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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1729-0.txt b/1729-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c6d97b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/1729-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2068 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deserted Woman, by Honore de Balzac + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Deserted Woman + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: Ellen Marriage + +Release Date: May, 1999 [Etext #1729] +Posting Date: March 1, 2010 +Last Updated: November 24, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESERTED WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + + + + + +THE DESERTED WOMAN + + +By Honore De Balzac + + + +Translated by Ellen Marriage + + + + + + DEDICATION + + To Her Grace the Duchesse d’Abrantes, + from her devoted servant, + Honore de Balzac. + PARIS, August 1835. + + + + + +THE DESERTED WOMAN + + +In the early spring of 1822, the Paris doctors sent to Lower Normandy a +young man just recovering from an inflammatory complaint, brought on by +overstudy, or perhaps by excess of some other kind. His convalescence +demanded complete rest, a light diet, bracing air, and freedom from +excitement of every kind, and the fat lands of Bessin seemed to offer +all these conditions of recovery. To Bayeux, a picturesque place about +six miles from the sea, the patient therefore betook himself, and was +received with the cordiality characteristic of relatives who lead very +retired lives, and regard a new arrival as a godsend. + +All little towns are alike, save for a few local customs. When M. le +Baron Gaston de Nueil, the young Parisian in question, had spent two or +three evenings in his cousin’s house, or with the friends who made up +Mme. de Sainte-Severe’s circle, he very soon had made the acquaintance +of the persons whom this exclusive society considered to be “the +whole town.” Gaston de Nueil recognized in them the invariable stock +characters which every observer finds in every one of the many capitals +of the little States which made up the France of an older day. + +First of all comes the family whose claims to nobility are regarded as +incontestable, and of the highest antiquity in the department, though no +one has so much as heard of them a bare fifty leagues away. This +species of royal family on a small scale is distantly, but unmistakably, +connected with the Navarreins and the Grandlieu family, and related to +the Cadignans, and the Blamont-Chauvrys. The head of the illustrious +house is invariably a determined sportsman. He has no manners, crushes +everybody else with his nominal superiority, tolerates the sub-prefect +much as he submits to the taxes, and declines to acknowledge any of the +novel powers created by the nineteenth century, pointing out to you as +a political monstrosity the fact that the prime minister is a man of no +birth. His wife takes a decided tone, and talks in a loud voice. She has +had adorers in her time, but takes the sacrament regularly at Easter. +She brings up her daughters badly, and is of the opinion that they will +always be rich enough with their name. + +Neither husband nor wife has the remotest idea of modern luxury. They +retain a livery only seen elsewhere on the stage, and cling to old +fashions in plate, furniture, and equipages, as in language and manner +of life. This is a kind of ancient state, moreover, that suits passably +well with provincial thrift. The good folk are, in fact, the lords of +the manor of a bygone age, _minus_ the quitrents and heriots, the pack +of hounds and the laced coats; full of honor among themselves, and one +and all loyally devoted to princes whom they only see at a distance. +The historical house _incognito_ is as quaint a survival as a piece of +ancient tapestry. Vegetating somewhere among them there is sure to be +an uncle or a brother, a lieutenant-general, an old courtier of the +Kings’s, who wears the red ribbon of the order of Saint-Louis, and went +to Hanover with the Marechal de Richelieu: and here you will find him +like a stray leaf out of some old pamphlet of the time of Louis Quinze. + +This fossil greatness finds a rival in another house, wealthier, though +of less ancient lineage. Husband and wife spend a couple of months of +every winter in Paris, bringing back with them its frivolous tone and +short-lived contemporary crazes. Madame is a woman of fashion, though +she looks rather conscious of her clothes, and is always behind the +mode. She scoffs, however, at the ignorance affected by her neighbors. +_Her_ plate is of modern fashion; she has “grooms,” Negroes, a +valet-de-chambre, and what-not. Her oldest son drives a tilbury, and +does nothing (the estate is entailed upon him), his younger brother is +auditor to a Council of State. The father is well posted up in official +scandals, and tells you anecdotes of Louis XVIII. and Madame du Cayla. +He invests his money in the five per cents, and is careful to avoid the +topic of cider, but has been known occasionally to fall a victim to the +craze for rectifying the conjectural sums-total of the various fortunes +of the department. He is a member of the Departmental Council, has +his clothes from Paris, and wears the Cross of the Legion of Honor. In +short, he is a country gentleman who has fully grasped the significance +of the Restoration, and is coining money at the Chamber, but his +Royalism is less pure than that of the rival house; he takes +the _Gazette_ and the _Debats_, the other family only read the +_Quotidienne_. + +His lordship the Bishop, a sometime Vicar-General, fluctuates between +the two powers, who pay him the respect due to religion, but at times +they bring home to him the moral appended by the worthy Lafontaine +to the fable of the _Ass laden with Relics_. The good man’s origin is +distinctly plebeian. + +Then come stars of the second magnitude, men of family with ten or +twelve hundred livres a year, captains in the navy or cavalry regiments, +or nothing at all. Out on the roads, on horseback, they rank half-way +between the cure bearing the sacraments and the tax collector on his +rounds. Pretty nearly all of them have been in the Pages or in +the Household Troops, and now are peaceably ending their days in a +_faisance-valoir_, more interested in felling timber and the cider +prospects than in the Monarchy. + +Still they talk of the Charter and the Liberals while the cards are +making, or over a game at backgammon, when they have exhausted the +usual stock of _dots_, and have married everybody off according to the +genealogies which they all know by heart. Their womenkind are haughty +dames, who assume the airs of Court ladies in their basket chaises. They +huddle themselves up in shawls and caps by way of full dress; and twice +a year, after ripe deliberation, have a new bonnet from Paris, brought +as opportunity offers. Exemplary wives are they for the most part, and +garrulous. + +These are the principal elements of aristocratic gentility, with a +few outlying old maids of good family, spinsters who have solved the +problem: given a human being, to remain absolutely stationary. They +might be sealed up in the houses where you see them; their faces and +their dresses are literally part of the fixtures of the town, and the +province in which they dwell. They are its tradition, its memory, its +quintessence, the _genius loci_ incarnate. There is something frigid and +monumental about these ladies; they know exactly when to laugh and when +to shake their heads, and every now and then give out some utterance +which passes current as a witticism. + +A few rich townspeople have crept into the miniature Faubourg +Saint-Germain, thanks to their money or their aristocratic leanings. +But despite their forty years, the circle still say of them, “Young +So-and-so has sound opinions,” and of such do they make deputies. As a +rule, the elderly spinsters are their patronesses, not without comment. + +Finally, in this exclusive little set include two or three +ecclesiastics, admitted for the sake of their cloth, or for their wit; +for these great nobles find their own society rather dull, and introduce +the bourgeois element into their drawing-rooms, as a baker puts leaven +into his dough. + +The sum-total contained by all heads put together consists of a certain +quantity of antiquated notions; a few new inflections brewed in company +of an evening being added from time to time to the common stock. Like +sea-water in a little creek, the phrases which represent these ideas +surge up daily, punctually obeying the tidal laws of conversation in +their flow and ebb; you hear the hollow echo of yesterday, to-day, +to-morrow, a year hence, and for evermore. On all things here below they +pass immutable judgments, which go to make up a body of tradition into +which no power of mortal man can infuse one drop of wit or sense. The +lives of these persons revolve with the regularity of clockwork in an +orbit of use and wont which admits of no more deviation or change than +their opinions on matters religious, political, moral, or literary. + +If a stranger is admitted to the _cenacle_, every member of it in +turn will say (not without a trace of irony), “You will not find the +brilliancy of your Parisian society here,” and proceed forthwith to +criticise the life led by his neighbors, as if he himself were an +exception who had striven, and vainly striven, to enlighten the rest. +But any stranger so ill advised as to concur in any of their freely +expressed criticism of each other, is pronounced at once to be an +ill-natured person, a heathen, an outlaw, a reprobate Parisian “as +Parisians mostly are.” + +Before Gaston de Nueil made his appearance in this little world of +strictly observed etiquette, where every detail of life is an integrant +part of a whole, and everything is known; where the values of personalty +and real estate is quoted like stocks on the vast sheet of the +newspaper--before his arrival he had been weighed in the unerring scales +of Bayeusaine judgment. + +His cousin, Mme. de Sainte-Severe, had already given out the amount of +his fortune, and the sum of his expectations, had produced the family +tree, and expatiated on the talents, breeding, and modesty of this +particular branch. So he received the precise amount of attentions +to which he was entitled; he was accepted as a worthy scion of a good +stock; and, for he was but twenty-three, was made welcome without +ceremony, though certain young ladies and mothers of daughters looked +not unkindly upon him. + +He had an income of eighteen thousand livres from land in the valley of +the Auge; and sooner or later his father, as in duty bound, would leave +him the chateau of Manerville, with the lands thereunto belonging. +As for his education, political career, personal qualities, and +qualifications--no one so much as thought of raising the questions. His +land was undeniable, his rentals steady; excellent plantations had been +made; the tenants paid for repairs, rates, and taxes; the apple-trees +were thirty-eight years old; and, to crown all, his father was in treaty +for two hundred acres of woodland just outside the paternal park, which +he intended to enclose with walls. No hopes of a political career, no +fame on earth, can compare with such advantages as these. + +Whether out of malice or design, Mme. de Sainte-Severe omitted to +mention that Gaston had an elder brother; nor did Gaston himself say a +word about him. But, at the same time, it is true that the brother +was consumptive, and to all appearance would shortly be laid in earth, +lamented and forgotten. + +At first Gaston de Nueil amused himself at the expense of the circle. He +drew, as it were, for his mental album, a series of portraits of these +folk, with their angular, wrinkled faces, and hooked noses, their +crotchets and ludicrous eccentricities of dress, portraits which +possessed all the racy flavor of truth. He delighted in their +“Normanisms,” in the primitive quaintness of their ideas and characters. +For a short time he flung himself into their squirrel’s life of busy +gyrations in a cage. Then he began to feel the want of variety, and grew +tired of it. It was like the life of the cloister, cut short before it +had well begun. He drifted on till he reached a crisis, which is neither +spleen nor disgust, but combines all the symptoms of both. When a human +being is transplanted into an uncongenial soil, to lead a starved, +stunted existence, there is always a little discomfort over the +transition. Then, gradually, if nothing removes him from his +surroundings, he grows accustomed to them, and adapts himself to the +vacuity which grows upon him and renders him powerless. Even now, +Gaston’s lungs were accustomed to the air; and he was willing to discern +a kind of vegetable happiness in days that brought no mental exertion +and no responsibilities. The constant stirring of the sap of life, the +fertilizing influences of mind on mind, after which he had sought so +eagerly in Paris, were beginning to fade from his memory, and he was in +a fair way of becoming a fossil with these fossils, and ending his +days among them, content, like the companions of Ulysses, in his gross +envelope. + +One evening Gaston de Nueil was seated between a dowager and one of the +vicars-general of the diocese, in a gray-paneled drawing-room, floored +with large white tiles. The family portraits which adorned the walls +looked down upon four card-tables, and some sixteen persons gathered +about them, chattering over their whist. Gaston, thinking of nothing, +digesting one of those exquisite dinners to which the provincial looks +forward all through the day, found himself justifying the customs of the +country. + +He began to understand why these good folk continued to play with +yesterday’s pack of cards and shuffle them on a threadbare tablecloth, +and how it was that they had ceased to dress for themselves or others. +He saw the glimmerings of something like a philosophy in the even tenor +of their perpetual round, in the calm of their methodical monotony, in +their ignorance of the refinements of luxury. Indeed, he almost came +to think that luxury profited nothing; and even now, the city of Paris, +with its passions, storms, and pleasures, was scarcely more than a +memory of childhood. + +He admired in all sincerity the red hands, and shy, bashful manner +of some young lady who at first struck him as an awkward simpleton, +unattractive to the last degree, and surprisingly ridiculous. His doom +was sealed. He had gone from the provinces to Paris; he had led the +feverish life of Paris; and now he would have sunk back into the +lifeless life of the provinces, but for a chance remark which reached +his ear--a few words that called up a swift rush of such emotion as +he might have felt when a strain of really good music mingles with the +accompaniment of some tedious opera. + +“You went to call on Mme. de Beauseant yesterday, did you not?” The +speaker was an elderly lady, and she addressed the head of the local +royal family. + +“I went this morning. She was so poorly and depressed, that I could not +persuade her to dine with us to-morrow.” + +“With Mme. de Champignelles?” exclaimed the dowager with something like +astonishment in her manner. + +“With my wife,” calmly assented the noble. “Mme. de Beauseant is +descended from the House of Burgundy, on the spindle side, ‘tis true, +but the name atones for everything. My wife is very much attached to +the Vicomtesse, and the poor lady has lived alone for such a long while, +that----” + +The Marquis de Champignelles looked round about him while he spoke with +an air of cool unconcern, so that it was almost impossible to guess +whether he made a concession to Mme. de Beauseant’s misfortunes, or paid +homage to her noble birth; whether he felt flattered to receive her in +his house, or, on the contrary, sheer pride was the motive that led him +to try to force the country families to meet the Vicomtesse. + +The women appeared to take counsel of each other by a glance; there was +a sudden silence in the room, and it was felt that their attitude was +one of disapproval. + +“Does this Mme. de Beauseant happen to be the lady whose adventure with +M. d’Ajuda-Pinto made so much noise?” asked Gaston of his neighbor. + +“The very same,” he was told. “She came to Courcelles after the marriage +of the Marquis d’Ajuda; nobody visits her. She has, besides, too much +sense not to see that she is in a false position, so she has made no +attempt to see any one. M. de Champignelles and a few gentlemen went to +call upon her, but she would see no one but M. de Champignelles, perhaps +because he is a connection of the family. They are related through +the Beauseants; the father of the present Vicomte married a Mlle. +de Champignelles of the older branch. But though the Vicomtesse de +Beauseant is supposed to be a descendant of the House of Burgundy, you +can understand that we could not admit a wife separated from her husband +into our society here. We are foolish enough still to cling to these +old-fashioned ideas. There was the less excuse for the Vicomtesse, +because M. de Beauseant is a well-bred man of the world, who would have +been quite ready to listen to reason. But his wife is quite mad----” and +so forth and so forth. + +M. de Nueil, still listening to the speaker’s voice, gathered nothing of +the sense of the words; his brain was too full of thick-coming fancies. +Fancies? What other name can you give to the alluring charms of an +adventure that tempts the imagination and sets vague hopes springing up +in the soul; to the sense of coming events and mysterious felicity and +fear at hand, while as yet there is no substance of fact on which these +phantoms of caprice can fix and feed? Over these fancies thought hovers, +conceiving impossible projects, giving in the germ all the joys of love. +Perhaps, indeed, all passion is contained in that thought-germ, as the +beauty, and fragrance, and rich color of the flower is all packed in the +seed. + +M. de Nueil did not know that Mme. de Beauseant had taken refuge in +Normandy, after a notoriety which women for the most part envy and +condemn, especially when youth and beauty in some sort excuse the +transgression. Any sort of celebrity bestows an inconceivable prestige. +Apparently for women, as for families, the glory of the crime effaces +the stain; and if such and such a noble house is proud of its tale of +heads that have fallen on the scaffold, a young and pretty woman becomes +more interesting for the dubious renown of a happy love or a scandalous +desertion, and the more she is to be pitied, the more she excites our +sympathies. We are only pitiless to the commonplace. If, moreover, we +attract all eyes, we are to all intents and purposes great; how, indeed, +are we to be seen unless we raise ourselves above other people’s heads? +The common herd of humanity feels an involuntary respect for any person +who can rise above it, and is not over-particular as to the means by +which they rise. + +It may have been that some such motives influenced Gaston de Nueil at +unawares, or perhaps it was curiosity, or a craving for some interest in +his life, or, in a word, that crowd of inexplicable impulses which, for +want of a better name, we are wont to call “fatality,” that drew him to +Mme. de Beauseant. + +The figure of the Vicomtesse de Beauseant rose up suddenly before him +with gracious thronging associations. She was a new world for him, +a world of fears and hopes, a world to fight for and to conquer. +Inevitably he felt the contrast between this vision and the human beings +in the shabby room; and then, in truth, she was a woman; what woman had +he seen so far in this dull, little world, where calculation replaced +thought and feeling, where courtesy was a cut-and-dried formality, and +ideas of the very simplest were too alarming to be received or to pass +current? The sound of Mme. de Beauseant’s name revived a young man’s +dreams and wakened urgent desires that had lain dormant for a little. + +Gaston de Nueil was absent-minded and preoccupied for the rest of the +evening. He was pondering how he might gain access to Mme. de Beauseant, +and truly it was no very easy matter. She was believed to be extremely +clever. But if men and women of parts may be captivated by something +subtle or eccentric, they are also exacting, and can read all that lies +below the surface; and after the first step has been taken, the chances +of failure and success in the difficult task of pleasing them are about +even. In this particular case, moreover, the Vicomtesse, besides the +pride of her position, had all the dignity of her name. Her utter +seclusion was the least of the barriers raised between her and the +world. For which reasons it was well-nigh impossible that a stranger, +however well born, could hope for admittance; and yet, the next +morning found M. de Nueil taking his walks abroad in the direction of +Courcelles, a dupe of illusions natural at his age. Several times he +made the circuit of the garden walls, looking earnestly through every +gap at the closed shutters or open windows, hoping for some romantic +chance, on which he founded schemes for introducing himself into this +unknown lady’s presence, without a thought of their impracticability. +Morning after morning was spent in this way to mighty purpose; but with +each day’s walk, that vision of a woman living apart from the world, of +love’s martyr buried in solitude, loomed larger in his thoughts, and +was enshrined in his soul. So Gaston de Nueil walked under the walls +of Courcelles, and some gardener’s heavy footstep would set his heart +beating high with hope. + +He thought of writing to Mme. de Beauseant, but on mature consideration, +what can you say to a woman whom you have never seen, a complete +stranger? And Gaston had little self-confidence. Like most young persons +with a plentiful crop of illusions still standing, he dreaded the +mortifying contempt of silence more than death itself, and shuddered at +the thought of sending his first tender epistle forth to face so many +chances of being thrown on the fire. He was distracted by innumerable +conflicting ideas. But by dint of inventing chimeras, weaving romances, +and cudgeling his brains, he hit at last upon one of the hopeful +stratagems that are sure to occur to your mind if you persevere long +enough, a stratagem which must make clear to the most inexperienced +woman that here was a man who took a fervent interest in her. The +caprice of social conventions puts as many barriers between lovers as +any Oriental imagination can devise in the most delightfully fantastic +tale; indeed, the most extravagant pictures are seldom exaggerations. In +real life, as in the fairy tales, the woman belongs to him who can reach +her and set her free from the position in which she languishes. The +poorest of calenders that ever fell in love with the daughter of the +Khalif is in truth scarcely further from his lady than Gaston de Nueil +from Mme. de Beauseant. The Vicomtesse knew absolutely nothing of M. de +Nueil’s wanderings round her house; Gaston de Nueil’s love grew to the +height of the obstacles to overleap; and the distance set between him +and his extemporized lady-love produced the usual effect of distance, in +lending enchantment. + +One day, confident in his inspiration, he hoped everything from the love +that must pour forth from his eyes. Spoken words, in his opinion, were +more eloquent than the most passionate letter; and, besides, he would +engage feminine curiosity to plead for him. He went, therefore, to M. de +Champignelles, proposing to employ that gentleman for the better success +of his enterprise. He informed the Marquis that he had been entrusted +with a delicate and important commission which concerned the Vicomtesse +de Beauseant, that he felt doubtful whether she would read a letter +written in an unknown handwriting, or put confidence in a stranger. +Would M. de Champignelles, on his next visit, ask the Vicomtesse if +she would consent to receive him--Gaston de Nueil? While he asked the +Marquis to keep his secret in case of a refusal, he very ingeniously +insinuated sufficient reasons for his own admittance, to be duly passed +on to the Vicomtesse. Was not M. de Champignelles a man of honor, a +loyal gentleman incapable of lending himself to any transaction in bad +taste, nay, the merest suspicion of bad taste! Love lends a young man +all the self-possession and astute craft of an old ambassador; all the +Marquis’ harmless vanities were gratified, and the haughty grandee +was completely duped. He tried hard to fathom Gaston’s secret; but the +latter, who would have been greatly perplexed to tell it, turned off M. +de Champignelles’ adroit questioning with a Norman’s shrewdness, till +the Marquis, as a gallant Frenchman, complimented his young visitor upon +his discretion. + +M. de Champignelles hurried off at once to Courcelles, with that +eagerness to serve a pretty woman which belongs to his time of life. +In the Vicomtesse de Beauseant’s position, such a message was likely to +arouse keen curiosity; so, although her memory supplied no reason at all +that could bring M. de Nueil to her house, she saw no objection to his +visit--after some prudent inquiries as to his family and condition. At +the same time, she began by a refusal. Then she discussed the propriety +of the matter with M. de Champignelles, directing her questions so as +to discover, if possible, whether he knew the motives for the visit, and +finally revoked her negative answer. The discussion and the discretion +shown perforce by the Marquis had piqued her curiosity. + +M. de Champignelles had no mind to cut a ridiculous figure. He +said, with the air of a man who can keep another’s counsel, that the +Vicomtesse must know the purpose of this visit perfectly well; while the +Vicomtesse, in all sincerity, had no notion what it could be. Mme. de +Beauseant, in perplexity, connected Gaston with people whom he had never +met, went astray after various wild conjectures, and asked herself if +she had seen this M. de Nueil before. In truth, no love-letter, however +sincere or skilfully indited, could have produced so much effect as this +riddle. Again and again Mme. de Beauseant puzzled over it. + +When Gaston heard that he might call upon the Vicomtesse, his rapture at +so soon obtaining the ardently longed-for good fortune was mingled with +singular embarrassment. How was he to contrive a suitable sequel to this +stratagem? + +“Bah! I shall see _her_,” he said over and over again to himself as he +dressed. “See her, and that is everything!” + +He fell to hoping that once across the threshold of Courcelles he should +find an expedient for unfastening this Gordian knot of his own tying. +There are believers in the omnipotence of necessity who never turn back; +the close presence of danger is an inspiration that calls out all their +powers for victory. Gaston de Nueil was one of these. + +He took particular pains with his dress, imagining, as youth is apt to +imagine, that success or failure hangs on the position of a curl, and +ignorant of the fact that anything is charming in youth. And, in any +case, such women as Mme. de Beauseant are only attracted by the charms +of wit or character of an unusual order. Greatness of character flatters +their vanity, promises a great passion, seems to imply a comprehension +of the requirements of their hearts. Wit amuses them, responds to the +subtlety of their natures, and they think that they are understood. And +what do all women wish but to be amused, understood, or adored? It is +only after much reflection on the things of life that we understand +the consummate coquetry of neglect of dress and reserve at a first +interview; and by the time we have gained sufficient astuteness for +successful strategy, we are too old to profit by our experience. + +While Gaston’s lack of confidence in his mental equipment drove him +to borrow charms from his clothes, Madame de Beauseant herself was +instinctively giving more attention to her toilette. + +“I would rather not frighten people, at all events,” she said to herself +as she arranged her hair. + +In M. de Nueil’s character, person, and manner there was that touch of +unconscious originality which gives a kind of flavor to things that any +one might say or do, and absolves everything that they may choose to +do or say. He was highly cultivated, he had a keen brain, and a face, +mobile as his own nature, which won the goodwill of others. The promise +of passion and tenderness in the bright eyes was fulfilled by an +essentially kindly heart. The resolution which he made as he entered +the house at Courcelles was in keeping with his frank nature and ardent +imagination. But, bold has he was with love, his heart beat violently +when he had crossed the great court, laid out like an English garden, +and the man-servant, who had taken his name to the Vicomtesse, returned +to say that she would receive him. + +“M. le Baron de Nueil.” + +Gaston came in slowly, but with sufficient ease of manner; and it is a +more difficult thing, be it said, to enter a room where there is but one +woman, than a room that holds a score. + +A great fire was burning on the hearth in spite of the mild weather, +and by the soft light of the candles in the sconces he saw a young woman +sitting on a high-backed _bergere_ in the angle by the hearth. The seat +was so low that she could move her head freely; every turn of it was +full of grace and delicate charm, whether she bent, leaning forward, +or raised and held it erect, slowly and languidly, as though it were a +heavy burden, so low that she could cross her feet and let them appear, +or draw them back under the folds of a long black dress. + +The Vicomtesse made as if she would lay the book that she was reading on +a small, round stand; but as she did so, she turned towards M. de +Nueil, and the volume, insecurely laid upon the edge, fell to the ground +between the stand and the sofa. This did not seem to disconcert her. +She looked up, bowing almost imperceptibly in response to his greeting, +without rising from the depths of the low chair in which she lay. +Bending forwards, she stirred the fire briskly, and stooped to pick up a +fallen glove, drawing it mechanically over her left hand, while her +eyes wandered in search of its fellow. The glance was instantly checked, +however, for she stretched out a thin, white, all-but-transparent +right hand, with flawless ovals of rose-colored nail at the tips of the +slender, ringless fingers, and pointed to a chair as if to bid Gaston be +seated. He sat down, and she turned her face questioningly towards him. +Words cannot describe the subtlety of the winning charm and inquiry in +that gesture; deliberate in its kindliness, gracious yet accurate in +expression, it was the outcome of early education and of a constant use +and wont of the graciousness of life. These movements of hers, so +swift, so deft, succeeded each other by the blending of a pretty woman’s +fastidious carelessness with the high-bred manner of a great lady. + +Mme. de Beauseant stood out in such strong contrast against the +automatons among whom he had spent two months of exile in that +out-of-the-world district of Normandy, that he could not but find in her +the realization of his romantic dreams; and, on the other hand, he +could not compare her perfections with those of other women whom he +had formerly admired. Here in her presence, in a drawing-room like some +salon in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, full of costly trifles lying about +upon the tables, and flowers and books, he felt as if he were back in +Paris. It was a real Parisian carpet beneath his feet, he saw once more +the high-bred type of Parisienne, the fragile outlines of her form, her +exquisite charm, her disdain of the studied effects which did so much to +spoil provincial women. + +Mme. de Beauseant had fair hair and dark eyes, and the pale complexion +that belongs to fair hair. She held up her brow nobly like some fallen +angel, grown proud through the fall, disdainful of pardon. Her way of +gathering her thick hair into a crown of plaits above the broad, curving +lines of the bandeaux upon her forehead, added to the queenliness of her +face. Imagination could discover the ducal coronet of Burgundy in the +spiral threads of her golden hair; all the courage of her house seemed +to gleam from the great lady’s brilliant eyes, such courage as women +use to repel audacity or scorn, for they were full of tenderness for +gentleness. The outline of that little head, so admirably poised above +the long, white throat, the delicate, fine features, the subtle curves +of the lips, the mobile face itself, wore an expression of delicate +discretion, a faint semblance of irony suggestive of craft and +insolence. Yet it would have been difficult to refuse forgiveness to +those two feminine failings in her; for the lines that came out in her +forehead whenever her face was not in repose, like her upward glances +(that pathetic trick of manner), told unmistakably of unhappiness, of +a passion that had all but cost her her life. A woman, sitting in the +great, silent salon, a woman cut off from the rest of the world in this +remote little valley, alone, with the memories of her brilliant, happy, +and impassioned youth, of continual gaiety and homage paid on all sides, +now replaced by the horrors of the void--was there not something in the +sight to strike awe that deepened with reflection? Consciousness of her +own value lurked in her smile. She was neither wife nor mother, she was +an outlaw; she had lost the one heart that could set her pulses beating +without shame; she had nothing from without to support her reeling soul; +she must even look for strength from within, live her own life, cherish +no hope save that of forsaken love, which looks forward to Death’s +coming, and hastens his lagging footsteps. And this while life was in +its prime. Oh! to feel destined for happiness and to die--never having +given nor received it! A woman too! What pain was this! These thoughts +flashing across M. de Nueil’s mind like lightning, left him very humble +in the presence of the greatest charm with which woman can be invested. +The triple aureole of beauty, nobleness, and misfortune dazzled him; he +stood in dreamy, almost open-mouthed admiration of the Vicomtesse. But +he found nothing to say to her. + +Mme. de Beauseant, by no means displeased, no doubt, by his surprise, +held out her hand with a kindly but imperious gesture; then, summoning a +smile to her pale lips, as if obeying, even yet, the woman’s impulse to +be gracious: + +“I have heard from M. de Champignelles of a message which you have +kindly undertaken to deliver, monsieur,” she said. “Can it be from----” + +With that terrible phrase Gaston understood, even more clearly than +before, his own ridiculous position, the bad taste and bad faith of his +behavior towards a woman so noble and so unfortunate. He reddened. The +thoughts that crowded in upon him could be read in his troubled eyes; +but suddenly, with the courage which youth draws from a sense of its own +wrongdoing, he gained confidence, and very humbly interrupted Mme. de +Beauseant. + +“Madame,” he faltered out, “I do not deserve the happiness of seeing +you. I have deceived you basely. However strong the motive may have +been, it can never excuse the pitiful subterfuge which I used to gain my +end. But, madame, if your goodness will permit me to tell you----” + +The Vicomtesse glanced at M. de Nueil, haughty disdain in her whole +manner. She stretched her hand to the bell and rang it. + +“Jacques,” she said, “light this gentleman to the door,” and she looked +with dignity at the visitor. + +She rose proudly, bowed to Gaston, and then stooped for the fallen +volume. If all her movements on his entrance had been caressingly dainty +and gracious, her every gesture now was no less severely frigid. M. de +Nueil rose to his feet, but he stood waiting. Mme. de Beauseant flung +another glance at him. “Well, why do you not go?” she seemed to say. + +There was such cutting irony in that glance that Gaston grew white as if +he were about to faint. Tears came into his eyes, but he would not let +them fall, and scorching shame and despair dried them. He looked back +at Madame de Beauseant, and a certain pride and consciousness of his +own worth was mingled with his humility; the Vicomtesse had a right to +punish him, but ought she to use her right? Then he went out. + +As he crossed the ante-chamber, a clear head, and wits sharpened by +passion, were not slow to grasp the danger of his situation. + +“If I leave this house, I can never come back to it again,” he said +to himself. “The Vicomtesse will always think of me as a fool. It is +impossible that a woman, and such a woman, should not guess the +love that she has called forth. Perhaps she feels a little, vague, +involuntary regret for dismissing me so abruptly.--But she could not +do otherwise, and she cannot recall her sentence. It rests with me to +understand her.” + +At that thought Gaston stopped short on the flight of steps with an +exclamation; he turned sharply, saying, “I have forgotten something,” + and went back to the salon. The lackey, all respect for a baron and the +rights of property, was completely deceived by the natural utterance, +and followed him. Gaston returned quietly and unannounced. The +Vicomtesse, thinking that the intruder was the servant, looked up and +beheld M. de Nueil. + +“Jacques lighted me to the door,” he said, with a half-sad smile which +dispelled any suspicion of jest in those words, while the tone in which +they were spoken went to the heart. Mme. de Beauseant was disarmed. + +“Very well, take a seat,” she said. + +Gaston eagerly took possession of a chair. His eyes were shining with +happiness; the Vicomtesse, unable to endure the brilliant light in +them, looked down at the book. She was enjoying a delicious, ever new +sensation; the sense of a man’s delight in her presence is an unfailing +feminine instinct. And then, besides, he had divined her, and a woman is +so grateful to the man who has mastered the apparently capricious, yet +logical, reasoning of her heart; who can track her thought through the +seemingly contradictory workings of her mind, and read the sensations, +shy or bold, written in fleeting red, a bewildering maze of coquetry and +self-revelation. + +“Madame,” Gaston exclaimed in a low voice, “my blunder you know, but +you do not know how much I am to blame. If you only knew what joy it was +to----” + +“Ah! take care,” she said, holding up one finger with an air of mystery, +as she put out her hand towards the bell. + +The charming gesture, the gracious threat, no doubt called up some sad +thought, some memory of the old happy time when she could be wholly +charming and gentle without an afterthought; when the gladness of her +heart justified every caprice, and put charm into every least movement. +The lines in her forehead gathered between her brows, and the expression +of her face grew dark in the soft candle-light. Then looking across at +M. de Nueil gravely but not unkindly, she spoke like a woman who deeply +feels the meaning of every word. + +“This is all very ridiculous! Once upon a time, monsieur, when +thoughtless high spirits were my privilege, I should have laughed +fearlessly over your visit with you. But now my life is very much +changed. I cannot do as I like, I am obliged to think. What brings you +here? Is it curiosity? In that case I am paying dearly for a little +fleeting pleasure. Have you fallen _passionately_ in love already with a +woman whom you have never seen, a woman with whose name slander has, of +course, been busy? If so, your motive in making this visit is based on +disrespect, on an error which accident brought into notoriety.” + +She flung her book down scornfully upon the table, then, with a terrible +look at Gaston, she went on: “Because I once was weak, must it be +supposed that I am always weak? This is horrible, degrading. Or have you +come here to pity me? You are very young to offer sympathy with heart +troubles. Understand this clearly, sir, that I would rather have scorn +than pity. I will not endure compassion from any one.” + +There was a brief pause. + +“Well, sir,” she continued (and the face that she turned to him was +gentle and sad), “whatever motive induced this rash intrusion upon my +solitude, it is very painful to me, you see. You are too young to be +totally without good feeling, so surely you will feel that this behavior +of yours is improper. I forgive you for it, and, as you see, I am +speaking of it to you without bitterness. You will not come here again, +will you? I am entreating when I might command. If you come to see me +again, neither you nor I can prevent the whole place from believing that +you are my lover, and you would cause me great additional annoyance. You +do not mean to do that, I think.” + +She said no more, but looked at him with a great dignity which abashed +him. + +“I have done wrong, madame,” he said, with deep feeling in his voice, +“but it was through enthusiasm and thoughtlessness and eager desire of +happiness, the qualities and defects of my age. Now, I understand that +I ought not to have tried to see you,” he added; “but, at the same time, +the desire was a very natural one”--and, making an appeal to feeling +rather than to the intellect, he described the weariness of his enforced +exile. He drew a portrait of a young man in whom the fires of life were +burning themselves out, conveying the impression that here was a heart +worthy of tender love, a heart which, notwithstanding, had never known +the joys of love for a young and beautiful woman of refinement and +taste. He explained, without attempting to justify, his unusual conduct. +He flattered Mme. de Beauseant by showing that she had realized for him +the ideal lady of a young man’s dream, the ideal sought by so many, +and so often sought in vain. Then he touched upon his morning prowlings +under the walls of Courcelles, and his wild thoughts at the first sight +of the house, till he excited that vague feeling of indulgence which a +woman can find in her heart for the follies committed for her sake. + +An impassioned voice was speaking in the chill solitude; the speaker +brought with him a warm breath of youth and the charms of a carefully +cultivated mind. It was so long since Mme. de Beauseant had felt stirred +by real feeling delicately expressed, that it affected her very strongly +now. In spite of herself, she watched M. de Nueil’s expressive face, and +admired the noble countenance of a soul, unbroken as yet by the cruel +discipline of the life of the world, unfretted by continual scheming to +gratify personal ambition and vanity. Gaston was in the flower of his +youth, he impressed her as a man with something in him, unaware as +yet of the great career that lay before him. So both these two made +reflections most dangerous for their peace of mind, and both strove to +conceal their thoughts. M. de Nueil saw in the Vicomtesse a rare type of +woman, always the victim of her perfections and tenderness; her graceful +beauty is the least of her charms for those who are privileged to know +the infinite of feeling and thought and goodness in the soul within; +a woman whose instinctive feeling for beauty runs through all the most +varied expressions of love, purifying its transports, turning them to +something almost holy; wonderful secret of womanhood, the exquisite +gift that Nature so seldom bestows. And the Vicomtesse, on her side, +listening to the ring of sincerity in Gaston’s voice, while he told of +his youthful troubles, began to understand all that grown children of +five-and-twenty suffer from diffidence, when hard work has kept them +alike from corrupting influences and intercourse with men and women of +the world whose sophistical reasoning and experience destroys the +fair qualities of youth. Here was the ideal of a woman’s dreams, a man +unspoiled as yet by the egoism of family or success, or by that narrow +selfishness which blights the first impulses of honor, devotion, +self-sacrifice, and high demands of self; all the flowers so soon wither +that enrich at first the life of delicate but strong emotions, and keep +alive the loyalty of the heart. + +But these two, once launched forth into the vast of sentiment, went +far indeed in theory, sounding the depths in either soul, testing the +sincerity of their expressions; only, whereas Gaston’s experiments were +made unconsciously, Mme. de Beauseant had a purpose in all that she +said. Bringing her natural and acquired subtlety to the work, she sought +to learn M. de Nueil’s opinions by advancing, as far as she could do +so, views diametrically opposed to her own. So witty and so gracious was +she, so much herself with this stranger, with whom she felt completely +at ease, because she felt sure that they should never meet again, that, +after some delicious epigram of hers, Gaston exclaimed unthinkingly: + +“Oh! madame, how could any man have left you?” + +The Vicomtesse was silent. Gaston reddened, he thought that he had +offended her; but she was not angry. The first deep thrill of delight +since the day of her calamity had taken her by surprise. The skill of +the cleverest _roue_ could not have made the impression that M. de Nueil +made with that cry from the heart. That verdict wrung from a young man’s +candor gave her back innocence in her own eyes, condemned the world, +laid the blame upon the lover who had left her, and justified her +subsequent solitary drooping life. The world’s absolution, the heartfelt +sympathy, the social esteem so longed for, and so harshly refused, nay, +all her secret desires were given her to the full in that exclamation, +made fairer yet by the heart’s sweetest flatteries and the admiration +that women always relish eagerly. He understood her, understood all, and +he had given her, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the +opportunity of rising higher through her fall. She looked at the clock. + +“Ah! madame, do not punish me for my heedlessness. If you grant me but +one evening, vouchsafe not to shorten it.” + +She smiled at the pretty speech. + +“Well, as we must never meet again,” she said, “what signifies a moment +more or less? If you were to care for me, it would be a pity.” + +“It is too late now,” he said. + +“Do not tell me that,” she answered gravely. “Under any other +circumstances I should be very glad to see you. I will speak frankly, +and you will understand how it is that I do not choose to see you again, +and ought not to do so. You have too much magnanimity not to feel that +if I were so much as suspected of a second trespass, every one would +think of me as a contemptible and vulgar woman; I should be like other +women. A pure and blameless life will bring my character into relief. +I am too proud not to endeavor to live like one apart in the world, a +victim of the law through my marriage, man’s victim through my love. If +I were not faithful to the position which I have taken up, then I should +deserve all the reproach that is heaped upon me; I should be lowered in +my own eyes. I had not enough lofty social virtue to remain with a man +whom I did not love. I have snapped the bonds of marriage in spite of +the law; it was wrong, it was a crime, it was anything you like, but +for me the bonds meant death. I meant to live. Perhaps if I had been +a mother I could have endured the torture of a forced marriage of +suitability. At eighteen we scarcely know what is done with us, poor +girls that we are! I have broken the laws of the world, and the world +has punished me; we both did rightly. I sought happiness. Is it not a +law of our nature to seek for happiness? I was young, I was beautiful... +I thought that I had found a nature as loving, as apparently passionate. +I was loved indeed; for a little while...” + +She paused. + +“I used to think,” she said, “that no one could leave a woman in such +a position as mine. I have been forsaken; I must have offended in +some way. Yes, in some way, no doubt, I failed to keep some law of our +nature, was too loving, too devoted, too exacting--I do not know. Evil +days have brought light with them! For a long while I blamed another, +now I am content to bear the whole blame. At my own expense, I have +absolved that other of whom I once thought I had a right to complain. I +had not the art to keep him; fate has punished me heavily for my lack +of skill. I only knew how to love; how can one keep oneself in mind when +one loves? So I was a slave when I should have sought to be a tyrant. +Those who know me may condemn me, but they will respect me too. Pain +has taught me that I must not lay myself open to this a second time. I +cannot understand how it is that I am living yet, after the anguish of +that first week of the most fearful crisis in a woman’s life. Only from +three years of loneliness would it be possible to draw strength to speak +of that time as I am speaking now. Such agony, monsieur, usually ends in +death; but this--well, it was the agony of death with no tomb to end it. +Oh! I have known pain indeed!” + +The Vicomtesse raised her beautiful eyes to the ceiling; and the +cornice, no doubt, received all the confidences which a stranger might +not hear. When a woman is afraid to look at her interlocutor, there +is in truth no gentler, meeker, more accommodating confidant than the +cornice. The cornice is quite an institution in the boudoir; what is it +but the confessional, _minus_ the priest? + +Mme. de Beauseant was eloquent and beautiful at that moment; nay, +“coquettish,” if the word were not too heavy. By justifying herself and +love, she was stimulating every sentiment in the man before her; nay, +more, the higher she set the goal, the more conspicuous it grew. At +last, when her eyes had lost the too eloquent expression given to them +by painful memories, she let them fall on Gaston. + +“You acknowledge, do you not, that I am bound to lead a solitary, +self-contained life?” she said quietly. + +So sublime was she in her reasoning and her madness, that M. de Nueil +felt a wild longing to throw himself at her feet; but he was afraid of +making himself ridiculous, so he held his enthusiasm and his thoughts in +check. He was afraid, too, that he might totally fail to express them, +and in no less terror of some awful rejection on her part, or of her +mockery, an apprehension which strikes like ice to the most fervid soul. +The revulsion which led him to crush down every feeling as it sprang +up in his heart cost him the intense pain that diffident and ambitious +natures experience in the frequent crises when they are compelled +to stifle their longings. And yet, in spite of himself, he broke the +silence to say in a faltering voice: + +“Madame, permit me to give way to one of the strongest emotions of my +life, and own to all that you have made me feel. You set the heart in +me swelling high! I feel within me a longing to make you forget your +mortifications, to devote my life to this, to give you love for all who +ever have given you wounds or hate. But this is a very sudden outpouring +of the heart, nothing can justify it to-day, and I ought not----” + +“Enough, monsieur,” said Mme. de Beauseant; “we have both of us gone too +far. By giving you the sad reasons for a refusal which I am compelled to +give, I meant to soften it and not to elicit homage. Coquetry only suits +a happy woman. Believe me, we must remain strangers to each other. At a +later day you will know that ties which must inevitably be broken ought +not to be formed at all.” + +She sighed lightly, and her brows contracted, but almost immediately +grew clear again. + +“How painful it is for a woman to be powerless to follow the man she +loves through all the phases of his life! And if that man loves her +truly, his heart must surely vibrate with pain to the deep trouble in +hers. Are they not twice unhappy?” + +There was a short pause. Then she rose smiling. + +“You little suspected, when you came to Courcelles, that you were to +hear a sermon, did you?” + +Gaston felt even further than at first from this extraordinary woman. +Was the charm of that delightful hour due after all to the coquetry of +the mistress of the house? She had been anxious to display her wit. He +bowed stiffly to the Vicomtesse, and went away in desperation. + +On the way home he tried to detect the real character of a creature +supple and hard as a steel spring; but he had seen her pass through so +many phases, that he could not make up his mind about her. The tones +of her voice, too, were ringing in his ears; her gestures, the little +movements of her head, and the varying expression of her eyes grew +more gracious in memory, more fascinating as he thought of them. +The Vicomtesse’s beauty shone out again for him in the darkness; his +reviving impressions called up yet others, and he was enthralled anew by +womanly charm and wit, which at first he had not perceived. He fell to +wandering musings, in which the most lucid thoughts grow refractory and +flatly contradict each other, and the soul passes through a brief +frenzy fit. Youth only can understand all that lies in the dithyrambic +outpourings of youth when, after a stormy siege, of the most frantic +folly and coolest common-sense, the heart finally yields to the assault +of the latest comer, be it hope, or despair, as some mysterious power +determines. + +At three-and-twenty, diffidence nearly always rules a man’s conduct; he +is perplexed with a young girl’s shyness, a girl’s trouble; he is afraid +lest he should express his love ill, sees nothing but difficulties, and +takes alarm at them; he would be bolder if he loved less, for he has no +confidence in himself, and with a growing sense of the cost of happiness +comes a conviction that the woman he loves cannot easily be won; +perhaps, too, he is giving himself up too entirely to his own pleasure, +and fears that he can give none; and when, for his misfortune, his idol +inspires him with awe, he worships in secret and afar, and unless his +love is guessed, it dies away. Then it often happens that one of these +dead early loves lingers on, bright with illusions in many a young +heart. What man is there but keeps within him these virgin memories that +grow fairer every time they rise before him, memories that hold up to +him the ideal of perfect bliss? Such recollections are like children who +die in the flower of childhood, before their parents have known anything +of them but their smiles. + +So M. de Nueil came home from Courcelles, the victim of a mood fraught +with desperate resolutions. Even now he felt that Mme. de Beauseant +was one of the conditions of his existence, and that death would be +preferable to life without her. He was still young enough to feel +the tyrannous fascination which fully-developed womanhood exerts over +immature and impassioned natures; and, consequently, he was to spend one +of those stormy nights when a young man’s thoughts travel from happiness +to suicide and back again--nights in which youth rushes through a +lifetime of bliss and falls asleep from sheer exhaustion. Fateful +nights are they, and the worst misfortune that can happen is to awake a +philosopher afterwards. M. de Nueil was far too deeply in love to +sleep; he rose and betook to inditing letters, but none of them were +satisfactory, and he burned them all. + + + +The next day he went to Courcelles to make the circuit of her garden +walls, but he waited till nightfall; he was afraid that she might +see him. The instinct that led him to act in this way arose out of so +obscure a mood of the soul, that none but a young man, or a man in like +case, can fully understand its mute ecstasies and its vagaries, matter +to set those people who are lucky enough to see life only in its +matter-of-fact aspect shrugging their shoulders. After painful +hesitation, Gaston wrote to Mme. de Beauseant. Here is the letter, which +may serve as a sample of the epistolary style peculiar to lovers, a +performance which, like the drawings prepared with great secrecy by +children for the birthdays of father or mother, is found insufferable by +every mortal except the recipients:-- + + “MADAME,--Your power over my heart, my soul, myself, is so great + that my fate depends wholly upon you to-day. Do not throw this + letter into the fire; be so kind as to read it through. Perhaps + you may pardon the opening sentence when you see that it is no + commonplace, selfish declaration, but that it expresses a simple + fact. Perhaps you may feel moved, because I ask for so little, by + the submission of one who feels himself so much beneath you, by + the influence that your decision will exercise upon my life. At my + age, madame, I only know how to love, I am utterly ignorant of + ways of attracting and winning a woman’s love, but in my own heart + I know raptures of adoration of her. I am irresistibly drawn to + you by the great happiness that I feel through you; my thoughts + turn to you with the selfish instinct which bids us draw nearer to + the fire of life when we find it. I do not imagine that I am + worthy of you; it seems impossible that I, young, ignorant, and + shy, could bring you one-thousandth part of the happiness that I + drink in at the sound of your voice and the sight of you. For me + you are the only woman in the world. I cannot imagine life without + you, so I have made up my mind to leave France, and to risk my + life till I lose it in some desperate enterprise, in the Indies, + in Africa, I care not where. How can I quell a love that knows no + limits save by opposing to it something as infinite? Yet, if you + will allow me to hope, not to be yours, but to win your + friendship, I will stay. Let me come, not so very often, if you + require it, to spend a few such hours with you as those stolen + hours of yesterday. The keen delight of that brief happiness to be + cut short at the least over-ardent word from me, will suffice to + enable me to endure the boiling torrent in my veins. Have I + presumed too much upon your generosity by this entreaty to suffer + an intercourse in which all the gain is mine alone? You could find + ways of showing the world, to which you sacrifice so much, that I + am nothing to you; you are so clever and so proud! What have you + to fear? If I could only lay bare my heart to you at this moment, + to convince you that it is with no lurking afterthought that I + make this humble request! Should I have told you that my love was + boundless, while I prayed you to grant me friendship, if I had any + hope of your sharing this feeling in the depths of my soul? No, + while I am with you, I will be whatever you will, if only I may be + with you. If you refuse (as you have the power to refuse), I will + not utter one murmur, I will go. And if, at a later day, any other + woman should enter into my life, you will have proof that you were + right; but if I am faithful till death, you may feel some regret + perhaps. The hope of causing you a regret will soothe my agony, + and that thought shall be the sole revenge of a slighted + heart....” + +Only those who have passed through all the exceeding tribulations of +youth, who have seized on all the chimeras with two white pinions, the +nightmare fancies at the disposal of a fervid imagination, can realize +the horrors that seized upon Gaston de Nueil when he had reason to +suppose that his ultimatum was in Mme. de Beauseant’s hands. He saw the +Vicomtesse, wholly untouched, laughing at his letter and his love, as +those can laugh who have ceased to believe in love. He could have wished +to have his letter back again. It was an absurd letter. There were a +thousand and one things, now that he came to think of it, that he might +have said, things infinitely better and more moving than those stilted +phrases of his, those accursed, sophisticated, pretentious, fine-spun +phrases, though, luckily, the punctuation had been pretty bad and the +lines shockingly crooked. He tried not to think, not to feel; but he +felt and thought, and was wretched. If he had been thirty years old, he +might have got drunk, but the innocence of three-and-twenty knew +nothing of the resources of opium nor of the expedients of advanced +civilization. Nor had he at hand one of those good friends of the +Parisian pattern who understand so well how to say _Poete, non dolet!