 | CHAPTER IV. The headsman, or, The Abbaye des Vignerons |  |
4. CHAPTER IV.
Was never known to thee;
Nor the balm that drops on wounds of woe
From woman's pitying e'e.
Burns.
A large portion of the curious followed the disconcerted
mummers from the square, while others
hastened to break their fasts at the several places
selected for this important feature in the business
of the day. Most of those who had been on the
estrade now left it, and, in a few minutes, the living
carpet of heads around the little area in front of
the bailiff was reduced to a few hundreds of those
whose better feelings were stronger than their self-indulgence.
Perhaps this distribution of the multitude
is about in the proportion that is usually found,
in those cases in which selfishness draws in one
direction, while feeling or sympathy with the
wronged pulls in another, among all masses of
human beings that are congregated as spectators
in which they have no near personal concern.
The bailiff and his immediate friends, the prisoners,
and the family of the headsman, with a
sufficient number of the guards, were among those
who remained. The bustling Peterchen had lost
some of his desire to take his place at the banquet,
in the difficulties of the question which had arisen,
and in the certainty that nothing material, in the
way of gastronomy, would be attempted until he
appeared. We should do injustice to his heart,
did we not add, also, that he had troublesome
qualms of conscience, which intuitively admonished
him that the world had dealt hardly with the family
of Balthazar. There remained the party of Maso,
too, to dispose of, and his character of an upright
as well as of a firm magistrate to maintain. As
the crowd diminished, however, he and those near
him descended from their high places, and mixed
with the few who occupied the still guarded area
in front of the stage.
Balthazar had not stirred from his riveted posture
near the table of the notary, for he shrunk from
encountering, in the company of his wife and
daughter, the insults to which he should be exposed
now his character was known, by mingling with
the crowd, and he waited for a favorable moment
to withdraw unseen. Marguerite still stood folding
Christine to her bosom, as if jealous of farther injury
to her beloved. The recreant bridegroom
had taken the earliest opportunity to disappear,
and was seen no more in Vévey during the remainder
of the revels.
Peterchen cast a hurried glance at this group,
as his foot reached the ground, and then turning
towards the thief-takers he made a sign for them
to advance with their prisoners.
“Thy evil tongue has balked one of the most
the bailiff, addressing Pippo with a certain
magisterial reproof in his voice. “I should do
well to send thee to Berne, to serve a month among
those who sweep the city streets, as a punishment
for thy raven throat. What, in the name of all
thy Roman saints and idols, hadst thou against the
happiness of these honest people, that thou must
come, in this unseemly manner, to destroy it?”
“Naught but the love of truth, eccellenza, and
a just horror of the man of blood.”
“That thou and all like thee should have a horror
of the ministers of the law, I can understand; and
it is more than probable that thy dislike will extend
to me, for I am about to pronounce a just judgment
on thee and thy fellows for disturbing the harmony
of the day, and especially for having been guilty
of the enormous crime of an outrage on our agents.”
“Couldst thou grant me a moment's leave?”
asked the Genoese in his ear.
“An hour, noble Gaetano, if thou wilt.”
The two then conversed apart, for a minute or
more. During the brief dialogue, the Signor Grimaldi
occasionally looked at the quiet and apparently
contrite Maso, and stretched his arm towards
the Leman, in a way to give the observers an
inkling of his subject. The countenance of the
Herr Hofmeister changed from official sternness
to an expression of decent concern as he listened,
and ere long it took a decidedly forgiving laxity
of muscle. When the other had done speaking,
he bowed a ready assent to what he had just heard,
and returned to the prisoners.
“As I have just observed,” he resumed, “it is
my duty now to pronounce finally on these men
and their conduct. Firstly they are strangers, and
as such are not only ignorant of our laws, but entitled
to our hospitality; next, they have been
being abridged of the day's sports; and as to the
crime committed against ourselves, in the person
of our agents, it is freely forgiven, for forgiveness
is a generous quality, and becomes a paternal form
of rule. Depart therefore, of God's name! all of
ye to a man, and remember henceforth to be discreet.
Signore, and you, Herr Baron, shall we to
the banquet?”
The two old friends had already moved onward,
in close and earnest discourse, and the bailiff was
obliged to seek out another companion. None offered,
at the moment, but Sigismund, who had
stood, since quitting the stage, in an attitude of
complete indecision and helplessness, notwithstanding
his great physical energy and his usual moral
readiness to act. Taking the arm of the young
soldier, with the disregard of ceremony that denotes
a sense of condescension, the bailiff drew
him away from the spot, heedless himself of the
other's reluctance, and without observing that, in
consequence of the general desertion, for few were
disposed to indulge their compassion unless it were
in company with the honored and noble, Adelheid
was left absolutely alone with the family of Balthazar.
