The time now came when all provision of food or of fuel failed the modest
household of Isaura; and there was not only herself and the Venosta to
feed and warm--there were the servants whom they had brought from Italy,
and had not the heart now to dismiss to the 'certainty of famine. True,
one of the three, the man, had returned to his native land before the
commencement of the siege; but the two women had remained. They
supported themselves now as they could on the meagre rations accorded by
the Government. Still Isaura attended the ambulance to which she was
attached. From the ladies associated with her she could readily have
obtained ample supplies: but they had no conception of her real state of
destitution; and there was a false pride generally prevalent among the
respectable classes, which Isaura shared, that concealed distress lest
alms should be proffered.
The destitution of the household had been carefully concealed from the
parents of Gustave Rameau, until, one day, Madame Rameau, entering at the
hour at which she generally, and her husband sometimes, came for a place
by the fireside and a seat at the board, found on the one only ashes, on
the other a ration of the black nauseous compound which had become the
substitute for bread.
Isaura was absent on her duties at the ambulance hospital,--purposely
absent, for she shrank from the bitter task of making clear to the
friends of her betrothed the impossibility of continuing the aid to their
support which their son had neglected to contribute; and still more from
the comment which she knew they would make on his conduct, in absenting
himself so wholly of late, and in the time of such trial and pressure,
both from them and from herself. Truly, she rejoiced at that absence so
far as it affected herself. Every hour of the day she silently asked her
conscience whether she were not now absolved from a promise won from her
only by an assurance that she had power to influence for good the life
that now voluntarily separated itself from her own. As she had never
loved Gustave, so she felt no resentment at the indifference his conduct
manifested. On the contrary, she hailed it as a sign that the annulment
of their betrothal would be as welcome to him as to herself. And if so,
she could restore to him the sort of compassionate friendship she had
learned to cherish in the hour of his illness and repentance. She had
resolved to seize the first opportunity he afforded to her of speaking to
him with frank and truthful plainness. But, meanwhile, her gentle nature
recoiled from the confession of her resolve to appeal to Gustave himself
for the rupture of their engagement.
Thus the Venosta alone received Madame Rameau; and while that lady was
still gazing round her with an emotion too deep for immediate utterance,
her husband entered with an expression of face new to him--the look of a
man who has been stung to anger, and who has braced his mind to some
stern determination. This altered countenance of the good-tempered
bourgeois was not, however, noticed by the two women. The Venosta did
not even raise her eyes to it, as with humbled accents she said, "Pardon,
dear Monsieur, pardon, Madame, our want of hospitality; it is not our
hearts that fail. We kept our state from you as long as we could. Now
it speaks for itself; '_la fame e una bretta festin._'"
"Oh, Madame! and oh, my poor Isaura!" cried Madame Rameau, bursting into
tears. "So we have been all this time a burden on you,--aided to bring
such want on yon! How can we ever be forgiven? And my son--to leave us
thus,--not even to tell us where to find him!"
"Do not degrade us, my wife," said M. Rameau, with unexpected dignity,
"by a word to imply that we would stoop to sue for support to our
ungrateful child. No, we will not starve! I am strong enough still to
find food for you. I will apply for restoration to the National Guard.
They have augmented the pay to married men; it is now nearly two francs
and a half a-day to a _pere de famille_, and on that pay we all can at
least live. Courage, my wife! I will go at once for employment. Many
men older than I am are at watch on the ramparts, and will march to the
battle on the next sortie."
"It shall not be so," exclaimed Madame Rameau, vehemently, and winding
her arm round her husband's neck. "I loved my son better than thee once
--more shame to me. Now, I would rather lose twenty such sons than peril
thy life, my Jacques! Madame," she continued, turning to the Venosta,
"thou wert wiser than I. Thou wert ever opposed to the union between thy
young friend and my son. I felt sore with thee for it--a mother is so
selfish when she puts herself in the place of her child. I thought that
only through marriage with one so pure, so noble, so holy, Gustave could
be saved from sin and evil. I am deceived. A man so heartless to his
parents, so neglectful of his affianced, is not to be redeemed. I
brought about this betrothal: tell Isaura that I release her from it.
I have watched her closely since she was entrapped into it. I know how
miserable the thought of it has made her, though, in her sublime devotion
to her plighted word, she sought to conceal from me the real state of her
heart. If the betrothal bring such sorrow, what would the union do!
Tell her this from me. Come, Jacques, come away!"
"Stay, Madame!" exclaimed the Venosta, her excitable nature much affected
by this honest outburst of feeling. "It is true that I did oppose, so
far as I could, my poor Piccola's engagement with M. Gustave. But I dare
not do your bidding. Isaura would not listen to me. And let us be just!
M. Gustave may be able satisfactorily to explain his seeming indifference
and neglect. His health is always very delicate; perhaps he may be again
dangerously ill. He serves in the National Guard; perhaps--" she paused,
but the mother conjectured the word left unsaid, and, clasping her hands,
cried out in anguish, "Perhaps dead!--and we have wronged him! Oh,
Jacques, Jacques! how shall we find out-how discover our boy? Who can
tell us where to search? at the hospital--or in the cemeteries?" At the
last word she dropped into a seat, and her whole frame shook with her
sobs.
