Books: Gerfaut, v1

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

This etext was produced by David Widger

[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]

GERFAUT

By CHARLES DE BERNARD

With a Preface by JULES CLARETIE, of the French Academy

CHARLES DE BERNARD

PIERRE-MARIE-CHARLES DE BERNARD DU GRAIL DE LA VILLETTE, better known by
the name of Charles de Bernard, was born in Besancon, February 24, 1804.
He came from a very ancient family of the Vivarais, was educated at the
college of his native city, and studied for the law in Dijon and at
Paris. He was awarded a prize by the 'Jeux floraux' for his
dithyrambics, 'Une fete de Neron' in 1829. This first success in
literature did not prevent him aspiring to the Magistrature, when the
Revolution of 1830 broke out and induced him to enter politics. He
became one of the founders of the 'Gazette de Franche-Comte' and an
article in the pages of this journal about 'Peau de chagrin' earned him
the thanks and the friendship of Balzac.

The latter induced him to take up his domicile in Paris and initiated him
into the art of novel-writing. Bernard had published a volume of odes:
'Plus Deuil que Joie' (1838), which was not much noticed, but a series of
stories in the same year gained him the reputation of a genial 'conteur'.
They were collected under the title 'Le Noeud Gordien', and one of the
tales, 'Une Aventure du Magistrat, was adapted by Sardou for his comedy
'Pommes du voisin'. 'Gerfaut', his greatest work, crowned by the
Academy, appeared also in 1838, then followed 'Le Paravent', another
collection of novels (1839); 'Les Ailes d'Icare (1840); La Peau du Lion
and La Chasse aux Amants (1841); L'Ecueil (1842); Un Beau-pere (1845);
and finally Le Gentilhomme campagnard,' in 1847. Bernard died, only
forty-eight years old, March 6, 1850.

Charles de Bernard was a realist, a pupil of Balzac. He surpasses his
master, nevertheless, in energy and limpidity of composition. His style
is elegant and cultured. His genius is most fully represented in a score
or so of delightful tales rarely exceeding some sixty or seventy pages in
length, but perfect in proportion, full of invention and originality, and
saturated with the purest and pleasantest essence of the spirit which for
six centuries in tableaux, farces, tales in prose and verse, comedies and
correspondence, made French literature the delight and recreation of
Europe. 'Gerfaut' is considered De Bernard's greatest work. The plot
turns on an attachment between a married woman and the hero of the story.
The book has nothing that can justly offend, the incomparable sketches of
Marillac and Mademoiselle de Corandeuil are admirable; Gerfaut and
Bergenheim possess pronounced originality, and the author is, so to
speak, incarnated with the hero of his romance.

The most uncritical reader can not fail to notice the success with which
Charles de Bernard introduces people of rank and breeding into his
stories. Whether or not he drew from nature, his portraits of this kind
are exquisitely natural and easy. It is sufficient to say that he is the
literary Sir Joshua Reynolds of the post-revolution vicomtes and
marquises. We can see that his portraits are faithful; we must feel that
they are at the same time charming. Bernard is an amiable and spirited
'conteur' who excels in producing an animated spectacle for a refined and
selected public, whether he paints the ridiculousness or the misery of
humanity.

The works of Charles de Bernard in wit and urbanity, and in the peculiar
charm that wit and urbanity give, are of the best French type. To any
elevation save a lofty place in fiction they have no claim; but in that
phase of literature their worth is undisputed, and from many testimonies
it would seem that those whom they most amuse are those who are best
worth amusing.

These novels, well enough as they are known to professed students of
French literature, have, by the mere fact of their age, rather slipped
out of the list of books known to the general reader. The general reader
who reads for amusement can not possibly do better than proceed to
transform his ignorance of them into knowledge.

JULES CLARETIE
de l'Academie Francaise.

GERFAUT

BOOK 1.

CHAPTER I

THE TRAVELLER

During the first days of the month of September, 1832, a young man about
thirty years of age was walking through one of the valleys in Lorraine
originating in the Vosges mountains. A little river which, after a few
leagues of its course, flows into the Moselle, watered this wild basin
shut in between two parallel lines of mountains. The hills in the south
became gradually lower and finally dwindled away into the plain.
Alongside the plateau, arranged in amphitheatres, large square fields
stripped of their harvest lay here and there in the primitive forest; in
other places, innumerable oaks and elms had been dethroned to give place
to plantations of cherry-trees, whose symmetrical rows promised an
abundant harvest.

