"Extraordinary man," said, he, with a gravity which made me smile,
"tell me a little of your life."
"Extraordinary I am not at all," said I.
"And I affirm," answered he, "that humanity is composed of tyrants,
valets, and a single and only Gilbert."
"Nonsense! Gilberts are abundant."
"There is but one, there is but one," cried he, with a fire and
energy that enchanted me.
I must own I am not sorry that for the time being he looks upon me
as an exceptional being; for it is well to keep him a little in awe
of me. To satisfy him I gave him the history of my youth. This
time he reproached me for being too brief, and not going enough
into detail.
As his questions were inexhaustible, I said: "After today do not
let us waste our time upon this subject. Besides, the top of the
basket shows the best that's in it."
"There may perhaps be something to hide from me?"
"No; but I will confess that I do not like to talk about myself too
much. I get tired of it very soon."
"What?" said he, in a tone of reproach, "are we not here to talk
endlessly about you, me, us?"
"Certainly, and our favorite occupation will be to entertain
ourselves with ourselves; but to render this pastime more
delightful, it will be well for us to occupy ourselves sometimes
with something else."
"With something else? With what?"
"With that which is not ourselves."
"And what do I care for anything which is neither you nor me?"
"But at all events you sometimes work, you read, you study?"
"At Martinique, Father Alexis gave me two or three hours of lessons
every day. He taught me history, geography, and among other stuff
of the same kind, the inconceivable merits and the superhuman
perfections of his eternal Panselinos. The dissertations of this
spiritual schoolmaster diverted me very little, as you may well
suppose, and I was furious that in spite of myself his tiresome
verbiage rooted itself in my memory, which is the most tenacious in
the world."
"And did he continue his instructions to you?"
"After our return to Europe, my father ordered him to teach me
nothing more but the catechism. He said it was the only study my
silly brain was fit for."
"So for three years you have passed your days in absolute
idleness."
"Not at all; I have always been occupied from morning till night."
"And how?"
"In sitting down, in getting up, in sitting down again, in pacing
the length and breadth of my room, in gaping at the crows, in
counting the squares of these flagstones, and the tiles of the
little roof, in looking at the iron corbel and the water-spout on
top of it, in watching the clouds sailing through the empty air,
and then in lying down there in that recess of the wall, to rest
quiet, with my eyes closed, ruminating over the problem of my
destiny, asking myself what I could have done to God, that he
chastised me so cruelly, recalling my past sufferings, enjoying in
advance my sufferings to come, weeping and dreaming, dreaming and
weeping, until overcome with lassitude and exhaustion I ended by
falling asleep; or else, driven to desperation by weariness, I ran
down to Ivan's lodging, and there gave vent to my scorn, fury, and
despair, at the top of my lungs."
These words, pronounced in a tone breathing all the bitterness of
his soul, troubled me deeply. I trembled to think of this desolate
child, whose griefs were incessantly augmented by solitude and
idleness, of that soul defenselessly abandoned to its gloomy
reveries, of that poor heart maddened, and pouncing upon itself as
upon a prey; self-devouring, constantly reopening his wounds and
inflaming them, without work or study to divert him a single
instant from his monotonous torment. Oh! Count Kostia, how refined
is your hatred!
"I have an idea," I said at last. "You love flowers and painting.
Paint an herbarium."
"What's that?"
"See this large paper. You will paint on it, in water colors, a
collection of all the flowers of this region, of all those, at
least, that you may find in your walks. If you don't know their
names, I will teach them to you, or we will seek for them
together."
"Provided that books take no part in it."
"We will dispense with them as much as possible. I will muster up
all my knowledge to tell you the history of these pretty painted
flowers; I will tell you of their families; I will teach you how to
classify them; in short, will give you little by little, all I know
of botany."
He made a hundred absurd objections,--among others, that he found
in all the flowers of the fields and the woods in this country a
creeping and servile air; then this, and then that, expressing
himself in a sharp but sportive tone.
"I shall teach you botany, my wild young colt," I said to myself,
"and not let you break loose."
I have not been able, however, to draw from him any positive
promise.
July 14th.
