"What are misfortunes and despair?"
Toward the end of the carnival license has no limit, and each one is
eagerly drinking the cup of pleasure and rushing thoughtlessly into all
kinds of amusements. Yet there is in this _mélange_ of ranks, manners,
and customs something so fantastic and extraordinary that Robert,
unaccustomed to scenes of this kind, is perfectly confounded. He is dragged
on by the popular current, which, in its course, made a thousand circuits,
and carried him along, in spite of his wish to the contrary. He was,
perhaps, the only person who was serious in the midst of all this
nonsense--the only one who did not exchange a phrase or word with
others--the only one who did not reply to the provoking questions put him
by the laughing crowd abandoned to the freest gayety.
As night came on, exhausted with fatigue, be returns to his hotel, and,
hearing cries not far from him, started in the direction from whence they
came. The darkness was profound, and he could scarcely distinguish what
passed him at any distance. But a few moments accustomed him to it, and,
following the cries, he found a woman struggling to release herself from a
man who was trying to drag her toward a gondola he had near. He advanced to
defend her, when a fourth person appeared and struck the man with a
poniard. He staggered and fell, uttering a horrible groan, and as Robert
went to his assistance, the man, and the woman he had avenged, disappeared,
leaving him alone to help their victim. Seeing no one near, he carried the
wounded man to the door of his hotel, and what was his surprise to find it
was Gustave de Vernanges, the son of his loved benefactress. Although he
had nothing but painful remembrances of this young man, he was not the less
sorrowfully affected in seeing the end to which his wickedness had brought
him, nor less prodigal in his care of Gustave. The more he saw that his
soul was exposed to peril, the more he desired to save his body, that both
might at last be saved. But the days of the wicked are numbered, and God
strikes them down. Woe unto them then if they are unprepared for their
doom. Gustave sank rapidly, and the physician's art could not avail. Robert
unceasingly prayed to God to give a few more days to this poor sinner, that
he might be reconciled to his Judge before appearing in his presence. He
wept with anguish when he found the shades of death were fast drawing round
him. A deep-drawn sigh was heard in the room, and the unfortunate young man
opened his eyes and looked round him. A second sigh, then a horrible groan,
and thinking he was not recognized, he articulated in a feeble voice, "Who
are you? Where am I?"
"Be tranquil," replied Robert sweetly, "you are at the house of a friend.
You have been wounded, and, not knowing where you lived, I brought you
here. You must be perfectly calm and quiet, for your wound is dangerous. If
you have any messages to send your friends, I will faithfully execute
them."
"Yes," replied Gustave painfully, "I feel that I am badly wounded, and
will, perhaps, die, and so young too. I have no parents, but had a number
of friends, who shared my pleasures and excited me to do foolish things,
but where are they now? Oh! it is frightful to die when one is rich and has
so much pleasure to look forward to.
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Must I give up all these things, my titles, my wealth, and all, to go--
where? I, the rich Gustave de Vernanges, must I die at twenty-seven, struck
by the hand of a common man?"
"You must not speak so," replied Robert. "In God's hand is the life you so
much regret to give up, and, if he wills it, you will be saved; his power
and goodness are great, but you must submit yourself to his divine will,
and repent in all sincerity of heart. You are not without sin, for we are
all sinners; but ask God's pardon for them, and you will then be tranquil,
and peace of mind is necessary to health of body."
"For what must I repent," said the troubled voice of the unhappy Gustave.
"What have I done? What are my faults? They are only what thousands of
others have done. I have amused myself, and laughed at the sorrows of my
victim. I gave them gold and rejoiced in their tears; passing my years in
feasts and follies, and never trying to dry the tears I caused. Oh!" he
cried in delirium, "I see it now through the mists of death. My mother! oh!
how I treated her! The veil falls from my eyes! Remorse! remorse! I have
sinned, and my mother that I did not love calls me now to repent. O God, my
God, pardon me!" And in his fever and on his bed of sickness and pain he
called upon his mother, whom he had killed by his wickedness, and upon God,
whom be had renounced all his life, to save him.
The physician came in at this moment, and, looking at him, shook his head
sadly, saying to Robert that death was near, and a priest had better be
sent for to prepare him for the last change. He soon arrived, but Gustave
was in a violent delirium, and could not understand his saintly
exhortations.
"Pray the Lord," said the man of God to Robert, "pray that he will give
this unfortunate young man enough consciousness that he may confess and
receive absolution; and may his example, my son, teach you to fly from the
vain pleasures of this world and its impure passions."
Robert then told him of the obligations he was under to the mother of
Gustave, and how well he had known her for two years, and how he had since
been separated from her son.
