Sir Jasper Carew Part 65

Margot was mad. The violent conflict of pa.s.sion to which her mind was exposed had made s.h.i.+pwreck of a glorious intellect, and the very exercise of emotion had exhausted the wells of feeling. I cannot go on.

Already have these memories sapped the last foundations of my broken strength, and my old eyes are dimmed with tears.

The remainder of her life was pa.s.sed in a little chateau near Sevres, where Mademoiselle Mars had made arrangements for her reception. She lingered for three years, and died out, like one exhausted. As for me, I worked as a laborer in the garden of the chateau to the day of her death; and although I never saw her, the one thought that I was still near her sustained and supported me,--not, indeed, with hope, for I had long ceased to hope.

I knew the window of the room she sat in; and when, at evening, I left the garden, I knew it was the time she walked there. These were the two thoughts that filled up all my mind; and out of these grew the day-dreams in which my hours were pa.s.sed. Still fresh as yesterday within my heart are the sensations with which I marked a slight change in the curtain of her window, or bent over the impress of her foot upon the gravel. How pa.s.sionately have I kissed the flowers that I hoped she might have plucked! how devotedly knelt beside the stalks from which she had broken off a blossom!

These memories live still, nor would I wish it otherwise. In the tender melancholy, I can sit and ponder over the past, more tranquilly, may be, than if they spoke of happiness.

CHAPTER XLV. DARK Pa.s.sAGES OF LIFE

For some years after the death of Margot, my life was like a restless dream,--a struggle, as it were, between reality and a strange scepticism with everything and every one. At moments a wish would seize me to push my fortune in the world,--to become rich and powerful; and then as suddenly would I fall back upon my poverty as the condition least open to great reverses, and hug myself in the thought that my obscurity was a s.h.i.+eld against adverse fortune. I tried to school my mind to a misanthropy that might throw me still more upon myself; but I could not.

Even in my isolated, friendless condition, I loved to contemplate the happiness of others. I could watch children for hours long at their play; and if the sounds of laughter or pleasant revelry came from a house as I pa.s.sed at nightfall, my heart beat responsively to every note of joy, and in my spirit I was in the midst of them. I had neither home nor country, and my heart yearned for both. I felt the void like a desert, bleak and desolate, within me; and it was in vain I endeavored, by a hundred artifices, to make me suffice to myself. I came, at length, to think that it were better to attach myself to the world by even the interests of a crime than to live on thus, separated and apart from all sympathy. In humble life, he who retreats from a.s.sociation with his fellows must look to be severely judged. The very lightest allegation against him will be a charge of pride; and even this is no slight offence before such a tribunal. Vague rumors of worse will gain currency, and far weightier derelictions be whispered about him. His own rejection of the world now recoils upon himself, and he comes to discover that he has neglected to cultivate the sympathies which are not alone the ties of brotherhood between men, but the strong appeals to mercy when mercy is needed.

By much reflection on these things, I was led to feel at last that nothing but a strong effort could raise me from the deep depression I had fallen into; that I should force myself to some pursuit which might awaken zeal or ambition within me; and that, at any cost, I should throw off the hopeless, listless lethargy of my present life. While I was yet hesitating what course to adopt, my attention was attracted one morning to a large placard affixed to the walls of the Hotel de Ville, and which set forth the tidings that "all men who had not served as soldiers, and were between the ages of fifteen and thirty, were to present themselves at the Prefecture at a certain hour of a certain day." The consternation this terrible announcement called forth may easily be imagined; for although only a very limited number of these would be drafted, yet each felt that the evil lot might be his own.

I really read the announcement with a sense of pleasure, It seemed to me as though fate no longer ignored my very existence, but had at length agreed to reckon me as one amongst the wide family of men. Nor was it that the life of a soldier held out any prize to my ambition; I had never at any time felt such. It was the simple fact that I should be recognized by others, and no longer accounted a mere waif upon the sh.o.r.e of existence.

