CHAPTER III
THE RESOLUTION

"I am listening," said Louis, leaning forward as if to hear the better.

Valentine resumed with a melancholy smile.

"We have now reached the 1st of January, 1835," said he; "with the last vibration of midnight your existence as a gentleman has come to an end. From this time you are about to commence a life of trials and struggles; in a word, you are about to become a man!"

The Count gave him an inquiring glance.

"I will explain myself," Valentine continued; "but in order to do that, you must, in the first place, allow me, in a few words, to recall your history to you."

"Surely, I am well enough acquainted with that," interrupted the Count, in a tone that displayed impatience.

"Well, perhaps you are; but, at all events, listen to my version of it; if I err, put me right."

"Follow your own humour," the Count replied, sinking back into his chair with the air of a man whom politeness obliges to listen to a tiresome discourse.

Though he saw it, Valentine appeared to take no notice of this movement on the part of his foster brother. He relit his cigar, which he had allowed to go out, patted the dog, whose great head was lying upon his knees, and began, as if convinced that Louis gave him the most profound attention.

"Your history is that of almost every man of your rank," said he. "Your ancestors, whose name can be traced to the Crusades, left you at your birth a noble title, and a hundred thousand francs a year. Rich, without having had occasion to employ your faculties to gain your fortune, and consequently ignorant of the real value of money, you spent it heedlessly, believing it to be inexhaustible. This is just what has happened; only, one day, when you least expected it, the hideous spectre of ruin rose up suddenly before you, and you had a glimpse of want, that is, of the necessity for labour; and then you drew back terrified, declaring there was no refuge but in death."

"All that is perfectly true," the Count interrupted; "but you forget to mention, that before forming this last resolution, I took care to put my affairs in order, and to pay all my creditors. I then became my own master, and had a right to dispose of my life as I thought fit."

"Not at all. And it is this which your education as a gentleman has prevented you from understanding. Your life is not your own; it is a loan which God has made you. It is, consequently, nothing but an expectation, a waiting, a passage: for this reason it is short, but the profit of it is due to humanity. Every man who wastes the faculties which he holds from God in orgies and debaucheries, commits a robbery upon the great human family. Remember that we are all mutually responsible for one another, and that we ought to employ our faculties for the advantage of the whole."

"For Heaven's sake, brother, a truce to your sermons! Such theories, more or less paradoxical, may succeed with certain people, but – "

"Brother," Valentine interrupted, "do not speak so. In spite of yourself, your pride of race dictates words which you will ere long regret. Certain people! there you have let slip the great word. Oh, Louis, Louis! how many things you have yet to learn! But that we may know what we are about, reckoning all your resources, how much have you left?"

"Oh, I scarcely know! A pitiful sum."

"Well, but how much?"

"Good Heavens! some forty thousand francs, I suppose, at most, which may amount to sixty thousand by the sale of these luxurious trifles," the Count said carelessly.

Valentine started up in his chair.

"Sixty thousand francs!" he cried; "and you are in despair! and have made up your mind to die! Senseless fellow! why, these sixty thousand francs, well employed, are a fortune! they will enable you to find the woman you love! How many poor devils would fancy themselves rich with such a sum!"

"What do you mean to do, then?"

"You shall see. What is the name of the lady you are in love with?"

"Doña Rosario del Valle."

"Very well. She has, you say, gone to America?"

"Ten days ago; but I, in justice, must observe to you, that Doña Rosario, whom you do not know, is a noble and amiable girl, who has never lent an ear to one of my flatteries, or given favourable heed to the ruinous extravagances which I committed to please her."

"Ah, that is very possible! why, then, should I seek to rob you of this sweet illusion? Only it makes me the more puzzled to perceive how, under these circumstances, you could manage to melt your fortune, which was considerable, like a lump of butter in the sun."

"Here! read this note from my broker."

"Oh!" said Valentine, pushing back the paper; "you have been dabbling on the Stock Exchange, have you! Everything is now easily explained, my poor pigeon; the kites have plucked you nicely! Well, brother, you must take your revenge."

"Oh, I ask nothing better!" said the young man, knitting his brows.

"We are of the same age; my mother's milk nourished us both; in the eyes of God we are brothers! I will make a man of you! I will help you to put on that armour of brass which will render you invincible. Whilst you, protected by your name and your fortune, allowed life to glide luxuriously away, only plucking its flowers as it passed, I, a poor wretch wandering over the rough pavement of Paris, carried on a gigantic struggle to obtain a mere existence; a struggle of every hour and every minute, where the victory for me was a morsel of bread, and experience most dearly bought; for often, when I held horses, sold theatre checks, or acted clown to a mountebank – in fact, when I went through the thousand impossible shifts of the Bohemian, depression and discouragement nearly choked me; often and often have I felt my burning brow and throbbing temples clasped in the pinching vice of want; but I resisted, I girded myself up against adversity; never did I allow myself to be conquered, although I left upon the thorns of my rugged path many of the rags of my most fondly-cherished illusions; while my heart, writhing with despair, has bled from twenty wounds at once! Courage, Louis! henceforth there will be two of us to fight the battle! You shall be the head to conceive, I the arm to execute; you the intelligence, I the strength! Now the struggle will be equal, for we will sustain one another. Trust in me, my brother; a day will come when success will crown our efforts!"

"I can fully appreciate your devotion, and I accept it. Am I not, at present, your property? Entertain no fear of my resisting you. But I cannot help telling you that I fear all my attempts will be in vain, and that we shall be forced, sooner or later, to fall back upon that last means which you now prevent me having recourse to."

