Part 6 (1/2)
Philippe was sustained in his agonizing enterprise by hope, which never abandoned him. When, on fine autumn mornings, he found the countess sitting peacefully on a bench, beneath a poplar now yellowing, the poor lover would sit at her feet, looking into her eyes as long as she would let him, hoping ever that the light that was in them would become intelligent. Sometimes the thought deluded him that he saw those hard immovable rays softening, vibrating, living, and he cried out,--
”Stephanie! Stephanie! thou hearest me, thou seest me!”
But she listened to that cry as to a noise, the soughing of the wind in the tree-tops, or the lowing of the cow on the back of which she climbed. Then the colonel would wring his hands in despair,--despair that was new each day.
One evening, under a calm sky, amid the silence and peace of that rural haven, the doctor saw, from a distance, that the colonel was loading his pistols. The old man felt then that the young man had ceased to hope; he felt the blood rus.h.i.+ng to his heart, and if he conquered the vertigo that threatened him, it was because he would rather see his niece living and mad than dead. He hastened up.
”What are you doing?” he said.
”That is for me,” replied the colonel, pointing to a pistol already loaded, which was lying on the bench; ”and this is for her,” he added, as he forced the wad into the weapon he held.
The countess was lying on the ground beside him, playing with the b.a.l.l.s.
”Then you do not know,” said the doctor, coldly, concealing his terror, ”that in her sleep last night she called you: Philippe!”
”She called me!” cried the baron, dropping his pistol, which Stephanie picked up. He took it from her hastily, caught up the one that was on the bench, and rushed away.
”Poor darling!” said the doctor, happy in the success of his lie. He pressed the poor creature to his breast, and continued speaking to himself: ”He would have killed thee, selfish man! because he suffers. He does not love thee for thyself, my child! But we forgive, do we not? He is mad, out of his senses, but thou art only senseless. No, G.o.d alone should call thee to Him. We think thee unhappy, we pity thee because thou canst not share our sorrows, fools that we are!--But,” he said, sitting down and taking her on his knee, ”nothing troubles thee; thy life is like that of a bird, of a fawn--”
As he spoke she darted upon a young blackbird which was hopping near them, caught it with a little note of satisfaction, strangled it, looked at it, dead in her hand, and flung it down at the foot of a tree without a thought.
The next day, as soon as it was light, the colonel came down into the gardens, and looked about for Stephanie,--he believed in the coming happiness. Not finding her he whistled. When his darling came to him, he took her on his arm; they walked together thus for the first time, and he led her within a group of trees, the autumn foliage of which was dropping to the breeze. The colonel sat down. Of her own accord Stephanie placed herself on his knee. Philippe trembled with joy.
”Love,” he said, kissing her hands pa.s.sionately, ”I am Philippe.”
She looked at him with curiosity.
”Come,” he said, pressing her to him, ”dost thou feel my heart? It has beaten for thee alone. I love thee ever. Philippe is not dead; he is not dead, thou art on him, in his arms. Thou art MY Stephanie; I am thy Philippe.”
”Adieu,” she said, ”adieu.”
The colonel quivered, for he fancied he saw his own excitement communicated to his mistress. His heart-rending cry, drawn from him by despair, that last effort of an eternal love, of a delirious pa.s.sion, was successful, the mind of his darling was awaking.
”Ah! Stephanie! Stephanie! we shall yet be happy.”
She gave a cry of satisfaction, and her eyes brightened with a flash of vague intelligence.
”She knows me!--Stephanie!”
His heart swelled; his eyelids were wet with tears. Then, suddenly, the countess showed him a bit of sugar she had found in his pocket while he was speaking to her. He had mistaken for human thought the amount of reason required for a monkey's trick. Philippe dropped to the ground unconscious. Monsieur Fanjat found the countess sitting on the colonel's body. She was biting her sugar, and testifying her pleasure by pretty gestures and affectations with which, had she her reason, she might have imitated her parrot or her cat.
”Ah! my friend,” said Philippe, when he came to his senses, ”I die every day, every moment! I love too well! I could still bear all, if, in her madness, she had kept her woman's nature. But to see her always a savage, devoid even of modesty, to see her--”
”You want opera madness, do you? something picturesque and pleasing,”
said the doctor, bitterly. ”Your love and your devotion yield before a prejudice. Monsieur, I have deprived myself for your sake of the sad happiness of watching over my niece; I have left to you the pleasure of playing with her; I have kept for myself the heaviest cares. While you have slept, I have watched, I have--Go, monsieur, go! abandon her! leave this sad refuge. I know how to live with that dear darling creature; I comprehend her madness, I watch her gestures, I know her secrets. Some day you will thank me for thus sending you away.”
The colonel left the old monastery, never to return but once. The doctor was horrified when he saw the effect he had produced upon his guest, whom he now began to love when he saw him thus. Surely, if either of the two lovers were worthy of pity, it was Philippe; did he not bear alone the burden of their dreadful sorrow?
After the colonel's departure the doctor kept himself informed about him; he learned that the miserable man was living on an estate near Saint-Germain. In truth, the baron, on the faith of a dream, had formed a project which he believed would yet restore the mind of his darling.
Unknown to the doctor, he spent the rest of the autumn in preparing for his enterprise. A little river flowed through his park and inundated during the winter the marshes on either side of it, giving it some resemblance to the Beresina. The village of Satout, on the heights above, closed in, like Studzianka, the scene of horror. The colonel collected workmen to deepen the banks, and by the help of his memory, he copied in his park the sh.o.r.e where General Eble destroyed the bridge.
He planted piles, and made b.u.t.tresses and burned them, leaving their charred and blackened ruins, standing in the water from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e.