XXXI
LIFE IN THE HOVEL.—A LAST HOPE DISPELLED
There is in extreme wretchedness a last burst of strength, of courage; when one has reached the climax of misfortune and is compelled to abandon all hope of a happier lot, then it seems that one feels a secret consolation in being able to defy destiny to deal us any additional blow.
Such was now Isaure’s plight—that gentle, timid maiden, forcibly removed from the home she loved and had lived in since her infancy, from her protector and from her lover, to dwell in a miserable hovel hidden in the centre of the earth, with no other company than two men, one of whom was the author of her trials and the other seemed entirely insensible to them; and yet she had succeeded in surmounting her despair. Her eyes no longer shed tears, at least in the presence of her two companions; no complaint escaped from her lips; and when she spoke to the man who had torn her from her home, it was with gentleness and docility, instead of with eyes gleaming with wrath, and with tones that expressed the horror with which he must have inspired her.
Several days had passed since the vagabond had concealed Isaure in the old shepherd’s house, and the girl’s conduct seemed to surprise him. He often sat and gazed at her in silence, for whole hours at a time. The more he looked at her, the more his surprise seemed to increase. One morning, when the old shepherd had gone out on the mountain, and the vagabond, alone with Isaure in the excavation, in front of the door of the rear house, had been gazing a long while at the girl as she worked patiently, sewing goat-skins together, he was so amazed at her mild and placid demeanor that he could not help exclaiming:
"You amaze me, girl; really I am beginning to think that I judged you wrongly, and that you really deserve the good opinion that the two friends had conceived of you. Your docility, your innocence—No, that young Edouard was not wrong to love you, to desire to marry you.—But that man whom you went secretly to see in the White House—what bond was there between you and him? How long have you known him? Come, speak,—answer me frankly."
A feeling which Isaure could not define, but which was not fear, led her to always obey the stranger promptly; so she answered with a sigh:
"I have known Monsieur Gervais since my childhood."
"Monsieur Gervais! Ah! so he never told you that he was the Baron de Marcey?"
"No, monsieur, I never have called him anything but Gervais, and it was by that name that my adopted parents, André and his wife, knew him."
"Yes, I understand; he preferred to remain unknown. Either you are a natural child of his, or, suspecting that you would become pretty some day, he intended to make you his wife."