“This office of a headsman, Herr Sigismund,”
commenced the unobservant Peterchen, too full of
his own opinions, and much too sensible of his
right to be delivered of them in the presence of his
junior and inferior, to note the youth's trouble, “is
at the best but a disgusting affair; though we, of
station and authority, are obliged prudently to appear
to deem it otherwise before the people, in our
own interest. Thou hast had occasion to remark
often, in the discipline of thy military followers,
that a false coloring must be put upon things, lest
they who are very necessary to the state should
is thy opinion, Captain Sigismund, as a man
who has yet his hopes and his views on the softer
sex, of this act of Jacques Colis?—Is it conduct
to be approved of, or to be condemned?”
“I deem him a heartless, mercenary, miscreant!”
The suppressed energy with which these unexpected
words were uttered caused the bailiff to
stop and to look up in his companion's face, as if
to ask its reason. But there all was already calm,
for the young man had too long been accustomed
to drill its expression, when the sensitive sore of
his origin was probed, as so frequently happened,
to permit the momentary weakness long to maintain
its ascendency.
“Ay, this is the opinion of thy years;” resumed
Peterchen. “Thou art at a time of life when we
esteem a pretty face and a mellow eye of more
account even than gold. But we put on our interested
spectacles after thirty, and seldom see any
thing very admirable, that is not at the same time
very lucrative. Here is Melchior de Willading's
daughter, now, a woman to set a city in a blaze,
for she hath wit, and lands, and beauty, besides
good blood;—what, for instance, is thy opinion of
her merit?”
“That she is deserving of all the happiness that
every human excellence ought to confer!”
“Hum—thou art nearer to thirty than I had
thought thee, Herr Sigismund! But touching this
Balthazar, thou art not to believe, on account of
the few words of grace which fell from me, that
my aversion for the wretch is less than thine, or
than that of any other honest man; but it would
be unseemly and unwise in a bailiff to desert the
last minister of the law's decrees in the face of
the public. There are feelings and sentiments
that are natural to us all, and among them are to
nobly born,” (the discourse was in German,) “and
hatred and contempt for those who are condemned
of men. These are feelings which belong to
human nature itself, and God forbid that I, a man
already past the age of romance, should really entertain
any sentiments that are not strictly human.”
“Do they not rather belong to abuses—to our
prejudices?”
“The difference is not material, in a practical
view, young man. That which is fairly bred into
the mind, by discipline and habit, gets to be stronger
than instinct, or even than one of the senses. Let
there be an unseemly sight, or a foul smell near
thee, and thou hast only to turn thy eyes, or hold
thy nose, to be rid of it; but I could never find
the means to lessen a prejudice that was once
fairly seated in the mind. Thou mayest look whither
thou wilt, and shut out the unsavory odors of
the imagination by all the means thou canst invent,
but if a man is, in truth, condemned of opinion,
he might as well make his appeal to God at once
for justice, as to any mercy he is likely to receive
from men. This much have I learned in my experience
as a public functionary.”
“I should hope that these are not the legal dogmas
of our ancient canton,” returned the youth,
conquering his feelings, though it cost him a severe
effort.
“As far from it as Basle is from Coire. We
hold no such discreditable doctrines. I challenge
the world to show a state that possesses a fairer
set of maxims than ourselves, and we even endeavor
to make our practice chime in with our
opinions, whenever it can be done in safety. No,
in these particulars, Berne is a paragon of a community,
and as rarely says one thing and does
another, as any government you shall see. What
familiarity of a fête, as thou know'st, in which
there have been some fooleries, to open confidence
and to loosen the tongue. We openly and loudly
profess great truth and equality before the law,
saving the city's rights, and take holy, heavenly,
upright justice for our guide in all matters of
theory. Himmel! If thou would'st have thy
affair decided on principle, go before the councils,
or the magistracy of the canton, and thou shalt
hear such wisdom, and witness such keen-sightedness
into chicanery, as would have honored Solomon
himself!”
“And notwithstanding this, prejudice is a general
master.”
