AT the corner of the Rue Planche Mibray the doctor met a hackney coach, made a sign to the coachman to stop, and hastily got into it.
Billot and Pitou quickly followed him.
“To the College of Louis-le-Grand!” cried Gilbert, and threw himself into one corner of the vehicle, where he fell into a profound reverie, which was respected by Billot and Pitou.
They went over the Pont au Change by the Rue de la Cité, the Rue St. Jacques, and at length reached the College Louis-le-Grand.
All Paris was trembling with emotion. The news had spread rapidly throughout the city; rumors of the assassinations on the Place de la Grève were mingled with the glorious recital of the taking of the Bastille. On every face could be seen depicted the various emotions to which the news gave rise, according to the varied feelings they excited,—the lightning of the soul which thus betrayed themselves.
Gilbert had not once looked out of the coach window; Gilbert had not uttered a single word. There is always a ridiculous side in popular ovations, and Gilbert contemplated his ovation in that point of view.
And besides, it also appeared to him that notwithstanding all he had done to prevent it, some drops of the blood which had been shed would fall upon his head.
The doctor alighted from the hackney coach at the college gate, and made a sign to Billot to follow him.
As to Pitou, he discreetly remained in the coach.
Sebastien was still in the infirmary; the principal in person, on Doctor Gilbert's being announced, conducted him thither.
Billot, who, although not a very acute observer, well knew the character of both father and son,—Billot attentively observed the scene which was passing before his eyes.
Weak, irritable, and nervous, as the boy had shown himself in the moment of despair, he evinced an equal degree of tranquillity and reserve in the moment of joy.
On perceiving his father he turned pale, and words failed him. His lips quivered, and then he ran and threw his arms round his father's neck, uttering a cry of joy, which resembled a cry of grief, and then held him silently clasped within his arms.
The doctor responded as silently to this mute pressure; only, after having embraced his son, he looked at him with an expression that was more sorrowful than joyous.
A more skilful observer than Billot would have said that some misfortune or some crime existed in the relations between that youth and that man.
The youth was less reserved in his conduct towards Billot. When he could observe any one excepting his father, who had in the first moment engrossed all his attention, he ran to the good farmer, and threw his arms round his neck, saying,—
“You are a worthy man, Monsieur Billot; you have kept your promise to me, and I thank you for it.”
“Yes, yes,” replied Billot, “and it was not without some trouble, I can assure you, Monsieur Sebastien. Your father was very nicely and safely locked up, and it was necessary to do a tolerable deal of damage before we could get him out.”
“Sebastien,” inquired the doctor with some anxiety, “you are in good health?”
“Yes, Father,” replied the young man, “although you find me here in the infirmary.”
“I know why it was you were brought here,” said he.
“Have you everything you require here?” continued the doctor.
“I shall then, my dear boy, still recommend to you the same, the only line of conduct,—study assiduously.”
“I know that to you the word 'study' is not a vain and monotonous word; if I believed it to be so, I would no longer say it.”
“Father, it is not for me to reply to you on that head. It is the province of Monsieur Bérardier, our excellent principal.”
The doctor turned towards Monsieur Bérardier, who made a sign that he had something to say to him.
“I will speak to you again in a moment, Sebastien,” said the doctor.
And he went over to the principal.
“Sir,” said Sebastien, with anxious feeling, to Billot, “can anything unfortunate have happened to Pitou? The poor lad is not with you.”
“He is at the door in a hackney coach,” replied Billot.
“Father,” said Sebastien, “will you allow Monsieur Billot to fetch Pitou to me? I should be very glad to see him.”
Gilbert gave an affirmative nod; Billot left the room “What is it you would say to me?” inquired Gilbert of the Abbé Bérardier.
“I wished to tell you, sir, that it is not study that you should recommend to the young lad, but, on the contrary, to amuse himself.”
“And on what account, good abbé?”
“Yes, he is an excellent young man, whom everybody here loves as a son or as a brother, but—”
“But what?” cried Gilbert, with anxiety.
“But if great care be not taken, Monsieur Gilbert, there is something that will kill him.”
“And what is that?” said Gilbert.
“The study which you so strongly recommend to him.”
“Yes, sir, study. If you could but see him seated at his desk, his arms crossed, poring over his dictionary, with eyes fixed—”
“Studying, or dreaming?” asked Gilbert.
“Studying, sir; endeavoring to find a good expression the antique style, the Greek or Latin form—seeking for it for hours together; and see! even at this very moment!—look at him!”
