The Cross of Berny Part 26

x.x.xI.

RAYMOND DE VILLIERS _to_ MME. LA VICOMTESSE DE BRAIMES, Hotel of the Prefecture, Gren.o.ble (Isere).

PARIS, July 30th 18--.

O day of bliss unutterable! I have found her, it is she! As you have opened your heart to my sadness, madame, open it to my joy. Forget the unhappy wretch who, a few days ago, abandoned himself to his grief, who even yesterday bade an eternal farewell to hope. That unfortunate has ceased to exist; in his place appears a young being intoxicated with love, for whom life is full of delight and enchantment. How does it happen that my soul, which should soar on hymns of joy, is filled with gloomy forebodings? Is it because man is not made for great felicity, or that happiness is naturally sad, nearer akin to tears than to laughter, because it feels its fragility and instinctively dreads the approaching expiation?

After having vainly searched for Mademoiselle de Chateaudun within the walls of Rouen, M. de Monbert decided, on receipt of some new information, to seek her among the old chateaux of Brittany. My sorrow, feeding upon itself, counselled me not to accompany him. The fact is that I could be of no earthly use in his search. Besides, I thought I perceived that my presence embarra.s.sed him. To tell the truth, we were a constraint upon each other. Every sorrowful heart willingly believes itself the centre of the universe, and will not admit the existence, under heaven, of any other grief than its own. I let the Prince depart, and set out alone for Paris. One last hope remained; I persuaded myself that if Louise had not loved M. de Meilhan she would have left Richeport at the same time that I did.

I got out at Pont de l'Arche, and prowled like a felon about the scenes where happiness had come to me.

I wandered about for an hour, when I saw the letter-carrier coming to the post-office for the letters to be delivered at the neighboring chateaux. Paler and more tremulous than the silvery foliage of the willows on the river sh.o.r.e, I questioned him and learned that Madame Guerin was still at Richeport. I went away with death in my heart; in the evening I reach Paris. Resolved to see no one in that city, and only intending to pa.s.s a few days in solitude and silence, I sought no other abode than the little room which I had occupied in less fortunate but happier times. I wished to resume my old manner of living; but I had no taste for anything. When one goes in pursuit of happiness, the way is smiling and alluring, hope brightens the horizon; when we have clutched it and then let it escape, everything becomes gloomy and disenchanted; for it is a traveller whom we do not meet twice upon our road. I tried to study, which only increased my weariness. What was the use of knowledge and wisdom? Life was a closed book to me. I tried the poets, who added to my sufferings, by translating them into their pa.s.sionate language. Thus, reason is baffled by the graceful apparition of a lovely blonde, who glided across my existence like a gossamer over a clear sky, and banished repose for ever from my heart! My eyes had scarcely rested upon the angle of my dreams ere she took flight, leaving on my brow the shadow of her wings! She was only a child, and that child had pa.s.sed over my destiny like a tempest! She rested for a moment in my life, like a bird upon a branch, and my life was broken! In fact I lost all control over myself. Young, free and rich, I was at a loss to know what to do.

What was to become of me? Turn where I would, I still saw nothing around me but solitude and despair. During the day I mingled with the crowd and wandered about the streets like a lost soul; returning at night overcome, but not conquered by fatigue. Burning sleeplessness besieged my pillow, and the little light no longer shone to comfort and encourage me. I no longer heard, as before, a caressing voice speaking to me through the trees of the garden. "Courage, friend! I watch and suffer with thee." Finally, one night I saw the star peep forth and s.h.i.+ne.

Although I had no heart for such fancies, still I felt young and joyous again, on seeing it. As before, I gazed at it a long time. Was it the same, that, for two years, I had seen burn and go out regularly at the same hour? It might be doubted; but I did not doubt it for a moment, because I took pleasure in believing it. I felt less isolated and gained confidence, now that my star had not deserted me. I called it my martyr when I spoke to it: "Whence comest thou? Hast thou too suffered? Hast thou mourned my absence a little?" And, as before, I thought it answered me in the silence of the night. Towards morning I slept, and in a dream, I saw, as through a gla.s.s, Louise watching and working in a room as poor as mine, by the light of the well-beloved ray. She looked pale and sad, and from time to time stopped her work to gaze at the gleam of my lamp.

When I awoke, it was broad day; and I went out to kill time.

