Александр Дюма
The Last Vendée
XI.
MARY IS VICTORIOUS AFTER THE MANNER OF PYRRHUS
However firm Mary's resolution to control herself may have been, Michel's entrance was so sudden, his voice vibrated with such an accent, there was in his cry so much of love, so passionate a prayer, that the gentle creature was unable to repress her own emotion; her breast heaved, her fingers trembled, and the tears the young baron fancied he saw on her eyelids detached themselves and fell, drop by drop like liquid pearls, on Michel's hands which were grasping hers. The poor lover himself was too overcome with his own emotion to notice Mary's, and the girl had time to recover herself before he spoke. She gently pushed him aside and looked about her. Michel's eyes followed Mary's and then fixed themselves anxiously and inquiringly on her face.
"How is it that you are alone, monsieur?" she asked. "Where is Rosine?"
"And you, Mary," said the young man, in a voice full of sadness, "how is it that you are not, as I am, full of the happiness of our meeting?"
"Ah! my friend," said Mary, dwelling on the word, "you have no cause-now especially-to doubt the interest I take in your safety."
"No," said Michel, trying to regain the hand she had drawn away from him. "No, indeed, for it is you to whom I owe my liberty, and probably my life."
"But," interrupted Mary, trying to smile, "all that does not make me forget that we are alone together. Do me the kindness to call Rosine, for there are certain social conventions I do not wish to disregard."
Michel sighed and remained on his knees, while two large tears escaped his eyelids. Mary turned away her head that she might not see them; then she made a motion as if to rise. But Michel retained her. The poor lad had not enough experience of the human heart to observe that Mary had never before manifested any reluctance to be alone with him, and to draw from her present action a deduction favorable to his love. On the contrary, all his beautiful visions went up in smoke, and Mary seemed to him even colder and more indifferent than she had been of late.
"Ah!" he cried, in a tone of melancholy reproach, "why did you rescue me from the hands of the soldiers? They might have shot me, but I would meet that fate rather than live to know you do not love me!"
"Michel! Michel!" cried Mary.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, "I repeat it, I would rather die."
"Don't talk so, naughty child that you are!" said Mary, striving to assume a maternal tone. "Don't you see that it distresses me?"
"You do not care!" said Michel.
"You cannot doubt," continued Mary, "that my friendship for you is true and most sincere."
"Alas! Mary," said the young man, sadly, "that feeling is not enough to satisfy the passion that consumes my heart ever since I have known you; I do feel certain of your friendship, but my heart wants more."
Mary made a supreme effort.
"My friend, what you ask of me, Bertha will give you; She loves you as you wish to be loved, as you deserve to be loved;" said the poor child, in a trembling voice, striving to put her sister's name as a barrier between herself and the man she loved.
Michel shook his head and sighed.
"Oh, not her! not her!" he said.
"Why-" said Mary as if she did not see his gesture of refusal or hear that cry from his heart. "Why did you write her that letter, which would have filled her with despair had it reached her?"
"That letter; then it was you who received it?"
"Alas! yes," said Mary, "and painful as it was to me, it is most fortunate that I did so."
"Did you read it through?" asked Michel.
"Yes," said the young girl, lowering her eyes before the supplicating glance with which he enfolded her as he asked the question. "Yes, I read it-all; and it is because I did so, dear friend, that I wished to speak to you before you see my sister again."
"But, Mary, do you not see that that letter is truth itself from the first line to the last, and that if I love Bertha at all it can only be as a sister?"
"No, no," cried Mary; "I only know that my future would be horrible if I caused unhappiness to my poor sister whom I love so well."
"But," said Michel, "what do you ask of me?"
"I ask you," replied Mary, clasping her hands, "to sacrifice a feeling which has not had time to strike deep roots into your heart; I ask you to forget a fancy nothing justifies, to renounce an attachment which can have no good result for you and must be fatal to all three of us."
