Arsène established Cecile Grandjean and the young Roselle in Paul de Vitry’s small hôtel in Paris. The servants, grief-stricken over the tragic death of their kind master, were eager and delighted to administer to the young girl who had suffered in that calamity. There, in the house of the young and ingenuous man who had loved her, guarded by the dim portraits of hisancestors, the girl fought her slow and painful way back to life.
Each day, a discreet messenger came to Arsène and told him of the girl’s progress. But he did not go to her.
He was fighting an heroic and desperate struggle in himself. Until, in his confusion, he had come to the place where he could endure himself, where he could clarify the turbulent passions and dark chaos that devastated him, he dared see no one. He locked himself in his apartments, receiving only the messenger from the Hôtel de Vitry and those who were secretly admitted to him by Pierre, his lackey, to convey to him plans for the impending campaign to defend La Rochelle.
Simple and ruthless and unsubtle of temperament, he found himself assailed by a thousand passions and doubts. The affair at Chantilly had shown him to what depths the human heart could plunge. He regarded himself with heavy distrust and vehement disgust. Nevertheless, he could not persuade himself that he had been unjust or unduly vengeful. He knew that the first reaction to attack was a violent counter-attack. But doubts came to him that he had been inspired by an impulse to justice. Justice and vengeance, he perceived, were entirely opposed to each other. But where did one begin and the other end? Did not all the virtues, after all, have their roots in the vices? Did mercy rise from weakness and expediency? Was compassion the attribute of those who were abysmally selfish?
He could not rid himself of hatred. Now he knew that in all men lived hatred for all other men. From the single root of hate blossomed the poisonous fruit of all the vices. But how could a man destroy natural hatred in himself? He saw that man’s great conquest, great crusade, great adventure, was in the destruction of the hatred which was born in his own heart.
To a man of his kidney, it was an appalling thing to be precipitated into a country of a thousand lights and shadows, filled with obscure whispers, and the gestures of countless doubts and bewilderments. This world which once to him was a thing of sharp blacks and whites, shadowless and firm of outline, and very simple and uncomplex, was revealed to him to be a world of endless shades and tints, in which the human soul questioned in perplexity and at length gave up in impotent despair, overwhelmed with unanswerable enigmas.
Had Paul de Vitry confronted these enigmas and had he known the answers? For a brief dazzling moment Arsène conjectured that men like. Paul refused to see the tints and the shades, closed their ears to the whispers of devious and clever doubts. In much questioning, he saw, was much confusion. One must look clearly and steadfastly at the simple necessity: to conquer hatred in oneself. With that shining and fragile thread in the hand, one could walk safely through the labyrinths, guided along the edges of pits and chasms.
But still, he could not rid himself of that hatred which was part of the blood and bone and spirit of man. He struggled with it, but at every subduing, it sprang up in another area in his heart, as strong and triumphant as ever. He found himself regretting that he had been so weak as to be diverted from his purpose at Chantilly. At these moments, the fire roared up in him again, and he longed to destroy all mankind.
I know the truth, he would say to himself, but I cannot force myself to believe in it. If I destroy my own hatred, I shall be destroyed as were Paul, the Abbé Mourion, the Duc de Tremblant and François Grandjean. It seemed to him that the world was the graveyard of all noble and selfless souls. To survive, one must build hatred like a fortress.
It was not for some days that the thought came to him like a whisper from the graveyard: The world of men shall be saved from their hatred only by those who have conquered hatred.
I care nothing for saving men, he thought, in the midst of his grief for his friend. But his new knowledge, like a feeble but living plant, struggled for life in the midst of poisonous weeds.
In some obscure way, he realized that this battle must be fought in himself before he could undertake objective battles. The campaign at La Rochelle, his whole subsequent life, must await the ordering of his own passions and the formulation of his own unshakable philosophy.
