"Ah! I thought so," replied the other; "and will you accept the invitation?"
"I know not," was the careless response.
Barbaroux was young, and, without being exactly weary of the agitated public life which he habitually led, felt any circumstance calculated to take him out of it for a time as a piece of good fortune not to be contemned. He deceived Vergniaud, therefore, when he affected to treat the matter of the billet lightly. In fact, it seized upon his thoughts exclusively; and he not only spoke no more of Robespierre to his friends, but quitted them upon some slight pretext soon afterward. He then returned directly to his own home; and, when there, delivered himself up to conjectures respecting the mysterious epistle which he had received. Barbaroux was young, be it again observed, and of a temperament not indisposed to gallantry, though the softer concerns of life had been all but banished from his thoughts more lately. However, the anonymous billet, which came, he felt assured, from a female, directed his reflections into a train once not so unfamiliar to them, and the more so as it spoke of his meeting "old friends." With impatience, therefore, he watched the movements of his time-piece, as it indicated the gradual approach of the hour of appointment. The Marseillaise representative felt no personal alarm respecting the coming adventure. He had never been an advocate of bloodshed in his public character, and knew of none likely to entertain against him sentiments of hostility, or to project snares for his life. No; he confidently assumed the object of the unknown correspondent to be friendly.
Enough, however, about the anticipations of Barbaroux. The hour of nine came, and he hastily left his own residence, to proceed to the Rue St. Honore. There, opposite to No. 56, he found a coach in waiting. Without a word, he opened the door, leaped inside, and shut himself up with his own hands. In a moment the coachman lashed his horses, and Barbaroux felt himself whirled along for an hour with such rapidity, as, together with the obscurity of the evening, to prevent him completely from discerning the route taken. At length the vehicle stopped abruptly, in a petty street, and before a house of sufficiently mediocre appearance. The gate opened instantly, and the driver, descending from his seat, silently showed Barbaroux into the house, after which the door was closed behind. The young man now found himself in a passage of some length, as was shown by a distant light. That light speedily increased, and the visitor perceived a young girl approaching him with a lamp in her hand—one of those old iron lamps in which the oil floats openly, and which have the wick at one of the sides. Barbaroux was instantly reminded of the fisher-cots of Marseilles—his own well-known Marseilles—where such articles are used constantly by the fishing community. Casting his eyes attentively on the girl, he saw more to remind him of the same ancient sea-port—her cap, colored kerchief, and dress generally, being such as its young women always wore. Her face, too, was not a strange one. Moreover the odor of tar, or that smell peculiar to well-used cordage and sails, struck forcibly on his senses, and strengthened the same associative recollections. Astonished already, Barbaroux felt still more so, when a once familiar voice addressed him in accents strongly provincial, or Marseillaise.
"Charles," said the girl with the lamp, "you have made us wait. You promised this morning to be earlier here."
"I promised!" cried Barbaroux, with amazement, heightened by a sort of impression that he was speaking to a person who ought at the moment to be at two hundred leagues' distance.
"Yes! promised," continued the girl; "but no doubt, you have been at the office, or have forgotten yourself with the curate of La Major, who makes you study such beautiful plants. Never mind; come with me. Melanie is with her uncle Jean, and I, as I tell you, have been waiting for you more than an hour. Come, then!"
Barbaroux scarcely comprehended what was said to him. He found all his senses deceiving him at once, as it were, sight, hearing, and smell; and his imagination transported from the present to the past, had some difficulty in overcoming the first shock of stupefied surprise. Thereafter, he felt a kind of wish to yield himself up voluntarily to what seemed a sweet illusion. He followed the young girl as desired, but soon found new causes for astonishment. Before him appeared the old screw-stair of a well-known fisher dwelling, with the narrow landing-place, chalky walls, and plastered chimney, with its tint of yellow, to him most familiar of old. He even noted on the plaster an acanthus leaf, where such a thing had been once rudely charcoaled by his own hand. In the chimney grate, he beheld an enormous log, the Christmas log, sparkling above the red embers; and he then called to mind that the day was the 24th of December, and the evening Christmas Eve.
"Ah! you see," said the young girl, rousing him by her voice, "we are going to hold the Christmas feast. Come, Charles, enter, and sit down opposite to uncle Jean, and by the side of Melanie. I will take my place on your other hand."
As the girl spoke, she had opened the door of an inner apartment, and led forward Barbaroux. The latter did indeed see before him uncle Jean; he clasped in his own the hands of Melanie. He beheld all that he had been once wont to see, in short, in the home of uncle Jean, the old seaman of Marseilles. The same veteran weather-glass hung on the wall; the compass was there, too, pointing still, as it pointed of yore. On the table Barbaroux observed the green glasses of Provence; the bottles were the peculiar bottles of uncle Jean; and, amid others, he saw the yellow seals marking the prized Cyprus wine of the ancient mariner of Marseilles. Brown dishes were there of the pottery of Saint Jacquerie—articles to Paris unknown. Edibles lay upon them too, such as Marseilles draws from sunny Afric: almonds and dates, with figs and raisins, alone, or compounded into cakes, after the mode of southern France. All these things confounded the young member of convention. Had he made in a few hours a journey of eight days? Had he retrograded in the way of existence? Had he dreamt of a busy life of three years, since the time when, under the shade of the church of St. Laurent of Marseilles, he had courted the fair niece of uncle Jean, amid scenes and sights such as now surrounded him? The deputy of Marseilles, the popular conventionist, closed his eyes in doubt. Dreamed he at that moment or had he dreamed for years?