The Wandering Jew — Complete
the room. Seeing him in that way, I remained; he grew more angry, still
I remained; perceiving a chair and table thrown down, I pointed to them
with so sad an air that he understood me. You know that he has the best
heart in the world, so, taking me by the hand, he said to me: 'Forgive
me for causing you this uneasiness, my good Dagobert; but just now, I
lost my senses, and gave way to a burst of absurd fury; I think I should
have thrown myself out of the window, had it been open. I only hope,
that my poor dear girls have not heard me,' added he, as he went on
tip-toe to open the door which communicates with his daughters' bedroom.
When he had listened anxiously for a moment, he returned to me, and
said: 'Luckily, they are asleep.'--Then I asked him what was the cause
of his agitation, and if, in spite of my precautions, he had received
any more anonymous letters. 'No,' replied he, with a gloomy air; 'but
leave me, my friend. I am now better. It has done me good to see you.
Good--night, old comrade! go downstairs to bed.'--I took care not to
contradict him; but, pretending to go down, I came up again, and seated
myself on the top stair, listening. No doubt, to calm himself entirely,
the marshal went to embrace his children, for I heard him open and shut
their door. Then he returned to his room, and walked about for a long
time, but with a more quiet step. At last, I heard him throw himself on
his bed, and I came down about break of day. After that, all remained
tranquil."
"But whatever can be the matter with him, father?"
"I do not know. When I went up to him, I was astonished at the agitation
of his countenance, and the brilliancy of his eyes. He would have looked
much the same, had he been delirious, or in a burning fever--so that,
when I heard him say, he could have thrown himself out of the window,
had it been open, I thought it more prudent to remove the caps from his
pistols."
"I cannot understand it!" said Agricola. "So firm, intrepid, and cool a
man as the marshal, a prey to such violence!"
"I tell you that something very extraordinary is passing within him.
For two days, he has not been to see his children, which is always a bad
sign with him--to say nothing of the poor little angels themselves, who
are miserable at the notion that they have displeased their father. They
displease him! If you only knew the life they lead, dear creatures! a
walk or ride with me and their companion, for I never let them go
out alone, and, the rest of their time, at their studies, reading, or
needlework--always together--and then to bed. Yet their duenna, who is,
I think, a worthy woman, tells me that sometimes at night, she has seen
them shed tears in their sleep. Poor children! they have hitherto known
but little happiness," added the soldier, with a sigh.
At this moment, hearing some one walk hastily across the courtyard,
Dagobert raised his eyes, and saw Marshal Simon, with pale face and
bewildered air, holding in his two hands a letter, which he seemed to
read with devouring anxiety.
CHAPTER XLVII. THE GOLDEN CITY.
While Marshal Simon was crossing the little court with so agitated
an air, reading the anonymous letter, which he had received by
Spoil-sport's unexpected medium, Rose and Blanche were alone together,
in the sitting room they usually occupied, which had been entered for a
moment by Loony during their absence. The poor children seemed destined
to a succession of sorrows. At the moment their mourning for their
mother drew near its close, the tragical death of their grandfather had
again dressed them in funereal weeds. They were seated together upon a
couch, in front of their work-table. Grief often produces the effect of
years. Hence, in a few months, Rose and Blanche had become quite young
women. To the infantine grace of their charming faces, formerly so plump
and rosy, but now pale and thin, had succeeded an expression of grave
and touching sadness. Their large, mild eyes of limpid azure, which
always had a dreamy character, were now never bathed in those joyous
tears, with which a burst of frank and hearty laughter used of old to
adorn their silky lashes, when the comic coolness of Dagobert, or some
funny trick of Spoil-sport, cheered them in the course of their long and
weary pilgrimage.
In a word, those delightful faces, which the flowery pencil of Greuze
could alone have painted in all their velvet freshness, were now worthy
of inspiring the melancholy ideal of the immortal Ary Scheffer, who gave
us Mignon aspiring to Paradise, and Margaret dreaming of Faust. Rose,
leaning back on the couch, held her head somewhat bowed upon her
bosom, over which was crossed a handkerchief of black crape. The light
streaming from a window opposite, shone softly on her pure, white
forehead, crowned by two thick bands of chestnut hair. Her look was
fixed, and the open arch of her eyebrows, now somewhat contracted,
announced a mind occupied with painful thoughts. Her thin, white little
hands had fallen upon her knees, but still held the embroidery, on which
she had been engaged. The profile of Blanche was visible, leaning a
little towards her sister, with an expression of tender and anxious
solicitude, whilst her needle remained in the canvas, as if she had just
ceased to work.
"Sister," said Blanche, in a low voice, after some moments of silence,
during which the tears seemed to mount to her eyes, "tell me what you
are thinking of. You look so sad."
"I think of the Golden City of our dreams," replied Rose, almost in a
whisper, after another short silence.
