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Updated: May 19, 2025
Stephane extended his arms towards him, but one of those looks which always petrifies him kept him silent and motionless in the middle of the pathway. He watched with wild eyes the fatal pickax ravage by degrees his beloved garden. In vain he tried to disguise his despair; his legs trembled and his heart throbbed violently.
Sergius, you rob me of my glory, but what matters it? I am content!" "And what reply did you make to Stephane?" said he to the priest. "Did you reprimand him? Did you congratulate him?" "The case was delicate," said the good father, with the air of a philosopher meditating on the most abstruse subject; "but I am not wanting in judgment, and I drew out of the affair with honor."
But I'll promise not to throw any more stones, if you'll promise not to strike me with your whip any more." "That is a very reasonable proposition," said Gilbert. "I don't ask your opinion, sir," interrupted Stephane haughtily, then turning to Ivan: "Ivan, my dear Ivan," continued he, "in this matter you ought to obey me.
For the first time, he could not avoid being struck by its noble expression and the clearness and purity of his glance. Stephane was involuntarily moved, and strove in vain to conceal it by the jocular tone in which he replied: "No, sir, it is not a test of your sincerity, but a jest which we shall do well not to push further. This animal is not amiable.
"Why," said Stephane, "was not this sympathy reciprocal? As for me, from the first day I saw you I hated you. I do not know with what eyes I looked at you, but I thought that I recognized an enemy. Alas! suspicion and distrust invaded my heart long ago.
With his chin upon his knees and his head buried in his hands, Stephane was crouching at the feet of the holy images. Hearing and perceiving Gilbert, he started, raised himself quickly and remained motionless, his hands crossed above his head, his neck extended, his lips quivering and opening with a smile, lightnings and tears in his eyes. How paint the strangeness of his countenance?
The affair is more serious than I had thought. There is a malignant abscess there, which must be lanced once for all." This surgical comparison made Gilbert shudder; he cursed his hasty passion and his stupidity. Why had he not suspected the real culprit? Why was it necessary for him to justify the hatred which Stephane had avowed towards him?
"The other day," interrupted Stephane, "I did a foolish thing. For the first time I amused myself by evading Ivan's vigilance. It was an effort that I longed to make, but it turned out badly for me. Would you like to see with your own eyes what this fine exploit cost me?"
And at this point, I will tell you that Ivan has reported to me that, on the same day, Stephane turned up his sleeve to make you admire a scar which he carried upon one of his wrists. Oblige me by telling me what blue story he related to you on this subject." This unexpected question troubled Gilbert a little.
M. Leminof spoke in a tone so serious and composed, that for a few moments Gilbert could have imagined him a pedagogue gravely explaining his maxims of education; but he could not forget that expression of ferocious joy which was depicted on his face at the moment when Stephane fled sobbing from the garden, and he remembered also the somnambulist who, on the preceding night, had uttered certain broken phrases in regard to a LIVING PORTRAIT and a BURIED SMILE. These mysterious words, terrible in their obscurity, had appeared to him to allude to Stephane, and they accorded badly with the airs of paternal solicitude which M. Leminof had deigned to affect in the past few minutes.
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