Part 7
“I repeat it, because it is the truth, my old friend, this life of labor and privation, so new to me, was not a burden. Calm, silence, the constant exercise of all the faculties of the intellect, have charms which the vulgar can never suspect. I was happy to think, that, if I was ruined, it was through an act of my own will. I found a positive pleasure in the fact that I, the Marquis de Tregars, who had had a hundred thousand a year--I must the next moment go out in person to the baker’s and the green-grocer’s to purchase my supplies for the day. I was proud to think that it was to my labor alone, to the work for which I was paid by Marcolet, that I owed the means of prosecuting my task. And, from the summits where I was carried on the wings of science, I took pity on your modern existence, on that ridiculous and tragical medley of passions, interests, and cravings; that struggle without truce or mercy, whose law is, woe to the weak, in which whosoever falls is trampled under feet.
“Sometimes, however, like a fire that has been smouldering under the ashes, the flame of youthful passions blazed up within me. I had hours of madness, of discouragement, of distress, during which solitude was loathsome to me. But I had the faith which raises mountains--faith in myself and my work. And soon, tranquilized, I would go to sleep in the purple of hope, beholding in the vista of the distant future the triumphal arches erected to my success.
“Such was my situation, when, one afternoon in the month of February last, after an experiment upon which I had founded great hopes, and which had just miserably failed, I came here to breathe a little fresh air.
“It was a beautiful spring day, warm and sunny. The sparrows were chirping on the branches, swelled with sap: bands of children were running along the alleys, filling the air with their joyous screams.
“I was sitting upon a bench, ruminating over the causes of my failure, when two ladies passed by me; one somewhat aged, the other quite young. They were walking so rapidly, that I hardly had time to see them.
“But the young lady’s step, the noble simplicity of her carriage, had struck me so much, that I rose to follow her with the intention of passing her, and then walking back to have a good view of her face. I did so; and I was fairly dazzled. At the moment when my eyes met hers, a voice rose within me, crying that it was all over now, and that my destiny was fixed.”
“I remember, my dear boy,” remarked the old soldier in a tone of friendly raillery; “for you came to see me that night, and I had not seen you for months before.”
Marius proceeded without heeding the remark.
“And yet you know that I am not the man to yield to first impression. I struggled: with determined energy I strove to drive off that radiant image which I carried within my soul, which left me no more, which haunted me in the midst of my studies.
“Vain efforts. My thoughts obeyed me no longer--my will escaped my control. It was indeed one of those passions that fill the whole being, overpower all, and which make of life an ineffable felicity or a nameless torture, according that they are reciprocated, or not. How many days I spent there, waiting and watching for her of whom I had thus had a glimpse, and who ignored my very existence! And what insane palpitations, when, after hours of consuming anxiety, I saw at the corner of the street the undulating folds of her dress! I saw her thus often, and always with the same elderly person, her mother. They had adopted in this square a particular bench, where they sat daily, working at their sewing with an assiduity and zeal which made me think that they lived upon the product of their labor.”
Here he was suddenly interrupted by his companion. The old gentleman feared that Mme. Favoral’s attention might at last be attracted by too direct allusions.
“Take care, boy!” he whispered, not so low, however, but what Gilberte overheard him.
But it would have required much more than this to draw Mme. Favoral from her sad thoughts. She had just finished her band of tapestry; and, grieving to lose a moment:
“It is perhaps time to go home,” she said to her daughter. “I have nothing more to do.”
Mlle. Gilberte drew from her basket a piece of canvas, and, handing it to her mother:
“Here is enough to go on with, mamma,” she said in a troubled voice. “Let us stay a little while longer.”
And, Mme. Favoral having resumed her work, Marius proceeded:
“The thought that she whom I loved was poor delighted me. Was not this similarity of positions a link between us? I felt a childish joy to think that I would work for her and for her mother, and that they would be indebted to me for their ease and comfort in life.
“But I am not one of those dreamers who confide their destiny to the wings of a chimera. Before undertaking any thing, I resolved to inform myself. Alas! at the first words that I heard, all my fine dreams took wings. I heard that she was rich, very rich. I was told that her father was one of those men whose rigid probity surrounds itself with austere and harsh forms. He owed his fortune, I was assured, to his sole labor, but also to prodigies of economy and the most severe privations. He professed a worship, they said, for that gold that had cost him so much; and he would never give the hand of his daughter to a man who had no money. This last comment was useless. Above my actions, my thoughts, my hopes, higher than all, soars my pride. Instantly I saw an abyss opening between me and her whom I love more than my life, but less than my dignity. When a man’s name is Genost de Tregars, he must support his wife, were it by breaking stones. And the thought that I owed my fortune to the woman I married would make me execrate her.
