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Title: The Recruit

Author: Honoré de Balzac

Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley

Release date: July 13, 2005 [eBook #1426]
                Most recently updated: February 24, 2010

Language: English

Credits: Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RECRUIT ***




Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny





THE RECRUIT


By Honore De Balzac



Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley




                             DEDICATION

            To my dear Albert Marchand de la Ribellerie.





THE RECRUIT


  At times they saw him, by a phenomenon of vision or locomotion,
  abolish space in its two forms of Time and Distance; the former
  being intellectual space, the other physical space.

                           Intellectual History of Louis Lambert.



On an evening in the month of November, 1793, the principal persons of
Carentan were assembled in the salon of Madame de Dey, where they met
daily. Several circumstances which would never have attracted attention
in a large town, though they greatly preoccupied the little one, gave
to this habitual rendezvous an unusual interest. For the two preceding
evenings Madame de Dey had closed her doors to the little company, on
the ground that she was ill. Such an event would, in ordinary times,
have produced as much effect as the closing of the theatres in Paris;
life under those circumstances seems merely incomplete. But in 1793,
Madame de Dey's action was likely to have fatal results. The slightest
departure from a usual custom became, almost invariably for the nobles,
a matter of life or death. To fully understand the eager curiosity
and searching inquiry which animated on this occasion the Norman
countenances of all these rejected visitors, but more especially to
enter into Madame de Dey's secret anxieties, it is necessary to explain
the role she played at Carentan. The critical position in which she
stood at this moment being that of many others during the Revolution the
sympathies and recollections of more than one reader will help to give
color to this narrative.

Madame de Dey, widow of a lieutenant-general, chevalier of the Orders,
had left the court at the time of the emigration. Possessing a good deal
of property in the neighborhood of Carentan, she took refuge in that
town, hoping that the influence of the Terror would be little felt
there. This expectation, based on a knowledge of the region, was
well-founded. The Revolution committed but few ravages in Lower
Normandy. Though Madame de Dey had known none but the nobles of her own
caste when she visited her property in former years, she now felt it
advisable to open her house to the principle bourgeois of the town,
and to the new governmental authorities; trying to make them pleased
at obtaining her society, without arousing either hatred or jealousy.
Gracious and kind, gifted by nature with that inexpressible charm
which can please without having recourse to subserviency or to making
overtures, she succeeded in winning general esteem by an exquisite tact;
the sensitive warnings of which enabled her to follow the delicate
line along which she might satisfy the exactions of this mixed society,
without humiliating the touchy pride of the parvenus, or shocking that
of her own friends.

Then about thirty-eight years of age, she still preserved, not the fresh
plump beauty which distinguishes the daughters of Lower Normandy, but
a fragile and, so to speak, aristocratic beauty. Her features were
delicate and refined, her figure supple and easy. When she spoke, her
pale face lighted and seemed to acquire fresh life. Her large dark eyes
were full of affability and kindness, and yet their calm, religious
expression seemed to say that the springs of her existence were no
longer in her.

Married in the flower of her age to an old and jealous soldier,
the falseness of her position in the midst of a court noted for its
gallantry contributed much, no doubt, to draw a veil of melancholy over
a face where the charms and the vivacity of love must have shone in
earlier days. Obliged to repress the naive impulses and emotions of
a woman when she simply feels them instead of reflecting about them,
passion was still virgin in the depths of her heart. Her principal
attraction came, in fact, from this innate youth, which sometimes,
however, played her false, and gave to her ideas an innocent expression
of desire. Her manner and appearance commanded respect, but there was
always in her bearing, in her voice, a sort of looking forward to some
unknown future, as in girlhood. The most insensible man would find
himself in love with her, and yet be restrained by a sort of respectful
fear, inspired by her courtly and polished manners. Her soul, naturally
noble, but strengthened by cruel trials, was far indeed from the common
run, and men did justice to it. Such a soul necessarily required a lofty
passion; and the affections of Madame de Dey were concentrated on a
single sentiment,--that of motherhood. The happiness and pleasure of
which her married life was deprived, she found in the passionate love
she bore her son. She loved him not only with the pure and deep devotion
of a mother, but with the coquetry of a mistress, and the jealousy of
a wife. She was miserable away from him, uneasy at his absence, could
never see him enough, and loved only through him and for him. To make
men understand the strength of this feeling, it suffices to add that
the son was not only the sole child of Madame de Dey, but also her last
relation, the only being in the world to whom the fears and hopes and
joys of her life could be naturally attached.

