.
“I came here to be near mamma,” she said.
“Don’t go,” her father bade her gently.
Along the slopes of Le Nivolet the evening was mounting upward. Only the snow on the higher levels still fought with the shadows, the light slipping and flowing over it in a cascade of gold and purple. With one last flash, as if of apotheosis, the victorious shadow scaled the highest grade and occupied the summit.
The wall opposite them bore a single family name, their own, but beneath it there were given names and dates in great number. A branch of perennial ivy climbed over it with its green leaves, and fell half forward, like a crown of spring.
“Listen,” said Mr. Roquevillard. His face bore the same stamp of serenity as at the trial. “It’s night,” he said, “and we are in the field of the dead. And yet from every corner of the earth you hear only the strongest words of life. Look, before the shadows hide it; all round you spreads the country that your heart loves best. And here, too, lies your family, at rest.”
In his turn Maurice knelt, and remembering his mother, who had gone without farewell to him, and his brother, who had made the sacrifice of his life for him, he hid his face in his hands. But his father touched him on the shoulder, and spoke to him in a firm voice.
“My boy,” he said, “I am an old man now. You will soon succeed me. You must listen to me now, this day, when I feel it is my duty to speak to you. Here are the symbols of all that is enduring. To care for the dead is in a sense the fulfilling of our immortal destiny. What is a man’s life, what is my life, if past and future don’t give it its true meaning? You had forgotten this when you went in search of your individual destiny. There is no set destiny for the individual, no greatness in life, except in servitude. We serve our family, we serve our country, God, art, science, an ideal. Shame on the man who only serves himself! You, Maurice, you have found your strongest support in us, but your dependence too. Man’s honour lies in accepting his due place in life.”
Maurice, rising from his knees, saw the Calvary of Lemenc before him in the twilight, and the thought came to him sadly, “What of love?”
His father guessed what he was thinking of.
“Such a little thing, dear boy,” he said, “may divide the honest and the dishonest impulses in a man. Love breaks this barrier down. The family keeps it strong. And yet, even at this hour, Maurice, I won’t speak ill of love, if only you know how to understand it. Love is our heart’s sigh for all that lies beyond our grasp. Cherish this longing in your heart. It is yours to cherish. You will find it again in doing good deeds, in nature, in fulfilling your destiny without fear or frailty. Don’t misunderstand it. Don’t mistake it any more. Before you give your love to a woman, remember your mother, think of your sister; think of the happiness that may be in store for you some day of having a daughter of your own to bring up. I was glad when you were born, and at your brother’s birth and your sisters’ I rejoiced. With all my strength I have protected you. At my death, I tell you, you will feel as if a wall had crumbled down before you, and left you face to face with life. Then you will understand me better.”
“Father,” murmured Maurice, breaking down. “I shall not be unworthy of you.”
“My boy!” replied Mr. Roquevillard quite simply. And Margaret, seeing them at last in each other’s arms, remembered the vow she had made her mother.
In the deepening sky, toward La Vigie, an early star began to shed its light. Mr. Roquevillard, holding to his heart this son whom he had won back, this last and only son, marked it as a sign of hope. And in the darkened graveyard, where he had come to return the dead their visit to him of the night before, even though he felt that he was menaced, too, by death, the head of the family made his confession of faith in life.