The Seven Cardinal Sins: Envy and Indolence

"You see how strong I am!" said the young woman, stepping slowly toward her son, who smiled upon her with tenderness. "Where are you going to take me?"

"You are going to see, mother."

Frederick had scarcely uttered these words, when a fearful, terrible shriek sounded from behind the door.

It was Marguerite. Then the door opened suddenly, and a bantering, ringing voice said at the same time:

"Make a note of it! The big old fellow is living yet!"

Marie, who was opposite the door, uttered a terror-stricken cry and fell backward.

She saw her husband Jacques Bastien.

CHAPTER XLII

IT will be remembered, perhaps, that at the moment of departure for Blémur, Bridou put on Jacques Bastien's greatcoat, made of goatskin. Bastien, half drunk, had, in spite of old André's advice to the contrary, persisted in fording a place inundated by the pond as well as by the waters of the Loire; the horse lost his footing, and the carriage was dragged down the current. Bridou succeeded in getting out of the carriage, but was swept by the torrent under the wheels of the mill and crushed to death. A part of the goatskin coat was caught in one of the wheels. In the pocket of the garment were found several letters addressed to M. Bastien. Hence the fatal error. It was supposed that M. Bastien had been crushed under the wheels, and that the body of the bailiff had disappeared under the water.

Jacques Bastien, incommoded by his great corpulence, had not, in spite of his efforts, succeeded in getting out of the carriage; this circumstance saved him. The horse, after having been dragged some distance with the drift, regained his footing, but soon, exhausted by fatigue, and attempting to ascend a very steep hill, he tumbled down. Jacques, thrown forward, received a deep wound in the head, and lay insensible for some time, when, at the break of day, some labourers going to the fields found him, picked him up and carried him to an isolated farm quite distant from the scene of the disaster.

Jacques remained a long time in this farmhouse, seriously ill from the results of his wound, and a dangerous attack produced by fright and prolonged immersion in the ice-cold water. When he was in a condition to write to his wife, he intentionally neglected to do so, promising himself – as no doubt rumours of his death were current – to make his resurrection a stupid and brutal joke, for he well understood with what sentiments his household would receive the news of his tragic end.

In his project, Jacques, as we have seen, did not fail.

When, however, he saw his wife fall, overwhelmed at the sight of him, he thought he had killed her, and fled from his house in a terror which partook of the nature of frenzy.

Marie was not the only one overcome by this terrible blow.

Frederick was not less shocked by the sudden appearance of Bastien, and, seeing his mother fall dead as it were on the floor, fell fainting in the arms of Doctor Dufour.

The poor boy was not borne to his own chamber, but to the library, and a bed was there prepared for him, as Doctor Dufour feared, with reason, that the removal of Frederick to his own chamber, which opened into his mother's, might be followed by consequences disastrous to both.

The doctor could not give his attention to both at the same time, and occupied himself first with Marie, who, scarcely convalescent from her previous illness, was alas! struck with a mortal blow.

When Doctor Dufour returned to Frederick he found him prostrated by cerebral congestion, and soon his condition was desperate.

When Marie regained consciousness she realised that her end was approaching, and asked to see her son immediately.

The embarrassment of Marguerite, her pallor and tears, her look of despair, and the excuses and evasions she made to explain the absence of Frederick in that solemn moment were a revelation to the young mother.

She felt, so to speak, that, like herself, her son was about to die; then she asked to see David.

Marguerite ushered the preceptor into the room and left him alone with Madame Bastien, whose angelic features already bore the impress of death. With her cold white hand she made a sign to David to sit down at her bedside and said to him:

"How is my son?"

"Madame – "

"He is not in his chamber; they are hiding him from me."

"Do not think – "

"I understand all; he is in a desperate state I know, but as my end is near, too, I wish to say farewell to him, Henri."

For the first and the last time, alas! Marie called David by his baptismal name.

"Farewell!" repeated he, with a heartrending sob "you wish to say farewell!"

"But I cannot die without telling you how much I have loved you. You knew it, did you not, my friend?"

