Part 4

"Calm yourself," he said. "I sympathize with your sorrow; but it is a good sign, and I trust to the future. Forget this service, which I am doing for my mother rather than for you; but do not forget that whatever is left is henceforth hers. Consider that we may yet have the happiness of keeping her with us a long while, and that she needs not necessarily suffer. Farewell. I will see you again in an hour, to arrange the last details."

"Yes, yes, leave me alone," replied the Duke; "you see that I cannot say a word to you now."

As soon as the Marquis was gone the Duke rang, gave orders that no one should be admitted, and began to pace the room as before, with desperate agitation. In this hour, he was passing through the supreme and inevitable crisis of his destiny. In none of his other disasters had he seen so much of his own guilt or felt so much real concern.

Up to this time, in fact, he had squandered his own fortune with that hardy recklessness which arises from the sense of injuring no one but one's self. He had, so to speak, only made use of a right; then, half without his own knowledge, by encroaching upon his mother's capital, he had consumed it entirely, becoming gradually hardened to the disgrace of throwing upon his brother the duty of maintaining her from his own resources. Let us say all that we can in excuse of the Duke's conduct up to this period. He had been fearfully spoiled; in his mother's heart a very marked preference for him had existed; nature, too, had been partial to him; taller, stronger, more elegant, more brilliant, and apparently more active than his brother, and more demonstratively affectionate from childhood, he had seemed to every one the better endowed and the more amiable of the two. For a long while weakly and taciturn, the Marquis had shown no fondness for anything but study; and this taste, which in a plebeian would have seemed a great advantage, was considered eccentric in a man of rank. This tendency was therefore repressed rather than encouraged, and precisely on that account it became a passion,--an absorbing, pent-up passion, which developed in the young man's soul a quick, inward sensibility and an enthusiasm all the more ardent from having been restrained. The Marquis was far more affectionate than his brother, and yet passed for a man of cold nature, while the Duke, always kindly and communicative, without loving any one exclusively, had long passed for the very soul of warmth.

The Duke inherited from his father the impulsive temperament which had proved so delusive, and during his childhood the wild freedom of his ways had given the Marchioness some anxiety. We have mentioned already that after the death of her second husband she had been very much carried away by grief, and that for more than a year she had shrunk from seeing her children. When this moral disease gave place to natural feeling, her first effort was to clasp in her arms the son of the husband whom she had loved. But the child, surprised and perhaps terrified by the impetuosity of caresses which he had almost forgotten, burst into tears without knowing why. It may have been the vague, instinctive reproach of a nature chilled by neglect. The Duke, older than he by three years, but more easily diverted, perceived nothing of all this. He returned his mother's kisses, and the poor woman imagined that he inherited her own warm heart, while the Marquis, she thought, had the traits of his paternal grandfather, a man of letters, but not quite sane. So the Duke was secretly preferred, though not more kindly treated, for the Marchioness had a deep and almost religious sense of justice; but he was petted more, since he alone, she believed, appreciated the value of a caress.

Urbain (the Marquis) felt this partiality and suffered from it; but he never allowed himself to complain, and perhaps, already putting a just estimate upon his brother, he did not care to contend with him on such frivolous grounds.

In the course of time, the Marchioness found out that she had been greatly mistaken, and that sentiments should be judged by deeds rather than by words; but the habit of spoiling her prodigal son had now become fixed, and to this she soon added a tender pity for the bewildered perversity which seemed to be leading the wilful youth to his own destruction. This perversity, however, did not take its rise in an evil heart. Vanity at first, and dissipation afterward, then the loss of energy, and at last the tyranny of vice,--that, briefly, is the history of this man, charming without real refinement, good without grandeur of soul, sceptical without atheism. At the age when we are describing him, there was in him an awful void in the place where his conscience should have been, and yet it was a conscience rather absent than dead. There would sometimes be returns of it, and struggles with it, fewer and briefer indeed than they had been in his youth, but perhaps on that account all the more desperate; and the one which was going on within him at this time was so cruel that he laid his hand repeatedly upon one of his splendid weapons, as if he were haunted by the spectre of suicide; but he thought of his mother, pushed away the pistols and locked them up, putting both hands to his head, in the fear that he was becoming insane.

He had always looked upon money as nothing. His mother's noble disinterested theories on the subject had made the way of false reasoning easy to him. Nevertheless he understood that, in effecting his mother's ruin, he had overstepped his right. He was astounded; he had gone on up to the last, promising himself that he would stop before reaching his brother's fortune, and then he had seriously encroached upon it; but the truth is, that he had not done this knowingly; for, from motives of delicacy, the Marquis had kept no accounts with him in matters of detail, and would never have mentioned them at all, had it not been for the necessity of preserving by an appeal to his honor the little which was left. The Duke therefore did not feel himself guilty of deliberate selfishness, and had reproached Urbain warmly and sincerely for not having warned him sooner. He saw at last the abyss opened by his lawless and reckless conduct; he was bitterly ashamed of having injured his brother's prospects and of having no way to repair the harm, without infringing upon certain rigid principles established by his mother and his education.

