LA GRENADIERE

 BY

 HONORE DE BALZAC

 Translated By Ellen Marriage

 To D. W. 

La Grenadiere is a little house on the right bank of the Loire as yougo down stream, about a mile below the bridge of Tours. At this pointthe river, broad as a lake, and covered with scattered green islands, flows between two lines of cliff, where country houses built uniformlyof white stone stand among their gardens and vineyards. The finestfruit in the world ripens there with a southern exposure. The patienttoil of many generations has cut terraces in the cliff, so that theface of the rock reflects the rays of the sun, and the produce of hotclimates may be grown out of doors in an artificially high temperature. 

A church spire, rising out of one of the shallower dips in the line ofcliffs, marks the little village of Saint-Cyr, to which the scatteredhouses all belong. And yet a little further the Choisille flows intothe Loire, through a fertile valley cut in the long low downs. 

La Grenadiere itself, half-way up the hillside, and about a hundredpaces from the church, is one of those old-fashioned houses datingback some two or three hundred years, which you find in everypicturesque spot in Touraine. A fissure in the rock affords convenientspace for a flight of steps descending gradually to the "dike"--thelocal name for the embankment made at the foot of the cliffs to keepthe Loire in its bed, and serve as a causeway for the highroad fromParis to Nantes. At the top of the steps a gate opens upon a narrowstony footpath between two terraces, for here the soil is banked up, and walls are built to prevent landslips. These earthworks, as itwere, are crowned with trellises and espaliers, so that the steep paththat lies at the foot of the upper wall is almost hidden by the treesthat grow on the top of the lower, upon which it lies. The view of theriver widens out before you at every step as you climb to the house. 

At the end you come to a second gateway, a Gothic archway covered withsimple ornament, now crumbling into ruin and overgrown withwildflowers--moss and ivy, wallflowers and pellitory. Every stone wallon the hillside is decked with this ineradicable plant-life, whichsprings up along the cracks afresh with new wreaths for every time ofyear. 

The worm-eaten gate gives into a little garden, a strip of turf, a fewtrees, and a wilderness of flowers and rose bushes--a garden won fromthe rock on the highest terrace of all, with the dark, old balustradealong its edge. Opposite the gateway, a wooden summer-house standsagainst the neighboring wall, the posts are covered with jessamine andhoneysuckle, vines and clematis. 

The house itself stands in the middle of this highest garden, above avine-covered flight of steps, with an arched doorway beneath thatleads to vast cellars hollowed out in the rock. All about the dwellingtrellised vines and pomegranate-trees (the _grenadiers_, which give thename to the little close) are growing out in the open air. The frontof the house consists of two large windows on either side of a veryrustic-looking house door, and three dormer windows in the roof--aslate roof with two gables, prodigiously high-pitched in proportion tothe low ground-floor. The house walls are washed with yellow color;and door, and first-floor shutters, all the Venetian shutters of theattic windows, all are painted green. 

Entering the house, you find yourself in a little lobby with a crookedstaircase straight in front of you. It is a crazy wooden structure, the spiral balusters are brown with age, and the steps themselvestake a new angle at every turn. The great old-fashioned paneleddining-room, floored with square white tiles from Chateau-Regnault, ison your right; to the left is the sitting-room, equally large, but herethe walls are not paneled; they have been covered instead with asaffron-colored paper, bordered with green. The walnut-wood raftersare left visible, and the intervening spaces filled with a kind ofwhite plaster. 

The first story consists of two large whitewashed bedrooms with stonechimney-pieces, less elaborately carved than those in the roomsbeneath. Every door and window is on the south side of the house, savea single door to the north, contrived behind the staircase to giveaccess to the vineyard. Against the western wall stands asupplementary timber-framed structure, all the woodwork exposed to theweather being fledged with slates, so that the walls are checkeredwith bluish lines. This shed (for it is little more) is the kitchen ofthe establishment. You can pass from it into the house without goingoutside; but, nevertheless, it boasts an entrance door of its own, anda short flight of steps that brings you to a deep well, and a veryrustical-looking pump, half hidden by water-plants and savin bushesand tall grasses. The kitchen is a modern addition, proving beyonddoubt that La Grenadiere was originally nothing but a simple_vendangeoir_--a vintage-house belonging to townsfolk in Tours, fromwhich Saint-Cyr is separated by the vast river-bed of the Loire. Theowners only came over for the day for a picnic, or at thevintage-time, sending provisions across in the morning, and scarcelyever spent the night there except during the grape harvest; but theEnglish settled down on Touraine like a cloud of locusts, and LaGrenadiere must, of course, be completed if it was to find tenants. Luckily, however, this recent appendage is hidden from sight by thefirst two trees of a lime-tree avenue planted in a gully below thevineyards. 

There are only two acres of vineyard at most, the ground rising at theback of the house so steeply that it is no very easy matter toscramble up among the vines. The slope, covered with green trailingshoots, ends within about five feet of the house wall in a ditch-likepassage always damp and cold and full of strong growing green things, fed by the drainage of the highly cultivated ground above, for rainyweather washes down the manure into the garden on the terrace. 

A vinedresser's cottage also leans against the western gable, and isin some sort a continuation of the kitchen. Stone walls or espalierssurround the property, and all sorts of fruit-trees are planted amongthe vines; in short, not an inch of this precious soil is wasted. Ifby chance man overlooks some dry cranny in the rocks, Nature puts in afig-tree, or sows wildflowers or strawberries in sheltered nooks amongthe stones. 

