On the day when the family put on their
mourning, the baroness took her son to a bench in the garden and
questioned him closely. Calyste answered gently and submissively, but
his answers only proved to her the despair of his soul.
"Mother," he said, "there is no life in me. What I eat does not feed
me; the air that enters my lungs does not refresh me; the sun feels
cold; it seems to you to light that front of the house, and show you
the old carvings bathed in its beams, but to me it is all a blur, a
mist. If Beatrix were here, it would be dazzling. There is but one
only thing left in this world that keeps its shape and color to my
eyes,--this flower, this foliage," he added, drawing from his breast
the withered bunch the marquise had given him at Croisic.
The baroness dared not say more. Her son's answer seemed to her more
indicative of madness than his silence of grief. She saw no hope, no
light in the darkness that surrounded them.
The baron's last hours and death had prevented the rector from
bringing Mademoiselle des Touches to Calyste, as he seemed bent on
doing, for reasons which he did not reveal.
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