Antoine Breguet was deeply moved, and the tears flowed fast over his furrowed face. “Rise, my son,” said he, “and make thy escape, lest they come to arrest thee.”
“Let them come,” replied Pierre, gloomily; “Why should I live?” Then raising his head from the floor, he said slowly, and with great fear, “Father, where is Rosabella?”
The old man covered his face, and sobbed out, “I shall never see her again! These old eyes will never again look on her blessed face.” Many minutes they remained thus, and when he repeated, “I shall never see her again!” the young man clasped his feet convulsively, and groaned in agony.
At last the housekeeper came in; a woman whom Pierre had known and loved in boyhood. When her first surprise was over, she promised to conceal his arrival, and persuaded him to go to the garret and try to compose his too strongly excited feelings. In the course of the day she explained to him how Florien had died of his wound, and how Rosabella pined away in silent melancholy, often sitting at the spinning wheel with the suspended thread in her hand, as if unconscious where she was. During all that wretched night the young man could not close his eyes in sleep. Phantoms of the past flitted through his brain, and remorse gnawed at his heart-strings. In the deep stillness of midnight, he seemed to hear the voice of the bereaved old man sounding mournfully distinct, “I shall never see her again!” He prayed earnestly to die; but suddenly an idea flashed into his mind, and revived his desire to live. Full of his new project, he rose early and sought his good old master. Sinking on his knees he exclaimed, “Oh, my father, say that you forgive me! I implore you to give my guilty soul that one gleam of consolation. Believe me, I would sooner have died myself, than have killed him. But my passions were by nature so strong! Oh, God forgive me, they were so strong! How I have curbed them, He alone knows. Alas, that they should have burst the bounds in that one mad moment, and destroyed the two I best loved on earth. Oh, father, can you say that you forgive me?”
With quivering voice he replied, “I do forgive you, and bless you, my poor son.” He laid his hand affectionately on the thick matted hair, and added, “I too have need of forgiveness. I did very wrong thus to put two generous natures in rivalship with each other. A genuine love of beauty, for its own sake, is the only healthy stimulus to produce the beautiful. The spirit of competition took you out of your sphere, and placed you in a false position. In grand conceptions, and in works of durability and strength, you would always have excelled Florien, as much as he surpassed you in tastefulness and elegance. By striving to be what he was, you parted with your own gifts, without attaining to his. Every man in the natural sphere of his own talent, and all in harmony; this is the true order, my son; and I tempted you to violate it. In my foolish pride, I earnestly desired to have a world-renowned successor to the famous Antoine Breguet. I wanted that the old stand should be kept up in all its glory, and continue to rival all competitors. I thought you could super-add Florien’s gifts to your own, and yet retain your own characteristic excellencies. Therefore, I stimulated your intellect and imagination to the utmost, without reflecting that your heart might break in the process. God forgive me; it was too severe a trial for poor human nature. And do thou, my son, forgive this insane ambition; for severely has my pride been humbled.”
Pierre could not speak, but he covered the wrinkled hands with kisses, and clasped his knees convulsively. At last he said, “Let me remain concealed here for a while. You shall see her again; only give me time.” When he explained that he would make Rosabella’s likeness, from memory, the sorrowing parent shook his head and sighed, as he answered, “Ah, my son, the soul in her eye, and the light grace of her motions, no art can restore.”
But to Pierre’s excited imagination there was henceforth only one object in life; and that was to re-produce Rosabella. In the keen conflict of competition, under the fiery stimulus of love and ambition, his strong impetuous soul had become machine-mad; and now overwhelming grief centered all his stormy energies on one object. Day by day, in the loneliness of his garret, he worked upon the image till he came to love it, almost as much as he had loved the maiden herself. Antoine Breguet readily supplied materials. From childhood he had been interested in all forms of mechanism; and this image, so intertwined with his affections, took strong hold of his imagination also. Nearly a year had passed away, when the housekeeper, who was in the secret, came to ask for Rosabella’s hair, and the dress she usually wore. The old man gave her the keys, and wiped the starting tears, as he turned silently away. A few days after, Pierre invited him to come and look upon his work. “Do not go too suddenly,” he said; “prepare yourself for a shock; for indeed it is very like our lost one.”
“I will go, I will go,” replied the old man, eagerly. “Am I not accustomed to see all manner of automata and androides? Did I not myself make a flute-player, which performed sixteen tunes, to the admiration of all who heard him? And think you I am to be frightened by an image?”
“Not frightened, dear father,” answered Pierre; “but I was afraid you might be overcome with emotion.” He led him into the apartment, and said, “Shall I remove the veil now? Can you bear it, dear father?”
“I can,” was the calm reply. But when the curtain was withdrawn, he started, and exclaimed, “Santa Maria! It is Rosabella! She is not dead!” He tottered forward, and kissed the cold lips and the cold hands, and tears rained on the bright brown hair, as he cried out, “My child! my child!”