"And you say that you are going to die! No, no! Marie, the power of my love will give new life to you!" cried David, under a sort of aberration of mind. "Die! Oh, why will you die? We love each other so much."

"Yes, our love is great, my friend, and for me it began from the day you restored the life of my son's soul."

"Oh, woe! woe!"

"No, Henri, my death is not a woe for us. It seems to me, you understand, that, in the moment of leaving this life, my soul, freed from terrestrial ties, can read the future. Henri, do you know what would have been our fate?"

"You ask me to tell you that, when this morning our plans were so – "

"Listen to me, my friend; there are profound mysteries of maternal love which, perhaps, are never unveiled but in supreme moments. As long as I felt myself free, the future appeared radiant to me, as it did to you, Henri, and perhaps for a few months, you and my son and myself would have mingled our lives in the same bliss."

"Oh, that dream! that dream!"

"The dream was beautiful, Henri; perhaps the awakening would have been cruel."

"What do you mean?"

"You know how much my son loves me. You know that all passionate affection has its jealousy; sooner or later, he would have been jealous of my love for you, Henri."

"He, he jealous of me?"

"You can believe a mother's heart; I am not mistaken."

"Alas, you only wish to make my sorrow less grievous; brave and generous to the last!"

"Say I am a mother to the last. Listen to me still, Henri. In uniting myself to you, I would have lost my name, that humble name that my son wanted above everything to make illustrious, because that name was mine, because everything in the poor child had reference to me."

"Oh, yes, you were in all his thoughts; when he thought he was dying, he cried, 'My mother!' and his first cry, as he began his march to a glorious destiny, was still, 'My mother!'"

"My friend, let us not deceive ourselves. What would have been our grief, if, just when we were about to be united, the fear of arousing my son's jealousy, perhaps would have stopped me? And however painful to have renounced our love, think how much more horrible it would have been to see, perhaps, the development of Frederick's jealousy after our union. What could we have done then? What would have become of us?"

"No, no, Marie, do not believe that. Frederick loves me, too, and he would have sacrificed himself to your happiness and mine."

"Sacrificed? Yes, my friend, he would have sacrificed himself. Oh, I know it, not a word, not a complaint would have passed his lips. Always loving, always tender, he would have smiled on us sadly, and then by degrees, we would have seen him at last wasting away."

"Oh, my God, that is dreadful! Woe to me!" murmured David, with bitter lamentation. "Woe to me!"

"Joy to you, Henri, because you have been the most generous of men," cried Marie, with an exaltation which imparted a superhuman expression to her dying features, "Joy to you, Henri, for you have been loved, oh, passionately loved, without costing a tear or one moment of shame to the loyal heart which adores you. Yes, Henri, I have loved you without hesitation, without resistance. I have loved you with pride, with serenity, because my love for you, Henri, had all the sacred sweetness of duty. Courage, then, my friend, let the memory of Marie and Frederick Bastien sustain you and console you."

"What do you mean? Frederick! Oh, he at least will remain to me!"

"My son will not survive me."

"Frederick?"

"I feel it here, yes, Henri, here in my heart; I tell you he will die."

"But, a little while ago, Pierre came out of the chamber where your son is lying, and told me he had not given up all hope. No, no, for him to die, too, would be more than I could bear."

"Why do you say that, Henri?"

"Great God! you – you, his mother, ask that question!"

"I told you, my friend, there are profound mysteries in maternal love. I think it would be a dreadful evil to survive my son, and Frederick thinks as I do; he loves me as much as I love him, and he does not desire to survive me."

"Oh, what misery for me to lose you both!"

"Marie and Frederick cannot be separated; neither in this world nor in the other, my friend."

"Ah, you and he are happy!"

"Henri, my strength is gone, the chill of death is on me. Give me your hand, your dear and faithful hand."

David threw himself on his knees at the bedside of the young woman, covering her hand with tears and kisses; he burst into sobs.

Marie continued talking, her voice growing more and more feeble.

"One last request, Henri; you will grant it, if it is possible. M. Bastien has spoken to me of his desire to sell this house; I would not like to have strangers profane this home, where my life has been passed, as well as the life of my son; for my life dates from the day I became a mother. Doctor Dufour, your best friend, dwells near here, you would like to live near him some day. Hasten that day, Henri; you will find great consolation in a heart like his."