The late Comte de Dey was the last surviving scion of his family,
and she herself was the sole heiress of her own. Human interests and
projects combined, therefore, with the noblest deeds of the soul to
exalt in this mother's heart a sentiment that is always so strong in the
hearts of women. She had brought up this son with the utmost difficulty,
and with infinite pains, which rendered the youth still dearer to her;
a score of times the doctors had predicted his death, but, confident in
her own presentiments, her own unfailing hope, she had the happiness
of seeing him come safely through the perils of childhood, with a
constitution that was ever improving, in spite of the warnings of the
Faculty.

Thanks to her constant care, this son had grown and developed so much,
and so gracefully, that at twenty years of age, he was thought a most
elegant cavalier at Versailles. Madame de Dey possessed a happiness
which does not always crown the efforts and struggles of a mother.
Her son adored her; their souls understood each other with fraternal
sympathy. If they had not been bound by nature's ties, they would
instinctively have felt for each other that friendship of man to man,
which is so rarely to be met in this life. Appointed sub-lieutenant of
dragoons, at the age of eighteen, the young Comte de Dey had obeyed the
point of honor of the period by following the princes of the blood in
their emigration.

Thus Madame de Dey, noble, rich, and the mother of an emigre, could not
be unaware of the dangers of her cruel situation. Having no other desire
than to preserve a fortune for her son, she renounced the happiness of
emigrating with him; and when she read the vigorous laws by virtue
of which the Republic daily confiscated the property of emigres, she
congratulated herself on that act of courage; was she not guarding the
property of her son at the peril of her life? And when she heard of
the terrible executions ordered by the Convention, she slept in peace,
knowing that her sole treasure was in safety, far from danger, far from
scaffolds. She took pleasure in believing that they had each chosen the
wisest course, a course which would save to _him_ both life and fortune.

With this secret comfort in her mind, she was ready to make all the
concessions required by those evil days, and without sacrificing either
her dignity as a woman, or her aristocratic beliefs, she conciliated
the good-will of those about her. Madame de Dey had fully understood the
difficulties that awaited her on coming to Carentan. To seek to occupy
a leading position would be daily defiance to the scaffold; yet she
pursued her even way. Sustained by her motherly courage, she won the
affections of the poor by comforting indiscriminately all miseries, and
she made herself necessary to the rich by assisting their pleasures.
She received the procureur of the commune, the mayor, the judge of
the district court, the public prosecutor, and even the judges of the
revolutionary tribunal.

The first four of these personages, being bachelors, courted her with
the hope of marriage, furthering their cause by either letting her see
the evils they could do her, or those from which they could protect her.
The public prosecutor, previously an attorney at Caen, and the manager
of the countess's affairs, tried to inspire her with love by an
appearance of generosity and devotion; a dangerous attempt for her. He
was the most to be feared among her suitors. He alone knew the exact
condition of the property of his former client. His passion was
increased by cupidity, and his cause was backed by enormous power, the
power of life and death throughout the district. This man, still young,
showed so much apparent nobleness and generosity in his proceedings that
Madame de Dey had not yet been able to judge him. But, disregarding the
danger that attends all attempts at subtilty with Normans, she employed
the inventive wit and slyness which Nature grants to women in opposing
the four rivals one against the other. By thus gaining time, she hoped
to come safe and sound to the end of the national troubles. At this
period, the royalists in the interior of France expected day by day that
the Revolution would be ended on the morrow. This conviction was the
ruin of very many of them.

In spite of these difficulties, the countess had maintained her
independence very cleverly until the day when, by an inexplicable
imprudence, she closed her doors to her usual evening visitors. Madame
de Dey inspired so genuine and deep an interest, that the persons who
called upon her that evening expressed extreme anxiety on being told
that she was unable to receive them. Then, with that frank curiosity
which appears in provincial manners, they inquired what misfortune,
grief, or illness afflicted her. In reply to these questions, an old
housekeeper named Brigitte informed them that her mistress had shut
herself up in her room and would see no one, not even the servants of
the house. The semi-cloistral existence of the inhabitants of a little
town creates so invincible a habit of analyzing and explaining the
actions of their neighbors, that after compassionating Madame de Dey
(without knowing whether she were happy or unhappy), they proceeded to
search for the reasons of this sudden retreat.