Victory! By persistent hammering I have succeeded in beating the
idea of the painted herbarium into this naughty, unruly head.
But he has imposed his conditions. He consents to paint only the
flowers that I will gather myself, and bring to him. After some
discussion I yielded the point.
"Ah!" said I, "take care to gather some yourself, for otherwise
Ivan . . ."
Sunday, July 15th.
This afternoon I took a long walk in the woods. I had succeeded in
gathering some labiates, the dead nettle, the pyramidal bell-flower
and the wild thyme, when in the midst of my occupation, I heard the
trot of a horse. It was he, a bunch of herbs and flowers in his
hand. Ivan, who according to his custom, followed him at a
distance of ten paces, regarded me some way off with an uneasy air;
he evidently feared that I would accost them; but having arrived
within a few steps of me, Stephane, turning his head, started his
horse at full gallop, and Ivan, as he passed, smiled upon me with
an expression of triumphant pity. Poor, simple Ivan, did you not
hear our souls speak to each other?
July 16th.
Yesterday I carried my labiates to him. After some desultory talk,
I endeavored to describe as best I could the characters of this
interesting family. He listened to me out of complaisance. In
time, he will listen to me out of curiosity, inasmuch as, to tell
the truth, I am not a tiresome master; but I dare not yet
interrogate him in a Socratic way. The SHORT LITTLE QUESTIONS
would make our hot-headed young man angry. The lesson finished, he
wished to commence his herbarium under my eyes. The honor of
precedence has been awarded to the wild thyme; its little white,
finely cut labias and the delicate appearance of the stem pleased
him, whilst he found the dead nettle and the bell flower extremely
common, and pronounced by him the word "extremely" is most
expressive. While he made pencil sketches, I told him three
stories, a fairy tale, an anecdote of Plutarch and some sketches of
the life of St. Francis of Assisi. He listened to the fairy tale
without uttering a word, and without a frown; but the other two
stories made him shake his head several times.
"Is what you are telling me really true?" said he. "Would you
wager your life upon it?" And when I came to speak of St. Francis
embracing the lepers--
"Oh! now you're exaggerating." Then speaking to St. George: "Upon
your conscience now, would you have done as much?"
He ended by becoming sportive and frolicsome. As he begged me to
sing him a little song, I hummed Cadet Roussel, which he did not
know; the "three hairs" made him laugh till the tears ran down his
cheeks, but he paid dearly for this excess of gayety. When I rose
to leave he was seized with a paroxysm of weeping, and I had much
trouble in consoling him. I repent having excited him so much. I
must humor his nerves, and never put him in that state of mind
which contrasts too strongly with the realities of his life. At
any cost I must prevent certain AWAKINGS.
July 19th.
I admire his conduct at the table. Seated opposite me, he never
appears to see me, whilst you, grave Gilbert, do not know at times
what to do with your eyes; but the other day he crossed the great
hall with such a quick and elastic step that the Count's attention
was drawn to him. I must caution him to be more discreet. I am
also uneasy because in our nocturnal tete-a-tetes he often raises
his voice, moves the furniture, and storms round the room; but he
assures me there is nothing to fear. The walls are thick, and the
foot of the staircase is separated from the corridor by a
projection of masonry which would intercept the sound. Then the
alcove, the vestibule, the two solid oak doors! These two doors
are never locked. Ivan, he told me, is far from suspecting
anything, and the only thing which could excite his distrust would
be excessive precaution.
"And besides," added he, "by the mercy of God he is beginning to
grow old, his mind is getting dull, and he is more credulous than
formerly. So I have easily persuaded him that I will never forgive
you, as long as I live, for the death of my dog. Then again, he is
growing hard of hearing, and sleeps like a top. Sometimes to
disturb his sleep, I amuse myself by imitating the bark of Vorace
but I have the trouble of my pains. The only sound which he never
fails to hear, is the ringing of my father's bell. I admit,
however, that if anyone presumed to touch his great ugly oak door,
he would wake up with a start. This is because his door is his
property, his object, his fixed idea: he has a way of looking at
it, which seems to say: 'you see this door? it is mine.' I
believe, that in his eyes there is nothing lovelier in the world
than a closed door. So he cherishes this horrible, this infamous
door: he smiles on it benignly, he counts its nails and covers them
with kisses."