"Ask my life, Mary; I can kill myself, or let myself be killed, – nothing is easier; but to ask me not to love you! Good God! what would my poor heart be if deprived of its love for you?"
"And yet it must be so, dear Michel," said Mary, in her winning voice; "for never-no never-will you obtain from me a word of encouragement for the love you speak of in that letter. I have sworn it."
"To whom, Mary?"
"To God and to myself."
"Oh!" exclaimed Michel, sobbing, "and I dreamed she loved me!"
Mary thought that the more warmth he put into his words and actions, the colder it behooved her to be.
"All that I have now said to you, my friend," she continued, "is dictated not only by common-sense, but by the strong interest I feel in your future. If I were indifferent to you, I should simply express my feelings and let the matter end; but as a friend I cannot do so, – as a friend, I say to you, Michel, forget the woman who can never be yours and love the woman who loves you and to whom you are virtually betrothed."
"Oh, but you know very well how that betrothal, as you call it, took me by surprise; you know that in making that proposal Petit-Pierre mistook my feelings. Those feelings you well know. I expressed them to you that night when the general and the soldiers were at the château. You did not repulse them; I felt your hands press mine; I knelt at your feet, Mary, as I do now; you bent your head to mine; your hair, your beautiful, adored hair touched my forehead. I did wrong not to tell Petit-Pierre who it was I loved; but how could I expect what has happened? It never crossed my mind she could suppose I loved any one but Mary. It is the fault of my timidity, which I curse; but, after all, it is not so grievous a fault that it ought to separate me forever from the woman I love, and chain my life to one I do not love."
"Alas! my friend, the fault that seems to you so light seems to me irreparable. Whatever happens, and even though you repudiate the promise made in your name and in which you acquiesced by silence, you must understand that I can never be yours, for I will never rend the heart of my beloved sister with the sight of my happiness."
"Good God!" cried Michel, "how wretched I am!"
He put his face in his hands and burst into tears.
"Yes," said Mary, "I know you suffer now; but take courage. Call up your virtue, your courage, my friend. Listen willingly to my advice; this feeling will, little by little, be effaced from your heart. If necessary, I will go away for a time that you may cure yourself."
"Go away! separate yourself from me! No, Mary, never, never! no, don't leave me, for I swear that the day you leave, I leave; where you go, I go. Good God! what would become of me, deprived of your dear presence? No, no, no; don't go, I implore you, Mary."
"So be it; I will stay, but only to help you to do whatever may be painful and sad in your duty; and when that is done, when you are happy, when you are Bertha's husband-"
"Never! never!" muttered Michel.
"Yes, my friend, for Bertha is more fitted to be your wife than I am; her love for you, – and I can swear this for I have heard her express it, – is greater than you suppose; her tenderness will satisfy the craving for love which now consumes you, and my sister's strength and energy, which I do not possess, will clear your path in life of the thorns and briers you might not of yourself be able to put aside. So, if there is really a sacrifice on your part, that sacrifice, believe me, will be well-rewarded."
In saying these words Mary affected a calmness which was far indeed from being in her heart, the real condition of which was betrayed by her paleness and agitation. As for Michel, he listened in feverish agitation.
"Don't talk so!" he cried as she ended. "Do you suppose the current of human affections is a thing to be managed and directed as we please, like a river which an engineer forces between the banks of a canal, or a vine which the gardener trains as he will? No, no; I tell you again, I repeat it and I will repeat it a hundred times, – it is you, you alone whom I love, Mary. It would be impossible for my heart to name any other name than yours, even if I wished it, and I don't wish it. My God! my God!" continued the young man, flinging up his arms to heaven with a look of agonized despair; "what would become of me if I saw you the wife of another man?"
"Michel," said Mary, with passionate fervor, "if you will do as I ask you, I swear by all that is most sacred that, as I cannot be your wife, I will belong to none but God; I will never marry. All my affection, my tenderness shall remain yours; and this affection will not be of the vulgar kind that years destroy or a mere chance kills. It will be the deep, unutterable affection of a sister for a brother; it will be a gratitude which will forever bind me to you. I shall owe to you the happiness of my sister, and all my life shall be spent in blessing you."
