Joseph Balsamo (52 page)

This idea was rendered still more agreeable to him by the fineness of the weather, the shade of the forest, and the softness of the mossy sward. The sun was now disappearing behind the hills of Marly, and the vegetation, dried by the scorching heat of the day, exhaled the sweet perfume of the spring a mingled odor of the plant and of the flower.

Evening came on. It was the hour when, beneath the darkening skies, silence falls more softly and more deeply on all things, when the closing flower-cup shuts in the in-sect sleeping on its bosom. The gilded flies return with constant hum to the hollow oak which serves them as an

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asylum ; the birds hurry silently to their nests, their wings rustling through the foliage ; and the only song which is heard is the clear whistle of the blackbird, and the timid warble of the redbreast.

Gilbert was familiar with the woods ; he was well acquainted both with their sounds and with their silence. Without giving way, therefore, to reflection, or to idle fear, he threw himself at full length on the heath, on which there yet remained here and there a red leaf of the preceding winter.

Far from feeling anxious or disturbed, he experienced rather a vague and boundless sense of joy. He inhaled with rapture the pure and free air, feeling, with the pride of a stoic, that he had once more triumphed over the snares laid for human weakness. What, though he had neither bread, nor money, nor shelter, had he not his beloved liberty ? Was he not the free and uncontrolled master of his destiny ?

He stretched himself, therefore, at the foot of a gigantic chestnut-tree, where between two of its moss-covered roots lie found a luxurious couch ; then, gazing up at the calm and smiling heavens, he gradually sunk to sleep.

The warbling of the birds awoke him ; it was scarcely day. Raising himself on his elbow, stiff and painful from contact with the hard wood, he saw, in the dawning light, an opening from which three paths branched off through the wood. Here and there a rabbit scudded past him with its ears drooping, and brushing away the dew in its course, or a stag bounded past, with its sharp, quick leaps, stopped to gaze at the unknown object under the tree, and then, alarmed, darted off with a more rapid flight.

Gilbert jumped to his feet, but no sooner had he done so than he felt he was hungry. The reader may remember that he had refused to dine with Zamore, so that since his breakfast in the attic at Versailles he had eaten nothing. On finding himself once more under the leafy arches of a fores-t, he who had so boldly traversed the great woods of Lorraine and Champagne, he almost thought himself beneath the trees of Taverney, or among

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the brakes of Pierrefitte, surprised by the morning beams after a nocturnal expedition to procure game for his fair mistress.

But at Taverney he had always found by his side a partridge or a pheasant which he had shot, while here he found only his hat, rather the worse for his journey, and now nearly unfit to wear after the damps of the night.

It was not, then, all a dream, as he had, on first awaken-ing, supposed. Versailles and Luciennes were realities, from his triumphant entry into the first till his forcible evasion from the last.

But what more than all else served to recall him to his real position was his hunger, now becoming sharper and sharper every moment.

Then he mechanically sought around for some of those delicious mulberries, those wild cherries, or pungent roots, which, though acrid like the radish, the woodman loves to find as he plods in the morning to his labor with his tools on his shoulder. But this was not the season for such things, and, besides, he saw around him only the ash, the beech, and other trees which bear no fruit.

” Well,” said he to himself, ” I will go direct to Paris. I cannot be more than three or four leagues from it five, at most ; I can be there in two hours. What matter is it to suffer for a couple of hours, when I am sure, after that, of not having to suffer any longer ? In Paris every one has bread, and the first artisan whom I meet will not refuse me bread for my work when he knows that I am honest and industrious. In Paris I shall be able in one day to procure food for the next. What do I want more ? Nothing, except that every succeeding day may see me increase in strength, in elevation of character, in greatness of mind, and approach nearer and nearer the object of my wishes.”

Gilbert redoubled his speed ; he now wished to find the highroad, but he had lost all means of directing his course. At Taverney, and in the woods around it, he knew the east and the west ; every ray of light was to him an index of the hour. At night, every star, although un-

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known to him by its name of Venus, Lucifer, or Saturn, served him as a guide. But here he was in a new world ; he knew neither places nor objects, and was forced to seek his way, groping by chance.