Yet this error was less serious than that of having wronged his own mother; but it did not appear so to the Duke. It had always seemed to him that whatever belonged to his mother was his own, while in dealing with his brother his pride kept up the distinction of _meum_ and _tuum._ Besides,--should it not be admitted?--while there was no wicked dislike between the two brothers so differently constituted, there was at least a want of confidence and sympathy. The life of the one was a continual protest against that of the other. Urbain had made a silent but powerful effort that the voice of nature within him might be also that of friendship. Gaëtan had made no such effort; trusting to the freedom from malice which characterized him, he had felt a liberty to rail at the austerity of the Marquis. They were then together most of the time, upon a footing of blame delicately restrained by the one, and of ridicule manifested in easy revolt by the other.

"Very well," exclaimed the Duke, seeing the Marquis return. "It is an accomplished fact then? I see by your face that you have been signing."

"Yes, brother," replied Urbain; "it is all arranged, and there is left for you besides an income of twelve thousand francs, which I did not allow them to use in the liquidation."

"Left for me?" rejoined Gaëtan, looking him in the face. "No! you are deceived, there is nothing left for me; but, after having cleared me of debt, you are yourself making me an allowance."

"Well, yes," replied the Marquis, "since you must also learn, sooner or later, that you are not at liberty to dispose of the principal."

The Duke, who had not yet decided upon anything, wrung his hands with violence and fell back upon his mute opposition. The Marquis made an effort to conquer his habitual reserve, seated himself near Gaëtan, and taking in his own the clenched hands which seemed hesitating to extend themselves to him, "My friend," said he, "you are too haughty with me. Would you not have done for me what I am doing for you?"

The Duke felt his pride breaking down. He burst into tears. "No!" said he, pressing his brother's hand feelingly, "I never should have known how to do it. I never could have done it, for my destiny is to injure others, and I shall never have the happiness of saving any one."

"You will at least admit that it is a happiness," replied Urbain. "Then consider yourself doing me a kindness, and give me back your friendship which seems to be vanishing under this grievance."

"Urbain," cried the Duke, "you speak of my friendship. Now would be the time to thank you with all manner of protestations, but I will not do it; I will never fall so low as to take refuge in hypocrisy. Do you know, brother, that I have never liked you very well?"

"I know it, and I account for it by our differing tastes and dispositions; but has not the time now come to like each other better?"

"Ah! it is an awful time for that,--the hour of your triumph and of my disgrace. Tell me that, but for my mother, you would have let me succumb. Yes, you must tell me that, and then I may forgive you for what you are doing."

"Have I not already said so?"

"Tell me so again! You hesitate? It is then a question of the family honor?"

"Yes, it is that precisely, the family honor is in question."

"And you do not expect me to love you to-day more than on any other day?"

"I know," rejoined the Marquis, sadly, "that personally I am not made to be loved."

The Duke felt himself completely conquered; he threw himself into his brother's arms. "Come!" he cried, "forgive me. You are a better man than I. I respect you, admire you, I almost worship you; I know, I feel that you are my best friend. My God! what is there that I can do for you? Do you love any woman? Shall I kill her husband? Do you want me to go to China and find some precious manuscript, in some pagoda, risking the _cangue_, and other pleasant things?"

"You think of nothing but a discharge of obligations, Gaëtan. If you would only love me a little, I should be already paid a hundred times over."

"Well, then, I do love you with all my heart," replied the Duke, embracing him violently; "and you see I am weeping like a child. Look here! Give me a little esteem in return; I will reform. I am still young. Why, the deuce take it all, at thirty-six one can't have been ruined altogether! A fellow is only a little used up. I will turn over a new leaf,--all the more because that is needed in my case. Well, then, so much the better! I will renew my youth, my health. I will go and pass the summer with you and my mother in the country; I will tell you stories; I will make you laugh again. Come! help me lay my plans, support me, lift me up, console me; for, after all, I don't know where I am, and I feel very unhappy."

The Marquis had already noticed, without appearing to do so, the disappearance of the weapons which had been in sight an hour before. He had also read in his brother's face the fearful crisis through which he had passed. He knew furthermore that Gaëtan's moral courage would only bear a certain amount of strain. "Dress yourself now," he said, "and come to breakfast with me. We will chat; we will build air-castles. Who knows but I may convince you that, in certain cases, we begin to be rich on the very day we become poor?"

