Jean

“ And I understand you better, Jean, I think, than you understand yourself. This fame and power will mean more to you than anything else, and it will grow and grow and grow, Jean. And, oh, Jean, I am afraid you will forget that it is not you at all who does these great things but that it is the bon Dieu who lets you do them, and that you will grow proud, Jean, and lose all the best out of your life because you will even forget that once those clothes hanging there"—she pointed toward the rough fisherman's suit—"were yours."
It was strange to hear Marie-Louise talking so! ”

“ You were to be a doctor, and, like him, doctor at Longueval, and, like him, devote yourself to the sick and poor. Jean, my child, do you remember?”
“I remember, I remember.”
“Well, then, Jean, you must do as your father wished; it is your duty, Jean; it is your duty. You must go to Paris. You would like to stay here, I understand that well, and I should like it, too; but it can not be. You must go to Paris, and work, work hard. Not that I am anxious about that; you are your father’s true son. You will be an honest and laborious man. One can not well be the one without the other. ”

“ I have taught her as the bon Dieu has shown me the way to teach her to be a true daughter of France—to love God and be never afraid. Jean"—he reached out his other hand suddenly and clasped it over Jean's—"do you love Marie-Louise?"
"Yes," said Jean simply.
"She will be alone now," said Gaston, and his eyes filled. "She is a good girl, Jean. She is pure and innocent, and her heart is so full of love, there was never such love as hers, and she is so gay and bright like the flowers and like the birds—and happy—and sorrow has not come to her." ”

“ And standing there on his rustic pedestal, little Jean knows he is beautiful, and the thought fills him with a deep respect for himself. He feels he is something holy. Very upright and still, with round eyes and tight-drawn lips, arms by his side with the palms open and the fingers parted like the spokes of a wheel, he tastes a pious joy to be an idol—he is sure he is an idol now. ”

“ I’m wearing awa, Jean,
like snaw when it's shaw, Jean,
I’m wearing awa
To the land o’ the leal.
There’s nae sorrow there, Jean.
There’s nae cauld nor care, Jean,
The day is aye fair,
In the land o’ the leal. ”

“ They are nothing, nothing."
"Jean, my friend, I like to hear you say that. Say it again, Jean."
"Gabrielle, what are houses, barns, lands, and all that, compared with my love for you? I love you, dear; and if I value those things it is for your sake. They are all for you. I lay them at your feet, and myself as well."
"Do you mean it? Do you really mean what you say?"
"Yes, Gabrielle."
"Well, Jean, I will take you at your word. That house of yours--I hate it. Those tourists, those people who walk about staring at everybody--I detest them. ”

“ It was Jean, the same Jean—only there was a grace, an ease, a command, a kingship in his poise as he stood there, and—yes—yes—they came—one after the other—the men, the women—and bowed before him.
"Do you remember Monsieur and Mademoiselle Bliss?" Father Anton said gently. "See—they are there beside Jean. And that tall man to whom they are talking is a very famous statesman for one so young. His name is Paul Valmain." ”

“ But Jean, though he had heedlessly hurt her so when he had given away again the little beacon, would never speak to her of this, because this was a much greater thing which was to change all their lives. It was she who must speak to Jean, it was she who must tell him that she understood that the great future which lay before him must not be harmed; that she must not hold him back; that she must not stand in his way; that she would only hurt him in that dazzling, bewildering world that would disdain a fishergirl; that it was France, not she, who came first. ”

“ Carruth watched developments with resignation; Constance with open amusement; Mammy with a division between tolerance and contempt—the saving grace in the cause being that Forbes could remotely claim kinship with the Blairsdales. But it was upon Jean that the effect was the funniest. Jean had spent all her life with people older than herself. ”

“ She was baith guid and fair, Jean,
And, oh! we grudged her sair
To the land o’ the leal.
But sorrow’s sel’ wears past, Jean,
And joy is comin fast, Jean,
The joy that‘s aye to last
In the land o‘ the leal. ”

“ I myself was somewhat fearful for Jean's sanity and highly indignant at the planton. The matter ended with the planton's being sent about his business; simultaneously with Jean's dismissal to the cour, whither I accompanied him. My best efforts to comfort Jean in this matter were quite futile. Like a child who has been unjustly punished he was inconsolable. Great tears welled in his eyes. He kept repeating "sees-tee franc—planton voleur," and—absolutely like a child who in anguish calls itself by the name which has been given itself by grown-ups—"steel Jean munee." ”

“ Jean was one of the most powerful men in the province. His fearless nature and his strong will added tenfold to his physical strength. He was accustomed to enter into the most trivial undertakings with as much passionate enthusiasm as if he were setting out to conquer the world ”

“ Jean, dear, you were a strong-built man a while ago, and I was mighty proud when you came that day and put your arm round my waist and said you loved me⁠—me, a weakly bit of a thing, and you standing up six feet of beautiful strength. ”

“ Jean clings to the stone buttress and supports Angelica.)
Angelica—The water is deeper. (She shrinks back terrified.) I feel a something drawing my feet, drawing me away from you. O, where are you, Jean? (She reaches out her arms and moves them blindly. Jean, in the utmost tenderness, brings them to his neck.)
37Jean—Here I am, dear! If you cannot see as they see in the light of The World Above, you can still know that it is I, even by the self-same way you knew me in The Darker Realm. Put your hand on my face, if the light blinds your eyes, and then you will know. ”

“ Now and again, as some look or gesture of Farr's recurred to her with peculiar distinctness, a shy and tremulous joy dawned in her face, and lingered there.
Ah, Jean, such moments are indeed golden, when in your dreams all life seems sweet and fair. Do not hasten the inevitable awakening, for with the realization comes ever a sting to make the heart ache and throb. In after days this peaceful scene will live with you, the memory of its happiness haunt and mock you, until you fain would thrust it from you! ”

“ She walked silently. Jean saw that memory had not played him false: her beauty, her grace, were no freak of his imagination; would the holy father now say that she was a devil, while thus she moved in her loveliness, a woman to be loved and worshipped!—a very woman, too! not above the cares of life! Seating herself by the spring she despatched her companion on an errand to supply domestic wants, promising to await her return.
Jean's principal characteristic was rapid resolution: he reasoned that a small alarm might make the girl fly; that his chance of retaining her was an overpowering shock. ”

“ Would not the bon Dieu help her now! She drew her hands away from him, and turned from him for an instant. "You can never come back, Jean; you can never come back to the old life. You will go on and on, further and further away from it, making a great name for yourself, and your friends will be all like the grand monde who have been here, and I know that I cannot go into that life, too—I understand that all so well. And—and so, Jean, I have come to tell you that you are free." ”

“ One afternoon, in the interval between la soupe and promenade, Jean was in especially high spirits. I was lying down on my collapsible bed when he came up to my end of the room and began showing off exactly like a child. This time it was the game of l’armée française which Jean was playing.—“Jamais soldat, moi. Connais tous l’armée française.” John The Bathman, stretched comfortably in his bunk near me, grunted. “Tous,” Jean repeated.—And he stood in front of us; stiff as a stick in imitation of a French lieutenant with an imaginary company in front of him. ”

“ But it was not so good for Jean. For their talk with the old sailors, and the fishwives, and indeed their talk together, was mostly of the sea and its dangers, the treasures which it hid, and the far lands that lay beyond it. She told him tales of the sea, and repeated songs and ballads made about sea kings and naval heroes of all times, and sang them in the gloaming, with their wild refrains, which look like nonsense written down, but which sung, as Jean could sing them, deepened the pathos of the sad and sometimes terrible tales which were told; and the lad was never weary of listening. ”