"And see," replied the man of God, "what would have been his end if God had
not made you an instrument of reconciliation between him and his Maker. He
led you near your enemy just at the moment when death struck the hardened
sinner, to make him repent. The designs of the Almighty are impenetrable,
but in their execution there is grace and pardon. Oh! let us pray, my son,
and God will give both faith and hope, and will regenerate this poor heart,
tortured by remorse."
The venerable priest and the young painter passed several hours in prayer,
and the old man supplicated heaven with fervor for the conversion of one of
his brothers to Christ.
Toward morning Gustave became conscious, and the persuasive and eloquent
words of the priest moved the dying heart. He comprehended his sins, the
greatness of his faults, and wept bitterly for his errors, and repented for
the fatal passions that tempted him to commit so many crimes. He confessed,
with heart-broken repentance, the many griefs he had caused his mother, and
the name of Robert was spoken with hers, and his regrets at the sorrows he
had given him. But when he commenced to avow all his follies of debauchery
and infamous seductions, vanquished by shame, and the frightful remembrance
of the hateful past, he cried out: "O God, do not pardon me, I am too
guilty!"
"What do you say, my son?" said the priest? "You are guilty, it is true,
but have confidence in God, and you will be pardoned. He has struck you
down, to draw you more truly to himself."
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Gustave listened attentively, and was much moved at the goodness of a God
justly irritated against him, and he felt the deepest sorrow at having been
for so long an offender against his word; but his soul, full of the most
bitter vices and most detestable wickedness, is now baptized in the waters
of repentance. The body dies, but the soul lives; the Lord has ratified in
heaven the absolution that his minister pronounced on earth. Gustave's
strength was fast failing, and he felt that he was dying. The recognition
between Robert and himself was touching, and the priest wept with joy and
regret, blessing the one who was to leave life, and also the one who
remained, to practise on earth every Christian virtue.
"Do not let me die alone, kind father," said Gustave to the priest. "I have
lived so badly that I have need of your pious assistance to finish life
more worthily."
The end was almost come. The physician could not retract his fatal
sentence, nor give any hope, for the wound was mortal. The blade of the
poniard had penetrated near the heart, and it was a miracle that he had
survived so long. He heard his sentence pronounced with resignation, and
accepted death as a just expiation for his sins, praying God to make it
such. He suffered some days longer, testifying by his patience and his
pious prayers the sincerity of his repentance, expiring with sentiments of
burning contrition and sorrow for his sins on his lips. Robert was grieved
to lose him so soon after his conversion and his return to virtue; and his
sad and premature end was a grave warning of the result of worldly passions
and giving way to vice, though Robert hardly needed such an example, his
chaste and pure soul had always turned with horror and aversion from the
licentiousness which beats the imagination and sullies its purity. Yet he
was always on his guard, for be knew the feebleness of human nature and the
dangers to which it is exposed, and the more he avoided the corrupting
vices of the world, the better could he resist them, for no one is so brave
in danger but that he may perish; and Gustave's death convinced him that
Christianity is the only basis on which we can build immortal happiness, to
which we all look forward after terrestrial joys lose their power of
satisfying the desire for happiness which agitates man from the cradle to
the grave, and which makes him attach such glorious hopes to religion, the
only vessel that is never wrecked and that takes us safely to the eternal
kingdom of perfect peace.
After having rendered the last sad duties to the unfortunate Gustave,
Robert left Venice, but with very different feelings from those be promised
himself. He traversed rapidly the Venetian Lombardy kingdom, then Piedmont,
and, stopping some days at Turin, went on to Susa at the foot of Mont
Cenis. There were two other travellers crossing this mountain at the same
time, a man of about sixty years of age, and a young woman, either his wife
or daughter. Their carriage followed them at some distance, but from either
fear or curiosity they preferred going on foot or on a mule. Robert had
bowed respectfully and exchanged a few polite salutations with them, but
after that all effort to renew the conversation had been in vain, and he
had renounced the hope of making any further acquaintance with the
stranger, whose face of manly and severe beauty, though expressive of much
mental suffering, had not escaped the eye of the artist, habitually
accustomed to read all the emotions on the face. His sad countenance moved
Robert so much that he turned round several times, not simply from
compassion, but from a sentiment of irresistible and strange interest.
A mysterious and sympathetic influence was felt by the two others, who had
certainly never seen him before; for the gentleman followed him with a
pleasure for which he could not account, and watched his light and easy
step, urging his mule on to keep near him, when the animal gives a sudden
spring and throws him into a deep ravine.
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