"And you say that after nine o'clock he never comes up here?"
"Never, never. I should like to see him attempt it!" cried he,
raising his head with an indignant air.
"You see then, that he is a jailer capable of behaving handsomely.
I imagine that you do not like him much; but after all, in keeping
you under lock and key, he is only obeying orders."
"And I tell you he is happy in making me suffer. The wicked man
has done but one good action in his whole life,--that was in saving
you from the fury of Vorace. In consideration of this good action,
I no longer tell him what I think of him, but I think it none the
less, and it seems to me very singular that you should ask me to
love him."
"Excuse me, I do not ask you to love him, but to believe that, at
heart, he loves you."
At these words he became so furious, that I hastened to change the
subject.
"Don't you sometimes regret Vorace?"
"It was his duty to guard me against bugaboos, but I have had no
fear of them, since one of them has become my friend.
"I am superstitious, I believe in ghosts; but I defy them to
approach my bed hereafter."
He blushed and did not finish the sentence. Poor child! the
painful misery of his destiny, far from quenching his imagination,
has excited it to intoxication, and I am not surprised that he
shapes friendship to the romantic turn of his thoughts.
"You're mistaken," I said to him, "it is not my image, it is botany
which guards you against spirits. There is no better remedy for
foolish terrors than the study of nature."
"Always the pedant," he exclaimed, throwing his cap in my face.
July 23rd.
Vladimir Paulitch appeared yesterday at the end of dinner. The
presence of this man occasions me an indefinable uneasiness. His
coldness freezes me, and then his dogmatic tone; his smile of
mocking politeness. He always knows in advance what you are going
to say to him, and listens to you out of politeness. This Vladimir
has the ironical intolerance characteristic of materialists. As to
his professional ability there can be no doubt. The Count has
entirely recovered; he is better than I have ever seen him. What
vigor, what activity of mind! What confounds me is, that in our
discussions, I come to see in him, in about the course of an hour,
only the historian, the superior mind, the scholar; I forget
entirely the man of the iron boots, the somnambulist, the
persecutor of my Stephane, and I yield myself unreservedly to the
charm of his conversation. Oh, men of letters! men of letters!
July 27th.
He said to me:
"I do not possess happiness yet; but it seems to me at moments,
that I see it, that I touch it."
July 28th.
To-day, Doctor Vladimir appeared again at dessert. He aimed a few
sarcasms at me; I suspect that I do not please him much. Will his
affection for the Count go so far as to make him jealous of the
esteem which he evinces for me? We talked philosophy. He exerted
himself to prove that everything is matter. I stung him to the
quick in representing to him that all his arguments were found in
d'Holbach. I endeavored to show him that matter itself is
spiritual, that even the stones believe in spirit. Instead of
answering, he beat about the bush. Otherwise, he spoke well, that
is to say, he expressed his gross ideas with ingenuity. What he
lacks most, is humor. He has something of the saturnine in his
mind; his ideas have a leaden tint. The Count, prompted by good
taste, saw that he held out too obstinately, without taking into
account that Kostia Petrovitch himself detests the absolute as much
in the negative as in the affirmative. He thanked me with a smile
when I said to the doctor, in order to put an end to the
discussion:
"Sir, no one could display more mind in denying its existence;" and
the Count added, alluding to the doctor's meagerness of person:
"My dear Vladimir, if you deny the mind what will be left of you?"
July 30th.
Yesterday, to my great chagrin, I found him in tears.
