The World's Greatest Books - Volume 7 Part 30

I came to realise how Julie was changed, and yet the same. She is a matron, the happy mother of children, the happy mistress of a prosperous household. Her old love is not extinguished; but it is subdued by domestic peace and by her unalterable virtue--let me add, by the trust and kindness of her elderly husband, whose unemotional goodness has been just what was needed to soothe her pa.s.sion and sorrow. I am her old and dear friend; I can never be more. And, believe me, I am content.

Occasionally, pangs of regret tear at my heart, but they do not last long; my pa.s.sion is cured, and I can never experience another.

How can I describe to you the peace and felicity that reign in this household? M. de Wolmar is, above all things, a man of system; the life of the establishment moves with ordered regularity from the year's beginning to its end. But the system is not mechanical; it is founded on wide experience of men, and governed by philosophy. In the home life of Julie and her husband and children luxury is never permitted; even the table delicacies are simple products of the country. But, without luxury, there is perfect comfort and perfect confidence. I have never known a community so thoroughly happy, and it is a deep joy to me to be admitted as a cherished member of it.

One day M. de Wolmar drew Julie and myself aside, and where do you think he took us? To a plantation near the house, which Julie had never entered since her marriage. It was there that she had first kissed me.

She was unwilling to enter the place, but he drew her along with him, and bade us be seated. Then he began:

"Julie, I knew the secret of your love before you revealed it to me. I knew it before I married you. I may have been in the wrong to marry you, knowing that your heart was elsewhere; but I loved you, and I believed I could make you happy. Have I succeeded?"

"My dear husband," said Julie, in tears, "you know you have succeeded."

"One thing only," he went on, "was necessary to prove to you that your old pa.s.sion was powerless against your virtue, and that was the presence of your old lover. I trusted you; I believed, from my knowledge of you, that I could trust him. I invited him here, and since then I have been quietly watching. My high antic.i.p.ations of him are justified. And as for you, Julie, the haunting fears that your virtue would fail before the test inflicted by the return of your lover have, once and for all, been put to rest. Past wounds are healed. Monsieur," he added, turning to me, "you have proved yourself worthy of our fullest confidence and our warmest friends.h.i.+p."

What could I answer? I could but embrace him in silence.

Madame d'Orbe, now a widow, is about to come here to take permanent charge of the household, leaving Julie to devote herself to the training of the children.

Hasten to join us, mylord; your coming is anxiously awaited. For my own part, I shall not be content until you have looked with your own eyes upon the peaceful delights of our life at Clarens.

FROM SAINT PREUX TO MYLORD EDOUARD

Madame d'Orbe is now with us. We look to you to complete the party. When you have made a long stay at Clarens, I shall be ready to join you in your projected journey to Rome.

Julie has revealed to me the one trouble of her life. Her husband is a freethinker. Will you aid me in trying to convince him of his error, and thus perfecting Julie's happiness?

_IV.--The Veil_

FROM SAINT PREUX TO MADAME D'ORBE

Mylord Edouard and I, after leaving you all yesterday, proceeded no farther than Villeneuve; an accident to one of mylord's attendants delayed us, and we spent the night there.

As you know, I had parted from Julie with regret, but without violent emotion. Yet, strangely enough, when I was alone last night the old grief came back. I had lost her! She lived and was happy; her life was my death, her happiness my torment! I struggled with these ideas. When I lay down, they pursued me in my sleep.

At length I started up from a hideous dream. I had seen Julie stretched upon her death-bed. I knew it was she, although her face was covered by a veil. I advanced to tear it off; I could not reach it. "Be calm, my friend," she said feebly; "the veil of dread covers me, no hand can remove it." I made another effort, and awoke.

Again I slept, again I dreamt the dream. A third time I slept, a third time it appeared to me. This was too much. I fled from my room to mylord Edouard's.