And indeed the young man, although it was not five minutes since his father had been speaking to him, although Billot had scarcely shut the door after him, had fallen into a reverie which seemed closely allied to ecstasy.
“Is he often thus?” anxiously inquired Gilbert.
“Sir, I could almost say that this is his habitual state; only see how deeply he is meditating.”
“You are right, sir; and when you observe him in this state, you should endeavor to divert his thoughts.”
“And yet it would be a pity, for the results of these meditations are compositions which will one day do great honor to the College Louis-le-Grand. I predict that in three years from this time that youth yonder will bear off all the prizes at our examination.”
“Take care!” replied the doctor; “this species of absorption of thought, in which you see Sebastien now plunged, is rather a proof of weakness than of strength, a symptom rather of malady than of health. You are right, Monsieur Principal; it will not do to recommend assiduous application to that child; or, at least, we must know how to distinguish study from such a state of reverie.”
“Sir, I can assure you that he is studying.”
“Yes; and the proof is that his task is always finished before that of the other scholars. Do you see how his lips move? He is repeating his lessons.”
“Well, then, whenever he is repeating his lessons in this manner, Monsieur Bérardier, divert his attention from them. He will not know his lessons the worse for it, and his health will be better for it.”
“Well,” cried the good abbé, “you ought to understand these matters,—you, whom Messieurs de Condorcet and Cabanis proclaim to be one of the most learned men now existing in the world.”
“Only,” rejoined Gilbert, “when you wish to draw him out of such reveries, you must do it with much precaution. Speak to him very softly in the first instance, and then louder.”
“To bring him gradually back to this world, which his mind has left.”
The abbé looked at the doctor with astonishment. It would not have required much to make him believe that he was mad.
“Observe,” continued the doctor; “you shall see the proof of what I am saying to you.”
Billot and Pitou entered the room at this moment. In three strides Pitou was at the side of the dreaming youth.
“You asked for me, Sebastien,” said Pitou to him; “that was very kind of you.”
And he placed his large head close to the pale face of the young lad.
“Look!” said Gilbert, seizing the abbé's arm.
And indeed Sebastien, thus abruptly aroused from his reverie by the cordial affection of Pitou, staggered, his pale face became livid, his head fell on one side, as if his neck had not sufficient strength to support it, a painful sigh escaped his breast, and then the blood again rushed to his face.
“Ah, it is you, Pitou. Yes; that is true: I asked for you.”
“You have been fighting, then?”
“Yes, and like a brave lad, too,” said Billot.
“Why did you not take me with you?” said the child, in a reproachful tone. “I would have fought also, and then I should at least have done something for my father.”
“Sebastien,” said Gilbert, going to his son, and pressing his head to his breast, “you can do much more for your father than to fight for him; you can listen to his advice, and follow it,—become a distinguished and celebrated man.”
“As you are?” said the boy, with proud emotion. “Oh, it is that which I aspire to.”
“Sebastien,” said the doctor, “now that you have embraced both Billot and Pitou, our good friends, will you come into the garden with me for a few minutes, that we may have a little talk together?”
“With great delight, Father. Only two or three times in my whole life have I been alone with you, and those moments, with all their details, are always present in my memory.”
“You will allow us, good Monsieur Principal ” said Gilbert.
“Billot and Pitou, you must, my friends, stand in need of some refreshment?”
“Upon my word, I do,” said Billot. “I have eaten nothing since the morning, and I believe that Pitou has fasted as long as I have.”
“I beg your pardon,” replied Pitou: “I ate a crumb of bread and two or three sausages, just the moment before I dragged you out of the water; but a bath always makes one hungry.”
“Well, then, come to the refectory,” said the Abbé Bérardier, “and you shall have some dinner.”
“You are afraid of our college fare!” cried the abbé; “but do not alarm yourselves; you shall be treated as invited guests. Moreover, it appears to me,” continued the abbé, “that it is not alone your stomach that is in a dilapidated state, my dear Monsieur Pitou.”
Pitou cast a look replete with modesty on his own person.
“And that if you were offered a pair of breeches as well as a dinner—”
“The fact is, I would accept them, good Monsieur Bérardier,” replied Pitou.
“Well, then, come with me; both the breeches and the dinner are at your service.”
And he led off Billot and Pitou by one door, while Gilbert and his son, waving their hands to them, went out at another.
