Three days after the evening thus spent by Gustave Rameau, Isaura was
startled by a visit from M. de Mauleon. She had not seen him since the
commencement of the siege, and she did not recognise him at first glance
in his military uniform.
"I trust you will pardon my intrusion, Mademoiselle," he said, in the low
sweet voice habitual to him in his gentler moods, "but I thought it
became me to announce to you the decease of one who, I fear, did not
discharge with much kindness the duties her connection with you imposed.
Your father's second wife, afterwards Madame Selby, is no more. She died
some days since in a convent to which she had retired."
Isaura had no cause to mourn the dead, but she felt a shock in the
suddenness of this information; and in that sweet spirit of womanly
compassion which entered so largely into her character, and made a part
of her genius itself, she murmured tearfully, "The poor Signora! Why
could I not have been with her in illness? She might then have learned
to love me. And she died in a convent, you say? Ah, her religion was
then sincere! Her end was peaceful?"
"Let us not doubt that, Mademoiselle. Certainly she lived to regret any
former errors, and her last thought was directed towards such atonement
as might be in her power. And it is that desire of atonement which now
strangely mixes me up, Mademoiselle, in your destinies. In that desire
for atonement, she left to my charge, as a kinsman distant indeed, but
still, perhaps, the nearest with whom she was personally acquainted--a
young ward. In accepting that trust, I find myself strangely compelled
to hazard the risk of offending you."
"Offending me? How? Pray speak openly."
"In so doing, I must utter the name of Gustave Rameau."
Isaura turned pale and recoiled, but she did not speak. "Did he inform
me rightly that, in the last interview with him three days ago, you
expressed a strong desire that the engagement between him and yourself
should cease; and that you only, and with reluctance, suspended your
rejection of the suit he had pressed on you, in consequence of his
entreaties, and of certain assurances as to the changed direction of the
talents of which we will assume that he is possessed?"
"Well, well, Monsieur," exclaimed Isaura, her whole face brightening;
"and you come on the part of Gustave Rameau to say that on reflection he
does not hold me to our engagement--that in honour and in conscience I am
free?"
"I see," answered De Mauleon, smiling, "that I am pardoned already. It
would not pain you if such were my instructions in the embassy I
undertake?"
"Pain me? No. But--"
"But what?"
"Must he persist in a course which will break his mother's heart, and
make his father deplore the hour that he was born? Have you influence
over him, M. de Mauleon? If so, will you not exert it for his good?"
"You interest yourself still in his fate, Mademoiselle?"
"How can I do otherwise? Did I not consent to share it when my heart
shrank from the thought of our union? And now when, if I understand you
rightly, I am free, I cannot but think of what was best in him."
"Alas! Mademoiselle, he is but one of many--a spoilt child of that
Circe, imperial Paris. Everywhere I look around, I see but corruption.
It was hidden by the halo which corruption itself engenders. The halo
is gone, the corruption is visible. Where is the old French manhood?
Banished from the heart, it comes out only at the tongue. Were our
deeds like our words, Prussia would beg on her knee to be a province of
France. Gustave is the fit poet for this generation. Vanity--desire to
be known for something, no matter what, no matter by whom--that is the
Parisian's leading motive power;--orator, soldier, poet, all alike.
Utterers of fine phrases; despising knowledge, and toil, and discipline;
railing against the Germans as barbarians, against their generals as
traitors; against God for not taking their part. What can be done to
weld this mass of hollow bubbles into the solid form of a nation--the
nation it affects to be? What generation can be born out of the unmanly
race, inebriate with brag and absinthe? Forgive me this tirade; I have
been reviewing the battalion I command. As for Gustave Rameau,--if we
survive the siege, and see once more a Government that can enforce
order, and a public that will refuse renown for balderdash,--I should
not be surprised if Gustave Rameau were among the prettiest imitators of
Lamartine's early Meditations. Had he been born under Louis XIV. how
loyal he would have been! What sacred tragedies in the style of Athalie
he would have written, in the hope of an audience at Versailles! But I
detain you from the letter I was charged to deliver you. I have done so
purposely, that I might convince myself that you welcome that release
which your too delicate sense of honour shrank too long from demanding."
Here he took forth and placed a letter in Isaura's hand; and, as if to
allow her to read it unobserved, retired to the window recess.
Isaura glanced over the letter. It ran thus:
"I feel that it was only to your compassion that I owed your consent to
my suit. Could I have doubted that before, your words when we last met
sufficed to convince me. In my selfish pain at the moment, I committed a
great wrong. I would have held you bound to a promise from which you
desired to be free. Grant me pardon for that; and for all the faults by
which I have offended you. In cancelling our engagement, let me hope
that I may rejoice in your friendship, your remembrance of me, some
gentle and kindly thought. My life may henceforth pass out of contact
with yours; but you will ever dwell in my heart, an image pure and holy
as the saints in whom you may well believe-they are of your own kindred."
"May I convey to Gustave Rameau any verbal reply to his letter?" asked De
Mauleon, turning as she replaced the letter on the table.
"Only my wishes for his welfare. It might wound him if I added, my
gratitude for the generous manner in which he has interpreted my heart,
and acceded to its desires."
"Mademoiselle, accept my congratulations. My condolences are for the
poor girl left to my guardianship. Unhappily she loves this man; and
there are reasons why I cannot withhold my consent to her union with him,
should he demand it, now that, in the letter remitted to you, he has
accepted your dismissal. If I can keep him out of all the follies and
all the evils into which he suffers his vanity to mislead his reason,
I will do so;--would I might say, only in compliance with your
compassionate injunctions. But henceforth the infatuation of my ward
compels me to take some interest in his career. Adieu, Mademoiselle!
I have no fear for your happiness now."
Left alone, Isaura stood as one transfigured. All the bloom of her youth
seemed suddenly restored. Round her red lips the dimples opened,
countless mirrors of one happy smile. "I am free, I am free," she
murmured--"joy, joy!" and she passed from the room to seek the Venosta,
singing clear, singing loud, as a bird that escapes from the cage and
warbles to the heaven it regains the blissful tale of its release.