Speaker 1: The conscript by Honore de Balzac. The inner self, by
a phenomenon of vision or of locomotion, has been known
at times to abolish space in its two modes of
time and distance, the one intellectual, the other physical history
of Louis Lambert. On a November evening in the year
seventeen ninety three, the principal citizens of Carentan were assembled
in Madame de Day's drawing room. Madame de Day held
this recipsion every night of the week, but an unwonted
interest attached to this evening's gathering, owing to certain circumstances
which would have passed altogether unnoticed in a great city,
though in a small country town they excited the greatest curiosity.
For two days before, Madame de Day had not been
at home to her visitors, and on the previous evening
her door had been shut on the ground of indisposition.
Two such events at any ordinary time would have produced
in Carentan the same sensation that Paris knows on nights
when there is no performance at the theatre's existence is
in some sort incomplete. But in those times when the
least indiscretion on the part of an aristocrat might be
a matter of life and death. This conduct of Madame
de Day's was likely to bring about the most disastrous
consequences for her. Her position in Carentan ought to be
made clear if the reader is to appreciate the expression
of keen curiosity and cunning fanaticism on the countenances of
these Norman citizens, and what is of most importance the
part that the lady played among them many a one
during the days of the revolution has doubtless passed through
a crisis as difficult as hers at that moment, and
the sympathies of more than one reader will fill in
all the coloring of the picture. Madame de Day was
the widow of a lieutenant general, a Knight of the
Orders of Saint Michael and of the Holy Ghost. She
had left the court when the emigration began and taken
refuge in the neighborhood of Carenti, where she had large estates,
hoping that the influence of the Reign of Terror would
be but little felt there. Her calculations, based on a
thorough knowledge of the district, proved correct. The revolution made
little disturbance in Lower Normandy. Formerly, when Madame de Day
had spent any time in the country. Her circle of
acquaintance had been confined to the noble families of the district,
but now from politic motives, she opened her house to
the principal citizens and to the revolutionary authorities of the town,
endeavoring to touch and gratify their social pride without arousing
either hatred or jealousy. Gracious and kindly, possessed of the
indescribable charm that wins good will, without loss of dignity
or effort to pay court to any she had succeeded
in gaining universal esteem. The discreet warnings of exquisite tact
enabled her to steer a difficult course among the exacting
claims of this mixed society, without wounding the overweening self
love of Parvenus on the one hand, or the susceptibilities
of her old friends on the other. She was about
thirty eight years of age and still preserved not the fresh,
high colored beauty of the Bais normand, but a fragile
loveliness of what may be called an aristocratic type. Her
figure was lissome and slender, her features delicate and clearly cut.
The pale face seemed to light up and live when
she spoke, But there was a quiet and devout look
in the great dark eyes, for all their graciousness of expression,
a look that seemed to say that the springs of
her life lay without her own existence. In her early
girlhood she had been married to an elderly and jealous soldier.
Her false position in the midst of a gay court
had doubtless done something to bring a veil of sadness
over a face that must once have been bright with
the charms of quick, pulsed life and love. She had
been compelled to set constant restraint upon her frank impulses
and emotions at an age when a woman feels rather
than thinks, and the depths of passion in her heart
had never been stirred. In this lay the secret of
her greatest charm, a youthfulness of the inmost soul, betrayed
at times by her face, and a certain tinge of
innocent wistfulness in her ideas. She was reserved in her demeanor,
but in her bearing and in the tones of her
voice there was still something that told of girlish longings
directed toward a vague future. Before very long, the least
susceptible fell in love with her, and yet stood somewhat
in awe of her dignity and high bred manner. Her
great soul, strengthened by the cruel ordeals through which she
had passed, seemed to set her too far above the
ordinary level. And these men weighed themselves and instinctively felt
that they were found wanting such a nature demanded an
exalted passion. Moreover, Madame de Dey's affections were concentrated in
one sentiment, a mother's love for her son. All the
happiness and joy that she had not known as a wife,
she had found later in her boundless love for him,
the coquetry of a mistress, the jealousy of a wife,
mingled with the pure and deep affection of a mother.
