Arthur

CHAPTER IV

THE BEREAVEMENT

I was twenty years old, and had just returned from a long sojourn in England and in Spain, where I had gone under the guidance of my tutor, a good, modest, firm, and enlightened man.

On my return to Serval, our country-seat, where my father had been living for many long years in retirement, I found him seriously ill. Never in my life will I forget the sight of him on my arrival.

The château, which was extremely secluded and overlooked a straggling village, raised itself in solitary grandeur on the confines of a great forest. It was a vast Gothic edifice built of bricks which had become black with age. The interior was composed of vast echoing apartments, which were but dimly lighted by their long diamond-paned windows.

The servants were all in mourning for my mother, who had died while I was still absent. They were almost all elderly retainers of the house, and nothing could have been more lugubrious than the sight of them walking silently about in those immense gloomy rooms, where their figures were scarcely perceptible against the red or dark green hangings which covered the walls of that ancient habitation.

On descending from the carriage I was received by my father's valet de chambre, who said not a word, but his eyes were filled with tears. I followed him, and traversed a long gallery which had been the terror of my childhood's nights as it had been the joy of its days. I found my father in his study. He tried to raise himself to embrace me, but his strength failed him, and he could only stretch out his arms to me in welcome. He appeared to me frightfully changed; when I had quitted him he was still alert and vigorous; I found him weak and broken down. His tall frame was bent, he had become very thin, he was pale and expressionless, except that a nervous smile, caused by the continuity of his sufferings, gave to his naturally severe face an indescribable expression of habitual pain.

I had always greatly feared my father. His mind was vast, serious, meditative, concentrated, and occasionally coldly ironical. His knowledge was prodigious on every sort of subject. His character was masterful. In manner he was grave, thoughtful, and taciturn, but extremely cold. High principled to a striking degree, his devotion to me was extreme in every act of his life, but he was never demonstrative. Thus he had inspired me with a profound and timid veneration, a respectful gratitude, rather than a confiding and expansive affection, such as I felt for my mother.

Having quitted the service while still young, in spite of the wishes of Napoleon, who admired his iron will and indefatigable activity, my father had almost always resided at his château, but, strange as it may seem, he received no company. The Reign of Terror in '93 had so thinned the ranks of our family that, with the exception of a sister of my father, we had no near relations, simply some very distant connections whom we never saw. Now that my age and experience permit me to appreciate and compare my souvenirs, I can say that my father remains in my mind as the only really misanthropic man I have ever met; for he was not one of those misanthropists who like to live among men for the pleasure of telling them how despicable they are, but he was a misanthropist who had positively fled society, and broken off all connection with his kind. I have searched in vain among my childish memories to find that my father possessed a single friend, or even what might be called an intimate acquaintance.

My mother, my aunt, and my cousin Hélène, who was three years younger than I, were the only persons who, from time to time, came to see us. This is no exaggeration, my mother has assured me of the fact; during the thirty years' residence of my father at Serval, not a single visitor ever came near the place.

My father was a great hunter, but always went alone; he was passionately fond of horses and extended agriculture. These occupations, as well as my education, which he personally superintended, until he gave me a tutor, and sent me to see the world, filled up his whole leisure. Then his fortune was considerable, and as he never would consent to have an intendant, he, with the assistance of my mother, whose sense of order was extremely keen, attended to the administration of his property himself; the rest of his time was taken up with reading, scientific experiments, and long, solitary walks.

When I started for that fatal voyage, during which I was to lose my mother, she had seen in a dream a warning of her death, and had told me about it; but we hid it from my father, not because she feared him, but because, having always had a certain awe of his superiority, she dreaded his severe sarcasm, which never spared any poetical, exaggerated, or romantic sentiment.

I was thus prevented from taking a last farewell of my mother. I say nothing of my grief; she was the only person in the world to whom I had ever dared to tell everything freely and confidentially.

My aunt and her daughter Hélène had come to reside at Serval after my mother's death, almost in spite of my father, whose habitual need of solitude and silence seemed to become stronger as he became more and more feeble.

I led in those days a most distressing and harrowing life. Every morning my father would send for me to come to his bedside; his valet de chambre would then bring him the great strong box, where were kept the books containing the administration of our property, and day by day he would explain to me the state of affairs with an icy clearness which chilled me to the heart. One day he made me read aloud his will, with the same appearance of insensibility. My voice was choked with the effort I made to suppress my sobbing; he did not even seem to notice it. He would generally end this sort of initiation into the future management of the fortune he meant to leave me by some counsels he would give me in a brief manner, a long silence following each sentence.

These conversations revealed the most direct and exact judgment, and the deepest and truest knowledge of the miseries, or, as he said, the moral necessities of the human race, for a very striking trait of my father's character was the calm and disinterested manner with which he could discuss the inherent weaknesses of our species. According to his idea, we were obliged to admit that certain facts, certain low and selfish instincts, from which even noble minds could not escape, were the consequences of our moral organisation. He thought it as idle to hide or deny this defect as it would be to blame men for being attainted by it.

Thus, if any one ever asked of him a favour, he would generally consider that he would in return only receive ingratitude; nevertheless, he would render the service with the most perfect benevolence.

To sum up all, the moral sense of the conversations I had with him, and which on his part consisted of short, concise, and decided phrases, affirmed that the pivot on which everything turned was gold, since the noblest characters when pressed by need would descend to the lowest degradation, even to infamy,—it was necessary to remain rich so as to be sure of remaining honest; that there was an object in every sacrifice; that every man was corruptible, but that the time or the price of each man varied according to the nature of the individual; that all friendship had its negative pole, and that, therefore, it would be folly to count on a sentiment which would assuredly fail you in your need; and, to conclude, I should, according to these direful maxims, count myself as fortunate in the fact that I had neither brother nor sister, and was thus free from the guilt of venial fratricide, man being so constituted that he scarcely ever sees anything in fraternity but a diminished inheritance; "for," said my father, "there are very few, even of the purest souls, who can deny having thought, at least once in a lifetime, in calculating the fortune that they were to divide, 'If I were the only one!'"

I can not express how these axioms, in one sense strictly true perhaps, but of an affirmation so exaggerated and so disheartening, filled me with dismay, when I heard them coldly stated as a proposition by my dying father.

My tutor, who was a man of good sense, but of mediocre intellect, had never in his life started any philosophical discussion in my presence. Upon such subjects my mind had thus far remained unawakened and inert, but, being prepared by education and by a precocious habit of reflection due to my solitary life, and the experience I had gained by travel, was ready to receive the germs of any idea, good or bad, which the ardour of my imagination would inevitably cause to expand.

It was thus that these discouraging and bitter sentiments took deep root and became the sole source of all my thoughts. Later in life I was enabled to modify them, to graft on them, so to speak, other ideas, but the later buds partook of all the bitterness of the original sap.

After one of these melancholy seances with my father, which generally lasted about two hours, he would allow himself to be dressed, or rather to be wrapped in warm and very light clothing (for his old wounds had become open and heavy clothing caused him to suffer cruelly); then, seated in a bath-chair, he would have himself rolled up and down in the sunny paths of the park.

Through a strange caprice, my father, who had hitherto taken the greatest pleasure in keeping this park in luxurious beauty, prohibited, so soon as he believed himself to be seriously ill, every one from making the most necessary and ordinary improvements.

Nothing can be imagined more desolate than the aspect of these wide driveways, which were now taken possession of by grass and weeds; of these arbours and bowers of elm-trees, which, formerly clipped so symmetrically, were now abandoned and left to grow in every wild way; of these great flower beds, where all the dead summer flowers, that should have been pulled up by the roots at the beginning of autumn (for it was now that season), were still displaying their tall blackened stems.

