impair the effect, that she scarcely allowed herself rest or food.
Sometimes, in the heat of noon, she wandered a little from the
road-side, and under the spreading lime-tree surrendered her mind to
its sweet and bitter thoughts; but ever the restlessness of her
enterprise urged her on, and faint, weary, and with bleeding feet, she
started up and continued her way. At length she reached the ancient
city, where a holier age has scarce worn from the habits and aspects of
men the Roman trace. She prostrated herself at the tomb of the Magi:
she proffered her ardent but humble prayer to Him before whose son
those fleshless heads (yet to faith at least preserved) had, nearly
eighteen centuries ago, bowed in adoration. Twice every day, for a
whole week, she sought the same spot, and poured forth the same prayer.
The last day an old priest, who, hovering in the church, had observed
her constantly at devotion, with that fatherly interest which the
better ministers of the Catholic sect (that sect which has covered the
earth with the mansions of charity) feel for the unhappy, approached
her as she was retiring with moist and downcast eyes, and saluting her,
assumed the privilege of his order, to inquire if there was aught in
which his advice or aid could serve. There was something in the
venerable air of the old man which encouraged Lucille; she opened her
heart to him; she told him all. The good priest was much moved by her
simplicity and earnestness. He questioned her minutely as to the
peculiar species of blindness with which St. Amand was afflicted; and
after musing a little while, he said, "Daughter, God is great and
merciful, we must trust in his power, but we must not forget that he
mostly works by mortal agents. As you pass through Louvain in your way
home, fail not to see there a certain physician, named Le Kain. He is
celebrated through Flanders for the cures he has wrought among the
blind, and his advice is sought by all classes from far and near. He
lives hard by the Hotel de Ville, but any one will inform you of his
residence. Stay, my child, you shall take him a note from me; he is a
benevolent and kindly man, and you shall tell him exactly the same
story (and with the same voice) you have told to me."
So saying the priest made Lucille accompany him to his home, and
forcing her to refresh herself less sparingly than she had yet done
since she had left Malines, he gave her his blessing, and a letter to
Le Kain, which he rightly judged would insure her a patient hearing
from the physician. Well known among all men of science was the name of
the priest, and a word of recommendation from him went farther, where
virtue and wisdom were honored, than the longest letter from the
haughtiest Sieur in Flanders.
With a patient and hopeful spirit, the young pilgrim turned her back on
the Roman Cologne, and now about to rejoin St. Amand, she felt neither
the heat of the sun nor the weariness of the road. It was one day at
noon that she again passed through LOUVAIN, and she soon found herself
by the noble edifice of the HOTEL DE VILLE. Proud rose its Gothic
spires against the sky, and the sun shone bright on its rich tracery
and Gothic casements; the broad open street was crowded with persons of
all classes, and it was with some modest alarm that Lucille lowered her
veil and mingled with the throng. It was easy, as the priest had said,
to find the house of Le Kain; she bade the servant take the priest's
letter to his master, and she was not long kept waiting before she was
admitted to the physician's presence. He was a spare, tall man, with a
bald front, and a calm and friendly countenance. He was not less
touched than the priest had been by the manner in which she narrated
her story, described the affliction of her betrothed, and the hope that
had inspired the pilgrimage she had just made.
"Well," said he, encouragingly, "we must see our patient. You can bring
him hither to me."
"Ah, sir, I had hoped--" Lucille stopped suddenly.
"What, my young friend?"
"That I might have had the triumph of bringing you to Malines. I know,
sir, what you are about to say; and I know, sir, your time must be very
valuable; but I am not so poor as I seem, and Eugene, that is Monsieur
St. Amand, is very rich, and--and I have at Bruxelles what I am sure is
a large sum; it was to have provided for the wedding, but it is most
heartily at your service, sir."
Le Kain smiled; he was one of those men who love to read the human
heart when its leaves are fair and undefiled; and, in the benevolence
of science, he would have gone a longer journey than from Louvain to
Malines to give sight to the blind, even had St. Amand been a beggar.
"Well, well," said he, "but you forget that Monsieur St. Amand is not
the only one in the world who wants me. I must look at my note-book,
and see if I can be spared for a day or two."
So saying he glanced at his memoranda; every thing smiled on Lucille:
he had no engagements that his partner could not fulfil, for some days;
he consented to accompany Lucille to Malines.
Meanwhile cheerless and dull had passed the time to St. Amand; he was
perpetually asking Madame Le Tisseur what hour it was; it was almost
his only question. There seemed to him no sun in the heavens, no
freshness in the air, and he even forbore his favorite music; the
instrument had lost its sweetness since Lucille was not by to listen.
