Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One VolumeVoltaire
Philosophy
Voltaire's Romances, Complete in One Volume
Voltaire
French fiction -- Translations into English
She was sensible she ought to do everything her lover desired. She
wanted to write, but her hand refused its office. She began her letter
three times, and tore it as often. At length she got to the end, and the
two lovers left the prison, after having embraced the old martyr to
efficacious grace.
The happy yet disconsolate Miss St. Yves knew where her brother lodged:
thither she repaired; and her lover took an apartment at the same house.
They had scarce reached their lodging, before her protector sent the
order for releasing the good old Gordon, at the same time making an
appointment with her for the next day.
She gave the order of release to her lover, and refused the appointment
of a benefactor whom she could no more see without expiring with shame
and grief.
Her lover would not have left her upon any other errand than to release
his friend. He flew to the place of his confinement and fulfilled this
duty, reflecting, meanwhile, upon the strange vicissitudes of this
world, and admiring the courageous virtue of a young lady, to whom two
unfortunate men owed more than life.
XIX.
THE HURON, THE BEAUTIFUL MISS ST. YVES, AND THEIR RELATIONS, ARE
CONVENED.
The generous and respectable, but injured girl, was with her brother the
Abbé de St. Yves, the good Prior of the Mountain, and Lady de Kerkabon.
They were equally astonished, but their situations and sentiments were
very different. The Abbé de St. Yves was expiating the wrongs he had
done his sister at her feet, and she pardoned him. The prior and his
sympathizing sister likewise wept, but it was for joy. The filthy
bailiff and his insupportable son did not trouble this affecting scene.
They had set out upon the first report that their antagonist had been
released. They flew to bury in their own province their folly and fear.
The four _dramatis personæ_, variously agitated, were waiting for the
return of the young man who had gone to deliver his friend. The Abbé de
St. Yves did not dare to raise his eyes to meet those of his sister. The
good Kerkabon said:
"I shall then see once more my dear nephew."
"You will see him again," said the charming Miss St. Yves, "but he is no
longer the same man. His behavior, his manners, his ideas, his sense,
have all undergone a complete mutation. He has become as respectable, as
he was before ignorant and strange to everything. He will be the honor
and consolation of your family; would to heaven that I might also be the
honor of mine!"
"What, are you not the same as you were?" said the prior. "What then has
happened to work so great a change?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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