THE CONVALESCENT.
“And to think that for five years I have been allowed to remain in the
belief that my Jack was a thief!”
“But, Dr. Rivals—”
“And that if I had not happened to ask for a glass of milk at the
Archambaulds, I should have continued to think so!”
It was, on feet, at the forester’s cottage that Jack and his old friend
had met.
For ten days the youth had been living in solitude at Aulnettes. Each
day he had become more like the Jack of his childhood. The only persons
with whom he held any communication were the old forester and his wife,
who had served Charlotte faithfully for so long a time. She watched
over his health, purchased his provisions, and often cooked his dinner
over her own fire, while he sat and smoked at the door. These people
never asked a question, but when they saw his thin figure and heard his
constant cough, they shook their heads.
The interview between Dr. Rivals and Jack was at first embarrassing to
both, but after a little conversation, and as soon as the doctor
understood the truth, the awkwardness passed away.
“And now,” said the old gentleman, gayly, “I hope we shall see you
often. You have been sent out to grass, apparently, like an old horse,
but you need more than that. You require great care, my boy, great
care,—particularly in the coming season. Etiolles is not Nice, you
understand. Our house is changed, for my poor wife died four years
ago,—died of absolute grief. My granddaughter does her best to take her
place; she keeps my books and makes up my prescriptions. How glad she
will be to see you! Now when will you come?”
Jack hesitated, as if he read his thoughts. The doctor added,—
“Cécile knows nothing of all your troubles; so come without any feeling
of restraint. It is too cold for you to be out late to-night; this fog
is not good for you; but I shall expect you at breakfast to-morrow. Now
in with you quickly; you must not be out after the dews begin to fall.
If you do not appear I shall come for you.”
As Jack closed the door of the house, he had a singular impression. It
seemed to him that he had just come home from one of those long drives
with the doctor; that he should find his mother in the dining-room,
while the poet was above in the tower.
He passed the evening in the chimney-corner, before a fire made of
dried grape-vines, for life in the engine-room had made him very
chilly. As of old, when he returned from his country excursions with
the doctor, the remembrance of his kindness and affection rendered him
impervious to the slights he received at home, so now did the prospect
of seeing Cécile people his solitude with dear phantoms and happy
visions, that remained with him even while he slept.
The next day he knocked at the Rivals’ door.
“The doctor has not come in. Mademoiselle is in the office,” was the
reply of the little servant who had replaced the faithful old woman he
had known. Jack turned to the office; he knocked hurriedly, impatient
to behold his former companion.
“Come in, Jack,” said a sweet voice.
Instead of obeying, he was seized with a strange emotion of fear.
The door opened suddenly, and Jack asked himself if the charming
apparition on the threshold, in her blue dress and clustering blonde
hair, was not the sun itself. How intimidated he would have been had
not the little hand slipped into his own recalled so many sweet
recollections of their common child-hood!
“Life has been very hard for you, my grandfather tells me,” she said.
“I have had much sorrow, too. Dear grandmamma is dead; she loved you,
and often spoke of you.”
He sat opposite to her, looking at her. She was tall and graceful; as
she stood leaning against the corner of an old bookcase, she bent her
head slightly to talk to her friend, and reminded him of a bird.
Jack remembered that his mother was beautiful also; but in Cécile there
was something indefinable—an aroma of some divine spring-time,
something fresh and pure, to which Charlotte’s mannerisms and graces
bore little resemblance.
Suddenly, while he sat in this ecstasy before her, he caught sight of
his own hand. It seemed enormous to him; it was black and hardened, and
the nails were broken and deformed,—irretrievably injured by contact
with fire and iron. He was ashamed, but could not conceal them even by
putting them in his pocket. But he saw himself now with the eyes of
others, dressed in shabby clothes and an old vest of D’Argenton’s, that
was too small for him and too short in the sleeves. In addition to this
physical awkwardness, poor Jack was overwhelmed by the memory of all
the disgraceful scenes through which he had passed. The drunken orgies,
the hours of beastly intoxication, all returned to his recollection,
and it seemed to him that Cécile knew them, too. The slight cloud that
hung on her fair young brow, the compassion he read in her eyes, all
told him that she understood his shame and humiliation. He wished to
run away and shut himself into a room at Aulnettes, and never leave it
again.
Fortunately, some one came into the office, and Cécile, busy at her
scales, writing the labels as her grandmother had done, gave Jack time
to recover his equanimity.
How good and patient she was! These poor peasant women were very stupid
and wearisome with their long explanations. She encouraged them with
her sympathy, cheered them with her words of counsel, and reproved them
gently for their mistakes.
She was busy at this moment with an old acquaintance of Jack’s,—the
very woman who had taken so much pleasure in terrifying him when he was
little. Bowed, as nearly all the peasantry are by their daily labor,
burned by the sun, and powdered by the dust, old Salé yet retained a
little life in her sharp eyes. She spoke of her good man, who had been
sick for months,—who could not work, and yet had to eat. She said two
or three things calculated to disconcert a young girl, and looked
Cécile directly in the face with malicious delight. Two or three times
Jack felt a strong inclination to put the wretch out of the door; but
he restrained himself when he saw the cold dignity with which Cécile
listened.
The old woman finally finished her discourse, and, as she passed Jack
going out, recognized him.
“What!” she exclaimed, “the little Aulnettes boy come to life again?
Ah, Mademoiselle Cécile, your uncle won’t want you to marry him now, I
fancy, though there was a time when everybody thought that was what the
doctor desired;” and, chuckling, she left the room.
Jack turned pale. The old woman had finally struck the blow that, so
many years ago, she had threatened him with. But Jack was not the only
one who was disturbed. A fair face, bent low over a big book, was
scarlet with annoyance.
“Come, Catherine, bring the soup.” It was the doctor who spoke. “And
you two, have you not found a word to say to each other after seven
years’ absence?”
At the table Jack was no more at his ease. He was afraid that some of
his bad habits would show themselves; and his hands—what could he do
with them? With one he must hold his fork, but with the other? The
whiteness of the linen made it look appallingly black. Cécile saw his
discomfort, and understanding that her watchfulness increased it,
hardly glanced again in his direction.
Catherine took away the dessert, and put before the young girl hot
water, sugar, and a bottle of old brandy. It was she who since her
grandmother’s death had mixed the doctor’s grog. And the good man had
not gained by the change; for she, as the doctor observed in a
melancholy tone, “diminished daily the quantity of alcohol.”
When she had served her grandfather, Cécile turned toward their guest.
“Do you drink brandy?” she asked.
“Does he drink brandy?” said the doctor, with a laugh, “and he in an
engine-room for three years? Don’t you know—ignorant little puss that
you are—that that is the only way the poor fellows can live? On board a
vessel where I was, one fellow drank a bottle of pure spirit at a
draught. Make Jack’s strong, my dear.”
She looked at her old friend sadly and seriously.
“Will you have some?”
“No, mademoiselle,” he answered, in a low, ashamed voice; and he
withdrew his glass,—for which effort of self-denial he was rewarded by
one of those eloquent looks of gratitude which some women can give, and
which are only understood by those whom they address.
“Upon my word, a conversion!” said the doctor, laughing. But Jack was
converted only after the fashion of savages, who consent to believe in
God only to please the missionaries. The peasants of Etiolles, at work
in the fields, who saw Jack on his way home that night, might have had
every reason to suppose that he was crazy or intoxicated. He was
talking to himself, and gesticulating wildly. “Yes,” he exclaimed, “M.
d’Argenton was right: I am a mere artisan and must live and die with my
equals; it is useless for me to try and rise above them.” It was a very
long time since the young man had felt any such energy. New thoughts
and ideas crowded into his mind; among them was Cécile’s image. What a
marvel of grace and purity she was! He sighed as he thought that had he
been differently educated, he might have ventured to ask her to become
his wife. At this moment, as he turned a sharp angle in the road, he
found himself face to face with Mother Salé, who was dragging a fagot
of wood. The old woman looked at him with a wicked smile, that in his
present mood exasperated him to such a degree that his look of anger so
terrified the old creature that she dropped her fagot and ran into the
wood.
That evening he spent in darkness, and lighted neither fire nor lamp.
Seated in a corner of the dining-room, with his eyes fixed on the glass
doors that led to the garden, through which the soft mist of a superb
autumnal night was visible, he thought of his childhood, and of the
last years of his life.
No, Cécile would not marry him. In the first place, he was a mechanic;
secondly, his birth was illegitimate. It was the first time in his life
that this thought had weighed upon him, for Jack had not lived among
very scrupulous people. He had never heard his father’s name mentioned,
and therefore rarely thought of him, being as unable to measure the
extent of his loss as a deaf mute is unable to realize the blessing of
the senses he lacks.
But now the question of his birth occupied him to the exclusion of all
others.
He had listened calmly to the name of his father when Charlotte told
it; but now he would like to learn from her every detail. Was he really
a marquis? Was he certainly dead? Had not his mother said this merely
to avoid the disclosure of a mortifying desertion? And if this father
were still alive, would he not be willing to give his name to his son?
The poor fellow was ignorant of the fact that a true woman’s heart is
more moved by compassion than by all the vain distinctions of the
world.
“I will write to my mother,” he thought. But the questions he wished to
ask were so delicate and complicated, that he resolved to see her at
once, and have one of those earnest conversations where eyes do the
work of words, and where silence is as eloquent as speech.
Unfortunately he had no money for his railroad fare. “Pshaw!” he said,
“I can go on foot. I did it when I was eleven, and I can surely try it
again.” And he did try it the next day; and if it seemed to him less
long and less lonely than it did before, it was far more sad.
Jack saw the spot where he had slept, the little gate at Villeneuve
Saint-George’s, where he had been dropped by the kind couple from their
carriage, the pile of stones where the recumbent form of a man had so
terrified him, and he sighed to think that if the Jack of his youth
could suddenly rise from the dust of the highway, he would be more
afraid of the Jack of to-day than of any other dismal wanderer.
He reached Paris in the afternoon. A settled, cold rain was falling;
and pursuing the comparison that he had made of his souvenirs with the
present time, he recalled the glow of the sunset on that May evening
when his mother appeared to him, like the archangel Michael, wrapped in
glory, and chasing away the shades of night.
Instead of the little house at Aulnettes where Ida sang amid her roses,
Jack saw D’Argenton just issuing from the door, followed by Moronval,
who was carrying a bundle of proofs.
“Here is Jack!” said Moronval.
The poet started and looked up. To see these two men, one dressed with
so much care, brushed, perfumed, and gloved; the other in a velvet
coat, much too short for him, shiny from wear and weather, no one would
have supposed that any tie could exist between them.
Jack extended his hand to D’Argenton, who gave one finger in return,
and asked if the house at Aulnettes was rented.
“Rented?” said the other, not understanding.
“To be sure. Seeing you here, I supposed that of course the house was
occupied, and you were compelled to leave it.”
“No,” said Jack, somewhat disconcerted; “no one has even called to look
at the place.”
“What are you here for?”
“To see my mother.”
“Filial affection is a most excellent thing. Unfortunately, however,
there are travelling expenses to be thought of.”
“I came on foot,” said Jack, with simple dignity.
“Indeed!” drawled D’Argenton, and then added, “I am glad to see that
your legs are in better order than your arms.”
And pleased at this mot, the poet bowed coldly, and went on.
A week before, and these words would have scarcely been noticed by
Jack, but since the previous night he had not been the same person. His
pride was now so wounded that he would have returned to Aulnettes
without seeing his mother, had he not wished to speak to her most
seriously. He entered the salon; it was in disorder: chairs and benches
were being brought in, for a great fête was in progress of arrangement,
which was the reason that D’Argenton was so out of temper on seeing
Jack. Charlotte did not appear pleased, but stopped in some of her
preparations.
“Is it you, my dear Jack. You come for money, too, I fancy. I forgot it
utterly,—that is, I begged Dr. Hirsch to hand it to you. He is going to
Aulnettes in two or three days to make some very curious experiments
with perfumes. He has made an extraordinary discovery.”
They were talking in the centre of the room; a half dozen workmen were
going to and fro, driving nails, and moving the furniture.
“I wish to speak seriously,” said Jack.
“What! now? You know that serious conversation is not my forte; and
to-day all is in confusion. We have sent out five hundred invitations,
it will be superb! Come here, then, if it is absolutely necessary. I
have arranged a veranda for smoking. Come and see if it is not
convenient?”
She went with him into a veranda covered with striped cotton, furnished
with a sofa and jardinière, but rather dismal-looking with the rain
pattering on the zinc roof.
Jack said to himself, “I had better have written,” and did not know
what to say first.
“Well?” said Charlotte, leaning her chin on her hand in that graceful
attitude that some women adopt when they listen. He hesitated a moment,
as one hesitates in placing a heavy load upon an étagère of trifles,
for that which he had to say seemed too much for that pretty little
head that leaned toward him.
“I should like—I should like to talk to you of my father,” he said,
with some hesitation.
On the end of her tongue she had the words, “What folly!” If she did
not utter them, the expression of her face, in which were to be read
amazement and fear, spoke for her.
“It is too sad for us, my child, to discuss. But still, painful as it
is to me, I understand your feelings, and am ready to gratify you.
Besides,” she added, solemnly, “I have always intended, when you were
twenty, to reveal to you the secret of your birth.”
