Fortunately for Bertha the horse she was riding had better qualities
than his appearance denoted. He was a little Breton beast which, when
quiet, seemed gloomy, sad, depressed, like the men of his native
region; but once warmed to action (like them again) he increased every
moment in vigor and energy. With flaring nostrils, and his tangled
mane floating in the wind, he attained to a gallop; presently his
gallop became a run. Plains, valleys, and hedges passed and
disappeared behind him with fantastic rapidity, while Bertha, bending
low upon his neck, gave rein and urged him onward with voice and whip.
The belated peasants whom she met, seeing the horse and its rider fade
into the distance as quickly as they had seen them appear, took them
for phantoms, and signed themselves devoutly behind them.
Rapid as this going was, it was not as fast as Bertha's heart
demanded; to her a second seemed a week, a minute a year. She felt the
terrible responsibility that rested on her,--the responsibility of
blood and death and shame. Could she save Michel, and, having saved
him, should she still have time to avert the danger that threatened
Petit-Pierre? That was the question.
A thousand confused ideas coursed through her brain; she blamed
herself for not having given Marianne's mother more careful
instructions; she was seized with vertigo at the thought that after
the headlong rush of that mad ride, the poor little Breton horse would
surely be unable to return from Banl[oe]uvre to Nantes; she reproached
herself for using in the interests of her love the time and resources
which might be necessary to save the noblest head in France; then she
reflected that unless others possessed, as she did, the passwords, it
would be impossible for any one to reach the illustrious fugitive. So
thinking, and torn by a thousand conflicting emotions, culminating in
a sort of intoxication or madness, she pressed her horse with her heel
and continued her wild ride, which, at any rate, cooled her brain,
burning with thoughts that were like to burst it.
At the end of an hour she reached the forest of Touvois. There she was
compelled to slacken speed; the way was full of quagmires. Twice the
little horse plunged into them. She was forced to let him walk,
calculating that in any case she had gained sufficiently on the
soldiers to give Michel time to escape.
She hoped; she breathed. A moment of joyful satisfaction came to
quench the all-consuming anguish of her fears; once more Michel would
owe to her his life!
We must have loved, we must have known the ineffable joy of sacrifice,
to comprehend what there was of happiness in this immolation of
herself to the man she loved, and the proud joy with which Bertha
thought for an instant that Michel's life, which she was now about to
save, might cost her dear.
Her mind was full of these thoughts when she saw the white walls of
the farmhouse shining in the moonlight, framed by the dark tufts of
the nut-trees. The gate of the farmyard was open. Bertha dismounted,
fastened her horse to a ring in the outer wall, and crossed the yard
on foot.
The manure which covered the ground deadened the sound of her steps;
no dog barked to welcome her, or to signify her presence to the
inmates. To her great surprise Bertha noticed a horse standing,
saddled and bridled, by the door of the house. The horse might belong
to Michel; but then again it might belong to a stranger. Bertha was
determined to make sure before entering the house.
One of the shutters in the room where Petit-Pierre had asked her hand
of her father in Michel's name stood open. Bertha went softly up to it
and looked within.
Hardly had her eyes rested on the interior of the room when she gave a
stifled cry and almost fainted. She had seen Michel at Mary's knees;
one hand was round her sister's waist, and the latter's hand was
toying with his hair; their lips were smiling to each other; their
eyes shone with that expression of joy which can never be mistaken by
hearts that have loved.
The prostration caused by this discovery lasted but a second. Bertha
rushed to the door of the room, pushed it open violently, and appeared
on the threshold like an embodiment of Vengeance, her hair
dishevelled, her eyes flaming, her face livid, her breast heaving.
Mary gave a cry and fell on her knees with her face in her hands. She
had guessed the whole at a single glance, so frightfully convulsed was
Bertha's face.
Michel, horrified by Bertha's look, rose hastily, and, as though he
found himself suddenly in presence of an enemy, he mechanically put
his hand on his arms.
"Strike!" cried Bertha, who saw his action; "strike, miserable man! It
will be a fit conclusion to your baseness and your treachery!"
"Bertha," stammered Michel, "let me tell you, let me explain to you!"
"To your knees! to your knees!--you and your accomplice!" cried
Bertha. "Say on your knees the lies you will invent for your defence!