"If she were ill," said the first Inquisitive, "she would have sent for
the doctor; but the doctor has been all day long playing chess with me.
He told me, laughing, that in these days there was but one malady, and
that was incurable."

This joke was cautiously uttered. Men, women, old men, and young girls,
all set to work to explore the vast field of conjecture. The next day,
conjectures became suspicions. As life is all aboveboard in a little
town, the women were the first to learn that Brigitte had made larger
purchases than usual in the market. This fact could not be disputed:
Brigitte had been seen there, very early in the morning; and,
extraordinary event! she had bought the only hare the market afforded.
Now all the town knew that Madame de Dey did not like game. The
hare became, therefore, the point of departure for a vast array of
suspicions. The old men who were taking their walks abroad, remarked a
sort of concentrated activity about Madame de Dey's premises, shown by
the very precautions which the servants took to conceal it. The foot-man
was beating a carpet in the garden. The day before, no one would have
noticed that fact; but the carpet now became a corner-stone on which
the whole town built up its theories. Each individual had his or her
surmise.

The second day, on learning that Madame de Dey declared herself ill, the
principal personages of Carentan, assembled in the evening at the
house of the mayor's brother, an old married merchant, a man of strict
integrity, greatly respected, and for whom Madame de Dey had shown much
esteem. There all the aspirants for the hand of the rich widow had a
tale to tell that was more or less probable; and each expected to turn
to his own profit the secret event which he thus recounted. The public
prosecutor imagined a whole drama to result in the return by night of
Madame de Dey's son, the emigre. The mayor was convinced that a priest
who refused the oath had arrived from La Vendee and asked for asylum;
but the day being Friday, the purchase of a hare embarrassed the good
mayor not a little. The judge of the district court held firmly to the
theory of a Chouan leader or a body of Vendeans hotly pursued. Others
were convinced that the person thus harbored was a noble escaped from
the Paris prisons. In short, they all suspected the countess of being
guilty of one of those generosities, which the laws of the day called
crimes, and punished on the scaffold. The public prosecutor remarked in
a low voice that it would be best to say no more, but to do their best
to save the poor woman from the abyss toward which she was hurrying.

"If you talk about this affair," he said, "I shall be obliged to take
notice of it, and search her house, and _then_--"

He said no more, but all present understood what he meant.

The sincere friends of Madame de Dey were so alarmed about her, that on
the morning of the third day, the procureur-syndic of the commune made
his wife write her a letter, urging her to receive her visitors as usual
that evening. Bolder still, the old merchant went himself in the morning
to Madame de Dey's house, and, strong in the service he wanted to render
her, he insisted on seeing her, and was amazed to find her in the garden
gathering flowers for her vases.

"She must be protecting a lover," thought the old man, filled with
sudden pity for the charming woman.

The singular expression on the countess's face strengthened this
conjecture. Much moved at the thought of such devotion, for all men are
flattered by the sacrifices a woman makes for one of them, the old man
told the countess of the rumors that were floating about the town, and
the dangers to which she was exposing herself.

"For," he said in conclusion, "though some of the authorities will
readily pardon a heroism which protects a priest, none of them will
spare you if they discover that you are sacrificing yourself to the
interests of your heart."

At these words Madame de Dey looked at the old man with a wild and
bewildered air, that made him shudder.

"Come," she said, taking him by the hand and leading him into her
bedroom. After assuring herself that they were quite alone, she drew
from her bosom a soiled and crumpled letter.

"Read that," she said, making a violent effort to say the words.

She fell into a chair, seemingly exhausted. While the old man searched
for his spectacles and rubbed their glasses, she raised her eyes to
him, and seemed to study him with curiosity; then she said in an altered
voice, and very softly,--

"I trust you."

"I am here to share your crime," replied the good man, simply.

She quivered. For the first time in that little town, her soul
sympathized with that of another. The old man now understood both the
hopes and the fears of the poor woman. The letter was from her son. He
had returned to France to share in Granville's expedition, and was taken
prisoner. The letter was written from his cell, but it told her to hope.
He did not doubt his means of escape, and he named to her three days, on
one of which he expected to be with her in disguise. But in case he
did not reach Carentan by the third day, she might know some fatal
difficulty had occurred, and the letter contained his last wishes and a
sad farewell. The paper trembled in the old man's hand.

"This is the third day," cried the countess, rising and walking
hurriedly up and down.

"You have been very imprudent," said the merchant. "Why send Brigitte to
buy those provisions?"