“How canst thou have it otherwise? Is not a
man a man? Will he not lean as he has been weighed
upon?—does not the tree grow in the way the
twig is bent? No, while I adore justice, Herr Sigismund,
as becomes a bailiff, I confess to both prejudice
and partiality, mentally considered. Now,
vonder maiden, the pretty Christine, lost some of
her grace in my eyes, as no doubt she did in
thine, when the truth came to be known that she
was Balthazar's child. The girl is fair and modest
and winning in her way; but there is something
—I cannot tell thee what—but a certain damnable
something—a taint—a color—a hue—a—a—a—
that showed her origin the instant I heard who
was her parent—was it not so with thee?”
“When her origin was proved, but not previously.”
“Ay, of a certainty; I mean not otherwise. But
a thing is not seen any the worse because it is seen
thoroughly, although it may be seen falsely when
there are false covers to conceal its ugliness. Particularity
is necessary to philosophy. Ignorance
is a mask to conceal the little details that are necessary
Christian in a mask, but strip him of his covering
and the true shade of the skin is seen. Didst thou
not observe, for instance, in all that touches feminine
grace and perfection, the manifest difference
between the daughter of Melchior de Willading
and the daughter of this Balthazar?”
“There was the difference between a maiden of
most honored and happy extraction and a maiden
most miserably condemned!”
“Nay, the Demoiselle de Willading is the fairer.”
“Nature has certainly been most bountiful to the
heiress of Willading, Herr Bailiff, who is scarcely
less attractive for her female grace and goodness,
than she is fortunate in the accidents of birth and
condition.”
“I knew thou couldst not, in secret, be of a different
mind from the rest of men!” exclaimed
Peterchen in triumph, for he took the warmth of
his companion's manner to be a reluctant and
half-concealed assent to his own proposition.
Here the discourse ended: for, the earnest conference
between Melchior and the Signor Grimaldi
having terminated, the bailiff hastened to join his
more important guests, and Sigismund was released
from an examination that had harrowed every
feeling of his soul, while he even despised the besotted
loquacity of the man who had been the
instrument of his torture.
The separation of Adelheid from her father was
anticipated and previously provided for; since the
men were expected to resort to the banquet at this
hour. She had continued near Christine and her
mother, therefore, without attracting any unusual
attention to her movements, even in those who
were the objects of her sympathy, a feeling that
was so natural in one of her years and sex. A
male attendant, in the livery of her father's house,
certain to insure not only her safety in the thronged
streets of the town, but to exact from those
whose faculties were beginning to yield to the
excesses of the occasion the testimonials of respect
that were due to her station. It was under
these circumstances, then, that the more honored,
and, to the eyes of the uninstructed, the happier of
these maidens, approached the other, when curiosity
was so far appeased as to have left the family
of Balthazar nearly alone in the centre of the
square.
“Is there no friendly roof near, to which thou
canst withdraw?” asked the heiress of Willading
of the mother of the pallid and scarcely conscious
Christine; “thou wouldst do better to seek some
shelter and privacy for thy unoffending and much
injured child. If any that belong to me can be of
service, I pray that thou wilt command as freely
as if they were followers of thine own.”
Marguerite had never before spoken with a
female of a rank superior to the ordinary classes.
The ample means of both her father's and her husband's
family had furnished all that was necessary
to the improvement of the mind of one in her station,
and perhaps she had been the gainer, in mere
deportment, by having been greatly excluded, by
their prejudices, from association with females of
her own condition. As is often seen among those
who have the thoughts without the conventional
usages of a better caste in life, she was slightly
tinctured with an exhibition of what might be
termed an exaggerated manner, while at the same
time it was perfectly free from vulgarity or coarseness.
The gentle accents of Adelheid fell on her
ear soothingly, and she gazed long and earnestly
at the beautiful speaker without a reply.
“Who and what art thou, that canst think a
unmerited, and who offerest the service of thy
menials, as if the very vassal would not refuse his
master's bidding in our behalf!”
“I am Adelheid de Willading, the daughter of
the baron of that name, and one much disposed
to temper this cruel blow to the feelings of poor
Christine. Suffer that my people seek the means
to convey thy child to some other place!”
Marguerite folded her daughter still closer to
her bosom, passing a hand across her brow, as if
to recall some half-obscured idea.
“I have heard of thee, lady.—'Tis said that
thou art kind to the wronged, and of excellent
dispositions towards the unhappy—that thy father's
castle is an honored and hospitable abode, which
those who enter rarely love to quit. But hast
thou well weighed the consequences of this liberality
towards a race, that is and has been proscribed
of men, from generation to generation—
from him who first lent himself to his bloody office,
with a cruel heart and a greedy desire for gold, to
him whose courage is scarcely equal to the disgusting
duty? Hast thou bethought thee of this,
or hast thou yielded, heedlessly, to a sudden and
youthful impulse?”