This contest of nature with industry is everywhere, but is more
pronounced in hilly countries. The scene changed, however, as one
penetrated farther, and little by little the influence of the soil gained
ascendancy. As the hills grew nearer together, enclosing the valley in a
closer embrace, the clearings gave way to the natural obduracy of the
soil. A little farther on they disappeared entirely. At the foot of one
of the bluffs which bordered with its granite bands the highest plateau
of the mountain, the forest rolled victoriously down to the banks of the
river.

Now came patches of forest, like solid battalions of infantry; sometimes
solitary trees appeared, as if distributed by chance upon the grassy
slopes, or scaling the summit of the steepest rocks like a body of bold
sharpshooters. A little, unfrequented road, if one can judge from the
scarcity of tracks, ran alongside the banks of the stream, climbing up
and down hills; overcoming every obstacle, it stretched out in almost a
straight line. One might compare it to those strong characters who mark
out a course in life and imperturbably follow it. The river, on the
contrary, like those docile and compliant minds that bend to agreeable
emergencies, described graceful curves, obeying thus the caprices of the
soil which served as its bed.

At a first glance, the young man who was walking alone in the midst of
this picturesque country seemed to have nothing remarkable in his dress;
a straw hat, a blue blouse and linen trousers composed his costume.
It would have been very natural to take him for an Alsatian peasant
returning to his village through the Vosges's rough pathways; but a more
attentive glance quickly dispelled this conjecture. There is something
in the way in which a person wears the plainest costume which betrays the
real man, no matter how he may be clothed. Thus, nothing could be more
modest than this traveller's blouse, but the absence on collar and
sleeves of the arabesques in white or red thread, the pride of all
village dandies, was sufficient for one to realize that this was not a
fancy costume.

His expressive, but not handsome face was dark, it is true, but it did
not look as if wind or sun had contributed to its complexion; it seemed
rather to have lost by a sedentary life something of the southern
carnation, which had ended by blending these warmer tints into a dead
uniform pallor. Finally, if, as one may suppose after different
diagnoses, this person had the slightest desire to play the role of
Tyrcis or Amintas, his white hand, as carefully cared for as a pretty
woman's, would have been sufficient to betray him. It was evident that
the man was above his costume; a rare thing! The lion's ears pierced the
ass's skin this time.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon; the sky, which had been overcast
all the morning, had assumed, within a few moments, a more sombre aspect;
large clouds were rapidly moving from south to north, rolled one over
another by an ominous wind. So the traveller, who had just entered the
wildest part of the valley, seemed very little disposed to admire its
fine vegetation and romantic sites. Impatient to reach the end of his
journey, or fearing the approaching storm, he quickened his steps; but
this pace was not kept long. At the end of a few moments, having crossed
a small clearing, he found himself at the entrance of a lawn where the
road divided in two directions, one continuing to skirt the river banks,
the other, broader and better built, turning to the left into a winding
ravine.

Which of these two roads should he follow? He did not know. The
profound solitude of the place made him fear that he might not meet any
one who could direct him, when the sound of a psalm vigorously chanted
reached his ears from the distance. Soon it became more distinct, and he
recognized the words, 'In exitu Israel de Egypto', sung at the top of the
lungs by a voice so shrill that it would have irritated the larynx of any
of the sopranos at the Opera. Its vibrating but sharp tones resounded so
clearly in the dead silence of the forest that a number of stanzas were
finished before the pious musician came in sight. At last a drove of
cattle appeared through the trees which bordered the road on the left,
walking with a slow, grave step; they were driven by a little shepherd
about nine or ten years of age, who interrupted his song from time to
time to reassemble the members of his flock with heavy blows from his
whip, thus uniting temporal cares with those of a spiritual nature with a
coolness which the most important personages might have envied him.

"Which of these roads leads to Bergenheim?" called out the traveller
when they were near enough to speak to each other.

"Bergenheim!" repeated the child, taking off his cotton cap, which was
striped like a rainbow, and adding a few words in an unintelligible
Gallo-Germanic patois.

