Chapter 17

CHAPTER XVII.

He repelled me. “Sit down, sir, sit down! Do not follow me, I beg of you; but sit down!”

His manner was earnest and emphatical. Mechanically and without knowing what I did, I obeyed his direction. He came towards me.

“I have no time,” added he, “for qualifying and form. Tell me! am I the son of a man of honor or a villain?”

He saw I was shocked at the unexpected rudeness of his question.

“Forgive me, my father! I have always been affectionate and dutiful; I have ever looked up to you as my model and my oracle. But I have been insulted! It never was one of your lessons to teach me to bear an insult!”

“Is it,” replied I, with the sternness that the character of a father will seldom fail to inspire under such circumstances, “because you have been insulted, that you think yourself authorized to come home and insult him to whom you owe nothing but respect and reverence?”

“Stop, sir! Before you claim my reverence, you must show your title to it, and wipe off the aspersions under which you at present labor.”

“Insolent, presumptuous boy! Know that I am not by you to be instructed in my duty, and will not answer so rude a questioner! The down as yet scarcely shades your school-boy’s cheek; and have you so forgotten the decencies of life as to scoff your father?”—His eye brightened as I spoke.

“You are right, sir. It gives me pleasure to see your blood rise in return to my passion. Your accent is the accent of innocence. But, indeed! the more innocent and noble you shall prove yourself, the more readily will you forgive my indignation.”

“I cannot tell. My temper does not fit me to bear the rudeness of a son. Nor do I think that such behavior as this can be any credit to you, whatever may have been the provocation. Tell me however what is the insult that has thus deeply shaken you?”

“I went this afternoon to the tennis-court near the river, and played several games with the young count Luitmann. While we were playing, came in the chevalier Dupont, my countryman. The insolence of his nature is a subject of general remark; and he has, though I know not for what reason, conceived a particular animosity to me. A trifling dispute arose between us. We gradually warmed. He threatened to turn me out of the court; I resented the insult; and he passionately answered, that the son of an adventurer and a sharper had no business there, and he would take care I should never be admitted again. I attempted to strike him, but was prevented; and presently learned that the sudden and unexplained way in which we have emerged from poverty was the ground of his aspersion. As I gained time, and reflected more distinctly upon what was alleged, I felt that personal violence could never remove an accusation of this sort. I saw too, though, intoxicated as I had idly been with the unwonted splendor to which I was introduced, I had not adverted to it at the time, that the case was of a nature that required explanation. I had been accustomed to reverence and an implicit faith in the wisdom and rectitude of my parents, and therefore encountered in silent submission the revolution of our fortune. But this neutrality will suffice no longer.

“To you, sir, I resort for explanation. Send me back to the insolent youth and his companions, with a plain and unanswerable tale, that may put to silence for ever these brutal scoffs and reproaches. Let it be seen this night which of the two has most fully merited to be thrust out of honorable society. I trust I have not so demeaned myself but that our mutual companions will join to compel this unmannered boor to retract his aspersions.”

“Charles, you are too warm and impetuous!”—

“Too warm, sir! when I hear my father loaded with the foulest appellations?”

“You are young and ill qualified to terminate in the proper way a business of this serious aspect: leave it to me!”

“Excuse me, my father! Though the names I have repeated were bestowed upon you, it was against me that the insult was employed. I must return immediately, and obtain justice. This is a moment that must in some degree fix my character for fortitude and determination, and I cannot withdraw from the duty it imposes. Only tell me what I have to say. Furnish me with a direct and unambiguous explanation of what Dupont has objected to us, and I undertake for the rest.”

“I see, my son, that you are moved, and I will trust you!”

He seized my hand, he gazed earnestly in my face, he seemed prepared to devour every word I should utter.

“Gaspar de Coligny, the flower of the French nobility, has been with me this morning. He has stated to me in an ingenuous and friendly way the same difficulty with which Dupont has so brutally taunted you. I was meditating and arranging my answer but now, when you entered the room.”

