CHAPTER VII

My hopes--Disappointment--M. Deviolaine is appointed forest-ranger to the Duc d'Orléans--His coldness towards me--Half promises--First cloud on my love-affairs--I go to spend three months with my brother-in-law at Dreux--The news waiting for me on my return--Muphti--Walls and hedges--The summer-house--Tennis--Why I gave up playing it--The wedding party in the wood

I hoped that de Leuven would be able to get our comedies and melodramas put upon the stage.

M. de Leuven, his father, finding that no stir was made about his presence in France, made up his mind to risk returning to Paris. Adolphe naturally followed his father. His departure, which under any other circumstances would have filled me with despair, now overwhelmed me with delight, our ideas being what they were. De Leuven took away our _chefs-d'œuvre_: we never doubted that the directors of the various theatres for which they were destined would receive them with enthusiasm!

Thanks to our two vaudevilles and our drama, we would turn aside a tributary of that Pactolus which, since 1822, had watered M. Scribe's dominions. I would set sail on that tributary, with my mother, and rejoin de Leuven in Paris. There a career would open before me, strewn with roses and bank-notes. It can be imagined how anxiously I waited Adolphe's first letters. These first letters were slow in coming. I began to feel uneasy. At last one morning the postman (or rather post-woman, an old dame, whom we called "Mother Colombe") turned her steps in the direction of our house. She held a letter in her hand; this letter was in Adolphe's handwriting and bore the Paris postmark.

The directors--for reasons Adolphe could not fathom--did not put themselves out to make that fuss over our _chefs-d'œuvre_ he thought he had the right to expect of them. However, Adolphe did not despair of getting them a hearing. If he could not succeed in this, he would have to submit the manuscripts to the critics, which would be most humiliating! In spite of the gleams of hope which still shone through the epistle, the general tone of the letter was doleful. In conclusion, Adolphe promised to keep me well posted concerning his doings.

I awaited a second letter. The second letter was more than a month in coming. And then, alas! practically all hope had fled. The _Dîner d'amis_, borrowed from M. Bouilly, had not sufficient plot; the _Major de Strasbourg_ was too much like the _Soldat Laboureur_, which had just been played at the Variétés with such great success.

And as for the _Abencérages_, every boulevard theatre had received a play on that subject for the last ten, fifteen, or twenty years.

Even supposing, therefore, that ours were received, it did not carry us far.

Still, we had not yet lost all hope in the matter of the _Dîner d'amis_ and the _Major de Strasbourg._

After vain attempts to gain access at the Gymnase and the Varietés, we tried the Porte-Saint-Martin, the Ambigue-Comique and the Gaieté.

As for the unlucky _Abencérages_, its fate was sealed.

I shed as bitter a tear over it as Boabdil shed over Grenada, and I awaited Adolphe's third letter with very gloomy forebodings.

Our cup of humiliation was full to the brim: we were refused everywhere. But Adolphe had several plays on the way with Théaulon, with Soulié and with Rousseau. He was going to try to get them played, and when played, he would use the influence gained by his success to demand the acceptance of one of our efforts. This was but poor comfort and uncertain expectancy. I was greatly cast down.

In the meantime an event had taken place which would have filled me with high spirits under any other circumstances. M. Deviolaine was appointed keeper of the forests of the Duc d'Orléans; he left Villers-Cotterets and went to Paris to take over the management of the forestry department. Two ways of helping me lay open to him: he could take me into his office, or he could give me open air work. Unluckily, since my affair with Madame Lebègue, the family had given me the cold shoulder. This did not discourage my mother, who saw an opening for me in one or other of these two careers, from approaching M. Deviolaine.

It will be remembered that M. Deviolaine, although he was not an old soldier, could never disguise the truth. He replied to my mother--

"Why, certainly, if your rascal of an Alexandre were not an idle lad, I could find a berth for him; but I confess I have no confidence in him. Besides, after the goings on there have been, not necessarily his, but in which at all events he has not denied a share, everybody here would make a dead set against me."

Still my mother urged her case. She saw her last hope fading.

"Very well, then," said M. Deviolaine; "give me some time to think over things, and later we will see what can be done."

I awaited my mother's return with the same impatience with which I had awaited Adolphe's letters. The result was not more satisfactory.

