George Sand

“ Ulph was not covetous; he was an honest fellow, who would not upon any account have made money out of the baron’s presents. He was good-hearted too, and, whenever he could keep a friend with him, he invited him in a mysterious manner to share his precious bottles; drinking alone is sad, and he was only too happy to be able to enjoy them in company. But it was so well established that the chateau was haunted, not by a bear, as Nils imagined, but by an unhappy ghost, that poor Ulph could not persuade a single boon companion to stop with him a moment after sunset. ”

“ Let me dream of the free wind wafting you towards unknown shores—I know, dear friend, that man is made to love! I feel it deeply at this very moment, by the side of a person who has received me like a brother, and whom I must leave to-morrow, perhaps forever; but, since it is my destiny to be unable to establish any ties, in any place, since I have neither country, nor family, nor position in this world, the whole secret of my courage lies in the faculty I have acquired of enjoying happiness on the wing, and of forgetting that the morrow will inevitably sweep it away like a beautiful dream. ”

“ Ah! please, Monsieur Goefle, do not treat me quite so much like a child. Last night, at the ball, it is true that I was gay; I enjoyed myself and felt happy, because I thought I had once for all escaped from the baron. But to-day I see very well that my aunt has renewed her hopes, and I must meet again a man whom I shall always sincerely hate from this time forward. Did he not insult me in a cowardly manner yesterday? It is useless for my aunt to say that he was joking. One does not joke with a girl of my age as with a child. ”

“ Hush, nephew! It’s not your turn to speak! I say—but, Christian, you are an ungrateful fellow! You are not a lawyer, and yet you complain! You can investigate the abstract truth embodied in all kinds of fictions, and yet you grow tired of making men love it! You possess intellect, a good heart, education, and knowledge of the world, and here you are calling yourself a mountebank, just to depreciate your work, and perhaps to abandon it! ”

“ While the baron lay there asleep, moreover, the pleasures of the night were under full headway. The sounds of fireworks and music, the barking of the dogs roused out of their kennels by the stamping of the horses that were being harnessed, the laughter of the ladies in the corridors of the chateau, the gleaming lights that could be seen moving upon the lake, everything that was going on outside of the silent and gloomy chamber where the sick man, immovable and livid, lay in heavy slumber, [Pg 333] intensified the young man’s sense of isolation and servitude. ”

“ M. Goefle was silent, and absorbed in thought for some moments, greatly to the annoyance of the impatient Christian, who saw with anxiety the steady advance of the hands of the clock. At last, the advocate, striking his forehead, and jumping up with a certain nervous excitement of manner, cried out, as he began to pace rapidly up and down the room:
“Well, well! Who can say that I am not shrinking from the pursuit of the real truth? Shall I be a mere cowardly courtier of this problematical being? Is it not my duty to satisfy myself once for all? ”

“ Once again it was the voice heard among the boulders that struck upon Christian’s ear, but it seemed, as it now chanted poetic words set to an agreeable and melodious air, far sweeter than before. The words were, perhaps, a modern song which the sibyl had understood and remembered exactly. However, it was in vain that Christian tried to catch the faintest glimpse of a human form. He could not even see the horse that was conducting him, or rather, to speak more correctly, which was no longer conducting him, for the sleigh was standing still, and Olof was not there. ”

“ To-day I am a man, who sees where duty points him. I do not know what ray has penetrated my soul with this morning sunshine—”
Christian sank into a revery. He asked himself what association of ideas had led him to form resolutions so simple and energetic; but it was useless for him to question himself, and attribute this new inspiration entirely to the influence of a good night’s sleep and a beautiful morning; one image constantly arose before him, that of Margaret hiding her face in her hands at the name of Christian Waldo. ”

“ Nothing in the world resembles death so much as a world thus petrified by winter. Hence, the slightest sign of life in this motionless picture, a footprint upon the snow, the short and stealthy flight of a little bird, is greeted with surprise, and this surprise becomes almost terror when an elk or doe flees before you, with rapid, resounding steps, suddenly awakening the sleeping echoes of the solitude.
However, Christian was thinking just now, not of admiring nature, but of preparing for his fight with the wicked one. ”

“ I am perfectly ready to give you satisfaction for all my transactions with you, and you have no right to insult with idle words a man whom you know you cannot terrify.”
“What a pitiful fellow you are!” said Christian, beginning to be angry, and walking straight up to him. “Satisfaction from you, you prince of cowards? Oh no, Guido! the way to do with a fellow like you is to slap him in the face, and, if he resists, to beat him like a dog: nobody ever fights with him; you must know that. So drop your high tone, you scoundrel, and don’t dare look me in the face! ”

