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THE SEVEN CARDINAL SINS
ENVY AND INDOLENCE
[Illustration: frontispiece]
The Dagobert Edition
THE SEVEN
CARDINAL SINS
_In Five Volumes_
By
Eugene Sue
INDOLENCE--ENVY
Illustrated
[Illustration: colophon]
New York and Boston
H. M. Caldwell Company
Publishers
_Copyright, 1899_
BY FRANCIS A. NICCOLLS & CO.
FREDERICK BASTIEN
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
ENVY.
PAGE
"'WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?'" _Frontispiece_
"THE PROCESSION BEGAN" 70
"HE BROUGHT HIS GUN TO HIS SHOULDER" 118
"SEIZING THE PROW OF THE LITTLE BOAT" 230
"SHE SAW HER HUSBAND" 321
INDOLENCE.
"'HERE IS THE LETTER; READ IT, MONSIEUR'" 292
"FLORENCE WAS SLUMBERING IN GRACEFUL ABANDON" 370
ENVY.
CHAPTER I.
In the year 1828 any tourist who was on his way from Blois to the little
town of Pont Brillant to visit--as travellers seldom fail to do--the
famous castle of that name, the magnificent feudal abode of the
Marquises Pont Brillant, would have been obliged to pass a farmhouse
standing near the edge of the road, about two miles from the chateau.
If this lonely dwelling attracted the attention of the traveller, he
would have been almost certain to have regarded it with mingled
melancholy and disgust as one of the too numerous specimens of hideous
rural architecture in France, even when these habitations belong to
persons possessed of a competence. This establishment consisted of a
large barn and storehouse, with two long wings in the rear. The interior
of the sort of parallelogram thus formed served as a courtyard, and was
filled with piles of manure rotting in pools of stagnant water, for cow,
horse, and sheep stables all opened into this enclosure, where all sorts
of domestic animals, from poultry to hogs, were scratching and rooting.
One of the wings in the rear served as the abode of the family. It was a
story and a half high, and had no outlook save this loathsome courtyard,
with the dirty, worm-eaten doors of the cow-stable for a horizon. On
the other side of the structure, where no window pierced the wall, stood
a superb grove of century-old oaks, a couple of acres in extent, through
which flowed a beautiful stream that served as an outlet for several
distant lakes. But this grove, in spite of its beauty, had become
well-nigh a desert on account of the large amount of gravel that had
been deposited there, and the thick growth of rushes and thistles that
covered it; besides, the stream, for want of cleaning out and of a
sufficient fall, was becoming turbid and stagnant.
But if this same tourist had passed this same farmhouse one year
afterward, he would have been struck by the sudden metamorphosis that
the place had undergone, though it still belonged to the same owner. A
beautiful lawn, close and fine as velvet, and ornamented with big clumps
of rose-bushes, had taken the place of the dirty manure-strewn
courtyard. New doors had been cut on the other side of the horse and cow
stables; the old doors had been walled up, and the house itself, as well
as the big barn at the foot of the courtyard, had been whitewashed and
covered with a green trellis up which vigorous shoots of honeysuckle,
clematis, and woodbine were already climbing.
The wing in which the family lived had been surrounded with flowering
plants and shrubbery. A gravel path led up to the main doorway, which
was now shaded by a broad, rustic porch with a thatched roof in which
big clumps of houseleek and dwarf iris were growing. This rustic porch,
overhung with luxuriant vines, evidently served as the family
sitting-room. The window-frames, which were painted a dark green,
contrasted strikingly with the dazzling whiteness of the curtains and
the clearness of the window-panes, and on each sill was a small
jardiniere made of silver birch bark, and filled with freshly gathered
flowers. A light fence, half concealed by roses, lilacs, and acacias,
had been run from one wing of the establishment to the other, parallel
with the barn, thus enclosing this charming garden. The grove had
undergone a no less complete transformation. A rich carpet of velvety
turf, cut with winding walks of shining yellow sand, had superseded the
rushes and thistles; the formerly sluggish stream, turned into a new bed
and checked in the middle of its course by a pile of large, moss-covered
rocks three or four feet high, plunged from the height in a little
bubbling, dancing waterfall, then continued its clear and rapid course
on a level with its grassy borders.
A few beds of scarlet geraniums, whose brilliant hues contrasted vividly
with the rich, green turf, brightened this charming spot, in which the
few bright sunbeams that forced their way through dense foliage made a
bewitching play of light and shade, especially in the vista through
which one could see in the distance the forest of Pont Brillant,
dominated by its ancient castle.