"Your love for your sister misleads you, Mary," replied Michel. "You think only of her; you do not think of me when you seek to condemn me to the horrible torture of being chained, for life, to a woman I do not love. Oh, Mary! it is cruel of you, – you for whom I would give my life, – it is cruel to ask of me a thing to which I can never resign myself."
"Oh, yes, you can, my friend," persisted the girl; "you can surely resign yourself to what, though it may be the result of fate, is also most assuredly, a generous and magnanimous action; you can resign yourself because you know that God would never suffer a sacrifice like that to go unrewarded, and the reward will be-yes, it will be-the happiness of two poor orphans."
"Oh, Mary," said Michel, quite beside himself, "don't talk to me like that. Oh, it is plain that you don't know what it is to love! You tell me to give you up! but remember that you are my heart, my soul, my life, – it is simply asking me to tear my heart from my breast, forswear my soul, blast my happiness, dry up my very existence at its source. You are the light for which and by which the world, to my eyes, is a world; the day you cease to shine upon my life I shall fall into a gulf the darkness of which horrifies me. I swear to you, Mary, that since I have known you, since that moment when I first saw you and felt your hands cooling my wounded forehead, you have been so identified with my being that there is not a thought in my mind that does not belong to you, all that is within me refers to you, and if my heart were to lose you, it would cease to beat as if the principle of life were taken from it. You see, therefore, that it is impossible I should do as you ask."
"And yet," cried Mary, in a paroxysm of despair, "Bertha loves you, and I do not love you."
"Ah! if you do not love me, Mary, if, with your eyes in my eyes, your hands in my hands, you have the courage to say, 'I do not love you,' then, indeed, all is over."
"What do you mean by that, – how is it all over?"
"Simply enough, Mary. As truly as those stars in heaven see the chastity of my love for you, as truly as that God who is above those stars knows that my love for you is immortal, Mary, neither you nor your sister shall ever see me again."
"Oh, don't say that, Michel."
"I have but to cross the lake and mount my horse, which is there among the osiers, and gallop to the first guard-house; once there, I have only to say, 'I am Baron Michel de la Logerie,' to be shot in three days." Mary gave a cry. "And that is what I will do," added Michel, "as surely as the stars look down upon us, and God himself is above them."
The young man made a movement to rush from the hut. Mary threw herself before him and clasped him round the body, but her strength gave way, her hold loosened, and she slipped to his feet.
"Michel," she murmured, "if you love me as you say you do, you will not refuse my entreaty. In the name of your love I implore you, – I whom you say you love, – do not kill my sister, grant me her life; grant her happiness to my prayers and tears. God will bless you for it; and every day my soul shall rise to Him, imploring happiness for one who has helped me to save a sister I love better than myself. Michel, forget me, – I ask it of your mercy, Michel, – do not reduce my Bertha to despair."
"Oh, Mary, Mary, you are cruel!" cried the young man, grasping his hair with both hands; "you are asking my very life. I shall die of this."
"Courage, friend, courage," said the girl, weakening herself.
"I could have courage for all, except renouncing you; but the simple thought of that makes me feebler than a child, – more despairing than a soul in hell."
"Michel, my friend, will you do as I ask of you?" stammered Mary, her voice half drowned in tears.
"I-I-"
He was about to answer that he would, but he stopped.
"Ah," he cried, "if you suffered as I suffer!"
At that cry of utter selfishness and yet of infinite love, Mary, beside herself, panting for breath, half maddened, clasped him in her nervous arms and said in a sobbing voice: -
"Would it comfort you to know that my heart is torn with an anguish like yours?"
"Yes, yes; oh, yes!"
"Would hell be a paradise if I were by your side?"
"An eternity of suffering with you, Mary, and I could bear all."