Nowhere else in all the world will you find a human dwelling so humbleand yet so imposing, so rich in fruit, and fragrant scents, and wideviews of country. Here is a miniature Touraine in the heart ofTouraine--all its flowers and fruits and all the characteristic beautyof the land are fully represented. Here are grapes of every district, figs and peaches and pears of every kind; melons are grown out ofdoors as easily as licorice plants, Spanish broom, Italian oleanders, and jessamines from the Azores. The Loire lies at your feet. You lookdown from the terrace upon the ever-changing river nearly two hundredfeet below; and in the evening the breeze brings a fresh scent of thesea, with the fragrance of far-off flowers gathered upon its way. Somecloud wandering in space, changing its color and form at every momentas it crosses the pure blue of the sky, can alter every detail in thewidespread wonderful landscape in a thousand ways, from every point ofview. The eye embraces first of all the south bank of the Loire, stretching away as far as Amboise, then Tours with its suburbs andbuildings, and the Plessis rising out of the fertile plain; furtheraway, between Vouvray and Saint-Symphorien, you see a sort of crescentof gray cliff full of sunny vineyards; the only limits to your vieware the low, rich hills along the Cher, a bluish line of horizonbroken by many a chateau and the wooded masses of many a park. Out tothe west you lose yourself in the immense river, where vessels comeand go, spreading their white sails to the winds which seldom failthem in the wide Loire basin. A prince might build a summer palace atLa Grenadiere, but certainly it will always be the home of a poet'sdesire, and the sweetest of retreats for two young lovers--for thisvintage house, which belongs to a substantial burgess of Tours, hascharms for every imagination, for the humblest and dullest as well asfor the most impassioned and lofty. No one can dwell there withoutfeeling that happiness is in the air, without a glimpse of all that ismeant by a peaceful life without care or ambition. There is that inthe air and the sound of the river that sets you dreaming; the sandshave a language, and are joyous or dreary, golden or wan; and theowner of the vineyard may sit motionless amid perennial flowers andtempting fruit, and feel all the stir of the world about him. 

If an Englishman takes the house for the summer, he is asked athousand francs for six months, the produce of the vineyard notincluded. If the tenant wishes for the orchard fruit, the rent isdoubled; for the vintage, it is doubled again. What can La Grenadierebe worth, you wonder; La Grenadiere, with its stone staircase, itsbeaten path and triple terrace, its two acres of vineyard, itsflowering roses about the balustrades, its worn steps, well-head, rampant clematis, and cosmopolitan trees? It is idle to make a bid! LaGrenadiere will never be in the market; it was brought once and sold, but that was in 1690; and the owner parted with it for forty thousandfrancs, reluctant as any Arab of the desert to relinquish a favoritehorse. Since then it has remained in the same family, its pride, itspatrimonial jewel, its Regent diamond. "While you behold, you have andhold, " says the bard. And from La Grenadiere you behold three valleysof Touraine and the cathedral towers aloft in air like a bit offiligree work. How can one pay for such treasures? Could one ever payfor the health recovered there under the linden-trees?

In the spring of one of the brightest years of the Restoration, a ladywith her housekeeper and her two children (the oldest a boy thirteenyears old, the youngest apparently about eight) came to Tours to lookfor a house. She saw La Grenadiere and took it. Perhaps the distancefrom the town was an inducement to live there. 

She made a bedroom of the drawing-room, gave the children the tworooms above, and the housekeeper slept in a closet behind the kitchen. The dining-room was sitting-room and drawing-room all in one for thelittle family. The house was furnished very simply but tastefully;there was nothing superfluous in it, and no trace of luxury. Thewalnut-wood furniture chosen by the stranger lady was perfectly plain, and the whole charm of the house consisted in its neatness and harmonywith its surroundings. 

It was rather difficult, therefore, to say whether the strange lady(Mme. Willemsens, as she styled herself) belonged to the upper middleor higher classes, or to an equivocal, unclassified feminine species. Her plain dress gave rise to the most contradictory suppositions, buther manners might be held to confirm those favorable to her. She hadnot lived at Saint-Cyr, moreover, for very long before her reserveexcited the curiosity of idle people, who always, and especially inthe country, watch anybody or anything that promises to bring someinterest into their narrow lives. 

Mme. Willemsens was rather tall; she was thin and slender, butdelicately shaped. She had pretty feet, more remarkable for the graceof her instep and ankle than for the more ordinary merit ofslenderness; her gloved hands, too, were shapely. There were flittingpatches of deep red in a pale face, which must have been fresh andsoftly colored once. Premature wrinkles had withered the delicatelymodeled forehead beneath the coronet of soft, well-set chestnut hair, invariably wound about her head in two plaits, a girlish coiffurewhich suited the melancholy face. There was a deceptive look of calmin the dark eyes, with the hollow, shadowy circles about them;sometimes, when she was off her guard, their expression told of secretanguish. The oval of her face was somewhat long; but happiness andhealth had perhaps filled and perfected the outlines. A forced smile, full of quiet sadness, hovered continually on her pale lips; but whenthe children, who were always with her, looked up at their mother, orasked one of the incessant idle questions which convey so much to amother's ears, then the smile brightened, and expressed the joys of amother's love. Her gait was slow and dignified. Her dress nevervaried; evidently she had made up her mind to think no more of hertoilette, and to forget a world by which she meant no doubt to beforgotten. She wore a long, black gown, confined at the waist by awatered-silk ribbon, and by way of scarf a lawn handkerchief with abroad hem, the two ends passed carelessly through her waistband. Theinstinct of dress showed itself in that she was daintily shod, andgray silk stockings carried out the suggestion of mourning in thisunvarying costume. Lastly, she always wore a bonnet after the Englishfashion, always of the same shape and the same gray material, and ablack veil. Her health apparently was extremely weak; she looked veryill. On fine evenings she would take her only walk, down to the bridgeof Tours, bringing the two children with her to breathe the fresh, cool air along the Loire, and to watch the sunset effects on alandscape as wide as the Bay of Naples or the Lake of Geneva. 

