The White House Part 86

LIFE IN THE HOVEL.--A LAST HOPE DISPELLED

There is in extreme wretchedness a last burst of strength, of courage; when one has reached the climax of misfortune and is compelled to abandon all hope of a happier lot, then it seems that one feels a secret consolation in being able to defy destiny to deal us any additional blow.

Such was now Isaure's plight--that gentle, timid maiden, forcibly removed from the home she loved and had lived in since her infancy, from her protector and from her lover, to dwell in a miserable hovel hidden in the centre of the earth, with no other company than two men, one of whom was the author of her trials and the other seemed entirely insensible to them; and yet she had succeeded in surmounting her despair. Her eyes no longer shed tears, at least in the presence of her two companions; no complaint escaped from her lips; and when she spoke to the man who had torn her from her home, it was with gentleness and docility, instead of with eyes gleaming with wrath, and with tones that expressed the horror with which he must have inspired her.

Several days had pa.s.sed since the vagabond had concealed Isaure in the old shepherd's house, and the girl's conduct seemed to surprise him. He often sat and gazed at her in silence, for whole hours at a time. The more he looked at her, the more his surprise seemed to increase. One morning, when the old shepherd had gone out on the mountain, and the vagabond, alone with Isaure in the excavation, in front of the door of the rear house, had been gazing a long while at the girl as she worked patiently, sewing goat-skins together, he was so amazed at her mild and placid demeanor that he could not help exclaiming:

"You amaze me, girl; really I am beginning to think that I judged you wrongly, and that you really deserve the good opinion that the two friends had conceived of you. Your docility, your innocence--No, that young Edouard was not wrong to love you, to desire to marry you.--But that man whom you went secretly to see in the White House--what bond was there between you and him? How long have you known him? Come, speak,--answer me frankly."

A feeling which Isaure could not define, but which was not fear, led her to always obey the stranger promptly; so she answered with a sigh:

"I have known Monsieur Gervais since my childhood."

"Monsieur Gervais! Ah! so he never told you that he was the Baron de Marcey?"

"No, monsieur, I never have called him anything but Gervais, and it was by that name that my adopted parents, Andre and his wife, knew him."

"Yes, I understand; he preferred to remain unknown. Either you are a natural child of his, or, suspecting that you would become pretty some day, he intended to make you his wife."

"His wife! ah! monsieur, my protector loves me as his daughter; but he has often told me that my parents were dead."

"Was it he who placed you with the peasants?"

"Yes, monsieur. At first he came to see me very seldom, then he came oftener. When I was very small he used to take me in his arms, and kiss me and play with me. Then, when I grew up, he used to make me talk; then he taught me to read and to write, and to speak differently. He said that I learned quickly, and that it was a pity that I should be ignorant, like the people of the mountains."

"And then?"

"That is all, monsieur."

"He did not tell you that some day he would take you into the world, that he would provide you with pleasures innumerable?"

"No, he never told me that."

"And when you knew Edouard, and loved him, did you confess that to him?"

"Yes, monsieur; oh! I concealed nothing from him."

"What did he say to you then?"

"He scolded me, but very gently. He told me that I did wrong to love Edouard; that I must forget him, give up all hope of him; that he would never be my husband."

"I was sure of it! It was not for others that he brought you up in secret, that he attended to your education. No! he was acting for himself! Ah! he must love you dearly, to do as he has done. And I have deprived him of your presence, your caresses; I have wrecked all his plans of happiness for the future. So I am revenged at last!"

A ferocious smile lighted up the vagabond's features. Isaure looked away in terror. After a few moments he said to her:

"Do not think that it was for the sole purpose of doing evil that I took you away from your home; I have had many failings, vices even, but to do evil for the sole purpose of doing it never occurred to me; and although I have many reasons for detesting men, I do them justice enough to believe that they would rarely be wicked if they did not find some advantage in it. Listen to me, my girl; I am going to tell you why I stole you from your protector. I am aware that I owe you no account of my acts, and that I am at perfect liberty to withhold this confidence from you; but your mildness, your submission, arouse my interest. Yes, the more I see you, the better I know you, the more you astonish me; I am making you unhappy, I know; and yet I would like to see you happy.