The conscription is a stern ordinance. Whatever its necessities, there is something painfully afflicting in every detail of its execution. The disruption of a home, and the awful terrors of a dark future, are sad elements to spread themselves over the peaceful monotony of a village life. Nor does a war contain anything more heart-rending in all its cruel history than the tender episodes of these separations. I have the scene before me now as I saw it on that morning, and a sadder sight I never have looked upon. The little village was crowded, not alone by those summoned by the conscription, but by all their friends and relations; and as each new batch of twelve were marched forward within the gloomy portals of the Hotel de Ville, a burst of pent-up sorrow would break forth, that told fearfully the misery around. But sad as was this, it was nothing to the scene that ensued when the lot had fallen upon some one well known and respected by his neighbors. He who had drawn the lowest number was enlisted, and instead of returning to join his fellows outside, never made his appearance till his hair had been closely cropped, and the addition of a tri-colored ribbon to his cap proclaimed him a soldier. Of these poor fellows some seemed stunned and stupefied, looked vaguely about them, and appeared incapable to recognize friends or acquaintances; some endeavored to carry all off with an air of swaggering recklessness, but in the midst of their a.s.sumed indifference natural feeling would burst forth, and scenes of the most harrowing misery be exhibited; and, lastly, many came forth so drunk that they knew nothing either of what happened or where they were; and to see these surrounded by the friends who now were to take their last leave of them was indescribably painful.

Like most of those who care little for fortune, I was successful; that is, I drew one of the highest numbers, and was p.r.o.nounced "exempt from service." There was not one, however, to whom the tidings could bring joy, nor was there one to whom I could tell the news with the hope of hearing a word of welcome in return. I was turning away from the spot, not sorry to leave a place so full of misery, when I came upon a group around a young man who had fainted and been carried out for fresh air.

He had been that moment enlisted, and the shock had proved over-much for him. Poor fellow! well might it--the same week saw him the happy father of his firstborn, and the sworn soldier of the Empire. What a wide gulf separates such fortunes!

I pushed my way into the midst, and offered myself to take his place.

At first none so much as listened to me; they deemed my proposal absurd, perhaps impossible. An old sergeant who was present, however, thought differently, and, measuring me calmly with his eye, left the spot.

He returned soon, and beckoned me to follow. I did so. A few brief questions were put to me. I answered them, was desired to pa.s.s on to an inner room, where, in a file of some twenty strong, the chosen recruits were standing before a desk. A man rapidly repeated certain words, to which we were ordered to respond by lifting the right hand to the face.

This was an oath of allegiance, and when taken we moved on to the barber, and in a few minutes the ceremony was completed, and we were soldiers of France.

I had imagined, and indeed I had convinced myself, that I was so schooled in adversity I could defy fortune. I thought that mere bodily privations and sufferings could never seriously affect me, and that, with the freedom of my own thoughts unfettered, no real slavery could oppress me. In this calculation I had forgotten to take count of those feelings of self-esteem which are our defences against the promptings of every mean ambition. I had not remembered that these may be outraged by the very same rules of discipline that taught us to fire and load, and march and manouvre! It was a grievous error!

France was once more at war with all the world: her armies were now moving eastward to attack Austria, and more than mere menaces declared the intention to invade England. Fresh troops were called for with such urgency that a fortnight or three weeks was only allowed to drill the new recruits and fit them for regimental duty. Severity compensated for the briefness of the time, and the men were exercised with scarcely an interval of repose. In periods of great emergency many things are done which in days of calmer influences would not be thought of; and now the officers in command of depots exercised a degree of cruelty towards the soldiers which is the very rarest of all practices in the French army; in consequence, desertions became frequent, and, worse again, men maimed and mutilated themselves in the most shocking manner to escape from a tyranny more insupportable than any disease. It is known to all that such practices a.s.sume the characteristics of an epidemic, and when once they have attained to a certain frequency, men's minds become familiarized to the occurrence, and they are regarded as the most ordinary of events. The regiment to which I was attached--the 47th of the line--was one of the very worst for such acts of indiscipline; and although the commanding officers had been twice changed, and one entire battalion broken up and reformed, the evil repute still adhered to the corps. It is a mistake to suppose that common soldiers are indifferent to the reputation of their regiment; even the least subordinate, those in whom military ardor is lowest, feel acutely, too, the stigma of a condemned corps. We had reason to experience this, on even stronger grounds. We were despatched to Brest to garrison the prison, and hold in check that terrible race who are sentenced to the galleys for life.

