Jeannie

“ Just look at this, old lady.’ As he spoke, the dog lifted one lip, and showed such a display of alabaster teeth, that Jeannie was glad to retire without raising the rent.
“What was Jeannie like, did you ask? Why, straight in back and strong in limb, with beautiful long ears to switch away the flies in summer, with mild, intelligent eyes of hazel brown, and always a soft, smooth patch on the top of her nose for any one to kiss who was so minded. In winter Jeannie was rough in coat. ”

“ But Jeannie’s happiness was too infectious to be denied, and she sat down in the chair by her. [265]
“Oh, I am so happy!” cried Jeannie. “Listen at the rivers down the gravel walks. There won’t be a flower in the garden to-morrow.”
“I don’t know that that is altogether an advantage,” said Aunt Em. “Haven’t you got a better reason than that?”
“Hundreds,” said Jeannie. “I am sane again. I was looking at things awry, and I have been put right.”
“Who put you right?” asked Aunt Em.
“Why, Mr. Collingwood!” said Jeannie. “He was here this afternoon.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Miss Fortescue. ”

“ But Jeannie was a perfect angel. She was about two or three and thirty, wi' light brown hair, hazel e'en, and a waist as jimp and sma' as ye ever saw upon a human creature. She dressed maist as plain as a Quakeress, but was a pattern o' neatness. Indeed, a blind man might seen she was a leddy born and bred; and then for sense, haud at ye there, I wad matched her against the minister and the kirk elders put thegither. But she took that o' her mither; o' whom mair by-and-by. ”

“ It was warm and soft and still; by now the bright eyes had grown quite dull, and the blood on the speckled breast was beginning to coagulate, and once again, even with the novel prospect of a bird-funeral in front of him, Archie's heart melted in pity.
"Why did Cyrus kill it, Jeannie?" he said. "The thrush hadn't done any harm."
"Cats do kill birds," said Jeannie. "Same as birds kill worms, or you and William kill worms when you go out fishing."
"Yes, but worms aren't birds," said Archie. "Worms aren't nice; they don't fly and sing. It's an awful shame." ”

“ But Jeannie was a philosopher, she simply looked at them with those quiet brown eyes of hers, shook one ear, and said—
“‘Grumble away, grumble away, I’m too well known to be afraid of ye; ye can’t bring disgrace on my hotel. Hee, haw! Haw, hee! There!’
“Hurricane Bob paid his bill every morning and every night with a dog-biscuit. The first morning I offered Jeannie the biscuit she looked at me.
“‘Do you take me for a dog?’ she asked. Then she sniffed it. ‘It do smell uncommonly nice,’ she said; ‘I’ll try it, anyhow.’ So she took the cake in her mouth, and marched into the yard ”

“ And tell Jeannie there's a great friend o' mine come in, if she can get anything special—Lord's sake, Ronald, if I had kent I was going to fall in with you I would have looked after it mysel'.'
'Ye need not bother about me,' said he, 'for supper is not much in my way—not since I came to the town. Without the country air, I think one would as lief not sit down to a table at all.'
'Oh, I can cure ye o' that complaint,' she said confidently; and she rang the bell. ”

“ Ay, Jeannie, we hae had a lang life, and mony joys as weel as sorrows. The Lord aye gies his children what is best for them. He remembereth our frame; he knoweth we are but [Pg 130] dust, and he doesna pit upon us what we are no able to bear. ”

“ Weel, mither, that proves he doesna care for her.'
'That's no the p'int, dearie.' Mrs. Robinson paused in her work. 'I'm beginnin' to think I should ha'e tell't him aboot the paircel bein' open when Christina was here. It's maybe no fair to let him gang to her——'
'I'll run efter him,' said Jeannie promptly. 'I'll maybe catch him afore he gets to Miss Tod's shop.'
'Ay; run, Jeannie; run as quick's ye can!'
So Jeannie threw off her apron, tidied her hair with a couple of touches, and flew as though a life depended on her speed. ”

“ The only thing that ever made Jeanne really sorry for her naughty tricks was when Madame de Silly talked to her about her mother, whom the child loved deeply, though she saw her so seldom. To grow up like her was Jeanne's great wish, even when she was quite a baby; and as her mother loved the king, her uncle, so much, why, of course, she must love him too. Every now and then Francis I. sent for her to the palace of St. Germain, to play with her cousins, Princess Madeleine, who was afterwards to be queen of Scotland, and Marguérite, the future duchess of Savoy. ”