It was natural that the gossips of Malines should feel some envy at the
marriage Lucille was about to make with one whose competence report had
exaggerated into prodigal wealth, whose birth had been elevated from
the respectable to the noble, and whose handsome person was clothed, by
the interest excited by his misfortune, with the beauty of Antinous.
Even that misfortune, which ought to have levelled all distinctions,
was not sufficient to check the general envy; perhaps to some of the
dames of Malines blindness in a husband was indeed not the least
agreeable of all qualifications! But there was one in whom this envy
rankled with a peculiar sting; it was the beautiful, the all-conquering
Julie. That the humble, the neglected Lucille should be preferred to
her; that Lucille, whose existence was well-nigh forgot beside Julie's,
should become thus suddenly of importance; that there should be one
person in the world, and that person young, rich, handsome, to whom she
was less than nothing, when weighed in the balance with Lucille,
mortified to the quick a vanity that had never till then received a
wound. "It is well," she would say, with a bitter jest, "that Lucille's
lover is blind. To be the one it is necessary to be the other!"
During Lucille's absence she had been constantly in Madame Le Tisseur's
house--indeed Lucille had prayed her to be so. She had sought, with an
industry that astonished herself, to supply Lucille's place, and among
the strange contradictions of human nature, she had learned, during her
efforts to please, to love the object of those efforts,--as much at
least as she was capable of loving.
She conceived a positive hatred to Lucille; she persisted in imagining
that nothing but the accident of first acquaintance had deprived her of
a conquest with which she persuaded herself her happiness had become
connected. Had St. Amand never loved Lucille, and proposed to Julie,
his misfortune would have made her reject him, despite his wealth and
his youth; but to be Lucille's lover, and a conquest to be won from
Lucille, raised him instantly to an importance not his own. Safe,
however, in his affliction, the arts and beauty of Julie fell harmless
on the fidelity of St. Amand. Nay, he liked her less than ever, for it
seemed an impertinence in any one to counterfeit the anxiety and
watchfulness of Lucille.
"It is time, surely it is time, Madame Le Tisseur, that Lucille should
return. She might have sold all the lace in Malines by this time," said
St. Amand one day, peevishly.
"Patience, my dear friend; patience, perhaps she may return to-morrow."
"To-morrow! let me see, it is only six o'clock, only six, you are
sure?"
"Just five, dear Eugene shall I read to you? this is a new book from
Paris, it has made a great noise," said Julie.
"You are very kind, but I will not trouble you."
"It is any thing but trouble."
"In a word, then, I would rather not."
"Oh! that he could see," thought Julie; "would I not punish him for
this!"
"I hear carriage-wheels; who can be passing this way? Surely it is the
voiturier from Bruxelles," said St. Amand, starting up, "it is his day,
his hour, too. No, no, it is a lighter vehicle," and he sank down
listlessly on his seat.
Nearer and nearer rolled the wheels; they turned the corner; they
stopped at the lowly door; and--overcome,--overjoyed, Lucille was
clasped to the bosom of St. Amand.
"Stay," said she, blushing, as she recovered her self-possession, and
turned to Le Kain, "pray pardon me, sir. Dear Eugene, I have brought
with me one who, by God's blessing, may yet restore you to sight."
"We must not be sanguine, my child," said Le Kain; "any thing is better
than disappointment."
To close this part of my story, dear Gertrude, Le Kain examined St.
Amand, and the result of the examination was a confident belief in the
probability of a cure. St. Amand gladly consented to the experiment of
an operation; it succeeded--the blind man saw! Oh! what were Lucille's
feelings, what her emotion, what her joy, when she found the object of
her pilgrimage--of her prayers--fulfilled! That joy was so intense,
that in the eternal alterations of human life she might have foretold
from its excess how bitter the sorrows fated to ensue.
As soon as by degrees the patient's new sense became reconciled to the
light, his first, his only demand was for Lucille. "No, let me not see
her alone, let me see her in the midst of you all, that I may convince
you that the heart never is mistaken in its instincts." With a fearful,
a sinking presentiment, Lucille yielded to the request to which the
impetuous St. Amand would hear indeed no denial. The father, the
mother, Julie, Lucille, Julie's younger sisters assembled in the little
parlor; the door opened, and St. Amand stood hesitating on the
threshold. One look around sufficed to him; his face brightened, he
uttered a cry of joy. "Lucille! Lucille!" he exclaimed, "It is you, I
know it, _you_ only!" He sprang forward, _and fell at the feet of
Julie!_
Flushed, elated, triumphant, Julie bent upon him her sparkling eyes;
_she_ did not undeceive him.
