BOOK 3.

Produced by David Widger

A WOODLAND QUEEN

[‘Reine des Bois’)

By ANDRE THEURIET

With a Preface by MELCHIOR DE VOGUE, of the French academy

ANDRE THEURIET

CLAUDE-ADHEMAR-ANDRE THEURIET was born at Marly-le-Roi (Seine et Oise),

October 8,1833. His ancestors came from Lorraine. He was educated at

Bar-le-Duc and went to Paris in 1854 to study jurisprudence. After

finishing his courses he entered the Department of the Treasury, and

after an honorable career there, resigned as chef-de-bureau. He is a

poet, a dramatist, but, above all, a writer of great fiction.

As early as 1857 the poems of Theuriet were printed in the ‘Revue de

Paris’ and the ‘Revue des Deux Mondes’. His greatest novel, ‘Reine des

Bois’ (Woodland Queen), was crowned by the Academie Francaise in 1890.

To the public in general he became first known in 1870 by his ‘Nouvelles

Intimes’. Since that time he has published a great many volumes of

poems, drama, and fiction. A great writer, he perhaps meets the wishes

of that large class of readers who seek in literature agreeable rest and

distraction, rather than excitement or aesthetic gratification. He is

one of the greatest spirits that survived the bankruptcy of Romanticism.

He excels in the description of country nooks and corners; of that

polite rusticity which knows nothing of the delving laborers of ‘La

Terre’, but only of graceful and learned leisure, of solitude nursed in

revery, and of passion that seems the springtide of germinating

nature. He possesses great originality and the passionate spirit of a

‘paysagiste’: pictures of provincial life and family-interiors seem to

appeal to his most pronounced sympathies. His taste is delicate, his

style healthy and frank, and at the same time limpid and animated.

After receiving, in 1890, the Prix Vitet for the ensemble of his

literary productions, he was elected to the Academy in 1896. To the

stage Theuriet has given ‘Jean-Marie’, drama in verses (Odeon, February

11, 1871). It is yet kept on the repertoire together with his ‘Maison de

deux Barbeaux (1865), Raymonde (1887), and Les Maugars (1901).’

His novels, tales, and poems comprise a long list. ‘Le Bleu et le

Noir’ (1873) was also crowned by the Academy. Then followed, at short

intervals: ‘Mademoiselle Guignon (1874.); Le Mariage de Gerard (1875);

La Fortune d’Angele (1876); Raymonde (1877),’ a romance of modern life,

vastly esteemed by the reading public; ‘Le Don Juan de Vireloup (1877);

Sous Bois, Impressions d’un Forestier (1878); Le Filleul d’un Marquis

(1878); Les Nids (1879); Le fils Maugars (1879); La Maison de deux

Barbeaux (1879); Toute seule (1880); Sauvageonne (1880), his most

realistic work; Les Enchantements de la Foret (1881); Le Livre de

la Payse (poetry, 1882); Madame Heurteloup (1882); Peche de Jeunesse

(1883); Le Journal de Tristan, mostly autobiographical; Bigarreau

(1885); Eusebe Lombard (1885); Les OEillets de Kerlatz (1885); Helene

(1886); Nos Oiseaux (beautiful verses, 1886); La Vie Rustique (1887);

Amour d’Automne (1888); Josette (1888); Deux Soeurs (1889); Contes pour

les Soirs d’Hiver (1890); Charme Dangereux (1891); La Ronde des Saisons

et des Mois (1889); La Charmeresse (1891); Fleur de Nice (1896); Bois

Fleury (1897); Refuge (1898); Villa Tranquille (1899); Claudette (1900);

La Petite Derniere (1901); Le Manuscrit du Chanoine (1902), etc.

Besides this abundant production Andre Theuriet has also contributed

to various journals and magazines: ‘Le Moniteur, Le Musee Universal,

L’Illustration, Le Figaro, Le Gaulois, La Republique Francaise, etc.;

he has lectured in Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland, and has even found

leisure to fill the post as Mayor of Bourg-la-Reine (Seine et Oise),

perhaps no onerous office (1882-1900). He has also been an ‘Officier de

la Legion d’Honneur’ since 1895.

MELCHIOR DE VOGUE

de l’Academie Francaise.

A WOODLAND QUEEN

BOOK 1.

CHAPTER I. THE UNFINISHED WILL

Toward the middle of October, about the time of the beechnut harvest,

M. Eustache Destourbet, justice of the Peace of Auberive, accompanied

by his clerk, Etienne Seurrot, left his home at Abbatiale, in order to

repair to the Chateau of Vivey, where he was to take part in removing

the seals on some property whose owner had deceased.

At that period, 1857, the canton of Auberive, which stretches its

massive forests like a thick wall between the level plain of Langres and

the ancient Chatillonais, had but one main road of communication: that

from Langres to Bar-sur-Aube. The almost parallel adjacent route, from

Auberive to Vivey, was not then in existence; and in order to reach

this last commune, or hamlet, the traveller had to follow a narrow

grass-bordered path, leading through the forest up the hill of

Charboniere, from the summit of which was seen that intermingling of

narrow gorges and wooded heights which is so characteristic of this

mountainous region. On all sides were indented horizons of trees, among

which a few, of more dominant height, projected their sharp outlines

against the sky; in the distance were rocky steeps, with here and

there a clump of brambles, down which trickled slender rivulets; still

farther, like little islands, half submerged in a sea of foliage, were

pastures of tender green dotted with juniper bushes, almost black in

their density, and fields of rye struggling painfully through the stony

soil--the entire scene presenting a picture of mingled wildness and

cultivation, aridity and luxuriant freshness.

Justice Destourbet, having strong, wiry limbs, ascended cheerily the

steep mountain-path. His tall, spare figure, always in advance of his

companion, was visible through the tender green of the young oaks,

clothed in a brown coat, a black cravat, and a very high hat, which the

justice, who loved correctness in details, thought it his duty to don

whenever called upon to perform his judicial functions. The clerk,

Seurrot, more obese, and of maturer age, protuberant in front, and

somewhat curved in the back, dragged heavily behind, perspiring and out

of breath, trying to keep up with his patron, who, now and then seized

with compassion, would come to a halt and wait for his subordinate.

“I trust,” said Destourbet, after one of these intervals which enabled

the clerk to walk by his side, “I trust we shall find Maitre Arbillot

down there; we shall have need of his services in looking over and

filing the papers of the deceased.”

“Yes, Monsieur,” answered Seurrot, “the notary will meet us at the

chateau; he went to Praslay to find out from his associates whether

Monsieur de Buxieres had not left a will in his keeping. In my humble

opinion, that is hardly likely; for the deceased had great confidence in

Maitre Arbillot, and it seems strange that he should choose to confide

his testamentary intentions to a rival notary.”

“Well,” observed the justice, “perhaps when the seals are raised, we may

discover an autograph will in some corner of a drawer.”

“It is to be hoped so, Monsieur,” replied Seurrot; “I wish it with all

my heart, for the sake of Claudet Sejournant, for he is a good fellow,

although on the sinister bar of the escutcheon, and a right jolly

companion.”

“Yes; and a marvellous good shot,” interrupted the justice. “I recognize

all that; but even if he had a hundred other good qualities, the grand

chasserot, as they call him here, will be on the wrong side of the hedge

if Monsieur de Buxieres has unfortunately died intestate. In the eye of

the law, as you are doubtless aware, a natural child, who has not been

acknowledged, is looked upon as a stranger.”

“Monsieur de Buxieres always treated Claudet as his own son, and every

one knew that he so considered him.”

“Possibly, but if the law were to keep count of all such cases, there

would be no end to their labors; especially in all questions of the

‘cujus’. Odouart de Buxieres was a terribly wild fellow, and they say

that these old beech-trees of Vivey forest could tell many a tale of his

exploits.”

“He, he!” assented the clerk, laughing slyly, and showing his toothless

gums, “there is some truth in that. The deceased had the devil in his

boots. He could see neither a deer nor a pretty girl without flying

in pursuit. Ah, yes! Many a trick has he played them--talk of your

miracles, forsooth!--well, Claudet was his favorite, and Monsieur de

Buxieres has told me, over and over again, that he would make him his

heir, and I shall be very much astonished if we do not find a will.”

“Seurrot, my friend,” replied the justice, calmly, “you are too

experienced not to know that our country folks dread nothing so much as

testifying to their last wishes--to make a will, to them, is to put

one foot into the grave. They will not call in the priest or the notary

until the very last moment, and very often they delay until it is too

late. Now, as the deceased was at heart a rustic, I fear greatly that he

did not carry his intentions into execution.”

“That would be a pity--for the chateau, the lands, and the entire

fortune would go to an heir of whom Monsieur Odouart never had taken

account--to one of the younger branch of Buxieres, whom he had never

seen, having quarrelled with the family.”

“A cousin, I believe,” said the justice.

“Yes, a Monsieur Julien de Buxieres, who is employed by the Government

at Nancy.”

“In fact, then, and until we receive more ample information, he is, for

us, the sole legitimate heir. Has he been notified?”

“Yes, Monsieur. He has even sent his power of attorney to Monsieur

Arbillot’s clerk.”

“So much the better,” said M. Destourbet, “in that case, we can proceed

regularly without delay.”

While thus conversing, they had traversed the forest, and emerged on

the hill overlooking Vivey. From the border line where they stood, they

could discover, between the half-denuded branches of the line of aspens,

the sinuous, deepset gorge, in which the Aubette wound its tortuous way,

at the extremity of which the village lay embanked against an almost

upright wall of thicket and pointed rocks. On the west this narrow

defile was closed by a mill, standing like a sentinel on guard, in

its uniform of solid gray; on each side of the river a verdant line

of meadow led the eye gradually toward the clump of ancient and lofty

ash-trees, behind which rose the Buxieres domicile. This magnificent

grove of trees, and a monumental fence of cast-iron, were the only

excuse for giving the title of chateau to a very commonplace structure,

of which the main body presented bare, whitewashed walls, flanked by

two small towers on turrets shaped like extinguishers, and otherwise

resembling very ordinary pigeon-houses.

This chateau, or rather country squire’s residence, had belonged to the

Odouart de Buxieres for more than two centuries. Before the Revolution,

Christophe de Buxieres, grandfather of the last proprietor, had owned a

large portion of Vivey, besides several forges in operation on the Aube

and Aubette rivers. He had had three children: one daughter, who had

embraced religion as a vocation; Claude Antoine, the elder son, to whom

he left his entire fortune, and Julien Abdon, the younger, officer in

the regiment of Rohan Soubise, with whom he was not on good terms.

After emigrating and serving in Conde’s army, the younger Buxieres

had returned to France during the Restoration, had married, and been

appointed special receiver in a small town in southern France. But since

his return, he had not resumed relations with his elder brother, whom he

accused of having defrauded him of his rights. The older one had married

also, one of the Rochetaillee family; he had had but one son, Claude

Odouart de Buxieres, whose recent decease had brought about the visit of

the Justice of Auberive and his clerk.

Claude de Buxieres had lived all his life at Vivey. Inheriting from his

father and grandfather flourishing health and a robust constitution, he

had also from them strong love for his native territory, a passion for

the chase, and a horror of the constraint and decorum exacted by worldly

obligations. He was a spoiled child, brought up by a weak-minded mother

and a preceptor without authority, who had succeeded in imparting to him

only the most elementary amount of instruction, and he had, from a very

early age, taken his own pleasure as his sole rule of life. He lived

side by side with peasants and poachers, and had himself become a

regular country yeoman, wearing a blouse, dining at the wine-shop, and

taking more pleasure in speaking the mountain patois than his own native

French. The untimely death of his father, killed by an awkward huntsman

while following the hounds, had emancipated him at the age of twenty

years. From this period he lived his life freely, as he understood it;

always in the open air, without hindrance of any sort, and entirely

unrestrained.

Nothing was exaggerated in the stories told concerning him. He was a

handsome fellow, jovial and dashing in his ways, and lavish with his

money, so he met with few rebuffs. Married women, maids, widows, any

peasant girl of attractive form or feature, all had had to resist his

advances, and with more than one the resistance had been very slight. It

was no false report which affirmed that he had peopled the district

with his illegitimate progeny. He was not hard to please, either;

strawberry-pickers, shepherd-girls, wood-pilers, day-workers, all were

equally charming in his sight; he sought only youth, health, and a

kindly disposition.

Marriage would have been the only safeguard for him; but aside from the

fact that his reputation of reckless huntsman and general scapegrace

naturally kept aloof the daughters of the nobles, and even the Langarian

middle classes, he dreaded more than anything else in the world the

monotonous regularity of conjugal life. He did not care to be restricted

always to the same dishes--preferring, as he said, his meat sometimes

roast, sometimes boiled, or even fried, according to his humor and his

appetite.

Nevertheless, about the time that Claude de Buxieres attained his

thirty-sixth year, it was noticed that he had a more settled air, and

that his habits were becoming more sedentary. The chase was still his

favorite pastime, but he frequented less places of questionable repute,

seldom slept away from home, and seemed to take greater pleasure in

remaining under his own roof. The cause of this change was ascribed

by some to the advance of years creeping over him; others, more

perspicacious, verified a curious coincidence between the entrance of a

new servant in the chateau and the sudden good behavior of Claude.

This girl, a native of Aprey, named Manette Sejournant, was not,

strictly speaking, a beauty, but she had magnificent blonde hair, gray,

caressing eyes, and a silvery, musical voice. Well built, supple as an

adder, modest and prudish in mien, she knew how to wait upon and cosset

her master, accustoming him by imperceptible degrees to prefer the

cuisine of the chateau to that of the wine-shops. After a while, by dint

of making her merits appreciated, and her presence continually desired,

she became the mistress of Odouart de Buxieres, whom she managed to

retain by proving herself immeasurably superior, both in culinary skill

and in sentiment, to the class of females from whom he had hitherto been

seeking his creature comforts.

Matters went on in this fashion for a year or so, until Manette went

on a three months’ vacation. When she reappeared at the chateau, she

brought with her an infant, six weeks old, which she declared was the

child of a sister, lately deceased, but which bore a strange likeness

to Claude. However, nobody made remarks, especially as M. de Buxieres,

after he had been drinking a little, took no pains to hide his

paternity. He himself held the little fellow at the baptismal font,

and later, consigned him to the care of the Abbe Pernot, the curate of

Vivey, who prepared the little Claudet for his first communion, at the

same time that he instructed him in reading, writing, and the first

four rules of arithmetic. As soon as the lad reached his fifteenth year,

Claude put a gun into his hands, and took him hunting with him. Under

the teaching of M. de Buxieres, Claudet did honor to his master, and

soon became such an expert that he could give points to all the huntsmen

of the canton. None could equal him in tracing a dog; he knew all the

passes, by-paths, and enclosures of the forest; swooped down upon the

game with the keen scent and the velocity of a bird of prey, and never

was known to miss his mark. Thus it was that the country people

surnamed him the ‘grand chasserot’, the term which we here apply to

the sparrow-hawk. Besides all these advantages, he was handsome, alert,

straight, and well made, dark-haired and olive-skinned, like all the

Buxieres; he had his mother’s caressing glance, but also the overhanging

eyelids and somewhat stern expression of his father, from whom he

inherited also a passionate temperament, and a spirit averse to all

kinds of restraint. They were fond of him throughout the country, and

M. de Buxieres, who felt his youth renewed in him, was very proud of

his adroitness and his good looks. He would invite him to his pleasure

parties, and make him sit at his own table, and confided unhesitatingly

all his secrets to him. In short, Claudet, finding himself quite at home

at the chateau, naturally considered himself as one of the family. There

was but one formality wanting to that end: recognizance according to

law. At certain favorable times, Manette Sejournant would gently urge M.

de Buxieres to have the situation legally authorized, to which he would

invariably reply, from a natural dislike to taking legal advisers into

his confidence:

“Don’t worry about anything; I have no direct heir, and Claudet will

have all my fortune; my will and testament will be worth more to him

than a legal acknowledgment.”

He would refer so often and so decidedly to his settled intention of

making Claudet his sole heir, that Manette, who knew very little about

what was required in such cases, considered the matter already secure.

She continued in unsuspecting serenity until Claude de Buxieres, in his

sixty-second year, died suddenly from a stroke of apoplexy.

The will, which was to insure Claudet’s future prospects, and to which

the deceased had so often alluded, did it really exist? Neither Manette

nor the grand chasserot had been able to obtain any certain knowledge

in the matter, the hasty search for it after the decease having been

suddenly interrupted by the arrival of the mayor of Vivey; and by the

proceedings of the justice of the peace. The seals being once imposed,

there was no means, in the absence of a verified will, of ascertaining

on whom the inheritance devolved, until the opening of the inventory;

and thus the Sejournants awaited with feverish anxiety the return of the

justice of the peace and his bailiff.

M. Destourbet and Stephen Seurrot pushed open a small door to the right

of the main gateway, passed rapidly under the arched canopy of beeches,

the leaves of which, just touched by the first frost, were already

falling from the branches, and, stamping their muddy feet on the outer

steps, advanced into the vestibule. The wide corridor, flagged with

black-and-white pavement, presented a cheerless aspect of bare walls

discolored by damp, and adorned alternately by stags’ heads and family

portraits in a crumbling state of decay. The floor was thus divided: on

the right, the dining-room and the kitchen; on the left, drawing-room

and a billiard-hall. A stone staircase, built in one of the turrets,

led to the upper floors. Only one of these rooms, the kitchen, which the

justice and his bailiff entered, was occupied by the household. A cold

light, equally diffused in all directions, and falling from a large

window, facing north across the gardens, allowed every detail of the

apartment to be seen clearly; opposite the door of entrance, the tall

chimney-place, with its deep embrasure, gave ample shelter to the

notary, who installed himself upon a stool and lighted his pipe at

one of the embers, while his principal clerk sat at the long table,

itemizing the objects contained in the inventory.

In the opposite angle of the chimney-place, a lad of twenty-four years,

no other than Claudet, called by the friendly nickname of the grand

chasserot, kept company with the notary, while he toyed, in an absent

fashion, with the silky ears of a spaniel, whose fluffy little head lay

in his lap. Behind him, Manette Sejournant stood putting away her shawl

and prayerbook in a closet. A mass had been said in the morning at the

church, for the repose of the soul of the late Claude de Buxieres,

and mother and son had donned their Sunday garments to assist at the

ceremony.

Claudet appeared ill at ease in his black, tightly buttoned suit, and

kept his eyes with their heavy lids steadily bent upon the head of the

animal. To all the notary’s questions, he replied only by monosyllables,

passing his fingers every now and then through his bushy brown locks,

and twining them in his forked beard, a sure indication with him of

preoccupation and bad humor.

Manette had acquired with years an amount of embonpoint which detracted

materially from the supple and undulating beauty which had so captivated

Claude de Buxieres. The imprisonment of a tight corset caused undue

development of the bust at the expense of her neck and throat, which

seemed disproportionately short and thick. Her cheeks had lost their

gracious curves and her double chin was more pronounced. All that

remained of her former attractions were the caressing glance of her eye,

tresses still golden and abundant, especially as seen under the close

cap of black net, white teeth, and a voice that had lost nothing of its

insinuating sweetness.

As the justice and his bailiff entered, Maitre Arbillot, and a petulant

little man with squirrel-like eyes and a small moustache, arose quickly.

“Good-morning, gentlemen,” he cried. “I was anxiously expecting you--if

you are willing, we will begin our work at once, for at this season

night comes on quickly.”

“At your orders, Maitre Arbillot,” replied the justice, laying his hat

down carefully on the window-sill; “we shall draw out the formula for

raising the seals. By the way, has no will yet been found?”

“None to my knowledge. It is quite clear to me that the deceased made no

testament, none at least before a notary.”

“But,” objected M. Destourbet, “he may have executed a holograph

testament.”

“It is certain, gentlemen,” interrupted Manette, with her soft,

plaintive voice, “that our dear gentleman did not go without putting his

affairs in order. ‘Manette,’ said he, not more than two weeks ago; ‘I do

not intend you shall be worried, neither you nor Claudet, when I am

no longer here. All shall be arranged to your satisfaction.’ Oh! he

certainly must have put down his last wishes on paper. Look well around,

gentlemen; you will find a will in some drawer or other.”

While she applied her handkerchief ostentatiously to her nose and wiped

her eyes, the justice exchanged glances with the notary.

“Maitre Arbillot, you think doubtless with me, that we ought to begin

operations by examining the furniture of the bedroom?”

The notary inclined his head, and notified his chief clerk to remove his

papers to the first floor.

“Show us the way, Madame,” said the justice to the housekeeper; and the

quartet of men of the law followed Manette, carrying with them a huge

bunch of keys.

Claudet had risen from his seat when the justice arrived. As the party

moved onward, he followed hesitatingly, and then halted, uncertain how

to decide between the desire to assist in the search and the fear of

intruding. The notary, noticing his hesitation; called to him:

“Come, you also, Claudet, are not you one of the guardians of the

seals?”

And they wended their silent way, up the winding staircase of the

turret. The high, dark silhouette of Manette headed the procession; then

followed the justice, carefully choosing his foothold on the well-worn

stairs, the asthmatic old bailiff, breathing short and hard, the notary,

beating his foot impatiently every time that Seurrot stopped to take

breath, and finally the principal clerk and Claudet.

Manette, opening noiselessly the door of the deceased’s room, entered,

as if it were a church, the somewhat stifling apartment. Then she threw

open the shutters, and the afternoon sun revealed an interior decorated

and furnished in the style of the close of the eighteenth century. An

inlaid secretary, with white marble top and copper fittings, stood near

the bed, of which the coverings had been removed, showing the mattresses

piled up under a down bed covered with blue-and-white check.

As soon as the door was closed, the clerk settled himself at the table

with his packet of stamped paper, and began to run over, in a low, rapid

voice, the preliminaries of the inventory. In this confused murmuring

some fragments of phrases would occasionally strike the ear: “Chateau

of Vivey--deceased the eighth of October last--at the requisition

of Marie-Julien de Buxieres, comptroller of direct contributions

at Nancy--styling himself heir to Claude Odouart de Buxieres, his

cousin-german by blood--”

This last phrase elicited from Claudet a sudden movement of surprise.

“The inventory,” explained Maitre Arbillot, “is drawn up at the

requisition of the only heir named, to whom we must make application, if

necessary, for the property left by the deceased.”

There was a moment of silence, interrupted by a plaintive sigh from

Manette Sejournant and afterward by the tearing sound of the sealed

bands across the bureau, the drawers and pigeonholes of which were

promptly ransacked by the justice and his assistant.

Odouart de Buxieres had not been much of a scribe. A double Liege

almanac, a memorandum-book, in which he had entered the money received

from the sale of his wood and the dates of the payments made by his

farmers; a daybook, in which he had made careful note of the number of

head of game killed each day--that was all the bureau contained.

“Let us examine another piece of furniture,” murmured the justice.

Manette and Claudet remained unmoved. They apparently knew the reason

why none but insignificant papers had been found in the drawers, for

their features expressed neither surprise nor disappointment.

Another search through a high chest of drawers with large copper handles

was equally unprofitable. Then they attacked the secretary, and after

the key had been turned twice in the noisy lock, the lid went slowly

down. The countenances of both mother and son, hitherto so unconcerned,

underwent a slight but anxious change. The bailiff continued his

scrupulous search of each drawer under the watchful eye of the justice,

finding nothing but documents of mediocre importance; old titles to

property, bundles of letters, tradesmen’s bills, etc. Suddenly, at the

opening of the last drawer, a significant “Ah!” from Stephen Seurrot

drew round him the heads of the justice and the notary, and made Manette

and Claudet, standing at the foot of the bed, start with expectation. On

the dark ground of a rosewood box lay a sheet of white paper, on which

was written:

“This is my testament.”

With the compression of lip and significant shake of the head of a

physician about to take in hand a hopeless case of illness, the justice

made known to his two neighbors the text of the sheet of paper, on which

Claude Odouart de Buxieres had written, in his coarse, ill-regulated

hand, the following lines:

“Not knowing my collateral heirs, and caring nothing about them, I give

and bequeath all my goods and chattels--”

The testator had stopped there, either because he thought it better,

before going any further, to consult some legal authority more

experienced than himself, or because he had been interrupted in his

labor and had deferred completing this testifying of his last will until

some future opportunity.

M. Destourbet, after once more reading aloud this unfinished sentence,

exclaimed:

“Monsieur de Buxieres did not finish--it is much to be regretted!”

“My God! is it possible?” interrupted the housekeeper; “you think, then,

Monsieur justice, that Claudet does not inherit anything?”

“According to my idea,” replied he, “we have here only a scrap of

unimportant paper; the name of the legatee is not indicated, and even

were it indicated, the testament would still be without force, being

neither dated nor signed.”

“But perhaps Monsieur de Buxieres made another?”

