CHAPTER VI. THE SECRET.
“First of all, good Dagobert,” said Rose, in a gracefully caressing manner, “as we are going to tell our secret—you must promise not to scold us.”
“You will not scold your darlings, will you?” added Blanche, in a no less coaxing voice.
“Granted!” replied Dagobert gravely; “particularly as I should not well know how to set about it—but why should I scold you.”
“Because we ought perhaps to have told you sooner what we are going to tell you.”
“Listen, my children,” said Dagobert sententiously, after reflecting a moment on this case of conscience; “one of two things must be. Either you were right, or else you were wrong, to hide this from me. If you were right, very well; if you were wrong, it is done: so let’s say no more about it. Go on—I am all attention.”
Completely reassured by this luminous decision, Rose resumed, while she exchanged a smile with her sister.
“Only think, Dagobert; for two successive nights we have had a visitor.”
“A visitor!” cried the soldier, drawing himself up suddenly in his chair.
“Yes, a charming visitor—he is so very fair.”
“Fair—the devil!” cried Dagobert, with a start.
“Yes, fair—and with blue eyes,” added Blanche.
“Blue eyes—blue devils!” and Dagobert again bounded on his seat.
“Yes, blue eyes—as long as that,” resumed Rose, placing the tip of one forefinger about the middle of the other.
“Zounds! they might be as long as that,” said the veteran, indicating the whole length of his term from the elbow, “they might be as long as that, and it would have nothing to do with it. Fair, and with blue eyes. Pray what may this mean, young ladies?” and Dagobert rose from his seat with a severe and painfully unquiet look.
“There now, Dagobert, you have begun to scold us already.”
“Just at the very commencement,” added Blanche.
“Commencement!—what, is there to be a sequel? a finish?”
“A finish? we hope not,” said Rose, laughing like mad.
“All we ask is, that it should last forever,” added Blanche, sharing in the hilarity of her sister.
Dagobert looked gravely from one to the other of the two maidens, as if trying to guess this enigma; but when he saw their sweet, innocent faces gracefully animated by a frank, ingenuous laugh, he reflected that they would not be so gay if they had any serious matter for self-reproach, and he felt pleased at seeing them so merry in the midst of their precarious position.
“Laugh on, my children!” he said. “I like so much to see you laugh.”
Then, thinking that was not precisely the way in which he ought to treat the singular confession of the young girls, he added in a gruff voice: “Yes, I like to see you laugh—but not when you receive fair visitors with blue eyes, young ladies!—Come, acknowledge that I’m an old fool to listen to such nonsense—you are only making game of me.”
“Nay, what we tell you is quite true.”
“You know we never tell stories,” added Rose.
“They are right—they never fib,” said the soldier, in renewed perplexity.
“But how the devil is such a visit possible? I sleep before your door—Spoil-sport sleeps under your window—and all the blue eyes and fair locks in the world must come in by one of those two ways—and, if they had tried it, the dog and I, who have both of us quick ears, would have received their visits after our fashion. But come, children! pray, speak to the purpose. Explain yourselves!”
The two sisters, who saw, by the expression of Dagobert’s countenance, that he felt really uneasy, determined no longer to trifle with his kindness. They exchanged a glance, and Rose, taking in her little hand the coarse, broad palm of the veteran, said to him: “Come, do not plague yourself! We will tell you all about the visits of our friend, Gabriel.”
“There you are again!—He has a name, then?”
“Certainly, he has a name. It is Gabriel.”
“Is it not a pretty name, Dagobert? Oh, you will see and love, as we do, our beautiful Gabriel!”
“I’ll love your beautiful Gabriel, will I?” said the veteran, shaking his head—“Love your beautiful Gabriel?—that’s as it may be. I must first know—” Then, interrupting himself, he added: “It is queer. That reminds me of something.”
“Of what, Dagobert?”
“Fifteen years ago, in the last letter that your father, on his return from France, brought me from my wife: she told me that, poor as she was, and with our little growing Agricola on her hands, she had taken in a poor deserted child, with the face of a cherub, and the name of Gabriel—and only a short time since I heard of him again.”
