Chapter XI.

"What are misfortunes and despair?"

Toward the end of the carnival license has no limit, and each one is eagerly drinking the cup of pleasure and rushing thoughtlessly into all kinds of amusements. Yet there is in this _mélange_ of ranks, manners, and customs something so fantastic and extraordinary that Robert, unaccustomed to scenes of this kind, is perfectly confounded. He is dragged on by the popular current, which, in its course, made a thousand circuits, and carried him along, in spite of his wish to the contrary. He was, perhaps, the only person who was serious in the midst of all this nonsense--the only one who did not exchange a phrase or word with others--the only one who did not reply to the provoking questions put him by the laughing crowd abandoned to the freest gayety.

As night came on, exhausted with fatigue, be returns to his hotel, and, hearing cries not far from him, started in the direction from whence they came. The darkness was profound, and he could scarcely distinguish what passed him at any distance. But a few moments accustomed him to it, and, following the cries, he found a woman struggling to release herself from a man who was trying to drag her toward a gondola he had near. He advanced to defend her, when a fourth person appeared and struck the man with a poniard. He staggered and fell, uttering a horrible groan, and as Robert went to his assistance, the man, and the woman he had avenged, disappeared, leaving him alone to help their victim. Seeing no one near, he carried the wounded man to the door of his hotel, and what was his surprise to find it was Gustave de Vernanges, the son of his loved benefactress. Although he had nothing but painful remembrances of this young man, he was not the less sorrowfully affected in seeing the end to which his wickedness had brought him, nor less prodigal in his care of Gustave. The more he saw that his soul was exposed to peril, the more he desired to save his body, that both might at last be saved. But the days of the wicked are numbered, and God strikes them down. Woe unto them then if they are unprepared for their doom. Gustave sank rapidly, and the physician's art could not avail. Robert unceasingly prayed to God to give a few more days to this poor sinner, that he might be reconciled to his Judge before appearing in his presence. He wept with anguish when he found the shades of death were fast drawing round him. A deep-drawn sigh was heard in the room, and the unfortunate young man opened his eyes and looked round him. A second sigh, then a horrible groan, and thinking he was not recognized, he articulated in a feeble voice, "Who are you? Where am I?"

"Be tranquil," replied Robert sweetly, "you are at the house of a friend. You have been wounded, and, not knowing where you lived, I brought you here. You must be perfectly calm and quiet, for your wound is dangerous. If you have any messages to send your friends, I will faithfully execute them."

"Yes," replied Gustave painfully, "I feel that I am badly wounded, and will, perhaps, die, and so young too. I have no parents, but had a number of friends, who shared my pleasures and excited me to do foolish things, but where are they now? Oh! it is frightful to die when one is rich and has so much pleasure to look forward to. {198} Must I give up all these things, my titles, my wealth, and all, to go-- where? I, the rich Gustave de Vernanges, must I die at twenty-seven, struck by the hand of a common man?"

"You must not speak so," replied Robert. "In God's hand is the life you so much regret to give up, and, if he wills it, you will be saved; his power and goodness are great, but you must submit yourself to his divine will, and repent in all sincerity of heart. You are not without sin, for we are all sinners; but ask God's pardon for them, and you will then be tranquil, and peace of mind is necessary to health of body."

"For what must I repent," said the troubled voice of the unhappy Gustave. "What have I done? What are my faults? They are only what thousands of others have done. I have amused myself, and laughed at the sorrows of my victim. I gave them gold and rejoiced in their tears; passing my years in feasts and follies, and never trying to dry the tears I caused. Oh!" he cried in delirium, "I see it now through the mists of death. My mother! oh! how I treated her! The veil falls from my eyes! Remorse! remorse! I have sinned, and my mother that I did not love calls me now to repent. O God, my God, pardon me!" And in his fever and on his bed of sickness and pain he called upon his mother, whom he had killed by his wickedness, and upon God, whom be had renounced all his life, to save him.

The physician came in at this moment, and, looking at him, shook his head sadly, saying to Robert that death was near, and a priest had better be sent for to prepare him for the last change. He soon arrived, but Gustave was in a violent delirium, and could not understand his saintly exhortations.

"Pray the Lord," said the man of God to Robert, "pray that he will give this unfortunate young man enough consciousness that he may confess and receive absolution; and may his example, my son, teach you to fly from the vain pleasures of this world and its impure passions."

