The Seven Cardinal Sins: Envy and Indolence Part 33

For the first time, Marie noticed that her son called David his friend.

The satisfaction she felt at this tender familiarity was easily read on her countenance, as Frederick continued:

"Mother, it was M. David who asked me to call him, hereafter, my friend.

He was right; it would have been difficult for me to have said 'M.

David' any longer; now, mother, listen to me well,--do you see that clump of blackthorn?"

"Yes, my child."

"Nothing seems more useless than this thorn with its darts as sharp as steel,--does it, mother?"

"You are right, my child."

"But let our good old Andre, our gardener and chief of husbandry, insert under the bark of this wild bush a little branch of a fine pear-tree, and you will see this thorn soon transformed into a tree laden with flowers, and afterward with delicious fruit. And yet, mother, it is always the same root, sucking the same sap from the same soil. Only this sap, this power, is utilised. Do you comprehend?"

"Admirably, my child. It is important that forces or powers should be well employed, instead of remaining barren or injurious."

"Yes, madame," answered David, exchanging a smile of intelligence with Frederick, "and to follow this dear child's comparison, I will add that it is the same with those pa.s.sions considered the most dangerous and most powerful, because they are the most deeply implanted in the heart of man. G.o.d has put them there; do not tear them out; only graft this th.o.r.n.y wild stock, as Frederick has said, and make it flower and fructify by means of the sap which the Creator has put in them."

"That reminds me, M. David," said the young woman, impressed with this reasoning, "that in speaking of hatred, you have told me that there were hatreds which were even n.o.ble, generous, and heroic."

"Well, mother," said Frederick, resolutely, "envy, like hatred, can become fruitful, heroic,--sublime."

"Envy!" exclaimed Marie Bastien.

"Yes, envy, because the malady which was killing me was envy!"

"You, envious, you?"

"Since our visit to the castle of Pont Brillant, the sight of those wonders--"

"Ah!" interrupted Marie Bastien, suddenly enlightened by this revelation, and shuddering, so to speak, with retrospective fear. "Ah, now I understand all, unhappy child!"

"Happy child, mother, because this envy, for want of culture, has been a long time as black and cruel as the thorn of which we were speaking.

Just now, our friend," added Frederick, turning to David, with an ineffable smile of tenderness and grat.i.tude, "yes, our friend has grafted this envy with brave emulation, generous ambition, and you shall see the fruits of it, mother; you shall see that by dint of courage and labour, I will make your and my name ill.u.s.trious,--this humble name whose obscurity is galling to me. Oh, glory! renown! my mother, what a brilliant future! To enable you to say with joy, with pride, 'This is my son!'"

"My child, oh, my beloved child!" exclaimed Marie, in a transport of joy. "I now comprehend the cure, as I have comprehended the disease."

Then turning to the preceptor she could only say:

"M. David! Oh, M. David!"

And tears, sobs of joy, forbade her utterance.

"Yes, thank him, mother," continued Frederick, carried away by emotion.

"Love him, cherish him, bless him, for you do not know what goodness, what delicacy, what lofty and manly reason, what genius he has shown in accomplishing the cure of your son. His words are engraven upon my heart ineffaceably; they have recalled me to life, to hope, and to all the elevated sentiments I owe to you. Oh! thanks should be given to you, mother, for it is your hand still which chose my saviour, this good genius who has returned me to you, worthy of you."

There are joys impossible to describe. Such was the end of this long day for David, Marie, and her son.

Frederick was too full of grat.i.tude and admiration toward his friend not to wish to share his sentiments with his mother; the words of his preceptor were so present to his thought that he repeated to her, word for word, all their long conversation.

Very often Frederick was on the point of confessing to his mother that he owed to David, not only the life of his soul, but the life of his body. He was prevented only by the promise made to his friend, and the fear of undue excitement in the mind of his mother.

