“Always the same nature,” exclaimed Monsieur Bonnet. Then he bent down to the prisoner’s ear and whispered, “If you will reconcile yourself this night with God so that your repentance will enable me to absolve you, it will be to-morrow. We have already gained much in calming you,” he said, aloud.
Hearing these last words, Jean’s lips turned pale, his eyes rolled up in a violent spasm, and an angry shudder passed through his frame.
“Am I calm?” he asked himself. Happily his eyes encountered the tearful face of Denise, and he recovered his self-control. “So be it,” he said to the rector; “there is no one but you to whom I would listen; they have known how to conquer me.”
And he flung himself on his mother’s breast.
“My son,” said the mother, weeping, “listen to Monsieur Bonnet; he risks his life, the dear rector, in going to you to–” she hesitated, and then said, “to the gate of eternal life.”
Then she kissed Jean’s head and held it to her breast for some moments.
“Will he, indeed, go with me?” asked Jean, looking at the rector, who bowed his head in assent. “Well, yes, I will listen to him; I will do all he asks of me.”
“You promise it?” said Denise. “The saving of your soul is what we seek. Besides, you would not have all Limoges and the village say that a Tascheron knows not how to die a noble death? And then, too, think that all you lose here you will regain in heaven, where pardoned souls will meet again.”
This superhuman effort parched the throat of the heroic girl. She was silent after this, like her mother, but she had triumphed. The criminal, furious at seeing his happiness torn from him by the law, now quivered at the sublime Catholic truth so simply expressed by his sister. All women, even young peasant-women like Denise, know how to touch these delicate chords; for does not every woman seek to make love eternal? Denise had touched two chords, each most sensitive. Awakened pride called on the other virtues chilled by misery and hardened by despair. Jean took his sister’s hand and kissed it, and laid it on his heart in a deeply significant manner; he applied it both gently and forcibly.
“Yes,” he said, “I must renounce all; this is the last beating of my heart, its last thought. Keep them, Denise.”
And he gave her one of those glances by which a man in crucial moments tries to put his soul into the soul of another human being.
This thought, this word, was, in truth, a last testament, an unspoken legacy, to be as faithfully transmitted as it was trustfully given. It was so fully understood by mother, sister, and priest, that they all with one accord turned their faces from each other, to hide their tears and keep the secret of their thoughts in their own breasts. Those few words were the dying agony of a passion, the farewell of a soul to the glorious things of earth, in accordance with true Catholic renunciation. The rector, comprehending the majesty of all great human things, even criminal things, judged of this mysterious passion by the enormity of the sin. He raised his eyes to heaven as if to invoke the mercy of God. Thence come the consolations, the infinite tendernesses of the Catholic religion,–so humane, so gentle with the hand that descends to man, showing him the law of higher spheres; so awful, so divine, with that other hand held out to lead him into heaven.
Denise had now significantly shown the rector the spot by which to strike that rock and make the waters of repentance flow. But suddenly, as though the memories evoked were dragging him backwards, Jean- Francois gave the harrowing cry of the hyena when the hunters overtake it.
“No, no!” he cried, falling on his knees, “I will live! Mother, give me your clothes; I can escape! Mercy, mercy! Go see the king; tell him–“
He stopped, gave a horrible roar, and clung convulsively to the rector’s cassock.
“Go,” said Monsieur Bonnet, in a low voice, to the agitated women.
Jean heard the words; he raised his head, gazed at his mother and sister, then he stopped and kissed their feet.
“Let us say farewell now; do not come back; leave me alone with Monsieur Bonnet. You need not be uneasy about me any longer,” he said, pressing his mother and his sister to him with a strength in which he seemed to put all his life.
“How is it we do not die of this?” said Denise to her mother as they passed through the wicket.
It was nearly eight o’clock when this parting took place. At the gate of the prison the two women met the Abbe de Rastignac, who asked them news of the prisoner.
“He will no doubt be reconciled with God,” said Denise. “If repentance has not yet begun, he is very near it.”
The bishop was soon after informed that the clergy would triumph on this occasion, and that the criminal would go to the scaffold with the most edifying religious sentiments. The prelate, with whom was the attorney-general, expressed a wish to see the rector. Monsieur Bonnet did not reach the palace before midnight. The Abbe Gabriel, who made many trips between the palace and the jail, judged it necessary to fetch the rector in the episcopal coach; for the poor priest was in a state of exhaustion which almost deprived him of the use of his legs. The effect of his day, the prospect of the morrow, the sight of the secret struggle he had witnessed, and the full repentance which had at last overtaken his stubborn lamb when the great reckoning of eternity was brought home to him,–all these things had combined to break down Monsieur Bonnet, whose nervous, electrical nature entered into the sufferings of others as though they were his own. Souls that resemble that noble soul espouse so ardently the impressions, miseries, passions, sufferings of those in whom they are interested, that they actually feel them, and in a horrible manner, too; for they are able to measure their extent,–a knowledge which escapes others who are blinded by selfishness of heart or the paroxysm of grief. It is here that a priest like Monsieur Bonnet becomes an artist who feels, rather than an artist who judges.
When the rector entered the bishop’s salon and found there the two grand-vicars, the Abbe de Rastignac, Monsieur de Grandville, and the /procureur-general/, he felt convinced that something more was expected of him.
“Monsieur,” said the bishop, “have you obtained any facts which you can, without violating your duty, confide to the officers of the law for their guidance?”
“Monseigneur, in order to give absolution to that poor, wandering child, I waited not only till his repentance was as sincere and as complete as the Church could wish, but I have also exacted from him the restitution of the money.”
“This restitution,” said the /procureur-general/, “brings me here to-night; it will, of course, be made in such a way as to throw light on the mysterious parts of this affair. The criminal certainly had accomplices.”
“The interests of human justice,” said the rector, “are not those for which I act. I am ignorant of how the restitution will be made, but I know it will take place. In sending for me to minister to my parishioner, Monseigneur placed me under the conditions which give to rectors in their parishes the same powers which Monseigneur exercises in his diocese,–barring, of course, all questions of discipline and ecclesiastical obedience.”
“That is true,” said the bishop. “But the question here is how to obtain from the condemned man voluntary information which may enlighten justice.”
“My mission is to win souls to God,” said Monsieur Bonnet.
Monsieur de Grancour shrugged his shoulders slightly, but his colleague, the Abbe Dutheil nodded his head in sign of approval.
“Tascheron is no doubt endeavoring to shield some one, whom the restitution will no doubt bring to light,” said the /procureur- general/.
“Monsieur,” replied the rector, “I know absolutely nothing which would either confute or justify your suspicion. Besides, the secrets of confession are inviolable.”
“Will the restitution really take place?” asked the man of law.
“Yes, monsieur,” replied the man of God.
“That is enough for me,” said the /procureur-general/, who relied on the police to obtain the required information; as if passions and personal interests were not tenfold more astute than the police.
The next day, this being market-day, Jean-Francois Tascheron was led to execution in a manner to satisfy both the pious and the political spirits of the town. Exemplary in behavior, pious and humble, he kissed the crucifix, which Monsieur Bonnet held to his lips with a trembling hand. The unhappy man was watched and examined; his glance was particularly spied upon; would his eyes rove in search of some one in the crowd or in a house? His discretion did, as a matter of fact, hold firm to the last. He died as a Christian should, repentant and absolved.
The poor rector was carried away unconscious from the foot of the scaffold, though he did not even see the fatal knife.
During the following night, on the high-road fifteen miles from Limoges, Denise, though nearly exhausted by fatigue and grief, begged her father to let her go again to Limoges and take with her Louis- Marie Tascheron, one of her brothers.
“What more have you to do in that town?” asked her father, frowning.
“Father,” she said, “not only must we pay the lawyer who defended him, but we must also restore the money which he has hidden.”
“You are right,” said the honest man, pulling out a leathern pouch he carried with him.
“No, no,” said Denise, “he is no longer your son. It is not for those who cursed him, but for those who loved him, to reward the lawyer.”
“We will wait for you at Havre,” said the father.
Denise and her brother returned to Limoges before daylight. When the police heard, later, of this return they were never able to discover where the brother and sister had hidden themselves.
Denise and Louis went to the upper town cautiously, about four o’clock that afternoon, gliding along in the shadow of the houses. The poor girl dared not raise her eyes, fearing to meet the glances of those who had seen her brother’s execution. After calling on Monsieur Bonnet, who in spite of his weakness, consented to serve as father and guardian to Denise in the matter, they all went to the lawyer’s house in the rue de la Comedie.
“Good-morning, my poor children,” said the lawyer, bowing to Monsieur Bonnet; “how can I be of service to you? Perhaps you would like me to claim your brother’s body and send it to you?”
“No, monsieur,” replied Denise, weeping at an idea which had never yet occurred to her. “I come to pay his debt to you–so far, at least, as money can pay an eternal debt.”
“Pray sit down,” said the lawyer; noticing that Denise and the rector were still standing.
Denise turned away to take from her corset two notes of five hundred francs each, which were fastened by a pin to her chemise; then she sat down and offered them to her brother’s defender. The rector gave the lawyer a flashing look which was instantly moistened by a tear.
“Keep the money for yourself, my poor girl,” said the lawyer. “The rich do not pay so generously for a lost cause.”
“Monsieur,” said Denise, “I cannot obey you.”
“Then the money is not yours?” said the lawyer.
“You are mistaken,” she replied, looking at Monsieur Bonnet as if to know whether God would be angry at the lie.
The rector kept his eyes lowered.
“Well, then,” said the lawyer, taking one note of five hundred francs and offering the other to the rector, “I will share it with the poor. Now, Denise, change this one, which is really mine,” he went on, giving her the note, “for your velvet ribbon and your gold cross. I will hang the cross above my mantel to remind me of the best and purest young girl’s heart I have ever known in my whole experience as a lawyer.”
“I will give it to you without selling it,” cried Denise, taking off her /jeannette/ and offering it to him.
“Monsieur,” said the rector, “I accept the five hundred francs to pay for the exhumation of the poor lad’s body and its transportation to Montegnac. God has no doubt pardoned him, and Jean will rise with my flock on that last day when the righteous and the repentant will be called together to the right hand of the Father.”
“So be it,” replied the lawyer.
He took Denise by the hand and drew her toward him to kiss her forehead; but the action had another motive.
