The Wandering Jew — Complete
die--for you assure me, lady, that Cephyse was succored in time."
"Be satisfied! I was told just now that she was recovering her senses."
"And they told her I was living, did they not, lady? Otherwise, she
would perhaps regret having survived me."
"Be quite easy, my dear girl!" said Adrienne, pressing the poor hands in
her own, and gazing on her with eyes full of tears; "they have told her
all that was proper. Do not trouble yourself about anything; only think
of recovering--and I hope you will yet enjoy that happiness of which you
have known so little, my poor child."
"How kind you are, lady! After flying from your house--and when you must
think me so ungrateful!"
"Presently, when you are not so weak, I have a great deal to tell you.
Just now, it would fatigue you too much. But how do you feel?"
"Better, lady. This fresh air--and then the thought, that, since you are
come--my poor sister will no more be reduced to despair; for I will
tell you all, and I am sure you will have pity on Cephyse--will you not,
lady?"
"Rely upon me, my child," answered Adrienne, forced to dissemble her
painful embarrassment; "you know I am interested in all that interests
you. But tell me," added Mdlle. de Cardoville, in a voice of emotion,
"before taking this desperate resolution, did you not write to me?"
"Yes, lady."
"Alas!" resumed Adrienne, sorrowfully; "and when you received no
answer--how cruel, how ungrateful you must have thought me!"
"Oh! never, lady, did I accuse you of such feelings; my poor sister will
tell you so. You had my gratitude to the last."
"I believe you--for I knew your heart. But how then did you explain my
silence?"
"I had justly offended you by my sudden departure, lady."
"Offended!--Alas! I never received your letter."
"And yet you know that I wrote to you, lady."
"Yes, my poor girl; I know, also, that you wrote to me at my porter's
lodge. Unfortunately, he delivered your letter to one of my women, named
Florine, telling her it came from you."
"Florine! the young woman that was so kind to me!"
"Florine deceived me shamefully; she was sold to my enemies, and acted
as a spy on my actions."
"She!--Good Heavens!" cried Mother Bunch. "Is it possible?"
"She herself," answered Adrienne, bitterly; "but, after all, we
must pity as well as blame her. She was forced to obey by a terrible
necessity, and her confession and repentance secured my pardon before
her death."
"Then she is dead--so young! so fair!"
"In spite of her faults, I was greatly moved by her end. She confessed
what she had done, with such heart-rending regrets. Amongst her avowals,
she told me she had intercepted a letter, in which you asked for an
interview that might save your sister's life."
"It is true, lady; such were the terms of my letter. What interest had
they to keep it from you?"
"They feared to see you return to me, my good guardian angel. You loved
me so tenderly, and my enemies dreaded your faithful affection, so
wonderfully aided by the admirable instinct of your heart. Ah! I shall
never forget how well-deserved was the horror with which you were
inspired by a wretch whom I defended against your suspicions."
"M. Rodin?" said Mother Bunch, with a shudder.
"Yes," replied Adrienne; "but we will not talk of these people now.
Their odious remembrance would spoil the joy I feel in seeing you
restored to life--for your voice is less feeble, your cheeks are
beginning to regain a little color. Thank God! I am so happy to have
found you once more;--if you knew all that I hope, all that I expect
from our reunion--for we will not part again--promise me that, in the
name of our friendship."
"I--your friend!" said Mother Bunch, timidly casting down her eyes.
"A few days before your departure from my house, did I not call you
my friend, my sister? What is there changed? Nothing, nothing,"
added Mdlle. de Cardoville, with deep emotion. "One might say, on
the contrary, that a fatal resemblance in our positions renders your
friendship even dearer to me. And I shall have it, shall I not. Oh, do
not refuse it me--I am so much in want of a friend!"
"You, lady? you in want of the friendship of a poor creature like me?"
"Yes," answered Adrienne, as she gazed on the other with an expression
of intense grief; "nay, more, you are perhaps the only person, to whom
I could venture to confide my bitter sorrows." So saying, Mdlle. de
Cardoville colored deeply.
"And how do I deserve such marks of confidence?" asked Mother Bunch,
more and more surprised.
"You deserve it by the delicacy of your heart, by the steadiness of your
character," answered Adrienne, with some hesitation; "then--you are a
woman--and I am certain you will understand what I suffer, and pity me."
"Pity you, lady?" said the other, whose astonishment continued to
increase. "You, a great lady, and so much envied--I, so humble and
despised, pity you?"
"Tell me, my poor friend," resumed Adrienne, after some moments of
silence, "are not the worst griefs those which we dare not avow to
any one, for fear of raillery and contempt? How can we venture to ask
interest or pity, for sufferings that we hardly dare avow to ourselves,
because they make us blush?"
The sewing-girl could hardly believe what she heard. Had her
benefactress felt, like her, the effects of an unfortunate passion, she
could not have held any other language. But the sempstress could not
admit such a supposition; so, attributing to some other cause the
sorrows of Adrienne, she answered mournfully, whilst she thought of her
own fatal love for Agricola, "Oh! yes, lady. A secret grief, of which we
are ashamed, must be frightful--very frightful!"
