SICKNESS UNTO DEATH
For several days Calyste went regularly to Les Touches. He paced round
and round the lawn, where he had sometimes walked with Beatrix on his
arm. He often went to Croisic to stand upon that fateful rock, or lie
for hours in the bush of box; for, by studying the footholds on the
sides of the fissure, he had found a means of getting up and down.
These solitary trips, his silence, his gravity, made his mother very
anxious. After about two weeks, during which time this conduct, like
that of a caged animal, lasted, this poor lover, caged in his despair,
ceased to cross the bay; he had scarcely strength to drag himself
along the road from Guerande to the spot where he had seen Beatrix
watching from her window. The family, delighted at the departure of
"those Parisians," to use a term of the provinces, saw nothing fatal
or diseased about the lad. The two old maids and the rector, pursuing
their scheme, had kept Charlotte de Kergarouet, who nightly played off
her little coquetries on Calyste, obtaining in return nothing better
than advice in playing /mouche/. During these long evenings, Calyste
sat between his mother and the little Breton girl, observed by the
rector and Charlotte's aunt, who discussed his greater or less
depression as they walked home together. Their simple minds mistook
the lethargic indifference of the hapless youth for submission to
their plans. One evening when Calyste, wearied out, went off suddenly
to bed, the players dropped their cards upon the table and looked at
each other as the young man closed the door of his chamber. One and
all had listened to the sound of his receding steps with anxiety.
"Something is the matter with Calyste," said the baroness, wiping her
eyes.
"Nothing is the matter," replied Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel; "but you
should marry him at once."
"Do you believe that marriage would divert his mind?" asked the
chevalier.
Charlotte looked reprovingly at Monsieur du Halga, whom she now began
to think ill-mannered, depraved, immoral, without religion, and very
ridiculous about his dog,--opinions which her aunt, defending the old
sailor, combated.
"I shall lecture Calyste to-morrow morning," said the baron, whom the
others had thought asleep. "I do not wish to go out of this world
without seeing my grandson, a little pink and white Guenic with a
Breton cap on his head."
"Calyste doesn't say a word," said old Zephirine, "and there's no
making out what's the matter with him. He doesn't eat; I don't see
what he lives on. If he gets his meals at Les Touches, the devil's
kitchen doesn't nourish him."
"He is in love," said the chevalier, risking that opinion very
timidly.
"Come, come, old gray-beard, you've forgotten to put in your stake!"
cried Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel. "When you begin to think of your young
days you forget everything."
"Come to breakfast to-morrow," said old Zephirine to her friend
Jacqueline; "my brother will have had a talk with his son, and we can
settle the matter finally. One nail, you know, drives out another."
"Not among Bretons," said the chevalier.
The next day Calyste saw Charlotte, as she arrived dressed with
unusual care, just after the baron had given him, in the dining-room,
a discourse on matrimony, to which he could make no answer. He now
knew the ignorance of his father and mother and all their friends; he
had gathered the fruits of the tree of knowledge, and knew himself to
be as much isolated as if he did not speak the family language. He
merely requested his father to give him a few days' grace. The old
baron rubbed his hands with joy, and gave fresh life to the baroness
by whispering in her ear what he called the good news.
Breakfast was gay; Charlotte, to whom the baron had given a hint, was
sparkling. After the meal was over, Calyste went out upon the portico
leading to the garden, followed by Charlotte; he gave her his arm and
led her to the grotto. Their parents and friends were at the window,
looking at them with a species of tenderness. Presently Charlotte,
uneasy at her suitor's silence, looked back and saw them, which gave
her an opportunity of beginning the conversation by saying to
Calyste,--
"They are watching us."
"They cannot hear us," he replied.
"True; but they see us."
"Let us sit down, Charlotte," replied Calyste, gently taking her hand.
"Is it true that your banner used formerly to float from that twisted
column?" asked Charlotte, with a sense that the house was already
hers; how comfortable she should be there! what a happy sort of life!
"You will make some changes inside the house, won't you, Calyste?" she
said.
"I shall not have time, my dear Charlotte," said the young man, taking
her hands and kissing them. "I am going now to tell you my secret. I
love too well a person whom you have seen, and who loves me, to be
able to make the happiness of any other woman; though I know that from
our childhood you and I have been destined for each other by our
friends."
"But she is married, Calyste."
"I shall wait," replied the young man.
