The Wandering Jew — Complete
by your generous heart? Is it not a continual exchange of devotion,
tenderness, esteem, of mutual and blind confidence?--Why, Magdalen!
we may have all this for one another--devotion, tenderness,
confidence--even more than in times past; for, on a thousand occasions,
your secret inspired you with fear and suspicion--while, for the future,
on the contrary, you will see me take such delight in the place I fill
in your good and valiant heart, that you will be happy in the happiness
you bestow. What I have just said may seem very selfish and conceited;
so much the worse! I do not know how to lie."
The longer the smith spoke, the less troubled became Mother Bunch. What
she had above all feared in the discovery of her secret was to see it
received with raillery, contempt, or humiliating compassion; far from
this, joy and happiness were distinctly visible on the manly and
honest face of Agricola. The hunchback knew him incapable of deception;
therefore she exclaimed, this time without shame or confusion, but
rather with a sort of pride.
"Every sincere and pure passion is so far good and con soling as to end
by deserving interest and sympathy, when it has triumphed over its first
excess! It is alike honorable to the heart which feels and that which
inspires it!--Thanks to you, Agricola--thanks to the kind words, which
have raised me in my own esteem--I feel that, instead of blushing, I
ought to be proud of this love. My benefactress is right--you are right:
why should I be ashamed of it? Is it not a true and sacred love? To be
near you, to love you, to tell you so, to prove it by constant devotion,
what did I ever desire more? And yet shame and fear, joined with that
dizziness of the brain which extreme misery produces, drove me to
suicide!--But then some allowance must be made for the suspicions of a
poor creature, who has been the subject of ridicule from her cradle.
So my secret was to die with me, unless some unforeseen accident should
reveal it to you; and, in that case, you are right--sure of myself, sure
of you, I ought to have feared nothing. But I may claim some indulgence;
mistrust, cruel mistrust of one's self makes one doubt others also. Let
us forget all that. Agricola, my generous brother, I will say to you,
as you said to me just now, 'Look at me; you know my countenance cannot
lie. Look at me: see if I shun your gaze; see if, ever in my life, I
looked so happy'--and yet, even now, I was about to die!"
She spoke the truth. Agricola himself could not have hoped so prompt an
effect from his words. In spite of the deep traces which misery, grief,
and sickness had imprinted on the girl's features, they now shone with
radiant happiness and serenity, whilst her blue eyes, gentle and pure as
her soul, were fixed, without embarrassment, on those of Agricola.
"Oh! thanks, thanks!" cried the smith, in a rapture of delight: "when I
see you so calm, and so happy, Magdalen, I am indeed grateful."
"Yes, I am calm, I am happy," replied she; "and happy I shall be, for
I can now tell you my most secret thoughts. Yes, happy; for this day,
which began so fatally, ends like a divine dream. Far from being afraid,
I now look at you with hope and joy. I have again found my generous
benefactress, and I am tranquil as to the fate of my poor sister.
Oh! shall we not soon see her? I should like her to take part in this
happiness."
She seemed so happy, that the smith did not dare to inform her of the
death of Cephyse, and reserved himself to communicate the same at a
more fitting opportunity. Therefore he answered: "Cephyse, being the
stronger, has been the more shaken; it will not be prudent, I am told,
to see her to-day."
"I will wait then. I can repress my impatience, I have so much to say to
you."
"Dear, gentle Magdalen!"
"Oh, my friend!" cried the girl, interrupting Agricola, with tears of
joy: "I cannot tell you what I feel, when I hear you call me Magdalen.
It is so sweet, so soothing, that my heart expands with delight."
"Poor girl! how dreadfully she must have suffered!" cried the smith,
with inexpressible emotion, "when she displays so much happiness, so
much gratitude, at being called by her own poor name!"
"But consider, my friend; that word in your mouth contains a new life
for me. If you only knew what hopes, what pleasures I can now see
gleaming in the future! If you knew all the cherished longings of my
tenderness! Your wife, the charming Angela, with her angel face and
angel-soul--oh! in my turn, I can say to, you, 'Look at me, and see how
sweet that name is to my lips and heart!' Yes, your charming, your
good Angela will call me Magdalen--and your children, Agricola,
your children!--dear little creatures!--to them also I shall be
Magdalen--their good Magdalen--and the love I shall bear them will make
them mine, as well as their mother's--and I shall have my part in
every maternal care--and they will belong to us three; will they not,
Agricola?--Oh! let me, let me weep! These tears without bitterness do me
so much good; they are tears that need not be concealed. Thank heaven!
thank you, my friend! those other tears are I trust dried forever."
For some seconds, this affecting scene had been overlooked by an
invisible witness. The smith and Mother Bunch had not perceived Mdlle.
de Cardoville standing on the threshold of the door. As Mother Bunch
had said, this day, which dawned with all under such fatal auspices, had
become for all a day of ineffable felicity. Adrienne, too, was full of
joy, for Djalma had been faithful to her, Djalma loved her with passion.
The odious appearances, of which she had been the dupe and victim,
evidently formed part of a new plot of Rodin, and it only remained for
Mdlle. de Cardoville to discover the end of these machinations.