Blanche understood the bitterness of these words. Without speaking, she
threw herself on her sister's neck, and wept. Poor girls! the Golden
City of their dreams was Paris, with their father in it--Paris, the
marvellous city of joys and festivals, through all of which the orphans
had beheld the radiant and smiling countenance of their sire! But, alas!
the Beautiful City had been changed into a place of tears, and death,
and mourning. The same terrible pestilence which had struck down their
mother in the heart of Siberia, seemed to have followed them like a dark
and fatal cloud, which, always hovering above them, hid the mild blue of
the sky, and the joyous light of the sun.
The Golden City of their dreams! It was the place, where perhaps one day
their father would present to them two young lovers, good and fair as
themselves. "They love you," he was to say; "they are worthy of you.
Let each of you have a brother, and me two sons." Then what chaste,
enchanting confusion for those two orphans, whose hearts, pure as
crystal, had never reflected any image but that of Gabriel, the
celestial messenger sent by their mother to protect them!
We can therefore understand the painful emotion of Blanche, when she
heard her sister repeat, with bitter melancholy, those words which
described their whole situation: "I think of the Golden City of our
dreams!"
"Who knows?" proceeded Blanche, drying her sister's tears; "perhaps,
happiness may yet be in store for us."
"Alas! if we are not happy with our father by us--shall we ever be so?"
"Yes, when we rejoin our mother," said Blanche, lifting her eyes to
heaven.
"Then, sister, this dream may be a warning--it is so like that we had in
Germany."
"The difference being that then the Angel Gabriel came down from heaven
to us, and that this time he takes us from earth, to our mother."
"And this dream will perhaps come true, like the other, my sister. We
dreamt that the Angel Gabriel would protect us, and he came to save us
from the shipwreck."
"And, this time, we dream that he will lead us to heaven. Why should not
that happen also?"
"But to bring that about, sister, our Gabriel, who saved us from the
shipwreck, must die also. No, no; that must not happen. Let us pray that
it may not happen."
"No, it will not happen--for it is only Gabriel's good angel, who is so
like him, that we saw in our dreams."
"Sister, dear, how singular is this dream!--Here, as in Germany, we have
both dreamt the same--three times, the very same!"
"It is true. The Angel Gabriel bent over us, and looked at us with so
mild and sad an air, saying: 'Come, my children! come, my sisters! Your
mother waits for you. Poor children, arrived from so far!' added he in
his tender voice: 'You have passed over the earth, gentle and innocent
as two doves, to repose forever in the maternal nest.'"
"Yes, those were the words of the archangel," said the other orphan,
with a pensive air; "we have done no harm to any one, and we have loved
those who loved us--why should we fear to die?"
"Therefore, dear sister, we rather smiled than wept, when he took us
by the hand, and, spreading wide his beautiful white wings, carried us
along with him to the blue depths of the sky."
"To heaven, where our dear mother waited for us with open arms, her face
all bathed in tears."
"Oh, sweet sister! one has not dreams like ours for nothing. And then,"
added she, looking at Rose, with a sad smile that went to the heart,
"our death might perhaps end the sorrow, of which we have been the
cause."
"Alas! it is not our fault. We love him so much. But we are so timid and
sorrowful before him, that he may perhaps think we love him not."
So saying, Rose took her handkerchief from her workbasket, to dry her
fears; a paper, folded in the form of a letter, fell out.
At this sight, the two shuddered, and pressed close to one mother,
and Rose said to Blanche, in a trembling voice: "Another of these
letters!--Oh, I am afraid! It will doubtless be like the last."
"We must pick it up quickly, that it may not be seen," said Blanche,
hastily stooping to seize the letter; "the people who take interest in
us might otherwise be exposed to great danger."
"But how could this letter come to us?"
"How did the others come to be placed right under our hand, and always
in the absence of our duenna?"
"It is true. Why seek to explain the mystery? We should never be able to
do so. Let us read the letter. It will perhaps be more favorable to us
than the last." And the two sisters read as follows:-"Continue to love
your father, dear children, for he is very miserable, and you are the
involuntary cause of his distress. You will never know the terrible
sacrifices that your presence imposes on him; but, alas! he is the
victim of his paternal duties. His sufferings are more cruel than ever;
spare him at least those marks of tenderness, which occasion him so much
more pain than pleasure. Each caress is a dagger-stroke, for he sees in
you the innocent cause of his misfortunes. Dear children, you must not
therefore despair. If you have enough command over yourselves, not to
torture him by the display of too warm a tenderness, if you can mingle
some reserve with your affection, you will greatly alleviate his sorrow.
Keep these letters a secret from every one, even from good Dagobert,
who loves you so much; otherwise, both he and you, your father, and
the unknown friend who is writing to you, will be exposed to the utmost
peril, for your enemies are indeed formidable. Courage and hope! May
your father's tenderness be once more free from sorrow and regret!--That
happy day is perhaps not so far distant. Burn this letter like all the
others!"
The above note was written with so much cunning that, even supposing the
orphans had communicated it to their father or Dagobert, it would at the
worst have been considered a strange, intrusive proceeding, but almost
excusable from the spirit in which it was conceived. Nothing could
have been contrived with more perfidious art, if we consider the cruel
perplexity in which Marshal Simon was struggling between the fear
of again leaving his children and the shame of neglecting what he