“ By the king's orders the marriage festivities were to be on the grandest possible scale, and Marguérite had given special care to Jeanne's dress. The jewels on her long robe of cloth of gold dazzled the eyes of the spectators, and her velvet mantle was broidered with ermine. No wonder that on a hot July day the weight of these clothes felt enormous, and Jeanne had some show of reason on her side when she told her uncle, who came forward to lead her to the altar, that she really could not move from her chair. ”

“ The wicked mother went back to Bar-sur-Aube, which Jeanne was to dazzle with her opulence, after she got possession of the diamonds.
By the age of twenty-one (1777) , Jeanne was a pretty enchanting girl, with a heart full of greed and envy; two years later she and her sister fled from the convent where her protectress had placed them: a merry society convent it was. A Madame de Surmont now gave them shelter, at Bar-sur-Aube, and Jeanne married, very disreputably, her heavy admirer, La Motte, calling himself Count, and to all appearance a stupid young officer of the gendarmerie. ”

“ In Jeanne, Madame Sand had first ventured to make a peasant-girl the central figure of her novel, though still so far deferring to the received notions of what was essential in order to interest the "gentle" reader as to surround her simple heroine with personages of rank and education. Jeanne herself, moreover, is an exceptional and a highly idealized type—as it were a sister to Joan of Arc, not the inspired warrior-maid, but the visionary shepherdess of the Vosges. Yet the creation is sufficiently real. ”

“ A shadow came into Jeanne's eyes. She motioned him to a seat beside her in front of the fire. Her nearness, the touch of her dress, the sweet perfume of her presence, thrilled him. He felt that the moment was near when the whole world as he knew it was to slip away from him, leaving him in a paradise, or a chaos of despair. Jeanne looked up at the dueling pistols. The firelight trembled in the soft folds of lace over her bosom; it glistened in her hair, and lighted her face with a gentle glow. ”

“ Now, let me tell you, Jeanne:—Respect her! And when I say that, I do not forget that she is my servant and yours; neither will she ever allow herself to forget it for a moment. But what I want you to respect in her is her great age and her great heart. She is a humble woman who has lived a very, very long time in the habit of doing good; and she has become hardened and stiffened in that habit. ”

“ But Jeanne was made to listen in prayer and silence and secrecy and anguish for the word of Heaven. The worst is,”—her stormy sob again shook her from head to foot,—”you will be at court, and beautiful women will love the great explorer. And one will shine; she will be set like a star as high as the height of being your wife. And Jeanne,—oh, Jeanne! here in this rough, new world,—she must eternally learn to be nothing!”
“My wife!” said La Salle, turning her hand in his clasp, and laying his cheek in her palm. “You are my wife. There is no court. There is no world to discover. ”

“ I think I will get up in the mornings as Jeanne does, and try to love my mountains, and go about amongst my people, and try to spell life with different letters. Come with me, Nigel. There is shooting and fishing there, and horses wild enough for even you to find pleasure in riding. We have tried many things in life. ”

“ But a woman of Jeanne's disillusioned experience of human nature knew from the expression of his listless brown eyes, from his careless attitude in his chair, from the indifferent way he looked at the three women before him, from the roughness of his hair, evidently combed but once a day, with no perfumed dressing on it, that he was not now and never had been a man who cared for conquests among women, or who had had many. ”

“ Seeking a dark corner, she closed her eyes. Allowing her head to drop forward, she stood like one in prayer. Did she pray, or did she but surrender her soul and body to the forces of nature all about her? Who can say but that these two are the same, or at least that their effect is the same? However that may be, it was a changed Jeanne who, three minutes later, took up her post of duty in the boxes, for hers was the air of a sentry. Her movements were firm and steady, the look upon her face as calm as the reflection of the moon upon a still pool at midnight. ”

“ This arrangement was carried out; Jeanne and Virginie really enjoyed their walk; the latter thought their disguise was great fun, and, being naturally a little mimic, imitated so well the walk and manner of the country children she had seen in her walks near the chateau that her sister and Harry were greatly amused.
"I like this too, Harry," Jeanne said. "It would not be nice to be a peasant girl for many things; but it must be joyful to be able to walk, and run, and do just as you please, without having a gouvernante always with you to say, Hold up your head, Mademoiselle Jeanne ”

