"Now an end to this, if, indeed, you are not a coward!"
After repeated and ineffectual attempts to free himself from the comte's hand, his son fell back aghast and livid with fear. He saw by the fearful look, the inexorable demeanour of his father, that he had no pity to expect from him.
"My father!" he exclaimed.
"You must die!"
"I repent!"
"It is too late. Hark! They are forcing in the door!"
"I will expiate my faults!"
"They are entering! Must I then kill you with my own hand?"
"Pardon!"
"The door gives way! You will then have it so!"
And the comte placed the muzzle of the weapon against Florestan's breast.
The noise without announced that the door of the cabinet could not long resist. The vicomte saw he was lost. A sudden and desperate resolution lighted up his countenance. He no longer struggled with his father, and he said to him, with equal firmness and resignation:
"You are right, my father! Give me the pistol! There is infamy enough on my name! The life in store for me is frightful, and is not worth the trouble of a struggle. Give me the pistol! You shall see if I am a coward!" and he put forth his hand to take the pistol. "But, at least, one word, – one single word of consolation, – pity, – farewell!" said Florestan; and his trembling lips, his paleness, his agitated features, all betokened the terrible emotion of this frightful moment.
"But what if he were, indeed, my son!" thought the comte, with terror, and hesitating to hand him the deadly instrument. "If he were my son I ought to hesitate before such a sacrifice."
A loud cracking of the cabinet door announced that it was being forced.
"My father, they are coming! Oh, now I feel that death is indeed a benefit. Yes, now I thank you! But, at least, your hand, – and forgive me!"
In spite of his sternness, the comte could not repress a shudder, as he said, in a voice of emotion:
"I forgive you."
"My father, the door opens; go to them, that, at least, they may not even suspect you. Besides, if they enter here, they will prevent me from completing, – adieu!"
The steps of several persons were heard in the next room. Florestan placed the muzzle of the pistol to his heart. It went off at the instant when the comte, to avoid the horrid sight, turned away his head, and rushed out of the salon, whose curtains closed upon him.
At the sound of this explosion, at the sight of the comte, pale and haggard, the commissary stopped short at the threshold of the door, making a sign to his agents to pause also.
Informed by Boyer that the vicomte was shut up with his father, the magistrate understood all, and respected his deep grief.
"Dead!" exclaimed the comte, hiding his face in his hands. "Dead!" he repeated in a tone of agony. "It was just, – better death than infamy! But it is horrible!"
"Sir," said the magistrate, sorrowfully, after a few minutes' silence, "spare yourself a painful spectacle, – leave the house. And now I have another duty to fulfil, even more painful than that which summoned me hither."
"You are quite right, sir," said M. de Saint-Remy; "as to the sufferer by this robbery, you will request him to call on M. Dupont, the banker."
"In the Rue Richelieu? He is very well known," replied the magistrate.
"What is the estimated value of the stolen diamonds?"
"About thirty thousand francs. The person who bought them, and by whom the fraud was detected, gave that amount for them to your son."
"I can still pay it, sir. Let the jeweller go to my banker the day after to-morrow, and I will have it all arranged."
The commissary bowed. The comte left the room.
After the departure of the latter, the magistrate, deeply affected by this unlooked-for scene, went slowly towards the salon, the curtains of which were closed. He moved them on one side with agitation.
"Nobody!" he exclaimed, amazed beyond measure, and looking around him, unable to see the least trace of the tragic event which he believed had just occurred.
Then, seeing a small door in the panel of the apartment, he went towards it. It was fastened in the side of the secret staircase.
"It was a trick, and he has escaped by this door!" he exclaimed, with vexation.
And in fact, the vicomte, having in his father's presence placed the pistol on his heart, had very dexterously fired it under his arm, and rapidly made off.
In spite of the most careful search throughout the house, they could not discover Florestan.
During the conversation with his father and the commissary, he had quickly gained the boudoir, then the conservatory, then the lone alley, and so to the Champs Elysées.
The picture of this ignoble degradation in opulence is a sad thing.
