V
By nine in the morning Evariste reached the gardens of the Luxembourg,to find Elodie already there seated on a bench waiting for him.
It was a month ago they had exchanged their vows and since then they hadseen each other every day, either at the _Amour peintre_ or at thestudio in the Place de Thionville. Their meetings had been very tender,but at the same time characterized by a certain reserve that checkedtheir expansiveness,--a reserve due to the staid and virtuous temper ofthe lover, a theist and a good citizen, who, while ready to make hisbeloved mistress his own before the law or with God alone for witnessaccording as circumstances demanded, would do nothing save publicly andin the light of day. Elodie knew the resolution to be right andhonourable; but, despairing of a marriage that seemed impossible fromevery point of view and loath to outrage the prejudices of society, shecontemplated in her inmost heart a liaison that could be kept a secrettill the lapse of time gave it sanction. She hoped one day to overcomethe scruples of a lover she could have wished less scrupulous, andmeantime, unwilling to postpone some necessary confidences as to thepast, she had asked him to meet her for a lover's talk in a lonelycorner of the gardens near the Carthusian Priory.
She threw him a tender look, took his hand frankly, invited him to sharethe bench and speaking slowly and thoughtfully:
"I esteem you too well, Evariste, to hide anything from you. I believemyself worthy of you; I should not be so were I not to tell youeverything. Hear me and be my judge. I have no act to reproach myselfwith that is degrading or base, or even merely selfish. I have only beenweak and credulous.... Do not forget, dear Evariste, the difficultcircumstances in which I found myself. You know how it was with me; Ihad lost my mother, my father, still a young man, thought only of hisown amusement and neglected me. I had a feeling heart, nature hasdowered me with a loving temper and a generous soul; it was true she hadnot denied me a firm will and a sound judgment, but in those days whatruled my conduct was passion, not reason. Alas! it would be the sameagain to-day, if the two were not in harmony; I should be driven to givemyself to you, beloved, heart and soul, and for ever!"
She expressed herself in firm, well-balanced phrases. She had wellthought over what she would say, having long ago made up her mind tothis confession for several reasons--because she was naturally candid,because she found pleasure in following Rousseau's example, and because,as she told herself reasonably enough:
"One day Evariste must fathom a secret which is known to others as wellas myself. A frank avowal is best. It is unforced and therefore to mycredit, and only tells him what some time or other he would discover tomy shame."
Soft-hearted as she was and amenable to nature's promptings, she didnot feel herself to be very much to blame, and this made her confessionthe easier; besides which, she had no intention of telling more than wasabsolutely requisite.
"Ah!" she sighed, "why did I not know you, Evariste, in the days when Iwas alone and forsaken?"
Gamelin had taken her request quite literally when Elodie asked him tobe her judge. Primed at once by nature and the education of books forthe exercise of domestic justice, he sat ready to receive Elodie'sadmissions.
As she still hesitated, he motioned to her to proceed. Then she beganspeaking very simply:
"A young man, who with many defects of character combined some goodqualities, and only showed the latter, found me to his taste and courtedme with a perseverance that was surprising in such a case; he was in theflower of his youth, full of charm and the idol of a bevy of charmingwomen who made no attempt to hide their adoration. It was not his goodlooks nor even his brilliance that appealed to me.... He touched myheart by the tokens of true love he gave me, and I do think he loved metruly. He was tender, impassioned. I asked no pledge save of his heart,and alas! his heart was fickle.... I blame no one but myself; it is myconfession I am making, not his. I lay nothing to his charge, for indeedhe is become a stranger to me. Ah! believe me, Evariste, I swear it, heis no more to me than if he had never existed."
She had finished, but Gamelin vouchsafed no answer. He folded his arms,a steadfast, sombre look settling in his eyes. His mistress and hissister Julie were running together in his thoughts. Julie too hadhearkened to a lover; but, unlike, altogether unlike, he thought, theunhappy Elodie, _she_ had let him have his will and carry her off, notmisled by the promptings of a tender heart, but to enjoy, far from herhome and friends, the sweets of luxury and pleasure. He was a sternmoralist; he had condemned his sister and he was half inclined tocondemn his mistress.
