University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

—H. More.

AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN FATHER AND SON—A CATASTROPHE—REMORSE.

“Achille!”

The young aspirant started from the contemplation
of scenes of triumph and empire, carnage
and blood—the last too soon to be realized—and beheld
his father standing by his side, who had entered
the library and approached him unperceived. Seating
himself in the recess of the window he motioned
his son to a chair, placed opposite to his own. The
bearing of the veteran exile, was at all times in the
highest degree dignified and imposing. His was
the brow, eye, and presence to command respect
and receive homage.

The affection of Achille towards his father was
not unmingled with sentiments of fear. But he
was the only being before whom the proud eye of
the boy quailed!

That his father loved him he had never doubted.
He knew that he was proud of him, “his noble,
fearless boy,” as he would term him, while parting
the dark clustering locks from his handsome forehead,

after he had performed some daring feat of
boyhood. But when he spoke to Henri, the gratified
and proud expression of his eye softened under
the influence of a milder feeling, and his smile
would fade into a sweet but melancholy expression;
nor would Achille have exchanged his inspiring
language to him, “his daring boy!” for the kind
tone, and manner he involuntarily assumed when
he would say, “Henri, my beloved child, come and
amuse me with your prattle!”—nor would the tearful
eye, as he gazed down into the upturned face of the
amiable boy, have pleased his wild spirit like the enkindling
glance of that admiring eye, when turned
upon him in paternal pride. Achille translated his
glance of pride into an expression of love, and sympathized
with one so evidently regarded with an air of
sorrow, if not pity, as his brother. If he gave the subject
a moment's reflection it resulted in the flattering
conviction that he himself was the favourite son.

But on the morning which introduces him to our
notice, he had to learn too painfully, that Henri
was the favourite child of the old soldier's affection,
and that so far from loving him but a little less, he
loved him not. That look of affection which he had
translated as an expression of compassion for the
gentler nature of his brother, he had to learn was
an expression of the intensest parental affection.
In his brother, his father worshiped the image of his
departed wife, and all his affection for her, which
the cold hand of death had withered in its beauty
and bloom, was renewed in his beloved Henri. He
was doubly loved—for his mother and for himself—
and there remained for Achille, so the sensitive and
high spirited boy learned that day,—no place in the
affections of his sole surviving parent.

His father being seated, addressed him:

“Achille, you are now of an age to enter the university,
for admission to which the nature and extent

of your studies eminently qualify you. In a
few days the annual examination of candidates will
take place, and in the interval you can select and
arrange a library for your room, and collect what
other conveniences you may require. You will
leave in the first packet that passes down the river.”

This was a delightful announcement to the subject
of it, and not wholly unexpected. To the university,
that world in miniature, he had long looked
forward with pleasurable anticipations. It was a
field of action, at least, and he panted to enter upon
it.

The two brothers had both prepared for admission
into the same class, and he inquired if Henri was
to accompany him.

“He is not,” replied the father, coldly and firmly.

“He is certainly prepared, sir!”

“Undoubtedly! But I have decided that he is
to be my companion to Europe this season, as I fear
his delicate constitution will not admit of his confining
himself at present to sedentary pursuits.”

“I was anticipating that happiness for myself,”
replied Achille, chagrined at his father's preference
for his brother, so unexpectedly manifested, not only
by the words he uttered but by his tone and manner.
He had long known his intention to visit
his native land, and expected to accompany him,
although his expectations were founded rather
on his own wishes than any encouragement he had
received from his parent.

Now that he learned his intention of taking Henri,
instead of himself, he felt keenly the preference;
and the coldness, if not severity, of manner he
assumed in communicating his determination, offended
his pride, whilst his decided partiality for his
brother wounded his self-love. The old soldier
was a man of few words, and his son was well
aware, that, his resolution once formed, he was unbending.

He knew that his brother was to go, and
and that he was to remain; and with a bitter and
wounded spirit he turned his darkening brow from
the penetrating gaze of his father, and looked forth
upon the beautiful scene which lay out-spread beneath
the windows of the library.

A closing door roused him from his gloomy and
sinful reverie, and turning, he found himself once
more alone! No—not quite alone! An evil spirit—
Jealousy! pregnant with dark thoughts and evil imaginings
was his companion. A long hour passed
away, during which, his first fierce conflict with his
hitherto slumbering passions took place. The first
suspicion that his brother was best loved, then entered
his thoughts. Once admitted, it underminded,
by its subtle logic, the better feelings of his heart.
Doubts were strengthened to confirmations, suspicions
magnified to certainties, in the rapid and
prejudiced retrospect he took of his father's bearing
towards his brother and himself, from the earliest
period of his recollection.

But an hour—one short, but momentous hour,—
for then was fixed the lever which moved the world
of passions within him, with all their evil consequences,
had expired, and the canker-worm of
hatred with its venemous fangs, was gnawing at the
last slender fibre that bound him to his brother, when
the hall door was thrown open and the unsuspecting
and innocent subject of his dark meditations bounded
into the room, holding in his extended hand a
gemmed locket.