It was time now for him to look astonished. Had she forgotten that
three months previous she had made this disclosure. Nevertheless, he
uttered no protest, he wished to compare her story of to-day with an
older narration. How well he knew her!
“Is it true that my father was noble?” he asked, suddenly.
“Indeed he was, my child.”
“A marquis?”
“No, only a baron.”
“But I supposed—in fact, you told me—”
“No, no—it was the elder branch of the Bulac family that was noble.”
“He was connected then with the Bulac family?”
“Most assuredly. He was the head of the younger branch.”
“And his name was—”
“The Baron de Bulac—a lieutenant in the navy.”
Jack felt dizzy, and had only strength to ask, “How long since he
died?”
“O, years and years!” said Charlotte, hurriedly.
That his father was dead he was sure; but had his mother told him a
falsehood now, or on the previous occasion? Was he a De Bulac or a
L’Epau?
“You are looking ill, child,” said Charlotte, interrupting herself in
the midst of a long romance she was telling, “your hands are like ice.”
“Never mind, I shall get warm with exercise,” answered Jack, with
difficulty.
“Are you going so soon? Well, it is best that you should get back
before it is late.” She kissed him tenderly, tied a handkerchief around
his throat, and slipped some money into his pocket. She fancied that
his silence and sadness came from seeing all the preparations for a
fête in which he was to have no share, and when her maid summoned her
for the waiting coiffeur, she said good-bye hurriedly.
“You see I must leave you; write often, and take good care of
yourself.”
He went slowly down the steps, with his face turned toward his mother
all the time. He was sad at heart, but not by reason of this fête from
which he was excluded, but at the thought of all the happiness in life
from which he had been always shut out. He thought of the children who
could love and respect their parents, who had a name, a fireside, and a
family. He remembered, too, that his unhappy fate would prevent him
from asking any woman to share his life. He was wretched without
realizing that to regret these joys was in fact to be worthy of them,
and that it was only the fall perception of the sad truths of his
destiny that would impart the strength to cope with them.
Wrapped in these dismal meditations, he had reached the Lyons station,
a spot where the mud seems deeper, and the fog thicker, than elsewhere.
It was just the hour that the manufactories closed. A tired crowd,
overwhelmed by discouragement and distress, hurried through the
streets, going at once to the wine-shops, some of which had as a sign
the one word _Consolation_, as if drunkenness and forgetfulness were
the sole refuge for the wretched. Jack, feeling that darkness had
settled down on his life as absolutely as it had on this cold autumnal
night, uttered an exclamation of despair.
“They are right; what is there left to do but to drink?” and entering
one of those miserable drinking-shops, Jack called for a double measure
of brandy. Just as he lifted his glass, amid the din of coarse voices,
and through the thick smoke, he heard a flute-like voice,—
“Do you drink brandy, Jack?”
No, he did not drink it, nor would he ever touch it again. He left the
shop abruptly, leaving his glass untouched and the money on the
counter.
How Jack had a sharp illness of some weeks’ duration after this long
walk; how Dr. Hirsch experimented upon him until routed by Dr. Rivals,
who carried the youth to his own house and nursed him again to health,
is too long a story. We prefer also to introduce our readers to Jack
seated in a comfortable arm-chair, reading at the window of the
doctor’s office. It was peaceful about him, a peace that came from the
sunny sky, the silent house, and the gentle footfall of Cécile.
He was so happy that he rarely spoke, and contented himself with
watching the movements of the dear presence that pervaded the simple
home. She sewed and kept her grandfather’s accounts.
“I am sure,” she said, looking up from her book, “that the dear man
forgets half his visits. Did you notice what he said yesterday, Jack?”
“Mademoiselle!” he answered, with a start.
He had not heard one word, although he had been watching her with all
his eyes. If Cécile said, “My friend,” it seemed to Jack that no other
person had ever so called him; and when she said farewell, or
good-night, his heart contracted as if he were never to see her again.
Her slightest words were full of meaning, and her simple, unaffected
ways were a delight to the youth. In his state of convalescence he was
more susceptible to these influences than he would ordinarily have
been.
O, the delicious days he spent in that blessed home! The office, a
large, deserted room, with white curtains at the windows opening on a
village street, communicated to him its healthful calm. The room was
filled with the odors of plants culled in the splendor of their
flowering, and he drank it in with delight.
In the scent of the balsam he heard the rushing of the clear brooks in
the forest, and the woods were green and shady, when he caught the odor
of the herbs gathered from the foot of the tall oaks.
With returning strength Jack tried to read; he turned over the old
volumes, and found those in which he had studied so long before, and
which he could now far better comprehend. The doctor was out nearly all
day, and the two young people remained alone. This would have horrified
many a prudent mother, and, of course, had Madame Rivals been living,
it would not have been permitted; but the doctor was a child himself,
and then, who knows? he may have had his own plans.
Meanwhile D’Argenton, informed of Jack’s removal to the Rivals, saw fit
to take great offence. “It is not at all proper,” wrote Charlotte,
“that you should remain there. People will think us unwilling to give
you the care you need? You place us in a false position.”
This letter failing to produce any effect, the poet wrote himself:—“I
sent Hirsch to cure you, but you preferred a country idiot to the
science of our friend! As you call yourself better, I give you now two
days to return to Aulnettes. If you are not there at the expiration of
that time, I shall consider that you have been guilty of flagrant
disobedience, and from that moment all is over between us.”
As Jack did not move, Charlotte appeared on the scene. She came with
much dignity, and with a crowd of phrases that she had learned by heart
from her poet. M. Rivals received her at the door, and, not in the
least intimidated by her coldness, said at once, “I ought to tell you,
madame, that it is my fault alone that your son did not obey you. He
has passed through a great crisis. Fortunately he is at an age when
constitutions can be reformed, and I trust that his will resist the
rough trials to which it has been exposed. Hirsch would have killed him
with his musk and his other perfumes. I took him away from the
poisonous atmosphere, and now I hope the boy is out of danger. Leave
him to me a while longer, and you shall have him back more healthy than
ever, and capable of renewing the battle of life; but if you let that
impostor Hirsch get hold of him again, I shall think that you wish to
get rid of him forever.”
“Ah! M. Rivals, what a thing to say! What have I done to deserve such
an insult?” and Charlotte burst into tears. The doctor soothed her with
a few kind words, and then let her go alone into the office to see her
son. She found him changed and improved much, as if he had thrown off
some outer husk, but exhausted and weakened by the transformation. He
turned pale when he saw her.
“You have come to take me away,” he exclaimed.
“Not at all,” she answered, hastily. “The doctor wishes you to remain,
and where would you be so well as with the doctor who loves you so
tenderly?”
For the first time in his life Jack had been happy away from his
mother, and a departure from the roof under which he was would have
certainly caused him a relapse. Charlotte was evidently uncomfortable;
she looked tired and troubled.