As I uttered these words, Charles let go my hand, and withdrew his eyes, with evident tokens of disappointment and chagrin. He paused for a few moments, and then resumed:—

“Why do you tell me of meditation and arrangement! Why did you send away Coligny unanswered, or why baffle and evade the earnestness of my inquiries? I know not all the sources of wealth; but I cannot doubt that the medium through which wealth has honorably flowed may, without effort and premeditation, easily be explained. A just and a brave man acts fearlessly and with explicitness; he does not shun, but court, the scrutiny of mankind; he lives in the face of day, and the whole world confesses the clearness of his spirit and the rectitude of his conduct.

“Sir, I have just set my foot on the threshold of life. There is one lesson you have taught me, which I swear never to forget,—to hold life and all its pleasures cheap, in comparison with an honorable fame. My soul burns with the love of distinction. I am impatient to burst away from the goal, and commence the illustrious career. I feel that I have a hand and a heart capable of executing the purposes that my soul conceives. Uninured to dishonor, or to any thing that should control the passion of my bosom, think, sir, what are my emotions at what has just occurred!

“I was bred in obscurity and a humble station. I owed this disadvantage, you tell me, to your error. I forgave you; I was content; I felt that it was incumbent on me by my sword and my own exertions to hew my way to distinction. You have since exchanged the lowness of our situation for riches and splendor. At this revolution I felt no displeasure; I was well satisfied to start upon more advantageous terms in the race I determined to run. But, sir, whence came these riches? Riches and poverty are comparatively indifferent to me; but I was not born to be a mark for shame to point her finger at. A little while ago you were poor; you were the author of your own poverty; you dissipated your paternal estate. Did I reproach you? No; you were poor, but not dishonored! I attended your couch in sickness; I exerted my manual labor to support you in affliction. I honored you for your affection to my mother; I listened with transport to the history of your youth; I was convinced I should never blush to call Reginald de St. Leon my father. I believed that lessons of honor, so impressive as those you instilled into my infant mind, could never flow but from an honorable spirit. Oh, if there is any thing equivocal or ignoble in the riches we have displayed, restore me, instantly restore me, to unblemished and virtuous poverty!”

I was astonished at the firmness and manliness of spirit that Charles upon this occasion discovered. I could scarcely believe that these were the thoughts and words of a youth under seventeen years of age. I felt that every thing illustrious and excellent might be augured of one who, at these immature years, manifested so lofty and generous a soul. I could have pressed him in my arms, have indulged my emotions in sobs and tears of transport, and congratulated myself that I was father to so worthy a son. But his temper and manners awed, and held me at a distance. This was one consequence of the legacies of the stranger!

“Charles!” said I, “your virtues extort my confidence. For the world a tale must be prepared that shall serve to elude its curiosity and its malice. But to you I confess, there is a mystery annexed to the acquisition of this wealth that can never be explained.”

He stood aghast at my words. “Am I to believe my ears? A tale prepared? A mystery never to be explained? I adjure you by all that you love, and all that you hold sacred——!”

His voice was drowned in a sudden gush of tears. With an action of earnestness and deprecation, he took hold of my hand.

“No, sir, no artful tale, no disguise, no hypocrisy!——” As he spoke, his voice suddenly changed, his accent became clear and determined.—“Will you consent this very hour to quit the court of Dresden, and to resign fully and without reserve this accursed wealth, for the acquisition of which you refuse to account?”

“Whence,” replied I, “have you the insolence to make such a proposal?——No, I will not!”

“Then I swear by the omnipresent and eternal God, you shall never see or hear of me more!”

I perceived that this was no time for the assertion of paternal authority. I saw that the poor boy was strangely and deeply moved, and I endeavored to soothe him. I felt that the whole course of his education had inspired him with an uncontrollable and independent spirit, and that it was too late to endeavor to repress it.