” Fortunately,” said he, ” I saw the finger-posts on which the roads were pointed out.”

He proceeded toward an opening where one of these directing-posts was placed. It pointed to three roads ; one road led to Marais-Jaune, another to Champ-de-1’Alouette, a third to Trou-Sale. Gilbert was not much assisted by this ; he ran for three hours from one place to another, very often finding himself in the same spot from which he set out, and as far from the highroad as ever.

The perspiration poured down his face. A dozen times he threw off his coat and vest to climb some colossal chestnut-tree ; but when he had reached its summit he saw nothing but Versailles Versailles now on his right, now on his left Versailles, toward which, by some fatality, he seemed constantly impelled. He was half frantic with rage ; but at last his efforts were so far successful that he first passed Viroflay, then Chaville, then Sevres.

Half-past five sounded from the clock-tower of Meudon when he reached the Capuchin Convent, between Sevres and Bellevue ; there, climbing on a cross, at the risk of breaking it, and of being himself broken on the wheel by order of the parliament, as Sirven had been, he saw, from that height, the Seine, the village, and the smoke of the nearest houses. Beyond this he saw a great mass of buildings on the horizon, dimly distinguished in the morning vapors. That must be Paris, he thought ; so, feeling no longer either fatigue or hunger, he directed his course thither, and only stopped when out of breath from his excessive speed.

He was now in the woods of Meudon, between Fleury and Plessis-Piquet.

” Come,” said he, looking around, “no false shame ! I shall no doubt soon meet some early workman going to his day’s labor with a loaf under his arm. I shall say to him, ‘ All men are brethren, and ought to help one another. You

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have more bread there than you will want this day, while I am dying of hunger’ ; and then he will give me the half of his loaf.”

Hunger rendering Gilbert more and more philosophical, he continued his reflections.

“In truth,” said he, “should not everything be in common among men on this earth ? Has the Eternal Source of all things given to this man or that the air which fertilizes the soil, or the soil which produces the fruits? No. Some, it is true, have usurped a power over these things ; but in the eyes of their Maker, in the eyes of the philosopher, no one possesses them. He who holds them is only the man to whom the Creator has lent them.”

Gilbert, in all this, was but condensing, by a natural instinct, the vague and indefinite ideas of the period, which men felt, as it were, floating in the air and hovering above their heads, like clouds impelled in one direction, and forming a threatening mass from which at length the tempest would burst.

” Some,” continued he, ” retain by force what should belong to all. Well, then, from such we should i aar by force what by right they should share with us. If my brother, who has too much bread, refuse me a portion of that bread, why, then, I shall take it from him by force ; I shall follow the law of nature, the source of all sound sense and of all justice, since it arises from our natural wants. But I must yield if my brother say to me, * the portion you ask for is that of my wife and of my children ‘ or if he should say, ‘ I am stronger than you, and I shall keep what I have in spite of you.’ “

He was in this temper of mind, which bore a striking resemblance to that of a hungry wolf, when he reached an open space among the trees ; in its center was a pond of muddy water, margined with reeds and water-lilies, on the surface of which sported myriads of flies, dotting its glassy bosom with innumerable circles. The grassy slope which descended to the water’s edge was closely studded with bunches of myosotis, and resembled a bed of turquoise and emeralds. The background of the picture, that is, the

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circle around the pool and the bank, -was formed of a hedge of tall aspens, the interstices between whose golden trunks were filled up with the thick and leafy branches of the alder. Six paths led down to this spot ; two of which, radiant with golden light, might have seemed to the imagination avenues to the palace of the glorious luminary of day ; the four others, diverging like rays of a star, were lost in the blue depths of the forest.

This verdant saloon seemed fresher and more flowery than any other part of the wood. Gilbert entered it by one of the dark alleys.

