Ferragus, Chief of the Devorants Part 13

"And many dear ones," added the old man. "His grandmother is dying; and I shall follow her soon into the grave."

On the morrow of this day, Madame Jules grew worse from hour to hour.

She used a moment's strength to take a letter from beneath her pillow, and gave it eagerly to her husband with a sign that was easy to understand,--she wished to give him, in a kiss, her last breath. He took it, and she died. Jules fell half-dead himself and was taken to his brother's house. There, as he deplored in tears his absence of the day before, his brother told him that this separation was eagerly desired by Clemence, who wished to spare him the sight of the religious paraphernalia, so terrible to tender imaginations, which the Church displays when conferring the last sacraments upon the dying.

"You could not have borne it," said his brother. "I could hardly bear the sight myself, and all the servants wept. Clemence was like a saint.

She gathered strength to bid us all good-bye, and that voice, heard for the last time, rent our hearts. When she asked pardon for the pain she might unwillingly have caused her servants, there were cries and sobs and--"

"Enough! enough!" said Jules.

He wanted to be alone, that he might read the last words of the woman whom all had loved, and who had pa.s.sed away like a flower.

"My beloved, this is my last will. Why should we not make wills for the treasures of our hearts, as for our worldly property? Was not my love my property, my all? I mean here to dispose of my love: it was the only fortune of your Clemence, and it is all that she can leave you in dying. Jules, you love me still, and I die happy. The doctors may explain my death as they think best; I alone know the true cause. I shall tell it to you, whatever pain it may cause you. I cannot carry with me, in a heart all yours, a secret which you do not share, although I die the victim of an enforced silence.

"Jules, I was nurtured and brought up in the deepest solitude, far from the vices and the falsehoods of the world, by the loving woman whom you knew. Society did justice to her conventional charm, for that is what pleases society; but I knew secretly her precious soul, I could cherish the mother who made my childhood a joy without bitterness, and I knew why I cherished her. Was not that to love doubly? Yes, I loved her, I feared her, I respected her; yet nothing oppressed my heart, neither fear nor respect. I was all in all to her; she was all in all to me. For nineteen happy years, without a care, my soul, solitary amid the world which muttered round me, reflected only her pure image; my heart beat for her and through her. I was scrupulously pious; I found pleasure in being innocent before G.o.d. My mother cultivated all n.o.ble and self-respecting sentiments in me. Ah! it gives me happiness to tell you, Jules, that I now know I was indeed a young girl, and that I came to you virgin in heart.

"When I left that absolute solitude, when, for the first time, I braided my hair and crowned it with almond blossoms, when I added, with delight, a few satin knots to my white dress, thinking of the world I was to see, and which I was curious to see--Jules, that innocent and modest coquetry was done for you! Yes, as I entered the world, I saw _you_ first of all. Your face, I remarked it; it stood out from the rest; your person pleased me; your voice, your manners all inspired me with pleasant presentiments. When you came up, when you spoke to me, the color on your forehead, the tremble in your voice,--that moment gave me memories with which I throb as I now write to you, as I now, for the last time, think of them.

Our love was at first the keenest of sympathies, but it was soon discovered by each of us and then, as speedily, shared; just as, in after times, we have both equally felt and shared innumerable happinesses. From that moment my mother was only second in my heart. Next, I was yours, all yours. There is my life, and all my life, dear husband.

"And here is what remains for me to tell you. One evening, a few days before my mother's death, she revealed to me the secret of her life,--not without burning tears. I have loved you better since the day I learned from the priest as he absolved my mother that there are pa.s.sions condemned by the world and by the Church.

But surely G.o.d will not be severe when they are the sins of souls as tender as that of my mother; only, that dear woman could never bring herself to repent. She loved much, Jules; she was all love.

So I have prayed daily for her, but never judged her.

"That night I learned the cause of her deep maternal tenderness; then I also learned that there was in Paris a man whose life and whose love centred on me; that your fortune was his doing, and that he loved you. I learned also that he was exiled from society and bore a tarnished name; but that he was more unhappy for me, for us, than for himself. My mother was all his comfort; she was dying, and I promised to take her place. With all the ardor of a soul whose feelings had never been perverted, I saw only the happiness of softening the bitterness of my mother's last moments, and I pledged myself to continue her work of secret charity,--the charity of the heart. The first time that I saw my father was beside the bed where my mother had just expired. When he raised his tearful eyes, it was to see in me a revival of his dead hopes.

