--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 19 number: 4 published: 1916-02 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations, \"Adele,\" *Improvement Era* 19, no. 4 (February 1916): 308–313." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1904unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1904unse start_page: 308 end_page: 313 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1916-02) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1904unse publication_year: 1916 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1916, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Adele 9 > •■,. > >-, *!$&** wfyw ';"VS Adele BY ALFRED LAMBOURNE I. In the veins of Adele there was aristocratic blood. She wasthe daughter of a "Shep." It is true that the man who was socalled, the silent and stern-browed, white-haired recluse, was dif-ferent from those other men around him. He was owner of theuncounted flock which grazed upon the waste, and he had oncebeen the possessor of a wide estate, and bore a name which ishonored yet in distant France. A strange life and a strangeabode—that sombre and unfrequented land—for such a man ashe, and for such a girl as Adele. And often, too, she was awatcher of sheep. Their rock-built dwelling stood on the slopeof a round, a desolate hill, and perhaps in that land there arescenes as cheerless, but surely not one as savage. At the footof the hill a stream passed on. In times of drought it all butfailed, a thread of water joining pool to pool, separate wells inthe twisted rock. But in times of flood, it foamed and roared,and on its strong edge a half score trees stood starved and gaunt.Had that dwelling been a gray chateau, crowning a wooded bankof the romantic Loire, it would have been a more fitting home;indeed, that which would have been the possession of the fatherand the inheritance of the desert girl. As it was, she was heir tothose desert acres, and that flock of unnumbered sheep. An 1upon the horizon were clustered mountains, great peaks, andmassive ridges, and their names were in keeping with the savage-ness of the wild and northern land. But, far away, highest and ADELE 309 most jagged of all, were seen three crests and their names, likethat of the "Shep," repeated a word of France. The father was a political exile; impoverished through hisadherence to a lost cause, he had left his still beloved and nativeland and, in his mood of bitterness, had sought the alien waste.There, at least, he was isolated from the persecution of politicalenemies and did not need to look on the faces of betraying friends.And there, too, he heard at times the Gallic tongue. The Frenchtrappers had first been through that land, and it was they whohad named many a valley, peak and stream. The mother ofAdele was dead, and it was more the loss of his wife, followingthe loss of his estates and his exile, that had whitened the head ofthe father, than it was his years. And yet the time of his pass-ing was near at hand. The ancestors of Adele would have seen in her beauty anideal. Yet, save for the father, there were none to claim. Shehad lost none of her sweet dignity through contact with the rough-ness of the desert land. Perhaps there was a wild grace addedto her bearing, too, gathered from the wildness of the naturearound her, yet Adele, like her father, was an aristocrat still. Awatcher of sheep, and yet of untold fairness. Her form wasslight; her eyes, her hair, were black, her features expressive asthe changeful moods of her soul. This was Adele of the desert, the daughter of an exile. II. Of the things of strangeness to be seen in that desolate land,none were more strange than that one. Those two graves in thatonce terrible, now sombre place, with the white cross making itsappeal above them, was surely a singular sight. Leaving theruined hut and ascending the slope of the conical hill or buttewhere the sheep yet browsed, we looked. But that statementshould be at the end, not at the beginning, of that which we tell. We have said that the dwelling of Adele and her father stoodon the slope of a round and desolate hill. Yet it was an innocentappearing hill, as innocence is in that savage land, but it possesseda terrible heart—a heart which had long been dead. Was it nota strange thought of the "Shep" to leave his dead wife in thatawesome place? Yet there was a beauty in the thought. Climbup the slope, approach the summit, and, suddenly there was atone's feet, a deep and sombre void. One lost his breath on theedge of a sweeping circle, a great, black round of emptiness—acrater. How ancient a corse, and yet what evidence was there ofa once glowing life! The mind would grow aweary should oneattempt to compute its days of existence, or how long it had beenextinct. Once that crater flamed and roared; once the lava, afiery red blood, flowed down its outer slopes. But now, how 310 IM PR( >VF MENT ERA ghastly still! Those tiers of lava were years existent to eachhour of man's most ancient building. Call aloud on the rim ofthat crater, and there would come back to one, from out the void,an echo, so faint, so weird, so unearthly strange, that it seemed itwas the far cries of the dead; that it was answering voices ofcreatures who had been for an infinite time departed, and werestartled from their apathy in the nether world. And once a daythe blazing sun looked down to the crater floor, and once a month,the full moon, our satellite, dead like the crater's heart, floodedwith its dim, cold light the sunken space and all seemed deadindeed. But as one stood amazed on that crater rim, the sightwas too terribly real, for one to think of ought but the nakedtruth. Yet there was a focus there. Down upon the small, round,level floor of the crater, the last sinking of the molten lava, wasa mound, a grave, and above it a small white cross. And thecross suggested another life. In the midst of that silence, amidthose evidences of ancient death, one thought of immortality. Was it not a strange thought of the "Shep," we have asked,to leave his dead wife in that awesome place? And yet, weadded, there was a beauty in the thought. Desolate was all aroundthat desolate hill, and yet down in its dead heart was a spot ofbrighter hue. The woman who had died, pining for France, hadshe not looked in gratitude upon that hidden beauty. Horriblenow those rent and blackened walls; terrible, on that floor, tothink of what it was once composed, and yet it was verdant now.Moss and grasses were there, the grave was edged around withthe glossy leafage of the chapparrel, and even there sprang upupon it a small and starry flower. None other such growth couldbe seen for weary miles around. The dews of heaven had founda response there. A strange, an awful, a solemn, yet fitting place for the dead.And yet a stranger place for love. Had the desert girl a lover? Down in the crater at hermother's grave, Adele had made her vows. Love is sometimes blind; selfishness fails to see. Imaginethe monotonous life of the "Shep," and this life as shared byAdele. In the dwelling upon the hill slope Adele was born, andthere she had lived with her father after her mother's death.How well she remembered the dread event; the fever which hadcarried away her mother and the taking of her body to its restin the crater depth. And she remembered, too, the Catholic priest.the traveling missionary, who had not disdained to come fromafar to officiate in his holy office. A monotonous life, and one forAdele scarcely to be endured. She sighed for that which lay be-yond their home. The father sometimes spoke of France andthen her longing became intense. Morose the father was some-times called, vet there was the olden courtesy for any chance ADELE 311 visitor who came that way, but seldom, indeed, were such at theirdoor. To Adele a stranger was a strange being indeed. Some-times a light might be seen in some hut upon the hill slopes acrossthe plain, but to those huts she had never been. The years cameand the years departed, and the girl seldom beheld a face save thatof her father, and the attendants upon the place. And now shewas a woman. Spring made the stream to roar again; the sum-mer piled the white clouds above the heights, and the autumncame with rain and mists, and Adele lived on that desolate hillwhose dead heart was a crater, and in which her mother yet lay,and wondered of the outer world. For Adele was a being- ofdreams. Was it a wonder, then, that one event stood out brightly inher desert life? The Holy Father has come again. The missionarypriest had returned to the Pastoral ranch. And Adele wasthere. The Father had sent word that she come, that he mightinquire about her spiritual welfare. Once before Adele had beenthere, but it was that she might receive a name, and she was car-ried in her mother's arms. So now, for the first time sincewomanhood, she had departed from her desert home. Music and the dance—a wedding! What a seeing was thatfor Adele! To her, the sight was enchantment, wonderful be-yond her dreams. The little altar, the crucifix, and the burningcandles; the wedding ceremony, and the music and the dancewhich followed! And it was at the wedding that Adele had found a lover. Didwe not say that the desert girl was beautiful? None at the dancewith so wonderful a form and face. Not among the dancers wasthere another with such hands, such