The Blacksmith's Hammer, or The Peasant Code Part 17

"Do you know why I now recall those narratives? It is that you may understand what a deep impression was bound to be produced upon my mother--and then upon myself--by the account contained in the ma.n.u.script of Colonel Plouernel. Yes, judge what we must have felt, especially when we learned that one of the descendants of that Gallic race was in our own days among the va.s.sals of the seigniory of Plouernel, on the domain of Mezlean. 'Oh! my child,' my mother would say to me, 'is not this revelation of the iniquities and barbaric acts committed from century to century by your father's family upon the family of this poor va.s.sal, a providential revelation? Should not such a revelation induce us to step upon the path of expiation for so many iniquities and barbarisms committed from century to century? Alas! Had I any power in this place, I would call around us the descendants of that family, who are to-day our va.s.sals; I would strive to appease their resentment with acts of kindness, and with delicate consolation. I would be their protectress, their friend.'"

"Oh, generous heart!" exclaimed Nominoe, touched to tears. "How else could it be, but that, brought up by such a mother, Mademoiselle Plouernel, you should prove worthy of her!"

"Never shall I forget her lessons and her example. Finally, at the time that a sudden illness carried my mother away, she and I were on the point of going to Mezlean, in order to visit the leasehold peasant Gildas Lebrenn, who, as I subsequently learned, is your father's brother. That excursion never took place. I lost my mother, I had to leave Brittany. I went to Versailles with my aunt. Perhaps you learned from your friend, Monsieur Serdan, the object that, without my being made privy to the plot, was contemplated by those who were taking me to England?"

"Yes, mademoiselle; it was that which enabled Monsieur Serdan to discover the loftiness of your sentiments and the grandeur of your nature."

"The oddness of our meeting has caused you extreme surprise; is it not true, monsieur? Well, imagine what my feeling must have been when, at The Hague, I, Bertha of Plouernel," the young girl proceeded, fixing her beautiful eyes upon Nominoe, "learned that he who had saved my life, and who, subsequently, at the price of his blood, saved my honor, was descended from that very family to whom mine had so much to atone for--when I discovered that my savior's heart was as great as his courage--when it was granted to me to know--to appreciate you."

The accents of Mademoiselle Plouernel's voice, and the expression of her face as she uttered these last words, denoted such tenderness, such n.o.bility, such affection--the silence into which she immediately relapsed seemed so significant to Nominoe, that a sudden thought flashed through his mind. Despite his own modesty, despite his diffidence in himself, despite the seemingly insane improbability of the hope that caused his heart to bound--he believed himself loved. The intoxication of bliss emboldened him. In a tremulous voice he cried:

"And you, mademoiselle, imagine what my feelings must be at this moment, when I hear you recall to my memory the running conflict between our two families across the ages--and then to hear you p.r.o.nounce the words of atonement and reparation! In what can that reparation consist? Despite myself--an insane hope enters my heart. Alas! I know but too well that my hope is insensate! p.r.o.nounce my sentence!"

"What do you hope?" asked Bertha in a firm voice.

"No; I should never have the courage to tell you--I dread to arouse your just disdain--your mockery--your anger--"

"If I could disdain you, would I now be near you? The future of us both is too somber for me to think of mocking! You promised sincerity to me."

Nominoe grew paler than he was before; he lowered his head; he murmured in a trembling, desperate, pa.s.sionate voice:

"I love you! I love you to distraction!"

"I also, Nominoe, love you!" answered Mademoiselle Plouernel solemnly.

"Yes," she proceeded, holding her head high, and serene; "I love you--with all my soul--I fear not to make the admission."

"Oh, joy in heaven!" cried the young man, falling upon his knees and clasping his hands before Bertha. "You love me! I am not the sport of a dream! You love me?"

"Yes, I love you; I tell you so without blus.h.i.+ng, because I hold you worthy of such a love, Nominoe! 'Joy in heaven!' did you say? Oh, you spoke truly. Our joys will be celestial--our future looks dark here on earth--but yonder--yonder, where, according to the belief of your fathers, we shall live anew, body and soul--yonder our future will s.h.i.+ne in splendor. You seek to fathom the meaning of my words, Nominoe! Rise, sit down here beside me, listen to me! You shall be made acquainted with all my thoughts."

Racked by doubt and hope, intoxicated by the confession of Mademoiselle Plouernel, discouraged, almost frightened by her last words, Nominoe rose silently, approached again the moss-covered bench, and sat down beside Bertha, who proceeded:

"The first time I saw you was in the midst of a storm that threatened to engulf our vessel, and dash it against the coast of Holland. I preserved my self-possession despite the threatening danger--because I do not fear death. Thus I could follow your manoeuvres with inexpressible interest.

I admired your devotion. I was touched by your youth. Shortly after, as our vessel rode safely at anchor, I had the opportunity of appreciating your nature and the dignity of your character by the answer you gave to the offer of remuneration made to you by the Abbot, our traveling companion. I then thought I would never see you again, Nominoe!

Nevertheless, I felt happy at being bound to you by the bond of grat.i.tude. Since that day your image took its place in my heart!"

"Oh! Since that day also, your image has been ever present in my thoughts. How was I ever to forget the moment when, as I approached your brigantine in the hope of saving it, I saw you at the p.o.o.p of the vessel so beautiful, so calm, smiling at the tempest! It was to me a dazzling vision! Alas! often did the vision reappear in my dreams!

Finally, when on that same day, I read in your eyes the grief it caused you to see the humiliation that I had to suffer--I divined the benignity and the n.o.bility of your heart! Your remembrance became still dearer to me! Oh! I loved you pa.s.sionately!"

"I believe you, Nominoe! Why should not the feelings that you experienced have been as strong as the feelings experienced by myself?

Then came that unhappy, that frightful day when, wounded by gunshots, you came near peris.h.i.+ng in order to shelter me from dishonor," continued Mademoiselle Plouernel with a tremulous voice and eyes moist with tears; "in short, the day when I learned--Oh, providential coincidence!--that my savior belonged to that va.s.sal family whose history I knew. The discovery, coming, as it did, upon the heels of the shocks of that same day, quite overthrew me; it dealt me a last blow. Nevertheless, when, after Monsieur Serdan had furnished us with the conveyances to leave The Hague, he gave me warrant to entertain the hope that your wounds would not prove fatal, and with a few heartfelt words praised you in a way that filled my soul with bliss, I recovered heart. I swear to you, Nominoe, had I not at that moment felt prostrated by the first symptoms of a grave illness that was to prey upon me for a long time; had my mind not been upset and my strength exhausted by so many violent emotions, I would not have left The Hague that night without first seeing you--without expressing to you all the grat.i.tude and admiration that your generous conduct evoked in me. But all the springs of my spirit had snapped; I could only weep--sterile, cowardly tears!--in that I left you in that city; dying, perhaps; a victim of your devotion to me! We departed for France. The fatigues of the journey, coupled with a slow fever, left me in an almost desperate condition when we arrived at Versailles. For two or three months I hovered between life and death.

Thanks to the care of able physicians and to my youth, I finally emerged from the desperate state in which I languished. It seemed to me that I awoke from a frightful dream--by little and little the events in The Hague and of my return to France came back to me. Those recollections, rendered as they were doubly dear to my heart by our separation, awoke within my breast a sentiment towards you more tender than mere grat.i.tude. I loved you, Nominoe! In doing so I yielded above all to the irresistible attraction of the thought that I loved in you the descendant of that family that had so long been persecuted by my own. My love became an atonement for the past! I saw something providential in the events that had thrown us together! Did I not owe life, honor, to you, the descendant of those va.s.sals who had themselves been so often smitten in their lives, in the honor of their daughters and of their wives, by my ancestors! Oh! Nominoe, if you only knew with what fervor I thanked G.o.d for having inspired me with the desire of taking for my husband, I, a daughter of Neroweg the Frank, a son of Joel the Gaul! Was not the atonement of the daughter of the oppressors a just one to the son of the oppressed? Was not the marriage, that would consecrate the union of the conquered race with the conqueror, a natural one? Was not that love celestial that had its source in justice? I felt happy at the thought of that fusion of our two races!"