"Let this inexorable father beat me," said he, "provided he tells
me his secret. I prefer bad treatment to his silence. When we
were at Martinique he had attacks of such violence that they made
my hair stand on end. I would gladly have sunk into the earth; I
trembled lest he should tear me in pieces; but he at least thought
about me. He looked at me; I existed for him, and in spite of my
terrors I felt less unhappy than now. Do not think it is my
captivity which grieves me most. At my age it is certainly very
hard and very humiliating to be kept out of sight and under lock
and key; but I should be very easily resigned to that if it were my
father who opened and closed the door. But alas! I am of so little
consequence in his eyes that he deputes the task of tyrannizing
over me to a serf. And then, during the brief moments when he
constrains himself to submit to my presence--what a severe aspect,
what threatening brows, what grim silence! Consider, too, the fact
that he has never entered this tower; no, has never had the
curiosity to know how my prison was made. Yet he cannot be
ignorant of the fact that I lodge above a precipice. He knows,
too, that once the idea of suicide took possession of me, and he
has not even thought of having this window barred."
"That is because he did not consider your attempt a serious one."
"Then how he despises me!"
I represented to him that his father was sick, that he was the
victim of a nervous disorder which deranges the most robust
organizations, that Doctor Vladimir guaranteed his cure, that once
recovered, his temper would change, and that then would be the
moment to besiege this citadel thus rendered more vulnerable.
"We must not, however, be precipitate," said I, "let us have
courage and patience."
I reasoned so well that he finally overcame his despondency. When
I see him yield to my reasoning, I have a strong impulse to embrace
him; but it is a pleasure I deny myself, as I know by experience
what it costs him. A moment afterwards, I don't know why, he spoke
to me of his sister who died at Martinique.
"Why did God take her from me?"
"Alas!" said I, "she could not have supported the life to which you
have been condemned."
"And why not, pray?"
"Because she would have suffered ten times as much as you. Think
of it,--the nerves and heart of a woman!"
He looked at me with a singular expression; apparently he could not
understand how anyone could suffer more than he. After this he
talked a long time about women, who are to him, from what he said,
an impenetrable mystery, and he repeated eagerly:
"You do not despise them, as HE does?"
"That would be impossible, I remember my mother."
"Is that your only reason?"
"Some day I will tell you the others."
As I left and was already nearly out of the window, he seized me
impetuously by the arm, saying to me:
"Could you swear to me that you would be less happy if you did not
know me?"
"I swear it."
His face brightened, and his eyes flashed.
August 8th.
And you too are transformed, my dear Gilbert; you have visibly
rejuvenated. A new spirit has taken possession of you. Your blood
circulates more quickly; you carry your head more proudly, your
step is more elastic, there is more light in your eyes, more breath
in your lungs, and you feel a celestial leaven fermenting in your
heart. My old friend, you have emerged from your long uselessness
to give birth to a soul! Oh, glorious task! God bless mother and
daughter!
August 9th.
Stephane is painfully astonished at the friendship which his father
displays towards me.
"He has the power of loving then, and does not love me? It is
because I am destestable!"
Poor innocent! It is certain that in spite of himself, the Count
has begun to like me. Good Father Alexis said to me the other
evening:
"You are a clever man, my son; you have cast a spell upon Kostia
Petrovitch, and he entertains an affection for you, which he has
never before manifested for anyone."
August 11th.
His painted herbarium is enriched every day. He already enumerates
twenty species and five families. Yesterday Stephane so far forgot
himself as to look at it with an air of satisfied pride. How happy
I was! I kept my joy to myself, however. He further delighted me
by deciding to write from memory at the bottom of each page the
French and Latin names for each plant. "It is a concession I have
made to the pedant," said he; but this did not prevent him from
being proud of having written these forty names without a mistake.
Last time I carried to him some crowsfeet and anemones. He took
the little celandine in his hand, crying:
"Let me have it; I am going to tell you the history of this little
yellow fellow."
And he then gave me all the characteristics with marvelous
accuracy. What a quick and luminous intellect, and what
overflowing humor! His hands trembled so much that I said to him:
"Keep cool, keep cool. It requires a firm and steady hand to raise
the veil of Isis."
I contented myself with explaining in a few words who Isis was,
which interested him but moderately. His masterpiece, as a
faithful reproduction of nature, is his marsh ranunculus, which I
had introduced to him under the Latin name of ranuncula scelerata.
He has so exquisitely represented these insignificant little yellow
flowers that it is impossible not to fall in love with them.
"This little prisoner has inspired me," said he. "By dint of
practicing Father Alexis, I begin to wish good to the rascals."