“I think not; I am more inclined to suppose that he did not have time to

complete the arrangements that he wished to make, and the proof lies

in the very existence of this incomplete document in the only piece of

furniture in which he kept his papers.” Then, turning toward the notary

and the bailiff: “You are doubtless, gentlemen, of the same opinion as

myself; it will be wise, therefore, to defer raising the remainder of

the seals until the arrival of the legal heir. Maitre Arbillot, Monsieur

Julien de Buxieres must be notified, and asked to be here in Vivey as

soon as possible.”

“I will write this evening,” said the notary; “in the meanwhile, the

keeping of the seals will be continued by Claudet Sejournant.”

The justice inclined his head to Manette, who was standing, pale

and motionless, at the foot of the bed; stunned by the unexpected

announcement; the bailiff and the chief clerk, after gathering up their

papers, shook hands sympathizingly with Claudet.

“I am grieved to the heart, my dear fellow,” said the notary, in his

turn, “at what has happened! It is hard to swallow, but you will always

keep a courageous heart, and be able to rise to the top; besides, even

if, legally, you own nothing here, this unfinished testament of Monsieur

de Buxieres will constitute a moral title in your favor, and I trust

that the heir will have enough justice and right feeling to treat you

properly.”

“I want nothing from him!” muttered Claudet, between his teeth; then,

leaving his mother to attend to the rest of the legal fraternity,

he went hastily to his room, next that of the deceased, tore off his

dress-coat, slipped on a hunting-coat, put on his gaiters, donned his

old felt hat, and descended to the kitchen, where Manette was sitting,

huddled up in front of the embers, weeping and bewailing her fate.

Since she had become housekeeper and mistress of the Buxieres household,

she had adopted a more polished speech and a more purely French mode of

expression, but in this moment of discouragement and despair the rude

dialect of her native country rose to her lips, and in her own patois

she inveighed against the deceased:

“Ah! the bad man, the mean man! Didn’t I tell him, time and again, that

he would leave us in trouble! Where can we seek our bread this late in

the day? We shall have to beg in the streets!”

“Hush! hush! mother,” interrupted Claudet, sternly, placing his hand

on her shoulder, “it does not mend matters to give way like that. Calm

thyself--so long as I have hands on the ends of my arms, we never shall

be beggars. But I must go out--I need air.”

And crossing the gardens rapidly, he soon reached the outskirts of the

brambly thicket.

This landscape, both rugged and smiling in its wildness, hardly conveyed

the idea of silence, but rather of profound meditation, absolute calm;

the calmness of solitude, the religious meditation induced by spacious

forest depths. The woods seemed asleep, and the low murmurings,

which from time to time escaped from their recesses, seemed like the

unconscious sighs exhaled by a dreamer. The very odor peculiar to trees

in autumn, the penetrating and spicy odor of the dying leaves, had a

delicate and subtle aroma harmonizing with this quietude of fairyland.

Now and then, through the vaporous golden atmosphere of the late autumn

sunset, through the pensive stillness of the hushed woods, the distant

sound of feminine voices, calling to one another, echoed from the hills,

and beyond the hedges was heard the crackling of branches, snapped by

invisible hands, and the rattle of nuts dropping on the earth. It was

the noise made by the gatherers of beechnuts, for in the years when

the beech produces abundantly, this harvest, under the sanction of the

guardians of the forest, draws together the whole population of women

and children, who collect these triangular nuts, from which an excellent

species of oil is procured.

Wending his way along the copse, Claudet suddenly perceived, through

an opening in the trees, several large white sheets spread under the

beeches, and covered with brown heaps of the fallen fruit. One or two

familiar voices hailed him as he passed, but he was not disposed to

gossip, for the moment, and turned abruptly into the bushwood, so as to

avoid any encounter. The unexpected event which had just taken place,

and which was to change his present mode of life, as well as his plans

for the future, was of too recent occurrence for him to view it with any

degree of calmness.

He was like a man who has received a violent blow on the head, and is

for the moment stunned by it. He suffered vaguely, without seeking to

know from what cause; he had not been able as yet to realize the extent

of his misfortune; and every now and then a vague hope came over him

that all would come right.

So on he went, straight ahead, his eyes on the ground, and his hands in

his pockets, until he emerged upon one of the old forest roads where the

grass had begun to burst through the stony interstices; and there, in

the distance, under the light tracery of weaving branches, a delicate

female silhouette was outlined on the dark background. A young woman,

dressed in a petticoat of gray woolen material, and a jacket of the

same, close-fitting at the waist, her arms bare to the elbows and

supporting on her head a bag of nuts enveloped in a white sheet,

advanced toward him with a quick and rhythmical step. The manner in

which she carried her burden showed the elegance of her form, the

perfect grace of her chest and throat. She was not very tall, but finely

proportioned. As she approached, the slanting rays of the setting sun

shone on her heavy brown hair, twisted into a thick coil at the back of

her head, and revealed the amber paleness of her clear skin, the long

oval of her eyes, the firm outline of her chin and somewhat full lips;

and Claudet, roused from his lethargic reverie by the sound of her rapid

footsteps, raised his eyes, and recognized the daughter of Pere Vincart,

the proprietor of La Thuiliere.

At the same moment, the young girl, doubtless fatigued with the weight

of her bundle, had laid it down by the roadside while she recovered her

breath. In a few seconds Claudet was by her side.

“Good-evening, Reine,” said he, in a voice singularly softened in tone,

“shall I give you a lift with that?”

“Good-evening, Claudet,” replied she; “truly, now, that is not an offer

to be refused. The weight is greater than I thought.”

“Have you come far thus laden?”

“No; our people are nutting in the Bois des Ronces; I came on before,

because I don’t like to leave father alone for long at a time and, as I

was coming, I wished to bring my share with me.”

“No one can reproach you with shirking work, Reine, nor of being afraid

to take hold of things. To see you all day trotting about the farm, no

one would think you had been to school in the city, like a young lady.”

And Claudet’s countenance became irradiated with a glow of innocent and

tender admiration. It was evident that his eyes looked with delight into

the dark limpid orbs of Reine, on her pure and rosy lips, and on her

partly uncovered neck, the whiteness of which two little brown moles

only served to enhance.

“How can it be helped?” replied she, smiling, “it must be done; when

there is no man in the house to give orders, the women must take a hand

themselves. My father was not very strong when my mother died, and since

he had that attack he has become quite helpless, and I have had to take

his place.”

While she spoke, Claudet took hold of the bundle, and, lifting it as if

it had been a feather, threw it over his shoulder. They walked on,

side by side, in the direction of La Thuliere; the sun had set, and a

penetrating moisture, arising from the damp soil of the adjacent pasture

lands, encircled them in a bluish fog.

“So he is worse, your father, is he?” said Claudet, after a moment’s

silence.

“He can not move from his armchair, his mental faculties are weakening,

and I am obliged to amuse him like a child. But how is it with yourself,

Claudet?” she asked, turning her frank, cordial gaze upon him. “You

have had your share of trouble since we last met, and great events have

happened. Poor Monsieur de Buxieres was taken away very suddenly!”

The close relationship that united Claudet with the deceased was a

secret to no one; Reine, as well as all the country people, knew and

admitted the fact, however irregular, as one sanctioned by time and

continuity. Therefore, in speaking to the young man, her voice had that

tone of affectionate interest usual in conversing with a bereaved friend

on a death that concerns him.

The countenance of the ‘grand chasserot’, which had cleared for a time

under her influence, became again clouded.

“Yes;” sighed he, “he was taken too soon!”

“And now, Claudet, you are sole master at the chateau?”

“Neither--master--nor even valet!” he returned, with such bitterness

that the young girl stood still with surprise.

“What do you mean?” she exclaimed, “was it not agreed with Monsieur de

Buxieres that you should inherit all his property?”

“Such was his intention, but he did not have time to put it in

execution; he died without leaving any will, and, as I am nothing in

the eye of the law, the patrimony will go to a distant relative, a de

Buxieres whom Monsieur Odouart did not even know.”

Reine’s dark eyes filled with tears.

“What a misfortune!” she exclaimed, “and who could have expected such a

thing? Oh! my poor Claudet!”

She was so moved, and spoke with such sincere compassion, that Claudet

was perhaps misled, and thought he read in her glistening eyes a

tenderer sentiment than pity; he trembled, took her hand, and held it

long in his.

“Thank you, Reine! Yes,” he added, after a pause, “it is a rude shock

to wake up one morning without hearth or home, when one has been in the

habit of living on one’s income.”

“What do you intend to do?” inquired Reine, gravely.

Claudet shrugged his shoulders.

“To work for my bread--or, if I can find no suitable trade, enlist in a

regiment. I think I should not make a bad soldier. Everything is going

round and round in my head like a millwheel. The first thing to do is

to see about my mother, who is lamenting down there at the house--I must

find her a comfortable place to live.”

The young girl had become very thoughtful.

“Claudet,” replied she, “I know you are very proud, very sensitive, and

could not wish to hurt your feelings. Therefore, I pray you not to take

in ill part that which I am going to say-in short, if you should get

into any trouble, you will, I hope, remember that you have friends at La

Thuiliere, and that you will come to seek us.”

The ‘grand chasserot’ reddened.

“I shall never take amiss what you may say to me, Reine!” faltered he;

“for I can not doubt your good heart--I have known it since the time

when we played together in the cure’s garden, while waiting for the time

to repeat the catechism. But there is no hurry as yet; the heir will not

arrive for several weeks, and by that time, I trust, we shall have had a

chance to turn round.”

They had reached the boundary of the forest where the fields of La

Thuiliere begin.

By the last fading light of day they could distinguish the black outline

of the ancient forge, now become a grange, and a light was twinkling in

one of the low windows of the farm.

“Here you are at home,” continued Claudet, laying the bundle of nuts

on the flat stone wall which surrounded the farm buildings; “I wish you

good-night.”

“Will you not come in and get warm?”

“No; I must go back,” replied he.

“Good-night, then, Claudet; au revoir and good courage!”

He gazed at her for a moment in the deepening twilight, then, abruptly

pressing her hands:

“Thank you, Reine,” murmured he in a choking voice, “you are a good

girl, and I love you very much!”

He left the young mistress of the farm precipitately, and plunged again

into the woods.

CHAPTER II. THE HEIR TO VIVEY

While these events were happening at Vivey, the person whose

name excited the curiosity and the conversational powers of the

villagers--Marie-Julien de Buxieres--ensconced in his unpretentious

apartment in the Rue Stanislaus, Nancy, still pondered over the

astonishing news contained in the Auberive notary’s first letter. The

announcement of his inheritance, dropping from the skies, as it were,

had found him quite unprepared, and, at first, somewhat sceptical. He

remembered, it is true, hearing his father once speak of a cousin who

had remained a bachelor and who owned a fine piece of property in some

corner of the Haute Marne; but, as all intercourse had long been broken

off between the two families, M. de Buxieres the elder had mentioned the

subject only in relation to barely possible hopes which had very little

chance of being realized. Julien had never placed any reliance on this

chimerical inheritance, and he received almost with indifference the

official announcement of the death of Claude Odouart de Buxieres.

By direct line from his late father, he became in fact the only

legitimate heir of the chateau and lands of Vivey; still, there was a

strong probability that Claude de Buxieres had made a will in favor of

some one more within his own circle. The second missive from Arbillot

the notary, announcing that the deceased had died intestate, and

requesting the legal heir to come to Vivey as soon as possible, put

a sudden end to the young man’s doubts, which merged into a complex

feeling, less of joy than of stupefaction.

Up to the present time, Julien de Buxieres had not been spoiled by

Fortune’s gifts. His parents, who had died prematurely, had left him

nothing. He lived in a very mediocre style on his slender salary as

comptroller of direct contributions, and, although twenty-seven years

old, was housed like a supernumerary in a small furnished room on the

second floor above the ground. At this time his physique was that of

a young man of medium height, slight, pale, and nervous, sensitive in

disposition, reserved and introspective in habit. His delicate features,

his intelligent forehead surmounted by soft chestnut hair, his pathetic

blue eyes, his curved, dissatisfied mouth, shaded by a slight, dark

moustache, indicated a melancholy, unquiet temperament and precocious

moral fatigue.

There are some men who never have had any childhood, or rather, whose

childhood never has had its happy time of laughter. Julien was one of

these. That which imparts to childhood its charm and enjoyment is the

warm and tender atmosphere of the home; the constant and continued

caressing of a mother; the gentle and intimate creations of one’s native

country where, by degrees, the senses awaken to the marvellous sights

of the outer world; where the alternating seasons in their course first

arouse the student’s ambition and cause the heart of the adolescent

youth to thrill with emotion; where every street corner, every tree,

every turn of the soil, has some history to relate. Julien had had no

experiences of this peaceful family life, during which are stored

up such treasures of childhood’s recollections. He was the son of a

government official, who had been trotted over all France at the

caprice of the administration, and he had never known, so to speak, any

associations of the land in which he was born, or the hearth on which

he was raised. Chance had located his birth in a small town among the

Pyrenees, and when he was two years old he had been transplanted to one

of the industrial cities of Artois. At the end of two years more

came another removal to one of the midland towns, and thus his tender

childhood had been buffeted about, from east to west, from north to

south, taking root nowhere. All he could remember of these early years

was an unpleasant impression of hasty packing and removal, of long

journeys by diligence, and of uncomfortable resettling. His mother had

died just as he was entering upon his eighth year; his father, absorbed

in official work, and not caring to leave the child to the management

of servants, had placed him at that early age in a college directed

by priests. Julien thus passed his second term of childhood, and his

boyhood was spent behind these stern, gloomy walls, bending resignedly

under a discipline which, though gentle, was narrow and suspicious,

and allowed little scope for personal development. He obtained only

occasional glimpses of nature during the monotonous daily walks across

a flat, meaningless country. At very rare intervals, one of his father’s

colleagues would take him visiting; but these stiff and ceremonious

calls only left a wearisome sensation of restraint and dull fatigue.

During the long vacation he used to rejoin his father, whom he almost

always found in a new residence. The poor man had alighted there for

a time, like a bird on a tree; and among these continually shifting

scenes, the lad had felt himself more than ever a stranger among

strangers; so that he experienced always a secret though joyless

satisfaction in returning to the cloisters of the St. Hilaire college

and submitting himself to the yoke of the paternal but inflexible

discipline of the Church.

He was naturally inclined, by the tenderness of his nature, toward a

devotional life, and accepted with blind confidence the religious

and moral teaching of the reverend fathers. A doctrine which preached

separation from profane things; the attractions of a meditative and

pious life, and mistrust of the world and its perilous pleasures,

harmonized with the shy and melancholy timidity of his nature. Human

beings, especially women, inspired him with secret aversion, which was

increased by consciousness of his awkwardness and remissness whenever he

found himself in the society of women or young girls.

The beauties of nature did not affect him; the flowers in the

springtime, the glories of the summer sun, the rich coloring of autumn

skies, having no connection in his mind with any joyous recollection,

left him cold and unmoved; he even professed an almost hostile

indifference to such purely material sights as disturbing and dangerous

to the inner life. He lived within himself and could not see beyond.

His mind, imbued with a mystic idealism, delighted itself in solitary

reading or in meditations in the house of prayer. The only emotion he

ever betrayed was caused by the organ music accompanying the hymnal

plain-song, and by the pomp of religious ceremony.

At the age of eighteen, he left the St. Hilaire college in order to

prepare his baccalaureate, and his father, becoming alarmed at his

increasing moodiness and mysticism, endeavored to infuse into him the

tastes and habits of a man of the world by introducing him into the

society of his equals in the town where he lived; but the twig was

already bent, and the young man yielded with bad grace to the change of

regime; the amusements they offered were either wearisome or repugnant

to him. He would wander aimlessly through the salons where they were

playing whist, where the ladies played show pieces at the piano, and

where they spoke a language he did not understand. He was quite aware

of his worldly inaptitude, and that he was considered awkward, dull, and

ill-tempered, and the knowledge of this fact paralyzed and frightened

him still more. He could not disguise his feeling of ennui sufficiently

to prevent the provincial circles from being greatly offended; they

declared unanimously that young de Buxieres was a bear, and decided to

leave him alone. The death of his father, which happened just as the

youth was beginning his official cares, put a sudden end to all this

constraint. He took advantage of his season of mourning to resume his

old ways; and returned with a sigh of relief to his solitude, his books,

and his meditations. According to the promise of the Imitation, he found

unspeakable joys in his retirement; he rose at break of day, assisted at

early mass, fulfilled, conscientiously, his administrative duties, took

his hurried meals in a boardinghouse, where he exchanged a few polite

remarks with his fellow inmates, then shut himself up in his room to

read Pascal or Bossuet until eleven o’clock.

He thus attained his twenty-seventh year, and it was into the calm of

this serious, cloister-like life, that the news fell of the death of

Claude de Buxieres and of the unexpected inheritance that had accrued to

him.

After entering into correspondence with the notary, M. Arbillot, and

becoming assured of the reality of his rights and of the necessity

of his presence at Vivey, he had obtained leave of absence from his

official duties, and set out for Haute Marne. On the way, he could not

help marvelling at the providential interposition which would enable him

to leave a career for which he felt he had no vocation, and to pursue

his independent life, according to his own tastes, and secured from any

fear of outside cares. According to the account given by the notary,

Claude de Buxieres’s fortune might be valued at two hundred thousand

francs, in furniture and other movables, without reckoning the chateau

and the adjacent woods. This was a much larger sum than had ever been

dreamed of by Julien de Buxieres, whose belongings did not amount in all

to three thousand francs. He made up his mind, therefore, that, as soon

as he was installed at Vivey, he would change his leave of absence to an

unlimited furlough of freedom. He contemplated with serene satisfaction

this perspective view of calm and solitary retirement in a chateau lost

to view in the depths of the forest, where he could in perfect security

give himself up to the studious contemplative life which he loved

so much, far from all worldly frivolities and restraint. He already

imagined himself at Vivey, shut up in his carefully selected library;

he delighted in the thought of having in future to deal only with the

country people, whose uncivilized ways would be like his own, and among

whom his timidity would not be remarked.

He arrived at Langres in the afternoon of a foggy October day, and

inquired immediately at the hotel how he could procure a carriage to

take him that evening to Vivey. They found him a driver, but, to his

surprise, the man refused to take the journey until the following

morning, on account of the dangerous state of the crossroads, where

vehicles might stick fast in the mire if they ventured there after

nightfall. Julien vainly endeavored to effect an arrangement with him,

and the discussion was prolonged in the courtyard of the hotel. Just

as the man was turning away, another, who had overheard the end of the

colloquy, came up to young de Buxieres, and offered to undertake the

journey for twenty francs.

“I have a good horse,” said he to Julien; “I know the roads, and will

guarantee that we reach Vivey before nightfall.”

The bargain was quickly made; and in half an hour, Julien de Buxieres

was rolling over the plain above Langres, in a shaky old cabriolet, the

muddy hood of which bobbed over at every turn of the wheel, while the

horse kept up a lively trot over the stones.

The clouds were low, and the road lay across bare and stony prairies,

the gray expanse of which became lost in the distant mist. This

depressing landscape would have made a disagreeable impression on a less

unobserving traveller, but, as we have said, Julien looked only

inward, and the phenomena of the exterior world influenced him only

unconsciously. Half closing his eyes, and mechanically affected by the

rhythmical tintinnabulation of the little bells, hanging around the

horse’s neck, he had resumed his meditations, and considered how he

should arrange his life in this, to him, unknown country, which would

probably be his own for some time to come. Nevertheless, when, at the

end of the level plain, the road turned off into the wooded region, the

unusual aspect of the forest aroused his curiosity. The tufted woods and

lofty trees, in endless succession under the fading light, impressed him

by their profound solitude and their religious silence. His loneliness

was in sympathy with the forest, which seemed contemporary with the

Sleeping Beauty of the wood, the verdant walls of which were to separate

him forever from the world of cities. Henceforth, he could be himself,

could move freely, dress as he wished, or give way to his dreaming,

without fearing to encounter the ironical looks of idle and wondering

neighbors. For the first time since his departure from his former home,

he experienced a feeling of joy and serenity; the influence of the

surroundings, so much in harmony with his wishes, unlocked his tongue,

and made him communicative.

He made up his mind to speak to the guide, who was smoking at his side

and whipping his horse.

“Are we far from Vivey now?”

“That depends, Monsieur--as the crow flies, the distance is not very

great, and if we could go by the roads, we should be there in one short

hour. Unfortunately, on turning by the Allofroy farm, we shall have to

leave the highroad and take the cross path; and then--my gracious! we

shall plunge into the ditch down there, and into perdition.”

“You told me that you were well acquainted with the roads!”

“I know them, and I do not know them. When it comes to these

crossroads, one is sure of nothing. They change every year, and each new

superintendent cuts a way out through the woods according to his fancy.

The devil himself could not find his way.”

“Yet you have been to Vivey before?”

“Oh, yes; five or six years ago; I used often to take parties of

hunters to the chateau. Ah! Monsieur, what a beautiful country it is for

hunting; you can not take twenty steps along a trench without seeing a

stag or a deer.”

“You have doubtless had the opportunity of meeting Monsieur Odouart de

Buxieres?”

“Yes, indeed, Monsieur, more than once-ah! he is a jolly fellow and a

fine man--”

“He was,” interrupted Julien, gravely, “for he is dead.”

“Ah! excuse me--I did not know it. What! is he really dead? So fine a

man! What we must all come to. Careful, now!” added he, pulling in the

reins, “we are leaving the highroad, and must keep our eyes open.”

The twilight was already deepening, the driver lighted his lantern, and

the vehicle turned into a narrow lane, half mud, half stone, and hedged

in on both sides with wet brushwood, which flapped noisily against the

leathern hood. After fifteen minutes’ riding, the paths opened upon a

pasture, dotted here and there with juniper bushes, and thence divided

into three lines, along which ran the deep track of wagons, cutting the

pasturage into small hillocks. After long hesitation, the man cracked

his whip and took the right-hand path.

Julien began to fear that the fellow had boasted too much when he

declared that he knew the best way. The ruts became deeper and deeper;

the road was descending into a hole; suddenly, the wheels became

embedded up to the hub in thick, sticky mire, and the horse refused

to move. The driver jumped to the ground, swearing furiously; then he

called Julien to help him to lift out the wheel. But the young man,

slender and frail as he was, and not accustomed to using his muscles,

was not able to render much assistance.

“Thunder and lightning!” cried the driver, “it is impossible to get out

of this--let go the wheel, Monsieur, you have no more strength than a

chicken, and, besides, you don’t know how to go about it. What a devil

of a road! But we can’t spend the night here!”

“If we were to call out,” suggested Julien, somewhat mortified at the

inefficiency of his assistance, “some one would perhaps come to our

aid.”

They accordingly shouted with desperation; and after five or six

minutes, a voice hailed back. A woodcutter, from one of the neighboring

clearings, had heard the call, and was running toward them.

“This way!” cried the guide, “we are stuck fast in the mud. Give us a

lift.”

The man came up and walked round the vehicle, shaking his head.

“You’ve got on to a blind road,” said he, “and you’ll have trouble in

getting out of it, seeing as how there’s not light to go by. You had

better unharness the horse, and wait for daylight, if you want to get

your carriage out.”

“And where shall we go for a bed?” growled the driver; “there isn’t even

a house near in this accursed wild country of yours!”

“Excuse me-you are not far from La Thuiliere; the farm people will not

refuse you a bed, and to-morrow morning they will help you to get your

carriage out of the mud. Unharness, comrade; I will lead you as far as

the Plancheau-Vacher; and from there you will see the windows of the

farmhouse.”

The driver, still grumbling, decided to take his advice. They

unharnessed the horse; took one of the lanterns of the carriage as

a beacon, and followed slowly the line of pasture-land, under the

woodchopper’s guidance. At the end of about ten minutes, the forester

pointed out a light, twinkling at the extremity of a rustic path,

bordered with moss.

“You have only to go straight ahead,” said he, “besides, the barking

of the dogs will guide you. Ask for Mamselle Vincart. Good-night,

gentlemen.”

He turned on his heel, while Julien, bewildered, began to reproach

himself for not having thanked him enough. The conductor went along with

his lantern; young de Buxieres followed him with eyes downcast. Thus

they continued silently until they reached the termination of the mossy

path, where a furious barking saluted their ears.

“Here we are,” growled the driver, “fortunately the dogs are not yet let

loose, or we should pass a bad quarter of an hour!”

They pushed open a side-wicket and, standing in the courtyard, could see

the house. With the exception of the luminous spot that reddened one of

the windows of the ground floor, the long, low facade was dark, and, as

it were, asleep. On the right, standing alone, outlined against the sky,

was the main building of the ancient forge, now used for granaries and

stables; inside, the frantic barking of the watch-dogs mingled with

the bleating of the frightened sheep, the neighing of horses, and the

clanking of wooden shoes worn by the farm hands. At the same moment,

the door of the house opened, and a servant, attracted by the uproar,

appeared on the threshold, a lantern in her hand.