The latter crossed a yard which served as a playground to the young collegians, and went into a small garden reserved for the professors, a cool and shady retreat, in which the venerable Abbé Bérardier was wont to read his Tacitus and his Juvenal.
Gilbert seated himself upon a bench, overshadowed by an alcove of clematis and virgin vines; then, drawing Sebastien close to him, and parting the long hair which fell upon his forehead:—
“Well, my child,” said he, “we are, then, once more united.”
Sebastien raised his eyes to heaven.
“Yes, Father, and by a miracle performed by God.”
“If there be any miracle,” said Gilbert, “it was the brave people of Paris who have accomplished it.”
“My father,” said the boy, “set not God aside in all that has just occurred; for I, when I saw you come in, instinctively offered my thanks to God for your deliverance.”
“Billot I thanked after thanking God, as I thanked his carabine after Billot.”
“You are right, child,” said he; “God is in everything. But now let us talk of you, and let us have some little conversation before we again separate.”
“Are we, then, to be again separated, Father?”
“Not for a long time, I presume. But a casket, containing some very precious documents, has disappeared from Billot's house, at the same time that I was arrested and sent to the Bastille. I must therefore endeavor to discover who it was that caused my imprisonment,—who has carried off the casket.”
“It is well, Father. I will wait to see you again,—till your inquiries shall be completed.”
“You are sorrowful, Sebastien?” said the doctor, inquiringly.
“I do not know. It appears to me that life has not been shaped for me in the way it has been for other children.”
“What are you saying there, Sebastien?”
“They all have amusements, pleasures, while I have none.”
“You have no amusements, no pleasures?”
“I mean to say, Father, that I take no pleasure in those games which form the amusement of boys of my own age.”
“Take care, Sebastien; I should much regret that you should be of such a disposition. Sebastien, minds that give promise of a glorious future are like good fruits during their growth; they have their bitterness, their acidity, their greenness, before they can delight the palate by their matured full flavor. Believe me, my child, it is good to have been young.”
“It is not my fault if I am not so,” replied the young man, with a melancholy smile. Gilbert pressed both his son's hands within his own, and fixing his eye intently upon Sebastien's, continued:—
“Your age, my son, is that of the seed when germinating; nothing should yet appear above the surface of all that study has sown in you. At the age of fourteen, Sebastien, gravity is either pride, or it proceeds from malady. I have asked you whether your health was good, and you replied affirmatively. I am going to ask you whether you are proud; try to reply to me that you are not.”
“Father,” said the boy, “on that head you need not be alarmed. That which renders me so gloomy is neither sickness nor pride; no, it is a settled grief.”
“A settled grief, poor child! And what grief, good heaven, can you have at your age? Come, now, speak out.”
“No, Father, no; some other time. You have told me that you were in a hurry. You have only a quarter of an hour to devote to me. Let us speak of other things than my follies.”
“No, Sebastien; I should be uneasy were I to leave you so. Tell me whence proceeds your grief.”
“In truth, Father, I do not dare.”
“I fear that in your eyes I shall appear a visionary, or perhaps that I may speak to you of things that will afflict you.”
“You afflict me much more by withholding your secret from me.”
“You well know that I have no secrets from you, Father.”
“Sebastien, you who have the pretension of being a man, to—”
“It is precisely for that reason.”
“Well, then, Father, it is a dream.”
“A dream which terrifies you?”
“Yes, and no; for when I am dreaming, I am not terrified, but as if transported into another world.”
“When still quite a child I had these visions. You cannot but remember that two or three times I lost myself in those great woods which surround the village in which I was brought up?”
“Yes, I remember being told of it.”
“Well, then, at those times I was following a species of phantom.”
“What say you?” cried Gilbert, looking at his son with an astonishment that seemed closely allied to terror.
“Well, then, Father, I will tell you all. I used to play, as did the other children in the village. As long as there were children with me, or near me, I saw nothing; but if I separated from them, or went beyond the last village garden, I felt something near, like the rustling of a gown. I would stretch out my arms to catch it, and I embraced only the air; but as the rustling sound became lost in distance, the phantom itself became visible. It was at first a vapor as transparent as a cloud; then the vapor became more condensed, and assumed a human form. The form was that of a woman gliding along the ground rather than walking, and becoming more and more visible as it plunged into the shady parts of the forest. Then an unknown, extraordinary, and almost irresistible power impelled me to pursue this form. I pursued her with outstretched arms, mute as herself, for often I attempted to call to her, and never could my tongue articulate a sound. I pursued her thus, although she never stopped, although I never could come up with her, until the same prodigy which announced her presence to me warned me of her departure. This woman vanished gradually from my sight, matter became once more vapor, the vapor became volatilized, and all was ended; and I, exhausted with fatigue, would fall down on the spot where she had disappeared. It was there that Pitou would find me, sometimes the same day, but sometimes only the next morning.”