“ Cristiano was altogether dazzled, and, without being entirely conscious of what he was saying, he asked Margaret, as if he were dreaming, this strange question:
“You will never permit yourself to love any one not of your own rank, I know. But suppose that, in spite of yourself, you should find your affections drawn towards some poor devil, a person without a name, without a penny—Christian Waldo, for instance—would you not be extremely mortified, and consider it your duty to stifle your inclinations?” ”

“ I swear to you, I will never marry any man whom I cannot—esteem.”
Margaret dared not say love, and Christian was just as powerless to utter that word, but their eyes said it, and their cheeks glowed with a sympathetic blush. After conversing confidentially for an hour, their souls, in that brief glance, spoke to each other, and acknowledged their inward emotion, and yet neither of them was conscious of the fact; Margaret, because she did not know that she loved, and Christian, because he felt certain that he did not. ”

“ Christian had proceeded half way from Stollborg to Waldemora, when he suddenly found himself face to face with a sort of black phantom, speeding over the ice with uneven leaps. It required but a moment’s thought to recognize M. Stangstadius, who, like himself, was carrying a small dark lantern, and who was evidently preparing to accost him. Feeling very confident that he would not be recognized by a person so oblivious of others, he thought it unnecessary to put down his mask, or to change his voice in answering him. ”

“ With you, you must confess, Monsieur Goefle, that nature is violent, even in its winter’s repose. In your mountains everything carries the marks of the perpetual floods of your spring and autumn. But there, all the terrestrial outlines are certain of preservation for a long time, and every plant of maturing in the place where it was born. In breathing such an air, we breathe in with it some similar kindliness of instinct; the eternal happiness of nature diffuses itself in the soul without overpowering or confounding it. ”

“ No, Monsieur Goefle, I shall open my heart to no one but you, and I certainly shall not confide in the persons I may happen to meet at the Chateau de Waldemora. I can see plainly that the baron’s guests are people whom he has helped, or who need his help; servile or ambitious, they fear or flatter him, and all of them (except a few excellent young people whom I am very friendly with) bow down before me as if I were already the wife of their patron! ”

“ This is a woman whom I know. Come here, Joë Bœtsoi! Come in, Christian. There is nothing here that you need fear to behold. It is only poor Karine, swooning or asleep.”
“No, no,” said the danneman, approaching his sister softly; “she is not asleep, she is not fainting; she is saying her prayers, and her soul is in heaven. Do not touch her, do not speak to her until she rises.” ”

“ A living being?” repeated M. Goefle, looking with astonishment at his companion, and asking himself whether he was not liable to occasional fits of insanity.
“Yes, a living being! I insist upon it,” replied Cristiano, with enthusiasm; “and all the more because it has no body. The burattino has neither wheels, nor strings, nor pulleys. It is a head, and nothing more; a head with expression and intelligence, in which—but wait a moment!” ”

“ Christian returned to the chateau with his uncle Goefle, while the rest of the party followed in their various carriages over the winding and picturesque road; but, in the midst of the young man’s joy, as he anticipated the reunion of all his beloved friends, he was seized with a sudden fit of melancholy.
“I am too happy,” he said to the lawyer; “I should like to die to-day. It seems to me that the life into which I am about to enter will be in constant conflict with the simple and pure happiness I have dreamed about.” ”

“ I do not consider Christian Waldo as a showman of marionettes? What is a marionette? A bit of wood covered with a rag. It is the intellect and the soul of Christian which give interest and significance to his pieces. I look on him as not merely an actor, for he has to do something more than vary his accent and change his voice every moment, in order to move his audience ”

“ Avoid giving their lovers any occasion for jealousy; it would be at your own risk. Take care of Aunt Karine; she is gentle, but she must not be contradicted: I have forbidden it once for all.”
“I will care for her as if she were my mother,” replied Christian, deeply moved; “but tell me, is she ill or infirm? Why?—”
“They will tell you that, if you come to the house. What wages do you want?”
“Nothing.”
“How, nothing?”
“Bread and shelter; is not that enough?”
“Herr Christian,” said the danneman, frowning, “you are then either lazy or a bad fellow, since you do not think of the future.” ”

“ Come, Christian, we must absolutely—but where are you then?”
“Christian?” cried Margaret, returning hastily from the guard-room; “he is not with us. Where is he?”
[Pg 505]
“He has already gone up above,” said the major, running up the wooden staircase.
“Damnation!” cried M. Goefle, who ascended with Osmund into the walled-up room; “he has gone! He has slipped through this crack like an adder. Is not that he running along the wall? Christian!—”
“Not a word,” said the major. “He is running along the edge of an abyss! Do not startle him. Now—I can no longer see him; he is lost in the fog. ”

“ As he spoke, Christian, relying upon the dim light which he had provided, lifted his black silk mask, and, as it were precipitately, and with a kind of desperate effort, suffered the major-domo to behold, for a moment, a second mask of waxed cloth, so skilfully made that it bore every resemblance to an actual human face; without close examination by a strong light, no one would have suspected the cheat. ”

