Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 15, August, 1851. Various
genteel appearance, but the expression of whose features Julienne did not altogether like, was sitting by the window busied with her crotchet-needles. The latter personage rose from her seat, and inclined her head to Julienne.
"Madame Folitton?"
"Yes."
"My father has prepared me to expect you. I was much engaged when you came the other day, but now I am at your service." She touched the old man whom she called father upon the shoulder, but she had to repeat the operation twice or thrice ere he turned his eyes from his manuscript, so profoundly was his attention engaged thereon. He shifted his position slowly, raised his spectacles, and rubbed his eyes like one awakened from a dream.
"He studies much," said Mademoiselle Trompere to Julienne, as if by way of apology for the old man's abstraction. "Do you see? – here is Madame Folitton."
"Ah, it is well!" exclaimed he, as, with half sigh half smile, he advanced to the young visitor and shook her hand. "She comes to consult you, my child, as I have told you; and I half suspect the little lady is not so anxious for the mere solving of what seems a riddle to her, as she is to test the truth of clairvoyance; so we must be upon our metal. Saucy little bird! She is not the only one who doubts the wondrous insight into the mysteries of nature which science has in our day obtained."
Mademoiselle Trompere, the somnambule, then deposited herself in a large and handsome armchair, softly cushioned in crimson velvet. She sat upright for a while, and the old man and his daughter looked fixedly at each other, while the former passed his right hand slowly up and down before her face. After eight or ten "passes," her eyes suddenly closed, her face grew white as death, and she sank back in an attitude of complete repose. The old man continued making the "passes" for a minute or two longer, and then going softly round to the back of the somnambule, laid his hand lightly upon her head.
"Mademoiselle is now ready for your interrogations," said he to Julienne.
Poor Julienne was frightened, and had she known beforehand that such a mysterious operation as she had just witnessed would have been necessary to the gratification of her whim, she would rather a thousand times have let it remain unsatisfied. So flurried was she, that she knew not what to ask, and would have been very glad to have paid her fee at once and gone home again without testing the lucidité extrême. As if divining her thoughts, the old man turned them into a different channel by himself asking the question which Julienne had intended.
"Can you give your visitor any information respecting M. Folitton at St. Cloud?"
"At St. Cloud say you?" said the somnambule, in a low, dreamy voice. "Wait one moment Ah! now I see him. He is in a large garden. There are workmen round him who ask him questions respecting the labor next to be taken in hand. Now they leave him, each proceeding to his appointed task. M. Folitton goes into his house. He takes a billet from his breast and reads it. I can see the signature: it is Marie Colonne."
Julienne started. The old man looked toward her wistfully, and then, as if interpreting her thoughts, asked the somnambule, "Can you read the contents of the billet?"
"It is not very distinct," was the reply; "apparently written in haste. The words are —'Your fears, Andrè, are needless. What matters it that Fate would seem to demand our eternal separation? Can we not be superior to Fate? Have we not proved it? Do not fail to-night; but this I need not tell you, for since you first discovered the grand mistake of your life, you have not wavered.' Monsieur Folitton reads it again and again, and replaces it in his breast. He opens his desk and examines something. I see it now: it is the miniature of a lady. She is young: her hair is very long, her eyes dark and bright."
"It is enough," said Julienne, rising quickly. "Be it true or false, I will hear no more." She moved hurriedly toward the door, as if to escape as quickly as possible from a cruel torment. The old man followed her.
"I forgot," exclaimed the agitated girl, as she paused and drew from her little glove the stipulated fee.
That very evening Madame Margot repeated her visit, and requested to see Julienne alone. She found her alone, but, as if she had something too weighty to be said in the salle-à-manger, she insisted that they should shut themselves up in Julienne's bedroom, while she relieved her loaded mind.
"Ah, poor Julienne!" said she, "I never come to see her of an evening but I find her alone! Poor child! so innocent and unsuspecting too! Well, we all have our trials; but to see one whom I love as if she were my own child so treated, is enough to drive me mad!"
"What do you mean?" asked Julienne, nervously, for her adventure with the clairvoyante had given her a shock.
"My dear, do you mean still to say that you don't know where your husband spends his evenings?"
"It is true; I do not know," said Julienne, blushing deeply; then adding, in a tone which, though meant to be firm and resolute, was painfully faint and timid – "nor do I wish to – "
"Well, my child, I happen to know!" exclaimed Madame Margot, her sharp eyes flashing with eager excitement. "By the merest chance in the world I have made the discovery, and I considered it my duty to speak to you directly, in the hope of saving you and your husband, if possible, from much future misery. My love, prepare yourself for what I have to tell: – Your husband repairs to M. Colonne's nearly every evening, and is always admitted and let out by Mademoiselle Marie! She is the one who gives him welcome, and bids him adieu! Oh, it is enough to drive one crazy! My tears flowed for you last night, poor Julienne!"
"Oh, restez tranquille!" said Julienne, coldly. She had started and trembled upon hearing a tale which coincided so completely with the revelations of the somnambule, but Madame Margot's acrid and triumphant manner roused her indignation, and whether the story she told and the inference she so readily founded upon it were true or false, Julienne heartily wished her away – never to see her malignant eyes or hear her bitter voice again. She was too proud to ask any questions for the sake of proving what foundation her sympathizing companion had for her suspicions. She loved Andrè warmly, and sincerely believed him to be worthy of her love; but there was something in his own secrecy and in the similarity of the different reports which had reached her ears this day which staggered her earnest faith. A dreary feeling overcame her: the radiance of her life was clouded over. The anchor which had held her safely in a tranquil and beautiful bay seemed to have lost its hold suddenly, and now she was tossing upon a strange and restless sea. And Madame Marmot watched the quivering of her lip and the fevered flushing of her face, and gloated upon the agony she had caused.
"I have done my errand," said she, "and now my mind is a little more at ease. Take what steps you think proper, my poor child; the sooner the matter is settled the better for all parties; and if you should have any difficulty, pray do not hesitate to apply to me. It might not yet be too late to prevent mischief."
Andrè came home that night as hearty and good-tempered as ever. He saw that his little wife looked but poorly, and he affectionately inquired what ailed her; caressed her, and tried to comfort and revive her. Indescribably oppressed, she burst into tears. This relieved her, but she was silent and triste the rest of the evening. She could not bear to think of telling him what she had heard, and what she felt. Indeed a deep feeling of reproach rose up in her heart as she looked in his frank and sympathetic face; but she could not comprehend the mystery, and felt miserable and crushed.
The days passed on, and Andrè grieved to find his young wife grow no better. At length, satisfied, from the peculiarity of her malady, from her silent behavior, and the strange brooding manner in which he sometimes found her regarding him – feeling assured that the change owed its existence to something relating to himself – he gravely asked her what had brought it about, and solemnly conjured her to conceal nothing from him. So repugnant to her, however, was the idea of exhibiting a feeling so gross, and so unjust to her husband, as she determined to think, was her jealousy, that she still withheld the secret.
She seemed to be pining day by day. Andrè's pain and vexation were as deep as her own sadness. A mutual dissatisfaction was fast springing up between them. While matters were at this pass, Madame Margot, who, like the bats, rarely moved out before the evening, paid her third visit to the house of the botanist. Andrè coming home earlier than usual this night, she spent some time with the husband