Part 25

Throughout the neighborhood, within a radius of many leagues, the name of Gerval was revered and pronounced with emotion by the unfortunate ones upon whom the good man constantly lavished benefactions. He had not always occupied his house in the woods; often the exigencies of his business had kept him away for a long time; but at such times Dupré and Catherine, who knew their master’s heart, continued his beneficent work, so that the poor could hardly notice the absence of their protector.

The peasants, when they learned that Monsieur Gerval had gone to Paris, were afraid that he would not return to them; Catherine herself shared that feeling, for she knew that her master wished to see some old friends whom he had been obliged to neglect for a long time, and to whom he was very much attached. But a letter from Monsieur Gerval brought joy to the people of the Vosges; they learned that they were to see their friend, their staff, their father, once more; that he was to return among them, never to leave them again. This news soon became known throughout the neighborhood; the people hurried to Catherine to ascertain if it were true, and she read to each one her master’s letter, announcing his arrival on a certain day.

That day arrived and everything was in confusion in the house, to celebrate the goodman’s return. Lucas robbed his garden, to decorate the dining-room; Catherine surpassed herself in the repast which she prepared; the peasants from round about, and all the unfortunates whom the kindhearted Gerval had assisted, gathered at the cottage.

“He hasn’t arrived yet,” said the old servant, “but he cannot be long now.”

They strung themselves out along the road, they went up to the hilltops, in order to descry the carriage sooner. They saw it at last; it was instantly surrounded, the old man’s name passed from mouth to mouth, and the blessings of the poor celebrated the return of their wealthy benefactor.

Gerval shed tears of emotion when he saw the joy of the worthy folk who regarded him as their father.

“Ah! my friend,” he said to Dupré, “how pleasant it is to be able to do good!”

The carriage entered the courtyard; the peasants uttered cries of joy.

“Hush! hush! my friends,” said the old man as he alighted from his carriage; “do not give such loud expression to your joy; it pleases me, but it distresses an unhappy woman to whom the slightest noise is a danger.”

As he spoke, Gerval helped Adeline out of the carriage, while Dupré lifted little Ermance in his arms.

Adeline glanced uneasily about; much noise always caused her to shrink in alarm; the sight of a number of people increased her excitement; she shuddered and tried to fly. Gerval was obliged to motion to the villagers to stand a little aside, before he could induce the unfortunate young woman to enter the house.

They gazed at Adeline with interest, and joy gave way to sadness when they realized her condition.

“Poor woman!” was heard on all sides; “what can have deprived her of her reason? And that little girl! how beautiful she will be some day! They are two more unfortunates, whom Monsieur Gerval has taken under his protection.”

“My children,” said Catherine, “as soon as I learn this young stranger’s story, I will tell it to you, I promise you; and I shall know it soon, for my master keeps nothing from me.”

Unfortunately for Catherine, her master knew no more than she upon that subject. To satisfy his old servant’s curiosity, Monsieur Gerval told her how he had made Adeline’s acquaintance, and the deplorable state in which he had found her afterward. The servant uttered exclamations of surprise during her master’s narrative, but she declared that she would be able to learn all the young woman’s misfortunes little by little. Meanwhile, as she already felt drawn to love and cherish her child, she hastened to prepare one of the pleasantest rooms in the house for them.

Adeline was given a room on the ground floor, looking on the woods; the window was supplied with stout iron bars, and there was no danger that she would run away from the house in one of her fits of delirium. They left the child with her, for she seemed always to know her daughter, and often pressed her affectionately to her heart.

“Those are the only moments of happiness which she seems still to enjoy,” said Monsieur Gerval; “let us not deprive her of them! and let us not rob the child of her mother’s caresses!”

Catherine undertook with pleasure to take care of the invalid and her daughter. It was she who accompanied the young woman in her walks about the neighborhood, when the weather was fine; and Lucas was ordered to decorate Adeline’s room with fresh flowers every morning. It was by dint of unremitting care and attention that Monsieur Gerval hoped to restore peace to the hapless woman’s soul.