"You are not French, then?" asked the stranger, in a disappointed tone.

The shepherd raised his head proudly and replied:

"I am Alsatian, not French!"

The young man smiled at this trait of local patriotism so common then in
the beautiful province by the Rhine; then he thought that pantomime might
be necessary, so he pointed with his finger first at one road, then at
the other:

"There or there, Bergenheim?" asked he.

The child, in his turn, pointed silently with the tip of his whip to the
banks of the river, designating, at some distance on the other side, a
thicket of woods behind which a slight column of smoke was rising.

"The deuce!" murmured the stranger, "it seems that I have gone astray;
if the chateau is on the other side, where can I establish my ambuscade?"

The shepherd seemed to understand the traveller's embarrassment. Gazing
at him with his intelligent blue eyes, he traced, with the tip of his toe
in the middle of the road, a furrow across which he rounded his whip like
the arch of a bridge; then he pointed a second time up the river.

"You are an honor to your country, young fellow," exclaimed the stranger;
"there is the material in you to make one of Cooper's redskins." As he
said these words he threw a piece of money into the child's cap and
walked rapidly away in the direction indicated.

The Alsatian stood motionless for a few moments with one hand in his
blond hair and his eyes fastened upon the piece of silver which shone
like a star in the bottom of his cap; when the one whom he considered as
a model of extraordinary generosity had disappeared behind the trees, he
gave vent to his joy by heavy blows from his whip upon the backs of the
cattle, then he resumed his way, singing in a still more triumphant tone:
'Mantes exultaverunt ut arites', and jumping higher himself than all the
hills and rams in the Bible.

The young man had not walked more than five minutes before he recognized
the correctness of the directions he had received. The ground which he
had passed over was a field covered with clumps of low trees; it was easy
to see by its disc-like shape that it had been formed by successive
alluvia, at the expense of the other shore, which had been incessantly
worn away by the stream. This sort of flat, level peninsula was crossed
in a straight line by the road, which deviated from the river at the
point where the two roads came together again, like the cross and string
of a bow at its extremity. The trees, becoming thinner, revealed a
perspective all the more wonderful as it was unexpected. While the eye
followed the widening stream, which disappeared in the depths of a
mountainous gorge, a new prospect suddenly presented itself on the right
upon the other shore.

A second valley, smaller than the first and in measure its vassal, formed
an amphitheatre the crest of which was bordered by a fringe of
perpendicular rocks as white as dried bones. Under this crown, which
rendered it almost inaccessible, the little valley was resplendent in its
wealth of evergreen trees, oaks with their knotty branches, and its fresh
green turf.

Taken as a whole, it was a foundation worthy of the picturesque edifice
which met one's eye in the foreground, and at which the traveller gazed
with extreme interest.

At the junction of the two valleys stood an enormous building, half
manorial, half monastic in appearance. The shore formed, at this point,
for an extent of several hundred feet, a bluff whose edge plunged
vertically into the river. The chateau and its outbuildings rested upon
this solid base. The principal house was a large parallelogram of very
old construction, but which had evidently been almost entirely rebuilt at
the beginning of the sixteenth century. The stones, of grayish granite
which abounds in the Vosges, were streaked with blue and violet veins,
and gave the facade a sombre aspect, increased by the scarcity of
windows, some of which were 'a la Palladio', others almost as narrow as
loop-holes. An immense roof of red tile, darkened by rain, projected
several feet over the whole front, as is still to be seen in old cities
in the North. Thanks to this projecting weather-board, the apartments
upon the upper floor were shaded from the sun's rays, like those persons
who have weak eyes and who protect them from a strong light by wearing a
green shade.

The view which this melancholy dwelling presented from the place where
the traveller had first seen it, was one which made it appear to the best
advantage; it seemed, from this point, to come immediately out of the
river, built as it was upon the very curb of the bluffs, at this place at
least thirty feet high. This elevation, added to that of the building,
effaced the lack of proportion of the roof and gave to the whole a most
imposing appearance; it seemed as if the rocks were a part of the
building to which it served as foundation, for the stones had ended by
assuming the same color, and it would have been difficult to discover the
junction of man's work and that of nature, had it not been outlined by a
massive iron balcony running across the entire length of the first story,
whence one could enjoy the pleasure of line-fishing. Two round towers
with pointed roofs stood at each corner of the facade and seemed to gaze
with proud satisfaction at their own reflection in the water.