She was miserable when they were apart, and nervous about
him while he was away. She could never see enough
of him, and lived through and for him alone. Some
idea of the strength of this type may be conveyed
to the masculine understanding by adding that this was not
only Madame de Day's only son, but all she had
of kith or kin in the world, the one human
being on earth bound to her by all the fears
and hopes and joys of her life. The late Comte
de Dey was the last of his race, and she,
his wife, was the sole heiress and descendant of her house.
So worldly ambitions and family considerations, as well as the
noblest cravings of the soul, combined to heighten in the
countess a sentiment that is strong in every woman's heart.
The child was all the dearer because only with infinite
care had she succeeded in rearing him to man's estate.
Medical science had predicted his death a score of times,
but she had held fast to her presentiments and her hopes,
and had known the inexpressible joy of watching him pass
safely through the perils of infancy, of seeing his constitution
strengthen in spite of the decrees of the faculty. Thanks
to her constant care, the boy had grown up and
developed so favorably that at twenty years of age, he
was regarded as one of the most accomplished gentlemen at
the court of Versailles. One final happiness that does not
always crown a mother's efforts was hers Her son worshiped her,
and between these two there was the deep sympathy of
kindred souls. If they had not been bound to each
other already by a natural and sacred tie, they would
instinctively have felt for each other, a friendship that is
rarely met with between two men. At the age of eighteen,
the young count had received an appointment as a sub
lieutenant in a regiment of dragoons, and had made it
a point of honor to follow the emigrant princes into exile.
Then Madame de Day faced the dangers of her cruel position.
She was rich, noble, and the mother of an emigrant,
with the one desire to look after her son's great fortune.
She had denied herself the happiness of being with him,
And when she read the rigorous laws in virtue of
which the Republic was daily confiscating the property of emigrants
at Carentan, she congratulated herself on the courageous course that
she had taken. Was she not keeping watch over the
wealth of her son at the risk of her life? Later,
when news came of the horrible executions ordered by the Convention,
she slept happy in the knowledge that her own treasure
was in safety, out of reach of peril, far from
the scaffolds of the revolution. She loved to think that
she had followed the best course, that she had saved
her darling and her darling's fortunes. And to this secret
thought she made such concessions as the misfortunes of the
times demanded, without compromising her dignity or her aristocratic tenets,
and enveloped her sorrows in reserve and mystery. She had
foreseen the difficulties that would beset her at Carentan. Did
she not tempt the scaffold by the very fact of
going thither to take a prominent place. Yet, sustained by
a mother's courage, she succeeded in winning the affection of
the poor, ministering without distinction to everyone in trouble, and
made herself necessary to the well to do by providing
amusements for them. The procureur of the commune might be
seen at her house, the mayor, the president of the district,
and the public prosecutor, and even the judges of the
revolutionary tribunals went there. The four first named gentlemen were
none of them married, and each paid court to her
in the hope that Madame de Deay would take him
for her husban, either from fear of making an enemy
or from a desire to find a protector. The public prosecutor,
once an attorney at Cannes, and the countess's man of business,
did what he could to inspire love by a system
of devotion and generosity, a dangerous game of cunning. He
was the most formidable of all her suitors. He alone
knew the amount of the large fortune of his sometime client,
and his fervor was inevitably increased by the cupidity of greed,
and by the consciousness that he wielded an enormous power,
the power of life and death in the district. He
was still a young man, and owing to the generosity
of his behavior, Madame de Day was unable as yet
to estimate him truly. But in despite of the danger
of matching herself against Norman cunning, she used all the
craft and inventiveness that nature has bestowed on women to
play off the rival suitors one against another. She hoped,
by gaining time to emerge, sin and sound from her
difficulties at last. For at that time, royalists in the
provinces flattered themselves with a hope daily renewed that the
morrow would see the end of the revolution, a conviction
that proved fatal to many of them. In spite of difficulties,
the countess had maintained her independence with considerable skill, until
the day when, by an inexplicable want of prudence, she
took occasion to close her salon. So deep and sincere
was the interest that she inspired that those who usually
filled her drawing room felt a lively anxiety when the
news was spread. Then, with the frank curiosity characteristic of
provincial manners, they went to inquire into the misfortune, grief,
or illness that had befallen Madame de Day. To all
these questions, Brigitte the housekeeper answered with the same formula.
