Volume III Part 77 (1/2)

”Oh! I understand all,” cried Rudolph; ”there is no longer any hope for her.”

”I hope for the future, my father, and this hope gives me strength to speak to you thus.”

”And what can you hope for the future, my poor child, since your present fate causes you only grief and bitterness?”

”I am going to tell you, my father; but, before all, permit me to recall the past to you, to own to you, before G.o.d who hears me, what I have felt up to this time.”

”Speak, speak, we hear you,” said Rudolph, seating himself with Clemence, by Fleur-de-Marie.

”While I remained at Paris, near you, my father,” said Fleur-de-Marie, ”I was so happy, oh! so completely happy, that those delicious days would not be too well paid for by years of suffering. You see I have at least known what happiness is.”

”During some days, perhaps?”

”Yes, but what pure and unmingled felicity! Love surrounded me then, as ever, with the tenderest care. I gave myself up without fear to the emotions of grat.i.tude and affection which every moment raised my heart to you. The future dazzled me: a father to adore, a second mother to love doubly, for she had taken the place of my own, whom I had never known--I must own everything; my pride was excited in spite of myself, so much was I honored in belonging to you. Then the few persons of your household who at Paris had occasion to speak to me called me 'your highness,' I could not prevent myself from being proud of this t.i.tle. If I thought then, at times, vaguely of the past, it was to say to myself, 'I, formerly so humble, the beloved daughter of a sovereign prince who is blessed and revered by every one; I, formerly so miserable, I am enjoying all the splendors of luxury, and of an almost royal existence.' Alas! my father, my fortune was so unforeseen, your power surrounded me with such a splendid _eclat_ that; I was excusable perhaps in allowing myself to become so blinded.”

”Excusable! nothing was more natural, my poor beloved angel; what wrong was there in being proud of a rank which was your own, of enjoying the advantages of the position to which I had restored you! At that time I recollect you were delightfully gay; how many times have I seen you fall into my arms as if overpowered with happiness, and heard you say to me, with an enchanting accent, 'My father, it is too much, too much happiness!'

Unfortunately, these are only recollections; they lulled me into a deceitful security, and since then I have not been enough alarmed at the cause of your melancholy.”

”But, tell us then, my child,” asked Clemence, ”what has changed into sadness this pure, this legitimate joy which you first felt?”

”Alas! a very sad and entirely unforeseen circ.u.mstance.”

”What circ.u.mstance?”

”You recollect, my father,” said Fleur-de-Marie, without being able to conquer a shuddering of horror; ”you remember the sad scene which preceded our departure from Paris, when your carriage was stopped near the barrier?”

”Yes,” replied Rudolph, sadly. ”Brave Slasher, after having again saved my life; he died there before us, saying, 'Heaven is just; I have killed, they kill me.'”

”Oh well, father, at the moment when this unfortunate man was expiring, do you know whom I saw looking intently at me? Oh, that look, that look! it has pursued me ever since,” added Fleur-de-Marie, shuddering.

”What look? of whom do you speak?” cried Rudolph.

”Of the Ogress of the White Rabbit,” murmured Fleur-de-Marie.

”That monster seen again?--where?”

”You did not perceive her in the tavern where the Slasher breathed his last. She was among the women who surrounded him.”

”Oh, now!” said Rudolph, dejectedly, ”I understand: already struck with terror by the murder of the Slasher, you thought there was something providential in this dreadful meeting.”

”It is but too true, my father. At the sight of the Ogress I felt a mortal shudder. It seemed to me that, under her look, my heart, until then radiant with happiness and hope, was suddenly frozen. Yes; to meet this woman at the moment when the Slasher was dying and repeating the words 'Heaven is just,' this seemed to me a providential reproof of my proud forgetfulness of the past, which I ought to expiate by humiliation and repentance.”

”But the past was laid upon you; you can answer for it before high heaven!

You were constrained, intoxicated, unfortunate child. Once precipitated, in spite of yourself, in this abyss, you could not leave it, notwithstanding your remorse, your terror your despair, thanks to the atrocious indifference of that society of which you were the victim. You saw yourself forever chained in that cavern; the chance which placed you in my path could alone have dragged you from it.”

”And then, my child, as your father has told you, you were the victim, not the accomplice, of the infamy,” cried Clemence.

”But to this infamy I have submitted, my mother,” sadly rejoined Fleur-de-Marie; ”nothing can annihilate these horrible recollections. They pursue me incessantly, no longer as formerly, in the midst of the peaceable inhabitants of a farm, or of the degraded women, my companions in Saint Lazare, but they pursue me even to this palace, peopled with the _elite_ of Germany. They pursue me even to the arms of my father, even to the steps of his throne.”