Another joy was reserved for her. The happy are quick in detecting
happiness in others, and Adrienne guessed, by the hunchback's last
words, that there was no longer any secret between the smith and the
sempstress. She could not therefore help exclaiming, as she entered:
"Oh! this will be the brightest day of my life, for I shall not be happy
alone!"
Agricola and Mother Bunch turned round hastily. "Lady," said the smith,
"in spite of the promise I made you, I could not conceal from Magdalen
that I knew she loved me!"
"Now that I no longer blush for this love before Agricola, why should I
blush for it before you, lady, that told me to be proud of it, because
it is noble and pure?" said Mother Bunch, to whom her happiness gave
strength enough to rise, and to lean upon Agricola's arm.
"It is well, my friend," said Adrienne, as she threw her arms round her
to support her; "only one word, to excuse the indiscretion with which
you will perhaps reproach me. If I told your secret to M. Agricola--"
"Do you know why it was, Magdalen?" cried the smith, interrupting
Adrienne. "It was only another proof of the lady's delicate generosity.
'I long hesitate to confide to you this secret,' said she to me this
morning, 'but I have at length made up my mind to it. We shall probably
find your adopted sister; you have been to her the best of brothers:
but many times, without knowing it, you have wounded her feelings
cruelly--and now that you know her secret, I trust in your kind heart to
keep it faithfully, and so spare the poor child a thousand pangs--pangs
the more bitter, because they come from you, and are suffered in
silence. Hence, when you speak to her of your wife, your domestic
happiness, take care not to gall that noble and tender heart.'--Yes,
Magdalen, these were the reasons that led the lady to commit what she
called an indiscretion."
"I want words to thank you now and ever," said Mother Bunch.
"See, my friend," replied Adrienne, "how often the designs of the wicked
turn against themselves. They feared your devotion to me, and therefore
employed that unhappy Florine to steal your journal--"
"So as to drive me from your house with shame, lady, When I supposed my
most secret thoughts an object of ridicule to all. There can be no doubt
such was their plan," said Mother Bunch.
"None, my child. Well! this horrible wickedness, which nearly caused
your death, now turns to the confusion of the criminals. Their plot is
discovered--and, luckily, many other of their designs," said Adrienne,
as she thought of Rose-Pompon.
Then she resumed, with heartfelt joy: "At last, we are again united,
happier than ever, and in our very happiness we shall find new resources
to combat our enemies. I say our enemies--for all that love me are
odious to these wretches. But courage, the hour is come, and the good
people will have their turn."
"Thank heaven, lady," said the smith; "or my part, I shall not be
wanting in zeal. What delight to strip them of their mask!"
"Let me remind you, M. Baudoin, that you have an appointment for to
morrow with M. Hardy."
"I have not forgotten it, lady, any more than the generous offers I am
to convey to him."
"That is nothing. He belongs to my family. Tell him (what indeed I
shall write to him this evening), that the funds necessary to reopen his
factory are at his disposal; I do not say so for his sake only, but for
that of a hundred families reduced to want. Beg him to quit immediately
the fatal abode to which they have taken him: for a thousand reasons he
should be on his guard against all that surround him."
"Be satisfied, lady. The letter he wrote to me in reply to the one I got
secretly delivered to him, was short, affectionate, sad--but he grants
me the interview I had asked for, and I am sure I shall be able to
persuade him to leave that melancholy dwelling, and perhaps to depart
with me, he has always had so much confidence in my attachment."
"Well, M. Baudoin, courage!" said Adrienne, as she threw her cloak over
the workgirl's shoulders, and wrapped her round with care. "Let us be
gone, for it is late. As soon as we get home, I will give you a letter
for M. Hardy, and to-morrow you will come and tell me the result of your
visit. No, not to-morrow," she added, blushing slightly. "Write to me
to-morrow, and the day after, about twelve, come to me."
Some minutes later, the young sempstress, supported by Agricola and
Adrienne, had descended the stairs of that gloomy house, and, being
placed in the carriage by the side of Mdlle. de Cardoville, she
earnestly entreated to be allowed to see Cephyse; it was in vain that
Agricola assured her it was impossible, and that she should see her the
next day. Thanks to the information derived from Rose-Pompon, Mdlle. de
Cardoville was reasonably suspicious of all those who surrounded Djalma,
and she therefore took measures, that, very evening, to have a letter
delivered to the prince by what she considered a sure hand.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE TWO CARRIAGES.
It is the evening of the day on which Mdlle. de Cardoville prevented the
sewing-girl's suicide. It strikes eleven; the night is dark; the
wind blows with violence, and drives along great black clouds, which
completely hide the pale lustre of the moon. A hackney-coach, drawn by
two broken-winded horses, ascends slowly and with difficulty the slope
of the Rue Blanche, which is pretty steep near the barrier, in the part
where is situated the house occupied by Djalma.
The coach stops. The coachman, cursing the length of an interminable
drive "within the circuit," leading at last to this difficult ascent,
turns round on his box, leans over towards the front window of the
vehicle, and says in a gruff tone to the person he is driving: "Come!
are we almost there? From the Rue de Vaugirard to the Barriere Blanche,
is a pretty good stretch, I think, without reckoning that the night
is so dark, that one can hardly see two steps before one--and the