A long line of sycamore-trees skirted the banks of the river, beginning
from the foot of the chateau, and forming the edge of a park which
extended to the back of the double valley. A little wooden bridge
connected this sort of avenue with the road the traveller had just passed
over; but the latter did not seem disposed to profit by this silent
invitation to which large raindrops gave more emphasis. He was so
absorbed in his meditation that, to arouse him, it needed the sound of a
gruff voice behind him uttering these words:

"That is what I call an ugly castle! It is hardly as good as our common
country houses around Marseilles."

The stranger turned quickly around and found himself face to face with a
man wearing a gray cap and carrying his coat upon his shoulder, as
workmen do in the South. He held in his hand a knotty stick which had
been recently cut. The newcomer had a swarthy complexion, harsh
features, and deep-set eyes which gave his face an ugly, false
expression.

"I said an ugly castle," continued he. "However, the cage is made for
the bird."

"It seems, then, that you do not like its master?" said the traveller.

"The master!" repeated the workman, seizing hold of his stick with a
threatening air, "Monsieur le Baron de Bergenheim, as they say! He is
rich and a nobleman, and I am only a poor carpenter. Well, then, if you
stay here a few days, you will witness a comical ceremony; I shall make
this brigand repent."

"Brigand!" exclaimed the stranger, in a surprised tone. "What has he
done to you?"

"Yes, brigand! you may tell him so from me. But, by the way," continued
the workman, surveying his companion from head to foot with a searching,
defiant air, "do you happen to be the carpenter who is coming from
Strasbourg? In that case, I have a few words to say to you. Lambernier
does not allow any one to take the bread out of his mouth in that way; do
you understand?"

The young man seemed very little moved by this declaration.

"I am not a carpenter," said he, smiling, "and I have no wish for your
work."

"Truly, you do not look as if you had pushed a plane very often. It
seems that in your business one does not spoil one's hands. You are a
workman about as much as I am pope."

This remark made the one to whom it was addressed feel in as bad a humor
as an author does when he finds a grammatical error in one of his books.

"So you work at the chateau, then," said he, finally, to change the
conversation.

"For six months I have worked in that shanty," replied the workman;
"I am the one who carved the new woodwork, and I will say it is well
done. Well, this great wild boar of a Bergenheim turned me out of the
house yesterday as if I had been one of his dogs."

"He doubtless had his reasons."

"I tell you, I will crush him--reasons! Damn it! They told him I talked
too often with his wife's maid and quarrelled with the servants, a pack
of idlers! Did he not forbid my putting my foot upon his land? I am
upon his land now; let him come and chase me off; let him come, he will
see how I shall receive him. Do you see this stick? I have just cut it
in his own woods to use it on himself!"

The young man no longer listened to the workman; his eyes were turned
toward the castle, whose slightest details he studied, as if he hoped
that in the end the stone would turn into glass and let him see the
interior. If this curiosity had any other object than the architecture
and form of the building it was not gratified. No human figure came to
enliven this sad, lonely dwelling. All the windows were closed, as if
the house were uninhabited. The baying of dogs, probably imprisoned in
their kennel, was the only sound which came to break the strange silence,
and the distant thunder, with its dull rumbling, repeated by the echoes,
responded plaintively, and gave a lugubrious character to the scene.

"When one speaks of the devil he appears," said the workman, suddenly,
with an emotion which gave the lie to his recent bravado; "if you wish to
see this devil incarnate of a Bergenheim, just turn your head. Good-by."

At these words he leaped a ditch at the left of the road and disappeared
in the bushes. The stranger also seemed to feel an impression very like
that of Lambernier's as he saw a man on horseback advancing on a gallop.
Instead of waiting for him, he darted into the field which descended to
the river, and hid behind a group of trees.