The details of this complete transformation, effected in so short a time
by such simple and inexpensive means, seem puerile, perhaps, but are
really highly significant as the expression of one of the thousand
different phases of maternal love. Yes, a young woman sixteen years of
age, married when only a little over fifteen, exiled here in this
solitude, had thus metamorphosed it.
It was the desire to surround her expected child with bright and
beautiful objects here in this lonely spot where he was to live, that
had thus developed the young mother's taste, and each pleasing
innovation which she had effected in this gloomy, unattractive place,
had been planned merely with the purpose of providing a suitable setting
for this dear little eagerly expected child.
On the greensward in the carefully enclosed courtyard the child could
play as an infant. The porch would afford a healthful shelter in case it
rained or the sun was too hot. Later, when he outgrew his babyhood, he
could play and run about in the shady grove, under his mother's
watchful eye, and amuse himself by listening to the soft murmur of the
waterfall, or by watching it dance and sparkle along over the mossy
rocks. The limpid stream, kept at a uniform depth of barely two feet
now, held no dangers for the child, who, on the contrary, as soon as the
warm summer days came, could bathe, whenever the desire seized him, in
the crystal-clear water that filtered through a bed of fine gravel.
In this, as in many other details, as we shall see by and by, a sort of
inspiration seemed to have guided this young mother in her plan of
changing this untidy, ugly farmhouse into a cheerful and attractive
home.
At the date at which this story begins,--the last of the month of June,
1845,--the young mother had been residing in this farmhouse for
seventeen years. The shrubs in the courtyard had become trees; the
buildings were almost completely hidden under a luxuriant mantle of
flowering vines, while even in winter the walls and porch were thickly
covered with ivy; while in the adjoining grove the melancholy murmur of
the little cascade and the stream were still heard. The glass door of a
large room which served at the same time as a parlour for the mother and
a schoolroom for her son, now sixteen years of age, opened out upon this
grove. This room likewise served as a sort of museum--one might be
disposed to smile at this rather pretentious word, so we will say
instead a maternal shrine or reliquary, for a large but inexpensive
cabinet contained a host of articles which the fond mother had carefully
preserved as precious mementoes of different epochs in her son's life.
Everything bore a date, from the infant's rattle to the crown of oak
leaves which the youth had won at a competitive examination in the
neighbouring town of Pont Brillant, where the proud mother had sent her
son to test his powers. There, too, everything had its significance,
from the little broken toy gun to the emblem of white satin fringed with
gold, which neophytes wear so proudly at their first communion.
These relics were puerile, even ridiculous perhaps, and yet, when we
remember that all the incidents of her son's life with which these
articles were associated had been important, touching, or deeply solemn
events to this young mother living in complete solitude and idolising
her son, we can forgive this worship of the past and also understand the
feeling that had prompted her to place among these relics a small
porcelain lamp, by the subdued light of which the mother had watched
over her son during a long and dangerous illness from which his life had
been saved by a modest but clever physician of Pont Brillant.
It is almost needless to say, too, that the walls of the room were
ornamented with frames containing here a page of infantile, almost
unformed handwriting, there a couple of verses which the youth had
composed for his mother's birthday the year before. Besides there were
the inevitable heads of Andromache and of Niobe, upon which the
inexperienced crayon of the beginner usually bestows such drawn mouths
and squinting eyes, apparently gazing in a sort of sullen surprise at a
pretty water-colour representing a scene on the banks of the Loire;
while the lad's first books were no less carefully preserved by the
mother in a bookcase containing some admirably chosen works on history,
geography, travel, and literature. A piano, a music-rack, and a
drawing-table completed the modest furnishings of the room.
Late in the month of June, Marie Bastien--for that was the name of this
young mother--found herself in this room with her son. It was nearly
five o'clock in the afternoon, and the golden rays of the declining sun,
though obstructed to some extent by the slats of the Venetian blinds,
were, nevertheless, playing a lively game of hide-and-seek, now with the
dark woodwork, now with the big bouquets of fresh flowers in the china
vases on the mantel.
A dozen or more superb half-open roses in a tall glass vase diffused a
delightful perfume through the room, and brightened the table covered
with books and papers, on either side of which the mother and son were
busily writing.
Madame Bastien, though she was thirty-one years of age, did not look a
day over twenty, so radiant was her enchanting face with youthful, we
might almost say, virginal freshness, for the angelic beauty of this
young woman seemed worthy to inspire the words so often addressed to the
Virgin, "Hail, Mary, full of grace."