Her mistress was keeping her room and would see no one,
not even her own servants. The almost close lives of
dwellers in small towns fosters a habit of analysis and
conjectural explanation of the business of everybody else. So strong
is it that when everyone had exclaimed over poor Madame
de Day, without knowing whether the lady was overcome by
joy or sorrow, each one began to inquire into the
causes of her sudden seclusion. If she were ill, she
would have sent for the doctor, said Gossip Number one.
Now the doctor has been playing chess in my house
all day. He said to me, laughing, that in these
days there is only one disease, and that unluckily, it
is incurable. The joke was hazarded discreetly. Women and men,
elderly folk and young girls forthwith betook themselves to the
vast fields of conjecture. Everyone imagined that there was some
secret in it, and every head was busy with the secret.
Next day the suspicions became malignant. Everyone lives in public
in a small town, and the womenkind were the first
find out that Brigitte had laid in an extra stock
of provisions. The thing could not be disputed. Brigitte had
been seen in the market place Betimes that morning, and
wonderful to relate, she had bought the one hare to
be had. The whole town knew that Madame de Day
did not care for game. The hare had become a
starting point for endless conjectures. Elderly gentlemen taking their constitutional
noticed a sort of suppressed bustle in the Countess's house.
The symptoms were the more apparent because the servants were
at evident pains to conceal them. The man servant was
beating a carpet in the garden. Only yesterday no one
would have remarked the fact. But today everybody began to
build romances upon that harmless piece of household stuff. Everyone
had a version. On the following day, that on which
Madame de Day gave out that she was not well,
the magnets of Carentan went to spend the evening at
the mayor's brother's house. He was a retired merchant, a
married man, a strictly honorable soul. Everyone respected him, and
the countess held him in high regard. There all the
rich widow's suitors were fain to invent more or less
probable fictions, each one thinking the while how to turn
to his own advantage the secret that compelled her to
compromise herself in such a manner. The public prosecutor spun
out a whole drama to bring Madame de Day's son
to her house. Of a knight. The mayor had a
belief in a priest who had refused the oath a
refugee from Lavender, but this left him not a little embarrassed.
How to account for the purchase of a hare on
a Friday, The President of the district had strong leanings
toward a Chouan chief or a Vandean leader hotly pursued.
Others voted for a noble escaped from the prisons of Paris.
In short, one and all suspected that the Countess had
been guilty of some piece of generosity that the law
of those days defined as a crime, an offense that
was likely to bring her to the scaffold. The public prosecutor,
moreover said in a low voice that they must hush
the matter up and try to save the unfortunate lady
from the abyss toward which she was hastening. If you
spread reports about, he added, I shall be obliged to
take cognizance of the matter and to search the house.
And then he said no more. But everyone understood what
was left unsaid. The countess's real friends were so much
alarmed for her that on the morning of the third day,
the procureur Syndic of the commune made his wife write
a few lines to persuade Madame de Day to hold
her reception as usual. That evening, the old merchant took
a bolder step. He called that morning upon the lady.
Strong in the thought of the service, he meant to
do her. He insisted that he must see Madame de Day,
and was amazed beyond expression to find her out in
the garden, busy gathering last autumn flowers in her borders
to fill the vases. She has given refuge to her lover.