“And from whom, then?”
“You shall know that by and by.”
“Well, then—since you have a Gabriel of your own—there is the more reason that you should love ours.”
“Yours! but who is yours? I am on thorns till you tell me.”
“You know, Dagobert,” resumed Rose, “that Blanche and I are accustomed to fall asleep, holding each other by the hand.”
“Yes, yes, I have often seen you in your cradle. I was never tired of looking at you; it was so pretty.”
“Well, then—two nights ago, we had just fallen asleep, when we beheld—”
“Oh, it was in a dream!” cried Dagobert. “Since you were asleep, it was in a dream!”
“Certainly, in a dream—how else would you have it?”
“Pray let my sister go on with her tale!”
“All, well and good!” said the soldier with a sigh of satisfaction; “well and good! To be sure, I was tranquil enough in any case—because—but still—I like it better to be a dream. Continue, my little Rose.”
“Once asleep, we both dreamt the same thing.”
“What! both the same?”
“Yes, Dagobert; for the next morning when we awoke we related our two dreams to each other.”
“And they were exactly alike.”
“That’s odd enough, my children; and what was this dream all about?”
“In our dream, Blanche and I were seated together, when we saw enter a beautiful angel, with a long white robe, fair locks, blue eyes, and so handsome and benign a countenance, that we elapsed our hands as if to pray to him. Then he told us, in a soft voice, that he was called Gabriel; that our mother had sent him to be our guardian angel, and that he would never abandon us.”
“And, then,” added Blanche, “he took us each by the hand, and, bending his fair face over us, looked at us for a long time in silence, with so much goodness—with so much goodness, that we could not withdraw our eyes from his.”
“Yes,” resumed Rose, “and his look seemed, by turns, to attract us, or to go to our hearts. At length, to our great sorrow, Gabriel quitted us, having told us that we should see him again the following night.”
“And did he make his appearance?”
“Certainly. Judge with what impatience we waited the moment of sleep, to see if our friend would return, and visit us in our slumbers.”
“Humph!” said Dagobert, scratching his forehead; “this reminds me, young ladies, that you kept on rubbing your eyes last evening, and pretending to be half asleep. I wager, it was all to send me away the sooner, and to get to your dream as fast as possible.”
“Yes, Dagobert.”
“The reason being, you could not say to me, as you would to Spoil-sport: Lie down, Dagobert! Well—so your friend Gabriel came back?”
“Yes, and this time he talked to us a great deal, and gave us, in the name of our mother, such touching, such noble counsels, that the next day, Rose and I spent our whole time in recalling every word of our guardian angel—and his face, and his look—”
“This reminds me again, young ladies, that you were whispering all along the road this morning; and that when I spoke of white, you answered black.”
“Yes, Dagobert, we were thinking of Gabriel.”
“And, ever since, we love him as well as he loves us.”
“But he is only one between both of you!”
“Was not our mother one between us?”
“And you, Dagobert—are you not also one for us both?”
“True, true! And yet, do you know, I shall finish by being jealous of that Gabriel?”
“You are our friend by day—he is our friend by night.”
“Let’s understand it clearly. If you talk of him all day, and dream of him all night, what will there remain for me?”
“There will remain for you your two orphans, whom you love so much,” said Rose.
“And who have only you left upon earth,” added Blanche, in a caressing tongue.
“Humph! humph! that’s right, coax the old man over, Nay, believe me, my children,” added the soldier, tenderly, “I am quite satisfied with my lot. I can afford to let you have your Gabriel. I felt sure that Spoil sport and myself could take our rest in quiet. After all, there is nothing so astonishing in what you tell me; your first dream struck your fancy, and you talked so much about it that you had a second; nor should I be surprised if you were to see this fine fellow a third time.”
