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“I cannot tell you, I will not tell you, what is the matter with me,” said she, at last; “it would but lead to some rash outbreak of your temper, – the very last thing I could endure at such a time. No, no; let us go; let us leave Paris at once, – to-day, now, if you wish it; I am ready.”
This was impossible; all our arrangements had been made, and horses ordered for the next day. My curiosity now became an agony, and I grew almost angry at her continued refusal to satisfy me; when at last, after exacting from me a solemn oath to do nothing nor to take any step without her concurrence, she placed in my hands a letter, saying, “This came while you were out.”
It ran to this effect: —
“The Vicomte Dechaine begs to offer to Mademoiselle De La Veronie [Margot’s name in the theatre] his box at the Français for this evening, as it must doubtless be interesting to her to witness the performance of Roxalane by one who labors under the double difficulty of her beauty and her reason. An answer will be called for.”
“You cannot expect me to endure this outrage, Margot!” cried I, trembling with passion; “you could not suppose that I can live under it?”
“I have your oath, sir,” said she, solemnly, and with a dignity that at once recalled me to myself.
“But if I am to drag out life dishonored and degraded even to my own heart, Margot,” said I, imploringly, “you surely would take pity on me!”
“And who would pity me, sir, were I to make you a murderer? No, no!” cried she, “you would have this secret, – you insisted on it; show yourself worthy of this confidence, by keeping your solemn pledge. We leave this to-morrow; a few hours is not too much sacrifice for one who will give her whole life to you after.”
As she spoke she fell into my arms, and sobbed as though her heart was breaking. As for me, my transports knew no bounds. I dropped at her feet; I vowed and swore a thousand times that not only my life, but that my fame, my honor, were all hers; that to deserve her there was no trial I would not dare. Oh, the glorious ecstasy of that moment comes back like a flood of youth once more upon this old and shattered heart; and, as I write these lines, the hot tears are falling on the paper, and my lips are murmuring a name I have not strength to write.
“I will put your loyalty to the test at once,” said she, gayly, and with a degree of wild joyousness the very opposite to her late emotion. “Sit down there, and write as I dictate.”
I obeyed, and she began: —
“‘Mademoiselle De La Veronie begs to acknowledge, with a gratitude suitable to the occasion, the polite note of the Vicomte Déchaîne, and to accept – ‘”
“What!” cried I, dropping the pen.
“Go on,” said she, calmly; “write as I tell you: ‘to accept his box this evening at the Français.’”
“Margot, you are not in earnest!” said I, entreatingly.
“I am resolved, sir,” said she, with a voice of determination and a look of almost reproving sternness. “I hope it is not from you, at least, will come any doubts of my courage!”
These words seemed to indicate the spirit in which her resolution had been taken, and to show that she preferred accepting, as it were, this challenge, to the humbler alternative of an escape from it.
I wrote as she bade me, and despatched the letter.
CHAPTER XLIV. THE PRICE OF FAME
If the triumphs of genius be amongst the most exalted pleasures of our nature, its defeats and reverses are also the very saddest of all afflictions. He who has learned to live, as it were, on the sympathies of his fellows – to be inspired by them at times, and inspire them at others – to feel his existence like a compact with the world, wherein he alternately gives and receives, cannot endure the thought of being passed over and forgotten. The loss of that favor in which, as in a sunshine, he basked, is a bereavement too great to be borne. He may struggle for a while against this depression – he may arm himself with pride against what his heart denounces as injustice – he may even deceive him* self into a mock indifference of such judgments; but, do all he will, he comes at the last to see that his greatest efforts were prompted by the very enthusiasm they evoked, – that the impression he produced upon others was like an image in a mirror, by which he could view the proportions of his mind, and that the flame of his intellect burned purest and brightest when fanned by the breath of praise.
It will be seen that I limit these observations to dramatic success; that I am only speaking of the stage and the actor. For him there is no refuge in the calmer judgment of posterity; there is no appeal to a dispassionate future. The value stamped upon him now is to be his fame forever. No other measure of his powers can be taken than the effect he produced upon his contemporaries; and hence the great precariousness of a career wherein each passing mood of illness, sorrow, anxiety, or exhaustion may influence the character of a reputation that might seem established beyond reversal.
