"And so, Albert, this is Morseiul; and here thou art again after an absence of six years!"
"Even so, Louis," replied the Count, "even so. This is Morseiul; and I know not whether it be from that inherent love of the place in which some of our happiest days have been spent, or whether the country round us be in reality more lovely than any other that I have seen since I left it, yet just when you spoke I was thinking of asking you whether you were or were not satisfied with my boasted Morseiul."
"It may well be lovelier than any you have seen since you left it," replied the Chevalier; "for, as far as I know aught of your history, and I think I could account for every day of your life since last you were here, you have seen nothing since but the flat prettiness of the Beauvoisis, the green spinage plate of the Cambresis, or the interminable flats of Flanders, where plains are varied by canals, and the only eminence to be seen for forty miles round one is the top of a windmill. Well may Morseiul be prettier than that, and no great compliment to Morseiul either; but I will tell you something more, Albert. I have seen Morseiul long ago. Ay, and sat in these halls, and drank of that wine, and looked out of that window, and thought then as I think now, that it is, indeed, as fair a land as ever I should wish to cast my eyes on."
"Indeed, Louis!" exclaimed his companion; "how happens it, then, if you know the place so well, that you have listened to all my praises thereof, and come hither with me purposely to see it, without giving me one hint that you knew of the existence of such a place upon the surface of the globe?"
"Why it has happened from two causes," replied the Chevalier, "and perhaps from three. In the first place, did you never discover that I have the gift of secrecy in a very high degree?"
"Why I have certainly discovered," replied the Count with a smile, "that you are fond of a mystery; and sometimes, Louis, when there's no great need of one."
"Most cuttingly and ungenerously answered," replied the Chevalier, with a laugh; "but granting the fact, as a man does when he denies it strenuously in his mind all the time---but granting the fact, was not that one good and sufficient cause for my not saying a word about it? And in the next place, Albert, if I had told you I had been here, and knew it very nearly as well as you do yourself, it would have deprived you of the whole pleasure of relating the wonders and the marvels of Morseiul, which would have been most ungenerous of me, seeing and knowing the delight you took therein; and perhaps there might be another cause," he added in a graver tone. "Perhaps I might hesitate to talk to you, Albert,--to you, with whom filial affection is not the evanescent thing that weeps like an April shower for half an hour over the loss of those we love, and then is wafted away in sparkling and in light--I might have hesitated, I say, to speak with you of times when one whom you have loved and lost sat in these halls and commanded in these lands."
"I thank you, Louis," replied the Count; "I thank you from my heart; but you might have spoken of him. My memory of my dead father is something different from such things in general. It is the memory of him, Louis, and not of my own loss; and, therefore, as every thought of him is pleasing, satisfying, ennobling to my heart: as I can call up every circumstance in which I have seen him placed, every word which I have heard him speak, every action which I have seen him perform, with pride, and pleasure, and advantage, I love to let my thoughts rest upon the memories of his life; and though I can behold him no more living, yet I may thus enable myself to dwell with him in the past. We may be sure, Louis, that those who try to banish the loved and the departed from their thoughts, and from their conversation, have more selfishness in their love, have more selfishness in their sorrow, than real affection or than real esteem. The pangs which draw tears from us over the tomb may be permitted to us as a weakness, not unenviable: a lapse of sorrow for the broken tie and the loss of immediate communion, is also but a just tribute to ourselves and to the gone. But those who really loved the dead, and justly loved them, will cherish memory for their sakes; while those whose love was weak, or not founded on esteem, or selfish, may well give up a time to hopeless sorrow, and then banish the painful memory from their mind for ever: but it shows either that there must have been something wrong in the affection of the past, or a want of hope in the eternal meeting of the future. No, no, Louis, I live with my dead father every hour; I call to mind his looks, his words, his gestures; and as I never think to meet a man who could speak one evil word of him, I never fear to hear him mentioned, and to dwell upon his name."
The Chevalier was silent for a moment, for the feelings of his companion were too hallowed for a jest; but he replied immediately after, "I believe you are quite right, Albert; but to banish all serious themes, which you know do not suit me, my love of mystery, which, as you well know, is a part of my nature, was quite sufficient to prevent my mentioning the subject. I wonder I was fool enough to let the whole secret out now. I should only have told you, by rights, just enough to excite your curiosity, in order that I might then disappoint you."
"As you have gone so far, however," replied the Count with a smile, "you may as well tell the whole story at once, as it must be told, sooner or later, I suppose."