“Oh, Dagobert! do not make a jest of it! They are only dreams, but we think our mother sends them to us. Did she not tell us that orphan children were watched over by guardian angels? Well, Gabriel is our guardian angel; he will protect us, and he will protect you also.”
“Very kind of him to think of me; but you see, my dear children, for the matter of defence, I prefer the dog; he is less fair than your angel, but he has better teeth, and that is more to be depended on.”
“How provoking you are, Dagobert—always jesting!”
“It is true; you can laugh at everything.”
“Yes, I am astonishingly gay; I laugh with my teeth shut, in the style of old Jovial. Come, children, don’t scold me: I know I am wrong. The remembrance of your dear mother is mixed with this dream, and you do well to speak of it seriously. Besides,” added he, with a grave air, “dreams will sometimes come true. In Spain, two of the Empress’s dragoons, comrades of mine, dreamt, the night before their death, that they would be poisoned by the monks—and so it happened. If you continue to dream of this fair angel Gabriel, it is—it is—why, it is, because you are amused by it; and, as you have none too many pleasures in the daytime, you may as well get an agreeable sleep at night. But, now, my children, I have also much to tell you; it will concern your mother; promise me not to be sad.”
“Be satisfied! when we think of her we are not sad, though serious.”
“That is well. For fear of grieving you, I have always delayed the moment of telling what your poor mother would have confided to you as soon as you were no longer children. But she died before she had time to do so, and that which I have to tell broke her heart—as it nearly did mine. I put off this communication as long as I could, taking for pretext that I would say nothing till we came to the field of battle where your father was made prisoner. That gave me time; but the moment is now come; I can shuffle it off no longer.”
“We listen, Dagobert,” responded the two maidens, with an attentive and melancholy air.
After a moment’s silence, during which he appeared to reflect, the veteran thus addressed the young girls:
“Your father, General Simon, was the son of a workman, who remained a workman; for, notwithstanding all that the general could say or do, the old man was obstinate in not quitting his trade. He had a heart of gold and a head of iron, just like his son. You may suppose, my children, that when your father, who had enlisted as a private soldier, became a general and a count of the empire, it was not without toil or without glory.”
“A count of the Empire! what is that, Dagobert?”
“Flummery—a title, which the Emperor gave over and above the promotion, just for the sake of saying to the people, whom he loved because he was one of them: Here, children! You wish to play at nobility! You shall be nobles. You wish to play at royalty! You shall be kings. Take what you like—nothing is too good for you—enjoy yourselves!”
“Kings!” said the two girls, joining their hands in admiration.
Original
“Kings of the first water. Oh, he was no niggard of his crowns, our Emperor! I had a bed-fellow of mine, a brave soldier, who was afterwards promoted to be king. This flattered us; for, if it was not one, it was the other. And so, at this game, your father became count; but, count or not, he was one of the best and bravest generals of the army.”
“He was handsome, was he not, Dagobert?—mother always said so.”
“Oh, yes! indeed he was—but quite another thing from your fair guardian angel. Picture to yourself a fine, dark man, who looked splendid in his full uniform, and could put fire into the soldiers’ hearts. With him to lead, we would have charged up into Heaven itself—that is, if Heaven had, permitted it,” added Dagobert, not wishing to wound in any way the religious beliefs of the orphans.
“And father was as good as he was brave, Dagobert.”
“Good, my children? Yes, I should say so!—He could bend a horse-shoe in his hand as you would bend a card, and the day he was taken prisoner he had cut down the Prussian artillerymen on their very cannon. With strength and courage like that, how could he be otherwise than good? It is then about nineteen years ago, not far from this place—on the spot I showed you before we arrived at the village—that the general, dangerously wounded, fell from his horse. I was following him at the time, and ran to his assistance. Five minutes after we were made prisoners—and by whom think you?—by a Frenchman.”
“A Frenchman?”