Madame Bastien wore a simple dress of pale blue and white striped
percaline; a broad pink ribbon encircled her slender, supple waist,
which a man could have easily spanned with his two hands. Her pretty
arms were bare, or rather only slightly veiled with long lace mitts
which reached above her dimpled elbows. Her luxuriant chestnut hair,
with frequent glints of gold entangled in its meshes, waved naturally
all over her shapely head. It was worn low over her ears, thus framing
the perfect oval of her face, the transparent whiteness of which was
charmingly set off by the delicate rose tint of her cheeks. Her large
eyes, of the deepest and tenderest blue, were fringed with long lashes,
a deep brown like her beautifully arched eyebrows, while the rich coral
of her lips, the brilliant whiteness of her teeth, and the firmness of
her perfect arms were convincing proofs of a naturally pure, rich blood,
preserved so by the regular habits of a quiet, chaste life, a life
concentrated in a single passion, maternal love.
Marie Bastien's physiognomy was singularly contradictory in expression,
for if the shape of the forehead and the contour of the eyebrows
indicated remarkable energy as well as uncommon strength of will
combined with an unusual amount of intelligence, the expression of the
eyes was one of ineffable kindness, and her smile full of sweetness and
gaiety,--gaiety, as two entrancing little dimples, created by the
frequency of her frank smile a little way from the velvety corners of
her lips, indicated beyond a doubt. In fact this young mother fully
equalled her son in joyous animation, and when the time for recreation
came, the younger of the two was not always the most boisterous and gay
and childish by any means, and certainly, seeing the two seated together
writing, one would have taken them for brother and sister instead of
mother and son.
Frederick Bastien strongly resembled his mother, though his beauty was
of a more pronounced and virile type. His skin was darker, and his hair
a deeper brown than his mother's, and his jet black eyebrows imparted a
wonderful charm to his large blue eyes, for Frederick had his mother's
eyes and expression, as well as her straight nose, kindly smile, white
teeth, and scarlet lips, upon which the down of puberty was already
visible.
Reared in the wholesome freedom and simplicity of rural life, Frederick,
whose stature considerably exceeded that of his mother, was a model of
health, youth, and grace, while one seldom saw a more intelligent,
resolute, affectionate, and cheery face.
It was easy to see that maternal pride had presided over the youth's
toilet; though his attire was of the simplest, most inexpensive kind,
yet the pretty cerise satin cravat was remarkably becoming to a person
of his complexion, his shirt front was dazzling in its whiteness, there
were large pearl buttons on his nankeen vest, and his hands, far from
resembling the frightful paws of the average schoolboy, with dirty nails
often bitten down to the quick, and grimy, ink-stained knuckles, were as
well cared for as those of his young mother, and like hers were adorned
with pink, beautifully kept nails of faultless colour. (Mothers of
sixteen-year-old sons will understand and appreciate these apparently
insignificant details.)
As we have already remarked, Frederick and his mother, seated opposite
each other at the same table, were working, or rather digging away hard,
as school-boys say, each having a volume of "The Vicar of Wakefield" to
the left of them, and in front of them a sheet of foolscap which was
already nearly filled.
"Pass me the dictionary, Frederick," said Madame Bastien, without
raising her eyes, but extending her pretty hand to her son.
"Oh, the dictionary," responded Frederick, in a tone of mocking
compassion, "the idea of being obliged to depend upon a dictionary!"
But he gave the book to his mother, not without kissing the pretty hand
extended for it, however.
Marie, still without taking her eyes from her book, smiled without
replying, then, placing her ivory penholder between her little teeth,
which made the penholder look almost yellow in comparison, began to turn
the leaves of the dictionary.
Profiting by this moment of inattention, Frederick rose from his chair,
and placing his two hands upon the table, leaned over to see now far his
mother had proceeded with her translation.
"Ah, ah, Frederick, you are trying to copy," said Marie, gaily, dropping
the dictionary and placing her hands on the paper as if to protect it
from her son's eyes. "I have caught you this time."
"No, nothing of the kind," replied Frederick, dropping into his chair
again. "I only wanted to see if you were as far along as I am."
"All I know is that I have finished," responded Madame Bastien, with a
triumphant air.
"What, already?" exclaimed Frederick, humbly.
As he spoke, the tall clock in the corner, after an ominous creaking and
groaning, began to strike five.
"Good, it is time for recess!" exclaimed Marie, joyfully. "Do you hear,
Frederick?"
And springing up, the young woman ran to her son.
"Give me ten minutes, and I will be done," pleaded Frederick, writing
for dear life; "just ten minutes!"
But with charming petulance the young mother placed a paper-weight on
the unfinished translation, slammed her son's books together, took his
pen out of his hand, and half led, half dragged him out into the grove.
It must be admitted that Frederick offered no very determined resistance
to his mother's despotic will, however.