We carried him into a peasant's cottage, and there, amid the moans wrung from him by horrible sufferings, he contrived to give me a commission--a sacred task, in that it was laid upon me by a dying man's last wish.Poor boy, all through his agony he was torturing himself in his young simplicity of heart with the thought of the painful shock to his mistress when she should suddenly read of his death in a newspaper.He begged me to go myself to break the news to her.He bade me look for a key which he wore on a ribbon about his neck.I found it half buried in the flesh, but the dying boy did not utter a sound as I extricated it as gently as possible from the wound which it had made.He had scarcely given me the necessary directions--I was to go to his home at La Charite-sur-Loire for his mistress' love-letters, which he conjured me to return to her--when he grew speechless in the middle of a sentence; but from his last gesture, I understood that the fatal key would be my passport in his mother's house.It troubled him that he was powerless to utter a single word to thank me, for of my wish to serve him he had no doubt.He looked wistfully at me for a moment, then his eyelids drooped in token of farewell, and his head sank, and he died.His death was the only fatal accident caused by the overturn.
"But it was partly his own fault," the coachman said to me.
At La Charite, I executed the poor fellow's dying wishes.His mother was away from home, which in a manner was fortunate for me.Nevertheless, I had to assuage the grief of an old woman-servant, who staggered back at the tidings of her young master's death, and sank half-dead into a chair when she saw the blood-stained key.But I had another and more dreadful sorrow to think of, the sorrow of a woman who had lost her last love; so I left the old woman to her prosopopeia, and carried off the precious correspondence, carefully sealed by my friend of the day.
The Countess' chateau was some eight leagues beyond Moulins, and then there was some distance to walk across country.So it was not exactly an easy matter to deliver my message.For divers reasons into which I need not enter, I had barely sufficient money to take me to Moulins.However, my youthful enthusiasm determined to hasten thither on foot as fast as possible.Bad news travels swiftly, and I wished to be first at the chateau.Iasked for the shortest way, and hurried through the field paths of the Bourbonnais, bearing, as it were, a dead man on my back.
The nearer I came to the Chateau de Montpersan, the more aghast Ifelt at the idea of my strange self-imposed pilgrimage.Vast numbers of romantic fancies ran in my head.I imagined all kinds of situations in which I might find this Comtesse de Montpersan, or, to observe the laws of romance, this Juliette, so passionately beloved of my traveling companion.I sketched out ingenious answers to the questions which she might be supposed to put to me.At every turn of a wood, in every beaten pathway, Irehearsed a modern version of the scene in which Sosie describes the battle to his lantern.To my shame be it said, I had thought at first of nothing but the part that _I_ was to play, of my own cleverness, of how I should demean myself; but now that I was in the country, an ominous thought flashed through my soul like a thunderbolt tearing its way through a veil of gray cloud.
What an awful piece of news it was for a woman whose whole thoughts were full of her young lover, who was looking forward hour by hour to a joy which no words can express, a woman who had been at a world of pains to invent plausible pretexts to draw him to her side.Yet, after all, it was a cruel deed of charity to be the messenger of death! So I hurried on, splashing and bemiring myself in the byways of the Bourbonnais.
Before very long I reached a great chestnut avenue with a pile of buildings at the further end--the Chateau of Montpersan stood out against the sky like a mass of brown cloud, with sharp, fantastic outlines.All the doors of the chateau stood open.This in itself disconcerted me, and routed all my plans; but I went in boldly, and in a moment found myself between a couple of dogs, barking as your true country-bred animal can bark.The sound brought out a hurrying servant-maid; who, when informed that I wished to speak to Mme.la Comtesse, waved a hand towards the masses of trees in the English park which wound about the chateau with "Madame is out there----""Many thanks," said I ironically.I might have wandered for a couple of hours in the park with her "out there" to guide me.
In the meantime, a pretty little girl, with curling hair, dressed in a white frock, a rose-colored sash, and a broad frill at the throat, had overheard or guessed the question and its answer.She gave me a glance and vanished, calling in shrill, childish tones:
"Mother, here is a gentleman who wishes to speak to you!"And, along the winding alleys, I followed the skipping and dancing white frill, a sort of will-o'-the-wisp, that showed me the way among the trees.
I must make a full confession.I stopped behind the last shrub in the avenue, pulled up my collar, rubbed my shabby hat and my trousers with the cuffs of my sleeves, dusted my coat with the sleeves themselves, and gave them a final cleansing rub one against the other.I buttoned my coat carefully so as to exhibit the inner, always the least worn, side of the cloth, and finally had turned down the tops of my trousers over my boots, artistically cleaned in the grass.Thanks to this Gascon toilet, I could hope that the lady would not take me for the local rate collector; but now when my thoughts travel back to that episode of my youth, I sometimes laugh at my own expense.