"Well, then," cried Mary, losing control of herself; "be satisfied, cruel man! your sufferings, your anguish-I feel them all. Like you, I am dying of despair at the sacrifice our duty is wringing from us."
"Then you love me, Mary?" said the young man.
"Oh, faithless heart!" she cried; "oh, faithless man, who can see my tears, my tortures, and cannot see my love!"
"Mary, Mary!" exclaimed Michel, staggering, breathless, mad, and drunken at once; "after killing me with grief, will you kill me with joy?"
"Yes, yes, I love you!" repeated Mary. "I love you! I needs must say the words that have choked me long. Yes, I love you as you love me. I love you so well that when I think of the sacrifice we both must make, death would be dear to me could it come at this moment when I tell you the truth."
Saying these words in spite of herself, and as if attracted by magnetic power, Mary approached her face to that of the young man, who looked at her with the eyes of one whom a sudden hallucination has flung into ecstasy; her blond hair touched his forehead; their breaths mingled and intoxicated both. As if overcome by this amorous effluence, Michel closed his eyes, his lips touched Mary's, and she, exhausted by her struggle so long sustained against herself, yielded to the impulse that moved her. Their lips united, and thus they stayed for several moments, lost in a gulf of dolorous felicity.
Mary was the first to recover herself. She rose quickly, pushed Michel away from her, and began to cry bitterly.
At that instant Rosine entered the hut.
XII.
BARON MICHEL FINDS AN OAK INSTEAD OF A REED ON WHICH TO LEAN
Mary felt that Rosine's coming was a help sent to her from above. Alone, without other support than her own heart, which had yielded so utterly, she felt herself at the mercy of her lover. Seeing Rosine, she ran to her and caught her hand.
"What is it, my child?" she said. "What have you come to say?"
She passed her hands over her forehead and eyes to efface, if possible, the signs of her emotion.
"Mademoiselle," said Rosine, "I think I hear a boat."
"In which direction?"
"Toward Saint-Philbert."
"I thought your father's boat was the only one on the lake."
"No, mademoiselle, the miller of Grand-Lieu has one; it is half-rotten to be sure, but some one has no doubt taken it to come over here."
"Well," said Mary, "I'll go with you and see who it is?"
Then, without paying the slightest heed to the young man, who stretched out his arms to her in a supplicating way, Mary, who was not sorry to leave Michel in order to gather up her courage, sprang from the hut. Rosine followed her.
Michel was left alone, completely crushed; he felt that happiness had escaped him, and he doubted the possibility of recovering it. Never again would another such scene bring another such avowal.
When Mary returned, after listening in all directions without hearing anything more than the lapping of the water on the shore, she found Michel sitting on the reeds with his head in his hands. She thought him calm, – he was only depressed; she went to him. Michel, hearing her step, raised his head, and seeing her as reserved on her return as she was emotional before she left him, he merely held out his hand and shook his head sadly.
"Oh, Mary, Mary!" he said.
"Well, my friend?" she replied.
"Repeat to me, for Heaven's sake-repeat to me those dear words you said just now! Tell me again that you love me!"
"I will repeat it, dear friend," said Mary, sadly; "and as often as you wish it, if the conviction that my love is watching tenderly your sufferings and your efforts can in any way inspire you with courage and resolution."
"What!" cried Michel, wringing his hands, "are you still thinking of that cruel separation? Can you expect me, with the knowledge of my love for you, and the certainty of your love for me, – can you still expect me to give myself to another woman?"
"I expect us both to accomplish the duty that lies before us, my friend. That is why I do not regret having opened my heart to you. I hope that my example will teach you to suffer, and inspire you with resignation to the will of God. A fatal chain of circumstances, which I deplore as much as you, Michel, has separated us; we cannot belong to each other."
"But why not? I have made no pledge. I never said one word of love to Mademoiselle Bertha."
"No; but she told me that she loved you. I received her confidence as long ago as that evening when you met her at Tinguy's cottage, and walked home with her."