They knew little Ermance’s name, because her mother had called her by it several times in her delirium; but they did not know the mother’s name, and Monsieur Gerval had decided that she should be called Constance. That melodious name was approved by Catherine, who declared that the stranger’s misfortunes must be due to love. So that was the name by which Adeline was called by the people at the house in the woods; but sometimes Lucas, and the peasants of the neighborhood, called her simply “the mad woman.”

The peace that reigned in the house in the Vosges, the tranquil life that they led there, and the affectionate attentions lavished upon Adeline, seemed to bring a little repose to her mind; she caressed her daughter and often embraced her; she smiled at her benefactor and at all those about her; but only incoherent words came from her lips; and she would relapse almost immediately into a state of sombre melancholy from which nothing could arouse her. She passed part of the day in the garden, which was large and well cared for. Sometimes she plucked flowers and seemed to feel a moment’s cheerfulness; but soon the smile disappeared from her pale features, and she would seat herself upon a bench of turf and remain whole hours there without a sign of life.

“What a misfortune!” said honest Gerval, as he contemplated her, while playing with little Ermance, who already returned his caresses; “I am inclined to think that there is no hope of her recovery.”

“Why do you say that?” said Catherine; “we must never despair of anything. Patience, patience; perhaps a salutary crisis may come. Oh! if we only knew the cause of her trouble!”

“Parbleu! to be sure, that is what the doctor from Paris says; but that is just what we shall never know.”

“Pshaw! how can we tell? She talks sometimes. Look, she seems to be smiling now; she is watching her daughter play; she is much better to-day than usual, and I am going to question her.”

“Take care, Catherine, and don’t distress her.”

“Don’t be afraid, monsieur.”

Catherine walked toward the clump of shrubbery under which Adeline was sitting, and Gerval, Dupré and Lucas stood near by in order to hear the stranger’s replies.

“Madame,” said Catherine in her softest tone, “why do you grieve all the time? You are surrounded by people who love you; tell us your trouble, and we will try to comfort you.”

“Comfort me!” said Adeline, gazing at Catherine in amazement. “Oh! I am happy, very happy! I have no need of comfort. Edouard adores me; he has just sworn that he does; we are united again, and he will make me happy now, for he is not wicked!”

“But why did he leave you?”

“Leave me! No, he did not leave me; he is with me in the house where he lived in his youth; my mother, my daughter and his brother are with us. Oh! I don’t want him to go to Paris; he might meet--No! no! don’t let him go!”

“Take care, Catherine,” said Monsieur Gerval in an undertone; “her eyes are beginning to flash, her excitement is increasing; for heaven’s sake, don’t worry her any more.”

Catherine dared not disobey her master, but she burned to know more. Adeline did in fact seem intensely excited; she rose, walked about at random, and seemed inclined to fly. The old servant tried to quiet her.

“Let me alone,” said Adeline, shaking herself free, “let me fly! He is there, he is chasing me! see, look,--do you see him? He follows me everywhere; he has sworn to ruin me; he dares still to talk to me of his love! The monster! Oh! in pity’s name, do not let him come near me!”

She hurried away, ran to every corner of the garden, and did not stop until, exhausted and unable to endure her terror, she fell to the ground, unconscious and helpless.

They took her at once to her apartment, and their zealous attentions recalled her to life. Monsieur Gerval strictly forbade any questioning of her because it always intensified her disease.

“All right, monsieur,” said Catherine; “but you see that we are certain now that she is married, that her husband has a brother, and that with all the rest there is some miserable fellow who makes love to her, and whom she is afraid of! Oh! I can guess the trouble easily enough! I’ll bet that it’s that same fellow who enticed the husband to Paris, where he forgot his wife and child! Pardi! that’s sure to be the result. Oh! what a pity that I can’t make her talk more! We should soon know everything.”

But as the excellent woman did not wish to arouse the stranger’s excitement, she dared not ask her questions. She often walked with Adeline in the woods about the house; one or the other of them carried Ermance; the old servant watched every movement of the young woman, she listened carefully to the words that fell from her mouth, put them together, and based conjectures upon them; but after three months, she knew no more than on the second day.

