Paul et Virginie. English
Page 25
hepersevered.
I resolved to follow this advice. The first use which Paul made of hisreturning strength was to absent himself from the plantation. Beingdetermined not to lose sight of him I set out immediately, and desiredDomingo to take some provisions and accompany us. The young man'sstrength and spirits seemed renewed as he descended the mountain. Hefirst took the road to the Shaddock Grove, and when he was near thechurch, in the Alley of Bamboos, he walked directly to the spot wherehe saw some earth fresh turned up; kneeling down there, and raisinghis eyes to heaven, he offered up a long prayer. This appeared to mea favourable symptom of the return of his reason; since this mark ofconfidence in the Supreme Being showed that his mind was beginning toresume its natural functions. Domingo and I, following his example, fellupon our knees, and mingled our prayers with his. When he arose, he benthis way, paying little attention to us, towards the northern part of theisland. As I knew that he was not only ignorant of the spot where thebody of Virginia had been deposited, but even of the fact that it hadbeen recovered from the waves, I asked him why he had offered up hisprayer at the foot of those bamboos. He answered,--"We have been thereso often."
He continued his course until we reached the borders of the forest, whennight came on. I set him the example of taking some nourishment, andprevailed on him to do the same; and we slept upon the grass, at thefoot of a tree. The next day I thought he seemed disposed to retrace hissteps; for, after having gazed a considerable time from the plain uponthe church of the Shaddock Grove, with its long avenues of bamboos, hemade a movement as if to return home; but suddenly plunging into theforest, he directed his course towards the north. I guessed what was hisdesign, and I endeavoured, but in vain, to dissuade him from it. Aboutnoon we arrived at the quarter of Golden Dust. He rushed down to thesea-shore, opposite to the spot where the Saint-Geran had been wrecked.At the sight of the isle of Amber, and its channel, when smooth asa mirror, he exclaimed,--"Virginia! oh my dear Virginia!" and fellsenseless. Domingo and I carried him into the woods, where we had somedifficulty in recovering him. As soon as he regained his senses, hewished to return to the sea-shore; but we conjured him not to renew hisown anguish and ours by such cruel remembrances, and he took anotherdirection. During a whole week he sought every spot where he had oncewandered with the companion of his childhood. He traced the path bywhich she had gone to intercede for the slave of the Black River. Hegazed again upon the banks of the river of the Three Breasts, where shehad rested herself when unable to walk further, and upon that part ofthe wood where they had lost their way. All the haunts, which recalledto his memory the anxieties, the sports, the repasts, the benevolenceof her he loved,--the river of the Sloping Mountain, my house, theneighbouring cascade, the papaw tree she had planted, the grassy fieldsin which she loved to run, the openings of the forest where she used tosing, all in succession called forth his tears; and those very echoeswhich had so often resounded with their mutual shouts of joy, nowrepeated only these accents of despair,--"Virginia! oh, my dearVirginia!"
During this savage and wandering life, his eyes became sunk and hollow,his skin assumed a yellow tint, and his health rapidly declined.Convinced that our present sufferings are rendered more acute by thebitter recollection of bygone pleasures, and that the passions gatherstrength in solitude, I resolved to remove my unfortunate friend fromthose scenes which recalled the remembrance of his loss, and to lead himto a more busy part of the island. With this view, I conducted him tothe inhabited part of the elevated quarter of Williams, which he hadnever visited, and where the busy pursuits of agriculture and commerceever occasioned much bustle and variety. Numbers of carpenters wereemployed in hewing down and squaring trees, while others were sawingthem into planks; carriages were continually passing and repassing onthe roads; numerous herds of oxen and troops of horses were feeding onthose wide-spread meadows, and the whole country was dotted with thedwellings of man. On some spots the elevation of the soil permitted theculture of many of the plants of Europe: the yellow ears of ripe cornwaved upon the plains; strawberry plants grew in the openings ofthe woods, and the roads were bordered by hedges of rose-trees. Thefreshness of the air, too, giving tension to the nerves, was favourableto the health of Europeans. From those heights, situated near the middleof the island, and surrounded by extensive forests, neither the sea, norPort Louis, nor the church of the Shaddock Grove, nor any other objectassociated with the remembrance of Virginia could de discerned. Eventhe mountains, which present various shapes on the side of PortLouis, appear from hence like a long promontory, in a straight andperpendicular line, from which arise lofty pyramids of rock, whosesummits are enveloped in the clouds.