I had sworn, not to tell a lie, but to keep silence; and that silence what woman could have broken it?

"There is my fault, Jules,--a fault which I expiate by death. I doubted you. But fear is so natural to a woman; above all, a woman who knows what it is that she may lose. I trembled for our love.

My father's secret seemed to me the death of my happiness; and the more I loved, the more I feared. I dared not avow this feeling to my father; it would have wounded him, and in his situation a wound was agony. But, without a word from me, he shared my fears. That fatherly heart trembled for my happiness as much as I trembled for myself; but it dared not speak, obeying the same delicacy that kept me mute. Yes, Jules, I believed that you could not love the daughter of Gratien Bourignard as you loved your Clemence. Without that terror could I have kept back anything from you,--you who live in every fold of my heart?

"The day when that odious, unfortunate young officer spoke to you, I was forced to lie. That day, for the second time in my life, I knew what pain was; that pain has steadily increased until this moment, when I speak with you for the last time. What matters now my father's position? You know all. I could, by the help of my love, have conquered my illness and borne its sufferings; but I cannot stifle the voice of doubt. Is it not probable that my origin would affect the purity of your love and weaken it, diminish it? That fear nothing has been able to quench in me.

There, Jules, is the cause of my death. I cannot live fearing a word, a look,--a word you may never say, a look you may never give; but, I cannot help it, I fear them. I die beloved; there is my consolation.

"I have known, for the last three years, that my father and his friends have well-nigh moved the world to deceive the world. That I might have a station in life, they have bought a dead man, a reputation, a fortune, so that a living man might live again, restored; and all this for you, for us. We were never to have known of it. Well, my death will save my father from that falsehood, for he will not survive me.

"Farewell, Jules, my heart is all here. To show you my love in its agony of fear, is not that bequeathing my whole soul to you? I could never have the strength to speak to you; I have only enough to write. I have just confessed to G.o.d the sins of my life. I have promised to fill my mind with the King of Heaven only; but I must confess to him who is, for me, the whole of earth. Alas! shall I not be pardoned for this last sigh between the life that was and the life that shall be? Farewell, my Jules, my loved one! I go to G.o.d, with whom is Love without a cloud, to whom you will follow me. There, before his throne, united forever, we may love each other throughout the ages. This hope alone can comfort me. If I am worthy of being there at once, I will follow you through life. My soul shall bear your company; it will wrap you about, for _you_ must stay here still,--ah! here below. Lead a holy life that you may the more surely come to me. You can do such good upon this earth! Is it not an angel's mission for the suffering soul to shed happiness about him,--to give to others that which he has not? I bequeath you to the Unhappy. Their smiles, their tears, are the only ones of which I cannot be jealous. We shall find a charm in sweet beneficence. Can we not live together still if you would join my name--your Clemence--in these good works?

"After loving as we have loved, there is naught but G.o.d, Jules.

G.o.d does not lie; G.o.d never betrays. Adore him only, I charge you!

Lead those who suffer up to him; comfort the sorrowing members of his Church. Farewell, dear soul that I have filled! I know you; you will never love again. I may die happy in the thought that makes all women happy. Yes, my grave will be your heart. After this childhood I have just related, has not my life flowed on within that heart? Dead, you will never drive me forth. I am proud of that rare life! You will know me only in the flower of my youth; I leave you regrets without disillusions. Jules, it is a happy death.

"You, who have so fully understood me, may I ask one thing more of you,--superfluous request, perhaps, the fulfilment of a woman's fancy, the prayer of a jealousy we all must feel,--I pray you to burn all that especially belonged to _us_, destroy our chamber, annihilate all that is a memory of our happiness.

"Once more, farewell,--the last farewell! It is all love, and so will be my parting thought, my parting breath."

When Jules had read that letter there came into his heart one of those wild frenzies of which it is impossible to describe the awful anguish.