Once, however, an unforeseen event disturbed Adeline’s monotonous life. She was walking with her daughter on a hillside a short distance from the village. Catherine followed her, admiring the graceful figure, the charming features and bearing of the unfortunate young woman, and saying to herself:

“That woman wasn’t born in a cabin; her manners and her language show that she belongs in good society! And to think that we shall never know who she is! It’s enough to drive one mad.”

A young peasant had climbed a tree to steal a nest; his foot slipped, and a branch at which he grasped broke at the same time; he fell to the ground, wounded himself badly in the head, and uttered a lamentable cry.

That cry was heard by Adeline, who was then near the wounded man; she instantly stopped and began to tremble; terror was depicted upon her features, and her eyes sought the ground as if they feared to rest upon an object which horrified her; suddenly she took her child and fled through the woods. In vain did Catherine run after her, calling to her; Adeline’s strength was redoubled, and Catherine’s shouts augmented her frenzy; she climbed the steepest paths without taking breath; she scarcely touched the ground; she rushed into the mountains and the old servant soon lost sight of her.

Catherine returned to her master in despair, and told him what had happened. Monsieur Gerval knew that all the peasants were devoted to him, and he sent Dupré and Lucas to beg them to search the whole district. The good people made haste to beat up the forest. Success crowned their zealous efforts; they found Adeline lying at the foot of a tree; fever had given place to exhaustion, and the fugitive had been unable to go farther.

They placed her on a litter hastily constructed of the branches of trees, and carried her and her daughter back to their benefactor’s house. The old man dismissed the villagers, after lauding their zeal, and devoted his whole attention to pacifying the poor invalid, whom the young peasant’s plaintive cry had cast into a more violent attack of delirium than any that she had had since her arrival in the Vosges.

In the throes of constantly returning terror, Adeline talked more than usual, and Catherine did not leave her side. But she shuddered at the broken phrases that the stranger uttered:

“Take him from that scaffold!” Adeline exclaimed again and again, putting her hands before her eyes. “In pity’s name, do not give him to the executioners! They are going to kill him! I hear his voice! But no, that plaintive cry did not come from his mouth; that was another victim.--Oh! I cannot be mistaken, I recognize his tones; they always go to my heart!”

Catherine shed tears; Monsieur Gerval caught a glimpse of a ghastly mystery, and the old servant repeated to her master:

“A scaffold! executioners! Ah! that makes one shudder, monsieur!”

“No matter,” said the kindhearted Gerval; “if the young woman’s husband or relatives are criminals I will keep her none the less. She is not guilty, I am sure; she is only unfortunate!”

“Yes, monsieur; but the monsters who have brought her to this condition! they are very guilty; they deserve to be severely punished!”

“Yes, my poor Catherine; but we do not know them; let us leave to Providence the duty of avenging this unhappy creature, and let us not doubt its justice. It would be too horrible to think that the wicked may enjoy in peace the fruit of an evil deed, while the victim wastes her life away in tears and despair.”

Monsieur Gerval summoned his servants again, and urged them to redouble their attention, in order to spare the young mother such dangerous emotion.

“No noise, no shouts in the neighborhood of her room! If you come together to talk and laugh, which I do not wish to forbid you to do, let it be in some room at a distance from Constance’s so that she cannot hear you. Above all, no more questions; for they lead to no good result.”

“Oh! I am done, monsieur,” said the old servant; “I have no desire to learn anything more now; it strikes me as altogether too painful a subject; and I should be terribly distressed to pain a woman whom I should like to see happy once more.”

Thanks to these precautions, Adeline became calm once more, and everything went on in its accustomed order. Some time passed before they dared to let the invalid leave the house; and she no longer walked in the woods except under the escort of both Lucas and Catherine; and as soon as the peasants caught sight of her, knowing her condition and the orders that Monsieur Gerval had given, they quietly moved away from her path. If she approached, unperceived, a group of peasant girls, who were engaged in diverting themselves, their games, their dancing or singing were instantly suspended.

