But if the salutary influence of Caroline extended itself abroad, it was not, on that account, the less active, or the less efficacious, at home, in the bosom of her own family. In a very few years, everything at Primini had undergone a change. Monsieur de Manzay, who was formerly acquainted only with the enjoyments of the heart, and the pleasures of the intellect, whose life passed away in generous but useless emotions, in beautiful but sterile conceptions, who never sought to communicate his ideas to others, and found, in the disinterested contemplation of truth, sufficient to delight his heart and satisfy his conscience, was, unknown to himself, raised from this state of careless languor, which he had looked upon almost as a merit, and learned to consider it a fault. Caroline, no longer a child, matured by misfortune, and anxious to associate herself with all the tastes and occupations of her father, directed towards the subjects which interested him the energy which had formerly been expended on her own fancies. She very soon became acquainted with his opinions, and adopted them. But it was not merely for her personal satisfaction that she entered into them so deeply. Endowed with great strength of will, and full of the ardour of her age, it was inconceivable to her, that any one should consider he had fulfilled his duty to the cause of truth, while yet he did nothing to promote its triumphs, nor felt the necessity of imparting that of which he cherished the belief. This disposition in the daughter reacted on the father. Monsieur de Manzay, at first, contented himself with taking the steps which Caroline requested, out of complaisance to her. He expected no other result than the pleasure which she derived from them, and the affectionate gratitude which she evinced towards him. But, when success had several times crowned his efforts, when exertions, which he fancied useless, had brought back to constitutional principles a neighbour who had been enlisted on the other side, by prejudices easy to be overcome; when an appeal to the proper authority had obtained the redress of an illegal act; when a journey to the principal town had been of essential service to an election, important to the country; or, when the farmers had consented to adopt new and advantageous methods of culture, Monsieur de Manzay congratulated himself on having yielded to the entreaties of his daughter, and began to think that men are naturally accessible to reason, and that to induce them to submit to it completely, there is often nothing more required than to present it to them in their own way. Such a conviction was encouraging, and made him wish to employ, for the advantage of his neighbours, all those facilities for serving them which he enjoyed, in the possession of a superior understanding and extensive knowledge. He became more intimate with them, and was useful to almost all. Old emigrants, strangers to what was passing around them, to whom liberty was but revolution, and monarchy the old régime, learned, by their intercourse with him, that it was possible to be a friend to representative government, without approving the crimes of the Convention; that a man might love equality, without being, necessarily, ill-bred; that the king's authority gains nothing from being served by bad ministers; and that there is no rebellion in preferring an honest man, brought in by the opposition, but of good ability, and well-known amongst his fellow-citizens, to a designing fellow, without merit, who is sent from Paris, or imposed on the electors by a circular. Young people, on the contrary, led by discontent with what is around them to admire all that existed thirty years back, were convinced, by conversing with Monsieur de Manzay, that everything was not to be regretted in the times of the Revolution or of the Empire; and that because the past was very different from the present, it had not the less been often very bad. Aged men, full of the ideas of the last century, obstinately refused all the demands of the curé, and applauded themselves on the success of this obstinacy, as a victory in the good cause; Monsieur de Manzay led them back to more reasonable sentiments, and the curé, in his turn, ceased to attack them. In a word, Monsieur de Manzay, from a solitary and unknown man, became a communicative and influential one; his power of being useful was thus increased, and consequently his happiness; and for these advantages he was indebted to his daughter.
Stephen was also a gainer by the new order of ideas which had been introduced into the family. His sister, convinced by her own experience of the disadvantages of a too desultory education, felt it to be a matter of much importance that his should be conducted with regularity. She prevailed on her father to give him fixed lessons, and to exact a strict performance of the duties imposed on him; she undertook to watch over their execution, and devoted to this inspection a large portion of her time; she also took upon herself the charge of teaching him many things which it was desirable he should know, and in which she was capable of giving him instruction. All this was easy, but there was yet more to be done: knowledge is desirable and necessary, it is even indispensable; yet it is but one portion, and that not the most important, of education. Though Stephen's mind was not yet fully developed, Caroline was extremely desirous to turn all his abilities to account; but she was still more anxious that his views should be right, his decisions just, and his character firm: she wished him to know how to appreciate everything according to its real value, that he might not passionately attach himself to trivial objects, and that he should give his whole mind to whatever he had once determined on. To attain these results, Stephen must not be indulged as she had been, for she still often felt how naturally the habit of yielding to every fancy leads to mistakes as to what is of real importance. This point, however, she found it difficult to obtain from M. de Manzay. How was he to be induced to give pain to this child, the last pledge of her whose remembrance constituted his life; how could he resist his wishes, impose restraints on him, treat him with severity? Perhaps by urging it very importunately, and asking it as a personal favour, Caroline might have gained this difficult conquest, and led her father to subdue the feelings of his heart, and make use of one weakness to combat another; but she did not have recourse to this dangerous method; her natural sense of uprightness deterred her from making use of it, and taught her that truth alone has the privilege of finally triumphing over error; that one passion is not well vanquished by another; and that though it be a longer, it is at all events a surer way to appeal to reason, the sole legitimate and absolute sovereign of our moral nature. It was, therefore, not by entreaties, but by rational persuasion, that she succeeded in inducing her father to train Stephen for other aims than mere present enjoyment, the amusement of the day, or the gratification of his passing fancies. Nor let it be imagined that Stephen had any reason to regret this change; on the contrary, his mode of life being better regulated, afforded him more enjoyment; the necessity of working gave value to his amusements; he found more happiness in doing what was right, when he had experienced the effects of the reverse; and he loved his father and sister all the better for their complaisance, when he had felt their firmness.