“My child,” he whispered, “no one in Montegnac has five-hundred-franc notes; they are rare even at Limoges, where they are only taken at a discount. This money has been given to you; you will not tell me by whom, and I don’t ask you; but listen to me: if you have anything more to do in this town relating to your poor brother, take care! You and Monsieur Bonnet and your brother Louis will be followed by police- spies. Your family is known to have left Montegnac, and as soon as you are seen here you will be watched and surrounded before you are aware of it.”
“Alas!” she said. “I have nothing more to do here.”
“She is cautious,” thought the lawyer, as he parted from her. “However, she is warned; and I hope she will get safely off.”
*****
During this last week in September, when the weather was as warm as in summer, the bishop gave a dinner to the authorities of the place. Among the guests were the /procureur-du-roi/ and the attorney-general. Some lively discussions prolonged the party till a late hour. The company played whist and backgammon, a favorite game with the clergy. Toward eleven o’clock the /procureur-du-roi/ walked out upon the upper terrace. From the spot where he stood he saw a light on that island to which, on a certain evening, the attention of the bishop and the Abbe Gabriel had been drawn,–Veronique’s “Ile de France,”–and the gleam recalled to the /procureur’s/ mind the unexplained mysteries of the Tascheron crime. Then, reflecting that there could be no legitimate reason for a fire on that lonely island in the river at that time of night, an idea, which had already struck the bishop and the secretary, darted into his mind with the suddenness and brilliancy of the flame itself which was shining in the distance.
“We have all been fools!” he cried; “but this will give us the accomplices.”
He returned to the salon, sought out Monsieur de Grandville, said a few words in his ear, after which they both took leave. But the Abbe de Rastignac accompanied them politely to the door; he watched them as they departed, saw them go to the terrace, noticed the fire on the island, and thought to himself, “She is lost!”
The emissaries of the law got there too late. Denise and Louis, whom Jean had taught to dive, were actually on the bank of the river at a spot named to them by Jean, but Louis Tascheron had already dived four times, bringing up each time a bundle containing twenty thousand francs’ worth of gold. The first sum was wrapped in a foulard handkerchief knotted by the four corners. This handkerchief, from which the water was instantly wrung, was thrown into a great fire of drift wood already lighted. Denise did not leave the fire until she saw every particle of the handkerchief consumed. The second sum was wrapped in a shawl, the third in a cambric handkerchief; these wrappings were instantly burned like the foulard.
Just as Denise was throwing the wrapping of the fourth and last package into the fire the gendarmes, accompanied by the commissary of police, seized that incriminating article, which Denise let them take without manifesting the least emotion. It was a handkerchief, on which, in spite of its soaking in the river, traces of blood could still be seen. When questioned as to what she was doing there, Denise said she was taking the stolen gold from the river according to her brother’s instructions. The commissary asked her why she was burning certain articles; she said she was obeying her brother’s last directions. When asked what those articles were she boldly answered, without attempting to deceive: “A foulard, a shawl, a cambric handkerchief, and the handkerchief now captured.” The latter had belonged to her brother.
This discovery and its attendant circumstances made a great stir in Limoges. The shawl, more especially, confirmed the belief that Tascheron had committed this crime in the interests of some love affair.
“He protects that woman after his death,” said one lady, hearing of these last discoveries, rendered harmless by the criminal’s precautions.
“There may be some husband in Limoges who will miss his foulard,” said the /procureur-du-roi/, with a laugh, “but he will not dare speak of it.”
“These matters of dress are really so compromising,” said old Madame Perret, “that I shall make a search through my wardrobe this very evening.”
“Whose pretty little footmarks could he have taken such pains to efface while he left his own?” said Monsieur de Grandville.
“Pooh! I dare say she was an ugly woman,” said the /procureur-du-roi/.
“She has paid dearly for her sin,” observed the Abbe de Grancour.
“Do you know what this affair shows?” cried Monsieur de Grandville. “It shows what women have lost by the Revolution, which has levelled all social ranks. Passions of this kind are no longer met with except in men who still feel an enormous distance between themselves and their mistresses.”
“You saddle love with many vanities,” remarked the Abbe Dutheil.
“What does Madame Graslin think?” asked the prefect.
“What do you expect her to think?” said Monsieur de Grandville. “Her child was born, as she predicted to me, on the morning of the execution; she has not seen any one since then, for she is dangerously ill.”
A scene took place in another salon in Limoges which was almost comical. The friends of the des Vanneaulx came to congratulate them on the recovery of their property.
“Yes, but they ought to have pardoned that poor man,” said Madame des Vanneaulx. “Love, and not greed, made him steal the money; he was neither vicious nor wicked.”
“He was full of consideration for us,” said Monsieur des Vanneaulx; “and if I knew where his family had gone I would do something for them. They are very worthy people, those Tascherons.”
X
THIRD PHASE OF VERONIQUE’S LIFE
When Madame Graslin recovered from the long illness that followed the birth of her child, which was not till the close of 1829, an illness which forced her to keep her bed and remain in absolute retirement, she heard her husband talking of an important piece of business he was anxious to concede. The ducal house of Navarreins had offered for sale the forest of Montegnac and the uncultivated lands around it.
Graslin had never yet executed the clause in his marriage contract with his wife which obliged him to invest his wife’s fortune in lands; up to this time he had preferred to employ the money in his bank, where he had fully doubled it. He now began to speak of this investment. Hearing him discuss it Veronique appeared to remember the name of Montegnac, and asked her husband to fulfil his engagement about her property by purchasing these lands. Monsieur Graslin then proposed to see the rector, Monsieur Bonnet, and inquire of him about the estate, which the Duc de Navarreins was desirous of selling because he foresaw the struggle which the Prince de Polignac was forcing on between liberalism and the house of Bourbon, and he augured ill of it; in fact, the duke was one of the boldest opposers of the /coup-d’Etat/.
The duke had sent his agent to Limoges to negotiate the matter; telling him to accept any good sum of money, for he remembered the Revolution of 1789 too well not to profit by the lessons it had taught the aristocracy. This agent had now been a month laying siege to Graslin, the shrewdest and wariest business head in the Limousin,–the only man, he was told by practical persons, who was able to purchase so large a property and pay for it on the spot. The Abbe Dutheil wrote a line to Monsieur Bonnet, who came to Limoges at once, and was taken to the hotel Graslin.
Veronique determined to ask the rector to dinner; but the banker would not let him go up to his wife’s apartment until he had talked to him in his office for over an hour and obtained such information as fully satisfied him, and made him resolve to buy the forest and domains of Montegnac at once for the sum of five hundred thousand francs. He acquiesced readily in his wife’s wish that this purchase and all others connected with it should be in fulfilment of the clause of the marriage contract relative to the investment of her dowry. Graslin was all the more ready to do so because this act of justice cost him nothing, he having doubled the original sum.
At this time, when Graslin was negotiating the purchase, the Navarreins domains comprised the forest of Montegnac which contained about thirty thousand acres of unused land, the ruins of the castle, the gardens, park, and about five thousand acres of uncultivated land on the plain beyond Montegnac. Graslin immediately bought other lands in order to make himself master of the first peak in the chain of the Correzan mountains on which the vast forest of Montegnac ended. Since the imposition of taxes the Duc de Navarreins had never received more than fifteen thousand francs per annum from this manor, once among the richest tenures of the kingdom, the lands of which had escaped the sale of “public domain” ordered by the Convention, on account probably of their barrenness and the known difficulty of reclaiming them.
When the rector went at last to Madame Graslin’s apartment, and saw the woman noted for her piety and for her intellect of whom he had heard speak, he could not restrain a gesture of amazement. Veronique had now reached the third phase of her life, that in which she was to rise into grandeur by the exercise of the highest virtues,–a phase in which she became another woman. To the Little Virgin of Titian, hidden at eleven years of age beneath a spotted mantle of small-pox, had succeeded a beautiful woman, noble and passionate; and from that woman, now wrung by inward sorrows, came forth a saint.
Her skin bore the yellow tinge which colors the austere faces of abbesses who have been famous for their macerations. The attenuated temples were almost golden. The lips had paled, the red of an opened pomegranate was no longer on them, their color had changed to the pale pink of a Bengal rose. At the corners of the eyes, close to the nose, sorrows had made two shining tracks like mother-of-pearl, where tears had flowed; tears which effaced the marks of small-pox and glazed the skin. Curiosity was invincibly attracted to that pearly spot, where the blue threads of the little veins throbbed precipitately, as though they were swelled by an influx of blood brought there, as it were, to feed the tears. The circle round the eyes was now a dark-brown that was almost black above the eyelids, which were horribly wrinkled. The cheeks were hollow; in their folds lay the sign of solemn thoughts. The chin, which in youth was full and round, the flesh covering the muscles, was now shrunken, to the injury of its expression, which told of an implacable religious severity exercised by this woman upon herself.
At twenty-nine years of age Veronique’s hair was scanty and already whitening. Her thinness was alarming. In spite of her doctor’s advice she insisted on suckling her son. The doctor triumphed in the result; and as he watched the changes he had foretold in Veronique’s appearance, he often said:–
“See the effects of childbirth on a woman! She adores that child; I have often noticed that mothers are fondest of the children who cost them most.”
Veronique’s faded eyes were all that retained even a memory of her youth. The dark blue of the iris still cast its passionate fires, to which the woman’s life seemed to have retreated, deserting the cold, impassible face, and glowing with an expression of devotion when the welfare of a fellow-being was concerned.
Thus the surprise, the dread of the rector ceased by degrees as he went on explaining to Madame Graslin all the good that a large owner of property could do at Montegnac provided he lived there. Veronique’s beauty came back to her for a moment as her eyes glowed with the light of an unhoped-for future.
“I will live there,” she said. “It shall be my work. I will ask Monsieur Graslin for money, and I will gladly share in your religious enterprise. Montegnac shall be fertilized; we will find some means to water those arid plains. Like Moses, you have struck a rock from which the waters will gush.”
The rector of Montegnac, when questioned by his friends in Limoges about Madame Graslin, spoke of her as a saint.
The day after the purchase was concluded Monsieur Graslin sent an architect to Montegnac. The banker intended to restore the chateau, gardens, terrace, and park, and also to connect the castle grounds with the forest by a plantation. He set himself to make these improvements with vainglorious activity.