Words are impotent to express certain emotions. His visage bathed in tears, Nominoe remained silent. Suddenly a voice from afar, fresh and pure--the voice of a young girl--began to sing or rather to recite to a slow and melancholy rythm, one of those bardings or national Breton songs, some of which, popular still in these days, go back to the oldest possible antiquity. The singer was taking her sheep to pasture upon one of the shaded slopes of the ridge, at the crest of which rose the ruins of the feudal dungeon. The sweet voice, thinned by the distance, seemed to descend from the skies. At the sound of the first lines of the song, despite his emotion, Nominoe felt thrilled; he listened a moment, and said to Mademoiselle Plouernel:

"Strange coincidence! That chant, traditional in Brittany for centuries and centuries, recounts the death of a young girl of our family in the days of the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar."

"The death of a young girl!" echoed Mademoiselle Plouernel with an indefinable smile.

The last couplet of the song barely reached the ears of Bertha and Nominoe because the shepherdess was climbing the slope as she sang, and soon her voice was lost in s.p.a.ce. Mademoiselle Plouernel had listened to the chant with profound attention, clasped hands, and eyes raised heavenward.

Awaking from her revery and addressing Nominoe with an agony, the cause of which he was unable to explain, Bertha said to him:

"Is the legend of the brave and sweet Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen, the daughter of your ancestor Joel, also preserved in your family?

The virgin who sacrificed herself to appease the anger of Hesus?"

"Yes, mademoiselle; it is one of the legends of our family. To the narrative is attached a little gold sickle, a sort of symbolic and sacred piece of jewelry that female druids wore in their belts."

"So it is, Nominoe! I remember that in his ma.n.u.script Colonel Plouernel says that to each of your family narratives there is attached some trinket that is almost always symbolic and was left by the author of the story, and that, in that way, from generation to generation, the humble and antique collection of your family relics was gathered. Monsieur Plouernel mentions among others a little silver cross, left by your ancestral grandmother Genevieve, who witnessed the execution of Jesus of Nazareth in Jerusalem! What mementoes! What magnificent mementoes!"

Bertha relapsed into a pensive mood, and then asked:

"Tell me, Nominoe, are the sacred stones of Karnak, mentioned in the ballad of Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen, the same that are seen to this day?"

"They are the same; and already in the days of Julius Caesar their origin was lost in the night of remote ages."

"I visited those stones during my recent trip to Mezlean. They are gigantic; their colossal avenues extend to the very edge of the sea, which breaks at their feet! Their granite ribs have defied the ages!

They are at this hour what they were on the day when your ancestress offered her innocent life to the G.o.ds, in order to appease their anger, and save Gaul from the foreign invader! Sublime devotion! Its memory is perpetuated down to our own days! Oh, Nominoe! My proud family boasts of the antiquity of its stock and the n.o.bility of its origin! How much older and truly n.o.ble is yours! It is you, my friend, it is you who would _stoop low_, as they say, if this union, that I have dreamed about--"

And answering a gesture of the young man, Bertha added:

"Did I not tell you, Nominoe--our joys will be celestial, not terrestrial! Providence so wills it--you must submit to the providential decree. We must know how to resign ourselves, my friend."

"Bertha, I implore you, have mercy upon my feverish brain. What is happening to me hurls me into a sort of vertigo. I know not whether I am dreaming, or whether I am awake. I doubt what I see, what I hear, what I feel! A moment ago you p.r.o.nounced the word marriage. Despite myself I yielded to the intoxication of an insane hope. Oh, truly insane!"

