Part 27

"And the low rent, Bertrand--don't you take that into account?"

"If there wasn't anybody but the old landlady in the house, you wouldn't have been tempted to come here to live."

"That may be; but if I can enjoy the company of a pretty woman, and at the same time reduce my expenses, it seems to me, Bertrand, that you can't object to that."

Bertrand said no more; he went into a corner and filled his pipe, and as it was growing dark, Auguste went to his landladies' room to ask for a light. The old lady was absent, but her niece was there, and our Frenchman, overjoyed at the opportunity of a tête-à-tête with the fair Cecilia, sat down beside the young woman, who seemed less shy at home than on the street, and who replied with a smile to the soft avowals that he addressed to her. The conversation lasted until very late. Auguste forgot Bertrand, who was without a light; he was in a fair way to forget a great many things, but Signora Falenza returned and by her presence revived his memory. He went up to his own room; Bertrand had thrown himself on the bed and was asleep. Auguste did not think it best to wake him, and he too fell asleep, his mind full of the fascinating Cecilia's image, convinced that he had never been more comfortably bedded.

Three days passed in the new lodgings. Auguste almost never went out; he watched for opportunities for a tête-à-tête with Cecilia; but the aunt was seldom absent and kept a much closer watch upon her niece. However, Auguste obtained a sweet avowal; he knew that he was beloved; but that was not enough, and Cecilia's eyes seemed to promise him more.

Bertrand had become accustomed to his new quarters; but he said to his master every day:

"You came to Italy to study and work, monsieur; instead of doing that, you pass all your time running after our young landlady."

"Cecilia is teaching me to speak Italian better, Bertrand; and I am teaching her French."

"I don't see what good this reciprocal teaching will do you."

"Why, the pleasure of it, Bertrand--is that to be counted nothing?"

"Are we travelling for pleasure?"

"Not entirely; but, when it offers itself, why not make the most of it?"

"Remember, monsieur, that your pleasures have always cost you dear."

"You can't say that I am squandering my money here; I have never been so quiet and orderly. I never go out; these ladies, when I invited them to go to the theatre, declined."

"I agree that they are stay-at-homes and don't try to make you take them all over the city. But I don't like that old Falenza with her reverences and her compliments."

"Really, Bertrand, you are getting to be too particular. When you travel, my friend, you must accustom yourself to the idea of finding different customs and different manners."

"True, monsieur; but I'm very much afraid that the foundation is the same everywhere! Selfish men, coquettish women, schemers who make a great show of wealth in order to make dupes more easily, rascals who open their mouths only to lie; and here and there a few honest people, who nevertheless consider their own interests before everything. I fancy that that's what we shall find in every country."

"Travelling makes you very eloquent, Bertrand. Write down your reflections; I'll read them--when we return to France."

"It will be high time, monsieur."

Auguste was no longer listening to his companion; he had overheard Cecilia's voice, and he went to her. But the young Italian had but a moment to speak to him, as her aunt would soon return. Yielding to the young man's urgent entreaties, she gave him an assignation for the next day. A pretty little wood, about a fourth of a league from the city, was the spot to which Cecilia was to go secretly. The time was agreed upon, and they parted, to avoid arousing her aunt's suspicions.

Auguste returned to his room with the inward satisfaction that one always feels at the approach of a long-desired moment. Never did evening seem longer to him, and he retired early so that the morrow would come the sooner.

Day broke at last. Auguste rose, dressed himself with care, and went out, leaving Bertrand still asleep. The place appointed for the meeting was a very long way from Signora Falenza's abode; but Auguste supposed that Cecilia had chosen it from prudential motives. He traversed a large part of the city, followed the bank of the Po, and at last reached the little wood, where he hoped soon to see his young landlady.

He waited patiently a long while; hope sustained him; it must be that some accident had kept Cecilia at home. But several hours passed and the fair Italian did not come. Auguste, weary of walking back and forth on the same spot, decided at last to return to the house, cursing the mischance that had prevented Cecilia from keeping her appointment.