"And I, too," said Charlotte, her eyes filling with tears. "You cannot
long love a woman like that, who, they say, has gone off with a
singer--"
"Marry, my dear Charlotte," said Calyste, interrupting her. "With the
fortune your aunt intends to give you, which is enormous for Brittany,
you can choose some better man than I. You could marry a titled man. I
have brought you here, not to tell you what you already knew, but to
entreat you, in the name of our childish friendship, to take this
rupture upon yourself, and say that you have rejected me. Say that you
do not wish to marry a man whose heart is not free; and thus I shall
be spared at least the sense that I have done you public wrong. You do
not know, Charlotte, how heavy a burden life now is to me. I cannot
bear the slightest struggle; I am weakened like a man whose vital
spark is gone, whose soul has left him. If it were not for the grief I
should cause my mother, I would have flung myself before now into the
sea; I have not returned to the rocks at Croisic since the day that
temptation became almost irresistible. Do not speak of this to any
one. Good-bye, Charlotte."
He took the young girl's head and kissed her hair; then he left the
garden by the postern-gate and fled to Les Touches, where he stayed
near Camille till past midnight. On returning home, at one in the
morning, he found his mother awaiting him with her worsted-work. He
entered softly, clasped her hand in his, and said,--
"Is Charlotte gone?"
"She goes to-morrow, with her aunt, in despair, both of them,"
answered the baroness. "Come to Ireland with me, my Calyste."
"Many a time I have thought of flying there--"
"Ah!" cried the baroness.
"With Beatrix," he added.
Some days after Charlotte's departure, Calyste joined the Chevalier du
Halga in his daily promenade on the mall with his little dog. They sat
down in the sunshine on a bench, where the young man's eyes could
wander from the vanes of Les Touches to the rocks of Croisic, against
which the waves were playing and dashing their white foam. Calyste was
thin and pale; his strength was diminishing, and he was conscious at
times of little shudders at regular intervals, denoting fever. His
eyes, surrounded by dark circles, had that singular brilliancy which a
fixed idea gives to the eyes of hermits and solitary souls, or the
ardor of contest to those of the strong fighters of our present
civilization. The chevalier was the only person with whom he could
exchange a few ideas. He had divined in that old man an apostle of his
own religion; he recognized in his soul the vestiges of an eternal
love.
"Have you loved many women in your life?" he asked him on the second
occasion, when, as seamen say, they sailed in company along the mall.
"Only one," replied Du Halga.
"Was she free?"
"No," exclaimed the chevalier. "Ah! how I suffered! She was the wife
of my best friend, my protector, my chief--but we loved each other
so!"
"Did she love you?" said Calyste.
"Passionately," replied the chevalier, with a fervency not usual with
him.
"You were happy?"
"Until her death; she died at the age of forty-nine, during the
emigration, at St. Petersburg, the climate of which killed her. She
must be very cold in her coffin. I have often thought of going there
to fetch her, and lay her in our dear Brittany, near to me! But she
lies in my heart."
The chevalier brushed away his tears. Calyste took his hand and
pressed it.
"I care for this little dog more than for life itself," said the old
man, pointing to Thisbe. "The little darling is precisely like the one
she held on her knees and stroked with her beautiful hands. I never
look at Thisbe but what I see the hands of Madame l'Amirale."
"Did you see Madame de Rochefide?" asked Calyste.
"No," replied the chevalier. "It is sixty-eight years since I have
looked at any woman with attention--except your mother, who has
something of Madame l'Amirale's complexion."
Three days later, the chevalier said to Calyste, on the mall,--
"My child, I have a hundred and forty /louis/ laid by. When you know
where Madame de Rochefide is, come and get them and follow her."
Calyste thanked the old man, whose existence he envied. But now, from
day to day, he grew morose; he seemed to love no one; all things hurt
him; he was gentle and kind to his mother only. The baroness watched
with ever increasing anxiety the progress of his madness; she alone
was able, by force of prayer and entreaty, to make him swallow food.
Toward the end of October the sick lad ceased to go even to the mall
in search of the chevalier, who now came vainly to the house to tempt
him out with the coaxing wisdom of an old man.
"We can talk of Madame de Rochefide," he would say. "I'll tell you my
first adventure."
"Your son is ill," he said privately to the baroness, on the day he
became convinced that all such efforts were useless.
Calyste replied to questions about his health that he was perfectly
well; but like all young victims of melancholy, he took pleasure in
the thought of death. He no longer left the house, but sat in the
garden on a bench, warming himself in the pale and tepid sunshine,
alone with his one thought, and avoiding all companionship.
Soon after the day when Calyste ceased to go even to Les Touches,
Felicite requested the rector of Guerande to come and see her. The
assiduity with which the Abbe Grimont called every morning at Les
Touches, and sometimes dined there, became the great topic of the
town; it was talked of all over the region, and even reached Nantes.
Nevertheless, the rector never missed a single evening at the hotel du
Guenic, where desolation reigned. Masters and servants were all
afflicted at Calyste's increasing weakness, though none of them
thought him in danger; how could it ever enter the minds of these good
people that youth might die of love? Even the chevalier had no example
of such a death among his memories of life and travel. They attributed
Calyste's thinness to want of food. His mother implored him to eat.