Two days before, we had received a letter from my brother-in-law, who was a receiver at Dreux: he invited me to spend a month or two with him. We had become so poor, alas! that the economy my absence would produce would go a long way towards compensating my mother for her loss at my departure. It was, moreover, my first absence: my mother and I had never been parted except during that wonderful visit to Béthisy, when the Abbé Fortier had given me my first lessons in hunting. There was also another person in the town from whom it was a cruel wrench to tear myself. It can be guessed to whom I refer.

Although our _liaison_ had lasted more than three years, counting more than a year of preliminary attentions, I still loved Adèle very dearly, and the azure of our sky had hardly had so much as a light cloud upon it during that period--an almost unique experience in the annals of a courtship. Yet the poor girl had been feeling sad for some time. While I was but nineteen, she was already twenty years old; and our love-making, though delightful child's play, not only promised nothing for her future, but rather compromised it. As no one thought ill of our relations with each other, Adèle had received two or three offers of marriage, all of which she declined, either because they did not quite meet her views or because she would not sacrifice our love to them. Was she not in danger of suffering from the same disappointment which a certain hero of our acquaintance, almost a fellow-countryman, experienced? After having despised perch, carp and eel, would she not be compelled to sup with frogs? The prospect was not alluring, hence her melancholy. Poor Adèle! I perceived that my departure was as necessary for her welfare as for my own. We wept abundantly, she more than I, and it was quite natural she should shed the most tears, seeing she was to be consoled the soonest.

My going away was settled. We had now reached the month of July 1822. Only another week--eight days and eight nights!--a last week of happiness, remained to me; for some presentiment warned me that this week would be the last. The moment of parting came. We vowed fervently never to forget one another for one single hour; we promised to write to each other at least twice a week. Alas! we were not rich enough to afford the luxury of a letter a day. At last we said our final farewell. It was a cruel farewell--a separation of hearts even more than a corporeal separation.

I cannot explain how I got from Villers-Cotterets to Dreux--although I can recollect the most trivial details of my youth, almost of my babyhood. It is evident I must have gone through Paris, since that is the direct route; but how could I forget having passed through Paris? I cannot tell whether I stopped there or not. I have not the faintest recollection whether I saw Adolphe or not. I know I left Villers-Cotterets, and I found myself at Dreux! If anything could have distracted my attention, it would have been that stay with my sister and my brother-in-law. Victor, as I have already mentioned, was a delightful fellow, full of wit, of repartee, of resource. But, alas! there were too empty places in my heart which were difficult to fill.

I stayed two months at Dreux. I was there at the beginning of the shooting season. They told me a story of a three-legged hare, a sort of enchanted creature seen by all sportsmen, known by all sportsmen, shot at by all sportsmen; but after each shot the queer beast shook its ears and only ran the faster. This hare was all the better known, I might say all the more popular, because it was nearly the only one in the countryside. We had not gone a quarter of a league from the house, on the 1st of September, before a hare rose up near me. I gave chase, I fired and it rolled over. My dog brought it to me: it was the three-pawed hare! The sportsmen of Dreux united in giving me a grand dinner. The death of this strange hare, and certain shots that brought down two partridges at the same time, gave me a reputation in the department of Eure-et-Loir which has lasted until to-day. But none of these honours showered upon me, however exalted they were, could make me stay beyond the 15th of September.

Adèle's letters had become less and less frequent. Finally they ceased altogether.

I left on the 15th of September. I do not remember any more than about my going, whether I went back through Paris or not. I found myself back at Villers-Cotterets, and the news that met me on my arrival was--

"Do you know that Adèle Dalvin is going to be married?"

"No, I had not heard it, but it is quite likely," I replied.

Oh! what were the elegies of Parny on Éléonore's faithlessness, or Bertin's lamentations on the infidelity of Eucharis; oh, my God, how bloodless they seemed, when I tried to re-read them, with my own heart wounded!

Alas! poor Adèle! she was not making a love match: she was going to marry a man double her own age; he had lived for years in Spain, and he had brought home a small fortune. Adèle was making a prudent marriage.