“We have a large entertainment every month, and every fortnight a
reading, and all the confusion gives me a headache. Then the Japanese
prince at the Moronval Academy has written a poem, M. D’Argenton has
translated it into French, and we are both of us learning the Japanese
tongue. I find it very difficult, and have come to the conclusion that
literature is not my forte. The Review does not bring in a single cent,
and has not now one subscriber. By the way, our good friend at Tours is
dead. Do you remember him?”
At this moment Cécile came in and was received by Charlotte with the
most flattering exclamations and much warmth of manner. She talked of
D’Argenton and of their friend at Tours, which annoyed Jack intensely,
for he would have wished neither person to have been mentioned in
Cécile’s pure presence, and over and over again he stopped the careless
babble of his mother who had no such scruples. They urged Madame
D’Argenton to remain to dinner, but she had already lingered too long,
and was uneasily occupied in inventing a series of excuses for her
delay, which should be in readiness when she encountered her poet’s
frowning face.
“Above all, Jack, if you write to me, be sure that you put on your
letter ‘_to be called for_,’ for M. D’Argenton is much vexed with you
just now. So do not be astonished if I scold you a little in my next
letter, for he is always there when I write. He even dictates my
sentences sometimes; but don’t mind, dear, you will understand.”
She acknowledged her slavery with naïveté, and Jack was consoled for
the tyranny by which she was oppressed by seeing her go away in
excellent spirits, and with her shawl wrapped so gracefully around her,
and her travelling-bag carried as lightly as she carried all the
burdens of life.
Have you ever seen those water-lilies, whose long stems arise from the
depths of the river, finding their way through all obstacles until they
expand on the surface, opening their magnificent white cups, and
filling the air with their delicate perfume? Thus grew and flowered the
love of these two young hearts. With Cécile, the divine flower had
grown in a limpid soul, where the most careless eyes could have
discerned it. With Jack, its roots had been tangled and deformed, but
when the stems reached the regions of air and light, they straightened
themselves, and needed but little more to burst into flower.
“If you wish,” said M. Rivals, one evening, “we will go to-morrow to
the vintage at Coudray; the farmer will send his wagon; you two can go
in that in the morning, and I will join you at dinner.”
They accepted the proposition with delight. They started on a bright
morning at the end of October. A soft haze hung over the landscape,
retreating before them, as it seemed; upon the mown fields and on the
bundles of golden grain, upon the slender plants, the last remains of
the summer’s brightness, long silken threads floated like particles of
gray fog. The river ran on one side of the highway, bordered by huge
trees. The freshness of the air heightened the spirits of the two young
travellers, who sat on the rough seat with their feet in the straw, and
holding on with both hands to the side of the wagon. One of the
farmer’s daughters drove a young ass, who, harassed by the wasps, which
are very numerous at the time when the air is full of the aroma of
ripening fruits, impatiently shook his long ears.
They went on and on until they reached a hill-side, where they saw a
crowd at work. Jack and Cécile each snatched a wicker basket and joined
the others. What a pretty sight it was! The rustic landscape seen
between the vine-draped arches, the narrow stream, winding and
picturesque, full of green islands, a little cascade and its white
foam, and above all, the fog showing through a golden mist, and a fresh
breeze that suggested long evenings and bright fires.
This charming day was very short, at least so Jack found it. He did not
leave Cécile’s side for a minute. She wore a broad-brimmed hat and a
skirt of flowered cambric. He filled her basket with the finest of the
grapes, exquisite in their purple bloom, delicate as the dust on the
wings of a butterfly. They examined the fruit together; and when Jack
raised his eyes, he admired on the cheeks of the young girl the same
faint, powdery bloom. Her hair, blown in the wind in a soft halo above
her brow, added to this effect. He had never seen a face so changed and
brightened as hers. Exercise and the excitement of her pretty toil, the
gayety of the vineyard, the laughs and shouts of the laborers, had
absolutely transformed M. Rivals’ quiet housekeeper. She became a child
once more, ran down the slopes, lifted her basket on her shoulder,
watched her burden carefully, and walked with that rhythmical step
which Jack remembered to have seen in the Breton women as they bore on
their heads their full water-jugs. There came a time in the day when
these two young persons, overwhelmed by fatigue, took their seats at
the entrance of a little grove where the dry leaves rustled under their
feet.
And then? Ah, well, they said nothing. They let the night descend
softly on the most beautiful dream of their lives; and when the swift
autumnal twilight brought out in the darkness the bright windows of the
simple homes scattered about, the wind freshened, and Cécile insisted
on fastening around Jack’s throat the scarf she had brought, the warmth
and softness of the fabric, the consciousness of being cared for, was
like a caress to the lover.
He took her hand, and her fingers lingered in his for a moment; that
was all. When they returned to the farm the doctor had just arrived;
they heard his cheery voice in the courtyard. The chill of the early
autumnal evenings has a charm that both Cécile and Jack felt as they
entered the large room filled with the light from the fire. At supper
innumerable dusty bottles were produced, but Jack manifested profound
indifference to their charms. The doctor, on the contrary, fully
appreciated them, so fully that his granddaughter quietly left her
seat, ordered the carriage to be harnessed, and wrapped herself in her
cloak. Dr. Rivals seeing her in readiness, rose without remonstrance,
leaving on the table his half-filled glass.
The three drove home, as in the olden days, through the quiet country
roads; the cabriolet, which had increased in size as had its occupants,
groaned a little on its well-used springs. This noise took nothing from
the charm of the drive, which the stars, so numberless in autumn,
seemed to follow with a golden shower.
“Are you cold, Jack?” said the doctor, suddenly.
How could he be cold? The fringe of Cécile’s great shawl just touched
him.
Alas! why must there be a to-morrow to such delicious days? Jack knew
now that he loved Cécile, but he realized also that this love would be
to him only an additional cause of sorrow. She was too far above him,
and although he had changed much since he had been so near her,
although he had thrown aside much of the roughness of his habits and
appearance, he still felt himself unworthy of the lovely fairy who had
transformed him.
The mere idea that the girl should know that he adored her was
distasteful to him. Besides, as his bodily health returned, he began to
grow ashamed of his hours of inaction in “the office.” What would she
think of him should he continue to remain there? Cost what it would, he
must go.
One morning he entered M. Rivals’ house to thank him for all his
kindness, and to inform him of his decision.
“You are right,” said the old man; “you are well now bodily and
mentally, and you can soon find some employment.”
There was a long silence, and Jack was disturbed by the singular
attention with which M. Rivals regarded him. “You have something to say
to me,” said the doctor, abruptly.
Jack colored and hesitated.
“I thought,” continued the doctor, “that when a youth was in love with
a girl who had no other relation than an old grandfather, the proper
thing was to speak to him frankly.”