A few months later Madame Graslin met with a great misfortune. In August, 1830, Graslin, overtaken by the commercial and banking disasters of that period, became involved by no fault of his own. He could not endure the thought of bankruptcy, nor that of losing a fortune of three millions acquired by forty years of incessant toil. The moral malady which resulted from this anguish of mind aggravated the inflammatory disease always ready to break forth in his blood. He took to his bed. Since her confinement Veronique’s regard for her husband had developed, and had overthrown all the hopes of her admirer, Monsieur de Grandville. She strove to save her husband’s life by unremitting care, with no result but that of prolonging for a few months the poor man’s tortures; but the respite was very useful to Grossetete, who, foreseeing the end of his former clerk and partner, obtained from him all the information necessary for the prompt liquidation of the assets.
Graslin died in April, 1831, and the widow’s grief yielded only to Christian resignation. Veronique’s first words, when the condition of Monsieur Graslin’s affairs were made known to her, were that she abandoned her own fortune to pay the creditors; but it was found that Graslin’s own property was more than sufficient. Two months later, the liquidation, of which Grossetete took charge, left to Madame Graslin the estate of Montegnac and six hundred thousand francs, her whole personal fortune. The son’s name remained untainted, for Graslin had injured no one’s property, not even that of his wife. Francis Graslin, the son, received about one hundred thousand francs.
Monsieur de Grandville, to whom Veronique’s grandeur of soul and noble qualities were well known, made her an offer of marriage; but, to the surprise of all Limoges, Madame Graslin declined, under pretext that the Church discouraged second marriages. Grossetete, a man of strong common-sense and sure grasp of a situation, advised Veronique to invest her property and what remained of Monsieur Graslin’s in the Funds; and he made the investment himself in one of the government securities which offered special advantages at that time, namely, the Three-per-cents, which were then quoted at fifty. The child Francis received, therefore, six thousand francs a year, and his mother forty thousand. Veronique’s fortune was still the largest in the department.
When these affairs were all settled, Madame Graslin announced her intention of leaving Limoges and taking up her residence at Montegnac, to be near Monsieur Bonnet. She sent for the rector to consult about the enterprise he was so anxious to carry on at Montegnac, in which she desired to take part. But he endeavored unselfishly to dissuade her, telling her that her place was in the world and in society.
“I was born of the people and I wish to return to the people,” she replied. On which the rector, full of love for his village, said no more against Madame Graslin’s apparent vocation; and the less because she had actually put it out of her power to continue in Limoges, having sold the hotel Graslin to Grossetete, who, to cover a sum that was due to him, took it at its proper valuation.
The day of her departure, toward the end of August, 1831, Madame Graslin’s numerous friends accompanied her some distance out of the town. A few went as far as the first relay. Veronique was in an open carriage with her mother. The Abbe Dutheil (just appointed to a bishopric) occupied the front seat of the carriage with old Grossetete. As they passed through the place d’Aine, Veronique showed signs of a sudden shock; her face contracted so that the play of the muscles could be seen; she clasped her infant to her breast with a convulsive motion, which old Madame Sauviat concealed by instantly taking the child, for she seemed to be on the watch for her daughter’s agitation. Chance willed that Madame Graslin should pass through the square in which stood the house she had formerly occupied with her father and mother in her girlish days; she grasped her mother’s hand while great tears fell from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
After leaving Limoges she turned and looked back, seeming to feel an emotion of happiness which was noticed by all her friends. When Monsieur de Grandville, then a young man of twenty-five, whom she declined to take as a husband, kissed her hand with an earnest expression of regret, the new bishop noticed the strange manner in which the black pupil of Veronique’s eyes suddenly spread over the blue of the iris, reducing it to a narrow circle. The eye betrayed unmistakably some violent inward emotion.
“I shall never see him again,” she whispered to her mother, who received this confidence without betraying the slightest feeling in her old face.
Madame Graslin was at that instant under the observation of Grossetete, who was directly in front of her; but, in spite of his shrewdness, the old banker did not detect the hatred which Veronique felt for the magistrate, whom she nevertheless received at her house. But churchmen have far more perception than other men, and Monsieur Dutheil suddenly startled Veronique with a priestly glance.
“Do you regret nothing in Limoges?” he asked her.
“Nothing, now that you are leaving it; and monsieur,” she added, smiling at Grossetete, who was bidding her adieu, “will seldom be there.”
The bishop accompanied Madame Graslin as far as Montegnac.
“I ought to walk this road in sackcloth and ashes,” she said in her mother’s ear as they went on foot up the steep slope of Saint-Leonard.
The old woman put her finger on her lips and glanced at the bishop, who was looking at the child with terrible attention. This gesture, and the luminous look in the prelate’s eyes, sent a shudder through Veronique’s body. At the aspect of the vast plains stretching their gray expanse before Montegnac the fire died out of her eyes, and an infinite sadness overcame her. Presently she saw the village rector coming to meet her, and together they returned to the carriage.
“There is your domain, madame,” said Monsieur Bonnet, extending his hand toward the barren plain.
A few moments more, and the village of Montegnac, with its hill, on which the newly erected buildings struck the eye, came in sight, gilded by the setting sun, and full of the poesy born of the contrast between the beautiful spot and the surrounding barrenness, in which it lay like an oasis in the desert. Madame Graslin’s eyes filled suddenly with tears. The rector called her attention to a broad white line like a gash on the mountain side.
“See what my parishioners have done to testify their gratitude to the lady of the manor,” he said, pointing to the line, which was really a road; “we can now drive up to the chateau. This piece of road has been made by them without costing you a penny, and two months hence we shall plant it with trees. Monseigneur will understand what trouble and care and devotion were needed to accomplish such a change.”
“Is it possible they have done that?” said the bishop.
“Without accepting any payment for their work, Monseigneur. The poorest put their hands into it, knowing that it would bring a mother among them.”
At the foot of the hill the travellers saw the whole population of the neighborhood, who were lighting fire-boxes and discharging a few guns; then two of the prettiest of the village girls, dressed in white, came forward to offer Madame Graslin flowers and fruit.
“To be thus received in this village!” she exclaimed, grasping the rector’s hand as if she stood on the brink of a precipice.
The crowd accompanied the carriage to the iron gates of the avenue. From there Madame Graslin could see her chateau, of which as yet she had only caught glimpses, and she was thunderstruck at the magnificence of the building. Stone is rare in those parts, the granite of the mountains being difficult to quarry. The architect employed by Graslin to restore the house had used brick as the chief substance of this vast construction. This was rendered less costly by the fact that the forest of Montegnac furnished all the necessary wood and clay for its fabrication. The framework of wood and the stone for the foundations also came from the forest; otherwise the cost of the restorations would have been ruinous. The chief expenses had been those of transportation, labor, and salaries. Thus the money laid out was kept in the village, and greatly benefited it.
At first sight, and from a distance, the chateau presents an enormous red mass, threaded by black lines produced by the pointing, and edged with gray; for the window and door casings, the entablatures, corner stones, and courses between the stories, are of granite, cut in facets like a diamond. The courtyard, which forms a sloping oval like that of the Chateau de Versailles, is surrounded by brick walls divided into panels by projecting buttresses. At the foot of these walls are groups of rare shrubs, remarkable for the varied color of their greens. Two fine iron gates placed opposite to each other lead on one side to a terrace which overlooks Montegnac, on the other to the offices and a farm-house.
The grand entrance-gate, to which the road just constructed led, is flanked by two pretty lodges in the style of the sixteenth century. The facade on the courtyard looking east has three towers,–one in the centre, separated from the two others by the main building of the house. The facade on the gardens, which is absolutely the same as the others, looks westward. The towers have but one window on the facade; the main building has three on either side of the middle tower. The latter, which is square like a /campanile/, the corners being vermiculated, is noticeable for the elegance of a few carvings sparsely distributed. Art is timid in the provinces, and though, since 1829, ornamentation has made some progress at the instigation of certain writers, landowners were at that period afraid of expenses which the lack of competition and skilled workmen rendered serious.
The corner towers, which have three stories with a single window in each, looking to the side, are covered with very high-pitched roofs surrounded by granite balustrades, and on each pyramidal slope of these roofs crowned at the top with the sharp ridge of a platform surrounded with a wrought iron railing, is another window carved like the rest. On each floor the corbels of the doors and windows are adorned with carvings copied from those of the Genoese mansions. The corner tower with three windows to the south looks down on Montegnac; the other, to the north, faces the forest. From the garden front the eye takes in that part of Montegnac which is still called Les Tascherons, and follows the high-road leading through the village to the chief town of the department. The facade on the courtyard has a view of the vast plains semicircled by the mountains of the Correze, on the side toward Montegnac, but ending in the far distance on a low horizon. The main building has only one floor above the ground-floor, covered with a mansarde roof in the olden style. The towers at each end are three stories in height. The middle tower has a stunted dome something like that on the Pavillon de l’Horloge of the palace of the Tuileries, and in it is a single room forming a belvedere and containing the clock. As a matter of economy the roofs had all been made of gutter-tiles, the enormous weight of which was easily supported by the stout beams and uprights of the framework cut in the forest.
Before his death Graslin had laid out the road which the peasantry had just built out of gratitude; for these restorations (which Graslin called his folly) had distributed several hundred thousand francs among the people; in consequence of which Montegnac had considerably increased. Graslin had also begun, before his death, behind the offices on the slope of the hill leading down to the plain, a number of farm buildings, proving his intention to draw some profit from the hitherto uncultivated soil of the plains. Six journeyman-gardeners, who were lodged in the offices, were now at work under orders of a head gardener, planting and completing certain works which Monsieur Bonnet had considered indispensable.
The ground-floor apartments of the chateau, intended only for reception-rooms, had been sumptuously furnished; the upper floor was rather bare, Monsieur Graslin having stopped for a time the work of furnishing it.
“Ah, Monseigneur!” said Madame Graslin to the bishop, after going the rounds of the house, “I who expected to live in a cottage! Poor Monsieur Graslin was extravagant indeed!”
“And you,” said the bishop, adding after a pause, as he noticed the shudder than ran through her frame at his first words, “you will be extravagant in charity?”
She took the arm of her mother, who was leading Francis by the hand, and went to the long terrace at the foot of which are the church and the parsonage, and from which the houses of the village can be seen in tiers. The rector carried off Monseigneur Dutheil to show him the different sides of the landscape. Before long the two priests came round to the farther end of the terrace, where they found Madame Graslin and her mother motionless as statues. The old woman was wiping her eyes with a handkerchief, and her daughter stood with both hands stretched beyond the balustrade as though she were pointing to the church below.
