"You know?" demanded the Count with astonishment.
"All listen to me; and when I have told you my thoughts, why, kill yourself if you like. Pardieu! do you think when I came here I did not know why you summoned me? A gladiator, far too weak to fight the good fight, you have cast yourself defencelessly among the wild beasts of this terrible arena called Paris and you have fallen, as was sure to be the case. But remember, the death you contemplate will complete your dishonour in the eyes of all, instead of reinstating you or surrounding you with the halo of false glory you are ambitious of."
"Valentine! Valentine!" cried the Count, striking the table forcibly with his clenched hand, "what gives you a right to speak to me thus?"
"My friendship," the soldier replied, energetically, "and the position you have yourself placed me in by sending for me. Two causes reduce you to despair. These two causes are, in the first place, your love for a coquettish woman, a Creole, who has played with your heart as the panther of her own savannahs plays with the inoffensive animals she is preparing to devour. Is that true?"
The young man made no reply. With his elbows on the table, his face buried in his hands, he remained motionless, apparently insensible to the reproaches of his foster brother. Valentine continued
"Secondly, when, in order to win favour in her eyes, you have compromised your fortune, and squandered all that your father had left you, this woman flits away as she came, rejoicing over the mischief she has done, over the victims she has left on the path she has trod, leaving to you and to so many others the despair and the shame of having been the sport of a coquette. What urges you to seek refuge in death is not the loss of fortune, but the impossibility of following this woman, the sole cause of all your misfortunes. I defy you to contradict me."
"Well, I admit all that is true. It is that alone which kills me. What care I for the loss of fortune? She alone is the object of my ambition! I love her I love her I tell you, so that I could struggle against the whole world to obtain her!" the young man exclaimed with great excitement. "Oh, if I could but hope! Hope a word void of meaning, invented by the ambitious, always implying something unattainable! Do you not plainly see the truth of what I say? There is nothing left me but to die!"
Valentine contemplated him for some minutes with a sad countenance. Suddenly his brow cleared, his eye sparkled; he laid his hand upon the Count's shoulder.
"Is this, then, more than a caprice? Do you really love this woman?" he said.
"Have I not told you that I am ready to die for her?"
"Ay; and you told me at the same time that you would struggle with the whole world to obtain her."
"I did and would."
"Well, then," continued Valentine, fixing his eyes earnestly upon him, "I can help you to find this woman again I can."
"You can?"
"Yes, I can."
"Oh! you are mad! She has left Paris, and no one knows into what region of America she has retreated."
"Of what consequence is that?"
"And then, besides, I am ruined!"
"So much the better."
"Valentine, be careful of what you say," the young man remarked with a sigh; "in spite of my reason, I allow myself to believe you."
"Hope, man! hope, I tell you."
"Oh, no; no, that is impossible!"
"Nothing is impossible; that is a word invented by the impotent and the cowardly. I repeat that I not only will find this woman for you again, but that she she herself, mind shall be afraid lest you should despise her love."
"Oh!"
"Who knows? You yourself may then, perhaps, reject it."
"Valentine! Valentine!"
"Well, to obtain this glorious result, I only ask two years."
"So long?"
"Oh, such is man!" cried the soldier, with a faint, pitying laugh. "But an instant ago, and you were anxious to die, because the word had never stood in its true light before you; and now you have not the courage to look forward, or wait two years, which constitute only a few minutes of human life!"
"Yes, but "
"Be satisfied, brother be satisfied! If in two years I have not fulfilled my promise, I myself will load your pistols and then "
"Well, and then?"
"And then you shall not die alone," he said coolly.
The Count looked at him. Valentine seemed transfigured: his countenance wore an expression of indomitable energy, which his foster brother had never observed in it before; his eyes sparkled with unwonted brilliancy. The young man avowed himself conquered; he took his friend's hand, and pressing it warmly, said
"I agree!"
"You now, then, belong to me?"
"I give myself entirely up to you."
"That's well!"
"But what will you do?"
"Listen to me attentively," the soldier said, sinking back into his chair, and motioning to his friend to resume his seat. At this moment the clock struck the hour of midnight, and, from a feeling for which they could not account, the young men listened silently and reflectively to the twelve strokes which resounded at equal intervals upon the bell.
When the echo of the last stroke had ceased to vibrate, Valentine lit a cigar, and turning towards Louis, whose eyes were intensely fixed upon him, "Now, then," he said slowly, emitting a puff of thin blue smoke, which went curling gracefully up towards the ceiling.
CHAPTER III
THE RESOLUTION
"I am listening," said Louis, leaning forward as if to hear the better.
Valentine resumed with a melancholy smile.
"We have now reached the 1st of January, 1835," said he; "with the last vibration of midnight your existence as a gentleman has come to an end. From this time you are about to commence a life of trials and struggles; in a word, you are about to become a man!"
The Count gave him an inquiring glance.
"I will explain myself," Valentine continued; "but in order to do that, you must, in the first place, allow me, in a few words, to recall your history to you."
"Surely, I am well enough acquainted with that," interrupted the Count, in a tone that displayed impatience.
"Well, perhaps you are; but, at all events, listen to my version of it; if I err, put me right."
"Follow your own humour," the Count replied, sinking back into his chair with the air of a man whom politeness obliges to listen to a tiresome discourse.
Though he saw it, Valentine appeared to take no notice of this movement on the part of his foster brother. He relit his cigar, which he had allowed to go out, patted the dog, whose great head was lying upon his knees, and began, as if convinced that Louis gave him the most profound attention.
"Your history is that of almost every man of your rank," said he. "Your ancestors, whose name can be traced to the Crusades, left you at your birth a noble title, and a hundred thousand francs a year. Rich, without having had occasion to employ your faculties to gain your fortune, and consequently ignorant of the real value of money, you spent it heedlessly, believing it to be inexhaustible. This is just what has happened; only, one day, when you least expected it, the hideous spectre of ruin rose up suddenly before you, and you had a glimpse of want, that is, of the necessity for labour; and then you drew back terrified, declaring there was no refuge but in death."
"All that is perfectly true," the Count interrupted; "but you forget to mention, that before forming this last resolution, I took care to put my affairs in order, and to pay all my creditors. I then became my own master, and had a right to dispose of my life as I thought fit."
"Not at all. And it is this which your education as a gentleman has prevented you from understanding. Your life is not your own; it is a loan which God has made you. It is, consequently, nothing but an expectation, a waiting, a passage: for this reason it is short, but the profit of it is due to humanity. Every man who wastes the faculties which he holds from God in orgies and debaucheries, commits a robbery upon the great human family. Remember that we are all mutually responsible for one another, and that we ought to employ our faculties for the advantage of the whole."