LOVE.
On the morrow the two Frenchmen were awakened by the rays of the sun. The day promised to be a brilliant one, for there was not a cloud in the heavens. A light vapour, full of penetrating odours, arose slowly from the earth, drawn up by the beams of the sun, whose warm influence increased every minute. The morning breeze refreshed the air, and invited them to inhale it. The young men, perfectly recovered from their fatigue, sprang cheerfully from their humble beds and dressed themselves in haste.
The chacra, of which they had only a glimpse the night before by moonlight, was an immense farm, consisting of extensive buildings, and surrounded by fields in full cultivation. The greatest animation prevailed everywhere. Peons, mounted on half wild horses, were driving out the cattle to the artificial meadows, whilst others were running about after the horses they were getting together, in order to lead them to the drinking place. In the patio the major-domo was overlooking the women and girls engaged in milking. In short, this residence, which had appeared to them so silent and dismal the night before, assumed by daylight an appearance of life and cheerfulness delightful to contemplate.
The cries of the peons mingled with the lowing of the cattle, the barking of the dogs, and the crowing of the cocks, and formed that melodious concert which is only to be heard on a farm, and which always rejoices the heart.
It is a justice that we willingly render here to the Chilian republic when we say that it alone of the southern states of America appears to understand that the wealth of a country consists not in the number of its mines, but in the encouragement given to cultivation; and that this country, while possessing rich mines of gold, silver, and precious stones, only places their produce in the second rank, whilst it reserves its principal solicitude for agriculture. Chili is as yet young as a nation. There manufactures and the arts are in their infancy; but the farms are numerous, the fields well cultivated, and soon this country will be called upon, there is no doubt, through its system of labour, to become the entrepôt of the other American powers, which it already provides in a great measure with corn and wine, from Cape Horn to California.
Behind the chacra extended a well-kept up garden, in which oranges, pomegranates, and citrons, planted in the open ground, grew amidst limes, apples, plums, and all the other fruits of Europe. Louis was agreeably surprised at the aspect of this garden, with its numerous alleys, in which a thousand birds of brilliant colours warbled gaily under the foliage of the tufted thickets of jasmine and honeysuckle. Whilst Valentine went, followed by Cæsar, to look at the operations of the peons and smoke his cigar in the patio, Louis felt himself led by his dreamy spirit to indulge in poetical reveries, and to seek a few minutes' solitude in the Eden which lay before him. Urged by an unknown power, intoxicated by the sweet odours which embalmed the atmosphere, he glided into the garden, casting around him a vaguely questioning look.
The young man went dreaming along the garden walks, mechanically pulling to pieces with his fingers a rose which he had gathered. He had walked thus for nearly an hour, when he was roused by a slight noise among the leaves, at a short distance from him. He instinctively raised his head, just in time to catch a glimpse of a light white robe which was disappearing among the trees, but too late to completely distinguish the person who wore it, and who appeared to trip over the dewy grass like a white phantom. At the sight of this mysterious apparition the young man felt his heart bound in his breast; he stopped trembling, and the emotion he felt was so powerful, that he was forced to lean against a tree for support.
"What can be the matter with me?" he murmured to himself, as he wiped the cold perspiration from his brow. "I am mad!" he continued, with a forced smile. "I think I see her everywhere. Heavens! I love her so deeply that, in spite of myself, my imagination brings her before me unceasingly. That girl, of whom I just caught a glimpse, is probably the same we last night so miraculously saved. Poor child! Fortunately she did not see me; I should have frightened her. Better avoid her by going out of the garden; in my present state I should alarm her."
And, as always happens in such cases, he set off, on the contrary, in the very footsteps of her he had only caught a glimpse of, but whom, by one of the instinctive feelings of sympathy which come from God, and which science can never explain, he had nevertheless recognized.
The young girl, reclining in the depths of an arbour, like a hummingbird in its bed of muss, with a pale face, and her eyes cast down to the earth, was listening, pensive and sad, to the joyous melodies which the birds chanted in her absent ear. All at once, a slight noise made her start and raise her head. The Count was before her! She uttered a faint cry, and endeavoured to fly.
"Don Louis!" she exclaimed.
She had recognized him. The young man sank on his knees at the entrance of the arbour.
"Oh!" he cried, in a voice trembling with emotion, and with an accent of the most earnest entreaty, "for pity's sake, remain, madam!"
"Don Louis!" she repeated, already recovered, and feigning the most perfect indifference. Young girls, even the purest, possess in a high degree the talent of concealing their feelings, and of deceiving persons with regard to the emotions they really experience.
"Yes, it is I, madam," he continued, with an accent of the most respectful passion; "I, who, to see you again, have abandoned everything!"
The young lady displayed some slight surprise.
"For Heaven's sake!" he resumed, "allow me once more, if but for an instant, to contemplate your adored features! Oh!" he added, with a look of deep affection, "my heart had told me you were here, before my eyes had perceived you."
"Caballero," she said, in a tremulous voice, "I do not understand you."
"Oh, fear nothing from me, madam!" he interrupted her vehemently; "my respect for you is as profound as——
"Pray, caballero," she said, earnestly, "rise; if anyone should surprise you thus!"
"Madam," he replied, "the avowal I have to make to you, requires me to remain in the position of a suppliant!"
"Oh, caballero!"
"I love you, madam!" he said, in broken accents; "I know not what gives me the boldness to pronounce a word which in France I did not venture to breathe in your ear, and which I have never allowed to pass from my heart to my lips. But even if you banished me from your presence for ever, once again I must tell you that I love you, madam; and if you do not return my love, I shall die!"