“Hallo! you people,” she exclaimed sharply to the newcomers, who were

advancing toward her, “what do you want?”

The driver related, in a few words, the affair of the cabriolet,

and asked whether they would house him at the farm until the next

day--himself and the gentleman he was conducting to Vivey.

The girl raised the lantern above her head in order to scrutinize the

two strangers; doubtless their appearance and air of respectability

reassured her, for she replied, in a milder voice:

“Well, that does not depend on me--I am not the mistress here, but

come in, all the same--Mamselle Reine can not be long now, and she will

answer for herself.”

As soon as the driver had fastened his horse to one of the outside posts

of the wicket-gate, the servant brought them into a large, square hall,

in which a lamp, covered with a shade, gave a moderate light. She placed

two chairs before the fire, which she drew together with the poker.

“Warm yourselves while you are waiting,” continued she, “it will not be

long, and you must excuse me--I must go and milk the cows--that is work

which will not wait.”

She reached the courtyard, and shut the gate after her, while Julien

turned to examine the room into which they had been shown, and felt a

certain serenity creep over him at the clean and cheerful aspect of this

homely but comfortable interior. The room served as both kitchen and

dining-room. On the right of the flaring chimney, one of the cast-iron

arrangements called a cooking-stove was gently humming; the saucepans,

resting on the bars, exhaled various appetizing odors. In the centre,

the long, massive table of solid beech was already spread with its

coarse linen cloth, and the service was laid. White muslin curtains

fell in front of the large windows, on the sills of which potted

chrysanthemums spread their white, brown, and red blossoms.

Round the walls a shining battery of boilers, kettles, basins, and

copper plates were hung in symmetrical order. On the dresser, near the

clock, was a complete service of old Aprey china, in bright and varied

colors, and not far from the chimney, which was ornamented with a

crucifix of yellow copper, was a set of shelves, attached to the

wall, containing three rows of books, in gray linen binding. Julien,

approaching, read, not without surprise, some of the titles: Paul and

Virginia, La Fontaine’s Fables, Gessner’s Idylls, Don Quixote, and

noticed several odd volumes of the Picturesque Magazine.

Hanging from the whitened ceiling were clusters of nuts, twisted hemp,

strings of yellow maize, and chaplets of golden pippins tied with straw,

all harmonizing in the dim light, and adding increased fulness to the

picture of thrift and abundance.

“It’s jolly here!” said the driver, smacking his lips, “and the smell

which comes from that oven makes one hungry. I wish Mamselle Reine would

arrive!”

Just as he said this, a mysterious falsetto voice, which seemed to come

from behind the copper basins, repeated, in an acrid voice: “Reine!

Reine!”

“What in the world is that?” exclaimed the driver, puzzled.

Both looked toward the beams; at the same moment there was a rustling

of wings, a light hop, and a black-and-white object flitted by, resting,

finally, on one of the shelves hanging from the joists.

“Ha, ha!” said the driver, laughing, “it is only a magpie!”

He had hardly said it, when, like a plaintive echo, another voice, a

human voice this time, childish and wavering, proceeding from a dark

corner, faltered: “Rei-eine--Rei-eine!”

“Hark!” murmured Julien, “some one answered.”

His companion seized the lamp, and advanced toward the portion of the

room left in shadow. Suddenly he stopped short, and stammered some vague

excuse.

Julien, who followed him, then perceived, with alarm, in a sort of niche

formed by two screens, entirely covered with illustrations from Epinal,

a strange-looking being stretched in an easy-chair, which was covered

with pillows and almost hidden under various woolen draperies. He was

dressed in a long coat of coarse, pale-blue cloth. He was bareheaded,

and his long, white hair formed a weird frame for a face of bloodless

hue and meagre proportions, from which two vacant eyes stared fixedly.

He sat immovable and his arms hung limply over his knees.

“Monsieur,” said Julien, bowing ceremoniously, “we are quite ashamed at

having disturbed you. Your servant forgot to inform us of your presence,

and we were waiting for Mademoiselle Reine, without thinking that--”

The old man continued immovable, not seeming to understand; he kept

repeating, in the same voice, like a frightened child:

“Rei-eine! Rei-eine!”

The two bewildered travellers gazed at this sepulchral-looking

personage, then at each other interrogatively, and began to feel very

uncomfortable. The magpie, perched upon the hanging shelf, suddenly

flapped his wings, and repeated, in his turn, in falsetto:

“Reine, queen of the woods!”

“Here I am, papa, don’t get uneasy!” said a clear, musical voice behind

them.

The door had been suddenly opened, and Reine Vincart had entered. She

wore on her head a white cape or hood, and held in front of her an

enormous bouquet of glistening leaves, which seemed to have been

gathered as specimens of all the wild fruit-trees of the forest: the

brown beam-berries, the laburnums, and wild cherry, with their

red, transparent fruit, the bluish mulberry, the orange-clustered

mountain-ash. All this forest vegetation, mingling its black or purple

tints with the dark, moist leaves, brought out the whiteness of the

young girl’s complexion, her limpid eyes, and her brown curls escaping

from her hood.

Julien de Buxieres and his companion had turned at the sound of Reine’s

voice. As soon as she perceived them, she went briskly toward them,

exclaiming:

“What are you doing here? Don’t you see that you are frightening him?”

Julien, humbled and mortified, murmured an excuse, and got confused

in trying to relate the incident of the carriage. She interrupted him

hurriedly:

“The carriage, oh, yes--La Guitiote spoke to me about it. Well, your

carriage will be attended to! Go and sit down by the fire, gentlemen; we

will talk about it presently.”

She had taken the light from the driver, and placed it on an adjacent

table with her plants. In the twinkling of an eye, she removed her hood,

unfastened her shawl, and then knelt down in front of the sick man,

after kissing him tenderly on the forehead. From the corner where Julien

had seated himself, he could hear her soothing voice. Its caressing

tones contrasted pleasantly with the harsh accent of a few minutes

before.

“You were longing for me, papa,” said she, “but you see, I could not

leave before all the sacks of potatoes had been laid in the wagon. Now

everything has been brought in, and we can sleep in peace. I thought of

you on the way, and I have brought you a fine bouquet of wild fruits.

We shall enjoy looking them over tomorrow, by daylight. Now, this is the

time that you are to drink your bouillon like a good papa, and then as

soon as we have had our supper Guite and I will put you to bed nice and

warm, and I will sing you a song to send you to sleep.”

She rose, took from the sideboard a bowl which she filled from a

saucepan simmering on the stove, and then, without taking any notice of

her visitors, she returned to the invalid. Slowly and with delicate care

she made him swallow the soup by spoonfuls. Julien, notwithstanding the

feeling of ill-humor caused by the untoward happenings of the evening,

could not help admiring the almost maternal tenderness with which the

young girl proceeded in this slow and difficult operation. When the bowl

was empty she returned to the stove, and at last bethought herself of

her guests.

“Excuse me, Monsieur, but I had to attend to my father first. If I

understood quite aright, you were going to Vivey.”

“Yes, Mademoiselle, I had hoped to sleep there tonight.”

“You have probably come,” continued she, “on business connected with the

chateau. Is not the heir of Monsieur Odouart expected very shortly?”

“I am that heir,” replied Julien, coloring.

“You are Monsieur de Buxieres?” exclaimed Reine, in astonishment.

Then, embarrassed at having shown her surprise too openly, she checked

herself, colored in her turn, and finally gave a rapid glance at her

interlocutor. She never should have imagined this slender young man,

so melancholy in aspect, to be the new proprietor--he was so unlike the

late Odouart de Buxieres!

“Pardon me, Monsieur,” continued she, “you must have thought my first

welcome somewhat unceremonious, but my first thought was for my father.

He is a great invalid, as you may have noticed, and for the first moment

I feared that he had been startled by strange faces.”

“It is I, Mademoiselle,” replied Julien, with embarrassment, “it is I

who ought to ask pardon for having caused all this disturbance. But I do

not intend to trouble you any longer. If you will kindly furnish us with

a guide who will direct us to the road to Vivey, we will depart to-night

and sleep at the chateau.”

“No, indeed,” protested Reine, very cordially. “You are my guests, and

I shall not allow you to leave us in that manner. Besides, you would

probably find the gates closed down there, for I do not think they

expected you so soon.”

During this interview, the servant who had received the travellers had

returned with her milk-pail; behind her, the other farm-hands, men and

women, arranged themselves silently round the table.

“Guitiote,” said Reine, “lay two more places at the table. The horse

belonging to these gentlemen has been taken care of, has he not?”

“Yes, Mamselle, he is in the stable,” replied one of the grooms.

“Good! Bernard, to-morrow you will take Fleuriot with you, and go

in search of their carriage which has been swamped in the

Planche-au-Vacher. That is settled. Now, Monsieur de Buxieres, will you

proceed to table--and your coachman also? Upon my word, I do not know

whether our supper will be to your liking. I can only offer you a plate

of soup, a chine of pork, and cheese made in the country; but you must

be hungry, and when one has a good appetite, one is not hard to please.”

Every one had been seated at the table; the servants at the lower end,

and Reine Vincart, near the fireplace, between M. de Buxieres and the

driver. La Guite helped the cabbage-soup all around; soon nothing was

heard but the clinking of spoons and smacking of lips. Julien, scarcely

recovered from his bewilderment, watched furtively the pretty, robust

young girl presiding at the supper, and keeping, at the same time, a

watchful eye over all the details of service. He thought her strange;

she upset all his ideas. His own imagination and his theories pictured

a woman, and more especially a young girl, as a submissive, modest,

shadowy creature, with downcast look, only raising her eyes to consult

her husband or her mother as to what is allowable and what is forbidden.

Now, Reine did not fulfil any of the requirements of this ideal.

She seemed to be hardly twenty-two years old, and she acted with the

initiative genius, the frankness and the decision of a man, retaining

all the while the tenderness and easy grace of a woman. Although it was

evident that she was accustomed to govern and command, there was

nothing in her look, gesture, or voice which betrayed any assumption of

masculinity. She remained a young girl while in the very act of playing

the virile part of head of the house. But what astonished Julien quite

as much was that she seemed to have received a degree of education

superior to that of people of her condition, and he wondered at the

amount of will-power by which a nature highly cultivated, relatively

speaking, could conform to the unrefined, rough surroundings in which

she was placed.

While Julien was immersed in these reflections, and continued eating

with an abstracted air, Reine Vincart was rapidly examining the

reserved, almost ungainly, young man, who did not dare address any

conversation to her, and who was equally stiff and constrained with

those sitting near him. She made a mental comparison of him with

Claudet, the bold huntsman, alert, resolute, full of dash and spirit,

and a feeling of charitable compassion arose in her heart at the thought

of the reception which the Sejournant family would give to this new

master, so timid and so little acquainted with the ways and dispositions

of country folk. Julien did not impress her as being able to defend

himself against the ill-will of persons who would consider him an

intruder, and would certainly endeavor to make him pay dearly for the

inheritance of which he had deprived them.

“You do not take your wine, Monsieur de Buxieres!” said she, noticing

that her guest’s glass was still full.

“I am not much of a wine-drinker,” replied he, “and besides, I never

take wine by itself--I should be obliged if you would have some water

brought.”

Reine smiled, and passed him the water-bottle.

“Indeed?” she said, “in that case, you have not fallen among congenial

spirits, for in these mountains they like good dinners, and have a

special weakness for Burgundy. You follow the chase, at any rate?”

“No, Mademoiselle, I do not know how to handle a gun!”

“I suppose it is not your intention to settle in Vivey?”

“Why not?” replied he; “on the contrary, I intend to inhabit the

chateau, and establish myself there definitely.”

“What!” exclaimed Reine, laughing, “you neither drink nor hunt, and

you intend to live in our woods! Why, my poor Monsieur, you will die of

ennui.”

“I shall have my books for companions; besides, solitude never has had

any terrors for me.”

The young girl shook her head incredulously.

“I shouldn’t wonder,” she continued, “if you do not even play at cards.”

“Never; games of chance are repugnant to me.”

“Take notice that I do not blame you,” she replied, gayly, “but I must

give you one piece of advice: don’t speak in these neighborhoods of your

dislike of hunting, cards, or good wine; our country folk would feel

pity for you, and that would destroy your prestige.”

Julien gazed at her with astonishment. She turned away to give

directions to La Guite about the beds for her guests--then the supper

went on silently. As soon as they had swallowed their last mouthful, the

menservants repaired to their dormitory, situated in the buildings of

the ancient forge. Reine Vincart rose also.

“This is the time when I put my father to bed--I am obliged to take

leave of you, Monsieur de Buxieres. Guitiote will conduct you to your

room. For you, driver, I have had a bed made in a small room next to the

furnace; you will be nice and warm. Good-night, gentlemen, sleep well!”

She turned away, and went to rejoin the paralytic sufferer, who, as she

approached, manifested his joy by a succession of inarticulate sounds.

The room to which Guitiote conducted Julien was on the first floor, and

had a cheerful, hospitable appearance. The walls were whitewashed;

the chairs, table, and bed were of polished oak; a good fire of

logs crackled in the fireplace, and between the opening of the white

window-curtains could be seen a slender silver crescent of moon gliding

among the flitting clouds. The young man went at once to his bed; but

notwithstanding the fatigues of the day, sleep did not come to him.

Through the partition he could hear the clear, sonorous voice of Reine

singing her father to sleep with one of the popular ballads of the

country, and while turning and twisting in the homespun linen sheets,

scented with orrisroot, he could not help thinking of this young girl,

so original in her ways, whose grace, energy, and frankness fascinated

and shocked him at the same time. At last he dozed off; and when the

morning stir awoke him, the sun was up and struggling through the foggy

atmosphere.

The sky had cleared during the night; there had been a frost, and the

meadows were powdered white. The leaves, just nipped with the frost,

were dropping softly to the ground, and formed little green heaps at the

base of the trees. Julien dressed himself hurriedly, and descended to

the courtyard, where the first thing he saw was the cabriolet, which had

been brought in the early morning and which one of the farm-boys was in

the act of sousing with water in the hope of freeing the hood and wheels

from the thick mud which covered them. When he entered the diningroom,

brightened by the rosy rays of the morning sun, he found Reine Vincart

there before him. She was dressed in a yellow striped woolen skirt,

and a jacket of white flannel carelessly belted at the waist. Her dark

chestnut hair, parted down the middle and twisted into a loose knot

behind, lay in ripples round her smooth, open forehead.

“Good-morning, Monsieur de Buxieres,” said she, in her cordial tone,

“did you sleep well? Yes? I am glad. You find me busy attending to

household matters. My father is still in bed, and I am taking advantage

of the fact to arrange his little corner. The doctor said he must not

be put near the fire, so I have made a place for him here; he enjoys it

immensely, and I arranged this nook to protect him from draughts.”

And she showed him how she had put the big easy chair, padded with

cushions, in the bright sunlight which streamed through the window, and

shielded by the screens, one on each side. She noticed that Julien was

examining, with some curiosity, the uncouth pictures from Epinal, with

which the screens were covered.

“This,” she explained, “is my own invention. My father is a little weak

in the head, but he understands a good many things, although he can not

talk about them. He used to get weary of sitting still all day in his

chair, so I lined the screens with these pictures in order that he might

have something to amuse him. He is as pleased as a child with the bright

colors, and I explain the subjects to him. I don’t tell him much at a

time, for fear of fatiguing him. We have got now to Pyramus and Thisbe,

so that we shall have plenty to occupy us before we reach the end.”

She caught a pitying look from her guest which seemed to say: “The poor

man may not last long enough to reach the end.” Doubtless she had

the same fear, for her dark eyes suddenly glistened, she sighed, and

remained for some moments without speaking.

In the mean time the magpie, which Julien had seen the day before, was

hopping around its mistress, like a familiar spirit; it even had the

audacity to peck at her hair and then fly away, repeating, in its

cracked voice:

“Reine, queen of the woods!”

“Why ‘queen of the woods?”’ asked Julien, coloring.

“Ah!” replied the young girl, “it is a nickname which the people around

here give me, because I am so fond of the trees. I spend all the time I

can in our woods, as much as I can spare from the work of the farm.

“Margot has often heard my father call me by that name; she remembers

it, and is always repeating it.”

“Do you like living in this wild country?”

“Very much. I was born here, and I like it.”

“But you have not always lived here?”

“No; my mother, who had lived in the city, placed me at school in her

own country, in Dijon. I received there the education of a young lady,

though there is not much to show for it now. I stayed there six years;

then my mother died, my father fell ill, and I came home.”

“And did you not suffer from so sudden a change?”

“Not at all. You see I am really by nature a country girl. I wish you

might not have more trouble than I had, in getting accustomed to your

new way of living, in the chateau at Vivey. But,” she added, going

toward the fire, “I think they are harnessing the horse, and you must be

hungry. Your driver has already primed himself with some toast and white

wine. I will not offer you the same kind of breakfast. I will get you

some coffee and cream.”

He bent his head in acquiescence, and she brought him the coffee

herself, helping him to milk and toasted bread. He drank rapidly the

contents of the cup, nibbled at a slice of toast, and then, turning to

his hostess, said, with a certain degree of embarrassment:

“There is nothing left for me to do, Mademoiselle, but to express my

most heartfelt thanks for your kind hospitality. It is a good omen for

me to meet with such cordiality on my arrival in an unknown part of

the country. May I ask you one more question?” he continued, looking

anxiously at her; “why do you think it will be so difficult for me to

get accustomed to the life they lead here?”

“Why?” replied she, shaking her head, “because, to speak frankly,

Monsieur, you do not give me the idea of having much feeling for the

country. You are not familiar with our ways; you will not be able to

speak to the people in their language, and they will not understand

yours--you will be, in their eyes, ‘the city Monsieur,’ whom they will

mistrust and will try to circumvent. I should like to find that I am

mistaken, but, at present, I have the idea that you will encounter

difficulties down there of which you do not seem to have any

anticipation--”

She was intercepted by the entrance of the driver, who was becoming

impatient. The horse was in harness, and they were only waiting for M.

de Buxieres. Julien rose, and after awkwardly placing a piece of silver

in the hand of La Guite, took leave of Reine Vincart, who accompanied

him to the threshold.

“Thanks, once more, Mademoiselle,” murmured he, “and au revoir, since we

shall be neighbors.”

He held out his hand timidly and she took it with frank cordiality.

Julien got into the cabriolet beside the driver, who began at once to

belabor vigorously his mulish animal.

“Good journey and good luck, Monsieur,” cried Reine after him, and the

vehicle sped joltingly away.

CHAPTER III. CONSCIENCE HIGHER THAN THE LAW

On leaving La Thuiliere, the driver took the straight line toward the

pasturelands of the Planche-au-Vacher.

According to the directions they had received from the people of the

farm, they then followed a rocky road, which entailed considerable

jolting for the travellers, but which led them without other difficulty

to the bottom of a woody dell, where they were able to ford the stream.

As soon as they had, with difficulty, ascended the opposite hill,

the silvery fog that had surrounded them began to dissipate, and they

distinguished a road close by, which led a winding course through the

forest.

“Ah! now I see my way!” said the driver, “we have only to go straight

on, and in twenty minutes we shall be at Vivey. This devil of a fog cuts

into one’s skin like a bunch of needles. With your permission, Monsieur

de Buxieres, and if it will not annoy you, I will light my pipe to warm

myself.”

Now that he knew he was conducting the proprietor of the chateau, he

repented having treated him so cavalierly the day before; he became

obsequious, and endeavored to gain the good-will of his fare by showing

himself as loquacious as he had before been cross and sulky. But Julien

de Buxieres, too much occupied in observing the details of the country,

or in ruminating over the impressions he had received during the

morning, made but little response to his advances, and soon allowed the

conversation to drop.

The sun’s rays had by this time penetrated the misty atmosphere, and the

white frost had changed to diamond drops, which hung tremblingly on

the leafless branches. A gleam of sunshine showed the red tints of the

beech-trees, and the bright golden hue of the poplars, and the forest

burst upon Julien in all the splendor of its autumnal trappings.

The pleasant remembrance of Reine Vincart’s hospitality doubtless

predisposed him to enjoy the charm of this sunshiny morning, for he

became, perhaps for the first time in his life, suddenly alive to

the beauty of this woodland scenery. By degrees, toward the left,

the brushwood became less dense, and several gray buildings appeared

scattered over the glistening prairie. Soon after appeared a park,

surrounded by low, crumbling walls, then a group of smoky roofs, and

finally, surmounting a massive clump of ash-trees, two round towers with

tops shaped like extinguishers. The coachman pointed them out to the

young man with the end of his whip.

“There is Vivey,” said he, “and here is your property, Monsieur de

Buxieres.”

Julien started, and, notwithstanding his alienation from worldly things,

he could not repress a feeling of satisfaction when he reflected that,

by legal right, he was about to become master of the woods, the fields,

and the old homestead of which the many-pointed slate roofs gleamed in

the distance. This satisfaction was mingled with intense curiosity,

but it was also somewhat shadowed by a dim perspective of the technical

details incumbent on his taking possession. No doubt he should be

obliged, in the beginning, to make himself personally recognized, to

show the workmen and servants of the chateau that the new owner was

equal to the situation. Now, Julien was not, by nature, a man of action,

and the delicately expressed fears of Reine Vincart made him uneasy in

his mind. When the carriage, suddenly turning a corner, stopped in front

of the gate of entrance, and he beheld, through the cast-iron railing,

the long avenue of ash-trees, the grass-grown courtyard, the silent

facade, his heart began to beat more rapidly, and his natural timidity

again took possession of him.

“The gate is closed, and they don’t seem to be expecting you,” remarked

the driver.

They dismounted. Noticing that the side door was half open, the coachman

gave a vigorous pull on the chain attached to the bell. At the sound

of the rusty clamor, a furious barking was heard from an adjoining

outhouse, but no one inside the house seemed to take notice of the

ringing.

“Come, let us get in all the same,” said the coachman, giving another

pull, and stealing a furtive look at his companion’s disconcerted

countenance.

He fastened his horse to the iron fence, and both passed through the

side gate to the avenue, the dogs all the while continuing their

uproar. Just as they reached the courtyard, the door opened and Manette

Sejournant appeared on the doorstep.

“Good-morning, gentlemen,” said she, in a slow, drawling voice, “is it

you who are making all this noise?”

The sight of this tall, burly woman, whose glance betokened both

audacity and cunning, increased still more Julien’s embarrassment. He

advanced awkwardly, raised his hat and replied, almost as if to excuse

himself:

“I beg pardon, Madame--I am the cousin and heir of the late Claude de

Buxieres. I have come to install myself in the chateau, and I had sent

word of my intention to Monsieur Arbillot, the notary--I am surprised he

did not notify you.”

“Ah! it is you, Monsieur Julien de Buxieres!” exclaimed Madame

Sejournant, scrutinizing the newcomer with a mingling of curiosity

and scornful surprise which completed the young man’s discomfiture.

“Monsieur Arbillot was here yesterday--he waited for you all day, and as

you did not come, he went away at nightfall.”

“I presume you were in my cousin’s service?” said Julien, amiably, being

desirous from the beginning to evince charitable consideration with

regard to his relative’s domestic affairs.

“Yes, Monsieur,” replied Manette, with dignified sadness; “I attended

poor Monsieur de Buxieres twenty-six years, and can truly say I served

him with devotion! But now I am only staying here in charge of the

seals--I and my son Claudet. We have decided to leave as soon as the

notary does not want us any more.”

“I regret to hear it, Madame,” replied Julien, who was beginning to feel

uncomfortable. “There must be other servants around--I should be obliged

if you would have our carriage brought into the yard. And then, if

you will kindly show us the way, we will go into the house, for I am

desirous to feel myself at home--and my driver would not object to some

refreshment.”

“I will send the cowboy to open the gate,” replied the housekeeper. “If

you will walk this way, gentlemen, I will take you into the only room

that can be used just now, on account of the seals on the property.”

Passing in front of them, she directed her steps toward the kitchen, and

made way for them to pass into the smoky room, where a small servant was

making coffee over a clear charcoal fire. As the travellers entered, the

manly form of Claudet Sejournant was outlined against the bright light

of the window at his back.

“My son,” said Manette, with a meaning side look, especially for his

benefit, “here is Monsieur de Buxieres, come to take possession of his

inheritance.”

The grand chasserot attempted a silent salutation, and then the young

men took a rapid survey of each other.

Julien de Buxieres was startled by the unexpected presence of so

handsome a young fellow, robust, intelligent, and full of energy, whose

large brown eyes gazed at him with a kind of surprised and pitying

compassion which was very hard for Julien to bear. He turned uneasily

away, making a lame excuse of ordering some wine for his coachman;

and while Manette, with an air of martyrdom, brought a glass and

a half-empty bottle, Claudet continued his surprised and inquiring

examination of the legal heir of Claude de Buxieres.