On the boulevard I met an old friend of my father's; he was refined, cultivated and affectionate. He had come from our mountains, to which he was already anxious to return, for in their valleys he had buried himself. My dejected air and sorrowful countenance struck him. He gained my confidence, and immediately guessed at my complaint. "What are you doing here?" he asked; "it is an unwholesome place for grief. Return to our mountains. Your native air will do you good. Come with me; I promise you that your unhappiness will not hold out against the perfume of broom and heather." Then he spoke with tender earnestness of my duties. He did not conceal from me the obligations my fortune and the position left me by my father, laid me under to the land where I was born; I had neglected it too long, and the time had now come when I ought to occupy myself seriously with its needs and interests. In short, he made me blush for my useless days, and led me, gently and firmly, back to reality. At night-fall I returned to my little chamber, not consoled but stronger, and decided to set out on the morrow for the banks of the Creuse. I did not expect to be cured, but it pleased me to mingle the thought of Louise with the benefits that I could bestow, and to bring down blessings upon the name which I had longed to offer her.

I immediately remarked on entering, that my little beacon shone with unaccustomed brilliancy. It was no longer a thread of light gleaming timidly through the foliage, but a whole window brightly illuminated, and standing out against the surrounding darkness. Investigating the cause of this phenomenon, I discovered that, during the day, the trees had been felled in the garden, and peering out into the gloom, I perceived, stretched along the ground, the trunk of the pine which, for two years, had hid from me the room where burned the fraternal light.

Before departing, I should at least catch a glimpse of the mysterious being, who, probably unconsciously, had occupied so many of my restless thoughts. I could not control a sad smile at the thought of the disenchantment that awaited me on the morrow. I pa.s.sed in review the faces which were likely to appear at that window, and as the absurd is mixed with almost every situation in life, I declare that this bewildering question occurred to me: "Suppose it should be Lady Penock?"

I slept little, and arose at day-break. I was restless without daring to acknowledge to myself the cause. It would have mortified me to have to confess that there was room beside my grief for a childish curiosity, a poetical fancy. What is man's heart made of? He bemoans himself, wraps a cere-cloth around him and prepares to die, and a flitting bird or a s.h.i.+ning light suffices to divert him. I watched the sun redden the house-tops. Paris still slept; no sound broke the stillness of the slumbering city, but the distant roll of the early carts over the stones. I looked long at the dear garret, which I saw for the first time in the eye of day. The window had neither shutter nor blind, but a double rose-colored curtain hung before it, mingling its tint with that of the rising sun. That window, with neither plants nor running vines to ornament it, had an air of refinement that charmed me. The house itself looked honest. I wrote several letters to shorten the slow hours which wearied my patience. Every shutter that opened startled me, and sent the blood quickly back to my heart. My reason revolted against suck childishness; but in spite of it, something within me refused to laugh at my folly.

After some hours, I caught a glimpse of a hand furtively drawing aside the rose-colored curtains. That timid hand could only belong to a woman; a man would have drawn them back unceremoniously. She must, likewise, be a young woman; the shade of the curtains indicated it. Evidently, only a young woman would put pink curtains before a garret-window. Whereupon I recalled to mind the little room where I had bade adieu to Louise before leaving Richeport. I lived over again the scene in that poetic nook; again I saw Louise as she appeared to me at that last interview, pale, agitated, shedding silent tears which she did not attempt to conceal.

At this remembrance my grief burst all bounds, and spent itself in imprecations against Edgar and against myself. I sat a long time, with my face buried in my hands, in mournful contemplation of an invisible image. Ah! unhappy man, I exclaimed, in my despair, why did you leave her? G.o.d offered you happiness and you refused it! She stood there, before you, trembling, desperate, her eyes bathed in tears, awaiting but one word to sink in your arms, and that word you refused to utter, cowardly fleeing from her! It is now your turn to weep, unfortunate wretch! Your life, which has but begun, is now ended, and you will not even have the supreme consolation of melancholy regrets, for the sting of remorse will for ever remain in your wound; you will be pursued to your dying day by the phantom of a felicity which you would not seize!

When I raised my head, the garret-window had noiselessly opened, and there, standing motionless in a flood of suns.h.i.+ne, her golden hair lifted gently by the morning breeze, was Louise gazing at me.

Madame, try to imagine what I felt; as for me, I shall never be able to give it expression. I tried to speak, and my voice died away on my lips; I wished to stretch out my arms towards the celestial vision, they seemed to be made of stone and glued to my side; I wished to rush to her, my feet were nailed to the floor. However, she still stood there smiling at me. Finally, after a desperate effort, I succeeded in breaking the charm which bound me, and rushed from my room wild with delight, mad with happiness. I was mad, that's the word. Holy madness!

cold reason should humble itself in the dust before thee! As quick as thought, by some magic, I found myself before Louise's door. I had recognised the house so long sought for before. I entered without a question, guided alone by the perfume that ascended from the sanctuary; I took Louise's hands in mine, and we stood gazing silently at each other in an ecstasy of happiness fatally lost and miraculously recovered; the ecstasy of two lovers, who, separated by a s.h.i.+pwreck, believing each other dead, meet, radiant with love and life, upon the same happy sh.o.r.e.

