For myself I am unable to speak. I saw nothing of the play or the actors. Margot, and Margot alone, filled my eyes; and I sat far back in the box. My glances revelled on her, watching with unceasing anxiety that pale and passionless face. In the fourth act comes the scene where Roxalane, aware of her lover's falsehood, hears him profess the vows that he but feigns to feel. It was the great triumph of Margot's genius,—the passage of power in which she rose unapproachably above all others; and now in the stilled and silent assembly might be noted the anxiety with which they awaited her rival's delineation. Unlike the cold, unmoved, and almost patient bearing which Margot displayed at first, as though, having schooled her mind to a lesson, she would practise it, had not aversion or contempt overmastered her, and in the very sickness of her soul revealed her sorrow, the other burst forth into a wild and passionate declamation,—an outburst of vulgar rage. A low murmur of discontent ran through the house, and, swelling louder and louder, drowned the words of the piece. The actress faltered and stopped; and, as if by some resistless impulse, turned towards the box where Margot sat, still and motionless. The entire audience turned likewise, and every eye was now bent on her whose genius had become so interwoven with the scene that it was as though associated with her very identity. Slowly rising from her seat, Margot stood erect, gazing on that dense mass with the proud look of one who defied them. The same stern, cold stare of insult she had once bestowed on the stage she now directed on the spectators. It was a moment of terrible interest, as thus she stood, confronting, almost daring, those who had presumed to condemn her; and then, in the same words Roxalane uses, she addressed them, every accent tremulous with passion, and every syllable vibrating with the indignant hate that worked within her. The measured distinctness of every word rang out clear and full. It was less invective than scornful, and scorn that seemed to sicken her as she spoke it.
The effect upon the audience will best evidence the power of the moment. On all sides were seen groups gathered around one who had swooned away. Many were carried out insensible, and fearful cries of hysteric passion betrayed the secret sympathies her words had smitten. She paused, and, with that haughty gesture with which she takes eternal farewell of her lover, she seemed to say, “Adieu forever!” and then pushing back her dark ringlets, and tearing away the diamond coronet from her brows, she burst into a fit of laughter. Oh! how terribly its very cadence sounded,—sharp, ringing, and wild! the cry of an escaped intellect,—the shriek of an intelligence that had fled forever!
Margot was mad. The violent conflict of passion to which her mind was exposed had made shipwreck of a glorious intellect, and the very exercise of emotion had exhausted the wells of feeling. I cannot go on. Already have these memories sapped the last foundations of my broken strength, and my old eyes are dimmed with tears.
The remainder of her life was passed in a little château near Sèvres, where Mademoiselle Mars had made arrangements for her reception. She lingered for three years, and died out, like one exhausted. As for me, I worked as a laborer in the garden of the château to the day of her death; and although I never saw her, the one thought that I was still near her sustained and supported me,—not, indeed, with hope, for I had long ceased to hope.
I knew the window of the room she sat in; and when, at evening, I left the garden, I knew it was the time she walked there. These were the two thoughts that filled up all my mind; and out of these grew the day-dreams in which my hours were passed. Still fresh as yesterday within my heart are the sensations with which I marked a slight change in the curtain of her window, or bent over the impress of her foot upon the gravel. How passionately have I kissed the flowers that I hoped she might have plucked! how devotedly knelt beside the stalks from which she had broken off a blossom!
These memories live still, nor would I wish it otherwise. In the tender melancholy, I can sit and ponder over the past, more tranquilly, may be, than if they spoke of happiness.
CHAPTER XLV. DARK PASSAGES OF LIFE
For some years after the death of Margot, my life was like a restless dream,—a struggle, as it were, between reality and a strange scepticism with everything and every one. At moments a wish would seize me to push my fortune in the world,—to become rich and powerful; and then as suddenly would I fall back upon my poverty as the condition least open to great reverses, and hug myself in the thought that my obscurity was a shield against adverse fortune. I tried to school my mind to a misanthropy that might throw me still more upon myself; but I could not. Even in my isolated, friendless condition, I loved to contemplate the happiness of others. I could watch children for hours long at their play; and if the sounds of laughter or pleasant revelry came from a house as I passed at nightfall, my heart beat responsively to every note of joy, and in my spirit I was in the midst of them. I had neither home nor country, and my heart yearned for both. I felt the void like a desert, bleak and desolate, within me; and it was in vain I endeavored, by a hundred artifices, to make me suffice to myself. I came, at length, to think that it were better to attach myself to the world by even the interests of a crime than to live on thus, separated and apart from all sympathy. In humble life, he who retreats from association with his fellows must look to be severely judged. The very lightest allegation against him will be a charge of pride; and even this is no slight offence before such a tribunal. Vague rumors of worse will gain currency, and far weightier derelictions be whispered about him. His own rejection of the world now recoils upon himself, and he comes to discover that he has neglected to cultivate the sympathies which are not alone the ties of brotherhood between men, but the strong appeals to mercy when mercy is needed.
By much reflection on these things, I was led to feel at last that nothing but a strong effort could raise me from the deep depression I had fallen into; that I should force myself to some pursuit which might awaken zeal or ambition within me; and that, at any cost, I should throw off the hopeless, listless lethargy of my present life. While I was yet hesitating what course to adopt, my attention was attracted one morning to a large placard affixed to the walls of the Hôtel de Ville, and which set forth the tidings that “all men who had not served as soldiers, and were between the ages of fifteen and thirty, were to present themselves at the Prefecture at a certain hour of a certain day.” The consternation this terrible announcement called forth may easily be imagined; for although only a very limited number of these would be drafted, yet each felt that the evil lot might be his own.