This mark of disgrace was inflicted on us as the heaviest stain upon a regiment openly p.r.o.nounced unworthy to meet the enemies of France in the field.

This act seemed to consummate the utter degradation of our corps, from which, weekly, some one or other was either sentenced to be shot, or condemned to the even worse fate of a galley-slave. I shrink from the task of recalling a period so full of horror. It was one long dream of ruffian insubordination and cruel punishment. Time, so far from correcting, seemed to confirm the vices of this fated regiment; and at length a commission arrived from the ministry of war to examine into the causes of this corruption. This inquiry lasted some weeks; and amongst those whose evidence was taken, I was one. It chanced that no punishment had ever been inflicted on me in the corps; nor was there a single mark in the "conduct roll" against my name. Of course, these were favorable circ.u.mstances, and ent.i.tled any testimony that I gave to a greater degree of consideration. The answers I returned, and the views I had taken, were deemed of consequence enough to require further thought. I was ordered to be sent to Paris to be examined by General Caulincourt, at that time the head of the _etat major_.

It would little interest the reader to enter further into this question, to which I have only made allusion from its reference to my own fortunes. The opinions I gave, and the suggestions I made, attracted the notice of my superiors, and I received, as a reward, the grade of corporal, and was attached to the Chancellerie Militaire at Strasburg,--a post I continued to occupy for upwards of two years. Two peaceful, uneventful years were they, and to look back upon, they seem but as a day.

The unbroken monotony of my life, the almost apathetic calm which had come over me, and my isolation from all other men, gave me the semblance of a despondent and melancholy nature; but I was far from unhappy, and had schooled myself to take pleasure in a variety of simple, uncostly pursuits which filled up my leisure hours; and thus my little flower-garden, stolen from an angle of the glacis, was to me a domain of matchless beauty. Every spare moment of my time was pa.s.sed here, and every little saving of my humble pay was expended on this spot. The rose, the clematis, and the jessamine here twined their twigs together to make an arbor, in which I used to sit at evening, gazing out upon the spreading Rhine, or watching the sunset on the Vosges mountains. I had trained myself not to think of the great events of the world, momentous and important as they then were, and great with the destiny of mankind.

I never saw a newspaper,--I held no intercourse with others; to me life had resolved itself into the very simplest of all episodes,--it was mere existence, and no more.

This dream might possibly have ended without a waking shock, and the long night of the grave have succeeded to the dim twilight of oblivion, had not an event occurred to rouse me from my stupor, and bring me back to life and its troubles.

An order had arrived from Paris to put the fortress into a state of perfect defence. New redoubts and bastions were to be erected, the ditches widened, and an additional force of guns to be mounted on the walls. The telegraph had brought the news in the morning, and ere the sunset that same evening my little garden was a desert; all my care and toil scattered to the winds; the painful work of long months in ruin, and my one sole object in life obliterated and gone. I had thought that all emotions were long since dead within me. I fervently believed that every well of feeling was dry and exhausted in my nature; but I cried and cried bitterly as I beheld this desolation. There seemed to my eyes a wantonness in the cruelty thus inflicted, and in my heart I inveighed against the ruthless pa.s.sions of men, and the depravity by which their actions are directed. Was the world too much a paradise for me, I asked, that this small spot of earth could not be spared to me? Was I over-covetous in craving this one corner of the vast universe? In my folly and my selfishness I fancied myself the especial mark of adversity, and henceforth I vowed a reckless front to fortune.

He who lives for himself alone, has not only to pay the penalty of unguided counsels, but the far heavier one of following impulses of which egotism is the mainspring. The care for others, the responsibilities of watching over and protecting something besides ourselves, are the very best of all safeguards against our own hearts. I have a right to say this.

From a life of quiet and orderly regularity, I now launched out into utter recklessness and abandonment. I formed acquaintances with the least reputable of my comrades, frequented their haunts, and imitated their habits. I caught vice as men catch a malady. It was a period little short of insanity, since every wish was perverted, and every taste the opposite of my real nature. I, who was once the type of punctuality and exactness, came late and irregularly to my duties. My habits of sobriety were changed for waste, and even my appearance, my very temper, altered; I became dissolute-looking and abandoned, pa.s.sionate in my humors, and quick to take offence.

