The Village Rector by Honoré de Balzac (read more books TXT) 📕

friends as they held out their hands to help her into the largest of the boats, tears came into her eyes and she kept silence till they touched the bank of the first causeway. As she stepped into the second boat she saw the hermitage with Grossetete sitting on a bench before it with all his family.

"Do they wish to make me regret dying?" she said to the rector.

"We wish to prevent you from dying," replied Clousier.

"You cannot make the dead live," she answered.

Monsieur Bonnet gave her a stern look which recalled her to herself.

"Let me take care of your health," said Roubaud, in a gentle, persuasive voice. "I am sure I can save to this region its living glory, and to all our friends their common tie."

Veronique bowed her head, and Gerard rowed slowly toward the island in the middle of the lake, the largest of the three, into which the overflowing water of the first was rippling with a sound that gave a voice to that delightful landscape.

"You have done well to make me bid farewell to this ravishing nature on such a day," she said, looking at the beauty of the trees, all so full of foliage that they hid the shore. The only disapprobation her friends allowed themselves was to show a gloomy silence; and Veronique, receiving another glance from Monsieur Bonnet, sprang lightly ashore, assuming a lively air, which she did not relinquish. Once more the hostess, she was charming, and the Grossetete family felt she was again the beautiful Madame Graslin of former days.

"Indeed, you can still live, if you choose!" said her mother in a whisper.

At this gay festival, amid these glorious creations produced by the resources of nature only, nothing seemed likely to wound Veronique, and yet it was here and now that she received her death-blow.

The party were to return about nine o'clock by way of the meadows, the road through which, as lovely as an English or an Italian road, was the pride of its engineer. The abundance of small stones, laid aside when the plain was cleared, enabled him to keep it in good order; in fact, for the last five years it was, in a way, macadamized. Carriages were awaiting the company at the opening of the last valley toward the plain, almost at the base of the Roche-Vive. The horses, raised at Montegnac, were among the first that were ready for the market. The manager of the stud had selected a dozen for the stables of the chateau, and their present fine appearance was part of the programme of the fete. Madame Graslin's own carriage, a gift from Grossetete, was drawn by four of the finest animals, plainly harnessed.

After dinner the happy party went to take coffee in a little wooden kiosk, made like those on the Bosphorus, and placed on a point of the island from which the eye could reach to the farther lake beyond. From this spot Madame Graslin thought she saw her son Francis near the nursery-ground formerly planted by Farrabesche. She looked again, but did not see him; and Monsieur Ruffin pointed him out to her, playing on the bank with Grossetete's children. Veronique became alarmed lest he should meet with some accident. Not listening to remonstrance, she ran down from the kiosk, and jumping into a boat, began to row toward her son. This little incident caused a general departure. Monsieur Grossetete proposed that they should all follow her and walk on the beautiful shore of the lake, along the curves of the mountainous bluffs. On landing there Madame Graslin saw her son in the arms of a woman in deep mourning. Judging by the shape of her bonnet and the style of her clothes, the woman was a foreigner. Veronique was startled, and called to her son, who presently came toward her.

"Who is that woman?" she asked the children round about her; "and why did Francis leave you to go to her?"

"The lady called him by name," said a little girl.

At that instant Madame Sauviat and Gerard, who had outstripped the rest of the company, came up.

"Who is that woman, my dear child?" asked Madame Graslin as soon as Francis reached her.

"I don't know," he answered; "but she kissed me as you and grandmamma kissed me--she cried," whispered Francis in his mother's ear.

"Shall I go after her?" asked Gerard.

"No!" said Madame Graslin, with an abruptness that was not usual in her.

With a delicacy for which Veronique was grateful, Gerard led away the children and went back to detain the rest of the party, leaving Madame Sauviat, Madame Graslin, and Francis alone.

"What did she say to you?" asked Madame Sauviat of her grandson.

"I don't know; she did not speak French."

"Couldn't you understand anything she said?" asked Veronique.

"No; but she kept saying over and over,--and that's why I remember it,--_My dear brother_!"

Veronique took her mother's arm and led her son by the hand, but she had scarcely gone a dozen steps before her strength gave way.

"What is the matter? what has happened?" said the others, who now came up, to Madame Sauviat.

"Oh! my daughter is in danger!" said the old woman, in guttural tones.

It was necessary to carry Madame Graslin to her carriage. She signed to Aline to get into it with Francis, and also Gerard.

"You have been in England," she said to the latter as soon as she recovered herself, "and therefore no doubt you speak English; tell me the meaning of the words, _my dear brother_."

On being told, Veronique exchanged a look with Aline and her mother which made them shudder; but they restrained their feelings.

