Part 29

"My dear Vladimir, if you deny the mind what will be left of you?"

July 30th.

Yesterday, to my great chagrin, I found him in tears.

"Let this inexorable father beat me," said he, "provided he tells me his secret. I prefer bad treatment to his silence. When we were at Martinique he had attacks of such violence that they made my hair stand on end. I would gladly have sunk into the earth; I trembled lest he should tear me in pieces; but he at least thought about me. He looked at me; I existed for him, and in spite of my terrors I felt less unhappy than now. Do not think it is my captivity which grieves me most. At my age it is certainly very hard and very humiliating to be kept out of sight and under lock and key; but I should be very easily resigned to that if it were my father who opened and closed the door. But alas! I am of so little consequence in his eyes that he deputes the task of tyrannizing over me to a serf. And then, during the brief moments when he constrains himself to submit to my presence--what a severe aspect, what threatening brows, what grim silence! Consider, too, the fact that he has never entered this tower; no, has never had the curiosity to know how my prison was made. Yet he cannot be ignorant of the fact that I lodge above a precipice. He knows, too, that once the idea of suicide took possession of me, and he has not even thought of having this window barred."

"That is because he did not consider your attempt a serious one."

"Then how he despises me!"

I represented to him that his father was sick, that he was the victim of a nervous disorder which deranges the most robust organizations, that Doctor Vladimir guaranteed his cure, that once recovered, his temper would change, and that then would be the moment to besiege this citadel thus rendered more vulnerable.

"We must not, however, be precipitate," said I, "let us have courage and patience."

I reasoned so well that he finally overcame his despondency. When I see him yield to my reasoning, I have a strong impulse to embrace him; but it is a pleasure I deny myself, as I know by experience what it costs him. A moment afterwards, I don't know why, he spoke to me of his sister who died at Martinique.

"Why did God take her from me?"

"Alas!" said I, "she could not have supported the life to which you have been condemned."

"And why not, pray?"

"Because she would have suffered ten times as much as you. Think of it,--the nerves and heart of a woman!"

He looked at me with a singular expression; apparently he could not understand how anyone could suffer more than he. After this he talked a long time about women, who are to him, from what he said, an impenetrable mystery, and he repeated eagerly:

"You do not despise them, as HE does?"

"That would be impossible, I remember my mother."

"Is that your only reason?"

"Some day I will tell you the others."

As I left and was already nearly out of the window, he seized me impetuously by the arm, saying to me:

"Could you swear to me that you would be less happy if you did not know me?"

"I swear it."

His face brightened, and his eyes flashed.

August 8th.

And you too are transformed, my dear Gilbert; you have visibly rejuvenated. A new spirit has taken possession of you. Your blood circulates more quickly; you carry your head more proudly, your step is more elastic, there is more light in your eyes, more breath in your lungs, and you feel a celestial leaven fermenting in your heart. My old friend, you have emerged from your long uselessness to give birth to a soul! Oh, glorious task! God bless mother and daughter!

August 9th.

Stephane is painfully astonished at the friendship which his father displays towards me.

"He has the power of loving then, and does not love me? It is because I am destestable!"

Poor innocent! It is certain that in spite of himself, the Count has begun to like me. Good Father Alexis said to me the other evening: