Ebba assisted her with great devotion, and ceased to give Ireneus lessons in Swedish.
M. de Vermondans smoked his pipe with an air of thought, and sometimes of sorrow, for the idea of separation from his daughter weighed heavily on him, much as he desired that she should marry so near him.
For the first time since he had reached his uncle's house, Ireneus was alone. A few days before the merry chat of Alete, the philosophical conversation of the old gentleman, the dreamy poetry of Ebba, and the activity and motion of all the household had diverted the young officer's attention from himself. Now his thoughts involuntarily returned, in consequence of news he had received from his country. His mother, who shared all his secrets, sought to encourage him, and to unfold a new horizon. In spite of this, however, every letter increased his unhappiness. Some of his friends also wrote to him; and this correspondence surprised him painfully. He heard, in this manner, of political defections which he, in his chivalric exaggeration looked on as felony, and at which he was most indignant.
"Villains!" said he, one day, as he read to his uncle a letter which he had just received. "Now, this man owed everything to the kindness of Charles X., yet for the sake of office he has cast himself at the foot of a new master. Here is one who, on the 28th of July, applauded the ordinances, and swore that the hydra of liberalism should he destroyed: and said that he would pour out the last drop of his blood in defense of legitimacy. He is now a partisan of the revolution. We live in a scandalous age. All principles of honor and religion are forgotten. Office has great value, indeed, when honor and conscience are sacrificed to it."
As he spoke thus, Ireneus strode up and down the room, and crushed the letter in his hands.
"My boy," said M. de Vermondans, with his kind philosophy, "your feeling springs from a sentiment which does you honor. Unfortunately, however, it can but injure you without benefiting those for whom you have so much sympathy. To-day is not the first time that man has violated his oath, and made a traffic of obligation; one need only open a history, and read on every page amid some noble actions, countless base intrigues and unworthy cowardice. The Roman senate erected statues to monsters it had dignified with the imperial purple. The middle age, which we are pleased to look on as an epoch of faith and chivalric devotion, is everywhere sullied by acts of felony and the consequences of mad ambition. Civilization, while it corrected the gross errors of rude nations, also restrained their virtues. Love of prosperity, the sensations of luxury, bear to the wall the energetic principles of self-denial. Some individuals, who, by their elevated position, attract attention to themselves; here and there break a link of the moral chain; others imitate them, and by fracture after fracture the whole series of austere ideas is interrupted and dislocated. A few of the faithful may attempt to preserve the remnants, but others look on them with pity, and treat this religious faith as an anachronism. The worship of the great is destroyed, and replaced by that of sensual enjoyments. We do not ask God to give us the heavenly manna. We have made another God from which no prophet can win us. We prostrate ourselves before the calf of gold. This, dear Ireneus, must be a sad prospect for a heart like yours. That all the respect for the past, for religion and misfortune, which exists in your heart, should rise at the prospect of what you have read to me, I can well enough understand. Can you however, repress the wrong which offends you? Can the evils of which you complain be prevented? No, do what you will, there must ever be men, over whom the passion for power will exercise vast influence, and this feeling will always induce them to turn from the sinking to the rising star. Even if you go to the depth of a desert, to the jungles of an Indian archipelago, to the woods at Caffraria, to the desert plains of North America, or to the Cordilleras, you will not escape from the miserable spectacles of human hypocrisy. The Turks have a proverb which says, 'Cure the hand you cannot spare.' Now we can add to this maxim, 'Cure the hand which can serve you, satisfy your pride, avarice and egotism.' Young and happy when you first entered on life, dear Ireneus, you have seen much. A sudden revolution has covered your eyes with a cloud, and unexpected treachery has pierced your heart. Time will show you many others, and if you do not give yourself up to useless misanthropy, the most foolish and idle of all maladies, you will learn to resign yourself to chagrins you cannot avoid. In your time of distress you will draw near to those who do not deceive your esteem. You will, without hatred and anger, be able to look at those whom base calculation or cowardice has led astray, and if you congratulate yourself that you have not followed their example, you will be glad that heaven has endowed you with more firmness and a loftier ambition."
The wisdom of these reasonings touched the heart of Ireneus, but could not subdue it. The ardent young man continued to curse those whom he had seen in the ranks of legitimacy, and who now had linked themselves with the revolution. Often, to avoid the remonstrances of his uncle, or not to annoy him by recrimination, he wandered alone across the desert plains, calling all the deserters of the cause he loved by name, and sometimes he even resolved, like a true knight-errant, to set out and demand an account of their crime. When he returned from these solitary walks, his uncle, thinking that all argument would at such times be useless, said nothing. Ebba however looked at him with eager sympathy.
PART IV.
The marriage of Alete, for a while, however, diverted him from his moody thoughts. The pastor and M. de Vermondans wished the marriage to be contracted according to the custom of the country. Invitations had already been given to many in the neighborhood, to the friends of the pastor and of the two families. At the appointed time, a great number of carriages had collected at the house of M. de Vermondans. Beds had been made in every room. The house was full of guests, the stable of horses, not to remain a few hours, for a wedding in Sweden lasts a whole week. M. de Vermondans, assisted by Eric and Ireneus, did the honors of the house. Ebba dressed her sister, and this alone was not a trifling task, for in Sweden brides are richly decked, and the daughter of the humblest peasant borrows or hires jewels to dress her like a lady.
The toilet, according to the old usage of the country, was at last finished, under the inspection of the matrons of the village. Alete entered the drawing-room in a dress of rose-colored silk, covered with flounces, rosettes, a mass of ribbons, etc., and with a girdle, suspended to which were many ornaments of different devices, all of silver, and which, as she walked, rang like bells. Nothing can be more ungraceful than such a dress, which, however, Alete wore with grace. When she appeared, a cry of admiration escaped from every mouth, and the spectators' eyes turned involuntarily to Eric to congratulate him.