THE RESOLUTION.
"I am listening," said Louis, leaning forward as if to hear the better.
Valentine resumed with a melancholy smile.
"We have now reached the 1st of January, 1835," said he; "with the last
vibration of midnight your existence as a gentleman has come to an end.
From this time you are about to commence a life of trials and struggles;
in a word, you are about to become a man!"
The Count gave him an inquiring glance.
"I will explain myself," Valentine continued; "but in order to do that,
you must, in the first place, allow me, in a few words, to recall your
history to you."
"Surely, I am well enough acquainted with that," interrupted the Count,
in a tone that displayed impatience.
"Well, perhaps you are; but, at all events, listen to my version of it;
if I err, put me right."
"Follow your own humour," the Count replied, sinking back into his chair
with the air of a man whom politeness obliges to listen to a tiresome
discourse.
Though he saw it, Valentine appeared to take no notice of this movement
on the part of his foster brother. He relit his cigar, which he had
allowed to go out, patted the dog, whose great head was lying upon his
knees, and began, as if convinced that Louis gave him the most profound
attention.
"Your history is that of almost every man of your rank," said he. "Your
ancestors, whose name can be traced to the Crusades, left you at your
birth a noble title, and a hundred thousand francs a year. Rich, without
having had occasion to employ your faculties to gain your fortune,
and consequently ignorant of the real value of money, you spent it
heedlessly, believing it to be inexhaustible. This is just what has
happened; only, one day, when you least expected it, the hideous spectre
of ruin rose up suddenly before you, and you had a glimpse of want,
that is, of the necessity for labour; and then you drew back terrified,
declaring there was no refuge but in death."
"All that is perfectly true," the Count interrupted; "but you forget to
mention, that before forming this last resolution, I took care to put
my affairs in order, and to pay all my creditors. I then became my own
master, and had a right to dispose of my life as I thought fit."
"Not at all. And it is this which your education as a gentleman has
prevented you from understanding. Your life is not your own; it is
a loan which God has made you. It is, consequently, nothing but an
expectation, a _waiting_, a passage: for this reason it is short,
but the profit of it is due to humanity. Every man who wastes the
faculties which he holds from God in orgies and debaucheries, commits a
robbery upon the great human family. Remember that we are all mutually
responsible for one another, and that we ought to employ our faculties
for the advantage of the whole."
"For Heaven's sake, brother, a truce to your sermons! Such theories,
more or less paradoxical, may succeed with certain people, but----"
"Brother," Valentine interrupted, "do not speak so. In spite of
yourself, your pride of race dictates words which you will ere long
regret. Certain people! there you have let slip the great word. Oh,
Louis, Louis! how many things you have yet to learn! But that we may
know what we are about, reckoning all your resources, how much have you
left?"
"Oh, I scarcely know! A pitiful sum."
"Well, but how much?"
"Good Heavens! some forty thousand francs, I suppose, at most, which may
amount to sixty thousand by the sale of these luxurious trifles," the
Count said carelessly.
Valentine started up in his chair.
"Sixty thousand francs!" he cried; "and you are in despair! and have
made up your mind to die! Senseless fellow! why, these sixty thousand
francs, well employed, are a fortune! they will enable you to find the
woman you love! How many poor devils would fancy themselves rich with
such a sum!"
"What do you mean to do, then?"
"You shall see. What is the name of the lady you are in love with?"
"Doña Rosario del Valle."
"Very well. She has, you say, gone to America?"
"Ten days ago; but I, in justice, must observe to you, that Doña
Rosario, whom you do not know, is a noble and amiable girl, who has
never lent an ear to one of my flatteries, or given favourable heed to
the ruinous extravagances which I committed to please her."
"Ah, that is very possible! why, then, should I seek to rob you of this
sweet illusion? Only it makes me the more puzzled to perceive how, under
these circumstances, you could manage to melt your fortune, which was
considerable, like a lump of butter in the sun."