Gilbert continued gazing at his son with increasing anxiety. He had placed his fingers on his pulse. Sebastien at once comprehended the feeling which agitated the doctor.
“Oh, do not be uneasy, Father,” said he. “I know that there was nothing real in all this. I know that it was a vision, and nothing more.”
“And this woman,” inquired the doctor, “what was her appearance?”
“And her face; did you sometimes see it, child?”
“And how long ago ” asked Gilbert, shuddering.
“Only since I have been here,” replied the youth.
“But here in Paris you have not the forest of Villers-Cotterets, the tall trees forming a dark and mysterious arch of verdure. In Paris you have no longer that silence, that solitude, the natural element of phantoms.”
“Yes, Father, I have all these.”
“What mean you by saying here? Is not this garden set apart for the professors?”
“It is so, my father; but two or three times it appeared to me that I saw this woman glide from the courtyard into the garden, and each time I would have followed her, but the closed door always prevented me. Then one day the Abbé Bérardier, being highly satisfied with my composition, asked me if there was anything I particularly desired; and I asked him to allow me sometimes to walk in the garden with him. He gave me the permission. I came; and here, Father, the vision reappeared to me.”
“Strange hallucination,” said he; “but, nevertheless, very possible in a temperament so highly nervous as his. And you have seen her face, then?”
“Did you ever attempt to go near her?”
“To hold out your hand to her?”
“It was then that she would disappear.”
“And in your own opinion, Sebastien, who is this woman?”
“It appears to me that she is my mother.”
“Your mother!” exclaimed Gilbert, turning pale.
And he pressed his hand against his heart, as if to stop the bleeding of a painful wound.
“But this is all a dream,” cried he; “and really I am almost as mad as you are.”
The youth remained silent, and with pensive eye looked at his father.
“Well?” said the latter, in the accent of inquiry.
“Well,” replied Sebastien, “it is possible that it may be all a dream; but the reality of my dream is no less existing.”
“I say that at the last Festival of Pentecost, when we were taken to walk in the wood of Satory, near Versailles, and that while there, as I was meditating under a tree, and separated from my companions—”
“The same vision again appeared to you?”
“Yes; but this time in a carriage, drawn by four magnificent horses. But this time real, absolutely living. I very nearly fainted.”
“And what impression remained upon your mind from this new vision?”
“That it was not my mother whom I had seen appearing to me in a dream, since this woman was the same I always saw in my vision, and my mother is dead.”
Gilbert rose and pressed his hand to his forehead. A strange swimming of the head had just seized him.
The young lad remarked his agitation, and was alarmed at his sudden paleness.
“Ah!” said he, “you see now, Father, how wrong I was to relate to you all my follies.”
“No, my child, no. On the contrary,” said the doctor, “speak of them often to me; speak of them to me every time you see me, and we will endeavor to cure you of them.”
“Cure me! and for what?” asked he. “I am accustomed to this dream. It has become a portion of my existence. I love that vision, although it flies from me, and sometimes seems to repel me. Do not, therefore, cure me of it, Father. You may again leave me, travel once more, perhaps go again to America. Having this vision, I am not completely alone in the world.”
“In fine,” murmured the doctor, and pressing Sebastien to his breast, “till we meet again, my child,” said he, “and then I hope we shall no more leave each other; for should I again leave France, I will at least endeavor to take you with me.”
“Was my mother beautiful?” asked the child.
“Oh, yes, very beautiful!” replied the doctor, in a voice almost choked by emotion.
“And did she love you as much as I love you?”
“Sebastien! Sebastien! never speak to me of your mother!” cried the doctor.
And pressing his lips for the last time to the forehead of the youth, he rushed out of the garden.
Instead of following him, the child fell back, overcome by his feelings, on the bench.
In the courtyard Gilbert found Billot and Pitou, completely invigorated by the good cheer they had partaken of. They were relating to the Abbé Bérardier all the circumstances regarding the capture of the Bastille.
Gilbert again entered into conversation with the Abbé Bérardier, in which he pointed out to him the line of conduct he should observe with regard to Sebastien.