Oh, the vile wretch! And I have flown here to save his life! I, half
mad with terror and despair for the fate that was hanging over him; I,
who have forgotten all, all, honor, duty; I, who laid my life at his
feet, who had but one thought, one object, one desire, one wish,--that
of saying to him, 'Michel, look! see how I love you!'--I come, and I
find him betraying his word, denying his promises, faithless to sacred
ties--I will not say of love, but of gratitude--and with whom? for
whom? The being I loved next to him in this world, the companion of my
childhood,--my sister! Was there no other woman to seduce? Speak!
speak, wretch!" went on Bertha, seizing the young man's arm and
shaking it with violence. "Or did you wish, in deserting me, to take
away my only consolation,--the heart of that second self I called a
sister?"
"Bertha, listen to me!" said Michel. "Listen to me, I implore you! We
are not, thank God, as guilty as you think us. Oh, if you did but
know, Bertha!"
"I will hear nothing; I listen only to my heart, which grief is
breaking, which despair has crushed; I listen only to the voice within
me which says you are a coward! base! My God! my God!" she cried,
grasping her hair in her clenched hands, "my God! is this the reward
of my tenderness, which was so blind that my eyes refused to see, my
ears to hear when they told me that this child, this timid, trembling,
wavering, unmanly creature, was not worthy of my love? Oh, poor fool
that I have been! I hoped that gratitude would bind him to her who
took pity on his weakness, who braved all prejudice and public opinion
to drag him from the bog of infamy and make his name, his degraded
name, an honorable and honored one!"
"Ah!" cried Michel, rising, "enough! enough!"
"Yes, enough of a degraded name!" repeated Bertha. "That touches you,
does it? So much the better; I will say it again and again. Yes, a
name soiled and degraded by all that is most odious, cowardly,
infamous,--by treachery! Oh, family of betrayers! The son continues in
the way of the father; I ought to have expected it."
"Mademoiselle, mademoiselle!" said Michel, "you abuse the privilege of
your sex in thus insulting me; and not only me, but all that a man
holds most sacred,--the memory of his father!"
"Sex! sex! So I have a sex now, have I? I had none when you were
betraying me at the feet of that poor fool, none when you were making
me the most miserable of creatures; but now, because I do not lament
and tear my hair and beat my breast and drag myself to your feet, now,
now you suddenly discover I am a woman, a being to be respected
because she is gentle, to whom suffering must be spared because she is
weak! No, no! for you I have no longer a sex. You have before you,
from this hour, a being whom you have mortally offended, and who
returns you insult for insult. Baron de la Logerie, coward and traitor
double-dyed is he who seduces the sister of his betrothed wife,--yes,
I was the affianced wife of that man! Baron de la Logerie, not only
are you a traitor and a coward, but you are the son of a traitor and a
coward; your father was the infamous wretch who sold and betrayed
Charette. He, at least, paid the penalty of his crime, which he
expiated with his life. You have been told that he was killed in
hunting,--a benevolent lie, which I here refute. He was killed by one
who saw him do his deed of treachery; he was killed by--"
"Sister!" cried Mary, springing forward and laying her hand on her
sister's lips, "you are about to commit the crime you denounce in
others; you are betraying secrets which do not belong to you!"
"Be it so; but that man shall speak! The contempt I cast upon him
shall make him raise his head! He shall find, in his shame or in his
pride, the strength to send me out of a life that is odious to me, a
life which can be henceforth but a long delirium, an eternal despair.
Let him complete with one blow the ruin he has begun! My God! my God!"
continued Bertha, in whose eyes the tears were beginning to force
their way, "why dost thou suffer men to break the hearts of thy living
creatures? My God! my God! what can ever console me for this?"
"I will," said Mary. "I will, my sister, my good sister, my precious
sister, if you will but hear me, if you will only pardon me."
"Pardon you! you?" cried Bertha, pushing Mary away from her. "No! you
are the partner of that man; I know you no more! But, I warn you,
watch each other mutually, for your treachery will bring evil on both
of you."
"Bertha! Bertha! in God's name, do not say such things! Do not curse
us, do not insult us thus!"
"Ha!" exclaimed Bertha, "you feel it, do you? Yes, it is not without
good reason that we are called 'she-wolves'! And now they'll say: 'The
Demoiselles de Souday both loved Monsieur de la Logerie, and after
promising to marry' (for I suppose he promised it to you as he did to
me) 'he deserted them and took a third!' Why, even for wolves it would
be monstrous!"
"Bertha! Bertha!"
"If I scorned the epithet they gave us, as I scorn all empty
considerations of mock propriety," continued the young girl, still at
the height of her excitement, "if I laughed at the conventions of
society and the world, it was because we both--both, do you hear
that?--because we both had the right to walk proudly in a virtuous
independence of unsullied honor; because we were so high in our inward
consciousness that such miserable insults were beneath our notice. But
to-day all that is changed, and I here declare that I will do for you,
Mary, what I disdain to do for myself,--if that man will not marry
you, I will kill him. It will at least save our father's name from
dishonor."