"Why, it was you!" she said at last, pointing to my room with a charming gesture.

"Why, it was you!" I exclaimed in my turn, eagerly glancing at a little bra.s.s lamp which I had observed on a table covered with screens, boxes of colors and porcelain palettes.

"You were the little light!"

"You were my evening star!"

And we both began to recite the poem of those two years of our lives, and we found that we told the same story. Louise began my sentences and I finished hers. In disclosing our heart secrets and the mysterious sympathy that had existed between us for two years, we interrupted each other with expressions of astonishment and admiration. We paused time and time again to gaze at each other and press each other's hands, as if to a.s.sure ourselves that we were awake and it was not all a dream. And every moment this gay and charming refrain broke in upon our ecstasy:

"So you were the brother and friend of my poverty!"

"So you were the sister and companion of my solitude!"

We finally approached in our recollections, through many windings, our meeting upon the banks of the Seine, under the shades of Richeport.

"What seems sad to me," she said with touching grace, "is that after having loved me without knowing me, you should have left me as soon as you did know me. You only wors.h.i.+pped your idle fancies, and, had I loved you then," she continued, "I should have been forced to be jealous of this little lamp."

I told her what inexorable necessity compelled me to leave Richeport and her. Louise listened with a pensive and charming air; but when I came to speak of Edgar's love, she burst out laughing and began to relate, in the gayest manner, some story or other about Turks, which I failed to understand.

"M. de Meilhan loves you, does he not?" I asked finally, with a vague feeling of uneasiness.

"Yes, yes," she cried, "he loves me to--madness!"

"He loves you, since he is jealous."

"Yes, yes," she cried again, "jealous as a--Mussulman." and then she began to laugh again.

"Why," I again asked, "if you did not love him, did you stay at Richeport two or three days after I left?"

"Because I expected you to return," she replied, laying aside her childish gayety and becoming grave and serious.

I told her of my love. I was sincere, and therefore should have been eloquent. I saw her eyes fill with tears, which were not this time tears of sorrow. I unfolded to her my whole life; all that I had hoped for, longed for, suffered down to the very hour when she appeared to me as the enchanting realization of my youthful dreams.

"You ask me," she said, "to share your destiny, and you do not know who I am, whence I come, or whither I go."

"You mistake, I know you," I cried; "you are as n.o.ble as you are beautiful; you come from heaven, and you will return to it. Bear me with you on your wings."

"Sir, all that is very vague," she answered, smilingly.

"Listen," said I. "It is true that I do not know who you are; but I know, I feel that falsehood has never profaned those lips, nor perverted the brightness of those eyes. Here is my hand; it is the hand of a gentleman. Take it without fear or hesitation, that is all I ask."

"M. de Villiers, it is well," she said placing her little hand in mine.

"And now," she added, "do you wish to know my life?"

"No," I replied, "you can tell me of it when you have given it to me."

"But--"

"I have seen you," said I; "you can tell me nothing. I feel that there is a mystery in your existence, but I also feel that that mystery is honorable, that you could only conceal a treasure."

At these words an indefinable smile played around her lips.

"At least," she cried, "you know certainly that I am poor?"

"Yes," I answered, "but you have shown yourself worthy of fortune, and I, on my part, hope that I have proved myself not altogether unworthy of poverty."

The day glided imperceptibly by, enlivened with tender communings. I examined in all its details the room which my thoughts had so often visited. It required considerable self-control to repress the inclination to carry to my lips the little lamp which had brought me more delight than Aladdin's ever could have done. I spoke of you, madame, mingling your image with my happiness in order to complete it. I told Louise how you would love her, that she would love you too; she replied that she loved you already. At evening we parted, and our joyous lamps burned throughout the night.

In the midst of my bliss, I do not forget, madame, the interests that are dear to you. Have you written to Mademoiselle de Chateaudun as I begged you to do? Have you written with firmness? Have you told your young friend that her peace and future are at stake? Have you pointed out to her the storm ready to burst over her head? When I left M. de Monbert he was gloomy and irritated. Let Mademoiselle Chateaudun take care!

Accept the expression of my respectful homage.

RAYMOND DE VILLIERS.