_ +by producing a bottle of champagne, or alleviate the agony of suspense +by carrying you off somewhere to make a night of it. Capital fellows +are they, always in low water when you are in funds, always off to some +watering-place when you go to look them up, always with some bad bargain +in horse-flesh to sell you; it is true, that when you want to borrow of +them, they have always just lost their last louis at play; but in all +other respects they are the best fellows on earth, always ready to +embark with you on one of the steep down-grades where you lose your +time, your soul, and your life! + +At length M. de Nueil received a missive through the instrumentality of +Jacques, a letter that bore the arms of Burgundy on the scented seal, a +letter written on vellum notepaper. + +He rushed away at once to lock himself in, and read and re-read _her_ +letter:-- + + “You are punishing me very severely, monsieur, both for the + friendliness of my effort to spare you a rebuff, and for the + attraction which intellect always has for me. I put confidence in + the generosity of youth, and you have disappointed me. And yet, if + I did not speak unreservedly (which would have been perfectly + ridiculous), at any rate I spoke frankly of my position, so that + you might imagine that I was not to be touched by a young soul. My + distress is the keener for my interest in you. I am naturally + tender-hearted and kindly, but circumstances force me to act + unkindly. Another woman would have flung your letter, unread, into + the fire; I read it, and I am answering it. My answer will make it + clear to you that while I am not untouched by the expression of + this feeling which I have inspired, albeit unconsciously, I am + still far from sharing it, and the step which I am about to take + will show you still more plainly that I mean what I say. I wish + besides, to use, for your welfare, that authority, as it were, + which you give me over your life; and I desire to exercise it this + once to draw aside the veil from your eyes. + + “I am nearly thirty years old, monsieur; you are barely + two-and-twenty. You yourself cannot know what your thoughts will + be at my age. The vows that you make so lightly to-day may seem a + very heavy burden to you then. I am quite willing to believe that + at this moment you would give me your whole life without a regret, + you would even be ready to die for a little brief happiness; but + at the age of thirty experience will take from you the very power + of making daily sacrifices for my sake, and I myself should feel + deeply humiliated if I accepted them. A day would come when + everything, even Nature, would bid you leave me, and I have + already told you that death is preferable to desertion. Misfortune + has taught me to calculate; as you see, I am arguing perfectly + dispassionately. You force me to tell you that I have no love for + you; I ought not to love, I cannot, and I will not. It is too late + to yield, as women yield, to a blind unreasoning impulse of the + heart, too late to be the mistress whom you seek. My consolations + spring from God, not from earth. Ah, and besides, with the + melancholy insight of disappointed love, I read hearts too clearly + to accept your proffered friendship. It is only instinct. I + forgive the boyish ruse, for which you are not responsible as yet. + In the name of this passing fancy of yours, for the sake of your + career and my own peace of mind, I bid you stay in your own + country; you must not spoil a fair and honorable life for an + illusion which, by its very nature, cannot last. At a later day, + when you have accomplished your real destiny, in the fully + developed manhood that awaits you, you will appreciate this answer + of mine, though to-day it may be that you blame its hardness. You + will turn with pleasure to an old woman whose friendship will + certainly be sweet and precious to you then; a friendship untried + by the extremes of passion and the disenchanting processes of + life; a friendship which noble thoughts and thoughts of religion + will keep pure and sacred. Farewell; do my bidding with the + thought that your success will bring a gleam of pleasure into my + solitude, and only think of me as we think of absent friends.” + +Gaston de Nueil read the letter, and wrote the following lines:-- + + “MADAME,--If I could cease to love you, to take the chances of + becoming an ordinary man which you hold out to me, you must admit + that I should thoroughly deserve my fate. No, I shall not do as + you bid me; the oath of fidelity which I swear to you shall only + be absolved by death. Ah! take my life, unless indeed you do not + fear to carry a remorse all through your own----” + +When the man returned from his errand, M. de Nueil asked him with whom +he left the note? + +“I gave it to Mme. la Vicomtesse herself, sir; she was in her carriage +and just about to start.” + +“For the town?” + +“I don’t think so, sir. Mme. la Vicomtesse had post-horses.” + +“Ah! then she is going away,” said the Baron. + +“Yes, sir,” the man answered. + +Gaston de Nueil at once prepared to follow Mme. de Beauseant. She led +the way as far as Geneva, without a suspicion that he followed. And +he? Amid the many thoughts that assailed him during that journey, one +all-absorbing problem filled his mind--“Why did she go away?” Theories +grew thickly on such ground for supposition, and naturally he inclined +to the one that flattered his hopes--“If the Vicomtesse cares for me, +a clever woman would, of course, choose Switzerland, where nobody knows +either of us, in preference to France, where she would find censorious +critics.” + +An impassioned lover of a certain stamp would not feel attracted to a +woman clever enough to choose her own ground; such women are too clever. +However, there is nothing to prove that there was any truth in Gaston’s +supposition. + +The Vicomtesse took a small house by the side of the lake. As soon as +she was installed in it, Gaston came one summer evening in the twilight. +Jacques, that flunkey in grain, showed no sign of surprise, and +announced _M. le Baron de Nueil_ like a discreet domestic well +acquainted with good society. At the sound of the name, at the sight +of its owner, Mme. de Beauseant let her book fall from her hands; her +surprise gave him time to come close to her, and to say in tones that +sounded like music in her ears: + +“What a joy it was to me to take the horses that brought you on this +journey!” + +To have the inmost desires of the heart so fulfilled! Where is the woman +who could resist such happiness as this? An Italian woman, one of those +divine creatures who, psychologically, are as far removed from the +Parisian as if they lived at the Antipodes, a being who would be +regarded as profoundly immoral on this side of the Alps, an Italian (to +resume) made the following comment on some French novels which she had +been reading. “I cannot see,” she remarked, “why these poor lovers take +such a time over coming to an arrangement which ought to be the affair +of a single morning.” Why should not the novelist take a hint from this +worthy lady, and refrain from exhausting the theme and the reader? +Some few passages of coquetry it would certainly be pleasant to give in +outline; the story of Mme. de Beauseant’s demurs and sweet delayings, +that, like the vestal virgins of antiquity, she might fall gracefully, +and by lingering over the innocent raptures of first love draw from it +its utmost strength and sweetness. M. de Nueil was at an age when a +man is the dupe of these caprices, of the fence which women delight to +prolong; either to dictate their own terms, or to enjoy the sense of +their power yet longer, knowing instinctively as they do that it must +soon grow less. But, after all, these little boudoir protocols, less +numerous than those of the Congress of London, are too small to be worth +mention in the history of this passion. + +For three years Mme. de Beauseant and M. de Nueil lived in the villa on +the lake of Geneva. They lived quite alone, received no visitors, caused +no talk, rose late, went out together upon the lake, knew, in short, +the happiness of which we all of us dream. It was a simple little house, +with green shutters, and broad balconies shaded with awnings, a house +contrived of set purpose for lovers, with its white couches, soundless +carpets, and fresh hangings, everything within it reflecting their +joy. Every window looked out on some new view of the lake; in the far +distance lay the mountains, fantastic visions of changing color and +evanescent cloud; above them spread the sunny sky, before them stretched +the broad sheet of water, never the same in its fitful changes. All +their surroundings seemed to dream for them, all things smiled upon +them. + +Then weighty matters recalled M. de Nueil to France. His father and +brother died, and he was obliged to leave Geneva. The lovers bought the +house; and if they could have had their way, they would have removed the +hills piecemeal, drawn off the lake with a siphon, and taken everything +away with them. + +Mme. de Beauseant followed M. de Nueil. She realized her property, and +bought a considerable estate near Manerville, adjoining Gaston’s +lands, and here they lived together; Gaston very graciously giving +up Manerville to his mother for the present in consideration of the +bachelor freedom in which she left him. + +Mme. de Beauseant’s estate was close to a little town in one of the +most picturesque spots in the valley of the Auge. Here the lovers raised +barriers between themselves and social intercourse, barriers which no +creature could overleap, and here the happy days of Switzerland were +lived over again. For nine whole years they knew happiness which it +serves no purpose to describe; happiness which may be divined from the +outcome of the story by those whose souls can comprehend poetry and +prayer in their infinite manifestations. + +All this time Mme. de Beauseant’s husband, the present Marquis (his +father and elder brother having died), enjoyed the soundest health. +There is no better aid to life than a certain knowledge that our demise +would confer a benefit on some fellow-creature. M. de Beauseant was +one of those ironical and wayward beings who, like holders of +life-annuities, wake with an additional sense of relish every morning to +a consciousness of good health. For the rest, he was a man of the world, +somewhat methodical and ceremonious, and a calculator of consequences, +who could make a declaration of love as quietly as a lackey announces +that “Madame is served.” + +This brief biographical notice of his lordship the Marquis de Beauseant +is given to explain the reasons why it was impossible for the Marquise +to marry M. de Nueil. + +So, after a nine years’ lease of happiness, the sweetest agreement to +which a woman ever put her hand, M. de Nueil and Mme. de Beauseant +were still in a position quite as natural and quite as false as at the +beginning of their adventure. And yet they had reached a fatal crisis, +which may be stated as clearly as any problem in mathematics. + +Mme. la Comtesse de Nueil, Gaston’s mother, a strait-laced and virtuous +person, who had made the late Baron happy in strictly legal fashion +would never consent to meet Mme. de Beauseant. Mme. de Beauseant quite +understood that the worthy dowager must of necessity be her enemy, and +that she would try to draw Gaston from his unhallowed and immoral way of +life. The Marquise de Beauseant would willingly have sold her property +and gone back to Geneva, but she could not bring herself to do it; it +would mean that she distrusted M. de Nueil. Moreover, he had taken +a great fancy to this very Valleroy estate, where he was making +plantations and improvements. She would not deprive him of a piece of +pleasurable routine-work, such as women always wish for their husbands, +and even for their lovers. + +A Mlle. de la Rodiere, twenty-two years of age, an heiress with +a rent-roll of forty thousand livres, had come to live in the +neighborhood. Gaston always met her at Manerville whenever he was +obliged to go thither. These various personages being to each other as +the terms of a proportion sum, the following letter will throw light on +the appalling problem which Mme. de Beauseant had been trying for the +past month to solve:-- + + “My beloved angel, it seems like nonsense, does it not, to write + to you when there is nothing to keep us apart, when a caress so + often takes the place of words, and words too are caresses? Ah, + well, no, love. There are some things that a woman cannot say when + she is face to face with the man she loves; at the bare thought of + them her voice fails her, and the blood goes back to her heart; + she has no strength, no intelligence left. It hurts me to feel + like this when you are near me, and it happens often. I feel that + my heart should be wholly sincere for you; that I should disguise + no thought, however transient, in my heart; and I love the sweet + carelessness, which suits me so well, too much to endure this + embarrassment and constraint any longer. So I will tell you about + my anguish--yes, it is anguish. Listen to me! do not begin with + the little ‘Tut, tut, tut,’ that you use to silence me, an + impertinence that I love, because anything from you pleases me. + Dear soul from heaven, wedded to mine, let me first tell you that + you have effaced all memory of the pain that once was crushing the + life out of me. I did not know what love was before I knew you. + Only the candor of your beautiful young life, only the purity of + that great soul of yours, could satisfy the requirements of an + exacting woman’s heart. Dear love, how very often I have thrilled + with joy to think that in these nine long, swift years, my + jealousy has not been once awakened. All the flowers of your soul + have been mine, all your thoughts. There has not been the faintest + cloud in our heaven; we have not known what sacrifice is; we have + always acted on the impulses of our hearts. I have known + happiness, infinite for a woman. Will the tears that drench this + sheet tell you all my gratitude? I could wish that I had knelt to + write the words!--Well, out of this felicity has arisen torture + more terrible than the pain of desertion. Dear, there are very + deep recesses in a woman’s heart; how deep in my own heart, I did + not know myself until to-day, as I did not know the whole extent + of love. The greatest misery which could overwhelm us is a light + burden compared with the mere thought of harm for him whom we + love. And how if we cause the harm, is it not enough to make one + die?... This is the thought that is weighing upon me. But + it brings in its train another thought that is heavier far, a + thought that tarnishes the glory of love, and slays it, and turns + it into a humiliation which sullies life as long as it lasts. You + are thirty years old; I am forty. What dread this difference in + age calls up in a woman who loves! It is possible that, first of + all unconsciously, afterwards in earnest, you have felt the + sacrifices that you have made by renouncing all in the world for + me. Perhaps you have thought of your future from the social point + of view, of the marriage which would, of course, increase your + fortune, and give you avowed happiness and children who would + inherit your wealth; perhaps you have thought of reappearing in + the world, and filling your place there honorably. And then, if + so, you must have repressed those thoughts, and felt glad to + sacrifice heiress and fortune and a fair future to me without my + knowledge. In your young man’s generosity, you must have resolved + to be faithful to the vows which bind us each to each in the sight + of God. My past pain has risen up before your mind, and the misery + from which you rescued me has been my protection. To owe your love + to your pity! The thought is even more painful to me than the fear + of spoiling your life for you. The man who can bring himself to + stab his mistress is very charitable if he gives her her deathblow + while she is happy and ignorant of evil, while illusions are in + full blossom.... Yes, death is preferable to the two thoughts + which have secretly saddened the hours for several days. To-day, + when you asked ‘What ails you?’ so tenderly, the sound of your + voice made me shiver. I thought that, after your wont, you were + reading my very soul, and I waited for your confidence to come, + thinking that my presentiments had come true, and that I had + guessed all that was going on in your mind. Then I began to think + over certain little things that you always do for me, and I + thought I could see in you the sort of affection by which a man + betrays a consciousness that his loyalty is becoming a burden. And + in that moment I paid very dear for my happiness. I felt that + Nature always demands the price for the treasure called love. + Briefly, has not fate separated us? Can you have said, ‘Sooner or + later I must leave poor Claire; why not separate in time?’ I read + that thought in the depths of your eyes, and went away to cry by + myself. Hiding my tears from you! the first tears that I have shed + for sorrow for these ten years; I am too proud to let you see + them, but I did not reproach you in the least. + + “Yes, you are right. I ought not to be so selfish as to bind your + long and brilliant career to my so-soon out-worn life.... And + yet--how if I have been mistaken? How if I have taken your love + melancholy for a deliberation? Oh, my love, do not leave me in + suspense; punish this jealous wife of yours, but give her back the + sense of her love and yours; the whole woman lies in that--that + consciousness sanctifies everything. + + “Since your mother came, since you paid a visit to Mlle. de + Rodiere, I have been gnawed by doubts dishonoring to us both. Make + me suffer for this, but do not deceive me; I want to know + everything that your mother said and that you think! If you have + hesitated between some alternative and me, I give you back your + liberty.... I will not let you know what happens to me; I will + not shed tears for you to see; only--I will not see you again.... + Ah! I cannot go on, my heart is breaking.................. + I have been sitting benumbed and stupid for some moments. Dear love, + I do not find that any feeling of pride rises against you; you are so + kind-hearted, so open; you would find it impossible to hurt me or + to deceive me; and you will tell me the truth, however cruel it may + be. Do you wish me to encourage your confession? Well, then, heart + of mine, I shall find comfort in a woman’s thought. Has not the + youth of your being been mine, your sensitive, wholly gracious, + beautiful, and delicate youth? No woman shall find henceforth the + Gaston whom I have known, nor the delicious happiness that he has + given me.... No; you will never love again as you have loved, + as you love me now; no, I shall never have a rival, it is + impossible. There will be no bitterness in my memories of our + love, and I shall think of nothing else. It is out of your power + to enchant any woman henceforth by the childish provocations, the + charming ways of a young heart, the soul’s winning charm, the + body’s grace, the swift communion of rapture, the whole divine + cortege of young love, in fine. + + “Oh, you are a man now, you will obey your destiny, weighing and + considering all things. You will have cares, and anxieties, and + ambitions, and concerns that will rob _her_ of the unchanging + smile that made your lips fair for me. The tones that were always + so sweet for me will be troubled at times; and your eyes that + lighted up with radiance from heaven at the sight of me, will + often be lustreless for _her_. And besides, as it is impossible to + love you as I love you, you will never care for that woman as you + have cared for me. She will never keep a constant watch over + herself as I have done; she will never study your happiness at + every moment with an intuition which has never failed me. Ah, yes, + the man, the heart and soul, which I shall have known will exist + no longer. I shall bury him deep in my memory, that I may have the + joy of him still; I shall live happy in that fair past life of + ours, a life hidden from all but our inmost selves. + + “Dear treasure of mine, if all the while no least thought of + liberty has risen in your mind, if my love is no burden on you, if + my fears are chimerical, if I am still your Eve--the one woman in + the world for you--come to me as soon as you have read this + letter, come quickly! Ah, in one moment I will love you more than + I have ever loved you, I think, in these nine years. After + enduring the needless torture of these doubts of which I am + accusing myself, every added day of love, yes, every single day, + will be a whole lifetime of bliss. So speak, and speak openly; do + not deceive me, it would be a crime. Tell me, do you wish for your + liberty? Have you thought of all that a man’s life means? Is there + any regret in your mind? That _I_ should cause you a regret! I + should die of it. I have said it: I love you enough to set your + happiness above mine, your life before my own. Leave on one side, + if you can, the wealth of memories of our nine years’ happiness, + that they may not influence your decision, but speak! I submit + myself to you as to God, the one Consoler who remains if you + forsake me.” + +When Mme. de Beauseant knew that her letter was in M. de Nueil’s hands, +she sank in such utter prostration, the over-pressure of many thoughts +so numbed her faculties, that she seemed almost drowsy. At any rate, she +was suffering from a pain not always proportioned in its intensity to +a woman’s strength; pain which women alone know. And while the unhappy +Marquise awaited her doom, M. de Nueil, reading her letter, felt that he +was “in a very difficult position,” to use the expression that young men +apply to a crisis of this kind. + +By this time he had all but yielded to his mother’s importunities and +to the attractions of Mlle. de la Rodiere, a somewhat insignificant, +pink-and-white young person, as straight as a poplar. It is true that, +in accordance with the rules laid down for marriageable young ladies, +she scarcely opened her mouth, but her rent-roll of forty thousand +livres spoke quite sufficiently for her. Mme. de Nueil, with a mother’s +sincere affection, tried to entangle her son in virtuous courses. She +called his attention to the fact that it was a flattering distinction +to be preferred by Mlle. de la Rodiere, who had refused so many great +matches; it was quite time, she urged, that he should think of his +future, such a good opportunity might not repeat itself, some day +he would have eighty thousand livres of income from land; money made +everything bearable; if Mme. de Beauseant loved him for his own +sake, she ought to be the first to urge him to marry. In short, the +well-intentioned mother forgot no arguments which the feminine intellect +can bring to bear upon the masculine mind, and by these means she had +brought her son into a wavering condition. + +Mme. de Beauseant’s letter arrived just as Gaston’s love of her was +holding out against the temptations of a settled life conformable to +received ideas. That letter decided the day. He made up his mind to +break off with the Marquise and to marry. + +“One must live a man’s life,” said he to himself. + +Then followed some inkling of the pain that this decision would give to +Mme. de Beauseant. The man’s vanity and the lover’s conscience further +exaggerated this pain, and a sincere pity for her seized upon him. +All at once the immensity of the misery became apparent to him, and he +thought it necessary and charitable to deaden the deadly blow. He +hoped to bring Mme. de Beauseant to a calm frame of mind by gradually +reconciling her to the idea of separation; while Mlle. de la Rodiere, +always like a shadowy third between them, should be sacrificed to her at +first, only to be imposed upon her later. His marriage should take place +later, in obedience to Mme. de Beauseant’s expressed wish. He went so +far as to enlist the Marquise’s nobleness and pride and all the great +qualities of her nature to help him to succeed in this compassionate +design. He would write a letter at once to allay her suspicions. _A +letter!_ For a woman with the most exquisite feminine perception, as +well as the intuition of passionate love, a letter in itself was a +sentence of death. + +So when Jacques came and brought Mme. de Beauseant a sheet of paper +folded in a triangle, she trembled, poor woman, like a snared swallow. A +mysterious sensation of physical cold spread from head to foot, wrapping +her about in an icy winding sheet. If he did not rush to her feet, if he +did not come to her in tears, and pale, and like a lover, she knew that +all was lost. And yet, so many hopes are there in the heart of a woman +who loves, that she is only slain by stab after stab, and loves on till +the last drop of life-blood drains away. + +“Does madame need anything?” Jacques asked gently, as he went away. + +“No,” she said. + +“Poor fellow!” she thought, brushing a tear from her eyes, “he guesses +my feelings, servant though he is!” + +She read: “My beloved, you are inventing idle terrors for yourself...” + The Marquise gazed at the words, and a thick mist spread before her +eyes. A voice in her heart cried, “He lies!”--Then she glanced down the +page with the clairvoyant eagerness of passion, and read these words at +the foot, “_Nothing has been decided as yet..._” Turning to the +other side with convulsive quickness, she saw the mind of the writer +distinctly through the intricacies of the wording; this was no +spontaneous outburst of love. She crushed it in her fingers, twisted it, +tore it with her teeth, flung it in the fire, and cried aloud, “Ah! base +that he is! I was his, and he had ceased to love me!” + +She sank half dead upon the couch. + + + +M. de Nueil went out as soon as he had written his letter. When he came +back, Jacques met him on the threshold with a note. “Madame la Marquise +has left the chateau,” said the man. + +M. de Nueil, in amazement, broke the seal and read:-- + + “MADAME,--If I could cease to love you, to take the chances of + becoming an ordinary man which you hold out to me, you must admit + that I should thoroughly deserve my fate. No, I shall not do as + you bid me; the oath of fidelity which I swear to you shall only + be absolved by death. Ah! take my life, unless indeed you do not + fear to carry a remorse all through your own...” + +It was his own letter, written to the Marquise as she set out for Geneva +nine years before. At the foot of it Claire de Bourgogne had written, +“Monsieur, you are free.” + +M. de Nueil went to his mother at Manerville. In less than three weeks +he married Mlle. Stephanie de la Rodiere. + + + +If this commonplace story of real life ended here, it would be to some +extent a sort of mystification. The first man you meet can tell you a +better. But the widespread fame of the catastrophe (for, unhappily, this +is a true tale), and all the memories which it may arouse in those who +have known the divine delights of infinite passion, and lost them +by their own deed, or through the cruelty of fate,--these things may +perhaps shelter the story from criticism. + +Mme. la Marquise de Beauseant never left Valleroy after her parting from +M. de Nueil. After his marriage she still continued to live there, for +some inscrutable woman’s reason; any woman is at liberty to assign +the one which most appeals to her. Claire de Bourgogne lived in such +complete retirement that none of the servants, save Jacques and her own +woman, ever saw their mistress. She required absolute silence all about +her, and only left her room to go to the chapel on the Valleroy estate, +whither a neighboring priest came to say mass every morning. + +The Comte de Nueil sank a few days after his marriage into something +like conjugal apathy, which might be interpreted to mean happiness or +unhappiness equally easily. + +“My son is perfectly happy,” his mother said everywhere. + +Mme. Gaston de Nueil, like a great many young women, was a rather +colorless character, sweet and passive. A month after her marriage she +had expectations of becoming a mother. All this was quite in accordance +with ordinary views. M. de Nueil was very nice to her; but two months +after his separation from the Marquise, he grew notably thoughtful and +abstracted. But then he always had been serious, his mother said. + +After seven months of this tepid happiness, a little thing occurred, one +of those seemingly small matters which imply such great development of +thought and such widespread trouble of the soul, that only the bare fact +can be recorded; the interpretation of it must be left to the fancy of +each individual mind. One day, when M. de Nueil had been shooting over +the lands of Manerville and Valleroy, he crossed Mme. de Beauseant’s +park on his way home, summoned Jacques, and when the man came, asked +him, “Whether the Marquise was as fond of game as ever?” + +Jacques answering in the affirmative, Gaston offered him a good round +sum (accompanied by plenty of specious reasoning) for a very little +service. Would he set aside for the Marquise the game that the Count +would bring? It seemed to Jacques to be a matter of no great importance +whether the partridge on which his mistress dined had been shot by +her keeper or by M. de Nueil, especially since the latter particularly +wished that the Marquise should know nothing about it. + +“It was killed on her land,” said the Count, and for some days Jacques +lent himself to the harmless deceit. Day after day M. de Nueil went +shooting, and came back at dinner-time with an empty bag. A whole week +went by in this way. Gaston grew bold enough to write a long letter +to the Marquise, and had it conveyed to her. It was returned to him +unopened. The Marquise’s servant brought it back about nightfall. The +Count, sitting in the drawing-room listening, while his wife at the +piano mangled a _Caprice_ of Herold’s, suddenly sprang up and rushed +out to the Marquise, as if he were flying to an assignation. He dashed +through a well-known gap into the park, and went slowly along the +avenues, stopping now and again for a little to still the loud beating +of his heart. Smothered sounds as he came nearer the chateau told him +that the servants must be at supper, and he went straight to Mme. de +Beauseant’s room. + +Mme. de Beauseant never left her bedroom. M. de Nueil could gain the +doorway without making the slightest sound. There, by the light of two +wax candles, he saw the thin, white Marquise in a great armchair; her +head was bowed, her hands hung listlessly, her eyes gazing fixedly at +some object which she did not seem to see. Her whole attitude spoke of +hopeless pain. There was a vague something like hope in her bearing, +but it was impossible to say whither Claire de Bourgogne was +looking--forwards to the tomb or backwards into the past. Perhaps M. +de Nueil’s tears glittered in the deep shadows; perhaps his breathing +sounded faintly; perhaps unconsciously he trembled, or again it may have +been impossible that he should stand there, his presence unfelt by that +quick sense which grows to be an instinct, the glory, the delight, the +proof of perfect love. However it was, Mme. de Beauseant slowly turned +her face towards the doorway, and beheld her lover of bygone days. Then +Gaston de Nueil came forward a few paces. + +“If you come any further, sir,” exclaimed the Marquise, growing paler, +“I shall fling myself out of the window!” + +She sprang to the window, flung it open, and stood with one foot on +the ledge, her hand upon the iron balustrade, her face turned towards +Gaston. + +“Go out! go out!” she cried, “or I will throw myself over.” + +At that dreadful cry the servants began to stir, and M. de Nueil fled +like a criminal. + +When he reached his home again he wrote a few lines and gave them to his +own man, telling him to give the letter himself into Mme. de Beauseant’s +hands, and to say that it was a matter of life and death for his master. +The messenger went. M. de Nueil went back to the drawing-room where his +wife was still murdering the _Caprice_, and sat down to wait till the +answer came. An hour later, when the _Caprice_ had come to an end, and +the husband and wife sat in silence on opposite sides of the hearth, +the man came back from Valleroy and gave his master his own letter, +unopened. + +M. de Nueil went into a small room beyond the drawing-room, where he had +left his rifle, and shot himself. + +The swift and fatal ending of the drama, contrary as it is to all the +habits of young France, is only what might have been expected. Those who +have closely observed, or known for themselves by delicious experience, +all that is meant by the perfect union of two beings, will understand +Gaston de Nueil’s suicide perfectly well. A woman does not bend and form +herself in a day to the caprices of passion. The pleasure of loving, +like some rare flower, needs the most careful ingenuity of culture. +Time alone, and two souls attuned each to each, can discover all its +resources, and call into being all the tender and delicate delights for +which we are steeped in a thousand superstitions, imagining them to be +inherent in the heart that lavishes them upon us. It is this wonderful +response of one nature to another, this religious belief, this certainty +of finding peculiar or excessive happiness in the presence of one we +love, that accounts in part for perdurable attachments and long-lived +passion. If a woman possesses the genius of her sex, love never comes to +be a matter of use and wont. She brings all her heart and brain to love, +clothes her tenderness in forms so varied, there is such art in her +most natural moments, or so much nature in her art, that in absence +her memory is almost as potent as her presence. All other women are as +shadows compared with her. Not until we have lost or known the dread of +losing a love so vast and glorious, do we prize it at its just worth. +And if a man who has once possessed this love shuts himself out from it +by his own act and deed, and sinks to some loveless marriage; if by some +incident, hidden in the obscurity of married life, the woman with whom +he hoped to know the same felicity makes it clear that it will never +be revived for him; if, with the sweetness of divine love still on his +lips, he has dealt a deadly wound to _her_, his wife in truth, whom he +forsook for a social chimera,--then he must either die or take refuge +in a materialistic, selfish, and heartless philosophy, from which +impassioned souls shrink in horror. + + +As for Mme. de Beauseant, she doubtless did not imagine that her +friend’s despair could drive him to suicide, when he had drunk deep of +love for nine years. Possibly she may have thought that she alone was +to suffer. At any rate, she did quite rightly to refuse the most +humiliating of all positions; a wife may stoop for weighty social +reasons to a kind of compromise which a mistress is bound to hold in +abhorrence, for in the purity of her passion lies all its justification. + + +ANGOULEME, September 1832. + + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + + Beauseant, Marquis and Comte de + Father Goriot + An Episode under the Terror + + Beauseant, Marquise de + Letters of Two Brides + + Beauseant, Vicomte de + Father Goriot + + Beauseant, Vicomtesse de + Father Goriot + Albert Savarus + + Champignelles, De + The Seamy Side of History + + Jacques (M. de Beauseant’s butler) + Father Goriot + + Nueil, Gaston de + The Deserted Woman + Albert Savarus + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deserted Woman, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESERTED WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 1729-0.txt or 1729-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/2/1729/ + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Deserted Woman + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: Ellen Marriage + +Release Date: March 1, 2010 [EBook #1729] +Last Updated: November 24, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESERTED WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE DESERTED WOMAN + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Honore De Balzac + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h3> + Translated by Ellen Marriage + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + DEDICATION<br /><br /> To Her Grace the Duchesse d’Abrantes,<br /> from her + devoted servant,<br /> Honore de Balzac.<br /> PARIS, August 1835.<br /> + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h3> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>THE DESERTED WOMAN</b> </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0002"> ADDENDUM<br /> </a> + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h1> + THE DESERTED WOMAN + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + In the early spring of 1822, the Paris doctors sent to Lower Normandy a + young man just recovering from an inflammatory complaint, brought on by + overstudy, or perhaps by excess of some other kind. His convalescence + demanded complete rest, a light diet, bracing air, and freedom from + excitement of every kind, and the fat lands of Bessin seemed to offer all + these conditions of recovery. To Bayeux, a picturesque place about six + miles from the sea, the patient therefore betook himself, and was received + with the cordiality characteristic of relatives who lead very retired + lives, and regard a new arrival as a godsend. + </p> + <p> + All little towns are alike, save for a few local customs. When M. le Baron + Gaston de Nueil, the young Parisian in question, had spent two or three + evenings in his cousin’s house, or with the friends who made up Mme. de + Sainte-Severe’s circle, he very soon had made the acquaintance of the + persons whom this exclusive society considered to be “the whole town.” + Gaston de Nueil recognized in them the invariable stock characters which + every observer finds in every one of the many capitals of the little + States which made up the France of an older day. + </p> + <p> + First of all comes the family whose claims to nobility are regarded as + incontestable, and of the highest antiquity in the department, though no + one has so much as heard of them a bare fifty leagues away. This species + of royal family on a small scale is distantly, but unmistakably, connected + with the Navarreins and the Grandlieu family, and related to the + Cadignans, and the Blamont-Chauvrys. The head of the illustrious house is + invariably a determined sportsman. He has no manners, crushes everybody + else with his nominal superiority, tolerates the sub-prefect much as he + submits to the taxes, and declines to acknowledge any of the novel powers + created by the nineteenth century, pointing out to you as a political + monstrosity the fact that the prime minister is a man of no birth. His + wife takes a decided tone, and talks in a loud voice. She has had adorers + in her time, but takes the sacrament regularly at Easter. She brings up + her daughters badly, and is of the opinion that they will always be rich + enough with their name. + </p> + <p> + Neither husband nor wife has the remotest idea of modern luxury. They + retain a livery only seen elsewhere on the stage, and cling to old + fashions in plate, furniture, and equipages, as in language and manner of + life. This is a kind of ancient state, moreover, that suits passably well + with provincial thrift. The good folk are, in fact, the lords of the manor + of a bygone age, <i>minus</i> the quitrents and heriots, the pack of + hounds and the laced coats; full of honor among themselves, and one and + all loyally devoted to princes whom they only see at a distance. The + historical house <i>incognito</i> is as quaint a survival as a piece of + ancient tapestry. Vegetating somewhere among them there is sure to be an + uncle or a brother, a lieutenant-general, an old courtier of the Kings’s, + who wears the red ribbon of the order of Saint-Louis, and went to Hanover + with the Marechal de Richelieu: and here you will find him like a stray + leaf out of some old pamphlet of the time of Louis Quinze. + </p> + <p> + This fossil greatness finds a rival in another house, wealthier, though of + less ancient lineage. Husband and wife spend a couple of months of every + winter in Paris, bringing back with them its frivolous tone and + short-lived contemporary crazes. Madame is a woman of fashion, though she + looks rather conscious of her clothes, and is always behind the mode. She + scoffs, however, at the ignorance affected by her neighbors. <i>Her</i> + plate is of modern fashion; she has “grooms,” Negroes, a valet-de-chambre, + and what-not. Her oldest son drives a tilbury, and does nothing (the + estate is entailed upon him), his younger brother is auditor to a Council + of State. The father is well posted up in official scandals, and tells you + anecdotes of Louis XVIII. and Madame du Cayla. He invests his money in the + five per cents, and is careful to avoid the topic of cider, but has been + known occasionally to fall a victim to the craze for rectifying the + conjectural sums-total of the various fortunes of the department. He is a + member of the Departmental Council, has his clothes from Paris, and wears + the Cross of the Legion of Honor. In short, he is a country gentleman who + has fully grasped the significance of the Restoration, and is coining + money at the Chamber, but his Royalism is less pure than that of the rival + house; he takes the <i>Gazette</i> and the <i>Debats</i>, the other family + only read the <i>Quotidienne</i>. + </p> + <p> + His lordship the Bishop, a sometime Vicar-General, fluctuates between the + two powers, who pay him the respect due to religion, but at times they + bring home to him the moral appended by the worthy Lafontaine to the fable + of the <i>Ass laden with Relics</i>. The good man’s origin is distinctly + plebeian. + </p> + <p> + Then come stars of the second magnitude, men of family with ten or twelve + hundred livres a year, captains in the navy or cavalry regiments, or + nothing at all. Out on the roads, on horseback, they rank half-way between + the cure bearing the sacraments and the tax collector on his rounds. + Pretty nearly all of them have been in the Pages or in the Household + Troops, and now are peaceably ending their days in a <i>faisance-valoir</i>, + more interested in felling timber and the cider prospects than in the + Monarchy. + </p> + <p> + Still they talk of the Charter and the Liberals while the cards are + making, or over a game at backgammon, when they have exhausted the usual + stock of <i>dots</i>, and have married everybody off according to the + genealogies which they all know by heart. Their womenkind are haughty + dames, who assume the airs of Court ladies in their basket chaises. They + huddle themselves up in shawls and caps by way of full dress; and twice a + year, after ripe deliberation, have a new bonnet from Paris, brought as + opportunity offers. Exemplary wives are they for the most part, and + garrulous. + </p> + <p> + These are the principal elements of aristocratic gentility, with a few + outlying old maids of good family, spinsters who have solved the problem: + given a human being, to remain absolutely stationary. They might be sealed + up in the houses where you see them; their faces and their dresses are + literally part of the fixtures of the town, and the province in which they + dwell. They are its tradition, its memory, its quintessence, the <i>genius + loci</i> incarnate. There is something frigid and monumental about these + ladies; they know exactly when to laugh and when to shake their heads, and + every now and then give out some utterance which passes current as a + witticism. + </p> + <p> + A few rich townspeople have crept into the miniature Faubourg + Saint-Germain, thanks to their money or their aristocratic leanings. But + despite their forty years, the circle still say of them, “Young So-and-so + has sound opinions,” and of such do they make deputies. As a rule, the + elderly spinsters are their patronesses, not without comment. + </p> + <p> + Finally, in this exclusive little set include two or three ecclesiastics, + admitted for the sake of their cloth, or for their wit; for these great + nobles find their own society rather dull, and introduce the bourgeois + element into their drawing-rooms, as a baker puts leaven into his dough. + </p> + <p> + The sum-total contained by all heads put together consists of a certain + quantity of antiquated notions; a few new inflections brewed in company of + an evening being added from time to time to the common stock. Like + sea-water in a little creek, the phrases which represent these ideas surge + up daily, punctually obeying the tidal laws of conversation in their flow + and ebb; you hear the hollow echo of yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, a year + hence, and for evermore. On all things here below they pass immutable + judgments, which go to make up a body of tradition into which no power of + mortal man can infuse one drop of wit or sense. The lives of these persons + revolve with the regularity of clockwork in an orbit of use and wont which + admits of no more deviation or change than their opinions on matters + religious, political, moral, or literary. + </p> + <p> + If a stranger is admitted to the <i>cenacle</i>, every member of it in + turn will say (not without a trace of irony), “You will not find the + brilliancy of your Parisian society here,” and proceed forthwith to + criticise the life led by his neighbors, as if he himself were an + exception who had striven, and vainly striven, to enlighten the rest. But + any stranger so ill advised as to concur in any of their freely expressed + criticism of each other, is pronounced at once to be an ill-natured + person, a heathen, an outlaw, a reprobate Parisian “as Parisians mostly + are.” + </p> + <p> + Before Gaston de Nueil made his appearance in this little world of + strictly observed etiquette, where every detail of life is an integrant + part of a whole, and everything is known; where the values of personalty + and real estate is quoted like stocks on the vast sheet of the newspaper—before + his arrival he had been weighed in the unerring scales of Bayeusaine + judgment. + </p> + <p> + His cousin, Mme. de Sainte-Severe, had already given out the amount of his + fortune, and the sum of his expectations, had produced the family tree, + and expatiated on the talents, breeding, and modesty of this particular + branch. So he received the precise amount of attentions to which he was + entitled; he was accepted as a worthy scion of a good stock; and, for he + was but twenty-three, was made welcome without ceremony, though certain + young ladies and mothers of daughters looked not unkindly upon him. + </p> + <p> + He had an income of eighteen thousand livres from land in the valley of + the Auge; and sooner or later his father, as in duty bound, would leave + him the chateau of Manerville, with the lands thereunto belonging. As for + his education, political career, personal qualities, and qualifications—no + one so much as thought of raising the questions. His land was undeniable, + his rentals steady; excellent plantations had been made; the tenants paid + for repairs, rates, and taxes; the apple-trees were thirty-eight years + old; and, to crown all, his father was in treaty for two hundred acres of + woodland just outside the paternal park, which he intended to enclose with + walls. No hopes of a political career, no fame on earth, can compare with + such advantages as these. + </p> + <p> + Whether out of malice or design, Mme. de Sainte-Severe omitted to mention + that Gaston had an elder brother; nor did Gaston himself say a word about + him. But, at the same time, it is true that the brother was consumptive, + and to all appearance would shortly be laid in earth, lamented and + forgotten. + </p> + <p> + At first Gaston de Nueil amused himself at the expense of the circle. He + drew, as it were, for his mental album, a series of portraits of these + folk, with their angular, wrinkled faces, and hooked noses, their + crotchets and ludicrous eccentricities of dress, portraits which possessed + all the racy flavor of truth. He delighted in their “Normanisms,” in the + primitive quaintness of their ideas and characters. For a short time he + flung himself into their squirrel’s life of busy gyrations in a cage. Then + he began to feel the want of variety, and grew tired of it. It was like + the life of the cloister, cut short before it had well begun. He drifted + on till he reached a crisis, which is neither spleen nor disgust, but + combines all the symptoms of both. When a human being is transplanted into + an uncongenial soil, to lead a starved, stunted existence, there is always + a little discomfort over the transition. Then, gradually, if nothing + removes him from his surroundings, he grows accustomed to them, and adapts + himself to the vacuity which grows upon him and renders him powerless. + Even now, Gaston’s lungs were accustomed to the air; and he was willing to + discern a kind of vegetable happiness in days that brought no mental + exertion and no responsibilities. The constant stirring of the sap of + life, the fertilizing influences of mind on mind, after which he had + sought so eagerly in Paris, were beginning to fade from his memory, and he + was in a fair way of becoming a fossil with these fossils, and ending his + days among them, content, like the companions of Ulysses, in his gross + envelope. + </p> + <p> + One evening Gaston de Nueil was seated between a dowager and one of the + vicars-general of the diocese, in a gray-paneled drawing-room, floored + with large white tiles. The family portraits which adorned the walls + looked down upon four card-tables, and some sixteen persons gathered about + them, chattering over their whist. Gaston, thinking of nothing, digesting + one of those exquisite dinners to which the provincial looks forward all + through the day, found himself justifying the customs of the country. + </p> + <p> + He began to understand why these good folk continued to play with + yesterday’s pack of cards and shuffle them on a threadbare tablecloth, and + how it was that they had ceased to dress for themselves or others. He saw + the glimmerings of something like a philosophy in the even tenor of their + perpetual round, in the calm of their methodical monotony, in their + ignorance of the refinements of luxury. Indeed, he almost came to think + that luxury profited nothing; and even now, the city of Paris, with its + passions, storms, and pleasures, was scarcely more than a memory of + childhood. + </p> + <p> + He admired in all sincerity the red hands, and shy, bashful manner of some + young lady who at first struck him as an awkward simpleton, unattractive + to the last degree, and surprisingly ridiculous. His doom was sealed. He + had gone from the provinces to Paris; he had led the feverish life of + Paris; and now he would have sunk back into the lifeless life of the + provinces, but for a chance remark which reached his ear—a few words + that called up a swift rush of such emotion as he might have felt when a + strain of really good music mingles with the accompaniment of some tedious + opera. + </p> + <p> + “You went to call on Mme. de Beauseant yesterday, did you not?” The + speaker was an elderly lady, and she addressed the head of the local royal + family. + </p> + <p> + “I went this morning. She was so poorly and depressed, that I could not + persuade her to dine with us to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “With Mme. de Champignelles?” exclaimed the dowager with something like + astonishment in her manner. + </p> + <p> + “With my wife,” calmly assented the noble. “Mme. de Beauseant is descended + from the House of Burgundy, on the spindle side, ‘tis true, but the name + atones for everything. My wife is very much attached to the Vicomtesse, + and the poor lady has lived alone for such a long while, that——” + </p> + <p> + The Marquis de Champignelles looked round about him while he spoke with an + air of cool unconcern, so that it was almost impossible to guess whether + he made a concession to Mme. de Beauseant’s misfortunes, or paid homage to + her noble birth; whether he felt flattered to receive her in his house, + or, on the contrary, sheer pride was the motive that led him to try to + force the country families to meet the Vicomtesse. + </p> + <p> + The women appeared to take counsel of each other by a glance; there was a + sudden silence in the room, and it was felt that their attitude was one of + disapproval. + </p> + <p> + “Does this Mme. de Beauseant happen to be the lady whose adventure with M. + d’Ajuda-Pinto made so much noise?” asked Gaston of his neighbor. + </p> + <p> + “The very same,” he was told. “She came to Courcelles after the marriage + of the Marquis d’Ajuda; nobody visits her. She has, besides, too much + sense not to see that she is in a false position, so she has made no + attempt to see any one. M. de Champignelles and a few gentlemen went to + call upon her, but she would see no one but M. de Champignelles, perhaps + because he is a connection of the family. They are related through the + Beauseants; the father of the present Vicomte married a Mlle. de + Champignelles of the older branch. But though the Vicomtesse de Beauseant + is supposed to be a descendant of the House of Burgundy, you can + understand that we could not admit a wife separated from her husband into + our society here. We are foolish enough still to cling to these + old-fashioned ideas. There was the less excuse for the Vicomtesse, because + M. de Beauseant is a well-bred man of the world, who would have been quite + ready to listen to reason. But his wife is quite mad——” and so + forth and so forth. + </p> + <p> + M. de Nueil, still listening to the speaker’s voice, gathered nothing of + the sense of the words; his brain was too full of thick-coming fancies. + Fancies? What other name can you give to the alluring charms of an + adventure that tempts the imagination and sets vague hopes springing up in + the soul; to the sense of coming events and mysterious felicity and fear + at hand, while as yet there is no substance of fact on which these + phantoms of caprice can fix and feed? Over these fancies thought hovers, + conceiving impossible projects, giving in the germ all the joys of love. + Perhaps, indeed, all passion is contained in that thought-germ, as the + beauty, and fragrance, and rich color of the flower is all packed in the + seed. + </p> + <p> + M. de Nueil did not know that Mme. de Beauseant had taken refuge in + Normandy, after a notoriety which women for the most part envy and + condemn, especially when youth and beauty in some sort excuse the + transgression. Any sort of celebrity bestows an inconceivable prestige. + Apparently for women, as for families, the glory of the crime effaces the + stain; and if such and such a noble house is proud of its tale of heads + that have fallen on the scaffold, a young and pretty woman becomes more + interesting for the dubious renown of a happy love or a scandalous + desertion, and the more she is to be pitied, the more she excites our + sympathies. We are only pitiless to the commonplace. If, moreover, we + attract all eyes, we are to all intents and purposes great; how, indeed, + are we to be seen unless we raise ourselves above other people’s heads? + The common herd of humanity feels an involuntary respect for any person + who can rise above it, and is not over-particular as to the means by which + they rise. + </p> + <p> + It may have been that some such motives influenced Gaston de Nueil at + unawares, or perhaps it was curiosity, or a craving for some interest in + his life, or, in a word, that crowd of inexplicable impulses which, for + want of a better name, we are wont to call “fatality,” that drew him to + Mme. de Beauseant. + </p> + <p> + The figure of the Vicomtesse de Beauseant rose up suddenly before him with + gracious thronging associations. She was a new world for him, a world of + fears and hopes, a world to fight for and to conquer. Inevitably he felt + the contrast between this vision and the human beings in the shabby room; + and then, in truth, she was a woman; what woman had he seen so far in this + dull, little world, where calculation replaced thought and feeling, where + courtesy was a cut-and-dried formality, and ideas of the very simplest + were too alarming to be received or to pass current? The sound of Mme. de + Beauseant’s name revived a young man’s dreams and wakened urgent desires + that had lain dormant for a little. + </p> + <p> + Gaston de Nueil was absent-minded and preoccupied for the rest of the + evening. He was pondering how he might gain access to Mme. de Beauseant, + and truly it was no very easy matter. She was believed to be extremely + clever. But if men and women of parts may be captivated by something + subtle or eccentric, they are also exacting, and can read all that lies + below the surface; and after the first step has been taken, the chances of + failure and success in the difficult task of pleasing them are about even. + In this particular case, moreover, the Vicomtesse, besides the pride of + her position, had all the dignity of her name. Her utter seclusion was the + least of the barriers raised between her and the world. For which reasons + it was well-nigh impossible that a stranger, however well born, could hope + for admittance; and yet, the next morning found M. de Nueil taking his + walks abroad in the direction of Courcelles, a dupe of illusions natural + at his age. Several times he made the circuit of the garden walls, looking + earnestly through every gap at the closed shutters or open windows, hoping + for some romantic chance, on which he founded schemes for introducing + himself into this unknown lady’s presence, without a thought of their + impracticability. Morning after morning was spent in this way to mighty + purpose; but with each day’s walk, that vision of a woman living apart + from the world, of love’s martyr buried in solitude, loomed larger in his + thoughts, and was enshrined in his soul. So Gaston de Nueil walked under + the walls of Courcelles, and some gardener’s heavy footstep would set his + heart beating high with hope. + </p> + <p> + He thought of writing to Mme. de Beauseant, but on mature consideration, + what can you say to a woman whom you have never seen, a complete stranger? + And Gaston had little self-confidence. Like most young persons with a + plentiful crop of illusions still standing, he dreaded the mortifying + contempt of silence more than death itself, and shuddered at the thought + of sending his first tender epistle forth to face so many chances of being + thrown on the fire. He was distracted by innumerable conflicting ideas. + But by dint of inventing chimeras, weaving romances, and cudgeling his + brains, he hit at last upon one of the hopeful stratagems that are sure to + occur to your mind if you persevere long enough, a stratagem which must + make clear to the most inexperienced woman that here was a man who took a + fervent interest in her. The caprice of social conventions puts as many + barriers between lovers as any Oriental imagination can devise in the most + delightfully fantastic tale; indeed, the most extravagant pictures are + seldom exaggerations. In real life, as in the fairy tales, the woman + belongs to him who can reach her and set her free from the position in + which she languishes. The poorest of calenders that ever fell in love with + the daughter of the Khalif is in truth scarcely further from his lady than + Gaston de Nueil from Mme. de Beauseant. The Vicomtesse knew absolutely + nothing of M. de Nueil’s wanderings round her house; Gaston de Nueil’s + love grew to the height of the obstacles to overleap; and the distance set + between him and his extemporized lady-love produced the usual effect of + distance, in lending enchantment. + </p> + <p> + One day, confident in his inspiration, he hoped everything from the love + that must pour forth from his eyes. Spoken words, in his opinion, were + more eloquent than the most passionate letter; and, besides, he would + engage feminine curiosity to plead for him. He went, therefore, to M. de + Champignelles, proposing to employ that gentleman for the better success + of his enterprise. He informed the Marquis that he had been entrusted with + a delicate and important commission which concerned the Vicomtesse de + Beauseant, that he felt doubtful whether she would read a letter written + in an unknown handwriting, or put confidence in a stranger. Would M. de + Champignelles, on his next visit, ask the Vicomtesse if she would consent + to receive him—Gaston de Nueil? While he asked the Marquis to keep + his secret in case of a refusal, he very ingeniously insinuated sufficient + reasons for his own admittance, to be duly passed on to the Vicomtesse. + Was not M. de Champignelles a man of honor, a loyal gentleman incapable of + lending himself to any transaction in bad taste, nay, the merest suspicion + of bad taste! Love lends a young man all the self-possession and astute + craft of an old ambassador; all the Marquis’ harmless vanities were + gratified, and the haughty grandee was completely duped. He tried hard to + fathom Gaston’s secret; but the latter, who would have been greatly + perplexed to tell it, turned off M. de Champignelles’ adroit questioning + with a Norman’s shrewdness, till the Marquis, as a gallant Frenchman, + complimented his young visitor upon his discretion. + </p> + <p> + M. de Champignelles hurried off at once to Courcelles, with that eagerness + to serve a pretty woman which belongs to his time of life. In the + Vicomtesse de Beauseant’s position, such a message was likely to arouse + keen curiosity; so, although her memory supplied no reason at all that + could bring M. de Nueil to her house, she saw no objection to his visit—after + some prudent inquiries as to his family and condition. At the same time, + she began by a refusal. Then she discussed the propriety of the matter + with M. de Champignelles, directing her questions so as to discover, if + possible, whether he knew the motives for the visit, and finally revoked + her negative answer. The discussion and the discretion shown perforce by + the Marquis had piqued her curiosity. + </p> + <p> + M. de Champignelles had no mind to cut a ridiculous figure. He said, with + the air of a man who can keep another’s counsel, that the Vicomtesse must + know the purpose of this visit perfectly well; while the Vicomtesse, in + all sincerity, had no notion what it could be. Mme. de Beauseant, in + perplexity, connected Gaston with people whom he had never met, went + astray after various wild conjectures, and asked herself if she had seen + this M. de Nueil before. In truth, no love-letter, however sincere or + skilfully indited, could have produced so much effect as this riddle. + Again and again Mme. de Beauseant puzzled over it. + </p> + <p> + When Gaston heard that he might call upon the Vicomtesse, his rapture at + so soon obtaining the ardently longed-for good fortune was mingled with + singular embarrassment. How was he to contrive a suitable sequel to this + stratagem? + </p> + <p> + “Bah! I shall see <i>her</i>,” he said over and over again to himself as + he dressed. “See her, and that is everything!” + </p> + <p> + He fell to hoping that once across the threshold of Courcelles he should + find an expedient for unfastening this Gordian knot of his own tying. + There are believers in the omnipotence of necessity who never turn back; + the close presence of danger is an inspiration that calls out all their + powers for victory. Gaston de Nueil was one of these. + </p> + <p> + He took particular pains with his dress, imagining, as youth is apt to + imagine, that success or failure hangs on the position of a curl, and + ignorant of the fact that anything is charming in youth. And, in any case, + such women as Mme. de Beauseant are only attracted by the charms of wit or + character of an unusual order. Greatness of character flatters their + vanity, promises a great passion, seems to imply a comprehension of the + requirements of their hearts. Wit amuses them, responds to the subtlety of + their natures, and they think that they are understood. And what do all + women wish but to be amused, understood, or adored? It is only after much + reflection on the things of life that we understand the consummate + coquetry of neglect of dress and reserve at a first interview; and by the + time we have gained sufficient astuteness for successful strategy, we are + too old to profit by our experience. + </p> + <p> + While Gaston’s lack of confidence in his mental equipment drove him to + borrow charms from his clothes, Madame de Beauseant herself was + instinctively giving more attention to her toilette. + </p> + <p> + “I would rather not frighten people, at all events,” she said to herself + as she arranged her hair. + </p> + <p> + In M. de Nueil’s character, person, and manner there was that touch of + unconscious originality which gives a kind of flavor to things that any + one might say or do, and absolves everything that they may choose to do or + say. He was highly cultivated, he had a keen brain, and a face, mobile as + his own nature, which won the goodwill of others. The promise of passion + and tenderness in the bright eyes was fulfilled by an essentially kindly + heart. The resolution which he made as he entered the house at Courcelles + was in keeping with his frank nature and ardent imagination. But, bold has + he was with love, his heart beat violently when he had crossed the great + court, laid out like an English garden, and the man-servant, who had taken + his name to the Vicomtesse, returned to say that she would receive him. + </p> + <p> + “M. le Baron de Nueil.” + </p> + <p> + Gaston came in slowly, but with sufficient ease of manner; and it is a + more difficult thing, be it said, to enter a room where there is but one + woman, than a room that holds a score. + </p> + <p> + A great fire was burning on the hearth in spite of the mild weather, and + by the soft light of the candles in the sconces he saw a young woman + sitting on a high-backed <i>bergere</i> in the angle by the hearth. The + seat was so low that she could move her head freely; every turn of it was + full of grace and delicate charm, whether she bent, leaning forward, or + raised and held it erect, slowly and languidly, as though it were a heavy + burden, so low that she could cross her feet and let them appear, or draw + them back under the folds of a long black dress. + </p> + <p> + The Vicomtesse made as if she would lay the book that she was reading on a + small, round stand; but as she did so, she turned towards M. de Nueil, and + the volume, insecurely laid upon the edge, fell to the ground between the + stand and the sofa. This did not seem to disconcert her. She looked up, + bowing almost imperceptibly in response to his greeting, without rising + from the depths of the low chair in which she lay. Bending forwards, she + stirred the fire briskly, and stooped to pick up a fallen glove, drawing + it mechanically over her left hand, while her eyes wandered in search of + its fellow. The glance was instantly checked, however, for she stretched + out a thin, white, all-but-transparent right hand, with flawless ovals of + rose-colored nail at the tips of the slender, ringless fingers, and + pointed to a chair as if to bid Gaston be seated. He sat down, and she + turned her face questioningly towards him. Words cannot describe the + subtlety of the winning charm and inquiry in that gesture; deliberate in + its kindliness, gracious yet accurate in expression, it was the outcome of + early education and of a constant use and wont of the graciousness of + life. These movements of hers, so swift, so deft, succeeded each other by + the blending of a pretty woman’s fastidious carelessness with the + high-bred manner of a great lady. + </p> + <p> + Mme. de Beauseant stood out in such strong contrast against the automatons + among whom he had spent two months of exile in that out-of-the-world + district of Normandy, that he could not but find in her the realization of + his romantic dreams; and, on the other hand, he could not compare her + perfections with those of other women whom he had formerly admired. Here + in her presence, in a drawing-room like some salon in the Faubourg + Saint-Germain, full of costly trifles lying about upon the tables, and + flowers and books, he felt as if he were back in Paris. It was a real + Parisian carpet beneath his feet, he saw once more the high-bred type of + Parisienne, the fragile outlines of her form, her exquisite charm, her + disdain of the studied effects which did so much to spoil provincial + women. + </p> + <p> + Mme. de Beauseant had fair hair and dark eyes, and the pale complexion + that belongs to fair hair. She held up her brow nobly like some fallen + angel, grown proud through the fall, disdainful of pardon. Her way of + gathering her thick hair into a crown of plaits above the broad, curving + lines of the bandeaux upon her forehead, added to the queenliness of her + face. Imagination could discover the ducal coronet of Burgundy in the + spiral threads of her golden hair; all the courage of her house seemed to + gleam from the great lady’s brilliant eyes, such courage as women use to + repel audacity or scorn, for they were full of tenderness for gentleness. + The outline of that little head, so admirably poised above the long, white + throat, the delicate, fine features, the subtle curves of the lips, the + mobile face itself, wore an expression of delicate discretion, a faint + semblance of irony suggestive of craft and insolence. Yet it would have + been difficult to refuse forgiveness to those two feminine failings in + her; for the lines that came out in her forehead whenever her face was not + in repose, like her upward glances (that pathetic trick of manner), told + unmistakably of unhappiness, of a passion that had all but cost her her + life. A woman, sitting in the great, silent salon, a woman cut off from + the rest of the world in this remote little valley, alone, with the + memories of her brilliant, happy, and impassioned youth, of continual + gaiety and homage paid on all sides, now replaced by the horrors of the + void—was there not something in the sight to strike awe that + deepened with reflection? Consciousness of her own value lurked in her + smile. She was neither wife nor mother, she was an outlaw; she had lost + the one heart that could set her pulses beating without shame; she had + nothing from without to support her reeling soul; she must even look for + strength from within, live her own life, cherish no hope save that of + forsaken love, which looks forward to Death’s coming, and hastens his + lagging footsteps. And this while life was in its prime. Oh! to feel + destined for happiness and to die—never having given nor received + it! A woman too! What pain was this! These thoughts flashing across M. de + Nueil’s mind like lightning, left him very humble in the presence of the + greatest charm with which woman can be invested. The triple aureole of + beauty, nobleness, and misfortune dazzled him; he stood in dreamy, almost + open-mouthed admiration of the Vicomtesse. But he found nothing to say to + her. + </p> + <p> + Mme. de Beauseant, by no means displeased, no doubt, by his surprise, held + out her hand with a kindly but imperious gesture; then, summoning a smile + to her pale lips, as if obeying, even yet, the woman’s impulse to be + gracious: + </p> + <p> + “I have heard from M. de Champignelles of a message which you have kindly + undertaken to deliver, monsieur,” she said. “Can it be from——” + </p> + <p> + With that terrible phrase Gaston understood, even more clearly than + before, his own ridiculous position, the bad taste and bad faith of his + behavior towards a woman so noble and so unfortunate. He reddened. The + thoughts that crowded in upon him could be read in his troubled eyes; but + suddenly, with the courage which youth draws from a sense of its own + wrongdoing, he gained confidence, and very humbly interrupted Mme. de + Beauseant. + </p> + <p> + “Madame,” he faltered out, “I do not deserve the happiness of seeing you. + I have deceived you basely. However strong the motive may have been, it + can never excuse the pitiful subterfuge which I used to gain my end. But, + madame, if your goodness will permit me to tell you——” + </p> + <p> + The Vicomtesse glanced at M. de Nueil, haughty disdain in her whole + manner. She stretched her hand to the bell and rang it. + </p> + <p> + “Jacques,” she said, “light this gentleman to the door,” and she looked + with dignity at the visitor. + </p> + <p> + She rose proudly, bowed to Gaston, and then stooped for the fallen volume. + If all her movements on his entrance had been caressingly dainty and + gracious, her every gesture now was no less severely frigid. M. de Nueil + rose to his feet, but he stood waiting. Mme. de Beauseant flung another + glance at him. “Well, why do you not go?” she seemed to say. + </p> + <p> + There was such cutting irony in that glance that Gaston grew white as if + he were about to faint. Tears came into his eyes, but he would not let + them fall, and scorching shame and despair dried them. He looked back at + Madame de Beauseant, and a certain pride and consciousness of his own + worth was mingled with his humility; the Vicomtesse had a right to punish + him, but ought she to use her right? Then he went out. + </p> + <p> + As he crossed the ante-chamber, a clear head, and wits sharpened by + passion, were not slow to grasp the danger of his situation. + </p> + <p> + “If I leave this house, I can never come back to it again,” he said to + himself. “The Vicomtesse will always think of me as a fool. It is + impossible that a woman, and such a woman, should not guess the love that + she has called forth. Perhaps she feels a little, vague, involuntary + regret for dismissing me so abruptly.