But one day a hurried messenger, covered with dust and with a strained and haggard face, appeared at his door, accompanied by the wary Pierre. This messenger had come from the Duc de Rohan, and he brought with him the hasty and exigent demand that the time had come for all the members of Les Blanches to appear at the beleaguered city of La Rochelle. “I implore you to come at once,” the Duc had written grimly. “Every wasted hour is an hour of danger to us and our cause.”
Arsène immediately sent Pierre to his friends. No later than that night, they must set forth for La Rochelle. England had declared war on France. The Huguenots were supporting this enemy, for they saw in the triumph of Protestant England the assurance of liberty and tolerance for themselves. Richelieu, therefore, perceived that the first blow to England must come in the subduing of the Protestant French nobles at La Rochelle, for these nobles were the Achilles heel of France, the port of invasion open to English military assault. That port must be closed.
Richelieu, who by temperament preferred the good offices of the purse and diplomacy to that of the sword, in spite of his constant conceit of himself as a soldier, had determined, with secret aversion, to lead the campaign himself. By the time Arsène received the message from the Duc de Rohan, the Cardinal had left that morning for La Rochelle, where a dyke, or mole, was already in hurried construction to prevent the entrance of English men-of-war.
Later in the day, by way of his passage through the cellars of the Hôtel du Vaubon, Arsène hurried to the Hôtel de Vitry, for the first time since Cecile Grandjean had been installed there. A servant admitted him to the small drawingroom, where Mademoiselle sat in sad contemplation before the fire.
Arsène, engrossed with the single-minded man’s absorption in his present problem, suddenly found himself shaken at the sight of the girl. His heart began a furious pounding. He, who always precipitated himself with graceful dexterity into any room, entered falteringly, and with diffidence.
The girl did not immediately perceive him. She sat alone, before the low fire, a white shawl over her knees. Her attitude was one of deep despondency and sadness, but there was strength also in the quietness of her young body, and the nobility which was an integral part of her seemed more evident than ever. Her plain black gown made more emphatic the whiteness of her neck and her still hands. Her light brown hair, glistening with radiant threads, was plaited in long shining ropes which fell over her slight straight shoulders. Her head was bent, her face composed and meditative. Arsène saw her profile, clear and silent. The firelight glimmered in the lucid blue of her eyes. Her lips, of the most pale and delicate rose, were folded firmly, but without tightness. If her thoughts were sorrowful, they were also courageous, and without bitterness.
As Arsène watched her, a tide of the most intense love and ecstasy washed over him, mingled with grief. This was the girl whom Paul de Vitry had loved. Arsène was no longer jealous. Paul’s love mingled with his own. He had no doubt, now, that the proximity of that gentle and noble man had impressed itself upon Cecile Grandjean, that if she had not loved him with passion, she had loved him. If she grieved for him now, Arsène felt no wild resentment. Had she not grieved, he would have loved her less. It was good that she was in Paul’s house. Perhaps his spirit felt that goodness, and was content.
Arsène knew also that Cecile loved him, as he loved her. But in their love was anger, irritation, resentment, antagonism and obstinacy. Perhaps all these were the very essence of passion, after all, and, without them, passion was impossible. Purest love, devoid of passion, was a noble but raptureless thing. Strife was necessary for complete joy.
Cecile felt his presence. She turned her head slowly and looked at him.
A thousand darts of light passed between them. For an instant, Cecile could not control her expression. It softened; it kindled; it became enormously excited. Her lips parted, turned to deep rose, and trembled. Then, controlling herself, after that instant, she forced her face to assume a look of boldness and reserve, and even hostility.
He approached her across the shining floor, and she watched him come. Her hands were no longer quiet; they clenched together upon her knee. But she said nothing. She did not offer him her hand. Her deep blue eyes regarded him with a formality in which there was something of dread, and much of withdrawal. In their depths an icy spark became brighter.
He bowed before her. There was a dryness and tightness in his throat.
“Mademoiselle, allow me to commiserate with you over the death of your grandfather,” he said, and his voice had a dull sound in it which he despised, helplessly.