"Oh, Marie, this house will be the object of a religious care – but – "

"Thank you, Henri, oh, thank you, that thought consoles me. A last prayer: I do not wish to be separated from my son; you understand me, do you not?"

Scarcely had Marie uttered these words when a great noise was heard in the corridor.

Marguerite in terror called the doctor.

Suddenly Madame Bastien's door was thrown open violently. Frederick entered, livid as a corpse, dragging after him a piece of the bed linen, like a winding-sheet, while Marguerite was trying in vain to hold him back.

A last ray of intelligence, the filial instinct perhaps, led this child to die near his mother.

David, who was kneeling at the bedside of the young woman, rose, bewildered, as if he had seen a spectre.

"Mother! mother!" cried Frederick, in an agonising voice, throwing himself on Marie's bed, and enfolding her in his arms, as the doctor ran to them in dismay.

"Oh, come, my child, come!" murmured Marie, embracing her son in a last embrace with convulsive joy, "now it is for ever!"

These were the last words of the young mother.

Frederick and Marie breathed out their souls in a supreme embrace.

EPILOGUE

WE began this story supposing a tourist, going from the city of Pont Brillant to the castle of the same name, would pass the humble home of Marie Bastien.

We finish this story with a like supposition.

If this tourist had travelled from Pont Brillant to the castle eighteen months after the death of Frederick and Marie, he would have found nothing changed in the farm.

The same elegant simplicity reigned in this humble abode; the same wild flowers were carefully tended by old André; the same century-old grove shaded the verdant lawn through which the limpid brook wound its way.

But the tourist would not have seen without emotion, under the shade of the grove, and not far from the little murmuring cascade, a tombstone of white marble on which he could read the words: "Marie and Frederick Bastien."

Before this tomb, which was sheltered by a rustic porch, already covered with ivy and climbing flowers, was placed the little boat presented to Frederick at the time of the overflow, on which could be read the inscription: "The poor people of the valley to Frederick Bastien."

If the tourist had chanced to pass this grove at sunrise or at sunset, he would have seen a man tall of stature and clad in mourning, with hair as white as snow, although his face was young, approaching this tomb in religious meditation.

This man was David.

He had not failed in the mission entrusted to him by Marie.

Nothing was changed without or within the house. The chamber of the young mother, that of Frederick, and the library, filled with the uncompleted tasks left by the son of Madame Bastien, all remained as on the day of the death of the mother and child.

The chamber of Jacques Bastien was walled up.

David continued to inhabit the garret chamber which he occupied as preceptor. Marguerite was his only servant.

Doctor Dufour came every day to see David, near whom he wished to establish himself, when he could trust his patronage to a young physician newly arrived in Pont Brillant.

As a memorial to his young brother and to Frederick, David – that his grief might not be barren of result – transformed one of the barns on the farm into a schoolroom, and there, every day, he instructed the children of the neighbouring farmers. In order to assure the benefit of his instruction, the preceptor gave a small indemnity to the parents of the pupils, inasmuch as the children forced by the poverty of their families to go out to work could not avail themselves of public education.

We will suppose that our tourist, after having paused before the modest tomb of Marie and Frederick, would meet some inhabitant of the valley.

"My good man," the tourist might have said to him, "pray, whose is that tomb down there under those old oaks?"

"It is the tomb of the good saint of our country, monsieur."

"What is his name?"

"Frederick Bastien, monsieur, and his good angel of a mother is buried with him."

"You are weeping, my good man."

"Yes, monsieur, as all weep who knew that angel mother and her son."

"They were, then, much loved by the people of the country?"

"Wait, monsieur; do you see that tall fine castle down there?"

"The Castle of Pont Brillant?"

"The young marquis and his grandmother are richer than the king. Good year or bad year, they give a great deal of money to the poor, and yet, if the name of the young marquis is mentioned among the good people of the valley once, the names of Frederick Bastien and his mother are mentioned a hundred times."

"And why is that?"

"Because, instead of money, which they did not have, the mother gave the poor her kind heart, and the half of her bread, and the son, when it was necessary, his life to save the life of others, as I and mine can testify, without counting other families whom he rescued at the risk of his own life at the great overflow two years ago. So, you see, monsieur, the name of the good saint of the country will endure longer in the valley than the grand Castle of Pont Brillant. Castles crumble to the ground, while our children's children will learn from their fathers the name of Frederick Bastien."

INDOLENCE

CHAPTER I

A CHARMING IDLER

SHOULD there be any artist who desires to depict dolce far niente in its most attractive guise, we think we might offer him as a model, —

Florence de Luceval, six months married, but not quite seventeen, a blonde with a skin of dazzling whiteness, cheeks rivalling the wild rose in hue, and a wealth of golden hair. Though tall and beautifully formed, the young lady is a trifle stout, but the slight superabundance of flesh is so admirably distributed that it only adds to her attractiveness. Enveloped in a soft mull peignoir, profusely trimmed with lace, her attitude is careless but graceful in the extreme, as, half reclining in a luxurious armchair, with her head a little to one side, and her dainty slippered feet crossed upon a big velvet cushion, she toys with a magnificent rose that is lying on her lap.

Thus luxuriously established before an open window that overlooks a beautiful garden, she gazes out through her half closed eyelids upon the charming play of light and shade produced by the golden sunbeams as they pierce the dense shrubbery that borders the walk. At the farther end of this shady path is a fountain where the water in one marble shell overflows into the larger one below; and the faint murmur of the distant fountain, the twittering of the birds, the soft humidity of the atmosphere, the clearness of the sky, and the balmy fragrance from several beds of heliotrope and huge clumps of Japanese honeysuckle seem to have plunged the fair young creature into a sort of ecstatic trance, in which body and mind are alike held captive by the same delightful lethargy.

While this incorrigible idler is thus yielding to the charm of her habitual indolence, an entirely different scene is going on in an adjoining room.

M. Alexandre de Luceval had just entered his wife's bedchamber. He was a young man about twenty-five years of age, and dark complexioned. Quick, nervous, and lithe in his movements, the natural petulance of his disposition manifested itself in his every gesture. He belonged, in fact, to that class of individuals who are blessed, or afflicted, with a desire to be always on the go, and who are utterly unable to remain for more than a minute in one place, or without busying themselves about something or other. In short, he was a man who seemed to be not only in a dozen places at once, but to be engaged in solving two problems at the same time, – that of perpetual motion and ubiquity.

It was now two o'clock in the afternoon, and M. de Luceval, who had risen with the sun, – he never slept more than four or five hours, – had already traversed half of Paris, either on foot or on horseback. When he entered his wife's bedchamber, one of her women happened to be there, and her employer, in the quick, curt way which was habitual to him, exclaimed:

"Well, has madame returned? Is she dressed? Is she ready?"

"Madame la marquise has not been out this morning, monsieur," replied Mlle. Lise, the maid.

"What! Madame did not go out at eleven o'clock, as she intended?"

"No, monsieur, madame did not rise until half-past twelve."

"Another ride postponed!" muttered M. de Luceval, stamping his foot impatiently.

"But madame is dressed now, of course?" he said aloud.

"Oh, no, monsieur; madame is still in her dressing-gown. Madame told me she had no intention of going out to-day."

"Where is she?" demanded M. de Luceval, with another impatient stamp of the foot; "where is she?"

"In her boudoir, monsieur."

A few seconds afterwards M. de Luceval burst noisily into the room where his pretty wife lay stretched out in her armchair, too comfortable to even turn her head to see who the intruder was.

"Really, Florence, this is intolerable!" exclaimed M. de Luceval.

"What, my dear?" the lady asked, languidly, without moving, and with her eyes still fixed on the garden.

"You ask me that, when you know that we were to go out together at two o'clock!"

"It is entirely too hot."

"But the carriage is ready."

"They can take the horses out, then, I wouldn't move for a kingdom."

"But you will have to. You know perfectly well that it is absolutely necessary we should go out together to-day, particularly as you did not go out earlier, as you ought to have done."