—But she could not do + otherwise, and she cannot recall her sentence. It rests with me to + understand her.” + </p> + <p> + At that thought Gaston stopped short on the flight of steps with an + exclamation; he turned sharply, saying, “I have forgotten something,” and + went back to the salon. The lackey, all respect for a baron and the rights + of property, was completely deceived by the natural utterance, and + followed him. Gaston returned quietly and unannounced. The Vicomtesse, + thinking that the intruder was the servant, looked up and beheld M. de + Nueil. + </p> + <p> + “Jacques lighted me to the door,” he said, with a half-sad smile which + dispelled any suspicion of jest in those words, while the tone in which + they were spoken went to the heart. Mme. de Beauseant was disarmed. + </p> + <p> + “Very well, take a seat,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Gaston eagerly took possession of a chair. His eyes were shining with + happiness; the Vicomtesse, unable to endure the brilliant light in them, + looked down at the book. She was enjoying a delicious, ever new sensation; + the sense of a man’s delight in her presence is an unfailing feminine + instinct. And then, besides, he had divined her, and a woman is so + grateful to the man who has mastered the apparently capricious, yet + logical, reasoning of her heart; who can track her thought through the + seemingly contradictory workings of her mind, and read the sensations, shy + or bold, written in fleeting red, a bewildering maze of coquetry and + self-revelation. + </p> + <p> + “Madame,” Gaston exclaimed in a low voice, “my blunder you know, but you + do not know how much I am to blame. If you only knew what joy it was to——” + </p> + <p> + “Ah! take care,” she said, holding up one finger with an air of mystery, + as she put out her hand towards the bell. + </p> + <p> + The charming gesture, the gracious threat, no doubt called up some sad + thought, some memory of the old happy time when she could be wholly + charming and gentle without an afterthought; when the gladness of her + heart justified every caprice, and put charm into every least movement. + The lines in her forehead gathered between her brows, and the expression + of her face grew dark in the soft candle-light. Then looking across at M. + de Nueil gravely but not unkindly, she spoke like a woman who deeply feels + the meaning of every word. + </p> + <p> + “This is all very ridiculous! Once upon a time, monsieur, when thoughtless + high spirits were my privilege, I should have laughed fearlessly over your + visit with you. But now my life is very much changed. I cannot do as I + like, I am obliged to think. What brings you here? Is it curiosity? In + that case I am paying dearly for a little fleeting pleasure. Have you + fallen <i>passionately</i> in love already with a woman whom you have + never seen, a woman with whose name slander has, of course, been busy? If + so, your motive in making this visit is based on disrespect, on an error + which accident brought into notoriety.” + </p> + <p> + She flung her book down scornfully upon the table, then, with a terrible + look at Gaston, she went on: “Because I once was weak, must it be supposed + that I am always weak? This is horrible, degrading. Or have you come here + to pity me? You are very young to offer sympathy with heart troubles. + Understand this clearly, sir, that I would rather have scorn than pity. I + will not endure compassion from any one.” + </p> + <p> + There was a brief pause. + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir,” she continued (and the face that she turned to him was gentle + and sad), “whatever motive induced this rash intrusion upon my solitude, + it is very painful to me, you see. You are too young to be totally without + good feeling, so surely you will feel that this behavior of yours is + improper. I forgive you for it, and, as you see, I am speaking of it to + you without bitterness. You will not come here again, will you? I am + entreating when I might command. If you come to see me again, neither you + nor I can prevent the whole place from believing that you are my lover, + and you would cause me great additional annoyance. You do not mean to do + that, I think.” + </p> + <p> + She said no more, but looked at him with a great dignity which abashed + him. + </p> + <p> + “I have done wrong, madame,” he said, with deep feeling in his voice, “but + it was through enthusiasm and thoughtlessness and eager desire of + happiness, the qualities and defects of my age. Now, I understand that I + ought not to have tried to see you,” he added; “but, at the same time, the + desire was a very natural one”—and, making an appeal to feeling + rather than to the intellect, he described the weariness of his enforced + exile. He drew a portrait of a young man in whom the fires of life were + burning themselves out, conveying the impression that here was a heart + worthy of tender love, a heart which, notwithstanding, had never known the + joys of love for a young and beautiful woman of refinement and taste. He + explained, without attempting to justify, his unusual conduct. He + flattered Mme. de Beauseant by showing that she had realized for him the + ideal lady of a young man’s dream, the ideal sought by so many, and so + often sought in vain. Then he touched upon his morning prowlings under the + walls of Courcelles, and his wild thoughts at the first sight of the + house, till he excited that vague feeling of indulgence which a woman can + find in her heart for the follies committed for her sake. + </p> + <p> + An impassioned voice was speaking in the chill solitude; the speaker + brought with him a warm breath of youth and the charms of a carefully + cultivated mind. It was so long since Mme. de Beauseant had felt stirred + by real feeling delicately expressed, that it affected her very strongly + now. In spite of herself, she watched M. de Nueil’s expressive face, and + admired the noble countenance of a soul, unbroken as yet by the cruel + discipline of the life of the world, unfretted by continual scheming to + gratify personal ambition and vanity. Gaston was in the flower of his + youth, he impressed her as a man with something in him, unaware as yet of + the great career that lay before him. So both these two made reflections + most dangerous for their peace of mind, and both strove to conceal their + thoughts. M. de Nueil saw in the Vicomtesse a rare type of woman, always + the victim of her perfections and tenderness; her graceful beauty is the + least of her charms for those who are privileged to know the infinite of + feeling and thought and goodness in the soul within; a woman whose + instinctive feeling for beauty runs through all the most varied + expressions of love, purifying its transports, turning them to something + almost holy; wonderful secret of womanhood, the exquisite gift that Nature + so seldom bestows. And the Vicomtesse, on her side, listening to the ring + of sincerity in Gaston’s voice, while he told of his youthful troubles, + began to understand all that grown children of five-and-twenty suffer from + diffidence, when hard work has kept them alike from corrupting influences + and intercourse with men and women of the world whose sophistical + reasoning and experience destroys the fair qualities of youth. Here was + the ideal of a woman’s dreams, a man unspoiled as yet by the egoism of + family or success, or by that narrow selfishness which blights the first + impulses of honor, devotion, self-sacrifice, and high demands of self; all + the flowers so soon wither that enrich at first the life of delicate but + strong emotions, and keep alive the loyalty of the heart. + </p> + <p> + But these two, once launched forth into the vast of sentiment, went far + indeed in theory, sounding the depths in either soul, testing the + sincerity of their expressions; only, whereas Gaston’s experiments were + made unconsciously, Mme. de Beauseant had a purpose in all that she said. + Bringing her natural and acquired subtlety to the work, she sought to + learn M. de Nueil’s opinions by advancing, as far as she could do so, + views diametrically opposed to her own. So witty and so gracious was she, + so much herself with this stranger, with whom she felt completely at ease, + because she felt sure that they should never meet again, that, after some + delicious epigram of hers, Gaston exclaimed unthinkingly: + </p> + <p> + “Oh! madame, how could any man have left you?” + </p> + <p> + The Vicomtesse was silent. Gaston reddened, he thought that he had + offended her; but she was not angry. The first deep thrill of delight + since the day of her calamity had taken her by surprise. The skill of the + cleverest <i>roue</i> could not have made the impression that M. de Nueil + made with that cry from the heart. That verdict wrung from a young man’s + candor gave her back innocence in her own eyes, condemned the world, laid + the blame upon the lover who had left her, and justified her subsequent + solitary drooping life. The world’s absolution, the heartfelt sympathy, + the social esteem so longed for, and so harshly refused, nay, all her + secret desires were given her to the full in that exclamation, made fairer + yet by the heart’s sweetest flatteries and the admiration that women + always relish eagerly. He understood her, understood all, and he had given + her, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the opportunity of + rising higher through her fall. She looked at the clock. + </p> + <p> + “Ah! madame, do not punish me for my heedlessness. If you grant me but one + evening, vouchsafe not to shorten it.” + </p> + <p> + She smiled at the pretty speech. + </p> + <p> + “Well, as we must never meet again,” she said, “what signifies a moment + more or less? If you were to care for me, it would be a pity.” + </p> + <p> + “It is too late now,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Do not tell me that,” she answered gravely. “Under any other + circumstances I should be very glad to see you. I will speak frankly, and + you will understand how it is that I do not choose to see you again, and + ought not to do so. You have too much magnanimity not to feel that if I + were so much as suspected of a second trespass, every one would think of + me as a contemptible and vulgar woman; I should be like other women. A + pure and blameless life will bring my character into relief. I am too + proud not to endeavor to live like one apart in the world, a victim of the + law through my marriage, man’s victim through my love. If I were not + faithful to the position which I have taken up, then I should deserve all + the reproach that is heaped upon me; I should be lowered in my own eyes. I + had not enough lofty social virtue to remain with a man whom I did not + love. I have snapped the bonds of marriage in spite of the law; it was + wrong, it was a crime, it was anything you like, but for me the bonds + meant death. I meant to live. Perhaps if I had been a mother I could have + endured the torture of a forced marriage of suitability. At eighteen we + scarcely know what is done with us, poor girls that we are! I have broken + the laws of the world, and the world has punished me; we both did rightly. + I sought happiness. Is it not a law of our nature to seek for happiness? I + was young, I was beautiful... I thought that I had found a nature as + loving, as apparently passionate. I was loved indeed; for a little + while...” + </p> + <p> + She paused. + </p> + <p> + “I used to think,” she said, “that no one could leave a woman in such a + position as mine. I have been forsaken; I must have offended in some way. + Yes, in some way, no doubt, I failed to keep some law of our nature, was + too loving, too devoted, too exacting—I do not know. Evil days have + brought light with them! For a long while I blamed another, now I am + content to bear the whole blame. At my own expense, I have absolved that + other of whom I once thought I had a right to complain. I had not the art + to keep him; fate has punished me heavily for my lack of skill. I only + knew how to love; how can one keep oneself in mind when one loves? So I + was a slave when I should have sought to be a tyrant. Those who know me + may condemn me, but they will respect me too. Pain has taught me that I + must not lay myself open to this a second time. I cannot understand how it + is that I am living yet, after the anguish of that first week of the most + fearful crisis in a woman’s life. Only from three years of loneliness + would it be possible to draw strength to speak of that time as I am + speaking now. Such agony, monsieur, usually ends in death; but this—well, + it was the agony of death with no tomb to end it. Oh! I have known pain + indeed!” + </p> + <p> + The Vicomtesse raised her beautiful eyes to the ceiling; and the cornice, + no doubt, received all the confidences which a stranger might not hear. + When a woman is afraid to look at her interlocutor, there is in truth no + gentler, meeker, more accommodating confidant than the cornice. The + cornice is quite an institution in the boudoir; what is it but the + confessional, <i>minus</i> the priest? + </p> + <p> + Mme. de Beauseant was eloquent and beautiful at that moment; nay, + “coquettish,” if the word were not too heavy. By justifying herself and + love, she was stimulating every sentiment in the man before her; nay, + more, the higher she set the goal, the more conspicuous it grew. At last, + when her eyes had lost the too eloquent expression given to them by + painful memories, she let them fall on Gaston. + </p> + <p> + “You acknowledge, do you not, that I am bound to lead a solitary, + self-contained life?” she said quietly. + </p> + <p> + So sublime was she in her reasoning and her madness, that M. de Nueil felt + a wild longing to throw himself at her feet; but he was afraid of making + himself ridiculous, so he held his enthusiasm and his thoughts in check. + He was afraid, too, that he might totally fail to express them, and in no + less terror of some awful rejection on her part, or of her mockery, an + apprehension which strikes like ice to the most fervid soul. The revulsion + which led him to crush down every feeling as it sprang up in his heart + cost him the intense pain that diffident and ambitious natures experience + in the frequent crises when they are compelled to stifle their longings. + And yet, in spite of himself, he broke the silence to say in a faltering + voice: + </p> + <p> + “Madame, permit me to give way to one of the strongest emotions of my + life, and own to all that you have made me feel. You set the heart in me + swelling high! I feel within me a longing to make you forget your + mortifications, to devote my life to this, to give you love for all who + ever have given you wounds or hate. But this is a very sudden outpouring + of the heart, nothing can justify it to-day, and I ought not——” + </p> + <p> + “Enough, monsieur,” said Mme. de Beauseant; “we have both of us gone too + far. By giving you the sad reasons for a refusal which I am compelled to + give, I meant to soften it and not to elicit homage. Coquetry only suits a + happy woman. Believe me, we must remain strangers to each other. At a + later day you will know that ties which must inevitably be broken ought + not to be formed at all.” + </p> + <p> + She sighed lightly, and her brows contracted, but almost immediately grew + clear again. + </p> + <p> + “How painful it is for a woman to be powerless to follow the man she loves + through all the phases of his life! And if that man loves her truly, his + heart must surely vibrate with pain to the deep trouble in hers. Are they + not twice unhappy?” + </p> + <p> + There was a short pause. Then she rose smiling. + </p> + <p> + “You little suspected, when you came to Courcelles, that you were to hear + a sermon, did you?” + </p> + <p> + Gaston felt even further than at first from this extraordinary woman. Was + the charm of that delightful hour due after all to the coquetry of the + mistress of the house? She had been anxious to display her wit. He bowed + stiffly to the Vicomtesse, and went away in desperation. + </p> + <p> + On the way home he tried to detect the real character of a creature supple + and hard as a steel spring; but he had seen her pass through so many + phases, that he could not make up his mind about her. The tones of her + voice, too, were ringing in his ears; her gestures, the little movements + of her head, and the varying expression of her eyes grew more gracious in + memory, more fascinating as he thought of them. The Vicomtesse’s beauty + shone out again for him in the darkness; his reviving impressions called + up yet others, and he was enthralled anew by womanly charm and wit, which + at first he had not perceived. He fell to wandering musings, in which the + most lucid thoughts grow refractory and flatly contradict each other, and + the soul passes through a brief frenzy fit. Youth only can understand all + that lies in the dithyrambic outpourings of youth when, after a stormy + siege, of the most frantic folly and coolest common-sense, the heart + finally yields to the assault of the latest comer, be it hope, or despair, + as some mysterious power determines. + </p> + <p> + At three-and-twenty, diffidence nearly always rules a man’s conduct; he is + perplexed with a young girl’s shyness, a girl’s trouble; he is afraid lest + he should express his love ill, sees nothing but difficulties, and takes + alarm at them; he would be bolder if he loved less, for he has no + confidence in himself, and with a growing sense of the cost of happiness + comes a conviction that the woman he loves cannot easily be won; perhaps, + too, he is giving himself up too entirely to his own pleasure, and fears + that he can give none; and when, for his misfortune, his idol inspires him + with awe, he worships in secret and afar, and unless his love is guessed, + it dies away. Then it often happens that one of these dead early loves + lingers on, bright with illusions in many a young heart. What man is there + but keeps within him these virgin memories that grow fairer every time + they rise before him, memories that hold up to him the ideal of perfect + bliss? Such recollections are like children who die in the flower of + childhood, before their parents have known anything of them but their + smiles. + </p> + <p> + So M. de Nueil came home from Courcelles, the victim of a mood fraught + with desperate resolutions. Even now he felt that Mme. de Beauseant was + one of the conditions of his existence, and that death would be preferable + to life without her. He was still young enough to feel the tyrannous + fascination which fully-developed womanhood exerts over immature and + impassioned natures; and, consequently, he was to spend one of those + stormy nights when a young man’s thoughts travel from happiness to suicide + and back again—nights in which youth rushes through a lifetime of + bliss and falls asleep from sheer exhaustion. Fateful nights are they, and + the worst misfortune that can happen is to awake a philosopher afterwards. + M. de Nueil was far too deeply in love to sleep; he rose and betook to + inditing letters, but none of them were satisfactory, and he burned them + all. + </p> + <p> + The next day he went to Courcelles to make the circuit of her garden + walls, but he waited till nightfall; he was afraid that she might see him. + The instinct that led him to act in this way arose out of so obscure a + mood of the soul, that none but a young man, or a man in like case, can + fully understand its mute ecstasies and its vagaries, matter to set those + people who are lucky enough to see life only in its matter-of-fact aspect + shrugging their shoulders. After painful hesitation, Gaston wrote to Mme. + de Beauseant. Here is the letter, which may serve as a sample of the + epistolary style peculiar to lovers, a performance which, like the + drawings prepared with great secrecy by children for the birthdays of + father or mother, is found insufferable by every mortal except the + recipients:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “MADAME,—Your power over my heart, my soul, myself, is so great + that my fate depends wholly upon you to-day. Do not throw this + letter into the fire; be so kind as to read it through. Perhaps + you may pardon the opening sentence when you see that it is no + commonplace, selfish declaration, but that it expresses a simple + fact. Perhaps you may feel moved, because I ask for so little, by + the submission of one who feels himself so much beneath you, by + the influence that your decision will exercise upon my life. At my + age, madame, I only know how to love, I am utterly ignorant of + ways of attracting and winning a woman’s love, but in my own heart + I know raptures of adoration of her. I am irresistibly drawn to + you by the great happiness that I feel through you; my thoughts + turn to you with the selfish instinct which bids us draw nearer to + the fire of life when we find it. I do not imagine that I am + worthy of you; it seems impossible that I, young, ignorant, and + shy, could bring you one-thousandth part of the happiness that I + drink in at the sound of your voice and the sight of you. For me + you are the only woman in the world. I cannot imagine life without + you, so I have made up my mind to leave France, and to risk my + life till I lose it in some desperate enterprise, in the Indies, + in Africa, I care not where. How can I quell a love that knows no + limits save by opposing to it something as infinite? Yet, if you + will allow me to hope, not to be yours, but to win your + friendship, I will stay. Let me come, not so very often, if you + require it, to spend a few such hours with you as those stolen + hours of yesterday. The keen delight of that brief happiness to be + cut short at the least over-ardent word from me, will suffice to + enable me to endure the boiling torrent in my veins. Have I + presumed too much upon your generosity by this entreaty to suffer + an intercourse in which all the gain is mine alone? You could find + ways of showing the world, to which you sacrifice so much, that I + am nothing to you; you are so clever and so proud! What have you + to fear? If I could only lay bare my heart to you at this moment, + to convince you that it is with no lurking afterthought that I + make this humble request! Should I have told you that my love was + boundless, while I prayed you to grant me friendship, if I had any + hope of your sharing this feeling in the depths of my soul? No, + while I am with you, I will be whatever you will, if only I may be + with you. If you refuse (as you have the power to refuse), I will + not utter one murmur, I will go. And if, at a later day, any other + woman should enter into my life, you will have proof that you were + right; but if I am faithful till death, you may feel some regret + perhaps. The hope of causing you a regret will soothe my agony, + and that thought shall be the sole revenge of a slighted + heart....” + </pre> + <p> + Only those who have passed through all the exceeding tribulations of + youth, who have seized on all the chimeras with two white pinions, the + nightmare fancies at the disposal of a fervid imagination, can realize the + horrors that seized upon Gaston de Nueil when he had reason to suppose + that his ultimatum was in Mme. de Beauseant’s hands. He saw the + Vicomtesse, wholly untouched, laughing at his letter and his love, as + those can laugh who have ceased to believe in love. He could have wished + to have his letter back again. It was an absurd letter. There were a + thousand and one things, now that he came to think of it, that he might + have said, things infinitely better and more moving than those stilted + phrases of his, those accursed, sophisticated, pretentious, fine-spun + phrases, though, luckily, the punctuation had been pretty bad and the + lines shockingly crooked. He tried not to think, not to feel; but he felt + and thought, and was wretched. If he had been thirty years old, he might + have got drunk, but the innocence of three-and-twenty knew nothing of the + resources of opium nor of the expedients of advanced civilization. Nor had + he at hand one of those good friends of the Parisian pattern who + understand so well how to say <i>Poete, non dolet!</i> by producing a + bottle of champagne, or alleviate the agony of suspense by carrying you + off somewhere to make a night of it. Capital fellows are they, always in + low water when you are in funds, always off to some watering-place when + you go to look them up, always with some bad bargain in horse-flesh to + sell you; it is true, that when you want to borrow of them, they have + always just lost their last louis at play; but in all other respects they + are the best fellows on earth, always ready to embark with you on one of + the steep down-grades where you lose your time, your soul, and your life! + </p> + <p> + At length M. de Nueil received a missive through the instrumentality of + Jacques, a letter that bore the arms of Burgundy on the scented seal, a + letter written on vellum notepaper. + </p> + <p> + He rushed away at once to lock himself in, and read and re-read <i>her</i> + letter:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “You are punishing me very severely, monsieur, both for the + friendliness of my effort to spare you a rebuff, and for the + attraction which intellect always has for me. I put confidence in + the generosity of youth, and you have disappointed me. And yet, if + I did not speak unreservedly (which would have been perfectly + ridiculous), at any rate I spoke frankly of my position, so that + you might imagine that I was not to be touched by a young soul. My + distress is the keener for my interest in you. I am naturally + tender-hearted and kindly, but circumstances force me to act + unkindly. Another woman would have flung your letter, unread, into + the fire; I read it, and I am answering it. My answer will make it + clear to you that while I am not untouched by the expression of + this feeling which I have inspired, albeit unconsciously, I am + still far from sharing it, and the step which I am about to take + will show you still more plainly that I mean what I say. I wish + besides, to use, for your welfare, that authority, as it were, + which you give me over your life; and I desire to exercise it this + once to draw aside the veil from your eyes. + + “I am nearly thirty years old, monsieur; you are barely + two-and-twenty. You yourself cannot know what your thoughts will + be at my age. The vows that you make so lightly to-day may seem a + very heavy burden to you then. I am quite willing to believe that + at this moment you would give me your whole life without a regret, + you would even be ready to die for a little brief happiness; but + at the age of thirty experience will take from you the very power + of making daily sacrifices for my sake, and I myself should feel + deeply humiliated if I accepted them. A day would come when + everything, even Nature, would bid you leave me, and I have + already told you that death is preferable to desertion. Misfortune + has taught me to calculate; as you see, I am arguing perfectly + dispassionately. You force me to tell you that I have no love for + you; I ought not to love, I cannot, and I will not. It is too late + to yield, as women yield, to a blind unreasoning impulse of the + heart, too late to be the mistress whom you seek. My consolations + spring from God, not from earth. Ah, and besides, with the + melancholy insight of disappointed love, I read hearts too clearly + to accept your proffered friendship. It is only instinct. I + forgive the boyish ruse, for which you are not responsible as yet. + In the name of this passing fancy of yours, for the sake of your + career and my own peace of mind, I bid you stay in your own + country; you must not spoil a fair and honorable life for an + illusion which, by its very nature, cannot last. At a later day, + when you have accomplished your real destiny, in the fully + developed manhood that awaits you, you will appreciate this answer + of mine, though to-day it may be that you blame its hardness. You + will turn with pleasure to an old woman whose friendship will + certainly be sweet and precious to you then; a friendship untried + by the extremes of passion and the disenchanting processes of + life; a friendship which noble thoughts and thoughts of religion + will keep pure and sacred. Farewell; do my bidding with the + thought that your success will bring a gleam of pleasure into my + solitude, and only think of me as we think of absent friends.” + </pre> + <p> + Gaston de Nueil read the letter, and wrote the following lines:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “MADAME,—If I could cease to love you, to take the chances of + becoming an ordinary man which you hold out to me, you must admit + that I should thoroughly deserve my fate. No, I shall not do as + you bid me; the oath of fidelity which I swear to you shall only + be absolved by death. Ah! take my life, unless indeed you do not + fear to carry a remorse all through your own——” + </pre> + <p> + When the man returned from his errand, M. de Nueil asked him with whom he + left the note? + </p> + <p> + “I gave it to Mme. la Vicomtesse herself, sir; she was in her carriage and + just about to start.” + </p> + <p> + “For the town?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think so, sir. Mme. la Vicomtesse had post-horses.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah! then she is going away,” said the Baron. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir,” the man answered. + </p> + <p> + Gaston de Nueil at once prepared to follow Mme. de Beauseant. She led the + way as far as Geneva, without a suspicion that he followed. And he? Amid + the many thoughts that assailed him during that journey, one all-absorbing + problem filled his mind—“Why did she go away?” Theories grew thickly + on such ground for supposition, and naturally he inclined to the one that + flattered his hopes—“If the Vicomtesse cares for me, a clever woman + would, of course, choose Switzerland, where nobody knows either of us, in + preference to France, where she would find censorious critics.” + </p> + <p> + An impassioned lover of a certain stamp would not feel attracted to a + woman clever enough to choose her own ground; such women are too clever. + However, there is nothing to prove that there was any truth in Gaston’s + supposition. + </p> + <p> + The Vicomtesse took a small house by the side of the lake. As soon as she + was installed in it, Gaston came one summer evening in the twilight. + Jacques, that flunkey in grain, showed no sign of surprise, and announced + <i>M. le Baron de Nueil</i> like a discreet domestic well acquainted with + good society. At the sound of the name, at the sight of its owner, Mme. de + Beauseant let her book fall from her hands; her surprise gave him time to + come close to her, and to say in tones that sounded like music in her + ears: + </p> + <p> + “What a joy it was to me to take the horses that brought you on this + journey!” + </p> + <p> + To have the inmost desires of the heart so fulfilled! Where is the woman + who could resist such happiness as this? An Italian woman, one of those + divine creatures who, psychologically, are as far removed from the + Parisian as if they lived at the Antipodes, a being who would be regarded + as profoundly immoral on this side of the Alps, an Italian (to resume) + made the following comment on some French novels which she had been + reading. “I cannot see,” she remarked, “why these poor lovers take such a + time over coming to an arrangement which ought to be the affair of a + single morning.” Why should not the novelist take a hint from this worthy + lady, and refrain from exhausting the theme and the reader? Some few + passages of coquetry it would certainly be pleasant to give in outline; + the story of Mme. de Beauseant’s demurs and sweet delayings, that, like + the vestal virgins of antiquity, she might fall gracefully, and by + lingering over the innocent raptures of first love draw from it its utmost + strength and sweetness. M. de Nueil was at an age when a man is the dupe + of these caprices, of the fence which women delight to prolong; either to + dictate their own terms, or to enjoy the sense of their power yet longer, + knowing instinctively as they do that it must soon grow less. But, after + all, these little boudoir protocols, less numerous than those of the + Congress of London, are too small to be worth mention in the history of + this passion. + </p> + <p> + For three years Mme. de Beauseant and M. de Nueil lived in the villa on + the lake of Geneva. They lived quite alone, received no visitors, caused + no talk, rose late, went out together upon the lake, knew, in short, the + happiness of which we all of us dream. It was a simple little house, with + green shutters, and broad balconies shaded with awnings, a house contrived + of set purpose for lovers, with its white couches, soundless carpets, and + fresh hangings, everything within it reflecting their joy. Every window + looked out on some new view of the lake; in the far distance lay the + mountains, fantastic visions of changing color and evanescent cloud; above + them spread the sunny sky, before them stretched the broad sheet of water, + never the same in its fitful changes. All their surroundings seemed to + dream for them, all things smiled upon them. + </p> + <p> + Then weighty matters recalled M. de Nueil to France. His father and + brother died, and he was obliged to leave Geneva. The lovers bought the + house; and if they could have had their way, they would have removed the + hills piecemeal, drawn off the lake with a siphon, and taken everything + away with them. + </p> + <p> + Mme. de Beauseant followed M. de Nueil. She realized her property, and + bought a considerable estate near Manerville, adjoining Gaston’s lands, + and here they lived together; Gaston very graciously giving up Manerville + to his mother for the present in consideration of the bachelor freedom in + which she left him. + </p> + <p> + Mme. de Beauseant’s estate was close to a little town in one of the most + picturesque spots in the valley of the Auge. Here the lovers raised + barriers between themselves and social intercourse, barriers which no + creature could overleap, and here the happy days of Switzerland were lived + over again. For nine whole years they knew happiness which it serves no + purpose to describe; happiness which may be divined from the outcome of + the story by those whose souls can comprehend poetry and prayer in their + infinite manifestations. + </p> + <p> + All this time Mme. de Beauseant’s husband, the present Marquis (his father + and elder brother having died), enjoyed the soundest health. There is no + better aid to life than a certain knowledge that our demise would confer a + benefit on some fellow-creature. M. de Beauseant was one of those ironical + and wayward beings who, like holders of life-annuities, wake with an + additional sense of relish every morning to a consciousness of good + health. For the rest, he was a man of the world, somewhat methodical and + ceremonious, and a calculator of consequences, who could make a + declaration of love as quietly as a lackey announces that “Madame is + served.” + </p> + <p> + This brief biographical notice of his lordship the Marquis de Beauseant is + given to explain the reasons why it was impossible for the Marquise to + marry M. de Nueil. + </p> + <p> + So, after a nine years’ lease of happiness, the sweetest agreement to + which a woman ever put her hand, M. de Nueil and Mme. de Beauseant were + still in a position quite as natural and quite as false as at the + beginning of their adventure. And yet they had reached a fatal crisis, + which may be stated as clearly as any problem in mathematics. + </p> + <p> + Mme. la Comtesse de Nueil, Gaston’s mother, a strait-laced and virtuous + person, who had made the late Baron happy in strictly legal fashion would + never consent to meet Mme. de Beauseant. Mme. de Beauseant quite + understood that the worthy dowager must of necessity be her enemy, and + that she would try to draw Gaston from his unhallowed and immoral way of + life. The Marquise de Beauseant would willingly have sold her property and + gone back to Geneva, but she could not bring herself to do it; it would + mean that she distrusted M. de Nueil. Moreover, he had taken a great fancy + to this very Valleroy estate, where he was making plantations and + improvements. She would not deprive him of a piece of pleasurable + routine-work, such as women always wish for their husbands, and even for + their lovers. + </p> + <p> + A Mlle. de la Rodiere, twenty-two years of age, an heiress with a + rent-roll of forty thousand livres, had come to live in the neighborhood. + Gaston always met her at Manerville whenever he was obliged to go thither. + These various personages being to each other as the terms of a proportion + sum, the following letter will throw light on the appalling problem which + Mme. de Beauseant had been trying for the past month to solve:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “My beloved angel, it seems like nonsense, does it not, to write + to you when there is nothing to keep us apart, when a caress so + often takes the place of words, and words too are caresses? Ah, + well, no, love. There are some things that a woman cannot say when + she is face to face with the man she loves; at the bare thought of + them her voice fails her, and the blood goes back to her heart; + she has no strength, no intelligence left. It hurts me to feel + like this when you are near me, and it happens often. I feel that + my heart should be wholly sincere for you; that I should disguise + no thought, however transient, in my heart; and I love the sweet + carelessness, which suits me so well, too much to endure this + embarrassment and constraint any longer. So I will tell you about + my anguish—yes, it is anguish. Listen to me! do not begin with + the little ‘Tut, tut, tut,’ that you use to silence me, an + impertinence that I love, because anything from you pleases me. + Dear soul from heaven, wedded to mine, let me first tell you that + you have effaced all memory of the pain that once was crushing the + life out of me. I did not know what love was before I knew you. + Only the candor of your beautiful young life, only the purity of + that great soul of yours, could satisfy the requirements of an + exacting woman’s heart. Dear love, how very often I have thrilled + with joy to think that in these nine long, swift years, my + jealousy has not been once awakened. All the flowers of your soul + have been mine, all your thoughts. There has not been the faintest + cloud in our heaven; we have not known what sacrifice is; we have + always acted on the impulses of our hearts. I have known + happiness, infinite for a woman. Will the tears that drench this + sheet tell you all my gratitude? I could wish that I had knelt to + write the words!—Well, out of this felicity has arisen torture + more terrible than the pain of desertion. Dear, there are very + deep recesses in a woman’s heart; how deep in my own heart, I did + not know myself until to-day, as I did not know the whole extent + of love. The greatest misery which could overwhelm us is a light + burden compared with the mere thought of harm for him whom we + love. And how if we cause the harm, is it not enough to make one + die?... This is the thought that is weighing upon me. But + it brings in its train another thought that is heavier far, a + thought that tarnishes the glory of love, and slays it, and turns + it into a humiliation which sullies life as long as it lasts. You + are thirty years old; I am forty. What dread this difference in + age calls up in a woman who loves! It is possible that, first of + all unconsciously, afterwards in earnest, you have felt the + sacrifices that you have made by renouncing all in the world for + me. Perhaps you have thought of your future from the social point + of view, of the marriage which would, of course, increase your + fortune, and give you avowed happiness and children who would + inherit your wealth; perhaps you have thought of reappearing in + the world, and filling your place there honorably. And then, if + so, you must have repressed those thoughts, and felt glad to + sacrifice heiress and fortune and a fair future to me without my + knowledge. In your young man’s generosity, you must have resolved + to be faithful to the vows which bind us each to each in the sight + of God. My past pain has risen up before your mind, and the misery + from which you rescued me has been my protection. To owe your love + to your pity! The thought is even more painful to me than the fear + of spoiling your life for you. The man who can bring himself to + stab his mistress is very charitable if he gives her her deathblow + while she is happy and ignorant of evil, while illusions are in + full blossom.... Yes, death is preferable to the two thoughts + which have secretly saddened the hours for several days. To-day, + when you asked ‘What ails you?’ so tenderly, the sound of your + voice made me shiver. I thought that, after your wont, you were + reading my very soul, and I waited for your confidence to come, + thinking that my presentiments had come true, and that I had + guessed all that was going on in your mind. Then I began to think + over certain little things that you always do for me, and I + thought I could see in you the sort of affection by which a man + betrays a consciousness that his loyalty is becoming a burden. And + in that moment I paid very dear for my happiness. I felt that + Nature always demands the price for the treasure called love. + Briefly, has not fate separated us? Can you have said, ‘Sooner or + later I must leave poor Claire; why not separate in time?’ I read + that thought in the depths of your eyes, and went away to cry by + myself. Hiding my tears from you! the first tears that I have shed + for sorrow for these ten years; I am too proud to let you see + them, but I did not reproach you in the least. + + “Yes, you are right. I ought not to be so selfish as to bind your + long and brilliant career to my so-soon out-worn life.... And + yet—how if I have been mistaken? How if I have taken your love + melancholy for a deliberation? Oh, my love, do not leave me in + suspense; punish this jealous wife of yours, but give her back the + sense of her love and yours; the whole woman lies in that—that + consciousness sanctifies everything. + + “Since your mother came, since you paid a visit to Mlle. de + Rodiere, I have been gnawed by doubts dishonoring to us both. Make + me suffer for this, but do not deceive me; I want to know + everything that your mother said and that you think! If you have + hesitated between some alternative and me, I give you back your + liberty.... I will not let you know what happens to me; I will + not shed tears for you to see; only—I will not see you again.... + Ah! I cannot go on, my heart is breaking.................. + I have been sitting benumbed and stupid for some moments. Dear love, + I do not find that any feeling of pride rises against you; you are so + kind-hearted, so open; you would find it impossible to hurt me or + to deceive me; and you will tell me the truth, however cruel it may + be. Do you wish me to encourage your confession? Well, then, heart + of mine, I shall find comfort in a woman’s thought. Has not the + youth of your being been mine, your sensitive, wholly gracious, + beautiful, and delicate youth? No woman shall find henceforth the + Gaston whom I have known, nor the delicious happiness that he has + given me.... No; you will never love again as you have loved, + as you love me now; no, I shall never have a rival, it is + impossible. There will be no bitterness in my memories of our + love, and I shall think of nothing else. It is out of your power + to enchant any woman henceforth by the childish provocations, the + charming ways of a young heart, the soul’s winning charm, the + body’s grace, the swift communion of rapture, the whole divine + cortege of young love, in fine. + + “Oh, you are a man now, you will obey your destiny, weighing and + considering all things. You will have cares, and anxieties, and + ambitions, and concerns that will rob <i>her</i> of the unchanging + smile that made your lips fair for me. The tones that were always + so sweet for me will be troubled at times; and your eyes that + lighted up with radiance from heaven at the sight of me, will + often be lustreless for <i>her</i>. And besides, as it is impossible to + love you as I love you, you will never care for that woman as you + have cared for me. She will never keep a constant watch over + herself as I have done; she will never study your happiness at + every moment with an intuition which has never failed me. Ah, yes, + the man, the heart and soul, which I shall have known will exist + no longer. I shall bury him deep in my memory, that I may have the + joy of him still; I shall live happy in that fair past life of + ours, a life hidden from all but our inmost selves. + + “Dear treasure of mine, if all the while no least thought of + liberty has risen in your mind, if my love is no burden on you, if + my fears are chimerical, if I am still your Eve—the one woman in + the world for you—come to me as soon as you have read this + letter, come quickly! Ah, in one moment I will love you more than + I have ever loved you, I think, in these nine years. After + enduring the needless torture of these doubts of which I am + accusing myself, every added day of love, yes, every single day, + will be a whole lifetime of bliss. So speak, and speak openly; do + not deceive me, it would be a crime. Tell me, do you wish for your + liberty? Have you thought of all that a man’s life means? Is there + any regret in your mind? That <i>I</i> should cause you a regret! I + should die of it. I have said it: I love you enough to set your + happiness above mine, your life before my own. Leave on one side, + if you can, the wealth of memories of our nine years’ happiness, + that they may not influence your decision, but speak! I submit + myself to you as to God, the one Consoler who remains if you + forsake me.” + </pre> + <p> + When Mme. de Beauseant knew that her letter was in M. de Nueil’s hands, + she sank in such utter prostration, the over-pressure of many thoughts so + numbed her faculties, that she seemed almost drowsy. At any rate, she was + suffering from a pain not always proportioned in its intensity to a + woman’s strength; pain which women alone know. And while the unhappy + Marquise awaited her doom, M. de Nueil, reading her letter, felt that he + was “in a very difficult position,” to use the expression that young men + apply to a crisis of this kind. + </p> + <p> + By this time he had all but yielded to his mother’s importunities and to + the attractions of Mlle. de la Rodiere, a somewhat insignificant, + pink-and-white young person, as straight as a poplar. It is true that, in + accordance with the rules laid down for marriageable young ladies, she + scarcely opened her mouth, but her rent-roll of forty thousand livres + spoke quite sufficiently for her. Mme. de Nueil, with a mother’s sincere + affection, tried to entangle her son in virtuous courses. She called his + attention to the fact that it was a flattering distinction to be preferred + by Mlle. de la Rodiere, who had refused so many great matches; it was + quite time, she urged, that he should think of his future, such a good + opportunity might not repeat itself, some day he would have eighty + thousand livres of income from land; money made everything bearable; if + Mme. de Beauseant loved him for his own sake, she ought to be the first to + urge him to marry. In short, the well-intentioned mother forgot no + arguments which the feminine intellect can bring to bear upon the + masculine mind, and by these means she had brought her son into a wavering + condition. + </p> + <p> + Mme. de Beauseant’s letter arrived just as Gaston’s love of her was + holding out against the temptations of a settled life conformable to + received ideas. That letter decided the day. He made up his mind to break + off with the Marquise and to marry. + </p> + <p> + “One must live a man’s life,” said he to himself. + </p> + <p> + Then followed some inkling of the pain that this decision would give to + Mme. de Beauseant. The man’s vanity and the lover’s conscience further + exaggerated this pain, and a sincere pity for her seized upon him. All at + once the immensity of the misery became apparent to him, and he thought it + necessary and charitable to deaden the deadly blow. He hoped to bring Mme. + de Beauseant to a calm frame of mind by gradually reconciling her to the + idea of separation; while Mlle. de la Rodiere, always like a shadowy third + between them, should be sacrificed to her at first, only to be imposed + upon her later. His marriage should take place later, in obedience to Mme. + de Beauseant’s expressed wish. He went so far as to enlist the Marquise’s + nobleness and pride and all the great qualities of her nature to help him + to succeed in this compassionate design. He would write a letter at once + to allay her suspicions. <i>A letter!</i> For a woman with the most + exquisite feminine perception, as well as the intuition of passionate + love, a letter in itself was a sentence of death. + </p> + <p> + So when Jacques came and brought Mme. de Beauseant a sheet of paper folded + in a triangle, she trembled, poor woman, like a snared swallow. A + mysterious sensation of physical cold spread from head to foot, wrapping + her about in an icy winding sheet. If he did not rush to her feet, if he + did not come to her in tears, and pale, and like a lover, she knew that + all was lost. And yet, so many hopes are there in the heart of a woman who + loves, that she is only slain by stab after stab, and loves on till the + last drop of life-blood drains away. + </p> + <p> + “Does madame need anything?” Jacques asked gently, as he went away. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Poor fellow!” she thought, brushing a tear from her eyes, “he guesses my + feelings, servant though he is!” + </p> + <p> + She read: “My beloved, you are inventing idle terrors for yourself...” The + Marquise gazed at the words, and a thick mist spread before her eyes. A + voice in her heart cried, “He lies!”—Then she glanced down the page + with the clairvoyant eagerness of passion, and read these words at the + foot, “<i>Nothing has been decided as yet...</i>” Turning to the other + side with convulsive quickness, she saw the mind of the writer distinctly + through the intricacies of the wording; this was no spontaneous outburst + of love. She crushed it in her fingers, twisted it, tore it with her + teeth, flung it in the fire, and cried aloud, “Ah! base that he is! I was + his, and he had ceased to love me!” + </p> + <p> + She sank half dead upon the couch. + </p> + <p> + M. de Nueil went out as soon as he had written his letter. When he came + back, Jacques met him on the threshold with a note. “Madame la Marquise + has left the chateau,” said the man. + </p> + <p> + M. de Nueil, in amazement, broke the seal and read:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “MADAME,—If I could cease to love you, to take the chances of + becoming an ordinary man which you hold out to me, you must admit + that I should thoroughly deserve my fate. No, I shall not do as + you bid me; the oath of fidelity which I swear to you shall only + be absolved by death. Ah! take my life, unless indeed you do not + fear to carry a remorse all through your own...” + </pre> + <p> + It was his own letter, written to the Marquise as she set out for Geneva + nine years before. At the foot of it Claire de Bourgogne had written, + “Monsieur, you are free.” + </p> + <p> + M. de Nueil went to his mother at Manerville. In less than three weeks he + married Mlle. Stephanie de la Rodiere. + </p> + <p> + If this commonplace story of real life ended here, it would be to some + extent a sort of mystification. The first man you meet can tell you a + better. But the widespread fame of the catastrophe (for, unhappily, this + is a true tale), and all the memories which it may arouse in those who + have known the divine delights of infinite passion, and lost them by their + own deed, or through the cruelty of fate,—these things may perhaps + shelter the story from criticism. + </p> + <p> + Mme. la Marquise de Beauseant never left Valleroy after her parting from + M. de Nueil. After his marriage she still continued to live there, for + some inscrutable woman’s reason; any woman is at liberty to assign the one + which most appeals to her. Claire de Bourgogne lived in such complete + retirement that none of the servants, save Jacques and her own woman, ever + saw their mistress. She required absolute silence all about her, and only + left her room to go to the chapel on the Valleroy estate, whither a + neighboring priest came to say mass every morning. + </p> + <p> + The Comte de Nueil sank a few days after his marriage into something like + conjugal apathy, which might be interpreted to mean happiness or + unhappiness equally easily. + </p> + <p> + “My son is perfectly happy,” his mother said everywhere. + </p> + <p> + Mme. Gaston de Nueil, like a great many young women, was a rather + colorless character, sweet and passive. A month after her marriage she had + expectations of becoming a mother. All this was quite in accordance with + ordinary views. M. de Nueil was very nice to her; but two months after his + separation from the Marquise, he grew notably thoughtful and abstracted. + But then he always had been serious, his mother said. + </p> + <p> + After seven months of this tepid happiness, a little thing occurred, one + of those seemingly small matters which imply such great development of + thought and such widespread trouble of the soul, that only the bare fact + can be recorded; the interpretation of it must be left to the fancy of + each individual mind. One day, when M. de Nueil had been shooting over the + lands of Manerville and Valleroy, he crossed Mme. de Beauseant’s park on + his way home, summoned Jacques, and when the man came, asked him, “Whether + the Marquise was as fond of game as ever?” + </p> + <p> + Jacques answering in the affirmative, Gaston offered him a good round sum + (accompanied by plenty of specious reasoning) for a very little service. + Would he set aside for the Marquise the game that the Count would bring? + It seemed to Jacques to be a matter of no great importance whether the + partridge on which his mistress dined had been shot by her keeper or by M. + de Nueil, especially since the latter particularly wished that the + Marquise should know nothing about it. + </p> + <p> + “It was killed on her land,” said the Count, and for some days Jacques + lent himself to the harmless deceit. Day after day M. de Nueil went + shooting, and came back at dinner-time with an empty bag. A whole week + went by in this way. Gaston grew bold enough to write a long letter to the + Marquise, and had it conveyed to her. It was returned to him unopened. The + Marquise’s servant brought it back about nightfall. The Count, sitting in + the drawing-room listening, while his wife at the piano mangled a <i>Caprice</i> + of Herold’s, suddenly sprang up and rushed out to the Marquise, as if he + were flying to an assignation. He dashed through a well-known gap into the + park, and went slowly along the avenues, stopping now and again for a + little to still the loud beating of his heart. Smothered sounds as he came + nearer the chateau told him that the servants must be at supper, and he + went straight to Mme. de Beauseant’s room. + </p> + <p> + Mme. de Beauseant never left her bedroom. M. de Nueil could gain the + doorway without making the slightest sound. There, by the light of two wax + candles, he saw the thin, white Marquise in a great armchair; her head was + bowed, her hands hung listlessly, her eyes gazing fixedly at some object + which she did not seem to see. Her whole attitude spoke of hopeless pain. + There was a vague something like hope in her bearing, but it was + impossible to say whither Claire de Bourgogne was looking—forwards + to the tomb or backwards into the past. Perhaps M. de Nueil’s tears + glittered in the deep shadows; perhaps his breathing sounded faintly; + perhaps unconsciously he trembled, or again it may have been impossible + that he should stand there, his presence unfelt by that quick sense which + grows to be an instinct, the glory, the delight, the proof of perfect + love. However it was, Mme. de Beauseant slowly turned her face towards the + doorway, and beheld her lover of bygone days. Then Gaston de Nueil came + forward a few paces. + </p> + <p> + “If you come any further, sir,” exclaimed the Marquise, growing paler, “I + shall fling myself out of the window!” + </p> + <p> + She sprang to the window, flung it open, and stood with one foot on the + ledge, her hand upon the iron balustrade, her face turned towards Gaston. + </p> + <p> + “Go out! go out!” she cried, “or I will throw myself over.” + </p> + <p> + At that dreadful cry the servants began to stir, and M. de Nueil fled like + a criminal. + </p> + <p> + When he reached his home again he wrote a few lines and gave them to his + own man, telling him to give the letter himself into Mme. de Beauseant’s + hands, and to say that it was a matter of life and death for his master. + The messenger went. M. de Nueil went back to the drawing-room where his + wife was still murdering the <i>Caprice</i>, and sat down to wait till the + answer came. An hour later, when the <i>Caprice</i> had come to an end, + and the husband and wife sat in silence on opposite sides of the hearth, + the man came back from Valleroy and gave his master his own letter, + unopened. + </p> + <p> + M. de Nueil went into a small room beyond the drawing-room, where he had + left his rifle, and shot himself. + </p> + <p> + The swift and fatal ending of the drama, contrary as it is to all the + habits of young France, is only what might have been expected. Those who + have closely observed, or known for themselves by delicious experience, + all that is meant by the perfect union of two beings, will understand + Gaston de Nueil’s suicide perfectly well. A woman does not bend and form + herself in a day to the caprices of passion. The pleasure of loving, like + some rare flower, needs the most careful ingenuity of culture. Time alone, + and two souls attuned each to each, can discover all its resources, and + call into being all the tender and delicate delights for which we are + steeped in a thousand superstitions, imagining them to be inherent in the + heart that lavishes them upon us. It is this wonderful response of one + nature to another, this religious belief, this certainty of finding + peculiar or excessive happiness in the presence of one we love, that + accounts in part for perdurable attachments and long-lived passion. If a + woman possesses the genius of her sex, love never comes to be a matter of + use and wont. She brings all her heart and brain to love, clothes her + tenderness in forms so varied, there is such art in her most natural + moments, or so much nature in her art, that in absence her memory is + almost as potent as her presence. All other women are as shadows compared + with her. Not until we have lost or known the dread of losing a love so + vast and glorious, do we prize it at its just worth. And if a man who has + once possessed this love shuts himself out from it by his own act and + deed, and sinks to some loveless marriage; if by some incident, hidden in + the obscurity of married life, the woman with whom he hoped to know the + same felicity makes it clear that it will never be revived for him; if, + with the sweetness of divine love still on his lips, he has dealt a deadly + wound to <i>her</i>, his wife in truth, whom he forsook for a social + chimera,—then he must either die or take refuge in a materialistic, + selfish, and heartless philosophy, from which impassioned souls shrink in + horror. + </p> + <p> + As for Mme. de Beauseant, she doubtless did not imagine that her friend’s + despair could drive him to suicide, when he had drunk deep of love for + nine years. Possibly she may have thought that she alone was to suffer. At + any rate, she did quite rightly to refuse the most humiliating of all + positions; a wife may stoop for weighty social reasons to a kind of + compromise which a mistress is bound to hold in abhorrence, for in the + purity of her passion lies all its justification. + </p> + <p> + ANGOULEME, September 1832. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + ADDENDUM + </h2> + <h3> + The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + </h3> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Beauseant, Marquis and Comte de + Father Goriot + An Episode under the Terror + + Beauseant, Marquise de + Letters of Two Brides + + Beauseant, Vicomte de + Father Goriot + + Beauseant, Vicomtesse de + Father Goriot + Albert Savarus + + Champignelles, De + The Seamy Side of History + + Jacques (M. de Beauseant’s butler) + Father Goriot + + Nueil, Gaston de + The Deserted Woman + Albert Savarus +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deserted Woman, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESERTED WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 1729-h.htm or 1729-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/2/1729/ + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Deserted Woman + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: Ellen Marriage + +Release Date: May, 1999 [Etext #1729] +Posting Date: March 1, 2010 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESERTED WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + + + + + +THE DESERTED WOMAN + + +By Honore De Balzac + + + +Translated by Ellen Marriage + + + + + + DEDICATION + + To Her Grace the Duchesse d'Abrantes, + from her devoted servant, + Honore de Balzac. + PARIS, August 1835. + + + + + +THE DESERTED WOMAN + + +In the early spring of 1822, the Paris doctors sent to Lower Normandy a +young man just recovering from an inflammatory complaint, brought on by +overstudy, or perhaps by excess of some other kind. His convalescence +demanded complete rest, a light diet, bracing air, and freedom from +excitement of every kind, and the fat lands of Bessin seemed to offer +all these conditions of recovery. To Bayeux, a picturesque place about +six miles from the sea, the patient therefore betook himself, and was +received with the cordiality characteristic of relatives who lead very +retired lives, and regard a new arrival as a godsend. + +All little towns are alike, save for a few local customs. When M. le +Baron Gaston de Nueil, the young Parisian in question, had spent two or +three evenings in his cousin's house, or with the friends who made up +Mme. de Sainte-Severe's circle, he very soon had made the acquaintance +of the persons whom this exclusive society considered to be "the +whole town." Gaston de Nueil recognized in them the invariable stock +characters which every observer finds in every one of the many capitals +of the little States which made up the France of an older day. + +First of all comes the family whose claims to nobility are regarded as +incontestable, and of the highest antiquity in the department, though no +one has so much as heard of them a bare fifty leagues away. This +species of royal family on a small scale is distantly, but unmistakably, +connected with the Navarreins and the Grandlieu family, and related to +the Cadignans, and the Blamont-Chauvrys. The head of the illustrious +house is invariably a determined sportsman. He has no manners, crushes +everybody else with his nominal superiority, tolerates the sub-prefect +much as he submits to the taxes, and declines to acknowledge any of the +novel powers created by the nineteenth century, pointing out to you as +a political monstrosity the fact that the prime minister is a man of no +birth. His wife takes a decided tone, and talks in a loud voice. She has +had adorers in her time, but takes the sacrament regularly at Easter. +She brings up her daughters badly, and is of the opinion that they will +always be rich enough with their name. + +Neither husband nor wife has the remotest idea of modern luxury. They +retain a livery only seen elsewhere on the stage, and cling to old +fashions in plate, furniture, and equipages, as in language and manner +of life. This is a kind of ancient state, moreover, that suits passably +well with provincial thrift. The good folk are, in fact, the lords of +the manor of a bygone age, _minus_ the quitrents and heriots, the pack +of hounds and the laced coats; full of honor among themselves, and one +and all loyally devoted to princes whom they only see at a distance. +The historical house _incognito_ is as quaint a survival as a piece of +ancient tapestry. Vegetating somewhere among them there is sure to be +an uncle or a brother, a lieutenant-general, an old courtier of the +Kings's, who wears the red ribbon of the order of Saint-Louis, and went +to Hanover with the Marechal de Richelieu: and here you will find him +like a stray leaf out of some old pamphlet of the time of Louis Quinze. + +This fossil greatness finds a rival in another house, wealthier, though +of less ancient lineage. Husband and wife spend a couple of months of +every winter in Paris, bringing back with them its frivolous tone and +short-lived contemporary crazes. Madame is a woman of fashion, though +she looks rather conscious of her clothes, and is always behind the +mode. She scoffs, however, at the ignorance affected by her neighbors. +_Her_ plate is of modern fashion; she has "grooms," Negroes, a +valet-de-chambre, and what-not. Her oldest son drives a tilbury, and +does nothing (the estate is entailed upon him), his younger brother is +auditor to a Council of State. The father is well posted up in official +scandals, and tells you anecdotes of Louis XVIII. and Madame du Cayla. +He invests his money in the five per cents, and is careful to avoid the +topic of cider, but has been known occasionally to fall a victim to the +craze for rectifying the conjectural sums-total of the various fortunes +of the department. He is a member of the Departmental Council, has +his clothes from Paris, and wears the Cross of the Legion of Honor. In +short, he is a country gentleman who has fully grasped the significance +of the Restoration, and is coining money at the Chamber, but his +Royalism is less pure than that of the rival house; he takes +the _Gazette_ and the _Debats_, the other family only read the +_Quotidienne_. + +His lordship the Bishop, a sometime Vicar-General, fluctuates between +the two powers, who pay him the respect due to religion, but at times +they bring home to him the moral appended by the worthy Lafontaine +to the fable of the _Ass laden with Relics_. The good man's origin is +distinctly plebeian. + +Then come stars of the second magnitude, men of family with ten or +twelve hundred livres a year, captains in the navy or cavalry regiments, +or nothing at all. Out on the roads, on horseback, they rank half-way +between the cure bearing the sacraments and the tax collector on his +rounds. Pretty nearly all of them have been in the Pages or in +the Household Troops, and now are peaceably ending their days in a +_faisance-valoir_, more interested in felling timber and the cider +prospects than in the Monarchy. + +Still they talk of the Charter and the Liberals while the cards are +making, or over a game at backgammon, when they have exhausted the +usual stock of _dots_, and have married everybody off according to the +genealogies which they all know by heart. Their womenkind are haughty +dames, who assume the airs of Court ladies in their basket chaises. They +huddle themselves up in shawls and caps by way of full dress; and twice +a year, after ripe deliberation, have a new bonnet from Paris, brought +as opportunity offers. Exemplary wives are they for the most part, and +garrulous. + +These are the principal elements of aristocratic gentility, with a +few outlying old maids of good family, spinsters who have solved the +problem: given a human being, to remain absolutely stationary. They +might be sealed up in the houses where you see them; their faces and +their dresses are literally part of the fixtures of the town, and the +province in which they dwell. They are its tradition, its memory, its +quintessence, the _genius loci_ incarnate. There is something frigid and +monumental about these ladies; they know exactly when to laugh and when +to shake their heads, and every now and then give out some utterance +which passes current as a witticism. + +A few rich townspeople have crept into the miniature Faubourg +Saint-Germain, thanks to their money or their aristocratic leanings. +But despite their forty years, the circle still say of them, "Young +So-and-so has sound opinions," and of such do they make deputies. As a +rule, the elderly spinsters are their patronesses, not without comment. + +Finally, in this exclusive little set include two or three +ecclesiastics, admitted for the sake of their cloth, or for their wit; +for these great nobles find their own society rather dull, and introduce +the bourgeois element into their drawing-rooms, as a baker puts leaven +into his dough. + +The sum-total contained by all heads put together consists of a certain +quantity of antiquated notions; a few new inflections brewed in company +of an evening being added from time to time to the common stock. Like +sea-water in a little creek, the phrases which represent these ideas +surge up daily, punctually obeying the tidal laws of conversation in +their flow and ebb; you hear the hollow echo of yesterday, to-day, +to-morrow, a year hence, and for evermore. On all things here below they +pass immutable judgments, which go to make up a body of tradition into +which no power of mortal man can infuse one drop of wit or sense. The +lives of these persons revolve with the regularity of clockwork in an +orbit of use and wont which admits of no more deviation or change than +their opinions on matters religious, political, moral, or literary. + +If a stranger is admitted to the _cenacle_, every member of it in +turn will say (not without a trace of irony), "You will not find the +brilliancy of your Parisian society here," and proceed forthwith to +criticise the life led by his neighbors, as if he himself were an +exception who had striven, and vainly striven, to enlighten the rest. +But any stranger so ill advised as to concur in any of their freely +expressed criticism of each other, is pronounced at once to be an +ill-natured person, a heathen, an outlaw, a reprobate Parisian "as +Parisians mostly are." + +Before Gaston de Nueil made his appearance in this little world of +strictly observed etiquette, where every detail of life is an integrant +part of a whole, and everything is known; where the values of personalty +and real estate is quoted like stocks on the vast sheet of the +newspaper--before his arrival he had been weighed in the unerring scales +of Bayeusaine judgment. + +His cousin, Mme. de Sainte-Severe, had already given out the amount of +his fortune, and the sum of his expectations, had produced the family +tree, and expatiated on the talents, breeding, and modesty of this +particular branch. So he received the precise amount of attentions +to which he was entitled; he was accepted as a worthy scion of a good +stock; and, for he was but twenty-three, was made welcome without +ceremony, though certain young ladies and mothers of daughters looked +not unkindly upon him. + +He had an income of eighteen thousand livres from land in the valley of +the Auge; and sooner or later his father, as in duty bound, would leave +him the chateau of Manerville, with the lands thereunto belonging. +As for his education, political career, personal qualities, and +qualifications--no one so much as thought of raising the questions. His +land was undeniable, his rentals steady; excellent plantations had been +made; the tenants paid for repairs, rates, and taxes; the apple-trees +were thirty-eight years old; and, to crown all, his father was in treaty +for two hundred acres of woodland just outside the paternal park, which +he intended to enclose with walls. No hopes of a political career, no +fame on earth, can compare with such advantages as these. + +Whether out of malice or design, Mme. de Sainte-Severe omitted to +mention that Gaston had an elder brother; nor did Gaston himself say a +word about him. But, at the same time, it is true that the brother +was consumptive, and to all appearance would shortly be laid in earth, +lamented and forgotten. + +At first Gaston de Nueil amused himself at the expense of the circle. He +drew, as it were, for his mental album, a series of portraits of these +folk, with their angular, wrinkled faces, and hooked noses, their +crotchets and ludicrous eccentricities of dress, portraits which +possessed all the racy flavor of truth. He delighted in their +"Normanisms," in the primitive quaintness of their ideas and characters. +For a short time he flung himself into their squirrel's life of busy +gyrations in a cage. Then he began to feel the want of variety, and grew +tired of it. It was like the life of the cloister, cut short before it +had well begun. He drifted on till he reached a crisis, which is neither +spleen nor disgust, but combines all the symptoms of both. When a human +being is transplanted into an uncongenial soil, to lead a starved, +stunted existence, there is always a little discomfort over the +transition. Then, gradually, if nothing removes him from his +surroundings, he grows accustomed to them, and adapts himself to the +vacuity which grows upon him and renders him powerless. Even now, +Gaston's lungs were accustomed to the air; and he was willing to discern +a kind of vegetable happiness in days that brought no mental exertion +and no responsibilities. The constant stirring of the sap of life, the +fertilizing influences of mind on mind, after which he had sought so +eagerly in Paris, were beginning to fade from his memory, and he was in +a fair way of becoming a fossil with these fossils, and ending his +days among them, content, like the companions of Ulysses, in his gross +envelope. + +One evening Gaston de Nueil was seated between a dowager and one of the +vicars-general of the diocese, in a gray-paneled drawing-room, floored +with large white tiles. The family portraits which adorned the walls +looked down upon four card-tables, and some sixteen persons gathered +about them, chattering over their whist. Gaston, thinking of nothing, +digesting one of those exquisite dinners to which the provincial looks +forward all through the day, found himself justifying the customs of the +country. + +He began to understand why these good folk continued to play with +yesterday's pack of cards and shuffle them on a threadbare tablecloth, +and how it was that they had ceased to dress for themselves or others. +He saw the glimmerings of something like a philosophy in the even tenor +of their perpetual round, in the calm of their methodical monotony, in +their ignorance of the refinements of luxury. Indeed, he almost came +to think that luxury profited nothing; and even now, the city of Paris, +with its passions, storms, and pleasures, was scarcely more than a +memory of childhood. + +He admired in all sincerity the red hands, and shy, bashful manner +of some young lady who at first struck him as an awkward simpleton, +unattractive to the last degree, and surprisingly ridiculous. His doom +was sealed. He had gone from the provinces to Paris; he had led the +feverish life of Paris; and now he would have sunk back into the +lifeless life of the provinces, but for a chance remark which reached +his ear--a few words that called up a swift rush of such emotion as +he might have felt when a strain of really good music mingles with the +accompaniment of some tedious opera. + +"You went to call on Mme. de Beauseant yesterday, did you not?" The +speaker was an elderly lady, and she addressed the head of the local +royal family. + +"I went this morning. She was so poorly and depressed, that I could not +persuade her to dine with us to-morrow." + +"With Mme. de Champignelles?" exclaimed the dowager with something like +astonishment in her manner. + +"With my wife," calmly assented the noble. "Mme. de Beauseant is +descended from the House of Burgundy, on the spindle side, 'tis true, +but the name atones for everything. My wife is very much attached to +the Vicomtesse, and the poor lady has lived alone for such a long while, +that----" + +The Marquis de Champignelles looked round about him while he spoke with +an air of cool unconcern, so that it was almost impossible to guess +whether he made a concession to Mme. de Beauseant's misfortunes, or paid +homage to her noble birth; whether he felt flattered to receive her in +his house, or, on the contrary, sheer pride was the motive that led him +to try to force the country families to meet the Vicomtesse. + +The women appeared to take counsel of each other by a glance; there was +a sudden silence in the room, and it was felt that their attitude was +one of disapproval. + +"Does this Mme. de Beauseant happen to be the lady whose adventure with +M. d'Ajuda-Pinto made so much noise?" asked Gaston of his neighbor. + +"The very same," he was told. "She came to Courcelles after the marriage +of the Marquis d'Ajuda; nobody visits her. She has, besides, too much +sense not to see that she is in a false position, so she has made no +attempt to see any one. M. de Champignelles and a few gentlemen went to +call upon her, but she would see no one but M. de Champignelles, perhaps +because he is a connection of the family. They are related through +the Beauseants; the father of the present Vicomte married a Mlle. +de Champignelles of the older branch. But though the Vicomtesse de +Beauseant is supposed to be a descendant of the House of Burgundy, you +can understand that we could not admit a wife separated from her husband +into our society here. We are foolish enough still to cling to these +old-fashioned ideas. There was the less excuse for the Vicomtesse, +because M. de Beauseant is a well-bred man of the world, who would have +been quite ready to listen to reason. But his wife is quite mad----" and +so forth and so forth. + +M. de Nueil, still listening to the speaker's voice, gathered nothing of +the sense of the words; his brain was too full of thick-coming fancies. +Fancies? What other name can you give to the alluring charms of an +adventure that tempts the imagination and sets vague hopes springing up +in the soul; to the sense of coming events and mysterious felicity and +fear at hand, while as yet there is no substance of fact on which these +phantoms of caprice can fix and feed? Over these fancies thought hovers, +conceiving impossible projects, giving in the germ all the joys of love. +Perhaps, indeed, all passion is contained in that thought-germ, as the +beauty, and fragrance, and rich color of the flower is all packed in the +seed. + +M. de Nueil did not know that Mme. de Beauseant had taken refuge in +Normandy, after a notoriety which women for the most part envy and +condemn, especially when youth and beauty in some sort excuse the +transgression. Any sort of celebrity bestows an inconceivable prestige. +Apparently for women, as for families, the glory of the crime effaces +the stain; and if such and such a noble house is proud of its tale of +heads that have fallen on the scaffold, a young and pretty woman becomes +more interesting for the dubious renown of a happy love or a scandalous +desertion, and the more she is to be pitied, the more she excites our +sympathies. We are only pitiless to the commonplace. If, moreover, we +attract all eyes, we are to all intents and purposes great; how, indeed, +are we to be seen unless we raise ourselves above other people's heads? +The common herd of humanity feels an involuntary respect for any person +who can rise above it, and is not over-particular as to the means by +which they rise. + +It may have been that some such motives influenced Gaston de Nueil at +unawares, or perhaps it was curiosity, or a craving for some interest in +his life, or, in a word, that crowd of inexplicable impulses which, for +want of a better name, we are wont to call "fatality," that drew him to +Mme. de Beauseant. + +The figure of the Vicomtesse de Beauseant rose up suddenly before him +with gracious thronging associations. She was a new world for him, +a world of fears and hopes, a world to fight for and to conquer. +Inevitably he felt the contrast between this vision and the human beings +in the shabby room; and then, in truth, she was a woman; what woman had +he seen so far in this dull, little world, where calculation replaced +thought and feeling, where courtesy was a cut-and-dried formality, and +ideas of the very simplest were too alarming to be received or to pass +current? The sound of Mme. de Beauseant's name revived a young man's +dreams and wakened urgent desires that had lain dormant for a little. + +Gaston de Nueil was absent-minded and preoccupied for the rest of the +evening. He was pondering how he might gain access to Mme. de Beauseant, +and truly it was no very easy matter. She was believed to be extremely +clever. But if men and women of parts may be captivated by something +subtle or eccentric, they are also exacting, and can read all that lies +below the surface; and after the first step has been taken, the chances +of failure and success in the difficult task of pleasing them are about +even. In this particular case, moreover, the Vicomtesse, besides the +pride of her position, had all the dignity of her name. Her utter +seclusion was the least of the barriers raised between her and the +world. For which reasons it was well-nigh impossible that a stranger, +however well born, could hope for admittance; and yet, the next +morning found M. de Nueil taking his walks abroad in the direction of +Courcelles, a dupe of illusions natural at his age. Several times he +made the circuit of the garden walls, looking earnestly through every +gap at the closed shutters or open windows, hoping for some romantic +chance, on which he founded schemes for introducing himself into this +unknown lady's presence, without a thought of their impracticability. +Morning after morning was spent in this way to mighty purpose; but with +each day's walk, that vision of a woman living apart from the world, of +love's martyr buried in solitude, loomed larger in his thoughts, and +was enshrined in his soul. So Gaston de Nueil walked under the walls +of Courcelles, and some gardener's heavy footstep would set his heart +beating high with hope. + +He thought of writing to Mme. de Beauseant, but on mature consideration, +what can you say to a woman whom you have never seen, a complete +stranger? And Gaston had little self-confidence. Like most young persons +with a plentiful crop of illusions still standing, he dreaded the +mortifying contempt of silence more than death itself, and shuddered at +the thought of sending his first tender epistle forth to face so many +chances of being thrown on the fire. He was distracted by innumerable +conflicting ideas. But by dint of inventing chimeras, weaving romances, +and cudgeling his brains, he hit at last upon one of the hopeful +stratagems that are sure to occur to your mind if you persevere long +enough, a stratagem which must make clear to the most inexperienced +woman that here was a man who took a fervent interest in her. The +caprice of social conventions puts as many barriers between lovers as +any Oriental imagination can devise in the most delightfully fantastic +tale; indeed, the most extravagant pictures are seldom exaggerations. In +real life, as in the fairy tales, the woman belongs to him who can reach +her and set her free from the position in which she languishes. The +poorest of calenders that ever fell in love with the daughter of the +Khalif is in truth scarcely further from his lady than Gaston de Nueil +from Mme. de Beauseant. The Vicomtesse knew absolutely nothing of M. de +Nueil's wanderings round her house; Gaston de Nueil's love grew to the +height of the obstacles to overleap; and the distance set between him +and his extemporized lady-love produced the usual effect of distance, in +lending enchantment. + +One day, confident in his inspiration, he hoped everything from the love +that must pour forth from his eyes. Spoken words, in his opinion, were +more eloquent than the most passionate letter; and, besides, he would +engage feminine curiosity to plead for him. He went, therefore, to M. de +Champignelles, proposing to employ that gentleman for the better success +of his enterprise. He informed the Marquis that he had been entrusted +with a delicate and important commission which concerned the Vicomtesse +de Beauseant, that he felt doubtful whether she would read a letter +written in an unknown handwriting, or put confidence in a stranger. +Would M. de Champignelles, on his next visit, ask the Vicomtesse if +she would consent to receive him--Gaston de Nueil? While he asked the +Marquis to keep his secret in case of a refusal, he very ingeniously +insinuated sufficient reasons for his own admittance, to be duly passed +on to the Vicomtesse. Was not M. de Champignelles a man of honor, a +loyal gentleman incapable of lending himself to any transaction in bad +taste, nay, the merest suspicion of bad taste! Love lends a young man +all the self-possession and astute craft of an old ambassador; all the +Marquis' harmless vanities were gratified, and the haughty grandee +was completely duped. He tried hard to fathom Gaston's secret; but the +latter, who would have been greatly perplexed to tell it, turned off M. +de Champignelles' adroit questioning with a Norman's shrewdness, till +the Marquis, as a gallant Frenchman, complimented his young visitor upon +his discretion. + +M. de Champignelles hurried off at once to Courcelles, with that +eagerness to serve a pretty woman which belongs to his time of life. +In the Vicomtesse de Beauseant's position, such a message was likely to +arouse keen curiosity; so, although her memory supplied no reason at all +that could bring M. de Nueil to her house, she saw no objection to his +visit--after some prudent inquiries as to his family and condition. At +the same time, she began by a refusal. Then she discussed the propriety +of the matter with M. de Champignelles, directing her questions so as +to discover, if possible, whether he knew the motives for the visit, and +finally revoked her negative answer. The discussion and the discretion +shown perforce by the Marquis had piqued her curiosity. + +M. de Champignelles had no mind to cut a ridiculous figure. He +said, with the air of a man who can keep another's counsel, that the +Vicomtesse must know the purpose of this visit perfectly well; while the +Vicomtesse, in all sincerity, had no notion what it could be. Mme. de +Beauseant, in perplexity, connected Gaston with people whom he had never +met, went astray after various wild conjectures, and asked herself if +she had seen this M. de Nueil before. In truth, no love-letter, however +sincere or skilfully indited, could have produced so much effect as this +riddle. Again and again Mme. de Beauseant puzzled over it. + +When Gaston heard that he might call upon the Vicomtesse, his rapture at +so soon obtaining the ardently longed-for good fortune was mingled with +singular embarrassment. How was he to contrive a suitable sequel to this +stratagem? + +"Bah! I shall see _her_," he said over and over again to himself as he +dressed. "See her, and that is everything!" + +He fell to hoping that once across the threshold of Courcelles he should +find an expedient for unfastening this Gordian knot of his own tying. +There are believers in the omnipotence of necessity who never turn back; +the close presence of danger is an inspiration that calls out all their +powers for victory. Gaston de Nueil was one of these. + +He took particular pains with his dress, imagining, as youth is apt to +imagine, that success or failure hangs on the position of a curl, and +ignorant of the fact that anything is charming in youth. And, in any +case, such women as Mme. de Beauseant are only attracted by the charms +of wit or character of an unusual order. Greatness of character flatters +their vanity, promises a great passion, seems to imply a comprehension +of the requirements of their hearts. Wit amuses them, responds to the +subtlety of their natures, and they think that they are understood. And +what do all women wish but to be amused, understood, or adored? It is +only after much reflection on the things of life that we understand +the consummate coquetry of neglect of dress and reserve at a first +interview; and by the time we have gained sufficient astuteness for +successful strategy, we are too old to profit by our experience. + +While Gaston's lack of confidence in his mental equipment drove him +to borrow charms from his clothes, Madame de Beauseant herself was +instinctively giving more attention to her toilette. + +"I would rather not frighten people, at all events," she said to herself +as she arranged her hair. + +In M. de Nueil's character, person, and manner there was that touch of +unconscious originality which gives a kind of flavor to things that any +one might say or do, and absolves everything that they may choose to +do or say. He was highly cultivated, he had a keen brain, and a face, +mobile as his own nature, which won the goodwill of others. The promise +of passion and tenderness in the bright eyes was fulfilled by an +essentially kindly heart. The resolution which he made as he entered +the house at Courcelles was in keeping with his frank nature and ardent +imagination. But, bold has he was with love, his heart beat violently +when he had crossed the great court, laid out like an English garden, +and the man-servant, who had taken his name to the Vicomtesse, returned +to say that she would receive him. + +"M. le Baron de Nueil." + +Gaston came in slowly, but with sufficient ease of manner; and it is a +more difficult thing, be it said, to enter a room where there is but one +woman, than a room that holds a score. + +A great fire was burning on the hearth in spite of the mild weather, +and by the soft light of the candles in the sconces he saw a young woman +sitting on a high-backed _bergere_ in the angle by the hearth. The seat +was so low that she could move her head freely; every turn of it was +full of grace and delicate charm, whether she bent, leaning forward, +or raised and held it erect, slowly and languidly, as though it were a +heavy burden, so low that she could cross her feet and let them appear, +or draw them back under the folds of a long black dress. + +The Vicomtesse made as if she would lay the book that she was reading on +a small, round stand; but as she did so, she turned towards M. de +Nueil, and the volume, insecurely laid upon the edge, fell to the ground +between the stand and the sofa. This did not seem to disconcert her. +She looked up, bowing almost imperceptibly in response to his greeting, +without rising from the depths of the low chair in which she lay. +Bending forwards, she stirred the fire briskly, and stooped to pick up a +fallen glove, drawing it mechanically over her left hand, while her +eyes wandered in search of its fellow. The glance was instantly checked, +however, for she stretched out a thin, white, all-but-transparent +right hand, with flawless ovals of rose-colored nail at the tips of the +slender, ringless fingers, and pointed to a chair as if to bid Gaston be +seated. He sat down, and she turned her face questioningly towards him. +Words cannot describe the subtlety of the winning charm and inquiry in +that gesture; deliberate in its kindliness, gracious yet accurate in +expression, it was the outcome of early education and of a constant use +and wont of the graciousness of life. These movements of hers, so +swift, so deft, succeeded each other by the blending of a pretty woman's +fastidious carelessness with the high-bred manner of a great lady. + +Mme. de Beauseant stood out in such strong contrast against the +automatons among whom he had spent two months of exile in that +out-of-the-world district of Normandy, that he could not but find in her +the realization of his romantic dreams; and, on the other hand, he +could not compare her perfections with those of other women whom he +had formerly admired. Here in her presence, in a drawing-room like some +salon in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, full of costly trifles lying about +upon the tables, and flowers and books, he felt as if he were back in +Paris. It was a real Parisian carpet beneath his feet, he saw once more +the high-bred type of Parisienne, the fragile outlines of her form, her +exquisite charm, her disdain of the studied effects which did so much to +spoil provincial women. + +Mme. de Beauseant had fair hair and dark eyes, and the pale complexion +that belongs to fair hair. She held up her brow nobly like some fallen +angel, grown proud through the fall, disdainful of pardon. Her way of +gathering her thick hair into a crown of plaits above the broad, curving +lines of the bandeaux upon her forehead, added to the queenliness of her +face. Imagination could discover the ducal coronet of Burgundy in the +spiral threads of her golden hair; all the courage of her house seemed +to gleam from the great lady's brilliant eyes, such courage as women +use to repel audacity or scorn, for they were full of tenderness for +gentleness. The outline of that little head, so admirably poised above +the long, white throat, the delicate, fine features, the subtle curves +of the lips, the mobile face itself, wore an expression of delicate +discretion, a faint semblance of irony suggestive of craft and +insolence. Yet it would have been difficult to refuse forgiveness to +those two feminine failings in her; for the lines that came out in her +forehead whenever her face was not in repose, like her upward glances +(that pathetic trick of manner), told unmistakably of unhappiness, of +a passion that had all but cost her her life. A woman, sitting in the +great, silent salon, a woman cut off from the rest of the world in this +remote little valley, alone, with the memories of her brilliant, happy, +and impassioned youth, of continual gaiety and homage paid on all sides, +now replaced by the horrors of the void--was there not something in the +sight to strike awe that deepened with reflection? Consciousness of her +own value lurked in her smile. She was neither wife nor mother, she was +an outlaw; she had lost the one heart that could set her pulses beating +without shame; she had nothing from without to support her reeling soul; +she must even look for strength from within, live her own life, cherish +no hope save that of forsaken love, which looks forward to Death's +coming, and hastens his lagging footsteps. And this while life was in +its prime. Oh! to feel destined for happiness and to die--never having +given nor received it! A woman too! What pain was this! These thoughts +flashing across M. de Nueil's mind like lightning, left him very humble +in the presence of the greatest charm with which woman can be invested. +The triple aureole of beauty, nobleness, and misfortune dazzled him; he +stood in dreamy, almost open-mouthed admiration of the Vicomtesse. But +he found nothing to say to her. + +Mme. de Beauseant, by no means displeased, no doubt, by his surprise, +held out her hand with a kindly but imperious gesture; then, summoning a +smile to her pale lips, as if obeying, even yet, the woman's impulse to +be gracious: + +"I have heard from M. de Champignelles of a message which you have +kindly undertaken to deliver, monsieur," she said. "Can it be from----" + +With that terrible phrase Gaston understood, even more clearly than +before, his own ridiculous position, the bad taste and bad faith of his +behavior towards a woman so noble and so unfortunate. He reddened. The +thoughts that crowded in upon him could be read in his troubled eyes; +but suddenly, with the courage which youth draws from a sense of its own +wrongdoing, he gained confidence, and very humbly interrupted Mme. de +Beauseant. + +"Madame," he faltered out, "I do not deserve the happiness of seeing +you. I have deceived you basely. However strong the motive may have +been, it can never excuse the pitiful subterfuge which I used to gain my +end. But, madame, if your goodness will permit me to tell you----" + +The Vicomtesse glanced at M. de Nueil, haughty disdain in her whole +manner. She stretched her hand to the bell and rang it. + +"Jacques," she said, "light this gentleman to the door," and she looked +with dignity at the visitor. + +She rose proudly, bowed to Gaston, and then stooped for the fallen +volume. If all her movements on his entrance had been caressingly dainty +and gracious, her every gesture now was no less severely frigid. M. de +Nueil rose to his feet, but he stood waiting. Mme. de Beauseant flung +another glance at him. "Well, why do you not go?" she seemed to say. + +There was such cutting irony in that glance that Gaston grew white as if +he were about to faint. Tears came into his eyes, but he would not let +them fall, and scorching shame and despair dried them. He looked back +at Madame de Beauseant, and a certain pride and consciousness of his +own worth was mingled with his humility; the Vicomtesse had a right to +punish him, but ought she to use her right? Then he went out. + +As he crossed the ante-chamber, a clear head, and wits sharpened by +passion, were not slow to grasp the danger of his situation. + +"If I leave this house, I can never come back to it again," he said +to himself. "The Vicomtesse will always think of me as a fool. It is +impossible that a woman, and such a woman, should not guess the +love that she has called forth. Perhaps she feels a little, vague, +involuntary regret for dismissing me so abruptly.--But she could not +do otherwise, and she cannot recall her sentence. It rests with me to +understand her." + +At that thought Gaston stopped short on the flight of steps with an +exclamation; he turned sharply, saying, "I have forgotten something," +and went back to the salon. The lackey, all respect for a baron and the +rights of property, was completely deceived by the natural utterance, +and followed him. Gaston returned quietly and unannounced. The +Vicomtesse, thinking that the intruder was the servant, looked up and +beheld M. de Nueil. + +"Jacques lighted me to the door," he said, with a half-sad smile which +dispelled any suspicion of jest in those words, while the tone in which +they were spoken went to the heart. Mme. de Beauseant was disarmed. + +"Very well, take a seat," she said. + +Gaston eagerly took possession of a chair. His eyes were shining with +happiness; the Vicomtesse, unable to endure the brilliant light in +them, looked down at the book. She was enjoying a delicious, ever new +sensation; the sense of a man's delight in her presence is an unfailing +feminine instinct. And then, besides, he had divined her, and a woman is +so grateful to the man who has mastered the apparently capricious, yet +logical, reasoning of her heart; who can track her thought through the +seemingly contradictory workings of her mind, and read the sensations, +shy or bold, written in fleeting red, a bewildering maze of coquetry and +self-revelation. + +"Madame," Gaston exclaimed in a low voice, "my blunder you know, but +you do not know how much I am to blame. If you only knew what joy it was +to----" + +"Ah! take care," she said, holding up one finger with an air of mystery, +as she put out her hand towards the bell. + +The charming gesture, the gracious threat, no doubt called up some sad +thought, some memory of the old happy time when she could be wholly +charming and gentle without an afterthought; when the gladness of her +heart justified every caprice, and put charm into every least movement. +The lines in her forehead gathered between her brows, and the expression +of her face grew dark in the soft candle-light. Then looking across at +M. de Nueil gravely but not unkindly, she spoke like a woman who deeply +feels the meaning of every word. + +"This is all very ridiculous! Once upon a time, monsieur, when +thoughtless high spirits were my privilege, I should have laughed +fearlessly over your visit with you. But now my life is very much +changed. I cannot do as I like, I am obliged to think. What brings you +here? Is it curiosity? In that case I am paying dearly for a little +fleeting pleasure. Have you fallen _passionately_ in love already with a +woman whom you have never seen, a woman with whose name slander has, of +course, been busy? If so, your motive in making this visit is based on +disrespect, on an error which accident brought into notoriety." + +She flung her book down scornfully upon the table, then, with a terrible +look at Gaston, she went on: "Because I once was weak, must it be +supposed that I am always weak? This is horrible, degrading. Or have you +come here to pity me? You are very young to offer sympathy with heart +troubles. Understand this clearly, sir, that I would rather have scorn +than pity. I will not endure compassion from any one." + +There was a brief pause. + +"Well, sir," she continued (and the face that she turned to him was +gentle and sad), "whatever motive induced this rash intrusion upon my +solitude, it is very painful to me, you see. You are too young to be +totally without good feeling, so surely you will feel that this behavior +of yours is improper. I forgive you for it, and, as you see, I am +speaking of it to you without bitterness. You will not come here again, +will you? I am entreating when I might command. If you come to see me +again, neither you nor I can prevent the whole place from believing that +you are my lover, and you would cause me great additional annoyance. You +do not mean to do that, I think." + +She said no more, but looked at him with a great dignity which abashed +him. + +"I have done wrong, madame," he said, with deep feeling in his voice, +"but it was through enthusiasm and thoughtlessness and eager desire of +happiness, the qualities and defects of my age. Now, I understand that +I ought not to have tried to see you," he added; "but, at the same time, +the desire was a very natural one"--and, making an appeal to feeling +rather than to the intellect, he described the weariness of his enforced +exile. He drew a portrait of a young man in whom the fires of life were +burning themselves out, conveying the impression that here was a heart +worthy of tender love, a heart which, notwithstanding, had never known +the joys of love for a young and beautiful woman of refinement and +taste. He explained, without attempting to justify, his unusual conduct. +He flattered Mme. de Beauseant by showing that she had realized for him +the ideal lady of a young man's dream, the ideal sought by so many, +and so often sought in vain. Then he touched upon his morning prowlings +under the walls of Courcelles, and his wild thoughts at the first sight +of the house, till he excited that vague feeling of indulgence which a +woman can find in her heart for the follies committed for her sake. + +An impassioned voice was speaking in the chill solitude; the speaker +brought with him a warm breath of youth and the charms of a carefully +cultivated mind. It was so long since Mme. de Beauseant had felt stirred +by real feeling delicately expressed, that it affected her very strongly +now. In spite of herself, she watched M. de Nueil's expressive face, and +admired the noble countenance of a soul, unbroken as yet by the cruel +discipline of the life of the world, unfretted by continual scheming to +gratify personal ambition and vanity. Gaston was in the flower of his +youth, he impressed her as a man with something in him, unaware as +yet of the great career that lay before him. So both these two made +reflections most dangerous for their peace of mind, and both strove to +conceal their thoughts. M. de Nueil saw in the Vicomtesse a rare type of +woman, always the victim of her perfections and tenderness; her graceful +beauty is the least of her charms for those who are privileged to know +the infinite of feeling and thought and goodness in the soul within; +a woman whose instinctive feeling for beauty runs through all the most +varied expressions of love, purifying its transports, turning them to +something almost holy; wonderful secret of womanhood, the exquisite +gift that Nature so seldom bestows. And the Vicomtesse, on her side, +listening to the ring of sincerity in Gaston's voice, while he told of +his youthful troubles, began to understand all that grown children of +five-and-twenty suffer from diffidence, when hard work has kept them +alike from corrupting influences and intercourse with men and women of +the world whose sophistical reasoning and experience destroys the +fair qualities of youth. Here was the ideal of a woman's dreams, a man +unspoiled as yet by the egoism of family or success, or by that narrow +selfishness which blights the first impulses of honor, devotion, +self-sacrifice, and high demands of self; all the flowers so soon wither +that enrich at first the life of delicate but strong emotions, and keep +alive the loyalty of the heart. + +But these two, once launched forth into the vast of sentiment, went +far indeed in theory, sounding the depths in either soul, testing the +sincerity of their expressions; only, whereas Gaston's experiments were +made unconsciously, Mme. de Beauseant had a purpose in all that she +said. Bringing her natural and acquired subtlety to the work, she sought +to learn M. de Nueil's opinions by advancing, as far as she could do +so, views diametrically opposed to her own. So witty and so gracious was +she, so much herself with this stranger, with whom she felt completely +at ease, because she felt sure that they should never meet again, that, +after some delicious epigram of hers, Gaston exclaimed unthinkingly: + +"Oh! madame, how could any man have left you?" + +The Vicomtesse was silent. Gaston reddened, he thought that he had +offended her; but she was not angry. The first deep thrill of delight +since the day of her calamity had taken her by surprise. The skill of +the cleverest _roue_ could not have made the impression that M. de Nueil +made with that cry from the heart. That verdict wrung from a young man's +candor gave her back innocence in her own eyes, condemned the world, +laid the blame upon the lover who had left her, and justified her +subsequent solitary drooping life. The world's absolution, the heartfelt +sympathy, the social esteem so longed for, and so harshly refused, nay, +all her secret desires were given her to the full in that exclamation, +made fairer yet by the heart's sweetest flatteries and the admiration +that women always relish eagerly. He understood her, understood all, and +he had given her, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the +opportunity of rising higher through her fall. She looked at the clock. + +"Ah! madame, do not punish me for my heedlessness. If you grant me but +one evening, vouchsafe not to shorten it." + +She smiled at the pretty speech. + +"Well, as we must never meet again," she said, "what signifies a moment +more or less? If you were to care for me, it would be a pity." + +"It is too late now," he said. + +"Do not tell me that," she answered gravely. "Under any other +circumstances I should be very glad to see you. I will speak frankly, +and you will understand how it is that I do not choose to see you again, +and ought not to do so. You have too much magnanimity not to feel that +if I were so much as suspected of a second trespass, every one would +think of me as a contemptible and vulgar woman; I should be like other +women. A pure and blameless life will bring my character into relief. +I am too proud not to endeavor to live like one apart in the world, a +victim of the law through my marriage, man's victim through my love. If +I were not faithful to the position which I have taken up, then I should +deserve all the reproach that is heaped upon me; I should be lowered in +my own eyes. I had not enough lofty social virtue to remain with a man +whom I did not love. I have snapped the bonds of marriage in spite of +the law; it was wrong, it was a crime, it was anything you like, but +for me the bonds meant death. I meant to live. Perhaps if I had been +a mother I could have endured the torture of a forced marriage of +suitability. At eighteen we scarcely know what is done with us, poor +girls that we are! I have broken the laws of the world, and the world +has punished me; we both did rightly. I sought happiness. Is it not a +law of our nature to seek for happiness? I was young, I was beautiful... +I thought that I had found a nature as loving, as apparently passionate. +I was loved indeed; for a little while..." + +She paused. + +"I used to think," she said, "that no one could leave a woman in such +a position as mine. I have been forsaken; I must have offended in +some way. Yes, in some way, no doubt, I failed to keep some law of our +nature, was too loving, too devoted, too exacting--I do not know. Evil +days have brought light with them! For a long while I blamed another, +now I am content to bear the whole blame. At my own expense, I have +absolved that other of whom I once thought I had a right to complain. I +had not the art to keep him; fate has punished me heavily for my lack +of skill. I only knew how to love; how can one keep oneself in mind when +one loves? So I was a slave when I should have sought to be a tyrant. +Those who know me may condemn me, but they will respect me too. Pain +has taught me that I must not lay myself open to this a second time. I +cannot understand how it is that I am living yet, after the anguish of +that first week of the most fearful crisis in a woman's life. Only from +three years of loneliness would it be possible to draw strength to speak +of that time as I am speaking now. Such agony, monsieur, usually ends in +death; but this--well, it was the agony of death with no tomb to end it. +Oh! I have known pain indeed!" + +The Vicomtesse raised her beautiful eyes to the ceiling; and the +cornice, no doubt, received all the confidences which a stranger might +not hear. When a woman is afraid to look at her interlocutor, there +is in truth no gentler, meeker, more accommodating confidant than the +cornice. The cornice is quite an institution in the boudoir; what is it +but the confessional, _minus_ the priest? + +Mme. de Beauseant was eloquent and beautiful at that moment; nay, +"coquettish," if the word were not too heavy. By justifying herself and +love, she was stimulating every sentiment in the man before her; nay, +more, the higher she set the goal, the more conspicuous it grew. At +last, when her eyes had lost the too eloquent expression given to them +by painful memories, she let them fall on Gaston. + +"You acknowledge, do you not, that I am bound to lead a solitary, +self-contained life?" she said quietly. + +So sublime was she in her reasoning and her madness, that M. de Nueil +felt a wild longing to throw himself at her feet; but he was afraid of +making himself ridiculous, so he held his enthusiasm and his thoughts in +check. He was afraid, too, that he might totally fail to express them, +and in no less terror of some awful rejection on her part, or of her +mockery, an apprehension which strikes like ice to the most fervid soul. +The revulsion which led him to crush down every feeling as it sprang +up in his heart cost him the intense pain that diffident and ambitious +natures experience in the frequent crises when they are compelled +to stifle their longings. And yet, in spite of himself, he broke the +silence to say in a faltering voice: + +"Madame, permit me to give way to one of the strongest emotions of my +life, and own to all that you have made me feel. You set the heart in +me swelling high! I feel within me a longing to make you forget your +mortifications, to devote my life to this, to give you love for all who +ever have given you wounds or hate. But this is a very sudden outpouring +of the heart, nothing can justify it to-day, and I ought not----" + +"Enough, monsieur," said Mme. de Beauseant; "we have both of us gone too +far. By giving you the sad reasons for a refusal which I am compelled to +give, I meant to soften it and not to elicit homage. Coquetry only suits +a happy woman. Believe me, we must remain strangers to each other. At a +later day you will know that ties which must inevitably be broken ought +not to be formed at all." + +She sighed lightly, and her brows contracted, but almost immediately +grew clear again. + +"How painful it is for a woman to be powerless to follow the man she +loves through all the phases of his life! And if that man loves her +truly, his heart must surely vibrate with pain to the deep trouble in +hers. Are they not twice unhappy?" + +There was a short pause. Then she rose smiling. + +"You little suspected, when you came to Courcelles, that you were to +hear a sermon, did you?" + +Gaston felt even further than at first from this extraordinary woman. +Was the charm of that delightful hour due after all to the coquetry of +the mistress of the house? She had been anxious to display her wit. He +bowed stiffly to the Vicomtesse, and went away in desperation. + +On the way home he tried to detect the real character of a creature +supple and hard as a steel spring; but he had seen her pass through so +many phases, that he could not make up his mind about her. The tones +of her voice, too, were ringing in his ears; her gestures, the little +movements of her head, and the varying expression of her eyes grew +more gracious in memory, more fascinating as he thought of them. +The Vicomtesse's beauty shone out again for him in the darkness; his +reviving impressions called up yet others, and he was enthralled anew by +womanly charm and wit, which at first he had not perceived. He fell to +wandering musings, in which the most lucid thoughts grow refractory and +flatly contradict each other, and the soul passes through a brief +frenzy fit. Youth only can understand all that lies in the dithyrambic +outpourings of youth when, after a stormy siege, of the most frantic +folly and coolest common-sense, the heart finally yields to the assault +of the latest comer, be it hope, or despair, as some mysterious power +determines. + +At three-and-twenty, diffidence nearly always rules a man's conduct; he +is perplexed with a young girl's shyness, a girl's trouble; he is afraid +lest he should express his love ill, sees nothing but difficulties, and +takes alarm at them; he would be bolder if he loved less, for he has no +confidence in himself, and with a growing sense of the cost of happiness +comes a conviction that the woman he loves cannot easily be won; +perhaps, too, he is giving himself up too entirely to his own pleasure, +and fears that he can give none; and when, for his misfortune, his idol +inspires him with awe, he worships in secret and afar, and unless his +love is guessed, it dies away. Then it often happens that one of these +dead early loves lingers on, bright with illusions in many a young +heart. What man is there but keeps within him these virgin memories that +grow fairer every time they rise before him, memories that hold up to +him the ideal of perfect bliss? Such recollections are like children who +die in the flower of childhood, before their parents have known anything +of them but their smiles. + +So M. de Nueil came home from Courcelles, the victim of a mood fraught +with desperate resolutions. Even now he felt that Mme. de Beauseant +was one of the conditions of his existence, and that death would be +preferable to life without her. He was still young enough to feel +the tyrannous fascination which fully-developed womanhood exerts over +immature and impassioned natures; and, consequently, he was to spend one +of those stormy nights when a young man's thoughts travel from happiness +to suicide and back again--nights in which youth rushes through a +lifetime of bliss and falls asleep from sheer exhaustion. Fateful +nights are they, and the worst misfortune that can happen is to awake a +philosopher afterwards. M. de Nueil was far too deeply in love to +sleep; he rose and betook to inditing letters, but none of them were +satisfactory, and he burned them all. + + + +The next day he went to Courcelles to make the circuit of her garden +walls, but he waited till nightfall; he was afraid that she might +see him. The instinct that led him to act in this way arose out of so +obscure a mood of the soul, that none but a young man, or a man in like +case, can fully understand its mute ecstasies and its vagaries, matter +to set those people who are lucky enough to see life only in its +matter-of-fact aspect shrugging their shoulders. After painful +hesitation, Gaston wrote to Mme. de Beauseant. Here is the letter, which +may serve as a sample of the epistolary style peculiar to lovers, a +performance which, like the drawings prepared with great secrecy by +children for the birthdays of father or mother, is found insufferable by +every mortal except the recipients:-- + + "MADAME,--Your power over my heart, my soul, myself, is so great + that my fate depends wholly upon you to-day. Do not throw this + letter into the fire; be so kind as to read it through. Perhaps + you may pardon the opening sentence when you see that it is no + commonplace, selfish declaration, but that it expresses a simple + fact. Perhaps you may feel moved, because I ask for so little, by + the submission of one who feels himself so much beneath you, by + the influence that your decision will exercise upon my life. At my + age, madame, I only know how to love, I am utterly ignorant of + ways of attracting and winning a woman's love, but in my own heart + I know raptures of adoration of her. I am irresistibly drawn to + you by the great happiness that I feel through you; my thoughts + turn to you with the selfish instinct which bids us draw nearer to + the fire of life when we find it. I do not imagine that I am + worthy of you; it seems impossible that I, young, ignorant, and + shy, could bring you one-thousandth part of the happiness that I + drink in at the sound of your voice and the sight of you. For me + you are the only woman in the world. I cannot imagine life without + you, so I have made up my mind to leave France, and to risk my + life till I lose it in some desperate enterprise, in the Indies, + in Africa, I care not where. How can I quell a love that knows no + limits save by opposing to it something as infinite? Yet, if you + will allow me to hope, not to be yours, but to win your + friendship, I will stay. Let me come, not so very often, if you + require it, to spend a few such hours with you as those stolen + hours of yesterday. The keen delight of that brief happiness to be + cut short at the least over-ardent word from me, will suffice to + enable me to endure the boiling torrent in my veins. Have I + presumed too much upon your generosity by this entreaty to suffer + an intercourse in which all the gain is mine alone? You could find + ways of showing the world, to which you sacrifice so much, that I + am nothing to you; you are so clever and so proud! What have you + to fear? If I could only lay bare my heart to you at this moment, + to convince you that it is with no lurking afterthought that I + make this humble request! Should I have told you that my love was + boundless, while I prayed you to grant me friendship, if I had any + hope of your sharing this feeling in the depths of my soul? No, + while I am with you, I will be whatever you will, if only I may be + with you. If you refuse (as you have the power to refuse), I will + not utter one murmur, I will go. And if, at a later day, any other + woman should enter into my life, you will have proof that you were + right; but if I am faithful till death, you may feel some regret + perhaps. The hope of causing you a regret will soothe my agony, + and that thought shall be the sole revenge of a slighted + heart...." + +Only those who have passed through all the exceeding tribulations of +youth, who have seized on all the chimeras with two white pinions, the +nightmare fancies at the disposal of a fervid imagination, can realize +the horrors that seized upon Gaston de Nueil when he had reason to +suppose that his ultimatum was in Mme. de Beauseant's hands. He saw the +Vicomtesse, wholly untouched, laughing at his letter and his love, as +those can laugh who have ceased to believe in love. He could have wished +to have his letter back again. It was an absurd letter. There were a +thousand and one things, now that he came to think of it, that he might +have said, things infinitely better and more moving than those stilted +phrases of his, those accursed, sophisticated, pretentious, fine-spun +phrases, though, luckily, the punctuation had been pretty bad and the +lines shockingly crooked. He tried not to think, not to feel; but he +felt and thought, and was wretched. If he had been thirty years old, he +might have got drunk, but the innocence of three-and-twenty knew +nothing of the resources of opium nor of the expedients of advanced +civilization. Nor had he at hand one of those good friends of the +Parisian pattern who understand so well how to say _Poete, non dolet!