WHAT PASSED IN THE FOREST.
For some time I followed the carriage with my eyes, for I feared to
look at Sophie, as I could not help thinking that the expression of
her face would decide my future happiness or misery.
After a time I made up my mind; I turned round.
Sophie had a smile on her lips, but it seemed as if the rest of her
face was overshadowed with sadness.
I offered her my arm, which she took.
“What would you like to do?” I asked her. “Would you rather stay
here, or take a stroll in the wood?”
“Take me under the shadow of yon great trees, M. Réné. In my little
chamber at Varennes I stifle for want of air.”
“It is singular, Mdlle. Sophie, that I always believed that you
preferred the town to the country.”
“I prefer nothing. I live, that is all.”
She heaved a sigh.
The conversation fell.
I threw a side glance at Sophie. She appeared fatigued and in pain.
“You look pale,” said I; “and although you do not prefer the country
to the town, I fancy it does you more good.”
She shrugged her shoulders, by way of reply.
“Perhaps,” said she.
I turned towards my uncle’s cottage, all covered with ivy and
creepers, surrounded by flowers and shadowed by the branches of
chestnuts and beech-trees.
It was beautiful, seen half in light and half in shadow. A cat was
sleeping comfortably on the window-sill; two dogs were playing in
front of the door; and a black-headed linnet was singing in its cage.
It was a beautiful picture of contented country life.
“Look, Mdlle. Sophie,” said I drawing her attention to the scene.
“Would a little place like that, with a man who had the honor of
being beloved by you, suffice for your ambition?”
“Who told you that I had ambition, Réné?”
“I ask you, do you think that you could be happy under those
circumstances?”
She looked at me.
“You see, then, that I am now miserable?”
“You told me so in a letter, when I was staying at Varennes, eight
months ago.”
“And have you not forgotten what I wrote to you so long as eight
months ago?”
I drew a little portfolio from my pocket, and out of it I took a
little scrap of paper, on which was written, in her hand—
“I have no friend, Réné; will you be one? I am very unhappy.”
“If the paper is a little crumpled,” said I, “it is because a day has
never passed without my reading it.”
“Then how is it that I have never seen you since that morning, Réné?”
“For what purpose? Since you wrote to me you cannot have doubted me.”
“You have a good heart, Réné, and I did not wish to see you to get
that opinion from you.”
“That is well. If you had had need of me, you had but to write, and
I should have been with you in a moment. At first, day after day, I
hoped for a letter. Oh, if I had received one!—had it been only the
one word ‘Come!’—with what joy would I have flown to your side! But
such happiness was not for me. Days, weeks, months passed away, and
I remained alone with my sorrow, without ever being called away to
offer you a consolation.”
She looked at me with an expression of affectionate tenderness.
“Ah, Réné, I should have liked to have seen you; but not hearing from
you, I thought that you had forgotten me.”
“Oh, Mdlle. Sophie!” I cried; “I am not sufficiently happy or unhappy
for that.”
“In truth, my dear Réné,” said she, trying to smile, “you have quite
the air of a hero of romance.”
“As I have never read a romance, I scarcely know what that is.”
“A hero of romance, Réné,” said Sophie, smiling at the experimental
lesson in literature she was trying to give me, “is a man who loves
without hope.”
“That is good. Then am I a hero of romance. By the bye, what are
these heroes supposed to do?”
“Everything impossible, in order to touch the heart of the woman they
vainly love.”
“Then I am ready to do so; but, if commanded by you, I should know
not impossibility.”
“Do not put your life in danger, Réné,” said Sophie. “Sighing for
that would not benefit either of us.”
Now it was her turn to stop, and, having turned the corner of the
road, she pointed out to me my uncle’s house under a different
aspect, but still how beautiful!
