THE PRISONER AND THE KING.
The stranger laid his hand in gentle compassion on the old man’s arm.
There was something so sweet and kind in his lunacy, that he could not
resist the pitying impulse which possessed him. What if this gentle old
man had, indeed, been a prisoner of the Bastille—a terrible place, which
the nobility had used with such fearful recklessness, without pausing to
understand what awful sins they were committing against human rights.
“Sit down,” he said, “you tremble, and seem very old; while I rest here,
tell me something of that prison—of your life there. Was it, indeed, so
horrible as the people say?”
The old man sat down as bidden, for he had learned to obey until
submission had become an impulse. The stranger leaned against the trunk
of a willow that drooped over him a perfect cataract of leaves, and
prepared to listen.
“What would you have me say?” asked the old man, lifting his meek eyes
to the thoughtful face of his questioner. “There is much suffering in
twenty years—where shall I begin?”
“Tell me everything. It is well that I should know how far men can
suffer and live.”
The old man shook his head.
“Ah! it is all a dream now, a dull, heavy dream of darkness, and hunger,
and awful rest. At first I yearned and struggled for the freedom which
despotism, not crime, had torn from me. I raved in my cell; I beat my
hands against the great oaken door, which answered me with the mockery
of hollow noises; I beat my head upon the stone flags of my cell, hoping
thus to end the torment of my longing. I cried aloud for my wife and
child. Oh, my God! my God! how I suffered then—I, who had done nothing
that was evil, but always sought out the right; I, who had kept myself
humble, and loved the poor with affectionate brotherhood, who had
nothing on earth but my sweet young wife and her little child!
“At first I said this outrage against an innocent man cannot last. In a
few weeks they will let me out, and I shall flee on the wings of love to
find my wife and child; they will have suffered, but my coming will
bring back all the old joy into their lives. Monsieur, do you know what
it is to have such dreams die out of the soul?”
The old man clasped his hands, bowed his face down to his bosom, over
which the white beard flowed, and began to sob. The tenderness of a most
affectionate nature had come back to him so far that a swell of
self-pity heaved his breast when he remembered the pangs of anguish with
which he had given up all the hopes of his youth.
“Go on,” said the stranger, in a broken voice; “it is well that I should
hear this.”
“In the darkness of that dungeon,” answered the old man, “I felt my soul
going from me, I struggled hard to keep it—but it went, it went; the
cruel wants of the body conquered it. Hunger, cold, the eternal drip of
stagnant waters drove me mad, I think, for days lengthened into black
years, and years grew into eternity. To me there was neither heaven or
earth, nothing but that dungeon and its four dripping walls. As the
memory of my sweet home among the vineyards died out, I began to love
those walls; my eyes transformed themselves for the darkness, and
learned to watch the creeping things that came and went into my dungeon;
the bright-eyed toads, that sat hour by hour looking into my face, as if
they wondered what manner of animal I was, sitting there so inert and
helpless; or, hopping from place to place. They never felt the closeness
of those four walls. After a time these creatures, so loathsome at
first, became dear as children to me. I watched their coming with eager
longing, and out of my scant food saved a little for them, that they
might not be tempted to leave me. I would sit hours together holding one
of these creatures in my hand, counting the spots on its back with my
fingers, and smoothing its soft throat with gentle touches, while his
bright eyes shone on me through the darkness.
“Sometimes these pretty reptiles would creep into my bosom as I slept at
night. Then I dreamed that the little hand of my child was caressing me.
You understand, monsieur, as my sight had shaped itself to the darkness,
so my heart, closed in by despair, found something to love even in that
loathsome cell.”
“Go on! go on!” said the stranger, sharply, “I am listening!”
“Sometimes a keeper was harsh and cruel when he came to my cell, but
oftener he was grim and silent, refusing to speak or answer one word
of the questions which at first almost choked me as they crowded up
from my heart. By degrees I did not care—what was the outer world to
me, sitting there in the darkness of my tomb. Sometimes this man
brought a lamp, and let me cut off the long hair which flowed over my
shoulders like a woman’s. At first it was soft and golden, then it
grew whiter—whiter—whiter; and by this I marked the time. When I came
out the other day, it was drifted snow like this.
“One day the people rose like a great tidal wave, and swept over my
prison. A woman plunged down into the bowels of the earth, and fell upon
my neck, crying out that the people had won back my liberty. I did not
understand her—I did not know her; her eagerness wearied me. She talked
of things I had never heard of. She said that she was my wife. My wife,
with those bright, eager eyes; those curling lips; that free speech,
often sharp with denunciation. If she was my wife, too much light had
changed her more completely than darkness had worked on me. While her
arms were around me, I thought of the fair, meek creature I had left in
that cottage among the vineyards, and mourned for her as we mourn for
the dead. Then they brought a young creature to me, so like my first
wife that I stretched out my arms with a cry of joy; but they told me it
was my daughter. Wife and daughter had both gone. The old king had dug a
chasm of years between them and me. I could not cross it—I could not
cross it!”
The stranger took a handkerchief from his bosom, and wiped away some
great drops that had gathered on his forehead.
“No more to-night,” he said; “I cannot bear it.”
“Then I will go, since you will not let me rest here; but the road to
Paris is long, and suffering has made me an old man.”
The stranger reflected a moment.
“Not here,” he said, “the air is moist and the earth damp.”
“Ah! but I learned to love this dampness in my dungeon,” said the old
man, plaintively.
“Still it is no safe resting-place. I must not turn you upon the highway
in the night; besides, the guard might treat you ill. Come with me;
there is a place where you can be safe, and more comfortable.”
The old man picked up his staff and followed the strange person, who had
taken this singular interest in him, with docile obedience.
The two mounted upward from the secluded path, and walked toward another
portion of the park, where a tiny summer-house was embowered.
The stranger opened the door and let a flood of moonlight into the
pretty place.
“Here are easy-chairs and cushions, you can make out a resting-place
from them,” he said, kindly, addressing the old man.
“No; I will sleep on the marble floor—a bed suffocates me.”
“Have no fear, then; no one will molest you.”
“Fear! What has a prisoner of the Bastille to fear—death? How many of us
prayed for that every hour of our miserable lives,” answered the old man
with a gentle smile. “You are kind, and I thank you. Gratitude, I
sometimes think, is the only feeling imprisonment has left me. I am
grateful to you, sir.”
“Grateful to me! Do you know that I am THE KING?”