All sorrows are individual; their effects are not subjected to any fixed rule. Certain men will stop their ears to hear nothing; some women close their eyes hoping never to see again; great and splendid souls are met with who fling themselves into sorrow as into an abyss. In the matter of despair, all is true.

CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION

Jules escaped from his brother's house and returned home, wishing to pa.s.s the night beside his wife, and see till the last moment that celestial creature. As he walked along with an indifference to life known only to those who have reached the last degree of wretchedness, he thought of how, in India, the law ordained that widows should die; he longed to die. He was not yet crushed; the fever of his grief was still upon him. He reached his home and went up into the sacred chamber; he saw his Clemence on the bed of death, beautiful, like a saint, her hair smoothly laid upon her forehead, her hands joined, her body wrapped already in its shroud. Tapers were lighted, a priest was praying, Josephine kneeling in a corner, wept, and, near the bed, were two men.

One was Ferragus. He stood erect, motionless, gazing at his daughter with dry eyes; his head you might have taken for bronze: he did not see Jules.

The other man was Jacquet,--Jacquet, to whom Madame Jules had been ever kind. Jacquet felt for her one of those respectful friendships which rejoice the untroubled heart; a gentle pa.s.sion; love without its desires and its storms. He had come to pay his debt of tears, to bid a long adieu to the wife of his friend, to kiss, for the first time, the icy brow of the woman he had tacitly made his sister.

All was silence. Here death was neither terrible as in the churches, nor pompous as it makes its way along the streets; no, it was death in the home, a tender death; here were pomps of the heart, tears drawn from the eyes of all. Jules sat down beside Jacquet and pressed his hand; then, without uttering a word, all these persons remained as they were till morning.

When daylight paled the tapers, Jacquet, foreseeing the painful scenes which would then take place, drew Jules away into another room. At this moment the husband looked at the father, and Ferragus looked at Jules. The two sorrows arraigned each other, measured each other, and comprehended each other in that look. A flash of fury shone for an instant in the eyes of Ferragus.

"You killed her," thought he.

"Why was I distrusted?" seemed the answer of the husband.

The scene was one that might have pa.s.sed between two tigers recognizing the futility of a struggle and, after a moment's hesitation, turning away, without even a roar.

"Jacquet," said Jules, "have you attended to everything?"

"Yes, to everything," replied his friend, "but a man had forestalled me who had ordered and paid for all."

"He tears his daughter from me!" cried the husband, with the violence of despair.

Jules rushed back to his wife's room; but the father was there no longer. Clemence had now been placed in a leaden coffin, and workmen were employed in soldering the cover. Jules returned, horrified by the sight; the sound of the hammers the men were using made him mechanically burst into tears.

"Jacquet," he said, "out of this dreadful night one idea has come to me, only one, but one I must make a reality at any price. I cannot let Clemence stay in any cemetery in Paris. I wish to burn her,--to gather her ashes and keep her with me. Say nothing of this, but manage on my behalf to have it done. I am going to _her_ chamber, where I shall stay until the time has come to go. You alone may come in there to tell me what you have done. Go, and spare nothing."

During the morning, Madame Jules, after lying in a mortuary chapel at the door of her house, was taken to Saint-Roch. The church was hung with black throughout. The sort of luxury thus displayed had drawn a crowd; for in Paris all things are sights, even true grief. There are people who stand at their windows to see how a son deplores a mother as he follows her body; there are others who hire commodious seats to see how a head is made to fall. No people in the world have such insatiate eyes as the Parisians. On this occasion, inquisitive minds were particularly surprised to see the six lateral chapels at Saint-Roch also hung in black. Two men in mourning were listening to a mortuary ma.s.s said in each chapel. In the chancel no other persons but Monsieur Desmarets, the notary, and Jacquet were present; the servants of the household were outside the screen. To church loungers there was something inexplicable in so much pomp and so few mourners. But Jules had been determined that no indifferent persons should be present at the ceremony.

High ma.s.s was celebrated with the sombre magnificence of funeral services. Beside the ministers in ordinary of Saint-Roch, thirteen priests from other parishes were present. Perhaps never did the _Dies irae_ produce upon Christians, a.s.sembled by chance, by curiosity, and thirsting for emotions, an effect so profound, so nervously glacial as that now caused by this hymn when the eight voices of the precentors, accompanied by the voices of the priests and the choir-boys, intoned it alternately. From the six lateral chapels twelve other childish voices rose shrilly in grief, mingling with the choir voices lamentably. From all parts of the church this mourning issued; cries of anguish responded to the cries of fear. That terrible music was the voice of sorrows hidden from the world, of secret friendships weeping for the dead.