"But then what happiness to meet, not only a heart noble enough to
inspire complete confidence, but one which has itself been tried by
a thousand sorrows, and is capable of affording you pity, support and
counsel!--Tell me, my dear child," added Mdlle. de Cardoville, as she
looked attentively at Mother Bunch, "if you were weighed down by one of
those sorrows, at which one blushes, would you not be happy, very happy,
to find a kindred soul, to whom you might entrust your griefs, and half
relieve them by entire and merited confidence?"
For the first time in her life, Mother Bunch regarded Mdlle. de
Cardoville with a feeling of suspicion and sadness.
The last words of the young lady seemed to her full of meaning
"Doubtless, she knows my secret," said Mother Bunch to herself;
"doubtless, my journal has fallen into her hands.--She knows my love
for Agricola, or at least suspects it. What she has been saying to me is
intended to provoke my confidence, and to assure herself if she has been
rightly informed."
These thoughts excited in the workgirl's mind no bitter or ungrateful
feeling towards her benefactress; but the heart of the unfortunate girl
was so delicately susceptible on the subject of her fatal passion, that,
in spite of her deep and tender affection for Mdlle. de Cardoville,
she suffered cruelly at the thought of Adrienne's being mistress of her
secret.
CHAPTER XXXIV. MORE CONFESSIONS.
The fancy, at first so painful, that Mdlle. de Cardoville was informed
of her love for Agricola was soon exchanged in the hunchbacks heart,
thanks to the generous instincts of that rare and excellent creature,
for a touching regret, which showed all her attachment and veneration
for Adrienne.
"Perhaps," said Mother Bunch to herself, "conquered by the influence
of the adorable kindness of my protectress, I might have made to her a
confession which I could make to none other, and revealed a secret which
I thought to carry with me to my grave. It would, at least, have been a
mark of gratitude to Mdlle. de Cardoville; but, unfortunately, I am
now deprived of the sad comfort of confiding my only secret to my
benefactress. And then--however generous may be her pity for me, however
intelligent her affection, she cannot--she, that is so fair and so
much admired--she cannot understand how frightful is the position of a
creature like myself, hiding in the depth of a wounded heart, a love at
once hopeless and ridiculous. No, no--in spite of the delicacy of her
attachment, my benefactress must unconsciously hurt my feelings, even
whilst she pities me--for only sympathetic sorrows can console each
other. Alas! why did she not leave me to die?"
These reflections presented themselves to the thinker's mind as rapidly
as thought could travel. Adrienne observed her attentively; she remarked
that the sewing-girl's countenance, which had lately brightened up, was
again clouded, and expressed a feeling of painful humiliation. Terrified
at this relapse into gloomy dejection, the consequences of which might
be serious, for Mother Bunch was still very weak, and, as it were,
hovering on the brink of the grave, Mdlle. de Cardoville resumed
hastily: "My friend, do not you think with me, that the most cruel and
humiliating grief admits of consolation, when it can be entrusted to a
faithful and devoted heart?"
"Yes, lady," said the young sempstress, bitterly; "but the heart which
suffers in silence, should be the only judge of the moment for making
so painful a confession. Until then, it would perhaps be more humane to
respect its fatal secret, even if one had by chance discovered it."
"You are right, my child," said Adrienne, sorrowfully, "if I choose this
solemn moment to entrust you with a very painful secret, it is that,
when you have heard me, I am sure you will set more value on your life,
as knowing how much I need your tenderness, consolation, and pity."
At these words, the other half raised herself on the mattress, and
looked at Mdlle. de Cardoville in amazement. She could scarcely believe
what she heard; far from designing to intrude upon her confidence, it
was her protectress who was to make the painful confession, and who came
to implore pity and consolation from her!
"What!" stammered she; "you, lady!"
"I come to tell you that I suffer, and am ashamed of my sufferings.
Yes," added the young lady, with a touching expression, "yes--of all
confessions, I am about to make the most painful--I love--and I blush
for my love."
"Like myself!" cried Mother Bunch, involuntarily, clasping her hands
together.
"I love," resumed Adrienne, with a long-pent-up grief; "I love, and am
not beloved--and my love is miserable, is impossible--it consumes me--it
kills me--and I dare not confide to any one the fatal secret!"
"Like me," repeated the other, with a fixed look. "She--a queen in
beauty, rank, wealth, intelligence--suffers like me. Like me, poor
unfortunate creature! she loves, and is not loved again."
"Well, yes! like you, I love and am not loved again," cried Mdlle. de
Cardoville; "was I wrong in saying, that to you alone I could confide
my secret--because, having suffered the same pangs, you alone can pity
them?"
"Then, lady," said Mother Bunch, casting down her eyes, and recovering
from her first amazement, "you knew--"
"I knew all, my poor child--but never should I have mentioned your
secret, had I not had one to entrust you with, of a still more painful
nature. Yours is cruel, but mine is humiliating. Oh, my sister!" added
Mdlle. de Cardoville, in a tone impossible to describe, "misfortune,
you, see, blends and confounds together what are called distinctions of
rank and fortune--and often those whom the world envies are reduced by
suffering far below the poorest and most humble, and have to seek from
the latter pity and consolation."
Then, drying her tears, which nosy flowed abundantly, Mdlle. de
Cardoville resumed, in a voice of emotion: "Come, sister! courage,
courage! let us love and sustain each other. Let this sad and mysterious
bond unite us forever."