“What is the matter, madame?” said the rector to Madame Sauviat.
“Nothing,” replied Madame Graslin, turning round and advancing a few steps to meet the priests; “I did not know that I should have the cemetery under my eyes.”
“You can put it elsewhere; the law gives you that right.”
“The law!” she exclaimed with almost a cry.
Again the bishop looked fixedly at Veronique. Disturbed by the dark glance with which the priest had penetrated the veil of flesh that covered her soul, dragging thence a secret hidden in the grave of that cemetery, she said to him suddenly:–
“Well, /yes/!”
The priest laid his hand over his eyes and was silent for a moment as if stunned.
“Help my daughter,” cried the old mother; “she is fainting.”
“The air is so keen, it overcomes me,” said Madame Graslin, as she fell unconscious into the arms of the two priests, who carried her into one of the lower rooms of the chateau.
When she recovered consciousness she saw the priests on their knees praying for her.
“May the angel you visited you never leave you!” said the bishop, blessing her. “Farewell, my daughter.”
Overcome by those words Madame Graslin burst into tears.
“Tears will save her!” cried her mother.
“In this world and in the next,” said the bishop, turning round as he left the room.
The room to which they had carried Madame Graslin was on the first floor above the ground-floor of the corner tower, from which the church and cemetery and southern side of Montegnac could be seen. She determined to remain there, and did so, more or less uncomfortably, with Aline her maid and little Francis. Madame Sauviat, naturally, took another room near hers.
It was several days before Madame Graslin recovered from the violent emotion which overcame her on that first evening, and her mother induced her to stay in bed at least during the mornings. At night, Veronique would come out and sit on a bench of the terrace from which her eyes could rest on the church and cemetery. In spite of Madame Sauviat’s mute but persistent opposition, Madame Graslin formed an almost monomaniacal habit of sitting in the same place, where she seemed to give way to the blackest melancholy.
“Madame will die,” said Aline to the old mother.
Appealed to by Madame Sauviat, the rector, who had wished not to seem intrusive, came henceforth very frequently to visit Madame Graslin; he needed only to be warned that her soul was sick. This true pastor took care to pay his visits at the hour when Veronique came out to sit at the corner of the terrace with her child, both in deep mourning.
XI
THE RECTOR AT WORK
It was now the beginning of October, and Nature was growing dull and sad. Monsieur Bonnet, perceiving in Veronique from the moment of her arrival at Montegnac the existence of an inward wound, thought it wisest to wait for the voluntary and complete confidence of a woman who would sooner or later become his penitent.
One evening Madame Graslin looked at the rector with eyes almost glazed with that fatal indecision often observable in persons who are cherishing the thought of death. From that moment Monsieur Bonnet hesitated no longer; he set before him the duty of arresting the progress of this cruel moral malady.
At first there was a brief struggle of empty words between the priest and Veronique, in which they both sought to veil their real thoughts. In spite of the cold, Veronique was sitting on the granite bench holding Francis on her knee. Madame Sauviat was standing at the corner of the terrace, purposely so placed as to hide the cemetery. Aline was waiting to take the child away.
“I had supposed, madame,” said the rector, who was now paying his seventh visit, “that you were only melancholy; but I see,” sinking his voice to a whisper, “that your soul is in despair. That feeling is neither Christian nor Catholic.”
“But,” she replied, looking to heaven with piercing eyes and letting a bitter smile flicker on her lips, “what other feeling does the Church leave to a lost soul unless it be despair?”
As he heard these words the rector realized the vast extent of the ravages in her soul.
“Ah!” he said, “you are making this terrace your hell, when it ought to be your Calvary from which to rise to heaven.”
“I have no pride left to place me on such a pedestal,” she answered, in a tone which revealed the self-contempt that lay within her.
Here the priest, by one of those inspirations which are both natural and frequent in noble souls, the man of God lifted the child in his arms and kissed its forehead, saying, in a fatherly voice, “Poor little one!” Then he gave it himself to the nurse, who carried it away.
Madame Sauviat looked at her daughter, and saw the efficacy of the rector’s words; for Veronique’s eyes, long dry, were moist with tears. The old woman made a sign to the priest and disappeared.
“Let us walk,” said the rector to Veronique leading her along the terrace to the other end, from which Les Tascherons could be seen. “You belong to me; I must render account to God for your sick soul.”
“Give me time to recover from my depression,” she said to him.
“Your depression comes from injurious meditation,” he replied, quickly.
“Yes,” she said, with the simplicity of a grief which has reached the point of making no attempt at concealment.
“I see plainly that you have fallen into the gulf of apathy,” he cried. “If there is a degree of physical suffering at which all sense of modesty expires, there is also a degree of moral suffering in which all vigor of soul is lost; I know that.”
She was surprised to hear that subtle observation and to find such tender pity from this village rector; but, as we have seen already, the exquisite delicacy which no passion had ever touched gave him the true maternal spirit for his flock. This /mens devinior/, this apostolic tenderness, places the priest above all other men and makes him, in a sense, divine. Madame Graslin had not as yet had enough experience of Monsieur Bonnet to know this beauty hidden in his soul like a spring, from which flowed grace and purity and true life.
“Ah! monsieur,” she cried, giving herself wholly up to him by a gesture, a look, such as the dying give.
“I understand you,” he said. “What is to be done? What will you become?”
They walked in silence the whole length of the balustrade, facing toward the plain. The solemn moment seemed propitious to the bearer of good tidings, the gospel messenger, and he took it.
“Suppose yourself now in the presence of God,” he said, in a low voice, mysteriously; “what would you say to Him?”
Madame Graslin stopped as though struck by a thunderbolt; she shuddered; then she said simply, in tones that brought tears to the rector’s eyes:–
“I should say, as Jesus Christ said: ‘Father, why hast thou forsaken me?'”
“Ah! Magdalen, that is the saying I expected of you,” cried Monsieur Bonnet, who could not help admiring her. “You see you are forced to appeal to God’s justice; you invoke it! Listen to me, madame. Religion is, by anticipation, divine justice. The Church claims for herself the right to judge the actions of the soul. Human justice is a feeble image of divine justice; it is but a pale imitation of it applied to the needs of society.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You are not the judge of your own case, you are dependent upon God,” said the priest; “you have neither the right to condemn yourself nor the right to absolve yourself. God, my child, is a great reverser of judgments.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed.
“He /sees/ the origin of things, where we see only the things themselves.”
Veronique stopped again, struck by these ideas, that were new to her.
“To you,” said the brave priest, “to you whose soul is a great one, I owe other words than those I ought to give to my humble parishioners. You, whose mind and spirit are so cultivated, you can rise to the sense divine of the Catholic religion, expressed by images and words to the poor and childlike. Listen to me attentively, for what I am about to say concerns you; no matter how extensive is the point of view at which I place myself for a moment, the case is yours. /Law/, invented to protect society, is based on equality. Society, which is nothing but an assemblage of acts, is based on inequality. There is therefore lack of harmony between act and law. Ought society to march on favored or repressed by law? In other words, ought law to be in opposition to the interior social movement for the maintenance of society, or should it be based on that movement in order to guide it? All legislators have contented themselves with analyzing acts, indicating those that seemed to them blamable or criminal, and attaching punishments to such or rewards to others. That is human law; it has neither the means to prevent sin, nor the means to prevent the return to sinfulness of those it punishes. Philanthropy is a sublime error; it tortures the body uselessly, it produces no balm to heal the soul. Philanthropy gives birth to projects, emits ideas, confides the execution of them to man, to silence, to labor, to rules, to things mute and powerless. Religion is above these imperfections, for it extends man’s life beyond this world. Regarding us all as degraded from our high estate, religion has opened to us an inexhaustible treasure of indulgence. We are all more or less advanced toward our complete regeneration; no one is sinless; the Church expects wrong- doing, even crime. Where society sees a criminal to be expelled from its bosom, the Church sees a soul to save. More, far more than that! Inspired by God, whom she studies and contemplates, the Church admits the inequalities of strength, she allows for the disproportion of burdens. If she finds us unequal in heart, in body, in mind, in aptitude, and value, she makes us all equal by repentance. Hence equality is no longer a vain word, for we can be, we are, all equal through feeling. From the formless fetichism of savages to the graceful inventions of Greece, or the profound and metaphysical doctrines of Egypt and India, whether taught in cheerful or in terrifying worship, there is a conviction in the soul of man–that of his fall, that of his sin–from which comes everywhere the idea of sacrifice and redemption. The death of the Redeemer of the human race is an image of what we have to do for ourselves,–redeem our faults, redeem our errors, redeem our crimes! All is redeemable; Catholicism itself is in that word; hence its adorable sacraments, which help the triumph of grace and sustain the sinner. To weep, to moan like Magdalen in the desert, is but the beginning; the end is Action. Monasteries wept and prayed; they prayed and civilized; they were the active agents of our divine religion. They built, planted, cultivated Europe; all the while saving the treasures of learning, knowledge, human justice, politics, and art. We shall ever recognize in Europe the places where those radiant centres once were. Nearly all our modern towns are the children of monasteries. If you believe that God will judge you, the Church tells you by my voice that sin can be redeemed by works of repentance. The mighty hand of God weighs both the evil done and the value of benefits accomplished. Be yourself like those monasteries; work here the same miracles. Your prayers must be labors. From your labors must come the good of those above whom you are placed by fortune, by superiority of mind; even this natural position of your dwelling is the image of your social situation.”
As he said the last words, the priest and Madame Graslin turned to walk back toward the plains, and the rector pointed both to the village at the foot of the hill, and to the chateau commanding the whole landscape. It was then half-past four o’clock; a glow of yellow sunlight enveloped the balustrade and the gardens, illuminated the chateau, sparkled on the gilded railings of the roof, lighted the long plain cut in two by the high-road,–a sad, gray ribbon, not bordered there by the fringe of trees which waved above it elsewhere on either side.
When Veronique and Monsieur Bonnet had passed the main body of the chateau, they could see–beyond the courtyard, the stables, and the offices–the great forest of Montegnac, along which the yellow glow was gliding like a soft caress. Though this last gleam of the setting sun touched the tree-tops only, it enabled the eye to see distinctly the caprices of that marvellous tapestry which nature makes of a forest in autumn. The oaks were a mass of Florentine bronze, the walnuts and the chestnuts displayed their blue-green tones, the early trees were putting on their golden foliage, and all these varied colors were shaded with the gray of barren spots. The trunks of trees already stripped of leafage showed their light-gray colonnades; the russet, tawny, grayish colors, artistically blended by the pale reflections of an October sun, harmonized with the vast uncultivated plain, green as stagnant water.