V

The Marquis conducted his brother to the Bois de Boulogne, which at that period was not a splendid English garden, but a charming grove of dreamy shade. It was one of the first days of April; the weather was magnificent; the thickets were covered with violets, and a thousand foolish tomtits were chattering around the first buds, while the citron-hued butterflies of those early beautiful days seemed, by their form, their color, and their undecided flight, like new leaves fluttering gently in the wind.

The Marquis was ordinarily thought to take his meals at home. In reality, he did not take his meals at all, using those terms after the manner of generous livers. He had a few very simple dishes served up, and he swallowed them hastily, without raising his eyes from the book at his side. That frugal habit agreed very well with the rule of strict economy which he was now about to adopt; for, in order that his mother's table might continue to be carefully and abundantly served, it was necessary that his own should not in the future be allowed the least superfluity.

Not only anxious to conceal this fact from his brother, but fearing, also, to sadden him by the usual austerity of his mode of life, the Marquis led him to a pavilion in the Bois and ordered a comfortable repast, saying to himself that he would buy so many books the less, and frequent the public libraries by necessity, neither more nor less than a needy scholar. He felt himself in no way saddened or appalled by a succession of little sacrifices. He did not think even of his delicate health, which demanded a certain amount of comforts in his sedentary life. He was happy at having finally broken down the cold barrier between himself and Gaëtan, and also at the prospect of gaining his confidence and affection. The Duke, who was still pale and nervously thoughtful, began to yield himself up more and more to the influence of the spring air which entered freely through the open window. The meal restored the equilibrium of his faculties, for he was of a robust nature, that could not endure privation; and his mother, who had certain pretensions of alliance to the ex-royal family, was in the habit of saying, somewhat vainly, that the Duke had the fine appetite of the Bourbons.

In the course of an hour the Duke was charming in his manner toward his brother; that is, he was with him, for the first time in his life, as amiable and as much at his ease as he was with everybody else. These two men had sometimes perhaps divined more or less of each other, but a thorough understanding had never been reached; and, surely, they had never questioned each other openly. The Marquis had been restrained by discretion; the Duke by indifference. Now the Duke felt a real need to know the man who had just rescued his honor and made him certain of his future. He questioned the Marquis with a freedom which had never before had place between them.

"Explain your happiness to me," he said, "for you are really happy; at least, I have never heard you complain."

The Marquis made a reply which astonished him greatly. "I cannot explain to you my courage," he said, "except by my devotion to my mother and by my love for study, since, as for happiness, I never had it and never shall have it. That, perhaps, is not what I should say to allure you to a quiet and retired life; but I would commit a crime not to be sincere with you; and besides, I shall never make myself a pretender to virtue, though you have slightly accused me of that eccentricity."

"It is true; I was very wrong; I see it now. But how and why are you unhappy, my poor brother? Can you tell me?"

"I cannot tell you, but I will confide in you. I have loved!"

"You? you have loved a woman? When was that?"

"It is now a long time ago, and I loved her a long time."

"And you do not love her any more?"

"She is dead."

"She was a married woman?"

"Precisely, and her husband is yet living. You will permit me to conceal her name."

"There is no need whatever to mention that; but you will conquer this feeling, will you not?"

"I do not positively know. Up to the present time I have not succeeded at all."

"She has not been dead long?"

"Three years."

"She loved you then very much?"

"No."

"How, no?"

"She loved me as much as a woman can love who ought not and will not break with her husband."

"Bah! that's no reason; on the contrary, obstacles stimulate passion."

"And they wear it out. She was weary with deceiving, and consequently of suffering. It was only the fear of driving me to despair that hindered her from breaking with me. I was greatly wanting in courage. She died a suffering death,--and through my fault!"

"But no, O no! You imagine that to torment yourself."

"I imagine nothing, and my grief is without resource, as my fault is without excuse. You shall see. There came one of those paroxysms of passion in which we wish, in spite of God and men, to appropriate forever the object of our love. She bore me a son whom I saved, concealed, and who still lives; but she, not wishing to give a foothold to suspicion, made her appearance in society the day after her delivery. There she seemed still beautiful, and full of her wonted animation; she spoke and walked, notwithstanding the fever which was devouring her: twenty-four hours afterwards she was a corpse. Nothing was ever known. She passed for the most rigid person--"

"I know who it was,--Madame de G----."

"Yes, you alone in the whole world possess the secret."

"Ah! Do not be so sure. Does not our mother herself suspect it?"

"Our mother suspects nothing."

The Duke was silent for a moment, then he said with a sigh, "My poor brother, this child that is living, and that you probably cherish--"

"Certainly."

"And I have ruined him too."

