The Wandering Jew Part 160

"You will excuse what I have done, dear prince. I expected this morning a very important letter. As it was late in coming to hand, I ordered it to be sent on."

A few minutes after, Faringhea returned with the letter, which he delivered to Rodin--and the half-caste again withdrew.

CHAPTER XLIV. ADRIENNE AND DJALMA.

When Faringhea had quitted the room, Rodin took the letter from Abbe d'Aigrigny with one hand, and with the other appeared to be looking for something, first in the side pocket of his great-coat, then in the pocket behind, then in that of his trousers; and, not finding what he sought, he laid the letter on his knee, and felt himself all over with both hands, with an air of regret and uneasiness. The divers movements of this pantomime, performed in the most natural manner, were crowned by the exclamations.

"Oh! dear me! how vexatious!"

"What is the matter?" asked Djalma, starting from the gloomy silence in which he had been plunged for some minutes.

"Alas! my dear prince!" replied Rodin, "the most vulgar and puerile accident may sometimes cause the greatest inconvenience. I have forgotten or lost my spectacles. Now, in this twilight, with the very poor eyesight that years of labor have left me, it will be absolutely impossible for me to read this most important letter--and an immediate answer is expected--most simple and categorical--a yes or a no. Times presses; it is really most annoying. If," added Rodin, laying great stress on his words, without looking at Djalma, but so as the prince might remark it; "if only some one would render me the service to read it for me; but there is no one--no--one!"

"Father," said Djalma, obligingly, "shall I read it for you. When I have finished it, I shall forget what I have read."

"You?" cried Rodin, as if the proposition of the Indian had appeared to him extravagant and dangerous; "it is impossible, prince, for you to read this letter."

"Then excuse my having offered," said Djalma mildly.

"And yet," resumed Rodin, after a moment's reflection, and as if speaking to himself, "why not?"

And he added, addressing Djalma: "Would you really be so obliging, my dear prince? I should not have ventured to ask you this service."

So saying, Rodin delivered the letter to Djalma, who read aloud as follows: "'Your visit this morning to Saint-Dizier House can only be considered, from what I hear, as a new act of aggression on your part.

"'Here is the last proposition I have to make. It may be as fruitless as the step I took yesterday, when I called upon you in the Rue Clovis.

"'After that long and painful explanation, I told you that I would write to you. I keep my promise, and here is my ultimatum.

"'First of all, a piece of advice. Beware! If you are determined to maintain so unequal a struggle, you will be exposed even to the hatred of those whom you so foolishly seek to protect. There are a thousand ways to ruin you with them, by enlightening them as to your protects. It will be proved to them, that you have shared in the plat, which you now pretend to reveal, not from generosity, but from cupidity.'" Though Djalma had the delicacy to feel that the least question on the subject of this letter would be a serious indiscretion, he could not forbear turning his head suddenly towards the Jesuit, as he read the last pa.s.sage.

"Oh, yes! it relates to me. Such as you see me, my dear prince," added he, glancing at his shabby clothes, "I am accused of cupidity."

"And who are these people that you protect?"

"Those I protect?" said Rodin feigning some hesitation, as if he had been embarra.s.sed to find an answer; "who are those I protect?

Hem--hem--I will tell you. They are poor devils without resources; good people without a penny, having only a just cause on their side, in a lawsuit in which they are engaged. They are threatened with destruction by powerful parties--very powerful parties; but, happily, these latter are known to me, and I am able to unmask them. What else could have been? Being myself poor and weak, I range myself naturally on the side of the poor and weak. But continue, I beg of you."

Djalma resumed: "'You have therefore every-thing to fear if you persist in your hostility, and nothing to gain by taking the side of those whom you call your friends. They might more justly be termed your dupes, for your disinterestedness would be inexplicable, were it sincere. It must therefore conceal some after-thought of cupidity.

"'Well! in that view of the case, we can offer you ample compensation--with this difference, that your hopes are now entirely founded on the probable grat.i.tude of your friends, a very doubtful chance at the best, whereas our offers will be realized on the instant.

To speak clearly, this is what we ask, what we exact of you. This very night, before twelve, you must have left Paris, and engage not to return for six months.'" Djalma could not repress a movement of surprise, and looked at Rodin.

"Quite natural," said the latter; "the cause of my poor friends would be judged by that time, and I should be unable to watch over them. You see how it is, my dear prince," added Rodin, with bitter indignation. "But please continue, and excuse me for having interrupted you; though, indeed, such impudence disgusts me."

