Chapter 5

Paris was the next, but transient, resting-place of the travellers. Here Falkner made such arrangements with regard to remittances as he believed would best ensure his scheme of concealment. He laid the map of Europe before him, and traced a course with his pencil somewhat erratic, yet not without a plan. Paris, Hamburgh, Stockholm, St. Petersburgh, Moscow, Odessa, Constantinople, through Hungary to Vienna. How many thousand miles! miles which, while he traversed, he could possess his soul in freedom—fear no scrutiny—be asked no insidious questions. He could look each man in the face, and none trace his crime in his own.

It was a wild scheme to make so young a child as Elizabeth the companion of these devious and long wanderings, yet it was her idea that shed golden rays on the boundless prospect he contemplated. He could not have undertaken this long journey alone—memory and remorse his only companions. He was not one of those, unfortunately, whom a bright eye and kindly smile can light at once into a flame—soon burnt out, it is true, but warming and cheering, and yet harmless, while it lasted. He could not, among strangers, at once discern the points to admire, and make, himself the companion of the intelligent and good, through a sort of freemasonry some spirits possess. This was a great defect of character. He was proud and reserved. His esteem must be won—long habits of intimacy formed—his fastidious taste never wounded—his imagination never balked; without this he was silent and wrapped in himself. All his life he had cherished a secret and ardent passion, beyond whose bounds everything was steril—this had changed from the hopes of love to the gnawing pangs of remorse—but still his heart fed on itself—and unless that was interested, and by the force of affection he were called out of himself, he must be miserable. To arrive unwelcomed at an inn—to wander through unknown streets and cities without any stimulus of interest or curiosity—to traverse vast tracts of country, useless to others, a burden to himself, alone—this would have been intolerable. But Elizabeth was the cure; she was the animating soul of his project; her smiles—her caresses—the knowledge that he benefited her, was the life-blood of his design. He indulged, with a sort of rapture, in the feeling that he loved, and was beloved by an angel of innocence, who grew each day into a creature endowed with intelligence, sympathies, hopes, fears, and affections—all individually her own, and yet all modelled by him—centred in him—to whom he was necessary—who would be his; not, like the vain love of his youth, only in imagination, but in every thought and sensation, to the end of time.

Nor did he intend to pursue his journey in such a way as to overtask her strength or injure her health. He cared not how much time elapsed before its completion. It would certainly employ years; it mattered not how many. When winter rendered travelling painful, he could take up his abode in a metropolis abounding in luxuries. During the summer heats he might fix himself in some villa, where the season would be mitigated to pleasantness. If impelled by a capricious predilection, he could stay for months in any chance-selected spot; but his home was, with Elizabeth beside him, in his travelling carriage. Perpetual change would baffle pursuit if any were set on foot; while the restlessness of his life, the petty annoyances and fleeting pleasures of a traveller’s existence, would serve to occupy his mind, and prevent its being mastered by those passions to which one victim had been immolated, and which rendered the remnant of his days loathsome to himself. “I have determined to live,” he thought, “and I must therefore ensure the means of life. I must adopt a method by which I can secure for each day that stock of patience which is necessary to lead me to the end of it. In the plan I have laid down, every day will have a task to be fulfilled, and while I employ myself in executing it, I need look neither before nor behind; and each day added thus, one by one, to one another, will form months and years, and I shall grow old travelling post over Europe.”

His resolution made, he was eager to enter on his travels, which, singular to say, he performed even in the very manner he had determined; for the slight changes in the exact route, introduced afterward from motives of convenience or pleasure, might be deemed rather as in accordance with, than deviating from, his original project.