Jack by Alphonse Daudet (web ebook reader txt) 📖

supposed--in fact, you told me--"
"No, no--it was the elder branch of the Bulac family that was noble."
"He was connected then with the Bulac family?"
"Most assuredly. He was the head of the younger branch."
"And his name was--"
"The Baron de Bulac--a lieutenant in the navy."
Jack felt dizzy, and had only strength to ask, "How long since he died?"
"O, years and years!" said Charlotte, hurriedly.
That his father was dead he was sure; but had his mother told him a falsehood now, or on the previous occasion? Was he a De Bulac or a L'Epau?
"You are looking ill, child," said Charlotte, interrupting herself in the midst of a long romance she was telling, "your hands are like ice."
"Never mind, I shall get warm with exercise," answered Jack, with difficulty.
"Are you going so soon? Well, it is best that you should get back before it is late." She kissed him tenderly, tied a handkerchief around his throat, and slipped some money into his pocket. She fancied that his silence and sadness came from seeing all the preparations for a fete in which he was to have no share, and when her maid summoned her for the waiting coiffeur, she said good-bye hurriedly.
"You see I must leave you; write often, and take good care of yourself."
He went slowly down the steps, with his face turned toward his mother all the time. He was sad at heart, but not by reason of this fete from which he was excluded, but at the thought of all the happiness in life from which he had been always shut out. He thought of the children who could love and respect their parents, who had a name, a fireside, and a family. He remembered, too, that his unhappy fate would prevent him from asking any woman to share his life. He was wretched without realizing that to regret these joys was in fact to be worthy of them, and that it was only the fall perception of the sad truths of his destiny that would impart the strength to cope with them.
Wrapped in these dismal meditations, he had reached the Lyons station, a spot where the mud seems deeper, and the fog thicker, than elsewhere. It was just the hour that the manufactories closed. A tired crowd, overwhelmed by discouragement and distress, hurried through the streets, going at once to the wine-shops, some of which had as a sign the one word _Consolation_, as if drunkenness and forgetfulness were the sole refuge for the wretched. Jack, feeling that darkness had settled down on his life as absolutely as it had on this cold autumnal night, uttered an exclamation of despair.
"They are right; what is there left to do but to drink?" and entering one of those miserable drink-ing-shops, Jack called for a double measure of brandy. Just as he lifted his glass, amid the din of coarse voices, and through the thick smoke, he heard a flute-like voice,--
"Do you drink brandy, Jack?"
No, he did not drink it, nor would he ever touch it again. He left the shop abruptly, leaving his glass untouched and the money on the counter.
How Jack had a sharp illness of some weeks' duration after this long walk; how Dr. Hirsch experimented upon him until routed by Dr. Rivals, who carried the youth to his own house and nursed him again to health, is too long a story. We prefer also to introduce our readers to Jack seated in a comfortable arm-chair, reading at the window of the doctor's office. It was peaceful about him, a peace that came from the sunny sky, the silent house, and the gentle footfall of Cecile.
He was so happy that he rarely spoke, and contented himself with watching the movements of the dear presence that pervaded the simple home. She sewed and kept her grandfather's accounts.
"I am sure," she said, looking up from her book, "that the dear man forgets half his visits. Did you notice what he said yesterday, Jack?"
"Mademoiselle!" he answered, with a start.
He had not heard one word, although he had been watching her with all his eyes. If Cecile said, "My friend," it seemed to Jack that no other person had ever so called him; and when she said farewell, or good-night, his heart contracted as if he were never to see her again. Her slightest words were full of meaning, and her simple, unaffected ways were a delight to the youth. In his state of convalescence he was more susceptible to these influences than he would ordinarily have been.
O, the delicious days he spent in that blessed home! The office, a large, deserted room, with white curtains at the windows opening on a village street, communicated to him its healthful calm. The room was filled with the odors of plants culled in the splendor of their flowering, and he drank it in with delight.
In the scent of the balsam he heard the rushing of the clear brooks in the forest, and the woods were green and shady, when he caught the odor of the herbs gathered from the foot of the tall oaks.
With returning strength Jack tried to read; he turned over the old volumes, and found those in which he had studied so long before, and which he could now far better comprehend. The doctor was out nearly all day, and the two young people remained alone. This would have horrified many a prudent mother, and, of course, had Madame Rivals been living, it would not have been permitted; but the doctor was a child himself, and then, who knows? he may have had his own plans.