“My dear Charles,” said I, “what is come to you? When I listen to a language like this from your lips, I scarcely know you for my son. This impertinent Dupont has put you quite beside yourself. Another time we will talk over the matter calmly; and depend upon it, every thing shall be made out to your satisfaction.”

“Do not imagine, sir, that my self-possession is not perfect and complete. I know what I do, and my resolution is unalterable. If you have any explanation to give, give it now. If you will yield to my proposal, declare your assent, and I am again your son. But to bear the insults of my fellows unanswered, or to live beneath the consciousness of an artful and fictitious tale, no consideration on earth shall induce me. I love you, sir; I cannot forget your lessons or your virtues. I love my mother and my sisters; no words can tell how dearly and how much. But my resolution is taken; I separate myself from you all and for ever. Nothing in my mind can come in competition with a life of unblemished honor.”

“And are you such a novice, as to need the being told that honor is a prize altogether out of the reach of an unknown and desolate wanderer, such as you propose to become? My wealth, boy, is unlimited, and can buy silence from the malicious, and shouts and applause from all the world. A golden key unlocks the career of glory, which the mean and the pennyless are never allowed to enter.”

“I am not such a novice, as not to have heard the language of vice, though I never expected to hear it from a father. Poverty with integrity shall content me. The restless eagerness of my spirit is so great, that I will trust to its suggestions, and hope to surmount the obstacles of external appearance. If I am disappointed in this, and destined to perish unheard of and unremembered, at least I will escape reproach. I will neither be charged with the deeds, nor give utterance to the maxims, of dishonor.”

“Charles,” replied I, “be not the calumniator of your father! I swear to you by every thing that is sacred; and you know my integrity; never did the breath of falsehood pollute these lips;——”

He passionately interrupted me. “Did the stranger bequeath you three thousand crowns? Have you lately received an unexpected acquisition by the death of a near relation in France?”

I was silent. This was not a moment for trifling and equivocation.

“Oh, my father, how is your character changed and subverted? You say true. For sixteen years I never heard a breath of falsehood from your lips; I trusted you as I would the oracles of eternal truth. But it is past! A few short months have polluted and defaced a whole life of integrity! In how many obscurities and fabulous inconsistencies have you entangled yourself? Nor is it the least of the calamities under which my heart sickens at this moment, that I am reduced to hold language like this to a father!”

What misery was mine, to hear myself thus arraigned by my own son, and to be unable to utter one word in reply to his accusations! To be thus triumphed over by a stripling; and to feel the most cruel degradation, in the manifestation of an excellence that ought to have swelled my heart with gratulation and transport! I had recollected my habitual feelings for near forty years of existence; I had dropped from my memory my recent disgrace, and dared to appeal to my acknowledged veracity; when this retort from my son came to plunge me tenfold deeper in a sea of shame. He proceeded:—

“I am no longer your son! I am compelled to disclaim all affinity with you! But this is not all. By your dishonor you have cut me off from the whole line of my ancestors. I cannot claim affinity with them, without acknowledging my relation to you. You have extinguished abruptly an illustrious house. The sun of St. Leon is set for ever! Standing as I do a candidate for honorable fame, I must henceforth stand by myself, as if a man could be author of his own existence, and must expect no aid, no favor, no prepossession, from any earthly consideration, save what I am, and what I shall perform.”

“My son,” replied I, “you cut me to the heart. Such is the virtue you display, that I must confess myself never to have been worthy of you, and I begin to fear I am now less worthy of you than ever. Yet you must suffer me to finish what I was about to say when you so passionately interrupted me. I swear then, by every thing that is sacred, that I am innocent. Whatever interpretation the world may put upon my sudden wealth, there is no shadow of dishonesty or guilt connected with its acquisition. The circumstances of the story are such that they must never be disclosed; I am bound to secrecy by the most inviolable obligations, and this has led me to utter a forged and inconsistent tale. But my conscience has nothing with which to reproach me. If then, Charles, my son, once my friend, my best and dearest consolation!”—I pressed his hand, and my voice faltered as I spoke,—“if you are resolute to separate yourself from me, at least take this recollection with you wherever you go,—Whatever may be my external estimation, I am not the slave of vice, your father is not a villain!”

