At these words of Frederick, "Saved, mother, saved," Marie Bastien
looked at her son with mingled feelings of joy and surprise; already he
seemed another person, almost transfigured, his head lifted, his smile
radiant, his look inspired; his beautiful eyes were illuminated by an
inward joy; the young mother was amazed. Scarcely had her son cried,
"Saved," when Marie divined by David's attitude, his countenance, and
the serenity of his face, that he had brought Frederick back to her,
truly regenerated.
What means, what miracle could have produced so rapid and so unexpected
a result? Marie did not question herself. David had given Frederick back
to her as he used to be, so she said. Then, in an almost religious
outburst of gratitude, she threw herself at David's feet; when he
extended his hands to raise her, Marie seized them, pressed them
passionately in her own, and cried in a voice trembling with all the
emotions of maternal love:
"My life, my whole life, M. David, you have given me back my son!"
"Oh, my mother! Oh, my friend!" cried Frederick.
And, with an irresistible embrace, he pressed both Marie and David to
his heart; David, sharing the impulsive joy of the young man, united
with him in the same long caress.
* * * * *
Madame Bastien was not informed of the danger which her son had incurred
that morning. Frederick and David removed their damp clothing, and then
rejoined Madame Bastien, who, plunged in a sort of ecstasy, was
wondering how David had wrought the miracle of Frederick's cure.
At the sight of each other, the mother and son renewed their
demonstrations of affection, and in this ineffable embrace, the young
woman sought the glance of David, almost involuntarily, as if to
associate him with her maternal caresses, and to render him thanks for
the happiness she enjoyed.
Frederick, looking around him, appeared to contemplate every object in
the little library with affection.
"Mother," said he, after a moment of silence, with a smile full of
charm, "you will think I am silly, but it seems to me I cannot tell the
time since I entered this room, so long it seems, since the evening we
went to the castle of Pont Brillant. Our books, our drawings, our piano,
even my old armchair in which I used to work, seem like so many friends
that I have met again after a long absence."
"I understand you, Frederick," said Madame Bastien, smiling. "We are
like the sleepers in the story of the 'Sleeping Beauty.' Our sleep, not
so long as hers, has lasted five months. Bad dreams have disturbed it,
but we awake as happy as we were before we went to sleep, do we not?"
"Happier, mother!" added Frederick, taking David's hand. "At our
awakening, we found one friend more."
"You are right, my child," said the young mother, giving David a look
beaming with rapture.
Then, seeing Frederick open the glass door which led to the grove, she
added:
"What are you going to do? The rain has stopped, but the weather is
still overcast and misty."
"The weather overcast and misty?" cried Frederick, going out of the
house and looking at the century-old grove, with delight. "Oh, mother,
can you say the weather is gloomy? Well, I must seem foolish to you,
but our dear old grove looks to me as bright and smiling as it does
under the sun of springtime."
The young man did appear to be born again; his features expressed such
true, radiant happiness, that his mother could only look at him in
silence. She saw him again as handsome, as sprightly, as joyous as
formerly, although he was pale and thin, and yet every moment his cheeks
would flush with some sweet emotion.
David, for whom every word of Frederick had a significance, enjoyed this
scene intensely.
Suddenly the young man stopped a moment as if in a dream, before a group
of wild thorns which grew on the edge of the grove; after some moments
of reflection, he sought his mother's eyes, and said to her, no longer
cheerful, but with a sweet melancholy:
"Mother, in a few words, I am going to tell you of my cure. So," added
he turning to David, "you will see that I have profited from your
teaching, my friend."
For the first time, Marie noticed that her son called David his friend.
The satisfaction she felt at this tender familiarity was easily read on
her countenance, as Frederick continued:
"Mother, it was M. David who asked me to call him, hereafter, my friend.
He was right; it would have been difficult for me to have said 'M.
David' any longer; now, mother, listen to me well,--do you see that
clump of blackthorn?"
"Yes, my child."
"Nothing seems more useless than this thorn with its darts as sharp as
steel,--does it, mother?"
