Arthur

by Eugène Sue

The servants were all in mourning for my mother, who had died while I was still absent. They were almost all elderly retainers of the house, and nothing could have been more lugubrious than the sight of them walking silently about in those immense gloomy rooms, where their figures were scarcely perceptible against the red or dark green hangings which covered the walls of that ancient habitation.

On descending from the carriage I was received by my father's valet de chambre, who said not a word, but his eyes were filled with tears. I followed him, and traversed a long gallery which had been the terror of my childhood's nights as it had been the joy of its days. I found my father in his study. He tried to raise himself to embrace me, but his strength failed him, and he could only stretch out his arms to me in welcome. He appeared to me frightfully changed; when I had quitted him he was still alert and vigorous; I found him weak and broken down. His tall frame was bent, he had become very thin, he was pale and expressionless, except that a nervous smile, caused by the continuity of his sufferings, gave to his naturally severe face an indescribable expression of habitual pain.

I had always greatly feared my father. His mind was vast, serious, meditative, concentrated, and occasionally coldly ironical. His knowledge was prodigious on every sort of subject. His character was masterful. In manner he was grave, thoughtful, and taciturn, but extremely cold. High principled to a striking degree, his devotion to me was extreme in every act of his life, but he was never demonstrative. Thus he had inspired me with a profound and timid veneration, a respectful gratitude, rather than a confiding and expansive affection, such as I felt for my mother.

Having quitted the service while still young, in spite of the wishes of Napoleon, who admired his iron will and indefatigable activity, my father had almost always resided at his château, but, strange as it may seem, he received no company. The Reign of Terror in '93 had so thinned the ranks of our family that, with the exception of a sister of my father, we had no near relations, simply some very distant connections whom we never saw. Now that my age and experience permit me to appreciate and compare my souvenirs, I can say that my father remains in my mind as the only really misanthropic man I have ever met; for he was not one of those misanthropists who like to live among men for the pleasure of telling them how despicable they are, but he was a misanthropist who had positively fled society, and broken off all connection with his kind. I have searched in vain among my childish memories to find that my father possessed a single friend, or even what might be called an intimate acquaintance.

My mother, my aunt, and my cousin Hélène, who was three years younger than I, were the only persons who, from time to time, came to see us. This is no exaggeration, my mother has assured me of the fact; during the thirty years' residence of my father at Serval, not a single visitor ever came near the place.

My father was a great hunter, but always went alone; he was passionately fond of horses and extended agriculture. These occupations, as well as my education, which he personally superintended, until he gave me a tutor, and sent me to see the world, filled up his whole leisure. Then his fortune was considerable, and as he never would consent to have an intendant, he, with the assistance of my mother, whose sense of order was extremely keen, attended to the administration of his property himself; the rest of his time was taken up with reading, scientific experiments, and long, solitary walks.

When I started for that fatal voyage, during which I was to lose my mother, she had seen in a dream a warning of her death, and had told me about it; but we hid it from my father, not because she feared him, but because, having always had a certain awe of his superiority, she dreaded his severe sarcasm, which never spared any poetical, exaggerated, or romantic sentiment.

I was thus prevented from taking a last farewell of my mother. I say nothing of my grief; she was the only person in the world to whom I had ever dared to tell everything freely and confidentially.

My aunt and her daughter Hélène had come to reside at Serval after my mother's death, almost in spite of my father, whose habitual need of solitude and silence seemed to become stronger as he became more and more feeble.

I led in those days a most distressing and harrowing life. Every morning my father would send for me to come to his bedside; his valet de chambre would then bring him the great strong box, where were kept the books containing the administration of our property, and day by day he would explain to me the state of affairs with an icy clearness which chilled me to the heart. One day he made me read aloud his will, with the same appearance of insensibility. My voice was choked with the effort I made to suppress my sobbing; he did not even seem to notice it. He would generally end this sort of initiation into the future management of the fortune he meant to leave me by some counsels he would give me in a brief manner, a long silence following each sentence.