“You must remember, my old friend, that I told you all this at the time. You thought, too, that it was singularly impertinent, on my part, thus to flare up in advance, because, certainly a millionaire does not give his daughter to a ruined nobleman in the pay of Marcolet, the patent-broker, to a poor devil of an inventor, who is building the castles of his future upon the solution of a problem which has been given up by the most brilliant minds.
“It was then that I determined upon an extreme resolution, a foolish one, no doubt, and yet to which you, the Count de Villegre, my father’s old friend, you have consented to lend yourself.
“I thought that I would address myself to her, to her alone, and that she would at least know what great, what immense love she had inspired. I thought I would go to her and tell her, ‘This is who I am, and what I am. For mercy’s sake, grant me a respite of three years. To a love such as mine there is nothing impossible. In three years I shall be dead, or rich enough to ask your hand. From this day forth, I give up my task for work of more immediate profit. The arts of industry have treasures for successful inventors. If you could only read in my soul, you would not refuse me the delay I am asking. Forgive me! One word, for mercy’s sake, only one! It is my sentence that I am awaiting.’”
Mlle. Gilberte’s thoughts were in too great a state of confusion to permit her to think of being offended at this extraordinary proceeding. She rose, quivering, and addressing herself to Mme. Favoral:
“Come, mother,” she said, “come: I feel that I have taken cold. I must go home and think. To-morrow, yes, to-morrow, we will come again.”
Deep as Mme. Favoral was plunged in her meditations, and a thousand miles as she was from the actual situation, it was impossible that she should not notice the intense excitement under which her daughter labored, the alteration of her features, and the incoherence of her words.
“What is the matter?” she asked, somewhat alarmed. “What are you saying?”
“I feel unwell,” answered her daughter in a scarcely audible voice, “quite unwell. Come, let us go home.”
As soon as they reached home, Mlle. Gilberte took refuge in her own room. She was in haste to be alone, to recover her self-possession, to collect her thoughts, more scattered than dry leaves by a storm wind.
It was a momentous event which had just suddenly fallen in her life so monotonous and so calm--an inconceivable, startling event, the consequences of which were to weigh heavily upon her entire future.
Staggering still, she was asking herself if she was not the victim of an hallucination, and if really there was a man who had dared to conceive and execute the audacious project of coming thus under the eyes of her mother, of declaring his love, and of asking her in return a solemn engagement. But what stupefied her more still, what confused her, was that she had actually endured such an attempt.
Under what despotic influence had she, then, fallen? To what undefinable sentiments had she obeyed? And if she had only tolerated! But she had done more: she had actually encouraged. By detaining her mother when she wished to go home (and she had detained her), had she not said to this unknown?--“Go on, I allow it: I am listening.”
And he had gone on. And she, at the moment of returning home, she had engaged herself formally to reflect, and to return the next day at a stated hour to give an answer. In a word, she had made an appointment with him.
It was enough to make her die of shame. And, as if she had needed the sound of her own words to convince herself of the reality of the fact, she kept repeating loud,
“I have made an appointment--I, Gilberte, with a man whom my parents do not know, and of whose name I was still ignorant yesterday.”
And yet she could not take upon herself to be indignant at the imprudent boldness of her conduct. The bitterness of the reproaches which she was addressing to herself was not sincere. She felt it so well, that at last:
“Such hypocrisy is unworthy of me,” she exclaimed, “since now, still, and without the excuse of being taken by surprise, I would not act otherwise.”
The fact is, the more she pondered, the less she could succeed in discovering even the shadow of any offensive intention in all that Marius de Tregars had said. By the choice of his confidant, an old man, a friend of his family, a man of the highest respectability, he had done all in his power to make his step excusable. It was impossible to doubt his sincerity, to suspect the fairness of his intentions.
Mlle. Gilberte, better than almost any other young girl, could understand the extreme measure resorted to by M. de Tregars. By her own pride she could understand his. No more than he, in his place, would she have been willing to expose herself to a certain refusal. What was there, then, so extraordinary in the fact of his coming directly to her, in his exposing to her frankly and loyally his situation, his projects, and his hopes?
“Good heavens!” she thought, horrified at the sentiments which she discovered in the deep recesses of her soul, “good heavens! I hardly know myself any more. Here I am actually approving what he has done!”