As he approached the suburb where he lived, Auguste saw Bertrand in front of him, evidently returning home, like himself; he quickened his pace in order to overtake him. When the ex-corporal caught sight of his master, he uttered a cry of joy, saying:

"Morbleu! you are not wounded?"

"Why in the devil should I be wounded?" demanded Auguste.

"What would there be so surprising about it, monsieur, when you have been fighting a duel?"

"A duel--I?"

"At all events that's what our landlady told me this morning; she declared that a young man called for you at daybreak, and that from the few words that fell from you she gathered that there was a duel in the wind."

"Parbleu! this is very strange!"

"She even mentioned several places where she thought you might have gone to settle your dispute; so that, since early morning, I've been running in all directions, and have been well laughed at by everybody that I asked if they'd seen two men fighting."

"I don't understand it at all, Bertrand."

"Do you mean to say that it isn't all true?"

"There isn't a word of truth in it."

"Ah! that old signora shall learn that I'm not to be made a fool of like this."

"Let's hurry, Bertrand."

"What's the matter, lieutenant? You seem anxious."

"Yes. I'm afraid that the niece has made a fool of me too. Here have I been waiting for her in vain three hours and more at the other end of the city."

"Ten thousand bullets! there's something very crooked in this long excursion they made us both take. Didn't I tell you, lieutenant, that the old woman made too many reverences?"

"Perhaps we are frightened without cause. But here we are. Knock, Bertrand."

Bertrand knocked, but no one opened the door. He knocked again until the window panes rattled, and there was no response.

"What does this mean, lieutenant?" he cried, looking at Auguste.

"Why, it means that there's no one here, that is very certain."

"Still, we must get in."

As he spoke, he broke in the door with a kick, and entered the house, followed by his master. It was deserted; they had carried off everything except a few wretched pieces of furniture, and the travellers' apartment too was dismantled.

"We are robbed, monsieur," said Bertrand.

"It looks to me very much like it, my friend."

"Did you leave our money here?"

"Alas! yes, in the desk. It was all there except these ten gold pieces that I have in my pocket."

"Ah! the rascals! To the devil with signoras, fine eyes and reverences! Why did we leave our hotel?"

"It was my fault, Bertrand, I realize it. It is my folly again that has caused this misfortune. But what's the use of talking? the harm is done."

"We must enter a complaint, monsieur; we must obtain justice."

"Enter a complaint, my friend, in a country where we are strangers, and when we have nothing with which to pay for obtaining justice, which is very dear everywhere?"

"In that case, monsieur, we must allow ourselves to be robbed and say nothing, must we?"

"That is the wisest course in this case, Bertrand."

"It's very amusing!"

"We must make haste, too, to leave this house, which was undoubtedly let to those sharpers, and of which we have smashed the door; for we may be asked by what right we are here, and be punished for breaking in as we did."

"That would be the last straw! Ah! my poor old Schtrack, it would have been much better to stay with you!"

"Courage, Bertrand, let us rise superior to disaster. We have nothing left--very good! that compels me to work. We will travel on foot; in that way one doesn't run the risk of making evil acquaintances as one does in a diligence. And then our baggage is lighter than ever, and each of us can say with the Greek philosopher: _'Omnia mecum porto.'_"

"That must mean that he hadn't a sou, doesn't it, lieutenant?"

"Pretty nearly that, Bertrand."

"In that case we are getting to be mighty philosophical!"

"Let's leave Turin and go elsewhere in search of prudence."

"Ah! where shall we stop, monsieur?"

XXV

WHICH COVERS A PERIOD OF THREE YEARS

Let us leave Auguste and Bertrand to pursue their travels, the one promising never again to allow himself to be led astray by the sly glances of the first pretty face he may meet; the other, swearing because his advice was not heeded, and reviling the sex which led his master into so many scrapes. You must forgive Bertrand, ladies, and pardon his ill humor; he really had some reason to distrust beauty. But if he had been twenty years younger, and some pretty creature had undertaken to make a conquest of him, who can say that, like his master, he would not have succumbed? Let us return to the village, to the little milkmaid, from whom Auguste's follies have kept us away too long; and may the picture of innocence and of true love give our eyes a little rest after that of the passions and intrigues of cities, and the hypocrisy and selfishness of society. It is like turning to a lovely landscape of Regnier after looking at one of Gudin's tempests; but, if the representation of the conflict causes us keen emotions, the sight of a pure sky and fields bright with blossoms brings sweet repose to our souls and often arouses pleasanter sensations within us.