How leniently, then, should we deal with those who labor for our pleasure in these capacities! How indulgent should we show ourselves even to their caprices, – justly remembering the arduous nature of a struggle in which so many requirements are summoned, and that genius itself is insufficient, if there be not the vigor of health, the high promptings of ambition, and the consciousness of power that springs from unimpaired faculties.
I have come to think over these things with a sad heart. Within the circle of such memories lies enshrined the greatest sorrow of a life that has not been without its share of trials. I had intended to have revealed to my reader a painful incident, but I find that age has not yet blunted the acute misery of my feelings; nor can I, with all the weight of long years upon me, endure to open up again a grief whose impress has stamped every hour of existence. Let me not be supposed as uttering these words in any spirit of querulousness with fortune; I have had much, far more than most men, to feel grateful for. Well do I know, besides, that to my successes in life I can lay no claim in any merits or deservings of my own; that my shortcomings have been numerous, and leniently dealt with. I speak, therefore, not complainingly. I would not, moreover, like to spend in repinings the last hours of a long life: the goal cannot well be distant now; and as, footsore and weary, I tread the few remaining miles of my earthly pilgrimage, I would rather cheer my heart with the prospect of rest before me, than darken the future with one shadow of the past.
Margot had insisted on remaining. She felt as though a challenge had been offered to her, and it would be cowardice to decline it. Over and over again was she wont to repeat to herself the contempt she felt for that applause in which it was believed she exulted. She burned, therefore, for a moment wherein she could display this haughty contempt, and throw back with proud disdain their homage, by showing herself as indifferent to rebuke as she had ever been to adulation. The day was passed in moods of silence, or paroxysms of the wildest excitement. After an hour or more perhaps of unbroken calm, she would burst forth into a passionate denunciation of the world’s injustice, with bitter and poignant regrets for the hour when she became a suppliant for its favors. The proudest efforts she would make to rise above this were sure to be defeated by some sudden sense of defeat, – an agonizing conviction that threw her into violent weeping; a state of suffering that even now I dread to think of.
She grew calmer towards evening, but it was a calm that terrified me: there was a slow and careful precision in every word she spoke that denoted effort; her smile, too, had a fixity in it that remained for seconds after the emotion which occasioned it; and while a stern and impassive quietude characterized her expression generally, her eyes at times flashed and sparkled like the glaring orbs of a lioness. She descended to the drawing-room most magnificently attired, a splendid diamond tiara on her head, and a gorgeous bouquet of rubies and brilliants on the corsage of her dress. Although pale as death, – for she wore no rouge, – I had never seen her look so beautiful. There is a Titian picture of Pompey’s daughter receiving the tidings of Pharsalia, and, while too proud to show her agony, is yet in the very struggle of a breaking heart: the face is like enough to have been her portrait, and even to the color of the massive, waving hair, is wonderfully identical.
The play had already begun when we arrived at the theatre, and in the little bustle caused by our entry into the box, a half impatient expression ran through the audience; but as suddenly suppressed, it became a murmur of wondering admiration. The stage was forgotten, and every eye turned at once towards her who so often had moved their hearts by every emotion, and who now seemed even more triumphant in the calm self-possession of her beauty. Rank over rank leaned forward in the boxes to gaze at her, and the entire pit turned and stood, as it were, spell-bound at her feet. Had she wished for a triumph over her rival, she could not have imagined a more signal one; for none now directed their attention to the business of the play, but all seemed forgetful of everything save her presence. Margot appeared to accept this homage with the naughty consciousness of its being her due; her eyes ranged proudly over the dense crowd, and slowly turned away, as though she had seen nothing there to awaken one sentiment of emotion.
There was less an expression of disdain than of utter indifference in her look, – it was almost like the cold impassive-ness of a statue.