“Yes, an emigrant marquis, a colonel in the service of Russia,” answered Dagobert, with bitterness. “And so, when this marquis advanced towards us, and said to the general: ‘Surrender, sir, to a countryman!’—‘A Frenchman, who fights against France,’ replied the general, ‘is no longer my countryman; he is a traitor, and I’d never surrender to a traitor!’ And, wounded though he was, he dragged himself up to a Russian grenadier, and delivered him his sabre, saying: ‘I surrender to you my brave fellow!’ The marquis became pale with rage at it.”
The orphans looked at each other with pride, and a rich crimson mantled their cheeks, as they exclaimed: “Oh, our brave father!”
“Ah, those children,” said Dagobert, as he proudly twirled his moustache. “One sees they have soldier’s blood in their veins! Well,” he continued, “we were now prisoners. The general’s last horse had been killed under him; and, to perform the journey, he mounted Jovial, who had not been wounded that day. We arrived at Warsaw, and there it was that the general first saw your mother. She was called the Pearl of Warsaw; that is saying everything. Now he, who admired all that is good and beautiful, fell in love with her almost immediately; and she loved him in return; but her parents had promised her to another—and that other was the same—”
Dagobert was unable to proceed. Rose uttered a piercing cry, and pointed in terror to the window.
CHAPTER VII. THE TRAVELER.
Upon the cry of the young girl, Dagobert rose abruptly.
“What is the matter, Rose?”
“There—there!” she said, pointing to the window. “I thought I saw a hand move the pelisse.”
She had not concluded these words before Dagobert rushed to the window and opened it, tearing down the mantle, which had been suspended from the fastening.
It was still dark night, and the wind was blowing hard. The soldier listened, but could hear nothing.
Returning to fetch the lamp from the table, he shaded the flame with his hand, and strove to throw the light outside. Still he saw nothing. Persuaded that a gust of wind had disturbed and shaken the pelisse: and that Rose had been deceived by her own fears he again shut the window.
“Be satisfied, children! The wind is very high; it is that which lifted the corner of the pelisse.”
“Yet methought I saw plainly the fingers which had hold of it,” said Rose, still trembling.
“I was looking at Dagobert,” said Blanche, “and I saw nothing.”
“There was nothing to see, my children; the thing is clear enough. The window is at least eight feet above the ground; none but a giant could reach it without a ladder. Now, had any one used a ladder, there would not have been time to remove it; for, as soon as Rose cried out, I ran to the window, and, when I held out the light, I could see nothing.”
“I must have been deceived,” said Rose.
“You may be sure, sister, it was only the wind,” added Blanche.
“Then I beg pardon for having disturbed you, my good Dagobert.”
“Never mind!” replied the soldier musingly, “I am only sorry that Spoil sport is not come back. He would have watched the window, and that would have quite tranquillized you. But he no doubt scented the stable of his comrade, Jovial, and will have called in to bid him good-night on the road. I have half a mind to go and fetch him.”
“Oh, no, Dagobert! do not leave us alone,” cried the maidens; “we are too much afraid.”
“Well, the dog is not likely to remain away much longer, and I am sure we shall soon hear him scratching at the door, so we will continue our story,” said Dagobert, as he again seated himself near the head of the bed, but this time with his face towards the window.
“Now the general was prisoner at Warsaw,” continued he, “and in love with your mother, whom they wished to marry to another. In 1814, we learned the finish of the war, the banishment of the Emperor to the Isle of Elba, and the return of the Bourbons. In concert with the Prussians and Russians, who had brought them back, they had exiled the Emperor. Learning all this, your mother said to the general: ‘The war is finished; you are free, but your Emperor is in trouble. You owe everything to him; go and join him in his misfortunes. I know not when we shall meet again, but I shall never marry any one but you, I am yours till death!’—Before he set out the general called me to him, and said: ‘Dagobert, remain here; Mademoiselle Eva may have need of you to fly from her family, if they should press too hard upon her; our correspondence will have to pass through your hands; at Paris, I shall see your wife and son; I will comfort them, and tell them you are my friend.’”
“Always the same,” said Rose, with emotion, as she looked affectionately at Dagobert.
“As faithful to the father and mother as to their children,” added Blanche.
