“If the avaricious speech and sentiment of Heilmann had sent the colour to my cheeks, this sad refusal on the part of Gisquette put the climax to my irritation. Unloosing my purse angrily from my waistband, I threw down on the bench the value of the mirror, which I laid hold of with one hand, while with the other I forced my way through the crowd with the young girl, and drew her to some distance from the place.
“Claude, we spent seven days together, Gisquette and I, in Aix-la-Chapelle, seven whole days, days of happiness, which will never be effaced from my memory. I followed Gisquette like her shadow; she, poor child, out of her pure simple heart vowed to me, unworthy as I was, her first love. At the end of that time we parted ... never to meet again ... and to-day....”
John Gutenberg was silent. Again he pressed to his heart the son of Gisquette, that son whom he had just found. Claude had but little to add to complete his father’s story. He told him of the sorrowful life led by Gisquette, of her unbroken faith to him, and how on her death-bed it had been her consolation to bequeath Claude as a last pledge of affection to her absent friend.
When the young man had ceased speaking, there was a solemn silence in the hut. The faithful Beildech feasted his looks on them both. The old man, his eyes struck with blindness, his hair falling in white curls, his long venerable beard resting on that bosom, oppressed by the memory of the past, and agitated by the emotion of the present.... Ah! whoever had seen Gutenberg at this moment could not have failed to liken him to Œdipus in the arms of Antigone; he was bent, infirm, and weakened by age; it was, nevertheless, the head of a king and the heart of a father.
“I tell you in truth,” it was thus that Gutenberg spoke, with trembling lips, “yes, I tell you truly, death, which is now approaching, will be for me a haven full of blessedness. Love is guiding me here below, it will also receive me on the other side; it is of the best works that it is written, they shall not forsake the just, but shall follow them. The arts and sciences which we pursue without relaxation, the fame and glory which shall carry our names to posterity, are but as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals in comparison with the words of love, pure, divine, and human love. Yes, I think that my life will not have been entirely useless to others, that the seed which I have sown will bear fruit and become a tree, under whose branches the generations to come may find rest and shelter. My endeavour has been to give freedom to thought, to give wings to words; the one and the other, thanks to my discovery, will one day overrun the metamorphosed earth; full of independence and of liberty they will immortalize my name. But, nevertheless, I should have gone down to the tomb without consolation, and without peace, if I had possessed only the light of reason to enlighten my darkened way.* A son has been given to me, and I shall no more wander through desert paths solitary and alone. Man will ever remain man. His heart cannot feed eternally on glory and on hope. Love will always be the best part of his being, and that is why I would have given the labour of my whole life in exchange for thee, Claude, who art even more to me than my invention; thou art my son, the messenger sent by Gisquette, who speaks to me from eternal blessedness!”