feet. Yet those feet hadnever moved in the dance. And one there was who was smittento the heart with her beauty, and that one became her lover. And so it happened that, down in the crater, Adele had madeher vows, and she learned the meaning of that strange word—love. III. There is no escape from the decrees of Fate. Her fatherhad taught this lesson and he had lived to know its truth. Whomore fitting as a lover of Adele than Jaques, the handsomestranger whom they had met at the wedding at the sheep-shearer'sranch? A stranger, and yet he had been given his introduction bythe Holy Father himself. Yes, young and wealthy, and as hand-some as Adele was fair. His face was bronzed with the mountainsun, and he had traveled as a companion with the Holy Father.After the wedding the dwelling on the crater slope received a visit-ant. But strange, the young stranger bore a name which was hatedof the recluse "Shep." The father of Jaques, and his father be-fore him, had been foes of the ancestors of Adele. They were the 312 IMPROVEMENT ERA cause of her father's exile from France. And now the childrenhad met, they had loved; love at first sight, for their feet were■ el in the paths of Fate. And so, after the blind ways of men, the "Shep" had lookedwith disfavor upon the man; and hence, after the divine light oflovers, Adele and Jaques but loved the more. And Jaques, thelover, bore patiently the cold welcome of the father that he mightwin the hand of the daughter. Like a fool, the "Shep" had ap-parently never thought of the crisis, such that now had come, liehad never realized, it appeared, the time when Adele, the isolatedand beautiful girl of the desert, might be led away by a lover to! e ■' 111" a wife. Yet the time had come; the father must give up the one whowas his all, the one being upon the earth who made life for himyet worth the living. What though the lover were the grandsonof one who had been the enemy of his father, though his fatherwere the enemy of the father of Adele? He must yield at last,love was sure to conquer. Thus, the "Shep" with his darkbrows and his opposition, but advanced, rather than retarded, thecourse of love. And so Jaques came riding across the waste, and,from the dwelling on the crater slope, Adele had watched for hiscoming. The final event could only be a question of time. And on that great waste, one would think such a family feudmight be forgotten. Would it not be blotted out by the greatteacher, Nature. Of what moment was it to Adele, of what mo-ment was it to her lover Jaques, in the wonder of their unboundedlove-faith, that the fathers, the grandfathers, or the grandfathersbefore them, had made cause of quarrel? What if the "Shep"now looked askance upon their loves Should they, the lovers,suffer in an unjust cause? Why should they, the children, keepalive a fire which were better extinguished? Why should they,who loved, be the victims of a hate in an unknown past? "Wait."That was, at last, the father's vow. "Wait, not while he lived !The father of Jaques was dead, wait until the father of Adele wasthe same." The consent of the "Shep" was not to be gained.There was a sort of triumph over, a retaliation for the deeds ofthe hated father, in thus refusing the plea of the son. But whatof his daughter? Her dead mother, would she have opposed thelover of Adele the same? By that mother's grave Adele had feltin her heart, that the part of hate should come to an end, and thatthe future should be for love. And so the lovers waited, but it was not decreed that theyshould wait for long. "Honor thy father and thy mother"—thatthey would do. And "For this cause shall a man leave his fatherand mother and cleave to his wife"—the time had not come forthat. And the lovers would not have it thus. And death should ADELH 313 not hasten the time of their joy. And yet, before the priest de-parted from the land, the father of Adele lay dead ! And he was buried by the side of his wife on the crater floor;and again the Holy Father officiated in his holy office surroundedby the trim, black walls. And, later, at the little altar, at the placewhere the lovers first met, Jaques and Adele were united as one. Leaving the ruined dwelling and ascending the slope of theconical hill or butte, where the sheep yet browsed, we looked onthe remarkable scene. Truly it possessed a romance of its own.The sun had set, and all was dim in the black and silent void. Yetthe full moon arose, and touched, with its light, the mounds andthe cross on the crater floor. There lay in that strange place the"Shep" and his wife, and in distant France loved Jaques andAdele. And we thought of Fate, and then we thought of Love whichis immortal. % •,