Calyste endeavored to conquer his repugnance in order to comfort her;
but nourishment taken against his will served only to increase the
slow fever which was now consuming the beautiful young life.
During the last days of October the cherished child of the house could
no longer mount the stairs to his chamber, and his bed was placed in
the lower hall, where he was surrounded at all hours by his family.
They sent at last for the Guerande physician, who broke the fever with
quinine and reduced it in a few days, ordering Calyste to take
exercise, and find something to amuse him. The baron, on this, came
out of his apathy and recovered a little of his old strength; he grew
younger as his son seemed to age. With Calyste, Gasselin, and his two
fine dogs, he started for the forest, and for some days all three
hunted. Calyste obeyed his father and went where he was told, from
forest to forest, visiting friends and acquaintances in the
neighboring chateaus. But the youth had no spirit or gaiety; nothing
brought a smile to his face; his livid and contracted features
betrayed an utterly passive being. The baron, worn out at last by
fatigue consequent on this spasm of exertion, was forced to return
home, bringing Calyste in a state of exhaustion almost equal to his
own. For several days after their return both father and son were so
dangerously ill that the family were forced to send, at the request of
the Guerande physician himself, for two of the best doctors in Nantes.
The baron had received a fatal shock on realizing the change now so
visible in Calyste. With that lucidity of mind which nature gives to
the dying, he trembled at the thought that his race was about to
perish. He said no word, but he clasped his hands and prayed to God as
he sat in his chair, from which his weakness now prevented him from
rising. The father's face was turned toward the bed where the son lay,
and he looked at him almost incessantly. At the least motion Calyste
made, a singular commotion stirred within him, as if the flame of his
own life were flickering. The baroness no longer left the room where
Zephirine sat knitting in the chimney-corner in horrible uneasiness.
Demands were made upon the old woman for wood, father and son both
suffering from the cold, and for supplies and provisions, so that,
finally, not being agile enough to supply these wants, she had given
her precious keys to Mariotte. But she insisted on knowing everything;
she questioned Mariotte and her sister-in-law incessantly, asking in a
low voice to be told, over and over again, the state of her brother
and nephew. One night, when father and son were dozing, Mademoiselle
de Pen-Hoel told her that she must resign herself to the death of her
brother, whose pallid face was now the color of wax. The old woman
dropped her knitting, fumbled in her pocket for a while, and at length
drew out an old chaplet of black wood, on which she began to pray with
a fervor which gave to her old and withered face a splendor so
vigorous that the other old woman imitated her friend, and then all
present, on a sign from the rector, joining in the spiritual uplifting
of Mademoiselle de Guenic.
"Alas! I prayed to God," said the baroness, remembering her prayer
after reading the fatal letter written by Calyste, "and he did not
hear me."
"Perhaps it would be well," said the rector, "if we begged
Mademoiselle des Touches to come and see Calyste."
"She!" cried old Zephirine, "the author of all our misery! she who has
turned him from his family, who has taken him from us, led him to read
impious books, taught him an heretical language! Let her be accursed,
and may God never pardon her! She has destroyed the du Guenics!"
"She may perhaps restore them," said the rector, in a gentle voice.
"Mademoiselle des Touches is a saintly woman; I am her surety for
that. She has none but good intentions to Calyste. May she only be
enabled to carry them out."
"Let me know the day when she sets foot in this house, that I may get
out of it," cried the old woman passionately. "She has killed both
father and son. Do you think I don't hear death in Calyste's voice? he
is so feeble now that he has barely strength to whisper."
It was at this moment that the three doctors arrived. They plied
Calyste with questions; but as for his father, the examination was
short; they were surprised that he still lived on. The Guerande doctor
calmly told the baroness that as to Calyste, it would probably be best
to take him to Paris and consult the most experienced physicians, for
it would cost over a hundred /louis/ to bring one down.
"People die of something, but not of love," said Mademoiselle de
Pen-Hoel.
"Alas! whatever be the cause, Calyste is dying," said the baroness. "I
see all the symptoms of consumption, that most horrible disease of my
country, about him."
"Calyste dying!" said the baron, opening his eyes, from which rolled
two large tears which slowly made their way, delayed by wrinkles,
along his cheeks,--the only tears he had probably ever shed in his
life. Suddenly he rose to his feet, walked the few steps to his son's
bedside, took his hand, and looked earnestly at him.
"What is it you want, father?" said Calyste.
"That you should live!" cried the baron.
"I cannot live without Beatrix," replied Calyste.
The old man dropped into a chair.
"Oh! where could we get a hundred /louis/ to bring doctors from Paris?
There is still time," cried the baroness.
"A hundred /louis!/" cried Zephirine; "will that save him?"
