第33章

"In mercy," cried he, "inflict any other punishment upon me you please, but not that one.Oh, no! I cannot go back to that frightful hall.Oh! I entreat you, deprive me of my customary walks for six months; sell Soliman, cut my hair, shave my head,--anything, yes, anything rather than put my feet in that horrible dungeon again! I shall die there or go mad.You don't want me to become insane?""When one is unfortunate enough to believe in ghosts and apparitions at the age of sixteen," retorted the Count, "he should free himself as soon as possible from the ridiculous weakness."Stephane's whole body trembled.He staggered a few steps, and falling on his knees before his father, clung to him and cried: "Iam only a poor sick child, have pity on me.You are still my father, are you not? and I am still your child? Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! You do not, you cannot, want your child to die!""Put an end to this miserable comedy," cried the Count, disengaging himself from Stephane's clasp."I am your father, and you are my son; no one here doubts it; but your father, sir, has a horror of scenes.This has lasted too long; end it, I tell you.You are already in a suitable posture.The most difficult part is done, the rest is a trifle!""What do you say, sir?" answered the child impetuously, trying to rise."I am on my knees to you only.Ah! great God! I to kneel before this man! it is impossible! you know very well it is impossible!

The Count, however, pressing his hand upon his shoulder, constrained him to remain upon his knees, and turning his face to Gilbert:

"I tell you, you are kneeling before the man you have insulted, and we all understand it."Was it, indeed thus, that Gilbert understood it? Quiet, impassible, his eyes fixed upon the window, he seemed a perfect stranger to all that passed around him.

A cry of anguish escaped Stephane, a frightful change came over his face.Three times he tried to rise, and three times the hand of his father weighed him down again, and kept him in a kneeling posture.Then, as if annihilated by the thought of his weakness and powerlessness, he yielded, and covering his eyes with both hands, he murmured these words in a stifled and convulsive voice:

"Sir they do me violence,--I ask pardon for hating you."And immediately his strength abandoned him, and he fainted; as a lily broken by the storm, his head sank, and he would have fallen backward, if his father had not signed to Ivan, who raised him like a feather in his robust arms, and carried him hastily out of the room.

Gilbert's first care after returning to his turret, was to light a candle and burn Stephane's letter.Then he opened a closet and began to prepare his trunk.While engaged in this task, someone knocked at the door.He had only time to close the closet and the trunk when Ivan appeared with a basket on his arm.The serf came for the flowers, which he had orders to carry to the apartment of his young master.Having placed five or six in his basket, he turned to Gilbert and gave him to understand, in his Teutonic gibberish mingled with French, that he had something important to communicate to him.Gilbert answered in a tone of ill-humor, that he had not time to listen to him.Ivan shook his head with a pensive air, and left.Gilbert immediately seated himself at the table, and upon the first scrap of paper which came under his hand, hastily wrote the following lines:

"Poor child, do not distress yourself too much for the humiliation to which you have just submitted.As you said yourself, you yielded only to violence, and your apologies are void in my eyes.

Believe me, I exact nothing.Why did I not divine, this morning, that Fritz spoke in your name! I should not have felt offended, for it is not to me that your insults are addressed, it is to some strange Gilbert of your imagination.I am not acquainted with him.

But what can it avail you to provoke contests, the result of which is certain in advance? It is a hand of iron which lately weighed upon your shoulder.Do you hope then to free yourself so soon from its grasp? Believe me, submit yourself to your lot, and mitigate its rigors by patience, until the day when your eyes have become strong enough to dare to look him in the face, and your hand manly enough to throw the gage of battle.Poor child the only consolation I can offer you in your misfortune I should be a culprit to refuse.I have but one night more to pass here; keep this secret for me for twenty-four hours, and receive the adieus of that Gilbert whom you have never known.One day he passed near you and looked at you, and you read an offensive curiosity in his eyes.

I swear to you, they were full of tears."

Gilbert folded this letter, and slid it under the facing of one of his sleeves; then taking the key of the private door in his hand, and posting himself at the head of the staircase, he waited Ivan's return.As soon as he heard the sound of his steps in the corridor, he descended rapidly and met him on the landing at the gallery.

"I do not know what to do," said Ivan to him."My young master is not himself, and he has broken the first flower-pots I carried to him in a thousand pieces.""Take the others too," replied Gilbert, taking care to let him see the key which he flourished in his hand."You can put them in your room for the time being.When he becomes calmer he will be glad to see them again.""But will it not be better to leave them with you until he asks for them?""I don't want to keep them half an hour longer," replied Gilbert quickly, and he descended the first steps of the private staircase.

"As you are going on the terrace, sir," cried the serf to him, "don't forget, I beg of you, to close the door behind you."Gilbert promised this."It works well," thought he; "his caution proves to me that the wicket is not closed." He was not mistaken.