"Ah! she is a Creole," I repeated with some vivacity.
"Yes, young man, an old Creole lady," M. Laubépin said dryly. "Her husband was a Breton; but these details will come in good time.... Good-bye till to-morrow, Maxime, and be of good cheer. Ah! I had forgotten. On Thursday morning, before my departure, I did something which will be of service to you. Among your creditors there are some rogues, whose relations with your father were obviously usurious. Armed with the thunders of the law, I reduced their claims on my own responsibility, and made them give me receipts in full. So now your capital amounts to twenty thousand francs. Add to this reserve what you are able to save each year from your salary, and in ten years' time we shall have a good dowry for Hélène. Well, well, come and lunch with Mâitre Laubépin to-morrow, and we will settle all the rest. Good-bye, Maxime; good-night, my dear child!"
"God bless you, sir!"
CHÂTEAU DE LAROQUE (D'ARZ), May 1st.
I left Paris yesterday. My last interview with M. Laubépin was painful. I feel the affection of a son for the old man. Then I had to bid Hélène farewell. It was necessary to tell her something of the truth, to make her understand why I was compelled to accept an appointment. I talked vaguely of temporary business difficulties. The poor child understood, I think, more than I had said; her large, wondering eyes filled with tears as she fell upon my neck.
At last I got away. I went by train to Rennes, where I stayed the night. This morning I took the diligence, which put me down, four or five hours ago, at a little Morbilian town not far from the château of Laroque. We had travelled ten leagues or more from Rennes, and still I had seen nothing to justify the reputed picturesqueness of our ancient Armorica. A flat, green country without variety; eternal apple-trees in eternal fields; ditches and wooded slopes shutting off the view on both sides of the road; here and there a nook full of rural charm, and a few blouses and glazed hats relieving the very ordinary scene. All this strongly inclined me to think that poetic Brittany was merely a pretentious and somewhat pallid sister of Lower Normandy. Tired of disillusions and apple-trees, I had for more than an hour ceased to take any notice of the country. I was dozing heavily, when I felt suddenly that the lumbering vehicle was lurching forward heavily. At the same time the pace of the horses slackened, and a clanking noise, together with a peculiar vibration, proclaimed that the worst of drivers had applied the worst of brakes to the worst of diligences. An old lady clutched my arm with the ready sympathy excited by a sense of common danger. I put my head out of the window; we were descending, between two lofty slopes, an extremely steep hill, evidently the work of an engineer too much enamoured of the straight line.
Half-sliding, half-rolling, we soon reached the bottom of a narrow valley of gloomy aspect. A feeble brook flowed silently and slowly among thick reeds, and over its crumbling banks hung a few moss-grown tree-trunks. The road crossed the stream by a bridge of a single arch, and, climbing the farther hill, cut a white track across a wide, barren, and naked lande whose crest stood out sharply against the horizon in front of us. Near the bridge and close to the road was a ruined hovel. Its air of desolation struck to the heart. A young, robust man was splitting wood by the door; his long, fair hair was fastened at the back by a black ribbon. He raised his head, and I was surprised at the strange character of his features and at the calm gaze of his blue eyes. He greeted me in an unknown tongue and with a quiet, soft, and timid accent. A woman was spinning at the cottage window; the style of her hair and dress reproduced with theatrical fidelity the images of those slim chatelaines of stone we see on tombs. These people did not look like peasants; they had, in the highest degree, that easy, gracious, and serious air we call distinction. And they had, too, the sad and dreamy expression often seen among people whose nationality has been destroyed.
I had got down to walk up the hill. The lande, which was not separated from the road, extended all round me as far and farther than I could see; stunted furze clung to the black earth on every side; here and there were ravines, clefts, deserted quarries, and low rocks, but no trees.
Only when I had reached the high ground I saw the distant sombre line of the heath broken by a more distant strip of the horizon. A little serrated, blue as the sea and steeped in sunlight, it seemed to open in the midst of this desolation the sudden vision of some radiant fairy region. At last I saw Brittany!
I had to engage a carriage to take me the two leagues that separated me from the end of my journey. During the drive, which was not by any means a rapid one, I vaguely remember seeing woods, glades, lakes, and oases of fresh verdure in the valleys; but as we approached the Château Laroque I was besieged by a thousand apprehensions which left no room for tourist's reflections. In a few minutes I was to enter a strange family on the footing of a sort of servant in disguise, and in a position which would barely secure me the consideration and respect of the lackeys themselves. This was something very new to me. The moment M. Laubépin proposed this post of bailiff, all my instincts, all my habits, had risen in violent protest against the peculiar character of dependence attached to such duties. Nevertheless, I had thought it impossible to refuse without appearing to slight my old friend's zealous efforts on my behalf. Moreover, in a less dependent position, I could not have hoped to obtain for many years the advantages which I should have here from the outset, and which would enable me to work for my sister's future without losing time. I had therefore overcome my repugnance, but it had been very strong, and now revived more strongly than ever in face of the imminent reality. I had need to study once more the articles on duty and sacrifice in the moral code that every man carries in his conscience. At the same time I told myself that there is no situation, however humble, where personal dignity cannot maintain itself—and none, in fact, that it cannot ennoble. Then I sketched out a plan of conduct towards the Laroque family, and promised myself to show a conscientious zeal for their interests, and, to themselves, a just deference equally removed from servility and from stiffness. But I could not conceal from myself that the last part of my task, obviously the most delicate, would be either greatly simplified or complicated by the special characters and dispositions of the people with whom I was to come into contact. Now, M. Laubépin, while recognising that my anxiety on these personal questions was quite legitimate, had been stubbornly sparing of information and details on the subject. However, just as I was starting, he had handed me a private memorandum counselling me at the same time to throw it in the fire as soon as I had profited by its contents. This memorandum I took from my portfolio and proceeded to study its sibylline utterances, which I here reproduce exactly.