II.
After this understanding, Guidon came every day to the chateau. Kehlmark shut himself up with him for long hours in his studio. The young peasant applied himself to learning, endeavouring with a neophyte's zeal and ardour, worthy of a creato or apprentice of the masters of the Italian Renaissance. No recreation for either was comparable to this initiation. Guidon was at once the model, the pupil, and the disciple of Kehlmark. When they were tired of writing, reading or drawing, Guidon would take his bugle, or maybe, with his bell-like voice he would sing heroic airs of ancient times, which he had learned from the Klaarvatsch fishermen.
Kehlmark could no longer do without his pupil and had him sent for, if he delayed to come. The one was never seen without the other. They had become inseparable. Guidon usually dined at Escal-Vigor, so that he hardly ever returned to Les Pèlerins except to sleep. As Guidon improved, and developed exceptional gifts, Kehlmark's intense affection for his pupil became exclusive, even suspicious and almost selfish. Henry reserved to himself the privilege of being the only one to form this character, to enjoy this admirable nature, which should be his finest work, and to breathe the air of this delicate spirit. He cultivated the boy's mind jealously, like those rabid horticulturists who would murder the indiscreet intruder or the designing competitor, who might venture into their domains. There was a gentle intimacy between them. They sufficed the one to the other. The amazed Guidon dreamed of no other paradise than Escal-Vigor. Fame, or the desire of applause, never disturbed their life of pure artists.
Kehlmark had seen pretty closely the social and external life of self-styled artists. He knew the vanity of reputations, the prostitution of glory, the iniquity of success, the impurity of criticism, the competition among rivals of a nature more fierce and abominable than that between sordid shopkeepers.
Blandine, although a little distrustful, had cordially welcomed this guest to the château. Happy at the felicity which the young Govaertz procured for Henry, she received him kindly, without always succeeding in showing much enthusiasm. Indeed, without feeling an absolute antipathy to this little peasant, she must have been sometimes wounded to the quick, hurt to the very marrow, and notwithstanding her good heart, her sound reason and her greatness of soul, she had no doubt frequent movements of impatience against this intimate, intellectual commerce, this close comradeship, this perfect understanding between the two men. She even went so far as to be jealous of the talent and temperament, of the spiritual gifts which brought the young artist nearer to Kehlmark's soul than all the love of her, a simple woman, guardian of his happiness. The good creature showed nothing of these moments, so human in their weakness, but, for which her reason reproached her instinct.
As for Claudie, she was not at the outset, nor even for some time later, offended by the favour which the Dykgrave showed the young Govaertz. She saw in it a way the Count had of paying court indirectly to the sister, by patronising the brother. No doubt, Kehlmark would make the young shepherd the confidant of his love for the young farm-mistress. "He is too timid to declare himself directly to me," she said to herself, "he will open his mind at first to the youngster and will endeavour to learn from him the nature of my sentiments. He has chosen a rather sorry go-between. But he had no choice. Meanwhile, the solicitude that the Count shows the wicked rascal is meant rather for myself." And quite infatuated, the rough girl rejoiced at this perpetual intimacy of the Dykgrave with the scapegrace so long repudiated, almost denied by his relatives. She even came to soften the roughness and harshness of her behaviour towards her younger brother. She now cherished him, surrounded him with attentions, took trouble with his clothes, looked after his linen; to none of which luxuries had he ever before been accustomed. In order to explain this change of conduct, Claudie had taken Govaertz into her confidence as to her great matrimonial project. The Burgomaster, no less ambitious, applauded these lofty views, nor did he, for an instant, doubt of success. Following the example of his favourite child, he ceased to be rough with his boy and became more considerate towards him.
When, after a few months of so-called trial, the Dykgrave declared to the Burgomaster that he would definitely take upon himself the care of the pretended good-for-nothing, Claudie induced Michael Govaertz to accept this proposal.
The Burgomaster, who was very vain, had somewhat hesitated, because so far as he understood, the situation "of Guidon at the chateau would be that of an underling, or a valet, a little superior to Landrillon, but a valet all the same.
Although, when so long under his own roof, he had degraded his son, giving him the lowest place in his gang of labourers and leaving to him the dirtiest farm work, his paternal vanity would have suffered, to see him dependent on any other authority than his own. To justify his intervention, Kehlmark had submitted to the Govaertzes drawings, already very meritorious, of the young apprentice, but the father was no more capable than the daughter of understanding the promise contained in these first attempts.
"Let us accept the Dykgrave's offers," insisted Claudie, meeting her father's objections. "In the first place, it is a good riddance for us. Then, you may be sure the Count would not burden himself with this scapegrace nor invite him at all, but to be agreeable to us, and to testify his interest in me. We should be disobliging him, believe me, to frustrate his good intentions. It's his mode of opening to me the doors of Escal-Vigor. Between ourselves, he doubtless thinks nothing of this dauber, or at least, exaggerates his slight merits."