Nothing, I repeat, could have been more dismal than this spectacle of neglect and ruin around a house which was still inhabited. My father had even forbidden any one to make the most ordinary repairs to the house itself. If a shutter was unhinged or a chimney blown down by a storm, it was allowed to remain just as the wind had left it. After his airing, which my father generally took in silence, his head bowed on his breast, while beside him walked either I, my aunt, or Hélène, he would be taken into his study. I can see the room still, lighted by its three great windows which opened on the park, its numerous old family portraits, its pictures and priceless curiosities. A great black bookcase filled one entire side of the room; from the ceiling swung a great chandelier of rock-crystal. But what gave the place its look of utter desolation was the same sort of neglect which devastated the park.

The pictures and the furniture were heavy with dust; a valet de chambre having once dared to dust a few articles, my father had flown into such a rage that the dust was allowed to settle where it pleased from that day, and the spiders to spin their webs where they pleased.

My father would remain there alone during two or three hours, after which we would go and take him out for a second promenade, which was the only time when he would seem to arouse himself from the sullen apathy into which he had fallen.

The object of our promenade was to go to a vast enclosure where some horses were allowed to run at liberty. There were, I believe, seven or eight, of which three were old hunters which had been favourite mounts during many years; the others were carriage horses, also very old. As soon as my father had known that it would in future be impossible for him to either ride or drive, he had caused his horses to be turned loose in this enclosure; one of the clauses of his will expressly ordered that these horses were to remain at liberty and never to be worked any more until their death.

As I said before, it was on these occasions alone that my father ever had anything to say. He would sometimes speak of one of his hunting parties, where a certain horse had distinguished himself; he would recall some road that another had travelled over with surprising speed; then, the promenade over, he would return home to dine. Although for quite a long time he had only been able to take the lightest nourishment, he insisted that his table, of which he was rather vain, should be served with the same dainty abundance as when he was in health, but he never partook of anything. My aunt and Hélène assisted at these silent repasts, where we were waited on by the old white-headed servants, dressed in their funereal black. My father never spoke at meal-times, and as we had noticed how the least noise seemed to distress him, we confined our conversations to exchanging a few remarks spoken in an undertone.

After dinner, which was soon over, we would go into the parlour, and, getting out the chess-board, I would sit down to it opposite my father. I would arrange the chessmen and we would begin the pretence of a game; for my father was entirely too absent-minded to really play any more. At long intervals he would push one of his men from one square to another on the board, and for the form of it I would advance one of mine,—all this was done in perfect silence; for it was a sort of mechanical occupation rather than an amusement that my father sought in this simulation of chess-playing. While we were so occupied my aunt would read and Hélène seat herself at the piano for about an hour's time.

This musical hour, except the visit to the horses' pound, was the only other incident of our daily life which appeared to make any impression on my father; for as he continued to push about his pieces in an aimless way, he would say to Hélène, in his low and penetrating voice: "Hélène, I should like you to play such or such an air for me."

Sometimes, though very rarely, he would ask her to repeat the same piece for him two or three times, when he would place his elbows on the chess-board, and, hiding his head in his two hands, would seem lost in meditation.

One day, only after having asked a second time for a song, I noticed when he raised his venerable head, where suffering had marked such deep lines, that his eyes were filled with tears.

The airs which he liked best to have Hélène repeat to him were few in number and very old-fashioned. I remember among others "Pauvre Jacques," the cavatina of "Don Juan," one of the Beethoven symphonies, and two or three romances by Paësiello. One of these last, a simple, sweet, and sad melody called "La Mort d'Elvire," seemed to affect him more profoundly than any of the others, so that he would say, after a deep sigh, "That is enough, Hélène. Thank you, my child." And as soon as the music ceased, a deep silence would fall on us.

It would be impossible to describe the melancholy thoughts which the daily repetition of such a scene caused to spring up in my mind. I would listen with rapt attention to those old songs, whose simple rhythm suited so well the freshness and purity of Hélène's voice.

The room in which we assembled in the evenings was called the salon of the Crusader, because above the great fireplace of carved stone was the representation of one of our ancestors, who bore the holy cross. This apartment was very large, and its walls were all tapestried with dark red damask.

