“Thou livest, thou livest, thou’rt mine;
In that glad thought I make my heart a shrine,
And by the lamp that quenchless there shall burn,
Sit a lose watcher for the day’s return.”
THE hot air of the midsummer night (it was mid-summer now) stole through the narrow meurtrière, and touched the pale brow of Gerard as at last he slept, the sleep of utter exhaustion. Gustave sat near him; a worthless romance from the prison library in his hands, and his thoughts far away.
Three half-hour bells had the sentinel rung, unheard by Gerard. At the fourth he started―wakened fully in an instant, as one does under the influence of strong emotion―raised himself, and looked at Gustave.
Gustave administered some of the “good Burgundy” claimed for his own consumption, but generally kept for his friend. “Do you feel better now, M. Gerard?” he asked.
“Better? Oh yes. Only it seems strange to be glad and rejoice within these walls.”
“When God sends joy, He means us to rejoice,” Gustave said.
“Yes; and I do, Gustave. She lives, sees the sun, treads the flowers beneath her feet. She thinks, feels, enjoy. Gustave, I shall do nothing day and night but say over and over again, ‘She lives.’ Why keep this joy nom me for three long weary months?”
“Had I told you at first, it would have killed you.”
“Well, I am sure you have done it for the best. I suffered―and deserved to suffer., I might have saved myself all that anguish, unuttered and unutterable. I might now have been―not here, but― Gustave, from the moment I heard your tidings I was myself no longer. Heart and brain were smitten unto death―a living death, that left the power of suffering, but paralyzed the powers of thought and action. I―fled from Paris, as though I could flee from misery―I buried myself in an obscure retreat, where I lay stunned and helpless, until the cry of a famine-stricken people reached my ear and roused me from my trance of selfish sorrow. But now, Gustave, tell me more.”
Then, in the darkness, Gustave retraced the story of his own wrongdoing. Gerard already knew it in part from Prosper; and judging it no slight penance to Gustave to recall it, he would have stayed him, But he said, “No, M. Gerard; I have done the wrong, and I must hear the pain. We have been very hard, we philosophers [he emphasized the word with irony], upon the Holy Catholic Church, yet one good thing at least should be said for her; She has kept alive in humanity the sense of sin, the belief in law, and in the pain that follows its transgression. Could I forget, though I had lived a hundred years, that my folly, my waywardness, my sin, have cost the life of the best, the noblest man I have ever known?”
“It does seem that Retribution is a truth, ―a terrible truth, ―and that what is done is irretrievable,” said Gerard sadly. “But, Gustave, I have heard M. Goudin speak of the awfulness and mystery of death. Gladly would I know how it was with him when he saw it face to face.”
“It was singular, was it not?” Gustave answered, “that the rites upon which Catholics place so much dependence at that hour should have been denied him, who had served the Catholic Church so faithfully. The Curé d’Escouey, one of those who, like Louis XIV., think a Jansenist worse than an atheist, was he who thus insulted the last hours of a better man than himself. We would have sought another priest, but there was none at hand; though, afterward, the curé of the next parish did all he could for us, and my dear godfather was laid with due reverence in consecrated ground. The act of the Curé d’Escouey was not only cruel, but illegal, and he is likely to suffer for it. The affair has attracted some attention, and people are finding out now that the obscure officiating deacon of St. André was an eminently holy man― ‘His works do follow him.’”
“I had rather know how he died than how he lived,” said Gerard gently.
“He did not die―he went to One he loved, joyfully as you and I would leave this dungeon, if we could, tonight.”
There was a pause, then Gerard said again, “Would that I could learn his secret! Often I have greatly longed to be at rest―in the grave. But death is terrible and nature’s horror.”
“You may learn his secret, M. Gerard. The message I have to give from dying lips is his. Griselle was charged with it, ‘and has given the charge to me. Tell M. Gerard this,’ my godfather said― ‘where I stand now all is real. What seems has passed away forever, only what is remains. I stand alone, face to face with death. Yet not alone. God is, and Christ. His life is real as the death He came to conquer, His redemption sure, as the decay of this mortal frame.’”
In the long silence that followed the sentinel’s bell rang out once more. Then Gerard asked, “Gustave—do you believe it?”
“I have been loved even unto death, and so I believe in love unto death,” Gustave answered.
“If true, why hidden, doubtful-seeming, hard to find?”
“Why hidden from me I know,” Gustave said. “The word is true, ‘Thou hast hid these things from the vise and prudent’ (in their own sight), and hast revealed them unto babes. That which my godfather asked for me was the child’s heart. But you?”
There was no answer. A long silence followed, broken suddenly by Gerard, who exclaimed, “How strangely selfish I have become! Allowing you to sit beside me the whole night through. Go and rest, dear friend.”
“There’s time enough to rest. I may sleep all day if I will. See, M. Gerard, it is dawn. The world outside grows full of light. Light is stealing in, even here.” And again there was silence. By-and-by Gerard raised his head, and said softly, “If I speak, will He hear, Gustave?”
“Try, M. Gerard,” Gustave answered.
“‘But he that cometh to Him must believe that He is,’” murmured Gerard, who was very familiar with that page of De Sacy’s Bible.
The words of Goudin the words spoken by the pastor in Gébelin de Court’s waiting-room―other words, more sacred, forgotten or disregarded for long years―came crowding back upon his mind. What for months had been slowly growing and deepening there― “in the purple twilight under the sea” of conscious thought―sprang forth into the light, and ripened in an hour.
Meanwhile the world without was rejoicing in the great glow and glory of the sunrise. One red ray struggled through the barred meurtrière, bearing a message of life and hope into the dreary prison room. But Gerard lay still, not even a movement of the hand, a quiver of the eyelid, betrayed that he felt or knew what passed around. At last came words―low quiet words―spoken slowly and as if from a far distance:― “HE IS Not dumb Fate; not blind Chance; not personified Nature; but the living and true God. The Father who creates, who loves and tares for the work of His hands. The Spirit who breathes over the created, and brings them into communion with the Creator. The Son, Divine and Human, the man Christ Jesus, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven!”
Then, after a pause, and with stronger utterance, “Oh! the joy of finding at the heart of the universe a living, loving yes, instead of ‘a dreary no!’ Instead of blank nothingness, an Eye that meets, a Hand that touches mine! The secret of all things is unveiled at last, their dread enigma solved. And the answer is not Death but Life―the living Word, the Christ of God. Were this little spark of my life to be quenched this day, I should die rejoicing that such transcendent glory and beauty, such love unutterable, such help and hope for Humanity, is no fable, but truest truth. I should die, thanking God that Christ lives!”
At a later hour that morning the gloomy tower of “La Liberté” echoed the tones of a song in which two voices mingled―one rich, sweet, melodious, the other scarcely more than a tuneless murmur―
“Te Deum laudamus: Te Dominum confitemur.
Te nternum Patrem omnis terca veneratur.
Tibi omnes angeli, tibi cceli, et universa: potestates,
Tibi cherubim et seraphim, incessabili voce proclamant,
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth,
Pleni sunt cceli et terca’ majestate glorias tuæ.”