“He suffers!” she said, springing up the stairs. A second moan brought her to the landing near his room. The door was ajar, she pushed it open. Charles was sleeping; his head hung over the side of the old armchair, and his hand, from which the pen had fallen, nearly touched the floor. The oppressed breathing caused by the strained posture3 suddenly frightened Eugenie, who entered the room hastily.
“He must be very tired,” she said to herself, glancing at a dozen letters lying sealed upon the table. She read their addresses: “To Messrs. Farry, Breilmann, & Co., carriage-makers”; “To Monsieur Buisson, tailor,” etc.
“He has been settling all his affairs, so as to leave France at once,” she thought. Her eyes fell upon two open letters. The words, “My dear Annette,” at the head of one of them, blinded her for a moment. Her heart beat fast, her feet were nailed to the floor.
“His dear Annette! He loves! he is loved! No hope! What does he say to her?”
These thoughts rushed through her head and heart. She saw the words everywhere, even on the bricks of the floor, in letters of fire.
“Resign him already? No, no! I will not read the letter. I ought to go away—What if I do read it?”
She looked at Charles, then she gently took his head and placed it against the back of the chair; he let her do so, like a child which, though asleep, knows its mother’s touch and receives, without awaking, her kisses and watchful4 care. Like a mother Eugenie raised the drooping5 hand, and like a mother she gently kissed the chestnut6 hair—“Dear Annette!” a demon7 shrieked8 the words in her ear.
“I am doing wrong; but I must read it, that letter,” she said. She turned away her head, for her noble sense of honor reproached her. For the first time in her life good and evil struggled together in her heart. Up to that moment she had never had to blush for any action. Passion and curiosity triumphed. As she read each sentence her heart swelled9 more and more, and the keen glow which filled her being as she did so, only made the joys of first love still more precious.
My dear Annette,—Nothing could ever have separated us but the
great misfortune which has now overwhelmed me, and which no human
foresight10 could have prevented. My father has killed himself; his
fortune and mine are irretrievably lost. I am orphaned11 at an age
when, through the nature of my education, I am still a child; and
yet I must lift myself as a man out of the abyss into which I am
plunged12. I have just spent half the night in facing my position.
If I wish to leave France an honest man,—and there is no doubt of
that,—I have not a hundred francs of my own with which to try my
fate in the Indies or in America. Yes, my poor Anna, I must seek
my fortune in those deadly climates. Under those skies, they tell
me, I am sure to make it. As for remaining in Paris, I cannot do
so. Neither my nature nor my face are made to bear the affronts13,
the neglect, the disdain14 shown to a ruined man, the son of a
bankrupt! Good God! think of owing two millions! I should be
killed in a duel15 the first week; therefore I shall not return
there. Your love—the most tender and devoted16 love which ever
ennobled the heart of man—cannot draw me back. Alas17! my beloved,
I have no money with which to go to you, to give and receive a
last kiss from which I might derive18 some strength for my forlorn
enterprise.
“Poor Charles! I did well to read the letter. I have gold; I will give it to him,” thought Eugenie.
She wiped her eyes, and went on reading.
I have never thought of the miseries19 of poverty. If I have the
hundred louis required for the mere20 costs of the journey, I have
not a sou for an outfit21. But no, I have not the hundred louis, not
even one louis. I don’t know that anything will be left after I
have paid my debts in Paris. If I have nothing, I shall go quietly
to Nantes and ship as a common sailor; and I will begin in the new
world like other men who have started young without a sou and
brought back the wealth of the Indies. During this long day I have
faced my future coolly. It seems more horrible for me than for
another, because I have been so petted by a mother who adored me,
so indulged by the kindest of fathers, so blessed by meeting, on
my entrance into life, with the love of an Anna! The flowers of
life are all I have ever known. Such happiness could not last.
Nevertheless, my dear Annette, I feel more courage than a careless
young man is supposed to feel,—above all a young man used to the
caressing22 ways of the dearest woman in all Paris, cradled in
family joys, on whom all things smiled in his home, whose wishes
were a law to his father—oh, my father! Annette, he is dead!
Well, I have thought over my position, and yours as well. I have
grown old in twenty-four hours. Dear Anna, if in order to keep me
with you in Paris you were to sacrifice your luxury, your dress,
your opera-box, we should even then not have enough for the
expenses of my extravagant23 ways of living. Besides, I would never
accept such sacrifices. No, we must part now and forever—
“He gives her up! Blessed Virgin24! What happiness!”
Eugenie quivered with joy. Charles made a movement, and a chill of terror ran through her. Fortunately, he did not wake, and she resumed her reading.
When shall I return? I do not know. The climate of the West Indies
ages a European, so they say; especially a European who works
hard. Let us think what may happen ten years hence. In ten years
your daughter will be eighteen; she will be your companion, your
spy. To you society will be cruel, and your daughter perhaps more
cruel still. We have seen cases of the harsh social judgment25 and
ingratitude26 of daughters; let us take warning by them. Keep in the
depths of your soul, as I shall in mine, the memory of four years
of happiness, and be faithful, if you can, to the memory of your
poor friend. I cannot exact such faithfulness, because, do you
see, dear Annette, I must conform to the exigencies27 of my new
life; I must take a commonplace view of them and do the best I
can. Therefore I must think of marriage, which becomes one of the
necessities of my future existence; and I will admit to you that I
have found, here in Saumur, in my uncle’s house, a cousin whose
face, manners, mind, and heart would please you, and who, besides,
seems to me—
“He must have been very weary to have ceased writing to her,” thought Eugenie, as she gazed at the letter which stopped abruptly28 in the middle of the last sentence.