Djalma continued: "'That we may be certain of your removal from Paris for six months, you will go to the house of one of our friends in Germany. You will there be received with generous hospitality, but forcibly detained until the expiration of the term.'"

"Yes, yes! a voluntary prison," said Rodin.

"'On these conditions, you will receive a pension of one thousand francs a month, to begin from your departure from Paris, ten thousand francs down, and twenty thousand at the end of the six months--the whole to be completely secured to you. Finally, at the end of the six months, we will place you in a position both honorable and independent.'"

Djalma having stopped short, with involuntary indignation, Rodin said to him: "Let me beg you to continue, my dear prince. Read to the end, and it will give you some idea of what pa.s.ses in the midst of our civilization."

Djalma resumed: "'You know well enough the course of affairs, and what we are, to feel that in providing for your absence, we only wish to get rid of an enemy, not very dangerous, but rather troublesome. Do not be blinded by your first success. The results of your denunciation will be stifled, because they are calumnious. The judge who received your evidence will soon repent his odious partiality. You may make what use you please of this letter. We know what we write, to whom we write, and how we write. You will receive this letter at three o'clock; if by four o'clock we have not your full and complete acceptance, written with your own hand at the bottom of this letter, war must commence between us--and not from to-morrow, but on the instant.'"

Having finished reading the letter, Djalma looked at Rodin, who said to him: "Permit me to summon Faringhea."

He rang the bell, and the half-caste appeared. Rodin took the letter from the hands of Djalma, tore it into halves, rubbed it between his palms, so as to make a sort of a ball, and said to the half-caste, as he returned it to him: "Give this palter to the person who waits for it, and tell him that is my only answer to his shameless and insolent letter; you understand me--this shameless and insolent letter."

"I understand." said the half-caste; and he went out.

"This will perhaps be a dangerous war for you, father, said the Indian, with interest.

"Yes, dear prince, it may be dangerous, but I am not like you; I have no wish to kill my enemies, because they are cowardly and wicked. I fight them under the s.h.i.+eld of the law. Imitate me in this." Then, seeing that the countenance of Djalma darkened, he added: "I am wrong. I will advise you no more on this subject. Only, let us defer the decision to the judgment of your n.o.ble and motherly protectress. I shall see her to morrow; if she consents, I will tell you the names of your enemies. If not--not."

"And this woman, this second mother," said Djalma, "is her character such, that I can rely on her judgment?"

"She!" cried Rodin, clasping his hands, and speaking with increased excitement. "Why, she is the most n.o.ble, the most generous, the most valiant being upon earth!--why, if you were really her son, and she loved you with all the strength of maternal affection, and a case arose in which you had to choose between an act of baseness and death, she would say to you: 'Die!' though she might herself die with you."

"Oh, n.o.ble woman! so was my mother!" cried Djalma, with enthusiasm.

"Yes," resumed Rodin, with growing energy, as he approached the window concealed by the shade, towards which he threw an oblique and anxious glance, "if you would imagine your protectress, think only of courage, uprightness, and loyalty personified. Oh! she has the chivalrous frankness of the brave man, joined with the high-souled dignity of the woman, who not only never in her life told a falsehood, never concealed a single thought, but who would rather die than give way to the least of those sentiments of craft and dissimulation, which are almost forced upon ordinary women by the situation in which they are placed."

It is difficult to express the admiration which shone upon the countenance of Djalma, as he listened to this description. His eyes sparkled, his cheeks glowed, his heart palpitated with enthusiasm.

"That is well, n.o.ble heart!" said Rodin to him, drawing still nearer to the blind; "I love to see your soul sparkle through your eyes, on hearing me speak thus of your unknown protectress. Oh! but she is worthy of the pious adoration which n.o.ble hearts and great characters inspire!"

"Oh! I believe you," cried Djalma, with enthusiasm; "my heart is full of admiration and also of astonishment, for my mother is no more, and yet such a woman exists!"

"Yes, she exists. For the consolation of the afflicted, for the glory of her s.e.x, she exists. For the honor of truth, and the shame of falsehood, she exists. No lie, no disguise, has ever tainted her loyalty, brilliant and heroic as the sword of a knight. It is but a few days ago that this n.o.ble woman spoke to me these admirable words, which, in all my life, I shall not forget: 'Sir,' she said, 'if ever I suspect any one that I love or esteem--'"

Rodin did not finish. The shade, so violently shaken that the spring broke, was drawn up abruptly, and, to the great astonishment of Djalma, Mdlle. de Cardoville appeared before him. Adrienne's cloak had fallen from her shoulders, and in the violence of the movement with which she had approached the blind, her bonnet, the strings of which were untied, had also fallen. Having left home suddenly, with only just time to throw a mantle over the picturesque and charming costume which she often chose to wear when alone, she appeared so radiant with beauty to Djalma's dazzled eyes, in the centre of those leaves and flowers, that the Indian believed himself under the influence of a dream.