I determined to see her the very night I returned. You remember how I paid my visits to Adèle. I entered the usual way, by slipping back the bolt of the lock, I opened the door, I met Muphti again, and he gave me such a greeting that he almost betrayed me by his demonstrations; then, with my heart thumping as it had never yet beaten, I scaled the wall and leapt over the two hedges. I felt quite ill when I was once more in the garden; I leant against a tree to get my breath. Then I went to the pavilion; but the nearer I drew, and the better I could see things in the darkness, the more I felt my heart tighten. The shutters were quite wide open, instead of being closed; the window, instead of being shut, was half open. I leant on the window-sill: everything was dark inside. I pushed the two flaps, I knelt on the sill. The room was empty: I felt the bedside with my hands; the bed was unoccupied. It was evident that Adèle had guessed I would come, that she had deserted the room, leaving it easy for me to gain an entrance therein, in order to show me her intentions. Ah yes! I guessed ... I understood everything. What good could it do to meet, since all was over between us? I sat down on the bed and I gave thanks to God for the gift of tears, since He had willed us to endure sorrow.

The marriage was fixed for fifteen days hence. During those fifteen days I kept almost entirely to the house. I went to the park on Sunday, but only to play tennis. I was very fond of that game, as of all games of skill; I was rather good at it; for I had very strong muscles and I could hold out through the longest game and sometimes even longer; this strength of mine was a terror to other players. On this particular day, when I wanted to overcome my mental feelings by great physical fatigue, I gave myself up to the game with a kind of frenzy. One ball, which I sent as high as a man, hit one of the players and knocked him down; he was the son of a _brigadier de gendarmerie_, called Savard. We ran up to him, and found that the ball had luckily hit him on the top of his shoulder, a little above the biceps, just where the shirt-sleeve gatherings come. Had it gone six inches higher I should have killed him on the spot, for it would have reached his temple. I threw down my racquet and I gave up the game: I have never played it since. I went home, and I tried to find distraction in working. But I could not set myself to my task: one works with heart and mind combined. Adolphe had possession of my thoughts; Adèle was in the act of breaking my heart.

The wedding-day drew near; I could not stay in Villers-Cotterets on that day. I arranged a bird-snaring party with an old comrade of mine, a playmate of my younger days, who had been somewhat neglected since de la Ponce and Adolphe had not only taken hold of my affections but were influencing my life. He was a harness-maker called Arpin.

In the evening we went to prepare our tree: it was in a lovely copse, a quarter of a league or so from the pretty village of Haramont, which I have since attempted to make famous in _Ange Pitou_ and _Conscience l'innocent._ At the foot of this tree, all whose branches we cut off, to make way for our lime twigs, we built a hut of branches and covered it with fern fronds, Next day, we were at our post before daybreak; when the sun rose and shone on our stiff tree, we found the sport had begun. It was a strange thing that, although when younger I had taken such pleasure in this sport that I often lay sleepless the night before, this present snaring had no power to distract my heart from the anguish weighing upon it.

O Sorrow, thou sublime mystery by which a man's spirit is raised and his soul expanded! Sorrow, without which there would be no poetry, for poetry is nearly always made up of joy and hope in equal parts, with an equivalent amount of sorrow!

Sorrow, which leaves its trace for life; a furrow moistened by tears, whence Prayer springs, the mother of those three heavenly, noble daughters, whose names are Faith, Hope and Charity! The benediction of a poet is ever thine, O Sorrow!

We had taken bread and wine with us; we had breakfasted and had dinner; the catch was plentiful, and would have been entirely satisfactory at any other time. We had reached the day's end, the hour when the blackbird whistles or the robin sings, when the first shadows creep silently to the heart of the wood;--suddenly I was startled from my reverie (if one can so call a formless chaos of thoughts through which no light had shone) by the sharp sound of a violin and by happy shouts of laughter. Violin and laughter came nearer, and I soon began to see through the trees that a player and a wedding party were coming from Haramont and going towards Villers-Cotterets; they were taking a narrow side-path, and would pass within twenty paces of me--young girls in white dresses, youths in blue or black clothes, with large bouquets and streaming ribbons.

I put my head out of our hut and uttered a cry. This wedding party was Adèle's! The young girl with the white veil and the bouquet of orange blossom who walked in front, and gave her arm to her husband, was Adèle! Her aunt lived at Haramont. After mass they had been to the wedding breakfast with the aunt; they had gone by the high road in the morning; they were returning at night by the shorter way. This short cut, as I have said, ran within twenty paces of our hut. What I had fled from had come to find me! Adèle did not see me; she did not know that she was passing near me: she was leaning against the shoulder of the man to whom she now belonged in the eyes of man and of God, while he had his arm round her waist and held her closely to him.

I gazed for a long time on that file of white dresses which, in the growing darkness, looked like a procession of ghosts. I heaved a sigh when it had disappeared. My first dream had just vanished, my first illusion been shattered!