"Oh, thou man of little faith!" Valentine said, cheerfully; "on the road which we are about to take, fortune will be our slave!"

Louis could not repress a smile.

"We must, at all events, depend upon the aid of chance in what we are about to undertake," he said.

"Chance! chance is the hope of fools; the strong man commands it."

"Well, but what do you mean to do?"

"The lady you love is in America, is she not?"

"I have already told you so several times."

"Very well, then, we must go thither."

"But I do not know even in what part of America she resides."

"Of what consequence is that? The New World is the country of gold – the true region of adventurers! We shall retrieve our fortunes whilst searching for her; and is that so disagreeable a thing? Tell me – this lady was born somewhere?"

"She is a Chilian."

"Good! she has gone back to Chili, then; and it is there we shall find her."

Louis looked at his foster brother for a moment, with a species of respectful admiration.

"What! do you seriously mean that you will do this, brother?" he said, in an agitated voice.

"Without hesitation."

"Abandon the military career which offers you so many chances of success? I know that in three months you will be an officer."

"I have ceased to be a soldier since the morning; I have found a substitute."

"Oh, that is not possible!"

"Ay, but it is done."

"But your old mother, my nurse, whose only support you are!"

"Out of what you have left we will give her a few thousand francs, which, joined to my pension, will suffice for her to live on till we come back."

"Oh," said the young man, "I cannot accept of such a sacrifice – my honour forbids it!"

"Unfortunately, brother," Valentine said, in a tone which silenced the Count, "you have it not in your power to prevent it. In acting as I propose to do I am only discharging a sacred duty."

"I do not understand you."

"What is the use of explaining it to you?"

"I insist."

"Very good; and, perhaps, it will be better. Listen: – When, after having nursed you, my mother restored you to your family, my father fell sick, and died at the end of an illness of eight months, leaving my mother and myself in the greatest want; the little we possessed had been spent in medicines, and in paying the doctor for his visits. We ought to have had recourse to your family, who would, no doubt, have relieved us; but my mother would never consent to it. 'The Count de Prébois-Crancé has done as much as he ought,' she remarked, 'he shall not be troubled any more.'"

"She was wrong," said Louis.

"I know she was," Valentine replied. "In the meantime, hunger soon began to be felt. It was then I undertook all those impossible trades of which I just now spoke to you. One day, as I was carrying my cap round in the Place du Trône, after swallowing sabres and eating fire, to the great delight of the crowd, I found myself face to face with an officer of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, who looked at me with an air of pity and kindness that melted my heart within me. He led me away with him, made me relate my history, and insisted upon being conducted to the shed where I and my mother lived. At the sight of our misery the old soldier was much affected; a tear, which he could not restrain, flowed silently down his sunburnt cheek. Louis, that officer was your father."

"My noble and good father!" the Count exclaimed, pressing his foster brother's hand.

"Yes! yes, noble and good! he secured my mother a little annuity which enables her to live, and took me into his own regiment. Two years ago, during the last expedition against the Rey of Constantine, your father was struck by a bullet in his chest, and died at the end of two hours, calling upon his son."

"Yes," the young man said, with tears in his eyes, "I know he did."

"But what you do not know, Louis, is, that at the point of death your father turned towards me – for, from the moment he had received his wound I had never left him."

Louis again silently pressed the hand of Valentine, whilst the latter continued —

"'Valentine,' he said to me, in a faint voice, broken by the rattle of death, for the mortal agony had commenced, 'my son is left alone, and without experience; he has nobody but you, his foster brother. Watch over him – never abandon him! May I depend upon your promise? it will mitigate the pain of dying.' I knelt down beside him, and respectfully seizing the hand he held out to me, exclaimed – 'Die in peace! in the hour of adversity I will be always by the side of your Louis. Two tears of joy at that awful hour dropped from your father's eyes; he said, in a faltering voice – 'God has heard your oath and murmuring your name, and clasping my hand, he expired. Louis, I owe to your father the comfort my mother enjoys; I owe to your father the feelings that make me a man, and this cross which glitters on my breast. Can you not now comprehend, then, why I have spoken to you as I have done? While you held your course in your strength, I kept aloof; but now that the hour has arrived for accomplishing my vow, no human power can prevent me from doing so."

The two young men were silent for a moment, and then Louis, laying his face on the soldier's honest chest, said, with a burst of tears —

"When shall we set out, brother?"

The latter looked at him earnestly —

"You are fully resolved to commence a new life?"

"Entirely!" Louis replied, in a firm tone.

"Do you leave no regrets behind you?"

"None."

"You are ready to pass bravely through all the trials to which I may expose you?"

"I am."

"That is well, brother! it is thus I wish you to be. We will set out as soon as we have settled the balance of your past life. You must enter on the new existence I am about to open to you quite free from clogs or remembrances."

On the 2nd of February, 1835, a packet boat belonging to the Trans-Atlantic Company left Havre, directing its course towards Valparaiso. On board this vessel, as passengers, were the Count de Prébois-Crancé, Valentine Guillois his foster brother, and Cæsar their Newfoundland dog – Cæsar, the only friend who had remained faithful to them, and whom they could not think of leaving behind. Upon the quay a woman of about sixty years of age, her face bathed in tears, stood with her eyes intently fixed upon the vessel as long as it remained in sight. When it had disappeared below the horizon, she cast a desponding glance around her, and with a heavy heart bent her steps towards a house situated at a small distance from the beach, where she remained three days.

"Do what is right, happen what may!" she said, in a voice stifled by grief.

This woman was the mother of Valentine Guillois. She was the most to be pitied, for she was left alone!