No doubt, thought the old man, struck with pity for
the charming woman before him. The Countess's face wore a
strange look that confirmed his suspicions. Deeply moved by the
devotion so natural to women, but that always touches us,
because all men are flattered by the sacrifices that any
woman makes for any one of them. The merchant told
the Countess of the gossip that was circulating in the town,
and showed her the danger that she was running. He
wound up at last with saying that if there are
some of our public functionaries who are sufficiently ready to
pardon a piece of heroism on your part, so long
as it is a priest that you wish to save,
no one will show you any mercy if it is
discovered that you are sacrificing yourself to the dictates of
your heart. At these words, Madame de Day gazed at
her visitor with a wild excitement in her manner that
made him tremble. Old though he was come in, she said,
taking him by the hand to bring him to her room.
And as soon as she had assured herself that they
were alone, she drew a soiled, torn letter from her bodice.
Read it, she cried with a violent effort to pronounce
the words. She dropped as if exhausted, into her arm chair,
while the old Merchant looked for his spectacles and wiped them.
She raised her eyes and for the first time, looked
at him with curiosity. Then, in an uncertain voice, I
trust in you, she said, softly. Why did I come
but to share in your crime? The old merchant said simply.
She trembled for the first time since she had come
to the little town. Her soul found sympathy in another soul.
A sudden light dawned meantime on the old merchant. He
understood the Countess's joy and her prostration. Her son had
taken part in the Granville expedition. He wrote to his
mother from his prison, and the letter brought her a sad,
sweet hope. Feeling no doubts as to his means of escape,
he wrote that within three days, he was sure to
reach her disguised. The same letter that brought these weighty
tidings was full of heartrending farewells in case the writers
should not be in Carentan by the evening of the
third day, and he implored his mother to send a
considerable sum of money by the bearer, who had gone
through dangers innumerable to deliver it. The paper shook in
the old man's hands. And to day is the third day,
cried Madame de Day. She sprang to her feet, took
back the letter, and walked up and down. You have
set to work imprudently, the merchant remarked, addressing her, Why
did you buy provisions? Why he may come in dying
of hunger, worn out with fatigue, and she broke off.
I am sure of my brother, the old merchant went on,
I will engage him in your interests. The merchant in
this crisis recovered his old business Shreekdeness, and the advice
that he gave Madame de Day was full of prudence
and wisdom. After the two had agreed together as to
what they were to do and say, the old merchant
went on various ingenious pretexts to pay visits to the
principal houses of Carentan, announcing wherever he went that he
had just been to see Madame de Day and that,
in spite of her indisposition, she would receive that evening.
Matching his shrewdness against Norman wits in the cross examination
he underwent in every family as to the Countess's complaint,
he succeeded in putting almost everyone who took an interest
in the mysterious affair upon the wrong scent. His very
first call worked wonders. He told, in the hearing of
a gouty old lady, how that Madame de Deay had
all but died of an attack of gout in the stomach,
how that the illustrious Tronchin had recommended her, in such
a case to put the skin from a live hair
on her chest, to stop in bed and keep perfectly still.
The Countess, he said, had lain in danger of her
life for the past two days, but after carefully following
out Tronchin's singular prescription, she was now sufficiently recovered to
receive visitors that evening. This tale had an immense success
in Carentan. The local doctor, a royalist ant Petaut, added
to its effect by gravely discussing the specific suspicion nevertheless,
had taken too deep root in a few perverse or
philosophical minds to be entirely dissipated. So it fell out
that those who had the right of entry into Madame
de Dey's drawing room hurried thither at an early hour,
some to watch her face, some out of friendship, but
the more part attracted by the fame of the marvelous cure.