“See brother, see!” he exclaimed, in a loud and
delighted tone, “see what my dear father has presented
me as a birth-day's gift!”

Achille raised his eyes and fixed them upon
the sparkling locket which enclosed the miniature of
an exceedingly beautiful female, with a form, cheek,
and eye, radiant with feminine loveliness.

He recognized the portrait of their mother, which
till that moment had ever been worn, as the holy
pilgrim wears the sacred cross, next to the heart of
his father. So dearly treasured had that sacred memento
of his departed wife ever been, that he
never was permitted to remove it from the mourning
ribbon by which it was dependant from his
neck. Now, he saw the cherished relic in the
possession of his brother, a gift from him. His
lip curled, and his dark eye became darker still at
this stronger confirmation of his father's partiality,
yet he neither spoke nor betrayed his feelings by any
visible emotion; but the fires within his breast raged
deeper still. Like pent up flames, his passions gained
vigour by the very efforts made to smother them.

For the first time in his life he looked upon Henri
coldly, and without a smile of tenderness. He felt
indeed, although his lips moved not with the biting
words that rose to them, that the poison of his heart
must have been communicated to his eyes, for, as
his brother caught their unwonted expression, he
suddenly checked himself, and the gay tones of his
voice sunk subdued to a strange whisper, as he
faintly inquired, at the same time placing his delicate
hand upon his shoulder, “if he were ill?”

“No!” he replied, with an involuntary sternness
that startled even himself.

The next moment he would have given worlds
to recall that fatal monosyllable, and pronounce it
over again, more gently; but it was too late. The
sensitive boy recoiled as though he had encountered
the eye of a basilisk; his forehead changed to a
deadly hue, the blood fled from his cheeks, and he
seemed about to sink upon the floor; but, suddenly
recovering himself, he laughed, and the rich blood
came back again, and his eye glanced brightly as
he exclaimed, but half-assured,

“Brother, you did but try to frighten me—you
were not in earnest angry with me?”

His heart melted for a moment at this affectionate
appeal, but with a strange perverseness he steeled it
to insensibility.

“Leave me to myself,” he roughly replied, “I
am not in the humour to be trifled with.”

Mysterious inconsistency of will and action! He
would have given his right hand or plucked out his
right eye, to have recalled the first angry word he
uttered. In his own mind he did not will to speak
thus harshly; yet, by a singular yet frequent anomaly,
his words and manner were directly in opposition
to his will. The first word spoken in an
angry mood, hewed out a broad pathway for legions.

As he uttered his last words, the tears gushed
into Henri's eyes, and yielding to the influence of
affection, he sprung forward and threw himself into
his elder and beloved brother's arms, wept aloud,
and sobbed out amidst his tears,

“Brother! Achille! wherein has Henri offended
you?”

An evil spirit now seemed indeed to have taken
possession of him. With angry violence he thrust
Henri from his embrace, while a curse sprung
to his lips. The poor youth tottered and reeled
fell forward, striking his forehead as he fell, violently
against a marble pedestal upon which stood an alabaster
statue of the Madonna, and the warm blood
spouted from his gashed temples over the cold, white
robes of the image.

It was a spectacle of horror! and the guilty being
gazed wildly upon his prostrate brother, and thought
of Abel and his murderer—upon the red-sprinkled
image, and laughed, “Ha! ha! ha!” as maniacs
laugh, at the fitness of his first offering—a mangled
brother—at the shrine of the virgin moher.

The momentary but terrific spell upon his reason
passed away; and throwing himself upon the senseless
boy, he attempted to stop the ebbing current of
life as it trickled in a small red stream down his pale
forehead, steeping his auburn curls in gore,
at the same time, calling loudly and madly for
assistance.

His father followed by the servants rushed into
the library.

“Help sir, my brother is dying!” he cried wildly.

The old man sprang forward and caught his
bleeding child in his arms. His practised eye at
once comprehended the extent of the injury he had
sustained. He had received a deep cut in the shape
of a crescent over the left eyebrow, yet not severe
enough to endanger life. The free flow of the blood
soon restored him to his senses, and opening his eyes,
as his father with a tender hand staunched the
bubbling blood, he fixed them upon his brother with
an expression that eloquently spoke forgiveness.

“God pity me!” exclaimed the repentant and
now broken-spirited boy; for that look went to his
heart; and burying his face in his hands, he precipitately
left the room.

The long and bitter hours of grief, remorse and
shame, he suffered in the solitude of his own room,
no tongue, but his who has felt like him, can utter.
He experienced sentiments of hatred for himself, a
loathing and detestation that tempted him to put a
period at once to his own existence. When he recalled
the reproving yet forgiving look of his suffering
and magnanimous brother, he felt degraded in
his own eyes, fallen, lowly fallen in his own self-esteem.
That he must be in his brother's he was
painfully aware, and for the first time he felt that
the gentle-natured Henri was his superior.