The Baron, who was not more than thirty-three years of age, had one of
those energetic, handsome faces whose type seems to belong particularly
to old military families. His bright, blond hair and clear, blue eyes
contrasted strongly with his ruddy complexion; his aspect was severe, but
noble and imposing, in spite of his negligent dress, which showed that
indifference to matters of personal attire which becomes habitual with
country lords. His tall figure was beginning to grow stout, and that
increased his athletic appearance. He sat very erect in his saddle, and
from the way in which he straightened out his long legs against the sides
of his beast, one suspected that he could, if necessary, repeat the
Marshal de Saxe's feats of skill. He stopped his horse suddenly at the
very spot which the two men had just vacated and called out in a voice
which would startle a regiment of cuirassiers:

"Here, Lambernier!"

The carpenter hesitated a moment, at this imperative call, between the
fear which he could not overcome and shame at fleeing from a single man
in the presence of a witness; finally this last feeling triumphed.
He returned to the edge of the road without saying a word, and stationed
himself in an insolent way face to face with the Baron, with his hat
drawn down over his ears, and grasped through precaution the knotty stick
which served him as a weapon.

"Lambernier," said the master of the castle, in a severe tone, "your
account was settled yesterday; was it not paid in full? Is anything due
you?"

"I ask nothing of you," replied the workman, brusquely.

"In that case, why are you wandering about my place when I forbade you?"

"I am upon the highway, nobody can prevent me from passing there."

"You are upon my land, and you came out of my woods," replied the Baron,
emphasizing his words with the firmness of a man who would permit no
violation of his rights as a landowner.

"The ground upon which I walk is mine," said the workman, in his turn, as
he struck the end of his stick upon the ground as if to take possession.
This gesture attracted Bergenheim's attention, and his eyes flashed with
a sudden light at the sight of the stick which Lambernier held.

"You scoundrel!" he exclaimed, "you probably regard my trees also as
your own. Where did you cut that stick?"

"Go and find out," said the workman, accompanying his reply with a
flourish of the stick.

The Baron coolly dismounted, threw the bridle over his horse's neck,
walked up to the workman, who had taken the position of a practised
pugilist to receive him, and, without giving him time to strike, he
disarmed him with one hand by a blow which would have been sufficient to
uproot the beech rod before it was metamorphosed into a club; with the
other hand he seized the man by the collar and gave him a shaking that it
was as impossible to struggle against as if it had been caused by a
steam-engine. Obeying this irresistible force, in spite of his kicking,
Lambernier described a dozen circles around his adversary, while the
latter set these off with some of the hardest blows from green wood that
ever chastised an insolent fellow. This gymnastic exercise ended by a
sleight-of-hand trick, which, after making the carpenter pirouette for
the last time, sent him rolling head-first into a ditch, the bottom of
which, fortunately for him, was provided with a bed of soft mud. When
the punishment was over, Bergenheim remounted his horse as tranquilly as
he had dismounted it, and continued his way toward the chateau.

The young man, in the midst of the thicket where he was concealed, had
lost no detail of this rural scene. He could not help having a feeling
of admiration for this energetic representative of the feudal ages who,
with no fear of any court of justice or other bourgeois inventions, had
thus exerted over his own domains the summary justice in force in Eastern
countries.

"France has thrashed Gaul," said he, smiling to himself; "if all our men
had this Bergenheim's iron fist many things determined upon to-day might
be called in question. If I ever have the slightest difficulty with this
Milo de Crotona, he may be sure I shall not choose pugilism as my mode of
discussion."

The storm now burst forth in all its fury. A dark curtain covered the
whole valley, and the rain fell in torrents. The Baron put spurs to his
horse, crossed the bridge and, entering the sycamore avenue, was soon out
of sight. Without paying any attention to Lambernier, who was uttering
imprecations at the bottom of the ditch, into which he was sinking deeper
and deeper, the stranger went to seek a less illusive shelter than the
trees under which he had taken his position; but at this moment his
attention was attracted to one side of the castle. A window, or rather
a glass door, just then opened upon the balcony, and a young woman in a
rose-colored negligee appeared upon the dark facade. It would be
impossible to imagine anything more fresh or charming than this
apparition at such a moment. Leaning upon the balustrade, the young
woman rested her face upon a hand which was as white as a lily, and her
finger smoothed with a mechanical caress the ringlets of chestnut hair
that lay upon her forehead, while her large brown eyes gazed into the
depths of the clouds from which the lightning was flashing, and with
which they vied in brilliancy. A poet would have said it was Miranda
evoked by the tempest.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5