第74章

"Yes," answered my father, "I have an appointment with a client who is ill--a foreigner--I have to call on him at his hotel to procure some important papers.He is an odd sort of man, and I shall not be sorry to see something of him at closer quarters.I have taken certain steps on his behalf, and I am almost tempted to regret them."And since then, no news! In the evening of that day, when dinner, which had been put off for one quarter of an hour after another, was over, and my father, who was always so methodical, so punctual, had not come in, my mother began to betray increasing uneasiness, and could not conceal from me that his last words dwelt upon her mind.It was a rare occurrence for him to speak with misgiving of his undertakings!

The night passed, then the next morning and afternoon, and once more it was evening.My mother and I were once more seated at the square table, where the cover laid for my father in front of his empty chair gave, as it were, a form to our nameless dread.

My mother had written to M.Jacques Termonde, and he came after dinner.I was sent away immediately, but not without my having had time to remark the extraordinary brightness of M.Termonde's eyes, which were blue, and usually shone coldly in his thin, sharp face.

He had fair hair and a beard best described as pale.Thus do children take note of small details, which are speedily effaced from their minds, but afterwards reappear, at the contact of life, just as certain invisible marks come out upon paper when it is held to the fire.

While begging to be allowed to remain, I was mechanically observing the hurried and agitated turning and returning of a light cane--Ihad long coveted it--held behind his back in his remarkably beautiful hands.If I had not admired the cane so much, and the fighting centaurs on its handle--a fine piece of Renaissance work--this symptom of extreme disturbance might have escaped me.But, how could M.Termonde fail to be disturbed by the disappearance of his best friend? Nevertheless, his voice, a soft voice which made all his phrases melodious, was quite calm.

"To-morrow," he said, "I will have every inquiry made, if Cornelis has not returned; but he will come back, and all will be explained.

Depend on it, he went away somewhere on the business he told you of, and left a letter for you to be sent by a commissionaire who has not delivered it.""Ah!" said my mother, "you think that is possible?"How often, in my dark hours, have I recalled this dialogue, and the room in which it took place--a little salon, much liked by my mother, with hangings and furniture of some foreign stuff all striped in red and white, black and yellow, that my father had brought from Morocco; and how plainly have I seen my mother in my mind's eye, with her black hair, her brown eyes, her quivering lips.She was as white as the summer gown she wore that evening.

M.Termonde was dressed with his usual correctness, and I remember well his slender and elegant figure.

I attended the two classes at the Lycee, if not with a light, at least with a relieved heart.But, while I was sitting upon the lower step of my little staircase, all my uneasiness revived.Ihammered at the door again, I called as loudly as I could; but no one answered me, until the good woman who had been my nurse came into my room.

"My father!" I cried, "where is my father?"

"Poor child, poor child," said nurse, and took me in her arms.

She had been sent to tell me the awful truth, but her strength failed her.I escaped from her, ran out into the corridor, and reached my father's bedroom before anyone could stop me.Ah! upon the bed lay a rigid form covered by a white sheet, upon the pillow a bloodless, motionless face, with fixed, wide-open eyes, for the lids had not been closed; the chin was supported by a bandage, a napkin was bound around the forehead; at the bed's foot knelt a woman, still dressed in her white summer gown, crushed and helpless with grief.These were my father and my mother.

I flung myself madly upon her, and she clasped me passionately, with the piercing cry, "My Andre, my Andre!" In that cry there was such intense grief, in that embrace there was such frenzied tenderness, her heart was then so big with tears, that it warms my own even now to think of it.The next moment she rose and carried me out of the room, that I might see the dreadful sight no more.

She did this easily, her terrible excitement had doubled her strength."God punishes me! God punishes me!" she said over and over again taking no heed of her words.She had always been given, by fits and starts, to mystical piety.Then she covered my face, my neck, and my hair with kisses and tears.May all that we suffered, the dead and I, be forgiven you, poor mother, for the sincerity of those tears at that moment!