“To love one was to love them all,” replied the soldier. “Well, the general joined the Emperor at Elba; I remained at Warsaw, concealed in the neighborhood of your mother’s house; I received the letters, and conveyed them to her clandestinely. In one of those letters—I feel proud to tell you of it my children—the general informed me that the Emperor himself had remembered me.”
“What, did he know you?”
“A little, I flatter myself—‘Oh! Dagobert!’ said he to your father, who was talking to him about me; ‘a horse-grenadier of my old guard—a soldier of Egypt and Italy, battered with wounds—an old dare-devil, whom I decorated with my own hand at Wagram—I have not forgotten him!’—I vow, children, when your mother read that to me, I cried like a fool.”
“The Emperor—what a fine golden face he has on the silver cross with the red ribbon that you would sometimes show us when we behaved well.”
“That cross—given by him—is my relic. It is there in my knapsack, with whatever we have of value—our little purse and papers. But, to return to your mother; it was a great consolation to her, when I took her letters from the general, or talked with her about him—for she suffered much—oh, so much! In vain her parents tormented and persecuted her; she always answered: ‘I will never marry any one but General Simon.’ A spirited woman, I can tell you—resigned, but wonderfully courageous. One day she received a letter from the general; he had left the Isle of Elba with the Emperor; the war had again broken out, a short campaign, but as fierce as ever, and heightened by soldiers’ devotion. In that campaign of France; my children, especially at Montmirail, your father fought like a lion, and his division followed his example it was no longer valor—it was frenzy. He told me that, in Champagne, the peasants killed so many of those Prussians, that their fields were manured with them for years. Men, women, children, all rushed upon them. Pitchforks, stones, mattocks, all served for the slaughter. It was a true wolf hunt!”
The veins swelled on the soldier’s forehead, and his cheeks flushed as he spoke, for this popular heroism recalled to his memory the sublime enthusiasm of the wars of the republic—those armed risings of a whole people, from which dated the first steps of his military career, as the triumphs of the Empire were the last days of his service.
The orphans, too, daughters of a soldier and a brave woman, did not shrink from the rough energy of these words, but felt their cheeks glow, and their hearts beat tumultuously.
“How happy we are to be the children of so brave a father!” cried Blanche.
“It is a happiness and an honor too, my children—for the evening of the battle of Montmirail, the Emperor, to the joy of the whole army, made your father Duke of Ligny and Marshal of France.”
“Marshal of France!” said Rose in astonishment, without understanding the exact meaning of the words.
“Duke of Ligny!” added Blanche with equal surprise.
“Yes; Peter Simon, the son of a workman, became duke and marshal—there is nothing higher except a king!” resumed Dagobert, proudly. “That’s how the Emperor treated the sons of the people, and, therefore, the people were devoted to him. It was all very fine to tell them ‘Your Emperor makes you food for cannon.’ ‘Stuff!’ replied the people, who are no fools, ‘another would make us food for misery. We prefer the cannon, with the chance of becoming captain or colonel, marshal, king—or invalid; that’s better than to perish with hunger, cold, and age, on straw in a garret, after toiling forty years for others.’”
“Even in France—even in Paris, that beautiful city—do you mean to say there are poor people who die of hunger and misery, Dagobert?”
“Even in Paris? Yes, my children; therefore, I come back to the point, the cannon is better. With it, one has the chance of becoming, like your father, duke and marshal: when I say duke and marshal, I am partly right and partly wrong, for the title and the rank were not recognized in the end; because, after Montmirail, came a day of gloom, a day of great mourning, when, as the general has told me, old soldiers like myself wept—yes, wept!—on the evening of a battle. That day, my children, was Waterloo!”
There was in these simple words of Dagobert an expression of such deep sorrow, that it thrilled the hearts of the orphans.