_ +by producing a bottle of champagne, or alleviate the agony of suspense +by carrying you off somewhere to make a night of it. Capital fellows +are they, always in low water when you are in funds, always off to some +watering-place when you go to look them up, always with some bad bargain +in horse-flesh to sell you; it is true, that when you want to borrow of +them, they have always just lost their last louis at play; but in all +other respects they are the best fellows on earth, always ready to +embark with you on one of the steep down-grades where you lose your +time, your soul, and your life! + +At length M. de Nueil received a missive through the instrumentality of +Jacques, a letter that bore the arms of Burgundy on the scented seal, a +letter written on vellum notepaper. + +He rushed away at once to lock himself in, and read and re-read _her_ +letter:-- + + "You are punishing me very severely, monsieur, both for the + friendliness of my effort to spare you a rebuff, and for the + attraction which intellect always has for me. I put confidence in + the generosity of youth, and you have disappointed me. And yet, if + I did not speak unreservedly (which would have been perfectly + ridiculous), at any rate I spoke frankly of my position, so that + you might imagine that I was not to be touched by a young soul. My + distress is the keener for my interest in you. I am naturally + tender-hearted and kindly, but circumstances force me to act + unkindly. Another woman would have flung your letter, unread, into + the fire; I read it, and I am answering it. My answer will make it + clear to you that while I am not untouched by the expression of + this feeling which I have inspired, albeit unconsciously, I am + still far from sharing it, and the step which I am about to take + will show you still more plainly that I mean what I say. I wish + besides, to use, for your welfare, that authority, as it were, + which you give me over your life; and I desire to exercise it this + once to draw aside the veil from your eyes. + + "I am nearly thirty years old, monsieur; you are barely + two-and-twenty. You yourself cannot know what your thoughts will + be at my age. The vows that you make so lightly to-day may seem a + very heavy burden to you then. I am quite willing to believe that + at this moment you would give me your whole life without a regret, + you would even be ready to die for a little brief happiness; but + at the age of thirty experience will take from you the very power + of making daily sacrifices for my sake, and I myself should feel + deeply humiliated if I accepted them. A day would come when + everything, even Nature, would bid you leave me, and I have + already told you that death is preferable to desertion. Misfortune + has taught me to calculate; as you see, I am arguing perfectly + dispassionately. You force me to tell you that I have no love for + you; I ought not to love, I cannot, and I will not. It is too late + to yield, as women yield, to a blind unreasoning impulse of the + heart, too late to be the mistress whom you seek. My consolations + spring from God, not from earth. Ah, and besides, with the + melancholy insight of disappointed love, I read hearts too clearly + to accept your proffered friendship. It is only instinct. I + forgive the boyish ruse, for which you are not responsible as yet. + In the name of this passing fancy of yours, for the sake of your + career and my own peace of mind, I bid you stay in your own + country; you must not spoil a fair and honorable life for an + illusion which, by its very nature, cannot last. At a later day, + when you have accomplished your real destiny, in the fully + developed manhood that awaits you, you will appreciate this answer + of mine, though to-day it may be that you blame its hardness. You + will turn with pleasure to an old woman whose friendship will + certainly be sweet and precious to you then; a friendship untried + by the extremes of passion and the disenchanting processes of + life; a friendship which noble thoughts and thoughts of religion + will keep pure and sacred. Farewell; do my bidding with the + thought that your success will bring a gleam of pleasure into my + solitude, and only think of me as we think of absent friends." + +Gaston de Nueil read the letter, and wrote the following lines:-- + + "MADAME,--If I could cease to love you, to take the chances of + becoming an ordinary man which you hold out to me, you must admit + that I should thoroughly deserve my fate. No, I shall not do as + you bid me; the oath of fidelity which I swear to you shall only + be absolved by death. Ah! take my life, unless indeed you do not + fear to carry a remorse all through your own----" + +When the man returned from his errand, M. de Nueil asked him with whom +he left the note? + +"I gave it to Mme. la Vicomtesse herself, sir; she was in her carriage +and just about to start." + +"For the town?" + +"I don't think so, sir. Mme. la Vicomtesse had post-horses." + +"Ah! then she is going away," said the Baron. + +"Yes, sir," the man answered. + +Gaston de Nueil at once prepared to follow Mme. de Beauseant. She led +the way as far as Geneva, without a suspicion that he followed. And +he? Amid the many thoughts that assailed him during that journey, one +all-absorbing problem filled his mind--"Why did she go away?" Theories +grew thickly on such ground for supposition, and naturally he inclined +to the one that flattered his hopes--"If the Vicomtesse cares for me, +a clever woman would, of course, choose Switzerland, where nobody knows +either of us, in preference to France, where she would find censorious +critics." + +An impassioned lover of a certain stamp would not feel attracted to a +woman clever enough to choose her own ground; such women are too clever. +However, there is nothing to prove that there was any truth in Gaston's +supposition. + +The Vicomtesse took a small house by the side of the lake. As soon as +she was installed in it, Gaston came one summer evening in the twilight. +Jacques, that flunkey in grain, showed no sign of surprise, and +announced _M. le Baron de Nueil_ like a discreet domestic well +acquainted with good society. At the sound of the name, at the sight +of its owner, Mme. de Beauseant let her book fall from her hands; her +surprise gave him time to come close to her, and to say in tones that +sounded like music in her ears: + +"What a joy it was to me to take the horses that brought you on this +journey!" + +To have the inmost desires of the heart so fulfilled! Where is the woman +who could resist such happiness as this? An Italian woman, one of those +divine creatures who, psychologically, are as far removed from the +Parisian as if they lived at the Antipodes, a being who would be +regarded as profoundly immoral on this side of the Alps, an Italian (to +resume) made the following comment on some French novels which she had +been reading. "I cannot see," she remarked, "why these poor lovers take +such a time over coming to an arrangement which ought to be the affair +of a single morning." Why should not the novelist take a hint from this +worthy lady, and refrain from exhausting the theme and the reader? +Some few passages of coquetry it would certainly be pleasant to give in +outline; the story of Mme. de Beauseant's demurs and sweet delayings, +that, like the vestal virgins of antiquity, she might fall gracefully, +and by lingering over the innocent raptures of first love draw from it +its utmost strength and sweetness. M. de Nueil was at an age when a +man is the dupe of these caprices, of the fence which women delight to +prolong; either to dictate their own terms, or to enjoy the sense of +their power yet longer, knowing instinctively as they do that it must +soon grow less. But, after all, these little boudoir protocols, less +numerous than those of the Congress of London, are too small to be worth +mention in the history of this passion. + +For three years Mme. de Beauseant and M. de Nueil lived in the villa on +the lake of Geneva. They lived quite alone, received no visitors, caused +no talk, rose late, went out together upon the lake, knew, in short, +the happiness of which we all of us dream. It was a simple little house, +with green shutters, and broad balconies shaded with awnings, a house +contrived of set purpose for lovers, with its white couches, soundless +carpets, and fresh hangings, everything within it reflecting their +joy. Every window looked out on some new view of the lake; in the far +distance lay the mountains, fantastic visions of changing color and +evanescent cloud; above them spread the sunny sky, before them stretched +the broad sheet of water, never the same in its fitful changes. All +their surroundings seemed to dream for them, all things smiled upon +them. + +Then weighty matters recalled M. de Nueil to France. His father and +brother died, and he was obliged to leave Geneva. The lovers bought the +house; and if they could have had their way, they would have removed the +hills piecemeal, drawn off the lake with a siphon, and taken everything +away with them. + +Mme. de Beauseant followed M. de Nueil. She realized her property, and +bought a considerable estate near Manerville, adjoining Gaston's +lands, and here they lived together; Gaston very graciously giving +up Manerville to his mother for the present in consideration of the +bachelor freedom in which she left him. + +Mme. de Beauseant's estate was close to a little town in one of the +most picturesque spots in the valley of the Auge. Here the lovers raised +barriers between themselves and social intercourse, barriers which no +creature could overleap, and here the happy days of Switzerland were +lived over again. For nine whole years they knew happiness which it +serves no purpose to describe; happiness which may be divined from the +outcome of the story by those whose souls can comprehend poetry and +prayer in their infinite manifestations. + +All this time Mme. de Beauseant's husband, the present Marquis (his +father and elder brother having died), enjoyed the soundest health. +There is no better aid to life than a certain knowledge that our demise +would confer a benefit on some fellow-creature. M. de Beauseant was +one of those ironical and wayward beings who, like holders of +life-annuities, wake with an additional sense of relish every morning to +a consciousness of good health. For the rest, he was a man of the world, +somewhat methodical and ceremonious, and a calculator of consequences, +who could make a declaration of love as quietly as a lackey announces +that "Madame is served." + +This brief biographical notice of his lordship the Marquis de Beauseant +is given to explain the reasons why it was impossible for the Marquise +to marry M. de Nueil. + +So, after a nine years' lease of happiness, the sweetest agreement to +which a woman ever put her hand, M. de Nueil and Mme. de Beauseant +were still in a position quite as natural and quite as false as at the +beginning of their adventure. And yet they had reached a fatal crisis, +which may be stated as clearly as any problem in mathematics. + +Mme. la Comtesse de Nueil, Gaston's mother, a strait-laced and virtuous +person, who had made the late Baron happy in strictly legal fashion +would never consent to meet Mme. de Beauseant. Mme. de Beauseant quite +understood that the worthy dowager must of necessity be her enemy, and +that she would try to draw Gaston from his unhallowed and immoral way of +life. The Marquise de Beauseant would willingly have sold her property +and gone back to Geneva, but she could not bring herself to do it; it +would mean that she distrusted M. de Nueil. Moreover, he had taken +a great fancy to this very Valleroy estate, where he was making +plantations and improvements. She would not deprive him of a piece of +pleasurable routine-work, such as women always wish for their husbands, +and even for their lovers. + +A Mlle. de la Rodiere, twenty-two years of age, an heiress with +a rent-roll of forty thousand livres, had come to live in the +neighborhood. Gaston always met her at Manerville whenever he was +obliged to go thither. These various personages being to each other as +the terms of a proportion sum, the following letter will throw light on +the appalling problem which Mme. de Beauseant had been trying for the +past month to solve:-- + + "My beloved angel, it seems like nonsense, does it not, to write + to you when there is nothing to keep us apart, when a caress so + often takes the place of words, and words too are caresses? Ah, + well, no, love. There are some things that a woman cannot say when + she is face to face with the man she loves; at the bare thought of + them her voice fails her, and the blood goes back to her heart; + she has no strength, no intelligence left. It hurts me to feel + like this when you are near me, and it happens often. I feel that + my heart should be wholly sincere for you; that I should disguise + no thought, however transient, in my heart; and I love the sweet + carelessness, which suits me so well, too much to endure this + embarrassment and constraint any longer. So I will tell you about + my anguish--yes, it is anguish. Listen to me! do not begin with + the little 'Tut, tut, tut,' that you use to silence me, an + impertinence that I love, because anything from you pleases me. + Dear soul from heaven, wedded to mine, let me first tell you that + you have effaced all memory of the pain that once was crushing the + life out of me. I did not know what love was before I knew you. + Only the candor of your beautiful young life, only the purity of + that great soul of yours, could satisfy the requirements of an + exacting woman's heart. Dear love, how very often I have thrilled + with joy to think that in these nine long, swift years, my + jealousy has not been once awakened. All the flowers of your soul + have been mine, all your thoughts. There has not been the faintest + cloud in our heaven; we have not known what sacrifice is; we have + always acted on the impulses of our hearts. I have known + happiness, infinite for a woman. Will the tears that drench this + sheet tell you all my gratitude? I could wish that I had knelt to + write the words!--Well, out of this felicity has arisen torture + more terrible than the pain of desertion. Dear, there are very + deep recesses in a woman's heart; how deep in my own heart, I did + not know myself until to-day, as I did not know the whole extent + of love. The greatest misery which could overwhelm us is a light + burden compared with the mere thought of harm for him whom we + love. And how if we cause the harm, is it not enough to make one + die?... This is the thought that is weighing upon me. But + it brings in its train another thought that is heavier far, a + thought that tarnishes the glory of love, and slays it, and turns + it into a humiliation which sullies life as long as it lasts. You + are thirty years old; I am forty. What dread this difference in + age calls up in a woman who loves! It is possible that, first of + all unconsciously, afterwards in earnest, you have felt the + sacrifices that you have made by renouncing all in the world for + me. Perhaps you have thought of your future from the social point + of view, of the marriage which would, of course, increase your + fortune, and give you avowed happiness and children who would + inherit your wealth; perhaps you have thought of reappearing in + the world, and filling your place there honorably. And then, if + so, you must have repressed those thoughts, and felt glad to + sacrifice heiress and fortune and a fair future to me without my + knowledge. In your young man's generosity, you must have resolved + to be faithful to the vows which bind us each to each in the sight + of God. My past pain has risen up before your mind, and the misery + from which you rescued me has been my protection. To owe your love + to your pity! The thought is even more painful to me than the fear + of spoiling your life for you. The man who can bring himself to + stab his mistress is very charitable if he gives her her deathblow + while she is happy and ignorant of evil, while illusions are in + full blossom.... Yes, death is preferable to the two thoughts + which have secretly saddened the hours for several days. To-day, + when you asked 'What ails you?' so tenderly, the sound of your + voice made me shiver. I thought that, after your wont, you were + reading my very soul, and I waited for your confidence to come, + thinking that my presentiments had come true, and that I had + guessed all that was going on in your mind. Then I began to think + over certain little things that you always do for me, and I + thought I could see in you the sort of affection by which a man + betrays a consciousness that his loyalty is becoming a burden. And + in that moment I paid very dear for my happiness. I felt that + Nature always demands the price for the treasure called love. + Briefly, has not fate separated us? Can you have said, 'Sooner or + later I must leave poor Claire; why not separate in time?' I read + that thought in the depths of your eyes, and went away to cry by + myself. Hiding my tears from you! the first tears that I have shed + for sorrow for these ten years; I am too proud to let you see + them, but I did not reproach you in the least. + + "Yes, you are right. I ought not to be so selfish as to bind your + long and brilliant career to my so-soon out-worn life.... And + yet--how if I have been mistaken? How if I have taken your love + melancholy for a deliberation? Oh, my love, do not leave me in + suspense; punish this jealous wife of yours, but give her back the + sense of her love and yours; the whole woman lies in that--that + consciousness sanctifies everything. + + "Since your mother came, since you paid a visit to Mlle. de + Rodiere, I have been gnawed by doubts dishonoring to us both. Make + me suffer for this, but do not deceive me; I want to know + everything that your mother said and that you think! If you have + hesitated between some alternative and me, I give you back your + liberty.... I will not let you know what happens to me; I will + not shed tears for you to see; only--I will not see you again.... + Ah! I cannot go on, my heart is breaking.................. + I have been sitting benumbed and stupid for some moments. Dear love, + I do not find that any feeling of pride rises against you; you are so + kind-hearted, so open; you would find it impossible to hurt me or + to deceive me; and you will tell me the truth, however cruel it may + be. Do you wish me to encourage your confession? Well, then, heart + of mine, I shall find comfort in a woman's thought. Has not the + youth of your being been mine, your sensitive, wholly gracious, + beautiful, and delicate youth? No woman shall find henceforth the + Gaston whom I have known, nor the delicious happiness that he has + given me.... No; you will never love again as you have loved, + as you love me now; no, I shall never have a rival, it is + impossible. There will be no bitterness in my memories of our + love, and I shall think of nothing else. It is out of your power + to enchant any woman henceforth by the childish provocations, the + charming ways of a young heart, the soul's winning charm, the + body's grace, the swift communion of rapture, the whole divine + cortege of young love, in fine. + + "Oh, you are a man now, you will obey your destiny, weighing and + considering all things. You will have cares, and anxieties, and + ambitions, and concerns that will rob _her_ of the unchanging + smile that made your lips fair for me. The tones that were always + so sweet for me will be troubled at times; and your eyes that + lighted up with radiance from heaven at the sight of me, will + often be lustreless for _her_. And besides, as it is impossible to + love you as I love you, you will never care for that woman as you + have cared for me. She will never keep a constant watch over + herself as I have done; she will never study your happiness at + every moment with an intuition which has never failed me. Ah, yes, + the man, the heart and soul, which I shall have known will exist + no longer. I shall bury him deep in my memory, that I may have the + joy of him still; I shall live happy in that fair past life of + ours, a life hidden from all but our inmost selves. + + "Dear treasure of mine, if all the while no least thought of + liberty has risen in your mind, if my love is no burden on you, if + my fears are chimerical, if I am still your Eve--the one woman in + the world for you--come to me as soon as you have read this + letter, come quickly! Ah, in one moment I will love you more than + I have ever loved you, I think, in these nine years. After + enduring the needless torture of these doubts of which I am + accusing myself, every added day of love, yes, every single day, + will be a whole lifetime of bliss. So speak, and speak openly; do + not deceive me, it would be a crime. Tell me, do you wish for your + liberty? Have you thought of all that a man's life means? Is there + any regret in your mind? That _I_ should cause you a regret! I + should die of it. I have said it: I love you enough to set your + happiness above mine, your life before my own. Leave on one side, + if you can, the wealth of memories of our nine years' happiness, + that they may not influence your decision, but speak! I submit + myself to you as to God, the one Consoler who remains if you + forsake me." + +When Mme. de Beauseant knew that her letter was in M. de Nueil's hands, +she sank in such utter prostration, the over-pressure of many thoughts +so numbed her faculties, that she seemed almost drowsy. At any rate, she +was suffering from a pain not always proportioned in its intensity to +a woman's strength; pain which women alone know. And while the unhappy +Marquise awaited her doom, M. de Nueil, reading her letter, felt that he +was "in a very difficult position," to use the expression that young men +apply to a crisis of this kind. + +By this time he had all but yielded to his mother's importunities and +to the attractions of Mlle. de la Rodiere, a somewhat insignificant, +pink-and-white young person, as straight as a poplar. It is true that, +in accordance with the rules laid down for marriageable young ladies, +she scarcely opened her mouth, but her rent-roll of forty thousand +livres spoke quite sufficiently for her. Mme. de Nueil, with a mother's +sincere affection, tried to entangle her son in virtuous courses. She +called his attention to the fact that it was a flattering distinction +to be preferred by Mlle. de la Rodiere, who had refused so many great +matches; it was quite time, she urged, that he should think of his +future, such a good opportunity might not repeat itself, some day +he would have eighty thousand livres of income from land; money made +everything bearable; if Mme. de Beauseant loved him for his own +sake, she ought to be the first to urge him to marry. In short, the +well-intentioned mother forgot no arguments which the feminine intellect +can bring to bear upon the masculine mind, and by these means she had +brought her son into a wavering condition. + +Mme. de Beauseant's letter arrived just as Gaston's love of her was +holding out against the temptations of a settled life conformable to +received ideas. That letter decided the day. He made up his mind to +break off with the Marquise and to marry. + +"One must live a man's life," said he to himself. + +Then followed some inkling of the pain that this decision would give to +Mme. de Beauseant. The man's vanity and the lover's conscience further +exaggerated this pain, and a sincere pity for her seized upon him. +All at once the immensity of the misery became apparent to him, and he +thought it necessary and charitable to deaden the deadly blow. He +hoped to bring Mme. de Beauseant to a calm frame of mind by gradually +reconciling her to the idea of separation; while Mlle. de la Rodiere, +always like a shadowy third between them, should be sacrificed to her at +first, only to be imposed upon her later. His marriage should take place +later, in obedience to Mme. de Beauseant's expressed wish. He went so +far as to enlist the Marquise's nobleness and pride and all the great +qualities of her nature to help him to succeed in this compassionate +design. He would write a letter at once to allay her suspicions. _A +letter!_ For a woman with the most exquisite feminine perception, as +well as the intuition of passionate love, a letter in itself was a +sentence of death. + +So when Jacques came and brought Mme. de Beauseant a sheet of paper +folded in a triangle, she trembled, poor woman, like a snared swallow. A +mysterious sensation of physical cold spread from head to foot, wrapping +her about in an icy winding sheet. If he did not rush to her feet, if he +did not come to her in tears, and pale, and like a lover, she knew that +all was lost. And yet, so many hopes are there in the heart of a woman +who loves, that she is only slain by stab after stab, and loves on till +the last drop of life-blood drains away. + +"Does madame need anything?" Jacques asked gently, as he went away. + +"No," she said. + +"Poor fellow!" she thought, brushing a tear from her eyes, "he guesses +my feelings, servant though he is!" + +She read: "My beloved, you are inventing idle terrors for yourself..." +The Marquise gazed at the words, and a thick mist spread before her +eyes. A voice in her heart cried, "He lies!"--Then she glanced down the +page with the clairvoyant eagerness of passion, and read these words at +the foot, "_Nothing has been decided as yet..._" Turning to the +other side with convulsive quickness, she saw the mind of the writer +distinctly through the intricacies of the wording; this was no +spontaneous outburst of love. She crushed it in her fingers, twisted it, +tore it with her teeth, flung it in the fire, and cried aloud, "Ah! base +that he is! I was his, and he had ceased to love me!" + +She sank half dead upon the couch. + + + +M. de Nueil went out as soon as he had written his letter. When he came +back, Jacques met him on the threshold with a note. "Madame la Marquise +has left the chateau," said the man. + +M. de Nueil, in amazement, broke the seal and read:-- + + "MADAME,--If I could cease to love you, to take the chances of + becoming an ordinary man which you hold out to me, you must admit + that I should thoroughly deserve my fate. No, I shall not do as + you bid me; the oath of fidelity which I swear to you shall only + be absolved by death. Ah! take my life, unless indeed you do not + fear to carry a remorse all through your own..." + +It was his own letter, written to the Marquise as she set out for Geneva +nine years before. At the foot of it Claire de Bourgogne had written, +"Monsieur, you are free." + +M. de Nueil went to his mother at Manerville. In less than three weeks +he married Mlle. Stephanie de la Rodiere. + + + +If this commonplace story of real life ended here, it would be to some +extent a sort of mystification. The first man you meet can tell you a +better. But the widespread fame of the catastrophe (for, unhappily, this +is a true tale), and all the memories which it may arouse in those who +have known the divine delights of infinite passion, and lost them +by their own deed, or through the cruelty of fate,--these things may +perhaps shelter the story from criticism. + +Mme. la Marquise de Beauseant never left Valleroy after her parting from +M. de Nueil. After his marriage she still continued to live there, for +some inscrutable woman's reason; any woman is at liberty to assign +the one which most appeals to her. Claire de Bourgogne lived in such +complete retirement that none of the servants, save Jacques and her own +woman, ever saw their mistress. She required absolute silence all about +her, and only left her room to go to the chapel on the Valleroy estate, +whither a neighboring priest came to say mass every morning. + +The Comte de Nueil sank a few days after his marriage into something +like conjugal apathy, which might be interpreted to mean happiness or +unhappiness equally easily. + +"My son is perfectly happy," his mother said everywhere. + +Mme. Gaston de Nueil, like a great many young women, was a rather +colorless character, sweet and passive. A month after her marriage she +had expectations of becoming a mother. All this was quite in accordance +with ordinary views. M. de Nueil was very nice to her; but two months +after his separation from the Marquise, he grew notably thoughtful and +abstracted. But then he always had been serious, his mother said. + +After seven months of this tepid happiness, a little thing occurred, one +of those seemingly small matters which imply such great development of +thought and such widespread trouble of the soul, that only the bare fact +can be recorded; the interpretation of it must be left to the fancy of +each individual mind. One day, when M. de Nueil had been shooting over +the lands of Manerville and Valleroy, he crossed Mme. de Beauseant's +park on his way home, summoned Jacques, and when the man came, asked +him, "Whether the Marquise was as fond of game as ever?" + +Jacques answering in the affirmative, Gaston offered him a good round +sum (accompanied by plenty of specious reasoning) for a very little +service. Would he set aside for the Marquise the game that the Count +would bring? It seemed to Jacques to be a matter of no great importance +whether the partridge on which his mistress dined had been shot by +her keeper or by M. de Nueil, especially since the latter particularly +wished that the Marquise should know nothing about it. + +"It was killed on her land," said the Count, and for some days Jacques +lent himself to the harmless deceit. Day after day M. de Nueil went +shooting, and came back at dinner-time with an empty bag. A whole week +went by in this way. Gaston grew bold enough to write a long letter +to the Marquise, and had it conveyed to her. It was returned to him +unopened. The Marquise's servant brought it back about nightfall. The +Count, sitting in the drawing-room listening, while his wife at the +piano mangled a _Caprice_ of Herold's, suddenly sprang up and rushed +out to the Marquise, as if he were flying to an assignation. He dashed +through a well-known gap into the park, and went slowly along the +avenues, stopping now and again for a little to still the loud beating +of his heart. Smothered sounds as he came nearer the chateau told him +that the servants must be at supper, and he went straight to Mme. de +Beauseant's room. + +Mme. de Beauseant never left her bedroom. M. de Nueil could gain the +doorway without making the slightest sound. There, by the light of two +wax candles, he saw the thin, white Marquise in a great armchair; her +head was bowed, her hands hung listlessly, her eyes gazing fixedly at +some object which she did not seem to see. Her whole attitude spoke of +hopeless pain. There was a vague something like hope in her bearing, +but it was impossible to say whither Claire de Bourgogne was +looking--forwards to the tomb or backwards into the past. Perhaps M. +de Nueil's tears glittered in the deep shadows; perhaps his breathing +sounded faintly; perhaps unconsciously he trembled, or again it may have +been impossible that he should stand there, his presence unfelt by that +quick sense which grows to be an instinct, the glory, the delight, the +proof of perfect love. However it was, Mme. de Beauseant slowly turned +her face towards the doorway, and beheld her lover of bygone days. Then +Gaston de Nueil came forward a few paces. + +"If you come any further, sir," exclaimed the Marquise, growing paler, +"I shall fling myself out of the window!" + +She sprang to the window, flung it open, and stood with one foot on +the ledge, her hand upon the iron balustrade, her face turned towards +Gaston. + +"Go out! go out!" she cried, "or I will throw myself over." + +At that dreadful cry the servants began to stir, and M. de Nueil fled +like a criminal. + +When he reached his home again he wrote a few lines and gave them to his +own man, telling him to give the letter himself into Mme. de Beauseant's +hands, and to say that it was a matter of life and death for his master. +The messenger went. M. de Nueil went back to the drawing-room where his +wife was still murdering the _Caprice_, and sat down to wait till the +answer came. An hour later, when the _Caprice_ had come to an end, and +the husband and wife sat in silence on opposite sides of the hearth, +the man came back from Valleroy and gave his master his own letter, +unopened. + +M. de Nueil went into a small room beyond the drawing-room, where he had +left his rifle, and shot himself. + +The swift and fatal ending of the drama, contrary as it is to all the +habits of young France, is only what might have been expected. Those who +have closely observed, or known for themselves by delicious experience, +all that is meant by the perfect union of two beings, will understand +Gaston de Nueil's suicide perfectly well. A woman does not bend and form +herself in a day to the caprices of passion. The pleasure of loving, +like some rare flower, needs the most careful ingenuity of culture. +Time alone, and two souls attuned each to each, can discover all its +resources, and call into being all the tender and delicate delights for +which we are steeped in a thousand superstitions, imagining them to be +inherent in the heart that lavishes them upon us. It is this wonderful +response of one nature to another, this religious belief, this certainty +of finding peculiar or excessive happiness in the presence of one we +love, that accounts in part for perdurable attachments and long-lived +passion. If a woman possesses the genius of her sex, love never comes to +be a matter of use and wont. She brings all her heart and brain to love, +clothes her tenderness in forms so varied, there is such art in her +most natural moments, or so much nature in her art, that in absence +her memory is almost as potent as her presence. All other women are as +shadows compared with her. Not until we have lost or known the dread of +losing a love so vast and glorious, do we prize it at its just worth. +And if a man who has once possessed this love shuts himself out from it +by his own act and deed, and sinks to some loveless marriage; if by some +incident, hidden in the obscurity of married life, the woman with whom +he hoped to know the same felicity makes it clear that it will never +be revived for him; if, with the sweetness of divine love still on his +lips, he has dealt a deadly wound to _her_, his wife in truth, whom he +forsook for a social chimera,--then he must either die or take refuge +in a materialistic, selfish, and heartless philosophy, from which +impassioned souls shrink in horror. + + +As for Mme. de Beauseant, she doubtless did not imagine that her +friend's despair could drive him to suicide, when he had drunk deep of +love for nine years. Possibly she may have thought that she alone was +to suffer. At any rate, she did quite rightly to refuse the most +humiliating of all positions; a wife may stoop for weighty social +reasons to a kind of compromise which a mistress is bound to hold in +abhorrence, for in the purity of her passion lies all its justification. + + +ANGOULEME, September 1832. + + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + + Beauseant, Marquis and Comte de + Father Goriot + An Episode under the Terror + + Beauseant, Marquise de + Letters of Two Brides + + Beauseant, Vicomte de + Father Goriot + + Beauseant, Vicomtesse de + Father Goriot + Albert Savarus + + Champignelles, De + The Seamy Side of History + + Jacques (M. de Beauseant's butler) + Father Goriot + + Nueil, Gaston de + The Deserted Woman + Albert Savarus + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deserted Woman, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESERTED WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 1729.txt or 1729.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/2/1729/ + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5f9cce5 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #1729 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1729) diff --git a/old/20040727-1729-h.zip b/old/20040727-1729-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3c410ac --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20040727-1729-h.zip diff --git a/old/20040727-1729.txt b/old/20040727-1729.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b9d4833 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20040727-1729.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2102 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deserted Woman, by Honore de Balzac + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: The Deserted Woman + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Release Date: July 27, 2004 [EBook #1729] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESERTED WOMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Dagny; and John Bickers + + + + + THE DESERTED WOMAN + + BY + + HONORE DE BALZAC + + + + + Translated By + + Ellen Marriage + + + + + + DEDICATION + + To Her Grace the Duchesse d'Abrantes, + from her devoted servant, + Honore de Balzac. + PARIS, August 1835. + + + + + THE DESERTED WOMAN + + + +In the early spring of 1822, the Paris doctors sent to Lower Normandy +a young man just recovering from an inflammatory complaint, brought on +by overstudy, or perhaps by excess of some other kind. His +convalescence demanded complete rest, a light diet, bracing air, and +freedom from excitement of every kind, and the fat lands of Bessin +seemed to offer all these conditions of recovery. To Bayeux, a +picturesque place about six miles from the sea, the patient therefore +betook himself, and was received with the cordiality characteristic of +relatives who lead very retired lives, and regard a new arrival as a +godsend. + +All little towns are alike, save for a few local customs. When M. le +Baron Gaston de Nueil, the young Parisian in question, had spent two +or three evenings in his cousin's house, or with the friends who made +up Mme. de Sainte-Severe's circle, he very soon had made the +acquaintance of the persons whom this exclusive society considered to +be "the whole town." Gaston de Nueil recognized in them the invariable +stock characters which every observer finds in every one of the many +capitals of the little States which made up the France of an older +day. + +First of all comes the family whose claims to nobility are regarded as +incontestable, and of the highest antiquity in the department, though +no one has so much as heard of them a bare fifty leagues away. This +species of royal family on a small scale is distantly, but +unmistakably, connected with the Navarreins and the Grandlieu family, +and related to the Cadignans, and the Blamont-Chauvrys. The head of +the illustrious house is invariably a determined sportsman. He has no +manners, crushes everybody else with his nominal superiority, +tolerates the sub-prefect much as he submits to the taxes, and +declines to acknowledge any of the novel powers created by the +nineteenth century, pointing out to you as a political monstrosity the +fact that the prime minister is a man of no birth. His wife takes a +decided tone, and talks in a loud voice. She has had adorers in her +time, but takes the sacrament regularly at Easter. She brings up her +daughters badly, and is of the opinion that they will always be rich +enough with their name. + +Neither husband nor wife has the remotest idea of modern luxury. They +retain a livery only seen elsewhere on the stage, and cling to old +fashions in plate, furniture, and equipages, as in language and manner +of life. This is a kind of ancient state, moreover, that suits +passably well with provincial thrift. The good folk are, in fact, the +lords of the manor of a bygone age, /minus/ the quitrents and heriots, +the pack of hounds and the laced coats; full of honor among +themselves, and one and all loyally devoted to princes whom they only +see at a distance. The historical house /incognito/ is as quaint a +survival as a piece of ancient tapestry. Vegetating somewhere among +them there is sure to be an uncle or a brother, a lieutenant-general, +an old courtier of the Kings's, who wears the red ribbon of the order +of Saint-Louis, and went to Hanover with the Marechal de Richelieu: +and here you will find him like a stray leaf out of some old pamphlet +of the time of Louis Quinze. + +This fossil greatness finds a rival in another house, wealthier, +though of less ancient lineage. Husband and wife spend a couple of +months of every winter in Paris, bringing back with them its frivolous +tone and short-lived contemporary crazes. Madame is a woman of +fashion, though she looks rather conscious of her clothes, and is +always behind the mode. She scoffs, however, at the ignorance affected +by her neighbors. /Her/ plate is of modern fashion; she has "grooms," +Negroes, a valet-de-chambre, and what-not. Her oldest son drives a +tilbury, and does nothing (the estate is entailed upon him), his +younger brother is auditor to a Council of State. The father is well +posted up in official scandals, and tells you anecdotes of Louis +XVIII. and Madame du Cayla. He invests his money in the five per +cents, and is careful to avoid the topic of cider, but has been known +occasionally to fall a victim to the craze for rectifying the +conjectural sums-total of the various fortunes of the department. He +is a member of the Departmental Council, has his clothes from Paris, +and wears the Cross of the Legion of Honor. In short, he is a country +gentleman who has fully grasped the significance of the Restoration, +and is coining money at the Chamber, but his Royalism is less pure +than that of the rival house; he takes the /Gazette/ and the /Debats/, +the other family only read the /Quotidienne/. + +His lordship the Bishop, a sometime Vicar-General, fluctuates between +the two powers, who pay him the respect due to religion, but at times +they bring home to him the moral appended by the worthy Lafontaine to +the fable of the /Ass laden with Relics/. The good man's origin is +distinctly plebeian. + +Then come stars of the second magnitude, men of family with ten or +twelve hundred livres a year, captains in the navy or cavalry +regiments, or nothing at all. Out on the roads, on horseback, they +rank half-way between the cure bearing the sacraments and the tax +collector on his rounds. Pretty nearly all of them have been in the +Pages or in the Household Troops, and now are peaceably ending their +days in a /faisance-valoir/, more interested in felling timber and the +cider prospects than in the Monarchy. + +Still they talk of the Charter and the Liberals while the cards are +making, or over a game at backgammon, when they have exhausted the +usual stock of /dots/, and have married everybody off according to the +genealogies which they all know by heart. Their womenkind are haughty +dames, who assume the airs of Court ladies in their basket chaises. +They huddle themselves up in shawls and caps by way of full dress; and +twice a year, after ripe deliberation, have a new bonnet from Paris, +brought as opportunity offers. Exemplary wives are they for the most +part, and garrulous. + +These are the principal elements of aristocratic gentility, with a few +outlying old maids of good family, spinsters who have solved the +problem: given a human being, to remain absolutely stationary. They +might be sealed up in the houses where you see them; their faces and +their dresses are literally part of the fixtures of the town, and the +province in which they dwell. They are its tradition, its memory, its +quintessence, the /genius loci/ incarnate. There is something frigid +and monumental about these ladies; they know exactly when to laugh and +when to shake their heads, and every now and then give out some +utterance which passes current as a witticism. + +A few rich townspeople have crept into the miniature Faubourg +Saint-Germain, thanks to their money or their aristocratic leanings. +But despite their forty years, the circle still say of them, "Young +So-and-so has sound opinions," and of such do they make deputies. As +a rule, the elderly spinsters are their patronesses, not without +comment. + +Finally, in this exclusive little set include two or three +ecclesiastics, admitted for the sake of their cloth, or for their wit; +for these great nobles find their own society rather dull, and +introduce the bourgeois element into their drawing-rooms, as a baker +puts leaven into his dough. + +The sum-total contained by all heads put together consists of a +certain quantity of antiquated notions; a few new inflections brewed +in company of an evening being added from time to time to the common +stock. Like sea-water in a little creek, the phrases which represent +these ideas surge up daily, punctually obeying the tidal laws of +conversation in their flow and ebb; you hear the hollow echo of +yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, a year hence, and for evermore. On all +things here below they pass immutable judgments, which go to make up a +body of tradition into which no power of mortal man can infuse one +drop of wit or sense. The lives of these persons revolve with the +regularity of clockwork in an orbit of use and wont which admits of no +more deviation or change than their opinions on matters religious, +political, moral, or literary. + +If a stranger is admitted to the /cenacle/, every member of it in turn +will say (not without a trace of irony), "You will not find the +brilliancy of your Parisian society here," and proceed forthwith to +criticise the life led by his neighbors, as if he himself were an +exception who had striven, and vainly striven, to enlighten the rest. +But any stranger so ill advised as to concur in any of their freely +expressed criticism of each other, is pronounced at once to be an +ill-natured person, a heathen, an outlaw, a reprobate Parisian "as +Parisians mostly are." + +Before Gaston de Nueil made his appearance in this little world of +strictly observed etiquette, where every detail of life is an +integrant part of a whole, and everything is known; where the values +of personalty and real estate is quoted like stocks on the vast sheet +of the newspaper--before his arrival he had been weighed in the +unerring scales of Bayeusaine judgment. + +His cousin, Mme. de Sainte-Severe, had already given out the amount of +his fortune, and the sum of his expectations, had produced the family +tree, and expatiated on the talents, breeding, and modesty of this +particular branch. So he received the precise amount of attentions to +which he was entitled; he was accepted as a worthy scion of a good +stock; and, for he was but twenty-three, was made welcome without +ceremony, though certain young ladies and mothers of daughters looked +not unkindly upon him. + +He had an income of eighteen thousand livres from land in the valley +of the Auge; and sooner or later his father, as in duty bound, would +leave him the chateau of Manerville, with the lands thereunto +belonging. As for his education, political career, personal qualities, +and qualifications--no one so much as thought of raising the +questions. His land was undeniable, his rentals steady; excellent +plantations had been made; the tenants paid for repairs, rates, and +taxes; the apple-trees were thirty-eight years old; and, to crown all, +his father was in treaty for two hundred acres of woodland just +outside the paternal park, which he intended to enclose with walls. No +hopes of a political career, no fame on earth, can compare with such +advantages as these. + +Whether out of malice or design, Mme. de Sainte-Severe omitted to +mention that Gaston had an elder brother; nor did Gaston himself say a +word about him. But, at the same time, it is true that the brother was +consumptive, and to all appearance would shortly be laid in earth, +lamented and forgotten. + +At first Gaston de Nueil amused himself at the expense of the circle. +He drew, as it were, for his mental album, a series of portraits of +these folk, with their angular, wrinkled faces, and hooked noses, +their crotchets and ludicrous eccentricities of dress, portraits which +possessed all the racy flavor of truth. He delighted in their +"Normanisms," in the primitive quaintness of their ideas and +characters. For a short time he flung himself into their squirrel's +life of busy gyrations in a cage. Then he began to feel the want of +variety, and grew tired of it. It was like the life of the cloister, +cut short before it had well begun. He drifted on till he reached a +crisis, which is neither spleen nor disgust, but combines all the +symptoms of both. When a human being is transplanted into an +uncongenial soil, to lead a starved, stunted existence, there is +always a little discomfort over the transition. Then, gradually, if +nothing removes him from his surroundings, he grows accustomed to +them, and adapts himself to the vacuity which grows upon him and +renders him powerless. Even now, Gaston's lungs were accustomed to the +air; and he was willing to discern a kind of vegetable happiness in +days that brought no mental exertion and no responsibilities. The +constant stirring of the sap of life, the fertilizing influences of +mind on mind, after which he had sought so eagerly in Paris, were +beginning to fade from his memory, and he was in a fair way of +becoming a fossil with these fossils, and ending his days among them, +content, like the companions of Ulysses, in his gross envelope. + +One evening Gaston de Nueil was seated between a dowager and one of +the vicars-general of the diocese, in a gray-paneled drawing-room, +floored with large white tiles. The family portraits which adorned the +walls looked down upon four card-tables, and some sixteen persons +gathered about them, chattering over their whist. Gaston, thinking of +nothing, digesting one of those exquisite dinners to which the +provincial looks forward all through the day, found himself justifying +the customs of the country. + +He began to understand why these good folk continued to play with +yesterday's pack of cards and shuffle them on a threadbare tablecloth, +and how it was that they had ceased to dress for themselves or others. +He saw the glimmerings of something like a philosophy in the even +tenor of their perpetual round, in the calm of their methodical +monotony, in their ignorance of the refinements of luxury. Indeed, he +almost came to think that luxury profited nothing; and even now, the +city of Paris, with its passions, storms, and pleasures, was scarcely +more than a memory of childhood. + +He admired in all sincerity the red hands, and shy, bashful manner of +some young lady who at first struck him as an awkward simpleton, +unattractive to the last degree, and surprisingly ridiculous. His doom +was sealed. He had gone from the provinces to Paris; he had led the +feverish life of Paris; and now he would have sunk back into the +lifeless life of the provinces, but for a chance remark which reached +his ear--a few words that called up a swift rush of such emotion as he +might have felt when a strain of really good music mingles with the +accompaniment of some tedious opera. + +"You went to call on Mme. de Beauseant yesterday, did you not?" The +speaker was an elderly lady, and she addressed the head of the local +royal family. + +"I went this morning. She was so poorly and depressed, that I could +not persuade her to dine with us to-morrow." + +"With Mme. de Champignelles?" exclaimed the dowager with something +like astonishment in her manner. + +"With my wife," calmly assented the noble. "Mme. de Beauseant is +descended from the House of Burgundy, on the spindle side, 'tis true, +but the name atones for everything. My wife is very much attached to +the Vicomtesse, and the poor lady has lived alone for such a long +while, that----" + +The Marquis de Champignelles looked round about him while he spoke +with an air of cool unconcern, so that it was almost impossible to +guess whether he made a concession to Mme. de Beauseant's misfortunes, +or paid homage to her noble birth; whether he felt flattered to +receive her in his house, or, on the contrary, sheer pride was the +motive that led him to try to force the country families to meet the +Vicomtesse. + +The women appeared to take counsel of each other by a glance; there +was a sudden silence in the room, and it was felt that their attitude +was one of disapproval. + +"Does this Mme. de Beauseant happen to be the lady whose adventure +with M. d'Ajuda-Pinto made so much noise?" asked Gaston of his +neighbor. + +"The very same," he was told. "She came to Courcelles after the +marriage of the Marquis d'Ajuda; nobody visits her. She has, besides, +too much sense not to see that she is in a false position, so she has +made no attempt to see any one. M. de Champignelles and a few +gentlemen went to call upon her, but she would see no one but M. de +Champignelles, perhaps because he is a connection of the family. They +are related through the Beauseants; the father of the present Vicomte +married a Mlle. de Champignelles of the older branch. But though the +Vicomtesse de Beauseant is supposed to be a descendant of the House of +Burgundy, you can understand that we could not admit a wife separated +from her husband into our society here. We are foolish enough still to +cling to these old-fashioned ideas. There was the less excuse for the +Vicomtesse, because M. de Beauseant is a well-bred man of the world, +who would have been quite ready to listen to reason. But his wife is +quite mad----" and so forth and so forth. + +M. de Nueil, still listening to the speaker's voice, gathered nothing +of the sense of the words; his brain was too full of thick-coming +fancies. Fancies? What other name can you give to the alluring charms +of an adventure that tempts the imagination and sets vague hopes +springing up in the soul; to the sense of coming events and mysterious +felicity and fear at hand, while as yet there is no substance of fact +on which these phantoms of caprice can fix and feed? Over these +fancies thought hovers, conceiving impossible projects, giving in the +germ all the joys of love. Perhaps, indeed, all passion is contained +in that thought-germ, as the beauty, and fragrance, and rich color of +the flower is all packed in the seed. + +M. de Nueil did not know that Mme. de Beauseant had taken refuge in +Normandy, after a notoriety which women for the most part envy and +condemn, especially when youth and beauty in some sort excuse the +transgression. Any sort of celebrity bestows an inconceivable +prestige. Apparently for women, as for families, the glory of the +crime effaces the stain; and if such and such a noble house is proud +of its tale of heads that have fallen on the scaffold, a young and +pretty woman becomes more interesting for the dubious renown of a +happy love or a scandalous desertion, and the more she is to be +pitied, the more she excites our sympathies. We are only pitiless to +the commonplace. If, moreover, we attract all eyes, we are to all +intents and purposes great; how, indeed, are we to be seen unless we +raise ourselves above other people's heads? The common herd of +humanity feels an involuntary respect for any person who can rise +above it, and is not over-particular as to the means by which they +rise. + +It may have been that some such motives influenced Gaston de Nueil at +unawares, or perhaps it was curiosity, or a craving for some interest +in his life, or, in a word, that crowd of inexplicable impulses which, +for want of a better name, we are wont to call "fatality," that drew +him to Mme. de Beauseant. + +The figure of the Vicomtesse de Beauseant rose up suddenly before him +with gracious thronging associations. She was a new world for him, a +world of fears and hopes, a world to fight for and to conquer. +Inevitably he felt the contrast between this vision and the human +beings in the shabby room; and then, in truth, she was a woman; what +woman had he seen so far in this dull, little world, where calculation +replaced thought and feeling, where courtesy was a cut-and-dried +formality, and ideas of the very simplest were too alarming to be +received or to pass current? The sound of Mme. de Beauseant's name +revived a young man's dreams and wakened urgent desires that had lain +dormant for a little. + +Gaston de Nueil was absent-minded and preoccupied for the rest of the +evening. He was pondering how he might gain access to Mme. de +Beauseant, and truly it was no very easy matter. She was believed to +be extremely clever. But if men and women of parts may be captivated +by something subtle or eccentric, they are also exacting, and can read +all that lies below the surface; and after the first step has been +taken, the chances of failure and success in the difficult task of +pleasing them are about even. In this particular case, moreover, the +Vicomtesse, besides the pride of her position, had all the dignity of +her name. Her utter seclusion was the least of the barriers raised +between her and the world. For which reasons it was well-nigh +impossible that a stranger, however well born, could hope for +admittance; and yet, the next morning found M. de Nueil taking his +walks abroad in the direction of Courcelles, a dupe of illusions +natural at his age. Several times he made the circuit of the garden +walls, looking earnestly through every gap at the closed shutters or +open windows, hoping for some romantic chance, on which he founded +schemes for introducing himself into this unknown lady's presence, +without a thought of their impracticability. Morning after morning was +spent in this way to mighty purpose; but with each day's walk, that +vision of a woman living apart from the world, of love's martyr buried +in solitude, loomed larger in his thoughts, and was enshrined in his +soul. So Gaston de Nueil walked under the walls of Courcelles, and +some gardener's heavy footstep would set his heart beating high with +hope. + +He thought of writing to Mme. de Beauseant, but on mature +consideration, what can you say to a woman whom you have never seen, a +complete stranger? And Gaston had little self-confidence. Like most +young persons with a plentiful crop of illusions still standing, he +dreaded the mortifying contempt of silence more than death itself, and +shuddered at the thought of sending his first tender epistle forth to +face so many chances of being thrown on the fire. He was distracted by +innumerable conflicting ideas. But by dint of inventing chimeras, +weaving romances, and cudgeling his brains, he hit at last upon one of +the hopeful stratagems that are sure to occur to your mind if you +persevere long enough, a stratagem which must make clear to the most +inexperienced woman that here was a man who took a fervent interest in +her. The caprice of social conventions puts as many barriers between +lovers as any Oriental imagination can devise in the most delightfully +fantastic tale; indeed, the most extravagant pictures are seldom +exaggerations. In real life, as in the fairy tales, the woman belongs +to him who can reach her and set her free from the position in which +she languishes. The poorest of calenders that ever fell in love with +the daughter of the Khalif is in truth scarcely further from his lady +than Gaston de Nueil from Mme. de Beauseant. The Vicomtesse knew +absolutely nothing of M. de Nueil's wanderings round her house; Gaston +de Nueil's love grew to the height of the obstacles to overleap; and +the distance set between him and his extemporized lady-love produced +the usual effect of distance, in lending enchantment. + +One day, confident in his inspiration, he hoped everything from the +love that must pour forth from his eyes. Spoken words, in his opinion, +were more eloquent than the most passionate letter; and, besides, he +would engage feminine curiosity to plead for him. He went, therefore, +to M. de Champignelles, proposing to employ that gentleman for the +better success of his enterprise. He informed the Marquis that he had +been entrusted with a delicate and important commission which +concerned the Vicomtesse de Beauseant, that he felt doubtful whether +she would read a letter written in an unknown handwriting, or put +confidence in a stranger. Would M. de Champignelles, on his next +visit, ask the Vicomtesse if she would consent to receive him--Gaston +de Nueil? While he asked the Marquis to keep his secret in case of a +refusal, he very ingeniously insinuated sufficient reasons for his own +admittance, to be duly passed on to the Vicomtesse. Was not M. de +Champignelles a man of honor, a loyal gentleman incapable of lending +himself to any transaction in bad taste, nay, the merest suspicion of +bad taste! Love lends a young man all the self-possession and astute +craft of an old ambassador; all the Marquis' harmless vanities were +gratified, and the haughty grandee was completely duped. He tried hard +to fathom Gaston's secret; but the latter, who would have been greatly +perplexed to tell it, turned off M. de Champignelles' adroit +questioning with a Norman's shrewdness, till the Marquis, as a gallant +Frenchman, complimented his young visitor upon his discretion. + +M. de Champignelles hurried off at once to Courcelles, with that +eagerness to serve a pretty woman which belongs to his time of life. +In the Vicomtesse de Beauseant's position, such a message was likely +to arouse keen curiosity; so, although her memory supplied no reason +at all that could bring M. de Nueil to her house, she saw no objection +to his visit--after some prudent inquiries as to his family and +condition. At the same time, she began by a refusal. Then she +discussed the propriety of the matter with M. de Champignelles, +directing her questions so as to discover, if possible, whether he +knew the motives for the visit, and finally revoked her negative +answer. The discussion and the discretion shown perforce by the +Marquis had piqued her curiosity. + +M. de Champignelles had no mind to cut a ridiculous figure. He said, +with the air of a man who can keep another's counsel, that the +Vicomtesse must know the purpose of this visit perfectly well; while +the Vicomtesse, in all sincerity, had no notion what it could be. Mme. +de Beauseant, in perplexity, connected Gaston with people whom he had +never met, went astray after various wild conjectures, and asked +herself if she had seen this M. de Nueil before. In truth, no +love-letter, however sincere or skilfully indited, could have produced +so much effect as this riddle. Again and again Mme. de Beauseant +puzzled over it. + +When Gaston heard that he might call upon the Vicomtesse, his rapture +at so soon obtaining the ardently longed-for good fortune was mingled +with singular embarrassment. How was he to contrive a suitable sequel +to this stratagem? + +"Bah! I shall see /her/," he said over and over again to himself as he +dressed. "See her, and that is everything!" + +He fell to hoping that once across the threshold of Courcelles he +should find an expedient for unfastening this Gordian knot of his own +tying. There are believers in the omnipotence of necessity who never +turn back; the close presence of danger is an inspiration that calls +out all their powers for victory. Gaston de Nueil was one of these. + +He took particular pains with his dress, imagining, as youth is apt to +imagine, that success or failure hangs on the position of a curl, and +ignorant of the fact that anything is charming in youth. And, in any +case, such women as Mme. de Beauseant are only attracted by the charms +of wit or character of an unusual order. Greatness of character +flatters their vanity, promises a great passion, seems to imply a +comprehension of the requirements of their hearts. Wit amuses them, +responds to the subtlety of their natures, and they think that they +are understood. And what do all women wish but to be amused, +understood, or adored? It is only after much reflection on the things +of life that we understand the consummate coquetry of neglect of dress +and reserve at a first interview; and by the time we have gained +sufficient astuteness for successful strategy, we are too old to +profit by our experience. + +While Gaston's lack of confidence in his mental equipment drove him to +borrow charms from his clothes, Madame de Beauseant herself was +instinctively giving more attention to her toilette. + +"I would rather not frighten people, at all events," she said to +herself as she arranged her hair. + +In M. de Nueil's character, person, and manner there was that touch of +unconscious originality which gives a kind of flavor to things that +any one might say or do, and absolves everything that they may choose +to do or say. He was highly cultivated, he had a keen brain, and a +face, mobile as his own nature, which won the goodwill of others. The +promise of passion and tenderness in the bright eyes was fulfilled by +an essentially kindly heart. The resolution which he made as he +entered the house at Courcelles was in keeping with his frank nature +and ardent imagination. But, bold has he was with love, his heart beat +violently when he had crossed the great court, laid out like an +English garden, and the man-servant, who had taken his name to the +Vicomtesse, returned to say that she would receive him. + +"M. le Baron de Nueil." + +Gaston came in slowly, but with sufficient ease of manner; and it is a +more difficult thing, be it said, to enter a room where there is but +one woman, than a room that holds a score. + +A great fire was burning on the hearth in spite of the mild weather, +and by the soft light of the candles in the sconces he saw a young +woman sitting on a high-backed /bergere/ in the angle by the hearth. +The seat was so low that she could move her head freely; every turn of +it was full of grace and delicate charm, whether she bent, leaning +forward, or raised and held it erect, slowly and languidly, as though +it were a heavy burden, so low that she could cross her feet and let +them appear, or draw them back under the folds of a long black dress. + +The Vicomtesse made as if she would lay the book that she was reading +on a small, round stand; but as she did so, she turned towards M. de +Nueil, and the volume, insecurely laid upon the edge, fell to the +ground between the stand and the sofa. This did not seem to disconcert +her. She looked up, bowing almost imperceptibly in response to his +greeting, without rising from the depths of the low chair in which she +lay. Bending forwards, she stirred the fire briskly, and stooped to +pick up a fallen glove, drawing it mechanically over her left hand, +while her eyes wandered in search of its fellow. The glance was +instantly checked, however, for she stretched out a thin, white, +all-but-transparent right hand, with flawless ovals of rose-colored +nail at the tips of the slender, ringless fingers, and pointed to a +chair as if to bid Gaston be seated. He sat down, and she turned her +face questioningly towards him. Words cannot describe the subtlety of +the winning charm and inquiry in that gesture; deliberate in its +kindliness, gracious yet accurate in expression, it was the outcome of +early education and of a constant use and wont of the graciousness of +life. These movements of hers, so swift, so deft, succeeded each other +by the blending of a pretty woman's fastidious carelessness with the +high-bred manner of a great lady. + +Mme. de Beauseant stood out in such strong contrast against the +automatons among whom he had spent two months of exile in that +out-of-the-world district of Normandy, that he could not but find in +her the realization of his romantic dreams; and, on the other hand, +he could not compare her perfections with those of other women whom he +had formerly admired. Here in her presence, in a drawing-room like some +salon in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, full of costly trifles lying +about upon the tables, and flowers and books, he felt as if he were +back in Paris. It was a real Parisian carpet beneath his feet, he saw +once more the high-bred type of Parisienne, the fragile outlines of +her form, her exquisite charm, her disdain of the studied effects +which did so much to spoil provincial women. + +Mme. de Beauseant had fair hair and dark eyes, and the pale complexion +that belongs to fair hair. She held up her brow nobly like some fallen +angel, grown proud through the fall, disdainful of pardon. Her way of +gathering her thick hair into a crown of plaits above the broad, +curving lines of the bandeaux upon her forehead, added to the +queenliness of her face. Imagination could discover the ducal coronet +of Burgundy in the spiral threads of her golden hair; all the courage +of her house seemed to gleam from the great lady's brilliant eyes, +such courage as women use to repel audacity or scorn, for they were +full of tenderness for gentleness. The outline of that little head, so +admirably poised above the long, white throat, the delicate, fine +features, the subtle curves of the lips, the mobile face itself, wore +an expression of delicate discretion, a faint semblance of irony +suggestive of craft and insolence. Yet it would have been difficult to +refuse forgiveness to those two feminine failings in her; for the +lines that came out in her forehead whenever her face was not in +repose, like her upward glances (that pathetic trick of manner), told +unmistakably of unhappiness, of a passion that had all but cost her +her life. A woman, sitting in the great, silent salon, a woman cut off +from the rest of the world in this remote little valley, alone, with +the memories of her brilliant, happy, and impassioned youth, of +continual gaiety and homage paid on all sides, now replaced by the +horrors of the void--was there not something in the sight to strike +awe that deepened with reflection? Consciousness of her own value +lurked in her smile. She was neither wife nor mother, she was an +outlaw; she had lost the one heart that could set her pulses beating +without shame; she had nothing from without to support her reeling +soul; she must even look for strength from within, live her own life, +cherish no hope save that of forsaken love, which looks forward to +Death's coming, and hastens his lagging footsteps. And this while life +was in its prime. Oh! to feel destined for happiness and to die--never +having given nor received it! A woman too! What pain was this! These +thoughts flashing across M. de Nueil's mind like lightning, left him +very humble in the presence of the greatest charm with which woman can +be invested. The triple aureole of beauty, nobleness, and misfortune +dazzled him; he stood in dreamy, almost open-mouthed admiration of the +Vicomtesse. But he found nothing to say to her. + +Mme. de Beauseant, by no means displeased, no doubt, by his surprise, +held out her hand with a kindly but imperious gesture; then, summoning +a smile to her pale lips, as if obeying, even yet, the woman's impulse +to be gracious: + +"I have heard from M. de Champignelles of a message which you have +kindly undertaken to deliver, monsieur," she said. "Can it be +from----" + +With that terrible phrase Gaston understood, even more clearly than +before, his own ridiculous position, the bad taste and bad faith of +his behavior towards a woman so noble and so unfortunate. He reddened. +The thoughts that crowded in upon him could be read in his troubled +eyes; but suddenly, with the courage which youth draws from a sense of +its own wrongdoing, he gained confidence, and very humbly interrupted +Mme. de Beauseant. + +"Madame," he faltered out, "I do not deserve the happiness of seeing +you. I have deceived you basely. However strong the motive may have +been, it can never excuse the pitiful subterfuge which I used to gain +my end. But, madame, if your goodness will permit me to tell you----" + +The Vicomtesse glanced at M. de Nueil, haughty disdain in her whole +manner. She stretched her hand to the bell and rang it. + +"Jacques," she said, "light this gentleman to the door," and she +looked with dignity at the visitor. + +She rose proudly, bowed to Gaston, and then stooped for the fallen +volume. If all her movements on his entrance had been caressingly +dainty and gracious, her every gesture now was no less severely +frigid. M. de Nueil rose to his feet, but he stood waiting. Mme. de +Beauseant flung another glance at him. "Well, why do you not go?" she +seemed to say. + +There was such cutting irony in that glance that Gaston grew white as +if he were about to faint. Tears came into his eyes, but he would not +let them fall, and scorching shame and despair dried them. He looked +back at Madame de Beauseant, and a certain pride and consciousness of +his own worth was mingled with his humility; the Vicomtesse had a +right to punish him, but ought she to use her right? Then he went out. + +As he crossed the ante-chamber, a clear head, and wits sharpened by +passion, were not slow to grasp the danger of his situation. + +"If I leave this house, I can never come back to it again," he said to +himself. "The Vicomtesse will always think of me as a fool. It is +impossible that a woman, and such a woman, should not guess the love +that she has called forth. Perhaps she feels a little, vague, +involuntary regret for dismissing me so abruptly.--But she could not +do otherwise, and she cannot recall her sentence. It rests with me to +understand her." + +At that thought Gaston stopped short on the flight of steps with an +exclamation; he turned sharply, saying, "I have forgotten something," +and went back to the salon. The lackey, all respect for a baron and +the rights of property, was completely deceived by the natural +utterance, and followed him. Gaston returned quietly and unannounced. +The Vicomtesse, thinking that the intruder was the servant, looked up +and beheld M. de Nueil. + +"Jacques lighted me to the door," he said, with a half-sad smile which +dispelled any suspicion of jest in those words, while the tone in +which they were spoken went to the heart. Mme. de Beauseant was +disarmed. + +"Very well, take a seat," she said. + +Gaston eagerly took possession of a chair. His eyes were shining with +happiness; the Vicomtesse, unable to endure the brilliant light in +them, looked down at the book. She was enjoying a delicious, ever new +sensation; the sense of a man's delight in her presence is an +unfailing feminine instinct. And then, besides, he had divined her, +and a woman is so grateful to the man who has mastered the apparently +capricious, yet logical, reasoning of her heart; who can track her +thought through the seemingly contradictory workings of her mind, and +read the sensations, shy or bold, written in fleeting red, a +bewildering maze of coquetry and self-revelation. + +"Madame," Gaston exclaimed in a low voice, "my blunder you know, but +you do not know how much I am to blame. If you only knew what joy it +was to----" + +"Ah! take care," she said, holding up one finger with an air of +mystery, as she put out her hand towards the bell. + +The charming gesture, the gracious threat, no doubt called up some sad +thought, some memory of the old happy time when she could be wholly +charming and gentle without an afterthought; when the gladness of her +heart justified every caprice, and put charm into every least +movement. The lines in her forehead gathered between her brows, and +the expression of her face grew dark in the soft candle-light. Then +looking across at M. de Nueil gravely but not unkindly, she spoke like +a woman who deeply feels the meaning of every word. + +"This is all very ridiculous! Once upon a time, monsieur, when +thoughtless high spirits were my privilege, I should have laughed +fearlessly over your visit with you. But now my life is very much +changed. I cannot do as I like, I am obliged to think. What brings you +here? Is it curiosity? In that case I am paying dearly for a little +fleeting pleasure. Have you fallen /passionately/ in love already with +a woman whom you have never seen, a woman with whose name slander has, +of course, been busy? If so, your motive in making this visit is based +on disrespect, on an error which accident brought into notoriety." + +She flung her book down scornfully upon the table, then, with a +terrible look at Gaston, she went on: "Because I once was weak, must +it be supposed that I am always weak? This is horrible, degrading. Or +have you come here to pity me? You are very young to offer sympathy +with heart troubles. Understand this clearly, sir, that I would rather +have scorn than pity. I will not endure compassion from any one." + +There was a brief pause. + +"Well, sir," she continued (and the face that she turned to him was +gentle and sad), "whatever motive induced this rash intrusion upon my +solitude, it is very painful to me, you see. You are too young to be +totally without good feeling, so surely you will feel that this +behavior of yours is improper. I forgive you for it, and, as you see, +I am speaking of it to you without bitterness. You will not come here +again, will you? I am entreating when I might command. If you come to +see me again, neither you nor I can prevent the whole place from +believing that you are my lover, and you would cause me great +additional annoyance. You do not mean to do that, I think." + +She said no more, but looked at him with a great dignity which abashed +him. + +"I have done wrong, madame," he said, with deep feeling in his voice, +"but it was through enthusiasm and thoughtlessness and eager desire of +happiness, the qualities and defects of my age. Now, I understand that +I ought not to have tried to see you," he added; "but, at the same +time, the desire was a very natural one"--and, making an appeal to +feeling rather than to the intellect, he described the weariness of +his enforced exile. He drew a portrait of a young man in whom the +fires of life were burning themselves out, conveying the impression +that here was a heart worthy of tender love, a heart which, +notwithstanding, had never known the joys of love for a young and +beautiful woman of refinement and taste. He explained, without +attempting to justify, his unusual conduct. He flattered Mme. de +Beauseant by showing that she had realized for him the ideal lady of a +young man's dream, the ideal sought by so many, and so often sought in +vain. Then he touched upon his morning prowlings under the walls of +Courcelles, and his wild thoughts at the first sight of the house, +till he excited that vague feeling of indulgence which a woman can +find in her heart for the follies committed for her sake. + +An impassioned voice was speaking in the chill solitude; the speaker +brought with him a warm breath of youth and the charms of a carefully +cultivated mind. It was so long since Mme. de Beauseant had felt +stirred by real feeling delicately expressed, that it affected her +very strongly now. In spite of herself, she watched M. de Nueil's +expressive face, and admired the noble countenance of a soul, unbroken +as yet by the cruel discipline of the life of the world, unfretted by +continual scheming to gratify personal ambition and vanity. Gaston was +in the flower of his youth, he impressed her as a man with something +in him, unaware as yet of the great career that lay before him. So +both these two made reflections most dangerous for their peace of +mind, and both strove to conceal their thoughts. M. de Nueil saw in +the Vicomtesse a rare type of woman, always the victim of her +perfections and tenderness; her graceful beauty is the least of her +charms for those who are privileged to know the infinite of feeling +and thought and goodness in the soul within; a woman whose instinctive +feeling for beauty runs through all the most varied expressions of +love, purifying its transports, turning them to something almost holy; +wonderful secret of womanhood, the exquisite gift that Nature so +seldom bestows. And the Vicomtesse, on her side, listening to the ring +of sincerity in Gaston's voice, while he told of his youthful +troubles, began to understand all that grown children of +five-and-twenty suffer from diffidence, when hard work has kept them +alike from corrupting influences and intercourse with men and women of +the world whose sophistical reasoning and experience destroys the fair +qualities of youth. Here was the ideal of a woman's dreams, a man +unspoiled as yet by the egoism of family or success, or by that narrow +selfishness which blights the first impulses of honor, devotion, +self-sacrifice, and high demands of self; all the flowers so soon +wither that enrich at first the life of delicate but strong emotions, +and keep alive the loyalty of the heart. + +But these two, once launched forth into the vast of sentiment, went +far indeed in theory, sounding the depths in either soul, testing the +sincerity of their expressions; only, whereas Gaston's experiments +were made unconsciously, Mme. de Beauseant had a purpose in all that +she said. Bringing her natural and acquired subtlety to the work, she +sought to learn M. de Nueil's opinions by advancing, as far as she +could do so, views diametrically opposed to her own. So witty and so +gracious was she, so much herself with this stranger, with whom she +felt completely at ease, because she felt sure that they should never +meet again, that, after some delicious epigram of hers, Gaston +exclaimed unthinkingly: + +"Oh! madame, how could any man have left you?" + +The Vicomtesse was silent. Gaston reddened, he thought that he had +offended her; but she was not angry. The first deep thrill of delight +since the day of her calamity had taken her by surprise. The skill of +the cleverest /roue/ could not have made the impression that M. de +Nueil made with that cry from the heart. That verdict wrung from a +young man's candor gave her back innocence in her own eyes, condemned +the world, laid the blame upon the lover who had left her, and +justified her subsequent solitary drooping life. The world's +absolution, the heartfelt sympathy, the social esteem so longed for, +and so harshly refused, nay, all her secret desires were given her to +the full in that exclamation, made fairer yet by the heart's sweetest +flatteries and the admiration that women always relish eagerly. He +understood her, understood all, and he had given her, as if it were +the most natural thing in the world, the opportunity of rising higher +through her fall. She looked at the clock. + +"Ah! madame, do not punish me for my heedlessness. If you grant me but +one evening, vouchsafe not to shorten it." + +She smiled at the pretty speech. + +"Well, as we must never meet again," she said, "what signifies a +moment more or less? If you were to care for me, it would be a pity." + +"It is too late now," he said. + +"Do not tell me that," she answered gravely. "Under any other +circumstances I should be very glad to see you. I will speak frankly, +and you will understand how it is that I do not choose to see you +again, and ought not to do so. You have too much magnanimity not to +feel that if I were so much as suspected of a second trespass, every +one would think of me as a contemptible and vulgar woman; I should be +like other women. A pure and blameless life will bring my character +into relief. I am too proud not to endeavor to live like one apart in +the world, a victim of the law through my marriage, man's victim +through my love. If I were not faithful to the position which I have +taken up, then I should deserve all the reproach that is heaped upon +me; I should be lowered in my own eyes. I had not enough lofty social +virtue to remain with a man whom I did not love. I have snapped the +bonds of marriage in spite of the law; it was wrong, it was a crime, +it was anything you like, but for me the bonds meant death. I meant to +live. Perhaps if I had been a mother I could have endured the torture +of a forced marriage of suitability. At eighteen we scarcely know what +is done with us, poor girls that we are! I have broken the laws of the +world, and the world has punished me; we both did rightly. I sought +happiness. Is it not a law of our nature to seek for happiness? I was +young, I was beautiful . . . I thought that I had found a nature as +loving, as apparently passionate. I was loved indeed; for a little +while . . ." + +She paused. + +"I used to think," she said, "that no one could leave a woman in such +a position as mine. I have been forsaken; I must have offended in some +way. Yes, in some way, no doubt, I failed to keep some law of our +nature, was too loving, too devoted, too exacting--I do not know. Evil +days have brought light with them! For a long while I blamed another, +now I am content to bear the whole blame. At my own expense, I have +absolved that other of whom I once thought I had a right to complain. +I had not the art to keep him; fate has punished me heavily for my +lack of skill. I only knew how to love; how can one keep oneself in +mind when one loves? So I was a slave when I should have sought to be +a tyrant. Those who know me may condemn me, but they will respect me +too. Pain has taught me that I must not lay myself open to this a +second time. I cannot understand how it is that I am living yet, after +the anguish of that first week of the most fearful crisis in a woman's +life. Only from three years of loneliness would it be possible to draw +strength to speak of that time as I am speaking now. Such agony, +monsieur, usually ends in death; but this--well, it was the agony of +death with no tomb to end it. Oh! I have known pain indeed!" + +The Vicomtesse raised her beautiful eyes to the ceiling; and the +cornice, no doubt, received all the confidences which a stranger might +not hear. When a woman is afraid to look at her interlocutor, there is +in truth no gentler, meeker, more accommodating confidant than the +cornice. The cornice is quite an institution in the boudoir; what is +it but the confessional, /minus/ the priest? + +Mme. de Beauseant was eloquent and beautiful at that moment; nay, +"coquettish," if the word were not too heavy. By justifying herself +and love, she was stimulating every sentiment in the man before her; +nay, more, the higher she set the goal, the more conspicuous it grew. +At last, when her eyes had lost the too eloquent expression given to +them by painful memories, she let them fall on Gaston. + +"You acknowledge, do you not, that I am bound to lead a solitary, +self-contained life?" she said quietly. + +So sublime was she in her reasoning and her madness, that M. de Nueil +felt a wild longing to throw himself at her feet; but he was afraid of +making himself ridiculous, so he held his enthusiasm and his thoughts +in check. He was afraid, too, that he might totally fail to express +them, and in no less terror of some awful rejection on her part, or of +her mockery, an apprehension which strikes like ice to the most fervid +soul. The revulsion which led him to crush down every feeling as it +sprang up in his heart cost him the intense pain that diffident and +ambitious natures experience in the frequent crises when they are +compelled to stifle their longings. And yet, in spite of himself, he +broke the silence to say in a faltering voice: + +"Madame, permit me to give way to one of the strongest emotions of my +life, and own to all that you have made me feel. You set the heart in +me swelling high! I feel within me a longing to make you forget your +mortifications, to devote my life to this, to give you love for all +who ever have given you wounds or hate. But this is a very sudden +outpouring of the heart, nothing can justify it to-day, and I ought +not----" + +"Enough, monsieur," said Mme. de Beauseant; "we have both of us gone +too far. By giving you the sad reasons for a refusal which I am +compelled to give, I meant to soften it and not to elicit homage. +Coquetry only suits a happy woman. Believe me, we must remain +strangers to each other. At a later day you will know that ties which +must inevitably be broken ought not to be formed at all." + +She sighed lightly, and her brows contracted, but almost immediately +grew clear again. + +"How painful it is for a woman to be powerless to follow the man she +loves through all the phases of his life! And if that man loves her +truly, his heart must surely vibrate with pain to the deep trouble in +hers. Are they not twice unhappy?" + +There was a short pause. Then she rose smiling. + +"You little suspected, when you came to Courcelles, that you were to +hear a sermon, did you?" + +Gaston felt even further than at first from this extraordinary woman. +Was the charm of that delightful hour due after all to the coquetry of +the mistress of the house? She had been anxious to display her wit. He +bowed stiffly to the Vicomtesse, and went away in desperation. + +On the way home he tried to detect the real character of a creature +supple and hard as a steel spring; but he had seen her pass through so +many phases, that he could not make up his mind about her. The tones +of her voice, too, were ringing in his ears; her gestures, the little +movements of her head, and the varying expression of her eyes grew +more gracious in memory, more fascinating as he thought of them. The +Vicomtesse's beauty shone out again for him in the darkness; his +reviving impressions called up yet others, and he was enthralled anew +by womanly charm and wit, which at first he had not perceived. He fell +to wandering musings, in which the most lucid thoughts grow refractory +and flatly contradict each other, and the soul passes through a brief +frenzy fit. Youth only can understand all that lies in the dithyrambic +outpourings of youth when, after a stormy siege, of the most frantic +folly and coolest common-sense, the heart finally yields to the +assault of the latest comer, be it hope, or despair, as some +mysterious power determines. + +At three-and-twenty, diffidence nearly always rules a man's conduct; +he is perplexed with a young girl's shyness, a girl's trouble; he is +afraid lest he should express his love ill, sees nothing but +difficulties, and takes alarm at them; he would be bolder if he loved +less, for he has no confidence in himself, and with a growing sense of +the cost of happiness comes a conviction that the woman he loves +cannot easily be won; perhaps, too, he is giving himself up too +entirely to his own pleasure, and fears that he can give none; and +when, for his misfortune, his idol inspires him with awe, he worships +in secret and afar, and unless his love is guessed, it dies away. Then +it often happens that one of these dead early loves lingers on, bright +with illusions in many a young heart. What man is there but keeps +within him these virgin memories that grow fairer every time they rise +before him, memories that hold up to him the ideal of perfect bliss? +Such recollections are like children who die in the flower of +childhood, before their parents have known anything of them but their +smiles. + +So M. de Nueil came home from Courcelles, the victim of a mood fraught +with desperate resolutions. Even now he felt that Mme. de Beauseant +was one of the conditions of his existence, and that death would be +preferable to life without her. He was still young enough to feel the +tyrannous fascination which fully-developed womanhood exerts over +immature and impassioned natures; and, consequently, he was to spend +one of those stormy nights when a young man's thoughts travel from +happiness to suicide and back again--nights in which youth rushes +through a lifetime of bliss and falls asleep from sheer exhaustion. +Fateful nights are they, and the worst misfortune that can happen is +to awake a philosopher afterwards. M. de Nueil was far too deeply in +love to sleep; he rose and betook to inditing letters, but none of +them were satisfactory, and he burned them all. + + + +The next day he went to Courcelles to make the circuit of her garden +walls, but he waited till nightfall; he was afraid that she might see +him. The instinct that led him to act in this way arose out of so +obscure a mood of the soul, that none but a young man, or a man in +like case, can fully understand its mute ecstasies and its vagaries, +matter to set those people who are lucky enough to see life only in +its matter-of-fact aspect shrugging their shoulders. After painful +hesitation, Gaston wrote to Mme. de Beauseant. Here is the letter, +which may serve as a sample of the epistolary style peculiar to +lovers, a performance which, like the drawings prepared with great +secrecy by children for the birthdays of father or mother, is found +insufferable by every mortal except the recipients:-- + + "MADAME,--Your power over my heart, my soul, myself, is so great + that my fate depends wholly upon you to-day. Do not throw this + letter into the fire; be so kind as to read it through. Perhaps + you may pardon the opening sentence when you see that it is no + commonplace, selfish declaration, but that it expresses a simple + fact. Perhaps you may feel moved, because I ask for so little, by + the submission of one who feels himself so much beneath you, by + the influence that your decision will exercise upon my life. At my + age, madame, I only know how to love, I am utterly ignorant of + ways of attracting and winning a woman's love, but in my own heart + I know raptures of adoration of her. I am irresistibly drawn to + you by the great happiness that I feel through you; my thoughts + turn to you with the selfish instinct which bids us draw nearer to + the fire of life when we find it. I do not imagine that I am + worthy of you; it seems impossible that I, young, ignorant, and + shy, could bring you one-thousandth part of the happiness that I + drink in at the sound of your voice and the sight of you. For me + you are the only woman in the world. I cannot imagine life without + you, so I have made up my mind to leave France, and to risk my + life till I lose it in some desperate enterprise, in the Indies, + in Africa, I care not where. How can I quell a love that knows no + limits save by opposing to it something as infinite? Yet, if you + will allow me to hope, not to be yours, but to win your + friendship, I will stay. Let me come, not so very often, if you + require it, to spend a few such hours with you as those stolen + hours of yesterday. The keen delight of that brief happiness to be + cut short at the least over-ardent word from me, will suffice to + enable me to endure the boiling torrent in my veins. Have I + presumed too much upon your generosity by this entreaty to suffer + an intercourse in which all the gain is mine alone? You could find + ways of showing the world, to which you sacrifice so much, that I + am nothing to you; you are so clever and so proud! What have you + to fear? If I could only lay bare my heart to you at this moment, + to convince you that it is with no lurking afterthought that I + make this humble request! Should I have told you that my love was + boundless, while I prayed you to grant me friendship, if I had any + hope of your sharing this feeling in the depths of my soul? No, + while I am with you, I will be whatever you will, if only I may be + with you. If you refuse (as you have the power to refuse), I will + not utter one murmur, I will go. And if, at a later day, any other + woman should enter into my life, you will have proof that you were + right; but if I am faithful till death, you may feel some regret + perhaps. The hope of causing you a regret will soothe my agony, + and that thought shall be the sole revenge of a slighted + heart. . . ." + +Only those who have passed through all the exceeding tribulations of +youth, who have seized on all the chimeras with two white pinions, the +nightmare fancies at the disposal of a fervid imagination, can realize +the horrors that seized upon Gaston de Nueil when he had reason to +suppose that his ultimatum was in Mme. de Beauseant's hands. He saw +the Vicomtesse, wholly untouched, laughing at his letter and his love, +as those can laugh who have ceased to believe in love. He could have +wished to have his letter back again. It was an absurd letter. There +were a thousand and one things, now that he came to think of it, that +he might have said, things infinitely better and more moving than +those stilted phrases of his, those accursed, sophisticated, +pretentious, fine-spun phrases, though, luckily, the punctuation had +been pretty bad and the lines shockingly crooked. He tried not to +think, not to feel; but he felt and thought, and was wretched. If he +had been thirty years old, he might have got drunk, but the innocence +of three-and-twenty knew nothing of the resources of opium nor of the +expedients of advanced civilization. Nor had he at hand one of those +good friends of the Parisian pattern who understand so well how to say +/Poete, non dolet!/ by producing a bottle of champagne, or alleviate +the agony of suspense by carrying you off somewhere to make a night of +it. Capital fellows are they, always in low water when you are in +funds, always off to some watering-place when you go to look them up, +always with some bad bargain in horse-flesh to sell you; it is true, +that when you want to borrow of them, they have always just lost their +last louis at play; but in all other respects they are the best +fellows on earth, always ready to embark with you on one of the steep +down-grades where you lose your time, your soul, and your life! + +At length M. de Nueil received a missive through the instrumentality +of Jacques, a letter that bore the arms of Burgundy on the scented +seal, a letter written on vellum notepaper. + +He rushed away at once to lock himself in, and read and re-read /her/ +letter:-- + + "You are punishing me very severely, monsieur, both for the + friendliness of my effort to spare you a rebuff, and for the + attraction which intellect always has for me. I put confidence in + the generosity of youth, and you have disappointed me. And yet, if + I did not speak unreservedly (which would have been perfectly + ridiculous), at any rate I spoke frankly of my position, so that + you might imagine that I was not to be touched by a young soul. My + distress is the keener for my interest in you. I am naturally + tender-hearted and kindly, but circumstances force me to act + unkindly. Another woman would have flung your letter, unread, into + the fire; I read it, and I am answering it. My answer will make it + clear to you that while I am not untouched by the expression of + this feeling which I have inspired, albeit unconsciously, I am + still far from sharing it, and the step which I am about to take + will show you still more plainly that I mean what I say. I wish + besides, to use, for your welfare, that authority, as it were, + which you give me over your life; and I desire to exercise it this + once to draw aside the veil from your eyes. + + "I am nearly thirty years old, monsieur; you are barely + two-and-twenty. You yourself cannot know what your thoughts will + be at my age. The vows that you make so lightly to-day may seem a + very heavy burden to you then. I am quite willing to believe that + at this moment you would give me your whole life without a regret, + you would even be ready to die for a little brief happiness; but + at the age of thirty experience will take from you the very power + of making daily sacrifices for my sake, and I myself should feel + deeply humiliated if I accepted them. A day would come when + everything, even Nature, would bid you leave me, and I have + already told you that death is preferable to desertion. Misfortune + has taught me to calculate; as you see, I am arguing perfectly + dispassionately. You force me to tell you that I have no love for + you; I ought not to love, I cannot, and I will not. It is too late + to yield, as women yield, to a blind unreasoning impulse of the + heart, too late to be the mistress whom you seek. My consolations + spring from God, not from earth. Ah, and besides, with the + melancholy insight of disappointed love, I read hearts too clearly + to accept your proffered friendship. It is only instinct. I + forgive the boyish ruse, for which you are not responsible as yet. + In the name of this passing fancy of yours, for the sake of your + career and my own peace of mind, I bid you stay in your own + country; you must not spoil a fair and honorable life for an + illusion which, by its very nature, cannot last. At a later day, + when you have accomplished your real destiny, in the fully + developed manhood that awaits you, you will appreciate this answer + of mine, though to-day it may be that you blame its hardness. You + will turn with pleasure to an old woman whose friendship will + certainly be sweet and precious to you then; a friendship untried + by the extremes of passion and the disenchanting processes of + life; a friendship which noble thoughts and thoughts of religion + will keep pure and sacred. Farewell; do my bidding with the + thought that your success will bring a gleam of pleasure into my + solitude, and only think of me as we think of absent friends." + +Gaston de Nueil read the letter, and wrote the following lines:-- + + "MADAME,--If I could cease to love you, to take the chances of + becoming an ordinary man which you hold out to me, you must admit + that I should thoroughly deserve my fate. No, I shall not do as + you bid me; the oath of fidelity which I swear to you shall only + be absolved by death. Ah! take my life, unless indeed you do not + fear to carry a remorse all through your own----" + +When the man returned from his errand, M. de Nueil asked him with whom +he left the note? + +"I gave it to Mme. la Vicomtesse herself, sir; she was in her carriage +and just about to start." + +"For the town?" + +"I don't think so, sir. Mme. la Vicomtesse had post-horses." + +"Ah! then she is going away," said the Baron. + +"Yes, sir," the man answered. + +Gaston de Nueil at once prepared to follow Mme. de Beauseant. She led +the way as far as Geneva, without a suspicion that he followed. And +he? Amid the many thoughts that assailed him during that journey, one +all-absorbing problem filled his mind--"Why did she go away?" Theories +grew thickly on such ground for supposition, and naturally he inclined +to the one that flattered his hopes--"If the Vicomtesse cares for me, +a clever woman would, of course, choose Switzerland, where nobody +knows either of us, in preference to France, where she would find +censorious critics." + +An impassioned lover of a certain stamp would not feel attracted to a +woman clever enough to choose her own ground; such women are too +clever. However, there is nothing to prove that there was any truth in +Gaston's supposition. + +The Vicomtesse took a small house by the side of the lake. As soon as +she was installed in it, Gaston came one summer evening in the +twilight. Jacques, that flunkey in grain, showed no sign of surprise, +and announced /M. le Baron de Nueil/ like a discreet domestic well +acquainted with good society. At the sound of the name, at the sight +of its owner, Mme. de Beauseant let her book fall from her hands; her +surprise gave him time to come close to her, and to say in tones that +sounded like music in her ears: + +"What a joy it was to me to take the horses that brought you on this +journey!" + +To have the inmost desires of the heart so fulfilled! Where is the +woman who could resist such happiness as this? An Italian woman, one +of those divine creatures who, psychologically, are as far removed +from the Parisian as if they lived at the Antipodes, a being who would +be regarded as profoundly immoral on this side of the Alps, an Italian +(to resume) made the following comment on some French novels which she +had been reading. "I cannot see," she remarked, "why these poor lovers +take such a time over coming to an arrangement which ought to be the +affair of a single morning." Why should not the novelist take a hint +from this worthy lady, and refrain from exhausting the theme and the +reader? Some few passages of coquetry it would certainly be pleasant +to give in outline; the story of Mme. de Beauseant's demurs and sweet +delayings, that, like the vestal virgins of antiquity, she might fall +gracefully, and by lingering over the innocent raptures of first love +draw from it its utmost strength and sweetness. M. de Nueil was at an +age when a man is the dupe of these caprices, of the fence which women +delight to prolong; either to dictate their own terms, or to enjoy the +sense of their power yet longer, knowing instinctively as they do that +it must soon grow less. But, after all, these little boudoir +protocols, less numerous than those of the Congress of London, are too +small to be worth mention in the history of this passion. + +For three years Mme. de Beauseant and M. de Nueil lived in the villa +on the lake of Geneva. They lived quite alone, received no visitors, +caused no talk, rose late, went out together upon the lake, knew, in +short, the happiness of which we all of us dream. It was a simple +little house, with green shutters, and broad balconies shaded with +awnings, a house contrived of set purpose for lovers, with its white +couches, soundless carpets, and fresh hangings, everything within it +reflecting their joy. Every window looked out on some new view of the +lake; in the far distance lay the mountains, fantastic visions of +changing color and evanescent cloud; above them spread the sunny sky, +before them stretched the broad sheet of water, never the same in its +fitful changes. All their surroundings seemed to dream for them, all +things smiled upon them. + +Then weighty matters recalled M. de Nueil to France. His father and +brother died, and he was obliged to leave Geneva. The lovers bought +the house; and if they could have had their way, they would have +removed the hills piecemeal, drawn off the lake with a siphon, and +taken everything away with them. + +Mme. de Beauseant followed M. de Nueil. She realized her property, and +bought a considerable estate near Manerville, adjoining Gaston's +lands, and here they lived together; Gaston very graciously giving up +Manerville to his mother for the present in consideration of the +bachelor freedom in which she left him. + +Mme. de Beauseant's estate was close to a little town in one of the +most picturesque spots in the valley of the Auge. Here the lovers +raised barriers between themselves and social intercourse, barriers +which no creature could overleap, and here the happy days of +Switzerland were lived over again. For nine whole years they knew +happiness which it serves no purpose to describe; happiness which may +be divined from the outcome of the story by those whose souls can +comprehend poetry and prayer in their infinite manifestations. + +All this time Mme. de Beauseant's husband, the present Marquis (his +father and elder brother having died), enjoyed the soundest health. +There is no better aid to life than a certain knowledge that our +demise would confer a benefit on some fellow-creature. M. de Beauseant +was one of those ironical and wayward beings who, like holders of +life-annuities, wake with an additional sense of relish every morning +to a consciousness of good health. For the rest, he was a man of the +world, somewhat methodical and ceremonious, and a calculator of +consequences, who could make a declaration of love as quietly as a +lackey announces that "Madame is served." + +This brief biographical notice of his lordship the Marquis de +Beauseant is given to explain the reasons why it was impossible for +the Marquise to marry M. de Nueil. + +So, after a nine years' lease of happiness, the sweetest agreement to +which a woman ever put her hand, M. de Nueil and Mme. de Beauseant +were still in a position quite as natural and quite as false as at the +beginning of their adventure. And yet they had reached a fatal crisis, +which may be stated as clearly as any problem in mathematics. + +Mme. la Comtesse de Nueil, Gaston's mother, a strait-laced and +virtuous person, who had made the late Baron happy in strictly legal +fashion would never consent to meet Mme. de Beauseant. Mme. de +Beauseant quite understood that the worthy dowager must of necessity +be her enemy, and that she would try to draw Gaston from his +unhallowed and immoral way of life. The Marquise de Beauseant would +willingly have sold her property and gone back to Geneva, but she +could not bring herself to do it; it would mean that she distrusted M. +de Nueil. Moreover, he had taken a great fancy to this very Valleroy +estate, where he was making plantations and improvements. She would +not deprive him of a piece of pleasurable routine-work, such as women +always wish for their husbands, and even for their lovers. + +A Mlle. de la Rodiere, twenty-two years of age, an heiress with a +rent-roll of forty thousand livres, had come to live in the +neighborhood. Gaston always met her at Manerville whenever he was +obliged to go thither. These various personages being to each other as +the terms of a proportion sum, the following letter will throw light +on the appalling problem which Mme. de Beauseant had been trying for +the past month to solve:-- + + "My beloved angel, it seems like nonsense, does it not, to write + to you when there is nothing to keep us apart, when a caress so + often takes the place of words, and words too are caresses? Ah, + well, no, love. There are some things that a woman cannot say when + she is face to face with the man she loves; at the bare thought of + them her voice fails her, and the blood goes back to her heart; + she has no strength, no intelligence left. It hurts me to feel + like this when you are near me, and it happens often. I feel that + my heart should be wholly sincere for you; that I should disguise + no thought, however transient, in my heart; and I love the sweet + carelessness, which suits me so well, too much to endure this + embarrassment and constraint any longer. So I will tell you about + my anguish--yes, it is anguish. Listen to me! do not begin with + the little 'Tut, tut, tut,' that you use to silence me, an + impertinence that I love, because anything from you pleases me. + Dear soul from heaven, wedded to mine, let me first tell you that + you have effaced all memory of the pain that once was crushing the + life out of me. I did not know what love was before I knew you. + Only the candor of your beautiful young life, only the purity of + that great soul of yours, could satisfy the requirements of an + exacting woman's heart. Dear love, how very often I have thrilled + with joy to think that in these nine long, swift years, my + jealousy has not been once awakened. All the flowers of your soul + have been mine, all your thoughts. There has not been the faintest + cloud in our heaven; we have not known what sacrifice is; we have + always acted on the impulses of our hearts. I have known + happiness, infinite for a woman. Will the tears that drench this + sheet tell you all my gratitude? I could wish that I had knelt to + write the words!--Well, out of this felicity has arisen torture + more terrible than the pain of desertion. Dear, there are very + deep recesses in a woman's heart; how deep in my own heart, I did + not know myself until to-day, as I did not know the whole extent + of love. The greatest misery which could overwhelm us is a light + burden compared with the mere thought of harm for him whom we + love. And how if we cause the harm, is it not enough to make one + die? . . . This is the thought that is weighing upon me. But + it brings in its train another thought that is heavier far, a + thought that tarnishes the glory of love, and slays it, and turns + it into a humiliation which sullies life as long as it lasts. You + are thirty years old; I am forty. What dread this difference in + age calls up in a woman who loves! It is possible that, first of + all unconsciously, afterwards in earnest, you have felt the + sacrifices that you have made by renouncing all in the world for + me. Perhaps you have thought of your future from the social point + of view, of the marriage which would, of course, increase your + fortune, and give you avowed happiness and children who would + inherit your wealth; perhaps you have thought of reappearing in + the world, and filling your place there honorably. And then, if + so, you must have repressed those thoughts, and felt glad to + sacrifice heiress and fortune and a fair future to me without my + knowledge. In your young man's generosity, you must have resolved + to be faithful to the vows which bind us each to each in the sight + of God. My past pain has risen up before your mind, and the misery + from which you rescued me has been my protection. To owe your love + to your pity! The thought is even more painful to me than the fear + of spoiling your life for you. The man who can bring himself to + stab his mistress is very charitable if he gives her her deathblow + while she is happy and ignorant of evil, while illusions are in + full blossom. . . . Yes, death is preferable to the two thoughts + which have secretly saddened the hours for several days. To-day, + when you asked 'What ails you?' so tenderly, the sound of your + voice made me shiver. I thought that, after your wont, you were + reading my very soul, and I waited for your confidence to come, + thinking that my presentiments had come true, and that I had + guessed all that was going on in your mind. Then I began to think + over certain little things that you always do for me, and I + thought I could see in you the sort of affection by which a man + betrays a consciousness that his loyalty is becoming a burden. And + in that moment I paid very dear for my happiness. I felt that + Nature always demands the price for the treasure called love. + Briefly, has not fate separated us? Can you have said, 'Sooner or + later I must leave poor Claire; why not separate in time?' I read + that thought in the depths of your eyes, and went away to cry by + myself. Hiding my tears from you! the first tears that I have shed + for sorrow for these ten years; I am too proud to let you see + them, but I did not reproach you in the least. + + "Yes, you are right. I ought not to be so selfish as to bind your + long and brilliant career to my so-soon out-worn life. . . . And + yet--how if I have been mistaken? How if I have taken your love + melancholy for a deliberation? Oh, my love, do not leave me in + suspense; punish this jealous wife of yours, but give her back the + sense of her love and yours; the whole woman lies in that--that + consciousness sanctifies everything. + + "Since your mother came, since you paid a visit to Mlle. de + Rodiere, I have been gnawed by doubts dishonoring to us both. Make + me suffer for this, but do not deceive me; I want to know + everything that your mother said and that you think! If you have + hesitated between some alternative and me, I give you back your + liberty. . . . I will not let you know what happens to me; I will + not shed tears for you to see; only--I will not see you again. + . . . Ah! I cannot go on, my heart is breaking . . . . . . . . . . + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I have been sitting + benumbed and stupid for some moments. Dear love, I do not find + that any feeling of pride rises against you; you are so + kind-hearted, so open; you would find it impossible to hurt me or + to deceive me; and you will tell me the truth, however cruel it may + be. Do you wish me to encourage your confession? Well, then, heart + of mine, I shall find comfort in a woman's thought. Has not the + youth of your being been mine, your sensitive, wholly gracious, + beautiful, and delicate youth? No woman shall find henceforth the + Gaston whom I have known, nor the delicious happiness that he has + given me. . . . No; you will never love again as you have loved, + as you love me now; no, I shall never have a rival, it is + impossible. There will be no bitterness in my memories of our + love, and I shall think of nothing else. It is out of your power + to enchant any woman henceforth by the childish provocations, the + charming ways of a young heart, the soul's winning charm, the + body's grace, the swift communion of rapture, the whole divine + cortege of young love, in fine. + + "Oh, you are a man now, you will obey your destiny, weighing and + considering all things. You will have cares, and anxieties, and + ambitions, and concerns that will rob /her/ of the unchanging + smile that made your lips fair for me. The tones that were always + so sweet for me will be troubled at times; and your eyes that + lighted up with radiance from heaven at the sight of me, will + often be lustreless for /her/. And besides, as it is impossible to + love you as I love you, you will never care for that woman as you + have cared for me. She will never keep a constant watch over + herself as I have done; she will never study your happiness at + every moment with an intuition which has never failed me. Ah, yes, + the man, the heart and soul, which I shall have known will exist + no longer. I shall bury him deep in my memory, that I may have the + joy of him still; I shall live happy in that fair past life of + ours, a life hidden from all but our inmost selves. + + "Dear treasure of mine, if all the while no least thought of + liberty has risen in your mind, if my love is no burden on you, if + my fears are chimerical, if I am still your Eve--the one woman in + the world for you--come to me as soon as you have read this + letter, come quickly! Ah, in one moment I will love you more than + I have ever loved you, I think, in these nine years. After + enduring the needless torture of these doubts of which I am + accusing myself, every added day of love, yes, every single day, + will be a whole lifetime of bliss. So speak, and speak openly; do + not deceive me, it would be a crime. Tell me, do you wish for your + liberty? Have you thought of all that a man's life means? Is there + any regret in your mind? That /I/ should cause you a regret! I + should die of it. I have said it: I love you enough to set your + happiness above mine, your life before my own. Leave on one side, + if you can, the wealth of memories of our nine years' happiness, + that they may not influence your decision, but speak! I submit + myself to you as to God, the one Consoler who remains if you + forsake me." + +When Mme. de Beauseant knew that her letter was in M. de Nueil's +hands, she sank in such utter prostration, the over-pressure of many +thoughts so numbed her faculties, that she seemed almost drowsy. At +any rate, she was suffering from a pain not always proportioned in its +intensity to a woman's strength; pain which women alone know. And +while the unhappy Marquise awaited her doom, M. de Nueil, reading her +letter, felt that he was "in a very difficult position," to use the +expression that young men apply to a crisis of this kind. + +By this time he had all but yielded to his mother's importunities and +to the attractions of Mlle. de la Rodiere, a somewhat insignificant, +pink-and-white young person, as straight as a poplar. It is true that, +in accordance with the rules laid down for marriageable young ladies, +she scarcely opened her mouth, but her rent-roll of forty thousand +livres spoke quite sufficiently for her. Mme. de Nueil, with a +mother's sincere affection, tried to entangle her son in virtuous +courses. She called his attention to the fact that it was a flattering +distinction to be preferred by Mlle. de la Rodiere, who had refused so +many great matches; it was quite time, she urged, that he should think +of his future, such a good opportunity might not repeat itself, some +day he would have eighty thousand livres of income from land; money +made everything bearable; if Mme. de Beauseant loved him for his own +sake, she ought to be the first to urge him to marry. In short, the +well-intentioned mother forgot no arguments which the feminine +intellect can bring to bear upon the masculine mind, and by these +means she had brought her son into a wavering condition. + +Mme. de Beauseant's letter arrived just as Gaston's love of her was +holding out against the temptations of a settled life conformable to +received ideas. That letter decided the day. He made up his mind to +break off with the Marquise and to marry. + +"One must live a man's life," said he to himself. + +Then followed some inkling of the pain that this decision would give +to Mme. de Beauseant. The man's vanity and the lover's conscience +further exaggerated this pain, and a sincere pity for her seized upon +him. All at once the immensity of the misery became apparent to him, +and he thought it necessary and charitable to deaden the deadly blow. +He hoped to bring Mme. de Beauseant to a calm frame of mind by +gradually reconciling her to the idea of separation; while Mlle. de la +Rodiere, always like a shadowy third between them, should be +sacrificed to her at first, only to be imposed upon her later. His +marriage should take place later, in obedience to Mme. de Beauseant's +expressed wish. He went so far as to enlist the Marquise's nobleness +and pride and all the great qualities of her nature to help him to +succeed in this compassionate design. He would write a letter at once +to allay her suspicions. /A letter!/ For a woman with the most +exquisite feminine perception, as well as the intuition of passionate +love, a letter in itself was a sentence of death. + +So when Jacques came and brought Mme. de Beauseant a sheet of paper +folded in a triangle, she trembled, poor woman, like a snared swallow. +A mysterious sensation of physical cold spread from head to foot, +wrapping her about in an icy winding sheet. If he did not rush to her +feet, if he did not come to her in tears, and pale, and like a lover, +she knew that all was lost. And yet, so many hopes are there in the +heart of a woman who loves, that she is only slain by stab after stab, +and loves on till the last drop of life-blood drains away. + +"Does madame need anything?" Jacques asked gently, as he went away. + +"No," she said. + +"Poor fellow!" she thought, brushing a tear from her eyes, "he guesses +my feelings, servant though he is!" + +She read: "My beloved, you are inventing idle terrors for +yourself . . ." The Marquise gazed at the words, and a thick mist +spread before her eyes. A voice in her heart cried, "He lies!"