Jack, without answering, hid his face in his hands.
“Why are you so troubled, my boy?” continued his old friend.
“I did not dare to speak to you,” answered Jack; “I am poor and without
any position.”
“You can remedy all this.”
“But there is something else: you do not know that I am illegitimate!”
“Yes, I know—and so is she,” said the doctor, calmly. “Now listen to a
long story.”
They were in the doctor’s library. Through the open window they saw a
superb autumnal landscape, long country roads bordered with leafless
trees; and beyond, the old country cemetery, its yew-trees prostrated,
and its crosses upheaved.
“You have never been there,” said M. Rivals, pointing out to Jack this
melancholy spot. “Nearly in the centre is a large white stone, on which
is the one word Madeleine.
“There lies my daughter, Cécile’s mother. She wished to be placed apart
from us all, and desired that only her Christian name should be put
upon her tomb, saying that she was not worthy to bear the name of her
father and mother. Dear child, she was so proud! She had done nothing
to merit this exile after death, and if any should have been punished,
it was I, an old fool, whose obstinacy brought all our misfortunes upon
us.
“One day, eighteen years ago this very month, I was sent for in a hurry
on account of an accident that had happened at a hunt in the Forêt de
Sénart. A gentleman had been shot in the leg. I found the wounded man
on the state-bed at the Archambaulds. He was a handsome fellow, with
light hair and eyes, those northern eyes that have something of the
cold glitter of ice. He bore with admirable courage the extraction of
the balls, and, the operation over, thanked me in excellent French,
though with a foreign accent. As he could not be moved without danger,
I continued to attend him at the forester’s; I learned that he was a
Russian of high rank,—‘the Comte Nadine,’ his companions called him.
“Although the wound was dangerous, Nadine, thanks to his youth and good
constitution, as well as to the care of Mother Archambauld, was soon
able to leave his bed, but as he could not walk at all, I took
compassion on his loneliness, and often carried him in my cabriolet
home to my own house to dine. Sometimes, when the weather was bad, he
spent the night with us. I must acknowledge to you that I adored the
man. He had great stores of information, had been everywhere, and seen
everything. To my wife he gave the pharmaceutic recipes of his own
land, to my daughter he taught the melodies of the Ukraine. We were
positively enchanted with him all of us, and when I turned my face
homeward on a rainy evening, I thought with pleasure that I should find
so congenial a person at my fireside. My wife resisted somewhat the
general enthusiasm, but as it was rather her habit to cultivate a
certain distrust as a balance to my recklessness, I paid little
attention. Meanwhile our invalid was quite well enough to return to
Paris, but he did not go, and I did not ask either myself or him why he
lingered.
“One day my wife said, ‘M. Nadine must explain why he comes so often to
the house; people are beginning to gossip about Madeleine and himself.’
“‘What nonsense!’ I exclaimed. I had the absurd notion that the count
lingered at Etiolles on my account; I thought he liked our long talks,
idiot that I was. Had I looked at my daughter when he entered the room,
I should have seen her change color and bend assiduously over her
embroidery all the while he was there. But there are no eyes so blind
as those which will not see; and I chose to be blind. Finally, when
Madeleine acknowledged to her mother that they loved each other, I went
to find the comte to force an explanation.
“He loved my daughter, he said, and asked me for her hand, although he
wished me to understand the obstacles that would be thrown in the way
by his family. He said, however, that he was of an age to act for
himself, and that he had some small income, which, added to the amount
that I could give Madeleine, would secure their comfort.
“A great disproportion of fortune would have terrified me, while the
very moderation of his resources attracted me. And then his air of
lordly decision, his promptness in arranging everything, was singularly
attractive. In short, he was installed in the house as my future
son-in-law, without my asking too curiously by what door he entered. I
realized that there was something a little irregular in the affair, but
my daughter was very happy; and when her mother said, ‘We must know
more before we give up our daughter,’ I laughed at her, I was so
certain that all was right. One day I spoke of him to M. Viéville, one
of the huntsmen.
“‘Indeed, I know nothing of the Comte Nadine,’ he said; ‘he strikes me
as an excellent fellow. I know that he bears a celebrated name, and
that he is well educated. But if I had a daughter involved, I should
wish to know more than this. I should write, if I were you, to the
Russian embassy; they can tell you everything there.’
“You suppose, of course, that I went to the embassy. That is just what
I did not do; I was too careless, too blindly confident, too busy. I
have never been able in my whole life to do what I wished, for I have
never had any time; my whole existence has been too short for the half
of what I have wished to do. Tormented by my wife on the subject of
this additional information, I finished by lying, ‘Yes, yes, I went
there; everything is satisfactory.’ Since then I remember the singular
air of the comte each time he thought I was going to Paris; but at that
time I saw nothing; I was absorbed in the plans that my children were
making for their future happiness. They were to live with us three
months in the year, and to spend the rest of the time in St.
Petersburg, where Nadine was offered a government situation. My poor
wife ended in sharing my joy and satisfaction.
“The end of the winter passed in correspondence. The count’s papers
were long in coming, his parents utterly refused their consent. At last
the papers came—a package of hieroglyphics impossible to
decipher,—certificates of birth, baptism, &c. That which particularly
amused us was a sheet filled with the titles of my future son-in-law,
Ivanovitch Nicolaevitch Stephanovitch.
“‘Have you really as many names as that?’ said my poor child, laughing;
‘and I am only Madeleine Rivals.’
“There was at first some talk of the marriage taking place in Paris
with great pomp, but Nadine reflected that it was not wise to brave the
paternal authority on this point, so the ceremony took place at
Etiolles, in the little church where to this very day are to be seen
the records of an irreparable falsehood. How happy I was that morning
as I entered the church with my daughter trembling on my arm, feeling
that she owed all her happiness to me!
“Then, after mass, breakfast at the house, and the departure of the
bridal couple in a post-chaise—I can see them now as they drove away.
“The ones who go are generally happy; those who stay are sad enough.
When we took our seats at the table that night, the empty chair at our
side was dreary enough. I had business which took me out-of-doors; but
the poor mother was alone the greater part of the time, and her heart
was devoured by her regrets. Such is the destiny of women; all their
sorrows and their griefs come from within, and are interwoven with
their daily lives and employments.
“The letters that we soon began to receive from Pisa, and Florence,
were radiant with happiness. I began to build a little house by the
side of our own; we chose the furniture and the wall papers. ‘They are
here—they are there,’ we said; and at last we expected the final
letters we should receive before they returned.
“One evening I came in late; my wife had gone to her room; I supped
alone; when suddenly I heard a step in the garden. The door opened, my
daughter appeared; but she was no longer the fair young girl whom I had
parted with a month before. She looked thin and ill, was poorly
dressed, and carried in her hand a little travelling-bag.