The maiden looked at him for a moment with a melancholy air; a tear trembled on her long eyelashes; she took a step towards him, and holding out her hand, upon which he imprinted a burning kiss, said softly,—
"Rise."
The Count obeyed. Doña Rosario sunk back upon the bench behind her, and appeared plunged in profound and painful meditation. Both remained silent, Louis watching her with intense anxiety, and a throbbing heart. At length she raised her head, and exhibited a countenance bathed in tears.
"Caballero," she said in a melancholy tone, "if God has permitted us to meet once again, it is because, in His divine goodness, He has judged that a decisive explanation should take place between us."
The young man appeared anxious to speak.
"Do not interrupt me," she continued, "or I shall not have the courage to finish what I have to say to you. You love me, Louis; your presence here is an incontestable proof of it—you love me; and yet how many times, during my short residence in France, have you cursed me in secret, accusing me of coquetry, or, at least, of unaccountable levity!"
"Madam!"
"Oh!" she said, with a faint smile, "since you have avowed your love for me, I will be frank with you, Louis; and although it be my duty to deprive you of all future hope, I am at least anxious to justify the past, and leave you a remembrance of me that nothing can tarnish!"
"Oh, madam! why do you repeat such things to me?"
"Why?" she said, with a look full of melancholy, and in a voice harmonious as the sigh of an Æolian harp, "because I have faith in that love, so warm, so young, so true; which neither daily indignities nor vast distances have been able to conquer—because, in short, I also love you! do you not plainly see that, Louis?"
On hearing this confession, so ingenuous, and made in a tone so sorrowful that the young girl appeared no longer to belong to earth, the Count felt struck by a terrible presentiment; his heart was wrung with doubtful agony. Trembling, bewildered, he gazed on her with the fixed and desperate eye of one condemned to death, who is listening to the reading of his sentence.
"Yes!" she resumed, with feverish eagerness; "yes, I love you, Louis, I shall always love you; but never, never, can we be united."
"Oh, that is impossible!" he cried, raising his head vehemently.
"Listen to me," she said, in a tone of authority; "I do not order you to forget me, Louis; a love like yours is eternal: alas! I feel that mine will last as long as my life. You see, my friend, I am frank; I do not speak to you as a maiden ought to speak; I unfold my heart before you, leaving you to read it as you would your own. Well, this love, which would be for us the height of felicity,—this communion of two spirits, which blend with each other to form one blissful whole,—this boundless happiness must be dispersed for ever, without chance of recovery, without hesitation!"
"Oh, I cannot consent!" he exclaimed, in a voice broken by sobs.
"But it must be so, I tell you!" she continued, wild with anguish. "Great Heaven! what more do you require of me? Must I confess everything to you? Well, then, since it must be so, know that I am a miserable creature, condemned from my birth, pursued by a terrible hatred, which follows me step by step, which watches me incessantly; and some day—tomorrow, perhaps today—will crush me without mercy! Obliged to change my name constantly; flying from city to city, from country to country; wherever I may go, this implacable enemy, whom I do not know, and against whom I cannot defend myself, pursues me without intermission."
"But I will defend you!" the young man said, with confident energy.
"And I, on my part, am not willing that you should die!" she replied, with an accent of ineffable tenderness. "To attach yourself to me is to court destruction. I went to France to seek a place of refuge. I was obliged to quit that hospitable land with the greatest suddenness. Arrived here only a few weeks since, but for you, last night, I should have been lost! No, no, I am condemned; I know I am, and I am resigned; but I will not drag you down in my fall! Alas! I am, perhaps, doomed to suffer tortures still more horrible than those I have hitherto endured! Oh, Louis, in the name of the love which you have for me, and which I fully share, leave me the supreme consolation in my wretchedness of knowing that you are safe from the torments which overwhelm me!"
At this moment Valentine's voice was heard at a short distance, and Cæsar came wagging his tail to his master. Doña Rosario gathered a blossom of the suchil which grew close to them, and presented it to the young man, after having for a moment inhaled its sweet odour.
"Here," she said, "my friend, accept this flower, the only memorial, alas! that will remain with you of me."
The young man concealed the flower in his bosom.
"Someone is coming," she continued, in broken accents. "Swear, Louis! swear to quit this country as soon as possible, without endeavouring to see me again."
The Count hesitated.
"Oh!" he cried, "some day, perhaps,——"
"Never on earth. Have I not told you that I am condemned? Swear, Louis, that at least I may hope to meet you again in heaven."
She pronounced these words with such a tone of despair, that the young man, overcome, in spite of himself, made a gesture of assent, and let the almost inarticulate words escape his lips,—
"I swear to do so!"
"Thanks! thanks!" she cried wildly, and hurriedly imprinting a kiss upon the brow of her prostrated lover, she disappeared with the lightness of a fawn amidst a thicket of standard roses, at the moment when Valentine became visible at the turning of the walk.
"Why brother," the soldier said gaily, "what the deuce are you about here, at the bottom of the garden? Breakfast is waiting for you. I have been looking for you this hour; and if it had not been for Cæsar, I should not have found you now."
The Count turned towards him, his face lathed in tears, and threw his arms round his neck.
"Brother! brother!" he cried, in an accent of despair; "I am the most unhappy of men!"
Valentine looked at him in astonishment. The Count had fainted.
"What on earth is all this about?" said the soldier, casting a suspicious look around him, and laying his foster brother, who was motionless as a corpse, gently upon a grassy bank.