ON THE SUMMIT of the hill, which the three botanists were ascending with some difficulty, stood one of those little rustic retreats, with gnarled and knotty pillars, pointed gables, and windows festooned with ivy and clematis, which are the genuine offspring of English architecture, or to speak more correctly, of English gardening, which imitates Nature, or rather invents a species of nature for itself, thus giving a certain air of originality to its creations.
This summer-house, which was large enough to contain a table and six chairs, was floored with tiles and carpeted with handsome matting. The walls were covered with little mosaics of flint, the product of the river's beach, mingled with foreign shells of the most delicate tints, gathered from the shores of the Indian Ocean.
The ceiling was in relief, and was composed of fir-cones and knotty excrescences of bark, arranged so as to imitate hideous profiles of fauns or savage animals, who seemed suspended over the heads of the visitors. The windows were each stained with some different shade, so that, according as the spectator looked out of the violet, the red, or the blue glass, the woods of Vesinet seemed tinted by a stormy sky, bathed in the burning rays of an August sun, or sleeping beneath the cold and frosty atmosphere of December. The visitor had only to consult his taste, that is to say, choose his window, and look out.
This sight pleased Gilbert greatly, and he amused himself with looking through the different tinted windows at the rich valley which lies stretched beneath the feet of a spectator situated on the hill of Luciennes, and at the noble Seine winding in the midst.
A sight nearly as interesting however, at least in M. de Jussieu's opinion, was the tempting breakfast spread in the center of the summer-house, upon a table formed of gnarled and fantastic woodwork, on which the bark had been allowed to remain.
There was the exquisite cream for which Marly is celebrated, the luscious apricots and plums of Luciennes, the crisp sausages of Nanterre smoking upon a porcelain dish, without the least trace being seen of any one who could have brought them thither; strawberries peeping from a graceful little basket lined with vine leaves, and, besides the fresh and glistening pats of butter, were rolls of homely peasant bread, with its rich brown crust, so dear to the pampered appetite of the inhabitant of towns. This sight drew an exclamation of admiration from Rousseau, who, philosopher as he was, was not the less an unaffected gourmand, for his appetite was as keen as his taste was simple.
“What folly!” said he to M. de Jussieu; “bread and fruit would have been sufficient, and even then, as true botanists and industrious explorers, we ought to have eaten the bread and munched the plums without ceasing our search among the grass or along the hedge-rows. Do you remember, Gilbert, our luncheon at Plessis-Piquet?”
“Yes, sir; the bread and cherries which appeared to me so delicious?”
“Yes, that is how true lovers of nature should breakfast.”
“But, my dear master,” interrupted M. de Jussieu, “if you reproach me with extravagance, you are wrong; a more modest meal was never—”
“Oh!” cried the philosopher, “you do your table injustice, my Lord Lucullus.”
“My table?—by no means,” said Jussieu. “Who are our hosts, then?” resumed Rousseau, with a smile which evinced at once good humor and constraint, “Sprites?”
“Or fairies!” said M. de Jussieu, rising and glancing stealthily toward the door.
“Fairies?” exclaimed Rousseau, gayly; “a thousand blessings on them for their hospitality! I am excessively hungry. Come, Gilbert, fall to.”
And he cut a very respectable slice from the brown loaf, passing the bread and the knife to his disciple. Then, while taking a huge bite, he chose out some plums from the dish. Gilbert hesitated.
“Come, come!” said Rousseau. “The fairies will be offended by your stiffness, and will imagine you are dissatisfied with their banquet.”
“Or that it is unworthy of you, gentlemen,” uttered a silvery voice from the door of the pavilion, where two young and lovely women appeared arm in arm, smiling, and making signs to M. de Jussieu to moderate his obeisances.
Rousseau turned, holding the half-tasted bread in his right hand and the remains of a plum in his left, and beholding these two goddesses, at least such they seemed to him by their youth and beauty, he remained stupefied with astonishment, bowing mechanically, and retreating toward the wall of the summer-house.
“Oh, countess!” said M. de Jussieu, “you here? What a delightful surprise!”
“Good-day, my dear botanist,” said one of the ladies, with a grace and familiarity perfectly regal.
“Allow me to present M. Rousseau to you,” said Jussieu, taking the philosopher by the hand which held the brown bread.
Gilbert also had seen and recognized the ladies. He opened his eyes to their utmost width, and, pale as death, looked out of the window of the summer-house, with the idea of throwing himself from it. “Good-day, my little philosopher,” said the other lady to the almost lifeless Gilbert, patting his cheek with her rosy fingers.
Rousseau saw and heard—he was almost choking with rage. His disciple knew these goddesses, and was known to them. Gilbert was almost fainting.
“Do you not know her ladyship, the countess, M. Rousseau?” asked Jussieu.
“No,” replied he, thunderstruck; “it is the first time, I think—
“Madame Dubarry,” continued M. de Jussieu.
Rousseau started up, as if he stood on a red-hot plowshare.