As my father's eyesight was very bad, we had two lamps, covered with green silk shades, placed on the piano in a manner to light the music desk only; thus, while the rest of the room remained in almost total obscurity, Hélène, seated at the piano, shone out in beautiful clearness.

I can still see her beautiful blonde hair, her pretty throat, which looked so white against her large black fichu. And I can see my father as he sat by the chess-board, his head bowed in meditation, only visible in the red and dancing light reflected from the fire on the hearth.

Towards ten o'clock my father would ring for his servants, who then assisted him to his own rooms, whither I accompanied him, and helped him to his bed.

I slept in the room next to his, and very often in the night, being restless and agitated, I would get up to listen to his breathing. I would creep up cautiously to his bedside, but always found him with wide-open eyes, whose gaze was fixed on mine, for he never slept. This frightful insomnia, which the doctors attributed to the abuse of opium, and which they attempted in every manner to overcome, this continuous insomnia was what caused him to suffer the most. The tears still come into my eyes when I recall the tone of calm resignation with which he would say to me, "I am not asleep, I am not in need of anything,—go and rest yourself, my child." I sometimes shudder as I remember that for a period of seven months my father never slept a moment. Each day and each night he waited for the end, which he could see was slowly approaching. I have already said that his knowledge was almost universal; for this reason, although he had no practical knowledge of medicine, he was, unfortunately, sufficiently acquainted with its principles to understand and judge with certainty of his own condition.

Eight months before his death he astounded the doctors by discussing with them his disease, and showing them his reasons for believing that it would inevitably end fatally,—even the time he probably had to live. And, however, with the terrible conviction that every day was bearing him nearer to the tomb, he never showed the least weakness nor the slightest regret. Never a complaint, never a word in allusion to his approaching end! Silence, always silence! and his life until the day of his death was such as I have described.

The day before this frightful event, he caused me to go through a long and serious examination on the manner in which I was to manage my fortune; this with remarkable lucidity and apparent satisfaction. He then said to me: "I have doubled the means my father left me; this increase of fortune has been my steady object in life, because my constant aim has been your future happiness. Make a good use of these riches if you are able. Remember, my child, that gold is all-powerful: honour and happiness. Above all things, try to live alone; that is the great science of life. If you should find a woman like your mother, marry her, but be on your guard against adorers who will simply be after your fortune; in a word, never trust in any appearances before having sounded their secret depths." Then showing me his great secretary, he added: "You are to have that piece of furniture burned, just as it stands, with all it contains. I have taken out all our family papers, and you should be perfectly indifferent as to the rest. Adieu, my child, I have always been satisfied with your conduct."

And as through my tears I spoke to him of eternity, of my grief if I should have the frightful misfortune to lose him, he faintly smiled and said to me, in his calm and steady voice: "My child, why do you speak to me of these vanities? There is nothing eternal, there is nothing even durable in human feeling, joy and gladness are but transitory emotions,—grief and sadness are still more fleeting. Remember this, my poor child. You are generous and affectionate—you love me tenderly—you are grievously afflicted at the thought of losing me. Your actual grief is really so intense that it hides from you for the time being the coming separation,—and yet this diseased body can not, ought not, to continue to live; sooner or later after I am gone, you will begin to regret me less; little by little you will turn your mind to other thoughts, then you will begin to be consoled,—and after awhile I shall be forgotten!"

"Never," I exclaimed, and, throwing myself on the foot of his bed, I took his hand and covered it with my tears.

He placed his hand, which was already cold, on my forehead, and continued: "Poor dear child! Wherefore deny that which is self-evident,—why try to escape the inexorable law of our race? In this series of changes which, starting at violent grief, ends by forgetfulness, there is nothing as I see it either odious or guilty. Nothing is more natural, nothing is more consistent with our human nature. More than this, one of these days you will be able to enjoy the wealth I am leaving you without the slightest feeling of sadness. You will remember me, I hope and desire, from time to time, but seldom, and without anguish. The remembrance of me will never interfere with your enjoyments, your pleasures, the pursuits of your daily existence; so at last I shall count in your bright young life only as the dust of the old tree, which, having lived its time, now only serves as a nourishment to its young shoots. Nothing is more simple, more human, more natural, I tell you so once more."