As to Marie, taking in at one glance the conduct of David, from the first hour of his devotion to the hour of unhoped for triumph; recalling his gentleness, his simplicity, his delicacy, his generous perseverance, crowned with such dazzling success,--a success obtained only by the ascendency of a great heart, and an elevated mind,--what she felt for David would be difficult to express; it was mingled affection, tenderness, admiration, respect, and especially a pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude, for she owed to David, not only the cure of Frederick, but that future to which she looked forward, as ill.u.s.trious and glorious, nothing doubting, now, that Frederick, excited by the ardour of his own ambition, directed by the wisdom and skill of David, would one day achieve a brilliant destiny.

From this moment, David and Frederick became inseparable in Marie's heart, and without taking precise account of her feelings, the young woman felt that her life and that of her son were identified with the life of David.

We leave to the imagination the delightful evening that pa.s.sed in the library with the mother, the son, and the preceptor. Only as certain joys as much as grief oppress the heart, and demand, so to speak, digestion in reflection, Marie and her son and David, separated earlier than usual, saying "to-morrow" with the sweet antic.i.p.ation of a joyous day.

David went to his little chamber. He had need of being alone.

The words that Frederick had uttered in the transport of his grat.i.tude, as he spoke to his mother of the preceptor,--"Love him, cherish him, bless him,"--words to which Marie Bastien had responded by a glance of inexpressible grat.i.tude, became the joy and the sorrow of David.

He had felt the inmost fibres of his heart thrill many times, in meeting the large blue eyes of Marie, as they welled over with maternal solicitude; he had trembled in seeing her lavish caresses upon her son, and he could but dream of the wealth of ardent affection which this pure and at the same time pa.s.sionate nature possessed.

"What love like hers," said he to himself, "if there is a place in her heart for any other sentiment besides that of maternity! How beautiful she was to-day, what bewitching expressions animated her face! Oh! I feel it, now is my hour of peril, of struggle, and of suffering! Yes, the tears of Marie are consecrated! I felt it was a sacrilege to lift my eyes to this young weeping mother, so beautiful in her tears. Yet she is now radiant with the joy she owes to me, and in her ingenuous grat.i.tude, her tender eyes sought me whenever she looked upon Frederick. And think of what her son said to her,--'Love him, cherish him, bless him,'--and the expressive silence, the pathetic glance of this adorable woman, perhaps, may make me believe some day--"

David, not daring to pursue this thought, resumed with sadness:

"Oh, yes, the hour of suffering, the hour of resignation has come.

Confess my love, or let Marie suspect it, when she owes so much to me?

Lead her to believe that my devotion to her concealed another design?

Lead her to believe that, instead of yielding spontaneously to the interest this poor child inspired,--thanks to the memory of my lamented brother,--I made a cloak, a pretext of this interest to surprise the maternal confidence of a young woman? In fact, to lose, in her eyes, the only merit of my devotion, my sudden loyalty,--indiscreet, yes, very indiscreet, I see it all now,--alas, shall I degrade myself in the eyes of Marie? never! never!

"Between her and me will be always her son.

"To fly from this love, shall I leave the house where this love is always growing?

"No, I cannot do so yet.

"Frederick to-day, in the intoxication of this revelation which has changed his gloomy despair into a will full of faith and enthusiasm,--Frederick, suddenly lifted from the abyss where he had fallen, experiences the delight of the prisoner all at once restored to liberty and light, yet does not this cure need to be established? Will it not be necessary to moderate the impetuosity of this young and ardent imagination in its enthusiastic conceptions of the future?

"And then, it may be, the first exultation pa.s.sed,--to-morrow perhaps,--Frederick, on the other hand, more self-reliant, and better comprehending the generous efforts necessary to reach the fountainhead of envy, will remember with more bitterness than ever the dreadful deed that he wished to commit,--his desire to murder Raoul de Pont Brillant.

A fruitful and generous expiation, then, is the only thing which can appease this remorse which has tempted Frederick to commit suicide.

"No, no, I cannot abandon this child yet; I love him too sincerely, I have the completion of my work too much at heart.

"I must remain.

"Remain, and each day live this intimate, solitary life with Marie,--she who came so innocently to this chamber in the middle of the night in a dishevelled state, the recollection of which thrills me, even in the sleep where I vainly seek for rest."

To this dangerous sleep David yielded, nevertheless, as the emotions and fatigues of the day had been very exhausting.

The day was just breaking.