Part 17 (1/2)
And she ventured to put her hand on my shoulder. She was looking at me with an expression of wistfulness, and a big tear was trickling down her cheek. I threw myself on my knees and tried to speak, but that was still impossible. I could do no more than mutter the word _to-morrow_ several times.
”'To-morrow?' What of tomorrow?” said Edmee. ”Do you not like being here? Do you want to go away?”
”I will go, if it will please you,” I replied. ”Tell me; do you wish never to see me again?”
”I do not wish that at all,” she rejoined. ”You will stop here, won't you.”
”It is for you to decide,” I answered.
She looked at me in astonishment. I was still on my knees. She leant over the back of my chair.
”Yes; I am quite sure that you are good at heart,” she said, as if she were answering some inner objection. ”A Mauprat can be nothing by halves; and as soon as you have once known a good quarter of an hour, it is certain you ought to have a n.o.ble life before you.”
”I will make it so,” I answered.
”You mean it?” she said with unaffected joy.
”On my honour, Edmee, and on yours. Dare you give me your hand?”
”Certainly,” she said.
She held out her hand to me; but she was still trembling.
”You have been forming good resolutions, then?” she said.
”I have been forming such resolutions,” I replied, ”that you will never have to reproach me again. And now, Edmee, when you return to your room, please do not bolt your door any more. You need no longer be afraid of me. Henceforth I shall only wish what you wish.”
She again fixed on me a look of amazement. Then, after pressing my hand, she moved away, but turned round several times to look at me again, as if unable to believe in such a sudden conversion. At last, stopping in the doorway, she said to me in an affectionate tone:
”You, too, must go and get some rest. You look tired; and for the last two days you have seemed sad and very much altered. If you do not wish to make me anxious, you will take care of yourself, Bernard.”
She gave me a sweet little nod. In her big eyes, already hollowed by suffering, there was an indefinable expression, in which distrust and hope, affection and wonder, were depicted alternately or at times all together.
”I will take care of myself; I will get some sleep; and I will not be sad any longer,” I answered.
”And you will work?”
”And I will work--but, you, Edmee, will you forgive me for all the pain I have caused you? and will you try to like me a little?”
”I shall like you very much,” she replied, ”if you are always as you are this evening.”
On the morrow, at daybreak, I went to the abbe's room. He was already up and reading.
”Monsieur Aubert,” I said to him, ”you have several times offered to give me lessons. I now come to request you to carry out your kind offer.”
I had spent part of the night in preparing this opening speech and in deciding how I had best comport myself in the abbe's presence. Without really hating him, for I could quite see that he meant well and that he bore me ill-will only because of my faults, I felt very bitter towards him. Inwardly I recognised that I deserved all the bad things he had said about me to Edmee; but it seemed to me that he might have insisted somewhat more on the good side of mine to which he had given a merely pa.s.sing word, and which could not have escaped the notice of a man so observant as himself. I had determined, therefore, to be very cold and very proud in my bearing towards him. To this end I judged with a certain show of logic, that I ought to display great docility as long as the lesson lasted, and that immediately afterwards I ought to leave him with a very curt expression of thanks. In a word, I wished to humiliate him in his post of tutor; for I was not unaware that he depended for his livelihood on my uncle, and that, unless he renounced this livelihood or showed himself ungrateful, he could not well refuse to undertake my education. My reasoning here was very good; but the spirit which prompted it was very bad; and subsequently I felt so much regret for my behaviour that I made him a sort of friendly confession with a request for absolution.
However, not to antic.i.p.ate events, I will simply say that the first few days after my conversation afforded me an ample revenge for the prejudices, too well founded in many respects, which this man had against me. He would have deserved the t.i.tle of ”the just,” a.s.signed him by Patience, had not a habit of distrust interfered with his first impulses. The persecutions of which he had so long been the object had developed in him this instinctive feeling of fear, which remained with him all his life, and made trust in others always very difficult to him, though all the more flattering and touching perhaps when he accorded it.
Since then I have observed this characteristic in many worthy priests.
They generally have the spirit of charity, but not the feeling of friends.h.i.+p.
I wished to make him suffer, and I succeeded. Spite inspired me. I behaved as a n.o.bleman might to an inferior. I preserved an excellent bearing, displayed great attention, much politeness, and an icy stiffness. I determined to give him no chance to make me blush at my ignorance, and, to this end, I acted so as to antic.i.p.ate all his observations by accusing myself at once of knowing nothing, and by requesting him to teach me the very rudiments of things. When I had finished my first lesson I saw in his penetrating eyes, into which I had managed to penetrate myself, a desire to pa.s.s from this coldness to some sort of intimacy; but I carefully avoided making any response. He thought to disarm me by praising my attention and intelligence.