A thought came into the rector’s mind as he looked at this fine spectacle, mute in other ways,–for not a tree rustled, not a bird chirped, death was on the plain, silence in the forest; here and there a little smoke from the village chimneys, that was all. The chateau seemed as gloomy as its mistress. By some strange law all things about a dwelling imitate the one who rules there; the owner’s spirit hovers over it. Madame Graslin–her mind grasped by the rector’s words, her soul struck by conviction, her heart affected in its tenderest emotions by the angelic quality of that pure voice–stopped short. The rector raised his arm and pointed to the forest. Veronique looked there.
“Do you not think it has a vague resemblance to social life?” he said. “To each its destiny. How many inequalities in that mass of trees! Those placed the highest lack earth and moisture; they die first.”
“Some there are whom the shears of the woman gathering fagots cut short in their prime,” she said bitterly.
“Do not fall back into those thoughts,” said the rector sternly, though with indulgence still. “The misfortune of this forest is that it has never been cut. Do you see the phenomenon these masses present?”
Veronique, to whose mind the singularities of the forest nature suggested little, looked obediently at the forest and then let her eyes drop gently back upon the rector.
“You do not notice,” he said, perceiving from that look her total ignorance, “the lines where the trees of all species still hold their greenness?”
“Ah! true,” she said. “I see them now. Why is it?”
“In that,” replied the rector, “lies the future of Montegnac, and your own fortune, an immense fortune, as I once explained to Monsieur Graslin. You see the furrows of those three dells, the mountain streams of which flow into the torrent of the Gabou. That torrent separates the forest of Montegnac from the district which on this side adjoins ours. In September and October it goes dry, but in November it is full of water, the volume of which would be greatly increased by a partial clearing of the forest, so as to send all the lesser streams to join it. As it is, its waters do no good; but if one or two dams were made between the two hills on either side of it, as they have done at Riquet, and at Saint-Ferreol–where they have made immense reservoirs to feed the Languedoc canal–this barren plain could be fertilized by judicious irrigation through trenches and culverts managed by watergates; sending the water when needed over these lands, and diverting it at other times to our little river. You could plant fine poplars along these water-courses and raise the finest cattle on such pasturage as you would then obtain. What is grass, but sun and water? There is quite soil enough on the plains to hold the roots; the streams will furnish dew and moisture; the poplars will hold and feed upon the mists, returning their elements to the herbage; these are the secrets of the fine vegetation of valleys. If you undertook this work you would soon see life and joy and movement where silence now reigns, where the eye is saddened by barren fruitlessness. Would not that be a noble prayer to God? Such work would be a better occupation of your leisure than the indulgence of melancholy thoughts.”
Veronique pressed the rector’s hand, answering with four brief words, but they were grand ones:–
“It shall be done.”
“You conceive the possibility of this great work,” he went on; “but you cannot execute it. Neither you nor I have the necessary knowledge to accomplish an idea which might have come to all, but the execution of which presents immense difficulties; for simple as it may seem, the matter requires the most accurate science with all its resources. Seek, therefore, at once for the proper human instruments who will enable you within the next dozen years to get an income of six or seven thousand louis out of the six thousand acres you irrigate and fertilize. Such an enterprise will make Montegnac at some future day the most prosperous district in the department. The forest, as yet, yields you no return, but sooner or later commerce will come here in search of its fine woods–those treasures amassed by time; the only ones the production of which cannot be hastened or improved upon by man. The State may some day provide a way of transport from this forest, for many of the trees would make fine masts for the navy; but it will wait until the increasing population of Montegnac makes a demand upon its protection; for the State is like fortune, it comes only to the rich. This estate, well managed, will become, in the course of time, one of the finest in France; it will be the pride of your grandson, who may then find the chateau paltry, comparing it with its revenues.”
“Here,” said Veronique, “is a future for my life.”
“A beneficent work such as that will redeem wrongdoing,” said the rector.
Seeing that she understood him, he attempted to strike another blow on this woman’s intellect, judging rightly that in her the intellect led the heart, whereas in other women the heart is their road to intelligence.
“Do you know,” he said after a pause, “the error in which you are living?”
She looked at him timidly.
“Your repentance is as yet only a sense of defeat endured,–which is horrible, for it is nothing else than the despair of Satan; such, perhaps, was the repentance of mankind before the coming of Jesus Christ. But our repentance, the repentance of Christians, is the horror of a soul struck down on an evil path, to whom, by this very shock, God has revealed Himself. You are like the pagan Orestes; make yourself another Paul.”
“Your words have changed me utterly,” she cried. “Now–oh! now I want to live.”
“The spirit conquers,” thought the modest rector, as he joyfully took his leave. He had cast nourishment before a soul hunted into secret despair by giving to its repentance the form of a good and noble action.
XII
THE SOUL OF FORESTS
Veronique wrote to Monsieur Grossetete on the morrow. A few days later she received from Limoges three saddle-horses sent by her old friend. Monsieur Bonnet found at Veronique’s request, a young man, son of the postmaster, who was delighted to serve Veronique and earn good wages. This young fellow, small but active, with a round face, black eyes and hair, and named Maurice Champion, pleased Veronique very much and was immediately inducted into his office, which was that of taking care of the horses and accompanying his mistress on her excursions.
The head-forester of Montegnac was a former cavalry-sergeant in the Royal guard, born at Limoges, whom the Duc de Navarreins had sent to his estate at Montegnac to study its capabilities and value, in order that he might derive some profit from it. Jerome Colorat found nothing but waste land utterly barren, woods unavailable for want of transportation, a ruined chateau, and enormous outlays required to restore the house and gardens. Alarmed, above all, by the beds of torrents strewn with granite rocks which seamed the forest, this honest but unintelligent agent was the real cause of the sale of the property.
“Colorat,” said Madame Graslin to her forester, for whom she had sent, “I shall probably ride out every morning, beginning with to-morrow. You know all the different parts of the land that belonged originally to this estate and those which Monsieur Graslin added to it: I wish you to go with me and point them out; for I intend to visit every part of the property myself.”
The family within the chateau saw with joy the change that now appeared in Veronique’s behavior. Without being told to do so, Aline got out her mistress’s riding-habit and put it in good order for use. The next day Madame Sauviat felt unspeakable relief when her daughter left her room dressed to ride out.
Guided by the forester and Champion, who found their way by recollection, for the paths were scarcely marked on these unfrequented mountains, Madame Graslin started on the first day for the summits, intending to explore those only, so as to understand the watershed and familiarize herself with the lay of the ravines, the natural path of the torrents when they tore down the slopes. She wished to measure the task before her,–to study the land and the water-ways, and find for herself the essential points of the enterprise which the rector had suggested to her. She followed Colorat, who rode in advance; Champion was a few steps behind her.
So long as they were making their way through parts that were dense with trees, going up and down undulations of ground lying near to each other and very characteristic of the mountains of France, Veronique was lost in contemplation of the marvels of the forest. First came the venerable centennial trees, which amazed her till she grew accustomed to them; next, the full-grown younger trees reaching to their natural height; then, in some more open spot, a solitary pine-tree of enormous height; or–but this was rare–one of those flowing shrubs, dwarf elsewhere, but here attaining to gigantic development, and often as old as the soil itself. She saw, with a sensation quite unspeakable, a cloud rolling along the face of the bare rocks. She noticed the white furrows made down the mountain sides by the melting snows, which looked at a distance like scars and gashes. Passing through a gorge stripped of vegetation, she nevertheless admired, in the cleft flanks of the rocky slope, aged chestnuts as erect as the Alpine fir-trees.
The rapidity with which she advanced left her no time to take in all the varied scene, the vast moving sands, the quagmires boasting a few scattered trees, fallen granite boulders, overhanging rocks, shaded valleys, broad open spaces with moss and heather still in bloom (though some was dried), utter solitudes overgrown with juniper and caper-bushes; sometimes uplands with short grass, small spaces enriched by an oozing spring,–in short, much sadness, many splendors, things sweet, things strong, and all the singular aspects of mountainous Nature in the heart of France.
As she watched these many pictures, varied in form but all inspired with the same thought, the awful sadness of this Nature, so wild, so ruined, abandoned, fruitless, barren, filled her soul and answered to her secret feelings. And when, through an opening among the trees, she caught a glimpse of the plain below her, when she crossed some arid ravine over gravel and stones, where a few stunted bushes alone could grow, the spirit of this austere Nature came to her, suggesting observations new to her mind, derived from the many significations of this varied scene.
There is no spot in a forest which does not have its significance; not a glade, not a thicket but has its analogy with the labyrinth of human thought. Who is there among those whose minds are cultivated or whose hearts are wounded who can walk alone in a forest and the forest not speak to him? Insensibly a voice lifts itself, consoling or terrible, but oftener consoling than terrifying. If we seek the causes of the sensation–grave, simple, sweet, mysterious–that grasps us there, perhaps we shall find it in the sublime and artless spectacle of all these creations obeying their destiny and immutably submissive. Sooner or later the overwhelming sense of the permanence of Nature fills our hearts and stirs them deeply, and we end by being conscious of God. So it was with Veronique; in the silence of those summits, from the odor of the woods, the serenity of the air, she gathered–as she said that evening to Monsieur Bonnet–the certainty of God’s mercy. She saw the possibility of an order of deeds higher than any to which her aspirations had ever reached. She felt a sort of happiness within her; it was long, indeed since she had known such a sense of peace. Did she owe that feeling to the resemblance she found between that barren landscape and the arid, exhausted regions of her soul? Had she seen those troubles of nature with a sort of joy, thinking that Nature was punished though it had not sinned? At any rate, she was powerfully affected; Colorat and Champion, following her at a little distance, thought her transfigured.
At a certain sport Veronique was struck with the stern harsh aspect of the steep and rocky beds of the dried-up torrents. She found herself longing to hear the sound of water splashing through those scorched ravines.
“The need to love!” she murmured.
Ashamed of the words, which seemed to come to her like a voice, she pushed her horse boldly toward the first peak of the Correze, where, in spite of the forester’s advice, she insisted on going. Telling her attendants to wait for her she went on alone to the summit, which is called the Roche-Vive, and stayed there for some time, studying the surrounding country. After hearing the secret voice of the many creations asking to live she now received within her the touch, the inspiration, which determined her to put into her work that wonderful perseverance displayed by Nature, of which she had herself already given many proofs.