"What matter? If he has the means of learning to work, of being a man, it will be all that I desire for him. I can never recognize him openly, and for some years I do not wish to have him near me. He is very frail; I am having him brought up in the country, at the house of some peasants. He must get the physical strength which I have always lacked, and whose absence has, perhaps, induced in me the want of moral force. Then, too, at the last hour, from an imprudent word of the physician, M. de G---- gained a suspicion of the truth. It would not do to have about me a child whose age should coincide with the time which has intervened since that sad event. Do you not see, Gaëtan, I am not, I cannot be, happy!"

"Is it then that passion which keeps you from marrying!"

"I shall never marry; I have sworn it."

"Very well, now you must think of it."

"And _you_ preach marriage to me!"

"Yes, indeed, why not? Marriage is not, as you suppose, the object of my scorn! I proclaimed that antipathy to relieve myself of the trouble of finding a wife at the age when I might have chosen one. Since I have been ruined the thing has become more conditional. My mother would never have allowed me to accept a fortune without a name, and having nothing now but my name, I can no longer aspire to anything but fortune. You know that, wholly detestable as I am, I have never wanted to wound my mother by going counter to her opinions. I have therefore seen my chances rapidly decrease, and at this moment I should put the worst sort of estimate upon any young lady or widow, whatsoever her wealth or birth, who would have me. I should persuade myself that, to accept a good-for-nothing like me, she must have some very dark motive. But, Urbain, your position is altogether different; I have lessened your fortune, perhaps made you poor. That, however, takes nothing from your personal merit; on the contrary, it should make it greater in the eyes of every one knowing the cause of your meagre fortune. It is nothing more than probable that some pure young woman, of noble family and with a fortune, should be inspired with esteem and affection for you. It seems to me even that all you will have to do is but to wish such a thing, and to show yourself."

"No, I do not know how to show myself, except to my own disadvantage. Society paralyzes me, and my reputation as a scholar injures more than it serves me. Society does not understand why a man born for society does not prefer it above all things. Besides, you see, I cannot want to love; my heart is too dark and heavy."

"Why, then, do you mourn so long a woman who did not know how to be happy with your affection?"

"Because I loved her. In her it was perhaps my own passion that I loved. I am not of those lively natures which bloom again at each new season. Things take a terrible hold of me."

"You read too much, you reflect too much."

"Perhaps I do; come to the country, brother, as you have promised to do; you shall assist me; you will benefit me greatly. Will you come? I have a real need of a friend, and I have none. A silent passion has absorbed my life; your affection will rejuvenate me."

The Duke was greatly moved by the frank and tender confidence of his brother. He had expected lessons, counsels, consolations, which would have made him play the part of the weak, in the presence of the strong man; on the contrary, it was of him that Urbain asked for strength and pity. Whether this came from an actual need of the Marquis or from an exalted delicacy, the Duke was too intelligent not to be struck by the change. He assured him, therefore, of a lively affection, a tender solicitude; and after having spent the whole afternoon talking and walking in the grove, the two brothers took a carriage and returned together to dine with their mother.

For some days the Marchioness had been secretly very ill at ease. She had feared the resistance of Urbain when he should learn the whole amount of his brother's debts. However great her esteem for her younger son, she had not foreseen to what lengths his disinterestedness would go. Not having received his usual visit on that morning, she became seriously troubled, when, just before the hour of dinner, she saw her two sons arrive. She observed in the face of each such a calm expression of confidence and affection as led her at first to divine what had passed between them; then, however, in the presence of a visitor who was slow to depart, she could not question them, and finally she received the dreadful impression that she had been deceived and that neither the one nor the other was fully aware of the situation.

But when they were at last at table, she remarked that they addressed each other in the familiar and endearing _thee_ and _thou_, she understood all, and the presence of Caroline and the servants hindering her from expressing her emotion, she concealed her joy in an affectation of extreme cheerfulness, while great tears fell upon her faded cheeks. Caroline and the Marquis perceived these tears at the same moment, and her troubled look seemed to ask of him whether the Marchioness was concealing joy or suffering. The Marquis quieted her solicitude by the same means in which it had been conveyed; and the Duke, detecting this mute, rapid dialogue, smiled with a sort of good-natured malice. Neither Caroline nor the Marquis paid attention to this smile. There was too much good faith in their mutual sympathy. Caroline still held to her dislike and distrust of the Duke. She continued to grudge him the power of being so amiable and of appearing so good. She thought indeed that Madame de D---- had slightly exaggerated his waywardness; but feeling, in spite of herself, a vague fear, she avoided seeing him, and even in his presence forced herself to forget his face. When the dessert was brought in and the servants had retired, the conversation became a little more intimate. Caroline asked timidly of the Marchioness if she did not think the clock was slow.

"No, no, not yet, dear child," kindly replied the old lady.

Caroline understood that she was to remain till they left the table.

"So, my good friends," said the Marchioness, addressing her sons, "you breakfasted together in the Bois?"