Jack by Alphonse Daudet (web ebook reader txt) 📖

numerous at the time when the air is full of the aroma of ripening fruits, impatiently shook his long ears.
They went on and on until they reached a hill-side, where they saw a crowd at work. Jack and Cecile each snatched a wicker basket and joined the others. What a pretty sight it was! The rustic landscape seen between the vine-draped arches, the narrow stream, winding and picturesque, full of green islands, a little cascade and its white foam, and above all, the fog showing through a golden mist, and a fresh breeze that suggested long evenings and bright fires.
This charming day was very short, at least so Jack found it. He did not leave Cecile's side for a minute. She wore a broad-brimmed hat and a skirt of flowered cambric. He filled her basket with the finest of the grapes, exquisite in their purple bloom, delicate as the dust on the wings of a butterfly. They examined the fruit together; and when Jack raised his eyes, he admired on the cheeks of the young girl the same faint, powdery bloom. Her hair, blown in the wind in a soft halo above her brow, added to this effect. He had never seen a face so changed and brightened as hers. Exercise and the excitement of her pretty toil, the gayety of the vineyard, the laughs and shouts of the laborers, had absolutely transformed M. Rivals' quiet housekeeper. She became a child once more, ran down the slopes, lifted her basket on her shoulder, watched her burden carefully, and walked with that rhythmical step which Jack remembered to have seen in the Breton women as they bore on their heads their full water-jugs. There came a time in the day when these two young persons, overwhelmed by fatigue, took their seats at the entrance of a little grove where the dry leaves rustled under their feet.
And then? Ah, well, they said nothing. They let the night descend softly on the most beautiful dream of their lives; and when the swift autumnal twilight brought out in the darkness the bright windows of the simple homes scattered about, the wind freshened, and Cecile insisted on fastening around Jack's throat the scarf she had brought, the warmth and softness of the fabric, the consciousness of being cared for, was like a caress to the lover.
He took her hand, and her fingers lingered in his for a moment; that was all. When they returned to the farm the doctor had just arrived; they heard his cheery voice in the courtyard. The chill of the early autumnal evenings has a charm that both Cecile and Jack felt as they entered the large room filled with the light from the fire. At supper innumerable dusty bottles were produced, but Jack manifested profound indifference to their charms. The doctor, on the contrary, fully appreciated them, so fully that his granddaughter quietly left her seat, ordered the carriage to be harnessed, and wrapped herself in her cloak. Dr. Rivals seeing her in readiness, rose without remonstrance, leaving on the table his half-filled glass.
The three drove home, as in the olden days, through the quiet country roads; the cabriolet, which had increased in size as had its occupants, groaned a little on its well-used springs. This noise took nothing from the charm of the drive, which the stars, so numberless in autumn, seemed to follow with a golden shower.
"Are you cold, Jack?" said the doctor, suddenly.
How could he be cold? The fringe of Cecile's great shawl just touched him.
Alas! why must there be a to-morrow to such delicious days? Jack knew now that he loved Cecile, but he realized also that this love would be to him only an additional cause of sorrow. She was too far above him, and although he had changed much since he had been so near her, although he had thrown aside much of the roughness of his habits and appearance, he still felt himself unworthy of the lovely fairy who had transformed him.
The mere idea that the girl should know that he adored her was distasteful to him. Besides, as his bodily health returned, he began to grow ashamed of his hours of inaction in "the office." What would she think of him should he continue to remain there? Cost what it would, he must go.
One morning he entered M. Rivals' house to thank him for all his kindness, and to inform him of his decision.
"You are right," said the old man; "you are well now bodily and mentally, and you can soon find some employment."
There was a long silence, and Jack was disturbed by the singular attention with which M. Rivals regarded him. "You have something to say to me," said the doctor, abruptly.
Jack colored and hesitated.
"I thought," continued the doctor, "that when a youth was in love with a girl who had no other relation than an old grandfather, the proper thing was to speak to him frankly."
Jack, without answering, hid his face in his hands.
"Why are you so troubled, my boy?" continued his old friend.
"I did not dare to speak to you," answered Jack; "I am poor and without any position."
"You can remedy all this."
"But there is something else: you do not know that I am illegitimate!"
"Yes, I know--and so is she," said the doctor, calmly. "Now listen to a long story."
They were in the doctor's library. Through the open window they saw a superb autumnal landscape, long country roads bordered with leafless trees; and beyond, the old country cemetery, its yew-trees prostrated, and its crosses upheaved.
"You have never been there," said M. Rivals, pointing out to Jack this melancholy spot. "Nearly in the centre is a large white stone, on which is the one word Madeleine.
