Gilberte

“ Emile replied, especially touched by Gilberte's frank generosity, and mentally comparing the sincere kindly impulses of that poor family with the disdainful manners of his own.
"Oh," said Gilberte with a smile, "that won't be any deprivation to us. We have plenty of the fruit and we can begin again. Blackberries are not scarce with us, and if we don't look out, the bramble-bushes that bear them will pierce our walls and grow in our rooms."
"And whose fault is it," said Janille, "if we are overrun by brambles? ”

“ It is quite useless to repeat the remainder of the interview. We might describe certain interludes of dismay and discouragement, when Gilberte, becoming reasonable, that is to say miserable, once more, pointed out obstacles and manifested a pride which, while not strongly marked, was sufficiently intense to lead her to prefer eternal solitude to the humiliation of a struggle against arrogance and wealth. ”

“ If Gilberte had been a poor girl, without any money....{175}”
“Oh, madame,” said Gilberte, “that counts for so little!”
“Yes, with you and Guillaume, who are young and think only of your happiness, but not with me, who have suffered so much from the change in my fortunes. I can’t help it: one cannot alter at my age; I have a name of which I am very vain; and my dream has always been to restore it to all its brilliancy.”
She playfully stroked Gilberte’s hair:
“And think of all my blandishments, from the very beginning, Mme. Armand! ”

“ I could only remember your dear gentleness, your innocence, your childlike simplicity."
"Oh," whispered Gilberte, "how happy you make me!"
"You shall always be happy, child, where it depends on me: that I promise you. ... As for Guillaume, oh, if you knew how he speaks of his sweetheart! I know you now as well as he does. But did I need his words in order to know you? What he feels in you, that delicate bloom and innocence, I have always felt. And I know all the power of your eyes: they bring purity and peace ... one is better for looking at them ... one sees more clearly ..." ”

“ Sometimes, Guillaume and Gilberte would point out to each other, with a glance, a corner of the landscape, or the outline of a tree, or the glint of a ray of sunshine, both wishing the other to share their delight and admiration.
They sat down on the edge of a pool whose waters slumbered amidst a circle of old pines that joined their arms around them as though to dance a moveless measure. It{101} was one of those abodes of silence that open only in the hearts of old forests. Those who are brought there by chance and who grasp the fitness of things are themselves silent. ”

“ If in this craze for amusement Albertine might be said to echo something of the old original Gilberte, that is because a certain similarity exists, although the type evolves, between all the women we love, a similarity that is due to the fixity of our own temperament, which it is that chooses them, eliminating all those who would not be at once our opposite and our complement, fitted that is to say to gratify our senses and to wring our heart. ”

“ At such moments Gilberte's plaits used to brush my cheek. They seemed to me, in the fineness of their grain, at once natural and supernatural, and in the strength of their constructed tracery, a matchless work of art, in the composition of which had been used the very grass of Paradise. To a section of them, even infinitely minute, what celestial herbary would I not have given as a reliquary. But since I never hoped to obtain an actual fragment of those plaits, if at least I had been able to have their photograph, how far more precious than one of a sheet of flowers traced by Vinci's pencil! ”

“ True, she refused to make acquaintances; and her shyness was such that, after three months, she had not yet set foot in the streets of Domfront. But those who have been stricken by fate have a natural company of friends in the poor, the wretched, the destitute, the outcast; and her heart could not avoid the sort of friendship built upon adversity.
Between Gilberte and the first beggar who crossed the threshold of the Logis there was more than an alms and a thank-you: there was the delight of giving on one side and, on the other, gratitude for the smile and the good grace of her who gave. ”

“ I realised that if my heart hoped for such a reconstruction, round about it, of a universe that had not satisfied it before, it was because my heart had not altered, and I told myself that there was no reason why Gilberte's should have altered either; ”

“ And none can contest his supremacy, for he alone is capable of making so much noise without becoming exhausted and of making more noise by himself than all the rest put together. The specimen in Mme. de la Vaudraye's drawing-room was signed, "Pleyel."
It was as though the parts had been allotted beforehand. Two groups were formed: the audience and the performers. Gilberte found herself seated between Mme. Charmeron, who was famed for her persistent dumbness and distinction, and M. Simare junior, the best-dressed and most dissipated young man in the town. ”