--Then +she glanced down the page with the clairvoyant eagerness of passion, +and read these words at the foot, "/Nothing has been decided as +yet . . ./" Turning to the other side with convulsive quickness, she +saw the mind of the writer distinctly through the intricacies of the +wording; this was no spontaneous outburst of love. She crushed it in +her fingers, twisted it, tore it with her teeth, flung it in the fire, +and cried aloud, "Ah! base that he is! I was his, and he had ceased to +love me!" + +She sank half dead upon the couch. + + + +M. de Nueil went out as soon as he had written his letter. When he +came back, Jacques met him on the threshold with a note. "Madame la +Marquise has left the chateau," said the man. + +M. de Nueil, in amazement, broke the seal and read:-- + + "MADAME,--If I could cease to love you, to take the chances of + becoming an ordinary man which you hold out to me, you must admit + that I should thoroughly deserve my fate. No, I shall not do as + you bid me; the oath of fidelity which I swear to you shall only + be absolved by death. Ah! take my life, unless indeed you do not + fear to carry a remorse all through your own . . ." + +It was his own letter, written to the Marquise as she set out for +Geneva nine years before. At the foot of it Claire de Bourgogne had +written, "Monsieur, you are free." + +M. de Nueil went to his mother at Manerville. In less than three weeks +he married Mlle. Stephanie de la Rodiere. + + + +If this commonplace story of real life ended here, it would be to some +extent a sort of mystification. The first man you meet can tell you a +better. But the widespread fame of the catastrophe (for, unhappily, +this is a true tale), and all the memories which it may arouse in +those who have known the divine delights of infinite passion, and lost +them by their own deed, or through the cruelty of fate,--these things +may perhaps shelter the story from criticism. + +Mme. la Marquise de Beauseant never left Valleroy after her parting +from M. de Nueil. After his marriage she still continued to live +there, for some inscrutable woman's reason; any woman is at liberty to +assign the one which most appeals to her. Claire de Bourgogne lived in +such complete retirement that none of the servants, save Jacques and +her own woman, ever saw their mistress. She required absolute silence +all about her, and only left her room to go to the chapel on the +Valleroy estate, whither a neighboring priest came to say mass every +morning. + +The Comte de Nueil sank a few days after his marriage into something +like conjugal apathy, which might be interpreted to mean happiness or +unhappiness equally easily. + +"My son is perfectly happy," his mother said everywhere. + +Mme. Gaston de Nueil, like a great many young women, was a rather +colorless character, sweet and passive. A month after her marriage she +had expectations of becoming a mother. All this was quite in +accordance with ordinary views. M. de Nueil was very nice to her; but +two months after his separation from the Marquise, he grew notably +thoughtful and abstracted. But then he always had been serious, his +mother said. + +After seven months of this tepid happiness, a little thing occurred, +one of those seemingly small matters which imply such great +development of thought and such widespread trouble of the soul, that +only the bare fact can be recorded; the interpretation of it must be +left to the fancy of each individual mind. One day, when M. de Nueil +had been shooting over the lands of Manerville and Valleroy, he +crossed Mme. de Beauseant's park on his way home, summoned Jacques, +and when the man came, asked him, "Whether the Marquise was as fond of +game as ever?" + +Jacques answering in the affirmative, Gaston offered him a good round +sum (accompanied by plenty of specious reasoning) for a very little +service. Would he set aside for the Marquise the game that the Count +would bring? It seemed to Jacques to be a matter of no great +importance whether the partridge on which his mistress dined had been +shot by her keeper or by M. de Nueil, especially since the latter +particularly wished that the Marquise should know nothing about it. + +"It was killed on her land," said the Count, and for some days Jacques +lent himself to the harmless deceit. Day after day M. de Nueil went +shooting, and came back at dinner-time with an empty bag. A whole week +went by in this way. Gaston grew bold enough to write a long letter to +the Marquise, and had it conveyed to her. It was returned to him +unopened. The Marquise's servant brought it back about nightfall. The +Count, sitting in the drawing-room listening, while his wife at the +piano mangled a /Caprice/ of Herold's, suddenly sprang up and rushed +out to the Marquise, as if he were flying to an assignation. He dashed +through a well-known gap into the park, and went slowly along the +avenues, stopping now and again for a little to still the loud beating +of his heart. Smothered sounds as he came nearer the chateau told him +that the servants must be at supper, and he went straight to Mme. de +Beauseant's room. + +Mme. de Beauseant never left her bedroom. M. de Nueil could gain the +doorway without making the slightest sound. There, by the light of two +wax candles, he saw the thin, white Marquise in a great armchair; her +head was bowed, her hands hung listlessly, her eyes gazing fixedly at +some object which she did not seem to see. Her whole attitude spoke of +hopeless pain. There was a vague something like hope in her bearing, +but it was impossible to say whither Claire de Bourgogne was looking +--forwards to the tomb or backwards into the past. Perhaps M. de +Nueil's tears glittered in the deep shadows; perhaps his breathing +sounded faintly; perhaps unconsciously he trembled, or again it may +have been impossible that he should stand there, his presence unfelt by +that quick sense which grows to be an instinct, the glory, the delight, +the proof of perfect love. However it was, Mme. de Beauseant slowly +turned her face towards the doorway, and beheld her lover of bygone +days. Then Gaston de Nueil came forward a few paces. + +"If you come any further, sir," exclaimed the Marquise, growing paler, +"I shall fling myself out of the window!" + +She sprang to the window, flung it open, and stood with one foot on +the ledge, her hand upon the iron balustrade, her face turned towards +Gaston. + +"Go out! go out!" she cried, "or I will throw myself over." + +At that dreadful cry the servants began to stir, and M. de Nueil fled +like a criminal. + +When he reached his home again he wrote a few lines and gave them to +his own man, telling him to give the letter himself into Mme. de +Beauseant's hands, and to say that it was a matter of life and death +for his master. The messenger went. M. de Nueil went back to the +drawing-room where his wife was still murdering the /Caprice/, and sat +down to wait till the answer came. An hour later, when the /Caprice/ +had come to an end, and the husband and wife sat in silence on +opposite sides of the hearth, the man came back from Valleroy and gave +his master his own letter, unopened. + +M. de Nueil went into a small room beyond the drawing-room, where he +had left his rifle, and shot himself. + +The swift and fatal ending of the drama, contrary as it is to all the +habits of young France, is only what might have been expected. Those +who have closely observed, or known for themselves by delicious +experience, all that is meant by the perfect union of two beings, will +understand Gaston de Nueil's suicide perfectly well. A woman does not +bend and form herself in a day to the caprices of passion. The +pleasure of loving, like some rare flower, needs the most careful +ingenuity of culture. Time alone, and two souls attuned each to each, +can discover all its resources, and call into being all the tender and +delicate delights for which we are steeped in a thousand +superstitions, imagining them to be inherent in the heart that +lavishes them upon us. It is this wonderful response of one nature to +another, this religious belief, this certainty of finding peculiar or +excessive happiness in the presence of one we love, that accounts in +part for perdurable attachments and long-lived passion. If a woman +possesses the genius of her sex, love never comes to be a matter of +use and wont. She brings all her heart and brain to love, clothes her +tenderness in forms so varied, there is such art in her most natural +moments, or so much nature in her art, that in absence her memory is +almost as potent as her presence. All other women are as shadows +compared with her. Not until we have lost or known the dread of losing +a love so vast and glorious, do we prize it at its just worth. And if +a man who has once possessed this love shuts himself out from it by +his own act and deed, and sinks to some loveless marriage; if by some +incident, hidden in the obscurity of married life, the woman with whom +he hoped to know the same felicity makes it clear that it will never +be revived for him; if, with the sweetness of divine love still on his +lips, he has dealt a deadly wound to /her/, his wife in truth, whom he +forsook for a social chimera,--then he must either die or take refuge +in a materialistic, selfish, and heartless philosophy, from which +impassioned souls shrink in horror. + + + +As for Mme. de Beauseant, she doubtless did not imagine that her +friend's despair could drive him to suicide, when he had drunk deep of +love for nine years. Possibly she may have thought that she alone was +to suffer. At any rate, she did quite rightly to refuse the most +humiliating of all positions; a wife may stoop for weighty social +reasons to a kind of compromise which a mistress is bound to hold in +abhorrence, for in the purity of her passion lies all its +justification. + + + +ANGOULEME, September 1832. + + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + +Beauseant, Marquis and Comte de + Father Goriot + An Episode under the Terror + +Beauseant, Marquise de + Letters of Two Brides + +Beauseant, Vicomte de + Father Goriot + +Beauseant, Vicomtesse de + Father Goriot + Albert Savarus + +Champignelles, De + The Seamy Side of History + +Jacques (M. de Beauseant's butler) + Father Goriot + +Nueil, Gaston de + The Deserted Woman + Albert Savarus + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deserted Woman, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESERTED WOMAN *** + +***** This file should be named 1729.txt or 1729.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/1/7/2/1729/ + +Produced by Dagny; and John Bickers + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Etext prepared by Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com +and John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz + + + + + +THE DESERTED WOMAN + +by HONORE DE BALZAC + + + + +Translated By +Ellen Marriage + + + + + +DEDICATION + +To Her Grace the Duchesse d'Abrantes, +from her devoted servant, +Honore de Balzac. +PARIS, August 1835. + + + + +THE DESERTED WOMAN + + + +In the early spring of 1822, the Paris doctors sent to Lower Normandy +a young man just recovering from an inflammatory complaint, brought on +by overstudy, or perhaps by excess of some other kind. His +convalescence demanded complete rest, a light diet, bracing air, and +freedom from excitement of every kind, and the fat lands of Bessin +seemed to offer all these conditions of recovery. To Bayeux, a +picturesque place about six miles from the sea, the patient therefore +betook himself, and was received with the cordiality characteristic of +relatives who lead very retired lives, and regard a new arrival as a +godsend. + +All little towns are alike, save for a few local customs. When M. le +Baron Gaston de Nueil, the young Parisian in question, had spent two +or three evenings in his cousin's house, or with the friends who made +up Mme. de Sainte-Severe's circle, he very soon had made the +acquaintance of the persons whom this exclusive society considered to +be "the whole town." Gaston de Nueil recognized in them the invariable +stock characters which every observer finds in every one of the many +capitals of the little States which made up the France of an older +day. + +First of all comes the family whose claims to nobility are regarded as +incontestable, and of the highest antiquity in the department, though +no one has so much as heard of them a bare fifty leagues away. This +species of royal family on a small scale is distantly, but +unmistakably, connected with the Navarreins and the Grandlieu family, +and related to the Cadignans, and the Blamont-Chauvrys. The head of +the illustrious house is invariably a determined sportsman. He has no +manners, crushes everybody else with his nominal superiority, +tolerates the sub-prefect much as he submits to the taxes, and +declines to acknowledge any of the novel powers created by the +nineteenth century, pointing out to you as a political monstrosity the +fact that the prime minister is a man of no birth. His wife takes a +decided tone, and talks in a loud voice. She has had adorers in her +time, but takes the sacrament regularly at Easter. She brings up her +daughters badly, and is of the opinion that they will always be rich +enough with their name. + +Neither husband nor wife has the remotest idea of modern luxury. They +retain a livery only seen elsewhere on the stage, and cling to old +fashions in plate, furniture, and equipages, as in language and manner +of life. This is a kind of ancient state, moreover, that suits +passably well with provincial thrift. The good folk are, in fact, the +lords of the manor of a bygone age, /minus/ the quitrents and heriots, +the pack of hounds and the laced coats; full of honor among +themselves, and one and all loyally devoted to princes whom they only +see at a distance. The historical house /incognito/ is as quaint a +survival as a piece of ancient tapestry. Vegetating somewhere among +them there is sure to be an uncle or a brother, a lieutenant-general, +an old courtier of the Kings's, who wears the red ribbon of the order +of Saint-Louis, and went to Hanover with the Marechal de Richelieu: +and here you will find him like a stray leaf out of some old pamphlet +of the time of Louis Quinze. + +This fossil greatness finds a rival in another house, wealthier, +though of less ancient lineage. Husband and wife spend a couple of +months of every winter in Paris, bringing back with them its frivolous +tone and short-lived contemporary crazes. Madame is a woman of +fashion, though she looks rather conscious of her clothes, and is +always behind the mode. She scoffs, however, at the ignorance affected +by her neighbors. /Her/ plate is of modern fashion; she has "grooms," +Negroes, a valet-de-chambre, and what-not. Her oldest son drives a +tilbury, and does nothing (the estate is entailed upon him), his +younger brother is auditor to a Council of State. The father is well +posted up in official scandals, and tells you anecdotes of Louis +XVIII. and Madame du Cayla. He invests his money in the five per +cents, and is careful to avoid the topic of cider, but has been known +occasionally to fall a victim to the craze for rectifying the +conjectural sums-total of the various fortunes of the department. He +is a member of the Departmental Council, has his clothes from Paris, +and wears the Cross of the Legion of Honor. In short, he is a country +gentleman who has fully grasped the significance of the Restoration, +and is coining money at the Chamber, but his Royalism is less pure +than that of the rival house; he takes the /Gazette/ and the /Debats/, +the other family only read the /Quotidienne/. + +His lordship the Bishop, a sometime Vicar-General, fluctuates between +the two powers, who pay him the respect due to religion, but at times +they bring home to him the moral appended by the worthy Lafontaine to +the fable of the /Ass laden with Relics/. The good man's origin is +distinctly plebeian. + +Then come stars of the second magnitude, men of family with ten or +twelve hundred livres a year, captains in the navy or cavalry +regiments, or nothing at all. Out on the roads, on horseback, they +rank half-way between the cure bearing the sacraments and the tax +collector on his rounds. Pretty nearly all of them have been in the +Pages or in the Household Troops, and now are peaceably ending their +days in a /faisance-valoir/, more interested in felling timber and the +cider prospects than in the Monarchy. + +Still they talk of the Charter and the Liberals while the cards are +making, or over a game at backgammon, when they have exhausted the +usual stock of /dots/, and have married everybody off according to the +genealogies which they all know by heart. Their womenkind are haughty +dames, who assume the airs of Court ladies in their basket chaises. +They huddle themselves up in shawls and caps by way of full dress; and +twice a year, after ripe deliberation, have a new bonnet from Paris, +brought as opportunity offers. Exemplary wives are they for the most +part, and garrulous. + +These are the principal elements of aristocratic gentility, with a few +outlying old maids of good family, spinsters who have solved the +problem: given a human being, to remain absolutely stationary. They +might be sealed up in the houses where you see them; their faces and +their dresses are literally part of the fixtures of the town, and the +province in which they dwell. They are its tradition, its memory, its +quintessence, the /genius loci/ incarnate. There is something frigid +and monumental about these ladies; they know exactly when to laugh and +when to shake their heads, and every now and then give out some +utterance which passes current as a witticism. + +A few rich townspeople have crept into the miniature Faubourg Saint- +Germain, thanks to their money or their aristocratic leanings. But +despite their forty years, the circle still say of them, "Young So- +and-so has sound opinions," and of such do they make deputies. As a +rule, the elderly spinsters are their patronesses, not without +comment. + +Finally, in this exclusive little set include two or three +ecclesiastics, admitted for the sake of their cloth, or for their wit; +for these great nobles find their own society rather dull, and +introduce the bourgeois element into their drawing-rooms, as a baker +puts leaven into his dough. + +The sum-total contained by all heads put together consists of a +certain quantity of antiquated notions; a few new inflections brewed +in company of an evening being added from time to time to the common +stock. Like sea-water in a little creek, the phrases which represent +these ideas surge up daily, punctually obeying the tidal laws of +conversation in their flow and ebb; you hear the hollow echo of +yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, a year hence, and for evermore. On all +things here below they pass immutable judgments, which go to make up a +body of tradition into which no power of mortal man can infuse one +drop of wit or sense. The lives of these persons revolve with the +regularity of clockwork in an orbit of use and wont which admits of no +more deviation or change than their opinions on matters religious, +political, moral, or literary. + +If a stranger is admitted to the /cenacle/, every member of it in turn +will say (not without a trace of irony), "You will not find the +brilliancy of your Parisian society here," and proceed forthwith to +criticise the life led by his neighbors, as if he himself were an +exception who had striven, and vainly striven, to enlighten the rest. +But any stranger so ill advised as to concur in any of their freely +expressed criticism of each other, is pronounced at once to be an ill- +natured person, a heathen, an outlaw, a reprobate Parisian "as +Parisians mostly are." + +Before Gaston de Nueil made his appearance in this little world of +strictly observed etiquette, where every detail of life is an +integrant part of a whole, and everything is known; where the values +of personalty and real estate is quoted like stocks on the vast sheet +of the newspaper--before his arrival he had been weighed in the +unerring scales of Bayeusaine judgment. + +His cousin, Mme. de Sainte-Severe, had already given out the amount of +his fortune, and the sum of his expectations, had produced the family +tree, and expatiated on the talents, breeding, and modesty of this +particular branch. So he received the precise amount of attentions to +which he was entitled; he was accepted as a worthy scion of a good +stock; and, for he was but twenty-three, was made welcome without +ceremony, though certain young ladies and mothers of daughters looked +not unkindly upon him. + +He had an income of eighteen thousand livres from land in the valley +of the Auge; and sooner or later his father, as in duty bound, would +leave him the chateau of Manerville, with the lands thereunto +belonging. As for his education, political career, personal qualities, +and qualifications--no one so much as thought of raising the +questions. His land was undeniable, his rentals steady; excellent +plantations had been made; the tenants paid for repairs, rates, and +taxes; the apple-trees were thirty-eight years old; and, to crown all, +his father was in treaty for two hundred acres of woodland just +outside the paternal park, which he intended to enclose with walls. No +hopes of a political career, no fame on earth, can compare with such +advantages as these. + +Whether out of malice or design, Mme. de Sainte-Severe omitted to +mention that Gaston had an elder brother; nor did Gaston himself say a +word about him. But, at the same time, it is true that the brother was +consumptive, and to all appearance would shortly be laid in earth, +lamented and forgotten. + +At first Gaston de Nueil amused himself at the expense of the circle. +He drew, as it were, for his mental album, a series of portraits of +these folk, with their angular, wrinkled faces, and hooked noses, +their crotchets and ludicrous eccentricities of dress, portraits which +possessed all the racy flavor of truth. He delighted in their +"Normanisms," in the primitive quaintness of their ideas and +characters. For a short time he flung himself into their squirrel's +life of busy gyrations in a cage. Then he began to feel the want of +variety, and grew tired of it. It was like the life of the cloister, +cut short before it had well begun. He drifted on till he reached a +crisis, which is neither spleen nor disgust, but combines all the +symptoms of both. When a human being is transplanted into an +uncongenial soil, to lead a starved, stunted existence, there is +always a little discomfort over the transition. Then, gradually, if +nothing removes him from his surroundings, he grows accustomed to +them, and adapts himself to the vacuity which grows upon him and +renders him powerless. Even now, Gaston's lungs were accustomed to the +air; and he was willing to discern a kind of vegetable happiness in +days that brought no mental exertion and no responsibilities. The +constant stirring of the sap of life, the fertilizing influences of +mind on mind, after which he had sought so eagerly in Paris, were +beginning to fade from his memory, and he was in a fair way of +becoming a fossil with these fossils, and ending his days among them, +content, like the companions of Ulysses, in his gross envelope. + +One evening Gaston de Nueil was seated between a dowager and one of +the vicars-general of the diocese, in a gray-paneled drawing-room, +floored with large white tiles. The family portraits which adorned the +walls looked down upon four card-tables, and some sixteen persons +gathered about them, chattering over their whist. Gaston, thinking of +nothing, digesting one of those exquisite dinners to which the +provincial looks forward all through the day, found himself justifying +the customs of the country. + +He began to understand why these good folk continued to play with +yesterday's pack of cards and shuffle them on a threadbare tablecloth, +and how it was that they had ceased to dress for themselves or others. +He saw the glimmerings of something like a philosophy in the even +tenor of their perpetual round, in the calm of their methodical +monotony, in their ignorance of the refinements of luxury. Indeed, he +almost came to think that luxury profited nothing; and even now, the +city of Paris, with its passions, storms, and pleasures, was scarcely +more than a memory of childhood. + +He admired in all sincerity the red hands, and shy, bashful manner of +some young lady who at first struck him as an awkward simpleton, +unattractive to the last degree, and surprisingly ridiculous. His doom +was sealed. He had gone from the provinces to Paris; he had led the +feverish life of Paris; and now he would have sunk back into the +lifeless life of the provinces, but for a chance remark which reached +his ear--a few words that called up a swift rush of such emotion as he +might have felt when a strain of really good music mingles with the +accompaniment of some tedious opera. + +"You went to call on Mme. de Beauseant yesterday, did you not?" The +speaker was an elderly lady, and she addressed the head of the local +royal family. + +"I went this morning. She was so poorly and depressed, that I could +not persuade her to dine with us to-morrow." + +"With Mme. de Champignelles?" exclaimed the dowager with something +like astonishment in her manner. + +"With my wife," calmly assented the noble. "Mme. de Beauseant is +descended from the House of Burgundy, on the spindle side, 'tis true, +but the name atones for everything. My wife is very much attached to +the Vicomtesse, and the poor lady has lived alone for such a long +while, that----" + +The Marquis de Champignelles looked round about him while he spoke +with an air of cool unconcern, so that it was almost impossible to +guess whether he made a concession to Mme. de Beauseant's misfortunes, +or paid homage to her noble birth; whether he felt flattered to +receive her in his house, or, on the contrary, sheer pride was the +motive that led him to try to force the country families to meet the +Vicomtesse. + +The women appeared to take counsel of each other by a glance; there +was a sudden silence in the room, and it was felt that their attitude +was one of disapproval. + +"Does this Mme. de Beauseant happen to be the lady whose adventure +with M. d'Ajuda-Pinto made so much noise?" asked Gaston of his +neighbor. + +"The very same," he was told. "She came to Courcelles after the +marriage of the Marquis d'Ajuda; nobody visits her. She has, besides, +too much sense not to see that she is in a false position, so she has +made no attempt to see any one. M. de Champignelles and a few +gentlemen went to call upon her, but she would see no one but M. de +Champignelles, perhaps because he is a connection of the family. They +are related through the Beauseants; the father of the present Vicomte +married a Mlle. de Champignelles of the older branch. But though the +Vicomtesse de Beauseant is supposed to be a descendant of the House of +Burgundy, you can understand that we could not admit a wife separated +from her husband into our society here. We are foolish enough still to +cling to these old-fashioned ideas. There was the less excuse for the +Vicomtesse, because M. de Beauseant is a well-bred man of the world, +who would have been quite ready to listen to reason. But his wife is +quite mad----" and so forth and so forth. + +M. de Nueil, still listening to the speaker's voice, gathered nothing +of the sense of the words; his brain was too full of thick-coming +fancies. Fancies? What other name can you give to the alluring charms +of an adventure that tempts the imagination and sets vague hopes +springing up in the soul; to the sense of coming events and mysterious +felicity and fear at hand, while as yet there is no substance of fact +on which these phantoms of caprice can fix and feed? Over these +fancies thought hovers, conceiving impossible projects, giving in the +germ all the joys of love. Perhaps, indeed, all passion is contained +in that thought-germ, as the beauty, and fragrance, and rich color of +the flower is all packed in the seed. + +M. de Nueil did not know that Mme. de Beauseant had taken refuge in +Normandy, after a notoriety which women for the most part envy and +condemn, especially when youth and beauty in some sort excuse the +transgression. Any sort of celebrity bestows an inconceivable +prestige. Apparently for women, as for families, the glory of the +crime effaces the stain; and if such and such a noble house is proud +of its tale of heads that have fallen on the scaffold, a young and +pretty woman becomes more interesting for the dubious renown of a +happy love or a scandalous desertion, and the more she is to be +pitied, the more she excites our sympathies. We are only pitiless to +the commonplace. If, moreover, we attract all eyes, we are to all +intents and purposes great; how, indeed, are we to be seen unless we +raise ourselves above other people's heads? The common herd of +humanity feels an involuntary respect for any person who can rise +above it, and is not over-particular as to the means by which they +rise. + +It may have been that some such motives influenced Gaston de Nueil at +unawares, or perhaps it was curiosity, or a craving for some interest +in his life, or, in a word, that crowd of inexplicable impulses which, +for want of a better name, we are wont to call "fatality," that drew +him to Mme. de Beauseant. + +The figure of the Vicomtesse de Beauseant rose up suddenly before him +with gracious thronging associations. She was a new world for him, a +world of fears and hopes, a world to fight for and to conquer. +Inevitably he felt the contrast between this vision and the human +beings in the shabby room; and then, in truth, she was a woman; what +woman had he seen so far in this dull, little world, where calculation +replaced thought and feeling, where courtesy was a cut-and-dried +formality, and ideas of the very simplest were too alarming to be +received or to pass current? The sound of Mme. de Beauseant's name +revived a young man's dreams and wakened urgent desires that had lain +dormant for a little. + +Gaston de Nueil was absent-minded and preoccupied for the rest of the +evening. He was pondering how he might gain access to Mme. de +Beauseant, and truly it was no very easy matter. She was believed to +be extremely clever. But if men and women of parts may be captivated +by something subtle or eccentric, they are also exacting, and can read +all that lies below the surface; and after the first step has been +taken, the chances of failure and success in the difficult task of +pleasing them are about even. In this particular case, moreover, the +Vicomtesse, besides the pride of her position, had all the dignity of +her name. Her utter seclusion was the least of the barriers raised +between her and the world. For which reasons it was well-nigh +impossible that a stranger, however well born, could hope for +admittance; and yet, the next morning found M. de Nueil taking his +walks abroad in the direction of Courcelles, a dupe of illusions +natural at his age. Several times he made the circuit of the garden +walls, looking earnestly through every gap at the closed shutters or +open windows, hoping for some romantic chance, on which he founded +schemes for introducing himself into this unknown lady's presence, +without a thought of their impracticability. Morning after morning was +spent in this way to mighty purpose; but with each day's walk, that +vision of a woman living apart from the world, of love's martyr buried +in solitude, loomed larger in his thoughts, and was enshrined in his +soul. So Gaston de Nueil walked under the walls of Courcelles, and +some gardener's heavy footstep would set his heart beating high with +hope. + +He thought of writing to Mme. de Beauseant, but on mature +consideration, what can you say to a woman whom you have never seen, a +complete stranger? And Gaston had little self-confidence. Like most +young persons with a plentiful crop of illusions still standing, he +dreaded the mortifying contempt of silence more than death itself, and +shuddered at the thought of sending his first tender epistle forth to +face so many chances of being thrown on the fire. He was distracted by +innumerable conflicting ideas. But by dint of inventing chimeras, +weaving romances, and cudgeling his brains, he hit at last upon one of +the hopeful stratagems that are sure to occur to your mind if you +persevere long enough, a stratagem which must make clear to the most +inexperienced woman that here was a man who took a fervent interest in +her. The caprice of social conventions puts as many barriers between +lovers as any Oriental imagination can devise in the most delightfully +fantastic tale; indeed, the most extravagant pictures are seldom +exaggerations. In real life, as in the fairy tales, the woman belongs +to him who can reach her and set her free from the position in which +she languishes. The poorest of calenders that ever fell in love with +the daughter of the Khalif is in truth scarcely further from his lady +than Gaston de Nueil from Mme. de Beauseant. The Vicomtesse knew +absolutely nothing of M. de Nueil's wanderings round her house; Gaston +de Nueil's love grew to the height of the obstacles to overleap; and +the distance set between him and his extemporized lady-love produced +the usual effect of distance, in lending enchantment. + +One day, confident in his inspiration, he hoped everything from the +love that must pour forth from his eyes. Spoken words, in his opinion, +were more eloquent than the most passionate letter; and, besides, he +would engage feminine curiosity to plead for him. He went, therefore, +to M. de Champignelles, proposing to employ that gentleman for the +better success of his enterprise. He informed the Marquis that he had +been entrusted with a delicate and important commission which +concerned the Vicomtesse de Beauseant, that he felt doubtful whether +she would read a letter written in an unknown handwriting, or put +confidence in a stranger. Would M. de Champignelles, on his next +visit, ask the Vicomtesse if she would consent to receive him--Gaston +de Nueil? While he asked the Marquis to keep his secret in case of a +refusal, he very ingeniously insinuated sufficient reasons for his own +admittance, to be duly passed on to the Vicomtesse. Was not M. de +Champignelles a man of honor, a loyal gentleman incapable of lending +himself to any transaction in bad taste, nay, the merest suspicion of +bad taste! Love lends a young man all the self-possession and astute +craft of an old ambassador; all the Marquis' harmless vanities were +gratified, and the haughty grandee was completely duped. He tried hard +to fathom Gaston's secret; but the latter, who would have been greatly +perplexed to tell it, turned off M. de Champignelles' adroit +questioning with a Norman's shrewdness, till the Marquis, as a gallant +Frenchman, complimented his young visitor upon his discretion. + +M. de Champignelles hurried off at once to Courcelles, with that +eagerness to serve a pretty woman which belongs to his time of life. +In the Vicomtesse de Beauseant's position, such a message was likely +to arouse keen curiosity; so, although her memory supplied no reason +at all that could bring M. de Nueil to her house, she saw no objection +to his visit--after some prudent inquiries as to his family and +condition. At the same time, she began by a refusal. Then she +discussed the propriety of the matter with M. de Champignelles, +directing her questions so as to discover, if possible, whether he +knew the motives for the visit, and finally revoked her negative +answer. The discussion and the discretion shown perforce by the +Marquis had piqued her curiosity. + +M. de Champignelles had no mind to cut a ridiculous figure. He said, +with the air of a man who can keep another's counsel, that the +Vicomtesse must know the purpose of this visit perfectly well; while +the Vicomtesse, in all sincerity, had no notion what it could be. Mme. +de Beauseant, in perplexity, connected Gaston with people whom he had +never met, went astray after various wild conjectures, and asked +herself if she had seen this M. de Nueil before. In truth, no love- +letter, however sincere or skilfully indited, could have produced so +much effect as this riddle. Again and again Mme. de Beauseant puzzled +over it. + +When Gaston heard that he might call upon the Vicomtesse, his rapture +at so soon obtaining the ardently longed-for good fortune was mingled +with singular embarrassment. How was he to contrive a suitable sequel +to this stratagem? + +"Bah! I shall see /her/," he said over and over again to himself as he +dressed. "See her, and that is everything!" + +He fell to hoping that once across the threshold of Courcelles he +should find an expedient for unfastening this Gordian knot of his own +tying. There are believers in the omnipotence of necessity who never +turn back; the close presence of danger is an inspiration that calls +out all their powers for victory. Gaston de Nueil was one of these. + +He took particular pains with his dress, imagining, as youth is apt to +imagine, that success or failure hangs on the position of a curl, and +ignorant of the fact that anything is charming in youth. And, in any +case, such women as Mme. de Beauseant are only attracted by the charms +of wit or character of an unusual order. Greatness of character +flatters their vanity, promises a great passion, seems to imply a +comprehension of the requirements of their hearts. Wit amuses them, +responds to the subtlety of their natures, and they think that they +are understood. And what do all women wish but to be amused, +understood, or adored? It is only after much reflection on the things +of life that we understand the consummate coquetry of neglect of dress +and reserve at a first interview; and by the time we have gained +sufficient astuteness for successful strategy, we are too old to +profit by our experience. + +While Gaston's lack of confidence in his mental equipment drove him to +borrow charms from his clothes, Madame de Beauseant herself was +instinctively giving more attention to her toilette. + +"I would rather not frighten people, at all events," she said to +herself as she arranged her hair. + +In M. de Nueil's character, person, and manner there was that touch of +unconscious originality which gives a kind of flavor to things that +any one might say or do, and absolves everything that they may choose +to do or say. He was highly cultivated, he had a keen brain, and a +face, mobile as his own nature, which won the goodwill of others. The +promise of passion and tenderness in the bright eyes was fulfilled by +an essentially kindly heart. The resolution which he made as he +entered the house at Courcelles was in keeping with his frank nature +and ardent imagination. But, bold has he was with love, his heart beat +violently when he had crossed the great court, laid out like an +English garden, and the man-servant, who had taken his name to the +Vicomtesse, returned to say that she would receive him. + +"M. le Baron de Nueil." + +Gaston came in slowly, but with sufficient ease of manner; and it is a +more difficult thing, be it said, to enter a room where there is but +one woman, than a room that holds a score. + +A great fire was burning on the hearth in spite of the mild weather, +and by the soft light of the candles in the sconces he saw a young +woman sitting on a high-backed /bergere/ in the angle by the hearth. +The seat was so low that she could move her head freely; every turn of +it was full of grace and delicate charm, whether she bent, leaning +forward, or raised and held it erect, slowly and languidly, as though +it were a heavy burden, so low that she could cross her feet and let +them appear, or draw them back under the folds of a long black dress. + +The Vicomtesse made as if she would lay the book that she was reading +on a small, round stand; but as she did so, she turned towards M. de +Nueil, and the volume, insecurely laid upon the edge, fell to the +ground between the stand and the sofa. This did not seem to disconcert +her. She looked up, bowing almost imperceptibly in response to his +greeting, without rising from the depths of the low chair in which she +lay. Bending forwards, she stirred the fire briskly, and stooped to +pick up a fallen glove, drawing it mechanically over her left hand, +while her eyes wandered in search of its fellow. The glance was +instantly checked, however, for she stretched out a thin, white, all- +but-transparent right hand, with flawless ovals of rose-colored nail +at the tips of the slender, ringless fingers, and pointed to a chair +as if to bid Gaston be seated. He sat down, and she turned her face +questioningly towards him. Words cannot describe the subtlety of the +winning charm and inquiry in that gesture; deliberate in its +kindliness, gracious yet accurate in expression, it was the outcome of +early education and of a constant use and wont of the graciousness of +life. These movements of hers, so swift, so deft, succeeded each other +by the blending of a pretty woman's fastidious carelessness with the +high-bred manner of a great lady. + +Mme. de Beauseant stood out in such strong contrast against the +automatons among whom he had spent two months of exile in that out-of- +the-world district of Normandy, that he could not but find in her the +realization of his romantic dreams; and, on the other hand, he could +not compare her perfections with those of other women whom he had +formerly admired. Here in her presence, in a drawing-room like some +salon in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, full of costly trifles lying +about upon the tables, and flowers and books, he felt as if he were +back in Paris. It was a real Parisian carpet beneath his feet, he saw +once more the high-bred type of Parisienne, the fragile outlines of +her form, her exquisite charm, her disdain of the studied effects +which did so much to spoil provincial women. + +Mme. de Beauseant had fair hair and dark eyes, and the pale complexion +that belongs to fair hair. She held up her brow nobly like some fallen +angel, grown proud through the fall, disdainful of pardon. Her way of +gathering her thick hair into a crown of plaits above the broad, +curving lines of the bandeaux upon her forehead, added to the +queenliness of her face. Imagination could discover the ducal coronet +of Burgundy in the spiral threads of her golden hair; all the courage +of her house seemed to gleam from the great lady's brilliant eyes, +such courage as women use to repel audacity or scorn, for they were +full of tenderness for gentleness. The outline of that little head, so +admirably poised above the long, white throat, the delicate, fine +features, the subtle curves of the lips, the mobile face itself, wore +an expression of delicate discretion, a faint semblance of irony +suggestive of craft and insolence. Yet it would have been difficult to +refuse forgiveness to those two feminine failings in her; for the +lines that came out in her forehead whenever her face was not in +repose, like her upward glances (that pathetic trick of manner), told +unmistakably of unhappiness, of a passion that had all but cost her +her life. A woman, sitting in the great, silent salon, a woman cut off +from the rest of the world in this remote little valley, alone, with +the memories of her brilliant, happy, and impassioned youth, of +continual gaiety and homage paid on all sides, now replaced by the +horrors of the void--was there not something in the sight to strike +awe that deepened with reflection? Consciousness of her own value +lurked in her smile. She was neither wife nor mother, she was an +outlaw; she had lost the one heart that could set her pulses beating +without shame; she had nothing from without to support her reeling +soul; she must even look for strength from within, live her own life, +cherish no hope save that of forsaken love, which looks forward to +Death's coming, and hastens his lagging footsteps. And this while life +was in its prime. Oh! to feel destined for happiness and to die--never +having given nor received it! A woman too! What pain was this! These +thoughts flashing across M. de Nueil's mind like lightning, left him +very humble in the presence of the greatest charm with which woman can +be invested. The triple aureole of beauty, nobleness, and misfortune +dazzled him; he stood in dreamy, almost open-mouthed admiration of the +Vicomtesse. But he found nothing to say to her. + +Mme. de Beauseant, by no means displeased, no doubt, by his surprise, +held out her hand with a kindly but imperious gesture; then, summoning +a smile to her pale lips, as if obeying, even yet, the woman's impulse +to be gracious: + +"I have heard from M. de Champignelles of a message which you have +kindly undertaken to deliver, monsieur," she said. "Can it be +from----" + +With that terrible phrase Gaston understood, even more clearly than +before, his own ridiculous position, the bad taste and bad faith of +his behavior towards a woman so noble and so unfortunate. He reddened. +The thoughts that crowded in upon him could be read in his troubled +eyes; but suddenly, with the courage which youth draws from a sense of +its own wrongdoing, he gained confidence, and very humbly interrupted +Mme. de Beauseant. + +"Madame," he faltered out, "I do not deserve the happiness of seeing +you. I have deceived you basely. However strong the motive may have +been, it can never excuse the pitiful subterfuge which I used to gain +my end. But, madame, if your goodness will permit me to tell you----" + +The Vicomtesse glanced at M. de Nueil, haughty disdain in her whole +manner. She stretched her hand to the bell and rang it. + +"Jacques," she said, "light this gentleman to the door," and she +looked with dignity at the visitor. + +She rose proudly, bowed to Gaston, and then stooped for the fallen +volume. If all her movements on his entrance had been caressingly +dainty and gracious, her every gesture now was no less severely +frigid. M. de Nueil rose to his feet, but he stood waiting. Mme. de +Beauseant flung another glance at him. "Well, why do you not go?" she +seemed to say. + +There was such cutting irony in that glance that Gaston grew white as +if he were about to faint. Tears came into his eyes, but he would not +let them fall, and scorching shame and despair dried them. He looked +back at Madame de Beauseant, and a certain pride and consciousness of +his own worth was mingled with his humility; the Vicomtesse had a +right to punish him, but ought she to use her right? Then he went out. + +As he crossed the ante-chamber, a clear head, and wits sharpened by +passion, were not slow to grasp the danger of his situation. + +"If I leave this house, I can never come back to it again," he said to +himself. "The Vicomtesse will always think of me as a fool. It is +impossible that a woman, and such a woman, should not guess the love +that she has called forth. Perhaps she feels a little, vague, +involuntary regret for dismissing me so abruptly.--But she could not +do otherwise, and she cannot recall her sentence. It rests with me to +understand her." + +At that thought Gaston stopped short on the flight of steps with an +exclamation; he turned sharply, saying, "I have forgotten something," +and went back to the salon. The lackey, all respect for a baron and +the rights of property, was completely deceived by the natural +utterance, and followed him. Gaston returned quietly and unannounced. +The Vicomtesse, thinking that the intruder was the servant, looked up +and beheld M. de Nueil. + +"Jacques lighted me to the door," he said, with a half-sad smile which +dispelled any suspicion of jest in those words, while the tone in +which they were spoken went to the heart. Mme. de Beauseant was +disarmed. + +"Very well, take a seat," she said. + +Gaston eagerly took possession of a chair. His eyes were shining with +happiness; the Vicomtesse, unable to endure the brilliant light in +them, looked down at the book. She was enjoying a delicious, ever new +sensation; the sense of a man's delight in her presence is an +unfailing feminine instinct. And then, besides, he had divined her, +and a woman is so grateful to the man who has mastered the apparently +capricious, yet logical, reasoning of her heart; who can track her +thought through the seemingly contradictory workings of her mind, and +read the sensations, shy or bold, written in fleeting red, a +bewildering maze of coquetry and self-revelation. + +"Madame," Gaston exclaimed in a low voice, "my blunder you know, but +you do not know how much I am to blame. If you only knew what joy it +was to----" + +"Ah! take care," she said, holding up one finger with an air of +mystery, as she put out her hand towards the bell. + +The charming gesture, the gracious threat, no doubt called up some sad +thought, some memory of the old happy time when she could be wholly +charming and gentle without an afterthought; when the gladness of her +heart justified every caprice, and put charm into every least +movement. The lines in her forehead gathered between her brows, and +the expression of her face grew dark in the soft candle-light. Then +looking across at M. de Nueil gravely but not unkindly, she spoke like +a woman who deeply feels the meaning of every word. + +"This is all very ridiculous! Once upon a time, monsieur, when +thoughtless high spirits were my privilege, I should have laughed +fearlessly over your visit with you. But now my life is very much +changed. I cannot do as I like, I am obliged to think. What brings you +here? Is it curiosity? In that case I am paying dearly for a little +fleeting pleasure. Have you fallen /passionately/ in love already with +a woman whom you have never seen, a woman with whose name slander has, +of course, been busy? If so, your motive in making this visit is based +on disrespect, on an error which accident brought into notoriety." + +She flung her book down scornfully upon the table, then, with a +terrible look at Gaston, she went on: "Because I once was weak, must +it be supposed that I am always weak? This is horrible, degrading. Or +have you come here to pity me? You are very young to offer sympathy +with heart troubles. Understand this clearly, sir, that I would rather +have scorn than pity. I will not endure compassion from any one." + +There was a brief pause. + +"Well, sir," she continued (and the face that she turned to him was +gentle and sad), "whatever motive induced this rash intrusion upon my +solitude, it is very painful to me, you see. You are too young to be +totally without good feeling, so surely you will feel that this +behavior of yours is improper. I forgive you for it, and, as you see, +I am speaking of it to you without bitterness. You will not come here +again, will you? I am entreating when I might command. If you come to +see me again, neither you nor I can prevent the whole place from +believing that you are my lover, and you would cause me great +additional annoyance. You do not mean to do that, I think." + +She said no more, but looked at him with a great dignity which abashed +him. + +"I have done wrong, madame," he said, with deep feeling in his voice, +"but it was through enthusiasm and thoughtlessness and eager desire of +happiness, the qualities and defects of my age. Now, I understand that +I ought not to have tried to see you," he added; "but, at the same +time, the desire was a very natural one"--and, making an appeal to +feeling rather than to the intellect, he described the weariness of +his enforced exile. He drew a portrait of a young man in whom the +fires of life were burning themselves out, conveying the impression +that here was a heart worthy of tender love, a heart which, +notwithstanding, had never known the joys of love for a young and +beautiful woman of refinement and taste. He explained, without +attempting to justify, his unusual conduct. He flattered Mme. de +Beauseant by showing that she had realized for him the ideal lady of a +young man's dream, the ideal sought by so many, and so often sought in +vain. Then he touched upon his morning prowlings under the walls of +Courcelles, and his wild thoughts at the first sight of the house, +till he excited that vague feeling of indulgence which a woman can +find in her heart for the follies committed for her sake. + +An impassioned voice was speaking in the chill solitude; the speaker +brought with him a warm breath of youth and the charms of a carefully +cultivated mind. It was so long since Mme. de Beauseant had felt +stirred by real feeling delicately expressed, that it affected her +very strongly now. In spite of herself, she watched M. de Nueil's +expressive face, and admired the noble countenance of a soul, unbroken +as yet by the cruel discipline of the life of the world, unfretted by +continual scheming to gratify personal ambition and vanity. Gaston was +in the flower of his youth, he impressed her as a man with something +in him, unaware as yet of the great career that lay before him. So +both these two made reflections most dangerous for their peace of +mind, and both strove to conceal their thoughts. M. de Nueil saw in +the Vicomtesse a rare type of woman, always the victim of her +perfections and tenderness; her graceful beauty is the least of her +charms for those who are privileged to know the infinite of feeling +and thought and goodness in the soul within; a woman whose instinctive +feeling for beauty runs through all the most varied expressions of +love, purifying its transports, turning them to something almost holy; +wonderful secret of womanhood, the exquisite gift that Nature so +seldom bestows. And the Vicomtesse, on her side, listening to the ring +of sincerity in Gaston's voice, while he told of his youthful +troubles, began to understand all that grown children of five-and- +twenty suffer from diffidence, when hard work has kept them alike from +corrupting influences and intercourse with men and women of the world +whose sophistical reasoning and experience destroys the fair qualities +of youth. Here was the ideal of a woman's dreams, a man unspoiled as +yet by the egoism of family or success, or by that narrow selfishness +which blights the first impulses of honor, devotion, self-sacrifice, +and high demands of self; all the flowers so soon wither that enrich +at first the life of delicate but strong emotions, and keep alive the +loyalty of the heart. + +But these two, once launched forth into the vast of sentiment, went +far indeed in theory, sounding the depths in either soul, testing the +sincerity of their expressions; only, whereas Gaston's experiments +were made unconsciously, Mme. de Beauseant had a purpose in all that +she said. Bringing her natural and acquired subtlety to the work, she +sought to learn M. de Nueil's opinions by advancing, as far as she +could do so, views diametrically opposed to her own. So witty and so +gracious was she, so much herself with this stranger, with whom she +felt completely at ease, because she felt sure that they should never +meet again, that, after some delicious epigram of hers, Gaston +exclaimed unthinkingly: + +"Oh! madame, how could any man have left you?" + +The Vicomtesse was silent. Gaston reddened, he thought that he had +offended her; but she was not angry. The first deep thrill of delight +since the day of her calamity had taken her by surprise. The skill of +the cleverest /roue/ could not have made the impression that M. de +Nueil made with that cry from the heart. That verdict wrung from a +young man's candor gave her back innocence in her own eyes, condemned +the world, laid the blame upon the lover who had left her, and +justified her subsequent solitary drooping life. The world's +absolution, the heartfelt sympathy, the social esteem so longed for, +and so harshly refused, nay, all her secret desires were given her to +the full in that exclamation, made fairer yet by the heart's sweetest +flatteries and the admiration that women always relish eagerly. He +understood her, understood all, and he had given her, as if it were +the most natural thing in the world, the opportunity of rising higher +through her fall. She looked at the clock. + +"Ah! madame, do not punish me for my heedlessness. If you grant me but +one evening, vouchsafe not to shorten it." + +She smiled at the pretty speech. + +"Well, as we must never meet again," she said, "what signifies a +moment more or less? If you were to care for me, it would be a pity." + +"It is too late now," he said. + +"Do not tell me that," she answered gravely. "Under any other +circumstances I should be very glad to see you. I will speak frankly, +and you will understand how it is that I do not choose to see you +again, and ought not to do so. You have too much magnanimity not to +feel that if I were so much as suspected of a second trespass, every +one would think of me as a contemptible and vulgar woman; I should be +like other women. A pure and blameless life will bring my character +into relief. I am too proud not to endeavor to live like one apart in +the world, a victim of the law through my marriage, man's victim +through my love. If I were not faithful to the position which I have +taken up, then I should deserve all the reproach that is heaped upon +me; I should be lowered in my own eyes. I had not enough lofty social +virtue to remain with a man whom I did not love. I have snapped the +bonds of marriage in spite of the law; it was wrong, it was a crime, +it was anything you like, but for me the bonds meant death. I meant to +live. Perhaps if I had been a mother I could have endured the torture +of a forced marriage of suitability. At eighteen we scarcely know what +is done with us, poor girls that we are! I have broken the laws of the +world, and the world has punished me; we both did rightly. I sought +happiness. Is it not a law of our nature to seek for happiness? I was +young, I was beautiful . . . I thought that I had found a nature as +loving, as apparently passionate. I was loved indeed; for a little +while . . ." + +She paused. + +"I used to think," she said, "that no one could leave a woman in such +a position as mine. I have been forsaken; I must have offended in some +way. Yes, in some way, no doubt, I failed to keep some law of our +nature, was too loving, too devoted, too exacting--I do not know. Evil +days have brought light with them! For a long while I blamed another, +now I am content to bear the whole blame. At my own expense, I have +absolved that other of whom I once thought I had a right to complain. +I had not the art to keep him; fate has punished me heavily for my +lack of skill. I only knew how to love; how can one keep oneself in +mind when one loves? So I was a slave when I should have sought to be +a tyrant. Those who know me may condemn me, but they will respect me +too. Pain has taught me that I must not lay myself open to this a +second time. I cannot understand how it is that I am living yet, after +the anguish of that first week of the most fearful crisis in a woman's +life. Only from three years of loneliness would it be possible to draw +strength to speak of that time as I am speaking now. Such agony, +monsieur, usually ends in death; but this--well, it was the agony of +death with no tomb to end it. Oh! I have known pain indeed!" + +The Vicomtesse raised her beautiful eyes to the ceiling; and the +cornice, no doubt, received all the confidences which a stranger might +not hear. When a woman is afraid to look at her interlocutor, there is +in truth no gentler, meeker, more accommodating confidant than the +cornice. The cornice is quite an institution in the boudoir; what is +it but the confessional, /minus/ the priest? + +Mme. de Beauseant was eloquent and beautiful at that moment; nay, +"coquettish," if the word were not too heavy. By justifying herself +and love, she was stimulating every sentiment in the man before her; +nay, more, the higher she set the goal, the more conspicuous it grew. +At last, when her eyes had lost the too eloquent expression given to +them by painful memories, she let them fall on Gaston. + +"You acknowledge, do you not, that I am bound to lead a solitary, +self-contained life?" she said quietly. + +So sublime was she in her reasoning and her madness, that M. de Nueil +felt a wild longing to throw himself at her feet; but he was afraid of +making himself ridiculous, so he held his enthusiasm and his thoughts +in check. He was afraid, too, that he might totally fail to express +them, and in no less terror of some awful rejection on her part, or of +her mockery, an apprehension which strikes like ice to the most fervid +soul. The revulsion which led him to crush down every feeling as it +sprang up in his heart cost him the intense pain that diffident and +ambitious natures experience in the frequent crises when they are +compelled to stifle their longings. And yet, in spite of himself, he +broke the silence to say in a faltering voice: + +"Madame, permit me to give way to one of the strongest emotions of my +life, and own to all that you have made me feel. You set the heart in +me swelling high! I feel within me a longing to make you forget your +mortifications, to devote my life to this, to give you love for all +who ever have given you wounds or hate. But this is a very sudden +outpouring of the heart, nothing can justify it to-day, and I ought +not----" + +"Enough, monsieur," said Mme. de Beauseant; "we have both of us gone +too far. By giving you the sad reasons for a refusal which I am +compelled to give, I meant to soften it and not to elicit homage. +Coquetry only suits a happy woman. Believe me, we must remain +strangers to each other. At a later day you will know that ties which +must inevitably be broken ought not to be formed at all." + +She sighed lightly, and her brows contracted, but almost immediately +grew clear again. + +"How painful it is for a woman to be powerless to follow the man she +loves through all the phases of his life! And if that man loves her +truly, his heart must surely vibrate with pain to the deep trouble in +hers. Are they not twice unhappy?" + +There was a short pause. Then she rose smiling. + +"You little suspected, when you came to Courcelles, that you were to +hear a sermon, did you?" + +Gaston felt even further than at first from this extraordinary woman. +Was the charm of that delightful hour due after all to the coquetry of +the mistress of the house? She had been anxious to display her wit. He +bowed stiffly to the Vicomtesse, and went away in desperation. + +On the way home he tried to detect the real character of a creature +supple and hard as a steel spring; but he had seen her pass through so +many phases, that he could not make up his mind about her. The tones +of her voice, too, were ringing in his ears; her gestures, the little +movements of her head, and the varying expression of her eyes grew +more gracious in memory, more fascinating as he thought of them. The +Vicomtesse's beauty shone out again for him in the darkness; his +reviving impressions called up yet others, and he was enthralled anew +by womanly charm and wit, which at first he had not perceived. He fell +to wandering musings, in which the most lucid thoughts grow refractory +and flatly contradict each other, and the soul passes through a brief +frenzy fit. Youth only can understand all that lies in the dithyrambic +outpourings of youth when, after a stormy siege, of the most frantic +folly and coolest common-sense, the heart finally yields to the +assault of the latest comer, be it hope, or despair, as some +mysterious power determines. + +At three-and-twenty, diffidence nearly always rules a man's conduct; +he is perplexed with a young girl's shyness, a girl's trouble; he is +afraid lest he should express his love ill, sees nothing but +difficulties, and takes alarm at them; he would be bolder if he loved +less, for he has no confidence in himself, and with a growing sense of +the cost of happiness comes a conviction that the woman he loves +cannot easily be won; perhaps, too, he is giving himself up too +entirely to his own pleasure, and fears that he can give none; and +when, for his misfortune, his idol inspires him with awe, he worships +in secret and afar, and unless his love is guessed, it dies away. Then +it often happens that one of these dead early loves lingers on, bright +with illusions in many a young heart. What man is there but keeps +within him these virgin memories that grow fairer every time they rise +before him, memories that hold up to him the ideal of perfect bliss? +Such recollections are like children who die in the flower of +childhood, before their parents have known anything of them but their +smiles. + +So M. de Nueil came home from Courcelles, the victim of a mood fraught +with desperate resolutions. Even now he felt that Mme. de Beauseant +was one of the conditions of his existence, and that death would be +preferable to life without her. He was still young enough to feel the +tyrannous fascination which fully-developed womanhood exerts over +immature and impassioned natures; and, consequently, he was to spend +one of those stormy nights when a young man's thoughts travel from +happiness to suicide and back again--nights in which youth rushes +through a lifetime of bliss and falls asleep from sheer exhaustion. +Fateful nights are they, and the worst misfortune that can happen is +to awake a philosopher afterwards. M. de Nueil was far too deeply in +love to sleep; he rose and betook to inditing letters, but none of +them were satisfactory, and he burned them all. + + + +The next day he went to Courcelles to make the circuit of her garden +walls, but he waited till nightfall; he was afraid that she might see +him. The instinct that led him to act in this way arose out of so +obscure a mood of the soul, that none but a young man, or a man in +like case, can fully understand its mute ecstasies and its vagaries, +matter to set those people who are lucky enough to see life only in +its matter-of-fact aspect shrugging their shoulders. After painful +hesitation, Gaston wrote to Mme. de Beauseant. Here is the letter, +which may serve as a sample of the epistolary style peculiar to +lovers, a performance which, like the drawings prepared with great +secrecy by children for the birthdays of father or mother, is found +insufferable by every mortal except the recipients:-- + + "MADAME,--Your power over my heart, my soul, myself, is so great + that my fate depends wholly upon you to-day. Do not throw this + letter into the fire; be so kind as to read it through. Perhaps + you may pardon the opening sentence when you see that it is no + commonplace, selfish declaration, but that it expresses a simple + fact. Perhaps you may feel moved, because I ask for so little, by + the submission of one who feels himself so much beneath you, by + the influence that your decision will exercise upon my life. At my + age, madame, I only know how to love, I am utterly ignorant of + ways of attracting and winning a woman's love, but in my own heart + I know raptures of adoration of her. I am irresistibly drawn to + you by the great happiness that I feel through you; my thoughts + turn to you with the selfish instinct which bids us draw nearer to + the fire of life when we find it. I do not imagine that I am + worthy of you; it seems impossible that I, young, ignorant, and + shy, could bring you one-thousandth part of the happiness that I + drink in at the sound of your voice and the sight of you. For me + you are the only woman in the world. I cannot imagine life without + you, so I have made up my mind to leave France, and to risk my + life till I lose it in some desperate enterprise, in the Indies, + in Africa, I care not where. How can I quell a love that knows no + limits save by opposing to it something as infinite? Yet, if you + will allow me to hope, not to be yours, but to win your + friendship, I will stay. Let me come, not so very often, if you + require it, to spend a few such hours with you as those stolen + hours of yesterday. The keen delight of that brief happiness to be + cut short at the least over-ardent word from me, will suffice to + enable me to endure the boiling torrent in my veins. Have I + presumed too much upon your generosity by this entreaty to suffer + an intercourse in which all the gain is mine alone? You could find + ways of showing the world, to which you sacrifice so much, that I + am nothing to you; you are so clever and so proud! What have you + to fear? If I could only lay bare my heart to you at this moment, + to convince you that it is with no lurking afterthought that I + make this humble request! Should I have told you that my love was + boundless, while I prayed you to grant me friendship, if I had any + hope of your sharing this feeling in the depths of my soul? No, + while I am with you, I will be whatever you will, if only I may be + with you. If you refuse (as you have the power to refuse), I will + not utter one murmur, I will go. And if, at a later day, any other + woman should enter into my life, you will have proof that you were + right; but if I am faithful till death, you may feel some regret + perhaps. The hope of causing you a regret will soothe my agony, + and that thought shall be the sole revenge of a slighted + heart. . . ." + +Only those who have passed through all the exceeding tribulations of +youth, who have seized on all the chimeras with two white pinions, the +nightmare fancies at the disposal of a fervid imagination, can realize +the horrors that seized upon Gaston de Nueil when he had reason to +suppose that his ultimatum was in Mme. de Beauseant's hands. He saw +the Vicomtesse, wholly untouched, laughing at his letter and his love, +as those can laugh who have ceased to believe in love. He could have +wished to have his letter back again. It was an absurd letter. There +were a thousand and one things, now that he came to think of it, that +he might have said, things infinitely better and more moving than +those stilted phrases of his, those accursed, sophisticated, +pretentious, fine-spun phrases, though, luckily, the punctuation had +been pretty bad and the lines shockingly crooked. He tried not to +think, not to feel; but he felt and thought, and was wretched. If he +had been thirty years old, he might have got drunk, but the innocence +of three-and-twenty knew nothing of the resources of opium nor of the +expedients of advanced civilization. Nor had he at hand one of those +good friends of the Parisian pattern who understand so well how to say +/Poete, non dolet!