They found the Countess seated in a corner of the
great chimney piece in her room, which was almost as
modestly furnished as similar apartments in Carentan. For she had
given up the enjoyment of luxuries to which she had
formed only been accustomed, for fear of offending the narrow
prejudices of her guests. And she had made no changes
in her house. The floor was not even polished. She
had left the old somber hangings on the walls, had
kept the old fashioned country furniture, burned tallow candles, had
fallen in with the ways of the place, and adopted
provincial life without flinching before its cast iron narrowness, its
most disagreeable hardships, but knowing that her guests would forgive
her for any prodigality that conduced to their comfort, she
left nothing undone where their personal enjoyment was concerned. Her dinners,
for instance, were excellent. She even went so far as
to affect avarice to recommend herself to these sordid natures,
and had the ingenuity to make it appear that certain
concessions to luxury had been made at the instance of others,
to whom she had graciously yielded towards seven o'clock that evening. Therefore,
the nearest approach to polite society that Tarentine could boast
was assembled in Madame de Day's drawing room in a
wide circle about the fire. The old merchant's sympathetic glances
sustained the Mistress of the house through this ordeal. With
wonderful strength of mind, she underwent the curious scrutiny of
her guests and bore with their trivial prosings every time
there was a knock at the door, at every sound
of footsteps in the street. She hid her agitation by
raising questions of absorbing interest to the countryside. She led
the conversation on to the burning topic of the quality
of various sighters, and was so well seconded by her friend,
who shared her secret, that her guests almost forgot to
watch her, and her face wore its wonted look. Her
self possession was unshaken. The public prosecutor and one of
the judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal kept silence, however, noting
the slightest change that flickered over her features. Listening through
the noisy talk to every sound in the several times
they put awkward questions, which the Countess answered with wonderful
presence of mind. So brave is a mother's heart. Madame
de Day had drawn her visitors into little groups, had
made parties of Whist Boston or Reversus, and sat talking
with some of the young people. She seemed to be
living completely in the present moment and played her part
like a consummate actress. She elicited a suggestion of lotto,
and saying that no one else knew where to find
the game, she left the room. My good Brigitte, I
cannot breathe down there, she cried, brushing away the tears
that sprang to her eyes that glittered with fever, sorrow
and impatience. She had gone up to her son's room
and was looking round it. He does not come, She said, Here,
I can breathe and live a few minutes more, and
he will be here, for he is alive. I am
sure that he is alive. My heart tells me so.
Do you hear nothing, Brigitte, Oh, I would give the
rest of my life to know whether he is still
in prison or tramping across the country. I would rather
not think once more. She looked to see that everything
was in order. A bright fire blazed on the hearth.
The shutters were carefully closed, the furniture shone with cleanliness.
The bed had been made after a fashion that showed
that Brigitte and the Countess had given their minds to
every trifling detail. It was impossible not to read her
hopes in the dainty and thoughtful preparations about the room.
Love and a mother's tenderest caresses seemed to pervade the air,
in the scent of flowers. None but a mother could
have foreseen the requirements of a soldier and arranged so
completely for their satisfaction. A dainty meal, the best of wine,
clean linen, slippers, no necessary. No comfort was lacking for
the weary traveler, and all the delights of home heaped
upon him should reveal his mother's love. Oh, Brigitte, cried
the countess, with a heart rending inflection in her voice.
She drew a chair to the table, as if to
strengthen her illusions and realize her longings. Ah, Madame, he
is coming. He is not far off. I haven't a
doubt that he is living and on his way, Brigitte answered.
I put a key in the Bible and held it
on my fingers while Cotton read the Gospel of Saint John,
and the key did not turn. Madame, Is that a
certain sign? The countess asked, why, Yes, Madame, everybody knows
that he is still alive. I would stake my salvation
on it. God cannot be mistaken. If only I could
see him here in the house. In spite of the danger,
poor Monsieur August, cried Brigitte, I expect he is tramping
along the lanes, and that is eight o'clock striking now,
cried the Countess in terror. She was afraid that she
had been too long in the room where she felt
sure that her son was alive. All those preparations made
for him meant that he was alive. She went down,
but she lingered a moment in the peristyle for any
sound that might waken the sleeping echoes of the town.
She smiled at Brigitte's husband, who was standing there on guard.
The man's eyes looked stupid with the strain of listening
to the faint sounds of the night. She stared into
the darkness, seeing her son in every shadow everywhere, but
it was only for a moment. Then she went back
to the drawing room with an assumption of high spirits,
and began to play latto with the little girls. But
from time to time she complained of feeling unwell and
went to sit in her great chair by the fireside.