“You just now asked me, Réné, if that house, in company with a man
whom I loved, would not satisfy my ambition? Well, Réné, in my turn,
I adjure you, in the name of that friendship that I have avowed
towards you, wish for nothing more than that calm and peaceful
existence that Providence has placed in your way. Follow the example
of your uncle, who, for eighty years, has lived in peace with himself
and with all mankind, without seeking to better his condition, and
without ever wishing for a larger house, or a greater extent of
land. In fact, this forest before us—is it not his? Do not its trees
give him shelter? Do not the birds which inhabit it sing for his
gratification, and do not the animals that make it their home serve
for his food? In name, it belongs to the King; but, in reality, it is
his. Réné, find a woman who loves you; that, I am sure, will not be
difficult. My father tells me that you are one of the best carpenters
that he knows. Ask the consent of your uncle—he will not refuse it;
and live, as he has done, on the little spot where the happiest years
of your life have passed away.”
In my turn, I shook my head.
“You will not?” said Sophie. “What, then, do you intend to do?”
“Mademoiselle Sophie,” said I, “I purpose being a man.”
“Has not your uncle been also a man, Réné?”
“Yes; but a man useless to his country. The times in which he lived,
and the times in which we live, are different. The tranquillity which
existed in his generation is not permitted in this.”
“You are ambitious, Réné?” asked Sophie.
“It is not ambition, mademoiselle; it is obedience to the designs of
heaven. There are times when every man, great or small, carries his
mission in himself. What, then? He must keep that mission till it is
fulfilled. Who knows but that even I, insignificant as I am, have
one? You have already drawn me from the crowd of my equals, because
you condescended to take my arm. It was not all that I could have
wished. Oh, Sophie, I ask you, here, under the shelter of these great
trees, the most sacred temple that I know of, will you promise to be
mine? Will you give me all the love that you can, and the happiest
day of my life will be that on which I can prove my devotion to you!
Oh, Sophie, give me hope!”
“I believe you, Réné; in fact, from the first moment I saw you, I
never doubted you. Ah! why were you not always with me, to support me
with your arm when I stumbled, and with your heart when I doubted? I
have called on you many times, Réné.”
“Can this be true, Mademoiselle Sophie?” cried I, filled with joy.
“Yes,” said she, “but do not misunderstand me. I do not love you. I
never shall love you, Réné,” continued she, looking me full in the
face. “I feel instinctively that I have need of your friendship. Why
I should implore it, how it can be useful to me, I know not; but
still I feel sure I shall have recourse to it some day; and if you
are away from me, Réné, on that day, whose help shall I implore? If
you are near to me, I can rely on you; can I not? Again I say to you,
as I wrote once before, I am truly unhappy.”
She took her arm from mine, hid her face in her hand, and I could see
by the heaving of her bosom that she was weeping.
“Mademoiselle Sophie!” said I.
“Leave me, my friend—leave me. I do not like to weep before you, and
I feel that I must weep.”
And, with one hand, she made me a sign to go.
I obeyed.
She sat down by the side of a little brook, which fell into the
Brésme, and taking off her hat, which she placed by her side, began
to pluck flowers, and throw them into the water.
Sixty years have passed since that day, and I fancy that I can still
see the poor child with her golden hair floating in the breeze, the
tears coursing down her cheeks, throwing the flowers into the current
of the Brésme, which would carry them to the Aisne, the Aisne to the
Oise, the Oise to the Seine, and the Seine to the sea.
After about an hour had passed, she got up silently, came towards me,
and smilingly took my arm.
We retraced our steps to my uncle’s house.
We had scarcely arrived, when we heard the sound of wheels. It was
Father Gerbaut’s carriage.
Sophie, who had not spoken one word all the way home, seized my hand.
“Réné,” she said, “do not forget that you have given me your word; I
trust you.”
“Mademoiselle Sophie,” said I, pressing her hand to my heart, “one
call alone can be stronger than yours—that of my country.”
M. Gerbaut stayed about an hour to rest his horse, and then, with
Sophie, mounted into his vehicle.
The poor girl waved her hand. Father Gerbaut cried “Farewell!” and
the carriage disappeared behind a clump of trees, which hid the road
to Meuvilly.
I returned to where Sophie had been sitting down; I picked up the
flowers she had let fall, and placed them in my little portfolio,
together with the letter which she had written to me at Varennes, and
in which she had poured forth all her soul.