When I awoke on the morrow in a state of exhaustion, all the incidents
of the previous night appeared to me as a dream. I began to think that
Edmee’s suggestion of becoming my wife had been a perfidious trick to
put off my hopes indefinitely; and, as to the sorcerer’s words, I could
not recall them without a feeling of profound humiliation. Still, they
had produced their effect. My emotions had left traces which could never
be effaced. I was no longer the man of the day before, and never again
was I to be quite the man of Roche-Mauprat.
It was late, for not until morning had I attempted to make good my
sleepless night. I was still in bed when I heard the hoofs of M. de la
Marche’s horse on the stones of the courtyard. Every day he used to come
at this hour; every day he used to see Edmee at the same time as myself;
and now, on this very day, this day when she had tried to persuade me to
reckon on her hand, he was going to see her before me, and to give his
soulless kiss to this hand that had been promised to myself. The
thought of it stirred up all my doubts again. How could Edmee endure his
attentions if she really meant to marry another man? Perhaps she dared
not send him away; perhaps it was my duty to do so. I was ignorant of
the ways of the world into which I was entering. Instinct counselled me
to yield to my hasty impulses; and instinct spoke loudly.
I hastily dressed myself. I entered the drawing-room pale and agitated.
Edmee was pale too. It was a cold, rainy morning. A fire was burning in
the great fire-place. Lying back in an easy chair, she was warming
her little feet and dozing. It was the same listless, almost lifeless,
attitude of the days of her illness. M. de la Marche was reading the
paper at the other end of the room. On seeing that Edmee was more
affected than myself by the emotions of the previous night, I felt my
anger cool, and, approaching her noiselessly, I sat down and gazed on
her tenderly.
“Is that you, Bernard?” she asked without moving a limb, and with eyes
still closed.
Her elbows were resting on the arms of her chair and her hands were
gracefully crossed under her chin. At that period it was the fashion
for women to have their arms half bare at all times. On one of Edmee’s I
noticed a little strip of court-plaster that made my heart beat. It was
the slight scratch I had caused against the bars of the chapel window. I
gently lifted the lace which fell over her elbow, and, emboldened by her
drowsiness, pressed my lips to the darling wound. M. de la Marche could
see me, and, in fact, did see me, as I intended he should. I was
burning to have a quarrel with him. Edmee started and turned red; but
immediately assuming an air of indolent playfulness, she said:
“Really, Bernard, you are as gallant this morning as a court abbe. Do
you happen to have been composing a madrigal last night?”
I was peculiarly mortified at this jesting. However, paying her back in
her own coin, I answered:
“Yes; I composed one yesterday evening at the chapel window; and if it
is a poor thing, cousin, it is your fault.”
“Say, rather, that it is the fault of your education,” she replied,
kindling.
And she was never more beautiful than when her natural pride and spirit
were roused.
“My own opinion is that I am being very much over-educated,” I answered;
“and that if I gave more heed to my natural good sense you would not
jeer at me so much.”
“Really, it seems to me that you are indulging in a veritable war of
wits with Bernard,” said M. de la Marche, folding his paper carelessly
and approaching us.
“I cry quits with her,” I answered, annoyed at this impertinence. “Let
her keep her wit for such as you.”
I had risen to insult him, but he did not seem to notice it; and
standing with his back to the fire he bent down towards Edmee and said,
in a gentle and almost affectionate voice:
“What is the matter with him?” as if he were inquiring after the health
of her little dog.
“How should I know?” she replied, in the same tone.
Then she rose and added:
“My head aches too much to remain here. Give me your arm and take me up
to my room.”
She went out, leaning upon his arm. I was left there stupefied.
I remained in the drawing-room, resolved to insult him as soon as he
should return. But the abbe now entered, and soon afterward my Uncle
Hubert. They began to talk on subjects which were quite strange to me
(the subjects of their conversation were nearly always so). I did not
know what to do to obtain revenge. I dared not betray myself in my
uncle’s presence. I was sensible to the respect I owed to him and to his
hospitality. Never had I done such violence to myself at Roche-Mauprat.
Yet, in spite of all efforts, my anger showed itself. I almost died at
being obliged to wait for revenge. Several times the chevalier noticed
the change in my features and asked in a kind tone if I were ill. M.
de la Marche seemed neither to observe nor to guess anything. The abbe
alone examined me attentively. More than once I caught his blue eyes
anxiously fixed on me, those eyes in which natural penetration was
always veiled by habitual shyness. The abbe did not like me. I could
easily see that his kindly, cheerful manners grew cold in spite of
himself as soon as he spoke to me; and I noticed, too, that his face
would invariably assume a sad expression at my approach.
The constraint that I was enduring was so alien to my habits and so
beyond my strength that I came nigh to fainting. To obtain relief I went
and threw myself on the grass in the park. This was a refuge to me in
all my troubles. These mighty oaks, this moss which had clung to their
branches through the centuries, these pale, sweet-scented wild flowers,
emblems of secret sorrow, these were the friends of my childhood, and
these alone I had found the same in social as in savage life. I buried
my face in my hands; and I never remember having suffered more in any of
the calamities of my life, though some that I had to bear afterward
were very real. On the whole I ought to have accounted myself lucky, on
giving up the rough and perilous trade of a cut-throat, to find so many
unexpected blessings--affection, devotion, riches, liberty, education,
good precepts and good examples. But it is certain that, in order to
pass from a given state to its opposite, though it be from evil to
good, from grief to joy, from fatigue to repose, the soul of a man must
suffer; in this hour of birth of a new destiny all the springs of his
being are strained almost to breaking--even as at the approach of summer
the sky is covered with dark clouds, and the earth, all a-tremble, seems
about to be annihilated by the tempest.
At this moment my only thought was to devise some means of appeasing my
hatred of M. de la Marche without betraying and without even arousing
a suspicion of the mysterious bond which held Edmee in my power. Though
nothing was less respected at Roche-Mauprat than the sanctity of an
oath, yet the little reading I had had there--those ballads of chivalry
of which I have already spoken--had filled me with an almost romantic
love of good faith; and this was about the only virtue I had acquired
there. My promise of secrecy to Edmee was therefore inviolable in my
eyes.
“However,” I said to myself, “I dare say I shall find some plausible
pretext for throwing myself upon my enemy and strangling him.”
To confess the truth, this was far from easy with a man who seemed bent
on being all politeness and kindness.
Distracted by these thoughts, I forgot the dinner hour; and when I saw
the sun sinking behind the turrets of the castle I realized too late
that my absence must have been noticed, and that I could not appear
without submitting to Edmee’s searching questions, and to the abbe’s
cold, piercing gaze, which, though it always seemed to avoid mine, I
would suddenly surprise in the act of sounding the very depths of my
conscience.
I resolved not to return to the house till nightfall, and I threw myself
upon the grass and tried to find rest for my aching head in sleep. I did
fall asleep in fact. When I awoke the moon was rising in the heavens,
which were still red with the glow of sunset. The noise which had
aroused me was very slight; but there are some sounds which strike the
heart before reaching the ear; and the subtlest emanations of love will
at times pierce through the coarsest organization. Edmee’s voice had
just pronounced my name a short distance away, behind some foliage. At
first I thought I had been dreaming; I remained where I was, held my
breath and listened. It was she, on her way to the hermit’s, in company
with the abbe. They had stopped in a covered walk five or six yards from
me, and they were talking in low voices, but in those clear tones which,
in an exchange of confidence, compels attention with peculiar solemnity.
“I fear,” Edmee was saying, “that there will be trouble between him and
M. de la Marche; perhaps something very serious--who knows? You do not
understand Bernard.”
“He must be got away from here, at all costs,” answered the abbe. “You
cannot live in this way, continually exposed to the brutality of a
brigand.”
“It cannot be called living. Since he set foot in the house I have not
had a moment’s peace of mind. Imprisoned in my room, or forced to seek
the protection of my friends, I am almost afraid to move. It is as much
as I dare to do to creep downstairs, and I never cross the corridor
without sending Leblanc ahead as a scout. The poor woman, who has always
found me so brave, now thinks I am mad. The suspense is horrible. I
cannot sleep unless I first bolt the door. And look, abbe, I never walk
about without a dagger, like the heroine of a Spanish ballad, neither
more nor less.”
“And if this wretch meets you and frightens you, you will plunge it
into your bosom? Oh! that must not be. Edmee, we must find some means
of changing a position which is no longer tenable. I take it that you do
not wish to deprive him of your father’s friendship by confessing to the
latter the monstrous bargain you were forced to make with this bandit at
Roche-Mauprat. But whatever may happen--ah! my poor little Edmee, I am
not a bloodthirsty man, but twenty times a day I find myself deploring
that my character of priest prevents me from challenging this creature,
and ridding you of him forever.”
This charitable regret, expressed so artlessly in my very ear, made me
itch to reveal myself to them at once, were it only to put the abbe’s
warlike humour to the proof; but I was restrained by the hope that I
should at last discover Edmee’s real feelings and real intentions in
regard to myself.
“Have no fear,” she said, in a careless tone. “If he tries my patience
too much, I shall not have the slightest hesitation in planting this
blade in his cheek. I am quite sure that a little blood-letting will
cool his ardour.”
Then they drew a few steps nearer.
“Listen to me, Edmee,” said the abbe, stopping again. “We cannot discuss
this matter with Patience. Let us come to some decision before we put it
aside. Your relations with Bernard are now drawing to a crisis. It seems
to me, my child, that you are not doing all you ought to ward off the
evils that may strike us; for everything that is painful to you will be
painful to all of us, and will touch us to the bottom of our hearts.”
“I am all attention, excellent friend,” answered Edmee; “scold me,
advise me, as you will.”
So saying she leant back against the tree at the foot of which I was
lying among the brushwood and long grass. I fancy she might have seen
me, for I could see her distinctly. However, she little thought that I
was gazing on her divine face, over which the night breeze was throwing,
now the shadows of the rustling leaves, and now the pale diamonds that
the moon showers down through the trees of the forest.