We are aware of it. But for want of warnings, the richer classes have also fatally their miseries, vices, crimes. Nothing is more frequent and more afflicting than those insensate, barren prodigalities which we have now described, and which always entail ruin, loss of consideration, baseness, or infamy. It is a deplorable, sad spectacle, just like contemplating a flourishing field of wheat destroyed by a herd of wild beasts. No doubt that inheritance, property, are, and ought to be, inviolable, sacred. Wealth acquired or transmitted ought to be able to shine with impunity and magnificently in the eyes of the poor and suffering masses. We must, too, see those frightful disproportions which exist between the millionaire Saint-Remy, and the artisan Morel. But, inasmuch as these inevitable disproportions are consecrated, protected by the law, so those who possess such wealth ought morally to be accountable to those who have only probity, resignation, courage, and desire to labour.
In the eyes of reason, human right, and even of a well-understood social interest, a great fortune should be a hereditary deposit, confided to prudent, firm, skilful, generous hands, which, entrusted at the same time to fructify and expend this fortune, know how to fertilise, vivify, and ameliorate all that should have the felicity to find themselves within the scope of its splendid and salutary rays.
And sometimes it is so, but the instances are very rare. How many young men, like Saint-Remy, masters at twenty of a large patrimony, spend it foolishly in idleness, in waste, in vice, for want of knowing how to employ their wealth more advantageously either for themselves or for the public. Others, alarmed at the instability of human affairs, save in the meanest manner. Thus there are those who, knowing that a fixed fortune always diminishes, give themselves up, fools or rogues, to that hazardous, immoral gaming, which the powers that be encourage and patronise.
How can it be otherwise? Who imparts to inexperienced youth that knowledge, that instruction, those rudiments of individual and social economy? No one.
The rich man is thrown into the heart of society with his riches, as the poor man with his poverty. No one takes any more care of the superfluities of the one than of the wants of the other. No one thinks any more of making the one moralise than the other. Ought not power to fulfil this great and noble task?
If, taking to its pity the miseries, the continually increasing troubles, of the still resigned workmen, repressing a rivalry injurious to all, and, addressing itself finally to the imminent question of the organisation of labour, it gave itself the salutary lesson of the association of capital and labour; and if there were an honourable, intelligent, equitable association, which should assure the well-doing of the artisan, without injuring the fortune of the rich, and which, establishing between the two classes the bonds of affection and gratitude, would for ever keep safeguard over the tranquillity of the state, – how powerful, then, would be the consequences of such a practical instruction!
Amongst the rich, who then would hesitate as to the dishonourable, disastrous chances of stock-jobbing, the gross pleasures of avarice, the foolish vanities of a ruinous dissipation; or, a means at once remunerative and beneficial, which would shed ease, morality, happiness, and joy, over scores of families?
CHAPTER XIII
THE ADIEUX
The day after that on which the Comte de Saint-Remy had been so shamefully tricked by his son, a touching scene took place at St. Lazare at the hour of recreation amongst the prisoners.
On this day, during the walk of the other prisoners, Fleur-de-Marie was seated on a bench close to the fountain of the courtyard, which was already named "La Goualeuse's Bench." By a kind of taciturn agreement, the prisoners had entirely given up this seat to her, as she had evinced a marked preference for it, – for the young girl's influence had decidedly increased. La Goualeuse had selected this bench, situated close to the basin, because the small quantity of moss which velveted the margin of the reservoir reminded her of the verdure of the fields, as the clear water with which it was filled reminded her of the small river of Bouqueval. To the saddened gaze of a prisoner a tuft of grass is a meadow, a flower is a garden.
Relying on the kind promises of Madame d'Harville, Fleur-de-Marie had for two days expected her release from St. Lazare. Although she had no reason for being anxious about the delay in her discharge, the young girl, from her experience in misfortune, scarcely ventured to hope for a speedy liberation. Since her return amongst creatures whose appearance revived at each moment in her mind the incurable memory of her early disgrace, Fleur-de-Marie's sadness had become more and more overwhelming. This was not all. A new subject of trouble, distress, and almost alarm to her, had arisen from the impassioned excitement of her gratitude towards Rodolph.
It was strange, but she only fathomed the depth of the abyss into which she had been plunged, in order to measure the distance which separated her from him whose perfection appeared to her more than human, from this man whose goodness was so extreme, and his power so terrible to the wicked. In spite of the respect with which her adoration for him was imbued, sometimes, alas! Fleur-de-Marie feared to detect in this adoration the symptoms of love, but of a love as secret as it was deep, as chaste as it was secret, and as hopeless as it was chaste. The unhappy girl had not thought of reading this withering revelation in her heart until after her interview with Madame d'Harville, who was herself smitten with a love for Rodolph, of which he himself was ignorant.