Conducting Paul to these scenes, I kept him continually in action,walking with him in rain and sunshine, by day and by night. I sometimeswandered with him into the depths of the forests, or led him overuntilled grounds, hoping that change of scene and fatigue might diverthis mind from its gloomy meditations. But the soul of a lover findseverywhere the traces of the beloved object. Night and day, the calmof solitude and the tumult of crowds, are to him the same; time itself,which casts the shade of oblivion over so many other remembrances, invain would tear that tender and sacred recollection from the heart. Theneedle, when touched by the loadstone, however it may have been movedfrom its position, is no sooner left to repose, than it returns to thepole of its attraction. So, when I inquired of Paul, as we wanderedamidst the plains of Williams,--"Where shall we now go?" he pointed tothe north, and said, "Yonder are our mountains; let us return home."
I now saw that all the means I took to divert him from his melancholywere fruitless, and that no resource was left but an attempt tocombat his passion by the arguments which reason suggested I answeredhim,--"Yes, there are the mountains where once dwelt your belovedVirginia; and here is the picture you gave her, and which she held, whendying, to her heart--that heart, which even in its last moments onlybeat for you." I then presented to Paul the little portrait which hehad given to Virginia on the borders of the cocoa-tree fountain. At thissight a gloomy joy overspread his countenance. He eagerly seized thepicture with his feeble hands, and held it to his lips. His oppressedbosom seemed ready to burst with emotion, and his eyes were filled withtears which had no power to flow.
"My son," said I, "listen to one who is your friend, who was the friendof Virginia, and who, in the bloom of your hopes, has often endeavouredto fortify your mind against the unforeseen accidents of life. Whatdo you deplore with so much bitterness? Is it your own misfortunes, orthose of Virginia, which affect you so deeply?
"Your own misfortunes are indeed severe. You have lost the most amiableof girls, who would have grown up to womanhood a pattern to her sex, onewho sacrificed her own interests to yours: who preferred you to all thatfortune could bestow, and considered you as the only recompense worthyof her virtues.
"But might not this very object, from whom you expected the puresthappiness, have proved to you a source of the most cruel distress?She had returned poor and disinherited; all you could henceforthhave partaken with her was your labour. Rendered more delicate by hereducation, and more courageous by her misfortunes, you might have beheldher every day sinking beneath her efforts to share and lighten yourfatigues. Had she brought you children, they would only have served toincrease her anxieties and your own, from the difficulty of sustainingat once your aged parents and your infant family.
"Very likely you will tell me that the governor would have helped you;but how do you know that in a colony where governors are sofrequently changed, you would have had others like Monsieur de laBourdonnais?--that one might not have been sent destitute of goodfeeling and of morality?--that your young wife, in order, to procuresome miserable pittance, might not have been obliged to seek his favour?Had she been weak you would have been to be pitied; and if she hadremained virtuous, you would have continued poor: forced even toconsider yourself fortunate if, on account of the beauty and virtue ofyour wife, you had not to endure persecution from those who had promisedyou protection.
"It would have remained to you, you may say, to have enjoyed a pleasureindependent of fortune,--that of protecting a loved being, who, inproportion to her own helplessness, had more attached herself to you.You may fancy that your pains and sufferings would have served to endearyou to each other, and that your passion would have gathered strengthfrom your mutual misfortunes. Undoubtedly virtuous love does findconsolation even in such melancholy retrospects. But Virginia is nomore; yet those persons still live, whom, next to yourself, she heldmost dear; her mother, and your own: your inconsolable affliction isbringing them both to the grave. Place your happiness, as she did hers,in affording them succour. My son, beneficence is the happiness of thevirtuous: there is no greater or more certain enjoyment on the earth.Schemes of pleasure, repose, luxuries, wealth, and glory are not suitedto man, weak, wandering, and transitory as he is. See