The pale, slight youth, buttoned up in a close-fitting, long frock-coat,

which gave him the look of a priest, looked so unlike any of the

Buxieres of the elder branch that it seemed quite excusable to hesitate

about the relationship. Claudet maliciously took advantage of the fact,

and began to interrogate his would-be deposer by pretending to doubt his

identity.

“Are you certainly Monsieur Julien de Buxieres?” asked he, surveying him

suspiciously from head to foot.

“Do you take me for an impostor?” exclaimed the young man.

“I do not say that,” returned Claudet, crossly, “but after all, you do

not carry your name written on your face, and, by Jove! as guardian of

the seals, I have some responsibility--I want information, that is all!”

Angry at having to submit to these inquiries in the presence of the

coachman who had brought him from Langres, Julien completely lost

control of his temper.

“Do you require me to show my papers?” he inquired, in a haughty,

ironical tone of voice.

Manette, foreseeing a disturbance, hastened to interpose, in her

hypocritical, honeyed voice:

“Leave off, Claudet, let Monsieur alone. He would not be here, would he,

if he hadn’t a right? As to asking him to prove his right, that is not

our business--it belongs to the justice and the notary. You had better,

my son, go over to Auberive, and ask the gentlemen to come to-morrow to

raise the seals.”

At this moment, the cowboy, who had been sent to open the gate, entered

the kitchen.

“The carriage is in the courtyard,” said he, “and Monsieur’s boxes are

in the hall. Where shall I put them, Madame Sejoumant?”

Julien’s eyes wandered from Manette to the young boy, with an expression

of intense annoyance and fatigue.

“Why, truly,” said Manette, “as a matter of fact, there is only the

room of our deceased master, where the seals have been released. Would

Monsieur object to taking up his quarters there?”

“I am willing,” muttered Julien; “have my luggage carried up there, and

give orders for it to be made ready immediately.”

The housekeeper gave a sign, and the boy and the servant disappeared.

“Madame,” resumed Julien, turning toward Manette, “if I understand you

right, I can no longer reckon upon your services to take care of my

household. Could you send me some one to supply your place?”

“Oh! as to that matter,” replied the housekeeper, still in her wheedling

voice, “a day or two more or less! I am not so very particular, and

I don’t mind attending to the house as long as I remain. At what hour

would you wish to dine, Monsieur?”

“At the hour most convenient for you,” responded Julien, quickly,

anxious to conciliate her; “you will serve my meals in my room.”

As the driver had now finished his bottle, they left the room together.

As soon as the door was closed, Manette and her son exchanged sarcastic

looks.

“He a Buxieres!” growled Claudet. “He looks like a student priest in

vacation.”

“He is an ‘ecrigneule’,” returned Manette, shrugging her shoulders.

‘Ecrigneule’ is a word of the Langrois dialect, signifying a puny,

sickly, effeminate being. In the mouth of Madame Sejournant, this

picturesque expression acquired a significant amount of scornful energy.

“And to think,” sighed Claudet, twisting his hands angrily in his bushy

hair, “that such a slip of a fellow is going to be master here!”

“Master?” repeated Manette, shaking her head, “we’ll see about that!

He does not know anything at all, and has not what is necessary for

ordering about. In spite of his fighting-cock airs, he hasn’t two

farthings’ worth of spunk--it would be easy enough to lead him by the

nose. Do you see, Claudet, if we were to manage properly, instead of

throwing the handle after the blade, we should be able before two weeks

are, over to have rain or sunshine here, just as we pleased. We must

only have a little more policy.”

“What do you mean by policy, mother?”

“I mean--letting things drag quietly on--not breaking all the windows

at the first stroke. The lad is as dazed as a young bird that has fallen

from its nest. What we have to do is to help him to get control of

himself, and accustom him not to do without us. As soon as we have made

ourselves necessary to him, he will be at our feet.”

“Would you wish me to become the servant of the man who has cheated me

out of my inheritance?” protested Claudet, indignantly.

“His servant--no, indeed! but his companion--why not? And it would be

so easy if you would only make up your mind to it, Claude. I tell you

again, he is not ill-natured-he looks like a man who is up to his neck

in devotion. When he once feels we are necessary to his comfort, and

that some reliable person, like the curate, for example, were to whisper

to him that you are the son of Claudet de Buxieres, he would have

scruples, and at last, half on his own account, and half for the sake of

religion, he would begin to treat you like a relative.”

“No;” said Claudet, firmly, “these tricky ways do not suit me. Monsieur

Arbillot proposed yesterday that I should do what you advise. He

even offered to inform this gentleman of my relationship to Claude de

Buxieres. I refused, and forbade the notary to open his mouth on the

subject. What! should I play the part of a craven hound before this

younger son whom my father detested, and beg for a portion of the

inheritance? Thank you! I prefer to take myself out of the way at once!”

“You prefer to have your mother beg her bread at strangers’ doors!”

replied Manette, bitterly, shedding tears of rage.

“I have already told you, mother, that when one has a good pair of arms,

and the inclination to use them, one has no need to beg one’s bread.

Enough said! I am going to Auberive to notify the justice and the

notary.”

While Claudet was striding across the woods, the boy carried the luggage

of the newly arrived traveller into the chamber on the first floor, and

Zelie, the small servant, put the sheets on the bed, dusted the room,

and lighted the fire. In a few minutes, Julien was alone in his new

domicile, and began to open his boxes and valises. The chimney, which

had not been used since the preceding winter, smoked unpleasantly, and

the damp logs only blackened instead of burning. The boxes lay

wide open, and the room of the deceased Claude de Buxieres had the

uncomfortable aspect of a place long uninhabited. Julien had seated

himself in one of the large armchairs, covered in Utrecht velvet,

and endeavored to rekindle the dying fire. He felt at loose ends and

discouraged, and had no longer the courage to arrange his clothes in

the open wardrobes, which stood open, emitting a strong odor of decaying

mold.

The slight breath of joyous and renewed life which had animated him on

leaving the Vincart farm, had suddenly evaporated. His anticipations

collapsed in the face of these bristling realities, among which he felt

his isolation more deeply than ever before. He recalled the cordiality

of Reine’s reception, and how she had spoken of the difficulties he

should have to encounter. How little he had thought that her forebodings

would come true the very same day! The recollection of the cheerful and

hospitable interior of La Thuiliere contrasted painfully with his cold,

bare Vivey mansion, tenanted solely by hostile domestics. Who were these

people--this Manette Sejournant with her treacherous smile, and this

fellow Claudet, who had, at the very first, subjected him to such

offensive questioning? Why did they seem so ill-disposed toward him?

He felt as if he were completely enveloped in an atmosphere of

contradiction and ill-will. He foresaw what an amount of quiet but

steady opposition he should have to encounter from these subordinates,

and he became alarmed at the prospect of having to display so much

energy in order to establish his authority in the chateau. He, who had

pictured to himself a calm and delightful solitude, wherein he could

give himself up entirely to his studious and contemplative tastes. What

a contrast to the reality!

Rousing himself at last, he proceeded mechanically to arrange his

belongings in the room, formerly inhabited by his cousin de Buxieres. He

had hardly finished when Zelie made her appearance with some plates and

a tablecloth, and began to lay the covers. Seeing the fire had gone out,

the little servant uttered an exclamation of dismay.

“Oh!” cried she, “so the wood didn’t flare!”

He gazed at her as if she were talking Hebrew, and it was at least a

minute before he understood that by “flare” she meant kindle.

“Well, well!” she continued, “I’ll go and fetch some splinters.”

She returned in a few moments, with a basket filled with the large

splinters thrown off by the woodchoppers in straightening the logs: she

piled these up on the andirons, and then, applying her mouth vigorously

to a long hollow tin tube, open at both ends, which she carried with

her, soon succeeded in starting a steady flame.

“Look there!” said she, in a tone implying a certain degree of contempt

for the “city Monsieur” who did not even know how to keep up a fire,

“isn’t that clever? Now I must lay the cloth.”

While she went about her task, arranging the plates, the water-bottle,

and glasses symmetrically around the table, Julien tried to engage her

in conversation. But the little maiden, either because she had been

cautioned beforehand, or because she did not very well comprehend M.

de Buxieres’s somewhat literary style of French, would answer only in

monosyllables, or else speak only in patois, so that Julien had to

give up the idea of getting any information out of her. Certainly,

Mademoiselle Vincart was right in saying that he did not know the

language of these people.

He ate without appetite the breakfast on which Manette had employed

all her culinary art, barely tasted the roast partridge, and to Zelie’s

great astonishment, mingled the old Burgundy wine with a large quantity

of water.

“You will inform Madame Sejournant,” said he to the girl, as he folded

his napkin, “that I am not a great eater, and that one dish will suffice

me in future.”

He left her to clear away, and went out to look at the domain which he

was to call his own. It did not take him very long. The twenty or thirty

white houses, which constituted the village and lay sleeping in the

wooded hollow like eggs in a nest, formed a curious circular line around

the chateau. In a few minutes he had gone the whole length of it, and

the few people he met gave him only a passing glance, in which curiosity

seemed to have more share than any hospitable feeling. He entered the

narrow church under the patronage of Our Lady; the gray light which

entered through the moldy shutters showed a few scattered benches of

oak, and the painted wooden altar. He knelt down and endeavored to

collect his thoughts, but the rude surroundings of this rustic sanctuary

did not tend to comfort his troubled spirit, and he became conscious

of a sudden withering of all religious fervor. He turned and left the

place, taking a path that led through the forest. It did not interest

him more than the village; the woods spoke no language which his heart

could understand; he could not distinguish an ash from an oak, and all

the different plants were included by him under one general term of

“weeds”; but he needed bodily fatigue and violent physical agitation to

dissipate the overpowering feeling of discouragement that weighed down

his spirits. He walked for several hours without seeing anything, nearly

got lost, and did not reach home till after dark. Once more the little

servant appeared with his meal, which he ate in an abstracted manner,

without even asking whether he were eating veal or mutton; then he went

immediately to bed, and fell into an uneasy sleep. And thus ended his

first day.

The next morning, about nine o’clock, he was informed that the justice

of the peace, the notary, and the clerk, were waiting for him below. He

hastened down and found the three functionaries busy conferring in a low

voice with Manette and Claudet. The conversation ceased suddenly upon

his arrival, and during the embarrassing silence that followed, all eyes

were directed toward Julien, who saluted the company and delivered to

the justice the documents proving his identity, begging him to proceed

without delay to the legal breaking of the seals. They accordingly

began operations, and went through all the house without interruption,

accompanied by Claudet, who stood stiff and sullen behind the justice,

taking advantage of every little opportunity to testify his dislike and

ill-feeling toward the legal heir of Claude de Buxieres. Toward eleven

o’clock, the proceedings came to an end, the papers were signed,

and Julien was regularly invested with his rights. But the tiresome

formalities were not yet over: he had to invite the three officials

to breakfast. This event, however, had been foreseen by Manette. Since

early morning she had been busy preparing a bountiful repast, and had

even called Julien de Buxieres aside in order to instruct him in the

hospitable duties which his position and the customs of society imposed

upon him.

As they entered the dining-room, young de Buxieres noticed that covers

were laid for five people; he began to wonder who the fifth guest could

be, when an accidental remark of the clerk showed him that the unknown

was no other than Claudet. The fact was that Manette could not bear the

idea that her son, who had always sat at table with the late Claude

de Buxieres, should be consigned to the kitchen in presence of these

distinguished visitors from Auberive, and had deliberately laid a place

for him at the master’s table, hoping that the latter would not dare

put any public affront upon Claudet. She was not mistaken in her idea.

Julien, anxious to show a conciliatory spirit, and making an effort

to quell his own repugnance, approached the ‘grand chasserot’, who was

standing at one side by himself, and invited him to take his seat at the

table.

“Thank you,” replied Claudet, coldly, “I have breakfasted.” So saying,

he turned his back on M. de Buxieres, who returned to the hall, vexed

and disconcerted.

The repast was abundant, and seemed of interminable length to Julien.

The three guests, whose appetites had been sharpened by their morning

exercise, did honor to Madame Sejournant’s cooking; they took their wine

without water, and began gradually to thaw under the influence of

their host’s good Burgundy; evincing their increased liveliness by the

exchange of heavy country witticisms, or relating noisy and interminable

stories of their hunting adventures. Their conversation was very trying

to Julien’s nerves. Nevertheless, he endeavored to fulfil his duties as

master of the house, throwing in a word now and then, so as to appear

interested in their gossip, but he ate hardly a mouthful. His features

had a pinched expression, and every now and then he caught himself

trying to smother a yawn. His companions at the table could not

understand a young man of twenty-eight years who drank nothing but

water, scorned all enjoyment in eating, and only laughed forcedly under

compulsion. At last, disturbed by the continued taciturnity of their

host, they rose from the table sooner than their wont, and prepared to

take leave. Before their departure, Arbillot the notary, passed his arm

familiarly through that of Julien and led him into an adjoining room,

which served as billiard-hall and library.

“Monsieur de Buxieres,” said he, pointing to a pile of law papers heaped

upon the green cloth of the table; “see what I have prepared for you;

you will find there all the titles and papers relating to the

real estate, pictures, current notes, and various matters of your

inheritance. You had better keep them under lock and key, and study

them at your leisure. You will find them very interesting. I need hardly

say,” he added, “that I am at your service for any necessary advice

or explanation. But, in respect to any minor details, you can apply to

Claudet Sejournant, who is very intelligent in such matters, and a good

man of business. And, by the way, Monsieur de Buxieres, will you allow

me to commend the young man especially to your kindly consideration.”

But Julien interrupted him with an imperious gesture, and replied,

frowning angrily:

“If you please, Maitre Arbillot, we will not enter upon that subject.

I have already tried my best to show a kindly feeling toward Monsieur

Claudet, but I have been only here twenty-four hours, and he has already

found opportunities for affronting me twice. I beg you not to speak of

him again.”

The notary, who was just lighting his pipe, stopped suddenly. Moved by a

feeling of good-fellowship for the ‘grand chasserot’, who had, however,

enjoined him to silence, he had it on the tip of his tongue to inform

Julien of the facts concerning the parentage of Claudet de Buxieres;

but, however much he wished to render Claudet a service, he was still

more desirous of respecting the feelings of his client; so, between the

hostility of one party and the backwardness of the other, he chose the

wise part of inaction.

“That is sufficient, Monsieur de Buxieres,” replied he, “I will not

press the matter.”

Thereupon he saluted his client, and went to rejoin the justice and the

clerk, and the three comrades wended their way to Auberive through the

woods, discussing the incidents of the breakfast, and the peculiarities

of the new proprietor.

“This de Buxieres,” said M. Destourbet, “does not at all resemble his

deceased cousin Claude!”

“I can quite understand why the two families kept apart from each

other,” observed the notary, jocosely.

“Poor ‘chasserot’!” whined Seurrot the clerk, whom the wine had rendered

tender-hearted; “he will not have a penny. I pity him with all my

heart!”

As soon as the notary had departed, Julien came to the determination

of transforming into a study the hall where he had been conferring

with Maitre Arbillot, which was dignified with the title of “library,”

although it contained at the most but a few hundred odd volumes. The

hall was spacious, and lighted by two large windows opening on the

garden; the floor was of oak, and there was a great fireplace where the

largest logs used in a country in which the wood costs nothing could

find ample room to blaze and crackle. It took the young man several days

to make the necessary changes, and during that time he enjoyed a respite

from the petty annoyances worked by the steady hostility of Manette

Sejournant and her son. To the great indignation of the inhabitants of

the chateau, he packed off the massive billiard-table, on which Claude

de Buxieres had so often played in company with his chosen friends, to

the garret; after which the village carpenter was instructed to make the

bookshelves ready for the reception of Julien’s own books, which were

soon to arrive by express. When he had got through with these labors, he

turned his attention to the documents placed in his hands by the notary,

endeavoring to find out by himself the nature of his revenues. He

thought this would be a very easy matter, but he soon found that it was

encumbered with inextricable difficulties.

A large part of the products of the domain consisted of lumber ready for

sale. Claude de Buxieres had been in the habit of superintending, either

personally or through his intermediate agents, one half of the annual

amount of lumber felled for market, the sale of which was arranged with

the neighboring forge owners by mutual agreement; the other half was

disposed of by notarial act. This latter arrangement was clear and

comprehensible; the price of sale and the amounts falling due were

both clearly indicated in the deed. But it was quite different with the

bargains made by the owner himself, which were often credited by notes

payable at sight, mostly worded in confused terms, unintelligible to any

but the original writer. Julien became completely bewildered among these

various documents, the explanations in which were harder to understand

than conundrums. Although greatly averse to following the notary’s

advice as to seeking Claudet’s assistance, he found himself compelled to

do so, but was met by such laconic and surly answers that he concluded

it would be more dignified on his part to dispense with the services of

one who was so badly disposed toward him. He therefore resolved to have

recourse to the debtors themselves, whose names he found, after much

difficulty, in the books. These consisted mostly of peasants of the

neighborhood, who came to the chateau at his summons; but as soon as

they came into Julien’s presence, they discovered, with that cautious

perception which is an instinct with rustic minds, that before them

stood a man completely ignorant of the customs of the country, and very

poorly informed on Claude de Buxieres’s affairs. They made no scruple of

mystifying this “city gentleman,” by means of ambiguous statements and

cunning reticence. The young man could get no enlightenment from them;

all he clearly understood was, that they were making fun of him,

and that he was not able to cope with these country bumpkins, whose

shrewdness would have done honor to the most experienced lawyer.

After a few days he became discouraged and disgusted. He could see

nothing but trouble ahead; he seemed surrounded by either open enemies

or people inclined to take advantage of him. It was plain that all the

population of the village looked upon him as an intruder, a troublesome

master, a stranger whom they would like to intimidate and send about his

business. Manette Sejournant, who was always talking about going, still

remained in the chateau, and was evidently exerting her influence to

keep her son also with her. The fawning duplicity of this woman was

unbearable to Julien; he had not the energy necessary either to subdue

her, or to send her away, and she appeared every morning before him

with a string of hypocritical grievances, and opposing his orders with

steady, irritating inertia. It seemed as if she were endeavoring to

render his life at Vivey hateful to him, so that he would be compelled

finally to beat a retreat.

One morning in November he had reached such a state of moral fatigue

and depression that, as he sat listlessly before the library fire, the

question arose in his mind whether it would not be better to rent the

chateau, place the property in the hands of a manager, and take

himself and his belongings back to Nancy, to his little room in the Rue

Stanislaus, where, at any rate, he could read, meditate, or make plans

for the future without being every moment tormented by miserable, petty

annoyances. His temper was becoming soured, his nerves were unstrung,

and his mind was so disturbed that he fancied he had none but enemies

around him. A cloudy melancholy seemed to invade his brain; he was

seized with a sudden fear that he was about to have an attack of

persecution-phobia, and began to feel his pulse and interrogate his

sensations to see whether he could detect any of the premonitory

symptoms.

While he was immersing himself in this unwholesome atmosphere of

hypochondria, the sound of a door opening and shutting made him start;

he turned quickly around, saw a young woman approaching and smiling at

him, and at last recognized Reine Vincart.

She wore the crimped linen cap and the monk’s hood in use among the

peasants of the richer class. Her wavy, brown hair, simply parted in

front, fell in rebellious curls from under the border of her cap, of

which the only decoration was a bow of black ribbon; the end floating

gracefully over her shoulders. The sharp November air had imparted a

delicate rose tint to her pale complexion, and additional vivacity to

her luminous, dark eyes.

“Good-morning, Monsieur de Buxieres,” said she, in her clear, pleasantly

modulated voice; “I think you may remember me? It is not so long since

we saw each other at the farm.”

“Mademoiselle Vincart!” exclaimed Julien. “Why, certainly I remember

you!”

He drew a chair toward the fire, and offered it to her. This charming

apparition of his cordial hostess at La Thuiliere evoked the one

pleasant remembrance in his mind since his arrival in Vivey. It shot,

like a ray of sunlight, across the heavy fog of despair which had

enveloped the new master of the chateau. It was, therefore, with real

sincerity that he repeated:

“I both know you and am delighted to see you. I ought to have called

upon you before now, to thank you for your kind hospitality, but I have

had so much to do, and,” his face clouding over, “so many annoyances!”

“Really?” said she, softly, gazing pityingly at him; “you must not take

offence, but, it is easy to see you have been worried! Your features are

drawn and you have an anxious look. Is it that the air of Vivey does not

agree with you?”

“It is not the air,” replied Julien, in an irritated tone, “it is the

people who do not agree with me. And, indeed,” sighed he, “I do not

think I agree any better with them. But I need not annoy other persons

merely because I am annoyed myself! Mademoiselle Vincart, what can I do

to be of service to you? Have you anything to ask me?”

“Not at all!” exclaimed Reine, with a frank smile; “I not only have

nothing to ask from you, but I have brought something for you--six

hundred francs for wood we had bought from the late Monsieur de

Buxieres, during the sale of the Ronces forest.” She drew from under her

cloak a little bag of gray linen, containing gold, five-franc pieces and

bank-notes. “Will you be good enough to verify the amount?” continued

she, emptying the bag upon the table; “I think it is correct. You must

have somewhere a memorandum of the transaction in writing.”

Julien began to look through the papers, but he got bewildered with the

number of rough notes jotted down on various slips of paper, until at

last, in an impatient fit of vexation, he flung the whole bundle away,

scattering the loose sheets all over the floor.

“Who can find anything in such a chaos?” he exclaimed. “I can’t see my

way through it, and when I try to get information from the people here,

they seem to have an understanding among themselves to leave me under

a wrong impression, or even to make my uncertainties still greater! Ah!

Mademoiselle Reine, you were right! I do not understand the ways of your

country folk. Every now and then I am tempted to leave everything just

as it stands, and get away from this village, where the people mistrust

me and treat me like an enemy!”

Reine gazed at him with a look of compassionate surprise. Stooping

quietly down, she picked up the scattered papers, and while putting them

in order on the table, she happened to see the one relating to her own

business.

“Here, Monsieur de Buxieres,” said she, “here is the very note you were

looking for. You seem to be somewhat impatient. Our country folk are not

so bad as you think; only they do not yield easily to new influences.

The beginning is always difficult for them. I know something about it

myself. When I returned from Dijon to take charge of the affairs at La

Thuiliere, I had no more experience than you, Monsieur, and I had great

difficulty in accomplishing anything. Where should we be now, if I had

suffered myself to be discouraged, like you, at the very outset?”

Julien raised his eyes toward the speaker, coloring with embarrassment

to hear himself lectured by this young peasant girl, whose ideas,

however, had much more virility than his own.

“You reason like a man, Mademoiselle Vincart,” remarked he, admiringly,

“pray, how old are you?”

“Twenty-two years; and you, Monsieur de Buxieres?”

“I shall soon be twenty-eight.”

“There is not much difference between us; still, you are the older, and

what I have done, you can do also.”

“Oh!” sighed he, “you have a love of action. I have a love of repose--I

do not like to act.”

“So much the worse!” replied Reine, very decidedly. “A man ought to show

more energy. Come now, Monsieur de Buxieres, will you allow me to speak

frankly to you? If you wish people to come to you, you must first get

out of yourself and go to seek them; if you expect your neighbor to show

confidence and good-will toward you, you must be open and good-natured

toward him.”

“That plan has not yet succeeded with two persons around here,” replied

Julien, shaking his head.

“Which persons?”

“The Sejournants, mother and son. I tried to be pleasant with Claudet,

and received from both only rebuffs and insolence.”

“Oh! as to Claudet,” resumed she, impulsively, “he is excusable. You can

not expect he will be very gracious in his reception of the person who

has supplanted him--”

“Supplanted?--I do not understand.”

“What!” exclaimed Reine, “have they not told you anything, then? That

is wrong. Well, at the risk of meddling in what does not concern me, I

think it is better to put you in possession of the facts: Your deceased

cousin never was married, but he had a child all the same--Claudet is

his son, and he intended that he should be his heir also. Every one

around the country knows that, for Monsieur de Buxieres made no secret

of it.”

“Claudet, the son of Claude de Buxieres?” ejaculated Julien, with

amazement.

“Yes; and if the deceased had had the time to make his will, you would

not be here now. But,” added the young girl, coloring, “don’t tell

Claudet I have spoken to you about it. I have been talking here too

long. Monsieur de Buxieres, will you have the goodness to reckon up your

money and give me a receipt?”

She had risen, and Julien gazed wonderingly at the pretty country girl

who had shown herself so sensible, so resolute, and so sincere. He bent

his head, collected the money on the table, scribbled hastily a receipt

and handed it to Reine.

“Thank you, Mademoiselle,” said he, “you are the first person who has

been frank with me, and I am grateful to you for it.”

“Au revoir, Monsieur de Buxieres.”