"You are wrong, you mistake," said Madame Le Tisseur, in confusion;
"that is her cousin Julie, this is your Lucille."
St. Amand rose, turned, saw Lucille, and at that moment she wished
herself in her grave. Surprise, mortification, disappointment, almost
dismay, were depicted in his gaze. He had been haunting his
prison-house with dreams, and, now set free, he felt how unlike they
were to the truth. Too new to observation to read the wo, the despair,
the lapse and shrinking of the whole frame, that his look occasioned
Lucille, he yet felt, when the first shock of his surprise was over,
that it was not thus he should thank her who had restored him to sight.
He hastened to redeem his error; ah! how could it be redeemed?
From that hour all Lucille's happiness was at an end; her fairy palace
was shattered in the dust; the magician's wand was broken up; the Ariel
was given to the winds; and the bright enchantment no longer
distinguished the land she lived in from the rest of the barren world.
It was true that St. Amand's words were kind; it is true that he
remembered with the deepest gratitude all she had done in his behalf;
it is true that he forced himself again and again to say, "She is my
betrothed--my benefactress!" and he cursed himself to think that the
feelings he had entertained for her were fled. Where was the passion of
his words? where the ardor of his tone? where that play and light of
countenance which her step, _her_ voice could formerly call forth? When
they were alone he was embarrassed and constrained, and almost cold;
his hand no longer sought hers; his soul no longer missed her if she
was absent a moment from his side. When in their household circle, he
seemed visibly more at ease; but did his eyes fasten upon her who had
opened them to the day? did they not wander at every interval with a
too eloquent admiration to the blushing and radiant face of the
exulting Julie? This was not, you will believe, suddenly perceptible in
one day or one week, but every day it was perceptible more and more.
Yet still--bewitched, ensnared as St. Amand was--he never perhaps would
have been guilty of an infidelity that he strove with the keenest
remorse to wrestle against, had it not been for the fatal contrast, at
the first moment of his gushing enthusiasm, which Julie had presented
to Lucille; but for that he would have formed no previous idea of real
and living beauty to aid the disappointment of his imaginings and his
dreams. He would have seen Lucille young and graceful, and with eyes
beaming affection, contrasted only by the wrinkled countenance and
bended frame of her parents, and she would have completed her conquest
over him before he had discovered that she was less beautiful than
others; nay more--that infidelity never could have lasted above the
first few days, if the vain and heartless object of it had not exerted
every art, all the power and witchery of her beauty, to cement and
continue it. The unfortunate Lucille--so susceptible to the slightest
change in those she loved, so diffident of herself, so proud too in
that diffidence--no longer necessary, no longer missed, no longer
loved--could not bear to endure the galling comparison of the past and
present. She fled uncomplainingly to her chamber to indulge her tears,
and thus, unhappily, absent as her father generally was during the day,
and busied as her mother was either at work or in household matters,
she left Julie a thousand opportunities to complete the power she had
begun to wield over--no, not the heart!--the _senses_ of St. Amand!
Yet, still not suspecting, in the open generosity of her mind, the
whole extent of her affliction, poor Lucille buoyed herself at times
with the hope that when once married, when once in that intimacy of
friendship, the unspeakable love she felt for him could disclose itself
with less restraint than at present,--she should perhaps regain a heart
which had been so devotedly hers, that she could not think that without
a fault it was irrevocably gone: on that hope she anchored all the
little happiness that remained to her. And still St. Amand pressed
their marriage, but in what different tones! In fact, he wished to
preclude from himself the possibility of a deeper ingratitude than that
which he had incurred already. He vainly thought that the broken reed
of love might be bound up and strengthened by the ties of duty; and at
least he was anxious that his hand, his fortune, his esteem, his
gratitude, should give to Lucille the only recompense it was now in his
power to bestow. Meanwhile, left alone so often with Julie, and Julie
bent on achieving the last triumph over his heart, St. Amand was
gradually preparing a far different reward, a far different return for
her to whom he owed so incalculable a debt.
There was a garden behind the house, in which there was a small arbor,
where often in the summer evenings Eugene and Lucille had sat
together--hours never to return! One day she heard from her own
chamber, where she sat mourning, the sound of St. Amand's flute
swelling gently from that beloved and consecrated bower. She wept as
she heard it, and the memories that the music bore softening and
endearing his image, she began to reproach herself that she had yielded
so often to the impulse of her wounded feelings; that, chilled by _his_
coldness, she had left him so often to himself, and had not
sufficiently dared to tell him of that affection which, in her modest
self-depreciation, constituted her only pretension to his love.