"But he may arrive half-dead with hunger, exhausted, and--"

She could say no more.

"I am sure of my brother the mayor," said the old man. "I will see him
at once, and put him in your interests."

After talking with the mayor, the shrewd old man made visits on various
pretexts to the principal families of Carentan, to all of whom he
mentioned that Madame de Dey, in spite of her illness, would receive her
friends that evening. Matching his own craft against those wily Norman
minds, he replied to the questions put to him on the nature of Madame de
Dey's illness in a manner that hoodwinked the community. He related to a
gouty old dame, that Madame de Dey had almost died of a sudden attack of
gout in the stomach, but had been relieved by a remedy which the famous
doctor, Tronchin, had once recommended to her,--namely, to apply the
skin of a freshly-flayed hare on the pit of the stomach, and to remain
in bed without making the slightest movement for two days. This tale had
prodigious success, and the doctor of Carentan, a royalist "in petto,"
increased its effect by the manner in which he discussed the remedy.

Nevertheless, suspicions had taken too strong a root in the minds of
some obstinate persons, and a few philosophers, to be thus dispelled;
so that all Madame de Dey's usual visitors came eagerly and early that
evening to watch her countenance: some out of true friendship, but most
of them to detect the secret of her seclusion.

They found the countess seated as usual, at the corner of the great
fireplace in her salon, a room almost as unpretentious as the other
salons in Carentan; for, in order not to wound the narrow view of her
guests, she denied herself the luxuries to which she was accustomed.
The floor of her reception room was not even waxed, the walls were
still hung with dingy tapestries; she used the country furniture,
burned tallow candles, and followed the customs of the town,--adopting
provincial life, and not shrinking from its pettiness or its many
disagreeable privations. Knowing, however, that her guests would pardon
luxuries if provided for their own comfort, she neglected nothing which
conduced to their personal enjoyment, and gave them, more especially,
excellent dinners.

Toward seven o'clock on this memorable evening, her guests were all
assembled in a wide circle around the fireplace. The mistress of the
house, sustained in her part by the sympathizing glances of the old
merchant, submitted with wonderful courage to the minute questioning and
stupid, or frivolous, comments of her visitors. At every rap upon her
door, every footfall echoing in the street, she hid her emotions by
starting topics relating to the interests of the town, and she raised
such a lively discussion on the quality of ciders, which was ably
seconded by the old merchant, that the company almost forgot to
watch her, finding her countenance quite natural, and her composure
imperturbable. The public prosecutor and one of the judges of the
revolutionary tribunal was taciturn, observing attentively every change
in her face; every now and then they addressed her some embarrassing
question, to which, however, the countess answered with admirable
presence of mind. Mothers have such courage!

After Madame de Dey had arranged the card parties, placing some guests
at the boston, and some at the whist tables, she stood talking to a
number of young people with extreme ease and liveliness of manner,
playing her part like a consummate actress. Presently she suggested a
game of loto, and offered to find the box, on the ground that she alone
knew where it was, and then she disappeared.

"I am suffocating, my poor Brigitte," she cried, wiping the tears that
gushed from her eyes, now brilliant with fever, anxiety, and impatience.
"He does not come," she moaned, looking round the room prepared for her
son. "Here alone I can breathe, I can live! A few minutes more and he
_must_ be here; for I know he is living. I am certain of it, my heart
says so. Don't you hear something, Brigitte? I would give the rest of my
life to know at this moment whether he were still in prison, or out in
the free country. Oh! I wish I could stop thinking--"

She again examined the room to see if all were in order. A good fire
burned on the hearth, the shutters were carefully closed, the furniture
shone with rubbing; even the manner in which the bed was made showed
that the countess had assisted Brigitte in every detail; her hopes were
uttered in the delicate care given to that room where she expected to
fold her son in her arms. A mother alone could have thought of all his
wants; a choice repast, rare wine, fresh linen, slippers, in short,
everything the tired man would need,--all were there that nothing might
be lacking; the comforts of his home should reveal to him without words
the tenderness of his mother!

"Brigitte!" said the countess, in a heart-rending tone, placing a chair
before the table, as if to give a semblance of reality to her hopes, and
so increase the strength of her illusions.

"Ah! madame, he will come. He is not far off. I haven't a doubt he is
living, and on his way," replied Brigitte. "I put a key in the Bible,
and I held it on my fingers while Cottin read a chapter in the gospel of
Saint John; and, madame, the key never turned at all!"