“Madame Dubarry!” he exclaimed.
“The same, sir.” said the young lady with surpassing grace, “who is most happy to have received in her house, and to have been favored with a nearer view of, the most illustrious thinker of the age.”
“Madame Dubarry!” continued Rousseau, without remarking that his astonishment was becoming a grave offense against good breeding. “She! and doubtless this pavilion is hers, and doubtless it is she who has provided this breakfast.”
“You have guessed rightly, my dear philosopher; she and her sister,” continued Jussieu, ill at ease in presence of this threatening storm.
“Her sister, who knows Gilbert!”
“Intimately,” replied Chon, with that saucy boldness which respected neither royal whims nor philosophers' fancies.
Gilbert looked as if he wished the earth would open and swallow him, so fiercely did Rousseau's eye rest upon him.
“Intimately!” repeated Rousseau; “Gilbert knew madame intimately, and I was not told of it? But in that case I was betrayed, I was sported with.”
Chon and her sister looked at each other with a malicious smile.
M. de Jussieu in his agitation tore a Malines ruffle worth forty louis-d'ors. Gilbert clasped his hands as if to entreat Chon to be silent, or Monsieur Rousseau to speak more graciously to him. But, on the contrary, it was Rousseau who was silent, and Chon who spoke.
“Yes,” said she, “Gilbert and I are old friends; he was a guest of mine. Were you not, little one?”
—What! are you already ungrateful for the sweetmeats of Luciennes and Versailles?”
This was the final blow; Rousseau's arms fell stiff and motionless.
“Oh!” said he, looking askance at the young man, “that was the way, was it, you little scoundrel?”
“Monsieur Rousseau!” murmured Gilbert.
“Why, one would think you were weeping for the little tap I gave your cheek,” continued Chon, “Well, I always feared you were ungrateful.”
“Mademoiselle!” entreated Gilbert.
“Little one,” said Madame Dubarry, “return to Luciennes; your bon-bons and Zamore await you, and though you left it in rather a strange manner, you shall be well received.”
“Thank you, madame,” said Gilbert, dryly; “when I leave a place, it is because I do not like it.”
“And why refuse the favor that is offered to you?” interrupted Rousseau, bitterly. “You have tasted of wealth, my dear Monsieur Gilbert, and you had better return to it.”
“But, sir, when I swear to you —”
“Go! —go! I do not like those who blow hot and cold with the same breath.”
“But you will not listen to me, Monsieur Rousseau.”
“I ran away from Luciennes, where I was kept locked up.”
“A trap! —I know the malice of men.”
“But, since I preferred you to them, since I accepted you as my host, my protector, my master —
“But, Monsieur Rousseau, if I wished for riches, I should accept the offer these ladies have made me.”
“Monsieur Gilbert, I have been often deceived, but never twice by the same person; you are free, go where you please.”
“But where? Good heavens!” cried Gilbert, plunged in an abyss of despair, for he saw his window, and the neighborhood of Andree, and his love, lost to him forever—for his pride was hurt at being suspected of treachery; and the idea that his self-denial, his long and arduous struggle against the indolence and the passions natural to his age, was misconstrued and despised, stung him to the quick.
“Where?” said Rousseau. “Why, in the first place, to this lady, of course; where could you meet a lovelier or more worthy protector?”
“Oh! my God!—my God!” cried Gilbert, burying his head in his hands.
“Do not be afraid,” said M. de Jussieu, deeply wounded, as a man of the world, by Rousseau's strange sally against the ladies; “you will be taken care of, and whatever you may lose in one way, you will be amply compensated for.”
“You see,” said Rousseau, bitterly, “there is M. de Jussieu, a learned man, a lover of nature, one of your accomplices,” added he, with a grin which was meant for a smile, “who promises you assistance and fortune, and you may be sure that what M. de Jussieu promises he can perform.”
As he spoke, Rousseau, no longer master of himself, bowed to the ladies with a most majestic and did the same to M. de Jussieu, and then, without even looking at Gilbert, he calmly left the pavilion.
“Oh! what an ugly animal a philosopher is!” said Chon, coolly looking after the Genevese, who walked, or rather stumbled, down the path.
“Ask what you wish,” said M. de Jussieu to Gilbert, who still kept his face buried in his hands.
“Yes, ask, Monsieur Gilbert,” added the countess, smiling on the abandoned disciple.
The latter raised his pale face, pushed back the hair which perspiration and tears had matted over his forehead, and said with a firm voice:
“Since you are kind enough to offer me an employment, I would wish to be assistant gardener at Trianon.”
Chon and the countess looked at each other, and the former, with her tiny little foot, touched her sister's with a triumphant glance. The countess made a sign with her head that she understood perfectly.
“Is that practicable, M. de Jussieu?” asked the countess; “I should wish it very much.”
“If you wish it, madame,” replied he, “it is done.”
Gilbert bowed, and put his hand upon his heart, which now bounded with joy as a few moments before it had been overwhelmed with grief.
