by Eugène Sue
“Good! good! dear, brave child!” exclaimed David, in his turn, pressing Frederick to his breast. “Oh, I was certain I could cure you! An easy task with a generous nature like yours, so long cherished by the most admirable of mothers. Tender and excellent heart!” added he, no longer able to restrain his tears. “This morning, as you were about to drown, your last cry was, ‘My mother! my mother!’ You are born again to hope and life, and your first cry is still, ‘My mother! my mother!’”
“I owe you my life,” murmured Frederick, responding to the ardent embrace of his preceptor. “I owe you the life of my body as well as the life of my soul, M. David.”
“Frederick, my child,” said David, with inexpressible emotion, “call me your friend. That name I deserve now, do I not? It will replace the sweet and cherished name I can never hear again, — my brother!”
“Oh, my friend!” cried Frederick, with exaltation, “and you will see me worthy of the name of friend.”
A moment of silence succeeded this outburst of sentiment, as David and Frederick held each other in close embrace.
The preceptor was the first to speak.
“Now, my dear child, I must appeal to your candour on a last and important matter. It may be severe, even relentless to me, but not unjust. Tell me, if—”
David could not finish. Entirely absorbed in their conversation, the preceptor and his pupil had not noticed the route, until the cart suddenly stopped a short distance from the farm gate.
Marie Bastien, greatly distressed at the prolonged absence of her son, had been standing long under the rustic porch of her house, eagerly looking for his return.
At the sight of the covered cart, as it approached the farm, an inexplicable presentiment told the young woman that her son was there. Then, divided between fear and joy, she ran to meet the cart, and exclaimed:
“Frederick, is it you?”
David was interrupted in his remarks, and the cart stopped.
With one bound, the son of Madame Bastien leaped from the cart, threw himself on his mother’s neck, covered it with kisses and tears, as he cried, with a voice broken by sobs:
“Mother, saved! No more trouble! saved, mother, saved!”
CHAPTER XXVII.
AT THESE WORDS of Frederick, “Saved, mother, saved,” Marie Bastien looked at her son with mingled feelings of joy and surprise; already he seemed another person, almost transfigured, his head lifted, his smile radiant, his look inspired; his beautiful eyes were illuminated by an inward joy; the young mother was amazed. Scarcely had her son cried, “Saved,” when Marie divined by David’s attitude, his countenance, and the serenity of his face, that he had brought Frederick back to her, truly regenerated.
What means, what miracle could have produced so rapid and so unexpected a result? Marie did not question herself. David had given Frederick back to her as he used to be, so she said. Then, in an almost religious outburst of gratitude, she threw herself at David’s feet; when he extended his hands to raise her, Marie seized them, pressed them passionately in her own, and cried in a voice trembling with all the emotions of maternal love:
“My life, my whole life, M. David, you have given me back my son!”
“Oh, my mother! Oh, my friend!” cried Frederick.
And, with an irresistible embrace, he pressed both Marie and David to his heart; David, sharing the impulsive joy of the young man, united with him in the same long caress.
Madame Bastien was not informed of the danger which her son had incurred that morning. Frederick and David removed their damp clothing, and then rejoined Madame Bastien, who, plunged in a sort of ecstasy, was wondering how David had wrought the miracle of Frederick’s cure.
At the sight of each other, the mother and son renewed their demonstrations of affection, and in this ineffable embrace, the young woman sought the glance of David, almost involuntarily, as if to associate him with her maternal caresses, and to render him thanks for the happiness she enjoyed.
Frederick, looking around him, appeared to contemplate every object in the little library with affection.
“Mother,” said he, after a moment of silence, with a smile full of charm, “you will think I am silly, but it seems to me I cannot tell the time since I entered this room, so long it seems, since the evening we went to the castle of Pont Brillant. Our books, our drawings, our piano, even my old armchair in which I used to work, seem like so many friends that I have met again after a long absence.”
“I understand you, Frederick,” said Madame Bastien, smiling. “We are like the sleepers in the story of the ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ Our sleep, not so long as hers, has lasted five months. Bad dreams have disturbed it, but we awake as happy as we were before we went to sleep, do we not?”
“Happier, mother!” added Frederick, taking David’s hand. “At our awakening, we found one friend more.”
“You are right, my child,” said the young mother, giving David a look beaming with rapture.
Then, seeing Frederick open the glass door which led to the grove, she added:
“What are you going to do? The rain has stopped, but the weather is still overcast and misty.”
“The weather overcast and misty?” cried Frederick, going out of the house and looking at the century-old grove, with delight. “Oh, mother, can you say the weather is gloomy? Well, I must seem foolish to you, but our dear old grove looks to me as bright and smiling as it does under the sun of springtime.”
The young man did appear to be born again; his features expressed such true, radiant happiness, that his mother could only look at him in silence. She saw him again as handsome, as sprightly, as joyous as formerly, although he was pale and thin, and yet every moment his cheeks would flush with some sweet emotion.
David, for whom every word of Frederick had a significance, enjoyed this scene intensely.
