What Jacques Haret had told concerning the poor Count Bellegarde was true. He, the most absurd creature alive, who had believed for years that this glorious creature was his for the asking, had come to the château of Capello that May afternoon, and had made Francezka a formal offer of marriage. It had been easy enough to dispose of the poor gentleman. Francezka’s temper was naturally warm. In this case, her heart eating itself with despair, her nerves racked with hope deferred, she had turned like a lioness upon the unfortunate Bellegarde. He had fled from her indignant presence, and from the wrath which shone in her eyes and blazed in her cheeks; and Francezka, trembling and tempest-tossed, had, in her turn, fled to the Italian garden, where she could be alone. For she needed to be alone to face the specter which now took shape before her. It was no less than her dead hopes, clad in their grave clothes, which told her that Gaston Cheverny was no more. And while she walked slowly up and down the path, with this horror walking beside her, she looked up, and, behold! There stood Gaston Cheverny in the flesh.
Of what she said or did, Francezka had no memory. 347 When she first became conscious of thought, she was lying in Gaston’s arms, in an agony of sobbing and crying, and he was soothing her, and lavishing upon her every tenderness that love could devise. And after a time, when the first great shock of joy was over, Francezka rallied and became herself again—brave, resolute and loving. And then they looked into each other’s eyes with rapture, and Gaston cried:
“We can never again be apart beyond the touch of each other’s hand.”
And after an hour spent in paradise, Francezka and Gaston walked hand in hand to the château, the servants and dependents were summoned, and Francezka, kneeling among them, with her hand on Gaston’s shoulder, humbly gave thanks to God for having restored her best beloved to her. The news spread like wildfire, and roused the entire country. The next day, when Francezka and Gaston publicly gave thanks in the church, half the province was present.
Gaston was, of course, besieged with inquiries concerning the vicissitudes which had befallen him. They turned out to be quite as strange as might have been expected. The wound on his head had been severe, and had caused him great suffering, and, what was worse, had brought upon him long periods of forgetfulness. He had no recollection of anything that had happened to him after being struck by the Austrian bullet, and could not recall even the incident of the little village in the Taunus, where he had been seen three months after his capture. His first connected impressions were, on finding himself in Holland, and next, he knew not how, on a Dutch ship bound for Batavia. After nearly a year he 348 had reached Batavia, and then began the struggle to return to Europe. He had written repeatedly to Francezka, and to his friends; that is, scrawled as well as he could, with his left hand, for his right hand, although it had no outward mark of weakness, was quite unfit for writing. He could not explain the cause of this; it was one of those blanks in his memory, in which some of the most painful as well as some of the dearest of his recollections were erased.
Being bred to the trade of a soldier, he knew no other means of livelihood and he found it hard, in his wanderings, to keep body and soul together. He was alone in a far country, unacquainted with the languages, and further borne down by those physical and mental ailments which only mended in the course of long years. Only two things remained ever clear and unclouded with him: one was, the remembrance of Francezka; the other was, a fixed determination to return to Europe. By degrees, his mind recovered its poise and his body its health; but seven years were consumed from the time he was snatched away from his country, from his love, his health, his understanding, until he was again restored to them.
Some of this we heard before we left Paris. Of course, the women would not let Count Saxe depart in peace. The Countess Vielinski followed us with post-horses as far as Mézieres, and Count Saxe only saved himself by decamping in the night, galloping out of one gate of the town, as Madame Vielinski’s berlin rolled into the other. And yet this man is called a gay Lothario!
Everywhere on the road people were talking of 349 Gaston Cheverny’s wonderful return. The number of persons who knew that he must eventually come back was very large—I believe I did not see one single person who was not convinced all along that Gaston would be found. And the country rang with praises of Madame Cheverny’s constancy and devotion. Especially did this come from the people who had declared Francezka to be wildly visionary and had severely condemned her course from the beginning.