“‘It is I,’ she whispered hoarsely; ‘I have come.’
“‘Good heavens! what has happened? Where is Nadine?’
“She did not answer; her eyes closed, and she trembled violently from
head to foot. You may imagine my suspense.
“‘Speak to me, my child. What has happened? Where is your husband?’
“‘I have none—I have never had one;’ and suddenly, without looking at
me, she began to tell me, in a low voice, her horrible history.
“He was not a count, his name was not Nadine. He was a Russian Jew by
the name of Roesh, a miserable adventurer. He was married at Riga,
married at St. Petersburg. All his papers were false, manufactured by
himself. His resources he owed to his skill in counterfeiting bills on
the Russian bank. At Turin he had been arrested on an order of
extradition. Think of my little girl alone in this foreign town,
separated violently from her husband, learning abruptly that he was a
forger and a bigamist,—for he made a full confession of his crimes. She
had but one thought, that of seeking refuge with us. Her brain was so
bewildered, that, as she told us afterwards, when she was asked where
she was going, she simply answered ‘To mamma.’ She left Turin hastily,
without her luggage, and at last she was safe with us, and weeping for
the first time since the catastrophe.
“I said, ‘Restrain yourself, my love, you will awaken your mother!’ but
my tears fell as fast as her own. The next day my wife learned all; she
did not reproach me. ‘I knew,’ she said, ‘from the beginning that there
was some misfortune in this marriage.’ And, in fact, she had certain
presentiments of evil from the hour that the man came under our roof.
What is the diagnosis of a physician compared to the warning and
confidences whispered by destiny into the ear of certain women? In the
neighborhood the arrival of my child was quickly known. ‘Your
travellers have returned,’ they said. They asked few questions, for
they readily saw that I was unhappy. They noticed that the count was
not with us, that Madeleine and her mother never went out; and very
soon I found myself met with compassionate glances that were harder to
bear than anything else. My daughter had not confided to me that a
child would be born from this disastrous union, but sat sewing day
after day, ornamenting the dainty garments, which are the joy and pride
of mothers, with ribbons and lace; I fancied, however, that she looked
at them with feelings of shame, for the least allusion to the man who
had deceived her made her turn pale. But my wife, who saw things with
clearer vision than my own, said, ‘You are mistaken: she loves him
still.’
“Yes, she loved, and strong as was her contempt and distrust, her love
was stronger still. It was this that killed her, for she died soon
after Cécile’s birth. We found under her pillow a letter, worn in all
its folds, the only one she had ever received from Nadine, written
before their marriage. She had read it often, but she died without once
pronouncing the name that I am sure trembled all the time on her lips.
“You are astonished that in a tranquil village like this a complicated
drama could have been enacted, such as would seem possible only in the
crowded cities of London and Paris. When fate thus attacks, by chance
as it were, a little corner so sheltered by hedges and trees, I am
reminded of those spent balls which during a battle kill a laborer at
work in the fields, or a child returning from school. I think if we had
not had little Cécile, my wife would have died with her daughter. Her
life from that hour was one long silence, full of regrets and
self-reproach.
“But it was necessary to bring up this child, and to keep her in
ignorance of the circumstances of her birth. This was a matter of
difficulty; it is true that we were relieved of her father, who died a
few months after his condemnation. Unfortunately, several persons knew
the whole story; and we wished to preserve Cécile from all the gossip
she would hear if she associated with other children. You saw how
solitary her life was. Thanks to this precaution, she to-day knows
nothing of the tempest that surrounded her birth; for not one of the
kind people about us would utter one word which would give her reason
to suspect that there was any mystery. My wife, however, was always in
dread of some childish questions from Cécile. But I had other fears:
who could be certain that the child of my child did not inherit from
her father some of his vices? I acknowledge to you, Jack, that for
years I dreaded seeing her father’s characteristics in Cécile; I
dreaded the discovery of deceit and falsehood; but what joy it has been
to me to find that the child is the perfected image of her mother! She
has the same tender and half-sad smile, the same candid eyes, and lips
that can say No.
“Meanwhile the future alarmed me: my granddaughter must some day learn
the truth, and that truth must be divulged if she should ever marry.
“‘She must never love any one,’ said her grandmother.
“If this were possible, would it be wise to pass through life without a
protector? Her destiny must be united with a fate as exceptional as her
own. Such a one could hardly be found in our village, and in Paris we
knew no one. It was about the time when these anxieties occupied our
minds that your mother came to this place. She was supposed to be the
wife of D’Argenton, but the forester’s wife told me the real
circumstances. I said to myself instantly, ‘This boy ought to be
Cécile’s husband;’ and from that time I attended to your education.
“I looked forward to the time that you, a man grown, would come to me
and ask her hand. This was the reason, of course, that I was so
indignant when D’Argenton sent you to Indret. I said to myself,
however, Jack may emerge from this trial in triumph. If he studies, if
he works with his head as well as his hands, he may still be worthy of
the wife I wish to give him. The letters that we received from you were
all that they should be, and I ventured to indulge the hope I have
named. Suddenly came the intelligence of the robbery. Ah, my friend,
how terrified I was! how I bemoaned the weakness of your mother, and
the tyranny of the monster who had driven you to evil courses! I
respected, nevertheless, the tender affection that existed toward you
in the heart of my little girl, I had not the courage to undeceive her.
We talked of you constantly until the day when I told her that I had
seen you at the forester’s. If you could have seen the light in her
eyes, and how busy she was all day! a sign with her always of some
excitement, as if her heart beating too quickly needed something,
either a pen or a needle, to regulate its movements.
“Now, Jack, you love my child. I have watched you for two months, and I
am satisfied that the future is in your own hands. I wish you to study
medicine and take my place at Etiolles. I first thought of keeping you
here, but I concluded that it would take four years to complete your
studies, and that your residence with us for that length of time would
not be advisable. In Paris you can study in the evening, and work all
day, and come to us on Sundays. I will examine your week’s work and
advise you, and Cécile will encourage you. Velpeau and others have done
this, and you can do the same. Will you try? Cécile is the reward.”
Jack was utterly overwhelmed, and could only heartily shake the hand of
the old man. But perhaps Cécile’s affection was only that of a sister:
and four years was a long time: would she consent to wait?
“Ah, my boy, I cannot answer these questions,” said M. Rivals, gayly;
“but I authorize you to ask them at headquarters. Cécile is up-stairs;
go and speak to her.”
That was rather a difficult matter, with a heart going like a
trip-hammer, and a voice choked with emotion. Cécile was writing in the
office.
“Cécile,” he said, as he entered the room, “I am going away.” She rose
from her seat, very pale. “I am going to work,” he continued. “Your
grandfather has given me permission to tell you that I love you, and
that I hope to win you as my wife.”
He spoke in so low a voice that any other person than Cécile would have
failed to understand him. But she understood him very well. And in this
room, lighted by the level rays of the setting sun, the young girl
stood listening to this declaration of love as to an echo of her own
thoughts. She was perfectly unabashed and undisturbed, a tender smile
on her lips, and her eyes full of tears. She understood perfectly that
their life would be no holiday, that they would be racked by
separations and long years of waiting.
“Jack,” she said, after he had explained all his plans, “I will wait
for you, not only four years, but forever.”
Jack went to Paris in search of employment, found it in the house of
Eyssendeck, at six francs a day; then tried to procure lodgings not too
far removed from the manufactory. He was happy, full of hope and
courage, impatient to begin his double work as mechanic and student.
The crowd pushed against him, and he did not feel them; nor was he
conscious of the cold of this December night; nor did he hear the young
apprentice girls, as they passed him, say to each other, “What a
handsome man!” The great Faubourg was alive and seemed to encourage him
with its gayety.
“What a pleasure it is to live!” said Jack; “and how hard I mean to
work!” Suddenly he stumbled against a great square basket filled with
fur hats and caps; this basket stood at the door of a shoemaker’s
stall. Jack looked in and saw Bélisaire, as ugly as ever, but cleaner
and better clothed. Jack was delighted to see him, and entered at once;
but Bélisaire was too deeply absorbed in the examination of a pair of
shoes that the cobbler was showing him, to look up. These shoes were
not for himself, but for a tiny child of four or five years of age,
pale and thin, with a head much too large for his body. Bélisaire was
talking to the child.
“And they are nice and thick, my dear, and will keep those poor little
feet warm.”
Jack’s appearance did not seem to surprise him.
“Where did you come from?” he asked, as calmly as if he had seen him
the night before.
“How are you, Bélisaire? Is this your child?”
“O, no; it belongs to Madame Weber,” said the pedler, with a sigh; and
when he had ascertained that the little thing was well fitted,
Bélisaire drew from his pocket a long purse of red wool, and took out
some silver pieces that he placed in the cobbler’s hand with that air
of importance assumed by working people when they pay away money.
“Where are you going, comrade?” said the pedler to Jack, as they stood
on the pavement, in a tone so expressive that it seemed to say, If you
take this side, I shall go the other.
Jack, who felt this without being able to understand it, said, “I
hardly know where I am going. I am a journeyman at Eyssendeck’s, and I
want to find a room not too far away.”
“At Eyssendeck’s?” said the pedler. “It is not easy to get in there;
one must bring the best of recommendations.”
The expression of his eyes enlightened Jack. Bélisaire believed him
guilty of the robbery,—so true it is that accusations, however
unfounded and however explained away, yet leave spots and tarnishes.
When Bélisaire saw the letters of the superintendent at Indret, and
heard the whole story, his whole face lighted up with his old smile.
“Listen, Jack, it is too late to seek a lodging to-night; come with me,
for I have a room where you can sleep tonight, and perhaps can suggest
something that will suit you. But we will talk about that as we sup.
Come now.”
Behold the three—Jack, the pedler, and Madame Weber’s little one, whose
new shoes clattered on the sidewalk famously—were soon hurrying along
the streets. Bélisaire informed Jack that his sister was now a widow,
and that he had gone into business with her. Occasionally, in the full
tide of his history, he stopped to shout his old cry of “Hats! hats!
Hats to sell!” But before he reached his home, he was obliged to lift
into his arms Madame Weber’s little boy, who had begun to weep
despairingly.
“Poor little fellow!” said Bélisaire, “he is not in the habit of
walking. He rarely goes out, and it is merely that I may take him out
with me sometimes that I have had him measured for these new shoes. His
mother is away from home at work all day; she is a good, hard-working
woman, and has to leave her child to the care of a neighbor. Here we
are!”
They entered one of those large houses whose numerous windows are like
narrow slits in the walls. The doors open on the long corridors, which
serve as ante-rooms, where the poor people place their stoves and their
boxes. At this hour they were at dinner. Jack, as he passed, looked in
at the doors, which stood wide open.
“Good evening,” said the pedler.
“Good evening,” said the friendly voices from within.
In some rooms it was different: there was no fire, no light—a woman and
children watching for the father, who was at the wine-shop round the
corner.
The pedler’s room was at the top of the house, and he seemed very proud
of it. “I am going to show you how well I am established, but you must
wait until I have taken this child to its mother.” He looked under the
door of a room opposite his own, pulled out a key and unlocked it, went
directly to the stove where had simmered all day the soup for the
evening meal. He lighted a candle and fastened the child into a high
chair at the table, gave it a spoon and a saucepan to play with, and
then said, “Come away quickly; Madame Weber will be here in a minute,
and I wish to hear what she will say when she sees the child’s new
shoes.” He smiled as he opened his room—a long attic divided in two. A
pile of hats told his business, and the bare walls his poverty.
Bélisaire lighted his lamp and arranged his dinner, which consisted of
a fine salad of potatoes and salt herring. He took from a closet two
plates, bread and wine, and placed them on a little table. “Now,” he
said, with an air of triumph, “all is ready, though it is not much like
that famous ham you gave me in the country.” The potato salad was
excellent, however, and Jack did justice to it. Bélisaire was delighted
with the appetite of his guest, and did his duty as host with great
delight, rising every two or three minutes to see if the water was
boiling for the coffee.
“You have a taste for housekeeping, Bélisaire,” said Jack, “and have
things nicely arranged.”
“Not yet,” answered the pedler; “I need very many articles,—in fact,
these are only lent to me by Madame Weber while we are waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” asked Jack.
“Until we can be married!” answered the pedler, boldly, indifferent to
Jack’s gay laugh. “Madame Weber is a good woman, and you will see her
soon. We are not rich enough to start alone in housekeeping, but if we
could find some one to share the expenses, we would lodge and feed him,
do his washing and all, and it would not be a bad thing for him, any
more than for us. Where there is enough for two there is always enough
for three, you know! The difficulty is to find some one who is orderly
and sober, and won’t make too much trouble in the house.”
“How should I do, Bélisaire?”
“Would you like it, Jack? I have been thinking about it for an hour,
but did not dare speak of it. Perhaps our table would be too simple for
you.”
“No, Bélisaire, nothing would be too simple. I wish to be very
economical, for I, too, am thinking of marrying.”
“Really! But in that case we can’t make our arrangements.”
Jack laughed, and explained that his marriage was an affair of four
years later.
“Well, then, it is all settled. What a happy chance it was that we met.
Hark! I hear Madame Weber.”
A heavy step mounted the stairs; the child heard it too, for it began a
melancholy wail. “I am coming,” cried the woman from the end of the
corridor, to console the little one.