“ Divine grace is no illusion, Monsieur Goefle. I do not know to what extent you are a Lutheran, and for my part I do not pretend to be very much of a Catholic. In these days, in fact, nobody believes in very much of anything, unless it be in the necessity and duty of toleration. But I believe, in a vague sort of way, in a soul of the world—no matter by what name you call it—a great soul all love and goodness, which receives our tears and our aspirations. ”

“ I could understand it better if your days were twenty hours long; but when I see how small an arc of the circle the sun has to pass even now, before again sinking beneath the horizon, I cannot help wondering at what hour you propose to hunt.”
“Patience, dear Christian,” replied the major, laughing; “a bear-hunt does not last long. It is a single blow, whether it succeeds or fails; either you lodge two balls in your enemy’s head, or, with a stroke of his paw, he disarms and overpowers you. But here is the danneman coming to announce breakfast. ”

“ Now, such a fear in a man who has only himself to care for, is cowardly. Only think how absurd a lamentation on that score would sound in the mouth of a man so well formed and healthy as I am! Stay! imagine one of my marionettes soliloquizing; our friend Stentarello, for instance, speaking in all artlessness: ‘Alas, miserable me! three times unfortunate! I can no longer sleep in sheets of the finest linen! Alas! I can no longer, when I am warm in Italy, take a glass of vanilla ice cream; or, when I am cold in Sweden, pour first-class rum into my tea! ”

“ To be useful to all, that is the glorious ideal of the artisan, dear Osmund; to be agreeable to the rich, is the puerile destiny of the artist; and I escape from it with joy.”
“What!” said the major, astonished; “are you serious, Christian, in wishing to renounce the agreeable arts, in which you excel, the refinements of life, which, with your brilliant gifts, you could easily command, the charms of society, where it only depends upon yourself to reappear on the most advantageous and agreeable footing, by accepting employment, as a superintendent, we will say, of some court entertainment? ”

“ It seems as if the people here wanted to shake off the thought of some approaching catastrophe, or as if the baron’s heirs could not contain their joy at finding that he is really ill, and has been so for some time. But you must tell us one thing, Christian Goefle. Under what form did you appear to the baron? or what spell did you cast over him? Are you a ghost or a sorcerer? Are you the man of the lake, who fascinates people with a look of his icy eyes? ”

“ Johan went out. The baron, exhausted by the effort he had made, fainted in Jacob’s arms, and the physician, hastily recalled, had a great deal of difficulty in bringing him to his senses. Then the patient recovered a feverish energy.
“Off with you, doctor!” he cried; “I am tired of your face! You are ugly! every one is ugly! He is beautiful—beautiful, if they speak the truth; but that will not help him any. When one is dead he soon becomes hideous, does he not? Still, if I should die before him, I should like to leave him my fortune—that would be droll! But if I live, he must die ”

“ And, after all, I have not so far retained my prejudices as a society man, that I should be much distressed to have my mask fall off some day in the street, and to be recognized by a chance passenger as a very obscure adept of science, who occupies himself about his studies at other hours, and in other portions of the city.”
“Ah! that is just what you have not told me. When you are at Stockholm you have, on occasion, another name than Christian Waldo, and another lodging besides that where Jean and Puffo live, and the rest of your troupe in their boxes?” ”

“ It is my wish, therefore, to marry my niece to the baron. You will tell me, perhaps, that he is not young; for that very reason he has no time to lose in frustrating the schemes of a dozen heirs whom he detests, and who are trying in vain to worm their way into his favor. Stay, there are two of them passing now; the one this way is the Count de Nora, an inoffensive, good-natured man; the other, the Baron de Lindenwald, is intelligent, designing, ambitious, and (like all of our nobility at present) poor. ”

“ This man, hated and despised by all, may have done her violence. She would naturally have concealed her misfortune, she would have made the most of the belief of her family in evil spirits, to prevent her young brother, the danneman, from exposing himself to danger, by seeking to revenge her upon a too powerful enemy. Poor woman! Yes, certainly, she hates him, she fears him still! She has become a seeress since her disaster—that is, mad! ”

“ The night had come on, but the air was bright, and in the limpid crystal of the lake, where the lines of the horizon were indistinguishable in the twilight, I seemed to trace and follow the immensity of the starry heavens, and to float, like a disembodied spirit, upon some fantastic similitude of infinity. Ah, Monsieur Goefle! how strange is life sometimes! ”

“ O Jupiter! you, my poor little Stentarello! you, my favorite, my protégé, my best servant! you, the oldest of my troupe, lost at Paris and found again so miraculously in the forests of Bohemia! No, it is impossible! you would not have harmed me; you would rather have turned against the assassin. You are worth much more than a host of gigantic marionettes I know of; stupid and wicked marionettes, who claim to belong to the human race, and whose hearts are as hard as their heads. ”