In the early days, when Guidon returned in the evening from the château, she would question him as to how they had spent the time, how things went on at Escal-Vigor, and upon the words and manner of the Dykgrave. "Did the Count inquire after me? What did he say to thee? He has a great interest in us, has he not? Go on, let us hear; speak out, conceal nothing from me. Certainly he must have confessed to thee a certain weakness for thy sister?"
Guidon replied evasively, but so as not to compromise himself. Yes, the Count for sure had inquired after her, as also after their father and even the servants; why, yes even of the farm beasts, too. But not with great anxiety. The fact was, Claudie had played a very small part in the conversations of the master and the disciple, who were entirely taken up with their studies and occupations.
Guidon became more and more discreet. From their first association he had vowed to his protector a fidelity as complete and as intense as Blandine's. To her fanatical affection he joined that something of acuteness and lucidity, which intelligence and brain-culture add to sentiment. Guidon, the so-called stupid, the simpleton, the rustic good-for-nothing, represented moral value, in a body which was of an admirable form and which daily increased in strength and beauty.
With the tact, the second-sight, the instinct of loving natures, he suspected his sister's foolish infatuation for the Dykgrave, but he foresaw also that the Count would never return her affection. Guidon was but too well acquainted with his sister Claudie, and he knew better than anyone the abysses of vulgarity and the absolute incompatibilities existing between her and Kehlmark.
The pupil had even reached the point of perceiving that he was preferred by his master to "Madame the Housekeeper," the noble Blandine. It is certain that the Count always seemed more taken up with him than with the woman who loved him. Guidon was inwardly proud of the predilection of which he was the object, and by his attentions to the young woman, it might have been supposed that he wished to win her pardon for the excessive part which he played in the master's life.
Guidon guessed and felt rightly: Henry never revealed himself or opened his mind freely except to his disciple. With others he kept himself reserved, nor did his kindly words assume the caressing tone, the unction and smoothness, which characterised his outpourings to his favourite boy.
Blandine had never seen him so gay and radiant as since the time he had undertaken the education and charged himself with the destiny of this young ragamuffin. However much deference and devotion the lad showed towards the lady, he was unable to disguise his joy at having become the principal and constant care of the master of Escal-Vigor. He showed no malice, only a simple joy; nay, he even grew tender with regard to the almost forsaken woman, and with the egotism of a spoiled child or chosen neophyte, he did not notice the silence and reserve of Blandine when the Count kept him to dinner, nor the strange looks which she darted at both of them when they conversed with warmth and excitement, rapt in a common lyric feeling and regardless of the presence of the witness.
The Zoudbertinge villagers did not, for an instant, look with jealous eyes at the special favour the Dykgrave accorded to the son of Govaertz.
As little as the Burgomaster and his daughter did they believe in the talent and the vocation of the youth.
"It's a real kindness and a charity," said they among themselves. "His father would not have known what to do with this wild and intractable young trifler, who used to despise the work as much as the amusements of the apprentices of his age."
The clowns even wondered that the Count had succeeded in getting the semblance of any work whatever out of the youth, who had learned nothing up to then, except to play tolerably well on the bugle.
Moreover, the dearer the master and pupil became to each other the more did Kehlmark show himself gracious, liberal, and even profuse, making generous presents to the tuneful brotherhoods and multiplying occasions of festivities and athletic tourneys.
He instituted regattas with sailing-vessels round the island, in which seated with Guidon in a yacht adorned with his colours, he almost surpassed the best sailors of the country. He renewed at his own expense the musical instruments of the St. Cecilia guild, was constantly present at the rehearsals, the excursions, and the festivities of this group of young fellows, and it even happened more than once on the fine summer nights, when the twilight and the dawn seem almost to embrace, after a long evening made up of athletic interludes and brisk bouts of buffoonery, that he would lead all the band in a tramp across the island, and not restore the riotous roysterers to their conjugal or paternal firesides till the following evening, after a picturesque caravaning enlivened with leaping, belly-fillings, guzzlings, and exploits of gallantry among the stubble and the hay.
Kehlmark spent his money without reckoning. One might have supposed that he sought by excessive liberality and indiscriminate charity to purchase his right to a mysterious and forbidden happiness; that he wished in some sort to pay the ransom of a jealous and frail felicity.
These mad largesses no doubt increased Blandine's anxiety; however, she did not risk any remonstrance, but devised how she might best meet these ill-considered expenses.
Of course, there was in the popularity of the Dykgrave a good deal of false worship, baseness, and cupidity, but if most of the rustics loved him in a coarse manner, at least they loved him after their fashion. The poor devils of fellows of Klaarvatsch especially would have let themselves be chopped in pieces for their young lord.