“Listen,” said Bélisaire. The door opened; an exclamation, followed by
a laugh, was heard, and presently Madame Weber, with her child on her
arm, entered Bélisaire’s room. She was a tall, good-looking woman, of
about thirty, and she laughed as she showed him the little one’s feet,
but there was a tear in her eye as she said, “You are the person who
has done this.”
“Now,” said Bélisaire, with simplicity, “how could she guess so well?”
Madame Weber took a seat at the table, and a cup of coffee, and Jack
was presented to her as their future associate. I must acknowledge that
she received him with a certain reserve, but when she had examined the
aspirant for this distinction, and learned that the two men had known
each other for ten years, and that she had before her the hero of the
story of the ham that she had heard so many times, her face lost its
expression of distrust, and she held out her hand to Jack.
“This time Bélisaire is right. He has brought me a half dozen of his
comrades who were not worth the cord to hang them with. He is very
innocent, because he is so good.”
Then came a discussion as to arrangements. It was decided that until
the marriage he should share Bélisaire’s room and buy himself a bed;
they would share the expenses, and Jack would pay his proportion every
Saturday. After the marriage, they would establish themselves more
commodiously, and nearer the Eyssendeck Works. This establishment
recalled to him Indret on a smaller scale. Owing to lack of space,
there were in the same room three rows, one above the other, of
machines. Jack was on the upper floor, where all the noise and dust of
the place ascended. When he leaned over the railing of the gallery, he
beheld a constant whirl of human arms, and a regular and monotonous
beat of machinery.
The heat was intense, worse than at Indret, because there was less
ventilation; but Jack bore up bravely under it, for his inner life
supported him through all the trials of the day. His companions saw
intuitively that he lived apart from them, indifferent to their petty
quarrels and rivalries. Jack shared neither their pleasures nor their
hatreds. He never listened to their sullen complaints, nor the muttered
thunder of this great Faubourg, concealed like a Ghetto in this
magnificent city. He paid no attention to the socialistic theories, the
natural growth in the minds of those who live poor and suffering so
near the wealthier classes.
I am not disposed to assert that Jack’s companions liked him
especially, but they respected him at all events. As to the workwomen,
they looked upon him much as a Prince Rodolphe,—for they had all read
“The Mysteries of Paris,”—and admired his tall, slender figure and his
careful dress. But the poor girls threw away their smiles, for he
passed their corner of the establishment with scarcely a glance. This
corner was never without its excitement and drama, for most of the
workwomen had a lover among the men, and this led to all sorts of
jealousies and scenes.
Jack went to and fro from the manufactory alone. He was in haste to
reach his lodgings, to throw aside his workman’s blouse, and to bury
himself in his books. Surrounded with these, many of them those he had
used at school, he commenced the labors of the evening, and was
astonished to find with what facility he regained all that he thought
he had forever lost. Sometimes, however, he encountered an unexpected
difficulty, and it was touching to see the young man, whose hands were
distorted and clumsy from handling heavy weights, sometimes throw aside
his pen in despair. At his side Bélisaire sat sewing the straw of his
summer hats, in respectful silence, the stupefaction of a savage
assistant at a magician’s incantations. He frowned when Jack frowned,
grew impatient, and when his comrade came to the end of some difficult
passage, nodded his head with an air of triumph. The noise of the
pedler’s big needle passing through the stiff straw, the student’s pen
scratching upon the paper, the gigantic dictionaries hastily taken up
and thrown down, filled the attic with a quiet and healthy atmosphere;
and when Jack raised his eyes he saw from the windows the light of
other lamps, and other shadows courageously prolonging their labors
into the middle of the night.
After her child was asleep, Madame Weber, to economize coal and oil,
brought her work to the room of her friend; she sowed in silence. It
had been decided that they should not marry until spring, the winter to
the poor being always a season of anxiety and privation. Jack, as he
wrote, thought, “How happy they are.” His own happiness came on
Sundays. Never did any coquette take such pains with her toilette as
did Jack on those days, for he was determined that nothing about him
should remind Cécile of his daily toil; well might he have been taken
for Prince Rodolphe had he been seen as he started off.
Delicious day! without hours or minutes—a day of uninterrupted
felicity. The whole house greeted him warmly, a bright fire burned in
the salon, flowers bloomed at the windows, and Cécile and the doctor
made him feel how dear he was to them both. After they had dined, M.
Rivals examined the work of the week, corrected everything, and
explained all that had puzzled the youth.
Then came a walk through the woods, if the day was fair, and they often
passed the chalet where Dr. Hirsch still came to pursue certain
experiments. So black was the smoke that poured from the chimneys, that
one would have fancied that the man was burning all the drugs in the
world. “Don’t you smell the poison?” said M. Rivals, indignantly. But
the young people passed the house in silence; they instinctively felt
that there were no kindly sentiments within those walls toward them,
and, in fact, feared that the fanatic Dr. Hirsch was sent there as a
spy. But what had they to fear, after all? Was not all intercourse
between D’Argenton and Charlotte’s son forever ended? For three months
they had not met. Since Jack had been engaged to Cécile, and understood
the dignity and purity of love, he had hated D’Argenton, making him
responsible for the fault of his weak mother, whose chains were riveted
more closely by the violence and tyranny under which a nobler nature
would have revolted. Charlotte, who feared scenes and explanations, had
relinquished all hope of reconciliation between these two men. She
never mentioned her son to D’Argenton, and saw him only in secret.
She had even visited the machine-shop in a fiacre and closely veiled,
and Jack’s fellow-workmen had seen him talking earnestly with a woman
elegant in appearance and still young. They circulated all sorts of
gossip in regard to the mysterious visitor, which finally reached
Jack’s ears, who begged his mother not to expose herself to such
remarks. They then saw each other in the gardens, or in some of the
churches; for, like many other women of similar characteristics, she
had become _dévote_ as she grew old, as much from an overflow of idle
sentimentality as from a passion for honors and ceremonies. In these
rare and brief interviews Charlotte talked all the time, as was her
habit, but with a worn, sad air. She said, however, that she was happy
and at peace, and that she had every confidence in M. d’Argenton’s
brilliant future. But one day, as mother and son were leaving the
church-door, she said to him, with some embarrassment, “Jack, can you
let me have a little money for a few days? I have made some mistake in
my accounts, and have not money enough to carry me to the end of the
month, and I dare not ask D’Argenton for a penny.”
He did not let her finish; he had just been paid off, and he placed the
whole amount in his mother’s hand. Then, in the bright sunshine he saw
what the obscurity of the church had concealed: traces of tears and a
look of despair on the face that was generally so smiling and fresh.
Intense compassion filled his heart. “You are unhappy,” he said; “come
to me, I shall-be so glad to have you.”
She started. “No, it is impossible,” she said, in a low voice; “he has
so many trials just now;” and she hurried away as if to escape some
temptation.