Suddenly the young man stopped a moment as if in a dream, before a group of wild thorns which grew on the edge of the grove; after some moments of reflection, he sought his mother’s eyes, and said to her, no longer cheerful, but with a sweet melancholy:
“Mother, in a few words, I am going to tell you of my cure. So,” added he turning to David, “you will see that I have profited from your teaching, my friend.”
For the first time, Marie noticed that her son called David his friend. The satisfaction she felt at this tender familiarity was easily read on her countenance, as Frederick continued:
“Mother, it was M. David who asked me to call him, hereafter, my friend. He was right; it would have been difficult for me to have said ‘M. David’ any longer; now, mother, listen to me well, — do you see that clump of blackthorn?”
“Yes, my child.”
“Nothing seems more useless than this thorn with its darts as sharp as steel, — does it, mother?”
“You are right, my child.”
“But let our good old André, our gardener and chief of husbandry, insert under the bark of this wild bush a little branch of a fine pear-tree, and you will see this thorn soon transformed into a tree laden with flowers, and afterward with delicious fruit. And yet, mother, it is always the same root, sucking the same sap from the same soil. Only this sap, this power, is utilised. Do you comprehend?”
“Admirably, my child. It is important that forces or powers should be well employed, instead of remaining barren or injurious.”
“Yes, madame,” answered David, exchanging a smile of intelligence with Frederick, “and to follow this dear child’s comparison, I will add that it is the same with those passions considered the most dangerous and most powerful, because they are the most deeply implanted in the heart of man. God has put them there; do not tear them out; only graft this thorny wild stock, as Frederick has said, and make it flower and fructify by means of the sap which the Creator has put in them.”
“That reminds me, M. David,” said the young woman, impressed with this reasoning, “that in speaking of hatred, you have told me that there were hatreds which were even noble, g
enerous, and heroic.”
“Well, mother,” said Frederick, resolutely, “envy, like hatred, can become fruitful, heroic, — sublime.”
“Envy!” exclaimed Marie Bastien.
“Yes, envy, because the malady which was killing me was envy!”
“You, envious, you?”
“Since our visit to the castle of Pont Brillant, the sight of those wonders—”
“Ah!” interrupted Marie Bastien, suddenly enlightened by this revelation, and shuddering, so to speak, with retrospective fear. “Ah, now I understand all, unhappy child!”
“Happy child, mother, because this envy, for want of culture, has been a long time as black and cruel as the thorn of which we were speaking. Just now, our friend,” added Frederick, turning to David, with an ineffable smile of tenderness and gratitude, “yes, our friend has grafted this envy with brave emulation, generous ambition, and you shall see the fruits of it, mother; you shall see that by dint of courage and labour, I will make your and my name illustrious, — this humble name whose obscurity is galling to me. Oh, glory! renown! my mother, what a brilliant future! To enable you to say with joy, with pride, ‘This is my son!’”
“My child, oh, my beloved child!” exclaimed Marie, in a transport of joy. “I now comprehend the cure, as I have comprehended the disease.”
Then turning to the preceptor she could only say:
“M. David! Oh, M. David!”
And tears, sobs of joy, forbade her utterance.
“Yes, thank him, mother,” continued Frederick, carried away by emotion. “Love him, cherish him, bless him, for you do not know what goodness, what delicacy, what lofty and manly reason, what genius he has shown in accomplishing the cure of your son. His words are engraven upon my heart ineffaceably; they have recalled me to life, to hope, and to all the elevated sentiments I owe to you. Oh! thanks should be given to you, mother, for it is your hand still which chose my saviour, this good genius who has returned me to you, worthy of you.”
There are joys impossible to describe. Such was the end of this long day for David, Marie, and her son.
Frederick was too full of gratitude and admiration toward his friend not to wish to share his sentiments with his mother; the words of his preceptor were so present to his thought that he repeated to her, word for word, all their long conversation.
Very often Frederick was on the point of confessing to his mother that he owed to David, not only the life of his soul, but the life of his body. He was prevented only by the promise made to his friend, and the fear of undue excitement in the mind of his mother.
As to Marie, taking in at one glance the conduct of David, from the first hour of his devotion to the hour of unhoped for triumph; recalling his gentleness, his simplicity, his delicacy, his generous perseverance, crowned with such dazzling success, — a success obtained only by the ascendency of a great heart, and an elevated mind, — what she felt for David would be difficult to express; it was mingled affection, tenderness, admiration, respect, and especially a passionate gratitude, for she owed to David, not only the cure of Frederick, but that future to which she looked forward, as illustrious and glorious, nothing doubting, now, that Frederick, excited by the ardour of his own ambition, directed by the wisdom and skill of David, would one day achieve a brilliant destiny.
From this moment, David and Frederick became inseparable in Marie’s heart, and without taking precise account of her feelings, the young woman felt that her life and that of her son were identified with the life of David.
We leave to the imagination the delightful evening that passed in the library with the mother, the son, and the preceptor. Only as certain joys as much as grief oppress the heart, and demand, so to speak, digestion in reflection, Marie and her son and David, separated earlier than usual, saying “to-morrow” with the sweet anticipation of a joyous day.
