第50章

Marguerite's reserve changed to coldness; she remembered the promise exacted by her mother.With more freedom of action, she nevertheless became more distant.Emmanuel shared his beloved's grief, comprehending that the slightest word or wish of love at such a time transgressed the laws of the heart.Their love was therefore more concealed than it had ever been.These tender souls sounded the same note: held apart by grief, as formerly by the timidities of youth and by respect for the sufferings of the mother, they clung to the magnificent language of the eyes, the mute eloquence of devoted actions, the constant unison of thoughts,--divine harmonies of youth, the first steps of a love still in its infancy.Emmanuel came every morning to inquire for Claes and Marguerite, but he never entered the dining-room, where the family now sat, unless to bring a letter from Gabriel or when Balthazar invited him to come in.His first glance at the young girl contained a thousand sympathetic thoughts; it told her that he suffered under these conventional restraints, that he never left her, he was always with her, he shared her grief.He shed the tears of his own pain into the soul of his dear one by a look that was marred by no selfish reservation.His good heart lived so completely in the present, he clung so firmly to a happiness which he believed to be fugitive, that Marguerite sometimes reproached herself for not generously holding out her hand and saying, "Let us at least be friends."Pierquin continued his suit with an obstinacy which is the unreflecting patience of fools.He judged Marguerite by the ordinary rules of the multitude when judging of women.He believed that the words marriage, freedom, fortune, which he had put into her mind, would geminate and flower into wishes by which he could profit; he imagined that her coldness was mere dissimulation.But surround her as he would with gallant attentions, he could not hide the despotic ways of a man accustomed to manage the private affairs of many families with a high hand.He discoursed to her in those platitudes of consolation common to his profession, which crawl like snails over the suffering mind, leaving behind them a trail of barren words which profane its sanctity.His tenderness was mere wheedling.He dropped his feigned melancholy at the door when he put on his overshoes, or took his umbrella.He used the tone his long intimacy authorized as an instrument to work himself still further into the bosom of the family, and bring Marguerite to a marriage which the whole town was beginning to foresee.The true, devoted, respectful love formed a striking contrast to its selfish, calculating semblance.Each man's conduct was homogenous: one feigned a passion and seized every advantage to gain the prize; the other hid his love and trembled lest he should betray his devotion.

Some time after the death of her mother, and, as it happened, on the same day, Marguerite was enabled to compare the only two men of whom she had any opportunity of judging; for the social solitude to which she was condemned kept her from seeing life and gave no access to those who might think of her in marriage.One day after breakfast, a fine morning in April, Emmanuel called at the house just as Monsieur Claes was going out.The aspect of his own house was so unendurable to Balthazar that he spent part of every day in walking about the ramparts.Emmanuel made a motion as if to follow him, then he hesitated, seemed to gather up his courage, looked at Marguerite and remained.The young girl felt sure that he wished to speak with her, and asked him to go into the garden; then she sent Felicie to Martha, who was sewing in the antechamber on the upper floor, and seated herself on a garden-seat in full view of her sister and the old duenna.

"Monsieur Claes is as much absorbed by grief as he once was by science," began the young man, watching Balthazar as he slowly crossed the court-yard."Every one in Douai pities him; he moves like a man who has lost all consciousness of life; he stops without a purpose, he gazes without seeing anything.""Every sorrow has its own expression," said Marguerite, checking her tears."What is it you wish to say to me?" she added after a pause, coldly and with dignity.