At first, he treated the dream as a jest; but, seeing my panic-stricken earnestness, he changed his tune. "You will have a chance of recovering your reason to-morrow," he said. Next morning we set out on our journey, as I thought. Brooding over my dream, I never noticed that the lake was on the left-hand of the carriage, that we were returning. When I roused myself, I found that we were back again at Clarens!

"Now, go and see her again; prove that the dream was wrong," said Edouard.

I went nervously, feeling thoroughly ashamed of myself. I could hear you and Julie talking in the garden. I was cured in an instant of my superst.i.tious folly; it fled from my mind. I retired without seeing her, feeling a man again. I rejoined mylord Edouard, and drove back to Villeneuve. We are about to resume the journey to Rome.

FROM MADAME D'ORBE TO SAINT PREUX

Why did you not come to see us, instead of merely listening to our voices? You have transfixed the terror of your dream to me. Until your return, I shall never look upon Julie without trembling, lest I should lose her.

M. de Wolmar has let you know his wish that you should remain permanently with us and superintend the education of his children. I am sure you will accept Rejoin us swiftly, then; I shall not have an easy moment until you are amongst us once more.

FROM MADAME D'ORBE TO SAINT PREUX

It has come to pa.s.s. You will never see her more! The veil! The veil!

Julie is dead!

FROM M. DE WOLMAR TO SAINT PREUX

I have allowed your first hours of grief to pa.s.s in silence. I was in no condition to give details, nor you to receive them. Now I may write, and you may read.

We were on a visit to the castle of Chillon, guests of the bailli of Vevay. After dinner the whole party walked on the ramparts, and our youngest son slipped and fell into the deep water. Julie plunged in after him. Both were rescued; the child was soon brought round, but Julie's state was critical. When she had recovered a little, she was taken back to Clarens. The doctor told her she had but three days to live. She spent those three days in perfect cheerfulness and tranquillity of spirit, conversing with Madame D'Orbe, the pastor, and myself, expressing her content that her life should end at a time when she had attained complete happiness. On the fourth morning we found her lifeless.

During the three days she wrote a letter, which I enclose. Fulfil her last requests. There yet remains much for you to do on earth.

FROM JULIE TO SAINT PREUX

All is changed, my dear friend; let us suffer the change without a murmur. It was not well for us that we should rejoin each other.

For it was an illusion that my love for you was cured; now, in the presence of death, I know that I still love you. I avow this without shame, for I have done my duty. My virtue is without stain, my love without remorse.

Come back to Clarens; train my children, comfort their n.o.ble father, lead him into the light of Christian faith. Claire, like yourself, is about to lose the half of her life; let each of you preserve the other half by a union that in these latter days I have often wished to bring about.

Adieu, sweet friend, adieu!

BERNARDIN DE ST. PIERRE

Paul and Virginia

Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint Pierre was born at Havre on January 19, 1737. Like many boys that are natives of seaports, he was anxious to become a sailor; but a single voyage cured him of his desire for a seafaring life, although not of his love for travel. For some years afterwards he was a rolling stone, sometimes soldier and sometimes engineer, visiting one European country after another. In 1771 he obtained a government appointment in Mauritius, a spot which was the subject of his first book (see TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE, Vol.

XIX), and which was afterwards made the scene of "Paul and Virginia." In his "Nature Studies," 1783, he showed an enthusiasm for nature that contrasted vividly with the artificiality of most eighteenth-century writers; but his fame was not established until he had set all the ladies of France weeping with his "Paul and Virginia," perhaps the most sentimental book ever written. It was published in 1787, and although it does not cause in modern readers the tearful raptures that it provoked on its first appearance, its fame has survived as the most notable work of a romantic and nature-loving sentimentalist with remarkable powers of narration. Saint Pierre died on January 21, 1814.

_I.--The Home Among the Rocks_

On the eastern declivity of the mountain which rises behind Port Louis, in the Isle of France, are still to be seen, on a spot of ground formerly cultivated, the ruins of two little cottages. They are situated almost in the midst of a basin formed by enormous rocks, with only one opening, from which you may look upon Port Louis and the sea.