Читать книгу The Seven Cardinal Sins: Envy and Indolence - Эжен Сю - Страница 2

FIVE minutes afterward an exciting game of shuttlecock was going on between Frederick and his mother.

It was a charming picture upon which the few rays of sunshine that succeeded in making their way through the dense canopy of green shone, for every movement and attitude of the participants was instinct with agility and grace.

Marie, her eyes gleaming with mischief, her red lips wreathed with a charming smile, the rose tint in her cheeks deepening, one shapely foot extended, but with her supple form thrown well back from her slim waist upward, met the shuttlecock with her racket, then sent it flying off in an entirely different direction from what Frederick had anticipated; but not in the least discomfited, the youth, throwing back the curling locks of brown hair from his brow by a sudden toss of the head, with a quick, lithe bound skilfully intercepted the winged messenger as it was about to touch the earth, and sent it flying back to his mother, who intercepted it in her turn, and with a no less adroit blow despatched it swiftly through space again. When, after describing its parabola, it made straight for Frederick's nose, whereupon the youth, in a violent effort to interpose his racket between the rapidly descending shuttlecock and his upturned face, lost his balance and fell headlong on the thick turf, after which the laughter and oft repeated bursts of hilarity on the part of the two players necessarily put an end to the game.

After their mirth had partially subsided, the mother and son, with crimson cheeks, and eyes still swimming with the tears their merriment had evoked, walked to a rustic bench in front of the waterfall to rest.

"Goodness, how absurd it is to laugh in this fashion!" exclaimed Frederick.

"You must admit that it does one good, though. It may be absurd to laugh so, as you say, but it consoles one to feel that only happy people like ourselves can ever give way to such mad fits of merriment."

"Yes, mother, you are right," said Frederick, resting his head on his mother's shoulder, "we are happy. As I sit here in the shade, this beautiful summer evening, with my head on your shoulder, gazing with half-closed eyes through the golden sunlight at our pretty home, while the soft murmur of the cascade fills the air, it seems to me it would be delightful to remain here just as we are for a hundred years."

And Frederick settled his head still more comfortably on his mother's shoulder, as if he would indeed like to spend an eternity there. The young mother, taking care not to disturb Frederick, bent her head a little to one side in order to lay her cheek upon his, and taking one of his hands in hers, replied:

"It is true that this corner of the earth has always been a sort of paradise for us, and but for the recollection of the month that you were so ill, I think we should find it difficult to recollect a single unhappy moment. Is that not so, Frederick?"

"You have always spoiled me so."

"M. Frederick doesn't know what he is talking about, evidently," responded Madame Bastien, with an affectation of grave displeasure. "There is nothing more disagreeable, and above all more unhappy, than a spoiled child. I should like to know what idle fancies and caprices I have ever encouraged in you, monsieur. Mention one if you can."

"I should think I could. In the first place you never give me the time to be bored, but take quite as much interest in my diversions and pleasures as I do. I really don't know how you manage it, but time passes so quickly in your company that I cannot believe that this is the last of June, and when the first of January comes, I know I shall say the same thing."

"Oh, you needn't try to get out of answering my question by flattering me, monsieur. Just tell me when I ever spoiled you unduly, and if I am not, on the contrary, very severe and exacting, especially in relation to your hours of study?"

"Ah, you do well to boast of being exacting in that particular. Don't you share my studies as well as my play, so study has always been as amusing as recreation to me? Consequently, I maintain that if I am happy, it is due to you. If I know anything, if I am of account, in short, it is all due to you and solely to you. Have I ever left you? Everything that is good in me, I owe to you; all that is bad, my obstinacy, for example – "

"Yes, it is true that this dear little head has a will of its own," said Madame Bastien, interrupting him and kissing him on the forehead. "I don't know any one who has a stronger will than yours, but so long as you will to be the tenderest and best of sons, as you have up to the present time, why, I am not disposed to complain. Each day brings some fresh proof of the kindness and generosity of your heart, and if I needed any auxiliary to convince you, I should invoke the testimony of the friend I see coming over there," she added, pointing out some one to Frederick. "He knows you almost as well as I do, and you must admit that his sincerity is beyond all question."

The newcomer to whom Madame Bastien had alluded, and who was now advancing through the grove, was about forty years of age, a small, delicate-looking man, very carelessly dressed. He was singularly ugly, too, but his ugliness was of the clever, good-humoured type. His name was Dufour; he practised medicine at Pont Brillant, and, by dint of skill and unremitting attention, he had cured Frederick of a serious illness the year before.

"How do you do, my dear Madame Bastien?" he said, cheerfully, as he approached the pair. "How do you do, my boy?" he added, pressing Frederick's hand cordially.

"Ah, doctor, you came just in time to get scolded," exclaimed Madame Bastien, with affectionate gaiety.

"Scolded?"

"Certainly. Isn't it more than a fortnight since you came to see us?"