“ And as she spoke the great French actress seemed to be Jeanne herself. The American soldiers forgot her middle age, her quiet half-mourning costume, and saw that wonderful young peasant girl, first in her peasant’s dress in the woods near her father’s home, listening to her voice. She was only a dreaming girl then, with her short hair, her bare feet and peasant’s smock and those great wide-open gray eyes.
Then Jeanne as a soldier in a suit of armor on her wonderful white horse, riding always in front of her troops to the glory and salvation of France. ”

“ EMIL GRELIEU
All will end well, Jeanne. All will end well. I know. I also feel as you do. But all will end well, Jeanne!
JEANNE
Sobbing, but calming herself somewhat.
I cannot bear it!
EMIL GRELIEU
All will end well, Jeanne! Belgium will live! The sun will shine! I am suffering, but I know this, Jeanne!
MAURICE
Quicker! Quicker!
CHAUFFEUR
In a moment, in a moment. Now it is fixed, in a moment.
EMIL GRELIEU
Faintly.
Jeanne!
JEANNE
Yes, yes, I know.... Forgive me, forgive me, I will soon—
A loud, somewhat hoarse voice of a girl comes from the dark.
GIRL
Tell me how I can find my way to Lonua! ”

“ Jeanne must really collect herself, and understand that all this is nothing but a transition. When I think of it, I can recall no case among the many I have known—except, of course, my own—of a single woman who has managed to get through these years without a slight rumpus of some kind. Afterwards they have taken endless trouble to patch up the wounds they have inflicted. Now, Jeanne has been more than unreasonable in this respect. There isn’t a man in the world who can stand such an everlasting adoration. ”

“ So with the strange and poetical Jeanne, too innately refined to prosper in her rough human environment, yet too fixedly simple to fare much better in more cultivated circles. She is the victim of a sort of celestial stupidity we admire and pity at once. In this study of a peasant heroine resides such charm as the book possesses, and the attempt was to lead on the author to the productions above alluded to, La Mare au Diable, François le Champi, and La Petite Fadette. ”

“ She must go to Compiègne. Jeanne was but a young girl. She could not realize that her allotted time was over. It is hard for one to accept the fact one is not needed; that everything can go on as usual without one, and Jeanne was very young. ”

“ He loves me unless you have stolen his heart with some evil charm. Stand up; see. I am as tall as you. My skin is fine and clear, if not as pale as the white faces; and yours—pouf! you have no rose in your cheeks. Is not my mouth made for kisses? I like those that burn as fire running through your veins. And my hand—" she caught Jeanne's hand and compared them. "It is as slim and soft, and the pink is under the nails. ”

“ The Princess was right. He knew that she was right. Those other thoughts were little short of madness. Jeanne was no coquette at heart, but she was a child. She had great responsibilities. She was turned into the world with a heavy burden upon her shoulders. It was not he or any man who could help her. She must fight her own battle, win or lose her own happiness. A few years' time might see her the wife of a great statesman or a great soldier, proud and happy to feel herself the means by which the man she loved might climb one step higher upon the great ladder of fame. ”

“ One among them, whose name will never be known, raised up an angelic deliverer for the king and the kingdom of France.
Meanwhile Jeanne was living a life of illusion. Knowing nothing of the influences she was under, incapable of recognising in her Voices the echo of a human voice or the promptings of her own heart, she responded timidly to the saints when they bade her fare forth into France: "I am a poor girl, and know not how to ride a horse or how to make war." ”

“ Jeanne could build a fire. This is an art known to all wanderers, and she had been a gypsy. But she lacked the will to put her skill to the test, so, quite in despair, she threw herself in a chair and lay there, looking for all the world like a deserted French doll, as she whispered to herself:
“What can it matter? Life is without a true purpose, all life. Why should one struggle? Why not go down with the tide? Why—”
But in one short moment all this was changed. The door flew open. Florence burst into the room and with her came a whole gust of fresh lake air, or so it seemed to Jeanne. ”

“ So the years went by, Jeanne always saying that these heavenly voices were calling her to save her unhappy country, her friends and neighbors sometimes calling her crazy.
She was now seventeen, a lovely pure girl, sorrowing much over the wars and troubles of her own beloved France. Ah! they were dark days indeed; this one wanted to be king, and that one said he must rule; armies met and fought, and some of the young men who went from Domremy, and with whom Jeanne had played, were brought back from the battle fields wounded and dying. ”