“Alas!” resumed the soldier, with a sigh, “there are days which seem to have a curse on them. That same day, at Waterloo, the general fell, covered with wounds, at the head of a division of the Guards. When he was nearly cured, which was not for a long time, he solicited permission to go to St. Helena—another island at the far end of the world, to which the English had carried the Emperor, to torture him at their leisure; for if he was very fortunate in the first instance, he had to go through a deal of hard rubs at last, my poor children.”
“If you talk in that way, you will make us cry, Dagobert.”
“There is cause enough for it—the Emperor suffered so much! He bled cruelly at the heart believe me. Unfortunately, the general was not with him at St. Helena; he would have been one more to console him; but they would not allow him to go. Then, exasperated, like so many others, against the Bourbons, the general engaged in a conspiracy to recall the son of the Emperor. He relied especially on one regiment, nearly all composed of his old soldiers, and he went down to a place in Picardy, where they were then in garrison; but the conspiracy had already been divulged. Arrested the moment of his arrival, the general was taken before the colonel of the regiment. And this colonel,” said the soldier, after a brief pause, “who do you think it was again? Bah! it would be too long to tell you all, and would only make you more sad; but it was a man whom your father had many reasons to hate. When he found himself face to face with him, he said: ‘if you are not a coward, you will give me one hour’s liberty, and we will fight to the death; I hate you for this, I despise you for that’—and so on. The colonel accepted the challenge, and gave your father his liberty till the morrow. The duel was a desperate one; the colonel was left for dead on the spot.”
“Merciful heaven!”
“The general was yet wiping his sword, when a faithful friend came to him, and told him he had only just time to save himself. In fact, he happily succeeded in leaving France—yes, happily—for a fortnight after, he was condemned to death as a conspirator.”
“What misfortunes, good heaven!”
“There was some luck, however, in the midst of his troubles. Your mother had kept her promise bravely, and was still waiting for him. She had written to him: ‘The Emperor first, and me next!’ both unable to do anything more for the Emperor, nor even for his son, the general, banished from France, set out for Warsaw. Your mother had lost her parents, and was now free; they were married—and I am one of the witnesses to the marriage.”
“You are right, Dagobert; that was great happiness in the midst of great misfortunes!”
“Yes, they were very happy; but, as it happened with all good hearts, the happier they were themselves, the more they felt for the sorrows of others—and there was quite enough to grieve them at Warsaw. The Russians had again begun to treat the Poles as their slaves; your brave mother, though of French origin, was a Pole in heart and soul; she spoke out boldly what others did not dare speak in a whisper, and all the unfortunate called her their protecting angel. That was enough to excite the suspicions of the Russian governor. One day, a friend of the general’s, formerly a colonel in the lancers, a brave and worthy man, was condemned to be exiled to Siberia for a military plot against the Russians. He took refuge in your father’s house, and lay hid there; but his retreat was discovered. During the next night, a party of Cossacks, commanded by an officer, and followed by a travelling-carriage, arrive at our door; they rouse the general from his sleep and take him away with them.”
“Oh, heaven! what did they mean to do with him?”
“Conduct him out of the Russian dominions, with a charge never to return, on pain of perpetual imprisonment. His last words were: ‘Dagobert, I entrust to thee my wife and child!’—for it wanted yet some months of the time when you were to be born. Well, notwithstanding that, they exiled your mother to Siberia; it was an opportunity to get rid of her; she did too much good at Warsaw, and they feared her accordingly. Not content with banishing her, they confiscated all her property; the only favor she could obtain was, that I should accompany her, and, had it not been for Jovial, whom the general had given to me, she would have had to make the journey on foot. It was thus, with her on horseback, and I leading her as I lead you, my children, that we arrived at the poverty-stricken village, where, three months after, you poor little things were born!”
“And our father?”
“It was impossible for him to return to Russia; impossible for your mother to think of flight, with two children; impossible for the general to write to her, as he knew not where she was.”
“So, since that time, you have had no news of him?”
“Yes, my children—once we had news.”
“And by whom?”