Well, yes, she did approve him, attracted, fascinated, by the very strangeness of the situation. Nothing seemed to her more admirable than the conduct of Marius de Tregars sacrificing his fortune and his most legitimate aspirations to the honor of his name, and condemning himself to work for his living.
“That one,” she thought, “is a man; and his wife will have just cause to be proud of him.”
Involuntarily she compared him to the only men she knew: to M. Favoral, whose miserly parsimony had made his whole family wretched; to Maxence, who did not blush to feed his disorders with the fruits of his mother’s and his sister’s labor.
How different was Marius! If he was poor, it was of his own will. Had she not seen what confidence he had in himself. She shared it fully. She felt certain that, within the required delay, he would conquer that indispensable fortune. Then he might present himself boldly. He would take her, away from the miserable surroundings among which she seemed fated to live: she would become the Marchioness de Tregars.
“Why, then, not answer, Yes!” thought she, with the harrowing emotions of the gambler who is about to stake his all upon one card. And what a game for Mlle. Gilberte, and what a stake!
Suppose she had been mistaken. Suppose that Marius should be one of those villains who make of seduction a science. Would she still be her own mistress, after answering? Did she know to what hazards such an engagement would expose her? Was she not about rushing blindfolded towards those deceiving perils where a young girl leaves her reputation, even when she saves her honor?
She thought, for a moment, of consulting her mother. But she knew Mme. Favoral’s shrinking timidity, and that she was as incapable of giving any advice as to make her will prevail. She would be frightened; she would approve all; and, at the first alarm, she would confess all.
“Am I, then, so weak and so foolish,” she thought, “that I cannot take a determination which affects me personally?”
She could not close her eyes all night; but in the morning her resolution was settled.
And toward one o’clock:
“Are we not going out mother?” she said.
Mme. Favoral was hesitating.
“These early spring days are treacherous,” she objected: “you caught cold yesterday.”
“My dress was too thin. To-day I have taken my precautions.”
They started, taking their work with them, and came to occupy their accustomed seats.
Before they had even passed the gates, Mlle. Gilberte had recognized Marius de Tregars and the Count de Villegre, walking in one of the side alleys. Soon, as on the day before, they took two chairs, and settled themselves within hearing.
Never had the young girl’s heart beat with such violence. It is easy enough to take a resolution; but it is not always quite so easy to execute it, and she was asking herself if she would have strength enough to articulate a word. At last, gathering her whole courage:
“You don’t believe in dreams, do you mother?” she asked.
Upon this subject, as well as upon many others, Mme. Favoral had no
## particular opinion.
“Why do you ask the question?” said she.
“Because I have had such a strange one.”
“Oh!”
“It seemed to me that suddenly a young man, whom I did not know, stood before me. He would have been most happy, said he to me, to ask my hand, but he dared not, being very poor. And he begged me to wait three years, during which he would make his fortune.”
Mme. Favoral smiled.
“Why it’s quite a romance,” said she.
“But it wasn’t a romance in my dream,” interrupted Mlle. Gilberte. “This young man spoke in a tone of such profound conviction, that it was impossible for me, as it were, to doubt him. I thought to myself that he would be incapable of such an odious villainy as to abuse the confiding credulity of a poor girl.”
“And what did you answer him?”
Moving her seat almost imperceptibly, Mlle. Gilberte could, from the corner of her eye, have a glimpse of M. de Tregars. Evidently he was not missing a single one of the words which she was addressing to her mother. He was whiter than a sheet; and his face betrayed the most intense anxiety.
This gave her the energy to curb the last revolts of her conscience.
“To answer was painful,” she uttered; “and yet I--dared to answer him. I said to him, ‘I believe you, and I have faith in you. Loyally and faithfully I shall await your success; but until then we must be strangers to one another. To resort to ruse, deceit, and falsehood would be unworthy of us. You surely would not expose to a suspicion her who is to be your wife.’”
“Very well,” approved Mme. Favoral; “only I did not know you were so romantic.”
She was laughing, the good lady, but not loud enough to prevent Gilberte from hearing M. de Tregars’ answer.
“Count de Villegre,” said he, “my old friend, receive the oath which I take to devote my life to her who has not doubted me. It is to-day the 4th of May, 1870--on the 4th of May, 1873, I shall have succeeded: I feel it, I will it, it must be!”
XV
It was done: Gilberte Favoral had just irrevocably disposed of herself. Prosperous or wretched, her destiny henceforth was linked with another. She had set the wheel in motion; and she could no longer hope to control its direction, any more than the will can pretend to alter the course of the ivory ball upon the surface of the roulette-table. At the outset of this great storm of passion which had suddenly surrounded her, she felt an immense surprise, mingled with unexplained apprehensions and vague terrors.