What a strange effect is produced by beauty combined with kindness of heart and virtue! I believed that those things could never touch my heart again, but you prove to me that I was mistaken."

Isaure raised her eyes to the vagabond's face; they wore an indescribable expression as she said to him:

"Ah! monsieur, I, too, feel that I would be glad to like you, even though you make me so unhappy; I cannot hate you as I should!"

"Nonsense! hush, my girl, and do not look at me like that," replied the vagabond, turning his face away to conceal his emotions. "Yes, I am pleased with your submission, but your fate will be the same, nevertheless, because it cannot be otherwise; and notwithstanding the interest you arouse in me, I would strike you dead if I saw the Baron de Marcey on the point of rescuing you from my hands. Do not be so alarmed; that can never be; you see that I have taken my precautions too well for that. Let us return to what I was about to tell you,--my reasons for my conduct; and since destiny has united us forever, learn to know the man with whom you are to pa.s.s the rest of your life.

"I was not born in poverty, as you must have surmised. My youth was pa.s.sed in a chateau; my early days were lived in the lap of luxury, surrounded by numerous servants whose only desire was to antic.i.p.ate all my wishes. What a change! and ought I to have expected to end in this wretched plight? However, man ought to expect everything, when he is unable to overcome his vices and to resist his pa.s.sions. But I verily believe that misfortune has taught me to indulge in moral reflections.

Of all the changes it has wrought in me, that is not the least surprising!"

The vagabond was silent for some moments; he had taken out his pipe, which he filled and lighted, then he resumed his discourse, interrupting it only to take his pipe out of his mouth from time to time.

"The two young men who came to see you so often were staying at the Chateau de la Roche-Noire, two leagues from your house; they probably told you so?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Well, it was in that same chateau that I pa.s.sed my youth; it then belonged to one of my aunts, a most respectable old dowager, who allowed me to do exactly as I chose from morning to night. I had lost my other relations; I possessed a considerable fortune, to say nothing of that which my aunt would probably leave me; now, she considered that a n.o.ble and wealthy young man could never be his own master and misbehave himself in the world too soon. The poor dear woman! she was terribly mistaken! So I began very early to do foolish things! Women, cards, the table, wine, offered attractions which I did not even try to resist; I found it so natural to gratify my pa.s.sions, my most trivial desires. I had been so accustomed to follow only my own will, that I scattered gold lavishly in order to remove all obstacles from my path. This mode of life soon acquired for me a reputation in society at which I snapped my fingers. I was the terror of fathers and brothers and husbands; for my greatest happiness consisted in seducing some young beauty, in winning her love, and then abandoning her to her regrets."

"Oh! mon Dieu!" said Isaure; "how can one take pleasure in deceiving those who love one?"

"You can't imagine that, my girl, for you have never lived in the world, you have no idea of all that goes on there; you do not know that love is treacherous, friends.h.i.+p is selfish, virtues rare, and grat.i.tude almost non-existent. If you knew that frivolous world as I do, perhaps you would consider yourself less unfortunate to live in a hole. But to return: I soon squandered the fortune which my parents had left me; my old aunt died and her inheritance put me on my feet again; I travelled a great deal in search of new enjoyments, of new faces, and sometimes to escape the vengeance of a father or of a husband; I was, I admit, a very sad scamp.

"Chance took me to Bordeaux. I met there a charming young lady, whom her father, a crabbed old naval officer, kept in the strictest retirement.

But bolts, locks and duennas were no obstacles to me; I succeeded in making my way to Adele's presence; I was even received at her father's house. But I took great pains to conceal my past misconduct. I was then young and well-built; my features were not worn by privation, my eyes sunken by fatigue; I was well adapted to please. I had, above all, the art of appearing to be in love; but upon this occasion my pa.s.sion was not feigned; Adele aroused in me a sentiment which I had never felt for any other woman; credulous and affectionate as she was, it was not difficult for me to win her love, to seduce her, to triumph over her innocence. But I swear to you that, weary of the life I was leading, my purpose, my sole desire was to marry Adele. Unluckily, her father, having made some inquiries concerning me, refused to receive me any more. Soon I was compelled by a duel to leave the city, but I left it persuaded that Adele would be faithful to me. Many circ.u.mstances combined to a.s.sure me that she would never marry another, and I still retained the hope of calling her my wife; imagine my rage, therefore, when, on returning to Bordeaux, six months later, I learned that Adele had been married a long while, that she was travelling with her husband, and that no one knew where she then was! Thus this Adele, so gentle and so loving, who had given me so many rights over her,--she, too, had deceived me!"