Never, in any human religion, have the terrors of the soul, violently torn from the body and stormily shaken in presence of the fulminating majesty of G.o.d, been rendered with such force. Before that clamor of clamors all artists and their most pa.s.sionate compositions must bow humiliated. No, nothing can stand beside that hymn, which sums all human pa.s.sions, gives them a galvanic life beyond the coffin, and leaves them, palpitating still, before the living and avenging G.o.d. These cries of childhood, mingling with the tones of older voices, including thus in the Song of Death all human life and its developments, recalling the sufferings of the cradle, swelling to the griefs of other ages in the stronger male voices and the quavering of the priests,--all this strident harmony, big with lightning and thunderbolts, does it not speak with equal force to the daring imagination, the coldest heart, nay, to philosophers themselves? As we hear it, we think G.o.d speaks; the vaulted arches of no church are mere material; they have a voice, they tremble, they scatter fear by the might of their echoes. We think we see unnumbered dead arising and holding out their hands. It is no more a father, a wife, a child,--humanity itself is rising from its dust.

It is impossible to judge of the catholic, apostolic, and Roman faith, unless the soul has known that deepest grief of mourning for a loved one lying beneath the pall; unless it has felt the emotions that fill the heart, uttered by that Hymn of Despair, by those cries that crush the mind, by that sacred fear augmenting strophe by strophe, ascending heavenward, which terrifies, belittles, and elevates the soul, and leaves within our minds, as the last sound ceases, a consciousness of immortality. We have met and struggled with the vast idea of the Infinite. After that, all is silent in the church. No word is said; sceptics themselves _know not what they are feeling_. Spanish genius alone was able to bring this untold majesty to untold griefs.

When the solemn ceremony was over, twelve men came from the six chapels and stood around the coffin to hear the song of hope which the Church intones for the Christian soul before the human form is buried. Then, each man entered alone a mourning-coach; Jacquet and Monsieur Desmarets took the thirteenth; the servants followed on foot. An hour later, they were at the summit of that cemetery popularly called Pere-Lachaise. The unknown twelve men stood in a circle round the grave, where the coffin had been laid in presence of a crowd of loiterers gathered from all parts of this public garden. After a few short prayers the priest threw a handful of earth on the remains of this woman, and the grave-diggers, having asked for their fee, made haste to fill the grave in order to dig another.

Here this history seems to end; but perhaps it would be incomplete if, after giving a rapid sketch of Parisian life, and following certain of its capricious undulations, the effects of death were omitted. Death in Paris is unlike death in any other capital; few persons know the trials of true grief in its struggle with civilization, and the government of Paris. Perhaps, also, Monsieur Jules and Ferragus XXIII. may have proved sufficiently interesting to make a few words on their after life not entirely out of place. Besides, some persons like to be told all, and wish, as one of our cleverest critics has remarked, to know by what chemical process oil was made to burn in Aladdin's lamp.

Jacquet, being a government employee, naturally applied to the authorities for permission to exhume the body of Madame Jules and burn it. He went to see the prefect of police, under whose protection the dead sleep. That functionary demanded a pet.i.tion. The blank was brought that gives to sorrow its proper administrative form; it was necessary to employ the bureaucratic jargon to express the wishes of a man so crushed that words, perhaps, were lacking to him, and it was also necessary to coldly and briefly repeat on the margin the nature of the request, which was done in these words: "The pet.i.tioner respectfully asks for the incineration of his wife."

When the official charged with making the report to the Councillor of State and prefect of police read that marginal note, explaining the object of the pet.i.tion, and couched, as requested, in the plainest terms, he said:--

"This is a serious matter! my report cannot be ready under eight days."

Jules, to whom Jacquet was obliged to speak of this delay, comprehended the words that Ferragus had said in his hearing, "I'll burn Paris!"

Nothing seemed to him now more natural than to annihilate that receptacle of monstrous things.