“The accusation was absurd; and yet you see what it has brought me to.”
Two big tears, which he could no longer retain, burnt in the eyes of the
old gentleman.
“You blame me, Jacques,” he said. “You blame your father.”
There is not a man alive who could see his father shed tears, and not
feel his heart melt within him. All the resolutions Jacques had formed
vanished in an instant. Pressing his father’s hand in his own, he
said,--
“No, I do not blame you, father. And still I have no words to tell
you how much your absence has added to my sufferings. I thought I was
abandoned, disowned.”
For the first time since his imprisonment, the unfortunate man found a
heart to whom he could confide all the bitterness that overflowed in his
own heart. With his mother and with Dionysia, honor forbade him to
show despair. The incredulity of M. Magloire had made all confidence
impossible; and M. Folgat, although as sympathetic as man could be was,
after all, a perfect stranger.
But now he had near him a friend, the dearest and most precious friend
that a man can ever have,--his father: now he had nothing to fear.
“Is there a human being in this world,” he said, “whose misfortunes
equal mine? To be innocent, and not to be able to prove it! To know the
guilty one, and not to dare mention the name. Ah! at first I did not
take in the whole horror of my situation. I was frightened, to be sure;
but I had recovered, thinking that surely justice would not be slow in
discovering the truth. Justice! It was my friend Galpin who represented
it, and he cared little enough for truth: his only aim was to prove that
the man whom he accused was the guilty man. Read the papers, father,
and you will see how I have been victimized by the most unheard-of
combination of circumstances. Every thing is against me. Never has that
mysterious, blind, and absurd power manifested itself so clearly,--that
awful power which we call fate.
“First I was kept by a sense of honor from mentioning the name of the
Countess Claudieuse, and then by prudence. The first time I mentioned
it to M. Magloire, he told me I lied. Then I thought every thing lost. I
saw no other end but the court, and, after the trial, the galleys or the
scaffold. I wanted to kill myself. My friends made me understand that I
did not belong to myself, and that, as long as I had a spark of energy
and a ray of intelligence left me, I had no right to dispose of my
life.”
“Poor, poor child!” said the marquis. “No, you have no such right.”
“Yesterday,” continued Jacques, “Dionysia came to see me. Do you
know what brought her here? She offered to flee with me. Father, that
temptation was terrible. Once free, and Dionysia by my side, what cared
I for the world? She insisted, like the matchless girl that she is; and
look there, there, on the spot where you now stand, she threw herself at
my feet, imploring me to flee. I doubt whether I can save my life; but I
remain here.”
He felt deeply moved, and sank upon the rough bench, hiding his face in
his hands, perhaps to conceal his tears.
Suddenly, however, he was seized with one of those attacks of rage
which had come to him but too often during his imprisonment, and he
exclaimed,--
“But what have I done to deserve such fearful punishment?”