Meanwhile D'Argenton, informed of Jack's removal to the Rivals, saw fit to take great offence. "It is not at all proper," wrote Charlotte, "that you should remain there. People will think us unwilling to give you the care you need? You place us in a false position."
This letter failing to produce any effect, the poet wrote himself:--"I sent Hirsch to cure you, but you preferred a country idiot to the science of our friend! As you call yourself better, I give you now two days to return to Aulnettes. If you are not there at the expiration of that time, I shall consider that you have been guilty of flagrant disobedience, and from that moment all is over between us."
As Jack did not move, Charlotte appeared on the scene. She came with much dignity, and with a crowd of phrases that she had learned by heart from her poet. M. Rivals received her at the door, and, not in the least intimidated by her coldness, said at once, "I ought to tell you, madame, that it is my fault alone that your son did not obey you. He has passed through a great crisis. Fortunately he is at an age when constitutions can be reformed, and I trust that his will resist the rough trials to which it has been exposed. Hirsch would have killed him with his musk and his other perfumes. I took him away from the poisonous atmosphere, and now I hope the boy is out of danger. Leave him to me a while longer, and you shall have him back more healthy than ever, and capable of renewing the battle of life; but if you let that impostor Hirsch get hold of him again, I shall think that you wish to get rid of him forever."
"Ah! M. Rivals, what a thing to say! What have I done to deserve such an insult?" and Charlotte burst into tears. The doctor soothed her with a few kind words, and then let her go alone into the office to see her son. She found him changed and improved much, as if he had thrown off some outer husk, but exhausted and weakened by the transformation. He turned pale when he saw her.
"You have come to take me away," he exclaimed.
"Not at all," she answered, hastily. "The doctor wishes you to remain, and where would you be so well as with the doctor who loves you so tenderly?"
For the first time in his life Jack had been happy away from his mother, and a departure from the roof under which he was would have certainly caused him a relapse. Charlotte was evidently uncomfortable; she looked tired and troubled.
"We have a large entertainment every month, and every fortnight a reading, and all the confusion gives me a headache. Then the Japanese prince at the Moronval Academy has written a poem, M. D'Argenton has translated it into French, and we are both of us learning the Japanese tongue. I find it very difficult, and have come to the conclusion that literature is not my forte. The Review does not bring in a single cent, and has not now one subscriber. By the way, our good friend at Tours is dead. Do you remember him?"
At this moment Cecile came in and was received by Charlotte with the most flattering exclamations and much warmth of manner. She talked of D'Argenton and of their friend at Tours, which annoyed Jack intensely, for he would have wished neither person to have been mentioned in Cecile's pure presence, and over and over again he stopped the careless babble of his mother who had no such scruples. They urged Madame D'Argenton to remain to dinner, but she had already lingered too long, and was uneasily occupied in inventing a series of excuses for her delay, which should be in readiness when she encountered her poet's frowning face.
"Above all, Jack, if you write to me, be sure that you put on your letter '_to be called for_,' for M. D'Argenton is much vexed with you just now. So do not be astonished if I scold you a little in my next letter, for he is always there when I write. He even dictates my sentences sometimes; but don't mind, dear, you will understand."
She acknowledged her slavery with naivete, and Jack was consoled for the tyranny by which she was oppressed by seeing her go away in excellent spirits, and with her shawl wrapped so gracefully around her, and her travelling-bag carried as lightly as she carried all the burdens of life.
Have you ever seen those water-lilies, whose long stems arise from the depths of the river, finding their way through all obstacles until they expand on the surface, opening their magnificent white cups, and filling the air with their delicate perfume? Thus grew and flowered the love of these two young hearts. With Cecile, the divine flower had grown in a limpid soul, where the most careless eyes could have discerned it. With Jack, its roots had been tangled and deformed, but when the stems reached the regions of air and light, they straightened themselves, and needed but little more to burst into flower.
"If you wish," said M. Rivals, one evening, "we will go to-morrow to the vintage at Coudray; the farmer will send his wagon; you two can go in that in the morning, and I will join you at dinner."
They accepted the proposition with delight. They started on a bright morning at the end of October. A soft haze hung over the landscape, retreating before them, as it seemed; upon the mown fields and on the bundles of golden grain, upon the slender plants, the last remains of the summer's brightness, long silken threads floated like particles of gray fog. The river ran on one side of the highway, bordered by huge trees. The freshness of the air heightened the spirits of the two young travellers, who sat on the rough seat with their feet in the straw, and holding on with both hands to the side of the wagon. One of the farmer's daughters drove a young ass, who, harassed by the wasps, which are very