“ Gilbert, 'Woe to him that buildeth his house by iniquity, and his chambers by wrong. Shalt thou live because thou closest thyself in cedar?' And it went into my ears like fire, Mr. Gilbert, and into my heart like lead; and when the parson went on, 'Did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice? Then it was well with him,' I thought of good old Captain Will; and—I tell you, Mr. Gilbert, those negroes are on my soul from morning until night! We are all mighty grand now, and money comes in fast; but the Lord will require the blood of them at our hands yet. He will! ”

“ Then the Count slowly raised himself. His arms, in which he held the two young people as in a living vice, relaxed, and Stephane fell upon Gilbert's breast. Confused, colorless, wild-eyed, intoxicated with joy and terror at the same time, clinging to her friend as the sailor to his plank of safety, she said in an indistinct voice:
"In the life to which you condemn me, my father, the joys are as terrible as the sorrows."
The Count said to Gilbert:
"Console her, calm her emotion. She is yours. I have given her to you. Do not fear that I shall take her back again." ”

“ As intelligent as Gilbert? He was much more intelligent—to arrive at such a judgement as that. Gilbert had never been so deep, so just. She had told him then that from her at least he should never know if he was right; and this was what she was taking care of now. It gave her plenty to do; there was passion, exaltation, religion in it. Women find their religion sometimes in strange exercises, and Isabel at present, in playing a part before her cousin, had an idea that she was doing him a kindness. ”

“ The Count, however, pressing his hand upon his shoulder, constrained him to remain upon his knees, and turning his face to Gilbert:
"I tell you, you are kneeling before the man you have insulted, and we all understand it."
Was it, indeed thus, that Gilbert understood it? Quiet, impassible, his eyes fixed upon the window, he seemed a perfect stranger to all that passed around him.
A cry of anguish escaped Stephane, a frightful change came over his face. Three times he tried to rise, and three times the hand of his father weighed him down again, and kept him in a kneeling posture. ”

“ For her the Americanized Gilbert, the friend of Washington and Lafayette, aristocratic through study, science and genius, was still the hangdog Gilbert of her father’s manor house, and the gardener’s boy of Trianon Palace.
Gilbert no longer bore her the ardent love which had driven him to crime in his youth, but the deep and tender affection, spite of her insults and persecutions, of a man ready to do a service at risk of his life. ”

“ You see her, she is alive, her eyes are open, she hears, she breathes. To-morrow she shall smile, to-morrow we shall all be happy.
Then drawing her to the head of the bed and calling Gilbert to him, he placed his hands together, and standing behind them, embracing their shoulders in his powerful arms, and thrusting his head between theirs, he forced them, in spite of themselves, to bend with him over the dying man.
Gilbert and Stephane closed their eyes.
The Count's and Vladimir's were wide open devouring each other. The master's flamed like torches ”

“ Oh, he is a wise fellow, this Gilbert. But greedy, God warn us, greedy."
"Who holds you prisoner?" the king cried, and turned on Gilbert.
"Nay, my lord, nay. It is a folly of my steward's. I——"
"Nay, my lord, nay. It is a wise steward and a wise Gilbert. Listen lord. One builds him a castle on poor men's housen and land. And the other harries these same poor men," and he told the tale of the two moot courts and the two ordeals and Godric's wound.
"God's body! here is no law nor justice nor right," the king cried. ”

“ Gilbert reflected a moment; then considering only the dignity and interests of Stephane, he replied:
"Yes, I love her with a pure, deep love."
A sarcastic joy appeared upon the Count's face.
"Admirable!" said he; "that is all I wish to know. We have nothing more to say."
Gilbert raised his head: "One word more, sir!" he exclaimed. "I do not leave you until you have sworn to me that you will not touch a hair of your daughter's head, and that you will not revenge yourself upon her for my well-meant imprudence."
"Peste!" said the Count, laughing, "you are taking great airs ”