“My opinion, Edmee,” answered the abbe, crossing his arms on his breast
and striking his brow at intervals, “is that you do not take the right
view of your situation. At times it distresses you to such an extent
that you lose all hope and long to die--yes, my dear child, to such
an extent that your health plainly suffers. At other times, and I must
speak candidly at the risk of offending you a little, you view your
perils with a levity and cheerfulness that astound me.”
“That last reproach is delicately put, dear friend,” she replied; “but
allow me to justify myself. Your astonishment arises from the fact that
you do not know the Mauprat race. It is a tameless, incorrigible race,
from which naught but Headbreakers and Hamstringers may issue. Even
in those who have been most polished by education there remains many a
stubborn knot--a sovereign pride, a will of iron, a profound contempt
for life. Look at my father. In spite of his adorable goodness, you see
that he is sometimes so quick-tempered that he will smash his snuff-box
on the table, when you get the better of him in some political argument,
or when you win a game of chess. For myself, I am conscious that my
veins are as full-blooded as if I had been born in the noble ranks of
the people; and I do not believe that any Mauprat has ever shone at
court for the charm of his manners. Since I was born brave, how would
you have me set much store by life? And yet there are weak moments in
which I get discouraged more than enough, and bemoan my fate like the
true woman that I am. But, let some one offend me, or threaten me, and
the blood of the strong surges through me again; and then, as I cannot
crush my enemy, I fold my arms and smile with compassion at the idea
that he should ever have hoped to frighten me. And do not look upon this
as mere bombast, abbe. To-morrow, this evening perhaps, my words may
turn to deeds. This little pearl-handled knife does not look like deeds
of blood; still, it will be able to do its work, and ever since Don
Marcasse (who knows what he is about) sharpened it, I have had it by me
night and day, and my mind is made up. I have not a very strong fist,
but it will no doubt manage to give myself a good stab with this knife,
even as it manages to give my horse a cut with the whip. Well, that
being so, my honour is safe; it is only my life, which hangs by a
thread, which is at the mercy of a glass of wine, more or less, that
M. Bernard may happen to drink one of these evenings; of some change
meeting, or some exchange of looks between De la Marche and myself that
he may fancy he has detected; a breath of air perhaps! What is to be
done? Were I to grieve, would my tears wash away the past? We cannot
tear out a single page of our lives; but we can throw the book into
the fire. Though I should weep from night till morn, would that prevent
Destiny from having, in a fit of ill-humour, taken me out hunting, sent
me astray in the woods, and made me stumble across a Mauprat, who led me
to his den, where I escaped dishonour and perhaps death only by binding
my life forever to that of a savage who had none of my principles, and
who probably (and who undoubtedly, I should say) never will have them?
All this is a misfortune. I was in the full sunlight of a happy destiny;
I was the pride and joy of my old father; I was about to marry a man
I esteem and like; no sorrows, no fears had come near my path; I knew
neither days fraught with danger nor nights bereft of sleep. Well, God
did not wish such a beautiful life to continue; His will be done. There
are days when the ruin of all my hopes seems to me so inevitable that
I look upon myself as dead and my _fiance_ as a widower. If it were not
for my poor father, I should really laugh at it all; for I am so ill
built for vexation and fears that during the short time I have known
them they have already tired me of life.”
“This courage is heroic, but it is also terrible,” cried the abbe, in a
broken voice. “It is almost a resolve to commit suicide, Edmee.”
“Oh, I shall fight for my life,” she answered, with warmth; “but I shall
not stand haggling with it a moment if my honour does not come forth
safe and sound from all these risks. No; I am not pious enough ever to
accept a soiled life by way of penance for sins of which I never had a
thought. If God deals so harshly with me that I have to choose between
shame and death . . .”
“There can never be any shame for you, Edmee; a soul so chaste, so pure
in intention . . .”
“Oh, don’t talk of that, dear abbe! Perhaps I am not as good as you
think; I am not very orthodox in religion--nor are you, abbe! I give
little heed to the world; I have no love for it. I neither fear nor
despise public opinion; it will never enter into my life. I am not very
sure what principle of virtue would be strong enough to prevent me from
falling, if the spirit of evil took me in hand. I have read _La Nouvelle
Heloise_, and I shed many tears over it. But, because I am a Mauprat and
have an unbending pride, I will never endure the tyranny of any man--the
violence of a lover no more than a husband’s blow; only a servile soul
and a craven character may yield to force that which it refuses to
entreaty. Sainte Solange, the beautiful shepherdess, let her head be cut
off rather than submit to the seigneur’s rights. And you know that from
mother to daughter the Mauprats have been consecrated in baptism to the
protection of the patron saint of Berry.”
“Yes; I know that you are proud and resolute,” said the abbe, “and
because I respect you more than any woman in the world I want you to
live, and be free, and make a marriage worthy of you, so that in the
human family you may fill the part which beautiful souls still know how
to make noble. Besides, you are necessary to your father; your death
would hurry him to his grave, hearty and robust as the Mauprat still is.