After the departure and the promises of the marquise, Fleur-de-Marie should have been transported with joy on thinking of her friends at Bouqueval, of Rodolph whom she was again about to see. But she was not. Her heart was painfully distressed, and to her memory occurred incessantly the severe language, the haughty scrutiny, the angry looks, of Madame d'Harville, as the poor prisoner had been excited to enthusiasm when alluding to her benefactor. By singular intuition La Goualeuse had thus detected a portion of Madame d'Harville's secret.
"The excess of my gratitude to M. Rodolph offended this young lady, so handsome and of such high rank," thought Fleur-de-Marie; "now I comprehend the severity of her words, they expressed a jealous disdain. She jealous of me! Then she must love him, and I must love, too – him? Yes, and my love must have betrayed itself in spite of me! Love him, – I – I – a creature fallen for ever, ungrateful and wretched as I am! Oh, if it were so, death were a hundred times preferable!"
Let us hasten to say that the unhappy girl, thus a martyr to her feelings, greatly exaggerated what she called her love.
To her profound gratitude towards Rodolph was united involuntary admiration of the gracefulness, strength, and manly beauty which distinguished him from other men. Nothing could be less gross, more pure, than this admiration; but it existed in full and active force, because physical beauty is always attractive. And then the voice of blood, so often denied, mute, unknown, or misinterpreted, is sometimes in full force, and these throbs of passionate tenderness which attracted Fleur-de-Marie towards Rodolph, and which so greatly startled her, because in her ignorance she misinterpreted their tendency, these feelings resulted from mysterious sympathies, as palpable, but as inexplicable, as the resemblance of features. In a word, Fleur-de-Marie, on learning that she was Rodolph's daughter, could have accounted to herself for the strong affection she had for him, and thus, completely enlightened on the point, she would have admired without a scruple her father's manly beauty.
Thus do we explain Fleur-de-Marie's dejection. Although she was every instant awaiting, according to Madame d'Harville's promise, her release from St. Lazare, Fleur-de-Marie, melancholy and pensive, was seated on her bench near the basin, looking with a kind of mechanical interest at the sports of some bold little birds who came to play on the margin of the stone-work. She had ceased for an instant to work at a baby's nightgown, which she had just finished hemming. Need we say that this nightgown belonged to the lying-in clothes so generously offered to Mont Saint-Jean by the prisoners, through the kind intervention of Fleur-de-Marie? The poor misshapen protégée of La Goualeuse was sitting at her feet, working at a small cap, and, from time to time, casting at her benefactress a look at once grateful, timid, and confiding, such a look as a dog throws at his master. The beauty, attraction, and delicious sweetness of Fleur-de-Marie had inspired this fallen creature with sentiments of the most profound respect.
There is always something holy and great in the aspirations of a heart, which, although degraded, yet feels for the first time sensations of gratitude; and, up to this time, no one had ever given Mont Saint-Jean the opportunity of even testifying whether or not she could comprehend the religious ardour of a sentiment so wholly unknown to her. After some moments Fleur-de-Marie shuddered slightly, wiped a tear from her eyes, and resumed her sewing with much activity.
"You will not then leave off your work even during the time for rest, my good angel?" said Mont Saint-Jean to La Goualeuse.
"I have not given you any money towards buying your lying-in clothes, and I must therefore furnish my part with my own work," replied the young girl.
"Your part! Why, but for you, instead of this good white linen, this nice warm wrapper for my child, I should have nothing but the rags they dragged in the mud of the yard. I am very grateful to my companions who have been so very kind to me; that's quite true! But you! – ah, you! – how can I tell you all I feel?" added the poor creature, hesitating, and greatly embarrassed how to express her thought. "There," she said, "there is the sun, is it not? That is the sun?"
"Yes, Mont Saint-Jean; I am attending to you," replied Fleur-de-Marie, stooping her lovely face towards the hideous countenance of her companion.
"Ah, you'll laugh at me," she replied, sorrowfully. "I want to say something, and I do not know how."