She had already gained the door while he made an awkward attempt to

follow her. She turned toward him with a smile on her lips and in her

eyes.

“Come, take courage!” she added, and then vanished.

Julien went back dreamily, and sat down again before the hearth. The

revelation made by Reine Vincart had completely astounded him. Such was

his happy inexperience of life, that he had not for a moment suspected

the real position of Manette and her son at the chateau. And it was this

young girl who had opened his eyes to the fact! He experienced a certain

degree of humiliation in having had so little perception. Now that

Reine’s explanation enabled him to view the matter from a different

standpoint, he found Claudet’s attitude toward him both intelligible

and excusable. In fact, the lad was acting in accordance with a very

legitimate feeling of mingled pride and anger. After all, he really was

Claude de Buxieres’s son--a natural son, certainly, but one who had been

implicitly acknowledged both in private and in public by his father. If

the latter had had time to draw up the incomplete will which had

been found, he would, to all appearances, have made Claudet his heir.

Therefore, the fortune of which Julien had become possessed, he owed to

some unexpected occurrence, a mere chance. Public opinion throughout the

entire village tacitly recognized and accepted the ‘grand chasserot’ as

son of the deceased, and if this recognition had been made legally, he

would have been rightful owner of half the property.

“Now that I have been made acquainted with this position of affairs,

what is my duty?” asked Julien of himself. Devout in feeling and in

practice, he was also very scrupulous in all matters of conscience, and

the reply was not long in coming: that both religion and uprightness

commanded him to indemnify Claudet for the wrong caused to him by the

carelessness of Claude de Buxieres. Reine had simply told him the facts

without attempting to give him any advice, but it was evident that,

according to her loyal and energetic way of thinking, there was

injustice to be repaired. Julien was conscious that by acting to that

effect he would certainly gain the esteem and approbation of his amiable

hostess of La Thuiliere, and he felt a secret satisfaction in the idea.

He rose suddenly, and, leaving the library, went to the kitchen, where

Manette Sejournant was busy preparing the breakfast.

“Where is your son?” said he. “I wish to speak with him.”

Manette looked inquiringly at him.

“My son,” she replied, “is in the garden, fixing up a box to take away

his little belongings in--he doesn’t want to stay any longer at other

peoples’ expense. And, by the way, Monsieur de Buxieres, have the

goodness to provide yourself with a servant to take my place; we shall

not finish the week here.”

Without making any reply, Julien went out by the door, leading to the

garden, and discovered Claudet really occupied in putting together the

sides of a packing-case. Although the latter saw the heir of the de

Buxieres family approaching, he continued driving in the nails without

appearing to notice his presence.

“Monsieur Claudet,” said Julien, “can you spare me a few minutes? I

should like to talk to you.”

Claudet raised his head, hesitated for a moment, then, throwing away his

hammer and putting on his loose jacket, muttered:

“I am at your service.”

They left the outhouse together, and entered an avenue of leafy

lime-trees, which skirted the banks of the stream.

“Monsieur,” said Julien, stopping in the middle of the walk, “excuse me

if I venture on a delicate subject--but I must do so--now that I know

all.”

“Beg pardon--what do you know?” demanded Claudet, reddening.

“I know that you are the son of my cousin de Buxieres,” replied the

young man with considerable emotion.

The ‘grand chasserot’ knitted his brows.

“Ah!” said he, bitterly, “my mother’s tongue has been too long, or else

that blind magpie of a notary has been gossiping, notwithstanding my

instructions.”

“No; neither your mother nor Maitre Arbillot has been speaking to me.

What I know I have learned from a stranger, and I know also that you

would be master here if Claude de Buxieres had taken the precaution to

write out his will. His negligence on that point has been a wrong to

you, which it is my duty to repair.”

“What’s that!” exclaimed Claudet. Then he muttered between his teeth:

“You owe me nothing. The law is on your side.”

“I am not in the habit of consulting the law when it is a question of

duty. Besides, Monsieur de Buxieres treated you openly as his son; if he

had done what he ought, made a legal acknowledgment, you would have the

right, even in default of a will, to one half of his patrimony. This

half I come to offer to you, and beg of you to accept it.”

Claudet was astonished, and opened his great, fierce brown eyes with

amazement. The proposal seemed so incredible that he thought he must be

dreaming, and mistrusted what he heard.

“What! You offer me half the inheritance?” faltered he.

“Yes; and I am ready to give you a certified deed of relinquishment as

soon as you wish--”

Claudet interrupted him with a violent shrug of the shoulders.

“I make but one condition,” pursued Julien.

“What is it?” asked Claudet, still on the defensive.

“That you will continue to live here, with me, as in your father’s

time.”

Claudet was nearly overcome by this last suggestion, but a lingering

feeling of doubt and a kind of innate pride prevented him from giving

way, and arrested the expression of gratitude upon his lips.

“What you propose is very generous, Monsieur,” said he, “but you have

not thought much about it, and later you might regret it. If I were to

stay here, I should be a restraint upon you--”

“On the contrary, you would be rendering me a service, for I feel myself

incapable of managing the property,” replied Julien, earnestly. Then,

becoming more confidential as his conscience was relieved of its burden,

he continued, pleasantly: “You see I am not vain about admitting the

fact. Come, cousin, don’t be more proud than I am. Accept freely what I

offer with hearty goodwill!”

As he concluded these words, he felt his hand seized, and affectionately

pressed in a strong, robust grip.

“You are a true de Buxieres!” exclaimed Claudet, choking with emotion.

“I accept--thanks--but, what have I to give you in exchange?--nothing

but my friendship; but that will be as firm as my grip, and will last

all my life.”

BOOK 2.

CHAPTER IV. THE DAWN OF LOVE

Winter had come, and with it all the inclement accompaniments usual in

this bleak and bitter mountainous country: icy rains, which, mingled

with sleet, washed away whirlpools of withered leaves that the swollen

streams tossed noisily into the ravines; sharp, cutting winds from the

north, bleak frosts hardening the earth and vitrifying the cascades;

abundant falls of snow, lasting sometimes an entire week. The roads had

become impassable. A thick, white crust covered alike the pasture-lands,

the stony levels, and the wooded slopes, where the branches creaked

under the weight of their snowy burdens. A profound silence encircled

the village, which seemed buried under the successive layers of

snowdrifts. Only here and there, occasionally, did a thin line of blue

smoke, rising from one of the white roofs, give evidence of any latent

life among the inhabitants. The Chateau de Buxieres stood in the midst

of a vast carpet of snow on which the sabots of the villagers had

outlined a narrow path, leading from the outer steps to the iron gate.

Inside, fires blazed on all the hearths, which, however, did not modify

the frigid atmosphere of the rudely-built upper rooms.

Julien de Buxieres was freezing, both physically and morally, in his

abode. His generous conduct toward Claudet had, in truth, gained him the

affection of the ‘grand chasserot’, made Manette as gentle as a lamb,

and caused a revulsion of feeling in his favor throughout the village;

but, although his material surroundings had become more congenial, he

still felt around him the chill of intellectual solitude. The days also

seemed longer since Claudet had taken upon himself the management of

all details. Julien found that re-reading his favorite books was not

sufficient occupation for the weary hours that dragged slowly along

between the rising and the setting of the sun. The gossipings of

Manette, the hunting stories of Claudet had no interest for young de

Buxieres, and the acquaintances he endeavored to make outside left only

a depressing feeling of ennui and disenchantment.

His first visit had been made to the cure of Vivey, where he hoped to

meet with some intellectual resources, and a tone of conversation more

in harmony with his tastes. In this expectation, also, he had been

disappointed. The Abbe Pernot was an amiable quinquagenarian, and a ‘bon

vivant’, whose mind inclined more naturally toward the duties of daily

life than toward meditation or contemplative studies. The ideal did

not worry him in the least; and when he had said his mass, read his

breviary, confessed the devout sinners and visited the sick, he gave the

rest of his time to profane but respectable amusements. He was of robust

temperament, with a tendency to corpulency, which he fought against by

taking considerable exercise; his face was round and good-natured, his

calm gray eyes reflected the tranquillity and uprightness of his soul,

and his genial nature was shown in his full smiling mouth, his thick,

wavy, gray hair, and his quick and cordial gestures.

When Julien was ushered into the presbytery, he found the cure installed

in a small room, which he used for working in, and which was littered

up with articles bearing a very distant connection to his pious calling:

nets for catching larks, hoops and other nets for fishing, stuffed

birds, and a collection of coleopterx. At the other end of the room

stood a dusty bookcase, containing about a hundred volumes, which seemed

to have been seldom consulted. The Abbe, sitting on a low chair in the

chimney-corner, his cassock raised to his knees, was busy melting glue

in an old earthen pot.

“Aha, good-day! Monsieur de Buxieres,” said he in his rich, jovial

voice, “you have caught me in an occupation not very canonical; but

what of it? As Saint James says: ‘The bow can not be always bent.’ I am

preparing some lime-twigs, which I shall place in the Bois des Ronces

as soon as the snow is melted. I am not only a fisher of souls, but I

endeavor also to catch birds in my net, not so much for the purpose of

varying my diet, as of enriching my collection!”

“You have a great deal of spare time on your hands, then?” inquired

Julien, with some surprise.

“Well, yes--yes--quite a good deal. The parish is not very extensive,

as you have doubtless noticed; my parishioners are in the best possible

health, thank God! and they live to be very old. I have barely two or

three marriages in a year, and as many burials, so that, you see, one

must fill up one’s time somehow to escape the sin of idleness. Every

man must have a hobby. Mine is ornithology; and yours, Monsieur de

Buxieres?”

Julien was tempted to reply: “Mine, for the moment, is ennui.” He was

just in the mood to unburden himself to the cure as to the mental thirst

that was drying up his faculties, but a certain instinct warned him

that the Abbe was not a man to comprehend the subtle complexities of his

psychological condition, so he contented himself with replying, briefly:

“I read a great deal. I have, over there in the chateau, a pretty fair

collection of historical and religious works, and they are at your

service, Monsieur le Cure!”

“A thousand thanks,” replied the Abbe Pernot, making a slight grimace;

“I am not much of a reader, and my little stock is sufficient for my

needs. You remember what is said in the Imitation: ‘Si scires totam

Bibliam exterius et omnium philosophorum dicta, quid totum prodesset

sine caritate Dei et gratia?’ Besides, it gives me a headache to read

too steadily. I require exercise in the open air. Do you hunt or fish,

Monsieur de Buxieres?”

“Neither the one nor the other.”

“So much the worse for you. You will find the time hang very heavily on

your hands in this country, where there are so few sources of amusement.

But never fear! You can not be always reading, and when the fine weather

comes you will yield to the temptation; all the more likely because you

have Claudet Sejournant with you. A jolly fellow he is; there is not one

like him for killing a snipe or sticking a trout! Our trout here on the

Aubette, Monsieur de Buxieres, are excellent--of the salmon kind, and

very meaty.”

Then came an interval of silence. The Abbe began to suspect that this

conversation was not one of profound interest to his visitor, and he

resumed:

“Speaking of Claudet, Monsieur, allow me to offer you my

congratulations. You have acted in a most Christian-like and equitable

manner, in making amends for the inconceivable negligence of the

deceased Claude de Buxieres. Then, on the other hand, Claudet

deserves what you have done for him. He is a good fellow, a little too

quick-tempered and violent perhaps, but he has a heart of gold. Ah!

it would have been no use for the deceased to deny it--the blood of de

Buxieres runs in his veins!”

“If public rumor is to be believed,” said Julien timidly, rising to go,

“my deceased cousin Claude was very much addicted to profane pleasures.”

“Yes, yes, indeed!” sighed the Abbe, “he was a devil incarnate--but

what a magnificent man! What a wonderful huntsman! Notwithstanding his

backslidings, there was a great deal of good in him, and I am fain to

believe that God has taken him under His protecting mercy.”

Julien took his leave, and returned to the chateau, very much

discouraged. “This priest,” thought he to himself, “is a man of

expediency. He allows himself certain indulgences which are to be

regretted, and his mind is becoming clogged by continual association

with carnal-minded men. His thoughts are too much given to earthly

things, and I have no more faith in him than in the rest of them.”

So he shut himself up again in his solitude, with one more illusion

destroyed. He asked himself, and his heart became heavy at the thought,

whether, in course of time, he also would undergo this stultification,

this moral depression, which ends by lowering us to the level of the

low-minded people among whom we live.

Among all the persons he had met since his arrival at Vivey, only

one had impressed him as being sympathetic and attractive: Reine

Vincart--and even her energy was directed toward matters that Julien

looked upon as secondary. And besides, Reine was a woman, and he was

afraid of women. He believed with Ecclesiastes the preacher, that “they

are more bitter than death... and whoso pleaseth God shall escape from

them.” He had therefore no other refuge but in his books or his own

sullen reflections, and, consequently, his old enemy, hypochondria,

again made him its prey.

Toward the beginning of January, the snow in the valley had somewhat

melted, and a light frost made access to the woods possible. As the

hunting season seldom extended beyond the first days of February, the

huntsmen were all eager to take advantage of the few remaining weeks to

enjoy their favorite pastime. Every day the forest resounded with the

shouts of beaters-up and the barking of the hounds. From Auberive,

Praslay and Grancey, rendezvous were made in the woods of Charbonniere

or Maigrefontaine; nothing was thought of but the exploits of certain

marksmen, the number of pieces bagged, and the joyous outdoor breakfasts

which preceded each occasion. One evening, as Julien, more moody than

usual, stood yawning wearily and leaning on the corner of the stove,

Claudet noticed him, and was touched with pity for this young fellow,

who had so little idea how to employ his time, his youth, or his money.

He felt impelled, as a conscientious duty, to draw him out of his

unwholesome state of mind, and initiate him into the pleasures of

country life.

“You do not enjoy yourself with us, Monsieur Julien,” said he, kindly;

“I can’t bear to see you so downhearted. You are ruining yourself with

poring all day long over your books, and the worst of it is, they do not

take the frowns out of your face. Take my word for it, you must change

your way of living, or you will be ill. Come, now, if you will trust in

me, I will undertake to cure your ennui before a week is over.”

“And what is your remedy, Claudet?” demanded Julien, with a forced

smile.

“A very simple one: just let your books go, since they do not succeed

in interesting you, and live the life that every one else leads. The de

Buxieres, your ancestors, followed the same plan, and had no fault to

find with it. You are in a wolf country--well, you must howl with the

wolves!”

“My dear fellow,” replied Julien, shaking his head, “one can not remake

one’s self. The wolves themselves would discover that I howled out of

tune, and would send me back to my books.”

“Nonsense! try, at any rate. You can not imagine what pleasure there is

in coursing through the woods, and suddenly, at a sharp turn, catching

sight of a deer in the distance, then galloping to the spot where he

must pass, and holding him with the end of your gun! You have no idea

what an appetite one gets with such exercise, nor how jolly it is

to breakfast afterward, all together, seated round some favorite old

beech-tree. Enjoy your youth while you have it. Time enough to stay in

your chimney-corner and spit in the ashes when rheumatism has got hold

of you. Perhaps you will say you never have followed the hounds, and do

not know how to handle a gun?”

“That is the exact truth.”

“Possibly, but appetite comes with eating, and when once you have tasted

of the pleasures of the chase, you will want to imitate your companions.

Now, see here: we have organized a party at Charbonniere to-morrow,

for the gentlemen of Auberive; there will be some people you

know--Destourbet, justice of the Peace, the clerk Seurrot, Maitre

Arbillot and the tax-collector, Boucheseiche. Hutinet went over the

ground yesterday, and has appointed the meeting for ten o’clock at the

Belle-Etoile. Come with us; there will be good eating and merriment, and

also some fine shooting, I pledge you my word!”

Julien refused at first, but Claudet insisted, and showed him the

necessity of getting more intimately acquainted with the notables of

Auberive--people with whom he would be continually coming in contact as

representing the administration of justice and various affairs in the

canton. He urged so well that young de Buxieres ended by giving his

consent. Manette received immediate instructions to prepare eatables for

Hutinet, the keeper, to take at early dawn to the Belle-Etoile, and it

was decided that the company should start at precisely eight o’clock.

The next morning, at the hour indicated, the ‘grand chasserot’

was already in the courtyard with his two hounds, Charbonneau and

Montagnard, who were leaping and barking sonorously around him. Julien,

reminded of his promise by the unusual early uproar, dressed himself

with a bad grace, and went down to join Claudet, who was bristling with

impatience. They started. There had been a sharp frost during the night;

some hail had fallen, and the roads were thinly coated with a white

dust, called by the country people, in their picturesque language, “a

sugarfrost” of snow. A thick fog hung over the forest, so that they had

to guess their way; but Claudet knew every turn and every sidepath,

and thus he and his companion arrived by the most direct line at the

rendezvous. They soon began to hear the barking of the dogs, to which

Montagnard and Charbonneau replied with emulative alacrity, and

finally, through the mist, they distinguished the group of huntsmen from

Auberive.

The Belle-Etoile was a circular spot, surrounded by ancient ash-trees,

and formed the central point for six diverging alleys which stretched

out indefinitely into the forest. The monks of Auberive, at the epoch

when they were the lords and owners of the land, had made this place

a rendezvous for huntsmen, and had provided a table and some stone

benches, which, thirty years ago, were still in existence. The

enclosure, which had been chosen for the breakfast on the present

occasion, was irradiated by a huge log-fire; a very respectable display

of bottles, bread, and various eatables covered the stone table, and the

dogs, attached by couples to posts, pulled at their leashes and barked

in chorus, while their masters, grouped around the fire, warmed their

benumbed fingers over the flames, and tapped their heels while waiting

for the last-comers.

At sight of Julien and Claudet, there was a joyous hurrah of welcome.

Justice Destourbet exchanged a ceremonious hand-shake with the new

proprietor of the chateau. The scant costume and tight gaiters of the

huntsman’s attire, displayed more than ever the height and slimness of

the country magistrate. By his side, the registrar Seurrot, his legs

encased in blue linen spatterdashes, his back bent, his hands crossed

comfortably over his “corporation,” sat roasting himself at the flame,

while grumbling when the wind blew the smoke in his eyes. Arbillot, the

notary, as agile and restless as a lizard, kept going from one to the

other with an air of mysterious importance. He came up to Claudet, drew

him aside, and showed him a little figure in a case.

“Look here!” whispered he, “we shall have some fun; as I passed by the

Abbe Pernot’s this morning, I stole one of his stuffed squirrels.”

He stooped down, and with an air of great mystery poured into his ear

the rest of the communication, at the close of which his small black

eyes twinkled maliciously, and he passed the end of his tongue over his

frozen moustache.

“Come with me,” continued he; “it will be a good joke on the collector.”

He drew Claudet and Hutinet toward one of the trenches, where the fog

hid them from sight.

During this colloquy, Boucheseiche the collector, against whom they were

thus plotting, had seized upon Julien de Buxieres, and was putting

him through a course of hunting lore. Justin Boucheseiche was a man of

remarkable ugliness; big, bony, freckled, with red hair, hairy hands,

and a loud, rough voice.

He wore a perfectly new hunting costume, cap and gaiters of leather, a

havana-colored waistcoat, and had a complete assortment of pockets of

all sizes for the cartridges. He pretended to be a great authority on

all matters relating to the chase, although he was, in fact, the worst

shot in the whole canton; and when he had the good luck to meet with

a newcomer, he launched forth on the recital of his imaginary prowess,

without any pity for the hearer. So that, having once got hold of

Julien, he kept by his side when they sat down to breakfast.

All these country huntsmen were blessed with healthy appetites. They

ate heartily, and drank in the same fashion, especially the collector

Boucheseiche, who justified his name by pouring out numerous bumpers of

white wine. During the first quarter of an hour nothing could be heard

but the noise of jaws masticating, glasses and forks clinking; but when

the savory pastries, the cold game and the hams had disappeared, and

had been replaced by goblets of hot Burgundy and boiling coffee, then

tongues became loosened. Julien, to his infinite disgust, was forced

again to be present at a conversation similar to the one at the time of

the raising of the seals, the coarseness of which had so astonished and

shocked him. After the anecdotes of the chase were exhausted, the guests

began to relate their experiences among the fair sex, losing nothing of

the point from the effect of the numerous empty bottles around. All

the scandalous cases in the courts of justice, all the coarse jokes

and adventures of the district, were related over again. Each tried

to surpass his neighbor. To hear these men of position boast of their

gallantries with all classes, one would have thought that the entire

canton underwent periodical changes and became one vast Saturnalia,

where rustic satyrs courted their favorite nymphs. But nothing came of

it, after all; once the feast was digested, and they had returned to the

conjugal abode, all these terrible gay Lotharios became once more

chaste and worthy fathers of families. Nevertheless, Julien, who was

unaccustomed to such bibulous festivals and such unbridled license of

language, took it all literally, and reproached himself more than ever

with having yielded to Claudet’s entreaties.

At last the table was deserted, and the marking of the limits of the

hunt began.

As they were following the course of the trenches, the notary stopped

suddenly at the foot of an ash-tree, and took the arm of the collector,

who was gently humming out of tune.

“Hush! Collector,” he whispered, “do you see that fellow up there, on

the fork of the tree? He seems to be jeering at us.”

At the same time he pointed out a squirrel, sitting perched upon a

branch, about halfway up the tree. The animal’s tail stood up behind

like a plume, his ears were upright, and he had his front paws in his

mouth, as if cracking a nut.

“A squirrel!” cried the impetuous Boucheseiche, immediately falling into

the snare; “let no one touch him, gentlemen--I will settle his account

for him.”

The rest of the hunters had drawn back in a circle, and were exchanging

sly glances. The collector loaded his gun, shouldered it, covered the

squirrel, and then let go.

“Hit!” exclaimed he, triumphantly, as soon as the smoke had dispersed.

In fact, the animal had slid down the branch, head first, but, somehow,

he did not fall to the ground.

“He has caught hold of something,” said the notary, facetiously.

“Ah! you will hold on, you rascal, will you?” shouted Boucheseiche,

beside himself with excitement, and the next moment he sent a second

shot, which sent the hair flying in all directions.

The creature remained in the same position. Then there was a general

roar.

“He is quite obstinate!” remarked the clerk, slyly.

Boucheseiche, astonished, looked attentively at the tree, then at the

laughing crowd, and could not understand the situation.

“If I were in your place, Collector,” said Claudet, in an insinuating

manner, “I should climb up there, to see--”

But Justin Boucheseiche was not a climber. He called a youngster, who

followed the hunt as beater-up.

“I will give you ten sous,” said he; “to mount that tree and bring me my

squirrel!”

The young imp did not need to be told twice. In the twinkling of an eye

he threw his arms around the tree, and reached the fork. When there, he

uttered an exclamation.

“Well?” cried the collector; impatiently, “throw him down!”

“I can’t, Monsieur,” replied the boy, “the squirrel is fastened by a

wire.” Then the laughter burst forth more boisterously than before.

“A wire, you young rascal! Are you making fun of me?” shouted

Boucheseiche, “come down this moment!”

“Here he is, Monsieur,” replied the lad, throwing himself down with the

squirrel which he tossed at the collector’s feet.

When Boucheseiche verified the fact that the squirrel was a stuffed

specimen, he gave a resounding oath.

“In the name of---! who is the miscreant that has perpetrated this

joke?”

No one could reply for laughing. Then ironical cheers burst forth from

all sides.

“Brave Boucheseiche! That’s a kind of game one doesn’t often get hold

of!”

“We never shall see any more of that kind!”

“Let us carry Boucheseiche in triumph!”

And so they went on, marching around the tree. Arbillot seized a slip of

ivy and crowned Boucheseiche, while all the others clapped their hands

and capered in front of the collector, who, at last, being a good fellow

at heart, joined in the laugh at his own expense.

Julien de Buxieres alone could not share the general hilarity. The

uproar caused by this simple joke did not even chase the frown from

his brow. He was provoked at not being able to bring himself within

the diapason of this somewhat vulgar gayety: he was aware that his

melancholy countenance, his black clothes, his want of sympathy jarred

unpleasantly on the other jovial guests. He did not intend any longer

to play the part of a killjoy. Without saying anything to Claudet,

therefore, he waited until the huntsmen had scattered in the brushwood,

and then, diving into a trench, in an opposite direction, he gave them

all the slip, and turned in the direction of Planche-au-Vacher.

As he walked slowly, treading under foot the dry frosty leaves, he

reflected how the monotonous crackling of this foliage, once so full

of life, now withered and rendered brittle by the frost, seemed to

represent his own deterioration of feeling. It was a sad and suitable

accompaniment of his own gloomy thoughts.

He was deeply mortified at the sorry figure he had presented at the

breakfast-table. He acknowledged sorrowfully to himself that, at

twenty-eight years of age, he was less young and less really alive than

all these country squires, although all, except Claudet, had passed

their fortieth year. Having missed his season of childhood, was he

also doomed to have no youth? Others found delight in the most ordinary

amusements, why, to him, did life seem so insipid and colorless?