During the whole time of her stay at La Grenadiere she went but twiceinto Tours; once to call on the headmaster of the school, to ask himto give her the names of the best masters of Latin, drawing, andmathematics; and a second time to make arrangements for the children'slessons. But her appearance on the bridge of an evening, once or twicea week, was quite enough to excite the interest of almost all theinhabitants of Tours, who make a regular promenade of the bridge. Still, in spite of a kind of spy system, by which no harm is meant, aprovincial habit bred of want of occupation and the restlessinquisitiveness of the principal society, nothing was known forcertain of the newcomer's rank, fortune, or real condition. Only, theowner of La Grenadiere told one or two of his friends that the nameunder which the stranger had signed the lease (her real name, therefore, in all probability) was Augusta Willemsens, Countess ofBrandon. This, of course, must be her husband's name. Events, whichwill be narrated in their place, confirmed this revelation; but itwent no further than the little world of men of business known to thelandlord. 

So Madame Willemsens was a continual mystery to people of condition. Hers was no ordinary nature; her manners were simple and delightfullynatural, the tones of her voice were divinely sweet, --this was allthat she suffered others to discover. In her complete seclusion, hersadness, her beauty so passionately obscured, nay, almost blighted, there was so much to charm, that several young gentlemen fell in love;but the more sincere the lover, the more timid he became; and besides, the lady inspired awe, and it was a difficult matter to find enoughcourage to speak to her. Finally, if a few of the bolder sort wrote toher, their letters must have been burned unread. It was Mme. Willemsens' practice to throw all the letters which she received intothe fire, as if she meant that the time spent in Touraine should beuntroubled by any outside cares even of the slightest. She might havecome to the enchanting retreat to give herself up wholly to the joy ofliving. 

The three masters whose presence was allowed at La Grenadiere spokewith something like admiring reverence of the touching picture thatthey saw there of the close, unclouded intimacy of the life led bythis woman and the children. 

The two little boys also aroused no small interest. Mothers could notsee them without a feeling of envy. Both children were like Mme. Willemsens, who was, in fact, their mother. They had the transparentcomplexion and bright color, the clear, liquid eyes, the long lashes, the fresh outlines, the dazzling characteristics of childish beauty. 

The elder, Louis-Gaston, had dark hair and fearless eyes. Everythingabout him spoke as plainly of robust, physical health as his broad, high brow, with its gracious curves, spoke of energy of character. Hewas quick and alert in his movements, and strong of limb, without atrace of awkwardness. Nothing took him unawares, and he seemed tothink about everything that he saw. 

Marie-Gaston, the other child, had hair that was almost golden, thougha lock here and there had deepened to the mother's chestnut tint. Marie-Gaston was slender; he had the delicate features and the subtlegrace so charming in Mme. Willemsens. He did not look strong. Therewas a gentle look in his gray eyes; his face was pale, there wassomething feminine about the child. He still wore his hair in long, wavy curls, and his mother would not have him give up embroideredcollars, and little jackets fastened with frogs and spindle-shapedbuttons; evidently she took a thoroughly feminine pleasure in thecostume, a source of as much interest to the mother as to the child. The elder boy's plain white collar, turned down over a closely fittingjacket, made a contrast with his brother's clothing, but the color andmaterial were the same; the two brothers were otherwise dressed alike, and looked alike. 

No one could see them without feeling touched by the way in whichLouis took care of Marie. There was an almost fatherly look in theolder boy's eyes; and Marie, child though he was, seemed to be full ofgratitude to Louis. They were like two buds, scarcely separated fromthe stem that bore them, swayed by the same breeze, lying in the sameray of sunlight; but the one was a brightly colored flower, the othersomewhat bleached and pale. At a glance, a word, an inflection intheir mother's voice, they grew heedful, turned to look at her andlistened, and did at once what they were bidden, or asked, orrecommended to do. Mme. Willemsens had so accustomed them tounderstand her wishes and desires, that the three seemed to have theirthoughts in common. When they went for a walk, and the children, absorbed in their play, ran away to gather a flower or to look at someinsect, she watched them with such deep tenderness in her eyes, thatthe most indifferent passer-by would feel moved, and stop and smile atthe children, and give the mother a glance of friendly greeting. Whowould not have admired the dainty neatness of their dress, theirsweet, childish voices, the grace of their movements, the promise intheir faces, the innate something that told of careful training fromthe cradle? They seemed as if they had never shed tears nor wailedlike other children. Their mother knew, as it were, by electricallyswift intuition, the desires and the pains which she anticipated andrelieved. She seemed to dread a complaint from one of them more thanthe loss of her soul. Everything in her children did honor to theirmother's training. Their threefold life, seemingly one life, called upvague, fond thoughts; it was like a vision of the dreamed-of bliss ofa better world. And the three, so attuned to each other, lived intruth such a life as one might picture for them at first sight--theordered, simple, and regular life best suited for a child's education. 

