The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic. Эжен Сю

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СКАЧАТЬ young woman shuddered, stopped the Prince, and said in tones of bitterness:

      "Unless I greatly mistake, I foresee the end of this speech, Franz. So before you proceed, and in the hope of sparing you a refusal which would be an insult to you, I must declare that I have not changed since I met you. I must repeat what I said to you in our first interview: My heart is dead to love – one single passion rules me, and that is, vengeance. I have hid from you nothing of the past."

      "Aye, I know that you have suffered. Victoria, if your heart is dead, mine is no longer mine. I left behind in Germany a young girl, an angel of candor, of virtue, of beauty. She is poor and obscure of birth, but I have sworn before God to make her my wife. I shall remain true to my love and to my oath."

      "Oh, thanks, Franz, thanks for your confidence. It has lifted from me a fearsome apprehension," said Victoria, with a sigh of joy. "I love you with the tenderness of a sister, or rather, of a friend. For I am no longer a woman, and it would have been cruelty on my part to inspire in you a sentiment I could not share. But what, then, is the nature of your feeling towards me?"

      "I feel for you the tender compassion due to the sorrows of your childhood and early youth – a profound esteem for the qualities which in you have survived, have overcome, all the causes of your degradation; – and finally, Victoria, I am united to you by an indissoluble bond which reaches into the most distant past – that of kinship."

      Victoria gazed at the Prince in a sort of stupor as he proceeded: "We are of one blood, Victoria. We are relatives. One cradle, one origin, embraced our two families. Have you ever read the records your fathers have handed down from age to age, for now over sixteen centuries?"

      "I learned of those writings during the two years I spent with my mother and brother, subsequent to the event I have related to you. The reading of our annals, added to all the ferments of hate, already planted in my soul, and to the disappearance of my father, now dead or languishing in some pit of the Bastille, all created and matured in me that craving for vengeance, or rather for reprisals, which now possesses me. I long to serve that vengeance, at the cost of my life, if need be. That is why I have consented to this initiation, the hour of which is now approached. Vengeance will be but justice, and I wish it to be implacable."

      "The hour is indeed arrived, Victoria, and also the moment to reveal to you what we are to each other. You have in your plebeian annals a princely name, that of Charles of Gerolstein. That prince was a descendant of Gaëlo the Pirate, who in the Tenth Century accompanied old Rolf, chief of the Northman pirates, to the siege of Paris.2 One of the descendants of Gaëlo, taking his departure from Norway, went, some time in the Tenth Century, to establish himself with one of the independent tribes of Germany. His courage, his military prowess, caused his election as chief of the tribe. His son, equal to his father for wisdom and bravery, succeeded him to the command. The chieftainship from that time forward became hereditary in the family. Later, the tribe of Gerolstein became one of the foremost in the German confederation. Thus did the descendants of Gaëlo found the sovereign house of Gerolstein, to-day represented by my father, who now holds sway in his German principality. Our relationship is beyond doubt, Victoria, and the bonds thereof were again strengthened in the Sixteenth Century, when, in the religious wars, the ancestors of us both fought together under Admiral Coligny."

      "So, Franz, you are of the race of sovereigns," Victoria made answer. Then she continued: "It is now three months since you rescued me from prison. Shame, grief, self-contempt have deterred me from returning to my mother and brother. I am penniless. I wished to earn my living as a sempstress, a trade in which my mother instructed me during my stay with her. That would be the wisest thing to do. Why have you opposed my desires?"

      "Because I thought you could serve the cause of humanity more fruitfully than by occupying yourself with the needle."

      "You told me that I was to go through a novitiate of several months, during which time I might demand no assistance in my work. I accepted of you the money necessary for my modest needs. You were to me both brother and teacher. I saw you every day for hours. Little by little my eyes were opened to the light. Radiant horizons dazzled my vision. You filled me with your generous aspirations. You fired me with that fever of devotion and resignation, that thirst for sacrifices, from which spring saints and martyrs. You followed with interest my progress in the new path that you opened out to me. Day by day I wished that my initiation might end. I wished to take my part in action, in your projects. But now that you have revealed your birth, your station, I begin to doubt you. Is the object of your society really that which you have taught me it was, the recovery of the rights ravaged from the disinherited classes?"

      "The least doubt on your part on that score, Victoria, would be a cruel blow to me. We have taken arms for justice and right."

      "Pardon me, Franz. Then the level, that inflexible emblem – the social level – "

      "Is our emblem. Equality of rights for man and woman!"

      "It is your emblem, my lord? Yours, the son of a sovereign?"

      "The aim of my life is the triumph of liberty, the birth of the Republic! Hear me, Victoria. You have borne the hardships, the sufferings, the shame of a prison. Which, you or a person unknown to prison horrors, knows them better? Which would hate them more?"

      "I read your thought. Despotism itself has taught you its horror."

      "And you will no longer wonder at me – of a sovereign race, but yet as lowly of origin as you, as both our families originated in the same place – when I take the level as my emblem?"

      "I shall wonder no more, Franz; but to my wonder succeeds a glow of admiration." With her eyes full of tears, and bowing her knee before the Prince of Gerolstein, Victoria kissed his hand, saying, "May you be blessed and glorified for your generous sentiments."

      "Rise, Victoria," answered the Prince with emotion. "My conduct does not merit your admiration. It is but a puny sacrifice for us to make of our privileges, compared with the grandeur of our cause." Then after a pause, he resumed in mild and grave tones: "But now reflect on this solemn moment of your initiation. There is still time for you to retract your allegiance to us."

      "Franz, after three months of proof, I shall not weaken at the last moment. I am ready for the ceremony."

      "Think of the terrible vows you are about to take."

      "Be they what they may, I shall not be found wanting in faith, courage, or devotion."

      "I wished to reveal to you our family connection in order that you could accept from me without embarrassment, as should be between relatives, your means of livelihood for the future, should you not care to carry out your plan. Your liberty of action shall remain complete and absolute."

      "I shall always accept from you, Franz, a service without blushing. But more than ever before, am I resolved to pledge myself to your cause, to the cause of the expropriated – if you think me worthy to serve it."

      "I shall not speak to you of the perils confronting us. You are above all, valiant. But it is necessary to reconcile you to a complete renunciation of self. You will be an instrument; not a blind one, but at once intelligent and passive. The Voyants are obliged to employ, for the deliverance, regeneration and happiness of mankind, some of the very means which the Society of Jesus uses to enslave and brutalize it. The sword, according as it is used, may be the dagger of the assassin or the glaive of the citizen wielded in defense of his country. It was the glaive with which Brutus opposed the Roman aristocracy, and smote Caesar."

      "I know the end toward which I shall be guided, the triumph of right and of justice. I shall obey."

      "Perhaps СКАЧАТЬ