de Rionne listened to these disjointed words, and a sweet happiness came to her from them. She took Daniel’s hand.
“My friend,” said she, “I know you are not ungrateful. I have watched over you, and I have learned how deep is your gratitude. There is no need for you to seek words in which to thank me, for your tears alone assuage my suffering.”
Daniel with difficulty kept back his sobs. There was a short silence.
“When I summoned you to Paris,” continued the dying woman, “I was still strong. I hoped to be able to help you to still pursue your studies. Then illness came upon me before I could make the future sure for you. You came too late. In leaving this life I shall take with me the regret of not having finished my task.”
“You have done a pious work,” interrupted Daniel. “You owe me nothing, and I owe you my whole life. The benefit is too great already. Look at me, and see the poor creature that you have adopted and protected. When I found myself awkward, when people laughed at me, I wept for shame for your sake. Forgive me an unworthy thought. I often feared lest my face should be displeasing to you. I trembled lest I should meet you. I was afraid lest my ugliness should deprive me of some of your kind feeling towards me. And only to think that you received me as a son! You, who are so beautiful! You have held out your hand to a wretched child whom no one cared for, but rather despised. The more I was railed at, the more I felt ugly and weak, and the more I worshipped you, for I understand what goodness you must possess to stoop down to me. I ardently wished to be good-looking, that I might be pleasing in your sight.”
Blanche smiled. Such youthful, ingenuous adoration, such flattering humility, made her forget death for a moment.
“What a child you are!” she said.
Then she pondered a while. She was endeavouring to see Daniel’s face in the gloom. The blood flowed more rapidly in her veins, and she thought of herself and the time when she was young.
Then she went on:
“You are impulsive, and life will be hard for you. I can only at this last hour tell you to remember me — think of me as a safeguard. Though I have not been permitted to make any provision for your future, I have at least been able to put you in the way of gaining your livelihood, of walking in a straightforward and manly way through life; and this thought consoles me a little in my compulsory desertion of you. Think of me sometimes; love me and try to please me when I am dead as you have loved and pleased me during my lifetime.”
She said this in such sweet, moving tones that Daniel began to weep again.
“No,” said he, “do not leave me like this; give me some task to perform. My existence will henceforth be a blank if you vanish suddenly from it. During the past ten years I have had no other idea than that of pleasing you and obeying all your wishes. I only wished to become a little worthy in your eyes. You have been my goddess. If I can work no longer for you I shall feel like a coward. Of what use will life be to me? For what shall I strive? Think of something, I beseech you, for me to do to prove my devotion, that I may still testify my gratitude when you are no more.”
While Daniel was speaking a sudden inspiration lit up the pale face of Madame de Rionne; she drew herself up to a sitting posture, rallying her strength and fighting against her pain.
“You are right,” said she; “I have a mission to entrust you with. God Himself has set you there on your knees by my deathbed. Heaven made me give you a helping hand in order that you in your turn might one day help me. Rise up, my friend, for I now beg of you to console and support me.”
And when Daniel had risen and sat down, she said:
“Listen, my time is short; I must tell you all. I besought God that a good angel might come to me — I am willing to believe that you are the angel whom He sends me. I believe in you for I have seen you weep.”
And then she hastily poured out to him all she had in her heart. She forgot she was speaking to a child. This poor soul, torn with anxiety, opened her heart and consoled herself by revealing in death what she had hidden in life.
The young man’s ardent and humble reverence had softened the woman’s stoic courage. She was happy in making her confession at last, to be able, before leaving the world, to confide in some one all the bitterness of her past life. She did not complain; she simply unburdened her heart.
“I spent my life,” she said, “in loneliness and tears. I must tell you these things, my friend, in order that you may understand my sufferings. You pictured me as a joyous being; you have set me on a pinnacle of glory and happiness. Alas! I am only a poor woman who, during long, weary years, has inured herself to misery. And, though I am shedding tears, I call to mind the joys of my youth. What a blessed thing was my childhood there, in Provence! At that time I was proud; I had determined to fight the battle of life bravely, but only emerged from the fight with a bleeding heart.”
Daniel listened, barely understanding her, believing that the delirium of the death agony was creeping over her.
“I married a man,” she exclaimed, “whom I could not love, and who soon drove me back to the solitude of my young days. Henceforth I had to stifle my feelings. Very soon Monsieur de Rionne took to his bachelor ways. I met him now and then at meals. I knew his daily life was an insult to me. And so I shut myself up with my little girl in a corner of the house; I looked upon it as my convent, and I vowed to live as if I were really cloistered there. At times my whole being was in revolt, and I could only appear serene and victorious at the price of much hidden suffering.”
“What!” thought Daniel, “is this what life really is? My saint has indeed suffered! She, whom I delighted to contemplate as a superior being, quite happy, quite divine, was all the time weeping with misery, while I adored her as one above all pain. Is there nothing, then, in the world but sorrow? Does heaven not even spare such souls as are worthy of it? What a terrifying world is ours! When I thought of my benefactress, I imagined her in joy and peace, sheltered from evil by her goodness; she seemed to me serene, like those holy women who have halos round their heads and peaceful smiles on their lips. But what do I find? Only that she weeps, because she has cause, and her heart bleeds like mine, and she is my sister in suffering.”
His heart was wounded. He was silent, terrified at the sad picture which rose up before him. For this was the first step he made in the knowledge of life; all the ignorance of his being revolted face to face with the injustice of evil. He would not have shuddered thus if it had not been a question of one so beloved; but the cruel reality had been revealed, wounding his inmost feelings. A shivering fear, as it were, seized him, for he felt that from that time forward he must face the sternest facts of life. Notwithstanding, his desire for self-sacrifice impelled him to listen intently to this last confession. He considered that he was receiving solemn commands, and so he waited for his duty to be prescribed for him.
His continued silence compelled Madame de Rionne to understand what was passing through his mind. She felt him tremble like a timid child, and she almost regretted that she had troubled this hitherto tranquil heart. A kind of coquetry came upon her, and she almost wished that he should always think of her as a noble and upright soul rather than as one who had been subject like others to human weakness.
“I am speaking to you of sad things,” she continued, “and I know not even if you understand me thoroughly. However, I must speak out, and you must forgive me. I am confessing to you as to a priest — a priest has, so to speak, no age; he is only a soul that listens. You are now merely a child, and my words terrify you. When you are a man you will recollect them. They will teach you what a woman can suffer; they will tell you what I expect of your devotion.”
