"That is my opinion," said De Courval, rising. Men hooted at him and shook fists in his face. "Take care!" he cried, backing away from the table. In the midst of it came the landlord. "He is a royalist," they cried; "he must go or we go."
The landlord hurried him out of the room. "Monsieur," he said—"Citizen, these are fools, but I have my living to think of. You must go. I am sorry, very sorry."
"I cannot go now," said De Courval. "I shall do so to-morrow at my leisure." It was so agreed. He talked quietly a while with his mother, saying nothing of this new trouble, and then, still hot with anger, he went to his room, astonished at his reception, and anxious that his mother should find a more peaceful home.
He slept the sleep of the healthy young, rose at early dawn, and was able to get milk and bread and thus to escape breakfast with the citizen-boarders, not yet arisen. Before he went out, he glanced at the book of guests. He had written Vicomte de Courval, with his mother's name beneath it, La Vicomtesse de Courval, without a thought on so casual a matter, and now, flushing, he read "Citizen" above his title with an erasure of de and Vicomte. Over his mother's title was written the last affectation of the Jacobins, "Citizeness" Courval. It was so absurd that, the moment's anger passing into mirth, he went out into the air, laughing and exclaiming: "Mais qu'ils sont bêtes! Quelle enfantillage! What childishness!" The servant, a man of middle age, who was sweeping the steps, said in French, "What a fine day, monsieur."
"Bon jour, Citizen," returned De Courval, laughing. The man laughed also, and said, "Canailles, Monsieur," with a significant gesture of contempt. "Bon jour, Monsieur le Vicomte," and then, hearing steps within, resumed his task with: "But one must live. My stomach has the opinions of my appetite." For a moment he watched the serious face and well-knit figure of the vicomte as he turned westward, and then went into the house, remarking, "Qu'il est beau"—"What a handsome fellow!"
De Courval passed on. Independence Hall interested him for a moment. Many people went by him, going to their work, although it was early. He saw the wretched paving, the few houses high on banks of earth beyond Sixth Street, and then, as he walked westward on Chestnut Street, pastures, cows, country, and the fine forest to the north known as the Governor's Wood. At last, a mile farther, he came upon the bank of a river flowing slowly by. What it was he did not know. On the farther shore were farms and all about him a thinner forest. It was as yet early, and, glad of the lonely freshness, he stood still a little while among the trees, saw bees go by on early business bent, and heard in the edge of the wood the love song of a master singer, the cat-bird. Nature had taken him in hand. He was already happier when, with shock of joy he realized what she offered. No one was in sight. He undressed in the edge of the wood and stood a while in the open on the graveled strand, the tide at full of flood. The morning breeze stirred lightly the pale-green leaves of spring with shy caress, so that little flashes of warm light from the level sun-shafts coming through the thin leafage of May flecked his white skin. He looked up, threw out his arms with the naked man's instinctive happiness in the moment's sense of freedom from all form of bondage, ran down the beach, and with a shout of pure barbarian delight plunged into the river. For an hour he was only a young animal alone with nature—diving, swimming, splashing the water, singing bits of love-songs or laughing in pure childlike enjoyment of the use of easy strength. At last he turned on his back and floated luxuriously. He pushed back his curly hair, swept the water from his eyes, and saw with a cry of pleasure that which is seen only from the level of the watery plain. On the far shore, a red gravel bank, taking the sun, was reflected a plain of gold on the river's breadth. The quickened wind rolled the water into little concave mirrors which, dancing on the gold surface, gathered the clear azure above him in cups of intense indigo blue. It was new and freshly wonderful. What a sweet world! How good to be alive!
When ashore he stood in a flood of sunshine, wringing the water from body and limbs and hair, and at last running up and down the beach until he was dry and could dress. Then, hat in hand, he walked away, feeling the wholesome languor of the practised swimmer and gaily singing a song of home:
"Quand tout renait à l'espérance,
Et que l'hiver fuit loin de nous,
Sous le beau ciel de notre France,
Quand le soleil revient plus doux;
Quand la nature est reverdie,
Quand l'hirondelle est de retour,
J'aime à revoir ma Normandie,
C'est le pays qui m'a donné le jour!"
The cares and doubts and worries of yesterday were gone—washed out of him, as it were, in nature's baptismal regeneration of mind and body. All that he himself recognized was a glad sense of the return of competence and of some self-assurance of capacity to face the new world of men and things.