“It is the mad woman,” they would whisper to one another; “let’s not make any noise, for that makes her worse.”

Time flew by without bringing any change in Adeline’s condition; but her little Ermance grew rapidly and her features began to develop. Already her smile had the sweet expression of her mother’s, and her affectionate heart seemed to have inherited Adeline’s sensibility.

A year had passed since Monsieur Gerval had taken Adeline and her daughter under his roof. Pretty Ermance loved the old man as she would have loved her father. Her little white hands patted her protector’s white hair, and he became more and more attached every day to the sweet child.

“You have no parents,” he said to her one night, taking her on his knees. “Your mother is dead to you, poor child! Your father is dead too, no doubt, or else he has abandoned you, and does not deserve your love. I propose to assure your future; you shall be rich; and may you be happy and think sometimes of the old man who adopted you, but who will not live long enough to see you enjoy his gifts!”

The winter came and stripped the trees of their foliage and the earth of the verdure which embellished it. The woods were deserted, the birds had gone to seek shade and water beneath another sky. The snow, falling in great flakes on the mountains, lay in huge drifts among the Vosges, and made the roads difficult for pedestrians and impracticable for carriages. The evenings grew long, and the whistling of the wind made them melancholy and gloomy. The peasant, who was forced to pass through the woods, made haste to reach his home, for fear of being overtaken by the darkness; he hurried along, blowing on his fingers, and his footprints in the snow often served to guide the traveller who had lost his way.

However, ennui did not find its way into honest Gerval’s abode; all the inmates were able to employ their time profitably. The old man read, or attended to his business and wrote to his farmers. Dupré made up his accounts, and looked after the wants of the household; Catherine did the housework and the cooking, and Lucas looked after his garden and tried to protect his trees and his flowers from the rigors of the season. Adeline did not leave her room except in the morning, when she made the circuit of the garden a few times; she was rarely seen in the other parts of the house. As soon as night came, she withdrew to her room, sometimes taking her daughter with her; when, by any chance, she remained with her host in the evening, she sat beside Catherine, who told the child stories, while Gerval played a game of piquet or backgammon with Dupré, and Lucas spelled out in a great book a story of thieves or ghosts.

When a violent gust of wind made the windows creak, and blew against them the branches of the trees which stood near the house, Lucas, who was not courageous, but who loved to frighten himself by reading terrifying stories, would drop his book and look about him in dismay; the monotonous noise of the weathercock on the roof, the uniform beating of an iron hook against the wall, were so many subjects of alarm to the gardener.

Sometimes Adeline would break the silence, crying:

“There he is! I hear him!” and Lucas would jump from his chair, thinking that someone was really about to appear. Then Catherine would make fun of the gardener, his master would scold him for his cowardice, and Lucas, to restore his courage, would take his book and continue his ghost story.

XXXVI

THE TRUTH SOMETIMES SEEMS IMPROBABLE

The snow had fallen with more violence and in greater abundance than usual; the gusts of wind constantly snapped off branches of the trees and hurled them far away across the roads, which soon became impassable. The clock struck eight and it had long been dark.

Adeline, whom the roaring of the tempest made more melancholy than usual, had not left her room during the day. Catherine had brought Ermance downstairs and put her to bed beside her mother, who was sitting in a chair and refused to retire so early, despite the old servant’s entreaties. The master of the house was playing his usual game with Dupré, and Lucas had just taken up his great book, when the bell at the gate rang loudly.

“Somebody is ringing,” said Monsieur Gerval; “company so late as this, and in such weather!”

“It is very strange!” repeated Lucas.

“Shall I open the door, monsieur?” asked Dupré.

“Why, we must find out first who it is; it may be travellers who have got lost in the mountains and cannot go any farther, or some unfortunate creature whom the villagers have sent to me, as they sometimes do. I hear Catherine coming, she will tell us who it is.”

Catherine had been to the door to look out, and she came up again to take her master’s orders.