Elodie resumed in a very pleading voice:
"I was full of Jean-Jacques' philosophy; I believed men were naturallyhonest and honourable. My misfortune was to have encountered a lover whowas not formed in the school of nature and natural morality, and whomsocial prejudice, ambition, self-love, a false point of honour had madeselfish and treacherous."
The words produced the effect she had calculated on. Gamelin's eyessoftened. He asked:
"Who was your seducer? Is he a man I know?"
"You do not know him."
"Tell me his name."
She had foreseen the question and was firmly resolved not to answer it.
She gave her reasons:
"Spare me, I beseech you. For your peace of mind as for my own, I havealready said too much."
Then, as he still pressed her:
"In the sacred name of our love, I refuse to tell you anything to giveyou a definite notion of this stranger. I will not give your jealousy ashape to feed on; I will not bring a harassing shadow between you andme. I have not forgotten the man's name, but I will never let you knowit."
Gamelin insisted on knowing the name of the seducer,--that was the wordhe employed all through, for he felt no doubt Elodie had been seduced,cajoled, trifled with. He could not so much as conceive any otherpossibility,--that she had obeyed an overmastering desire, anirresistible craving, listened to the tempter's voice in the shape ofher own flesh and blood; he could not find it credible that the fairvictim, a creature of hot passion and a fond heart, had offered herselfa willing sacrifice; to satisfy his ideal, she must needs have beenoverborne by force or fraud, constrained by sheer violence, caught insnares spread about her steps on every side. He questioned her inguarded terms, but with a close, searching, embarrassing persistency. Heasked her how the liaison began, if it was long or short, tranquil ortroubled, under what circumstances it was broken off. And his enquiriescame back again and again to the means the fellow had used to cajoleher, as if these must surely have been extraordinary and unheard of. Butall his cross-examination was in vain. She kept her own counsel with agentle, deprecatory obstinacy, her lips tightly pressed together andtears welling in her eyes.
Presently, however, Evariste having asked where the man was now, shetold him:
"He has left the Kingdom--France, I mean," she corrected herself in aninstant.
"An _emigre_!" ejaculated Gamelin.
She looked at him, speechless, at once reassured and disheartened to seehim create in his own mind a truth in accordance with his politicalpassions and of his own motion give his jealousy a Jacobin complexion.
In actual fact Elodie's lover was a little lawyer's clerk, a very prettylad, half Adonis, half guttersnipe, whom she had adored and the thoughtof whom, though three years had gone by since, still thrilled hernerves. Rich old women were his particular game, and he deserted Elodiefor a woman of the world of a certain age who could and did recompensehis merits. Having, after the abolition of offices, attained a post inthe Mairie of Paris, he was now a _sansculotte_ dragoon and thehanger-on of a _ci-devant_ Countess.
"A noble! an _emigre_!" muttered Gamelin, whom she took good care not toundeceive, never having been desirous he should know the whole truth."And he deserted you like a dastard?"
She nodded in answer. He clasped her to his heart:
"Dear victim of the vile corruption of monarchies, my love shall avengehis villainy! Heaven grant, I may meet the scoundrel! I shall not failto know him!"
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She turned away, at one and the same time saddened and smiling,--anddisappointed. She would fain have had him wiser in the lore of love,with more of the natural man about him, more perhaps even of the brute.She felt he forgave so readily only because his imagination was cold andthe secret she had revealed awoke in him none of the mental picturesthat torture sensuous natures,--in a word, that he saw her seductionsolely under a moral and social aspect.
They had risen, and while they walked up and down the shady avenues ofthe gardens, he informed her that he only esteemed her the more becauseshe had suffered wrong, Elodie entertained no such high claims; however,take him as he was, she loved him, and admired the brilliant artisticgenius she divined in him.