“Alas, my father!” rejoined Charles, mournfully, “what am I to believe? What secret can be involved in so strange a reverse of fortune, that is not dishonorable? You have given utterance to different fictions on the subject, fictions that you now confess to be such; how am I to be convinced that what you say at this moment is not dictated more by a regard for my tranquility, than by the simplicity of conscious truth? If I believe you, I am afraid my credit will be the offspring rather of inclination, than of probability. And indeed, if I believe you, what avails it? The world will not believe. Your character is blasted; your honor is destroyed; and, unless I separate myself from you, and disown your name, I shall be involved in the same disgrace.”

Saying thus, he left me, and in about half an hour returned. His return I had not foreseen; I had made no use of his absence. My mind was overcome, my understanding was stupified, by a situation and events I had so little expected. I had stood, unmoved, leaning against the wall, from the instant of his departure. I seemed rooted to the spot, incapable of calling up my fortitude, or arranging my ideas. My eyes had rolled,—my brow was knit,—I had bit my lips and my tongue with agony. From time to time I had muttered a few words,—“My son! my son!—wealth! wealth!—my wife!—my son!” but they were incoherent and without meaning.

Charles reentered the apartment where the preceding conversation had passed, and the noise he made in entering roused me. He had his hat in his hand, which he threw from him, and exclaimed with an accent of dejection and anguish, “My father!—farewell!”

“Cruel, cruel boy! can you persist in your harsh and calamitous resolution? If you have no affection for me, yet think of your mother and your sisters!”

Seek not, sir, to turn me from my purpose! The struggle against it in my own bosom has been sufficiently severe; but it must be executed.“—His voice, as he spoke, was inward, stifled, and broken with the weight of his feelings.

“Then—farewell!” I replied. “Yet take with you some provision for your long and perilous adventure. Name the sum you will accept, and, whatever is its amount, it shall instantly be yours.”

“I will have nothing. It is this wealth, with whose splendor I was at first child enough to be dazzled, that has destroyed us. My fingers shall not be contaminated with an atom of it. What is to be my fate, as yet, I know not. But I am young, and strong, and enterprising, and courageous. The lessons of honor and nobility live in my bosom. Though my instructor is lost, his instructions shall not be vain!

“Once more farewell! From my heart I thank you for your protestations of innocence. Never will I part with this last consolation, to believe them. I have recollected the manner in which they were uttered; it was the manner of truth. If there be any evidence of a contrary tendency, that I will forget. Though to the world I shall be without father and without relatives, I will still retain this sacred consolation for my hours of retirement and solitude, that my ancestors were honorable, and my father, in spite of all presumptions to the contrary,—was innocent.

“How hard it is to quit for ever a family of love and affection, as ours has been! Bear witness for me, how deeply, I sympathized with you at Paris, in Switzerland, in Constance! Though now you dissolve the tie between us, yet, till now, never had a son greater reason for gratitude to a father. You and my mother have made me what I am; and that I may preserve what you have made me, I now cast myself upon an untried world. The recollection of what I found you in the past period of my life, shall be for ever cherished in my memory!

“I quit my mother and my sisters without leave-taking or adieu. It will be a fruitless and painful addition to what each party must learn to bear. Dear, excellent, peerless protector and companions of my early years! my wishes are yours, my prayers shall for ever be poured out for you! You, sir, who rob them of a son and a brother, be careful to make up to them a loss, which I doubt not they will account grievous! I can do nothing for them. I can throw myself into the arms of poverty; it is my duty. But, in doing so, I must separate myself from them, assuredly innocent, and worthy of more and greater benefits than I could ever confer on them!—Farewell!”

Saying this, he threw himself into my arms, and I felt the agonies of a parting embrace.