“I shall not succeed here, you see, mamma, and I will not have you looking on while I am struggling and heartsore and in anguish. Mother, let me leave Alençon; I want to go through it all away from you.”
“I want to be at your side always,” she said proudly. “Suffering alone! you without your mother! your poor mother that would be your servant if need were, and keep out of sight for fear of injuring you, if you wished it, and never accuse you of pride! No, no, Athanase, we will never be parted!”
Athanase put his arms about her and held her with a passionate tight clasp, as a dying man might cling to life.
“And yet I wish it,” he said. “If we do not part, it is all over with me. … The double pain—yours and mine—would kill me. It is better that I should live, is it not?”
Mme. Granson looked with haggard eyes into her son’s face.
“So this is what you have been brooding over! They said truth. Then you are going away?”
“Yes.”
“But you are not going until you have told me all about it, and without giving me any warning? You must have some things to take with you, and money. There are some louis d’or sewed into my petticoat; you must have them.”
Athanase burst into tears.
“That was all that I wanted to tell you,” he said after a while. “Now, I will see you to the President’s house.”
Mother and son went out together. Athanase left Mme. Granson at the door of the house where she was to spend the evening. He looked long at the shafts of light that escaped through chinks in the shutters. He stood there glued to the spot, while a quarter of an hour went by, and it was with almost delirious joy that he heard his mother say, “Grand independence of hearts.”
“Poor mother, I have deceived her!” he exclaimed to himself as he reached the river.
He came down to the tall poplar on the bank where he had been wont to sit and meditate during the last six weeks. Two big stones lay there; he had brought them himself for a seat. And now, looking out over the fair landscape lying in the moonlight, he passed in review all the so glorious future that should have been his. He went through cities stirred to enthusiasm by his name; he heard the cheers of crowded streets, breathed the incense of banquets, looked with a great yearning over that life of his dreams, rose uplifted and radiant in glorious triumph, raised a statue to himself, summoned up all his illusions to bid them farewell in a last Olympian carouse. The magic could only last for a little while; it fled, it had vanished forever. In that supreme moment he clung to his beautiful tree as if it had been a friend; then he put the stones, one in either pocket, and buttoned his overcoat. His hat he had purposely left at home. He went down the bank to look for a deep spot which he had had in view for some time; and slid in resolutely, trying to make as little noise as possible. There was scarcely a sound.
When Mme. Granson came home about half-past nine that night, the maid-of-all-work said nothing of Athanase, but handed her a letter. Mme. Granson opened it and read:
“I have gone away, my kind mother; do not think hardly of me.” That was all.
“A pretty thing he has done!” cried she. “And how about his linen and the money? But he will write, and I shall find him. The poor children always think themselves wiser than their fathers and mothers.” And she went to bed with a quiet mind.
The Sarthe had risen with yesterday’s rain. Fishers and anglers were prepared for this, for the swollen river washes down the eels from the little streams on its course. It so happened that an eel-catcher had set his lines over the very spot where poor Athanase had chosen to drown himself, thinking that he should never be heard of again; and next morning, about six o’clock, the man drew out the young dead body.
One or two women among Mme. Granson’s few friends went to prepare the poor widow with all possible care to receive the dreadful yield of the river. The news of the suicide, as might be expected, produced a tremendous sensation. Only last evening the poverty-stricken man of genius had not a single friend; the morning after his death scores of voices cried, “I would so willingly have helped him!” So easy is it to play a charitable part when no outlay is involved. The Chevalier de Valois, in the spirit of revenge, explained the suicide. It was a boyish, sincere, and noble passion for Mlle. Cormon that drove Athanase to take his own life. And when the Chevalier had opened Mme. Granson’s eyes, she saw a multitude of little things to confirm this view. The story grew touching; women cried over it.
Mme. Granson sorrowed with a dumb concentration of grief which few understood. For mothers there are two ways of bereavement. It often happens that everyone else can understand the greatness of her loss; her boy was admired and appreciated, young or handsome, with fair prospects before him or brilliant successes won already; everyone regrets him, everyone shares her mourning, and the grief that is widely spread is not so hard to bear. Then there is the loss that one understands. No one else knew her boy and all that he was; his smiles were for her alone; she, and she only, knew how much perished with that life, too early cut