Around her, apparently, nothing was changed. Father, mother, brother, friends, gravitated mechanically in their accustomed orbits. The same daily facts repeated themselves monotonous and regular as the tick-tack of the clock.
And yet an event had occurred more prodigious for her than the moving of a mountain.
Often during the weeks that followed, she would repeat to herself, “Is it true, is it possible even?”
Or else she would run to a mirror to make sure once more that nothing upon her face or in her eyes betrayed the secret that palpitated within her.
The singularity of the situation was, moreover, well calculated to trouble and confound her mind.
Mastered by circumstances, she had in utter disregard of all accepted ideas, and of the commonest propriety, listened to the passionate promises of a stranger, and pledged her life to him. And, the pact concluded and solemnly sworn, they had parted without knowing when propitious circumstances might bring them together again.
“Certainly,” thought she, “before God, M. de Tregars is my betrothed husband; and yet we have never exchanged a word. Were we to meet in society, we should be compelled to meet as strangers: if he passes by me in the street, he has no right to bow to me. I know not where he is, what becomes of him, nor what he is doing.”
And in fact she had not seen him again: he had given no sign of life, so faithfully did he conform to her expressed wish. And perhaps secretly, and without acknowledging it to herself, had she wished him less scrupulous. Perhaps she would not have been very angry to see him sometimes gliding along at her passage under the old Arcades of the Rue des Vosges.
But, whilst suffering from this separation, she conceived for the character of Marius the highest esteem; for she felt sure that he must suffer as much and more than she from the restraint which he imposed upon himself.
Thus he was ever present to her thoughts. She never tired of turning over in her mind all he had said of his past life: she tried to remember his words, and the very tone of his voice.
And by living constantly thus with the memory of Marius de Tregars, she made herself familiar with him, deceived to that extent, by the illusion of absence, that she actually persuaded herself that she knew him better and better every day.
Already nearly a month had elapsed, when one afternoon, as she arrived on the Place Royal; she recognized him, standing near that same bench where they had so strangely exchanged their pledges.
He saw her coming too: she knew it by his looks. But, when she had arrived within a few steps of him, he walked off rapidly, leaving on the bench a folded newspaper.
Mme. Favoral wished to call him back and return it; but Mlle. Gilberte persuaded her not to.
“Never mind, mother,” said she, “it isn’t worth while; and, besides, the gentleman is too far now.”
But while getting out her embroidery, with that dexterity which never fails even the most naive girls, she slipped the newspaper in her work-basket.
Was she not certain that it had been left there for her?
As soon as she had returned home, she locked herself up in her own room, and, after searching for some time through the columns, she read at last:
“One of the richest and most intelligent manufacturers in Paris, M. Marcolet, has just purchased in Grenelle the vast grounds belonging to the Lacoche estate. He proposes to build upon them a manufacture of chemical products, the management of which is to be placed in the hands of M. de T--.
“Although still quite young, M. de T---- is already well known in connection with his remarkable studies on electricity. He was, perhaps, on the eve of solving the much controverted problem of electricity as a motive-power, when his father’s ruin compelled him to suspend his labors. He now seeks to earn by his personal industry the means of prosecuting his costly experiments.
“He is not the first to tread this path. Is it not to the invention of the machine bearing his name, that the engineer Giffard owes the fortune which enables him to continue to seek the means of steering balloons? Why should not M. de T--, who has as much skill and energy, have as much luck?”
“Ah! he does not forget me,” thought Mlle. Gilberte, moved to tears by this article, which, after all, was but a mere puff, written by Marcolet himself, without the knowledge of M. de Tregars.
She was still under that impression, thinking that Marius was already at work, when her father announced to her that he had discovered a husband, and enjoined her to find him to her liking, as he, the master, thought it proper that she should.
Hence the energy of her refusal.
But hence also, the imprudent vivacity which had enlightened Mme. Favoral, and which made her say:
“You hide something from me, Gilberte?”
Never had the young girl been so cruelly embarrassed as she was at this moment by this sudden and unforeseen perspicacity.
Would she confide to her mother?
She felt, indeed, no repugnance to do so, certain as she was, in advance, of the inexhaustible indulgence of the poor woman; and, besides, she would have been delighted to have some one at last with whom she could speak of Marius.
But she knew that her father was not the man to give up a project conceived by himself. She knew that he would return to the charge obstinately, without peace, and without truce. Now, as she was determined to resist with a no less implacable obstinacy, she foresaw terrible struggles, all sorts of violence and persecutions.