"Perhaps he is alone now," she thought; "the tune too is one which he
knew that I loved:" and with her heart on her step, she stole from the
house and sought the arbor. She had scarce turned from her chamber when
the flute ceased; as she neared the arbor she heard voices--Julie's
voice in grief, St. Amand's in consolation. A dread foreboding seized
her; her feet clung rooted to the earth.
"Yes, marry her--forget me," said Julie; "in a few days you will be
another's and I, I--forgive me, Eugene, forgive me that I have
disturbed your happiness. I am punished sufficiently--my heart will
break, but it will break loving you"--sobs choked Julie's voice.
"Oh, speak not thus," said St. Amand. "I, _I_ only am to blame; I,
false to both, to both ungrateful. Oh, from the hour that these eyes
opened upon you I drank in a new life; the sun itself to me was less
wonderful than your beauty. But--but--let me forget that hour. What do
I not owe to Lucille? I shall be wretched--I shall deserve to be so;
for shall I not think, Julie, that I have imbittered our life with your
ill-fated love? But all that I can give--my hand--my home--my plighted
faith--must be hers. Nay, Julie, nay--why that look? could I act
otherwise? can I dream otherwise? Whatever the sacrifice, _must_ I not
render it? Ah, what do I owe to Lucille, were it only for the thought
that but for her I might never have seen thee."
Lucille staid to hear no more; with the same soft step as that which
had borne her within hearing of these fatal words, she turned back once
more to her desolate chamber.
That evening, as St. Amand was sitting alone in his apartment, he heard
a gentle knock at the door. "Come in," he said, and Lucille entered. He
started in some confusion, and would have taken her hand, but she
gently repulsed him. She took a seat opposite to him, and looking down,
thus addressed him:--
"My dear Eugene, that is, Monsieur St. Amand, I have something on my
mind that I think it better to speak at once; and if I do not exactly
express what I would wish to say, you must not be offended at Lucille;
it is not an easy matter to put into words what one feels deeply."
Coloring, and suspecting something of the truth, St. Amand would have
broken in upon her here; but she, with a gentle impatience, waved him
to be silent, and continued:--
"You know that when you once loved me, I used to tell you, that you
would cease to do so, could you see how undeserving I was of your
attachment? I did not deceive myself, Eugene; I always felt assured
that such would be the case, that your love for me necessarily rested
on your affliction: but, for all that, I never at least had a dream, or
a desire, but for your happiness; and God knows, that if again, by
walking bare-footed, not to Cologne, but to Rome--to the end of the
world, I could save you from a much less misfortune than that of
blindness, I would cheerfully do it; yes, even though I might foretel
all the while that, on my return, you would speak to me coldly, think
of me lightly, and that the penalty to me would--would be--what it has
been!" Here Lucille wiped a few natural tears from her eyes; St. Amand,
struck to the heart, covered his face with his hands, without the
courage to interrupt her. Lucille continued:--
"That which I foresaw has come to pass: I am no longer to you what I
once was, when you could clothe this poor form and this homely face
with a beauty they did not possess; you would wed me still, it is true;
but I am proud, Eugene, and cannot stoop to gratitude where I once had
love. I am not so unjust as to blame you; the change was natural, was
inevitable. I should have steeled myself more against it; but I am now
resigned; we must part; you love Julie--that too is natural--and _she_
loves you; ah! what also more probable in the course of events? Julie
loves you, not yet, perhaps, so much as I did, but then she has not
known you as I have, and she, whose whole life has been triumph, cannot
feel the gratitude I felt at fancying myself loved; but this will come;
God grant it! Farewell, then, for ever, dear Eugene; I leave you when
you no longer want me; you are now independent of Lucille; wherever you
go, a thousand hereafter can supply my place;--farewell!"
She rose, as she said this, to leave the room; but St. Amand seizing
her hand, which she in vain endeavored to withdraw from his clasp,
poured forth incoherently, passionately, his reproaches on himself, his
eloquent persuasions against her resolution.
"I confess," said he, "that I have been allured for a moment; I confess
that Julie's beauty made me less sensible to your stronger, your
holier, oh! far, far holier title to my love! But forgive me, dearest
Lucille; already I return to you, to all I once felt for you; make me
not curse the blessing of sight that I owe to you. You must not leave
me; never can we two part; try me, only try me, and if ever, hereafter,
my heart wander from you, _then_, Lucille, leave me to my remorse!"