"Fie! fie!" cried M. Dufour, "you must be egotistical to demand a doctor's visits with health as flourishing as yours."

"Fie!" retorted Madame Bastien, no less gaily, "and what right have you, pray, to so disdain the gratitude of those you have saved as to deprive them of the pleasure of saying to him often, very often,'Thank you, my preserver, thank you'?"

"Yes, my mother is right, M. Dufour," added Frederick. "You think because you have restored me to life that all is over between us. How ungrateful you are!"

"If mother and son have both declared war upon me, there is nothing left for me but to beat a retreat," exclaimed the doctor, drawing back a step or two.

"Oh, well, we will not take an unfair advantage; but only upon one condition, doctor. That is that you will dine with us."

"I left home with that very laudable intention," replied the doctor, quite seriously this time, "but just as I was leaving Pont Brillant, a woman stopped me and begged me to come at once to her son. I did so, but unfortunately his malady is of such a serious character that I shall not feel easy in mind if I do not see my patient again before seven o'clock."

"Of course I can make no protest under circumstances like these, my dear doctor," replied Madame Bastien, "and I am doubly grateful to you for granting us a few moments."

"And I have been looking forward to such a delightful evening," remarked the doctor. "It would have rounded out my day so well, for this morning I had a most delightful surprise."

"So some unexpected piece of good fortune has befallen you, my dear doctor. How glad I am!"

"Yes," replied the doctor; "for some time past I have been extremely uneasy about my best friend, an inveterate traveller, who had undertaken a dangerous journey through some of the least known portions of South America. Having heard nothing from him for more than eight months, I was beginning to feel very much alarmed, when this morning I received a letter from him written in London, where he had stopped for a few days on his return from Lima. He promises to come and spend some time with me, so you can judge how delighted I am, my dear Madame Bastien. He is like a brother to me, and not only has the best heart in the world, but is one of the most interesting as well as the most gifted men I know. What a pleasure it will be to have him all to myself!"

Here the doctor was interrupted by an elderly servant woman, who was leading a poorly clad child of seven or eight years by the hand, and who, from the threshold of the door where she was standing, called to the youth:

"It is six o'clock, M. Frederick."

"I'll see you again presently, mother," said the lad, kissing his young mother on the forehead.

Then, turning to the doctor, he added:

"I shall see you, too, doctor, before you go, shall I not?"

After which he hastily joined the child and old servant, and entered the house in company with them.

"Where is he going?" asked the doctor.

"To give his lesson. Didn't you see his scholar?"

"What scholar?"

"That child is the son of a day labourer who lives too far from Pont Brillant to be able to send his child to the village school, so Frederick is teaching the little fellow to read. He gives him two lessons a day, and I assure you that I am as well pleased with the teacher as with the pupil, doctor, for Frederick displays in his teaching a zeal, patience, and sweetness of disposition that delights me."

"It is certainly a very nice thing for him to do."

"We are obliged to do good in these small ways, you see, doctor," said Madame Bastien, with a rather sad smile. "You know with what rigid parsimony my son and I are treated in regard to money matters. Still, I should not complain. Thanks to this parsimony, Frederick devises all sorts of expedients. Some of them are, I assure you, very touching, and if I were not afraid of showing too much pride, I would tell you something that occurred last week."

"Go on, my dear Madame Bastien; surely you are not going to try to play the mock modest mother with me."

"No, I am not, so listen. Last Thursday Frederick and I walked over to Brevan heath – "

"Where they are clearing up some land. I noticed that fact as I passed there this morning."

"Yes, and you know that is pretty hard work, doctor."

"I should say that it was. Digging up roots and stumps that have been there three or four centuries."

"Well, while I was walking about with Frederick, we saw a poor, hungry-looking woman, with a little girl about ten years old, as pale and emaciated-looking as her mother, working there on the heath."

"A woman and a child of that age! Why, such work was entirely beyond their strength."

"You are right, doctor, and in spite of their courage, the poor creatures were making little or no headway. It was almost as much as the poor mother could do to lift the heavy spade, much less to force it into the hard earth, and when the root of a sapling at which she must have been digging a long time became partially uncovered, the woman and child, now using the spade as a lever, now digging in the ground with their hands, endeavoured to loosen the root, but in vain. Seeing how utterly futile their efforts were, the poor woman made an almost despairing movement, then threw herself down on the ground as if overcome with grief and fatigue, and covering her head with her tattered apron, she began to sob bitterly, while the child, kneeling beside her, also wept pitifully."

"Ah! such poverty as that!"

"I looked at my son. There were tears in his eyes as well as my own. I approached the poor woman and asked her how it happened that she was trying to do work so much beyond her strength, and she told me that her husband had contracted to clear up one quarter of the land, that he had become ill from overwork a couple of days before, that some of the work was still to be done, but that if the job was not finished by Saturday night, he would lose the fruit of nearly a fortnight's labour, for it was on these terms that her husband had undertaken the job, the work being urgent."