“Monsieur,” she said, “it is three travellers, three peddlers, it would seem, for they have bales on their backs. They ask for shelter for to-night, as they cannot go on, because there are more than two feet of snow on the road. One of them is a poor old man who seems to suffer much from the cold. Shall I let them in?”

“Certainly, and we will do our best for them.”

“But, monsieur,” said Dupré, “three men, at night--that is rather imprudent!”

“Why so, Dupré? They are peddlers and one of them is old; what have we to fear? It is perfectly natural that they should seek shelter in bad weather; ought I to leave people to lose their way among these mountains, for fear of entertaining vagabonds? Ah! my friend, if it were necessary to read the hearts of those whom one succors, one would do good too seldom! Go and let them in quickly, Catherine; do not leave these travellers at the gate any longer; and do you, Dupré, make a big fire so that they may dry themselves; and Lucas will prepare the small room which I always reserve for visitors.”

Catherine went down and opened the gate for the travellers, who overwhelmed her with thanks. The two younger ones held the old man by the arms, and only with great difficulty did they succeed in helping him up the staircase to the first floor, where the master of the house awaited them in the living-room.

“Welcome, messieurs,” said honest Gerval, inviting them to draw near the fire. “First of all, let us make this old gentleman comfortable; he seems completely exhausted.”

“Yes, monsieur,” said the aged stranger in a tremulous voice, “the cold has so affected me that, except for the help of my children, I should have remained on the road.”

“You will soon feel better, my good man. Messieurs, take off those bales, which are in your way, and I will send them to the room which you are to occupy.”

The peddlers deposited in a corner of the room several bundles which seemed to contain linens, handkerchiefs and muslin; Dupré, who was a little suspicious, walked to the bundles and examined them; one of the young men noticed his action, and made haste to open several of them and exhibit his wares to the old servant.

“If there’s anything that takes your fancy, say so, monsieur,” he said; “we will do our best to please you.”

“Thanks,” replied Dupré, seeing that his master appeared displeased by his inspection of the bundles; “we can see these things better to-morrow morning.”

The two peddlers returned to the old man, and sat down in front of the fire. Catherine brought a bottle of wine and glasses, and Lucas took up the bundles and carried them to the room on the second floor.

“Here is something that will warm you while your supper is preparing,” said Monsieur Gerval, filling the strangers’ glasses. “Drink, messieurs,--it is very good.”

“With pleasure,” said that one of the young men who had already spoken to Dupré. “An excellent thing is good wine! Here, father; here, Jean; your health, monsieur.”

“Are these your sons?” Monsieur Gerval asked the old man.

“Yes, monsieur, they are my support, the staff of my old age. This is Gervais, my oldest; he is always merry, always ready to laugh; and this is Jean, my youngest, he isn’t so light-hearted as his brother, he doesn’t speak much, but he is a steady fellow, a great worker and very economical. I love them both, for they are honest and incapable of deceiving anybody, and with those qualities a man is certain to make his way.”

“I congratulate you on having such children; but why do you go on the road with them at your age?”

“You see, monsieur, we’re going to Metz to set up in business; my boys are going to marry the daughters of a correspondent of theirs, and I am going to live with them.”

“That makes a difference; but was it chance that brought you to my house, or did the peasants point it out to you as a good place at which to pass the night?”

“Monsieur,” said Gervais, “we are not familiar with this neighborhood, and as we started out rather late, the darkness took us by surprise; that is why we sought shelter, especially on account of our father, who is too old to endure severe weather. But for him, we should never have been able to make up our minds to ask a gentleman for a night’s lodging, and we should have passed the night on the snow, my brother and I--shouldn’t we, Jean?”

“Yes,” said Jean in a low voice, and without removing his gaze from the fire.

“You would have done very wrong, messieurs,” said Monsieur Gerval, filling the strangers’ glasses; “I like to be useful to my fellowmen, and I will try to give you a comfortable night.”

“You live in a very isolated house,” said Gervais, emptying his glass; “aren’t you ever afraid of being victimized by robbers?”