"Is that a good sign?" asked the countess.

"Oh! madame, that's a well-known sign. I would wager my salvation, he
still lives. God would not so deceive us."

"Ah! if he would only come--no matter for his danger here."

"Poor Monsieur Auguste!" cried Brigitte, "he must be toiling along the
roads on foot."

"There's eight o'clock striking now," cried the countess, in terror.

She dared not stay away any longer from her guests; but before
re-entering the salon, she paused a moment under the peristyle of the
staircase, listening if any sound were breaking the silence of the
street. She smiled at Brigitte's husband, who was standing sentinel
at the door, and whose eyes seemed stupefied by the intensity of his
attention to the murmurs of the street and night.

Madame de Dey re-entered her salon, affecting gaiety, and began to play
loto with the young people; but after a while she complained of feeling
ill, and returned to her chimney-corner.

Such was the situation of affairs, and of people's minds in the house
of Madame de Dey, while along the road, between Paris and Cherbourg, a
young man in a brown jacket, called a "carmagnole," worn de rigueur at
that period, was making his way to Carentan. When drafts for the
army were first instituted, there was little or no discipline. The
requirements of the moment did not allow the Republic to equip its
soldiers immediately, and it was not an unusual thing to see the roads
covered with recruits, who were still wearing citizen's dress. These
young men either preceded or lagged behind their respective battalions,
according to their power of enduring the fatigues of a long march.

The young man of whom we are now speaking, was much in advance of a
column of recruits, known to be on its way from Cherbourg, which the
mayor of Carentan was awaiting hourly, in order to give them their
billets for the night. The young man walked with a jades step, but
firmly, and his gait seemed to show that he had long been familiar with
military hardships. Though the moon was shining on the meadows about
Carentan, he had noticed heavy clouds on the horizon, and the fear of
being overtaken by a tempest may have hurried his steps, which were
certainly more brisk than his evident lassitude could have desired.
On his back was an almost empty bag, and he held in his hand a boxwood
stick, cut from the tall broad hedges of that shrub, which is so
frequent in Lower Normandy.

This solitary wayfarer entered Carentan, the steeples of which, touched
by the moonlight, had only just appeared to him. His step woke the
echoes of the silent streets, but he met no one until he came to the
shop of a weaver, who was still at work. From him he inquired his way to
the mayor's house, and the way-worn recruit soon found himself seated
in the porch of that establishment, waiting for the billet he had asked
for. Instead of receiving it at once, he was summoned to the mayor's
presence, where he found himself the object of minute observation. The
young man was good-looking, and belonged, evidently, to a distinguished
family. His air and manner were those of the nobility. The intelligence
of a good education was in his face.

"What is your name?" asked the mayor, giving him a shrewd and meaning
look.

"Julien Jussieu."

"Where do you come from?" continued the magistrate, with a smile of
incredulity.

"Paris."

"Your comrades are at some distance," resumed the Norman official, in a
sarcastic tone.

"I am nine miles in advance of the battalion."

"Some strong feeling must be bringing you to Carentan, citizen recruit,"
said the mayor, slyly. "Very good, very good," he added hastily,
silencing with a wave of his hand a reply the young man was about to
make. "I know where to send you. Here," he added, giving him his billet,
"take this and go to that house, 'Citizen Jussieu.'"

So saying, the mayor held out to the recruit a billet, on which the
address of Madame de Dey's house was written. The young man read it with
an air of curiosity.

"He knows he hasn't far to go," thought the mayor as the recruit left
the house. "That's a bold fellow! God guide him! He seemed to have his
answers ready. But he'd have been lost if any one but I had questioned
him and demanded to see his papers."

At that instant, the clocks of Carentan struck half-past nine; the
lanterns were lighted in Madame de Dey's antechamber; the servants
were helping their masters and mistresses to put on their clogs, their
cloaks, and their mantles; the card-players had paid their debts, and
all the guests were preparing to leave together after the established
customs of provincial towns.

"The prosecutor, it seems, has stayed behind," said a lady, perceiving
that that important personage was missing, when the company parted in
the large square to go to their several houses.

That terrible magistrate was, in fact, alone with the countess, who
waited, trembling, till it should please him to depart.

"Citoyenne," he said, after a long silence in which there was something
terrifying, "I am here to enforce the laws of the Republic."

Madame de Dey shuddered.

"Have you nothing to reveal to me?" he demanded.