For myself I am unable to speak. I saw nothing of the play or the actors. Margot, and Margot alone, filled my eyes; and I sat far back in the box. My glances revelled on her, watching with unceasing anxiety that pale and passionless face. In the fourth act comes the scene where Roxalane, aware of her lover’s falsehood, hears him profess the vows that he but feigns to feel. It was the great triumph of Margot’s genius, – the passage of power in which she rose unapproachably above all others; and now in the stilled and silent assembly might be noted the anxiety with which they awaited her rival’s delineation. Unlike the cold, unmoved, and almost patient bearing which Margot displayed at first, as though, having schooled her mind to a lesson, she would practise it, had not aversion or contempt overmastered her, and in the very sickness of her soul revealed her sorrow, the other burst forth into a wild and passionate declamation, – an outburst of vulgar rage. A low murmur of discontent ran through the house, and, swelling louder and louder, drowned the words of the piece. The actress faltered and stopped; and, as if by some resistless impulse, turned towards the box where Margot sat, still and motionless. The entire audience turned likewise, and every eye was now bent on her whose genius had become so interwoven with the scene that it was as though associated with her very identity. Slowly rising from her seat, Margot stood erect, gazing on that dense mass with the proud look of one who defied them. The same stern, cold stare of insult she had once bestowed on the stage she now directed on the spectators. It was a moment of terrible interest, as thus she stood, confronting, almost daring, those who had presumed to condemn her; and then, in the same words Roxalane uses, she addressed them, every accent tremulous with passion, and every syllable vibrating with the indignant hate that worked within her. The measured distinctness of every word rang out clear and full. It was less invective than scornful, and scorn that seemed to sicken her as she spoke it.
The effect upon the audience will best evidence the power of the moment. On all sides were seen groups gathered around one who had swooned away. Many were carried out insensible, and fearful cries of hysteric passion betrayed the secret sympathies her words had smitten. She paused, and, with that haughty gesture with which she takes eternal farewell of her lover, she seemed to say, “Adieu forever!” and then pushing back her dark ringlets, and tearing away the diamond coronet from her brows, she burst into a fit of laughter. Oh! how terribly its very cadence sounded, – sharp, ringing, and wild! the cry of an escaped intellect, – the shriek of an intelligence that had fled forever!
Margot was mad. The violent conflict of passion to which her mind was exposed had made shipwreck of a glorious intellect, and the very exercise of emotion had exhausted the wells of feeling. I cannot go on. Already have these memories sapped the last foundations of my broken strength, and my old eyes are dimmed with tears.
The remainder of her life was passed in a little château near Sèvres, where Mademoiselle Mars had made arrangements for her reception. She lingered for three years, and died out, like one exhausted. As for me, I worked as a laborer in the garden of the château to the day of her death; and although I never saw her, the one thought that I was still near her sustained and supported me, – not, indeed, with hope, for I had long ceased to hope.
I knew the window of the room she sat in; and when, at evening, I left the garden, I knew it was the time she walked there. These were the two thoughts that filled up all my mind; and out of these grew the day-dreams in which my hours were passed. Still fresh as yesterday within my heart are the sensations with which I marked a slight change in the curtain of her window, or bent over the impress of her foot upon the gravel. How passionately have I kissed the flowers that I hoped she might have plucked! how devotedly knelt beside the stalks from which she had broken off a blossom!
These memories live still, nor would I wish it otherwise. In the tender melancholy, I can sit and ponder over the past, more tranquilly, may be, than if they spoke of happiness.
