Beck Center English Dept. University Libraries Emory University
Emory Women Writers Resource Project Collections:
Women's Genre Fiction Project

Adrienne, an electronic edition

by Rita

date: 1898
source publisher: Hutchinson & Co.
collection: Genre Fiction

Table of Contents

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CHAPTER XX.

WITH languid steps and an anxious heart, André Brizeaux slowly made his way through the old, familiar roads that led to the Tours des Champs. He marvelled a little how his father would receive him--what he would say to him. He thought, too, of Maï thought of her regretfully and sadly, knowing how poor an allegiance his had been, how little love for her he had.

His life seemed almost like a dream since he had left. The dreary waiting, the long despair, the privation and misery he had endured, and then the instant rapture of success, the triumph he had achieved, the bright future that stretched before him now, wherein his own talents and his own powers might bring him the fame he had dreamed of so long.

"It is to her I owe it all," he thought; and the thought was sweet, despite its pain.

She was far above him--a star in the firmament of his dreams. That was all; but he had for her an adoration deeper than human love--a reverence, a devotion exceeding any feeling of his life.

"And I can do nothing for her! I cannot even revenge her," he thought bitterly, as he remembered her sufferings, her wrongs---as he thought of the | | 215 changed beauty of the sweet face, the agony that had looked out of her eyes when last he had met their gaze.

Mechanically he went on his way.

The moonlight lay on all the fair, white road. The fields were green, the scent of flowers was everywhere. It was all so still, so peaceful, so different from the stir and gaiety of Paris. André looked on it all and sighed. He had gained his wish, his dreams were about to be realised, and yet he knew he was not one whit happier than when he had rushed from his quiet country home, his brain on fire with wild projects, his heart filled with a tumult of unrest.

The unrest was there still.

He reached his home. A faint light streamed from the window; the door was unlatched. He opened it, and stood a moment on the threshold, looking in. The old man was sitting by the fire in an arm-chair; he was leaning over the blaze, and nodding his head from time to time. Crouched at his feet was little Maï. They were both silent, both unconscious of the watchful figure at the door. He moved rapidly forward, and came to his father's side, and stretched out his arms.

"Father," he said, "it is I. Have you forgiven me?"

Maï started to her feet with a faint cry of terror; she stared at him incredulously. He wore no peasant's dress now; he looked like a gentleman. He | | 216 seemed handsomer than ever, despite the pallor of his face, the lines of care and thought upon his brow. But the old man took no heed of his words, only sat there nodding at the fire and muttering as before.

André turned to Maï.

"What is it?" he asked, almost with terror.

"He is always like that now," said the girl; "his mind seems quite gone."

André turned as white as death.

"Was it--was it through me?" he asked faintly.

"Yes," answered Maï. "For a time he went about and did his work and seemed just as usual, but afterward--well, he could remember nothing, and cared for nothing, and now he gets weaker every day, and I sometimes think he does not even know me."

The young man covered his face with his hands and turned away. Did this sin indeed lie at his door? Was his own discontent thus punished?

"We thought you had forgotten!" Maï continued presently. "I sometimes think if you had written--if we had heard any word of you--it might have been better for him. He was very bitter against you for long, I know, but still he might have forgiven; I think he would. Now, it is too late."

André drooped his hands with a heavy sigh.

Too late! Everything was too late--everything was wrong. His heart ached within his breast. The memory of his own ingratitude seemed a hideous sin in his eyes.

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Maï crept nearer to him. He had not seemed to remember her yet.

"Do not grieve," she said gently; "you could not help it. The life here was not suited to you. You are happy doubtless in Paris. Are you great now?"

"Great!" He almost laughed at her simplicity. "No," he said, "I am not great. I have everything to learn yet."

Then he seemed to remember. He looked at her and noted how sad she looked; how much older and graver was the bright little face of his old playmate.

"You have been well, I hope," he said anxiously, "you and Gran'mère?"