“ He tried, mechanically, to make out the position of the bear-room, and easily recognized it by its one window, about a hundred feet above the level of the lake, and fifty above the summits of the boulders. The cold was not very extreme, and Christian, who always carried a little drawing-book in his pocket, began an outline sketch of the tower, with its lofty escarpment in the rock below, and its chaos of gigantic boulders, which were flung together in such a way as to form—like the sandstone rocks at Fontainebleau—covered passages and galleries, whose effect was extremely fantastic. ”

“ In spite of all he could say, Margaret would not consent to hide the fact of his being there from the lieutenant and the minister’s family, who drew near in the midst of their tête-à-tête.
“It is he!” she cried, running to meet them; “it is our Stollborg friend—you know who I mean! This Christian, this friend of the poor, the hero of the mine, is the baron without a barony, but not without honor and heart, and if you are not as happy as I am to see him again—”
“We are, we are!” cried the minister, shaking hands with Christian. ”

“ He turned immediately to Olga, invited her, and led her away; while Margaret snatched the elegant bracelet from her arm, and slipped it into the ambitious young creature’s hand.
“Monsieur Goefle,” she said to Cristiano, eagerly, although with a trembling voice, “you have brought me happiness. I am saved!”
“And yet you are pale,” said Cristiano; “you are trembling.”
“I cannot help it! I was so frightened. And I am frightened still, for I cannot help thinking how angry my aunt will be. But no matter, I have got rid of the baron. He will revenge himself; he will kill me, perhaps. ”

“ Stenson fell on his knees before him, stretching out his arms as if to implore his protection or to bless him, and holding out, with a tremulousness that was almost convulsive, the cypress-bough, as one offers a votive palm-bough to some divinity.
“Why, my good man,” said Christian, raising his voice, and coming nearer, “I am not God, nor even the Christmas angel that comes in at the window or down the chimney. Get up! I am—”
But he stopped short, for a livid pallor overspread the old man’s face, which was already so wan. ”

“ As for you, Nils, I don’t want you to believe in any such nonsense. You know that I intend to make you something more than a mere servant; to educate you a little, and make you sensible, if I can.”
“But, Monsieur Goefle, my aunt Gertrude believes in them. She believes in good and bad spirits.”
“My housekeeper? She takes good care not to acknowledge it before me. She pretends to be strong-minded, when I have time to talk to her. No, no, you are mistaken; she doesn’t believe anything of the kind. She only says so to amuse you.” ”

“ The clothes don’t make the man. You have a very aristocratic hand. Come—out with it! Who are you? If there’s a romance, I’m fond of romantic stories; and if there’s a secret—well, your face pleases me, and I promise to be as discreet—as discreet as a lawyer—more could not be said.”
“I do not doubt your discretion, Monsieur Goefle,” said Cristiano, “and besides, I have no secrets that I need hesitate to reveal to a man of sense and character; but I give you notice that my story is rather long, and the stove is almost entirely cold. ”

“ You often hear voices on the shore of the lake, and it is not good to understand what they sing, for then they will lead you into places from which you never return.”
“Very well, for my part, I listened,” said Christian, “and I recognized the voice of your aunt Karine. She must be close by—Let us look for her, since you have a light, or call her; she will, perhaps, answer you.”
“No no!” cried the boy; “leave her alone. If she is in her dream, and we wake her up, she will kill herself!” ”

“ Christian’s voice was distinctly audible in the silence of the night; he was saying to the soldiers:
“It is I! It is I! The major sends me to the chateau.”
“Ah! the foolhardy, the brave boy!” cried M. Goefle. “He takes counsel only with his own heart. He has gone all alone to face his enemies, and deliver Stenson.”
In fact, Christian had flown away, to use the danneman’s expression, like the bird of the night, through the crack of an old wall. The name of Stenson, pronounced by Karine, had pierced his heart. ”

“ The time had come when the bird, according to Major Larrson’s expression, fatigued with flying through the vastness of space, was longing to find a milder sky, and a sure place to build his nest.
In spite of his intelligence and his activity, Christian was several times overtaken by poverty. The life of the traveller is a series of Godsends and losses, of unexpected successes, and desperate disasters. He earned enough to live upon from day to day, by selling game and fish, and by exchanging commodities transported over great distances with incredible courage and resolution. ”

“ The I who is speaking to you is a shade, a phantom, a mere reminiscence of what happened yesterday. The other I, about taking his departure, is the sport of the waves and of destiny. I care about him as much as I do for an inhabitant of the moon.”
“Good heavens! how gay you are, Monsieur Goefle! Do you know I am not so at all?”
“True,” said Christian, struck with Margaret’s sad expression; “I am ashamed to have spoken of myself, when I ought to have been expressing my anxiety about the consequences of the events of last evening. ”