Her clenched hands moved. Her whole figure became imbued with something that was inimical and alert.
“And allow me, Monsieur, to commiserate with you over the death of your friend,” she answered. Was that a tone of contempt under her quiet and formal voice? A quick but nameless anger seized Arsène. The girl was bloodless, heartless! She had expressed no grief, no softness, over those tragic and innocent deaths. Her eye revealed no trace of past tears.
Hardly knowing what he did, he held out his hand to her. She looked at it long and meaningfully, and then raised her eyes to him. The spark was a bitter blaze.
“Is Monsieur to be congratulated for the affair at Chantilly?” she asked. He was silent. But he was filled with fury. He looked at her with narrowed gaze and tightened lips. The signs of her illness, and her recent suffering, were still clear in her thin pale cheeks and the somber purple that stained the skin under her unshakeable eyes, but he was not moved by these. He wanted to strike her.
“So, you have heard, Mademoiselle?” he asked, ironically. “Who was the informant who so distressed your sick-bed, where you were recovering from the kind ministrations of your recent friends?”
Her fury rose up to meet his, and if it was quieter, it was not the less violent. A vivid light exploded on her face, which was now drained of all color.
“Roselle, who today returned to Chantilly, received this information from her uncle, in a letter. Let me assure you, Monsieur, that you have a deep admirer in Crequy, who wrote gloatingly about his part in that shameful crime. No doubt Monsieur is flattered that Crequy admires him?”
Her voice, ringing with contempt, breathless with passion, struck at him like a brutal fist. She half rose in her chair. Her hands turned white on the arms, with her straining efforts. Now scorn blazed at him from her face, from the teeth that glittered between her lips, from the straining muscles of her throat, from the illuminated blue eyes.
Before that scorn, he felt a sudden daunting, and then wild anger. His heart roared in his ears. He was overcome with shame, and with rage.
He could not speak for a moment, then he said, in a voice hoarse and heavy with his emotions: “Would Mademoiselle have preferred that I shower honors on the murderers of her grandfather, and my friend? Would she have been delighted if I had assured them that they had done a just and noble thing? Mademoiselle appears to have disdain for justice.”
“Justice!” she cried. “Does not Monsieur mistake justice for revenge? Was Monsieur activated less by grief than by hatred?” She rose now, leaning against the chair, and her face was white as death.
He clenched his hands at his sides as he looked at her. His lean dark face was convulsed, and the sharp black eyebrows drew down over his sparkling eyes.
“Mademoiselle’s words and actions betray that she feels no grief for either her grandfather or my poor friend,” he said. “She is less concerned with their horrible deaths than the fate of their murderers. Mademoiselle will pardon me if I do not understand, if I suspect that she is hard of heart and insensible to natural emotions.”
Her face changed. It became lined with suffering, but, strangely, it also became harder. She drew a deep and quivering breath. She could hardly make her voice audible when she answered: “If I grieve, it is without hatred. Do not mistake that I feel no bitterness, no despair, Monsieur. But I cannot perceive that Monsieur is more worthy, nor greater, than those he executed. They were activated by what they believed was a just revenge on the Comte de Vitry. Monsieur was activated by the same revenge, on his murderers. But Monsieur was inspired by no love for the Comte. Had he paused to consider, to reflect, he would have known that the Comte would have desired no such retribution on those he had loved. He would have known that the Comte understood all things, even cruelty, and had long perceived that the cruelest acts come from ignorance, fear and confusion. But Monsieur did not consider, or reflect. In his revenge on those wretches he exercised a hatred which must long have been latent in him. That is what cannot be forgiven. That is what the Comte de Vitry could not have understood.”
Now proud tears rushed to her eyes. She bit her lip to prevent a sob that rose from her breast. But she did not bow her head or turn away. She looked straightly at Arsène, and without flinching.
“I had thought that Monsieur was incapable of that hatred, and that revenge,” she added, and her voice shook.
