Devereux — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (ebook offline txt) 📗

THE Abbe was now particularly courteous to me. He made Gerald and myself breakfast with him, and told us nothing was so amiable as friendship among brothers. We agreed to the sentiment, and, like all philosophers, did not agree a bit the better for acknowledging the same first principles. Perhaps, notwithstanding his fine speeches, the Abbe was the real cause of our continued want of cordiality. However, we did not fight any more: we avoided each other, and at last became as civil and as distant as those mathematical lines which appear to be taking all possible pains to approach one another and never get a jot the nearer for it. Oh! your civility is the prettiest invention possible for dislike! Aubrey and I were inseparable, and we both gained by the intercourse. I grew more gentle, and he more masculine; and, for my part, the kindness of his temper so softened the satire of mine that I learned at last to smile full as often as to sneer.

The Abbe had obtained a wonderful hold over Aubrey; he had made the poor boy think so much of the next world, that he had lost all relish for this. He lived in a perpetual fear of offence: he was like a chemist of conscience, and weighed minutiae by scruples. To play, to ride, to run, to laugh at a jest, or to banquet on a melon, were all sins to be atoned for; and I have found (as a penance for eating twenty-three cherries instead of eighteen) the penitent of fourteen standing, barefooted, in the coldest nights of winter, upon the hearthstones, almost utterly naked, and shivering like a leaf, beneath the mingled effect of frost and devotion. At first I attempted to wrestle with this exceeding holiness, but finding my admonitions received with great distaste and some horror, I suffered my brother to be happy in his own way. I only looked with a very evil and jealous eye upon the good Abbe, and examined, while I encouraged them, the motives of his advances to myself. What doubled my suspicions of the purity of the priest was my perceiving that he appeared to hold out different inducements for trusting him to each of us, according to his notions of our respective characters. My brother Gerald he alternately awed and persuaded, by the sole effect of superior intellect. With Aubrey he used the mechanism of superstition. To me, he, on the one hand, never spoke of religion, nor, on the other, ever used threats or persuasion, to induce me to follow any plan suggested to my adoption; everything seemed to be left to my reason and my ambition. He would converse with me for hours upon the world and its affairs, speak of courts and kings, in an easy and unpedantic strain; point out the advantage of intellect in acquiring power and controlling one’s species; and, whenever I was disposed to be sarcastic upon the human nature I had read of, he supported my sarcasm by illustrations of the human nature he had seen. We were both, I think (for myself I can answer), endeavouring to pierce the real nature of the other; and perhaps the talent of diplomacy for which, years afterwards, I obtained some applause, was first learnt in my skirmishing warfare with the Abbe Montreuil.

At last, the evening before we quitted school for good arrived. Aubrey had just left me for solitary prayers, and I was sitting alone by my fire, when Montreuil entered gently. He sat himself down by me, and, after giving me the salutation of the evening, sank into a silence which I was the first to break.

“Pray, Abbe,” said I, “have one’s years anything to do with one’s age?”

The priest was accustomed to the peculiar tone of my sagacious remarks, and answered dryly,—

“Mankind in general imagine that they have.”

“Faith, then,” said I, “mankind know very little about the matter. To-day I am at school, and a boy; to-morrow I leave school; if I hasten to town I am presented at court; and lo! I am a man; and this change within half-a-dozen changes of the sun! therefore, most reverend father, I humbly opine that age is measured by events, not years.”

“And are you not happy at the idea of passing the age of thraldom, and seeing arrayed before you the numberless and dazzling pomps and pleasures of the great world?” said Montreuil, abruptly, fixing his dark and keen eye upon me.

“I have not yet fully made up my mind whether to be happy or not,” said I, carelessly.

“It is a strange answer;” said the priest; “but” (after a pause) “you are a strange youth: a character that resembles a riddle is at your age uncommon, and, pardon me, unamiable. Age, naturally repulsive, requires a mask; and in every wrinkle you may behold the ambush of a scheme: but the heart of youth should be open as its countenance! However, I will not weary you with homilies; let us change the topic. Tell me, Morton, do you repent having turned your attention of late to those graver and more systematic studies which can alone hereafter obtain you distinction?”

“No, father,” said I, with a courtly bow, “for the change has gained me your good opinion.”

A smile, of peculiar and undefinable expression, crossed the thin lips of the priest; he rose, walked to the door, and saw that it was carefully closed. I expected some important communication, but in vain; pacing the small room to and fro, as if in a musing mood, the Abbe remained silent, till, pausing opposite some fencing foils, which among various matters (books, papers, quoits, etc.) were thrown idly in one corner of the room, he said,—

“They tell me that you are the best fencer in the school—is it so?”

“I hope not, for fencing is an accomplishment in which Gerald is very nearly my equal,” I replied.

“You run, ride, leap, too, better than any one else, according to the votes of your comrades?”

“It is a noble reputation,” said I, “in which I believe I am only excelled by our huntsman’s eldest son.”

“You are a strange youth,” repeated the priest; “no pursuit seems to give you pleasure, and no success to gratify your vanity. Can you not think of any triumph which would elate you?”

I was silent.

“Yes,” cried Montreuil, approaching me,—“yes,” cried he, “I read your heart, and I respect it; these are petty competitions and worthless honours. You require a nobler goal, and a more glorious reward. He who feels in his soul that Fate has reserved for him a great and exalted part in this world’s drama may reasonably look with indifference on these paltry rehearsals of common characters.”

I raised my eye, and as it met that of the priest, I was irresistibly struck with the proud and luminous expression which Montreuil’s look had assumed. Perhaps something kindred to its nature was perceptible in my own; for, after surveying me with an air of more approbation than he had ever honoured me with before, he grasped my arm firmly, and said, “Morton, you know me not; for many years I have not known you: that time is past. No sooner did your talents develop themselves than I was the first to do homage to their power: let us henceforth be more to each other than we have been; let us not be pupil and teacher; let us be friends. Do not think that I invite you to an unequal exchange of good offices: you may be the heir to wealth and a distinguished name; I may