The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or the Real Robinson Crusoe Part 14

'Alas! It was my husband himself.'

'You are married then, Catherine. So much the better.'

'So much the worse rather, my friend; for, would you believe it, the old monster, bent double as he is with age and rheumatism, was bright enough to dupe me finely; to dupe me twice. In the first place, by making me believe you were dead when you were not. But he well knew, the cheat, that if I refused him once, it was because my views were turned in your direction.'

Selkirk made a movement which escaped Catherine; she continued:

'His second deception was to arrive here in triumph, in the midst of the cries of joy and embraces of the _Sea-Dogs_ and _Old Pilots_. One would have thought he had in his pockets all the mines of Guinea and Peru. He did not say so, but I thought it could not be otherwise; and I married him, since I believed you no longer living. His trick having succeeded, he then told me of his shipwreck, his complete ruin. Ah!

with what a good heart would I have sent him packing! But it was too late, and it became necessary that the Royal Salmon, founded by the honorable Andrew Felton, should furnish subsistence for two; and this is the reason why, Mr. Selkirk, you find me still here, a prisoner in my bar, and cursing all the captains who make the tour of the world only to come afterwards and impose upon poor and inexperienced young girls!'

Selkirk had not at first understood the lamentations of Catherine; but a twilight commenced to dawn in his ideas; he divined that his name had been used for an act of baseness; and, without being able to account for it, he felt the return of an old leaven of spite, an old hatred revived.

'Who is your husband? What is his name?' asked he, in a loud voice and with a tone of authority.

'Do not grow angry, Sandy? Do not seek a quarrel with him now. What is done, is done; I am his wife, do you understand? It is of no use to recall the past.'

'And who thinks of recalling it? I simply asked you who he was?'

'You will be prudent; you promise me? Well! do you see him yonder, in the second stall, at the same place he formerly occupied? He has just poured out some gin to those sailors, and is drinking with them. It is he who is standing up with an ap.r.o.n on.'

'Stradling!' exclaimed Selkirk, with sparkling eyes. But at the sight of this ap.r.o.n, finding his old captain become a waiter, his hatred and projects of vengeance were suddenly extinguished.

Alexander Selkirk returned to England in 1712. The history of his captivity in the Island of Juan Fernandez had appeared in the papers; several apocryphal relations had been already published, when in 1717, Daniel De Foe published his _Robinson Crusoe_.

He is really the same personage; but in this latter version, the Island of Juan Fernandez, in spite of distance and geographical impossibilities, is peopled with savage Caribs; Marimonda is transformed into the simple Friday; history is turned into romance, but this romance is elevated to all the dignity of a philosophical treatise.

Rendering full justice to the merit of the writer, we must nevertheless acknowledge that he has completely altered, in a mental view, the physiognomy of his model. Robinson is not a man suffering entire isolation; he has a companion, and the savages are incessantly making inroads around him. It is the European developing the resources of his industry, to contend at once with an unproductive land and the dangers created by his enemies.

Selkirk has no enemies to repulse, and he inhabits a fruitful country.

He needs, before every thing else, the presence of man, one of those fraternal affections in which he refuses to believe. His sufferings originate in his very solitude. In solitude, Robinson improves and perfects himself; Selkirk, at first as full of resources as he, ends by becoming discouraged and brutified.

Which of the two is most true to nature?

The first is an ideal being, for in no quarter of the globe has there ever been found one a.n.a.logous to the Robinson of De Foe; the other, on the contrary, is to be met with every where, denying the dependence of an isolated individual; but this dependence, even in the midst of a prodigal nature, if it is not to the honor of man, is to the honor of society at large.

Notwithstanding all that has been said, the solitary is a man imbruted, vegetating, deprived of his crown. 'Solitude is sweet only in the vicinity of great cities.'[1] By an admirable decree of Providence, the isolated being is an imperfect being; man is completed by man.

[Footnote 1: Bernardin de St. Pierre. Seneca had said: _Miscenda et alternanda sunt solitudo et frequentia_.]

Notwithstanding the false maxims of a deceitful philosophy, it is to the social state that we owe, from the greatest to the least, the courage which animates and sustains us; G.o.d has created us to live there and to love one another; it is for this reason that selfishness is a shameful vice, a crime! It is, so to speak, an infringement of one of the great laws of Nature.

THE END.