Suddenly, all his fury was gone. He approached her a step, understanding. She recoiled slightly, but her eyes did not leave his face.
“Has Mademoiselle thought that if I had not done justice, the law of France must inevitably have accomplished it?” he asked, with much gentleness.
But she was not softened. The scorn was enkindled in her eyes.
“France, then, owes a debt of gratitude to Monsieur, for his accomplishment of an act it would otherwise have been compelled to exercise itself?”
She cried out: “I cannot endure it that Monsieur did this thing! Speak no hypocrisy to me, Arsène de Richepin! Do not tell me that the vengeance of the law would have been more merciless! I do not care for this. It is nothing to me. But I cannot endure it that Monsieur in his own person sought such a frightful revenge, out of the urging of his own heart!”
Arsène gazed at her meditatively, and with great softness. Seeing this, she uttered a faint but desolate cry, made an impotent gesture, and turned away proudly and with grief.
He went to her and took her hand. For an instant, she resisted, strove to release it. And then it was quiet. Now she bent her head and wept, as she had not wept at the death of her grandfather and Paul. There was a heart-broken sound in her weeping.
Arsène lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed it deeply, pressing it against his mouth, and then his cheek. The fingers were chill and lifeless at first, then suddenly warmed, became like soft tendrils winding themselves about his own. But she did not turn to him, or cease her weeping.
“At the last, Cecile, I was merciful,” he said. “It is true that I was revengeful.” He paused. He had almost said, so devastatingly: “But what are these wretches to us, this lowborn canaille, this scum, this anonymous refuse?” He bit them back, and was depressed that even now he could think these things. Did the noble, the high-born, the powerful, the privileged, return, in moments of stress, inevitably, to old habits of thoughts and compulsions?
He continued: “You must not forget, Mademoiselle, that I was, at the last, merciful, that I held back my hand. You must comprehend that I now regret that I was motivated by hatred and revenge. But you must understand that these came from my love for Paul de Vitry, and I acted only in a human manner.”
She did not speak, but her weeping was softer, as she listened.
He felt a fond impatience for her. But he spoke even more gently:
“I saw Mademoiselle at the inn of Crequy. She was at the point of death, because of the injuries visited upon her by her savage assailants.” He hesitated, then whispered: “Had I been on that bed, instead of Mademoiselle, would she have had more lofty thoughts than I?”
She tore her hand from his, and turned to him impetuously. And then, as she met his eyes, penetrating and gentle, she was silent. A deep flush ran over her face. Her lips parted. But her eyes were fixed on the vision he had invoked. Now she turned pale again. She looked at him with passionate honesty.
“Monsieur,” she said; in a low tone, “I most probably would have felt the same.” Then she cried out: “You are guilty, then! But certainly, I am guilty, also!”
She was innocently overcome with grief. She regarded him with wild horror. When he drew her into his arms, she dropped her head on his shoulder and sobbed aloud. He held her tightly against him, kissing her hair, her forehead, her cheeks. She clung to him in abject despair.
He was overjoyed. Now, he felt only peace and fulfilment. He could face whatever the future brought, however terrible and convulsing, with srength. He had not thought it possible to love like this, with such protectiveness and gentleness, such wisdom.
He said, so moved that his voice trembled: “Our poor friend wished us to be together, my dearest one. He knew that we loved. Not long before he died, he said to me: ‘Take what joy can come to you, in each other’s arms, no matter what the morrow brings.’”
He was silent a moment, while the girl, clinging to him so desperately, listened:
“Tonight, Cecile, I go to La Rochelle. Shall I live or die there? Shall I flee in exile, in ruin? To what strange land shall I go? Only God can answer it. My beloved, will you go with me, to share whatever comes to me?”
She lifted her head. Her eyes, luminously blue and full of courage and passion, fixed themselves upon his face. Never had she appeared so beautiful and desirable to him.
“What else is there for me, Arsène?” she whispered.