"You are right, my child."
"But let our good old Andre, our gardener and chief of husbandry, insert
under the bark of this wild bush a little branch of a fine pear-tree,
and you will see this thorn soon transformed into a tree laden with
flowers, and afterward with delicious fruit. And yet, mother, it is
always the same root, sucking the same sap from the same soil. Only
this sap, this power, is utilised. Do you comprehend?"
"Admirably, my child. It is important that forces or powers should be
well employed, instead of remaining barren or injurious."
"Yes, madame," answered David, exchanging a smile of intelligence with
Frederick, "and to follow this dear child's comparison, I will add that
it is the same with those passions considered the most dangerous and
most powerful, because they are the most deeply implanted in the heart
of man. God has put them there; do not tear them out; only graft this
thorny wild stock, as Frederick has said, and make it flower and
fructify by means of the sap which the Creator has put in them."
"That reminds me, M. David," said the young woman, impressed with this
reasoning, "that in speaking of hatred, you have told me that there were
hatreds which were even noble, generous, and heroic."
"Well, mother," said Frederick, resolutely, "envy, like hatred, can
become fruitful, heroic,--sublime."
"Envy!" exclaimed Marie Bastien.
"Yes, envy, because the malady which was killing me was envy!"
"You, envious, you?"
"Since our visit to the castle of Pont Brillant, the sight of those
wonders--"
"Ah!" interrupted Marie Bastien, suddenly enlightened by this
revelation, and shuddering, so to speak, with retrospective fear. "Ah,
now I understand all, unhappy child!"
"Happy child, mother, because this envy, for want of culture, has been a
long time as black and cruel as the thorn of which we were speaking.
Just now, our friend," added Frederick, turning to David, with an
ineffable smile of tenderness and gratitude, "yes, our friend has
grafted this envy with brave emulation, generous ambition, and you shall
see the fruits of it, mother; you shall see that by dint of courage and
labour, I will make your and my name illustrious,--this humble name
whose obscurity is galling to me. Oh, glory! renown! my mother, what a
brilliant future! To enable you to say with joy, with pride, 'This is my
son!'"
"My child, oh, my beloved child!" exclaimed Marie, in a transport of
joy. "I now comprehend the cure, as I have comprehended the disease."
Then turning to the preceptor she could only say:
"M. David! Oh, M. David!"
And tears, sobs of joy, forbade her utterance.
"Yes, thank him, mother," continued Frederick, carried away by emotion.
"Love him, cherish him, bless him, for you do not know what goodness,
what delicacy, what lofty and manly reason, what genius he has shown in
accomplishing the cure of your son. His words are engraven upon my heart
ineffaceably; they have recalled me to life, to hope, and to all the
elevated sentiments I owe to you. Oh! thanks should be given to you,
mother, for it is your hand still which chose my saviour, this good
genius who has returned me to you, worthy of you."
* * * * *
There are joys impossible to describe. Such was the end of this long day
for David, Marie, and her son.
Frederick was too full of gratitude and admiration toward his friend not
to wish to share his sentiments with his mother; the words of his
preceptor were so present to his thought that he repeated to her, word
for word, all their long conversation.
Very often Frederick was on the point of confessing to his mother that
he owed to David, not only the life of his soul, but the life of his
body. He was prevented only by the promise made to his friend, and the
fear of undue excitement in the mind of his mother.
As to Marie, taking in at one glance the conduct of David, from the
first hour of his devotion to the hour of unhoped for triumph;
recalling his gentleness, his simplicity, his delicacy, his generous
perseverance, crowned with such dazzling success,--a success obtained
only by the ascendency of a great heart, and an elevated mind,--what she
felt for David would be difficult to express; it was mingled affection,
tenderness, admiration, respect, and especially a passionate gratitude,
for she owed to David, not only the cure of Frederick, but that future
to which she looked forward, as illustrious and glorious, nothing
doubting, now, that Frederick, excited by the ardour of his own
ambition, directed by the wisdom and skill of David, would one day
achieve a brilliant destiny.