Even at that moment Lucille did not yield; she felt that his prayer was
but the enthusiasm of the hour; she felt that there was a virtue in her
pride; that to leave him was a duty to herself. In vain he pleaded; in
vain were his embraces, his prayers; in vain he reminded her of their
plighted troth, of her aged parents, whose happiness had become wrapped
in her union with him; "How, even were it as you wrongly believe, how
in honor to them can I desert you, can I wed another?"
"Trust that, trust all to me," answered Lucille; "your honor shall be
my care, none shall blame _you_; only do not let your marriage with
Julie be celebrated here before their eyes; that is all I ask, all they
can expect. God bless you! do not fancy I shall be unhappy, for
whatever happiness the world gives you, shall I not have contributed to
bestow it?--and with that thought, I am above compassion."
She glided from his arms, and left him to a solitude more bitter even
than that of blindness; that very night Lucille sought her mother; to
her she confided all. I pass over the reasons she urged, the arguments
she overcame; she conquered rather than convinced, and leaving to
Madame Le Tisseur the painful task of breaking to her father her
unalterable resolution, she quitted Malines the next morning, and with
a heart too honest to be utterly without comfort, paid that visit to
her aunt which had been so long deferred.
The pride of Lucille's parents prevented them from reproaching St.
Amand. He did not bear, however, their cold and altered looks; he left
their house; and though for several days he would not even see Julie,
yet her beauty and her art gradually resumed their empire over him.
They were married at Courtroi, and, to the joy of the vain Julie,
departed to the gay metropolis of France. But before their departure,
before his marriage, St. Amand endeavored to appease his conscience, by
purchasing for Monsieur Le Tisseur, a much more lucrative and honorable
office than that he now held. Rightly judging that Malines could no
longer be a pleasant residence for them, and much less for Lucille, the
duties of the post were to be fulfilled in another town; and knowing
that Monsieur Le Tisseur's delicacy would revolt at receiving such a
favor from his hands, he kept the nature of his negociation a close
secret, and suffered the honest citizen to believe that his own merits
alone had entitled him to so unexpected a promotion.
Time went on. This quiet and simple history of humble affections took
its date in a stormy epoch of the world--the dawning Revolution of
France. The family of Lucille had been little more than a year settled
in their new residence, when Dumouriez led his army into the
Netherlands. But how meanwhile had that year passed for Lucille? I have
said that her spirit was naturally high; that, though so tender, she
was not weak; her very pilgrimage to Cologne alone, and at the timid
age of seventeen, proved that there was a strength in her nature no
less than a devotion in her love. The sacrifice she had made brought
its own reward. She believed St. Amand was happy, and she would not
give way to the selfishness of grief; she had still duties to perform;
she could still comfort her parents, and cheer their age; she could
still be all the world to them; she felt this, and was consoled. Only
once during the year had she heard of Julie; she had been seen by a
mutual friend at Paris, gay, brilliant, courted, and admired; of St.
Amand she heard nothing.
My tale, dear Gertrude, does not lead me through the harsh scenes of
war. I do not tell you of the slaughter and the siege, and the blood
that inundated those fair lands, the great battle-field of Europe. The
people of the Netherlands in general were with the cause of Dumouriez,
but the town in which Le Tisseur dwelt offered some faint resistance to
his arms. Le Tisseur himself, despite his age, girded on his sword; the
town was carried, and the fierce and licentious troops of the conqueror
poured, flushed with their easy victory, through its streets. Le
Tisseur's house was filled with drunken and rude troopers; Lucille
herself trembled in the fierce gripe of one of those dissolute
soldiers, more bandit than soldier, whom the subtle Dumouriez had
united to his army, and by whose blood he so often saved that of his
nobler band; her shrieks, her cries were vain, when suddenly the
reeking troopers gave way; "the Captain! brave Captain!" was shouted
forth; the insolent soldier, felled by a powerful arm, sank senseless
at the feet of Lucille; and a glorious form, towering above its
fellows, even through its glittering garb, even in that dreadful hour
remembered at a glance by Lucille, stood at her side; her protector,
her guardian! thus once more she beheld St. Amand!
The house was cleared in an instant, the door barred. Shouts, groans,
wild snatches of exulting song, the clang of arms, the tramp of horses,
the hurrying footsteps, the deep music, sounded loud, and blended
terribly without; Lucille heard them not; she was on that breast which
never should have deserted her.