"Oh, yes, say it, Mont Saint-Jean!"
"How kind you look always," said the prisoner, looking at Fleur-de-Marie in a sort of ecstasy; "your eyes encourage me, – those kind eyes! Well, then, I will try and say what I wish: There is the sun, is it not? It is so warm, it lights up the prison, it is very pleasant to see and feel, isn't it?"
"Certainly."
"But I have an idea, – the sun didn't make itself, and if we are grateful to it, why, there is greater reason still why – "
"Why we should be grateful to him who created it; that is what you mean, Mont Saint-Jean? You are right; and we ought to pray to, adore him, – he is God!"
"Yes, that is my idea!" exclaimed the prisoner, joyously. "That is it! I ought to be grateful to my companions, but I ought to pray to, adore you, Goualeuse, for it is you who made them so good to me, instead of being so unkind as they had been."
"It is God you should thank, Mont Saint-Jean, and not me."
"Yes, yes, yes, it is you, I see you; and it is you who did me such kindness, by yourself and others."
"But if I am as good as you say, Mont Saint-Jean, it is God who has made me so, and it is he, therefore, whom we ought to thank."
"Ah, indeed, it may be so since you say it!" replied the prisoner, whose mind was by no means decided; "and if you desire it, let it be so; as you please."
"Yes, my poor Mont Saint-Jean, pray to him constantly, that is the best way of proving to me that you love me a little."
"If I love you, Goualeuse? Don't you remember, then, what you said to those other prisoners to prevent them from beating me? – 'It is not only her whom you beat, it is her child also!' Well, it is all the same as the way I love you; it is not only for myself that I love you, but also for my child."
"Thanks, thanks, Mont Saint-Jean, you please me exceedingly when you say that." And Fleur-de-Marie, much moved, extended her hand to her companion.
"What a pretty, little, fairy-like hand! How white and small!" said Mont Saint-Jean, receding as though she were afraid to touch it with her coarse and clumsy hands.
Yet, after a moment's hesitation, she respectfully applied her lips to the end of the slender fingers which Fleur-de-Marie extended to her, then, kneeling suddenly, she fixed on her an attentive, concentrated look.
"Come and sit here by me," said La Goualeuse.
"Oh, no, indeed; never, never!"
"Why not?"
"Respect discipline, as my brave Mont Saint-Jean used to say; soldiers together, officers together, each with his equals."
"You are crazy; there is no difference between us two."
"No difference! And you say that when I see you, as I do now, as handsome as a queen. Oh, what do you mean now? Leave me alone, on my knees, that I may look at you as I do now. Who knows, although I am a real monster, my child may perhaps resemble you? They say that sometimes happens from a look."
Then by a scruple of incredible delicacy in a creature of her position, fearing, perhaps, that she had humiliated or wounded Fleur-de-Marie by her strange desire, Mont Saint-Jean added, sorrowfully:
"No, no, I was only joking, Goualeuse; I never could allow myself to look at you with such an idea, – unless with your free consent. If my child is as ugly as I am, what shall I care? I sha'n't love it any the less, poor little, unhappy thing; it never asked to be born, as they say. And if it lives what will become of it?" she added, with a mournful and reflective air. "Alas, yes, what will become of us?"
La Goualeuse shuddered at these words. In fact, what was to become of the child of this miserable, degraded, abased, poor, despised creature?
"What a fate! What a future!"
"Do not think of that, Mont Saint-Jean," said Fleur-de-Marie; "let us hope that your child will find benevolent friends in its way."
"That chance never occurs twice, Goualeuse," replied Mont Saint-Jean, bitterly, and shaking her head. "I have met with you, that is a great chance; and then – no offence – I should much rather my child had had that good luck than myself, and that wish is all I can do for it!"
"Pray, pray, and God will hear you."
"Well, I will pray, if that is any pleasure to you, Goualeuse, for it may perhaps bring me good luck. Indeed, who could have thought, when La Louve beat me, and I was the butt of all the world, that I should meet with my little guardian angel, who with her pretty soft voice would be even stronger than all the rest, and that La Louve who is so strong and so wicked – "
"Yes, but La Louve became very good to you as soon as she reflected that you were doubly to be pitied."
