LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

him. My mother was pale, but without making the least effort to appear calm, she said to me as she sat down at the table:

      –I hadn't remembered to tell you that José came to see us this morning and to invite you to a hunt; but when he heard the news, he promised to come back very early tomorrow morning. Do you know if it's true that one of his daughters is getting married?

      –He will try to consult you about his project," my father remarked absently.

      –It's probably a bear hunt," I replied.

      –Of bears? What! Do you hunt bears?

      –Yes, sir; it's a funny hunt I've done with him a few times.

      –In my country," said my father, "they would think you a barbarian or a hero.

      –And yet such a game is less dangerous than that of deer, which is made every day and everywhere; for the former, instead of requiring the hunters to tumble unwittingly through heather and waterfalls, requires only a little agility and accurate marksmanship.

      My father, his countenance no longer showing its former frown, spoke of the way deer were hunted in Jamaica, and of how fond his relatives had been of this kind of pastime, Solomon being distinguished among them for his tenacity, skill, and enthusiasm, of whom he told us, with a laugh, some anecdotes.

      As we got up from the table, he came up to me and said:

      –Your mother and I have something to talk over with you; come to my room later.

      As I entered the room, my father was writing with his back to my mother, who was in the less well-lit part of the room, sitting in the armchair she always sat in whenever she stopped there.

      –Sit down," he said, stopping his writing for a moment and looking at me over the white glass and gold-rimmed mirrors.

      After a few minutes, having carefully put back the account book in which he was writing, he moved a seat nearer to the one I was sitting on, and in a low voice spoke thus:

      –I wanted your mother to be present at this conversation, because it is a serious matter on which she has the same opinion as I have.

      He went to the door to open it and throw away the cigar he was smoking, and continued in this manner:

      –You have been with us three months now, and it is only after two more that Mr. A*** will be able to start on his journey to Europe, and it is with him that you must go. This delay, in a certain degree, means nothing, both because it is very agreeable to us to have you with us after six years' absence, to be followed by others, and because I note with pleasure that even here, study is one of your favourite pleasures. I cannot conceal from you, nor must I, that I have conceived great hopes, from your character and aptitudes, that you will crown the career you are about to pursue with brilliancy. You are not unaware that the family will soon need your support, and all the more so after the death of your brother.

      Then, pausing, he continued:

      –There is something in your conduct which I must tell you is not right; you are but twenty years old, and at that age a love inconsiderately fostered might render illusory all the hopes of which I have just spoken to you. You love Maria, and I have known it for many days, as is natural. Maria is almost my daughter, and I should have nothing to observe, if your age and position allowed us to think of a marriage; but they do not, and Maria is very young. These are not only the obstacles which present themselves; there is one perhaps insuperable, and it is my duty to speak to you of it. Mary may drag you and us with you into a lamentable misfortune of which she is threatened. Dr. Mayn dares almost to assure that she will die young of the same malady to which her mother succumbed: what she suffered yesterday is an epileptic syncope, which, taking increase at every access, will terminate in an epilepsy of the worst character known: so says the doctor. You answer now, with much thought, a single question; answer it like the rational man and gentleman that you are; and let not your answer be dictated by an exaltation foreign to your character, when it is a question of your future and that of your own. You know the doctor's opinion, an opinion that deserves respect because it is Mayn who gives it; the fate of Solomon's wife is known to you: if we consented to it, would you marry Mary to-day?

      –Yes, sir," I replied.

      –Would you take it all in?

      –Everything, everything!

      –I think I speak not only to a son but to the gentleman I have tried to form in you.

      At that moment my mother hid her face in her handkerchief. My father, moved perhaps by those tears, and perhaps also by the resolution he found in me, knowing that his voice would fail him, stopped speaking for a few moments.

      –Well," he continued, "since that noble resolution animates you, you will agree with me that you cannot be Maria's husband before five years. It is not for me to tell you that she, having loved you since she was a child, loves you to-day so much, that it is intense emotions, new to her, which, according to Mayn, have caused the symptoms of the disease to appear: that is to say, that your love and hers need precautions, and that I require you henceforth to promise me, for your sake, since you love her so much, and for her sake, that you will follow the doctor's advice, given in case this case should come to pass. You must promise nothing to Mary, for the promise to be her husband after the time I have appointed would make your intercourse more intimate, which is precisely what is to be avoided. Further explanations are useless to you: by following this course, you can save Mary; you can spare us the misfortune of losing her.

      –In return for all that we grant you," said he, turning to my mother, "you must promise me the following: not to speak to Maria of the danger which threatens her, nor to reveal to her anything of what has passed between us to-night. You must also know my opinion of your marriage with her, if her illness should persist after your return to this country – for we are soon to be separated for some years: as your and Maria's father, I would not approve of such a liaison. In expressing this irrevocable resolution, it is not superfluous to let you know that Solomon, in the last three years of his life, succeeded in forming a capital of some consideration, which is in my possession destined to serve as a dowry for his daughter. But if she dies before her marriage, it must pass to her maternal grandmother, who is at Kingston.

      My father paced a few moments in the room. Thinking our conference concluded, I rose to retire; but he resumed his seat, and pointing to mine, resumed his discourse thus.

      –Four days ago I received a letter from Mr. de M*** asking me for Maria's hand for his son Carlos.

      I could not hide my surprise at these words. My father smiled imperceptibly before adding:

      –Mr. de M*** gives you fifteen days to accept or not his proposal, during which time you will come to pay us a visit that you promised me before. Everything will be easy for you after what has been agreed between us.

      –Good night, then," he said, laying his hand warmly on my shoulder, "may you be very happy in your hunt; I need the skin of the bear you kill to put at the foot of my cot.

      –All right," I replied.

      My mother held out her hand to me, and holding mine, she said:

      –We're expecting you early; watch out for those animals!

      So many emotions had been swirling around me in the last few hours that I could hardly notice each one of them, and it was impossible for me to cope with my strange and difficult situation.

      Mary threatened with death; promised thus as a reward for my love, by a terrible absence; promised on condition of loving her less; me obliged to moderate so powerful a love, a love forever possessed of my whole being, on pain of seeing her disappear from the earth like one of the fugitive beauties of my reveries, and having henceforth to appear ungrateful and insensible perhaps in her eyes, only by a conduct which necessity and reason compelled me to adopt! I could no longer hear her confidences in a moved voice; my lips could not touch even the end of one of her plaits. Mine or death's, between death and me, one step nearer to her would be to lose her; and to let her weep in abandonment was an ordeal beyond my strength.

      Cowardly heart! you were not capable of letting yourself be consumed by that fire which, poorly hidden, could consume her? Where is she now, now

Скачать книгу