"Oh! she was doubtless forced to obey her father; and as she loved you, she must have been terribly unhappy!"

"Yes, yes; I was told that her father had forced her into this marriage; but the man who married her was none the less a dastard; he must have known; Adele must have told him,--no, she could not be his! Well! that man who stole from me the woman whom I loved, who deprived me of the only real happiness that it was in my power to enjoy, was your mysterious protector, the Baron de Marcey! Consider now whether it is sweet for me to revenge myself, and whether I was justified in tearing you away from his love!"

"Oh! monsieur, my protector probably had no idea when he married the unfortunate Adele that he was wrecking her happiness and yours!"

"Yes, he must have known it! On learning of this marriage, I determined at once to seek out the baron and kill him, or to meet death at his hands; but his whereabouts at that time were not known, and I soon had to fly myself, in order to escape certain creditors who were pursuing me; I sold my estate of La Roche-Noire, and went over to England; I tried to deaden my suffering by new dissipation; but it seemed that from that moment misfortune followed at my heels. The gaming table carried away a large part of my fortune; women and false friends took the rest.

I returned to France. In the days of my prosperity, I had lent money, I had been very generous in accommodating my friends; I applied to them in my turn, but I could obtain nothing,--the wretches!

"I learned that Adele had died three years after her marriage with the baron, and had left no children; it was important for me to know that circ.u.mstance. The baron's grief avenged me in part, but it was not enough; and I should have tried doubtless to inflict other troubles upon him, if the deplorable condition of my affairs had not forced me to leave the country again in order to avoid arrest.

"I went to Italy and Spain; I was no longer the same man, I was no longer the brilliant rake, admired by women, and dreaded by my rivals.

Compelled to seek constantly new means of gaining a livelihood, I did not blush to ally myself with base schemers, contemptible creatures whom a few years earlier I would have driven from my house! But what was I to do? Work? I did not know how, and the idea of work was intolerable to me. I speedily adopted the habits, the low manners of the dregs of mankind who live without visible means of existence; I fell into the lowest degradation, in short; for that is where vice leads us. Sometimes indeed I cast a glance backward; I bestowed a memory and a tear on the past; I blushed for myself; and more than once I have tossed away in disgust this pipe, which idleness and degradation had placed in my mouth, and which has since become my only pleasure, my only diversion.

"However, amid my disorderly life, amid my debauchery, I still retained a feeling of honor; I never shared in the villanous trickeries which the men with whom I lived committed; they laughed at what they called my principles. Disgusted by the language of those wretches, I left them at last, and determined to return to my country; above all, to visit once more this Auvergne, where I had pa.s.sed the happiest days of my life. So I returned on foot, almost penniless. But many years had pa.s.sed since my departure, and so I was not afraid of being recognized. I reached this province several months ago. I had left here some friends and acquaintances, but some of them were dead, others were in foreign countries. I tried to make myself useful to travellers, to obtain work; but it seemed that something about me repelled all those to whom I offered my services. I made the best of it; I entered the mountaineer's cabin, and never yet has an Auvergnat denied me bread and entertainment.

Thus it was that I saw once more my old aunt's chateau, the domain of La Roche-Noire, where I had been brought up. I found a way to enter the chateau secretly; and at night, while the new owner was asleep, I loved to wander about the old tower, to gaze once more on the walls which had witnessed my childish sports, the porches and galleries which had echoed the accents of my joys. There, engrossed by my recollections, I have more than once forgotten thirty years of my life and been happy once more."

The vagabond dropped his head upon his breast, heaved a sigh and stopped. Isaure, who had been deeply moved by the close of his narrative, had approached him involuntarily, and said to him in a voice that trembled with emotion:

"Ah! you have been very unhappy!"

The vagabond raised his eyes, and looked at her, and seemed more deeply impressed by her features and the tone of her voice.

"It is most surprising!" he cried. "I fancied that I heard her voice! It seems to me that I see her once more!"

"Whom?" asked the girl gently.