From this moment, David and Frederick became inseparable in Marie's
heart, and without taking precise account of her feelings, the young
woman felt that her life and that of her son were identified with the
life of David.
* * * * *
We leave to the imagination the delightful evening that passed in the
library with the mother, the son, and the preceptor. Only as certain
joys as much as grief oppress the heart, and demand, so to speak,
digestion in reflection, Marie and her son and David, separated earlier
than usual, saying "to-morrow" with the sweet anticipation of a joyous
day.
David went to his little chamber. He had need of being alone.
The words that Frederick had uttered in the transport of his gratitude,
as he spoke to his mother of the preceptor,--"Love him, cherish him,
bless him,"--words to which Marie Bastien had responded by a glance of
inexpressible gratitude, became the joy and the sorrow of David.
He had felt the inmost fibres of his heart thrill many times, in meeting
the large blue eyes of Marie, as they welled over with maternal
solicitude; he had trembled in seeing her lavish caresses upon her son,
and he could but dream of the wealth of ardent affection which this pure
and at the same time passionate nature possessed.
"What love like hers," said he to himself, "if there is a place in her
heart for any other sentiment besides that of maternity! How beautiful
she was to-day, what bewitching expressions animated her face! Oh! I
feel it, now is my hour of peril, of struggle, and of suffering! Yes,
the tears of Marie are consecrated! I felt it was a sacrilege to lift my
eyes to this young weeping mother, so beautiful in her tears. Yet she is
now radiant with the joy she owes to me, and in her ingenuous gratitude,
her tender eyes sought me whenever she looked upon Frederick. And think
of what her son said to her,--'Love him, cherish him, bless him,'--and
the expressive silence, the pathetic glance of this adorable woman,
perhaps, may make me believe some day--"
David, not daring to pursue this thought, resumed with sadness:
"Oh, yes, the hour of suffering, the hour of resignation has come.
Confess my love, or let Marie suspect it, when she owes so much to me?
Lead her to believe that my devotion to her concealed another design?
Lead her to believe that, instead of yielding spontaneously to the
interest this poor child inspired,--thanks to the memory of my lamented
brother,--I made a cloak, a pretext of this interest to surprise the
maternal confidence of a young woman? In fact, to lose, in her eyes, the
only merit of my devotion, my sudden loyalty,--indiscreet, yes, very
indiscreet, I see it all now,--alas, shall I degrade myself in the eyes
of Marie? never! never!
"Between her and me will be always her son.
"To fly from this love, shall I leave the house where this love is
always growing?
"No, I cannot do so yet.
"Frederick to-day, in the intoxication of this revelation which has
changed his gloomy despair into a will full of faith and
enthusiasm,--Frederick, suddenly lifted from the abyss where he had
fallen, experiences the delight of the prisoner all at once restored to
liberty and light, yet does not this cure need to be established? Will
it not be necessary to moderate the impetuosity of this young and ardent
imagination in its enthusiastic conceptions of the future?
"And then, it may be, the first exultation passed,--to-morrow
perhaps,--Frederick, on the other hand, more self-reliant, and better
comprehending the generous efforts necessary to reach the fountainhead
of envy, will remember with more bitterness than ever the dreadful deed
that he wished to commit,--his desire to murder Raoul de Pont Brillant.
A fruitful and generous expiation, then, is the only thing which can
appease this remorse which has tempted Frederick to commit suicide.
"No, no, I cannot abandon this child yet; I love him too sincerely, I
have the completion of my work too much at heart.
"I must remain.
"Remain, and each day live this intimate, solitary life with Marie,--she
who came so innocently to this chamber in the middle of the night in a
dishevelled state, the recollection of which thrills me, even in the
sleep where I vainly seek for rest."
To this dangerous sleep David yielded, nevertheless, as the emotions and
fatigues of the day had been very exhausting.
The day was just breaking.
David started out of sleep, as he heard several violent knocks at his
door, and recognised the voice of Frederick, who said:
"My friend, open, open your door, please!"