Why was he so unfortunately constituted that all human joys lost their

sweetness as soon as he opened his heart to them? Nothing made any

powerful impression on him; everything that happened seemed to be a

perpetual reiteration, a song sung for the hundredth time, a story a

hundred times related.

He was like a new vase, cracked before it had served its use, and he

felt thoroughly ashamed of the weakness and infirmity of his inner self.

Thus pondering, he traversed much ground, hardly knowing where he

was going. The fog, which now filled the air and which almost hid the

trenches with its thin bluish veil, made it impossible to discover his

bearings. At last he reached the border of some pastureland, which he

crossed, and then he perceived, not many steps away, some buildings with

tiled roofs, which had something familiar to him in their aspect. After

he had gone a few feet farther he recognized the court and facade of

La Thuiliere; and, as he looked over the outer wall, a sight altogether

novel and unexpected presented itself.

Standing in the centre of the courtyard, her outline showing in dark

relief against the light “sugar-frosting,” stood Reine Vincart, her back

turned to Julien. She held up a corner of her apron with one hand, and

with the other took out handfuls of grain, which she scattered among

the birds fluttering around her. At each moment the little band was

augmented by a new arrival. All these little creatures were of species

which do not emigrate, but pass the winter in the shelter of the wooded

dells. There were blackbirds with yellow bills, who advanced boldly

over the snow up to the very feet of the distributing fairy; robin

redbreasts, nearly as tame, hopping gayly over the stones, bobbing their

heads and puffing out their red breasts; and tomtits, prudently watching

awhile from the tops of neighboring trees, then suddenly taking flight,

and with quick, sharp cries, seizing the grain on the wing. It was

charming to see all these little hungry creatures career around Reine’s

head, with a joyous fluttering of wings. When the supply was exhausted,

the young girl shook her apron, turned around, and recognized Julien.

“Were you there, Monsieur de Buxieres?” she exclaimed; “come inside the

courtyard! Don’t be afraid; they have finished their meal. Those are

my boarders,” she added, pointing to the birds, which, one by one, were

taking their flight across the fields. “Ever since the first fall of

snow, I have been distributing grain to them once a day. I think they

must tell one another under the trees there, for every day their number

increases. But I don’t complain of that. Just think, these are not birds

of passage; they do not leave us at the first cold blast, to find a

warmer climate; the least we can do is to recompense them by feeding

them when the weather is too severe! Several know me already, and are

very tame. There is a blackbird in particular, and a blue tomtit, that

are both extremely saucy!”

These remarks were of a nature to please Julien. They went straight to

the heart of the young mystic; they recalled to his mind St. Francis of

Assisi, preaching to the fish and conversing with the birds, and he

felt an increase of sympathy for this singular young girl. He would have

liked to find a pretext for remaining longer with her, but his natural

timidity in the presence of women paralyzed his tongue, and, already,

fearing he should be thought intruding, he had raised his hat to take

leave, when Reine addressed him:

“I do not ask you to come into the house, because I am obliged to go

to the sale of the Ronces woods, in order to speak to the men who are

cultivating the little lot that we have bought. I wager, Monsieur de

Buxieres, that you are not yet acquainted with our woods?”

“That is true,” he replied, smiling.

“Very well, if you will accompany me, I will show you the canton they

are about to develop. It will not be time lost, for it will be a good

thing for the people who are working for you to know that you are

interested in their labors.”

Julien replied that he should be happy to be under her guidance.

“In that case,” said Reine, “wait for me here. I shall be back in a

moment.”

She reappeared a few minutes later, wearing a white hood with a cape,

and a knitted woolen shawl over her shoulders.

“This way!” said she, showing a path that led across the pasture-lands.

They walked along silently at first. The sky was clear, the wind had

freshened. Suddenly, as if by enchantment, the fog, which had hung over

the forest, became converted into needles of ice. Each tree was powdered

over with frozen snow, and on the hillsides overshadowing the valley the

massive tufts of forest were veiled in a bluish-white vapor.

Never had Julien de Buxieres been so long in tete-a-tete with a young

woman. The extreme solitude, the surrounding silence, rendered this dual

promenade more intimate and also more embarrassing to a young man

who was alarmed at the very thought of a female countenance. His

ecclesiastical education had imbued Julien with very rigorous ideas as

to the careful and reserved behavior which should be maintained between

the sexes, and his intercourse with the world had been too infrequent

for the idea to have been modified in any appreciable degree. It was

natural, therefore, that this walk across the fields in the company

of Reine should assume an exaggerated importance in his eyes. He felt

himself troubled and yet happy in the chance afforded him to become more

closely acquainted with this young girl, toward whom a secret sympathy

drew him more and more. But he did not know how to begin conversation,

and the more he cudgelled his brains to find a way of opening the

attack, the more he found himself at sea. Once more Reine came to his

assistance.

“Well, Monsieur de Buxieres,” said she, “do matters go more to your

liking now? You have acted most generously toward Claudet, and he ought

to be pleased.”

“Has he spoken to you, then?”

“No; not himself, but good news, like bad, flies fast, and all the

villagers are singing your praises.”

“I only did a very simple and just thing,” replied Julien.

“Precisely, but those are the very things that are the hardest to do.

And according as they are done well or ill, so is the person that does

them judged by others.”

“You have thought favorably of me then, Mademoiselle Vincart,” he

ventured, with a timid smile.

“Yes; but my opinion is of little importance. You must be pleased with

yourself--that is more essential. I am sure that it must be pleasanter

now for you to live at Vivey?”

“Hm!--more bearable, certainly.”

The conversation languished again. As they approached the confines

of the farm they heard distant barking, and then the voices of human

beings. Finally two gunshots broke on the air.

“Ha, ha!” exclaimed Reine, listening, “the Auberive Society is following

the hounds, and Claudet must be one of the party. How is it you were not

with them?”

“Claudet took me there, and I was at the breakfast--but, Mademoiselle,

I confess that that kind of amusement is not very tempting to me. At the

first opportunity I made my escape, and left the party to themselves.”

“Well, now, to be frank with you, you were wrong. Those gentlemen will

feel aggrieved, for they are very sensitive. You see, when one has to

live with people, one must yield to their customs, and not pooh-pooh

their amusements.”

“You are saying exactly what Claudet said last night.”

“Claudet was right.”

“What am I to do? The chase has no meaning for me. I can not feel any

interest in the butchery of miserable animals that are afterward sent

back to their quarters.”

“I can understand that you do not care for the chase for its own sake;

but the ride in the open air, in the open forest? Our forests are so

beautiful--look there, now! does not that sight appeal to you?”

From the height they had now gained, they could see all over the valley,

illuminated at intervals by the pale rays of the winter sun. Wherever

its light touched the brushwood, the frosty leaves quivered like

diamonds, while a milky cloud enveloped the parts left in shadow. Now

and then, a slight breeze stirred the branches, causing a shower of

sparkling atoms to rise in the air, like miniature rainbows. The entire

forest seemed clothed in the pure, fairy-like robes of a virgin bride.

“Yes, that is beautiful,” admitted Julien, hesitatingly; “I do not think

I ever saw anything similar: at any rate, it is you who have caused me

to notice it for the first time. But,” continued he, “as the sun rises

higher, all this phantasmagoria will melt and vanish. The beauty of

created things lasts only a moment, and serves as a warning for us not

to set our hearts on things that perish.”

Reine gazed at him with astonishment.

“Do you really think so?” exclaimed she: “that is very sad, and I do not

know enough to give an opinion. All I know is, that if God has created

such beautiful things it is in order that we may enjoy them. And that is

the reason why I worship these woods with all my heart. Ah! if you could

only see them in the month of June, when the foliage is at its fulness.

Flowers everywhere--yellow, blue, crimson! Music also everywhere--the

song of birds, the murmuring of waters, and the balmy scents in the air.

Then there are the lime-trees, the wild cherry, and the hedges red with

strawberries--it is intoxicating. And, whatever you may say, Monsieur de

Buxieres, I assure you that the beauty of the forest is not a thing to

be despised. Every season it is renewed: in autumn, when the wild fruits

and tinted leaves contribute their wealth of color; in winter, with its

vast carpets of snow, from which the tall ash springs to such a stately

height-look, now! up there!”

They were in the depths of the forest. Before them were colonnades of

slim, graceful trees, rising in one unbroken line toward the skies,

their slender branches forming a dark network overhead, and their lofty

proportions lessening in the distance, until lost in the solemn gloom

beyond. A religious silence prevailed, broken only by the occasional

chirp of the wren, or the soft pattering of some smaller fourfooted

race.

“How beautiful!” exclaimed Reine, with animation; “one might imagine

one’s self in a cathedral! Oh! how I love the forest; a feeling of awe

and devotion comes over me, and makes me want to kneel down and pray!”

Julien looked at her with an uneasy kind of admiration. She was walking

slowly now, grave and thoughtful, as if in church. Her white hood had

fallen on her shoulders, and her hair, slightly stirred by the wind,

floated like a dark aureole around her pale face. Her luminous eyes

gleamed between the double fringes of her eyelids, and her mobile

nostrils quivered with suppressed emotion. As she passed along, the

brambles from the wayside, intermixed with ivy, and other hardy plants,

caught on the hem of her dress and formed a verdant train, giving

her the appearance of the high-priestess of some mysterious temple of

Nature. At this moment, she identified herself so perfectly with her

nickname, “queen of the woods,” that Julien, already powerfully affected

by her peculiar and striking style of beauty, began to experience a

superstitious dread of her influence. His Catholic scruples, or the

remembrance of certain pious lectures administered in his childhood,

rendered him distrustful, and he reproached himself for the interest

he took in the conversation of this seductive creature. He recalled

the legends of temptations to which the Evil One used to subject the

anchorites of old, by causing to appear before them the attractive but

illusive forms of the heathen deities. He wondered whether he were not

becoming the sport of the same baleful influence; if, like the Lamias

and Dryads of antiquity, this queen of the woods were not some spirit of

the elements, incarnated in human form and sent to him for the purpose

of dragging his soul down to perdition.

In this frame of mind he followed in her footsteps, cautiously, and at a

distance, when she suddenly turned, as if waiting for him to rejoin her.

He then perceived that they had reached the end of the copse, and before

them lay an open space, on which the cut lumber lay in cords, forming

dark heaps on the frosty ground. Here and there were allotments of

chosen trees and poles, among which a thin spiral of smoke indicated the

encampment of the cutters. Reine made straight for them, and immediately

presented the new owner of the chateau to the workmen. They made their

awkward obeisances, scrutinizing him in the mistrustful manner customary

with the peasants of mountainous regions when they meet strangers.

The master workman then turned to Reine, replying to her remarks in a

respectful but familiar tone:

“Make yourself easy, mamselle, we shall do our best and rush things in

order to get through with the work. Besides, if you will come this way

with me, you will see that there is no idling; we are just now going to

fell an oak, and before a quarter of an hour is over it will be lying on

the ground, cut off as neatly as if with a razor.”

They drew near the spot where the first strokes of the axe were already

resounding. The giant tree did not seem affected by them, but remained

haughty and immovable. Then the blows redoubled until the trunk began to

tremble from the base to the summit, like a living thing. The steel

had made the bark, the sapwood, and even the core of the tree, fly

in shivers; but the oak had resumed its impassive attitude, and bore

stoically the assaults of the workmen. Looking upward, as it reared

its proud and stately head, one would have affirmed that it never could

fall. Suddenly the woodsmen fell back; there was a moment of solemn and

terrible suspense; then the enormous trunk heaved and plunged down among

the brushwood with an alarming crash of breaking branches. A sound as of

lamentation rumbled through the icy forest, and then all was still.

The men, with unconscious emotion, stood contemplating the monarch oak

lying prostrate on the ground. Reine had turned pale; her dark eyes

glistened with tears.

“Let us go,” murmured she to Julien; “this death of a tree affects me as

if it were that of a Christian.”

They took leave of the woodsmen, and reentered the forest. Reine kept

silence and her companion was at a loss to resume the conversation; so

they journeyed along together quietly until they reached a border line,

whence they could perceive the smoke from the roofs of Vivey.

“You have only to go straight down the hill to reach your home,” said

she, briefly; “au revoir, Monsieur de Buxieres.”

Thus they quitted each other, and, looking back, he saw that

she slackened her speed and went dreamily on in the direction of

Planche-au-Vacher.

CHAPTER V. LOVE’S INDISCRETION

In the mountainous region of Langres, spring can hardly be said to

appear before the end of May. Until that time the cold weather holds its

own; the white frosts, and the sharp, sleety April showers, as well

as the sudden windstorms due to the malign influence of the ice-gods,

arrest vegetation, and only a few of the more hardy plants venture to

put forth their trembling shoots until later. But, as June approaches

and the earth becomes warmed through by the sun, a sudden metamorphosis

is effected. Sometimes a single night is sufficient for the floral

spring to burst forth in all its plenitude. The hedges are alive with

lilies and woodruffs; the blue columbines shake their foolscap-like

blossoms along the green side-paths; the milky spikes of the Virgin

plant rise slender and tall among the bizarre and many-colored orchids.

Mile after mile, the forest unwinds its fairy show of changing scenes.

Sometimes one comes upon a spot of perfect verdure; at other times one

wanders in almost complete darkness under the thick interlacing boughs

of the ashtrees, through which occasional gleams of light fall on the

dark soil or on the spreading ferns. Now the wanderer emerges upon

an open space so full of sunshine that the strawberries are already

ripening; near them are stacked the tender young trees, ready for

spacing, and the billets of wood piled up and half covered with thistle

and burdock leaves; and a little farther away, half hidden by tall

weeds, teeming with insects, rises the peaked top of the woodsman’s hut.

Here one walks beside deep, grassy trenches, which appear to continue

without end, along the forest level; farther, the wild mint and the

centaurea perfume the shady nooks, the oaks and lime-trees arch their

spreading branches, and the honeysuckle twines itself round the knotty

shoots of the hornbeam, whence the thrush gives forth her joyous,

sonorous notes.

Not only in the forest, but also in the park belonging to the chateau,

and in the village orchards, spring had donned a holiday costume.

Through the open windows, between the massive bunches of lilacs,

hawthorn, and laburnum blossoms, Julien de Buxieres caught glimpses of

rolling meadows and softly tinted vistas. The gentle twittering of the

birds and the mysterious call of the cuckoo, mingled with the perfume

of flowers, stole into his study, and produced a sense of enjoyment as

novel to him as it was delightful. Having until the present time lived a

sedentary life in cities, he had had no opportunity of experiencing this

impression of nature in her awakening and luxuriant aspect; never had

he felt so completely under the seductive influence of the goddess Maia

than at this season when the abundant sap exudes in a white foam from

the trunk of the willow; when between the plant world and ourselves a

magnetic current seems to exist, which seeks to wed their fraternizing

emanations with our own personality. He was oppressed by the vividness

of the verdure, intoxicated with the odor of vegetation, agitated by the

confused music of the birds, and in this May fever of excitement, his

thoughts wandered with secret delight to Reine Vincart, to this queen

of the woods, who was the personification of all the witchery of the

forest. Since their January promenade in the glades of Charbonniere, he

had seen her at a distance, sometimes on Sundays in the little church at

Vivey, sometimes like a fugitive apparition at the turn of a road. They

had also exchanged formal salutations, but had not spoken to each other.

More than once, after the night had fallen, Julien had stopped in front

of the courtyard of La Thuiliere, and watched the lamps being lighted

inside. But he had not ventured to knock at the door of the house; a

foolish timidity had prevented him; so he had returned to the chateau,

dissatisfied and reproaching himself for allowing his awkward shyness to

interpose, as it were, a wall of ice between himself and the only person

whose acquaintance seemed to him desirable.

At other times he would become alarmed at the large place a woman

occupied in his thoughts, and he congratulated himself on having

resisted the dangerous temptation of seeing Mademoiselle Vincart again.

He acknowledged that this singular girl had for him an attraction

against which he ought to be on his guard. Reine might be said to live

alone at La Thuiliere, for her father could hardly be regarded seriously

as a protector. Julien’s visits might have compromised her, and the

young man’s severe principles of rectitude forbade him to cause scandal

which he could not repair. He was not thinking of marriage, and even had

his thoughts inclined that way, the proprieties and usages of society

which he had always in some degree respected, would not allow him to

wed a peasant girl. It was evident, therefore, that both prudence and

uprightness would enjoin him to carry on any future relations with

Mademoiselle Vincart with the greatest possible reserve.

Nevertheless, and in spite of these sage reflections, the enchanting

image of Reine haunted him more than was at all reasonable. Often,

during his hours of watchfulness, he would see her threading the avenues

of the forest, her dark hair half floating in the breeze, and wearing

her white hood and her skirt bordered with ivy. Since the spring had

returned, she had become associated in his mind with all the magical

effects of nature’s renewal. He discovered the liquid light of her dark

eyes in the rippling darkness of the streams; the lilies recalled the

faintly tinted paleness of her cheeks; the silene roses, scattered

throughout the hedges, called forth the remembrance of the young

maiden’s rosy lips, and the vernal odor of the leaves appeared to him

like an emanation of her graceful and wholesome nature.

This state of feeling began to act like an obsession, a sort of

witchcraft, which alarmed him. What was she really, this strange

creature? A peasant indeed, apparently; but there was also something

more refined and cultivated about her, due, doubtless, to her having

received her education in a city school. She both felt and expressed

herself differently from ordinary country girls, although retaining the

frankness and untutored charm of rustic natures. She exercised an uneasy

fascination over Julien, and at times he returned to the superstitious

impression made upon him by Reine’s behavior and discourse in the

forest. He again questioned with himself whether this female form,

in its untamed beauty, did not enfold some spirit of temptation, some

insidious fairy, similar to the Melusine, who appeared to Count Raymond

in the forest of Poitiers.

Most of the time he would himself laugh at this extravagant supposition,

but, while endeavoring to make light of his own cowardice, the idea

still haunted and tormented him. Sometimes, in the effort to rid himself

of the persistence of his own imagination, he would try to exorcise the

demon who had got hold of him, and this exorcism consisted in despoiling

the image of his temptress of the veil of virginal purity with which his

admiration had first invested her. Who could assure him, after all, that

this girl, with her independent ways, living alone at her farm,

running through the woods at all hours, was as irreproachable as he

had imagined? In the village, certainly, she was respected by all; but

people were very tolerant--very easy, in fact--on the question of morals

in this district, where the gallantries of Claude de Buxieres were

thought quite natural, where the illegitimacy of Claudet offended

no one’s sense of the proprieties, and where the after-dinner

conversations, among the class considered respectable, were such as

Julien had listened to with repugnance. Nevertheless, even in his most

suspicious moods, Julien had never dared broach the subject to Claudet.

Every time that the name of Reine Vincart had come to his lips, a

feeling of bashfulness, in addition to his ordinary timidity, had

prevented him from interrogating Claudet concerning the character of

this mysterious queen of the woods. Like all novices in love-affairs

Julien dreaded that his feelings should be divined, at the mere mention

of the young girl’s name. He preferred to remain isolated, concentrating

in himself his desires, his trouble and his doubts.

Yet, whatever efforts he made, and however firmly he adhered to his

resolution of silence, the hypochondria from which he suffered could

not escape the notice of the ‘grand chasserot’. He was not clear-sighted

enough to discern the causes, but he could observe the effects. It

provoked him to find that all his efforts to enliven his cousin had

proved futile. He had cudgelled his brains to comprehend whence came

these fits of terrible melancholy, and, judging Julien by himself, came

to the conclusion that his ennui proceeded from an excess of strictness

and good behavior.

“Monsieur de Buxieres,” said he, one evening when they were walking

silently, side by side, in the avenues of the park, which resounded with

the song of the nightingales, “there is one thing that troubles me, and

that is that you do not confide in me.”

“What makes you think so, Claudet?” demanded Julien, with surprise.

“Paybleu! the way you act. You are, if I may say so, too secretive.

When you wanted to make amends for Claude de Buxieres’s negligence,

and proposed that I should live here with you, I accepted without any

ceremony. I hoped that in giving me a place at your fire and your table,

you would also give me one in your affections, and that you would allow

me to share your sorrows, like a true brother comrade--”

“I assure you, my dear fellow, that you are mistaken. If I had any

serious trouble on my mind, you should be the first to know it.”

“Oh! that’s all very well to say; but you are unhappy all the same--one

can see it in your mien, and shall I tell you the reason? It is that you

are too sedate, Monsieur de Buxieres; you have need of a sweetheart to

brighten up your days.”

“Ho, ho!” replied Julien, coloring, “do you wish to have me married,

Claudet?”

“Ah! that’s another affair. No; but still I should like to see you take

some interest in a woman--some gay young person who would rouse you up

and make you have a good time. There is no lack of such in the district,

and you would only have the trouble of choosing.”

M. de Buxieres’s color deepened, and he was visibly annoyed.

“That is a singular proposition,” exclaimed he, after awhile; “do you

take me for a libertine?”

“Don’t get on your high horse, Monsieur de Buxieres! There would be no

one hurt. The girls I allude to are not so difficult to approach.”

“That has nothing to do with it, Claudet; I do not enjoy that kind of

amusement.”

“It is the kind that young men of our age indulge in, all the same.

Perhaps you think there would be difficulties in the way. They would not

be insurmountable, I can assure you; those matters go smoothly enough

here. You slip your arm round her waist, give her a good, sounding

salute, and the acquaintance is begun. You have only to improve it!”

“Enough of this,” interrupted Julien, harshly, “we never can agree on

such topics!”

“As you please, Monsieur de Buxieres; since you do not like the subject,

we will not bring it up again. If I mentioned it at all, it was that I

saw you were not interested in either hunting or fishing, and thought

you might prefer some other kind of game. I do wish I knew what to

propose that would give you a little pleasure,” continued Claudet, who

was profoundly mortified at the ill-success of his overtures. “Now!

I have it. Will you come with me to-morrow, to the Ronces woods? The

charcoal-dealers who are constructing their furnaces for the sale, will

complete their dwellings this evening and expect to celebrate in the

morning. They call it watering the bouquet, and it is the occasion of a

little festival, to which we, as well at the presiding officials of the

cutting, are invited. Naturally, the guests pay their share in bottles

of wine. You can hardly be excused from showing yourself among these

good people. It is one of the customs of the country. I have promised

to be there, and it is certain that Reine Vincart, who has bought the

Ronces property, will not fail to be present at the ceremony.”

Julien had already the words on his lips for declining Claudet’s offer,

when the name of Reine Vincart produced an immediate change in his

resolution. It just crossed his mind that perhaps Claudet had thrown

out her name as a bait and an argument in favor of his theories on the

facility of love-affairs in the country. However that might be, the

allusion to the probable presence of Mademoiselle Vincart at the coming

fete, rendered young Buxieres more tractable, and he made no further

difficulties about accompanying his cousin.

The next morning, after partaking hastily of breakfast, they started

on their way toward the cutting. The charcoal-dealers had located

themselves on the border of the forest, not far from the spot where,

in the month of January, Reine and Julien had visited the wood cutters.

Under the sheltering branches of a great ash tree, the newly erected

but raised its peaked roof covered with clods of turf, and two furnaces,

just completed, occupied the ground lately prepared. One of them, ready

for use, was covered with the black earth called ‘frazil’, which is

extracted from the site of old charcoal works; the other, in course of

construction, showed the successive layers of logs ranged in circles

inside, ready for the fire. The workmen moved around, going and coming;

first, the head-man or patron, a man of middle age, of hairy chest,

embrowned visage, and small beady eyes under bushy eyebrows; his wife,

a little, shrivelled, elderly woman; their daughter, a thin awkward

girl of seventeen, with fluffy hair and a cunning, hard expression;

and finally, their three boys, robust young fellows, serving their

apprenticeship at the trade. This party was reenforced by one or

two more single men, and some of the daughters of the woodchoppers,

attracted by the prospect of a day of dancing and joyous feasting.

These persons were sauntering in and out under the trees, waiting

for the dinner, which was to be furnished mainly by the guests, the

contribution of the charcoal-men being limited to a huge pot of potatoes

which the patroness was cooking over the fire, kindled in front of the

hut.

The arrival of Julien and Claudet, attended by the small cowboy, puffing

and blowing under a load of provisions, was hailed with exclamations

of gladness and welcome. While one of the assistants was carefully

unrolling the big loaves of white bread, the enormous meat pastry, and

the bottles encased in straw, Reine Vincart appeared suddenly on the

scene, accompanied by one of the farm-hands, who was also tottering

under the weight of a huge basket, from the corners of which peeped the

ends of bottles, and the brown knuckle of a smoked ham. At sight of the

young proprietress of La Thuiliere, the hurrahs burst forth again, with

redoubled and more sustained energy. As she stood there smiling, under

the greenish shadow cast by the ashtrees, Reine appeared to Julien

even more seductive than among the frosty surroundings of the previous

occasion. Her simple and rustic spring costume was marvellously

becoming: a short blue-and-yellow striped skirt, a tight jacket of

light-colored material, fitted closely to the waist, a flat linen collar

tied with a narrow blue ribbon, and a bouquet of woodruff at her bosom.

