At three o'clock in the morning Julie came in to take my place, and I retired to my room, which was on the same floor as my aunt's.Aboxroom divided the two.I threw myself on my bed, worn out with fatigue, and nature triumphed over my grief.I fell into that heavy sleep which follows the expenditure of nerve power, and from which one awakes able to bear life again and to carry the load that seemed unendurable.When I awoke it was day, and the wintry sky was dull and dark like that of yesterday, but it also wore a threatening aspect, from the great masses of black cloud that covered it.I went to the window and looked out for a long time at the gloomy landscape closed in by the edge of the forest.I note these small details in order that I may more faithfully recall my exact impression at the time.In turning away from the window and going towards the fire which the maid had just lighted, my eye fell upon the packet of letters stolen from my aunt.Yes, stolen--'tis the word.It was in the place where I had put it last night, on the mantel-shelf, with my purse, rings, and cigar-case.I took up the little parcel with a beating heart.I had only to stretch out my hand and those papers would fall into the flames and my aunt's dying wish be accomplished.I sank into an easy-chair and watched the yellow flame gaining on the logs, while I weighed the packet in my hand.I thought there must be a good many letters in it.Isuffered from the physical uneasiness of indecision.I am not trying to justify this second failure of my loyalty to my dear aunt, I am trying to understand it.
Those letters were not mine, I never ought to have appropriated them.I ought now to destroy them unopened; all the more that the excitement of the first moment, the sudden rush of ideas which had prevented me from obeying the agonized supplication of my poor aunt, had subsided.I asked myself once more what was the cause of her misery, while I gazed at the inscription upon the cover, in my aunt's hand: "Justin's Letters, 1864." The very room which Ioccupied was an evil counsellor to me in this strife between an indisputable duty and my ardent desire to know; for it had formerly been my father's room, and the furniture had not been changed since his time.The color of the hangings was faded, that was all.He had warmed himself by a fire which burned upon that self-same hearth, and he had used the same low, wide chair in which I now sat, thinking many somber thoughts.He had slept in the bed from which I had just risen, he had written at the table on which Irested my arms.No, that room deprived me of free will to act, it made my father too living.It was as though the phantom of the murdered man had come out of his grave to entreat me to keep the oft-sworn vow of vengeance.Had these letters offered me no more than one single chance, one against a thousand, of obtaining one single indication of the secrets of my father's private life, Icould not have hesitated.With such sacrilegious reasoning as this did I dispel the last scruples of pious respect; but I had no need of arguments for yielding to the desire which increased with every moment.
I had there before me those letters, the last his hand had traced;those letters which would lay bare to me the recesses of his life, and I was not to read them! What an absurdity! Enough of such childish hesitation.I tore off the cover which hid the papers;the yellow sheets with their faded characters shook in my hands.Irecognized the compact, square, clear writing, with spaces between the words.The dates had been omitted by my father in several instances, and then my aunt had repaired the omission by writing in the day of the month herself.My poor aunt! this pious carefulness was a fresh testimony to her constant tenderness; and yet, in my wild excitement I no longer thought of her who lay dead within a few yards of me.
Presently Julie came to consult me upon all the material details which accompany death; but I told her I was too much overwhelmed, that she must do as she thought fit, and leave me quite alone for the whole of the morning.Then I plunged so deeply into the reading of the letters, that I forgot the hour, the events taking place around me, forgot to dress myself, to eat, even to go and look upon her whom I had lost while yet I could behold her face.
Traitor and ingrate that I was! I had devoured only a few lines before I understood only too well why she had been desirous to prevent me from drinking the poison which entered with each sentence into my heart, as it had entered into hers.Terrible, terrible letters! Now it was as though the phantom had spoken, and a hidden drama of which I had never dreamed unfolded itself before me.
I was quite a child when the thousand little scenes which this correspondence recorded in detail took place.I was too young then to solve the enigma of the situation; and, since, the only person who could have initiated me into that dark history was she who had concealed the existence of the too-eloquent papers from me all her life long, and on her deathbed had been more anxious for their destruction than for her eternal salvation--she, who had no doubt accused herself of having deferred the burning of them from day to day as of a crime.When at last she had brought herself to do this, it was too late.
The first letter, written in January, 1864, began with thanks to my aunt for her New Year's gift to me--a fortress with tin soldiers--with which I was delighted, said the letter, because the cavalry were in two pieces, the man detaching himself from his horse.