She fastened her horse to a tree and seated herself on a large rock, letting her eyes rove over the broad expanse of barren plain, where Nature seemed a step-mother,–feeling in her heart the same stirrings of maternal love with which at times she gazed upon her infant. Prepared by this train of emotion, these half involuntary meditations (which, to use her own fine expression, winnowed her heart), to receive the sublime instruction offered by the scene before her, she awoke from her lethargy.
“I understood then,” she said afterwards to the rector, “that our souls must be ploughed and cultivated like the soil itself.”
The vast expanse before her was lighted by a pale November sun. Already a few gray clouds chased by a chilly wind were hurrying from the west. It was then three o’clock. Veronique had taken more than four hours to reach the summit, but, like all others who are harrowed by an inward misery, she paid no heed to external circumstances. At this moment her being was actually growing and magnifying with the sublime impetus of Nature itself.
“Do not stay here any longer, madame,” said a man, whose voice made her quiver, “or you will soon be unable to return; you are six miles from any dwelling, and the forest is impassable at night. But that is not your greatest danger. Before long the cold on this summit will become intense; the reason of this is unknown, but it has caused the death of many persons.”
Madame Graslin saw before her a man’s face, almost black with sunburn, in which shone eyes that were like two tongues of flame. On either side of this face hung a mass of brown hair, and below it was a fan- shaped beard. The man was raising respectfully one of those enormous broad-brimmed hats which are worn by the peasantry of central France, and in so doing displayed a bald but splendid forehead such as we sometimes see in wayside beggars. Veronique did not feel the slightest fear; the situation was one in which all the lesser considerations that make a woman timid had ceased.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“My home is near by,” he answered.
“What can you do in such a desert?” she said.
“I live.”
“But how? what means of living are there?”
“I earn a little something by watching that part of the forest,” he answered, pointing to the other side of the summit from the one that overlooked Montegnac. Madame Graslin then saw the muzzle of a gun and also a game-bag. If she had had any fears this would have put an end to them.
“Then you are a keeper?” she said.
“No, madame; in order to be a keeper we must take a certain oath; and to take an oath we must have civic rights.”
“Who are you, then?”
“I am Farrabesche,” he said, with deep humility, lowering his eyes to the ground.
Madame Graslin, to whom the name told nothing, looked at the man and noticed in his face, the expression of which was now very gentle, the signs of underlying ferocity; irregular teeth gave to the mouth, the lips blood-red, an ironical expression full of evil audacity; the dark and prominent cheek-bones had something animal about them. The man was of middle height, with strong shoulders, a thick-set neck, and the large hairy hands of violent men capable of using their strength in a brutal manner. His last words pointed to some mystery, to which his bearing, the expression of his countenance, and his whole person, gave a sinister meaning.
“You must be in my service, then?” said Veronique in a gentle voice.
“Have I the honor of speaking to Madame Graslin?” asked Farrabesche.
“Yes, my friend,” she answered.
Farrabesche instantly disappeared, with the rapidity of a wild animal, after casting a glance at his mistress that was full of fear.
XIII
FARRABESCHE
Veronique hastened to mount her horse and rejoin the servants, who were beginning to be uneasy about her; for the strange unhealthiness of the Roche-Vive was well known throughout the neighborhood. Colorat begged his mistress to go down into the little valley which led to the plain. It would be dangerous, he said, to return by the hills, or by the tangled paths they had followed in the morning, where, even with his knowledge of the country, they were likely to be lost in the dusk.
Once on the plain Veronique rode slowly.
“Who is this Farrabesche whom you employ?” she asked her forester.
“Has madame met him?” cried Colorat.
“Yes, but he ran away from me.”
“Poor man! perhaps he does not know how kind madame is.”
“But what has he done?”
“Ah! madame, Farrabesche is a murderer,” replied Champion, simply.
“Then they pardoned him!” said Veronique, in a trembling voice.
“No, madame,” replied Colorat, “Farrabesche was tried and condemned to ten years at the galleys; he served half his time, and then he was released on parole and came here in 1827. He owes his life to the rector, who persuaded him to give himself up to justice. He had been condemned to death by default, and sooner or later he must have been taken and executed. Monsieur Bonnet went to find him in the woods, all alone, at the risk of being killed. No one knows what he said to Farrabesche. They were alone together two days; on the third day the rector brought Farrabesche to Tulle, where he gave himself up. Monsieur Bonnet went to see a good lawyer and begged him to do his best for the man. Farrabesche escaped with ten years in irons. The rector went to visit him in prison, and that dangerous fellow, who used to be the terror of the whole country, became as gentle as a girl; he even let them take him to the galleys without a struggle. On his return he settled here by the rector’s advice; no one says a word against him; he goes to mass every Sunday and all the feast-days. Though his place is among us he slips in beside the wall and sits alone. He goes to the altar sometimes and prays, but when he takes the holy sacrament he always kneels apart.”
“And you say that man killed another man?”
“One!” exclaimed Colorat; “he killed several! But he is a good man all the same.”
“Is that possible?” exclaimed Veronique, letting the bridle fall on the neck of her horse.
“Well, you see, madame,” said the forester, who asked no better than to tell the tale, “Farrabesche may have had good reason for what he did. He was the last of the Farrabesches,–an old family of the Correze, don’t you know! His elder brother, Captain Farrabesche, died ten years earlier in Italy, at Montenotte, a captain when he was only twenty-two years old. Wasn’t that ill-luck? and such a lad, too! knew how to read and write, and bid fair to be a general. The family grieved terribly, and good reason, too. As for me, I heard all about his death, for I was serving at that time under L’AUTRE. Oh! he made a fine death, did Captain Farrabesche; he saved the army and the Little Corporal. I was then in the division of General Steingel, a German,– that is, an Alsacian,–a famous good general but rather short-sighted, and that was the reason why he was killed soon after Captain Farrabesche. The younger brother–that’s this one–was only six years old when he heard of his brother’s death. The second brother served too; but only as a private soldier; he died a sergeant in the first regiment of the Guard, at the battle of Austerlitz, where, d’ye see, madame, they manoeuvred just as quietly as they might in the Carrousel. I was there! oh! I had the luck of it! went through it all without a scratch! Now this Farrabesche of ours, though he’s a brave fellow, took it into his head he wouldn’t go to the wars; in fact, the army wasn’t a healthy place for one of his family. So when the conscription caught him in 1811 he ran away,–a refractory, that’s what they called them. And then it was he went and joined a party of /chauffeurs/, or maybe he was forced to; at any rate he /chauffed/! Nobody but the rector knows what he really did with those brigands–all due respect to them! Many a fight he had with the gendarmes and the soldiers too; I’m told he was in seven regular battles–“
“They say he killed two soldiers and three gendarmes,” put in Champion.
“Who knows how many?–he never told,” went on Colorat. “At last, madame, they caught nearly all his comrades, but they never could catch him; hang him! he was so young and active, and knew the country so well, he always escaped. The /chauffeurs/ he consorted with kept themselves mostly in the neighborhood of Brives and Tulle; sometimes they came down this way, because Farrabesche knew such good hiding- places about here. In 1814 the conscription took no further notice of him, because it was abolished; but for all that, he was obliged to live in the woods in 1815; because, don’t you see? as he hadn’t enough to live on, he helped to stop a mail-coach over there, down that gorge; and then it was they condemned him. But, as I told you just now, the rector persuaded him to give himself up. It wasn’t easy to convict him, for nobody dared testify against him; and his lawyer and Monsieur Bonnet worked so hard they got him sentenced for ten years only; which was pretty good luck after being a /chauffeur/–for he did /chauffe/.”
“Will you tell me what /chauffeur/ means?”
“If you wish it, madame, I will tell you what they did, as far as I know about it from others, for I never was /chauffed/ myself. It wasn’t a good thing to do, but necessity knows no law. Well, this is how it was: seven or eight would go to some farmer or land-owner who was thought to have money; the farmer would build a good fire and give them a supper, lasting half through the night, and then, when the feast was over, if the master of the house wouldn’t give them the sum demanded, they just fastened his feet to the spit, and didn’t unfasten them till they got it. That’s how it was. They always went masked. Among all their expeditions they sometimes made unlucky ones. Hang it, there’ll always be obstinate, miserly old fellows in the world! One of them, a farmer, old Cochegrue, so mean he’d shave an egg, held out; he let them roast his feet. Well, he died of it. The wife of Monsieur David, near Brives, died of terror at merely seeing those fellows tie her husband’s feet. She died saying to David: ‘Give them all you have.’ He wouldn’t, and so she just pointed out the hiding-place. The /chauffeurs/ (that’s why they call them /chauffeurs/,–warmers) were the terror of the whole country for over five years. But you must get it well into your head,–oh, excuse me, madame, but you must know that more than one young man of good family belonged to them, though somehow they were never the ones to be caught.”
Madame Graslin listened without interrupting or replying. There was silence for a few moments, and then little Champion, jealous of the right to amuse his mistress, wanted to tell her what he knew of the late galley-slave.
“Madame ought to know more about Farrabesche; he hasn’t his equal at running, or at riding a horse. He can kill an ox with a blow of his fist; nobody can shoot like him; he can carry seven hundred feet as straight as a die,–there! One day they surprised him with three of his comrades; two were wounded, one was killed,–good! Farrabesche was all but taken. Bah! he just sprang on the horse of one of the gendarmes behind the man, pricked the horse with his knife, made it run with all its might, and so disappeared, holding the gendarme tight round the body. But he held him so tight that after a time he threw the body on the ground and rode away alone on the horse and master of the horse; and he had the cheek to go and sell it not thirty miles from Limoges! After that affair he hid himself for three months and was never seen. The authorities offered a hundred golden louis to whoever would deliver him up.”