"Ah, never believe such a thing as that," I cried out in terror. "This fortune will be hateful to me,—nothing will ever be any consolation to me."

But my father added:

"Make no foolish promises, my son; eighty thousand francs a year can never be hateful, and the most poignant grief is capable of consolation. Do I not know it from my own experience? Did not I feel thus when my father died? Will your sentiments not be the same as mine were? And if you ever have a son, will he not feel the same grief when you die? Believe me, my child, true wisdom consists in being thus able to envisage the inexorable reality of things, and never to indulge in vain hopes. When you once understand this truth, when it once causes the phantom of falsehood to dissolve, then you will neither hate nor despise men for being thus constituted, because you know yourself to be like them,—you will then pity them and help them, for you will often feel greatly unhappy! If you find men ungrateful, alas! look into the depth of your own soul, and you will often see such base ingratitude that you will be enabled to forgive others. Understand this, my poor child, that to forgive all is to know all. Finally, a time will come when the sight of their unknown or hidden vices will be so saddening or repugnant to you that you will do as I did, you will leave them and live alone. Then, my child, instead of having constantly before your eyes the harrowing sight of the moral infirmities of mankind, you will only have your own, and in the contemplation of a splendid nature, in meditation, in the inexhaustible and maternal sweetness of study, you will be able to forget and forgive the sins of our poor humanity."

The day after this conversation, my father was no more.

CHAPTER V

HÉLÈNE

In recalling these souvenirs of my past life, I have no other aim than the firm determination, if that be possible, of reviewing, as a cold and disinterested spectator, the scenes of my most secret thoughts, as well as the struggles of my instincts, whether good or evil; not to be ashamed to own up to a single one of them, no matter how base or paltry.

I believe myself to be neither better nor worse than the common run of men, and what gives me the courage to admit everything to myself is the conviction that possesses me, that, should the greater number of men ask themselves the same questions, and reply to them with the same frankness, their answers would in most instances be the same as mine.

To go back to the death of my father: my grief was most profound, but it was not my predominating sentiment at the first. My first sensation was a sort of terrified stupefaction at finding myself, at twenty-two years old, perfectly free, and master of a large fortune. My next feeling was an inexplicable anguish at the idea that from henceforth I was without any natural protector. Come vice or virtue, glory or obscurity, my life from henceforth would interest no one; besides, the eccentric life my father had led, isolated for so long from all the world, had placed me almost in the position of a stranger to that society which my rank and fortune entitled me to enter. The future seemed to extend itself before me like a vast desert crossed by a thousand paths, but no souvenir, no interest, nor even any family or caste patronage could I claim which might show me which of these paths was the right one.

As in all else, thanks to the lapse of time, this impression was fated to be modified and then radically altered; but the transition was a long one.

Some time later this timidity gave place to, or rather was mingled with, a tinge of pride, as I considered that all the great domains of our family belonged to me alone, and that, though the responsibility of their regency might be burdensome, it would be its own compensation. When still very young I had mechanically acquired a habit of self-interrogation, so when I perceived that my profound affliction had begun to take on these first tints of personality, I shuddered as I remembered those terrible words of my dying father, "You are generous and kind, you love me tenderly, and yet, sooner or later after my death, you will begin to miss me less and less, then you will be entirely consoled, and finally you will forget me altogether."

I have heard stories giving many examples of men to whom a tragic and premature end had been foretold, and who, goaded by some unexplainable fatality, had taken upon themselves the task of realising these sad predictions. It is the same way, I believe, with certain thoughts which are repugnant, even hateful to you, against which you struggle vainly, and to which you finally succumb; thus it was with the prediction of my father; I fought against it a long time, but at last I was conquered.