“ Gilbert saw around him the hard, sunburnt features, the stalwart forms he had marked in the desperate fray; he could touch the hands, now clasped in prayer, that had been so often raised against him in anger. Beside him knelt the maiden, with her brow all smooth and unfurrowed by care, and the matron who, numbering more than double her years, had felt more than treble her sorrows. The youth was deeply moved, as he gazed, and thought he might have robbed that mother of her son, that wife of her husband, that sister of a brother. ”

“ The morrow Gilbert boldly on the scaffold took his stand,
With a vizor on his face and with a hatchet in his hand,
And all the people noticed that the Engine of the Law
Was far less like a hatchet than a dissipated saw.
The felon very coolly loosed his collar and his stock,
And placed his wicked head upon the handy little block.
The hatchet was uplifted for to settle Peter Gray,
When Gilbert plainly heard a woman’s voice exclaiming, “Stay!”
’Twas Annie, gentle Annie, as you’ll easily believe. ”

“ The man's perfect simplicity, his eagerness for the most lofty ideals, the spotless purity of his life, commanded Gilbert's most true admiration. And yet to the Norman, Arnold of Brescia was but a dreamer, a visionary, and a madman. Gilbert could listen to him for a while, but then the terrible tension of the friar's thought and speech wearied him. ”

“ Seeing that Gilbert was aware of her proximity, she moved on; not as though she felt concern for the open manner of her regard, but as if she had seen all she wished to see. As she went forward he was struck with admiration of the mare, for she was a picture of breeding, and whoever groomed her was a man to be respected; her contrast to the shabbiness of her rider was marked, the faded folds of the plum-coloured skirt showing against her loins like the garment of a scarecrow laid over satin. ”

“ That constitutes a new factor, which you choose to ignore. You are wrong. Gilbert is my pal. Gilbert is my chum. Gilbert has to be saved from the scaffold. Use your influence to that end, and I swear to you, do you hear, I swear that we will leave you in peace. Gilbert's safety, that's all I ask. You will have no more battles to wage with Mme. Mergy, with me; there will be no more traps laid for you. You will be the master, free to act as you please. ”

“ Next came Gilbert, who pursued Albinia to the morning-room to entreat her interference in his behalf, appealing piteously to her kindness; but she was obdurate. If any remonstrance were offered to his father, it must be by himself.
Gilbert fell into a state of misery, threw himself about upon the chairs, and muttered in the fretfulness of childish despair something about its being very hard, when he was owner of half the town, to be sent into exile—it was like jealousy of his growing up and being master. ”

“ Sir Gilbert, whom advancing years had tended to render more of a recluse than ever, had gradually, and by a process of which he himself was scarcely conscious, begun to entertain a great liking (in his frigid, undemonstrative way) for this frank-eyed, clear-headed, straightforward young man, in whom he could detect no faintest trace of sycophancy, and who knew so well how to retain the full measure of his own self-respect without in any way grating against the amour-propre of his employer. ”

“ You know him—that workman—that man. Besides, what does it matter?
JANE (trembling with terror) .
Gilbert?
THE QUEEN.
Yes, Gilbert! That is the name.
JANE.
Madame! Oh, no, madame! Don't say that, madame! Gilbert—it would be too horrible! He has escaped!
THE QUEEN.
He was escaping when they seized him. They put him under the black veil in Fabiano's place. It is night. The people won't know. Rest easy.
JANE (with a frightful cry) .
Ah, madame! But the man I love—it is Gilbert!
THE QUEEN.
What? What do you say? Are you going crazy? Did you deceive me, too? Ah, it is Gilbert whom you love! ”

“ The Count unfolded to Gilbert the plan of his work, and the kind of researches he expected from him. This conversation was prolonged for several hours.
IV A fortnight later, Gilbert wrote to his friends a letter conceived thus:
"Madame:—I have found here neither fetes, cavalcades, gala-days nor Muscovite beauties. What should we do, I beg to know, with these Muscovite beauties? or perhaps I ought to ask, what would they do with us? We live in the woods; our castle is an old, very old one, and in the moonlight it looks like a specter. ”