“Another time,” added Colorat, “when the prefect of Tulle offered a hundred louis for him, he made one of his own cousins, Giriex of Vizay, earn them. His cousin denounced him, and appeared to deliver him up. Oh, yes, he delivered him sure enough! The gendarmes were delighted, and took him to Tulle; there they put him in the prison of Lubersac, from which he escaped that very night, profiting by a hole already begun by one of his accomplices who had been executed. All these adventures gave Farrabesche a fine reputation. The /chauffeurs/ had lots of outside friends; people really loved them. They were not skinflints like those of to-day; they spent their money royally, those fellows! Just fancy, madame, one evening Farrabesche was chased by gendarmes; well, he escaped them by staying twenty minutes under water in the pond of a farm-yard. He breathed air through a straw which he kept above the surface of the pool, which was half muck. But, goodness! what was that little disagreeableness to a man who spends his nights in the tree-tops, where the sparrows can hardly hold themselves, watching the soldiers going to and fro in search of him below? Farrabesche was one of the half-dozen /chauffeurs/ whom the officers of justice could never lay hands on. But as he belonged to the region and was brought up with them, and had, as they said, only fled the conscription, all the women were on his side,–and that’s a great deal, you know.”
“Is it really certain that Farrabesche did kill several persons?” asked Madame Graslin.
“Yes, certain,” replied Colorat; “it is even said that it was he who killed the traveller by the mail-coach in 1812; but the courier and the postilion, the only witnesses who could have identified him, were dead before he was tried.”
“Tried for the robbery?” asked Madame Graslin.
“Yes, they took everything; amongst it twenty-five thousand francs belonging to the government.”
Madame Graslin rode silently after that for two or three miles. The sun had now set, the moon was lighting the gray plain, which looked like an open sea. Champion and Colorat began to wonder at Madame Graslin, whose silence seemed strange to them, and they were greatly astonished to see the shining track of tears upon her cheeks; her eyes were red and full of tears, which were falling drop by drop as she rode along.
“Oh, madame,” said Colorat, “don’t pity him! The lad has had his day. He had pretty girls in love with him; and now, though to be sure he is closely watched by the police, he is protected by the respect and good-will of the rector; for he has really repented. His conduct at the galleys was exemplary. Everybody knows he is as honest as the most honest man among us. Only he is proud; he doesn’t choose to expose himself to rebuff; so he lives quietly by himself and does good in his own way. He has made a nursery of about ten acres for you on the other side of the Roche-Vive; he plants in the forests wherever he thinks there’s a chance of making a tree grow; he trims the tree and cuts out the dead wood, and ties it up into bundles for the poor. All the poor people know they can get their wood from him all cut and ready to burn; so they go and ask him for it, instead of taking it themselves and injuring your forest. He is another kind of /chauffeur/ now, and warms his poor neighbors to their comfort and not to their harm. Oh, Farrabesche loves your forest! He takes care of it as if it were his own property.”
“And he lives–all alone?” exclaimed Madame Graslin, adding the two last words hastily.
“Excuse me, not quite alone, madame; he takes care of a boy about fifteen years old,” said Maurice Champion.
“Yes, that’s so,” said Colorat; “La Curieux gave birth to the child some little time before Farrabesche was condemned.”
“Is it his child?” asked Madame Graslin.
“People think so.”
“Why didn’t he marry her?”
“How could he? They would certainly have arrested him. As it was, when La Curieux heard he was sentenced to the galleys the poor girl left this part of the country.”
“Was she a pretty girl?”
“Oh!” said Maurice, “my mother says she was very like another girl who has also left Montegnac for something the same reason,–Denise Tascheron.”
“She loved him?” said Madame Graslin.
“Ha, yes! because he /chauffed/; women do like things that are out of the way. However, nothing ever did surprise the community more than that love affair. Catherine Curieux lived as virtuous a life as a holy virgin; she passed for a pearl of purity in her village of Vizay, which is really a small town in the Correze on the line between the two departments. Her father and mother are farmers to the Messieurs Brezac. Catherine Curieux was about seventeen when Farrabesche was sent to the galleys. The Farrabesches were an old family from the same region, who settled in the commune of Montegnac; they hired their farm from the village. The father and mother Farrabesche are dead, but Catherine’s three sisters are married, one in Aubusson, another in Limoges, and a third in Saint-Leonard.”
“Do you think Farrabesche knows where Catherine Curieux is?” asked Madame Graslin.
“If he did know he’d break his parole. Oh! he’d go to her. As soon as he came back from the galleys he got Monsieur Bonnet to ask for the little boy whom the grandfather and grandmother were taking care of; and Monsieur Bonnet obtained the child.”
“Does no one know what became of the mother?”
“No one,” said Colorat. “The girl felt that she was ruined; she was afraid to stay in her own village. She went to Paris. What is she doing there? Well, that’s the question; but you might as well hunt for a marble among the stones on that plain as look for her there.”
They were now riding up the ascent to the chateau as Colorat pointed to the plain below. Madame Sauviat, evidently uneasy, Aline and the other servants were waiting at the gate, not knowing what to think of this long absence.
“My dear,” said Madame Sauviat, helping her daughter to dismount, “you must be very tired.”
“No, mother,” replied Madame Graslin, in so changed a voice that Madame Sauviat looked closely at her and then saw the mark of tears.
Madame Graslin went to her own rooms with Aline, who took her orders for all that concerned her personal life. She now shut herself up and would not even admit her mother; when Madame Sauviat asked to enter, Aline stopped her, saying, “Madame has gone to sleep.”
The next day Veronique rode out attended by Maurice only. In order to reach the Roche-Vive as quickly as possible she took the road by which she had returned the night before. As they rode up the gorge which lies between the mountain peak and the last hill of the forest (for, seen from the plain, the Roche-Vive looks isolated) Veronique requested Maurice to show her the house in which Farrabesche lived and then to hold the horses and wait for her; she wished to go alone. Maurice took her to a path which led down on the other side of the Roche-Vive and showed her the thatched roof of a dwelling half buried in the mountain, below which lay the nursery grounds. It was then about mid-day. A light smoke issued from the chimney. Veronique reached the cottage in a few moments, but she did not make her presence known at once. She stood a few moments lost in thoughts known only to herself as she gazed on the modest dwelling which stood in the middle of a garden enclosed with a hedge of thorns.
Beyond the lower end of the garden lay several cares of meadow land surrounded by an evergreen hedge; the eye looked down on the flattened tops of fruit trees, apple, pear, and plum trees scattered here and there among these fields. Above the house, toward the crest of the mountain where the soil became sandy, rose the yellow crowns of a splendid grove of chestnuts. Opening the railed gate made of half- rotten boards which enclosed the premises, Madame Graslin saw a stable, a small poultry-yard and all the picturesque and living accessories of poor homes, which have so much of rural poesy about them. Who could see without emotion the linen fluttering on the hedges, the bunches of onions hanging from the eaves, the iron saucepans drying in the sun, the wooden bench overhung with honeysuckle, the stone-crop clinging to the thatch, as it does on the roofs of nearly all the cottages in France, revealing a humble life that is almost vegetative?
It was impossible for Veronique to come upon her keeper without his receiving due notice; two fine hunting dogs began to bark as soon as the rustling of her habit was heard on the dried leaves. She took the end of it over her arm and advanced toward the house. Farrabesche and his boy, who were sitting on a wooden bench outside the door, rose and uncovered their heads, standing in a respectful attitude, but without the least appearance of servility.
“I have heard,” said Veronique, looking attentively at the boy, “that you take much care of my interests; I wished to see your house and the nurseries, and ask you a few questions relating to the improvements I intend to make.”
“I am at madame’s orders,” replied Farrabesche.
Veronique admired the boy, who had a charming face of a perfect oval, rather sunburned and brown but very regular in features, the forehead finely modelled, orange-colored eyes of extreme vivacity, black hair cut straight across the brow and allowed to hang down on either side of the face. Taller than most boys of his age, the little fellow was nearly five feet high. His trousers, like his shirt, were of coarse gray linen, his waistcoat, of rough blue cloth with horn buttons much worn and a jacket of the cloth so oddly called Maurienne velvet, with which the Savoyards like to clothe themselves, stout hob-nailed shoes, and no stockings. This costume was exactly like that of his father, except that Farrabesche had on his head the broad-brimmed felt hat of the peasantry, while the boy had only a brown woollen cap.
Though intelligent and animated, the child’s face was instinct with the gravity peculiar to all human beings of any age who live in solitude; he seemed to put himself in harmony with the life and the silence of the woods. Both Farrabesche and his son were specially developed on their physical side, possessing many of the characteristics of savages,–piercing sight, constant observation, absolute self-control, a keen ear, wonderful agility, and an intelligent manner of speaking. At the first glance the boy gave his father Madame Graslin recognized one of those unbounded affections in which instinct blends with thought, and a most active happiness strengthens both the will of the instinct and the reasoning of thought.
“This must be the child I have heard of,” said Veronique, motioning to the boy.
“Yes, madame.”
“Have you made no attempt to find his mother?” asked Veronique, making a sign to Farrabesche to follow her a little distance.
“Madame may not be aware that I am not allowed to go beyond the district in which I reside.”
“Have you never received any news of her?”
“At the expiration of my term,” he answered, “I received from the Commissioner a thousand francs, sent to him quarterly for me in little sums which police regulations did not allow me to receive till the day I left the galleys. I think that Catherine alone would have thought of me, as it was not Monsieur Bonnet who sent this money; therefore I have kept it safely for Benjamin.”
“And Catherine’s parents?”
“They have never inquired for her since she left. Besides they did enough in taking charge of the little one.”
“Well, Farrabesche,” said Veronique, returning toward the house. “I will make it my business to know if Catherine still lives; and if so, what is her present mode of life.”
“Oh! madame, whatever that may be,” said the man gently, “it would be happiness for me if I could have her for my wife. It is for her to object, not me. Our marriage would legitimatize this poor boy, who as yet knows nothing of his position.”
The look the father threw upon the lad explained the life of these two beings, abandoned, or voluntarily isolated; they were all in all to each other, like two compatriots adrift upon a desert.
“Then you love Catherine?” said Veronique.
“Even if I did not love her, madame,” he replied, “she is to me, in my situation, the only woman there is in the world.”
Madame Graslin turned hurriedly and walked away under the chestnut trees, as if attacked by some sharp pain; the keeper, thinking she was moved by a sudden caprice, did not venture to follow her.
XIV
THE TORRENT OF THE GABOU
Veronique remained for some minutes under the chestnut trees, apparently looking at the landscape. Thence she could see that portion of the forest which clothes the side of the valley down which flows the torrent of the Gabou, now dry, a mass of stones, looking like a huge ditch cut between the wooded mountains of Montegnac and another chain of parallel hills beyond,–the latter being much steeper and without vegetation, except for heath and juniper and a few sparse trees toward their summit.
