The Romance of a Poor Young Man. Harland Henry

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СКАЧАТЬ though briefly, showing no desire to hasten my return. So I was the more alarmed when I arrived at Marseilles, two months ago, and found several letters from him, all feverishly begging me to return at once.

      It was on a sombre February evening, that I saw once more the massive walls of our ancient house standing out against the light veil of snow that lay upon the country. A sharp north wind blew in icy gusts; flakes of frozen sleet dropped like dead leaves from the trees of the avenue, and struck the wet soil with a faint and plaintive sound. As I entered the court a shadow, which I took to be my father's, fell upon a window of the large drawing-room on the ground floor – a room which had not been used during my mother's last days. I hurried on, and my father, seeing me, gave a hoarse cry, then opened his arms to me, and I felt his heart beating wildly against my own.

      "Thou art frozen, my poor child," he said, much against his habit, for he seldom addressed me in the second person. "Warm thyself, warm thyself. This is a cold room, but I prefer it now; at least one can breathe here."

      "Are you well, father?"

      "Pretty well, as you see."

      Leaving me by the fireplace, he resumed his walk across the vast salon, dimly lighted by two or three candles. I seemed to have interrupt this walk of his. This strange welcome alarmed me. I looked at my father in dull surprise.

      "Have you seen my horses?" he said suddenly, without stopping.

      "But, father – "

      "Ah, yes, of course, you've only just come." After a silence he continued. "Maxime," he said, "I have something to tell you."

      "I'm listening, father."

      He did not seem to hear me, but walked about a little, and kept on repeating, "I have something to tell you, my son." At last he sighed deeply, passed his hand across his forehead, and sitting down suddenly, signed to me to take a seat opposite to him. Then, as if he wanted to speak and had not the courage to do so, his eyes rested on mine, and I read in them an expression of suffering, humility, and supplication that in a man so proud as my father touched me deeply. Whatever the faults he found it so hard to confess, I felt from the bottom of my heart that he was fully pardoned.

      Suddenly his eyes, which had never left mine, were fixed in an astonished stare, vague and terrible. His hand stiffened on my arm; he raised himself in his chair, then drooped, and in an instant fell heavily on the floor. He was dead.

      The heart does not reason or calculate. That is its glory. In a moment I had divined everything. One minute had been enough to show me all at once, and without a word of explanation – in a burst of irresistible light, the fatal truth which a thousand things daily repeated under my eyes had never made me suspect. Ruin was here, in this house, over my head. Yet I do not think that I should have mourned my father more sincerely or more bitterly if he had left me loaded with benefits. With my regret and my deep sorrow there was mingled a pity, strangely poignant in that it was the pity of a son for his father. That beseeching, humbled, hopeless look haunted me. Bitterly I regretted that I had not been able to speak a word of consolation to that heart before it broke! Wildly I called to him who could no longer hear me, "I forgive you, I forgive you." My God, what moments were these! As far as I have been able to guess, my mother, when she was dying, had made my father promise to sell the greater part of his property; to pay off the whole of the enormous debt he had incurred by spending every year a third more than his income, and to live solely and strictly on what he had left. My father had tried to keep to this engagement; he had sold the timber and part of the estate, but finding himself master of a considerable capital, he had applied only a small portion of it to the discharge of his debts, and had attempted to restore our fortunes by staking the remainder in the hateful chances of the Stock Exchange. He had thus completed his ruin. I have not yet sounded the depths of the abyss in which we are engulfed. A week after my father's death I was taken seriously ill, and after two months of suffering I was only just able to leave my ancient home on the day that a stranger took possession of it. Fortunately an old friend of my mother's, who lives at Paris, and who formerly acted as notary to our family, has come to my help. He has offered to undertake the work of liquidation which to my inexperienced judgment seemed beset with unconquerable difficulties. I left the whole business to him, and I presume that now his work is completed. I went to his house directly I arrived yesterday; he was in the country, and will not return till to-morrow.

      These have been two cruel days; uncertainty is the worst of all evils, because it is the only one that necessarily stops the springs of action and checks our courage. I should have been very much surprised if, ten years ago, any one had told me that the old notary, whose formal language and stiff politeness so much amused my father and me, would one day be the oracle from whom I should await the supreme sentence of my destiny.

      I do my best to guard against excessive hopes; I have calculated approximately that, after paying all the debts, we should have a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty thousand francs left. A fortune of five millions should leave so much salvage at least. I intend to take ten thousand francs and seek my fortune in the new States of America; the rest I shall resign to my sister.

      Enough of writing for to-night. Recalling such memories is a mournful occupation. Nevertheless, I feel that it has made me calmer. Work is surely a sacred law, since even the lightest task discharged brings a certain contentment and serenity. Yet man does not love work; he cannot fail to see its good effects; he tastes them every day, and blesses them, and each day he comes to his work with the same reluctance. I think that is a singular and mysterious contradiction, as if in toil we felt at once a chastisement, and the divine and fatherly hand of the chastiser.

Thursday

      When I woke this morning a letter from old M. Laubépin was brought to me. He invited me to dinner and apologized for taking such a liberty. He said nothing about my affairs. I augured unfavourably from this silence.

      In the meantime I fetched my sister from her convent, and took her about Paris. The child knows nothing of our ruin. In the course of the day she had some rather expensive fancies. She provided herself liberally with gloves, pink note-paper, bonbons for her friends, delicate scents, special soaps, and tiny pencils, all very necessary useful things, but not as necessary as a dinner. May she never have to realize this!

      At six o'clock I was at M. Laubépin's in the Rue Cassette. I do not know our old friend's age, but to-day I found him looking just the same as ever – tall and thin, with a little stoop, untidy white hair, and piercing eyes under bushy black eyebrows – altogether a face at once strong and subtle. I recognised the unvarying costume, the old-fashioned black coat, the professional white cravat, the family diamond in the shirt-frill – in short, all the outward signs of a serious, methodical, and conservative nature. The old gentleman was waiting for me at the open door of his little salon. After making me a low bow, he took my hand lightly between two of his fingers and conducted me to a homely looking old lady who was standing by the fire-place.

      "The Marquis de Champcey d'Hauterive!" said M. Laubépin, in his strong, rich, and emphatic voice, and turning quickly to me, added in a humbler tone, "Mme. Laubépin!"

      We sat down. An awkward silence ensued. I had expected an immediate explanation of my position. Seeing that this was to be postponed, I assumed at once that it was unfavourable, an assumption confirmed by the discreet and compassionate glances with which Mme. Laubépin furtively honoured me. As for M. Laubépin, he observed me with a remarkable attention not altogether kindly. My father, I remember, always maintained that at the bottom of his heart and under his respectful manner the ceremonious old scrivener had a little of bourgeois democratic and even Jacobin leaven. It seemed to me that this leaven was working just now, and that the old man found some satisfaction for his secret antipathies in the spectacle of a gentleman under torture. In spite of my real depression, I began to talk at once, trying to appear quite unconcerned.

      "So, СКАЧАТЬ