"Gran'mère is dead," said the girl, while the tears rose to her eyes. "I live here now."

"Dead! Great heavens--so short a time I seem to have been away, and so many changes."

He looked tenderly down at her.

"And you are all alone--unprotected--poor little Maï!"

She flushed hotly. She did not want his pity. But a great unspoken gladness came to her heart as she read the look in his eyes. He had not forgotten. The Comte de Valtour had been wrong, after all!

She moved restlessly away.

"I am very well," she said. "Your father needs someone, and I like to be with him. But you must be fatigued. You have had a long journey. Sit down, and I will get you some supper."

André obeyed mechanically. How strange it | | 218 seemed, this home-coming. How small and dreary every place looked in the old Tower that had been his birthplace. And his father--his heart ached as he looked at him. Would he never know him again? Would he never touch his hand and look forgiveness into his eyes!

Maï moved swiftly and busily about, and set out bread and fruit and cheese and a flask of wine. Her limbs trembled--her face flushed and paled every time she looked at André or approached him. She was glad and yet afraid. Only--he had come back. Surely that showed he loved them still. But the difference in him puzzled her; she could not understand it. Was it the altered dress, or the manners, or a certain languid grace and dreaminess about him that was at once beautiful and strange? She could not quite tell.

She watched him as he ate and drank. She would not sit down at table with him, despite his entreaties. The difference between them seemed greater than ever, and into her love crept a kind of awe. Perhaps, after all, it was only his body that had come back. His heart was not here. It was in that great, vile, beautiful city whither he had fled to find fame--from whence he had returned so changed, that it seemed to her simple mind he could never have been the handsome peasant lad who had wooed her under the vines, to whom she had been betrothed with such pride and gladness. Yet what was it that divided them? He spoke kindly, thoughtfully of old friends, old scenes, | | 219 old things they had shared in common, but he spoke of them all with no lingering affection such as she held, but more as if some vast distance of thought and feeling had separated him from all that had once been his.

"I feel as if I had been away for years," he said at last, as he pushed aside his plate, and drew his chair up to the fire.

The old man had fallen asleep. Maï's little brown fingers were busy on some homely work. Her eyes, as they ever and anon met his, were full of love, and homage, and shy gladness. A half-sigh escaped his lips. Why could he not be happy here? Why could he not take his father's labours upon his own shoulders and marry Maï, and settle down to the peaceful, plodding life of a peasant? There would be no pains, no fears, no heartburnings and jealousies, no restless striving after fame, no aches and frets of social martyrdom.

He looked at the frail old man, whose span of life might easily be measured; at the young girl, with her simple beauty, her honest nature, her tender love for him. Surely it was his duty to dwell here now, to give his father rest, and bestow on her protection. He had been neglectful of duty once. He had given it no heed in the fever and ambition of his desires; but now he was older, sadder, wiser. Would it not, after all, be right to sacrifice his future fame at any cost, so that his father's age and infirmities and his betrothed's unprotected life might be his care hence- | | 220 forth? He pondered the question gravely. It was a difficult one to decide. It became doubly difficult as he thought of the inspiration of his romantic love--of the beautiful lips that had bade him thank her by his success. How hard it was to decide! How terribly hard!

"I think your father is tired now," said little Maï, breaking the long silence at last. "It is his time for rest. Your room is quite ready for you, André."

He started a little. His thoughts had been far away. Then he went up to the old man and gave him his arm and helped him up the rickety stairs. When he bade him good-night he tried once more to gain some recognition, but it was useless. The old man only looked at him with his lustreless eyes, and nodded his head, and muttered something incoherent.

He did not know him.

André turned to Maï.

"I am not tired. I cannot rest yet," he said. "I shall go out for a time. Leave the door unlatched. I will bolt it when I come in."

The girl nodded.

His manner had not been at all lover-like; he had not said one word such as she longed and hungered to hear, but yet she tried to content herself with the actual fact of his presence. Perhaps to-morrow it would be different.