These hills, desolate of aspect, belong to the neighboring domain and are in the department of the Correze. A country road, following the undulations of the valley, serves to mark the line between the arrondissement of Montegnac and the two estates. This barren slope supports, like a wall, a fine piece of woodland which stretches away in the distance from its rocky summit. Its barrenness forms a complete contrast to the other slope, on which is the cottage of Farrabesche. On the one side, harsh, disfigured angularities, on the other, graceful forms and curving outlines; there, the cold, dumb stillness of unfruitful earth held up by horizontal blocks of stone and naked rock, here, trees of various greens, now stripped for the most part of foliage, but showing their fine straight many-colored trunks on every slope and terrace of the land; their interlacing branches swaying to the breeze. A few more persistent trees, oaks, elms, beeches, and chestnuts, still retained their yellow, bronzed, or crimsoned foliage.
Toward Montegnac, where the valley widened immensely, the two slopes form a horse-shoe; and from the spot where Veronique now stood leaning against a tree she could see the descending valleys lying like the gradations of an ampitheatre, the tree-tops rising from each tier like persons in the audience. This fine landscape was then on the other side of her park, though it afterwards formed part of it. On the side toward the cottage near which she stood the valley narrows more and more until it becomes a gorge, about a hundred feet wide.
The beauty of this view, over which Madame Graslin’s eyes now roved mechanically, recalled her presently to herself. She returned to the cottage where the father and son were standing, silently awaiting her and not seeking to explain her singular absence.
She examined the house, which was built with more care than its thatched roof seemed to warrant. It had, no doubt, been abandoned ever since the Navarreins ceased to care for this domain. No more hunts, no more game-keepers. Though the house had been built for over a hundred years, the walls were still good, notwithstanding the ivy and other sorts of climbing-plants which clung to them. When Farrabesche obtained permission to live there he tiled the room on the lower floor and put in furniture. Veronique saw, as she entered, two beds, a large walnut wardrobe, a bread-box, dresser, table, three chairs, and on the dresser a few brown earthenware dishes and other utensils necessary to life. Above the fireplace were two guns and two gamebags. A number of little things evidently made by the father for the child touched Veronique’s heart–the model of a man-of-war, of a sloop, a carved wooden cup, a wooden box of exquisite workmanship, a coffer inlaid in diaper pattern, a crucifix, and a splendid rosary. The chaplet was made of plum-stones, on each of which was carved a head of marvellous delicacy,–of Jesus Christ, of the apostles, the Madonna, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Joseph, Saint Anne, the two Magdalens, etc.
“I do that to amuse the little one in the long winter evenings,” he said, as if excusing himself.
The front of the house was covered with jessamine and roses, trained to the wall and wreathing the windows of the upper floor, where Farrabesche stored his provisions. He bought little except bread, salt, sugar, and a few such articles, for he kept chickens, ducks, and two pigs. Neither he nor the boy drank wine.
“All that I have heard of you and all that I now see,” said Madame Graslin at last, “make me feel an interest in your welfare which will not, I hope, be a barren one.”
“I recognize Monsieur Bonnet’s kindness in what you say,” cried Farrabesche, in a tone of feeling.
“You are mistaken; the rector has not yet spoken of you to me; chance –or God–has done it.”
“Yes, madame, God! God alone can do miracles for a miserable man like me.”
“If you have been a miserable man,” said Madame Graslin, lowering her voice that the child might not hear her (an act of womanly delicacy which touched his heart), “your repentance, your conduct, and the rector’s esteem have now fitted you to become a happier man. I have given orders to finish the building of the large farmhouse which Monsieur Graslin intended to establish near the chateau. I shall make you my farmer, and you will have an opportunity to use all your faculties, and also to employ your son. The /procureur-general/ in Limoges shall be informed about you, and the humiliating police- inspection you are now subjected to shall be removed. I promise you.”
At these words Farrabesche fell on his knees, as if struck down by the realization of a hope he had long considered vain. He kissed the hem of Madame Graslin’s habit, then her feet. Seeing the tears in his father’s eyes, the boy wept too, without knowing why.
“Rise, Farrabesche,” said Madame Graslin, “you do not know how natural it is that I should do for you what I have promised. You planted those fine trees, did you not?” she went on, pointing to the groups of Northern pine, firs, and larches at the foot of the dry and rocky hill directly opposite.
“Yes, madame.”
“Is the earth better there?”
“The water in washing down among the rocks brings a certain amount of soil, which it deposits. I have profited by this; for the whole of the level of the valley belongs to you,–the road is your boundary.”
“Is there much water at the bottom of that long valley?”
“Oh, madame,” cried Farrabesche, “before long, when the rains begin, you will hear the torrent roar even at the chateau; but even that is nothing to what happens in spring when the snows melt. The water then rushes down from all parts of the forest behind Montegnac, from those great slopes which are back of the hills on which you have your park. All the water of these mountains pours into this valley and makes a deluge. Luckily for you, the trees hold the earth; otherwise the land would slide into the valley.”
“Where are the springs?” asked Madame Graslin, giving her full attention to what he said.
Farrabesche pointed to a narrow gorge which seemed to end the valley just below his house. “They are mostly on a clay plateau lying between the Limousin and the Correze; they are mere green pools during the summer, and lose themselves in the soil. No one lives in that unhealthy region. The cattle will not eat the grass or reeds that grow near the brackish water. That vast tract, which has more than three thousand acres in it, is an open common for three districts; but, like the plains of Montegnac, no use can be made of it. This side on your property, as I showed you, there is a little earth among the stones, but over there is nothing but sandy rock.”
“Send your boy for the horses; I will ride over and see it for myself.”
Benjamin departed, after Madame Graslin had shown him the direction in which he would find Maurice and the horses.
“You who know, so they tell me, every peculiarity of the country thoroughly,” continued Madame Graslin, “explain to me how it is that the streams of my forest which are on the side of the mountain toward Montegnac, and ought therefore to send their waters down there, do not do so, neither in regular water-courses nor in sudden torrents after rains and the melting of the snows.”
“Ah, madame,” said Farrabesche, “the rector, who thinks all the time about the welfare of Montegnac, has guessed the reason, but he can’t find any proof of it. Since your arrival, he has made me trace the path of the water from point to point through each ravine and valley. I was returning yesterday, when I had the honor of meeting you, from the base of the Roche-Vive, where I carefully examined the lay of the land. Hearing the horses’ feet, I came up to see who was there. Monsieur Bonnet is not only a saint, madame; he is a man of great knowledge. ‘Farrabesche,’ he said to me (I was then working on the road the village has just built to the chateau, and the rector came to me and pointed to that chain of hills from Montegnac to Roche-Vive),– ‘Farrabesche,’ he said, ‘there must be some reason why that water-shed does not send any of its water to the plain; Nature must have made some sluiceway which carries it elsewhere.’ Well, madame, that idea is so simple you would suppose any child might have thought it; yet no one since Montegnac existed, neither the great lords, nor their bailiffs, nor their foresters, nor the poor, nor the rich, none of those who saw that plain barren for want of water, ever asked themselves why the streams which now feed the Gabou do not come there. The three districts above, which have constantly been afflicted with fevers in consequence of stagnant water, never looked for the remedy; I myself, who live in the wilds, never dreamed of it; it needed a man of God.”
The tears filled his eyes as he said the word.
“All that men of genius discover,” said Madame Graslin, “seems so simple that every one thinks they might have discovered it themselves. But,” she added, as if to herself, “genius has this fine thing about it,–it resembles all the world, but no one resembles it.”
“I understood Monsieur Bonnet at once,” continued Farrabesche; “it did not take him many words to tell me what I had to do. Madame, this fact I tell you of is all the more singular because there are, toward the plain, great rents and fissures in the mountain, gorges and ravines down which the water flows; but, strange to say, these clefts and ravines and gorges all send their streams into a little valley which is several feet below the level of your plain. To-day I have discovered the reason of this phenomenon: from the Roche-Vive to Montegnac, at the foot of the mountains, runs a shelf or barricade of rock, varying in height from twenty to thirty feet; there is not a break in it from end to end; and it is formed of a species of rock which Monsieur Bonnet calls schist. The soil above it, which is of course softer than rock, has been hollowed out by the action of the water, which is turned at right angles by the barricade of rock, and thus flows naturally into the Gabou. The trees and underbrush of the forest conceal this formation and the hollowing out of the soil. But after following the course of the water, as I have done by the traces left of its passage, it is easy to convince any one of the fact. The Gabou thus receives the water-shed of both mountains,–that which ought to go down the mountain face on which your park and garden are to the plain, and that which comes down the rocky slopes before us. According to Monsieur Bonnet the present state of things will crease when the water-shed toward the plain gains a natural outlet, and is dammed toward the Gabou by the earth and rocks which the mountain torrents bring down with them. It will take a hundred years to do that, however; and besides, it isn’t desirable. If your soil will not take up more water than the great common you are now going to see, Montegnac would be full of stagnant pools, breeding fever in the community.”
“I suppose that the places Monsieur Bonnet showed me the other day where the foliage of the trees is still green mark the present conduits by which the water falls into the Gabou?”
“Yes, madame. Between Roche-Vive and Montegnac there are three distinct mountains with three hollows between them, down which the waters, stopped by the schist barrier, turn off into the Gabou. The belt of trees still green at the foot of the hill above the barrier, which looks, at a distance, like a part of the plain, is really the water-sluice the rector supposed, very justly, that Nature had made for herself.”
“Well, what has been to the injury of Montegnac shall soon be its prosperity,” said Madame Graslin, in a tone of deep intention. “And inasmuch as you have been the first instrument employed on the work, you shall share in it; you shall find me faithful, industrious workmen; lack of money can always be made up by devotion and good work.”
Benjamin and Maurice came up as Veronique ended these words; she mounted her horse and signed to Farrabesche to mount the other.
“Guide me,” she said, “to the place where the waters spread out in pools over that waste land.”
“There is all the more reason why madame should go there,” said Farrabesche, “because the late Monsieur Graslin, under the rector’s advice, bought three hundred acres at the opening of that gorge, on which the waters have left sediment enough to make good soil over quite a piece of ground. Madame will also see the opposite side of the Roche-Vive, where there are fine woods, among which Monsieur Graslin would no doubt have put a farm had he lived; there’s an excellent place for one, where the spring which rises just by my house loses itself below.”