Both children rose an hour after daybreak and repeated a short prayer, a habit learned in their babyhood. For seven years the sincerepetition had been put up every morning on their mother's bed, andbegun and ended by a kiss. Then the two brothers went through theirmorning toilet as scrupulously as any pretty woman; doubtless they hadbeen trained in habits of minute attention to the person, so necessaryto health of body and mind, habits in some sort conducive to a senseof wellbeing. Conscientiously they went through their duties, soafraid were they lest their mother should say when she kissed them atbreakfast-time, "My darling children, where can you have been to havesuch black finger-nails already?" Then the two went out into thegarden and shook off the dreams of the night in the morning air anddew, until sweeping and dusting operations were completed, and theycould learn their lessons in the sitting-room until their motherjoined them. But although it was understood that they must not go totheir mother's room before a certain hour, they peeped in at the doorcontinually; and these morning inroads, made in defiance of theoriginal compact, were delicious moments for all three. Marie sprangupon the bed to put his arms around his idolized mother, and Louis, kneeling by the pillow, took her hand in his. Then came inquiries, anxious as a lover's, followed by angelic laughter, passionatechildish kisses, eloquent silences, lisping words, and the littleones' stories interrupted and resumed by a kiss, stories seldomfinished, though the listener's interest never failed. 

"Have you been industrious?" their mother would ask, but in tones sosweet and so kindly that she seemed ready to pity laziness as amisfortune, and to glance through tears at the child who was satisfiedwith himself. 

She knew that the thought of pleasing her put energy into thechildren's work; and they knew that their mother lived for them, andthat all her thoughts and her time were given to them. A wonderfulinstinct, neither selfishness nor reason, perhaps the first innocentbeginnings of sentiment teaches children to know whether or not theyare the first and sole thought, to find out those who love to think ofthem and for them. If you really love children, the dear little ones, with open hearts and unerring sense of justice, are marvelously readyto respond to love. Their love knows passion and jealousy and the mostgracious delicacy of feeling; they find the tenderest words ofexpression; they trust you--put an entire belief in you. Perhaps thereare no undutiful children without undutiful mothers, for a child'saffection is always in proportion to the affection that it receives--in early care, in the first words that it hears, in the response ofthe eyes to which a child first looks for love and life. All thesethings draw them closer to the mother or drive them apart. God laysthe child under the mother's heart, that she may learn that for a longtime to come her heart must be its home. And yet--there are motherscruelly slighted, mothers whose sublime, pathetic tenderness meetsonly a harsh return, a hideous ingratitude which shows how difficultit is to lay down hard-and-fast rules in matters of feeling. 

Here, not one of all the thousand heart ties that bind child andmother had been broken. The three were alone in the world; they livedone life, a life of close sympathy. If Mme. Willemsens was silent inthe morning, Louis and Marie would not speak, respecting everything inher, even those thoughts which they did not share. But the older boy, with a precocious power of thought, would not rest satisfied with hismother's assertion that she was perfectly well. He scanned her facewith uneasy forebodings; the exact danger he did not know, but dimlyhe felt it threatening in those purple rings about her eyes, in thedeepening hollows under them, and the feverish red that deepened inher face. If Marie's play began to tire her, his sensitive tact wasquick to discover this, and he would call to his brother:

"Come, Marie! let us run in to breakfast, I am hungry!"

But when they reached the door, he would look back to catch theexpression on his mother's face. She still could find a smile for him, nay, often there were tears in her eyes when some little thingrevealed her child's exquisite feeling, a too early comprehension ofsorrow. 

Mme. Willemsens dressed during the children's early breakfast and gameof play; she was coquettish for her darlings; she wished to bepleasing in their eyes; for them she would fain be in all thingslovely, a gracious vision, with the charm of some sweet perfume ofwhich one can never have enough. 

She was always dressed in time to hear their lessons, which lastedfrom ten till three, with an interval at noon for lunch, the threetaking the meal together in the summer-house. After lunch the childrenplayed for an hour, while she--poor woman and happy mother--lay on along sofa in the summer-house, so placed that she could look out overthe soft, ever-changing country of Touraine, a land that you learn tosee afresh in all the thousand chance effects produced by daylight andsky and the time of year. 

The children scampered through the orchard, scrambled about theterraces, chased the lizards, scarcely less nimble than they;investigating flowers and seeds and insects, continually referring allquestions to their mother, running to and fro between the garden andthe summer-house. Children have no need of toys in the country, everything amuses them. 

Mme. Willemsens sat at her embroidery during their lessons. She neverspoke, nor did she look at masters or pupils; but she followedattentively all that was said, striving to gather the sense of thewords to gain a general idea of Louis' progress. If Louis asked aquestion that puzzled his master, his mother's eyes suddenly lightedup, and she would smile and glance at him with hope in her eyes. OfMarie she asked little. Her desire was with her eldest son. Alreadyshe treated him, as it were, respectfully, using all a woman's, all amother's tact to arouse the spirit of high endeavor in the boy, toteach him to think of himself as capable of great things. She did thiswith a secret purpose, which Louis was to understand in the future;nay, he understood it already. 

Always, the lesson over, she went as far as the gate with the master, and asked strict account of Louis' progress. So kindly and so winningwas her manner, that his tutors told her the truth, pointing out whereLouis was weak, so that she might help him in his lessons. Then camedinner, and play after dinner, then a walk, and lessons were learnedtill bedtime. 

So their days went. It was a uniform but full life; work andamusements left them not a dull hour in the day. Discouragement andquarreling were impossible. The mother's boundless love madeeverything smooth. She taught her little sons moderation by refusingthem nothing, and submission by making them see underlying Necessityin its many forms; she put heart into them with timely praise;developing and strengthening all that was best in their natures withthe care of a good fairy. Tears sometimes rose to her burning eyes asshe watched them play, and thought how they had never caused her theslightest vexation. Happiness so far-reaching and complete brings suchtears, because for us it represents the dim imaginings of Heaven whichwe all of us form in our minds. 

Those were delicious hours spent on that sofa in the garden-house, inlooking out on sunny days over the wide stretches of river and thepicturesque landscape, listening to the sound of her children's voicesas they laughed at their own laughter, to the little quarrels thattold most plainly of their union of heart, of Louis' paternal care ofMarie, of the love that both of them felt for her. They spoke Englishand French equally well (they had had an English nurse since theirbabyhood), so their mother talked to them in both languages; directingthe bent of their childish minds with admirable skill, admitting nofallacious reasoning, no bad principle. She ruled by kindness, concealing nothing, explaining everything. If Louis wished for books, she was careful to give him interesting yet accurate books--books ofbiography, the lives of great seamen, great captains, and famous men, for little incidents in their history gave her numberlessopportunities of explaining the world and life to her children. Shewould point out the ways in which men, really great in themselves, hadrisen from obscurity; how they had started from the lowest ranks ofsociety, with no one to look to but themselves, and achieved nobledestinies. 

These readings, and they were not the least useful of Louis' lessons, took place while little Marie slept on his mother's knee in the quietof the summer night, and the Loire reflected the sky; but when theyended, this adorable woman's sadness always seemed to be doubled; shewould cease to speak, and sit motionless and pensive, and her eyeswould fill with tears. 

"Mother, why are you crying?" Louis asked one balmy June evening, justas the twilight of a soft-lit night succeeded to a hot day. 

Deeply moved by his trouble, she put her arm about the child's neckand drew him to her. 

"Because, my boy, the lot of Jameray Duval, the poor and friendlesslad who succeeded at last, will be your lot, yours and your brother's, and I have brought it upon you. Before very long, dear child, you willbe alone in the world, with no one to help or befriend you. While youare still children, I shall leave you, and yet, if only I could waittill you are big enough and know enough to be Marie's guardian! But Ishall not live so long. I love you so much that it makes me veryunhappy to think of it. Dear children, if only you do not curse mesome day!----"

"But why should I curse you some day, mother?"

"Some day, " she said, kissing him on the forehead, "you will find outthat I have wronged you. I am going to leave you, here, without money, without"--and she hesitated--"without a father, " she added, and at theword she burst into tears and put the boy from her gently. A sort ofintuition told Louis that his mother wished to be alone, and hecarried off Marie, now half awake. An hour later, when his brother wasin bed, he stole down and out to the summer-house where his mother wassitting. 

"Louis! come here. "

The words were spoken in tones delicious to his heart. The boy sprangto his mother's arms, and the two held each other in an almostconvulsive embrace. 

"_Cherie_, " he said at last, the name by which he often called her, finding that even loving words were too weak to express his feeling, "_cherie_, why are you afraid that you are going to die?"

"I am ill, my poor darling; every day I am losing strength, and thereis no cure for my illness; I know that. "

"What is the matter with you?"

"Something that I ought to forget; something that you must never know. --You must not know what caused my death. "

The boy was silent for a while. He stole a glance now and again at hismother; and she, with her eyes raised to the sky, was watching theclouds. It was a sad, sweet moment. Louis could not believe that hismother would die soon, but instinctively he felt trouble which hecould not guess. He respected her long musings. If he had been ratherolder, he would have read happy memories blended with thoughts ofrepentance, the whole story of a woman's life in that sublime face--the careless childhood, the loveless marriage, a terrible passion, flowers springing up in storm and struck down by the thunderbolt intoan abyss from which there is no return. 

"Darling mother, " Louis said at last, "why do you hide your pain fromme?"

"My boy, we ought to hide our troubles from strangers, " she said; "weshould show them a smiling face, never speak of ourselves to them, northink about ourselves; and these rules, put in practice in familylife, conduce to its happiness. You will have much to bear one day! Ahme! then think of your poor mother who died smiling before your eyes, hiding her sufferings from you, and you will take courage to endurethe ills of life. "

She choked back her tears, and tried to make the boy understand themechanism of existence, the value of money, the standing andconsideration that it gives, and its bearing on social position; thehonorable means of gaining a livelihood, and the necessity of atraining. Then she told him that one of the chief causes of hersadness and her tears was the thought that, on the morrow of herdeath, he and Marie would be left almost resourceless, with but aslender stock of money, and no friend but God. 

"How quick I must be about learning!" cried Louis, giving her apiteous, searching look. 

"Oh! how happy I am!" she said, showering kisses and tears on her son. "He understands me!--Louis, " she went on, "you will be your brother'sguardian, will you not? You promise me that? You are no longer achild!"

"Yes, I promise, " he said; "but you are not going to die yet--say thatyou are not going to die!"