"Here! read this note from my broker."
"Oh!" said Valentine, pushing back the paper; "you have been dabbling
on the Stock Exchange, have you! Everything is now easily explained, my
poor pigeon; the kites have plucked you nicely! Well, brother, you must
take your revenge."
"Oh, I ask nothing better!" said the young man, knitting his brows.
"We are of the same age; my mother's milk nourished us both; in the
eyes of God we are brothers! I will make a man of you! I will help
you to put on that armour of brass which will render you invincible.
Whilst you, protected by your name and your fortune, allowed life to
glide luxuriously away, only plucking its flowers as it passed, I, a
poor wretch wandering over the rough pavement of Paris, carried on a
gigantic struggle to obtain a mere existence; a struggle of every hour
and every minute, where the victory for me was a morsel of bread, and
experience most dearly bought; for often, when I held horses, sold
theatre checks, or acted clown to a mountebank--in fact, when I went
through the thousand impossible shifts of the Bohemian, depression and
discouragement nearly choked me; often and often have I felt my burning
brow and throbbing temples clasped in the pinching vice of want; but I
resisted, I girded myself up against adversity; never did I allow myself
to be conquered, although I left upon the thorns of my rugged path many
of the rags of my most fondly-cherished illusions; while my heart,
writhing with despair, has bled from twenty wounds at once! Courage,
Louis! henceforth there will be two of us to fight the battle! You shall
be the head to conceive, I the arm to execute; you the intelligence, I
the strength! Now the struggle will be equal, for we will sustain one
another. Trust in me, my brother; a day will come when success will
crown our efforts!"
"I can fully appreciate your devotion, and I accept it. Am I not, at
present, your property? Entertain no fear of my resisting you. But I
cannot help telling you that I fear all my attempts will be in vain, and
that we shall be forced, sooner or later, to fall back upon that last
means which you now prevent me having recourse to."
"Oh, thou man of little faith!" Valentine said, cheerfully; "on the road
which we are about to take, fortune will be our slave!"
Louis could not repress a smile.
"We must, at all events, depend upon the aid of chance in what we are
about to undertake," he said.
"Chance! chance is the hope of fools; the strong man commands it."
"Well, but what do you mean to do?"
"The lady you love is in America, is she not?"
"I have already told you so several times."
"Very well, then, we must go thither."
"But I do not know even in what part of America she resides."
"Of what consequence is that? The New World is the country of gold--the
true region of adventurers! We shall retrieve our fortunes whilst
searching for her; and is that so disagreeable a thing? Tell me--this
lady was born somewhere?"
"She is a Chilian."
"Good! she has gone back to Chili, then; and it is there we shall find
her."
Louis looked at his foster brother for a moment, with a species of
respectful admiration.
"What! do you seriously mean that you will do this, brother?" he said,
in an agitated voice.
"Without hesitation."
"Abandon the military career which offers you so many chances of
success? I know that in three months you will be an officer."
"I have ceased to be a soldier since the morning; I have found a
substitute."
"Oh, that is not possible!"
"Ay, but it is done."
"But your old mother, my nurse, whose only support you are!"
"Out of what you have left we will give her a few thousand francs,
which, joined to my pension, will suffice for her to live on till we
come back."
"Oh," said the young man, "I cannot accept of such a sacrifice--my
honour forbids it!"
"Unfortunately, brother," Valentine said, in a tone which silenced the
Count, "you have it not in your power to prevent it. In acting as I
propose to do I am only discharging a sacred duty."
"I do not understand you."
"What is the use of explaining it to you?"
"I insist."
"Very good; and, perhaps, it will be better. Listen:--When, after
having nursed you, my mother restored you to your family, my father fell
sick, and died at the end of an illness of eight months, leaving my
mother and myself in the greatest want; the little we possessed had been
spent in medicines, and in paying the doctor for his visits. We ought to
have had recourse to your family, who would, no doubt, have relieved us;
but my mother would never consent to it. 'The Count de Prébois-Crancé
has done as much as he ought,' she remarked, 'he shall not be troubled
any more.'"