She wore stout leather boots, and a large straw hat, which she threw

carelessly down on entering the hut. Among so many faces of a different

type, all somewhat disfigured by hardships of exposure, this lovely face

with its olive complexion, lustrous black eyes, and smiling red lips,

framed in dark, soft, wavy hair resting on her plump shoulders, seemed

to spread a sunshiny glow over the scene. It was a veritable portrayal

of the “queen of the woods,” appearing triumphant among her rustic

subjects. As an emblem of her royal prerogative, she held in her hand an

enormous bouquet of flowers she had gathered on her way: honeysuckles,

columbine, all sorts of grasses with shivering spikelets, black alder

blossoms with their white centres, and a profusion of scarlet poppies.

Each of these exhaled its own salubrious springlike perfume, and a light

cloud of pollen, which covered the eyelashes and hair of the young girl

with a delicate white powder.

“Here, Pere Theotime,” said she, handing her collection over to the

master charcoal-dealer, “I gathered these for you to ornament the roof

of your dwelling.”

She then drew near to Claudet; gave him her hand in comrade fashion, and

saluted Julien:

“Good-morning, Monsieur de Buxieres, I am very glad to see you here. Was

it Claudet who brought you, or did you come of your own accord?”

While Julien, dazed and bewildered, was seeking a reply, she passed

quickly to the next group, going from one to another, and watching with

interest the placing of the bouquet on the summit of the hut. One of the

men brought a ladder and fastened the flowers to a spike. When they

were securely attached and began to nod in the air, he waved his hat and

shouted: “Hou, houp!” This was the signal for going to table.

The food had been spread on the tablecloth under the shade of the

ash-trees, and all the guests sat around on sacks of charcoal; for Reine

and Julien alone they had reserved two stools, made by the master, and

thus they found themselves seated side by side. Soon a profound, almost

religious, silence indicated that the attack was about to begin; after

which, and when the first fury of their appetites had been appeased, the

tongues began to be loosened: jokes and anecdotes, seasoned with

loud bursts of laughter, were bandied to and fro under the spreading

branches, and presently the wine lent its aid to raise the spirits of

the company to an exuberant pitch. But there was a certain degree

of restraint observed by these country folk. Was it owing to Reine’s

presence? Julien noticed that the remarks of the working-people were in

a very much better tone than those of the Auberive gentry, with whom he

had breakfasted; the gayety of these children of the woods, although of

a common kind, was always kept within decent limits, and he never once

had occasion to feel ashamed. He felt more at ease among them than

among the notables of the borough, and he did not regret having accepted

Claudet’s invitation.

“I am glad I came,” murmured he in Reine’s ear, “and I never have eaten

with so much enjoyment!”

“Ah! I am glad of it,” replied the young girl, gayly, “perhaps now you

will begin to like our woods.”

When nothing was left on the table but bones and empty bottles, Pere

Theotime took a bottle of sealed wine, drew the cork, and filled the

glasses.

“Now,” said he, “before christening our bouquet, we will drink to

Monsieur de Buxieres, who has brought us his good wine, and to our sweet

lady, Mademoiselle Vincart.”

The glasses clinked, and the toasts were drunk with fervor.

“Mamselle Reine,” resumed Pere Theotime, with a certain amount of

solemnity, “you can see, the hut is built; it will be occupied to-night,

and I trust good work will be done. You can perceive from here our first

furnace, all decorated and ready to be set alight. But, in order that

good luck shall attend us, you yourself must set light to the fire. I

ask you, therefore, to ascend to the top of the chimney and throw in the

first embers; may I ask this of your good-nature?”

“Why, certainly!” replied Reine, “come, Monsieur de Buxieres, you must

see how we light a charcoal furnace.”

All the guests jumped from their seats; one of the men took the ladder

and leaned it against the sloping side of the furnace. Meanwhile, Pere

Theotime was bringing an earthen vase full of burning embers. Reine

skipped lightly up the steps, and when she reached the top, stood erect

near the orifice of the furnace.

Her graceful outline came out in strong relief against the clear sky;

one by one, she took the embers handed her by the charcoal-dealer, and

threw them into the opening in the middle of the furnace. Soon there was

a crackling inside, followed by a dull rumbling; the chips and rubbish

collected at the bottom had caught fire, and the air-holes left at

the base of the structure facilitated the passage of the current, and

hastened the kindling of the wood.

“Bravo; we’ve got it!” exclaimed Pere Theotime.

“Bravo!” repeated the young people, as much exhilarated with the open

air as with the two or three glasses of white wine they had drunk. Lads

and lasses joined hands and leaped impetuously around the furnace.

“A song, Reine! Sing us a song!” cried the young girls.

She stood at the foot of the ladder, and, without further solicitation,

intoned, in her clear and sympathetic voice, a popular song, with a

rhythmical refrain:

My father bid me

Go sell my wheat.

To the market we drove

“Good-morrow, my sweet!

How much, can you say,

Will its value prove?”

The embroidered rose

Lies on my glove.

“A hundred francs

Will its value prove.”

“When you sell your wheat,

Do you sell your love?”

The embroidered rose

Lies on my glove!

“My heart, Monsieur,

Will never rove,

I have promised it

To my own true love.”

The embroidered rose

Lies on my glove.

“For me he braves

The wind and the rain;

For me he weaves

A silver chain.”

On my ‘broidered glove.

Lies the rose again.

Repeating the refrain in chorus, boys and girls danced and leaped in the

sunlight. Julien leaned against the trunk of a tree, listening to the

sonorous voice of Reine, and could not take his eyes off the singer.

When she had ended her song, Reine turned in another direction; but the

dancers had got into the spirit of it and could not stand still; one

of the men came forward, and started another popular air, which all the

rest repeated in unison:

Up in the woods

Sleeps the fairy to-day:

The king, her lover,

Has strolled that way!

Will those who are young

Be married or nay?

Yea, yea!

Carried away by the rhythm, and the pleasure of treading the soft grass

under their feet, the dancers quickened their pace. The chain of young

folks disconnected for a moment, was reformed, and twisted in and out

among the trees; sometimes in light, sometimes in shadow, until they

disappeared, singing, into the very heart of the forest. With the

exception of Pere Theotime and his wife, who had gone to superintend the

furnace, all the guests, including Claudet, had joined the gay throng.

Reine and Julien, the only ones remaining behind, stood in the shade

near the borderline of the forest. It was high noon, and the sun’s rays,

shooting perpendicularly down, made the shade desirable. Reine proposed

to her companion to enter the hut and rest, while waiting for the return

of the dancers. Julien accepted readily; but not without being surprised

that the young girl should be the first to suggest a tete-a-tete in the

obscurity of a remote hut. Although more than ever fascinated by

the unusual beauty of Mademoiselle Vincart, he was astonished, and

occasionally shocked, by the audacity and openness of her action toward

him. Once more the spirit of doubt took possession of him, and he

questioned whether this freedom of manners was to be attributed to

innocence or effrontery. After the pleasant friendliness of the midday

repast, and the enlivening effect of the dance round the furnace, he was

both glad and troubled to find himself alone with Reine. He longed to

let her know what tender admiration she excited in his mind; but he did

not know how to set about it, nor in what style to address a girl of so

strange and unusual a disposition. So he contented himself with fixing

an enamored gaze upon her, while she stood leaning against one of the

inner posts, and twisted mechanically between her fingers a branch of

wild honeysuckle. Annoyed at his taciturnity, she at last broke the

silence:

“You are not saying anything, Monsieur de Buxieres; do you regret having

come to this fete?”

“Regret it, Mademoiselle?” returned he; “it is a long time since I have

had so pleasant a day, and I thank you, for it is to you I owe it.”

“To me? You are joking. It is the good-humor of the people, the spring

sunshine, and the pure air of the forest that you must thank. I have no

part in it.”

“You are everything in it, on the contrary,” said he, tenderly. “Before

I knew you, I had met with country people, seen the sun and trees, and

so on, and nothing made any impression on me. But, just now, when you

were singing over there, I felt gladdened and inspired; I felt the

beauty of the woods, I sympathized with these good people, and these

grand trees, all these things among which you live so happily. It is you

who have worked this miracle. Ah! you are well named. You are truly the

fairy of the feast, the queen of the woods!”

Astonished at the enthusiasm of her companion, Reine looked at him

sidewise, half closing her eyes, and perceived that he was altogether

transformed. He appeared to have suddenly thawed. He was no longer the

awkward, sickly youth, whose every movement was paralyzed by timidity,

and whose words froze on his tongue; his slender frame had become

supple, his blue eyes enlarged and illuminated; his delicate features

expressed refinement, tenderness, and passion. The young girl was moved

and won by so much emotion, the first that Julien had ever manifested

toward her. Far from being offended at this species of declaration, she

replied, gayly:

“As to the queen of the woods working miracles, I know none so powerful

as these flowers.”

She unfastened the bouquet of white starry woodruff from her corsage,

and handed them over to him in their envelope of green leaves.

“Do you know them?” said she; “see how sweet they smell! And the odor

increases as they wither.”

Julien had carried the bouquet to his lips, and was inhaling slowly the

delicate perfume.

“Our woodsmen,” she continued, “make with this plant a broth which cures

from ill effects of either cold or heat as if by enchantment; they also

infuse it into white wine, and convert it into a beverage which they

call May wine, and which is very intoxicating.”

Julien was no longer listening to these details. He kept his eyes

steadily fixed on Mademoiselle Vincart, and continued to inhale

rapturously the bouquet, and to experience a kind of intoxication.

“Let me keep these flowers,” he implored, in a choking voice.

“Certainly,” replied she, gayly; “keep them, if it will give you

pleasure.”

“Thank you,” he murmured, hiding them in his bosom.

Reine was surprised at his attaching such exaggerated importance to so

slight a favor, and a sudden flush overspread her cheeks. She almost

repented having given him the flowers when she saw what a tender

reception he had given them, so she replied, suggestively:

“Do not thank me; the gift is not significant. Thousands of similar

flowers grow in the forest, and one has only to stoop and gather them.”

He dared not reply that this bouquet, having been worn by her, was worth

much more to him than any other, but he thought it, and the thought

aroused in his mind a series of new ideas. As Reine had so readily

granted this first favor, was she not tacitly encouraging him to ask

for others? Was he dealing with a simple, innocent girl, or a village

coquette, accustomed to be courted? And on this last supposition should

he not pass for a simpleton in the eyes of this experienced girl, if

he kept himself at too great a distance. He remembered the advice of

Claudet concerning the method of conducting love-affairs smoothly with

certain women of the country. Whether she was a coquette or not, Reine

had bewitched him. The charm had worked more powerfully still since he

had been alone with her in this obscure hut, where the cooing of the

wild pigeons faintly reached their ears, and the penetrating odors of

the forest pervaded their nostrils. Julien’s gaze rested lovingly on

Reine’s wavy locks, falling heavily over her neck, on her half-covered

eyes with their luminous pupils full of golden specks of light, on her

red lips, on the two little brown moles spotting her somewhat decollete

neck. He thought her adorable, and was dying to tell her so; but when

he endeavored to formulate his declaration, the words stuck fast in his

throat, his veins swelled, his throat became dry, his head swam. In

this disorder of his faculties he brought to mind the recommendation of

Claudet: “One arm round the waist, two sounding kisses, and the thing is

done.” He rose abruptly, and went up to the young girl:

“Since you have given me these flowers,” he began, in a husky voice,

“will you also, in sign of friendship, give me your hand, as you gave it

to Claudet?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she held out her hand; but, hardly had he

touched it when he completely lost control of himself, and slipping the

arm which remained free around Reine’s waist, he drew her toward him

and lightly touched with his lips her neck, the beauty of which had so

magnetized him.

The young girl was stronger than he; in the twinkling of an eye she tore

herself from his audacious clasp, threw him violently backward, and with

one bound reached the door of the hut. She stood there a moment, pale,

indignant, her eyes blazing, and then exclaimed, in a hollow voice:

“If you come a step nearer, I will call the charcoalmen!”

But Julien had no desire to renew the attack; already sobered, cowed,

and repentant, he had retreated to the most obscure corner of the

dwelling.

“Are you mad?” she continued, with vehemence, “or has the wine got into

your head? It is rather early for you to be adopting the ways of your

deceased cousin! I give you notice that they will not succeed with me!”

And, at the same moment, tears of humiliation filled her eyes. “I did

not expect this of you, Monsieur de Buxieres!”

“Forgive me!” faltered Julien, whose heart smote him at the sight of

her tears; “I have behaved like a miserable sinner and a brute! It was a

moment of madness--forget it and forgive me!”

“Nobody ever treated me with disrespect before,” returned the young

girl, in a suffocated voice; “I was wrong to allow you any familiarity,

that is all. It shall not happen to me again!”

Julien remained mute, overpowered with shame and remorse. Suddenly,

in the stillness around, rose the voices of the dancers returning and

singing the refrain of the rondelay:

I had a rose--

On my heart it lay

Will those who are young

Be married, or nay?

Yea, yea!

“There are our people,” said Reine, softly, “I am going to them;

adieu--do not follow me!” She left the but and hastened toward the

furnace, while Julien, stunned with the rapidity with which this

unfortunate scene had been enacted, sat down on one of the benches,

a prey to confused feelings of shame and angry mortification. No,

certainly, he did not intend to follow her! He had no desire to show

himself in public with this young girl whom he had so stupidly insulted,

and in whose face he never should be able to look again. Decidedly, he

did not understand women, since he could not even tell a virtuous girl

from a frivolous coquette! Why had he not been able to see that the

good-natured, simple familiarity of Reine Vincart had nothing in common

with the enticing allurements of those who, to use Claudet’s words, had

“thrown their caps over the wall.” How was it that he had not read, in

those eyes, pure as the fountain’s source, the candor and uprightness of

a maiden heart which had nothing to conceal. This cruel evidence of his

inability to conduct himself properly in the affairs of life exasperated

and humiliated him, and at the same time that he felt his self-love most

deeply wounded, he was conscious of being more hopelessly enamored

of Reine Vincart. Never had she appeared so beautiful as during the

indignant movement which had separated her from him. Her look of mingled

anger and sadness, the expression of her firm, set lips, the quivering

nostrils, the heaving of her bosom, he recalled it all, and the image of

her proud beauty redoubled his grief and despair.

He remained a long time concealed in the shadow of the hut. Finally,

when he heard the voices dying away in different directions, and was

satisfied that the charcoal-men were attending to their furnace work, he

made up his mind to come out. But, as he did not wish to meet any one,

instead of crossing through the cutting he plunged into the wood, taking

no heed in what direction he went, and being desirous of walking alone

as long as possible, without meeting a single human visage.

As he wandered aimlessly through the deepening shadows of the forest,

crossed here and there by golden bars of light from the slanting rays

of the setting sun, he pondered over the probable results of his

unfortunate behavior. Reine would certainly keep silence on the affront

she had received, but would she be indulgent enough to forget or

forgive the insult? The most evident result of the affair would be that

henceforth all friendly relations between them must cease. She certainly

would maintain a severe attitude toward the person who had so grossly

insulted her, but would she be altogether pitiless in her anger?

All through his dismal feelings of self-reproach, a faint hope of

reconciliation kept him from utter despair. As he reviewed the details

of the shameful occurrence, he remembered that the expression of her

countenance had been one more of sorrow than of anger. The tone of

melancholy reproach in which she had uttered the words: “I did not

expect this from you, Monsieur de Buxieres!” seemed to convey the hope

that he might, one day, be forgiven. At the same time, the poignancy of

his regret showed him how much hold the young girl had taken upon his

affections, and how cheerless and insipid his life would be if he were

obliged to continue on unfriendly terms with the woodland queen.

He had come to this conclusion in his melancholy reflections, when he

reached the outskirts of the forest.

He stood above the calm, narrow valley of Vivey; on the right, over the

tall ash-trees, peeped the pointed turrets of the chateau; on the left,

and a little farther behind, was visible a whitish line, contrasting

with the surrounding verdure, the winding path to La Thuiliere, through

the meadow-land of Planche-au-Vacher. Suddenly, the sound of voices

reached his ears, and, looking more closely, he perceived Reine and

Claudet walking side by side down the narrow path. The evening air

softened the resonance of the voices, so that the words themselves were

not audible, but the intonation of the alternate speakers, and their

confidential and friendly gestures, evinced a very animated, if not

tender, exchange of sentiments. At times the conversation was enlivened

by Claudet’s bursts of laughter, or an amicable gesture from Reine. At

one moment, Julien saw the young girl lay her hand familiarly on the

shoulder of the ‘grand chssserot’, and immediately a pang of intense

jealousy shot through his heart. At last the young pair arrived at the

banks of a stream, which traversed the path and had become swollen by

the recent heavy rains. Claudet took Reine by the waist and lifted her

in his vigorous arms, while he picked his way across the stream; then

they resumed their way toward the bottom of the pass, and the tall

brushwood hid their retreating forms from Julien’s eager gaze, although

it was long before the vibrations of their sonorous voices ceased

echoing in his ears.

“Ah!” thought he, quite overcome by this new development, “she stands

less on ceremony with him than with me! How close they kept to each

other in that lonely path! With what animation they conversed! with

what abandon she allowed herself to be carried in his arms! All that

indicates an intimacy of long standing, and explains a good many

things!”

He recalled Reine’s visit to the chateau, and how cleverly she had

managed to inform him of the parentage existing between Claudet and the

deceased Claude de Buxieres; how she had by her conversation raised

a feeling of pity in his mind for Claudet; and a desire to repair the

negligence of the deceased.

“How could I be so blind!” thought Julien, with secret scorn of himself;

“I did not see anything, I comprehended none of their artifices! They

love each other, that is sure, and I have been playing throughout the

part of a dupe. I do not blame him. He was in love, and allowed himself

to be persuaded. But she! whom I thought so open, so true, so loyal! Ah!

she is no better than others of her class, and she was coquetting with

me in order to insure her lover a position! Well! one more illusion is

destroyed. Ecclesiastes was right. ‘Inveni amarivrem morte mulierem’,

‘woman is more bitter than death’!”

Twilight had come, and it was already dark in the forest. Slowly and

reluctantly, Julien descended the slope leading to the chateau, and the

gloom of the woods entered his heart.

CHAPTER VI. LOVE BY PROXY

Jealousy is a maleficent deity of the harpy tribe; she embitters

everything she touches.

Ever since the evening that Julien had witnessed the crossing of the

brook by Reine and Claudet, a secret poison had run through his veins,

and embittered every moment of his life. Neither the glowing sun of

June, nor the glorious development of the woods had any charm for him.

In vain did the fields display their golden treasures of ripening corn;

in vain did the pale barley and the silvery oats wave their luxuriant

growth against the dark background of the woods; all these fairylike

effects of summer suggested only prosaic and misanthropic reflections

in Julien’s mind. He thought of the tricks, the envy and hatred that the

possession of these little squares of ground brought forth among their

rapacious owners. The prolific exuberance of forest vegetation was an

exemplification of the fierce and destructive activity of the blind

forces of Nature. All the earth was a hateful theatre for the continual

enactment of bloody and monotonous dramas; the worm consuming the plant;

the bird mangling the insect, the deer fighting among themselves, and

man, in his turn, pursuing all kinds of game. He identified nature with

woman, both possessing in his eyes an equally deceiving appearance, the

same beguiling beauty, and the same spirit of ambuscade and perfidy.

The people around him inspired him only with mistrust and suspicion. In

every peasant he met he recognized an enemy, prepared to cheat him with

wheedling words and hypocritical lamentations. Although during the few

months he had experienced the delightful influence of Reine Vincart,

he had been drawn out of his former prejudices, and had imagined he was

rising above the littleness of every-day worries; he now fell back

into hard reality; his feet were again embedded in the muddy ground of

village politics, and consequently village life was a burden to him.

He never went out, fearing to meet Reine Vincart. He fancied that the

sight of her might aggravate the malady from which he suffered and for

which he eagerly sought a remedy.

But, notwithstanding the cloistered retirement to which he had condemned

himself, his wound remained open. Instead of solitude having a healing

effect, it seemed to make his sufferings greater. When, in the evening,

as he sat moodily at his window, he would hear Claudet whistle to his

dog, and hurry off in the direction of La Thuiliere, he would say to

himself: “He is going to keep an appointment with Reine.” Then a feeling

of blind rage would overpower him; he felt tempted to leave his room and

follow his rival secretly--a moment afterward he would be ashamed of his

meanness. Was it not enough that he had once, although involuntarily,

played the degrading part of a spy! What satisfaction could he derive

from such a course? Would he be much benefited when he returned home

with rage in his heart and senses, after watching a love-scene between

the young pair? This consideration kept him in his seat, but his

imagination ran riot instead; it went galloping at the heels of Claudet,

and accompanied him down the winding paths, moistened by the evening

dew. As the moon rose above the trees, illuminating the foliage with her

mild bluish rays, he pictured to himself the meeting of the two lovers

on the flowery turf bathed in the silvery light. His brain seemed on

fire. He saw Reine in white advancing like a moonbeam, and Claudet

passing his arm around the yielding waist of the maiden. He tried to

substitute himself in idea, and to imagine the delight of the first

words of welcome, and the ecstasy of the prolonged embrace. A shiver ran

through his whole body; a sharp pain transfixed his heart; his throat

closed convulsively; half fainting, he leaned against the window-frame,

his eyes closed, his ears stopped, to shut out all sights or sounds,

longing only for oblivion and complete torpor of body and mind.

He did not realize his longing. The enchanting image of the woodland

queen, as he had beheld her in the dusky light of the charcoal-man’s

hut, was ever before him. He put his hands over his eyes. She was there

still, with her deep, dark eyes and her enticing cherry lips. Even the

odor of the honeysuckle arising from the garden assisted the reality of

the vision, by recalling the sprig of the same flower which Reine was

twisting round her fingers at their last interview. This sweet breath

of flowers in the night seemed like an emanation from the young girl

herself, and was as fleeting and intangible as the remembrance of

vanished happiness. Again and again did his morbid nature return to past

events, and make his present position more unbearable.

“Why,” thought he, “did I ever entertain so wild a hope? This

wood-nymph, with her robust yet graceful figure, her clear-headedness,

her energy and will-power, could she ever have loved a being so weak

and unstable as myself? No, indeed; she needs a lover full of life and

vigor; a huntsman, with a strong arm, able to protect her. What figure

should I cut by the side of so hearty and well-balanced a fellow?”

In these fits of jealousy, he was not so angry with Claudet for being

loved by Reine as for having so carefully concealed his feelings. And

yet, while inwardly blaming him for this want of frankness, he did not

realize that he himself was open to a similar accusation, by hiding from

Claudet what was troubling him so grievously.

Since the evening of the inauguration festival, he had become sullen

and taciturn. Like all timid persons, he took refuge in a moody silence,

which could not but irritate his cousin. They met every day at the same

table; to all appearance their intimacy was as great as ever, but, in

reality, there was no mutual exchange of feeling. Julien’s continued

ill-humor was a source of anxiety to Claudet, who turned his brain

almost inside out in endeavoring to discover its cause. He knew he had

done nothing to provoke any coolness; on the contrary, he had set his

wits to work to show his gratitude by all sorts of kindly offices.

By dint of thinking the matter over, Claudet came to the conclusion

that perhaps Julien was beginning to repent of his generosity, and that

possibly this coolness was a roundabout way of manifesting his change of

feeling. This seemed to be the only plausible solution of his cousin’s

behavior. “He is probably tired,” thought he, “of keeping us here at the

chateau, my mother and myself.”

Claudet’s pride and self-respect revolted at this idea. He did not

intend to be an incumbrance on any one, and became offended in his turn

at the mute reproach which he imagined he could read in his cousin’s

troubled countenance. This misconception, confirmed by the obstinate

silence of both parties, and aggravated by its own continuance, at last

produced a crisis.

It happened one night, after they had taken supper together, and

Julien’s ill-humor had been more evident than usual. Provoked at his

persistent taciturnity, and more than ever convinced that it was his

presence that young de Buxieres objected to, Claudet resolved to force

an explanation. Instead, therefore, of quitting the dining-room after

dessert, and whistling to his dog to accompany him in his habitual

promenade, the ‘grand chasserot’ remained seated, poured out a small

glass of brandy, and slowly filled his pipe. Surprised to see that

he was remaining at home, Julien rose and began to pace the floor,

wondering what could be the reason of this unexpected change. As

suspicious people are usually prone to attribute complicated motives for

the most simple actions, he imagined that Claudet, becoming aware of

the jealous feeling he had excited, had given up his promenade solely

to mislead and avert suspicion. This idea irritated him still more, and

halting suddenly in his walk, he went up to Claudet and said, brusquely:

“You are not going out, then?”

