The Human Comedy - La Comédie humaine (Complete Edition). Honore de Balzac
is too closely watched to be able to keep him in his own house,” he resumed. “So he brought him to me, by night, about a week ago. I hoped to keep him out of sight in this corner, the only spot in the house where he could be safe.”
“If I can be useful to you, employ me,” said Ginevra. “I know the Marechal de Feltre.”
“Well, we’ll see,” replied the painter.
This conversation lasted too long not to be noticed by all the other girls. Servin left Ginevra, went round once more to each easel, and gave such long lessons that he was still there at the hour when the pupils were in the habit of leaving.
“You are forgetting your bag, Mademoiselle Thirion,” said the professor, running after the girl, who was now condescending to the work of a spy to satisfy her jealousy.
The baffled pupil returned for the bag, expressing surprise at her carelessness; but this act of Servin’s was to her fresh proof of the existence of a mystery, the importance of which was evident. She now ran noisily down the staircase, and slammed the door which opened into the Servins’ apartment, to give an impression that she had gone; then she softly returned and stationed herself outside the door of the studio.
CHAPTER III.
LABEDOYERE’S FRIEND
When the painter and Ginevra thought themselves alone, Servin rapped in a peculiar manner on the door of the dark garret, which turned at once on its rusty and creaking hinges. Ginevra then saw a tall and well-made young man, whose Imperial uniform set her heart to beating. The officer had one arm in a sling, and the pallor of his face revealed sharp suffering. Seeing an unknown woman, he recoiled.
Amelie, who was unable to look into the room, the door being closed, was afraid to stay longer; she was satisfied with having heard the opening of the garret door, and departed noiselessly.
“Fear nothing,” said the painter to the officer. “Mademoiselle is the daughter of a most faithful friend of the Emperor, the Baron di Piombo.”
The young soldier retained no doubts as to Ginevra’s patriotism as soon as he saw her.
“You are wounded,” she said.
“Oh! it is nothing, mademoiselle,” he replied; “the wound is healing.”
Just at this moment the loud cries of the vendors of newspapers came up from the street: “Condemned to death!” They all trembled, and the soldier was the first to hear a name that turned him pale.
“Labedoyere!” he cried, falling on a stool.
They looked at each other in silence. Drops gathered on the livid forehead of the young man; he seized the black tufts of his hair in one hand with a gesture of despair, and rested his elbow on Ginevra’s easel.
“After all,” he said, rising abruptly, “Labedoyere and I knew what we were doing. We were certain of the fate that awaited us, whether from triumph or defeat. He dies for the Cause, and here am I, hiding myself!”
He rushed toward the door of the studio; but, quicker than he, Ginevra reached it, and barred his way.
“Can you restore the Emperor?” she said. “Do you expect to raise that giant who could not maintain himself?”
“But what can I do?” said the young man, addressing the two friends whom chance had sent to him. “I have not a relation in the world. Labedoyere was my protector and my friend; without him, I am alone. To-morrow I myself may be condemned; my only fortune was my pay. I spent my last penny to come here and try to snatch Labedoyere from his fate; death is, therefore, a necessity for me. When a man decides to die he ought to know how to sell his life to the executioner. I was thinking just now that the life of an honest man is worth that of two traitors, and the blow of a dagger well placed may give immortality.”
This spasm of despair alarmed the painter, and even Ginevra, whose own nature comprehended that of the young man. She admired his handsome face and his delightful voice, the sweetness of which was scarcely lessened by its tones of fury. Then, all of a sudden, she poured a balm upon the wounds of the unfortunate man:—
“Monsieur,” she said, “as for your pecuniary distress, permit me to offer you my savings. My father is rich; I am his only child; he loves me, and I am sure he will never blame me. Have no scruple in accepting my offer; our property is derived from the Emperor; we do not own a penny that is not the result of his munificence. Is it not gratitude to him to assist his faithful soldiers? Take the sums you need as indifferently as I offer them. It is only money!” she added, in a tone of contempt. “Now, as for friends,—those you shall have.”
She raised her head proudly, and her eyes shone with dazzling brilliancy.
“The head which falls to-morrow before a dozen muskets will save yours,” she went on. “Wait till the storm is over; you can then escape and take service in foreign countries if you are not forgotten here; or in the French army, if you are.”
In the comfort that women give there is always a delicacy which has something maternal, foreseeing, and complete about it. But when the words of hope and peace are said with grace of gesture and that eloquence of tone which comes from the heart, and when, above all, the benefactress is beautiful, a young man does not resist. The prisoner breathed in love through all his senses. A rosy tinge colored his white cheeks; his eyes lost something of the sadness that dulled them, and he said, in a peculiar tone of voice:—
“You are an angle of goodness—But Labedoyere!” he added. “Oh, Labedoyere!”
At this cry they all three looked at one another in silence, each comprehending the others’ thoughts. No longer friends of twenty minutes only, they were friends of twenty years.
“Dear friend,” said Servin, “can you save him?”
“I can avenge him.”
Ginevra quivered. Though the stranger was handsome, his appearance had not influenced her; the soft pity in a woman’s heart for miseries that are not ignoble had stifled in Ginevra all other emotions; but to hear a cry of vengeance, to find in that proscribed being an Italian soul, devotion to Napoleon, Corsican generosity!—ah! that was, indeed, too much for her. She looked at the officer with a respectful emotion which shook his heart. For the first time in her life a man had caused her a keen emotion. She now, like other women, put the soul of the stranger on a par with the noble beauty of his features and the happy proportions of his figure, which she admired as an artist. Led by accidental curiosity to pity, from pity to a powerful interest, she came, through that interest, to such profound sensations that she felt she was in danger if she stayed there longer.
“Until to-morrow, then,” she said, giving the officer a gentle smile by way of a parting consolation.
Seeing that smile, which threw a new light on Ginevra’s features, the stranger forgot all else for an instant.
“To-morrow,” he said, sadly; “but to-morrow, Labedoyere—”
Ginevra turned, put a finger on her lips, and looked at him, as if to say: “Be calm, be prudent.”
And the young man cried out in his own language:
“Ah! Dio! che non vorrei vivere dopo averla veduta?—who would not wish to live after seeing her?”
The peculiar accent with which he pronounced the words made Ginevra quiver.
“Are you Corsican?” she cried, returning toward him with a beating heart.
“I was born in Corsica,” he replied; “but I was brought, while very young, to Genoa, and as soon as I was old enough for military service I enlisted.”
The beauty of the young man, the mighty charm lent to him by his