So things went in Madame de Dey's house and in
the minds of those beneath her roof. Meanwhile, on the
road from Paris to Cherbourg, a young man dressed in
the inevitable brown carmagnole of those days, was plodding his
way toward Carentan. When the first levies were made, there
was little or no discipline kept up. The exigencies of
the moment. Scarcely admitted of soldiers being equipped at once,
and it was no uncommon thing to see the roads
thronged with conscripts in their ordinary clothes. The young fellows
went ahead of their company to the next halting place,
or lagged behind it. It depended upon their fitness to
bear the fatigues of a long march. This particular wayfarer
was some considerable way in advance of a company of
conscripts on the way to Cherbourg, whom the mayor was
expecting to arrive every hour, for it was his duty
to distribute their billets. The young man's footsteps were still
firm as he trudged along, and his bearings seemed to
indicate that he was no stranger to the rough life
of a soldier. The moon shone on the pasture land
about Carentan, but he had noticed great masses of white
cloud that were about to scatter showers of snow over
the country, and doubtless the fear of being overtaken by
a storm had quickened his pace. In spite of his weariness,
the wallet on his back was almost empty, and he
carried a stick in his hand cut from one of
the high, thick box hedges that surround most of the
farms in Lower Normandy. As the solitary wayfarer came into Carentan.
The gleaming moonlit outlines of its towers stood out for
a moment with the ghostly effect against the sky. He
met no one in the silent streets that rang with
the echoes of his own footsteps, and was obliged to
ask the way to the mayor's house of a weaver
who was working late. The magistrate was not far to seek,
and in a few minutes the conscript was sitting on
a stone bench in the mayor's porch, waiting for his billet.
He was sent for, however, and confronted with that functionary
who scrutinized him closely. The foot soldier was a good
looking young man who appeared to be of gentle birth.
There was something aristocratic in his bearing, and signs in
his face of intelligence developed by a good education. What
is your name, asked the mayor, eyeing him shrewdly. Julien Mosieu,
answered the conscript from queried the official, and an incredulous
smile stole over his features. From Paris. Your comrades must
be a good way behind, remarked the Norman, in sarcastic tones.
I am three leagues ahead of the battalion. Some sentiment
attracts you to Carentan. Of course, citizen, conscript, said the
mayor astutely. All right, all right, he added, with a
wave of the hand, seeing that the young man was
about to speak, we know where to send you there.
Off with you, citizensieur, and he handed over the billet.
There was a tinge of irony in the stress. The
magistrate laid on the last two words while he held
out a billet on Madame de Day. The conscript read
the direction curiously. He knows quite well that he has
not far to go, and when he gets outside, he
will very soon cross the market place. The mayor said
to himself, as the other went out. He is uncommonly bold.
God guide him. He has an answer ready for everything. Yes,
but if somebody else had asked to see his papers,
it would have been all up with him. The clocks
in Carentan struck half past nine. As he spoke. Lanterns
were being lit in Madame de Day's ante chamber. Servants
were helping their masters and mistresses into sabout greatcoats and calashes.
The card players settled their accounts, and everybody went out
together after the fashion of all little country towns. It
looks as if the prosecutor meant to stop, said a
lady who noticed that that important personage was not in
the group in the market place where they all took
leave of one another before going their separate ways home.
And as a matter of fact, that redoubtable functionary was
alone with the Countess, who waited trembling till he should go.
There was something appalling in their long silence. Citoyenne, he said,
at last, I am here to see that the laws
of the republic are carried out. Madame de Daz shuddered,
Have you nothing to tell me? Nothing? She answered in amazement.
Ah Madame, cried the prosecutor, sitting down beside her and
changing his tone. At this moment, for lack of a word,
one of us, you or I may carry our heads
to the scaffold. I have watched your character, your soul,
your manner too closely to share the error into which
you have managed to lead your visitors. To night. You
are expecting your son, I could not doubt it. The
Countess made an involuntary sign of denial, but her face
had grown white and drawn with the struggle to maintain
the composure. That she did not feel, and no tremor
was lost on the merciless prosecutor. Very well, the revolutionary
official went on, receive him, but do not let him
stay under your roof after seven o'clock tomorrow morning. For tomorrow,
as soon as it is light, I shall come with
a denunciation that I will have made out. And she
looked at him, and the dull misery in her eyes
would have softened a tiger. I will make it clear
that the denunciation was false by making a thorough search.
