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Page 31
Madame de Malouet insisted upon accompanying me down the avenue a few
steps farther than her husband. I felt her arm trembling under mine while
she was intrusting me with a few trifling errands for Paris. At the moment
of parting, and as I was pressing her hand with effusion, she detained me
gently:
"Well! sir," she said in a feeble voice, "God did not bless our wisdom."
"Our hearts are open to Him, madam; He must have read our sincerity; He
sees how much I am suffering, and I humbly hope He may forgive me!"
"Do not doubt it--do not doubt it," she replied in a broken voice; "but
she? she!--ah! poor child!"
"Have pity on her, madam. Do not forsake her. Farewell!"
I left her hastily, and I started, but instead of going direct to the
town, I had myself driven along the abbey road as far as the top of the
hills; I requested the coachman to go alone to the town, and to return for
me to-morrow morning early at the same place. I cannot explain to you, my
dear friend, the singular and irresistible fancy that I took to spend one
last night in that solitude where I spent such quick and happy days, and
so recently, mon Dieu!
Here I am, then, back in my cell. How cold, dark, and gloomy it seems! The
sky also has gone into mourning. Since my arrival in this neighborhood,
and in spite of the season, I had seen none but summer days and nights.
To-night a cold autumnal storm has burst over the valley; the wind howls
among the ruins, blowing off fragments that fall heavily upon the ground.
A driving rain is pattering against my window-panes. It seems to me as if
it were raining tears!
Tears! my heart is overflowing with them--and not a single one will rise
to my eyes. And yet, I have prayed, I have long prayed to God--not, my
friend to that untangible God whom we pursue in vain beyond the stars and
the worlds, but the only true God, truly kind and helpful to suffering
humanity, the God of my childhood, the God of that poor woman!
Ah! I wish to think now only of my approaching meeting with you, the day
after to-morrow, dear friend, and perhaps before this letter--
* * * * *
Come, Paul! If you can leave your mother, come, I beseech you, come to
uphold me. God's hand is upon me!
I was writing that interrupted line when, in the midst of the confused
noises of the tempest, I fancied I heard the sound of a voice, of a human
groan. I rushed to my window; I leaned outside to pierce the darkness,
and I discovered lying upon the drenched soil a vague form, something like
a white bundle. At the same time, a more distinct moan rose up to me. A
gleam of the terrible truth flashed through my brain like a keen blade. I
groped through the darkness as far as the door of the mill; near the
threshold, stood a horse bearing a side-saddle. I ran madly around to the
other side of the ruins, and within the inclosure situated beneath the
window of my cell, and which still retains some traces of the former
cemetery of the monks, I found the unhappy creature. She was there,
sitting on an old tomb-stone, as if overwhelmed, shivering in all her
limbs under the chilling torrent of rain which a pitiless sky was pouring
without interruption over her light party-dress. I seized her two hands,
trying to raise her up.
"Ah! unhappy child! what have you done!"
"Yes, most unhappy!" she murmured, in a voice as faint as a breath.
"But you are killing yourself."
"So much the better--so much the better!"
"You cannot remain there! Come!--"
I saw that she was unable to stand up alone.
"Ah! _Dieu bon! Dieu puissant!_ what shall I do? What's to become of you
now? What do you wish with me?"
She made no reply. She was trembling, and her teeth were chattering. I
lifted her up in my arms and I carried her in. The mind works fast in such
moments. No conceivable means of removing her from this valley where
carriages cannot penetrate; nothing was henceforth possible to save her
honor; I must only think of her life. I scaled rapidly the steps leading
to my cell, and I seated her on a chair in front of the chimney in which I
hastily kindled a fire; then I woke up my hosts. I gave to the miller's
wife a vague and confused explanation. I know not how much of it she
understood; but she is a woman, she took pity and went on bestowing upon
Madame de Palme such care as was in her power. Her husband started at once
on horseback, carrying to Madame de Malouet the following note from me:
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