CHAPTER XLV. DARK PASSAGES OF LIFE
For some years after the death of Margot, my life was like a restless dream, – a struggle, as it were, between reality and a strange scepticism with everything and every one. At moments a wish would seize me to push my fortune in the world, – to become rich and powerful; and then as suddenly would I fall back upon my poverty as the condition least open to great reverses, and hug myself in the thought that my obscurity was a shield against adverse fortune. I tried to school my mind to a misanthropy that might throw me still more upon myself; but I could not. Even in my isolated, friendless condition, I loved to contemplate the happiness of others. I could watch children for hours long at their play; and if the sounds of laughter or pleasant revelry came from a house as I passed at nightfall, my heart beat responsively to every note of joy, and in my spirit I was in the midst of them. I had neither home nor country, and my heart yearned for both. I felt the void like a desert, bleak and desolate, within me; and it was in vain I endeavored, by a hundred artifices, to make me suffice to myself. I came, at length, to think that it were better to attach myself to the world by even the interests of a crime than to live on thus, separated and apart from all sympathy. In humble life, he who retreats from association with his fellows must look to be severely judged. The very lightest allegation against him will be a charge of pride; and even this is no slight offence before such a tribunal. Vague rumors of worse will gain currency, and far weightier derelictions be whispered about him. His own rejection of the world now recoils upon himself, and he comes to discover that he has neglected to cultivate the sympathies which are not alone the ties of brotherhood between men, but the strong appeals to mercy when mercy is needed.
By much reflection on these things, I was led to feel at last that nothing but a strong effort could raise me from the deep depression I had fallen into; that I should force myself to some pursuit which might awaken zeal or ambition within me; and that, at any cost, I should throw off the hopeless, listless lethargy of my present life. While I was yet hesitating what course to adopt, my attention was attracted one morning to a large placard affixed to the walls of the Hôtel de Ville, and which set forth the tidings that “all men who had not served as soldiers, and were between the ages of fifteen and thirty, were to present themselves at the Prefecture at a certain hour of a certain day.” The consternation this terrible announcement called forth may easily be imagined; for although only a very limited number of these would be drafted, yet each felt that the evil lot might be his own.
I really read the announcement with a sense of pleasure, It seemed to me as though fate no longer ignored my very existence, but had at length agreed to reckon me as one amongst the wide family of men. Nor was it that the life of a soldier held out any prize to my ambition; I had never at any time felt such. It was the simple fact that I should be recognized by others, and no longer accounted a mere waif upon the shore of existence.
The conscription is a stern ordinance. Whatever its necessities, there is something painfully afflicting in every detail of its execution. The disruption of a home, and the awful terrors of a dark future, are sad elements to spread themselves over the peaceful monotony of a village life. Nor does a war contain anything more heart-rending in all its cruel history than the tender episodes of these separations. I have the scene before me now as I saw it on that morning, and a sadder sight I never have looked upon. The little village was crowded, not alone by those summoned by the conscription, but by all their friends and relations; and as each new batch of twelve were marched forward within the gloomy portals of the Hôtel de Ville, a burst of pent-up sorrow would break forth, that told fearfully the misery around. But sad as was this, it was nothing to the scene that ensued when the lot had fallen upon some one well known and respected by his neighbors. He who had drawn the lowest number was enlisted, and instead of returning to join his fellows outside, never made his appearance till his hair had been closely cropped, and the addition of a tri-colored ribbon to his cap proclaimed him a soldier. Of these poor fellows some seemed stunned and stupefied, looked vaguely about them, and appeared incapable to recognize friends or acquaintances; some endeavored to carry all off with an air of swaggering recklessness, but in the midst of their assumed indifference natural feeling would burst forth, and scenes of the most harrowing misery be exhibited; and, lastly, many came forth so drunk that they knew nothing either of what happened or where they were; and to see these surrounded by the friends who now were to take their last leave of them was indescribably painful.
Like most of those who care little for fortune, I was successful; that is, I drew one of the highest numbers, and was pronounced “exempt from service.” There was not one, however, to whom the tidings could bring joy, nor was there one to whom I could tell the news with the hope of hearing a word of welcome in return. I was turning away from the spot, not sorry to leave a place so full of misery, when I came upon a group around a young man who had fainted and been carried out for fresh air. He had been that moment enlisted, and the shock had proved over-much for him. Poor fellow! well might it – the same week saw him the happy father of his firstborn, and the sworn soldier of the Empire. What a wide gulf separates such fortunes!
