VII.
Fleurange’s education did not allow her to yield to her feelings without bringing herself to an account for them, and it was surprising she had thus unresistingly allowed herself to be swayed so long by a vague and unreasonable preoccupation. And could there be one more so than this about an unknown person—a stranger she had only had a glimpse of, with whom she had not exchanged a single word, and whom she would probably never behold again? This was the third time she had heard him spoken of since the day she saw him in her father’s studio, and each time she felt agitated and disturbed. When questioned by Dr. Leblanc, her first emotion was overpowered by surprise, and especially by the sad remembrances awakened. Afterwards, when Julian Steinberg mentioned Count George at the Christmas dinner, his name gave her a thrill, but she attributed this keen sensation to a natural interest in the hitherto unknown individual who purchased the picture which had played so important a rôle in her life. But this time the quickened pulsations of her heart and the ardent curiosity with which she listened to every word that was uttered were succeeded by a prolonged reverie which almost merited the name of madness. “Yes, Julian was right! That is really what he looks like!” she exclaimed aloud. And every hero with whom history, poetry, or old legends had peopled her imagination, passed one by one before her, but always under the same form. Then, as there is no hero without heroic feats, and no heroism without combats and perils, a series of terrible events succeeded each other in her waking dream—battles, shipwrecks, desperate enterprises, and dangers of all kinds, in which the same person was the chief actor, and in all these phantasmagoric adventures she saw herself enacting an inexplicable and indistinct part.
A whole hour passed thus, but the declining day recalled a habit contracted in childhood which changed the current of her thoughts and brought her to herself. It was sunset—in Italy, the hour of the Ave Maria. Fleurange never forgot it. Every evening at that hour, a short prayer rose from her heart to her lips.
Every one is aware of the power of association. We have all felt the influence of a tone, a flower, a perfume, and even things more trifling, in recalling a host of remembrances of which no one else could see the connection. What a natural and touching thought, then, to associate a holy memory with the hour that links day with night!—the hour of twilight, when the dazzling sunlight is fading away, work is suspended, and propitious leisure brings on long, sweet, and sometimes dangerous reveries! In such a case, it is not surprising the evening star becomes a safeguard. Has not the effect it had on Fleurange been experienced a thousand times by others?
A sudden clearness of perception, strength to prevail over all earthly phantoms, an aspiration towards heaven, an instantaneous revival of early impressions, an influx of salutary thoughts dispelling the confused, illusory ideas floating in her mind—such was the effect now produced by the remembrance indissolubly associated with that evening hour. She resolutely got up. Her attitude, that had been languishing, her look lost in space, were now transformed. She awoke to a sense of duty, and the feeling was not a transient one. What was this madness that had overpowered her? Putting this question to herself brought a blush of confusion to her face, and made her resolve to resist and overcome reveries so vain and absurd. And to this end she would cut them short. She reopened her note-book, and began by tearing out the page on which was the name but just written; then, with no further examination of her thoughts, even for the purpose of self-reproach, which would have been another way of prolonging them, she seated herself at her table, and took up a volume of Dante which lay there. She had promised Clement to mark some passages of the canto they read together the evening before, and to add some notes from her own memory. She at once set herself to work, and endeavored to give her whole mind to the occupation. It is often easier, we all know, to abstain from an act than to repress a thought. Perhaps the volition is at fault in the latter case; but Fleurange was so firmly resolved to obtain a victory of this kind that, at the end of half an hour’s effort to keep her mind on her work, she thought herself successful. She would have been more sure of herself had she foreseen all that was so soon to come to her aid, and banish from her mind for a long time all vain illusions, vague reveries, and especially all exclusive self-preoccupation.
It was quite dark when she rose from the table. She heard the clock strike, and felt ashamed of remaining so long in her room by herself, at a time she should have been unusually attentive to others. This was the last evening Clara would spend at home previous to her marriage, and it ended a period of unalloyed happiness in the Old Mansion. One place in the family was about to be vacated, a beloved form disappear, a cherished one cease to make part of their daily life. They would probably see each other again, but it would not be as before. The happiness of her who was to leave them would change its nature, but even her mother hoped she would be so happy as never to regret the paternal roof. Clara’s smiling face was grave and tearful to-day, as her tender glances wandered from her parents to her brothers and sisters, and lingered lovingly on the old walls she was about to leave. Julian was terrified by her melancholy appearance, but felt reassured when Clara, smiling and weeping at the same time, said to him naïvely:
“Julian, it is you that I love! To-morrow I shall leave them all for you, and I truly feel I never could give you up for them. Is not this enough?”
“No. If I do not see you calm and full of trust, I shall not enjoy my happiness.”
“My trust in you is boundless.”