He went on, in a gentle voice. My report shall
be such that you will be safe from any subsequent suspicion.
I shall make mention of your patriotic gifts, your civicism,
and all of us will be safe. Madame de Day,
fearful of a trap, sat motionless, her face afire, her
tongue frozen. A knock at the door rang through the house. Oh,
cried the terrified mother, falling upon her knees. Save him,
save him, Yes, let us save him, returned the public prosecutor,
and his eyes grew bright as he looked at her.
If it costs us our lives lost, she wailed. The
prosecutor raised her politely, madame, he said, with a flourish
of eloquence, to your own free will alone, I would, Oh, Madame,
he is, cried Brigitte, thinking that her mistress was alone.
At the sight of the public prosecutor, the old servant's
joy flushed countenance became haggard and impassive. Who is it, Brigitte,
The prosecutor asked, kindly, as if he too were in
the secret of the household, a conscript that the mayor
has sent here for a night's lodging. The woman replied,
holding out the billet. So it is, said the prosecutor,
when he had read the slip of paper. A battalion
is coming here to night, and he went. The Countess's
need to believe in the faith of her some time
attorney was so great that she dared not entertain any
suspicion of him. She fled upstairs. She felt scarcely strength
enough to stand. She opened the door and sprang, half
dead with fear, into her son's arms. Oh, my child,
my child, she sobbed, covering him with almost frenzied kisses.
Madame said a stranger's voice, Oh it is not he,
she cried, shrinking away in terror and She stood face
to face with the conscript, gazing at him with haggard eyes. Oh,
Saint bon dieu, how like he is, cried Brigitte. There
was silence for a moment. Even the stranger trembled at
the sight of Madame de Der's face. Ah monsieur, she said,
leaning on the arm of Brigitte's husband, feeling for the
first time the full extent of a sorrow that had
all but killed her at its first threatening Ah, monsieur,
I cannot stay to see you any longer. Permit my
servants to supply my place and to see that you
have all that you want. She went down to her
own room, Brigitte and the old serving man half carrying
her between them. The housekeeper set her mistress in a
chair and broke out, what, Madame, is that man to
sleep in Monsieur Auguste's bed and wear Monsieur August's slippers
and eat the pasty that I made for Monsieur Auguste.
Why if they were to guillotine me for it, I,
Brigitte cried. Madame de de Brigitte said no more, hold
your tongue, chatterbox, said her husband in a low voice.
Do you want to kill Madame. A sound came from
the conscript's room as he drew his chair to the table.
I shall not stay here, cried Madame de Dey. I
shall go into the conservatory. I shall hear better there
if any one passes in the night. She still wavered
between the fear that she had lost her son and
the hope of seeing him once more. That night was
hideously silent. Once for the countess. There was an awful
interval when the battalion of conscripts entered the town, and
the men went by one by one to their lodgings.
Every footfall, every sound in the street raised hopes to
be disappointed. But it was not for long. The dreadful
why it succeeded again toward morning, the Countess was forced
to return to her room. Brigitte, ever keeping watch over
her mistress's movements, did not see her come out again,
and when she went she found the Countess lying there dead.
I expect she heard that conscript, cried Brigitte walking about
Monsieur Auguste's room, whistling that accursed marseies of there, while
he dressed as if he had been in a stable.
That must have killed her. But it was a deeper
and more solemn emotion, and doubtless some dreadful vision, that
had caused Madame de Day's death, for at the very
hour when she died at Carentan, her son was shot
in ler Morbihan. This tragical story may be added to
all the instances on record of the workings of sympathies
uncontrolled by the laws of time and space. These observations,
collected with scientific curiosity by a few isolated indibi, will
one day serve as documents on which to base the
foundations of a new science which hitherto has lacked its
man of genius.