Denise took back to her aunt the three thousand francs that she had intended to force upon Auguste; she heaved a profound sigh as she handed her the bag of money.

"Wouldn't he take it?" asked Mère Fourcy.

"Alas! it was too late, aunt! he had gone away! He's gone round the world! and God only knows when he will come back!"

"It ain't our fault, child; we got the money together just as quick as we possibly could; for, you see, three thousand francs ain't like a cheese. If he's gone travelling, it must be that he wasn't in need of money; at any rate we've nothing to blame ourselves for, and when he comes to see us again, he'll see what a pretty cottage we've had built for Coco."

Denise felt confident that Virginie would keep her promise, that she would succeed in finding out where Auguste had gone, and that she would send her news of him; that hope was the sole joy of her life. Hope always counts for much in the sum total of happiness that we mortals enjoy on earth; how many people have never known any other happiness than that which it gives!

Virginie had said to Denise, to console her:

"You will see Auguste again, and when he knows how dearly you love him, I am sure that he will care for you."

Those words were engraved on the girl's heart, and she said to herself every day:

"That lady will tell him that I love him, and when he comes here again I shall blush to meet him! I shan't dare to look him in the face! Perhaps he won't like it, but it's his own fault; why did he tell me that he loved me? Ought a man to say such things if he doesn't mean them? I made believe to laugh when I heard him, but in the bottom of my heart I realized how happy it made me! Of course he only meant to joke with me; he talked to me as he does to all the women he thinks pretty. He doesn't know what misery he has caused me!"

On the site of the hovel occupied by the Calleux family, a pretty cottage had been built, consisting of a ground floor and attics only. Behind it was a garden of considerable size, surrounded by a fence. The cottage was constructed with the three thousand francs left by Dalville; it belonged to Coco, although he was still too young to live there. But Denise took pleasure in beautifying the little place for which the child was indebted to his benefactor; and there she passed a large part of every day, after performing her morning tasks, dreaming of him whose return she never ceased to expect. There, alone with the child, she talked to him about Auguste, taught him to love him, to remember that he owed everything to him, and never to enter the cottage without giving a thought to gratitude.

The garden was carefully tended. Denise planted flowers there. She remembered what she had seen in the lovely bourgeois gardens that she had visited, and she determined that the garden of the cottage should be laid out on the same plan. She desired that Auguste should be agreeably surprised when he visited the cottage, and should compliment her on her taste.

"He will see these shrubs," she thought, "these beds of verdure; and he will be surprised that peasants should have done it all as well as people from Paris."

But in another moment the girl would sigh and say to herself sadly:

"If he has gone to the end of the world, it will be a long time before he comes to see my garden."

The winter was succeeded by the lovely days of spring, and Denise heard nothing from Virginie.

"She hasn't found out anything about him," thought the girl; "otherwise she would have come to tell me about it."

The hope of hearing from Auguste induced Denise to make another trip to Paris. She easily obtained her aunt's permission, and one morning she appeared at Auguste's former abode.

As usual, Schtrack was smoking on a bench in front of his lodge. He recognized the girl, and although it was nearly four months since she had fainted in his arms, he called out when he saw her:

"Wasn't all the money in the bag?"

"What, monsieur? what bag? Has Monsieur Auguste come back?" inquired Denise, gazing anxiously at the old German.

"Oh, no! no! The young man is still travelling with Pertrand. But I thought you haf come about the bag of money that fell in the yard, and that you didn't find it all. Sacretié! you see, Schtrack don't joke about questions of honor."

"Oh, monsieur! of course I didn't come about that!--Haven't you heard from him, monsieur?"

"From who, my child?"

"From Monsieur Auguste."

"How in the devil do you suppose I could hear from him when he's gone round the world?"

"And that lady--have you seen her?"

"A lady?"

"The one who was here with me the last time I came, and who was kind enough to help me."

"Oh ja! the demon! the hussy! the little grenadier!"

"Has she been here, monsieur?"

"Oh ja! she's been twice to ask for news of the young man."

"And she told you nothing about Monsieur Auguste?"

"Sacretié! don't I tell you that she came to ask about him? Don't you understand?"

"Do you know her address, monsieur?"

"The little hussy's?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"No, I don't know it."

Schtrack resumed his smoking, and as Denise could learn nothing from him, she turned away, regretting that she did not know Virginie's address. If she had, she would have gone to see her, not because she supposed her to be any better informed than herself concerning the whereabouts of the travellers, but because she could, at least, have talked with her about Auguste; and it is so great a delight to talk of the person we love, especially with someone who understands us!

Several more months passed without bringing any news of Auguste, nor had Virginie come to the village. Hope began to fade in Denise's heart, but love did not die out; that sentiment, when it is genuine, defies obstacles, time, and absence, and it alone does not pass away when everything about it passes away.

Denise was seventeen years of age. She had grown no taller, but her features seemed to have acquired a greater charm, her face more expression; the secret sentiment that engrossed her thoughts gave to her features a gentle melancholy which was most becoming to her sweet face. Village maidens rarely have that look; perhaps that is why the young men of Montfermeil and the neighborhood found in Denise a something that fascinated them and turned their heads. But she had very little to say to them, she no longer laughed and joked with them, she shunned their dances and their sports; and the other girls sneered at the little milkmaid, saying:

"How high and mighty she is! She puts on the airs of a great lady! She's trying to copy city folks. But with her scowling face she won't get any lovers."

Despite the prophecies of the peasants, Denise, involuntarily and unconsciously, made conquests every day; and the village maidens, with all their loud laughter, their merriment and the lusty blows they dealt out to the beaux of the neighborhood, saw that they all sighed for her who did nothing to attract them. And as Denise, in addition to her sweet face, was an excellent match, several young men applied to Mère Fourcy for her hand.

The excellent aunt had noticed that there had been something wrong with her niece for a long time; but she was convinced that marriage would rid her of that something which caused her to sigh night and day. Mère Fourcy flattered herself that she had had much experience, and remembered that a great many young women, after taking unto themselves husbands, recover the fresh color that is beginning to fade. So one fine morning she went to her niece, who was, as usual, alone in the garden of Coco's cottage.

"My child," said Mère Fourcy, sitting down beside her, "I have come here to talk to you about something."

"Whatever you please, aunt," replied the girl, with her eyes fixed on a marguerite from which she had just plucked the petals, and in which she had read that the young traveller loved her dearly.

"My child, you were seventeen years old on Saint-Pierre's day. A girl of seventeen ain't a child any longer--do you understand that, Denise?"

"Oh, yes, aunt!"

"Besides, you've known all about housekeeping for a long time, and your sewing's like a charm, and you make cheeses that a body could eat all day long without hurting 'em; and then you know all the ins and outs of a house. You're active and a good worker; you have three times more wit than you need to guide a man who might try to go wrong; and morguenne! the man who gets you won't ever regret it!"

Denise looked at Mère Fourcy in surprise, and faltered:

"I don't understand, aunt."

"That makes a difference, my dear; I'll cut it short. You're old enough to get married, and there's several chances offered. First of all, big Fanfan Jolivet, and then neighbor Mauflard's nephew, and tall Claude-Jean-Pierre-Nicolas Lathuille, who's just inherited his father's estate; there's lots more too that would like you, but those three are the best fixed. They're good boys and hard workers. It's your business to choose which one you want for a husband."

Denise had turned pale and shown great embarrassment during her aunt's speech; but she glanced again at the remains of her marguerite and replied in a very low tone:

"I don't want any one of them, aunt."

"What do you say, my child?"

"I say that--that I don't want to marry."

"You don't want to marry? Nonsense! You're joking when you say that! As if girls mustn't marry! I tell you, on the contrary, marriage will do you good. For a long time now you haven't been yourself, you don't laugh or sing any more. A husband, my child, makes you sing, brings back your spirits, and--Great heaven! you're crying, my poor Denise! Do you think I mean to make you feel bad? No, no! I'll send all your suitors to the devil first. My poor child crying! I don't want you to do that. Come, tell me right away what makes you cry."