I pushed my way into the midst, and offered myself to take his place. At first none so much as listened to me; they deemed my proposal absurd, perhaps impossible. An old sergeant who was present, however, thought differently, and, measuring me calmly with his eye, left the spot. He returned soon, and beckoned me to follow. I did so. A few brief questions were put to me. I answered them, was desired to pass on to an inner room, where, in a file of some twenty strong, the chosen recruits were standing before a desk. A man rapidly repeated certain words, to which we were ordered to respond by lifting the right hand to the face.
This was an oath of allegiance, and when taken we moved on to the barber, and in a few minutes the ceremony was completed, and we were soldiers of France.
I had imagined, and indeed I had convinced myself, that I was so schooled in adversity I could defy fortune. I thought that mere bodily privations and sufferings could never seriously affect me, and that, with the freedom of my own thoughts unfettered, no real slavery could oppress me. In this calculation I had forgotten to take count of those feelings of self-esteem which are our defences against the promptings of every mean ambition. I had not remembered that these may be outraged by the very same rules of discipline that taught us to fire and load, and march and manouvre! It was a grievous error!
France was once more at war with all the world: her armies were now moving eastward to attack Austria, and more than mere menaces declared the intention to invade England. Fresh troops were called for with such urgency that a fortnight or three weeks was only allowed to drill the new recruits and fit them for regimental duty. Severity compensated for the briefness of the time, and the men were exercised with scarcely an interval of repose. In periods of great emergency many things are done which in days of calmer influences would not be thought of; and now the officers in command of depots exercised a degree of cruelty towards the soldiers which is the very rarest of all practices in the French army; in consequence, desertions became frequent, and, worse again, men maimed and mutilated themselves in the most shocking manner to escape from a tyranny more insupportable than any disease. It is known to all that such practices assume the characteristics of an epidemic, and when once they have attained to a certain frequency, men’s minds become familiarized to the occurrence, and they are regarded as the most ordinary of events. The regiment to which I was attached – the 47th of the line – was one of the very worst for such acts of indiscipline; and although the commanding officers had been twice changed, and one entire battalion broken up and reformed, the evil repute still adhered to the corps. It is a mistake to suppose that common soldiers are indifferent to the reputation of their regiment; even the least subordinate, those in whom military ardor is lowest, feel acutely, too, the stigma of a condemned corps. We had reason to experience this, on even stronger grounds. We were despatched to Brest to garrison the prison, and hold in check that terrible race who are sentenced to the galleys for life. This mark of disgrace was inflicted on us as the heaviest stain upon a regiment openly pronounced unworthy to meet the enemies of France in the field.
This act seemed to consummate the utter degradation of our corps, from which, weekly, some one or other was either sentenced to be shot, or condemned to the even worse fate of a galley-slave. I shrink from the task of recalling a period so full of horror. It was one long dream of ruffian insubordination and cruel punishment. Time, so far from correcting, seemed to confirm the vices of this fated regiment; and at length a commission arrived from the ministry of war to examine into the causes of this corruption. This inquiry lasted some weeks; and amongst those whose evidence was taken, I was one. It chanced that no punishment had ever been inflicted on me in the corps; nor was there a single mark in the “conduct roll” against my name. Of course, these were favorable circumstances, and entitled any testimony that I gave to a greater degree of consideration. The answers I returned, and the views I had taken, were deemed of consequence enough to require further thought. I was ordered to be sent to Paris to be examined by General Caulincourt, at that time the head of the état major.
It would little interest the reader to enter further into this question, to which I have only made allusion from its reference to my own fortunes. The opinions I gave, and the suggestions I made, attracted the notice of my superiors, and I received, as a reward, the grade of corporal, and was attached to the Chancellerie Militaire at Strasburg, – a post I continued to occupy for upwards of two years. Two peaceful, uneventful years were they, and to look back upon, they seem but as a day.