The downward course is ever a rapid one, and vices are eminently suggestive of each other. It took a few weeks to make me a spendthrift and a debauchee; a few more, and I became a duellist and a brawler. I ceased to hold intercourse with all who had once held me in esteem, and formed friends among the dissolute and the depraved. Amidst men of this stamp the sentence of a Provost-Marshal, or the durance of the Salle de Police, are reckoned distinctions; and he who has oftenest insulted his superiors and outraged discipline is deemed the most worthy of respect.

I had won no laurels of this kind, and resolved not to be behind my comrades in such claims. My only thought was how to obtain some peculiar notoriety by my resistance to authority.

I had now the rank of sergeant,--a grade which permitted me to frequent the cafe resorted to by the officers; but as this was a privilege no sous-officer availed himself of, I of course did not presume to take.

It now, however, occurred to me that this was precisely the kind of infraction the consequences of which might entail the gravest events, and yet be, all the while, within the limits of regimental discipline.

With this idea in my head I swaggered, one evening, into the "Lion Gaune," at that time the favorite military cafe of Strasburg. The look of astonishment at my entrance was very soon converted into a most unmistakable expression of angry indignation; and when, calling for the waiter, I seated myself at a table, my intrusion was discussed in terms quite loud enough for me to hear.

It was well known that the Emperor distinguished the cla.s.s I belonged to, by the most signal marks of favor: the sergeant and the corporal might have dared to address him when the field-marshal could not have uttered a word. It was part of his military policy to unbend to those whose position excluded them from even the very shadow of a rivalry, and be coldly distant to all whose station approached an equality. This consideration restrained the feelings of those who now beheld me, and who well knew, in any altercation, into which scale would be thrown the weight of the imperial influence.

To desert the side of the room where I sat, and leave me in a marked isolation, was their first move; but seeing that I rather a.s.sumed this as a token of victory, they resorted to another tactic,--they occupied all the tables, save one at the very door, and thus virtually placed me in a position of obloquy and humiliation. For a night or two I held my ground without flinching; but I felt that I could not continue a merely defensive warfare, and determined, at any hazard, to finish the struggle. Instead, therefore, of resuming the humble place they had a.s.signed me, I carried my coffee with me, and set the cup on a table at which a lieutenant-colonel was seated, reading his newspaper by the fire. He started up as he saw me, and called out, "What means this insolence? Is this a place for you?"

"The general instructions of the army declare that a sous-officer has the entree to all public cafes and restaurants frequented by regimental officers, although not to such as are maintained by them as clubs and messrooms. I am, therefore, only within the limits of a right, Monsieur Colonel," said I, offering a military salute as I spoke.

"Leave the room, sir, and report yourself to your captain," said he, boiling over with rage.

I arose, and prepared to obey his command.

"If that fellow be not reduced to the ranks on to-morrow's parade, I 'll leave the service," said he to an officer at his side.

"If I have your permission to throw him out of the window, Monsieur Colonel, I 'll promise to quit the army if I don't do it," said a young lieutenant of cuira.s.siers. He was seated at a table near me, and with his legs in such a position as to fill up the s.p.a.ce I had to pa.s.s out by.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Struck him to the ground]

Without any apology for stepping across him, I moved forward, and slightly--I will not say unintentionally--struck his foot with my own.

He sprang up with a loud oath, and knocked my shako off my head. I turned quickly and struck him to the ground with my clenched hand. A dozen swords were drawn in an instant. Had it not been for the most intrepid interference, I should have been cut to pieces on the spot.

As it was, I received five or six severe sabre wounds, and one entirely laid my cheek open from the eye to the mouth.

I was soon covered with blood from head to foot; but I stood calmly, until faintness came on, without stirring; then I staggered back, and sat down upon a chair. A surgeon bandaged my wrist, which had been cut across, and my face; and, a carriage being sent for, I was at once conveyed to hospital. The loss of blood perhaps saved me from fever. At all events, I was calm and self-possessed; and, strangest of all, the excitement which for months back had taken possession of me was gone, and I was once again myself,--in patience and quiet submission calmly awaiting the sentence which I well knew must be my death. We frequently hear that great reverses of fortune elicit and develop resources of character which under what are called happier circ.u.mstances had remained dormant and unknown. I am strongly disposed to attribute much of this result to purely physical changes, and that our days of prosperity are seasons of inordinate excitement, with all the bodily ills that accompany such a state. If it be so hard for the rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, is it not that his whole nature has been depraved and perverted by the consummate selfishness that comes of power? What hardeners of the heart are days of pleasure and nights of excess! And how look for the sympathy that consoles and comforts, from him whose greatest sufferings are the jarring contrarieties of his own nature?