"Nothing," she replied, astonished.

"Ah! madame," cried the prosecutor, changing his tone and seating
himself beside her, "at this moment, for want of a word between us, you
and I may be risking our heads on the scaffold. I have too long observed
your character, your soul, your manners, to share the error into which
you have persuaded your friends this evening. You are, I cannot doubt,
expecting your son."

The countess made a gesture of denial; but she had turned pale, the
muscles of her face contracted from the effort that she made to exhibit
firmness, and the implacable eye of the public prosecutor lost none of
her movements.

"Well, receive him," continued the functionary of the Revolution, "but
do not keep him under your roof later than seven o'clock in the morning.
To-morrow, at eight, I shall be at your door with a denunciation."

She looked at him with a stupid air that might have made a tiger
pitiful.

"I will prove," he continued in a kindly voice, "the falsity of the
denunciation, by making a careful search of the premises; and the nature
of my report will protect you in future from all suspicions. I will
speak of your patriotic gifts, your civic virtues, and that will save
you."

Madame de Dey feared a trap, and she stood motionless; but her face was
on fire, and her tongue stiff in her mouth. A rap sounded on the door.

"Oh!" cried the mother, falling on her knees, "save him! save him!"

"Yes, we will save him," said the official, giving her a look of
passion; "if it costs us our life, we will save him."

"I am lost!" she murmured, as the prosecutor raised her courteously.

"Madame," he said, with an oratorical movement, "I will owe you only--to
yourself."

"Madame, he has come," cried Brigitte, rushing in and thinking her
mistress was alone.

At sight of the public prosecutor, the old woman, flushed and joyous as
she was, became motionless and livid.

"Who has come?" asked the prosecutor.

"A recruit, whom the mayor has sent to lodge here," replied Brigitte,
showing the billet.

"True," said the prosecutor, reading the paper. "We expect a detachment
to-night."

And he went away.

The countess had too much need at this moment to believe in the
sincerity of her former attorney, to distrust his promise. She mounted
the stairs rapidly, though her strength seemed failing her; then she
opened the door, saw her son, and fell into his arms half dead,--

"Oh! my child! my child!" she cried, sobbing, and covering him with
kisses in a sort of frenzy.

"Madame!" said an unknown man.

"Ah! it is not he!" she cried, recoiling in terror, and standing erect
before the recruit, at whom she gazed with a haggard eye.

"Holy Father! what a likeness!" said Brigitte.

There was silence for a moment. The recruit himself shuddered at the
aspect of Madame de Dey.

"Ah! monsieur," she said, leaning on Brigitte's husband, who had entered
the room, and feeling to its fullest extent an agony the fear of which
had already nearly killed her. "Monsieur, I cannot stay with you longer.
Allow my people to attend upon you."

She returned to her own room, half carried by Brigitte and her old
servant.

"Oh! madame," said Brigitte, as she undressed her mistress, "must that
man sleep in Monsieur Auguste's bed, and put on Monsieur Auguste's
slippers, and eat the pate I made for Monsieur Auguste? They may
guillotine me if I--"

"Brigitte!" cried Madame de Dey.

Brigitte was mute.

"Hush!" said her husband in her ear, "do you want to kill madame?"

At that moment the recruit made a noise in the room above by sitting
down to his supper.

"I cannot stay here!" cried Madame de Dey. "I will go into the
greenhouse; there I can hear what happens outside during the night."

She still floated between the fear of having lost her son and the hope
of his suddenly appearing.

The night was horribly silent. There was one dreadful moment for the
countess, when the battalion of recruits passed through the town, and
went to their several billets. Every step, every sound, was a hope,--and
a lost hope. After that the stillness continued. Towards morning the
countess was obliged to return to her room. Brigitte, who watched her
movements, was uneasy when she did not reappear, and entering the room
she found her dead.

"She must have heard that recruit walking about Monsieur Auguste's room,
and singing their damned Marseillaise, as if he were in a stable," cried
Brigitte. "That was enough to kill her!"

The death of the countess had a far more solemn cause; it resulted, no
doubt, from an awful vision. At the exact hour when Madame de Dey died
at Carentan, her son was shot in the Morbihan. That tragic fact may
be added to many recorded observations on sympathies that are known to
ignore the laws of space: records which men of solitude are collecting
with far-seeing curiosity, and which will some day serve as the basis
of a new science for which, up to the present time, a man of genius has
been lacking.








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