The unbroken monotony of my life, the almost apathetic calm which had come over me, and my isolation from all other men, gave me the semblance of a despondent and melancholy nature; but I was far from unhappy, and had schooled myself to take pleasure in a variety of simple, uncostly pursuits which filled up my leisure hours; and thus my little flower-garden, stolen from an angle of the glacis, was to me a domain of matchless beauty. Every spare moment of my time was passed here, and every little saving of my humble pay was expended on this spot. The rose, the clematis, and the jessamine here twined their twigs together to make an arbor, in which I used to sit at evening, gazing out upon the spreading Rhine, or watching the sunset on the Vosges mountains. I had trained myself not to think of the great events of the world, momentous and important as they then were, and great with the destiny of mankind. I never saw a newspaper, – I held no intercourse with others; to me life had resolved itself into the very simplest of all episodes, – it was mere existence, and no more.
This dream might possibly have ended without a waking shock, and the long night of the grave have succeeded to the dim twilight of oblivion, had not an event occurred to rouse me from my stupor, and bring me back to life and its troubles.
An order had arrived from Paris to put the fortress into a state of perfect defence. New redoubts and bastions were to be erected, the ditches widened, and an additional force of guns to be mounted on the walls. The telegraph had brought the news in the morning, and ere the sunset that same evening my little garden was a desert; all my care and toil scattered to the winds; the painful work of long months in ruin, and my one sole object in life obliterated and gone. I had thought that all emotions were long since dead within me. I fervently believed that every well of feeling was dry and exhausted in my nature; but I cried and cried bitterly as I beheld this desolation. There seemed to my eyes a wantonness in the cruelty thus inflicted, and in my heart I inveighed against the ruthless passions of men, and the depravity by which their actions are directed. Was the world too much a paradise for me, I asked, that this small spot of earth could not be spared to me? Was I over-covetous in craving this one corner of the vast universe? In my folly and my selfishness I fancied myself the especial mark of adversity, and henceforth I vowed a reckless front to fortune.
He who lives for himself alone, has not only to pay the penalty of unguided counsels, but the far heavier one of following impulses of which egotism is the mainspring. The care for others, the responsibilities of watching over and protecting something besides ourselves, are the very best of all safeguards against our own hearts. I have a right to say this.
From a life of quiet and orderly regularity, I now launched out into utter recklessness and abandonment. I formed acquaintances with the least reputable of my comrades, frequented their haunts, and imitated their habits. I caught vice as men catch a malady. It was a period little short of insanity, since every wish was perverted, and every taste the opposite of my real nature. I, who was once the type of punctuality and exactness, came late and irregularly to my duties. My habits of sobriety were changed for waste, and even my appearance, my very temper, altered; I became dissolute-looking and abandoned, passionate in my humors, and quick to take offence.
The downward course is ever a rapid one, and vices are eminently suggestive of each other. It took a few weeks to make me a spendthrift and a debauchee; a few more, and I became a duellist and a brawler. I ceased to hold intercourse with all who had once held me in esteem, and formed friends among the dissolute and the depraved. Amidst men of this stamp the sentence of a Provost-Marshal, or the durance of the Salle de Police, are reckoned distinctions; and he who has oftenest insulted his superiors and outraged discipline is deemed the most worthy of respect. I had won no laurels of this kind, and resolved not to be behind my comrades in such claims. My only thought was how to obtain some peculiar notoriety by my resistance to authority.
I had now the rank of sergeant, – a grade which permitted me to frequent the café resorted to by the officers; but as this was a privilege no sous-officer availed himself of, I of course did not presume to take. It now, however, occurred to me that this was precisely the kind of infraction the consequences of which might entail the gravest events, and yet be, all the while, within the limits of regimental discipline. With this idea in my head I swaggered, one evening, into the “Lion Gaune,” at that time the favorite military café of Strasburg. The look of astonishment at my entrance was very soon converted into a most unmistakable expression of angry indignation; and when, calling for the waiter, I seated myself at a table, my intrusion was discussed in terms quite loud enough for me to hear.
It was well known that the Emperor distinguished the class I belonged to, by the most signal marks of favor: the sergeant and the corporal might have dared to address him when the field-marshal could not have uttered a word. It was part of his military policy to unbend to those whose position excluded them from even the very shadow of a rivalry, and be coldly distant to all whose station approached an equality. This consideration restrained the feelings of those who now beheld me, and who well knew, in any altercation, into which scale would be thrown the weight of the imperial influence.