After a moment’s silence, Dagobert resumed with a singular expression of countenance: “By whom?—by one who is not like other men. Yes—that you may understand me better, I will relate to you an extraordinary adventure, which happened to your father during his last French campaign. He had been ordered by the Emperor to carry a battery, which was playing heavily on our army; after several unsuccessful efforts, the general put himself at the head of a regiment of cuirassiers, and charged the battery, intending, as was his custom, to cut down the men at their guns. He was on horseback, just before the mouth of a cannon, where all the artillerymen had been either killed or wounded, when one of them still found strength to raise himself upon one knee, and to apply the lighted match to the touchhole—and that when your father was about ten paces in front of the loaded piece.”
“Oh! what a peril for our father!”
“Never, he told me, had he run such imminent danger for he saw the artilleryman apply the match, and the gun go off—but, at the very nick, a man of tall stature, dressed as a peasant, and whom he had not before remarked, threw himself in front of the cannon.”
“Unfortunate creature! what a horrible death!”
“Yes,” said Dagobert, thoughtfully; “it should have been so. He ought by rights to have been blown into a thousand pieces. But no—nothing of the kind!”
“What do you tell us?”
“What the general told me. ‘At the moment when the gun went off,’ as he often repeated to me, ‘I shut my eyes by an involuntary movement, that I might not see the mutilated body of the poor wretch who had sacrificed himself in my place. When I again opened them, the first thing I saw in the midst of the smoke, was the tall figure of this man, standing erect and calm on the same spot, and casting a sad mild look on the artilleryman, who, with one knee on the ground, and his body thrown backward, gazed on him in as much terror as if he had been the devil. Afterwards, I lost sight of this man in the tumult,’ added your father.”
“Bless me Dagobert! how can this be possible?”
“That is just what I said to the general. He answered me that he had never been able to explain to himself this event, which seemed as incredible as it was true. Moreover, your father must have been greatly struck with the countenance of this man, who appeared, he said, about thirty years of age—for he remarked, that his extremely black eyebrows were joined together, and formed, as it were, one line from temple to temple, so that he seemed to have a black streak across his forehead. Remember this, my children; you will soon see why.”
Original
“Oh, Dagobert! we shall not forget it,” said the orphans, growing more and more astonished as he proceeded.
“Is it not strange—this man with a black seam on his forehead?”
“Well, you shall hear. The general had, as I told you, been left for dead at Waterloo. During the night which he passed on the field of battle, in a sort of delirium brought on by the fever of his wounds, he saw, or fancied he saw, this same man bending over him, with a look of great mildness and deep melancholy, stanching his wounds, and using every effort to revive him. But as your father, whose senses were still wandering, repulsed his kindness saying, that after such a defeat, it only remained to die—it appeared as if this man replied to him; ‘You must live for Eva!’ meaning your mother, whom the general had left at Warsaw, to join the Emperor, and make this campaign of France.”
“How strange, Dagobert!—And since then, did our father never see this man?”
“Yes, he saw him—for it was he who brought news of the general to your poor mother.”
“When was that? We never heard of it.”
“You remember that, on the day your mother died, you went to the pine forest with old Fedora?”
“Yes,” answered Rose, mournfully; “to fetch some heath, of which our mother was so fond.”
“Poor mother!” added Blanche; “she appeared so well that morning, that we could not dream of the calamity which awaited us before night.”
“True, my children; I sang and worked that morning in the garden, expecting, no more than you did, what was to happen. Well, as I was singing at my work, on a sudden I heard a voice ask me in French: ‘Is this the village of Milosk?’—I turned round, and saw before me a stranger; I looked at him attentively, and, instead of replying, fell back two steps, quite stupefied.”
“Ah, why?”
“He was of tall stature, very pale, with a high and open forehead; but his eyebrows met, and seemed to form one black streak across it.”
“Then it was the same man who had twice been with our father in battle?”
“Yes—it was he.”
“But, Dagobert,” said Rose, thoughtfully, “is it not a long time since these battles?”
“About sixteen years.”
“And of what age was this stranger?”
“Hardly more than thirty.”