The first object which he perceived, when, after having at a glance taken in its extent and circumference, his eye rested on nearer objects, was a man seated on the fallen trunk of a tree, near a deep ditch. The expression of his face was mild, yet refined and penetrating, and he was dressed in a coat of coarse brown cloth, breeches of the same, and a waistcoat of gray jean. His well-made sinewy legs were incased in gray cotton stockings, and his shoes with buckles were dusty here and there, yet showed on the sol ;s and points traces of the morning dew.

Xear him, on the grass, was placed a box, painted green, wide open, and filled with plants recently gathered. He had between his legs a stout stick, with a smooth round handle, and terminated at the opposite end by a little spade about two inches broad and three long.

Gilbert embraced, in one rapid glance, all these details which we have given ; but what first drew his attention was a piece of bread, from which the old man, from time to time, broke off small pieces to eat, sharing them benevolently with the linnets and the wrens, who fixed from afar a longing eye on the food, swooped on it the moment it was thrown to them, and then flew with joyful twittering to their thick foliage above.

The old man watched them with an eye at once gentle and animated, then, extending his hand to a checked handkerchief beside him, he drew from it a cherry from time to time, as a relish with his mouthful of bread.

” Ha ! this is the man for me ‘ said Gilbert, brushing

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aside the branches of the trees and making four steps toward the solitary, who looked up as he approached : but he had not advanced a third of the distance which separated them, when, perceiving the calmness and gentleness of the old man’s countenance, he stopped and took off his hat.

The old man, finding himself no longer alone, cast a hnrried glance on his box, and then on his coat. He shut the former and buttoned up the latter.

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE BOTANIST.

GILBERT took courage and walked close tip ; bnt he opened his mouth and shut it again before he could utter a word. His philosophy wavered, and it Beemed to him that he was about to entreat alms, and not to demand a right.

The old man observed this timidity, and it seemed to banish, on his side, all feelings of apprehension.

” Do you wish to speak to me, my friend ? ” said he, smiling, and laying down his bread on the trunk of the tree on which he sat.

” Yes, sir,” replied Gilbert.

” What do you wish to say ? “

” Sir, I see you throw yonr bread to the birds, as if we were not told that God feeds them.”

“Doubtless He does feed them, young man; but the hand of man is one of the means which He employs for that purpose. If you mean your words as a reproach, you are wrong ; for, neither in the silent wood nor in the crowded street, is the bread ever lost which we cast from our hand. In the one place the birds pick it up, in the other the poor.”

” Well, sir,” said Gilbert, singularly moved by the soft, penetrating voice of the old man, ” although we are in the woods, I know a man who would dispute your bread with the birds.”

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” Can it be you, my friend ? ” cried the old man ; “are you, then, hungry ?”

” Very, very hungry, sir ; and if you will permit me “

The old man seized his bread again with eager compassion. Then, reflecting for a moment, he looked at Gilbert with a keen and searching glance.

In fact, Gilbert so little resembled a starving man, that some consideration might be permitted. His coat was clean, except where it was in some places stained by its contact with the ground ; his shirt was white, for at Versailles the evening before he had taken a clean one from his bundle, yet it was rendered damp by the dews ; it was quite evident that he had passed the night in the wood.

Besides all this, his hands were white and slender, like those of a man of thought rather than of labor.

Gilbert did not want tact ; he read the stranger’s distrust and hesitation in his countenance, and hastened to anticipate further conjectures which he readily saw would not be favorable to him.

” We are always hungry, sir,” he said, ” when we have not eaten for twelve hours, and it is now twenty-four since I have had any food.”

The emotion expressed on the young man’s face, his tremulous voice, and his extreme paleness, all declared that his words were true. The old man hesitated, or, rather, feared, no longer ; he held out to Gilbert his bread and the handkerchief containing his cherries.

” Thank you, sir, thank you,” said Gilbert, gently pushing aside the handkerchief containing the cherries ; ” nothing but the bread ; it is quite sufficient.”