With clasped hands, eyes wide open, the body slightly bent forward, as if in the act of prayer, he stood petrified with admiration, Mdlle. de Cardoville, much agitated, and her countenance glowing with emotion, remained on the threshold of the greenhouse, without entering the room.

All this had pa.s.sed in less time than it takes to describe it. Hardly had the blind been raised, than Rodin, feigning surprise, exclaimed: "You here, madame?"

"Oh, sir!" said Adrienne, in an agitated voice, "I come to terminate the phrase which you have commenced. I told you, that when a suspicion crossed my mind, I uttered it aloud to the person by whom it was inspired. Well! I confess it: I have failed in this honesty. I came here as a spy upon you, when your answer to the Abbe d'Aigrigny was giving me a new pledge of your devotion and sincerity. I doubted your uprightness at the moment when you were bearing testimony to my frankness. For the first time in my life, I stooped to deceit; this weakness merits punishment, and I submit to it--demands reparation, and I make it--calls for apologies, and I tender them to you." Then turning towards Djalma, she added: "Now, prince, I am no longer mistress of my secret. I am your relation, Mdlle. de Cardoville; and I hope you will accept from a sister the hospitality that you did not refuse from a mother."

Djalma made no reply. Plunged in ecstatic contemplation of this sudden apparition, which surpa.s.sed his wildest and most dazzling visions, he felt a sort of intoxication, which, paralyzing the power of thought, concentrated all his faculties in the one sense of sight; and just as we sometimes seek in vain to satisfy unquenchable thirst, the burning look of the Indian sought, as it were, with devouring avidity, to take in all the rare perfections of the young lady. Verily, never had two more divine types of beauty met face to face. Adrienne and Djalma were the very ideal of a handsome youth and maiden. There seemed to be something providential in the meeting of these two natures, so young and so vivacious, so generous and so full of pa.s.sion, so heroic and so proud, who, before coming into contact, had, singularly enough, each learned the moral worth of the other; for if, at the words of Rodin, Djalma had felt arise in his heart an admiration, as lively as it was sudden, for the valiant and generous qualities of that unknown benefactress, whom he now discovered in Mdlle. de Cardoville, the latter had, in her turn, been moved, affected, almost terrified, by the interview she had just overheard, in which Djalma had displayed the n.o.bleness of his soul, the delicate goodness of his heart, and the terrible transports of his temper. Then she had not been able to repress a movement of astonishment, almost admiration, at sight of the surprising beauty of the prince; and soon after, a strange, painful sentiment, a sort of electric shock, seemed to penetrate all her being, as her eyes encountered Djalma's.

Cruelly agitated, and suffering deeply from this agitation, she tried to dissemble the impression she had received, by addressing Rodin, to apologize for having suspected him. But the obstinate silence of the Indian redoubled the lady's painful embarra.s.sment. Again raising her eyes towards the prince, to invite him to respond to her fraternal offer, she met his ardent gaze wildly fixed upon her, and she looked once more with a mixture of fear, sadness, and wounded pride; then she congratulated herself on having foreseen the inexorable necessity of keeping Djalma at a distance from her, such apprehension did this ardent and impetuous nature already inspire. Wis.h.i.+ng to put an end to her present painful situation, she said to Rodin, in a low and trembling voice, "Pray, sir, speak to the prince; repeat to him my offers. I cannot remain longer." So saying, Adrienne turned, as if to rejoin Florine. But, at the first step, Djalma sprang towards her with the bound of a tiger, about to be deprived of his prey. Terrified by the expression of wild excitement which inflamed the Indian's countenance, the young lady drew back with a loud scream.

At this, Djalma remembered himself, and all that had pa.s.sed. Pale with regret and shame, trembling, dismayed, his eyes streaming with tears, and all his features marked with an expression of the most touching despair, he fell at Adrienne's feet, and lifting his clasped hands towards her, said in a soft, supplicating, timid voice: "Oh, remain!

remain! do not leave me. I have waited for you so long!" To this prayer, uttered with the timid simplicity of a child, and a resignation which contrasted strangely with the savage violence that had so frightened Adrienne, she replied, as she made a sign to Florine to prepare for their departure: "Prince, it is impossible for me to remain longer here."