Scaramouche Rafael Sabatini (ebook pdf reader for pc TXT) đ
- Author: Rafael Sabatini
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Be it so or otherwise, the fact remains that he stopped short; then, with an incoherent ejaculation, between anger and contempt, he tossed his arms, turned on his heel and strode off quickly with his cousin.
When the landlord and his people came, they found André-Louis, his arms about the body of his dead friend, murmuring passionately into the deaf ear that rested almost against his lips:
âPhilippe! Speak to me, Philippe! Philippeâ ââ ⊠Donât you hear me? O God of Heaven! Philippe!â
At a glance they saw that here neither priest nor doctor could avail. The cheek that lay against AndrĂ©-Louisâs was leaden-hued, the half-open eyes were glazed, and there was a little froth of blood upon the vacuously parted lips.
Half blinded by tears AndrĂ©-Louis stumbled after them when they bore the body into the inn. Upstairs in the little room to which they conveyed it, he knelt by the bed, and holding the dead manâs hand in both his own, he swore to him out of his impotent rage that M. de La Tour dâAzyr should pay a bitter price for this.
âIt was your eloquence he feared, Philippe,â he said. âThen if I can get no justice for this deed, at least it shall be fruitless to him. The thing he feared in you, he shall fear in me. He feared that men might be swayed by your eloquence to the undoing of such things as himself. Men shall be swayed by it still. For your eloquence and your arguments shall be my heritage from you. I will make them my own. It matters nothing that I do not believe in your gospel of freedom. I know itâ âevery word of it; that is all that matters to our purpose, yours and mine. If all else fails, your thoughts shall find expression in my living tongue. Thus at least we shall have frustrated his vile aim to still the voice he feared. It shall profit him nothing to have your blood upon his soul. That voice in you would never half so relentlessly have hounded him and his as it shall in meâ âif all else fails.â
It was an exulting thought. It calmed him; it soothed his grief, and he began very softly to pray. And then his heart trembled as he considered that Philippe, a man of peace, almost a priest, an apostle of Christianity, had gone to his Maker with the sin of anger on his soul. It was horrible. Yet God would see the righteousness of that anger. And in no caseâ âbe manâs interpretation of Divinity what it mightâ âcould that one sin outweigh the loving good that Philippe had ever practised, the noble purity of his great heart. God after all, reflected AndrĂ©-Louis, was not a grand-seigneur.
V The Lord of GavrillacFor the second time that day AndrĂ©-Louis set out for the chĂąteau, walking briskly, and heeding not at all the curious eyes that followed him through the village, and the whisperings that marked his passage through the people, all agog by now with that dayâs event in which he had been an actor.
He was ushered by BĂ©noĂźt, the elderly body-servant, rather grandiloquently called the seneschal, into the ground-floor room known traditionally as the library. It still contained several shelves of neglected volumes, from which it derived its title, but implements of the chaseâ âfowling-pieces, powder-horns, hunting-bags, sheath-knivesâ âobtruded far more prominently than those of study. The furniture was massive, of oak richly carved, and belonging to another age. Great massive oak beams crossed the rather lofty whitewashed ceiling.
Here the squat Seigneur de Gavrillac was restlessly pacing when André-Louis was introduced. He was already informed, as he announced at once, of what had taken place at the Bréton Armé. M. de Chabrillane had just left him, and he confessed himself deeply grieved and deeply perplexed.
âThe pity of it!â he said. âThe pity of it!â He bowed his enormous head. âSo estimable a young man, and so full of promise. Ah, this La Tour dâAzyr is a hard man, and he feels very strongly in these matters. He may be right. I donât know. I have never killed a man for holding different views from mine. In fact, I have never killed a man at all. It isnât in my nature. I shouldnât sleep of nights if I did. But men are differently made.â
âThe question, monsieur my godfather,â said AndrĂ©-Louis, âis what is to be done.â He was quite calm and self-possessed, but very white.
M. de Kercadiou stared at him blankly out of his pale eyes.
âWhy, what the devil is there to do? From what I am told, Vilmorin went so far as to strike M. le Marquis.â
âUnder the very grossest provocation.â
âWhich he himself provoked by his revolutionary language. The poor ladâs head was full of this encyclopaedist trash. It comes of too much reading. I have never set much store by books, AndrĂ©; and I have never known anything but trouble to come out of learning. It unsettles a man. It complicates his views of life, destroys the simplicity which makes for peace of mind and happiness. Let this miserable affair be a warning to you, AndrĂ©. You are, yourself, too prone to these new-fashioned speculations upon a different constitution of the social order. You see what comes of it. A fine, estimable young man, the only prop of his widowed mother too, forgets himself, his position, his duty to that motherâ âeverything; and goes and gets himself killed like this. It is infernally sad. On my soul it is sad.â He produced a handkerchief, and blew his nose with vehemence.
André-Louis felt a tightening of his heart, a lessening of the hopes, never too sanguine, which he had founded upon
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