“Then how can it be the same man, who sixteen years before, had been with our father in the wars?”
“You are right,” said Dagobert, after a moment’s silence, and shrugging his shoulders: “I may have been deceived by a chance likeness—and yet—”
“Or, if it were the same, he could not have got older all that while.”
“But did you ask him, if he had not formerly relieved our father?”
“At first I was so surprised that I did not think of it; and afterwards, he remained so short a time, that I had no opportunity. Well, he asked me for the village of Milosk. ‘You are there, sir,’ said I, ‘but how do you know that I am a Frenchman?’ ‘I heard you singing as I passed,’ replied he; ‘could you tell me the house of Madame Simon, the general’s wife?’ ‘She lives here, sir.’ Then looking at me for some seconds in silence, he took me by the hand and said: ‘You are the friend of General Simon—his best friend?’ Judge of my astonishment, as I answered: ‘But, sir, how do you know?’ ‘He has often spoken of you with gratitude.’ ‘You have seen the general then?’ ‘Yes, some time ago, in India. I am also his friend: I bring news of him to his wife, whom I knew to be exiled in Siberia. At Tobolsk, whence I come, I learned that she inhabits this village. Conduct me to her!’”
“The good traveller—I love him already,” said Rose.
“Yes, being father’s friend.”
“I begged him to wait an instant, whilst I went to inform your mother, so that the surprise might not do her harm; five minutes after, he was beside her.”
“And what kind of man was this traveller, Dagobert?”
“He was very tall; he wore a dark pelisse, and a fur cap, and had long black hair.”
“Was he handsome?”
“Yes, my children—very handsome; but with so mild and melancholy an air, that it pained my heart to see him.”
“Poor man! he had doubtless known some great sorrow.”
“Your mother had been closeted with him for some minutes, when she called me to her and said that she had just received good news of the general. She was in tears, and had before her a large packet of papers; it was a kind of journal, which your father had written every evening to console himself; not being able to speak to her, he told the paper all that he would have told her.”
“Oh! where are these papers, Dagobert?”
“There, in the knapsack, with my cross and our purse. One day I will give them to you: but I have picked out a few leaves here and there for you to read presently. You will see why.”
“Had our father been long in India?”
“I gathered from the few words which your mother said, that the general had gone to that country, after fighting for the Greeks against the Turks—for he always liked to side with the weak against the strong. In India he made fierce war against the English, they had murdered our prisoners in pontoons, and tortured the Emperor at St. Helena, and the war was a doubly good one, for in harming them he served a just cause.”
“What cause did he serve then?”
“That of one of the poor native princes, whose territories the English, lay waste, till the day when they can take possession of them against law and right. You see, my children, it was once more the weak against the strong, and your father did not miss this opportunity. In a few months he had so well-trained and disciplined the twelve or fifteen thousand men of the prince, that, in two encounters, they cut to pieces the English sent against them, and who, no doubt, had in their reckoning left out your brave father, my children. But come, you shall read some pages of his journal, which will tell you more and better than I can. Moreover, you will find in them a name which you ought always to remember; that’s why I chose this passage.”
“Oh, what happiness! To read the pages written by our father, is almost to hear him speak,” said Rose.
“It is as if he were close beside us,” added Blanche.
And the girls stretched out their hands with eagerness, to catch hold of the leaves that Dagobert had taken from his pocket. Then, by a simultaneous movement, full of touching grace, they pressed the writing of their father in silence to their lips.
“You will see also, my children, at the end of this letter, why I was surprised that your guardian angel, as you say, should be called Gabriel. Read, read,” added the soldier, observing the puzzled air of the orphans. “Only I ought to tell you that, when he wrote this, the general had not yet fallen in with the traveller who brought the papers.”
Rose, sitting up in her bed, took the leaves, and began to read in a soft and trembling voice, Blanche, with her head resting on her sister’s shoulder, followed attentively every word. One could even see, by the slight motion of her lips, that she too was reading, but only to herself.