"There lies my daughter, Cecile's mother. She wished to be placed apart from us all, and desired that only her Christian name should be put upon her tomb, saying that she was not worthy to bear the name of her father and mother. Dear child, she was so proud! She had done nothing to merit this exile after death, and if any should have been punished, it was I, an old fool, whose obstinacy brought all our misfortunes upon us.
"One day, eighteen years ago this very month, I was sent for in a hurry on account of an accident that had happened at a hunt in the Foret de Senart. A gentleman had been shot in the leg. I found the wounded man on the state-bed at the Archambaulds. He was a handsome fellow, with light hair and eyes, those northern eyes that have something of the cold glitter of ice. He bore with admirable courage the extraction of the balls, and, the operation over, thanked me in excellent French, though with a foreign accent. As he could not be moved without danger, I continued to attend him at the forester's; I learned that he was a Russian of high rank,--'the Comte Nadine,' his companions called him.
"Although the wound was dangerous, Nadine, thanks to his youth and good constitution, as well as to the care of Mother Archambauld, was soon able to leave his bed, but as he could not walk at all, I took compassion on his loneliness, and often carried him in my cabriolet home to my own house to dine. Sometimes, when the weather was bad, he spent the night with us. I must acknowledge to you that I adored the man. He had great stores of information, had been everywhere, and seen everything. To my wife he gave the pharmaceutic recipes of his own land, to my daughter he taught the melodies of the Ukraine. We were positively enchanted with him all of us, and when I turned my face homeward on a rainy evening, I thought with pleasure that I should find so congenial a person at my fireside. My wife resisted somewhat the general enthusiasm, but as it was rather her habit to cultivate a certain distrust as a balance to my recklessness, I paid little attention. Meanwhile our invalid was quite well enough to return to Paris, but he did not go, and I did not ask either myself or him why he lingered.
"One day my wife said, 'M. Nadine must explain why he comes so often to the house; people are beginning to gossip about Madeleine and himself.'
"'What nonsense!' I exclaimed. I had the absurd notion that the count lingered at Etiolles on my account; I thought he liked our long talks, idiot that I was. Had I looked at my daughter when he entered the room, I should have seen her change color and bend assiduously over her embroidery all the while he was there. But there are no eyes so blind as those which will not see; and I chose to be blind. Finally, when Madeleine acknowledged to her mother that they loved each other, I went to find the comte to force an explanation.
"He loved my daughter, he said, and asked me for her hand, although he wished me to understand the obstacles that would be thrown in the way by his family. He said, however, that he was of an age to act for himself, and that he had some small income, which, added to the amount that I could give Madeleine, would secure their comfort.
"A great disproportion of fortune would have terrified me, while the very moderation of his resources attracted me. And then his air of lordly decision, his promptness in arranging everything, was singularly attractive. In short, he was installed in the house as my future son-in-law, without my asking too curiously by what door he entered. I realized that there was something a little irregular in the affair, but my daughter was very happy; and when her mother said, 'We must know more before we give up our daughter,' I laughed at her, I was so certain that all was right. One day I spoke of him to M. Vieville, one of the huntsmen.
"'Indeed, I know nothing of the Comte Nadine,' he said; 'he strikes me as an excellent fellow. I know that he bears a celebrated name, and that he is well educated. But if I had a daughter involved, I should wish to know more than this. I should write, if I were you, to the Russian embassy; they can tell you everything there.'
"You suppose, of course, that I went to the embassy. That is just what I did not do; I was too careless, too blindly confident, too busy. I have never been able in my whole life to do what I wished, for I have never had any time; my whole existence has been too short for the half of what I have wished to do. Tormented by my wife on the subject of this additional information, I finished by lying, 'Yes, yes, I went there; everything is satisfactory.' Since then I remember the singular air of the comte each time he thought I was going to Paris; but at that time I saw nothing; I was absorbed in the plans that my children were making for their future happiness. They were to live with us three months in the year, and to spend the rest of the time in St. Petersburg, where Nadine was offered a government situation. My poor wife ended in sharing my joy and satisfaction.
"The end of the winter passed in correspondence. The count's papers were long in coming, his parents utterly refused their consent. At last the papers came--a package of hieroglyphics impossible to decipher,--certificates of birth, baptism, &c. That which particularly amused us was a sheet filled with the titles of my future son-in-law, Ivanovitch Nicolaevitch Stephanovitch.
"'Have you really as many names as that?' said my poor child, laughing; 'and I am only Madeleine Rivals.'
"There