"I really hadn't the courage to get up."

"You will at least have to summon up courage to dress yourself, and at once."

"Don't insist, my dear. It is not of the slightest use."

"You must be jesting."

"Nothing of the sort."

"But the purchases we have to make cannot be put off any longer. My niece's corbeille must be completed. It would have been a week ago, but for your indolence."

"You have excellent taste, my dear, attend to the corbeille yourself. The mere thought of rushing about from shop to shop, and going up and down stairs, and standing on one's feet for hours at a time, is really too appalling."

"Nonsense, madame! Such indolence in a girl of seventeen is monstrous, disgraceful! It positively amounts to a disease with you. I shall consult Doctor Gasterini about it to-morrow."

"An excellent idea!" said Florence, really arousing herself enough to laugh this time. "The dear doctor is so witty it is sure to be a very amusing consultation."

"I am in earnest, madame. Something must be done to cure you of this apathy."

"I sincerely hope it will prove incurable. You have no idea how much I was enjoying myself before you came in, lying here with half closed eyes, listening to the fountain, and not even taking the trouble to think."

"You dare to admit that?"

"And why not, pray?"

"I don't believe there is another person in the world who can compare with you so far as indolence is concerned."

"You forget your cousin Michel, who, judging from what you say, certainly rivals me in this respect. Possibly it is on this account that he has never taken the trouble to come and see you since your marriage."

"You two are certainly very much alike. I really believe you are more indolent than he is, though. But come, Florence, don't let us have any more nonsense. Dress at once, and let us be off, I beg of you."

"And I, in turn, beg that you will attend to this shopping yourself, my dear Alexandre. If you will, I'll promise to drive with you in the Bois this evening. We won't go until after dark, so I shall only have to put on a hat and mantle."

"But this is the day of Madame de Mirecourt's reception. She has called on you twice, and you have never set foot in her house, so you really must do me the favour to go there this evening."

"Make an evening toilet? Oh, no, indeed. It is entirely too much trouble."

"That is not the question. One must fulfil one's duties to society, so you will accompany me to Madame de Mirecourt's this evening."

"Society can do without me just as well as I can do without society. Society bores me. I shall not go to Madame de Mirecourt's."

"Yes, you will."

"When I say no, I mean no."

"Zounds, madame – "

"My dear, as I have told you very often, I married so I might get out of the convent, so I might lie in bed as late as I chose in the morning, so I might get rid of lessons, and so I might do nothing as long and as much as I pleased, – so I might be my own mistress, in short."

"You are talking and reasoning like a child, – and like an utterly spoiled child."

"That doesn't matter."

"Ah, your guardian warned me! Why did I not believe him? I had no idea that such a person as you could exist. I said to myself, 'This indolence on the part of a girl of seventeen is nothing but the ennui caused by the monotony of convent life. When she marries, the duties and pleasures of society, the care of her house, and improving travel will cure her of her indolence, and – '"

"Then that is the reason, I suppose, that you had the barbarity to propose a long journey to me only a day or two after our marriage," interrupted Madame de Luceval, in reproachful tones.

"But, madame, travelling – "

"Don't! The slightest allusion to it positively makes me shudder. A journey is the most fatiguing and disagreeable thing in the world. Think of nights spent in diligences or in horrid inns, and long walks and drives to see the pretended beauties or wonders of a country. I have asked you before, monsieur, not to even mention the subject of travelling to me. I have perfect horror of it."

"Ah, madame, had I foreseen this – "

"I understand; I should not have had the happiness of being Madame de Luceval."

"Say, rather, that I should not have had the misfortune to be your husband."

"A gallant speech after six months of married life, truly."

"But you exasperate me beyond endurance, madame. I am the most unhappy man alive. I can stand it no longer. I must say what I have to say."

"Do, by all means. But pray don't make such a fuss about it. I abhor a noise."

"Very well, then, madame. I tell you very plainly, though very quietly, that it is a woman's duty to attend to the affairs of her household, and you do not pay the slightest attention to yours. If it were not for me, I don't know what would become of the house."