“No;” replied Claudet, “if you will permit me, I will stay and keep you

company. Shall I annoy you?”

“Not in the least; only, as you are accustomed to walk every evening,

I should not wish you to inconvenience yourself on my account. I am not

afraid of being alone, and I am not selfish enough to deprive you of

society more agreeable than mine.”

“What do you mean by that?” cried Claudet, pricking up his ears.

“Nothing,” muttered Julien, between his set teeth, “except that your

fancied obligation of keeping me company ought not to prevent you

missing a pleasant engagement, or keeping a rendezvous.”

“A rendezvous,” replied his interlocutor, with a forced laugh, “so you

think, when I go out after supper, I go to seek amusement. A rendezvous!

And with whom, if you please?”

“With your mistress, of course,” replied Julien, sarcastically, “from

what you said to me, there is no scarcity here of girls inclined to be

good-natured, and you have only the trouble of choosing among them. I

supposed you were courting some woodman’s young daughter, or some pretty

farmer girl, like--like Reine Vincart.”

“Refine Vincart!” repeated Claudet, sternly, “what business have you

to mix up her name with those creatures to whom you refer? Mademoiselle

Vincart,” added he, “has nothing in common with that class, and you have

no right, Monsieur de Buxieres, to use her name so lightly!”

The allusion to Reine Vincart had agitated Claudet to such a degree that

he did not notice that Julien, as he pronounced her name, was as much

moved as himself.

The vehemence with which Claudet resented the insinuation increased

young de Buxieres’s irritation.

“Ha, ha!” said he, laughing scornfully, “Reine Vincart is an exceedingly

pretty girl!”

“She is not only pretty, she is good and virtuous, and deserves to be

respected.”

“How you uphold her! One can see that you are interested in her.”

“I uphold her because you are unjust toward her. But I wish you to

understand that she has no need of any one standing up for her--her good

name is sufficient to protect her. Ask any one in the village--there is

but one voice on that question.”

“Come,” said Julien, huskily, “confess that you are in love with her.”

“Well! suppose I am,” said Claudet, angrily, “yes, I love her! There,

are you satisfied now?”

Although de Buxieres knew what he had to expect, he was not the less

affected by so open an avowal thrust at him, as it were. He stood for a

moment, silent; then, with a fresh burst of rage:

“You love her, do you? Why did you not tell me before? Why were you not

more frank with me?”

As he spoke, gesticulating furiously, in front of the open window, the

deep red glow of the setting sun, piercing through the boughs of the

ash-trees, threw its bright reflections on his blazing eyeballs and

convulsed features. His interlocutor, leaning against the opposite

corner of the window-frame, noticed, with some anxiety, the extreme

agitation of his behavior, and wondered what could be the cause of such

emotion.

“I? Not frank with you! Ah, that is a good joke, Monsieur de Buxieres!

Naturally, I should not go proclaiming on the housetops that I have a

tender feeling for Mademoiselle Vincart, but, all the same, I should

have told you had you asked me sooner. I am not reserved; but, you must

excuse my saying it, you are walled in like a subterranean passage. One

can not get at the color of your thoughts. I never for a moment

imagined that you were interested in Reine, and you never have made me

sufficiently at home to entertain the idea of confiding in you on that

subject.”

Julien remained silent. He had reseated himself at the table, where,

leaning his head in his hands, he pondered over what Claudet had said.

He placed his hand so as to screen his eyes, and bit his lips as if a

painful struggle was going on within him. The splendors of the setting

sun had merged into the dusky twilight, and the last piping notes of the

birds sounded faintly among the sombre trees. A fresh breeze had sprung

up, and filled the darkening room with the odor of honeysuckle.

Under the soothing influence of the falling night, Julien slowly raised

his head, and addressing Claudet in a low and measured voice like a

father confessor interrogating a penitent, said:

“Does Reine know that you love her?”

“I think she must suspect it,” replied Claudet, “although I never have

ventured to declare myself squarely. But girls are very quick, Reine

especially. They soon begin to suspect there is some love at bottom,

when a young man begins to hang around them too frequently.”

“You see her often, then?”

“Not as often as I should like. But, you know, when one lives in the

same district, one has opportunities of meeting--at the beech harvest,

in the woods, at the church door. And when you meet, you talk but

little, making the most of your time. Still, you must not suppose, as

I think you did, that we have rendezvous in the evening. Reine respects

herself too much to go about at night with a young man as escort, and

besides, she has other fish to fry. She has a great deal to do at the

farm, since her father has become an invalid.”

“Well, do you think she loves you?” said Julien, with a movement of

nervous irritation.

“I can not tell,” replied Claudet shrugging his shoulders, “she has

confidence in me, and shows me some marks of friendship, but I never

have ventured to ask her whether she feels anything more than friendship

for me. Look here, now. I have good reasons for keeping back; she

is rich and I am poor. You can understand that I would not, for any

consideration, allow her to think that I am courting her for her

money--”

“Still, you desire to marry her, and you hope that she will not say

no--you acknowledge that!” cried Julien, vociferously.

Claudet, struck with the violence and bitterness of tone of his

companion, came up to him.

“How angrily you say that, Monsieur de Buxieres!” exclaimed he in his

turn; “upon my word, one might suppose the affair is very displeasing to

you. Will you let me tell you frankly an idea that has already entered

my head several times these last two or three days, and which has come

again now, while I have been listening to you? It is that perhaps you,

yourself, are also in love with Reine?”

“I!” protested Julien. He felt humiliated at Claudet’s perspicacity; but

he had too much pride and selfrespect to let his preferred rival know of

his unfortunate passion. He waited a moment to swallow something in his

throat that seemed to be choking him, and then, trying in vain to steady

his voice, he added:

“You know that I have an aversion for women; and for that matter, I

think they return it with interest. But, at all events, I am not foolish

enough to expose myself to their rebuffs. Rest assured, I shall not

follow at your heels!”

Claudet shook his head incredulously.

“You doubt it,” continued de Buxieres; “well, I will prove it to you.

You can not declare your wishes because Reine is rich and you are poor?

I will take charge of the whole matter.”

“I--I do not understand you,” faltered Claudet, bewildered at the

strange turn the conversation was taking.

“You will understand-soon,” asserted Julien, with a gesture of both

decision and resignation.

The truth was, he had made one of those resolutions which seem illogical

and foolish at first sight, but are natural to minds at once timid and

exalted. The suffering caused by Claudet’s revelations had become so

acute that he was alarmed. He recognized with dismay the disastrous

effects of this hopeless love, and determined to employ a heroic remedy

to arrest its further ravages. This was nothing less than killing

his love, by immediately getting Claudet married to Reine Vincart.

Sacrifices like this are easier to souls that have been subjected since

their infancy to Christian discipline, and accustomed to consider the

renunciation of mundane joys as a means of securing eternal salvation.

As soon as this idea had developed in Julien’s brain, he seized upon it

with the precipitation of a drowning man, who distractedly lays hold of

the first object that seems to offer him a means of safety, whether it

be a dead branch or a reed.

“Listen,” he resumed; “at the very first explanation that we had

together, I told you I did not intend to deprive you of your right to a

portion of your natural father’s inheritance. Until now, you have taken

my word for it, and we have lived at the chateau like two brothers. But

now that a miserable question of money alone prevents you from marrying

the woman you love, it is important that you should be legally provided

for. We will go to-morrow to Monsieur Arbillot, and ask him to draw up

the deed, making over to you from me one half of the fortune of Claude

de Buxieres. You will then be, by law, and in the eyes of all, one of

the desirable matches of the canton, and you can demand the hand of

Mademoiselle Vincart, without any fear of being thought presumptuous or

mercenary.”

Claudet, to whom this conclusion was wholly unexpected, was

thunderstruck. His emotion was so great that it prevented him from

speaking. In the obscurity of the room his deep-set eyes seemed larger,

and shone with the tears he could not repress.

“Monsieur Julien,” said he, falteringly, “I can not find words to thank

you. I am like an idiot. And to think that only a little while ago I

suspected you of being tired of me, and regretting your benefits toward

me! What an animal I am! I measure others by myself. Well! can you

forgive me? If I do not express myself well, I feel deeply, and all I

can say is that you have made me very happy!” He sighed heavily. “The

question is now,” continued he, “whether Reine will have me! You may not

believe me, Monsieur de Buxieres, but though I may seem very bold and

resolute, I feel like a wet hen when I get near her. I have a dreadful

panic that she will send me away as I came. I don’t know whether I can

ever find courage to ask her.”

“Why should she refuse you?” said Julien, sadly, “she knows that you

love her. Do you suppose she loves any one else?”

“That I don’t know. Although Reine is very frank, she does not let every

one know what is passing in her mind, and with these young girls, I

tell you, one is never sure of anything. That is just what I fear may be

possible.”

“If you fear the ordeal,” said de Buxieres, with a visible effort,

“would you like me to present the matter for you?”

“I should be very glad. It would be doing me a great service. It would

be adding one more kindness to those I have already received, and some

day I hope to make it all up to you.”

The next morning, according to agreement, Julien accompanied Claudet to

Auberive, where Maitre Arbillot drew up the deed of gift, and had it at

once signed and recorded. Afterward the young men adjourned to breakfast

at the inn. The meal was brief and silent. Neither seemed to have any

appetite. As soon as they had drunk their coffee, they turned back on

the Vivey road; but, when they had got as far as the great limetree,

standing at the entrance to the forest, Julien touched Claudet lightly

on the shoulder.

“Here,” said he, “we must part company. You will return to Vivey, and I

shall go across the fields to La Thuiliere. I shall return as soon as

I have had an interview with Mademoiselle Vincart. Wait for me at the

chateau.”

“The time will seem dreadfully long to me,” sighed Claudet; “I shall not

know how to dispose of my body until you return.”

“Your affair will be all settled within two or three hours from now.

Stay near the window of my room, and you will catch first sight of me

coming along in the distance. If I wave my hat, it will be a sign that I

bring a favorable answer.”

Claudet pressed his hand; they separated, and Julien descended the newly

mown meadow, along which he walked under the shade of trees scattered

along the border line of the forest.

The heat of the midday sun was tempered by a breeze from the east,

which threw across the fields and woods the shadows of the white fleecy

clouds. The young man, pale and agitated, strode with feverish haste

over the short-cropped grass, while the little brooklet at his side

seemed to murmur a flute-like, soothing accompaniment to the tumultuous

beatings of his heart. He was both elated and depressed at the prospect

of submitting his already torn and lacerated feelings to so severe

a trial. The thought of beholding Reine again, and of sounding her

feelings, gave him a certain amount of cruel enjoyment. He would speak

to her of love--love for another, certainly--but he would throw into

the declaration he was making, in behalf of another, some of his own

tenderness; he would have the supreme and torturing satisfaction of

watching her countenance, of anticipating her blushes, of gathering

the faltering avowal from her lips. He would once more drink of the

intoxication of her beauty, and then he would go and shut himself up at

Vivey, after burying at La Thuiliere all his dreams and profane desires.

But, even while the courage of this immolation of his youthful love

was strong within him, he could not prevent a dim feeling of hope from

crossing his mind. Claudet was not certain that he was beloved; and

possibly Reine’s answer would be a refusal. Then he should have a free

field.

By a very human, but very illogical impulse, Julien de Buxieres had

hardly concluded the arrangement with Claudet which was to strike

the fatal blow to his own happiness when he began to forestall the

possibilities which the future might have in store for him. The odor of

the wild mint and meadow-sweet, dotting the banks of the stream, again

awoke vague, happy anticipations. Longing to reach Reine Vincart’s

presence, he hastened his steps, then stopped suddenly, seized with an

overpowering panic. He had not seen her since the painful episode in the

hut, and it must have left with her a very sorry impression. What could

he do, if she refused to receive him or listen to him?

While revolting these conflicting thoughts in his mind, he came to

the fields leading directly to La Thuiliere, and just beyond, across a

waving mass of oats and rye, the shining tops of the farm-buildings came

in sight. A few minutes later, he pushed aside a gate and entered the

yard.

The shutters were closed, the outer gate was closed inside, and the

house seemed deserted. Julien began to think that the young girl he

was seeking had gone into the fields with the farm-hands, and stood

uncertain and disappointed in the middle of the courtyard. At this

sudden intrusion into their domain, a brood of chickens, who had been

clucking sedately around, and picking up nourishment at the same time,

scattered screaming in every direction, heads down, feet sprawling,

until by unanimous consent they made a beeline for a half-open door,

leading to the orchard. Through this manoeuvre, the young man’s

attention was brought to the fact that through this opening he could

reach the rear facade of the building. He therefore entered a grassy

lane, winding round a group of stones draped with ivy; and leaving

the orchard on his left, he pushed on toward the garden itself--a real

country garden with square beds bordered by mossy clumps alternating

with currant-bushes, rows of raspberry-trees, lettuce and cabbage beds,

beans and runners climbing up their slender supports, and, here and

there, bunches of red carnations and peasant roses.

Suddenly, at the end of a long avenue, he discovered Reine Vincart,

seated on the steps before an arched door, communicating with the

kitchen. A plum-tree, loaded with its violet fruit, spread its light

shadow over the young girl’s head, as she sat shelling fresh-gathered

peas and piling the faint green heaps of color around her. The sound of

approaching steps on the grassy soil caused her to raise her head, but

she did not stir. In his intense emotion, Julien thought the alley never

would come to an end. He would fain have cleared it with a single bound,

so as to be at once in the presence of Mademoiselle Vincart, whose

immovable attitude rendered his approach still more difficult.

Nevertheless, he had to get over the ground somehow at a reasonable

pace, under penalty of making himself ridiculous, and he therefore

found plenty of time to examine Reine, who continued her work with

imperturbable gravity, throwing the peas as she shelled them into an

ash-wood pail at her feet.

She was bareheaded, and wore a striped skirt and a white jacket fitted

to her waist. The checkered shadows cast by the tree made spots of light

and darkness over her face and her uncovered neck, the top button of her

camisole being unfastened on account of the heat. De Buxieres had been

perfectly well recognized by her, but an emotion, at least equal to

that experienced by the young man, had transfixed her to the spot, and

a subtle feminine instinct had urged her to continue her employment,

in order to hide the sudden trembling of her fingers. During the last

month, ever since the adventure in the hut, she had thought often of

Julien; and the remembrance of the audacious kiss which the young de

Buxieres had so impetuously stolen from her neck, invariably brought the

flush of shame to her brow. But, although she was very indignant at

the fiery nature of his caress, as implying a want of respect little in

harmony with Julien’s habitual reserve, she was astonished at herself

for not being still more angry. At first, the affront put upon her had

roused a feeling of indignation, but now, when she thought of it, she

felt only a gentle embarrassment, and a soft beating of the heart.

She began to reflect that to have thus broken loose from all restraint

before her, this timid youth must have been carried away by an

irresistible burst of passion, and any woman, however high-minded she

may be, will forgive such violent homage rendered to the sovereign power

of her beauty. Besides his feeding of her vanity, another independent

and more powerful motive predisposed her to indulgence: she felt a

tender and secret attraction toward Monsieur de Buxieres. This healthy

and energetic girl had been fascinated by the delicate charm of a nature

so unlike her own in its sensitiveness and disposition to self-blame.

Julien’s melancholy blue eyes had, unknown to himself, exerted

a magnetic influence on Reine’s dark, liquid orbs, and, without

endeavoring to analyze the sympathy that drew her toward a nature

refined and tender even to weakness, without asking herself where this

unreflecting instinct might lead her, she was conscious of a growing

sentiment toward him, which was not very much unlike love itself.

Julien de Buxieres’s mood was not sufficiently calm to observe anything,

or he would immediately have perceived the impression that his sudden

appearance had produced upon Reine Vincart. As soon as he found himself

within a few steps of the young girl, he saluted her awkwardly, and she

returned his bow with marked coldness. Extremely disconcerted at this

reception, he endeavored to excuse himself for having invaded her

dwelling in so unceremonious a manner.

“I am all the more troubled,” added he, humbly, “that after what has

happened, my visit must appear to you indiscreet, if not improper.”

Reine, who had more quickly recovered her self-possession, pretended

not to understand the unwise allusion that had escaped the lips of her

visitor. She rose, pushed away with her foot the stalks and pods, which

encumbered the passage, and replied, very shortly:

“You are excused, Monsieur. There is no need of an introduction to enter

La Thuiliere. Besides, I suppose that the motive which has brought you

here can only be a proper one.”

While thus speaking, she shook her skirt down, and without any

affectation buttoned up her camisole.

“Certainly, Mademoiselle,” faltered Julien, “it is a most serious and

respectable motive that causes me to wish for an interview, and--if--I

do not disturb you--”

“Not in the least, Monsieur; but, if you wish to speak with me, it is

unnecessary for you to remain standing. Allow me to fetch you a chair.”

She went into the house, leaving the young man overwhelmed with the

coolness of his reception; a few minutes later she reappeared, bringing

a chair, which she placed under the tree. “Sit here, you will be in the

shade.”

She seated herself on the same step as before, leaning her back against

the wall, and her head on her hand.

“I am ready to listen to you,” she said.

Julien, much less under his own control than she, discovered that

his mission was more difficult than he had imagined it would be; he

experienced a singular amount of embarrassment in unfolding his subject;

and was obliged to have recourse to prolonged inquiries concerning the

health of Monsieur Vincart.

“He is still in the same condition,” said Reine, “neither better nor

worse, and, with the illness which afflicts him, the best I can hope

for is that he may remain in that condition. But,” continued she, with

a slight inflection of irony; “doubtless it is not for the purpose of

inquiring after my father’s health that you have come all the way from

Vivey?”

“That is true, Mademoiselle,” replied he, coloring. “What I have to

speak to you about is a very delicate matter. You will excuse me,

therefore, if I am somewhat embarrassed. I beg of you, Mademoiselle, to

listen to me with indulgence.”

“What can he be coming to?” thought Reine, wondering why he made so many

preambles before beginning. And, at the same time, her heart began to

beat violently.

Julien took the course taken by all timid people after meditating for

a long while on the best way to prepare the young girl for the

communication he had taken upon himself to make--he lost his head and

inquired abruptly:

“Mademoiselle Reine, do you not intend to marry?”

Reine started, and gazed at him with a frightened air.

“I!” exclaimed she, “Oh, I have time enough and I am not in a hurry.”

Then, dropping her eyes: “Why do you ask that?”

“Because I know of some one who loves you and who would be glad to marry

you.”

She became very pale, took up one of the empty pods, twisted it

nervously around her finger without speaking.

“Some one belonging to our neighborhood?” she faltered, after a few

moments’ silence.

“Yes; some one whom you know, and who is not a recent arrival here. Some

one who possesses, I believe, sterling qualities sufficient to make a

good husband, and means enough to do credit to the woman who will wed

him. Doubtless you have already guessed to whom I refer?”

She sat motionless, her lips tightly closed, her features rigid, but

the nervous twitching of her fingers as she bent the green stem back and

forth, betrayed her inward agitation.

“No; I can not tell,” she replied at last, in an almost inaudible voice.

“Truly?” he exclaimed, with an expression of astonishment, in which was

a certain amount of secret satisfaction; “you can not tell whom I mean?

You have never thought of the person of whom I am speaking in that

light?”

“No; who is that person?”

She had raised her eyes toward his, and they shone with a deep,

mysterious light.

“It is Claudet Sejournant,” replied Julien, very gently; and in an

altered tone.

The glow that had illumined the dark orbs of the young girl faded away,

her eyelids dropped, and her countenance became as rigid as before; but

Julien did not notice anything. The words he had just uttered had cost

him too much agony, and he dared not look at his companion, lest he

should behold her joyful surprise, and thereby aggravate his suffering.

“Ah!” said Reine, coldly, “in that case, why did not Claudet come

himself and state his own case?”

“His courage failed him at the last moment--and so--”

“And so,” continued she, with sarcastic bitterness of tone, “you took

upon yourself to speak for him?”

“Yes; I promised him I would plead his cause. I was sure, moreover, that

I should not have much difficulty in gaining the suit. Claudet has loved

you for a long time. He is good-hearted, and a fine fellow to look at.

And as to worldly advantages, his position is now equal to your own.

I have made over to him, by legal contract, the half of his father’s

estate. What answer am I to take back?”

He spoke with difficulty in broken sentences, without turning his eyes

toward Mademoiselle Vincart. The silence that followed his last question

seemed to him unbearable, and the contrasting chirping of the noisy

grasshoppers, and the buzzing of the flies in the quiet sunny garden,

resounded unpleasantly in his ears.

Reine remained speechless. She was disconcerted and well-nigh

overpowered by the unexpected announcement, and her brain seemed unable

to bear the crowd of tumultuous and conflicting emotions which presented

themselves. Certainly, she had already suspected that Claudet had a

secret liking for her, but she never had thought of encouraging the

feeling. The avowal of his hopes neither surprised nor hurt her; that

which pained her was the intervention of Julien, who had taken in

hand the cause of his relative. Was it possible that this same M. de

Buxieres, who had made so audacious a display of his tender feeling in

the hut, could now come forward as Claudet’s advocate, as if it were

the most natural thing in the world for him to do? In that case, his

astonishing behavior at the fete, which had caused her so much pain,

and which she had endeavored to excuse in her own mind as the untutored

outbreak of his pentup love, that fiery caress, was only the insulting

manifestation of a brutal caprice? The transgressor thought so little

of her, she was of such small importance in his eyes, that he had no

hesitation in proposing that she marry Claudet? She beheld herself

scorned, humiliated, insulted by the only man in whom she ever had felt

interested. In the excess of her indignation she felt herself becoming

hardhearted and violent; a profound discouragement, a stony indifference

to all things, impelled her to extreme measures, and, not being able at

the moment to find any one on whom she could put them in operation, she

was almost tempted to lay violent hands on herself.

“What shall I say to Claudet?” repeated Julien, endeavoring to conceal

the suffering which was devouring his heart by an assumption of outward

frigidity.

She turned slowly round, fixed her searching eyes, which had become as

dark as waters reflecting a stormy sky, upon his face, and demanded, in

icy tones:

“What do you advise me to say?”

Now, if Julien had been less of a novice, he would have understood that

a girl who loves never addresses such a question; but the feminine heart

was a book in which he was a very poor speller. He imagined that Reine

was only asking him as a matter of form, and that it was from a feeling

of maidenly reserve that she adopted this passive method of escaping

from openly declaring her wishes. She no doubt desired his friendly

aid in the matter, and he felt as if he ought to grant her that

satisfaction.

“I have the conviction,” stammered he, “that Claudet will make a good

husband, and you will do well to accept him.”

Reine bit her lip, and her paleness increased so as to set off still

more the fervid lustre of her eyes. The two little brown moles stood out

more visibly on her white neck, and added to her attractions.

“So be it!” exclaimed she, “tell Claudet that I consent, and that he

will be welcome at La Thuiliere.”

“I will tell him immediately.” He bent gravely and sadly before

Reine, who remained standing and motionless against the door. “Adieu,

Mademoiselle!”

He turned away abruptly; plunged into the first avenue he came to, lost

his way twice and finally reached the courtyard, and thence escaped at

breakneck speed across the fields.

Reine maintained her statue-like pose as long as the young man’s

footsteps resounded on the stony paths; but when they died gradually

away in the distance, when nothing could be heard save the monotonous

trill of the grasshoppers basking in the sun, she threw herself down on

the green heap of rubbish; she covered her face with her hands and gave

way to a passionate outburst of tears and sobs.

In the meanwhile, Julien de Buxieres, angry with himself, irritated

by the speedy success of his mission, was losing his way among the

pasturages, and getting entangled in the thickets. All the details of

the interview presented themselves before his mind with remorseless

clearness. He seemed more lonely, more unfortunate, more disgusted with

himself and with all else than he ever had been before. Ashamed of

the wretched part he had just been enacting, he felt almost childish

repugnance to returning to Vivey, and tried to pick out the paths that

would take him there by the longest way. But he was not sufficiently

accustomed to laying out a route for himself, and when he thought he had

a league farther to go, and had just leaped over an intervening hedge,

the pointed roofs of the chateau appeared before him at a distance of

not more than a hundred feet, and at one of the windows on the

first floor he could distinguish Claudet, leaning for ward, as if to

interrogate him.

He remembered then the promise he had made the young huntsman; and

faithful to his word, although with rage and bitterness in his heart, he

raised his hat, and with effort, waved it three times above his head.

At this signal, the forerunner of good news, Claudet replied by a

triumphant shout, and disappeared from the window. A moment later,

Julien heard the noise of furious galloping down the enclosures of

the park. It was the lover, hastening to learn the particulars of the

interview.

BOOK 3.