The Galley Slave's Ring Part 19

"My dear friend," Lebrenn said to his wife, "I have matters to talk over with you. Shall we go up to your room with the children, while Jeanike sets the table? It is getting late. You, Gildas, may put up the shutters. We shall have but few customers this afternoon."

"Close up the shop! Oh, monsieur, I think you are very right!" cried Gildas delightedly. "I thought so long ago."

And as he ran to execute the orders of his employer, the latter said to him:

"Stop a moment, Gildas. Do not close the front door. I expect several people to call for me. If they come take them to the rear room and notify me."

"Yes, monsieur," answered Gildas with a sigh, seeing he would have preferred to see the shop closed tight, and the door protected with its good strong iron bars, and bolted from within.

"And now, my dear," Lebrenn proceeded to say to his wife, "we shall go up to your room."

It was by this time almost dark. The merchant's family mounted to the first floor, and gathered in Madam Lebrenn's bedroom. The merchant then addressed his wife in a grave voice:

"My dear Henory, we are on the eve of great events."

"I believe it, my friend," answered Madam Lebrenn thoughtfully.

"I shall tell you in a few words how the situation has shaped itself to-day," proceeded Lebrenn. "Then judge whether my plan is good or bad; oppose it, if you disapprove, or encourage me if you approve."

"I listen, my friend," answered Madam Lebrenn calm, serious and thoughtful, like one of our mothers of old at the solemn councils where their views prevailed more than once.

Monsieur Lebrenn proceeded:

"After having carried on their agitation in France during three months by means of reform banquets, the deputies yesterday summoned the people to the street. Heart seemed to have failed the intrepid agitators at the last moment. They did not dare to appear at the rendezvous which they themselves had set. The people came in order to maintain their right of a.s.semblage and to run their own business. It is now rumored that the King has appointed a cabinet out of the leaders of the dynastic center.

This concession does not satisfy us. What we want, what the people want, is the total overthrow of the monarchy; we want the Republic, which means sovereignty for all--political rights for all--in order to insure education, wellbeing, work, and credit to all, provided we are brave and honest. That is our program, wife! Is it right or wrong?"

"Right!" answered Madam Lebrenn in a tone of firm conviction. "It is right!"

"I told you what we want," proceeded Lebrenn. "I shall now mention what we want no longer--we no longer want that two hundred thousand privileged electors be the sole arbiters of the fate of thirty-eight million proletarians or small holders, similar to what happened when a trifling minority of conquerors, Roman or Frankish, despoiled, enslaved and exploited our fathers for twenty centuries. No, we want an electoral or industrial feudality no more than we will tolerate the feudality of conquerors! Wife, is that right, or is it wrong?"

"It is right! Serfdom and even slavery have in reality perpetuated themselves down to our own days," answered Madam Lebrenn with indignation. "It is right! I am a woman, and I have seen women, the slaves of an insufficient wage, die by degrees, exhausted by excessive toil and want. It is right! I am a mother, I have seen young girls, the virtual slaves of certain manufacturers, forced to choose between dishonor and enforced idleness, which means hunger. It is right! I am a wife, and I have seen fathers of families, honest, industrious and intelligent traders, the slaves and victims of the whim or the usurious cupidity of their seigneurs the large capitalists, suffer bankruptcy, and be plunged into ruin and despair. Finally, your resolution is good and just, my friend," added Madam Lebrenn, extending her hand to her husband, "because, if you have hitherto been fortunate enough to escape many a snare, it is your duty to go to the a.s.sistance of those of our brothers who are afflicted with misfortunes that we remain exempt from."

"Brave and generous woman! You redouble my strength and courage," said the merchant, pressing Madam Lebrenn's hand in ecstacy. "I expected no less from you. But just as are the rights that we demand for our brothers, they will have to be conquered by force, arms in hand."

"I believe it, my friend."

"Accordingly," proceeded the merchant, "to-night, the barricades--to-morrow, battle. That is the reason why I fetched my son from his College. Do you approve? Shall he remain with us?"

"Yes," answered Madam Lebrenn. "Your son's place is at your side."

"Oh, thank you, mother!" cried the young man, joyously embracing his mother, who clasped him to her breast.

"Look at him, father," said Velleda to the merchant with a smile and nodding toward Sacrovir, "he looks as happy as if he were graduated."

"But tell me, my friend," asked Madam Lebrenn, addressing the merchant, "will the barricade, on which you and my son are to fight, be near our place? on this street?"

"It will be at our very door," answered Lebrenn. "Agreed?"

"All the better!" exclaimed Madam Lebrenn. "We shall be there--near you."

"Mother," interjected Velleda, "should we not prepare lint to-night, and bandages? There will be many wounded."

"I was thinking of that, my child. Our shop will serve as field-hospital."

"Oh, mother! Sister!" cried the young man. "We are to fight--and under your very eyes--for liberty! How that will inspire us! Alas," he added after a moment's reflection, "why should this be, this fratricidal duel?"

"It is a sad fact, my boy," answered Lebrenn with a sigh. "Oh, may the blood shed in such a strife fall upon the heads of those who compel the people to take up arms for their rights--as we shall have to do to-morrow--as our fathers have done in almost every century of our history!"