"But whatever I said to her that night that may have seemed tender referred to you," said the luckless young man.
"Ah! friend, a heart which bends is soon filled; poor Bertha deceived herself. As we returned to the château that night and I was thinking in the depths of my heart, 'I love him,' she said those very words to me aloud. To love you is only to suffer, but to be yours, Michel, would be a crime."
"Ah! my God! my God!"
"Yes. God will give us strength, Michel, – the God whom we invoke. Let us bear heroically the consequences of our mutual timidity. I do not blame you for yours, be sure of that; but, at least, spare me the remorse of feeling that I have made my sister's unhappiness without benefit or advantage to myself."
"But," said Michel, "your project is senseless; the very thing you seek to avoid would surely come of it. Sooner or later Bertha must discover that I do not love her, and then-"
"Listen to me, friend." interrupted Mary, laying her hand on Michel's arm: "though very young, I have strong convictions on what is called love. My education, the direct opposite of yours, has, like yours, its drawbacks, but also some advantages. One of these advantages-a terrible one, I admit-is a practical view of realities. Accustomed to hear conversations in which the past disguised nothing of its weakness, I know, through what I have learned from my father's life, that nothing is more fugitive than the feelings which you now express to me. I therefore hope that Bertha will have taken my place in your heart before she has time to perceive your indifference. That is my hope, Michel, and I pray you not to destroy it."
"You ask an impossibility, Mary."
"Well, if it must be so, it must. You are free not to keep the engagement which binds you to my sister: free to reject the prayer I make to you on my knees; it will be only another wound and shame inflicted on two poor girls already unjustly treated by the world. My poor Bertha will suffer, I know that; but at least I shall suffer with her, and with the same pain as hers; but take care, Michel, lest our sufferings, increased by each seeing that of the other, end by cursing you.
"I implore you, Mary. I conjure you do not say such words, – they break my heart."
"Listen, Michel; the hours are passing, the night is nearly gone, day will soon be here; we must now separate, and my resolution is irrevocable. We have both dreamed a dream which we must both forget. I have told you how you can deserve, – I will not say my love, for you have it, – but the eternal gratitude of your poor Mary. I swear to you," she added, in a deeper tone of supplication than she had yet used; "I swear to you that if you will devote yourself to the happiness of my sister, I will have but one thought, one prayer, in my heart, – that of beseeching God to reward you here below, and in heaven above. If on contrary, you refuse me, Michel, if your heart cannot rise to the level of my own abnegation, you must renounce the sight of us, you must go far away; for, I repeat, and I swear it before God, I will never, my friend, never be yours!"
"Mary, Mary, do not take that oath; leave me some hope, at least. The obstacles around us may lessen."
"To leave you any hope would be doing wrong, Michel; and since the certainty that I share your sufferings has not given you-as you promised me it should-the firmness and resignation which strengthen my own heart, I bitterly regret the confession I have made this night. No," she added, passing her hand across her forehead, "we must have no more dreams; they are too dangerous. I have made you a request, a prayer; you will not listen to it; there is nothing left but to bid you an eternal farewell."
"Never to see you, Mary! Oh, rather death! I will do what you exact-"
He stopped, unable to say the words.
"I exact nothing," said Mary. "I have asked you on my knees not to break two hearts instead of one, and, on my knees, I once more ask it."
And she did, in fact, slip down to the feet of the young man.
"Rise, rise!" he cried. "Yes, Mary, yes, I will do what you want. But you must be there, you must never leave me; and when I suffer too much I must draw my strength and courage from your eyes. Promise me that, Mary, and I will obey you."
"Thank you, friend, thank you. That which gives me strength to ask and accept this sacrifice, is my conviction that nothing is lost for your happiness as well as Bertha's."
"But yours, yours?" cried the young man.
"Do not think of me, Michel." A groan escaped him. "God," she continued, "has given consolations to sacrifice of which the soul knows nothing till it sounds those depths. As for me," said Mary, veiling her eyes with her hand as though she feared they might deny her words, "I shall endeavor to find the sight of your happiness sufficient for me."