Even Denis himself found his advantage in the reform which had taken place at Primini. When life flowed on there so tranquilly and so happily that each seemed to have no other duties than those of affection, no occupations but those which were required to pass time agreeably, there was abundance of room for him, and he could abandon himself to all the impetuosity of his character; but when misfortune and time had changed the habits of the family—when all was according to rule, and each hour had its employment, each person his work,—what remained for him but to make up his mind, and be reasonable like the others? He had no longer any one to torment, and he scarcely regretted it, for Caroline's patience had at length wearied him of this singular amusement; and if he was sometimes a weight upon his cousin, it was rather from the burthen of his idleness than from any bad intention. But he required society—idle people; when everybody was occupied he knew not what to do with himself. He could not pass the whole of his time in walking, in looking at the haymaking, or in angling; and when Stephen was studying with his father, Caroline at her school, and the servants at their work, he must either lounge about wearily by himself, or find some employment. He resolved one day to try this last plan, fully resolved that if, after six months' trial, he should find it too laborious, he would resume his old mode of proceeding, and give up books for ever. As he had much resolution and strength of character, and would not do things by halves, he gave himself up completely to his new project, and voluntarily, without even requiring to be reminded, he every day devoted eight hours to work. At first he found this insupportable, and could only console himself for the disgust which he experienced, by counting the number of days which remained to complete his term of trial; but by degrees his distaste vanished; he perceived that there is a vast difference between studying at broken intervals, like a child and from constraint, and in seeking heartily to acquire fresh knowledge. For his special employment he had chosen mathematics, which he had formerly begun to learn, and which would be essential if he persisted in his design of entering the naval service; but which he had, nevertheless, thrown aside and neglected. M. de Manzay offered him his assistance, although convinced that his resolution would not be of long duration, and that he would not persevere even to the term which he had prescribed for himself. He was mistaken. Denis, far from being discouraged, every day became more attached to his new mode of life, and the fatal epoch passed without his having remarked it. He was now quite decided upon the continuance of his studies; he was eighteen years of age, and calculated upon employing one more year in preparing himself to enter the Polytechnic School. These two years of labour and of seclusion, the mere idea of which formerly alarmed him to such a degree that he was ready to relinquish his desire of entering the navy, he now scarcely dreaded at all; besides which, he felt that he had sufficient energy to surmount any unpleasant feelings they might occasion. Whenever he again felt any dismay at the prospect, he would go and confide his uneasiness to Caroline, now his best friend, whom he no more thought of teasing than she recollected having been tormented by him; their childish quarrels were so far from their thoughts, that they would have been astonished had they been reminded that only four years had intervened since these puerile disputes.
But if Caroline had forgotten the annoyance which had formerly been given her by Denis, this was far from being the case with respect to the contempt with which she had been treated by Robert; she could not reconcile herself to the idea of his disdainful tone towards her, and though her own good sense told her that her cousin's censure was justly founded, yet she could not sufficiently conquer herself to forgive the manner in which it was shown. Her imagination always represented Robert, and his intercourse with her, such as she recollected them, and she did not take into consideration, either the change in herself, nor that which must have taken place in her cousin; all the praises which she heard bestowed upon him redoubled her fear at the thought of meeting him again, and it was with real dread that she awaited his approaching return.
Robert, on his part, came back full of prejudices against Caroline. With all the self-sufficiency of a young man of twenty, he had formerly seen only her defects, and he persisted in the opinion which he had then formed of her, with an obstinacy which would have been unpardonable, if his absence, and the little taste he had for letter-writing, joined to a not ill-founded mistrust of Monsieur de Manzay's opinion where his daughter was concerned, had not afforded some excuse for the error of still seeing, in the Caroline of twenty, the Caroline of fifteen.