As for declared enemies, the Count knew of none, save the minister, Balthus Bomberg and a few mock-modest bigots. Every Sunday the minister thundered against the impiety and the shamelessness of the Dykgrave and threatened with hell the sheep who followed this libertine, this ravening wolf; he mourned especially the over venturesome visitors who frequented Escal-Vigor, that diabolical château decorated with scandalous nudities.
Although at daggers-drawn with the Burgomaster, this bilious little man, in his narrow, fanatical zeal, decided to pay a visit to Les Pèlerins, in order to point out to the father the risk he was running in entrusting the education of the young Govaertz to this wicked rich man, who was scandalising the community with his concubinage and impiety. Like all inveterate Calvinists, Balthus was also an iconoclast. Had he not feared the fury of the peasants, so attached to the old relics, which reminded them of the stubborness of their ancestors, he would have had the fine fresco of the Martyrdom of St. Olfgar scraped out.
Kehlmark was doubly odious to him, as pagan and as artist. In order to intimidate the Burgomaster, Balthus called on him to tear his son away from the patron who was corrupting him, on pain of causing both his children, Claudie and Guidon, to be disinherited by their venerable aunts. Michael and Claudie, more and more taken with their Dykgrave, packed the troublesome man off to his church with abundance of sarcasm and mockery. Guidon, whom he accosted one day in the neighbourhood of Escal-Vigor park, would not even listen to him, but turned his back on him with a shrug of the shoulders and a still grosser gesture.
However, Claudie's business did not seem to advance sensibly. "See here, thou doesn't tell me anything, sleepy head!" said she to him, whom she imagined to be the connecting link between herself and Kehlmark. "Has not the Count entrusted thee with a special message for me?" Guidon would invent some fiction, but often taken off his guard, he would give himself away or keep his mouth closed. The coarse-grained faggot then flew into a rage at her go-between's stupidity, and it itched her to cuff and brutalize him as in former days.
Through policy the Dykgrave continued his visits to Les Pèlerins and his attentions to the young farm-girl. She would have wished him more enterprising. He took a good deal of time to make up his mind to propose: he had hardly ventured to trifle with the tips of her fingers and never had he stolen a kiss!
No sooner did she hear the trotting of his horse and the yelping of his escort of setters, Claudie would run to the farm-door, almost taking pleasure in thus publicly advertising her love, so certain was she of success. Accordingly, people began to talk a good deal, in the evenings, of the Dykgrave's attentions to her.
Although his affections were monopolised almost exclusively by young Guidon, the Dykgrave aimed at being favourably regarded by everybody. He even pushed magnanimity so far as to endeavour to conciliate the minister. In reply to the denunciations and anathemas of the virulent pastor, he scattered alms freely, ruining himself with gifts of clothing and food for the poor directly dependent on the parish. The minister distributed the money and the other offerings, but was by no means disarmed thereby.
More than once, Henry's friends, the shrimp fishermen and the vagabonds of the Klaarvatsch beach, offered to bring the minister to reason; especially five of them, who were permanently employed at the chateau and formed a sort of bodyguard to Kehlmark. Grandsons of old-time wreckers, casual dikemen, plunderers of jetsam—the painter often made them pose and amused himself with their wrestling and their knife-play deadened-edged, or perhaps, he would confess them, enjoying with Guidon their rough language and the coarse-mouthed stories of their prowesses. These hulking big chaps, incorrigible skulkers, who had never been able anywhere to acclimatise themselves and had got themselves everywhere dismissed, these splendid sprigs of humanity, the first masters of young Guidon, now swore only by Henry and Escal-Vigor.
"Just say the word," suggested now one, now another, to Kehlmark. "Would you like us to sack the parsonage, or hang up high and dry this canting psalm-singer; or rather, should we skin him clean as the Smaragdites once did the apostle Olfgar, that other spoil-sport?"
And they would certainly have done as they said, at a word, or a gesture from their master, and with them, all would have let themselves loose on the importunate preacher.
Several times, in passing by the parsonage, the musicians of the guild of St. Cecilia loudly hooted. One evening after deep potations they even went so far as to break the windows. On St. Sylvester's day they placed against the minister's door a frightful manikin of straw with a head of brown bread, representing his most faithful companion and second self Mrs. Bömberg; and as, in consequence of this insult, he broke out into fresh invectives against the Dykgrave and Blandine, the Klaarvatsch rascals splashed with excrement the front of the parsonage, which had just been re-painted.
Jaundiced with spite and rancour, the pastor seemed to stand alone against the whole parish and even against the entire island.
"How," Balthus Bomberg asked himself, "how reduce this haughty Kehlmark? How undermine his prestige, detach from him these misled and blinded brutes, and make them rise against their idol and burn what they adore?"
Far from listening to him they deserted his church. In the end, he preached but to empty benches. A dozen bigoted old women, including his wife and the two sisters of the Burgomaster alone remained to support him.
In the idolatrous devotion which the young Dykgrave had excited there was mingled something of the worship which the Roman populace had for Nero, their indulgent and prodigal provider of bread and games.