"Yes, that is very true, thanks to you; I shall never forget it. But, tell me, Goualeuse, why did she the other day request to have her quarters changed, – La Louve, she, who, in spite of her passionate temper, seemed unable to do without you?"
"She is rather wilful."
"How odd! A woman, who came this morning from the quarter of the prison where La Louve now is, says that she is wholly changed."
"How?"
"Instead of quarrelling and contending with everybody, she is sad, quite sad, and sits by herself, and if they speak to her she turns her back and makes no answer. It is really wonderful to see her quite still, who used always to be making such a riot; and then the woman says another thing, which I really cannot believe."
"And what is that?"
"Why, that she had seen La Louve crying; La Louve crying, – that's impossible!"
"Poor Louve! It was on my account she changed her quarters; I vexed her without intending it," said La Goualeuse, with a sigh.
"You vex any one, my good angel?"
At this moment, the inspectress, Madame Armand, entered the yard. After having looked for Fleur-de-Marie, she came towards her with a smiling and satisfied air.
"Good news, my child."
"What do you mean, madame?" said La Goualeuse, rising.
"Your friends have not forgotten you, they have obtained your discharge; the governor has just received the information."
"Can it be possible, madame? Ah, what happiness!"
Fleur-de-Marie's emotion was so violent that she turned pale, placed her hand on her heart, which throbbed violently, and fell back on the seat.
"Don't agitate yourself, my poor girl," said Madame Armand, kindly. "Fortunately these shocks are not dangerous."
"Ah, madame, what gratitude!"
"No doubt it is Madame d'Harville who has obtained your liberty. There is an elderly female charged to conduct you to the persons who are interested in you. Wait for me, I will return for you; I have some directions to give in the work-room."
It would be difficult to paint the expression of extreme desolation which overcast the features of Mont Saint-Jean, when she learned that her good angel, as she called La Goualeuse, was about to quit St. Lazare. This woman's grief was less caused by the fear of becoming again the ill-used butt of the prison, than by her anguish at seeing herself separated from the only being who had ever testified any interest in her.
Still seated at the foot of the bench, Mont Saint-Jean lifted both her hands to the sides of her matted and coarse hair, which projected in disorder from the sides of her old black cap, as if to tear them out; then this deep affliction gave way to dejection, and she drooped her head and remained mute and motionless, with her face hidden in her hands, and her elbows resting on her knees.
In spite of her joy at leaving the prison, Fleur-de-Marie could not help shuddering when she thought for an instant of the Chouette and the Schoolmaster, recollecting that these two monsters had made her swear never to inform her benefactors of her wretched fate. But these dispiriting thoughts were soon effaced from Fleur-de-Marie's mind before the hope of seeing Bouqueval once more, with Madame Georges and Rodolph, to whom she meant to intercede for La Louve and Martial. It even seemed to her that the warm feeling which she reproached herself for having of her benefactor, being no longer nourished by sadness and solitude, would be calmed down as soon as she resumed her rustic occupations, which she so much delighted in sharing with the good and simple inhabitants of the farm.
Astonished at the silence of her companion, a silence whose source she did not suspect, La Goualeuse touched her gently on the shoulder, saying to her:
"Mont Saint-Jean, as I am now free, can I be in any way useful to you?"
The prisoner trembled as she felt La Goualeuse's hand upon her, let her hands drop on her knees, and turned towards the young girl, her face streaming with tears. So bitter a grief overspread the features of Mont Saint-Jean that their ugliness had disappeared.
"What is the matter?" said La Goualeuse. "You are weeping!"
"You are going away!" murmured the poor prisoner, with a voice broken by sobs. "And I had never thought that you would go away, and that I should never see you more, – never, no, never!"
"I assure you that I shall always think of your good feeling towards me, Mont Saint-Jean."
"Oh, and to think how I loved you, when I was sitting there at your feet on the ground! It seemed as if I was saved, – that I had nothing more to fear! It was not for the blows which the other women may, perhaps, begin again to give me that I said that I have led a hard life; but it seemed to me that you were my good fortune, and would bring good luck to my child, just because you had pity on me. But, then, when one is used to be ill-treated, one is then more sensible than others to kindness." Then, interrupting herself, to burst again into a loud fit of sobs, – "Well, well, it's done, – it's finished, – all over! And so it must be some day or other. I was wrong to think any otherwise. It's done – done – done!"