Put away these gloomy thoughts, then, and these violent resolutions. It
is impossible. This adventure of Roche-Mauprat must be looked upon only
as an evil dream. We both had a nightmare in those hours of horror; but
it is time for us to awake; we cannot remain paralyzed with fear like
children. You have only one course open to you, and that I have already
pointed out.”
“But, abbe, it is the one which I hold the most impossible of all. I
have sworn by everything that is most sacred in the universe and the
human heart.”
“An oath extorted by threats and violence is binding on none; even human
laws decree this. Divine laws, especially in a case of this nature,
absolve the human conscience beyond a doubt. If you were orthodox, I
would go to Rome--yes, I would go on foot--to get you absolved from so
rash a vow; but you are not a submissive child of the Pope, Edmee--nor
am I.”
“You wish me, then, to perjure myself?”
“Your soul would not be perjured.”
“My soul would! I took an oath with a full knowledge of what I was doing
and at a time when I might have killed myself on the spot; for in my
hand I had a knife three times as large as this. But I wanted to live;
above all, I wanted to see my father again and kiss him. To put an end
to the agony which my disappearance must have caused him, I would have
bartered more than my life, I would have bartered my immortal soul.
Since then, too, as I told you last night, I have renewed my vow, and
of my own free-will, moreover; for there was a wall between my amiable
_fiance_ and myself.”
“How could you have been so imprudent, Edmee? Here again I fail to
understand you.”
“That I can quite believe, for I do not understand myself,” said Edmee,
with a peculiar expression.
“My dear child, you must open your hear to me freely. I am the only
person here who can advise you, since I am the only one to whom you can
tell everything under the seal of a friendship as sacred as the secrecy
of Catholic confession can be. Answer me, then. You do not really look
upon a marriage between yourself and Bernard Mauprat as possible?”
“How should that which is inevitable be impossible?” said Edmee. “There
is nothing more possible than throwing one’s self into the river;
nothing more possible than surrendering one’s self to misery and
despair; nothing more possible, consequently, than marrying Bernard
Mauprat.”
“In any case I will not be the one to celebrate such an absurd and
deplorable union,” cried the abbe. “You, the wife and the slave of this
Hamstringer! Edmee, you said just now that you would no more endure the
violence of a lover than a husband’s blow.”
“You think that he would beat me?”
“If he did not kill you.”
“Oh, no,” she replied, in a resolute tone, with a wave of the knife, “I
would kill him first. When Mauprat meets Mauprat . . .!”
“You can laugh, Edmee? O my God! you can laugh at the thought of such
a match! But, even if this man had some affection and esteem for you,
think how impossible it would be for you to have anything in common;
think of the coarseness of his ideas, the vulgarity of his speech. The
heart rises in disgust at the idea of such a union. Good God! In what
language would you speak to him?”
Once more I was on the point of rising and falling on my panegyrist; but
I overcame my rage. Edmee began to speak, and I was all ears again.
“I know very well that at the end of three or four days I should have
nothing better to do than cut my own throat; but since sooner or later
it must come to that, why should I not go forward to the inevitable
hour? I confess that I shall be sorry to leave life. Not all those
who have been to Roche-Mauprat have returned. I went there not to meet
death, but to betroth myself to it. Well, then, I will go on to my
wedding-day, and if Bernard is too odious, I will kill myself after the
ball.”
“Edmee, your head seems full of romantic notions at present,” said the
abbe, losing patience. “Thank God, your father will never consent to
the marriage. He has given his word to M. de la Marche, and you too have
given yours. This is the only promise that is valid.”
“My father would consent--yes, with joy--to an arrangement which
perpetuated his name and line directly. As to M. de la Marche, he will
release me from any promise without my taking the trouble to ask him; as
soon as he hears that I passed two hours at Roche-Mauprat there will be
no need of any other explanation.”
“He would be very unworthy of the esteem I feel for him, if he
considered your good name tarnished by an unfortunate adventure from
which you came out pure.”
“Thanks to Bernard,” said Edmee; “for after all I ought to be grateful
to him; in spite of his reservations and conditions, he performed a
great and inconceivable action, for a Hamstringer.”
“God forbid that I should deny the good qualities which education may
have developed in this young man; and it may still be possible, by
approaching him on this better side of his, to make him listen to
reason.”
“And make him consent to be taught? Never. Even if he should show
himself willing, he would no more be able than Patience. When the body
is made for an animal life, the spirit can no longer submit to the laws
of the intellect.”
“I think so too; but that is not the point. I suggest that you should
have an explanation with him, and make him understand that he is bound
in honour to release you from your promise and resign himself to your
marriage with M. de la Marche. Either he is a brute unworthy of the
slightest esteem and consideration, or he will realize his crime and
folly and yield honestly and with a good grace. Free me from the vow of
secrecy to which I am bound; authorize me to deal plainly with him and I
will guarantee success.”
