Sister Anne (Novels of Paul de Kock, Volume X)

by Paul de Kock

Frédéric said no more, but tried to conceal his feelings; for Constance was gazing at him as if she would read his inmost thoughts.

Sister Anne recovered her strength very slowly; it was several days before she was able to go down into the garden with her son, leaning on Constance's arm. As she supported the convalescent's tottering steps, Constance glanced anxiously about, dreading to see Frédéric, although she had told him that Sister Anne was coming into the garden, which was equivalent to asking him not to appear there. Frédéric knew that his presence would certainly cause an agitation that would be dangerous to the invalid, and he remained in his apartment.

Sister Anne was calmer, but her calmness seemed to be the result of complete prostration rather than of resignation; she kept her eyes fixed on the ground, except when she turned them on her son; she did not weep, but the expression of her face indicated her mental suffering; meanwhile, her strength constantly increased, and soon she was able to go out alone with her son, to stroll about the pavilion.

A few days more, and Madame de Montreville was to set out with Sister Anne and her son for the estate on which she proposed that they should make their home. Frédéric approved his wife's plan, but he was consumed by the desire to see once more the woman he had loved so dearly, and whom he was not certain that he did not love still.

He knew that Sister Anne and her son went every morning at daybreak to sit in an arbor near the pavilion. One morning he rose softly, while Constance was still asleep; it was almost dawn; he could not resist the craving to see the dumb girl and her son; he did not mean to speak to her, or to show himself to her, but only to see her once more. She was to go away the next day, so that that day was the last on which it would be possible for him to satisfy the desire that beset him.

He dressed noiselessly and walked to the bed where Constance lay; she was not resting quietly, but her eyes were closed, she was asleep; he determined to seize the opportunity, and he stole quickly from the room and into the garden. The first rays of dawn were just beginning to dispel the mists of the night; he walked rapidly toward Sister Anne's favorite arbor; his heart beat fast; it seemed to him that he was living anew those moments of his first love when he arrived at the wood of Vizille and looked for the dumb girl on the bank of the stream where they were wont to meet.

She was not yet in the arbor; she probably would not be there for at least a quarter of an hour; he sat down on the bench where she usually sat, from which he could see the pavilion where she and her son lived. He fastened his eyes upon that building; his heart was full, he felt again the delicious emotion that he used to feel as he gazed at old Marguerite's miserable hovel. At that moment, he forgot all that had happened since; he waited impatiently for her to come out; it seemed to him that he would see her come running toward him, driving her goats.

Time passes very quickly when one is engrossed by such memories. Suddenly the door of the pavilion opened and a child appeared—it was his son. Frédéric was on the point of running forward to embrace him, but he remembered the promise he had given Constance. If he went nearer to the pavilion, Sister Anne would see him, for she could not be far behind her child. He must keep out of her sight; so he crept behind the shrubbery, and there, hidden by a thick clump of hornbeams, he waited tremblingly for her to appear.

He had hardly left the arbor, when the dumb girl came out of the pavilion and took her son by the hand. Frédéric could not take his eyes from her. She was dressed in a plain white gown; her hair, gathered carelessly on top of her head, fell over her forehead, whereon sadness and suffering were written. She smiled, however, as she looked at her child; then paused, glanced about the garden, and heaved a profound sigh.

Frédéric did not tire of gazing at her; that unfamiliar costume, in which he was now for the first time able to examine her at his leisure,—for in his wife's presence he had hardly dared to look at her,—seemed to add to her charms and make her more beautiful than ever. She came toward him, she entered the arbor; he hardly breathed. She sat on the bench—she was close beside him—only a few branches separated them; he heard her sighs, he could count the throbs of her heart. How sad she seemed! Alas! who would console her now? He was the cause of her woes, and he could do nothing to put an end to them. The child put his little arms about his mother's neck; it was as if he were already trying, young as he was, to soothe her grief. She pressed him to her heart, but her tears continued to flow. Frédéric could control himself no longer; he heard her sobs, he forgot his promise, he saw nothing but Sister Anne's tears, which fell upon his heart. He abruptly put aside the branches that separated them; he fell at her feet and embraced her knees, crying: