Read Ebook: Picciola by Saintine X B Xavier Boniface Gueldry J F Illustrator

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Ebook has 658 lines and 66699 words, and 14 pages

Still unconsoled, Charney at length made up his mind to fling aside his heart-eating cares, adopt, by anticipation, all the puerilities and brutalization which result from the prolongation of solitary confinement. The philosopher attempted to find amusement in unravelling silk or linen; in making flageolets of straw, and building ships of walnut-shells. The man of genius constructed whistles, boxes, and baskets, of kernels; chains and musical instruments, with the springs of his braces; nay, for a time, he took delight in these absurdities; then, with a sudden movement of disgust, trampled them, one by one, under his feet!

To vary his employment, Charney began to carve a thousand fanciful designs upon his wooden table! No school-boy ever mutilated his desk by such attempts at arabesque, both in relief and intaglio, as tasked his patience and address. The celebrated portal of the church of Candebee, and the pulpit and palm trees of St. Gudula at Brussels, are not adorned with a greater variety of figures. There were houses upon houses, fishes upon trees, men taller than steeples, boats upon roofs, carriages upon water, dwarf pyramids, and flies of gigantic stature,--horizontal, vertical, oblique, topsy-turvy, upside down, pell-mell, a chaos of hieroglyphics, in which he tried to discover a sense symbolical, an accidental intention, an occult design; for it was no great effort on the part of one who had so much faith in the power of chance, to expect the development of an epic poem in the sculptures on his table, or a design of Raphael in the veins of his box-wood snuff-box.

It was the delight of his ingenuity to multiply difficulties for conquest, problems for solution, enigmas for divination; but even in the midst of these recreations, ennui, the formidable enemy, again surprised the captive.

The man whose face he had noticed at the grated window might have afforded him food for conjecture, had he not seemed to avoid the observation of the Count, by retiring the moment Charney made his appearance; in consequence of which, he conceived an abhorrence of the recluse. Such was his opinion of the human species, that the stranger's desire of concealment convinced him he was a spy, employed to watch the movements of the prisoners, or, perhaps, some former enemy, exulting over his humiliation.

On interrogating the jailer, however, this last supposition was set at rest.

"'Tis an Italian," said Ludovico, the turnkey. "A good soul--and, what is more, a good Christian; for I often find him at his devotions."

Charney shrugged his shoulders: "And what may be the cause, pray, of his retention?" said he.

"He attempted to assassinate the Emperor."

"Is he, then, a patriot?"

"It was a paroxysm of selfishness, then, which moved this old man to become an assassin?"

"And how does this fierce conspirator amuse himself in prison?" persisted Charney.

"Catching flies!" replied the jailer, with an ironical wink.

Instead of detesting his brother in misfortune, Charney now began to despise him. "A madman, then?" he demanded.

In defiance of the sneer conveyed in the jailer's remark, Charney soon resumed his manual labors, and the interpretations of his hieroglyphics; but, alas! only to experience anew their insufficiency as a kill-time. His first winter had expired in weariness and discontent: when, by the mercy of Heaven, an unexpected object of interest was assigned him.

One day, Charney was breathing the fresh air in the little court of the fortress, at the accustomed hour, his head declining, his eyes downcast, his arms crossed behind him, pacing with slow and measured steps, as if his deliberation tended to enlarge the precincts of his dominion.

Spring was breaking. A milder air breathing around, tantalized him with a vain inclination to enjoy the season of liberty, as master of his time and territory. He was proceeding to number, one by one, the stones paving the courtyard, , when he perceived a small mound of earth rising between two stones of the pavement, cleft slightly at its summit.

The Count stopped short--his heart beat hurriedly without any rational grounds for emotion, except that every trivial incident affords matter of hope or fear to a captive. In the most indifferent objects, in the most unimportant events, the prisoner discerns traces of a mysterious project for his deliverance.

Who could decide that this trifling irregularity on the surface might not indicate important operations under ground? Subterraneous issues might have been secretly constructed, and the earth be about to open and afford him egress towards the mountains! Perhaps his former friends and accomplices had been sapping and mining, to procure access to his dungeon, and restore him to light and liberty!

He listened! he fancied he could detect the low murmur of a subterraneous sound. He raised his head, and the loud and rapid clang of the tocsin saluted his ear. The ramparts were echoing with the prolonged roll of drums, like the call to arms in time of war. He started--he passed his trembling hand over his forehead, on which cold dews of intense agitation were already rising. Is his liberation at hand? Is France submitted to the domination of a new ruler?

The illusion of the captive vanished as it came. Reflection soon restored him to reason. He no longer possesses accomplices--he never possessed friends! Again he lends a listening ear, and the same noises recur; but they mislead his mind no longer. The supposed tocsin is only the church bell which he has been accustomed to hear daily at the same hour, and the drums, the usual evening signal for retreat to quarters. With a bitter smile, Charney begins to compassionate his own folly, which could mistake the insignificant labors of some insect or reptile, some wandering mole or field-mouse, for the result of human fidelity, or the subversion of a mighty empire.

Resolved, however, to bring the matter to the test, Charney, bending over the little hillock, gently removed the earth from its summit; when he had the mortification to perceive that the wild though momentary emotion by which he had been overcome, was not produced by so much as the labors of an animal armed with teeth and claws! but by the efforts of a feeble plant to pierce the soil--a pale and sickly scatterling of vegetation. Deeply vexed, he was about to crush with his heel the miserable weed, when a refreshing breeze, laden with the sweets of some bower of honeysuckles, or syringas, swept past, as if to intercede for mercy towards the poor plant, which might perhaps hereafter reward him with its flowers and fragrance.

A new conjecture conspired to suspend his act of vengeance. How has this tender plant, so soft and fragile as to be crushed with a touch, contrived to pierce and cleave asunder the earth, dried and hardened into a mass by the sun, daily trodden down by his own footsteps, and all but cemented by the flags of granite between which it was enclosed? On stooping again to examine the matter with more attention, he observed at the extremity of the plant a sort of fleshy valve affording protection to its first and tenderest leaves, from the injurious contact of any hard bodies they might have to encounter in penetrating the earthy crust in search of light and air.

"This, then, is the secret?" cried he, already interested in his discovery. "Nature has imparted strength to the vegetable germ, even as the unfledged bird which is able to break asunder with its beak the egg-shell in which it is imprisoned; happier than myself--in possession of unalienable instruments to secure its liberation!" And after gazing another minute on the inoffensive plant, he lost all inclination for its destruction.

On resuming his walk the next day, with wide and careless steps, Charney was on the point of setting his foot on it, from inadvertence; but luckily recoiled in time. Amused to find himself interested in the preservation of a weed, he paused to take note of its progress. The plant was strangely grown; and the free light of day had already effaced the pale and sickly complexion of the preceding day. Charney was struck by the power inherent in vegetables to absorb rays of light, and, fortified by the nourishment, borrow, as it were, from the prism, the very colours predestined to distinguish its various parts of organization.

"The leaves," thought he, "will probably imbibe a hue different from that of the stem. And the flowers? what colour, I wonder, will be the flowers? Nourished by the same sap as the green leaves and stem, how do they manage to acquire, from the influence of the sun, their variegations of azure, pink, or scarlet? For already their hue is appointed. In spite of the confusion and disorder of all human affairs, matter, blind as it is, marches with admirable regularity: still blindly, however! for lo, the fleshy lobes which served to facilitate for the plant its progress through the soil, though now useless, are feeding their superfluous substance at its expense, and weighing upon its slender stalk!"

But, even as he spoke, daylight became obscured. A chilly spring evening, threatening a frosty night, was setting in; and the two lobes, gradually rising, seemed to reproach him with his objections, by the practical argument of enclosing the still tender foliage, which they secured from the attacks of insects or the inclemency of the weather, by the screen of their protecting wings.

The man of science was better able to comprehend this mute answer to his cavilling, because the external surface of the vegetable bivalve had been injured the preceding night by a snail, whose slimy trace was left upon the verdure of the cotyledon.

This curious colloquy between action and cogitation, between the plant and the philosopher, was not yet at an end. Charney was too full of metaphysical disquisition to allow himself to be vanquished by a good argument.

"'Tis all very well!" cried he. "In this instance, as in others, a fortunate coincidence of circumstances has favoured the developement of incomplete creation. It was the inherent qualification of the nature of the plant to be born with a lever in order to upraise the earth, and a buckler to shelter its tender head: without which it must have perished in the germ, like myriads of individuals of its species which proved incapable of accomplishing their destinies. How can one guess the number of unsuccessful efforts which nature may have made, ere she perfected a single subject sufficiently organized! A blind man may sometimes shoot home; but how many uncounted arrows must be lost before he attains the mark? For millions of forgotten centuries, matter has been triturating between negative and positive attraction. How then can one wonder that chance should sometimes produce coincidence? This fleshy screen serves to shelter the early leaves. Granted! But will it enlarge its dimensions to contain the rest as they are put forth, and defend them from cold and insects? No, no; no evidence of the calculating of a presiding Providence! A lucky chance is the alpha and omega of the universe!"

In the weariness of captivity, Charney was soon satisfied to occupy his idle hours by directing his attention to the transformations of the plant. But when he attempted to contend with it in argument, the answers of the vegetable logician were too much for him.

"To what purpose these stiff bristles, disfiguring a slender stem?" demanded the Count. And the following morning he found them covered with rime: thanks to their defence, the tender bark had been secured from all contact with the frost.

"To what purpose, for the summer season, this winter garment of wool and down?" he again inquired. And when the summer season really breathed upon the plant, he found the new shoots array themselves in their light spring clothing; the downy vestments, now superfluous, being laid aside.

"Storms may be still impending!" cried Charney, with a bitter smile; "and how will these slender and flexile shoots resist the cutting hail, the driving wind?" But when the stormy rain arose, and the winds blew, the slender plant, yielding to their intemperance, replied to the sneers of the Count by prudent prostration. Against the hail, it fortified itself by a new manoeuvre; the leaves, rapidly uprising, adhered to the stalks for protection; presenting to the attacks of the enemy the strong and prominent nerves of their inferior surface; and union, as usual, produced strength. Firmly closed together, they defied the pelting shower; and the plant remained master of the field; not, however, without having experienced wounds and contusions, which, as the leaves expanded in the returning sunshine, were speedily cicatrized by its congenial warmth.

"Is chance endowed then with intelligence?" cried Charney. "Must we admit matter to be spiritualized, or humiliate the world of intelligence into materialism?"

"How do I know," argued Charney, "that the Italian may not have discovered as many marvels in a fly, as I in a nameless vegetable?"

The first object that saluted him on his returning to his chamber, after this admission, was the following sentence, inscribed by his own hand upon the wall, a few months before:

Seizing a piece of charcoal, Charney instantly qualified the assertion, by the addition of a single word--"Perhaps."

Charney had long ceased to find amusement in these gratuitous mural inscriptions; and if he still occasionally played the sculptor with his wooden table, his efforts produced nothing now but germinating plants; each protected by a cotyledon, or a sprig of foliage, whose leaves were delicately serrated and prominently nerved. The greater portion of the time assigned him for exercise was spent in contemplation of his plant--in examining and reasoning upon its developement. Even after his return to his chamber, he often watched the little solitary through his prison-bars. It had become his whim, his bauble, his hobby--perhaps only to be discarded like other preceding favourites!

Besides, he had scarcely yet exchanged a word with the fellow, by whose abrupt manners and character he was disgusted. His pride recoiled, too, from placing himself in the same rank with the fly-catcher, towards whom Ludovico had acknowledged his contempt. Then there was the chance of a refusal! The inferior, whose position raises him to temporary consequence, is seldom sufficiently master of himself to bear his faculties meekly, incapable of understanding that indulgence is a proof of power. The Count felt that it would be insupportable to him to find himself repulsed by a turnkey.

At length, after innumerable oratorical precautions, and the exercise of all his insight into the foibles of human nature, Charney commenced a discourse, logically preconcocted, in hopes to obtain his end without the sacrifice of his dignity--or, to speak more correctly, of his pride.

He began by accosting the jailer in Italian; by way of propitiating his natural prejudices, and calling up early associations. He inquired after Ludovico's boy, little Antonio; and, having caused this tender string to vibrate, took from his dressing-box a small gilt goblet, and charged him to present it to the child!

Patriotism, paternal love, personal interest, every influential motive of human action, were thus put in motion in order to accomplish the preservation of a plant! Charney could scarcely have done more for his own. Judge whether it had ingratiated itself into his affections!

"Oh! as to my partiality," interrupted Charney, "I beg to assure you--"

"Well thought, well expressed, my worthy friend!" cried Charney, piqued at the inference which degraded him to the level of such wretched predilections. "But know that this plant is something more to me than a kill-time."

"Well! and if I were?" said Charney, with a smile.

Charney felt amazed and touched by the discovery of so much sensibility on the part of his jailer. But now that he had begun to entertain an esteem for the man, his vanity rendered it doubly essential to assign a rational motive for his passion.

"Accept my thanks, good Ludovico," said he, "for your good-will. I own that the plant in question affords me scope for a variety of scientific observations. I am fond of studying its physiological phenomena." Then he added, "More particularly as the class to which it belongs possesses medicinal qualities, highly favourable to a disorder to which I am subject."

A falsehood from the lips of the noble Count de Charney! and merely to evade the contempt of a jailer, who, for the moment, represented the whole human species in the eyes of the captive.

"One moment, my good friend," exclaimed Charney, more and more amazed to discover such delicacy of mind so roughly enclosed, and repentant at having so long mistaken the character of his jailer. "Since you have interested yourself in my pursuits, and without vaunting your services, accept, I entreat you, this small memento of my gratitude! Should better times await me, I will not forget you!"

And once more he tendered the goblet; which this time Ludovico examined with a sort of vague curiosity.

And having crossed the room, he quietly replaced the goblet in its compartment of the dressing-box.

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