"Thank G.o.d, at least in our days the struggle takes place without hatred," replied the young man. "The soldier fights in the name of discipline--the people in the name of their rights. It is a deadly duel, but a loyal one, after which the surviving adversaries shake hands."

"But seeing these are survivers only, and I or my son may be laid low on the barricade," replied Monsieur Lebrenn with a benign smile, "there is one thing more I wish to impress upon you, my children. As you will see, where others turn pale with fright we will smile with serenity. Why?

Because death does not exist for us; because, brought up in the belief of our fathers, instead of seeing in what is called the close of life only a dismal and fear-inspiring ending that plunges us into eternal darkness we see in death only the severance of the soul from the body, which emanc.i.p.ates the former, leaving it free to rejoin, or to wait for the sooner or later arrival of, those whom we love, and reunite with them on the other side of the veil, which, during our terrestrial life, hides from us the marvelous, the dazzling mysteries of our future lives, infinite lives as various as the divine power from which they emanate.

To us, death is but a new birth."

"That is the picture I have of death," cried Sacrovir. "I feel sure I will die overmastered by curiosity. What new, wonderful, dazzling worlds there will be to visit!"

"Brother is right," put in the young girl with no less curiosity. "It must be beautiful to behold! novel! marvelous! And, besides, never more to be separated from our beloved ones but temporarily in all eternity!

What a variety of infinite voyages there are to be made by us together in our new incarnations in the stars! Oh, when I think of that, mother, my head grows dizzy with impatience to see and know!"

"Go to, you inquisitive girl! Be not so impatient," answered Madam Lebrenn, smiling, and in a tone of affectionate reproach. "You know, when you were small, I always scolded you when, at your drawing lessons, you seemed to give less thought to the model that you were copying than to those that you were to copy later. Well, my dear child, do not allow your curiosity, however natural it may be, to ascertain what is on the other side of the curtain, as your father expresses it, to cause your mind to wander too much away from that which is on this side."

"Oh, you may be easy, mother, on that score!" answered the young girl affectionately. "On this side of the curtain are you and father and brother--quite enough to keep my mind from wandering."

"Just see how time is wasted in philosophizing!" interjected Lebrenn.

"Jeanike will soon be calling us to supper, and still I shall not have told you a word of what I meant to confide to you. In case _my curiosity should be satisfied before yours_, my dear Henory," the merchant proceeded to say to his wife, pointing to a desk, "you will find there my last will. It is no secret to you. We have but one heart. But this,"

added Lebrenn, drawing a folded but not sealed letter from his pocket, "concerns our dear daughter. You are to give it to her after reading it yourself."

Velleda colored slightly, realizing that it referred to her marriage.

"As to you, my boy," proceeded the merchant, addressing his son, "take this key," and he detached it from his watch chain. "It is the key of the room with the closed windows which, until now, only your mother and I have entered. On the 11th of September of next year you will be twenty-one years of age. On that day, but not before, open the door.

Among other things you will find a ma.n.u.script in the cabinet. It will impart to you the information of the immemorial tradition of our family--because," added Lebrenn interrupting himself with a smile, "we plebeians, we of the conquered race, we also have our archives, proletarian archives, often as glorious, you may believe me, as those of our conquerors. You will then learn, as I was saying, that, obedient to a family tradition, at the age of twenty-one the eldest son or, in default of a son, the eldest daughter, or our nearest of kin is to acquaint himself with our family archives and several relics that are gathered with them. And now, my loved ones," added Lebrenn in a moved voice, rising and throwing his arms around his wife and children, "a last embrace. Before to-morrow's sun goes down, we may be temporarily separated; the possibility of a separation ever saddens one a little."

It was a touching picture. Monsieur Lebrenn held his wife and children in a close embrace. His wife hung upon his neck, while with his right arm he held his daughter, and with his left his son. He pressed them all ardently to his breast, and they in turn held their father in their loving arms.

The touching group, a symbol of the family, remained silent for a few moments. Only the sound of exchanging kisses was heard. Their emotion once calmed, the group separated; heads were again held up serene, though affected: the mother and daughter grave and serious; the father and son tranquil and resolute.

"And now," resumed the merchant, "to work, my children. You, wife, will see to getting lint and bandages ready, with the help of your daughter and Jeanike. Sacrovir and I, while waiting for the hour when the barricades are to be simultaneously thrown up all over Paris, will unpack the cartridges and arms which a large number of our brothers will call for."

"But where are the arms, my friend?" inquired Madam Lebrenn.

"The chests," answered the merchant smiling, "the chests and bales that came in to-day."

"Oh, I now understand!" exclaimed Madam Lebrenn. "But you will have to take Gildas into your confidence. He is, no doubt, an honest lad. Still, do you not fear--"

"At this hour, my dear Henory, the mask may be raised. An indiscretion is no longer to be feared. If poor Gildas is afraid, I shall allow him to hide himself in some nook in the garret--or in the cellar. And now, first of all, to supper. After supper you and Velleda shall come up again with Jeanike to get everything in readiness for the hospital. We shall remain in the shop, Sacrovir and I, because we shall have a lot of company to-night."

The merchant and his family descended back into the shop and went to supper in the rear room, where their meal was hastily despatched.