“And I--I will guarantee the contrary,” said Edmee. “Besides, I could
not consent to this. Whatever Bernard may be, I am anxious to come out
of our duel with honour; and if I acted as you suggest, he would have
cause to believe that up to the present I have been unworthily trifling
with him.”
“Well, there is only one means left, and that is to trust to the honour
and discretion of M. de la Marche. Set before him the details of your
position, and then let him give the verdict. You have a perfect right to
intrust him with your secret, and you are quite sure of his honour. If
he is coward enough to desert you in such a position, your remaining
resource is to take shelter from Bernard’s violence behind the iron bars
of a convent. You can remain there a few years; you can make a show of
taking the veil. The young man will forget you, and they will set you
free again.”
“Indeed, that is the only reasonable course to take, and I had already
thought of it; but it is not yet time to make the move.”
“Very true; you must first see the result of your confession to M. de la
Marche. If, as I make no doubt, he is a man of mettle, he will take
you under his protection, and then procure the removal of this Bernard,
whether by persuasion or authority.”
“What authority, abbe, if you please?”
“The authority which our customs allow one gentleman to exercise over
his equal--honour and the sword.”
“Oh, abbe! You too, then are a man with a thirst for blood. Well, that
is precisely what I have hitherto tried to avoid, and what I will avoid,
though it cost me my life and honour. I do not wish that there should be
any fight between these two men.”
“I understand: one of the two is very rightly dear to you. But evidently
in this duel it is not M. de la Marche who would be in danger.”
“Then it would be Bernard,” cried Edmee. “Well, I should hate M. de la
Marche, if he insisted on a duel with this poor boy, who only knows how
to handle a stick or a sling. How can such ideas occur to you, abbe?
You must really loathe this unfortunate Bernard. And fancy me getting
my husband to cut his throat as a return for having saved my life at the
risk of his own. No, no; I will not suffer any one either to challenge
him, or humiliate him, or persecute him. He is my cousin; he is a
Mauprat; he is almost a brother. I will not let him be driven out of
this home. Rather I will go myself.”
“These are very generous sentiments, Edmee,” answered the abbe. “But
with what warmth you express them! I stand confounded; and, if I were
not afraid of offending you, I should confess that this solicitude for
young Mauprat suggests to me a strange thought.”
“Well, what is it, then?” said Edmee, with a certain brusqueness.
“If you insist, of course I will tell you: you seem to take a deeper
interest in this young man than in M. de la Marche, and I could have
wished to think otherwise.”
“Which has the greater need of this interest, you bad Christian?” said
Edmee with a smile. “Is it not the hardened sinner whose eyes have never
looked upon the light?”
“But, come, Edmee! You love M. de la Marche, do you not? For Heaven’s
sake do not jest.”
“If by love,” she replied in a serious tone, “you mean a feeling of
trust and friendship, I love M. de la Marche; but if you mean a feeling
of compassion and solicitude, I love Bernard. It remains to be seen
which of these two affections is the deeper. That is your concern, abbe.
For my part, it troubles me but little; for I feel that there is only
one being whom I love with passion, and that is my father; and only one
thing that I love with enthusiasm, and that is my duty. Probably I shall
regret the attentions and devotion of the lieutenant-general, and I
shall share in the grief that I must soon cause him when I announce that
I can never be his wife. This necessity, however, will by no means drive
me to desperation, because I know that M. de la Marche will quickly
recover. . . . I am not joking, abbe; M. de la Marche is a man of no
depth, and somewhat cold.”
“If your love for him is no greater than this, so much the better. It
makes one trial less among your many trials. Still, this indifference
robs me of my last hope of seeing you rescued from Bernard Mauprat.”
“Do not let this grieve you. Either Bernard will yield to friendship and
loyalty and improve, or I shall escape him.”
“But how?”
“By the gate of the convent--or of the graveyard.”
As she uttered these words in a calm tone, Edmee shook back her long
black hair, which had fallen over her shoulders and partly over her pale
face.
“Come,” she said, “God will help us. It is folly and impiety to doubt
him in the hour of danger. Are we atheists, that we let ourselves be
discouraged in this way? Let us go and see Patience. . . . He will bring
forth some wise saw to ease our minds; he is the old oracle who solves
all problems without understanding any.”
They moved away, while I remained in a state of consternation.
Oh, how different was this night from the last! How vast a step I had
just taken in life, no longer on the path of flowers but on the arid
rocks! Now I understood all the odious reality of the part I had been
playing. In the bottom of Edmee’s heart I had just read the fear and
disgust I inspired in her. Nothing could assuage my grief; for nothing
now could arouse my anger. She had no affection for M. de la Marche;
she was trifling neither with him nor with me; she had no affection for
either of us. How could I have believed that her generous sympathy for
me and her sublime devotion to her word were signs of love? How, in the
hours when this presumptuous fancy left me, could I have believed that
in order to resist my passion she must needs feel love for another? It
had come to pass, then, that I had no longer any object on which to vent
my rage; now it could result only in Edmee’s flight or death? Her death!
At the mere thought of it the blood ran cold in my veins, a weight fell
on my heart, and I felt all the stings of remorse piercing it. This
night of agony was for me the clearest call of Providence. At last I
understood those laws of modesty and sacred liberty which my ignorance
had hitherto outraged and blasphemed. They astonished me more than ever;
but I could see them; their sanction was their own existence. Edmee’s
strong, sincere soul appeared before me like the stone of Sinai on which
the finger of God has traced the immutable truth. Her virtue was not
feigned; her knife was sharpened, ready to cut out the stain of my love.
I was so terrified at having been in danger of seeing her die in my
arms; I was so horrified at the gross insult I had offered her while
seeking to overcome her resistance, that I began to devise all manner of
impossible plans for righting the wrongs I had done, and restoring her
peace of mind.
The only one which seemed beyond my powers was to tear myself away from
her; for while these feelings of esteem and respect were springing up in
me, my love was changing its nature, so to speak, and growing vaster and
taking possession of all my being. Edmee appeared to me in a new light.
She was no longer the lovely girl whose presence stirred a tumult in my
senses; she was a young man of my own age, beautiful as a seraph, proud,
courageous, inflexible in honour, generous, capable of that sublime
friendship which once bound together brothers in arms, but with no
passionate love except for Deity, like the paladins of old, who, braving
a thousand dangers, marched to the Holy Land under their golden armour.
From this hour I felt my love descending from the wild storms of the
brain into the healthy regions of the heart. Devotion seemed no longer
an enigma to me. I resolved that on the very next morning I would give
proof of my submission and affection. It was quite late when I returned
to the chateau, tired out, dying of hunger, and exhausted by the
emotions I had experienced. I entered the pantry, found a piece of
bread, and began eating it, all moist with my tears. I was leaning
against the stove in the dime light of a lamp that was almost out, when
I suddenly saw Edmee enter. She took a few cherries from a chest and
slowly approached the stove, pale and deep in thought. On seeing me she
uttered a cry and let the cherries fall.
“Edmee,” I said, “I implore you never to be afraid of me again. That is
all I can say now; for I do not know how to explain myself; and yet I
had resolved to say many things.”
“You must tell me them some other time, cousin,” she answered, trying to
smile.
But she was unable to disguise the fear she felt at finding herself
alone with me.
I did not try to detain her. I felt deeply pained and humiliated at her
distrust of me, and I knew I had no right to complain. Yet never had any
man stood in greater need of a word of encouragement.
Just as she was going out of the room I broke down altogether, and burst
into tears, as on the previous night at the chapel window. Edmee stopped
on the threshold and hesitated a moment. Then, yielding to the kindly
impulses of her heart, she overcame her fears and returned towards me.
Pausing a few yards from my chair, she said:
“Bernard, you are unhappy. Tell me; is it my fault?”
I was unable to reply; I was ashamed of my tears, but the more I tried
to restrain them the more my breast heaved with sobs. With men as
physically strong as I was, tears are generally convulsions; mine were
like the pangs of death.
“Come now! Just tell me what is wrong,” cried Edmee, with some of the
bluntness of sisterly affection.
And she ventured to put her hand on my shoulder. She was looking at me
with an expression of wistfulness, and a big tear was trickling down her
cheek. I threw myself on my knees and tried to speak, but that was still
impossible. I could do no more than mutter the word _to-morrow_ several
times.
“‘To-morrow?’ What of tomorrow?” said Edmee. “Do you not like being
here? Do you want to go away?”
“I will go, if it will please you,” I replied. “Tell me; do you wish
never to see me again?”
“I do not wish that at all,” she rejoined. “You will stop here, won’t
you.”
“It is for you to decide,” I answered.
She looked at me in astonishment. I was still on my knees. She leant
over the back of my chair.
“Yes; I am quite sure that you are good at heart,” she said, as if
she were answering some inner objection. “A Mauprat can be nothing by
halves; and as soon as you have once known a good quarter of an hour, it
is certain you ought to have a noble life before you.”
“I will make it so,” I answered.
“You mean it?” she said with unaffected joy.
“On my honour, Edmee, and on yours. Dare you give me your hand?”
“Certainly,” she said.
She held out her hand to me; but she was still trembling.
“You have been forming good resolutions, then?” she said.
“I have been forming such resolutions,” I replied, “that you will never
have to reproach me again. And now, Edmee, when you return to your room,
please do not bolt your door any more. You need no longer be afraid of
me. Henceforth I shall only wish what you wish.”
She again fixed on me a look of amazement. Then, after pressing my hand,
she moved away, but turned round several times to look at me again, as
if unable to believe in such a sudden conversion. At last, stopping in
the doorway, she said to me in an affectionate tone:
“You, too, must go and get some rest. You look tired; and for the last
two days you have seemed sad and very much altered. If you do not wish
to make me anxious, you will take care of yourself, Bernard.”
She gave me a sweet little nod. In her big eyes, already hollowed by
suffering, there was an indefinable expression, in which distrust and
hope, affection and wonder, were depicted alternately or at times all
together.
“I will take care of myself; I will get some sleep; and I will not be
sad any longer,” I answered.