"Poor little ones!" she replied, "love for you keeps the life in me. And this country is so sunny, the air is so bracing, perhaps----"

"You make me love Touraine more than ever, " said the child. 

From that day, when Mme. Willemsens, foreseeing the approach of death, spoke to Louis of his future, he concentrated his attention on hiswork, grew more industrious, and less inclined to play thanheretofore. When he had coaxed Marie to read a book and to give upboisterous games, there was less noise in the hollow pathways andgardens and terraced walks of La Grenadiere. They adapted their livesto their mother's melancholy. Day by day her face was growing pale andwan, there were hollows now in her temples, the lines in her foreheadgrew deeper night after night. 

August came. The little family had been five months at La Grenadiere, and their whole life was changed. The old servant grew anxious andgloomy as she watched the almost imperceptible symptoms of slowdecline in the mistress, who seemed to be kept in life by animpassioned soul and intense love of her children. Old Annette seemedto see that death was very near. That mistress, beautiful still, wasmore careful of her appearance than she had ever been; she was atpains to adorn her wasted self, and wore paint on her cheeks; butoften while she walked on the upper terrace with the children, Annette's wrinkled face would peer out from between the savin trees bythe pump. The old woman would forget her work, and stand with wetlinen in her hands, scarce able to keep back her tears at the sight ofMme. Willemsens, so little like the enchanting woman she once hadbeen. 

The pretty house itself, once so gay and bright, looked melancholy; itwas a very quiet house now, and the family seldom left it, for thewalk to the bridge was too great an effort for Mme. Willemsens. Louishad almost identified himself, as it were, with his mother, and withhis suddenly developed powers of imagination he saw the weariness andexhaustion under the red color, and constantly found reasons fortaking some shorter walk. 

So happy couples coming to Saint-Cyr, then the Petite Courtille ofTours, and knots of folk out for their evening walk along the "dike, "saw a pale, thin figure dressed in black, a woman with a worn yetbright face, gliding like a shadow along the terraces. Great sufferingcannot be concealed. The vinedresser's household had grown quiet also. Sometimes the laborer and his wife and children were gathered aboutthe door of their cottage, while Annette was washing linen at thewell-head, and Mme. Willemsens and the children sat in thesummer-house, and there was not the faintest sound in those gardens gaywith flowers. Unknown to Mme. Willemsens, all eyes grew pitiful at thesight of her, she was so good, so thoughtful, so dignified with thosewith whom she came in contact. 

And as for her. --When the autumn days came on, days so sunny andbright in Touraine, bringing with them grapes and ripe fruits andhealthful influences which must surely prolong life in spite of theravages of mysterious disease--she saw no one but her children, takingthe utmost that the hour could give her, as if each hour had been herlast. 

Louis had worked at night, unknown to his mother, and made immenseprogress between June and September. In algebra he had come as far asequations with two unknown quantities; he had studied descriptivegeometry, and drew admirably well; in fact, he was prepared to passthe entrance examination of the Ecole polytechnique. 

Sometimes of an evening he went down to the bridge of Tours. There wasa lieutenant there on half-pay, an Imperial naval officer, whose manlyface, medal, and gait had made an impression on the boy's imagination, and the officer on his side had taken a liking to the lad, whose eyessparkled with energy. Louis, hungering for tales of adventure, andeager for information, used to follow in the lieutenant's wake for thechance of a chat with him. It so happened that the sailor had a friendand comrade in the colonel of a regiment of infantry, struck off therolls like himself; and young Louis-Gaston had a chance of learningwhat life was like in camp or on board a man-of-war. Of course, heplied the veterans with questions; and when he had made up his mind tothe hardships of their rough callings, he asked his mother's leave totake country walks by way of amusement. Mme. Willemsens was beyondmeasure glad that he should ask; the boy's astonished masters had toldher that he was overworking himself. So Louis went for long walks. Hetried to inure himself to fatigue, climbed the tallest trees withincredible quickness, learned to swim, watched through the night. Hewas not like the same boy; he was a young man already, with asunburned face, and a something in his expression that told of deeppurpose. 

When October came, Mme. Willemsens could only rise at noon. Thesunshine, reflected by the surface of the Loire, and stored up by therocks, raised the temperature of the air till it was almost as warmand soft as the atmosphere of the Bay of Naples, for which reason thefaculty recommend the place of abode. At mid-day she came out to situnder the shade of green leaves with the two boys, who never wanderedfrom her now. Lessons had come to an end. Mother and children wishedto live the life of heart and heart together, with no disturbingelement, no outside cares. No tears now, no joyous outcries. The elderboy, lying in the grass at his mother's side, basked in her eyes likea lover and kissed her feet. Marie, the restless one, gathered flowersfor her, and brought them with a subdued look, standing on tiptoe toput a girlish kiss on her lips. And the pale woman, with the greattired eyes and languid movements, never uttered a word of complaint, and smiled upon her children, so full of life and health--it was asublime picture, lacking no melancholy autumn pomp of yellow leavesand half-despoiled branches, nor the softened sunlight and pale cloudsof the skies of Touraine. 

At last the doctor forbade Mme. Willemsens to leave her room. Everyday it was brightened by the flowers that she loved, and her childrenwere always with her. One day, early in November, she sat at the pianofor the last time. A picture--a Swiss landscape--hung above theinstrument; and at the window she could see her children standing withtheir heads close together. Again and again she looked from thechildren to the landscape, and then again at the children. Her faceflushed, her fingers flew with passionate feeling over the ivory keys. This was her last great day, an unmarked day of festival, held in herown soul by the spirit of her memories. When the doctor came, heordered her to stay in bed. The alarming dictum was received withbewildered silence. 

