They arrived too quickly at their destination. “I have bespoken a place for you in the coupé,” said the doctor, getting out of the carriage. “You will be in company with one of my patients, still very feeble, but who will absolutely go to Germany to rejoin her husband. She has two children with her, and they will be your only travelling companions.”
“Thank you,” said Fleurange. “The prayers of the orphan are said to draw down blessings: may you both experience the effect of mine!” She could not utter another word. She threw her arms for the last time around Mademoiselle Josephine’s neck, and the next instant, leaning on the doctor’s arm, she was crossing with some difficulty the littered court at the end of which they found the diligence. The snow had delayed them on the way, and now rendered every step difficult. The other passengers had taken their places, and they were only waiting for Fleurange. The horses were harnessed, and to the noise of their stamping the driver added his impatient exclamations.
“Come, come! We are off!” he repeated in a rough voice. Fleurange, hurried, pushed about, stunned, and frightened, had only time to press the doctor’s hand once more and spring into the coupé. The door was instantly shut. A fearful clashing of irons, mingled with cries, blows of the whip, and vociferations, above which could be heard: “Adieu! à revoir! à bientôt!” with other exclamations much less harmonious, and the heavy diligence was in motion. Fleurange, now free from the necessity of any restraint, allowed herself the solace of giving vent to her feelings and letting her tears flow freely and abundantly.
She continued to weep for a long time without the least attempt at repressing her emotion. Why should she? She was alone, entirely alone now. She had never been so to such a degree before. All the events of the past faded away in the distance, and the future offered nothing to replace them. She was separated from all whom she had loved from her infancy, either by death or indefinite absence. Would it be so always? Was that to be her lot on earth? Would she never be permitted to love with assurance, trust, and a sense of repose? Was she to be always thus torn from places and persons at the very moment her heart began to cling to them?—her heart, so tender and ardent, which she had so often felt beating with tenderness and joy, with admiration and enthusiasm? And while her eyes peered out through the darkness of night at objects that seemed in the obscurity like pale phantoms, her imagination set before her, as in a magic mirror, all the different scenes of her past life: the beautiful cloister of Santa Maria al Prato, with the terrace at the top, where the eye could wander so far, and the sweet and noble features of
Madre Maddalena; then came the varied remembrances connected with her father; first, the rapid vision of Italy in all its splendor, then the terrible and dismal days at Paris, and finally, at the darkest hour of all; the beneficent forms of her old friends, whom she never wished to leave, but whom she had just bidden farewell—perhaps farewell for ever!
It was impossible for Fleurange, at this moment, to control her sad thoughts. But, now and then, her reason recalled those who awaited her, the welcome she had a right to expect, and the goodness of Divine Providence in opening such a refuge; but in vain—consolation seemed unable to find an entrance into her soul, and, in spite of her nature, despondency obtained the mastery.
“If they are kind, and I love them,” she said to herself bitterly, “I shall soon have to leave them. If, on the contrary, they —” Here her imagination had free course and depicted the future in the darkest colors. But this new reverie had not the clearness of the first, and before long her anticipations began to mingle in vague confusion with her remembrances. Little by little, fatigue, the motion of the vehicle, and the influence of night lulled the young girl asleep, and transformed into uneasy and indistinct dreams all the thoughts that had successively assailed her.
Fifteen minutes after, she was suddenly awakened. Something quite heavy had fallen against her shoulder and thence into her lap. She sat up, and, groping in the obscurity, her hand came in contact with the long silky hair of a child. From the first, she had rather supposed than seen a pale, sick young woman in the opposite corner of the coupé, with her arm thrown around a child beside her, against whom slept
another still smaller. It was the latter who had just suddenly changed his position. Fleurange began to comprehend the case, and bent down to raise him softly to a more comfortable seat in her lap. Then she drew his little sleepy head against her, and kissed the sweet face now near her own. This trifling incident had the sudden and unforeseen effect of putting to flight all the phantoms her imagination had been conjuring up to increase her sorrows. She recalled her interior murmuring with remorse.
“O my God!” she cried, pressing the child in her arms, “if I love this poor little one, whose features I have not yet seen, if I am ready to watch the night long over his slumbers, what wilt not thou, who art my Father, do for thy child?” She raised her eyes a moment in prayer, not with her lips, but in her heart. The snow had ceased falling. The clouds passing away, the heavens appeared brilliant with stars. The cloud had also passed away from Fleurange’s soul, and a mysterious light from on high was infused therein. She gazed at the starry sky with delight, then closed her eyes, and again slept sweetly, the child in her arms sleeping as profoundly as herself.