David went to his little chamber. He had need of being alone.
The words that Frederick had uttered in the transport of his gratitude, as he spoke to his mother of the preceptor,— “Love him, cherish him, bless him,” — words to which Marie Bastien had responded by a glance of inexpressible gratitude, became the joy and the sorrow of David.
He had felt the inmost fibres of his heart thrill many times, in meeting the large blue eyes of Marie, as they welled over with maternal solicitude; he had trembled in seeing her lavish caresses upon her son, and he could but dream of the wealth of ardent affection which this pure and at the same time passionate nature possessed.
“What love like hers,” said he to himself, “if there is a place in her heart for any other sentiment besides that of maternity! How beautiful she was to-day, what bewitching expressions animated her face! Oh! I feel it, now is my hour of peril, of struggle, and of suffering! Yes, the tears of Marie are consecrated! I felt it was a sacrilege to lift my eyes to this young weeping mother, so beautiful in her tears. Yet she is now radiant with the joy she owes to me, and in her ingenuous gratitude, her tender eyes sought me whenever she looked upon Frederick. And think of what her son said to her,— ‘Love him, cherish him, bless him,’ — and the expressive silence, the pathetic glance of this adorable woman, perhaps, may make me believe some day—”
David, not daring to pursue this thought, resumed with sadness:
“Oh, yes, the hour of suffering, the hour of resignation has come. Confess my love, or let Marie suspect it, when she owes so much to me? Lead her to believe that my devotion to her concealed another design? Lead her to believe that, instead of yielding spontaneously to the interest this poor child inspired, — thanks to the memory of my lamented brother, — I made a cloak, a pretext of this interest to surprise the maternal confidence of a young woman? In fact, to lose, in her eyes, the only merit of my devotion, my sudden loyalty, — indiscreet, yes, very indiscreet, I see it all now, — alas, shall I degrade myself in the eyes of Marie? never! never!
“Between her and me will be always her son.
“To fly from this love, shall I leave the house where this love is always growing?
“No, I cannot do so yet.
“Frederick to-day, in the intoxication of this revelation which has changed his gloomy despair into a will full of faith and enthusiasm, — Frederick, suddenly lifted from the abyss where he had fallen, experiences the delight of the prisoner all at once restored to liberty and light, yet does not this cure need to be established? Will it not be necessary to moderate the impetuosity of this young and ardent imagination in its enthusiastic conceptions of the future?
“And then, it may be, the first exultation passed, — to-morrow perhaps, — Frederick, on the other hand, more self-reliant, and better comprehending the generous efforts necessary to reach the fountainhead of envy, will remember with more bitterness than ever the dreadful deed that he wished to commit, — his desire to murder Raoul de Pont Brillant. A fruitful and generous expiation, then, is the only thing which can appease this remorse which has tempted Frederick to commit suicide.
“No, no, I cannot abandon this child yet; I love him too sincerely, I have the completion of my work too much at heart.
“I must remain.
“Remain, and each day live this intimate, solitary life with Marie, — she who came so innocently to this chamber in the middle of the night in a dishevelled state, the recollection of which thrills me, even in the sleep where I vainly seek for rest.”
To this dangerous sleep David yielded, nevertheless, as the emotions and fatigues of the day had been very exhausting.
The day was just breaking.
David started out of sleep, as he heard several violent knocks at his door, and recognised the voice of Frederick, who said:
“My friend, open, open your door, please!”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
DAVID HASTENED TO put on his clothes and opened the door. He saw Frederick, his face pale and distorted with fright.
“My child, what is the matter?”
“Ah, my friend, what a misfortune!”
“A misfortune?”
“The Loire—”
“Well?”
“The inundation we were speaking of yesterday at the brickmaker’s—”
“An overflow, — that is frightful! What a disaster, my God, what a disaster!”
“Come, come, my friend, you can no longer see the valley at the edge of the forest; it is all a lake of water!”
David and Frederick descended precipitately, and found Madame Bastien in the library. She also had risen in haste. Marguerite and the gardener were groaning in terror.
“The water is gaining on us.”
“The house will be swept away,” they cried.
“And the poor farmers in the valley,” said Madame Bastien, her eyes filled with tears. “Their houses, so isolated, are perhaps already submerged, and the miserable people in them, surprised in the night by the overflow, cannot get away.”
“Then, madame,” said David, “we must at once go to the rescue of the valley people. Here there is no danger.”
“But the water is already within a mile and a half, M. David,” cried old Marguerite.
“And it continues to rise,” added André.
“Be calm, madame,” answered David. “I have, since my stay here, gone through the country enough to be certain that the overflow will never reach this house, — the level of the land is too high. You can set your mind at rest.”
“But the farmhouses in the valley,” cried Frederick.
“The overflow has had time to reach the house of Jean François, the farmer, a good, excellent man,” cried Marie. “His wife, his children are lost.”
“Where is this farmhouse, madame?” asked David.
“More than a mile from here in the flats. You can see it from the edge of the forest which overlooks the fields. Alas! you can see it if the overflow has not swept it away.”
“Come, madame, come,” said David, “we must run to find out where it is.”