When the doctor had gone, she turned to the older boy. 

"Louis, " she said, "take me out on the terrace, so that I may see mycountry once more. "

The boy gave his arm at those simply uttered words, and brought hismother out upon the terrace; but her eyes turned, perhapsunconsciously, to heaven rather than to the earth, and indeed, itwould have been hard to say whether heaven or earth was the fairer--for the clouds traced shadowy outlines, like the grandest Alpineglaciers, against the sky. Mme. Willemsens' brows contractedvehemently; there was a look of anguish and remorse in her eyes. Shecaught the children's hands, and clutched them to a heavily-throbbingheart. 

"'Parentage unknown!'" she cried, with a look that went to theirhearts. "Poor angels, what will become of you? And when you are twentyyears old, what strict account may you not require of my life and yourown?"

She put the children from her, and leaning her arms upon thebalustrade, stood for a while hiding her face, alone with herself, fearful of all eyes. When she recovered from the paroxysm, she sawLouis and Marie kneeling on either side of her, like two angels; theywatched the expression of her face, and smiled lovingly at her. 

"If only I could take that smile with me!" she said, drying her eyes. 

Then she went into the house and took to the bed, which she would onlyleave for her coffin. 

A week went by, one day exactly like another. Old Annette and Louistook it in turns to sit up with Mme. Willemsens, never taking theireyes from the invalid. It was the deeply tragical hour that comes inall our lives, the hour of listening in terror to every deep breathlest it should be the last, a dark hour protracted over many days. Onthe fifth day of that fatal week the doctor interdicted flowers in theroom. The illusions of life were going one by one. 

Then Marie and his brother felt their mother's lips hot as firebeneath their kisses; and at last, on the Saturday evening, Mme. Willemsens was too ill to bear the slightest sound, and her room wasleft in disorder. This neglect for a woman of refined taste, who clungso persistently to the graces of life, meant the beginning of thedeath-agony. After this, Louis refused to leave his mother. On Sundaynight, in the midst of the deepest silence, when Louis thought thatshe had grown drowsy, he saw a white, moist hand move the curtain inthe lamplight. 

"My son!" she said. There was something so solemn in the dying woman'stones, that the power of her wrought-up soul produced a violentreaction on the boy; he felt an intense heat pass through the marrowof his bones. 

"What is it, mother?"

"Listen! To-morrow all will be over for me. We shall see each other nomore. To-morrow you will be a man, my child. So I am obliged to makesome arrangements, which must remain a secret, known only to us. Takethe key of my little table. That is it. Now open the drawer. You willfind two sealed papers to the left. There is the name of LOUIS on one, and on the other MARIE. "

"Here they are, mother. "

"Those are your certificates of birth, darling; you will want them. Give them to our poor, old Annette to keep for you; ask her for themwhen you need them. Now, " she continued, "is there not another paperas well, something in my handwriting?"

"Yes, mother, " and Louis began to read, "_Marie Willemsens, bornat_----"

"That is enough, " she broke in quickly, "do not go on. When I am dead, give that paper, too, to Annette, and tell her to send it to theregistrar at Saint-Cyr; it will be wanted if my certificate of deathis to be made out in due form. Now find writing materials for a letterwhich I will dictate to you. "

When she saw that he was ready to begin, and turned towards her forthe words, they came from her quietly:--

"Monsieur le Comte, your wife, Lady Brandon, died at Saint-Cyr, nearTours, in the department of Indre-et-Loire. She forgave you. "

"Sign yourself----" she stopped, hesitating and perturbed. 

"Are you feeling worse?" asked Louis. 

"Put 'Louis-Gaston, '" she went on. 

She sighed, then she went on. 

"Seal the letter, and direct it. To Lord Brandon, Brandon Square, HydePark, London, Angleterre. --That is right. When I am dead, post theletter in Tours, and prepay the postage. --Now, " she added, after apause, "take the little pocketbook that you know, and come here, mydear child. . . . There are twelve thousand francs in it, " she said, when Louis had returned to her side. "That is all your own. Oh me! youwould have been better off if your father----"

"My father, " cried the boy, "where is he?"

"He is dead, " she said, laying her finger on her lips; "he died tosave my honor and my life. "

She looked upwards. If any tears had been left to her, she would havewept for pain. 

"Louis, " she continued, "swear to me, as I lie here, that you willforget all that you have written, all that I have told you. "

"Yes, mother. "

"Kiss me, dear angel. "

She was silent for a long while, she seemed to be drawing strengthfrom God, and to be measuring her words by the life that remained inher. 

"Listen, " she began. "Those twelve thousand francs are all that youhave in the world. You must keep the money upon you, because when I amdead the lawyers will come and seal everything up. Nothing will beyours then, not even your mother. All that remains for you to do willbe to go out, poor orphan children, God knows where. I have madeAnnette's future secure. She will have an annuity of a hundred crowns, and she will stay at Tours no doubt. But what will you do for yourselfand your brother?"

She raised herself, and looked at the brave child, standing by herbedside. There were drops of perspiration on his forehead, he was palewith emotion, and his eyes were dim with tears. 

