Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

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me ! How
can I believe you ? Still, I'm wrong to irritate mv-
Felf ; 1 feel it and confess it. It's myself alone i ought
to
blame. I alone am guilty, since I allowed your mother to
bring you up in the vain, foolish practices of her bigotry and
superstition. It is she, I'm sure, has inspired this culpable
extravagance, this mad resolution."
"
No, father, I swear to you," Victor hera interposed, raising
his head with calm dignity, aud extending his hand as if to call
heaven to witness the truth of hia words.
" Your suspicions
nre unjust; my mother has had nothing to do with my resolution.
I haven't told her of it, and to this moment she knows
nothing of it."
"And, now," continued the unhappy old man, "I would
crown a long series of weaknesses and imprudences by an act
of !
signal folly I would expose your life to chance, to the fury
of the Revolution, for the sake of I know not what divine
rights, I know not what principles ! No, no. Let us speak no
more of it, Victor; and, remember well, if you should now ask
my consent to go and fight under the flags of Garibaldi and
Victor Emmanuel, you'd obtain it just as little."
"
But, father," resumed the young man, hesitating alittle as
if he regretfully recurred to this argument to gain the victory,
" didn't you say yesterday you always had n sincere respect, a
profound esteem, for the man who sacrifices his 1 fe iu di i'ene.i
of his faith ? So, don't you see you contradict yourself now?"
"But what is your faith ? What are your principles ? '
re-
plied the father, at once confused and irritated. "Nothing
but bigotry, superstition, illusions, falsehoods ! In fine I de-
clare it is useless to discuss it any longer.
Don't count on my
consent ; you'll never obtain it. This is my last word, and
you know I'm accustomed to keep my word."
" O father !" cried the young man bursting into tears and
clearly siguii'y that, to follow the impulse of your blind fauatvou
are quite resoved to keep no account of my advice,
but put in execution, at embracing
any cost, your culpable and insane
his angry father's knees. "Have pity on your
son, don't look inflexible. I shall die of regret, of lan:;iv>r, if
you refuse me. Can you pronounce my sentence of u nth,
my best friend, my father ? Could you, unmoved, see your
son suffer and die, because he sacrificed his heart's emotion s to
f. nd il heaven by your doubts, your sarcasms, and your iudif-
"? Oh! don't place yourself between me and my duty,
between me and my God, I entreat, I conjure yoii. Don't
seek to separate me from my Saviour, to make me, in turn,
uiigraicful ami faithless; for, father, if I were retained and
turned asidj by yon, I'd be afraid God would justly smite your paternal will ?"
M. Morren knew well his son's extreme sensitiveness, which,
at the same time, did not exclude a remarkable firmness of
you
with sonic unforeseen adversity, some sudden and terrible chas-
character. At that moment his father's heart began to be
touched; he knew well that a fatal issue was possible and
might perhaps be near.
"
"Unhappy child ! he cried in a voice husky from love and
anger. "Victor, O my son Victor, you'll drive me ma
haps
'
icnt."
A truce to your menaces, your sermons, I beg," M. Mor-
kill me. After all, happen what may, it doesn't n
I prefer to see you die of languor by my fide than send you to
a dislant land to fall miserably under foreign bullets. Besides,
I'm mad myself to entertain such fears; one dies not so ca.-ily
at your age. Go away and drive those projects, those absurd
visions from your mind. Go," he repeated in a severe an 1
irritated tone, "or I'll leave the place. I've had but !wo
much kindness, too much indulgence for your rash discourses
and foolish visions."
The young man, without replying then left, with bent brow,
and teurs in his eyes, while his father, a prey to painful emo-
tion, continued to pace the room, his head drooping on his
breast. But Victor, turning towards the staircase, suddenly
found himself in presence of his mother, who glanced at him
with lively astonishment. They descended together, and re-
paired to the lime-tree grove 1
, where, seated on a verdant bank,
Victor repeated to his mother all that had occurred.
" My deal- Victor," she said, " your father is very far from
having such nn opinion of you ; they are only vain \n rds, un-
reflecting accusations that escaped from him iu his anger.''
" But the vow JL have formed my resolution, mother, that
my father will never, never, alas ! permit me to aec;impli h?"
" Your resolution, my sou ! ah ! God uloue knows how it
should I hesitate a mo-
grieves a mother's heart ! And yet