"Such contracts are frequently made, and unless the conditions are scrupulously complied with, the poor delinquents have to suffer, I am sorry to say. So the poor woman was trying to take her husband's place, I suppose."

"Yes, for it was a question of making or losing thirty-five francs upon which they were counting to pay the yearly rental of their miserable hovel, and purchase a little rye to live upon until the next harvest. After a few minutes' reflection Frederick said to the poor woman: 'I should think a good worker could finish the job in a couple of days, my good woman.' 'Yes, monsieur, but my husband is too ill to do it,' she replied. 'These poor people mustn't lose their thirty-five francs, mother,' Frederick said to me. 'They must have the money and we cannot afford to give it to them, so let me off from my studies on Friday and Saturday and I will finish the work for them. The poor woman won't run the risk of making herself ill. She can stay at home and nurse her husband, and Sunday she will get her money.'"

"Frederick is a noble boy!" exclaimed M. Dufour.

"Saturday evening just at dusk the task was completed," Madame Bastien continued. "Frederick performed the work with an ardour and cheerfulness which showed that it was a real pleasure to him. I stayed with him all during the two days. There was a big juniper-tree only a little way off, and I sat in the shade of that and read or embroidered while my son worked; and how he worked! such vigorous blows of the spade as he struck, the very earth trembled under my feet."

"I can well believe it; though he is rather slim, he is remarkably strong for one of his years."

"I took him water now and then, and to save time when lunch-time came, our old Marguerite brought us out something to eat. How happy we were eating out there on the heath under the shade of the juniper. Frederick enjoyed it immensely. Of course there was nothing so very wonderful about what he did, but what touched and pleased me was the promptness with which he made the resolution, and the perseverance and tenacity of will with which he carried it out."

"You are, indeed, the happiest of mothers," said the doctor with genuine emotion, pressing Marie's hands warmly, "and you have reason to be doubly happy, as this happiness is your own work."

"What else could you expect, doctor?" replied Madame Bastien, artlessly. "One lives for one's son you know."

"You most assuredly do," said the doctor, warmly, "and it is well for you that you do, as but for him – " but M. Dufour checked himself suddenly as if he had been about to say something that would be better left unsaid.

"You are right, my dear doctor, but now I think of it, didn't you say something about a proposition you were going to make to Frederick and me?"

"True, it is this: you know, or rather you do not know – for you hear very little of the neighbourhood gossip – that the Château de Pont Brillant has recently undergone a thorough renovation."

"I am so little au courant with the gossip of the neighbourhood, as you say, that this is the first intimation I have had of the fact. I even thought that the château was closed."

"It will not be much longer, for the young marquis is coming down to occupy it with his grandmother."

"This is the son of the M. de Pont Brillant who died about three years ago, I suppose. He must be very young."

"About Frederick's age. His father and mother are both dead, but his grandmother idolises him and she has gone to fabulous expense to refurnish the château, where she will hereafter spend eight or nine months of the year with her grandson. I was called to the castle a few days ago to attend M. le chef of the conservatories – for these great people do not say gardener; that would be entirely too common – and I was dazzled by the luxury and splendour that pervaded the immense establishment. There is a magnificent picture gallery, a palm house through which one could drive in a carriage, and superb statues in the gardens. Above all – but I want to have the pleasure of surprising you, so I will only say that the place rivals any of the magnificent palaces described in the Arabian Nights. I feel sure that you and Frederick would enjoy seeing all the wonders of this fairy-land, and thanks to the consideration which M. le chef of the gardens and conservatories accords me, I can take you through the chateau to-morrow or the day after, but no later, as the young marquis is expected the day following that. What do you say to the proposition?"

"I accept it with pleasure, doctor. It will be a great treat to Frederick, whose wonder will be the greater as he has no idea that any such splendour exists in the world. So I thank you most heartily. We shall have a delightful day."

"Very well. When shall we go?"

"To-morrow, if it suits you."

"Perfectly; I will make my round very early in the morning, so I can get here by nine o'clock. It will take us only about half an hour to reach the château, as there is a short cut through the forest."

"And after we leave the château we can breakfast in the woods upon some fruit we will take with us," said Madame Bastien, gaily. "I will tell Marguerite to make one of those cakes you like so much, my dear doctor."

"I consent on condition that the cake is a big one," replied the doctor, laughing, "for however large it may be, Frederick and I are sure to make a big hole in it."

"You need have no fears on that score. You shall both have plenty of cake. But here comes Frederick; the lesson must be over. I will leave you the pleasure of surprising him."

"Oh, mother, how delightful!" exclaimed the lad, when M. Dufour had informed him of his project. "Thank you, thank you, my dear doctor, for having planned this charming journey into fairy-land."

The doctor was punctual the next day, and he and Madame Bastien and her son started through the forest for the Château de Pont Brillant in all the fresh glory of a superb summer morning.