André went out into the quiet summer night. The clock of a distant church was striking the hour; there | | 221 was an intense hush and stillness everywhere. A faint wind stole up through the vines, the tops of the distant hills were silvered by the moonrays; about him were faint shadows and pale gleams of light and all the old familiar sights and sounds of his boyhood's days, where the old tower rested dark and gray among its clustering ivy. He looked at it, and the struggle that had been going on within his mind since his return now commenced a more active warfare.

It was the old struggle--old as life--old as the world's sorrows, the conflict between duty and inclination.

He stood by the well with the dark boughs of the wild fig-tree above his head, and he thought of the day when the young countess had come there, and he had played and sung to her, and how her words and praises had been as fuel to the fire of his ambition, and filled his soul with a tumult of unrest. Yet it seemed to him now that in some way genius was but a higher form of selfishness. It had been so to him, for he had thrown aside all other thoughts and feelings at its bidding. He had sacrificed two lives in its service. To-night the truth had come home to him too clearly for any subterfuge. His father was helpless and alone, his betrothed was equally unprotected. How could he go away and leave them as they were, despite all the beauty and promise that the future seemed to hold for him?

"It would be wrong," he acknowledged, with a heavy sigh, and his heart grew weary and sad as he | | 222 thought of the sacrifice he must make. It was a thousand times greater--a thousand times more difficult--than when he had first decided to leave home. Then he had had but vague dreams; now he had the certain prospects of success and fame. He must give up all. It would be right, that he knew, but all the same the resolve was terrible in the pain it cost, the hopes it forfeited.

"They say one changes with the years," he muttered to himself, leaning wearily there against the old well, the lights and shadows all about him. "Perhaps I might change--I might grow content. There is the land and the work--always the work; and perhaps, after all, I do but dream. I might never be great, I am always restless and unhappy now. Might I not find peace just in the very hardness of this task--just in the very fact that for once I have done my duty?"

Above at the little lattice Maï watched him standing there. Her eyes were full of tears, her heart was beating painfully beneath her linen bodice. She felt so coarse, so common, so unlovely now that she had seen him! It seemed to her that he could but despise and look down upon her.

"I am not fit for him--not fit," she murmured, kneeling there in the moonlight with the cloud of her loosened hair tossed back from her face, and the tears standing thick and heavy in her brown eyes. "He is so changed; his body has come back, but his heart is not with us, nor of us any longer; and this one | | 223 thing I know, that he and I can never be anything to one another now. He does not love me. I see that. If he asked me to marry him to-morrow I would not do it. I can see I have no place in his heart; without that--though I loved him tenfold more than I do--I would never be his wife."

Who says that love is blind? Nay, rather it is too quick and keen of sight; and, if it fails to read aright, it knows it does but cheat itself.

There is no need of words, or promises to bind faith or insure constancy. Love wants little said, but if it burns with equal rapture in each heart the eyes will be no false prophets; for through the windows of the soul love looks love in the face, and that language defies all simulation.

Maï was but a little peasant--ignorant, unlearned; but she had a woman's heart, and it taught her this.

Her arms were crossed on her bosom; a prayer was on her lips. There was no sound anywhere around her, and no thought of anything within her save that she might have strength to act for his good--to sacrifice her whole life's peace and promise, so only he might be happy.

What man yet ever understood the love of a woman, with its wonderful patience, its manifold contradictions, its utter self-abnegation, its purity of worship, its tender faith, its holy dreams, its inalienable devotion? What man? None, I fancy; for love is ever at cross-purposes in this world, and the best is | | 224 seldom loved by the best, so fidelity and devotion are alike incomprehensible.

What do the swine care for the pearls of price that are thrown at their feet?

The pure, impersonal passion of a woman's heart is the keynote to her life that but one hand has the power to strike. He may be worthy or unworthy, good or vile, it will make no difference. He has the power, and he alone can use or abuse it.

Unfortunately for her, it is so often the latter that he chooses to adopt.

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