“Of all this have I thought,” said Adelheid,
eagerly; “whatever may be the injustice of others,
thou hast none to fear from me.”
Marguerite yielded the form of her child to the
support of her father's arm, and drew nearer, with
a gaze of earnest and pleased interest, to the blushing
but still composed Adelheid. She took the
hand of the latter, and, with a look of recognition
and intelligence, said slowly, as if communing
with herself, rather than speaking to another—
“This is getting to be intelligible!” she murmured;
“there is still gratitude and creditable feeling
revolting to this fair being: she has a sense of justice
that is stronger than her prejudices. We have
done her service, and she is not ashamed of the
source whence it has come!”
The heart of Adelheid throbbed quick and violently;
and, for a moment, she doubted her ability
to command her feelings. But the pleasing conviction
that Sigismund had been honorable and
delicate, even in his most sacred and confidential
communications with his own mother, came to
relieve her, and to make her momentarily happy;
since nothing is so painful to the pure mind, as to
think those they love have acted unworthily; or
nothing so grateful, as the assurance that they
merit the esteem we have been induced liberally
and confidingly to bestow.
“You do me no more than justice,” returned
the pleased listener of this flattering and seemingly
involuntary opinion—“we are indeed—indeed we
are truly grateful; but had we not reason for the
sacred obligations of gratitude, I think we could
still be just. Will you not now consent that my
people should aid you?”
“This is not necessary, lady. Send away thy
followers, for their presence will draw unpleasant
observations on our movements. The town is now
occupied with feasts, and, as we have not blindly
overlooked the necessity of a retreat for the hunted
and persecuted, we will take the opportunity to
withdraw unseen. As for thyself—”
“I would be near this innocent at a moment
so trying,”—added Adelheid earnestly, and with
that visible sympathy which rarely fails to meet
an echo.
“Heaven bless thee! Heaven bless thee, sweet
girl! And Heaven will bless thee, for few wrongs
go unrequited in this life, and little good without
habits require their watchfulness, let them be near
unseen, whilst thou watchest our movements; and
when the eyes of all are turned on their own pleasures,
thou canst follow. Heaven bless thee—ay,
and Heaven will!”
Marguerite then led her daughter towards one
of the least frequented streets. She was accompanied
by the silent Balthazar, and closely watched
by one of the menials of Adelheid. When fairly
housed, the domestic returned to show the spot to
his mistress, who had appeared to occupy herself
with the hundred silly devices that were invented
to amuse the multitude. Dismissing her attendants,
with an order to remain at hand, however,
the heiress of Willading soon found means to enter
the humble abode in which the proscribed family
had taken refuge, and, as she was expected, she
was soon introduced into the chamber where Christine
and her mother had taken refuge.
The sympathy of the young and tender Adelheid
was precious to one of the character of Christine.
They wept together, for the weakness of her sex
prevailed over the pride of the former, when she
found herself unrestrained by the observation of
the world, and she gave way to the torrent of feeling
that broke through its bounds, in spite of her
endeavors to control it. Marguerite was the only
spectator of this silent but intelligible communion
between these two young and pure spirits, and
her soul was shaken by the unlooked-for commiseration
of one so honored, and who was usually
esteemed so happy.
“Thou hast the consciousness of our wrongs,”
she said, when the first burst of emotion had a
little subsided. “Thou canst then believe that a
headsman's child is like the offspring of another,
wolf.”
“Mother, this is the Baron de Willading's heiress,”
said Christine: “would she come here, did
she not pity us?”
“Yes, she can pity us—and yet I find it hard
even to be pitied! Sigismund has told us of her
goodness, and she may, in truth, feel for the
wretched!”
The allusion to her son caused the temples of
Adelheid to burn like fire, while there was a chill,
resembling that of death, at her heart. The first
arose from the quick and uncontrollable alarm of
female sensitiveness; the last was owing to the
shock inseparable from being presented with this
vivid, palpable picture of Sigismund's close affinity
with the family of an executioner. She could have
better borne it, had Marguerite spoken of her son
less familiarly, or with more of that feigned ignorance
of each other, which, without stopping to
scan its fitness, she had been led to think existed
between the young man and his family.