But this struggle was certainly one of the most distressing periods of my life. To recognise little by little the uselessness of our grief, to become cruelly convinced of this formidable vulgarity, that those feelings which nature has most deeply rooted in our hearts can fade, wither, die, and disappear under the icy breath of time,—ought not such thoughts to cut us to the quick? Are they not heart-breaking? Such were the thoughts which caused me to curse my ingratitude, but my curses were in vain.

It was the month of January, for I had remained all the winter at Serval, with my aunt and Hélène. Every morning I mounted my horse and went for a long ride in the forest, where I would spend three or four hours. The gray, cloudy, foggy weather pleased me, the wide driveways covered with snow, or littered with dead leaves, which the wind scattered hither and thither, had a dreary aspect which suited the colour of my thoughts. Leaving the reins loose on my horse's neck, I would ride along in a state of utter abstraction, scarcely thinking of anything,—of the future, of the road I meant to follow,—making no plans whatever, for I was still too much dazzled by my newly attained importance. I had lived for so long a time entirely dependent on my father, having no will but his, making no plans but his; even during my long voyage his will, represented by that of my tutor, had governed me so incessantly that the absolute and perfect freedom I now enjoyed was both overpowering and alarming. After one of these long rides I would return to find Hélène and her mother awaiting me; we would talk about my father, and my aunt would try to persuade me to overcome the repugnance I felt in attending to business; but as all these business transactions reminded me too cruelly of the many conversations I had with my father on these subjects, I could not bring myself yet to consider all these details, but left them to the charge of my tutor.

At the end of the third month my grief had lost much of its bitterness. I began, so to speak, to awake and look around me, my ideas became clearer and more definite as to the use I was to make of my newly acquired liberty,—this freedom which still disturbed and made me anxious, but which alarmed me no longer.

The thread of our thoughts does not always escape exterior and purely physical influences. I was beginning to find this out. Springtime was approaching, and I felt as if with the dreary winter the first bitterness of my sorrow would pass away, and that vague projects and sweet hopes for the future would blossom with the smiling foliage of May.

We were now getting on towards the middle of April; since my father's death I had never been able to make up my mind to visit the village cemetery, in which stood our family monument, so fearful was I of the cruel impression such a visit would have upon me. One day, as I deplored my weakness, Hélène said to me, "Try to be more courageous, Arthur; come, I will go with you."

As Hélène's mother was not very well, she could not go with us; so we set forth together. My emotion was so violent that I was trembling and could scarcely stand. Hélène, who was, perhaps, quite as much unnerved as I, showed it less. When we arrived at the entrance door of the vault, I fainted away.

When I came to myself, I saw Hélène kneeling beside me. I felt her warm tears fall on my cheek, for she was holding my head in her two hands. For the very first time, strange as it may seem, in spite of the sacredness of the place, in spite of the heartrending thoughts with which I was prepared to be overcome, for the first time in my life I was struck with Hélène's beauty. This first sensation passed rapidly as a dream, and my deep sadness again possessed me. I remained weeping for a long time, and then we returned to the château.

After that I went with Hélène almost daily to the cemetery, and, instead of my sharp and violent grief, I began to indulge in a sweet melancholy, which was not without a certain charm. I began to admit to myself with a sense of pleasure that I was ineffably grateful for the memory of my father, and I blessed him with pious admiration for having been able to show me always such deep and far-seeing affection, having such terrible convictions as he had on the forgetfulness of the living for those who are no longer among them.

Emerging from my state of stupor, I began at length to appreciate the splendid position that he had made for me, and I promised that I would remain eternally grateful to him, but after awhile, as I began to contemplate my position in all its brilliancy, I would sometimes tremble, as I thought I discovered in the depths of my mind a frightful reaction of egotistic satisfaction.

I have told what a long time it was before I began to notice Hélène's beauty. Though this may have been strange, you must remember that she had always seemed to me like a sister. When I had started on my travels she was at a convent school, almost a child; and during the last few months of my father's life I had been so cruelly preoccupied with his sufferings, and Hélène had shown such a devoted and filial affection for him, that the sort of fraternal feeling I cherished for her had never changed.