Robert then told him of the obligations he was under to the mother of Gustave, and how well he had known her for two years, and how he had since been separated from her son.

"And see," replied the man of God, "what would have been his end if God had not made you an instrument of reconciliation between him and his Maker. He led you near your enemy just at the moment when death struck the hardened sinner, to make him repent. The designs of the Almighty are impenetrable, but in their execution there is grace and pardon. Oh! let us pray, my son, and God will give both faith and hope, and will regenerate this poor heart, tortured by remorse."

The venerable priest and the young painter passed several hours in prayer, and the old man supplicated heaven with fervor for the conversion of one of his brothers to Christ.

Toward morning Gustave became conscious, and the persuasive and eloquent words of the priest moved the dying heart. He comprehended his sins, the greatness of his faults, and wept bitterly for his errors, and repented for the fatal passions that tempted him to commit so many crimes. He confessed, with heart-broken repentance, the many griefs he had caused his mother, and the name of Robert was spoken with hers, and his regrets at the sorrows he had given him. But when he commenced to avow all his follies of debauchery and infamous seductions, vanquished by shame, and the frightful remembrance of the hateful past, he cried out: "O God, do not pardon me, I am too guilty!"

"What do you say, my son?" said the priest? "You are guilty, it is true, but have confidence in God, and you will be pardoned. He has struck you down, to draw you more truly to himself."

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Gustave listened attentively, and was much moved at the goodness of a God justly irritated against him, and he felt the deepest sorrow at having been for so long an offender against his word; but his soul, full of the most bitter vices and most detestable wickedness, is now baptized in the waters of repentance. The body dies, but the soul lives; the Lord has ratified in heaven the absolution that his minister pronounced on earth. Gustave's strength was fast failing, and he felt that he was dying. The recognition between Robert and himself was touching, and the priest wept with joy and regret, blessing the one who was to leave life, and also the one who remained, to practise on earth every Christian virtue.

"Do not let me die alone, kind father," said Gustave to the priest. "I have lived so badly that I have need of your pious assistance to finish life more worthily."

The end was almost come. The physician could not retract his fatal sentence, nor give any hope, for the wound was mortal. The blade of the poniard had penetrated near the heart, and it was a miracle that he had survived so long. He heard his sentence pronounced with resignation, and accepted death as a just expiation for his sins, praying God to make it such. He suffered some days longer, testifying by his patience and his pious prayers the sincerity of his repentance, expiring with sentiments of burning contrition and sorrow for his sins on his lips. Robert was grieved to lose him so soon after his conversion and his return to virtue; and his sad and premature end was a grave warning of the result of worldly passions and giving way to vice, though Robert hardly needed such an example, his chaste and pure soul had always turned with horror and aversion from the licentiousness which beats the imagination and sullies its purity. Yet he was always on his guard, for be knew the feebleness of human nature and the dangers to which it is exposed, and the more he avoided the corrupting vices of the world, the better could he resist them, for no one is so brave in danger but that he may perish; and Gustave's death convinced him that Christianity is the only basis on which we can build immortal happiness, to which we all look forward after terrestrial joys lose their power of satisfying the desire for happiness which agitates man from the cradle to the grave, and which makes him attach such glorious hopes to religion, the only vessel that is never wrecked and that takes us safely to the eternal kingdom of perfect peace.

After having rendered the last sad duties to the unfortunate Gustave, Robert left Venice, but with very different feelings from those be promised himself. He traversed rapidly the Venetian Lombardy kingdom, then Piedmont, and, stopping some days at Turin, went on to Susa at the foot of Mont Cenis. There were two other travellers crossing this mountain at the same time, a man of about sixty years of age, and a young woman, either his wife or daughter. Their carriage followed them at some distance, but from either fear or curiosity they preferred going on foot or on a mule. Robert had bowed respectfully and exchanged a few polite salutations with them, but after that all effort to renew the conversation had been in vain, and he had renounced the hope of making any further acquaintance with the stranger, whose face of manly and severe beauty, though expressive of much mental suffering, had not escaped the eye of the artist, habitually accustomed to read all the emotions on the face. His sad countenance moved Robert so much that he turned round several times, not simply from compassion, but from a sentiment of irresistible and strange interest.

A mysterious and sympathetic influence was felt by the two others, who had certainly never seen him before; for the gentleman followed him with a pleasure for which he could not account, and watched his light and easy step, urging his mule on to keep near him, when the animal gives a sudden spring and throws him into a deep ravine.

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