"Oh, my God, my God!" cried Michel, wringing his hands; "is it all over, – am I condemned to death?"
And he flung himself face down upon the floor.
At that moment Rosine entered.
"Mademoiselle," she said, "the day is breaking."
"What is the matter, Rosine?" asked Mary; "you are trembling!"
"I am sure I heard oars in the lake; and just now I heard footsteps behind me."
"Footsteps on this lonely islet! you are dreaming, child."
"I think so myself, for I have searched everywhere and seen no one."
"Now we must go," said Mary.
A sob from Michel made her turn to him.
"We must go alone, my friend," she said, "but in an hour Rosine shall come back for you with the boat. Don't forget what you have promised me. I rely upon your courage."
"Rely upon my love, Mary," he said. "The proof you exact is terrible; the task you impose immense. God grant I may not fail under the burden of it."
"Remember, Michel, that Bertha loves you, that she cherishes every glance you give her. Remember, too, that I would rather die than have her discover the true state of your heart."
"Oh, my God! my God!" murmured the young man.
"Courage! courage! Farewell, friend!"
Profiting by the moment when Rosine turned to open the door and look outside, Mary laid a kiss on Michel's forehead. It was a different kiss from that she had given him half an hour earlier. The first was the jet of flame, which darts from the heart of the lover to that of the loved one; the second was the chaste farewell of a sister to a brother.
Michel understood the difference, and it wrung his heart. Tears sprang again to his eyes. He went with the two young girls to the shore, and when he had seen them in the boat he sat down upon a stone and watched the little bark till it was lost in the morning mist that was rising from the lake.
The sound of oars still lingered in his ear; he was listening, as though to some funeral knell which told him that his illusions were vanishing like phantom dreams, when a hand was lightly laid upon his shoulder. He turned and saw Jean Oullier close beside him.
The Vendéan's face was sadder than usual, but it seemed to have lost the expression of hatred which Michel had so often seen there. His eyelids were moist, and two big drops were hanging to the beard which formed a collar round his face. Were they dew? Could they be tears from the eyes of the old follower of Charette?
He held out his hand to Michel, a thing he had never done before. The latter looked at him in surprise, and took, with some hesitation, the hand that was offered to him.
"I heard all," said Jean Oullier.
Michel sighed and dropped his head.
"Noble hearts! both of you," said the Vendéan; "but you were right. It is a terrible task that poor child has set you. May God reward her devotion! As for you, when you feel that you are weakening, let me know, Monsieur de la Logerie, and you'll find out one thing, and that is, if Jean Oullier hates his enemies he can also love those he does love."
"Thank you," replied Michel.
"Come, come!" continued Jean Oullier, "no more tears; it isn't manly to cry. If necessary, I'll try to make that iron head, called Bertha, listen to reason; though I admit to you, in advance, it isn't easy."
"But in case she won't hear reason, there is one thing else you can help me in, – an easy thing."
"What is that?"
"To get myself killed."
Michel said it so simply that it was evidently the expression of his thought.
"Oh, oh!" muttered Jean Oullier; "he really looks, my faith, as if he'd do it." Then he added aloud, addressing the young man: "Well, so be it; if the necessity comes, we'll see about it."
This promise, melancholy as it was, gave Michel a little courage.
"Now, then," said the old Chouan, "come with me. You can't stay here. I have a miserable boat, but by taking some precautions I think we can both of us get safely ashore."
"But Rosine was to return in an hour and row me over," objected the young man.
"She will come on a useless errand, that's all;" replied Jean Oullier. "It will teach her to gossip on the high-road about other people's affairs as she did with you to-night."
After these words, which explained how Jean Oullier came to visit the island of Jonchère, Michel followed him to the boat, and presently, avoiding the road taken by Mary and Rosine, they took to the open country in the direction of Saint-Philbert.