As they left the Luxembourg, they came upon crowds thronging the Rue del'Egalite and the whole neighbourhood of the Theatre de la Nation. Therewas nothing to surprise them in this; for several days great excitementhad prevailed in the most patriotic Sections; denunciations were rifeagainst the Orleans faction and the Brissotin plotters, who wereconspiring, it was said, to bring about the ruin of Paris and themassacre of good Republicans. Gamelin himself a short time back hadsigned a petition from the Commune demanding the expulsion of theTwenty-one.
Just before passing under the arcade, joining the theatre to theneighbouring house, they had to find their way through a group ofcitizens _en carmagnole_ who were listening to a harangue from a youngsoldier mounted on the top of the gallery. He looked as beautiful as theEros of Praxiteles in his helmet of panther-skin. This fascinatingwarrior was charging the People's Friend with indolence:
"Marat, you are asleep," he was crying, "and the federalists are forgingfetters to bind us."
Hardly had Elodie cast eyes on the orator before she turned rapidly toEvariste and begged him to get her away. The crowd, she declared,frightened her and she was afraid of fainting in the crush.
They parted in the Place de la Nation, swearing an oath of eternalfidelity.
* * * * *
That same morning early the _citoyen_ Brotteaux had made the _citoyenne_Gamelin the magnificent present of a capon. It would have been an act ofindiscretion for him to mention how he had come by it; as a fact, he hadit of a _Dame de la Halle_ at the Pointe Eustache for whom he sometimesacted as amanuensis, and as everybody knows, these "Ladies of theMarket" cherished Royalist sympathies and were in correspondence withthe _emigres_. The _citoyenne_ Gamelin had received the gift withheartfelt gratitude. Such dainties were scarce ever seen then; victualsgrew dearer every day. The people feared a famine; the aristocrats, theysaid, wished it, and the "corner" makers were at work to bring it about.
The _citoyen_ Brotteaux, being invited to eat his share of the capon atthe midday dinner, appeared in due course and congratulated his hostesson the rich aroma of cooking that assailed his nostrils. Indeed a noblesmell of rich, savoury broth filled the painter's studio.
"You are very obliging, sir," replied the good dame. "To prepare thedigestion for your capon, I have made a vegetable soup with a slice offat bacon and a big beef bone. There's nothing like a marrowbone, sir,to give soup a flavour."
"The maxim does you honour, _citoyenne_," returned the old man. "And youwill be doing wisely to put back again to-morrow and the day after, allthe week, in fact, to put back again, I say, this precious bone in thepot, which it will continue to flavour. The wise woman of Panzoustalways did so; she used to make a soup of green cabbages with a rind ofrusty bacon and an old _savorados_. That is what in her country, whichis also mine, they call the medullary bone, the most tasty and mostsucculent of all bones."
"This lady you speak of, sir," remarked the _citoyenne_ Gamelin, "wasshe not rather a saving soul, to make the same bone serve so many timesover?"
"Oh! she lived in a small way," explained Brotteaux, "she was poor,albeit a prophetess."
At that moment, Evariste Gamelin returned, agitated by the confession hehad heard and determined to know who was Elodie's betrayer, to avenge atone and the same time the Republic's wrong and his own on the miscreant.
After the usual greetings had been exchanged, the _citoyen_ Brotteauxresumed the thread of his discourse:
"It is seldom those who make a trade of foretelling the future growrich. Their impostures are too soon found out and their trickery rendersthem odious. But indeed we should be bound to detest them much worse ifthey prophesied truly. A man's life would be intolerable if he knew whatis to befall him. He would be aware of calamities to come and suffertheir pains in advance, while he would get no joy of present blessingswhose end he would foresee. Ignorance is a necessary condition of humanhappiness, and it must be owned that in most cases we fulfil it well. Weknow almost nothing about ourselves; absolutely nothing about ourneighbours. Ignorance constitutes our peace of mind; self-deception ourfelicity."
The _citoyenne_ Gamelin set the soup on the table, said the Benediciteand seated her son and her guest at the board. She stood up herself toeat, declining the chair the _citoyen_ Brotteaux offered her beside him;she said she knew what good manners required of a woman.