"She was wrong," said Louis.
"I know she was," Valentine replied. "In the meantime, hunger soon began
to be felt. It was then I undertook all those impossible trades of which
I just now spoke to you. One day, as I was carrying my cap round in the
Place du Trône, after swallowing sabres and eating fire, to the great
delight of the crowd, I found myself face to face with an officer of the
Chasseurs d'Afrique, who looked at me with an air of pity and kindness
that melted my heart within me. He led me away with him, made me relate
my history, and insisted upon being conducted to the shed where I and
my mother lived. At the sight of our misery the old soldier was much
affected; a tear, which he could not restrain, flowed silently down his
sunburnt cheek. Louis, that officer was your father."
"My noble and good father!" the Count exclaimed, pressing his foster
brother's hand.
"Yes! yes, noble and good! he secured my mother a little annuity which
enables her to live, and took me into his own regiment. Two years ago,
during the last expedition against the Rey of Constantine, your father
was struck by a bullet in his chest, and died at the end of two hours,
calling upon his son."
"Yes," the young man said, with tears in his eyes, "I know he did."
"But what you do not know, Louis, is, that at the point of death your
father turned towards me--for, from the moment he had received his wound
I had never left him."
Louis again silently pressed the hand of Valentine, whilst the latter
continued--
"'Valentine,' he said to me, in a faint voice, broken by the rattle of
death, for the mortal agony had commenced, 'my son is left alone, and
without experience; he has nobody but you, his foster brother. Watch
over him--never abandon him! May I depend upon your promise? it will
mitigate the pain of dying.' I knelt down beside him, and respectfully
seizing the hand he held out to me, exclaimed--'Die in peace! in the
hour of adversity I will be always by the side of your Louis. Two tears
of joy at that awful hour dropped from your father's eyes; he said, in a
faltering voice--'God has heard your oath and murmuring your name, and
clasping my hand, he expired. Louis, I owe to your father the comfort
my mother enjoys; I owe to your father the feelings that make me a man,
and this cross which glitters on my breast. Can you not now comprehend,
then, why I have spoken to you as I have done? While you held your
course in your strength, I kept aloof; but now that the hour has arrived
for accomplishing my vow, no human power can prevent me from doing so."
The two young men were silent for a moment, and then Louis, laying his
face on the soldier's honest chest, said, with a burst of tears--
"When shall we set out, brother?"
The latter looked at him earnestly--
"You are fully resolved to commence a new life?"
"Entirely!" Louis replied, in a firm tone.
"Do you leave no regrets behind you?"
"None."
"You are ready to pass bravely through all the trials to which I may
expose you?"
"I am."
"That is well, brother! it is thus I wish you to be. We will set out as
soon as we have settled the balance of your past life. You must enter
on the new existence I am about to open to you quite free from clogs or
remembrances."
* * * * *
On the 2nd of February, 1835, a packet boat belonging to the
Trans-Atlantic Company left Havre, directing its course towards
Valparaiso. On board this vessel, as passengers, were the Count de
Prébois-Crancé, Valentine Guillois his foster brother, and Cæsar their
Newfoundland dog--Cæsar, the only friend who had remained faithful to
them, and whom they could not think of leaving behind. Upon the quay
a woman of about sixty years of age, her face bathed in tears, stood
with her eyes intently fixed upon the vessel as long as it remained in
sight. When it had disappeared below the horizon, she cast a desponding
glance around her, and with a heavy heart bent her steps towards a house
situated at a small distance from the beach, where she remained three
days.
"Do what is right, happen what may!" she said, in a voice stifled by
grief.
This woman was the mother of Valentine Guillois. She was the most to be
pitied, for she was left alone!