"I have not yet finished my confessions to you, Nominoe. That ballad, the thoughts it awakened in me; the memories that it recalled to your mind, interrupted our conversation. Listen further. I saw in our marriage an atonement, a reparation of the wrongs that your family suffered from century to century at the hands of mine. In the measure that my health improved, that project grew to a rooted thought. But doubts and misgivings a.s.sailed me. First of all, you might not love me--perhaps, on learning that I was a daughter of the Nerowegs, you might entertain an instinctive aversion for me, one of those racial antipathies that often are invincible, and, unhappily, but too well justified. I often doubted whether you could love me. Again, when I considered this marriage in the light of the world's prejudices, deep abysses of difficulties seemed to yawn before my eyes. Nothing frightened me away--I continued to love you bravely, Nominoe. Long did I cudgel my brains in the effort to overcome so many obstacles, above all to ascertain whether you remembered me at all. Finally my ponderings arrived at the following conclusions: I would, first of all, make certain of the nature of your feelings towards me, by addressing myself directly to you with the tranquility of a straightforward heart and a pure soul. You were a sailor of the port of Vannes, your father told me; other members of your family were va.s.sals of the domain of Mezlean, and leasehold peasants of Karnak. Consequently, I had to return to Brittany.

There I would be certain of an opportunity to meet you. My fate and yours would then be ascertained and determined. This decision put an end to the anxieties that had long beset me, and operated a wholesome reaction in my health. My recovery made rapid progress. In the spring of this year, the physician to whom I communicated my desire to return to Brittany not only approved, but added that my native climate was alone able to finish my cure. As my aunt and my brother could not then leave Versailles, they let me depart for Plouernel in the escort of an old equerry and accompanied by my old nurse Marion, a good and worthy woman who never left my side. She is honest, faithful, devoted and of Breton extraction; her family lives in Vannes. Immediately upon my arrival at Plouernel I ordered Marion to write to one of her relatives and beg him to inquire, whether Monsieur Lebrenn and his son, mariners of the port of Vannes, were still residents of the town. Marion received answer that you and your father were away, but were soon expected back. I waited. At about this time--I must conceal nothing from you--my brother came to Plouernel. The plans he had formed concerning myself, at the time of our projected journey to England, had extinguished all the affection, all the esteem I entertained for him. I told him so one day; since that, self-esteem and a sense of personal dignity prevented me from again touching upon the subject with him. But court people are so const.i.tuted that they speedily forget one unworthy act in the commission of another.

Although all the new plans of my brother were honorable, compared with the first, yet were they stamped with his characteristic and profound selfishness. He wished to marry me off. The ambition and greed of Monsieur Plouernel saw considerable advantage in the marriage that he now proposed. However great the strain upon my candor, I did not formally reject his new projects. Thanks to this seeming readiness on my part, my brother showed himself tolerant towards what he calls my eccentricities. In that way it happened that, learning of your return to Vannes from Marion's relative, I could, without encountering the Count's opposition, undertake a trip to Mezlean, accompanied by my nurse and the old equerry. It was on the road to the burg that I saw you again for the first time--when--when--I met--"

Mademoiselle Plouernel could proceed no further. Tears streamed from her eyes. Her tears, her silence, the heaving of her bosom, betrayed such painful emotions that Nominoe turned suddenly pale and shuddered. Only then did he remember what in the confusion of his thoughts he had forgotten until that moment--that he was leading Tina to the altar as his bride when he met Mademoiselle Plouernel, and that she could not choose but be informed of his wedding. Overwhelmed at that thought, he dared not raise his eyes to Bertha; he felt his last hopes melting away!

He dropped from heaven to the earth.

After a pause Mademoiselle Plouernel recovered control over her emotions, wiped her tears, and proceeded:

"Nominoe, this was my purpose in going to Mezlean: I meant to write to you and request you to come to the manor. The wish, so natural a wish, of expressing my grat.i.tude to you for the services you had rendered me, justified the step. I expected you to respond to my invitation, I relied upon my sincere and penetrating love to discover at our very first interview whether you shared the sentiments that you inspired in me, and whether the loftiness of your heart was equal to my expectations. If so, I was to make to you the admission that I made to you so shortly ago, and I meant to add: 'Nominoe, I am master over my person--my family's unworthy conduct towards me has forever snapped the bonds that held me subject to its wishes, it has snapped all the bonds of deference to them; I offer you my hand; I know that, in France, a pastor may fear to consecrate our union, dreading the resentment of so powerful a house as mine; let us pledge ourselves to each other to-day; let us exchange our pledges in the presence of G.o.d and of your father; to-morrow we shall depart with him from Vannes for England on board of the vessel that he owns; once in London a magistrate will marry us; I shall not speak of my property; it may be confiscated from me; but I have my mother's jewelry and a sum large enough to secure to us a modest comfort; we shall live in England in case we should think it too risky to return to France; would you prefer to face such risks rather than expatriation? I love you, I am brave, your wishes shall be mine, Nominoe'--That was my plan, such were my ardent wishes! Accordingly, on the day following my arrival at Mezlean, I was on my way to the burg for the purpose of ascertaining your residence and addressing my letter to you, when I encountered a nuptial procession which the soldiers of the King had stopped--and--the very moment when I learned that that nuptial procession was yours, Nominoe--yours--I saw you fleeing at a distance, distractedly fleeing, to the painful astonishment of your father and your bride. The cause of your flight was unexplainable to me; but that did not matter; your heart was no longer free--the charming beauty of the young girl whom you are to marry justifies your love for her! I returned to Plouernel the day after our meeting. I arrived broken with grief. I had not left my room since my return when, this morning, Marion delivered to me your letter--and I came. Now you know it all, Nominoe.

Perhaps, in the course of this interview, I wrongly reproached you with insincerity when you protested the constancy of your love for me. You are an honorable man, incapable of having meant to deceive the young girl who is to be your wife. And yet, you claim to have always loved me!

Well! I believe you! Did I not believe you, my confession would have remained forever buried in my heart! Yes, the human soul is at times so strange a mystery, that another affection may have found its place beside your love for me--a love that you looked upon as a dream. But, at least, the remembrance of your love will remain sweet and dear to you, because it will have been n.o.ble and pure. On my part, Nominoe, the remembrance of you will also remain ever dear to me, because it was you who inspired me with a generous thought, a thought of justice and reparation. Yes, when, according to our common belief, we shall meet again in yonder other worlds, we shall meet with countenances radiant with celestial bliss. I said to you, my friend, our joys are not to be of this world."

Nominoe raised his face bathed in tears, and, making an effort to steady his voice:

"Listen to me, in turn--above all, mademoiselle, I implore you--believe in my sincerity--"

"Nominoe, call me Bertha. The fraternal familiarity will be in the nature of a consolation to me."

"Oh, G.o.d! Is it your purpose to render my despair still more distressful by reminding me, with such a token of familiarity, of the happiness that I have forfeited!" exclaimed Nominoe amid heartrending sobs. "Pardon, Bertha, pardon me such an answer to the touching proof of your affection; but if you only knew, alas! how much I suffer! Since that journey to The Hague I have loved you, loved you pa.s.sionately! Do you know, Bertha, what it was that rendered that love irresistible? It was an attraction exactly the counterpart of that which drew you to me. Yes, however singular, however unexplainable it may seem, I loved in you, above all, the daughter of the Nerowegs! Yes, that hopeless love, that insane love, promised only disappointment, grief, suffering, and annihilation to me! And yet it had for me the fatal charm of the void, that drags us to an abyss! I felt at once I know not what sad and tender sentiment by loving in you the descendant of the race that, since earliest childhood, I had learned to curse! You were in my eyes an angel of pardon and of concord! Oh, Bertha! However legitimate hatred may be, it is so bitter, and pardon so sweet! In you I spoke your ancestors free from guilt! So far from considering you one with their iniquities, I considered them one with your virtues! Yes, you redeemed the wicked of your race, as Christ redeemed the world by his virtues, his kindness, his evangelical grace!"

"Nominoe! How proud I am of my love for you!" cried Mademoiselle Plouernel with indescribable ecstasy, and moved to the profoundest depths of her soul by Nominoe's words and the accent in which they were uttered. "Oh! I was not mistaken when I said to you, our love draws its inspiration from sentiments too celestial, ever to be of this world."

"In this world, as in the next ones where we shall proceed to live, our love, I feel it, will last through all eternity! Its source is too lofty ever to be untrue to itself--it is providential. On the very morning of my marriage, at the moment when I was to proceed to my bride's house to lead her to the temple, I learned of your arrival at Mezlean. I was unaware of, I could not even suspect your intentions. Nevertheless, an invincible presentiment came over me! I wished to break off my wedding!