I have said I was again myself, but with this addition, that a deep and sincere sorrow was over me for my late life, and an honest repentance for the past. I was eleven weeks in hospital; two severe relapses had prolonged my malady; and it was nigh three months after the occurrence I have detailed, that I was p.r.o.nounced fit to be sent forward for trial by court-martial.

There were a considerable number awaiting their trial at the same time.

Men had been drafted to Strasburg from various places, and a commission sat _en permanence_, to dispose of them. There was little formality, and even less time, wasted in these proceedings. The prisoner defended himself if he were able; if not, the reading of the charge and some slight additions of testimony completed the investigation; the sentence being, for form sake, reserved for a later period. Occasionally it would happen that some member of the court would interpose a few favorable words, or endeavor to throw a pretext over the alleged crime; but these cases were rare, and usually nothing was heard but the charge of the accuser.

Having determined to make no defence, my whole effort was to accustom my mind to the circ.u.mstances of my fate, and so steel my heart to bear up manfully to the last. My offence was one never pardoned. This I well knew, and it only remained for me to meet the penalty like a brave man.

Few, indeed, could quit the world with less ties to break,--few could leave it with less to regret; and yet, such is the instinctive love of life, and so powerful are the impulses to struggle against fate, that as the time of my trial drew nigh, I would have dared any danger with the hope of escape, and accepted any commutation of a sentence short of death. I believe that this is a stage of agony to which all are exposed, and that every criminal sentenced to the scaffold must pa.s.s through this terrible period. In my case it was prolonged, my name being one of the very last for trial; and already five weeks had gone over before I was called. Even then a postponement took place, for the Emperor had arrived on his way to Germany, and a great review of the garrison superseded all other duties.

Never had all the pomp and circ.u.mstance of war seemed so grand and so splendid to my eyes as when, through the grating of my prison-cell, I strained my glances after the dense columns and the clanking squadrons, as they pa.s.sed. The gorgeous group of staff-officers and the heavy-rolling artillery had all a significance and a meaning that they had never possessed for me before. They seemed to shadow forth great events for the future, portentous changes in time to come, gigantic convulsions in the condition of the world, kingdoms rocking, and thrones overturned. The shock of battle was, too, present to my eyes,--the din, the crash, and the uproar of conflict, with all its terrors and all its chivalry. What a glorious thing must life be to those about to enter on such a career! How high must beat the hearts of all who joined in this enthusiasm!

That day was to me like whole years of existence, filled with pa.s.sages of intensest excitement and moments of the very saddest depression. My brain, hitherto calm and collected, struggled in vain against a whole torrent of thoughts without coherence or relation, and at length my faculties began to wander. I forgot where I was, and the fate that impended over me. I spoke of all that had happened to me long before,--of my infancy, my boyhood, my adventures as a man, and those with whom I lived in intimacy. The turnkey, an invalided sergeant of artillery and a kind-hearted fellow, tried to recall me to myself, by soothing and affectionate words. He even affected an interest in what I said, to try and gain some clew to my wanderings, and caught eagerly at anything that promised a hope of obtaining an influence over me. He fetched the surgeon of the jail to my cell at last, and he p.r.o.nounced my case the incipient stage of a brain fever. I heard the opinion as he whispered it, and understood its import thoroughly. I was in that state where reason flashes at moments across the mind, but all powers of collected thought are lost. Amongst the names that I uttered in my ravings one alone attracted their attention: it was that of Ysaffich, the Pole, of whom I spoke frequently.

"Do you know the Colonel Ysaffich?" said the doctor to me.

"Yes," said I, slowly; "he is a Russian spy."

"That answer scarcely denotes madness," whispered the doctor to the turnkey, with a smile, as he turned away from the bed.