"Courage! Courage! I will think of you, as you will remember me."
"Oh, as to that, they may tear me to pieces before they shall ever make me forget you! I may grow old, – as old as the streets, – but I shall always have your angel face before me. The first word I will teach my child shall be your name, Goualeuse; for but for you it would have perished with cold."
"Listen to me, Mont Saint-Jean!" said Fleur-de-Marie, deeply affected by the attachment of this unhappy woman. "I cannot promise to do anything for you, although I know some very charitable persons; but, for your child, it is a different thing; it is wholly innocent; and the persons of whom I speak will, perhaps, take charge of it, and bring it up, when you can resolve on parting from it."
"Part from it! Never, oh, never!" exclaimed Mont Saint-Jean, with excitement. "What would become of me now, when I have so built upon it?"
"But how will you bring it up? Boy or girl, it ought to be made honest; and for that – "
"It must eat honest bread. I know that, Goualeuse, – I believe it. It is my ambition; and I say so to myself every day. So, in leaving here, I will never put my foot under a bridge again. I will turn rag-picker, street-sweeper, – something honest; for I owe that, if not to myself, at least to my child, when I have the honour of having one," she added, with a sort of pride.
"And who will take care of your child whilst you are at work?" inquired the Goualeuse. "Will it not be better, if possible, as I hope it will be, to put it in the country with some worthy people, who will make a good country girl or a stout farmer's boy of it? You can come and see it from time to time; and one day you may, perhaps, find the means to live near it constantly. In the country, one lives on so little!"
"Yes, but to separate myself from it, – to separate myself from it! It would be my only joy, – I, who have nothing else in the world to love, – nothing that loves me!"
"You must think more of it than of yourself, my poor Mont Saint-Jean. In two or three days I will write to Madame Armand, and if the application I mean to make in favour of your child should succeed, you will have no occasion to say to it, as you said so painfully just now, 'Alas! What will become of it?'"
Madame Armand interrupted this conversation, and came to seek Fleur-de-Marie. After having again burst into sobs, and bathed with her despairing tears the young girl's hands, Mont Saint-Jean fell on the seat perfectly overcome, not even thinking of the promise which Fleur-de-Marie had just made with respect to her child.
"Poor creature!" said Madame Armand, as she quitted the yard, accompanied by Fleur-de-Marie, "her gratitude towards you gives me a better opinion of her."
Learning that La Goualeuse was discharged, the other prisoners, far from envying her this favour, displayed their delight. Some of them surrounded Fleur-de-Marie, and took leave of her with adieux full of cordiality, frankly congratulating her on her speedy release from prison.
"Well, I must say," said one, "this little fair girl has made us pass an agreeable moment, when we agreed to make up the basket of clothes for Mont Saint-Jean. That will be remembered at St. Lazare."
When Fleur-de-Marie had quitted the prison buildings, the inspectress said to her:
"Now, my dear child, go to the clothing-room, and leave your prison clothes. Put on your peasant girl's clothes, whose rustic simplicity suits you so well. Adieu! You will be happy, for you are going to be under the protection of good people, and leave these walls, never again to return to them. But I am really hardly reasonable," said Madame Armand, whose eyes were moistened with tears. "I really cannot conceal from you how much I am attached to you, my poor girl!" Then, seeing the tears in Fleur-de-Marie's eyes, the inspectress added, "But we must not sadden your departure thus."
"Ah, madame, is it not through your recommendation that this young lady to whom I owe my liberty has become interested in me?"
"Yes, and I am happy that I did so; my presentiments had not deceived me."
At this moment a clock struck.
"That is the hour of work; I must return to the rooms. Adieu! Once more adieu, my dear child!"
Madame Armand, as much affected as Fleur-de-Marie, embraced her tenderly, and then said to one of the women employed in the establishment:
"Take mademoiselle to the vestiary."
A quarter of an hour afterwards, Fleur-de-Marie, dressed like a peasant girl, as we have seen her at the farm at Bouqueval, entered the waiting-room, where Madame Séraphin was expecting her. The housekeeper of the notary, Jacques Ferrand, had come to seek the unhappy girl, and conduct her to the Isle du Ravageur.