“And you will work?”
“And I will work--but, you, Edmee, will you forgive me for all the pain
I have caused you? and will you try to like me a little?”
“I shall like you very much,” she replied, “if you are always as you are
this evening.”
On the morrow, at daybreak, I went to the abbe’s room. He was already up
and reading.
“Monsieur Aubert,” I said to him, “you have several times offered
to give me lessons. I now come to request you to carry out your kind
offer.”
I had spent part of the night in preparing this opening speech and in
deciding how I had best comport myself in the abbe’s presence. Without
really hating him, for I could quite see that he meant well and that he
bore me ill-will only because of my faults, I felt very bitter towards
him. Inwardly I recognised that I deserved all the bad things he had
said about me to Edmee; but it seemed to me that he might have insisted
somewhat more on the good side of mine to which he had given a merely
passing word, and which could not have escaped the notice of a man so
observant as himself. I had determined, therefore, to be very cold
and very proud in my bearing towards him. To this end I judged with a
certain show of logic, that I ought to display great docility as long as
the lesson lasted, and that immediately afterwards I ought to leave him
with a very curt expression of thanks. In a word, I wished to humiliate
him in his post of tutor; for I was not unaware that he depended for his
livelihood on my uncle, and that, unless he renounced this livelihood
or showed himself ungrateful, he could not well refuse to undertake
my education. My reasoning here was very good; but the spirit which
prompted it was very bad; and subsequently I felt so much regret for my
behaviour that I made him a sort of friendly confession with a request
for absolution.
However, not to anticipate events, I will simply say that the first
few days after my conversation afforded me an ample revenge for the
prejudices, too well founded in many respects, which this man had
against me. He would have deserved the title of “the just,” assigned
him by Patience, had not a habit of distrust interfered with his first
impulses. The persecutions of which he had so long been the object had
developed in him this instinctive feeling of fear, which remained with
him all his life, and made trust in others always very difficult to him,
though all the more flattering and touching perhaps when he accorded it.
Since then I have observed this characteristic in many worthy priests.
They generally have the spirit of charity, but not the feeling of
friendship.
I wished to make him suffer, and I succeeded. Spite inspired me. I
behaved as a nobleman might to an inferior. I preserved an excellent
bearing, displayed great attention, much politeness, and an icy
stiffness. I determined to give him no chance to make me blush at
my ignorance, and, to this end, I acted so as to anticipate all his
observations by accusing myself at once of knowing nothing, and by
requesting him to teach me the very rudiments of things. When I had
finished my first lesson I saw in his penetrating eyes, into which I had
managed to penetrate myself, a desire to pass from this coldness to
some sort of intimacy; but I carefully avoided making any response. He
thought to disarm me by praising my attention and intelligence.
“You are troubling yourself unnecessarily, monsieur,” I replied. “I
stand in no need of encouragement. I have not the least faith in my
intelligence, but of my attention I certainly am very sure; but since
it is solely for my own good that I am doing my best to apply myself to
this work, there is no reason why you should compliment me on it.”
With these words I bowed to him and withdrew to my room, where I
immediately did the French exercise that he had set me.
When I went down to luncheon, I saw that Edmee was already aware of the
execution of the promise I had made the previous evening. She at once
greeted me with outstretched hand, and frequently during luncheon called
me her “dear cousin,” till at last M. de la Marche’s face, which was
usually expressionless, expressed surprise or something very near it. I
was hoping that he would take the opportunity to demand an explanation
of my insulting words of the previous day; and although I had resolved
to discuss the matter in a spirit of great moderation, I felt very much
hurt at the care which he took to avoid it. This indifference to an
insult that I had offered implied a sort of contempt, which annoyed
me very much; but the fear of displeasing Edmee gave me strength to
restrain myself.
Incredible as it may seem, my resolve to supplant him was not for one
moment shaken by this humiliating apprenticeship which I had now to
serve before I could manage to obtain the most elementary notions of
things in general. Any other than I, filled like myself with remorse
for wrongs committed, would have found no surer method of repairing them
than by going away, and restoring to Edmee her perfect independence and
absolute peace of mind. This was the only method which did not occur
to me; or if it did, it was rejected with scorn, as a sign of apostasy.
Stubbornness, allied to temerity, ran through my veins with the blood
of the Mauprats. No sooner had I imagined a means of winning her whom
I loved than I embraced it with audacity; and I think it would not have
been otherwise even had her confidences to the abbe in the park shown
me that her love was given to my rival. Such assurance on the part of a
young man who, at the age of seventeen, was taking his first lesson in
French grammar, and who, moreover, had a very exaggerated notion of the
length and difficulty of the studies necessary to put him on a level
with M. de la Marche, showed, you must allow, a certain moral force.
I do not know if I was happily endowed in the matter of intelligence.