Without waiting for her sister-in-law's reply, the old maid ran her
hands through the placket-holes of her gown, unfastened the petticoat
beneath it, which gave forth a heavy sound as it dropped to the floor.
She knew so well the places where she had sewn in her /louis/ that she
now ripped them out with the rapidity of magic. The gold pieces rang
as they fell, one by one, into her lap. The old Pen-Hoel gazed at this
performance in stupefied amazement.
"But they'll see you!" she whispered in her friend's ear.
"Thirty-seven," answered Zephirine, continuing to count.
"Every one will know how much you have."
"Forty-two."
"Double /louis!/ all new! How did you get them, you who can't see
clearly?"
"I felt them. Here's one hundred and four /louis/," cried Zephirine.
"Is that enough?"
"What is all this?" asked the Chevalier du Halga, who now came in,
unable to understand the attitude of his old blind friend, holding out
her petticoat which was full of gold coins.
Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel explained.
"I knew it," said the chevalier, "and I have come to bring a hundred
and forty /louis/ which I have been holding at Calyste's disposition,
as he knows very well."
The chevalier drew the /rouleaux/ from his pocket and showed them.
Mariotte, seeing such wealth, sent Gasselin to lock the doors.
"Gold will not give him health," said the baroness, weeping.
"But it can take him to Paris, where he can find her. Come, Calyste."
"Yes," cried Calyste, springing up, "I will go."
"He will live," said the baron, in a shaking voice; "and I can
die--send for the rector!"
The words cast terror on all present. Calyste, seeing the mortal
paleness on his father's face, for the old man was exhausted by the
cruel emotions of the scene, came to his father's side. The rector,
after hearing the report of the doctors, had gone to Mademoiselle des
Touches, intending to bring her back with him to Calyste, for in
proportion as the worthy man had formerly detested her, he now admired
her, and protected her as a shepherd protects the most precious of his
flock.
When the news of the baron's approaching end became known in Guerande,
a crowd gathered in the street and lane; the peasants, the
/paludiers/, and the servants knelt in the court-yard while the rector
administered the last sacraments to the old Breton warrior. The whole
town was agitated by the news that the father was dying beside his
half-dying son. The probable extinction of this old Breton race was
felt to be a public calamity.
The solemn ceremony affected Calyste deeply. His filial sorrow
silenced for a moment the anguish of his love. During the last hour of
the glorious old defender of the monarchy, he knelt beside him,
watching the coming on of death. The old man died in his chair in
presence of the assembled family.
"I die faithful to God and his religion," he said. "My God! as the
reward of my efforts grant that Calyste may live!"
"I shall live, father; and I will obey you," said the young man.
"If you wish to make my death as happy as Fanny has made my life,
swear to me to marry."
"I promise it, father."
It was a touching sight to see Calyste, or rather his shadow, leaning
on the arm of the old Chevalier du Halga--a spectre leading a shade
--and following the baron's coffin as chief mourner. The church and the
little square were crowded with the country people coming in to the
funeral from a circuit of thirty miles.
But the baroness and Zephirine soon saw that, in spite of his
intention to obey his father's wishes, Calyste was falling back into a
condition of fatal stupor. On the day when the family put on their
mourning, the baroness took her son to a bench in the garden and
questioned him closely. Calyste answered gently and submissively, but
his answers only proved to her the despair of his soul.
"Mother," he said, "there is no life in me. What I eat does not feed
me; the air that enters my lungs does not refresh me; the sun feels
cold; it seems to you to light that front of the house, and show you
the old carvings bathed in its beams, but to me it is all a blur, a
mist. If Beatrix were here, it would be dazzling. There is but one
only thing left in this world that keeps its shape and color to my
eyes,--this flower, this foliage," he added, drawing from his breast
the withered bunch the marquise had given him at Croisic.
The baroness dared not say more. Her son's answer seemed to her more
indicative of madness than his silence of grief. She saw no hope, no
light in the darkness that surrounded them.
The baron's last hours and death had prevented the rector from
bringing Mademoiselle des Touches to Calyste, as he seemed bent on
doing, for reasons which he did not reveal. But on this day, while
mother and son still sat on the garden bench, Calyste quivered all
over on perceiving Felicite through the opposite windows of the
court-yard and garden. She reminded him of Beatrix, and his life
revived. It was therefore to Camille that the poor stricken mother
owed the first motion of joy that lightened her mourning.
"Well, Calyste," said Mademoiselle des Touches, when they met, "I want
you to go to Paris with me. We will find Beatrix," she added in a low
voice.
The pale, thin face of the youth flushed red, and a smile brightened
his features.
"Let us go," he said.
"We shall save him," said Mademoiselle des Touches to the mother, who
pressed her hands and wept for joy.
A week after the baron's funeral, Mademoiselle des Touches, the
Baronne du Guenic and Calyste started for Paris, leaving the household
in charge of old Zephirine.