“ Somehow as Jean looked at the sleeping face, his own heart grew still and quiet and warm, and he felt like he could look at it forever, and suddenly he caught himself singing softly under his breath, "Peace on earth, good will to men." And then he looked down at the little boy's feet and he saw that he was barefooted and his little feet were purple with the cold. As Jean looked at the feet, and then at the face of the child, and thought of the sweet song in his heart, he said, "Oh! I wish I could give him my shoes, for I have stockings to keep me warm, but auntie would be so mad! ”

“ As to Jean—it is progressing decidedly, here am I also calling him Jean—well! you know what I think of him. I rank him very, very high. But in spite of that, is he really a suitable husband for you?”
“Yes, if I love him.”
“I am trying to talk sensibly to you, and you, on the contrary—Understand me, Bettina; I have an experience of the world which you can not have. Since our arrival in Paris, we have been launched into a very brilliant, very animated, very aristocratic society. You might have been already, if you had liked, marchioness or princess.” ”

“ You realise, of course, that Jean is an uncompromising little Puritan? Mercy is as plain as bread and honour is as hard as stone to Jean—but she has a wide tolerance for sinners. I can imagine it won't always be easy to be Jean's husband. ”

“ The sun grew hot and beat down upon Jean's bare head, for she had lost her hat. Her fair hair caught on the long festoons of gray moss which hung from the trees, the flying golden fleece stuck to the rough bark, which was red with gum and very sticky. ”

“ Since we have been travelling in this cold country, Jean has been regarded with amazement, fear, or repugnance, in the various villages and peasants’ huts where we have stopped, and I myself, in spite of the affable manners of the people of this country, have fallen into a strange den of gloomy or absent-minded beings, where I am obliged to go marauding, like a soldier on a campaign. This good horse, on the contrary, makes room for Jean in his stall, without asking him the meaning of his long ears, and treats him from the start as an equal. ”

“ He tells me only of himself. If he is to be believed, it seems that Jean has become an important personage. That is to be seen and felt from the patronizing and somewhat contemptuous air which he assumes toward me at the beginning of his letter. In short, he writes to me only to astonish me. I always knew that he was vain,—indeed, he was such a handsome fellow!—but I never realized it so much as to-day. Men cannot stand success or glory.
Jean is still first valet de chambre in the house of the Countess Fardin, and at this moment the countess is perhaps the most-talked-of woman in France. ”

“ Jean began to think himself entirely deserted, when Mlle. Fouchette burst rather than walked into the room conducting her next-door neighbor.
Jean saw before him a man scarcely older than himself, rather spare of figure and pale of face, in the garb of a provincial and with an air of the Jesuit enthusiast rather than the student of art. ”

“ Jean must be a genius. She seems to have caught and held the spirit of the child in her canvas. It isn't only the outside of Sunnie, but the indescribable sweet witchery of the little darling, the absolute purity and innocence of her nature. ”

“ XI It was at breakfast the next morning that Jean noticed, for the first time, the venerable, kindly look of his father's face. In truth, advancing years had invested the bookbinder's appearance with a sort of beauty. The smooth forehead under the curling white locks betokened a habit of peaceful and honest thoughts. Old age, while rendering the play of the muscles less active, veiled the distortion of the limbs due to long hours of labour at the bench under the more affecting disfigurements which life and its long-drawn labours impress on all men alike. ”

“ Jean! Jean! you needn't pay much attention to his croaking. He's a man who has ennuis, and he sees everything crooked lately, although he isn't an unkind man, not at all. But he's the only man hereabout who talks like that; everybody else is all in favor of Monsieur Cardonnet. He isn't stingy, I tell you. He talks a little hard, he pushes his workmen a little, but bless me! he pays; you ought to see the wages he pays! and if you do break your back working, if you're well paid you ought to be satisfied, eh, monsieur? ”

“ Yet, the secret of Jean's strong hold on his heart lay not in these superficial attractions, nor in her frank simplicity of manner, nor yet in her girlish freshness, which was her greatest claim to beauty, but in the knowledge he had gained of her true nature; a nature so honest, so unfailing in loyalty, so unselfish, so charitable, so responsive in its sympathies, that both respect and reverence were blended with his love for her. ”