The mutual dislike existing between Robert and Caroline was the more to be regretted as they were destined to pass their lives near each other. Robert's estate was contiguous to that of Monsieur de Manzay, and it was with the intention of settling there that he returned from his travels. Decided to enter upon a completely independent career, which should allow him the free disposal of his mode of life, he had resolved to seek in commercial enterprises the means of employing his time and abilities; he determined to convert his château into a manufactory, and to add to his position as a landowner that of a merchant. His estate, which was thickly wooded, and, traversed by a river, was exactly suited for the establishment of an iron factory;—he promised himself much satisfaction in setting it on foot, and superintending it, and calculated upon being very useful to the country by such a measure. He was not fond of the world, and regretted nothing at Paris but that brilliant circulation of intellect which is as natural to it as its atmosphere. No one can say whence it comes, or whither it goes; who is the giver, or who the receiver; what will be its influence, or what may be its limit: it is enough that it exists, that it spreads itself around, that it seizes on all—yes, on all—even on those who deny it, even on those who condemn it. But although Robert was more than any man capable of appreciating, and of contributing his share to this noble pleasure, he was not disposed to purchase it at the price of a life of idleness, equally devoid of results as of aim. Had the state of his country opened to him a career in which all his abilities might be simultaneously developed, in which activity would have required no sacrifice, but in which his individual progress would have advanced the public good, he would have given this the preference; but this was not possible, and Robert had too much strength of character to suppose that he was exempted from doing that which was good, because he had a glimpse of something better. He felt confident that a time would come, when his wishes might be accomplished, and in the course of a long career he looked forward to the promise of a future for himself and for his country. But the future is in the hands of God alone, and our obligations are attached to the present time; to squander it in the expectation of the future, is to borrow without knowing whether we have wherewith to pay, and to expose ourselves to the danger of being some day bankrupt. Robert, therefore, not without some hesitation, but without regret, fixed on the plan the best suited to his tastes and his position, and which offered the best employment for his time, whilst awaiting a more extended career; but he would not enter on his project lightly, or without acquiring all the knowledge requisite for such an enterprise. It would not satisfy him to be merely a worker on a grand scale; even could he have made it profitable, it would have given him no pleasure; and he was rich enough to entitle him not to consider money as his sole object. He began, then, by passing two years at the Polytechnic Institution, which he left with a brilliant reputation. It was at that period that he spent a short time at Primini, before he set out on the long tour on which he had determined, in order to see various countries, and study their manners and institutions; to perfect himself in living languages; and to examine the different industrial processes invented and practised beyond the bounds of his own country, with which it was right that he should be acquainted.
He thus came back to Puivaux at twenty-five years of age, happy to return to his own country, to revisit the scenes of his childhood, and renew his family ties; and the only thing that disturbed him was, the disagreeable recollection which he retained of Caroline. In spite of his prejudices, she had often presented herself to his mind, and the remembrance of her caprices could not efface that of her lovely face, the elegance of her form, and the grace of her movements; the sweet tones of her voice still vibrated on his ears, and often had he repeated to himself that it was a great pity she was so insufferable, for she might have been charming; and then—then—but it must not be thought of, she possessed neither good sense nor good temper, and from such a person what could be hoped for?
It was rather late, one evening, when Robert arrived at Primini, where he was to take up his abode till everything was in order at his own house. He was not yet expected, but the absence of a friend, whom he had intended to visit by the way, had shortened his journey; and he had entered the château, and made his way to the drawing-room, before his coming was even suspected. He was struck by the scene presented by the persons there assembled. Monsieur de Manzay was reading aloud, Stephen was drawing, Denis copying music, and Caroline working at her embroidery frame. This social employment, this active tranquillity, was the more striking from its contrast with the former habits of those present, and its congeniality with his own tastes. He looked on without stirring, when Caroline chanced to raise her eyes, and exclaimed, "It is Robert!" Her voice expressed more surprise than pleasure, and, after having risen hastily, she remained where she was without advancing towards her cousin. He had already repeatedly embraced his uncle and Stephen, and shaken hands with Denis, before she could recover herself sufficiently to speak; she opened her lips and closed them again without uttering a syllable. Robert, on his side, was ill at ease, and it is impossible to say how long their embarrassment might have lasted, if Monsieur de Manzay had not cried out, "Well! what are you both doing? Are you not glad to see each other again? What are you thinking about?"
"Will you permit me to embrace you, Caroline?" then said Robert.
"Permit you!" repeated Monsieur de Manzay; "are you such a simpleton as to ask? I should like to see her refuse, indeed. For I am a terrible despot, as you well know," he added, caressing his daughter, as he led her towards Robert. They then embraced, but without much pleasure on either side; and, under the pretext of giving some orders, Caroline speedily made her escape from the room.