"I have thought it over, mother, " he answered in a deep voice. "I willtake Marie to the school here in Tours. I will give ten thousandfrancs to our old Annette, and ask her to take care of them, and tolook after Marie. Then, with the remaining two thousand francs, I willgo to Brest, and go to sea as an apprentice. While Marie is at school, I will rise to be a lieutenant on board a man-of-war. There, afterall, die in peace, my mother; I shall come back again a rich man, andour little one shall go to the Ecole polytechnique, and I will find acareer to suit his bent. "

A gleam of joy shone in the dying woman's eyes. Two tears brimmedover, and fell over her fevered cheeks; then a deep sigh escapedbetween her lips. The sudden joy of finding the father's spirit in theson, who had grown all at once to be a man, almost killed her. 

"Angel of heaven, " she cried, weeping, "by one word you have effacedall my sorrows. Ah! I can bear them. --This is my son, " she said, "Ibore, I reared this man, " and she raised her hands above her, andclasped them as if in ecstasy, then she lay back on the pillow. 

"Mother, your face is growing pale!" cried the lad. 

"Some one must go for a priest, " she answered, with a dying voice. 

Louis wakened Annette, and the terrified old woman hurried to theparsonage at Saint-Cyr. 

When morning came, Mme. Willemsens received the sacrament amid themost touching surroundings. Her children were kneeling in the room, with Annette and the vinedresser's family, simple folk, who hadalready become part of the household. The silver crucifix, carried bya chorister, a peasant child from the village, was lifted up, and thedying mother received the Viaticum from an aged priest. The Viaticum!sublime word, containing an idea yet more sublime, an idea onlypossessed by the apostolic religion of the Roman church. 

"This woman has suffered greatly!" the old cure said in his simpleway. 

Marie Willemsens heard no voices now, but her eyes were still fixedupon her children. Those about her listened in terror to her breathingin the deep silence; already it came more slowly, though at intervalsa deep sigh told them that she still lived, and of a struggle withinher; then at last it ceased. Every one burst into tears except Marie. He, poor child, was still too young to know what death meant. 

Annette and the vinedresser's wife closed the eyes of the adorablewoman, whose beauty shone out in all its radiance after death. Thenthe women took possession of the chamber of death, removed thefurniture, wrapped the dead in her winding-sheet, and laid her uponthe couch. They lit tapers about her, and arranged everything--thecrucifix, the sprigs of box, and the holy-water stoup--after thecustom of the countryside, bolting the shutters and drawing thecurtains. Later the curate came to pass the night in prayer withLouis, who refused to leave his mother. On Tuesday morning an oldwoman and two children and a vinedresser's wife followed the dead toher grave. These were the only mourners. Yet this was a woman whosewit and beauty and charm had won a European reputation, a woman whosefuneral, if it had taken place in London, would have been recorded inpompous newspaper paragraphs, as a sort of aristocratic rite, if shehad not committed the sweetest of crimes, a crime always expiated inthis world, so that the pardoned spirit may enter heaven. Marie criedwhen they threw the earth on his mother's coffin; he understood thathe should see her no more. 

A simple, wooden cross, set up to mark her grave, bore thisinscription, due to the cure of Saint-Cyr:--

 HERE LIES AN UNHAPPY WOMAN, WHO DIED AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-SIX. KNOWN IN HEAVEN BY THE NAME OF AUGUSTA. _Pray for her!_

When all was over, the children came back to La Grenadiere to take alast look at their home; then, hand in hand, they turned to go withAnnette, leaving the vinedresser in charge, with directions to handover everything duly to the proper authorities. 

At this moment, Annette called to Louis from the steps by the kitchendoor, and took him aside with, "Here is madame's ring, MonsieurLouis. "

The sight of this vivid remembrance of his dead mother moved him sodeeply that he wept. In his fortitude, he had not even thought of thissupreme piety; and he flung his arms round the old woman's neck. Thenthe three set out down the beaten path, and the stone staircase, andso to Tours, without turning their heads. 

"Mamma used to come there!" Marie said when they reached the bridge. 

Annette had a relative, a retired dressmaker, who lived in the Rue dela Guerche. She took the two children to this cousin's house, meaningthat they should live together thenceforth. But Louis told her of hisplans, gave Marie's certificate of birth and the ten thousand francsinto her keeping, and the two went the next morning to take Marie toschool. 

Louis very briefly explained his position to the headmaster, and went. Marie came with him as far as the gateway. There Louis gave solemnparting words of the tenderest counsel, telling Marie that he wouldnow be left alone in the world. He looked at his brother for a moment, and put his arms about him, took one more long look, brushed a tearfrom his eyes, and went, turning again and again till the very last tosee his brother standing there in the gateway of the school. 

A month later Louis-Gaston, now an apprentice on board a man-of-war, left the harbor of Rochefort. Leaning over the bulwarks of thecorvette Iris, he watched the coast of France receding swiftly till itbecame indistinguishable from the faint blue horizon line. In a littlewhile he felt that he was really alone, and lost in the wide ocean, lost and alone in the world and in life. 

"There is no need to cry, lad; there is a God for us all, " said an oldsailor, with rough kindliness in his thick voice. 

The boy thanked him with pride in his eyes. Then he bowed his head, and resigned himself to a sailor's life. He was a father. 

ANGOULEME, August, 1832. 

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. 

Brandon, Lady Marie Augusta The Member for Arcis The Lily of the Valley La Grenadiere

Gaston, Louis La Grenadiere Letters of Two Brides

Gaston, Marie La Grenadiere Letters of Two Brides The Member for Arcis