"That name is not dishonored; I swear it, Bertha!" cried Mary,
kneeling down before her sister, who, shaken at last beyond her
strength, fell into a chair and clasped her head in her hands.
"So much the better; it is one pain the less for her whom you will
never see again." Then, twisting her arms with a gesture of despair,
"My God! my God!" she cried, "after having loved them so well, to be
forced to hate them!"
"No, you shall not hate me, Bertha! Your tears, your sufferings are
worse to me than your anger. Forgive me! Oh, my God! what am I saying?
You will think me guilty if I clasp your knees and ask your pardon. I
am not guilty, I swear it. I will tell you--but oh! you must not
suffer, you must not weep! Monsieur de la Logerie," continued Mary,
turning to Michel a face that was bathed in tears, "Monsieur de la
Logerie, all that has happened is a dream; the daylight has come. Go!
go far away; forget me! Go at once!"
"Mary," said Bertha, who had suffered her sister to take her hand,
which the latter covered with tears and kisses, "you do not reflect;
it is too late; it is impossible."
"Yes, yes, it is possible, Bertha!" said Mary, with a heart-rending
smile. "Bertha, we will each take a spouse whose name will protect us
from the calumnies of the world."
"Whom do you mean, poor child?"
Mary raised her hand to heaven.
"God!" she said.
Bertha did not answer; grief was choking her; but she held Mary
tightly clasped against her breast, while Michel, utterly overcome,
fell on a bench in a corner of the room.
"Forgive us!" murmured Mary, in her sister's ear. "Do not crush him!
Is it his fault if a mistaken education has made him so irresolute and
timid that he had no courage to speak when it was his duty to do so?
He has long wished to tell you the truth, but I have withheld him. I
alone am to blame, I hoped we should forget each other. Alas, alas!
God has made us very feeble against our own hearts! But now, we will
never leave each other, you and I, dear sister. Look at me! let me
kiss your eyes! No one shall ever come between us! no man shall bring
trouble and discord between two sisters. No, no! we will live alone
together, loving each other,--alone with ourselves and God, to whom we
will consecrate our lives; and there will still be happiness, my
Bertha, happiness in our solitude, for we can pray for him, we can
pray for him!"
Mary uttered the last words in a heart-rending tone. Michel, convulsed
with anguish, came and knelt beside her before Bertha, who, with her
mind bent on her sister, did not notice him.
At this moment the soldiers appeared at the door which Bertha had left
open, and the officer we have seen at the inn of Saint-Philbert
advanced into the middle of the room and laid his hand on Michel's
shoulder.
"You are Monsieur Michel de la Logerie?" he said.
"Yes, monsieur."
"Then I arrest you, in the name of the law."
"Great God!" cried Bertha, recovering her senses. "I had forgotten it!
Ah, it is I who have killed him! And the other! down there! down
there! Oh, what is happening there?"
"Michel, Michel!" said Mary, forgetting what she had just said to her
sister. "Michel, if you die, I will die with you."
"No, no," cried Bertha, "he shall not die; I swear to you, sister, you
shall still be happy! Make way, monsieur, make way!" she said to the
officer.
"Mademoiselle," replied the latter, with painful politeness, "like you
I cannot trifle with my duty. At Saint-Philbert you were only, to me,
a suspicious person. I am not a commissary of police, and I was not
called upon to interfere with you. Here I find you in flagrant
rebellion against the laws, and I arrest you."
"Arrest me! arrest me at this moment! You may kill me, monsieur, but
you shall not have, me living!"
And before the officer could recover from his surprise, Bertha climbed
the window, sprang into the courtyard, and reached the gate. It was
guarded by soldiers. Looking about her the girl saw Michel's horse,
which, frightened by the noise and the apparition of the soldiers, had
broken loose and was running hither and thither about the yard.
Profiting by the confidence that the officer felt in the precaution
taken of surrounding the house, a security which prevented him from
ordering violence against a woman, she went straight to the animal and
sprang into the saddle with a bound, then passing like a thunderbolt
before the eyes of the amazed officer, she reached a place in the wall
which was slightly broken down; there with heel and bridle she urged
on the horse, which was an excellent English hunter, made it jump the
barrier which was still nearly five feet high, and darted away across
the plain.
"Don't fire! don't fire upon that woman!" cried the officer, who did
not think the prize worth taking dead if he could not get her living.
But the soldiers who formed the cordon outside the courtyard did not
understand the order, and a rain of balls hissed around Bertha as the
vigorous stride of her good English beast carried her toward Nantes.