The abbe assured me that I was; but, for my own part, I think that my
rapid progress was due to nothing but my courage. This was such as to
make me presume too much on my physical powers. The abbe had told me
that, with a strong will, any one of my age could master all the rules
of the language within a month. At the end of the month I expressed
myself with facility and wrote correctly. Edmee had a sort of occult
influence over my studies; at her wish I was not taught Latin; for she
declared that I was too old to devote several years to a fancy branch
of learning, and that the essential thing was to shape my heart and
understanding with ideas, rather than to adorn my mind with words.
Of an evening, under pretext of wishing to read some favourite book
again, she read aloud, alternately with the abbe, passages from
Condillac, Fenelon, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jean Jacques, and even
from Montaigne and Montesquieu. These passages, it is true, were chosen
beforehand and adapted to my powers. I understood them fairly well, and
I secretly wondered at this; for if during the day I opened these same
books at random, I found myself brought to a standstill at every line.
With the superstition natural to young lovers, I willingly imagined that
in passing through Edmee’s mouth the authors acquired a magic clearness,
and that by some miracle my mind expanded at the sound of her voice.
However, Edmee was careful to disguise the interest she took in teaching
me herself. There is no doubt that she was mistaken in thinking that
she ought not to betray her solicitude: it would only have roused me to
still greater efforts in my work. But in this, imbued as she was with
the teachings of _Emile_, she was merely putting into practice the
theories of her favourite philosopher.
As it was, I spared myself but little; for my courage would not admit of
any forethought. Consequently I was soon obliged to stop. The change
of air, of diet, and of habits, my lucubrations, the want of vigorous
exercise, my intense application, in a word, the terrible revolution
which my nature had to stir up against itself in order to pass from the
state of a man of the woods to that of an intelligent being, brought on
a kind of brain fever which made me almost mad for some weeks, then an
idiot for some days, and finally disappeared, leaving me a mere wreck
physically, with a mind completely severed from the past, but sternly
braced to meet the future.
One night, when I was at the most critical stage of my illness, during a
lucid interval, I caught sight of Edmee in my room. At first I thought
I was dreaming. The night-light was casting an unsteady glimmer over the
room. Near me was a pale form lying motionless on an easy chair. I could
distinguish some long black tresses falling loosely over a white dress.
I sat up, weak though I was and scarcely able to move, and tried to
get out of bed. Patience, however, suddenly appeared by the bedside and
gently stopped me. Saint-Jean was sleeping in another arm-chair. Every
night there used to be two men watching me thus, ready to hold me down
by force whenever I became violent during my delirium. Frequently the
abbe was one; sometimes the worthy Marcasse, who, before leaving
Berry to go on his annual round through the neighbouring province, had
returned to have a farewell hunt in the outhouses of the chateau, and
who kindly offered to relieve the servants in their painful task of
keeping watch over me.
As I was wholly unconscious of my illness, it was but natural that
the unexpected presence of the hermit in my room should cause me
considerable astonishment, and throw me into a state of great agitation.
My attacks had been so violent that evening that I had no strength left.
I abandoned myself, therefore, to my melancholy ravings, and, taking the
good man’s hand, I asked him if it was really Edmee’s corpse that he had
placed in the arm-chair by my bedside.
“It is Edmee’s living self,” he answered, in a low voice; “but she is
still asleep, my dear monsieur, and we must not wake her. If there is
anything you would like, I am here to attend to you, and right gladly I
do it.”
“My good Patience, you are deceiving me,” I said; “she is dead, and
so am I, and you have come to bury us. But you must put us in the same
coffin, do you hear? for we are betrothed. Where is her ring? Take it
off and put it on my finger; our wedding-night has come.”
He tried in vain to dispel this hallucination. I held to my belief that
Edmee was dead, and declared that I should never be quiet in my shroud
until I had been given my wife’s ring. Edmee, who had sat up with me
for several nights, was so exhausted that our voices did not awaken
her. Besides, I was speaking in a whisper, like Patience, with that
instinctive tendency to imitate which is met with only in children or
idiots. I persisted in my fancy, and Patience, who was afraid that it
might turn into madness, went and very carefully removed a cornelian
ring from one of Edmee’s fingers and put it on mine. As soon as I felt
it there, I carried it to my lips; and then with my arms crossed on my
breast, in the manner of a corpse in a coffin, I fell into a deep sleep.
On the morrow when they tried to take the ring from me I resisted
violently, and they abandoned the attempt. I fell asleep again and the
abbe removed it during my sleep. But when I opened my eyes I noticed the
theft, and once more began to rave. Edmee, who was in the room, ran
to me at once and pressed the ring over my finger, at the same time
rebuking the abbe. I immediately grew calm, and gazing, on her with
lack-lustre eyes, said:
“Is it not true that you are my wife in death as in life?”
“Certainly,” she replied. “Set your mind at rest.”
“Eternity is long,” I said, “and I should like to spend it in recalling
your caresses. But I send my thoughts back in vain; they bring me no
remembrance of your love.”
She leant over and gave me a kiss.
“Edmee, that is very wrong,” said the abbe; “such remedies turn to
poison.”
“Let me do as I like, abbe,” she replied, with evident impatience,
sitting down near my bed; “I must ask you to let me do as I please.”