The shouts and joyous cries of those who were assisting in the departure of the carriages, the splendor of the setting sun as it lay upon the meadows, the perfect gait of the beautiful horses, the laughter of her friends as they followed her on horseback at a gallop,--none of these things roused Madame Graslin from her torpor. Her mother ordered the coachman to hasten his horses, and their carriage reached the chateau some time before the others. When the company were again assembled, they were told that Veronique had gone to her rooms and was unable to see any one.

"I fear," said Gerard to his friends, "that Madame Graslin has had some fatal shock."

"Where? how?" they asked.

"To her heart," he answered.

The following day Roubaud started for Paris. He had seen Madame Graslin, and found her so seriously ill that he wished for the assistance and advice of the ablest physician of the day. But Veronique had only received Roubaud to put a stop to her mother and Aline's entreaties that she would do something to benefit her; she herself knew that death had stricken her. She refused to see Monsieur Bonnet, sending word to him that the time had not yet come. Though all her friends who had come from Limoges to celebrate her birthday wished to be with her, she begged them to excuse her from fulfilling the duties of hospitality, saying that she desired to remain in the deepest solitude. After Roubaud's departure the other guests returned to Limoges, less disappointed than distressed; for all those whom Grossetete had brought with him adored Veronique. They were lost in conjecture as to what might have caused this mysterious disaster.

One evening, two days after the departure of the company, Aline brought Catherine to Madame Graslin's apartment. La Farrabesche stopped short, horrified at the change so suddenly wrought in her mistress, whose face seemed to her almost distorted.

"Good God, madame!" she cried, "what harm that girl has done! If we had only foreseen it, Farrabesche and I, we would never have taken her in. She has just heard that madame is ill, and sends me to tell Madame Sauviat she wants to speak to her."

"Here!" cried Veronique. "Where is she?"

"My husband took her to the chalet."

"Very good," said Madame Graslin; "tell Farrabesche to go elsewhere. Inform that lady that my mother will go to her; tell her to expect the visit."

As soon as it was dark Veronique, leaning on her mother's arm, walked slowly through the park to the chalet. The moon was shining with all its brilliancy, the air was soft, and the two women, visibly affected, found encouragement, of a sort, in the things of nature. The mother stopped now and then, to rest her daughter, whose sufferings were poignant, so that it was well-nigh midnight before they reached the path that goes down from the woods to the sloping meadow where the silvery roof of the chalet shone. The moonlight gave to the surface of the quiet water, the tint of pearls. The little noises of the night, echoing in the silence, made softest harmony. Veronique sat down on the bench of the chalet, amid this beauteous scene of the starry night. The murmur of two voices and the footfall of two persons still at a distance on the sandy shore were brought by the water, which sometimes, when all is still, reproduces sounds as faithfully as it reflects objects on the surface. Veronique recognized at once the exquisite voice of the rector, and the rustle of his cassock, also the movement of some silken stuff that was probably the material of a woman's gown.

"Let us go in," she said to her mother.

Madame Sauviat and her daughter sat down on a crib in the lower room, which was intended for a stable.

"My child," they heard the rector saying, "I do not blame you,--you are quite excusable; but your return may be the cause of irreparable evil; she is the soul of this region."

"Ah! monsieur, then I had better go away to-night," replied the stranger. "Though--I must tell you--to leave my country once more is death to me. If I had stayed a day longer in that horrible New York, where there is neither hope, nor faith, nor charity, I should have died without being ill. The air I breathed oppressed my chest, food did not nourish me, I was dying while full of life and vigor. My sufferings ceased the moment I set foot upon the vessel to return. I seemed to be already in France. Oh! monsieur, I saw my mother and one of my sisters-in-law die of grief. My grandfather and grandmother Tascheron are dead; dead, my dear Monsieur Bonnet, in spite of the prosperity of Tascheronville,--for my father founded a village in Ohio and gave it that name. That village is now almost a town, and a third of all the land is cultivated by members of our family, whom God has constantly protected. Our tillage succeeded, our crops have been enormous, and we are rich. The town is Catholic, and we have managed to build a Catholic church; we do not allow any other form of worship, and we hope to convert by our example the many sects which surround us. True religion is in a minority in that land of money and selfish interests, where the soul is cold. Nevertheless, I will return to die there, sooner than do harm or cause distress to the mother of our Francis. Only, Monsieur Bonnet, take me to-night to the parsonage that I may pray upon _his_ tomb, the thought of which has brought me here; the nearer I have come to where _he_ is, the more I felt myself another being. No, I never expected to feel so happy again as I do here."

"Well, then," said the rector, "come