Jacques approached her tenderly, and kneeling by her side, said:
"No, _m'amie_, comfort thyself, if it be indeed comfort to learn that thy
son is alive and well. For my part, I know not if I would not rather he
had died in his innocent childhood. I have seen him--spoken to him. I
know where he is to be found."
"You do, and concealed it from me? Oh, Jacques!"
"Listen to me, wife, and you, too, Madame; for what I have to say should
be made known to Mademoiselle Cicogna. Some time since, on the night of
the famous sortie, when at my post on the ramparts, I was told that
Gustave had joined himself to the most violent of the Red Republicans,
and had uttered at the Club de la Vengeance sentiments, of which I will
only say that I, his father and a Frenchman, hung my head with shame when
they were repeated to me. I resolved to go to the club myself. I did.
I heard him speak--heard him denounce Christianity as the instrument of
tyrants."
"Ah!" cried the two women, with a simultaneous shudder.
"When the assembly broke up, I waylaid him at the door. I spoke to him
seriously. I told him what anguish such announcement of blasphemous
opinions would inflict on his pious mother. I told him I should deem it
my duty to inform Mademoiselle Cicogna, and warn her against the union on
which he had told us his heart was bent. He appeared sincerely moved by
what I said; implored me to keep silence towards his mother and his
betrothed; and promised, on that condition, to relinquish at once what he
called 'his career as an orator,' and appear no more at such execrable
clubs. On this understanding I held my tongue. Why, with such other
causes of grief and suffering, should I tell thee, poor wife, of a sin
that I hoped thy son had repented and would not repeat? And Gustave kept
his word. He has never, so far as I know, attended, at least spoken, at
the Red clubs since that evening."
"Thank heaven so far," murmured Madame Rameau.
"So far, yes; but hear more. A little time after I thus met him he
changed his lodging, and did not confide to us his new address, giving as
a reason to us that he wished to avoid a clue to his discovery by that
pertinacious Mademoiselle Julie."
Rameau had here sunk his voice into a whisper, intended only for his
wife, but the ear of the Venosta was fine enough to catch the sound, and
she repeated, "Mademoiselle Julie! Santa Maria! who is she?"
"Oh!" said M. Rameau, with a shrug of his shoulders, and with true
Parisian _sangfroid_ as to such matters of morality, "a trifle not worth
considering. Of course, a good-looking _garcon_ like Gustave must have
his little affairs of the heart before he settles for life. Unluckily,
amongst those of Gustave was one with a violent-tempered girl who
persecuted him when he left her, and he naturally wished to avoid all
chance of a silly scandal, if only out of respect to the dignity of his
fiancee. But I found that was not the true motive, or at least the only
one, for concealment. Prepare yourself, my poor wife. Thou hast heard
of these terrible journals which the _decheance_ has let loose upon us.
Our unhappy boy is the principal writer of one of the worst of them,
under the name of 'Diderot le Jeune."'
"What!" cried the Venosta. "That monster! The good Abbe Vertpre was
telling us of the writings with that name attached to them. The Abbe
himself is denounced by name as one of those meddling priests who are to
be constrained to serve as soldiers or pointed out to the vengeance of
the _canaille_. Isaura's _fiancee_ a blasphemer!"
"Hush, hush!" said Madame Rameau, rising, very pale but self-collected.
"How do you know this, Jacques?"
"From the lips of Gustave himself. I heard first of it yesterday from
one of the young reprobates with whom he used to be familiar, and who
even complimented me on the rising fame of my son, and praised the
eloquence of his article that day. But I would not believe him. I
bought the journal--here it is; saw the name and address of the printer
--went this morning to the office--was there told that 'Diderot le Jeune'
was within revising the press--stationed myself by the street door, and
when Gustave came out I seized his arm, and asked him to say Yes or No if
he was the author of this infamous article,--this, which I now hold in my
hand. He owned the authorship with pride; talked wildly of the great man
he was--of the great things he was to do; said that, in hitherto
concealing his true name, he had done all he could to defer to the
bigoted prejudices of his parents and his fiancee; and that if genius,
like fire, would find its way out, he could not help it; that a time was
rapidly coming when his opinions would be uppermost; that since October
the Communists were gaining ascendancy, and only waited the end of the
siege to put down the present Government, and with it all hypocrisies and
shams, religious or social. My wife, he was rude to me, insulting! but
he had been drinking--that made him incautious: and he continued to walk
by my side towards his own lodging, on reaching which he ironically
invited me to enter, saying, 'I should meet there men who would soon
argue me out of my obsolete notions.' You may go to him, wife, now, if
you please. I will not, nor will I take from him a crust of bread. I
came hither, determined to tell the young lady all this, if I found her
at home. I should be a dishonoured man if I suffered her to be cheated
into misery.
"There, Madame Venosta, there! Take that journal, show it to
Mademoiselle; and report to her all I have said."
M. Rameau, habitually the mildest of men, had, in talking, worked himself
up into positive fury.
His wife, calmer but more deeply affected, made a piteous sign to the
Venosta not to say more; and without other salutation or adieu took her
husband's arm, and led him from the house.