He must, then--and there was yet time--resign his fortune, and accept Sophie and a clear conscience, poverty and a country parish. But persons who have wealth absolutely in their power, to take or to leave, sec clearly how much poetical extravagance, hypocrisy, and cant exist in the arguments of those who advocate the beauties and advantages of being poor. Deliberately and voluntarily to forego the opportunities, the influence, the ease, the refinement, which money alone can command--let not the sacrifice be underrated! Few, perhaps, have had the choice fairly offered them: of those, how many have chosen poverty? In Bressant's case, the fact that the money was not legally his, was, abstractly, enough to settle the matter; but in real life, where every one is expected to do battle for his claims, it would only be an argument for holding on the harder. If he could but manage to be happily married and wealthy both! He would not confess it impossible; at all events, he would delay the confession till the very latest hour, and then trust to the impulse of the moment for his final decision and action. He had given up, it seemed, that promising idea of trusting to the generosity of the rightful owner; yet, considering their mutual relation, and one or two minor circumstances, he might certainly do so without misgiving, embarrassment, or dishonor.
"It's that infernal letter!" muttered the young man between his teeth, staring gloomily out at the cheerless snow-storm. "I wish it had never been written. No! that I could feel sure there was no truth in it."
Turning from the window, he stepped over to the table, and dropped himself into his chair. He took from his pocket a well-worn envelope, hardly capable of holding on to the inclosed letter, which peeped forth at the corners, and through various rents in the front and back. He did not open it, for he had long known by heart every word and italic in it; but, placing it in front of him, he leaned upon his elbows, with his forehead resting between his hands, and gazed fixedly down upon it. It is an assistance to the vividness of thought to have some object in sight connected with the matter under consideration.
"Ought I to have answered it?" ran his soliloquy: for though he had frequently taken counsel with himself concerning this letter before, he recurred again and again to the subject, pleasing himself with the hope that still, in some way, a fortunate ray of light might be struck out; "but, if I had, what should I have gained by it? It's as well not to have risked putting any thing on paper; and if she really has the proofs she talks about, I shall hear from her again, and soon, for she knows which is my wedding-day; and it must all be decided, one way or another, before then. But she couldn't have made the assertion if she hadn't known some good grounds for it; and yet I can't understand it--I cannot." He pressed his temples strongly between his hands, and chewed his brown mustache. "As to my having 'no legal claim to a cent,' I knew that before. What puzzles me is, 'There is no consideration--not a _shadow_ of relationship, or affection, or generosity--nothing to give you the least _prospect_ of receiving any thing.' How can that be? And yet what she says at the end--it sounds more like a threat she knows she can fulfil than an attempt to humbug." Bressant took his right hand from his forehead, and tapped with his finger on the envelope as he repeated the words: "If this is enough--convinces you without your requiring proof--it would be much pleasanter for you, and a great relief to me. Oh! beyond _words_! But if not--if you will _go on_ entangling yourself with this foolish girl, Sophie, and this boarding-house keeper, and all--I _shall_ be obliged--I shall hate to _do_ it, but there will be no alternative--to give you the _explanation_ of what I tell you now."
"Well! let her!" cried the young man, rising roughly from his chair, and shouldering backward and forward across his room with short, incensed steps. "If her proofs can prevent my marriage, let her bring them. She'd better be quick about it! Four days from now! They'd better never have come at all. It's her interest as much as mine--more than mine. She's a half-crazy old creature. She can do nothing for herself. If she has any thing to say, let her say it. I'm no baby, to shape my life after an old woman's story. Who is she? What is she to me?
"Let something happen, I say," continued he, stretching out his great arms, with the fists clinched. "I'm tired of this--the life of a dog with his tail between his legs. Is it _I_ who go about, afraid to look man or woman in the face? Am I the same who came here six months ago? Did I come here to learn this? Who was it taught it to me, then? I say, I've been deceived; it's no work of mine. Professor Valeyon--he's made me a subject for experiment; he's tried his theories on me; dissected me, and filled in the parts that were wanting. It's a dangerous business, Professor Valeyon. You've lost one daughter; the other may go too."
Bressant's voice, which had been growing hoarser and more rapid as he went on, abruptly sank, at this last sentence, into a whisper; yet, had any one been there to listen, the whisper would have sounded louder and more terrible than the most violent vociferation of angry passion. It breathed a sudden concentration of evil intelligence, that startled like the hiss of a serpent.
He stopped his short, passionate walk, and leaned against his table, with his arms once more folded. The idea that he had been tampered with had gained possession of him, and nothing tends more to demoralize a man, and make him unmanageably angry. His was an uncandid position, without doubt: he was attempting to lay upon others the responsibility which--the greater part of it, at least--should have been borne by himself; but still, the vein of reasoning he pursued was connected, and comprehensible, and was rendered awkward by an ugly little thread of something like truth and justice, which showed here and there along its course.
"They've taught me to love; did they think they could stop there? that I shouldn't learn to lie, as well? and to hate, and be revengeful? and to be afraid? Was I so bad when I came here, that all this has made me no worse? I was happy, at any rate; my brain was clear; my mind had no fear, and no weariness--it was like an athlete; my blood was cool. Look at me now! Am not I ruined by this patching and mending? I can do no work. When I think, it's no longer of how I might become great, and wise, and powerful--of nothing inspiring--nothing noble; but all about these petty, heated, miserable affairs, that have twisted themselves around me, and are choking me up. I don't ask myself, any more, whether my name will be as highly honored and as long remembered as the Christian Apostles', and Mohammed's, and Luther's. My only question is, whether I'm to turn out more of a fool, or of a liar! And _I_ love Sophie Valeyon! I'm to be her husband."
The young man came to a sudden stop, and slowly lifted his head. Through the sullen, unhappy, and resentful cloud that darkened his eyes, there glimmered doubtfully a light such as can be reflected only from what is most divine in man. It was a strange moment for it to appear, for at no time had Bressant's moral level been so low as now; but, happily, the phenomenon is by no means without precedent in human nature. God is never ashamed to declare the share He holds in a sinner's heart, however black the heart may be.
"No, no!" said he; and, as he said it, the first tears that he had ever known glistened for a moment in his eyes; "such as I am, I must never marry her."
The point on which this sudden and momentous resolve turned was so subtle and delicately evanescent as scarcely to be susceptible of clearer portrayal. To be consistent, the weight of his revengeful sentiments should have been directed upon Sophie, for she it was who had played the most effective part in changing his nature, and swerving him from his cold but sublime ambitions. By teaching Bressant love, she had, by implication, done him deadly injury, yet was the love itself so pure and genuine as to prompt him to resign its object; he being rendered unworthy of her by that same moral dereliction which she herself had occasioned.
But the very quality which enables us to do a noble deed dulls our appreciation of our own praiseworthiness. Bressant took no encouragement or pleasure from what he had done; probably, also, his realization of the extensive and fearful consequences of the action, to others as well as to himself, was as yet but rudimentary; so soon as the momentary glow was passed, he fell back into a yet darker mood than before,