"To have to refuse you, aunt."

"The idea of crying for that! Do you think I'll ever drive you to do what you don't want to do?"

"Oh, no! you're so kind to me, aunt!"

"But if you cry, I'll scold you. You don't want any of these husbands, so we won't say any more about it, my child. But, jarni! something's the matter with you, all the same. A girl don't sigh all day thinking about flies."

"Oh, aunt!"

"Tell me what the trouble is, my child."

"I don't dare to."

"I want you to dare to. You've got a pain in your heart, that's sure."

"Oh! I am very silly! I know that."

"You, silly! you, the cleverest, the smartest, the shrewdest girl in the world! Anyway, my dear, a body don't cry because she's silly. It can't be you're in love with anybody, are you?"

Denise heaved a profound sigh, and replied at last, lowering her eyes:

"Yes, aunt."

"Well, my dear, there's no law against it! and if it ain't one of the fellows that's offered himself, why, never mind, so long as he's an honest man and will make you happy; for he loves you dearly too, no doubt?"

"No, aunt, he doesn't love me at all; he doesn't give me a thought."

"Jarni! I'll go and tear his eyes out! Do you mean to say he's forgotten you, or deceived you? The idea of my Denise loving him, and him not being too happy to marry her!"

"But he has never spoken of marrying me, aunt."

"Then he's a deceiver, is he, a rake?"

"No, aunt; but he's--it's that gentleman from Paris."

"Monsieur Dalville?"

"Yes, aunt."

"O mon Dieu! what on earth are you thinking about, Denise? You're in love with a fine gentleman from Paris, a man in the best society, a man who would never look at a peasant girl!"

"Oh, yes! he did look at me a great deal, I assure you."

"But you can't think of such a thing as loving Monsieur Dalville, my dear!"

"Alas! it isn't my fault--I can't help it."

"How did this love come to you, my child?"

"When I fell from my donkey, aunt."

"Is it possible?"

"Mon Dieu! yes. I met Monsieur Auguste on the road; he was in his cabriolet and I was walking behind Jean le Blanc."

"You told me that, my child."

"He kept looking at me, and I pretended not to notice it. He got out of his carriage and followed me along the narrow path through the wood; he told me I was pretty and I laughed at his compliments."

"You told me that, too."

"He tried to kiss me, and in defending myself I scratched his face."

"You didn't tell me that, my dear."

"Oh! I was very angry then! I hated the man! I got on Jean le Blanc so as to get away from him faster, but Jean began to gallop and threw me off. I fell--I don't know how."

"Mon Dieu! my child! And then what?"

"The gentleman ran up to me; but he lifted me up so respectfully--he seemed so sorry for my fall--he was paler and trembled more than I did. Then, I don't know how it happened, but all of a sudden my anger went away, and--and I believe that I loved him already."

"And then?"

"Bless me! you know, aunt, that we found what he'd given Coco and his grandmother, and I felt that that made me love him still more. I saw him again at Madame Destival's, and he told me to take care of Coco; and since then, you know, aunt, he hasn't been to see us but once."

"Have you told him that you loved him?"

"No; on the contrary, as Monsieur Bertrand told me that would keep him from coming to see us, I told him that I should never love him."

"You did well, my child."

"Oh, no, aunt! I think that I did wrong rather, for he hasn't been here since then, and he went away without bidding us good-bye."

"Well, well, now she's crying again! But, my child, what good does this love do you?"

"None at all, aunt."

"Monsieur Auguste wouldn't have married a poor village girl. Now he's gone away, and we shan't ever see him again probably."

"Do you mean to say that he may not come back? Won't he want to see--Coco again? He will come back, aunt; ah! I am still hopeful."

"Even if he should, remember that he's a gentleman, and used to fine ladies; while you--Well! what are you looking at that flower so for?"

"It told me that Auguste loved me dearly."

"Who told you so?"

"This marguerite, aunt."