Already she defended him. How was it possible that an innocent girl should perceive the cold-heartedness evinced by this letter? To young girls religiously brought up, whose minds are ignorant and pure, all is love from the moment they set their feet within the enchanted29 regions of that passion. They walk there bathed in a celestial30 light shed from their own souls, which reflects its rays upon their lover; they color all with the flame of their own emotion and attribute to him their highest thoughts. A woman’s errors come almost always from her belief in good or her confidence in truth. In Eugenie’s simple heart the words, “My dear Annette, my loved one,” echoed like the sweetest language of love; they caressed31 her soul as, in childhood, the divine notes of the Venite adoremus, repeated by the organ, caressed her ear. Moreover, the tears which still lingered on the young man’s lashes32 gave signs of that nobility of heart by which young girls are rightly won. How could she know that Charles, though he loved his father and mourned him truly, was moved far more by paternal33 goodness than by the goodness of his own heart? Monsieur and Madame Guillaume Grandet, by gratifying every fancy of their son, and lavishing34 upon him the pleasures of a large fortune, had kept him from making the horrible calculations of which so many sons in Paris become more or less guilty when, face to face with the enjoyments35 of the world, they form desires and conceive schemes which they see with bitterness must be put off or laid aside during the lifetime of their parents. The liberality of the father in this instance had shed into the heart of the son a real love, in which there was no afterthought of self-interest.
Nevertheless, Charles was a true child of Paris, taught by the customs of society and by Annette herself to calculate everything; already an old man under the mask of youth. He had gone through the frightful36 education of social life, of that world where in one evening more crimes are committed in thought and speech than justice ever punishes at the assizes; where jests and clever sayings assassinate37 the noblest ideas; where no one is counted strong unless his mind sees clear: and to see clear in that world is to believe in nothing, neither in feelings, nor in men, nor even in events,—for events are falsified. There, to “see clear” we must weigh a friend’s purse daily, learn how to keep ourselves adroitly38 on the top of the wave, cautiously admire nothing, neither works of art nor glorious actions, and remember that self-interest is the mainspring of all things here below. After committing many follies39, the great lady—the beautiful Annette—compelled Charles to think seriously; with her perfumed hand among his curls, she talked to him of his future position; as she rearranged his locks, she taught him lessons of worldly prudence40; she made him effeminate and materialized him,—a double corruption41, but a delicate and elegant corruption, in the best taste.
“You are very foolish, Charles,” she would say to him. “I shall have a great deal of trouble in teaching you to understand the world. You behaved extremely ill to Monsieur des Lupeaulx. I know very well he is not an honorable man; but wait till he is no longer in power, then you may despise him as much as you like. Do you know what Madame Campan used to tell us?—‘My dears, as long as a man is a minister, adore him; when he falls, help to drag him in the gutter42. Powerful, he is a sort of god; fallen, he is lower than Marat in the sewer43, because he is living, and Marat is dead. Life is a series of combinations, and you must study them and understand them if you want to keep yourselves always in good position.’”
Charles was too much a man of the world, his parents had made him too happy, he had received too much adulation in society, to be possessed44 of noble sentiments. The grain of gold dropped by his mother into his heart was beaten thin in the smithy of Parisian society; he had spread it superficially, and it was worn away by the friction45 of life. Charles was only twenty-one years old. At that age the freshness of youth seems inseparable from candor46 and sincerity47 of soul. The voice, the glance, the face itself, seem in harmony with the feelings; and thus it happens that the sternest judge, the most sceptical lawyer, the least complying of usurers, always hesitate to admit decrepitude48 of heart or the corruption of worldly calculation while the eyes are still bathed in purity and no wrinkles seam the brow. Charles, so far, had had no occasion to apply the maxims49 of Parisian morality; up to this time he was still endowed with the beauty of inexperience. And yet, unknown to himself, he had been inoculated50 with selfishness. The germs of Parisian political economy, latent in his heart, would assuredly burst forth51, sooner or later, whenever the careless spectator became an actor in the drama of real life.
Nearly all young girls succumb52 to the tender promises such an outward appearance seems to offer: even if Eugenie had been as prudent53 and observing as provincial54 girls are often found to be, she was not likely to distrust her cousin when his manners, words, and actions were still in unison55 with the aspirations56 of a youthful heart. A mere chance—a fatal chance—threw in her way the last effusions of real feeling which stirred the young man’s soul; she heard as it were the last breathings of his conscience. She laid down the letter—to her so full of love—and began smilingly to watch her sleeping cousin; the fresh illusions of life were still, for her at least, upon his face; she vowed57 to herself to love him always. Then she cast her eyes on the other letter, without attaching much importance to this second indiscretion; and though she read it, it was only to obtain new proofs of the noble qualities which, like all women, she attributed to the man her heart had chosen.
My dear Alphonse,—When you receive this letter I shall be without
friends; but let me assure you that while I doubt the friendship
of the world, I have never doubted yours. I beg you therefore to
settle all my affairs, and I trust to you to get as much as you
can out of my possessions. By this time you know my situation. I
have nothing left, and I intend to go at once to the Indies. I
have just written to all the people to whom I think I owe money,
and you will find enclosed a list of their names, as correct as I
can make it from memory. My books, my furniture, my pictures, my
horses, etc., ought, I think, to pay my debts. I do not wish to
keep anything, except, perhaps, a few baubles58 which might serve as
the beginning of an outfit for my enterprise. My dear Alphonse, I
will send you a proper power of attorney under which you can make
these sales. Send me all my weapons. Keep Briton for yourself;
nobody would pay the value of that noble beast, and I would rather
give him to you—like a mourning-ring bequeathed by a dying man to
his executor. Farry, Breilmann, & Co. built me a very comfortable
travelling-carriage, which they have not yet delivered; persuade
them to keep it and not ask for any payment on it. If they refuse,
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