“Mother!” exclaimed Christine reproachfully,
and in surprise, as if a great indiscretion had been
thoughtlessly committed.
“It matters not, child; it matters not. I saw
by the kindling eye of Sigismund to-day, that our
secret will not much longer be kept. The noble
boy must show more energy than those who have
gone before him; he must quit for ever a country
in which he was condemned, even before he was
born.”
“I shall not deny that your connexion with
Monsieur Sigismund is known to me,” said Adelheid,
summoning all her resolution to make an
avowal which put her at once into the confidence
of Balthazar's family. “You are acquainted with
the heavy debt of gratitude we owe your son, and
in your wrongs.”
The keen eye of Marguerite studied the crimsoned
features of Adelheid till forgetfulness got
the better of discretion. The search was anxious,
rather than triumphant, the feeling most dreaded
by its subject; and, when her eyes were withdrawn,
the mother of the youth became thoughtful and
pensive. This expressive communion produced a
deep and embarrassing silence, which each would
gladly have broken, had they not both been irresistibly
tongue-tied by the rapidity and intensity of
their thoughts.
“We know that Sigismund hath been of service
to thee,” observed Marguerite, who always
addressed her gay companion with the familiarity
that belonged to her greater age, rather than with
the respect which Adelheid had been accustomed
to receive from those who were of a rank inferior
to her own. “The brave boy hath spoken of it,
though he hath spoken of it modestly.”
“He had every right to do himself justice in
his communications with those of his own family.
Without his aid, my father would have been
childless; and without his brave support, the child
fatherless. Twice has he stood between us and
death.”
“I have heard of this,” returned Marguerite,
again fastening her penetrating eye on the tell-tale
features of Adelheid, which never failed to brighten
and glow, whenever there was allusion to the
courage and self-devotion of him she secretly
loved. “As to what thou say'st of the intimacy
of our poor boy with those of his blood, cruel
circumstances stand between us and our wishes.
If Sigismund has told thee of whom he comes,
he has also most probably told thee of the manner
he is not.”
“I believe he has not withheld any thing that he
knew, and which it was proper to communicate to
me;” answered Adelheid, dropping her eyes before
the attentive, expectant look of Marguerite. “He
has spoken freely, and—”
“Thou wouldst have said—”
“Honorably, and as became a soldier;” continued
Adelheid, firmly.
“He has done well! This lightens my heart of
one burthen at least. No; God has destined us to
this fate, and it would have grieved me that a son
of mine should have failed of principle in an affair,
of all others, in which it is most wanted. You
look amazed, lady!”
“These sentiments, in one so situated, surprise
as much as they delight me! If any thing could
excuse some looseness in the manner of regarding
the usual ties of life, it would surely be to find
oneself so placed, by no misconduct of our own, as
to be a but to the world's dislike and injustice;
and yet here, where there was reason to expect
some resentment against fortune, I meet with sentiments
that would honor a throne!”
“Thou thinkest as one more accustomed to consider
thy fellow-creatures through the means of
what men fancy, than through things as they are.
This is the picture of youth, and inexperience, and
innocence; but it is not the picture of life. 'Tis
misfortune, and not prosperity that chasteneth, by
proving our insufficiency for true happiness, and
by leading the soul to depend on a power greater
than any that is to be found on earth. We fall
before the temptation of happiness, when we rise
in adversity. If thou thinkest, innocent one, that
noble and just sentiments belong to the fortunate,
thou trustest to a false guide. There are evils
from these overwhelming wants, we are strongest
in the right, when least tempted by vanity and ambition.
More starving beggars abstain from stealing
the crust they crave, than pampered gluttons
deny themselves the luxury that kills them. They
that live under the rod, see and dread the hand
that holds it; they who riot in earth's glories,
come at last to think they deserve the short-lived
distinctions they enjoy. When thou goest down
into the depths of misery, thou hast naught to fear
except the anger of God! It is when raised above
others, that thou shouldst tremble most for thine
own safety.”
“This is not the manner in which the world is
used to reason.”
“Because the world is governed by those whose
interest it is to pervert truth to their own objects,
and not by those whose duties run hand-in-hand
with the right. But we will say no more of this,
lady; here is one that feels too acutely just now to
admit truth to be too freely spoken.”
“Dost feel thyself better, and more able to listen
to thy friends, dear Christine?” asked Adelheid,
taking the hand of the repudiated and deserted girl
with the tenderness of an affectionate sister.