Hélène was three years younger than I; she was blonde and pale; her manner was kindly, but cold, and her large blue eyes, her aquiline nose, her large, fine forehead often bent forwards, gave her an imposing and, at the same time, a melancholy expression. As a child she had always been quiet; hers was a silent and self-contained nature, indifferent to the joys and pleasures of her age; always very sedentary and very nonchalant, she laughed seldom, and dreamed a great deal. Her eyebrows were of a darker shade of blonde than her magnificent hair,—they were thick, and perhaps too well marked. Her foot was charming, and her hand, though rather long, was of antique beauty; her tall, slight, and willowy figure was remarkably perfect, but she held herself very badly, and almost always, through indolence, kept her white and round shoulders bowed forwards, in spite of her mother's continual scoldings. As to her mind, I had never paid any attention to it before; she had always shown herself thoughtful and solicitous in the affection she evinced towards my father, and, as I have said, her behaviour to me was always of a sisterly kind.

She was altogether of an affectionate and tender nature, charitable and benevolent towards every one, but she was very proud and high-spirited at times, and extremely susceptible to the slightest allusion she suspected any one about to make on the subject of her poverty. I very well remember that, before my father's death, Hélène had sulked at me for quite a long time because I had been stupid and thoughtless enough to say before her that young girls without fortunes were almost always from their birth destined for gouty old fellows who were tired of society, and wanted some nice young girl of good family who would be willing to pass the rest of her life in their peevish society.

Hélène's mother, who was my father's sister, was a weak, heedless woman, but she was good, witty, and very distinguée. Her husband held for a long time a high diplomatic position, but being very prodigal, a gambler, loving display and all that was luxurious, in his desire to represent his country as sumptuously as possible, he had entirely wasted his own fortune as well as that of his wife; so that the latter was left at his death, if not in absolute poverty, at least in honourable but poor circumstances.

I had never in my life taken into consideration the disproportion of fortune that existed between Hélène and myself. Neither did I think about it at all, when I began to notice her beauty, for I believe that one of the most salient traits of the young who find themselves rich without any labour is to try to colour everything with a golden tinge reflected from their own gay prism.

From the moment when I saw that Hélène was beautiful, without attempting to analyse the sentiment I was perhaps already beginning to feel, I became quite another being; I shortened the duration of my horseback rides, I began to be very careful as to my toilet, and often felt ashamed when I remembered my former negligent ways in regard to dress.

My aunt had a friend who was also a widow and the mother of a daughter about Hélène's age. This daughter was threatened with serious lung trouble, which caused her mother the greatest alarm and distress. I had heard my aunt speak of her poor friend, and instinctively feeling that I would have more opportunities of being alone with Hélène, were our family circle larger, I asked my aunt to invite her friend and her daughter to come to Serval, and remain for some time where the air was perfectly pure. My aunt accepted this invitation joyfully, and very soon Madame de Verteuil and her daughter, a poor child of eighteen, not at all pretty, but with such a look of suffering resignation as to be deeply interesting, came to live with us at the château.

CHAPTER VI

THE AVOWAL

Two months after the arrival of Madame de Verteuil at Serval, the sad aspect of the ancient house was entirely changed; to my eyes all was blooming, gay, radiant,—I was in love with Hélène.

Several of our neighbouring landowners, who had been alienated by my father's misanthropic disposition, made friendly advances towards me, and I felt so perfectly happy that, with the easy good nature happiness brings, which really is indifference for all that does not concern our love, I accepted their kindly visits, and very soon Serval, without being gay, was at least much more cheerful and lively than it had been for many a long year.

I was so entirely absorbed in my love that I scarcely gave a thought to the great change that had taken place in my grief. It was just nine months since I had lost my father, and already the remembrance of his death, at first so constant and so bitter, was beginning little by little to fade away. I had begun by going every morning to the cemetery, then I went only once in awhile, sometime later I substituted for this pious visit some few hours spent in meditation before my father's portrait. I had caused this portrait to be placed in a frame which closed with two folding panels, thinking it a profanation to leave the image of those we hold most dear exposed to the gaze of the thoughtless and indifferent; besides, I considered that such contemplation, from which we hope to receive elevated and serious thoughts, should be premeditated and not due to our having by chance given a hasty look at the beloved face. The frame which contained the portrait became for me, thus, a sort of tabernacle, which I never opened without a solemn and pious sense of meditation. But alas! these contemplations, daily at first, soon became less frequent, from the very fact that my eyes could not become accustomed to look with indifference on this sacred image, which I gazed on more and more rarely. I can never explain the almost frightened impression with which I would unlock the panels: my heart would beat violently on beholding the pale and stern face of my father, who seemed to step out of the canvas with his imposing look of calmness and sadness, and to reproach me for my ingratitude and forgetfulness of his memory, which, alas! he had predicted.

Then, quite terrified, I would close the frame suddenly, and would weep bitter tears over my indifference; but these harrowing regrets lasted but a short time, and I would be overcome with shame as I said to myself: "For the time being I am grievously distressed, and yet to-morrow, this evening perhaps, I shall have forgotten him altogether and shall be smiling and happy in the society of Hélène."

No, nothing can give an idea of the painful resentment such a thought caused me. It was an insult to my grief, showing me the uselessness of it, even at the very moment of my truest and most heartbroken despair.

At last, I tell it to my shame, having gone a whole month without opening the picture-frame, I had the inconceivable cowardice to really dread a sight of it, so much did I fear this sort of apparition. At a later day I braved it, however, and you will see how the act, insignificant as it was, reacted on all my ensuing destiny.

These impressions, which I can now coldly analyse, excited and confused me at the time; but though I was steeped in the intoxication of a first love, I could yet feel their painful and deadening influence.

I have said that I loved Hélène; the phases of this love were very strange, and revealed to me feelings of the most miserable selfishness, pride, and incredulity, which, until then, had been dormant in my heart.

Never, alas! will I dare to blame my father for having given me those terrible counsels of which I have spoken. My future happiness was his most ardent desire, but as certain vigorous wild plants, transplanted into a soil too poor to nourish them, exhaust it quickly, and fade away before bearing either flower or fruit, so my moral nature was evidently not strong enough to profit by such formidable teachings. In the case of my father, these fierce and sombre convictions blossomed at least with flowers of benevolence and pardon for all; in my case the generous and hardy sap was wanting, and the stalk was destined to remain in all the barren nakedness of its dried-up bark, and never to bring forth a flower.

Let us return to Hélène, even though some of these recollections now cause me to blush for shame.

It was my heart's first love, and, like every first love, it was naïf, thoughtless, careless, allowing itself to float idly on the smiling and pure stream of passion, lulled by the harmony of the first wakenings of the heart, and, like the old mythological emblem, with eyes closed for fear of seeing the horizon.

These three months, with their freedom from all thought of the future, were, nevertheless, delightful, and it is with delight that I recall the smallest detail of their happy moments. Soon after the arrival of Madame de Verteuil and her daughter at Serval, I asked Hélène one day to ride on horseback, like her friend, who took that exercise for her health. I had caused two very gentle ponies to be brought from England, for Hélène was extremely timid. Before I could prevail on her to accompany Mlle. de Verteuil and myself on one of our excursions outside of the park limits, it was necessary, in order to overcome her first alarms, for me to walk beside her pony for quite a long time.

Nothing could be more charming than the little shadows of fear that would creep over her lovely face, the upper half of which, shaded from the sun by a large straw hat, was seen in a luminous golden half obscurity, while her red lips and rosy chin shone in the bright sunshine. She always wore white dresses and a wide gray moiré sash to mark the waist, which was so slender and flexible that she would bend like a reed before the breeze at each jolt of the little black Scotch pony, whose thick mane and long tail went streaming in the wind.