Until now the sufferer had only spoken the few
words related, in mild reproof of her mother's indiscretion.
That little had been uttered with parched
lips and a choked voice, while the hue of her
features was deadly pale, and her whole countenance
betrayed intense mental anguish. But this display
of interest in one of her own years and sex, of
whose excellencies she had been accustomed to
hear such fervid descriptions from the warm-hearted
Sigismund, and of whose sincerity she was assured
by the subtle and quick instinct that unites
the innocent and young, caused a quick and extreme
had been struggling and condensed, now flowed
more freely from her eyes, and she threw herself,
sobbing and weeping, in a paroxysm of gentle, but
overwhelming, feeling, on the bosom of this new-found
friend. The experienced Marguerite smiled
at this manifestation of kindness on the part of
Adelheid, though even this expression of satisfaction
was austere and regulated in one who had so long
stood at bay with the world. And, after a short
pause, she left the room, under the belief that such
a communion with a spirit, pure and inexperienced
as her own, a communion so unusual to her daughter,
would be more likely to produce a happy effect,
if left to themselves, than when restrained by her
presence.
The two girls wept in common, for a long time
after Marguerite had disappeared. This intercourse,
chastened as it was by sorrow, and rendered
endearing on the one side by a confiding ingenuousness,
and on the other by generous pity, caused
both to live in that short period, as it were, months
together in a near and dear intimacy. Confidence
is not always the growth of time. There are minds
that meet each other with a species of affinity that
resembles the cohesive property of matter, and
with a promptitude and faith that only belongs to
the purer essence of which they are composed.
But when this attraction of the ethereal part of the
being is aided by the feelings that have been warmed
by an interest so tender as that which the hearts
of both the maidens felt in a common object, its
power is not only stronger, but quicker, in making
itself felt. So much was already known by each
of the other's character, fortunes, and hopes (always
with the exception of Adelheid's most sacred
secret, which Sigismund cherished as a deposit by
far too sacred to be shared even with his sister)
have been that of strangers, and their mutual
knowledge came as an assistant to break down the
barriers of those forms which were so irksome to
their longings for a freer interchange of feeling
and thought. Adelheid possessed too much intellectual
tact to have recourse to the every-day
language of consolation. When she did speak,
which, as became her superior rank and less embarrassed
situation, she was the first to do, it was
in general but friendly allusions.
“Thou wilt go with us to Italy, in the morning,”
she said, drying her eyes; “my father quits Blonay,
in company with the Signor Grimaldi, with to-morrow's
sun, and thou wilt be of our company?”
“Where thou wilt—anywhere with thee—anywhere
to hide my shame!”
The blood mounted to the temples of Adelheid,
her air even appeared imposing to the eyes of
the artless and unpractised Christine, as she answered—
“Shame is a word that applies to the mean and
mercenary, to the vile and unfaithful,” she said,
with womanly and virtuous indignation; “but not
to thee, love.”
“O! do not, do not condemn him;” whispered
Christine, covering her face with her hands. “He
has found himself unequal to bearing the burthen
of our degradation, and he should be spoken of in
pity rather than with hatred.”
Adelheid was silent; but she regarded the poor
trembling girl, whose head now nestled in her
bosom, with melancholy concern.
“Didst thou know him well?” she asked in a
low tone, following rather the chain of her own
thoughts, than reflecting on the nature of the question
she put. “I had hoped that this refusal would
bring no other pain than the unavoidable mortification
our sex and our habits.”
“Thou knowest not how dear preference is to
the despised!—how cherished the thought of being
loved becomes to those, who, out of their own narrow
limits of natural friends, have been accustomed
to meet only with contempt and aversion! Thou
hast always been known, and courted, and happy!
Thou canst not know how dear it is to the despised
to seem even to be preferred!”
“Nay, say not this, I pray thee!” answered
Adelheid, hurriedly, and with a throb of anguish
at her heart; “there is little in this life that speaks
fairly for itself. We are not always what we
seem; and if we were, and far more miserable
than anything but vice can make us, there is another
state of being, in which justice—pure, unalloyed
justice—will be done.”
“I will go with thee to Italy,” answered Christine,
looking calm and resolved, while a glow of
holy hope bloomed on each cheek; “when all is
over, we will go together to a happier world!”
Adelheid folded the stricken and sensitive plant
to her bosom. Again they wept together, but it
was with a milder and sweeter sorrow than before.
| CHAPTER IV. The headsman, or, The Abbaye des Vignerons | |