/ by producing a bottle of champagne, or alleviate +the agony of suspense by carrying you off somewhere to make a night of +it. Capital fellows are they, always in low water when you are in +funds, always off to some watering-place when you go to look them up, +always with some bad bargain in horse-flesh to sell you; it is true, +that when you want to borrow of them, they have always just lost their +last louis at play; but in all other respects they are the best +fellows on earth, always ready to embark with you on one of the steep +down-grades where you lose your time, your soul, and your life! + +At length M. de Nueil received a missive through the instrumentality +of Jacques, a letter that bore the arms of Burgundy on the scented +seal, a letter written on vellum notepaper. + +He rushed away at once to lock himself in, and read and re-read /her/ +letter:-- + + "You are punishing me very severely, monsieur, both for the + friendliness of my effort to spare you a rebuff, and for the + attraction which intellect always has for me. I put confidence in + the generosity of youth, and you have disappointed me. And yet, if + I did not speak unreservedly (which would have been perfectly + ridiculous), at any rate I spoke frankly of my position, so that + you might imagine that I was not to be touched by a young soul. My + distress is the keener for my interest in you. I am naturally + tender-hearted and kindly, but circumstances force me to act + unkindly. Another woman would have flung your letter, unread, into + the fire; I read it, and I am answering it. My answer will make it + clear to you that while I am not untouched by the expression of + this feeling which I have inspired, albeit unconsciously, I am + still far from sharing it, and the step which I am about to take + will show you still more plainly that I mean what I say. I wish + besides, to use, for your welfare, that authority, as it were, + which you give me over your life; and I desire to exercise it this + once to draw aside the veil from your eyes. + + "I am nearly thirty years old, monsieur; you are barely two-and- + twenty. You yourself cannot know what your thoughts will be at my + age. The vows that you make so lightly to-day may seem a very + heavy burden to you then. I am quite willing to believe that at + this moment you would give me your whole life without a regret, + you would even be ready to die for a little brief happiness; but + at the age of thirty experience will take from you the very power + of making daily sacrifices for my sake, and I myself should feel + deeply humiliated if I accepted them. A day would come when + everything, even Nature, would bid you leave me, and I have + already told you that death is preferable to desertion. Misfortune + has taught me to calculate; as you see, I am arguing perfectly + dispassionately. You force me to tell you that I have no love for + you; I ought not to love, I cannot, and I will not. It is too late + to yield, as women yield, to a blind unreasoning impulse of the + heart, too late to be the mistress whom you seek. My consolations + spring from God, not from earth. Ah, and besides, with the + melancholy insight of disappointed love, I read hearts too clearly + to accept your proffered friendship. It is only instinct. I + forgive the boyish ruse, for which you are not responsible as yet. + In the name of this passing fancy of yours, for the sake of your + career and my own peace of mind, I bid you stay in your own + country; you must not spoil a fair and honorable life for an + illusion which, by its very nature, cannot last. At a later day, + when you have accomplished your real destiny, in the fully + developed manhood that awaits you, you will appreciate this answer + of mine, though to-day it may be that you blame its hardness. You + will turn with pleasure to an old woman whose friendship will + certainly be sweet and precious to you then; a friendship untried + by the extremes of passion and the disenchanting processes of + life; a friendship which noble thoughts and thoughts of religion + will keep pure and sacred. Farewell; do my bidding with the + thought that your success will bring a gleam of pleasure into my + solitude, and only think of me as we think of absent friends." + +Gaston de Nueil read the letter, and wrote the following lines:-- + + "MADAME,--If I could cease to love you, to take the chances of + becoming an ordinary man which you hold out to me, you must admit + that I should thoroughly deserve my fate. No, I shall not do as + you bid me; the oath of fidelity which I swear to you shall only + be absolved by death. Ah! take my life, unless indeed you do not + fear to carry a remorse all through your own----" + +When the man returned from his errand, M. de Nueil asked him with whom +he left the note? + +"I gave it to Mme. la Vicomtesse herself, sir; she was in her carriage +and just about to start." + +"For the town?" + +"I don't think so, sir. Mme. la Vicomtesse had post-horses." + +"Ah! then she is going away," said the Baron. + +"Yes, sir," the man answered. + +Gaston de Nueil at once prepared to follow Mme. de Beauseant. She led +the way as far as Geneva, without a suspicion that he followed. And +he? Amid the many thoughts that assailed him during that journey, one +all-absorbing problem filled his mind--"Why did she go away?" Theories +grew thickly on such ground for supposition, and naturally he inclined +to the one that flattered his hopes--"If the Vicomtesse cares for me, +a clever woman would, of course, choose Switzerland, where nobody +knows either of us, in preference to France, where she would find +censorious critics." + +An impassioned lover of a certain stamp would not feel attracted to a +woman clever enough to choose her own ground; such women are too +clever. However, there is nothing to prove that there was any truth in +Gaston's supposition. + +The Vicomtesse took a small house by the side of the lake. As soon as +she was installed in it, Gaston came one summer evening in the +twilight. Jacques, that flunkey in grain, showed no sign of surprise, +and announced /M. le Baron de Nueil/ like a discreet domestic well +acquainted with good society. At the sound of the name, at the sight +of its owner, Mme. de Beauseant let her book fall from her hands; her +surprise gave him time to come close to her, and to say in tones that +sounded like music in her ears: + +"What a joy it was to me to take the horses that brought you on this +journey!" + +To have the inmost desires of the heart so fulfilled! Where is the +woman who could resist such happiness as this? An Italian woman, one +of those divine creatures who, psychologically, are as far removed +from the Parisian as if they lived at the Antipodes, a being who would +be regarded as profoundly immoral on this side of the Alps, an Italian +(to resume) made the following comment on some French novels which she +had been reading. "I cannot see," she remarked, "why these poor lovers +take such a time over coming to an arrangement which ought to be the +affair of a single morning." Why should not the novelist take a hint +from this worthy lady, and refrain from exhausting the theme and the +reader? Some few passages of coquetry it would certainly be pleasant +to give in outline; the story of Mme. de Beauseant's demurs and sweet +delayings, that, like the vestal virgins of antiquity, she might fall +gracefully, and by lingering over the innocent raptures of first love +draw from it its utmost strength and sweetness. M. de Nueil was at an +age when a man is the dupe of these caprices, of the fence which women +delight to prolong; either to dictate their own terms, or to enjoy the +sense of their power yet longer, knowing instinctively as they do that +it must soon grow less. But, after all, these little boudoir +protocols, less numerous than those of the Congress of London, are too +small to be worth mention in the history of this passion. + +For three years Mme. de Beauseant and M. de Nueil lived in the villa +on the lake of Geneva. They lived quite alone, received no visitors, +caused no talk, rose late, went out together upon the lake, knew, in +short, the happiness of which we all of us dream. It was a simple +little house, with green shutters, and broad balconies shaded with +awnings, a house contrived of set purpose for lovers, with its white +couches, soundless carpets, and fresh hangings, everything within it +reflecting their joy. Every window looked out on some new view of the +lake; in the far distance lay the mountains, fantastic visions of +changing color and evanescent cloud; above them spread the sunny sky, +before them stretched the broad sheet of water, never the same in its +fitful changes. All their surroundings seemed to dream for them, all +things smiled upon them. + +Then weighty matters recalled M. de Nueil to France. His father and +brother died, and he was obliged to leave Geneva. The lovers bought +the house; and if they could have had their way, they would have +removed the hills piecemeal, drawn off the lake with a siphon, and +taken everything away with them. + +Mme. de Beauseant followed M. de Nueil. She realized her property, and +bought a considerable estate near Manerville, adjoining Gaston's +lands, and here they lived together; Gaston very graciously giving up +Manerville to his mother for the present in consideration of the +bachelor freedom in which she left him. + +Mme. de Beauseant's estate was close to a little town in one of the +most picturesque spots in the valley of the Auge. Here the lovers +raised barriers between themselves and social intercourse, barriers +which no creature could overleap, and here the happy days of +Switzerland were lived over again. For nine whole years they knew +happiness which it serves no purpose to describe; happiness which may +be divined from the outcome of the story by those whose souls can +comprehend poetry and prayer in their infinite manifestations. + +All this time Mme. de Beauseant's husband, the present Marquis (his +father and elder brother having died), enjoyed the soundest health. +There is no better aid to life than a certain knowledge that our +demise would confer a benefit on some fellow-creature. M. de Beauseant +was one of those ironical and wayward beings who, like holders of +life-annuities, wake with an additional sense of relish every morning +to a consciousness of good health. For the rest, he was a man of the +world, somewhat methodical and ceremonious, and a calculator of +consequences, who could make a declaration of love as quietly as a +lackey announces that "Madame is served." + +This brief biographical notice of his lordship the Marquis de +Beauseant is given to explain the reasons why it was impossible for +the Marquise to marry M. de Nueil. + +So, after a nine years' lease of happiness, the sweetest agreement to +which a woman ever put her hand, M. de Nueil and Mme. de Beauseant +were still in a position quite as natural and quite as false as at the +beginning of their adventure. And yet they had reached a fatal crisis, +which may be stated as clearly as any problem in mathematics. + +Mme. la Comtesse de Nueil, Gaston's mother, a strait-laced and +virtuous person, who had made the late Baron happy in strictly legal +fashion would never consent to meet Mme. de Beauseant. Mme. de +Beauseant quite understood that the worthy dowager must of necessity +be her enemy, and that she would try to draw Gaston from his +unhallowed and immoral way of life. The Marquise de Beauseant would +willingly have sold her property and gone back to Geneva, but she +could not bring herself to do it; it would mean that she distrusted M. +de Nueil. Moreover, he had taken a great fancy to this very Valleroy +estate, where he was making plantations and improvements. She would +not deprive him of a piece of pleasurable routine-work, such as women +always wish for their husbands, and even for their lovers. + +A Mlle. de la Rodiere, twenty-two years of age, an heiress with a +rent-roll of forty thousand livres, had come to live in the +neighborhood. Gaston always met her at Manerville whenever he was +obliged to go thither. These various personages being to each other as +the terms of a proportion sum, the following letter will throw light +on the appalling problem which Mme. de Beauseant had been trying for +the past month to solve:-- + + "My beloved angel, it seems like nonsense, does it not, to write + to you when there is nothing to keep us apart, when a caress so + often takes the place of words, and words too are caresses? Ah, + well, no, love. There are some things that a woman cannot say when + she is face to face with the man she loves; at the bare thought of + them her voice fails her, and the blood goes back to her heart; + she has no strength, no intelligence left. It hurts me to feel + like this when you are near me, and it happens often. I feel that + my heart should be wholly sincere for you; that I should disguise + no thought, however transient, in my heart; and I love the sweet + carelessness, which suits me so well, too much to endure this + embarrassment and constraint any longer. So I will tell you about + my anguish--yes, it is anguish. Listen to me! do not begin with + the little 'Tut, tut, tut,' that you use to silence me, an + impertinence that I love, because anything from you pleases me. + Dear soul from heaven, wedded to mine, let me first tell you that + you have effaced all memory of the pain that once was crushing the + life out of me. I did not know what love was before I knew you. + Only the candor of your beautiful young life, only the purity of + that great soul of yours, could satisfy the requirements of an + exacting woman's heart. Dear love, how very often I have thrilled + with joy to think that in these nine long, swift years, my + jealousy has not been once awakened. All the flowers of your soul + have been mine, all your thoughts. There has not been the faintest + cloud in our heaven; we have not known what sacrifice is; we have + always acted on the impulses of our hearts. I have known + happiness, infinite for a woman. Will the tears that drench this + sheet tell you all my gratitude? I could wish that I had knelt to + write the words!--Well, out of this felicity has arisen torture + more terrible than the pain of desertion. Dear, there are very + deep recesses in a woman's heart; how deep in my own heart, I did + not know myself until to-day, as I did not know the whole extent + of love. The greatest misery which could overwhelm us is a light + burden compared with the mere thought of harm for him whom we + love. And how if we cause the harm, is it not enough to make one + die? . . . This is the thought that is weighing upon me. But + it brings in its train another thought that is heavier far, a + thought that tarnishes the glory of love, and slays it, and turns + it into a humiliation which sullies life as long as it lasts. You + are thirty years old; I am forty. What dread this difference in + age calls up in a woman who loves! It is possible that, first of + all unconsciously, afterwards in earnest, you have felt the + sacrifices that you have made by renouncing all in the world for + me. Perhaps you have thought of your future from the social point + of view, of the marriage which would, of course, increase your + fortune, and give you avowed happiness and children who would + inherit your wealth; perhaps you have thought of reappearing in + the world, and filling your place there honorably. And then, if + so, you must have repressed those thoughts, and felt glad to + sacrifice heiress and fortune and a fair future to me without my + knowledge. In your young man's generosity, you must have resolved + to be faithful to the vows which bind us each to each in the sight + of God. My past pain has risen up before your mind, and the misery + from which you rescued me has been my protection. To owe your love + to your pity! The thought is even more painful to me than the fear + of spoiling your life for you. The man who can bring himself to + stab his mistress is very charitable if he gives her her deathblow + while she is happy and ignorant of evil, while illusions are in + full blossom. . . . Yes, death is preferable to the two thoughts + which have secretly saddened the hours for several days. To-day, + when you asked 'What ails you?' so tenderly, the sound of your + voice made me shiver. I thought that, after your wont, you were + reading my very soul, and I waited for your confidence to come, + thinking that my presentiments had come true, and that I had + guessed all that was going on in your mind. Then I began to think + over certain little things that you always do for me, and I + thought I could see in you the sort of affection by which a man + betrays a consciousness that his loyalty is becoming a burden. And + in that moment I paid very dear for my happiness. I felt that + Nature always demands the price for the treasure called love. + Briefly, has not fate separated us? Can you have said, 'Sooner or + later I must leave poor Claire; why not separate in time?' I read + that thought in the depths of your eyes, and went away to cry by + myself. Hiding my tears from you! the first tears that I have shed + for sorrow for these ten years; I am too proud to let you see + them, but I did not reproach you in the least. + + "Yes, you are right. I ought not to be so selfish as to bind your + long and brilliant career to my so-soon out-worn life. . . . And + yet--how if I have been mistaken? How if I have taken your love + melancholy for a deliberation? Oh, my love, do not leave me in + suspense; punish this jealous wife of yours, but give her back the + sense of her love and yours; the whole woman lies in that--that + consciousness sanctifies everything. + + "Since your mother came, since you paid a visit to Mlle. de + Rodiere, I have been gnawed by doubts dishonoring to us both. Make + me suffer for this, but do not deceive me; I want to know + everything that your mother said and that you think! If you have + hesitated between some alternative and me, I give you back your + liberty. . . . I will not let you know what happens to me; I will + not shed tears for you to see; only--I will not see you again. + . . . Ah! I cannot go on, my heart is breaking . . . . . . . . . . + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I have been sitting + benumbed and stupid for some moments. Dear love, I do not find + that any feeling of pride rises against you; you are so kind- + hearted, so open; you would find it impossible to hurt me or to + deceive me; and you will tell me the truth, however cruel it may + be. Do you wish me to encourage your confession? Well, then, heart + of mine, I shall find comfort in a woman's thought. Has not the + youth of your being been mine, your sensitive, wholly gracious, + beautiful, and delicate youth? No woman shall find henceforth the + Gaston whom I have known, nor the delicious happiness that he has + given me. . . . No; you will never love again as you have loved, + as you love me now; no, I shall never have a rival, it is + impossible. There will be no bitterness in my memories of our + love, and I shall think of nothing else. It is out of your power + to enchant any woman henceforth by the childish provocations, the + charming ways of a young heart, the soul's winning charm, the + body's grace, the swift communion of rapture, the whole divine + cortege of young love, in fine. + + "Oh, you are a man now, you will obey your destiny, weighing and + considering all things. You will have cares, and anxieties, and + ambitions, and concerns that will rob /her/ of the unchanging + smile that made your lips fair for me. The tones that were always + so sweet for me will be troubled at times; and your eyes that + lighted up with radiance from heaven at the sight of me, will + often be lustreless for /her/. And besides, as it is impossible to + love you as I love you, you will never care for that woman as you + have cared for me. She will never keep a constant watch over + herself as I have done; she will never study your happiness at + every moment with an intuition which has never failed me. Ah, yes, + the man, the heart and soul, which I shall have known will exist + no longer. I shall bury him deep in my memory, that I may have the + joy of him still; I shall live happy in that fair past life of + ours, a life hidden from all but our inmost selves. + + "Dear treasure of mine, if all the while no least thought of + liberty has risen in your mind, if my love is no burden on you, if + my fears are chimerical, if I am still your Eve--the one woman in + the world for you--come to me as soon as you have read this + letter, come quickly! Ah, in one moment I will love you more than + I have ever loved you, I think, in these nine years. After + enduring the needless torture of these doubts of which I am + accusing myself, every added day of love, yes, every single day, + will be a whole lifetime of bliss. So speak, and speak openly; do + not deceive me, it would be a crime. Tell me, do you wish for your + liberty? Have you thought of all that a man's life means? Is there + any regret in your mind? That /I/ should cause you a regret! I + should die of it. I have said it: I love you enough to set your + happiness above mine, your life before my own. Leave on one side, + if you can, the wealth of memories of our nine years' happiness, + that they may not influence your decision, but speak! I submit + myself to you as to God, the one Consoler who remains if you + forsake me." + +When Mme. de Beauseant knew that her letter was in M. de Nueil's +hands, she sank in such utter prostration, the over-pressure of many +thoughts so numbed her faculties, that she seemed almost drowsy. At +any rate, she was suffering from a pain not always proportioned in its +intensity to a woman's strength; pain which women alone know. And +while the unhappy Marquise awaited her doom, M. de Nueil, reading her +letter, felt that he was "in a very difficult position," to use the +expression that young men apply to a crisis of this kind. + +By this time he had all but yielded to his mother's importunities and +to the attractions of Mlle. de la Rodiere, a somewhat insignificant, +pink-and-white young person, as straight as a poplar. It is true that, +in accordance with the rules laid down for marriageable young ladies, +she scarcely opened her mouth, but her rent-roll of forty thousand +livres spoke quite sufficiently for her. Mme. de Nueil, with a +mother's sincere affection, tried to entangle her son in virtuous +courses. She called his attention to the fact that it was a flattering +distinction to be preferred by Mlle. de la Rodiere, who had refused so +many great matches; it was quite time, she urged, that he should think +of his future, such a good opportunity might not repeat itself, some +day he would have eighty thousand livres of income from land; money +made everything bearable; if Mme. de Beauseant loved him for his own +sake, she ought to be the first to urge him to marry. In short, the +well-intentioned mother forgot no arguments which the feminine +intellect can bring to bear upon the masculine mind, and by these +means she had brought her son into a wavering condition. + +Mme. de Beauseant's letter arrived just as Gaston's love of her was +holding out against the temptations of a settled life conformable to +received ideas. That letter decided the day. He made up his mind to +break off with the Marquise and to marry. + +"One must live a man's life," said he to himself. + +Then followed some inkling of the pain that this decision would give +to Mme. de Beauseant. The man's vanity and the lover's conscience +further exaggerated this pain, and a sincere pity for her seized upon +him. All at once the immensity of the misery became apparent to him, +and he thought it necessary and charitable to deaden the deadly blow. +He hoped to bring Mme. de Beauseant to a calm frame of mind by +gradually reconciling her to the idea of separation; while Mlle. de la +Rodiere, always like a shadowy third between them, should be +sacrificed to her at first, only to be imposed upon her later. His +marriage should take place later, in obedience to Mme. de Beauseant's +expressed wish. He went so far as to enlist the Marquise's nobleness +and pride and all the great qualities of her nature to help him to +succeed in this compassionate design. He would write a letter at once +to allay her suspicions. /A letter!/ For a woman with the most +exquisite feminine perception, as well as the intuition of passionate +love, a letter in itself was a sentence of death. + +So when Jacques came and brought Mme. de Beauseant a sheet of paper +folded in a triangle, she trembled, poor woman, like a snared swallow. +A mysterious sensation of physical cold spread from head to foot, +wrapping her about in an icy winding sheet. If he did not rush to her +feet, if he did not come to her in tears, and pale, and like a lover, +she knew that all was lost. And yet, so many hopes are there in the +heart of a woman who loves, that she is only slain by stab after stab, +and loves on till the last drop of life-blood drains away. + +"Does madame need anything?" Jacques asked gently, as he went away. + +"No," she said. + +"Poor fellow!" she thought, brushing a tear from her eyes, "he guesses +my feelings, servant though he is!" + +She read: "My beloved, you are inventing idle terrors for +yourself . . ." The Marquise gazed at the words, and a thick mist +spread before her eyes. A voice in her heart cried, "He lies!"--Then +she glanced down the page with the clairvoyant eagerness of passion, +and read these words at the foot, "/Nothing has been decided as +yet . . ./" Turning to the other side with convulsive quickness, she +saw the mind of the writer distinctly through the intricacies of the +wording; this was no spontaneous outburst of love. She crushed it in +her fingers, twisted it, tore it with her teeth, flung it in the fire, +and cried aloud, "Ah! base that he is! I was his, and he had ceased to +love me!" + +She sank half dead upon the couch. + + + +M. de Nueil went out as soon as he had written his letter. When he +came back, Jacques met him on the threshold with a note. "Madame la +Marquise has left the chateau," said the man. + +M. de Nueil, in amazement, broke the seal and read:-- + + "MADAME,--If I could cease to love you, to take the chances of + becoming an ordinary man which you hold out to me, you must admit + that I should thoroughly deserve my fate. No, I shall not do as + you bid me; the oath of fidelity which I swear to you shall only + be absolved by death. Ah! take my life, unless indeed you do not + fear to carry a remorse all through your own . . ." + +It was his own letter, written to the Marquise as she set out for +Geneva nine years before. At the foot of it Claire de Bourgogne had +written, "Monsieur, you are free." + +M. de Nueil went to his mother at Manerville. In less than three weeks +he married Mlle. Stephanie de la Rodiere. + + + +If this commonplace story of real life ended here, it would be to some +extent a sort of mystification. The first man you meet can tell you a +better. But the widespread fame of the catastrophe (for, unhappily, +this is a true tale), and all the memories which it may arouse in +those who have known the divine delights of infinite passion, and lost +them by their own deed, or through the cruelty of fate,--these things +may perhaps shelter the story from criticism. + +Mme. la Marquise de Beauseant never left Valleroy after her parting +from M. de Nueil. After his marriage she still continued to live +there, for some inscrutable woman's reason; any woman is at liberty to +assign the one which most appeals to her. Claire de Bourgogne lived in +such complete retirement that none of the servants, save Jacques and +her own woman, ever saw their mistress. She required absolute silence +all about her, and only left her room to go to the chapel on the +Valleroy estate, whither a neighboring priest came to say mass every +morning. + +The Comte de Nueil sank a few days after his marriage into something +like conjugal apathy, which might be interpreted to mean happiness or +unhappiness equally easily. + +"My son is perfectly happy," his mother said everywhere. + +Mme. Gaston de Nueil, like a great many young women, was a rather +colorless character, sweet and passive. A month after her marriage she +had expectations of becoming a mother. All this was quite in +accordance with ordinary views. M. de Nueil was very nice to her; but +two months after his separation from the Marquise, he grew notably +thoughtful and abstracted. But then he always had been serious, his +mother said. + +After seven months of this tepid happiness, a little thing occurred, +one of those seemingly small matters which imply such great +development of thought and such widespread trouble of the soul, that +only the bare fact can be recorded; the interpretation of it must be +left to the fancy of each individual mind. One day, when M. de Nueil +had been shooting over the lands of Manerville and Valleroy, he +crossed Mme. de Beauseant's park on his way home, summoned Jacques, +and when the man came, asked him, "Whether the Marquise was as fond of +game as ever?" + +Jacques answering in the affirmative, Gaston offered him a good round +sum (accompanied by plenty of specious reasoning) for a very little +service. Would he set aside for the Marquise the game that the Count +would bring? It seemed to Jacques to be a matter of no great +importance whether the partridge on which his mistress dined had been +shot by her keeper or by M. de Nueil, especially since the latter +particularly wished that the Marquise should know nothing about it. + +"It was killed on her land," said the Count, and for some days Jacques +lent himself to the harmless deceit. Day after day M. de Nueil went +shooting, and came back at dinner-time with an empty bag. A whole week +went by in this way. Gaston grew bold enough to write a long letter to +the Marquise, and had it conveyed to her. It was returned to him +unopened. The Marquise's servant brought it back about nightfall. The +Count, sitting in the drawing-room listening, while his wife at the +piano mangled a /Caprice/ of Herold's, suddenly sprang up and rushed +out to the Marquise, as if he were flying to an assignation. He dashed +through a well-known gap into the park, and went slowly along the +avenues, stopping now and again for a little to still the loud beating +of his heart. Smothered sounds as he came nearer the chateau told him +that the servants must be at supper, and he went straight to Mme. de +Beauseant's room. + +Mme. de Beauseant never left her bedroom. M. de Nueil could gain the +doorway without making the slightest sound. There, by the light of two +wax candles, he saw the thin, white Marquise in a great armchair; her +head was bowed, her hands hung listlessly, her eyes gazing fixedly at +some object which she did not seem to see. Her whole attitude spoke of +hopeless pain. There was a vague something like hope in her bearing, +but it was impossible to say whither Claire de Bourgogne was looking-- +forwards to the tomb or backwards into the past. Perhaps M. de Nueil's +tears glittered in the deep shadows; perhaps his breathing sounded +faintly; perhaps unconsciously he trembled, or again it may have been +impossible that he should stand there, his presence unfelt by that +quick sense which grows to be an instinct, the glory, the delight, the +proof of perfect love. However it was, Mme. de Beauseant slowly turned +her face towards the doorway, and beheld her lover of bygone days. +Then Gaston de Nueil came forward a few paces. + +"If you come any further, sir," exclaimed the Marquise, growing paler, +"I shall fling myself out of the window!" + +She sprang to the window, flung it open, and stood with one foot on +the ledge, her hand upon the iron balustrade, her face turned towards +Gaston. + +"Go out! go out!" she cried, "or I will throw myself over." + +At that dreadful cry the servants began to stir, and M. de Nueil fled +like a criminal. + +When he reached his home again he wrote a few lines and gave them to +his own man, telling him to give the letter himself into Mme. de +Beauseant's hands, and to say that it was a matter of life and death +for his master. The messenger went. M. de Nueil went back to the +drawing-room where his wife was still murdering the /Caprice/, and sat +down to wait till the answer came. An hour later, when the /Caprice/ +had come to an end, and the husband and wife sat in silence on +opposite sides of the hearth, the man came back from Valleroy and gave +his master his own letter, unopened. + +M. de Nueil went into a small room beyond the drawing-room, where he +had left his rifle, and shot himself. + +The swift and fatal ending of the drama, contrary as it is to all the +habits of young France, is only what might have been expected. Those +who have closely observed, or known for themselves by delicious +experience, all that is meant by the perfect union of two beings, will +understand Gaston de Nueil's suicide perfectly well. A woman does not +bend and form herself in a day to the caprices of passion. The +pleasure of loving, like some rare flower, needs the most careful +ingenuity of culture. Time alone, and two souls attuned each to each, +can discover all its resources, and call into being all the tender and +delicate delights for which we are steeped in a thousand +superstitions, imagining them to be inherent in the heart that +lavishes them upon us. It is this wonderful response of one nature to +another, this religious belief, this certainty of finding peculiar or +excessive happiness in the presence of one we love, that accounts in +part for perdurable attachments and long-lived passion. If a woman +possesses the genius of her sex, love never comes to be a matter of +use and wont. She brings all her heart and brain to love, clothes her +tenderness in forms so varied, there is such art in her most natural +moments, or so much nature in her art, that in absence her memory is +almost as potent as her presence. All other women are as shadows +compared with her. Not until we have lost or known the dread of losing +a love so vast and glorious, do we prize it at its just worth. And if +a man who has once possessed this love shuts himself out from it by +his own act and deed, and sinks to some loveless marriage; if by some +incident, hidden in the obscurity of married life, the woman with whom +he hoped to know the same felicity makes it clear that it will never +be revived for him; if, with the sweetness of divine love still on his +lips, he has dealt a deadly wound to /her/, his wife in truth, whom he +forsook for a social chimera,--then he must either die or take refuge +in a materialistic, selfish, and heartless philosophy, from which +impassioned souls shrink in horror. + + + +As for Mme. de Beauseant, she doubtless did not imagine that her +friend's despair could drive him to suicide, when he had drunk deep of +love for nine years. Possibly she may have thought that she alone was +to suffer. At any rate, she did quite rightly to refuse the most +humiliating of all positions; a wife may stoop for weighty social +reasons to a kind of compromise which a mistress is bound to hold in +abhorrence, for in the purity of her passion lies all its +justification. + + + +ANGOULEME, September 1832. + + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + +Beauseant, Marquis and Comte de + Father Goriot + An Episode under the Terror + +Beauseant, Marquise de + Letters of Two Brides + +Beauseant, Vicomte de + Father Goriot + +Beauseant, Vicomtesse de + Father Goriot + Albert Savarus + +Champignelles, De + The Seamy Side of History + +Jacques (M. de Beauseant's butler) + Father Goriot + +Nueil, Gaston de + The Deserted Woman + Albert Savarus + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Deserted Woman, by Honore de Balzac + diff --git a/old/dswmn10.zip b/old/dswmn10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8ee5c95 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/dswmn10.zip diff --git a/old/dswmn10h.htm b/old/dswmn10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..91d374f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/dswmn10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3286 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>Project Gutenberg--THE DESERTED WOMAN</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= +"text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> +<style type="text/css"> +<!-- +body {margin:10%; text-align:justify} +blockquote {font-size:14pt} +P {font-size:14pt} +--> +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<h1>The Deserted Woman, +<br>by Honore de Balzac</h1> +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg Etext The Deserted Woman, by Honore de Balzac +#64 in our series by Honore de Balzac + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Etext prepared by Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com +and John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<p>THE DESERTED WOMAN</p> + +<p>by HONORE DE BALZAC</p> + +<p><br> + Translated By<br> + Ellen Marriage</p> + +<p>DEDICATION</p> + +<p>To Her Grace the Duchesse d'Abrantes,<br> + from her devoted servant,<br> + Honore de Balzac.<br> + PARIS, August 1835.</p> + +<p></p> + +<h1><br> + THE DESERTED WOMAN</h1> + +<h1></h1> + +<p>In the early spring of 1822, the Paris doctors sent to Lower +Normandy<br> + a young man just recovering from an inflammatory complaint, +brought on<br> + by overstudy, or perhaps by excess of some other kind. His<br> + convalescence demanded complete rest, a light diet, bracing air, +and<br> + freedom from excitement of every kind, and the fat lands of +Bessin<br> + seemed to offer all these conditions of recovery. To Bayeux, +a<br> + picturesque place about six miles from the sea, the patient +therefore<br> + betook himself, and was received with the cordiality +characteristic of<br> + relatives who lead very retired lives, and regard a new arrival +as a<br> + godsend.</p> + +<p><br> + All little towns are alike, save for a few local customs. When +M. le<br> + Baron Gaston de Nueil, the young Parisian in question, had spent +two<br> + or three evenings in his cousin's house, or with the friends who +made<br> + up Mme. de Sainte-Severe's circle, he very soon had made the<br> + acquaintance of the persons whom this exclusive society +considered to<br> + be "the whole town." Gaston de Nueil recognized in them the +invariable<br> + stock characters which every observer finds in every one of the +many<br> + capitals of the little States which made up the France of an +older<br> + day.</p> + +<p>First of all comes the family whose claims to nobility are +regarded as<br> + incontestable, and of the highest antiquity in the department, +though<br> + no one has so much as heard of them a bare fifty leagues away. +This<br> + species of royal family on a small scale is distantly, but<br> + unmistakably, connected with the Navarreins and the Grandlieu +family,<br> + and related to the Cadignans, and the Blamont-Chauvrys. The head +of<br> + the illustrious house is invariably a determined sportsman. He +has no<br> + manners, crushes everybody else with his nominal +superiority,<br> + tolerates the sub-prefect much as he submits to the taxes, +and<br> + declines to acknowledge any of the novel powers created by +the<br> + nineteenth century, pointing out to you as a political +monstrosity the<br> + fact that the prime minister is a man of no birth. His wife +takes a<br> + decided tone, and talks in a loud voice. She has had adorers in +her<br> + time, but takes the sacrament regularly at Easter. She brings up +her<br> + daughters badly, and is of the opinion that they will always be +rich<br> + enough with their name.</p> + +<p>Neither husband nor wife has the remotest idea of modern +luxury. They<br> + retain a livery only seen elsewhere on the stage, and cling to +old<br> + fashions in plate, furniture, and equipages, as in language and +manner<br> + of life. This is a kind of ancient state, moreover, that +suits<br> + passably well with provincial thrift. The good folk are, in +fact, the<br> + lords of the manor of a bygone age, /minus/ the quitrents and +heriots,<br> + the pack of hounds and the laced coats; full of honor among<br> + themselves, and one and all loyally devoted to princes whom they +only<br> + see at a distance. The historical house /incognito/ is as quaint +a<br> + survival as a piece of ancient tapestry. Vegetating somewhere +among<br> + them there is sure to be an uncle or a brother, a +lieutenant-general,<br> + an old courtier of the Kings's, who wears the red ribbon of the +order<br> + of Saint-Louis, and went to Hanover with the Marechal de +Richelieu:<br> + and here you will find him like a stray leaf out of some old +pamphlet<br> + of the time of Louis Quinze.</p> + +<p>This fossil greatness finds a rival in another house, +wealthier,<br> + though of less ancient lineage. Husband and wife spend a couple +of<br> + months of every winter in Paris, bringing back with them its +frivolous<br> + tone and short-lived contemporary crazes. Madame is a woman +of<br> + fashion, though she looks rather conscious of her clothes, and +is<br> + always behind the mode. She scoffs, however, at the ignorance +affected<br> + by her neighbors. /Her/ plate is of modern fashion; she has +"grooms,"<br> + Negroes, a valet-de-chambre, and what-not. Her oldest son drives +a<br> + tilbury, and does nothing (the estate is entailed upon him), +his<br> + younger brother is auditor to a Council of State. The father is +well<br> + posted up in official scandals, and tells you anecdotes of +Louis<br> + XVIII. and Madame du Cayla. He invests his money in the five +per<br> + cents, and is careful to avoid the topic of cider, but has been +known<br> + occasionally to fall a victim to the craze for rectifying +the<br> + conjectural sums-total of the various fortunes of the +department. He<br> + is a member of the Departmental Council, has his clothes from +Paris,<br> + and wears the Cross of the Legion of Honor. In short, he is a +country<br> + gentleman who has fully grasped the significance of the +Restoration,<br> + and is coining money at the Chamber, but his Royalism is less +pure<br> + than that of the rival house; he takes the /Gazette/ and the +/Debats/,<br> + the other family only read the /Quotidienne/.</p> + +<p>His lordship the Bishop, a sometime Vicar-General, fluctuates +between<br> + the two powers, who pay him the respect due to religion, but at +times<br> + they bring home to him the moral appended by the worthy +Lafontaine to<br> + the fable of the /Ass laden with Relics/. The good man's origin +is<br> + distinctly plebeian.</p> + +<p>Then come stars of the second magnitude, men of family with +ten or<br> + twelve hundred livres a year, captains in the navy or +cavalry<br> + regiments, or nothing at all. Out on the roads, on horseback, +they<br> + rank half-way between the cure bearing the sacraments and the +tax<br> + collector on his rounds. Pretty nearly all of them have been in +the<br> + Pages or in the Household Troops, and now are peaceably ending +their<br> + days in a /faisance-valoir/, more interested in felling timber +and the<br> + cider prospects than in the Monarchy.</p> + +<p>Still they talk of the Charter and the Liberals while the +cards are<br> + making, or over a game at backgammon, when they have exhausted +the<br> + usual stock of /dots/, and have married everybody off according +to the<br> + genealogies which they all know by heart. Their womenkind are +haughty<br> + dames, who assume the airs of Court ladies in their basket +chaises.<br> + They huddle themselves up in shawls and caps by way of full +dress; and<br> + twice a year, after ripe deliberation, have a new bonnet from +Paris,<br> + brought as opportunity offers. Exemplary wives are they for the +most<br> + part, and garrulous.</p> + +<p>These are the principal elements of aristocratic gentility, +with a few<br> + outlying old maids of good family, spinsters who have solved +the<br> + problem: given a human being, to remain absolutely stationary. +They<br> + might be sealed up in the houses where you see them; their faces +and<br> + their dresses are literally part of the fixtures of the town, +and the<br> + province in which they dwell. They are its tradition, its +memory, its<br> + quintessence, the /genius loci/ incarnate. There is something +frigid<br> + and monumental about these ladies; they know exactly when to +laugh and<br> + when to shake their heads, and every now and then give out +some<br> + utterance which passes current as a witticism.</p> + +<p>A few rich townspeople have crept into the miniature Faubourg +Saint-<br> + Germain, thanks to their money or their aristocratic leanings. +But<br> + despite their forty years, the circle still say of them, "Young +So-<br> + and-so has sound opinions," and of such do they make deputies. +As a<br> + rule, the elderly spinsters are their patronesses, not +without<br> + comment.</p> + +<p>Finally, in this exclusive little set include two or three<br> + ecclesiastics, admitted for the sake of their cloth, or for +their wit;<br> + for these great nobles find their own society rather dull, +and<br> + introduce the bourgeois element into their drawing-rooms, as a +baker<br> + puts leaven into his dough.</p> + +<p>The sum-total contained by all heads put together consists of +a<br> + certain quantity of antiquated notions; a few new inflections +brewed<br> + in company of an evening being added from time to time to the +common<br> + stock. Like sea-water in a little creek, the phrases which +represent<br> + these ideas surge up daily, punctually obeying the tidal laws +of<br> + conversation in their flow and ebb; you hear the hollow echo +of<br> + yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, a year hence, and for evermore. On +all<br> + things here below they pass immutable judgments, which go to +make up a<br> + body of tradition into which no power of mortal man can infuse +one<br> + drop of wit or sense. The lives of these persons revolve with +the<br> + regularity of clockwork in an orbit of use and wont which admits +of no<br> + more deviation or change than their opinions on matters +religious,<br> + political, moral, or literary.</p> + +<p>If a stranger is admitted to the /cenacle/, every member of it +in turn<br> + will say (not without a trace of irony), "You will not find +the<br> + brilliancy of your Parisian society here," and proceed forthwith +to<br> + criticise the life led by his neighbors, as if he himself were +an<br> + exception who had striven, and vainly striven, to enlighten the +rest.<br> + But any stranger so ill advised as to concur in any of their +freely<br> + expressed criticism of each other, is pronounced at once to be +an ill-<br> + natured person, a heathen, an outlaw, a reprobate Parisian +"as<br> + Parisians mostly are."</p> + +<p>Before Gaston de Nueil made his appearance in this little +world of<br> + strictly observed etiquette, where every detail of life is +an<br> + integrant part of a whole, and everything is known; where the +values<br> + of personalty and real estate is quoted like stocks on the vast +sheet<br> + of the newspaper--before his arrival he had been weighed in +the<br> + unerring scales of Bayeusaine judgment.</p> + +<p>His cousin, Mme. de Sainte-Severe, had already given out the +amount of<br> + his fortune, and the sum of his expectations, had produced the +family<br> + tree, and expatiated on the talents, breeding, and modesty of +this<br> + particular branch. So he received the precise amount of +attentions to<br> + which he was entitled; he was accepted as a worthy scion of a +good<br> + stock; and, for he was but twenty-three, was made welcome +without<br> + ceremony, though certain young ladies and mothers of daughters +looked<br> + not unkindly upon him.</p> + +<p>He had an income of eighteen thousand livres from land in the +valley<br> + of the Auge; and sooner or later his father, as in duty bound, +would<br> + leave him the chateau of Manerville, with the lands +thereunto<br> + belonging. As for his education, political career, personal +qualities,<br> + and qualifications--no one so much as thought of raising the<br> + questions. His land was undeniable, his rentals steady; +excellent<br> + plantations had been made; the tenants paid for repairs, rates, +and<br> + taxes; the apple-trees were thirty-eight years old; and, to +crown all,<br> + his father was in treaty for two hundred acres of woodland +just<br> + outside the paternal park, which he intended to enclose with +walls. No<br> + hopes of a political career, no fame on earth, can compare with +such<br> + advantages as these.</p> + +<p>Whether out of malice or design, Mme. de Sainte-Severe omitted +to<br> + mention that Gaston had an elder brother; nor did Gaston himself +say a<br> + word about him. But, at the same time, it is true that the +brother was<br> + consumptive, and to all appearance would shortly be laid in +earth,<br> + lamented and forgotten.</p> + +<p>At first Gaston de Nueil amused himself at the expense of the +circle.<br> + He drew, as it were, for his mental album, a series of portraits +of<br> + these folk, with their angular, wrinkled faces, and hooked +noses,<br> + their crotchets and ludicrous eccentricities of dress, portraits +which<br> + possessed all the racy flavor of truth. He delighted in +their<br> + "Normanisms," in the primitive quaintness of their ideas and<br> + characters. For a short time he flung himself into their +squirrel's<br> + life of busy gyrations in a cage. Then he began to feel the want +of<br> + variety, and grew tired of it. It was like the life of the +cloister,<br> + cut short before it had well begun. He drifted on till he +reached a<br> + crisis, which is neither spleen nor disgust, but combines all +the<br> + symptoms of both. When a human being is transplanted into an<br> + uncongenial soil, to lead a starved, stunted existence, there +is<br> + always a little discomfort over the transition. Then, gradually, +if<br> + nothing removes him from his surroundings, he grows accustomed +to<br> + them, and adapts himself to the vacuity which grows upon him +and<br> + renders him powerless. Even now, Gaston's lungs were accustomed +to the<br> + air; and he was willing to discern a kind of vegetable happiness +in<br> + days that brought no mental exertion and no responsibilities. +The<br> + constant stirring of the sap of life, the fertilizing influences +of<br> + mind on mind, after which he had sought so eagerly in Paris, +were<br> + beginning to fade from his memory, and he was in a fair way +of<br> + becoming a fossil with these fossils, and ending his days among +them,<br> + content, like the companions of Ulysses, in his gross +envelope.</p> + +<p><br> + One evening Gaston de Nueil was seated between a dowager and one +of<br> + the vicars-general of the diocese, in a gray-paneled +drawing-room,<br> + floored with large white tiles. The family portraits which +adorned the<br> + walls looked down upon four card-tables, and some sixteen +persons<br> + gathered about them, chattering over their whist. Gaston, +thinking of<br> + nothing, digesting one of those exquisite dinners to which +the<br> + provincial looks forward all through the day, found himself +justifying<br> + the customs of the country.</p> + +<p>He began to understand why these good folk continued to play +with<br> + yesterday's pack of cards and shuffle them on a threadbare +tablecloth,<br> + and how it was that they had ceased to dress for themselves or +others.<br> + He saw the glimmerings of something like a philosophy in the +even<br> + tenor of their perpetual round, in the calm of their +methodical<br> + monotony, in their ignorance of the refinements of luxury. +Indeed, he<br> + almost came to think that luxury profited nothing; and even now, +the<br> + city of Paris, with its passions, storms, and pleasures, was +scarcely<br> + more than a memory of childhood.</p> + +<p>He admired in all sincerity the red hands, and shy, bashful +manner of<br> + some young lady who at first struck him as an awkward +simpleton,<br> + unattractive to the last degree, and surprisingly ridiculous. +His doom<br> + was sealed. He had gone from the provinces to Paris; he had led +the<br> + feverish life of Paris; and now he would have sunk back into +the<br> + lifeless life of the provinces, but for a chance remark which +reached<br> + his ear--a few words that called up a swift rush of such emotion +as he<br> + might have felt when a strain of really good music mingles with +the<br> + accompaniment of some tedious opera.</p> + +<p>"You went to call on Mme. de Beauseant yesterday, did you +not?" The<br> + speaker was an elderly lady, and she addressed the head of the +local<br> + royal family.</p> + +<p>"I went this morning. She was so poorly and depressed, that I +could<br> + not persuade her to dine with us to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"With Mme. de Champignelles?" exclaimed the dowager with +something<br> + like astonishment in her manner.</p> + +<p>"With my wife," calmly assented the noble. "Mme. de Beauseant +is<br> + descended from the House of Burgundy, on the spindle side, 'tis +true,<br> + but the name atones for everything. My wife is very much +attached to<br> + the Vicomtesse, and the poor lady has lived alone for such a +long<br> + while, that----"</p> + +<p>The Marquis de Champignelles looked round about him while he +spoke<br> + with an air of cool unconcern, so that it was almost impossible +to<br> + guess whether he made a concession to Mme. de Beauseant's +misfortunes,<br> + or paid homage to her noble birth; whether he felt flattered +to<br> + receive her in his house, or, on the contrary, sheer pride was +the<br> + motive that led him to try to force the country families to meet +the<br> + Vicomtesse.</p> + +<p>The women appeared to take counsel of each other by a glance; +there<br> + was a sudden silence in the room, and it was felt that their +attitude<br> + was one of disapproval.</p> + +<p>"Does this Mme. de Beauseant happen to be the lady whose +adventure<br> + with M. d'Ajuda-Pinto made so much noise?" asked Gaston of +his<br> + neighbor.</p> + +<p>"The very same," he was told. "She came to Courcelles after +the<br> + marriage of the Marquis d'Ajuda; nobody visits her. She has, +besides,<br> + too much sense not to see that she is in a false position, so +she has<br> + made no attempt to see any one. M. de Champignelles and a +few<br> + gentlemen went to call upon her, but she would see no one but M. +de<br> + Champignelles, perhaps because he is a connection of the family. +They<br> + are related through the Beauseants; the father of the present +Vicomte<br> + married a Mlle. de Champignelles of the older branch. But though +the<br> + Vicomtesse de Beauseant is supposed to be a descendant of the +House of<br> + Burgundy, you can understand that we could not admit a wife +separated<br> + from her husband into our society here. We are foolish enough +still to<br> + cling to these old-fashioned ideas. There was the less excuse +for the<br> + Vicomtesse, because M. de Beauseant is a well-bred man of the +world,<br> + who would have been quite ready to listen to reason. But his +wife is<br> + quite mad----" and so forth and so forth.</p> + +<p>M. de Nueil, still listening to the speaker's voice, gathered +nothing<br> + of the sense of the words; his brain was too full of +thick-coming<br> + fancies. Fancies? What other name can you give to the alluring +charms<br> + of an adventure that tempts the imagination and sets vague +hopes<br> + springing up in the soul; to the sense of coming events and +mysterious<br> + felicity and fear at hand, while as yet there is no substance of +fact<br> + on which these phantoms of caprice can fix and feed? Over +these<br> + fancies thought hovers, conceiving impossible projects, giving +in the<br> + germ all the joys of love. Perhaps, indeed, all passion is +contained<br> + in that thought-germ, as the beauty, and fragrance, and rich +color of<br> + the flower is all packed in the seed.</p> + +<p>M. de Nueil did not know that Mme. de Beauseant had taken +refuge in<br> + Normandy, after a notoriety which women for the most part envy +and<br> + condemn, especially when youth and beauty in some sort excuse +the<br> + transgression. Any sort of celebrity bestows an +inconceivable<br> + prestige. Apparently for women, as for families, the glory of +the<br> + crime effaces the stain; and if such and such a noble house is +proud<br> + of its tale of heads that have fallen on the scaffold, a young +and<br> + pretty woman becomes more interesting for the dubious renown of +a<br> + happy love or a scandalous desertion, and the more she is to +be<br> + pitied, the more she excites our sympathies. We are only +pitiless to<br> + the commonplace. If, moreover, we attract all eyes, we are to +all<br> + intents and purposes great; how, indeed, are we to be seen +unless we<br> + raise ourselves above other people's heads? The common herd +of<br> + humanity feels an involuntary respect for any person who can +rise<br> + above it, and is not over-particular as to the means by which +they<br> + rise.</p> + +<p>It may have been that some such motives influenced Gaston de +Nueil at<br> + unawares, or perhaps it was curiosity, or a craving for some +interest<br> + in his life, or, in a word, that crowd of inexplicable impulses +which,<br> + for want of a better name, we are wont to call "fatality," that +drew<br> + him to Mme. de Beauseant.</p> + +<p>The figure of the Vicomtesse de Beauseant rose up suddenly +before him<br> + with gracious thronging associations. She was a new world for +him, a<br> + world of fears and hopes, a world to fight for and to +conquer.<br> + Inevitably he felt the contrast between this vision and the +human<br> + beings in the shabby room; and then, in truth, she was a woman; +what<br> + woman had he seen so far in this dull, little world, where +calculation<br> + replaced thought and feeling, where courtesy was a +cut-and-dried<br> + formality, and ideas of the very simplest were too alarming to +be<br> + received or to pass current? The sound of Mme. de Beauseant's +name<br> + revived a young man's dreams and wakened urgent desires that had +lain<br> + dormant for a little.</p> + +<p>Gaston de Nueil was absent-minded and preoccupied for the rest +of the<br> + evening. He was pondering how he might gain access to Mme. +de<br> + Beauseant, and truly it was no very easy matter. She was +believed to<br> + be extremely clever. But if men and women of parts may be +captivated<br> + by something subtle or eccentric, they are also exacting, and +can read<br> + all that lies below the surface; and after the first step has +been<br> + taken, the chances of failure and success in the difficult task +of<br> + pleasing them are about even. In this particular case, moreover, +the<br> + Vicomtesse, besides the pride of her position, had all the +dignity of<br> + her name. Her utter seclusion was the least of the barriers +raised<br> + between her and the world. For which reasons it was +well-nigh<br> + impossible that a stranger, however well born, could hope +for<br> + admittance; and yet, the next morning found M. de Nueil taking +his<br> + walks abroad in the direction of Courcelles, a dupe of +illusions<br> + natural at his age. Several times he made the circuit of the +garden<br> + walls, looking earnestly through every gap at the closed +shutters or<br> + open windows, hoping for some romantic chance, on which he +founded<br> + schemes for introducing himself into this unknown lady's +presence,<br> + without a thought of their impracticability. Morning after +morning was<br> + spent in this way to mighty purpose; but with each day's walk, +that<br> + vision of a woman living apart from the world, of love's martyr +buried<br> + in solitude, loomed larger in his thoughts, and was enshrined in +his<br> + soul. So Gaston de Nueil walked under the walls of Courcelles, +and<br> + some gardener's heavy footstep would set his heart beating high +with<br> + hope.</p> + +<p>He thought of writing to Mme. de Beauseant, but on mature<br> + consideration, what can you say to a woman whom you have never +seen, a<br> + complete stranger? And Gaston had little self-confidence. Like +most<br> + young persons with a plentiful crop of illusions still standing, +he<br> + dreaded the mortifying contempt of silence more than death +itself, and<br> + shuddered at the thought of sending his first tender epistle +forth to<br> + face so many chances of being thrown on the fire. He was +distracted by<br> + innumerable conflicting ideas. But by dint of inventing +chimeras,<br> + weaving romances, and cudgeling his brains, he hit at last upon +one of<br> + the hopeful stratagems that are sure to occur to your mind if +you<br> + persevere long enough, a stratagem which must make clear to the +most<br> + inexperienced woman that here was a man who took a fervent +interest in<br> + her. The caprice of social conventions puts as many barriers +between<br> + lovers as any Oriental imagination can devise in the most +delightfully<br> + fantastic tale; indeed, the most extravagant pictures are +seldom<br> + exaggerations. In real life, as in the fairy tales, the woman +belongs<br> + to him who can reach her and set her free from the position in +which<br> + she languishes. The poorest of calenders that ever fell in love +with<br> + the daughter of the Khalif is in truth scarcely further from his +lady<br> + than Gaston de Nueil from Mme. de Beauseant. The Vicomtesse +knew<br> + absolutely nothing of M. de Nueil's wanderings round her house; +Gaston<br> + de Nueil's love grew to the height of the obstacles to overleap; +and<br> + the distance set between him and his extemporized lady-love +produced<br> + the usual effect of distance, in lending enchantment.</p> + +<p><br> + One day, confident in his inspiration, he hoped everything from +the<br> + love that must pour forth from his eyes. Spoken words, in his +opinion,<br> + were more eloquent than the most passionate letter; and, +besides, he<br> + would engage feminine curiosity to plead for him. He went, +therefore,<br> + to M. de Champignelles, proposing to employ that gentleman for +the<br> + better success of his enterprise. He informed the Marquis that +he had<br> + been entrusted with a delicate and important commission +which<br> + concerned the Vicomtesse de Beauseant, that he felt doubtful +whether<br> + she would read a letter written in an unknown handwriting, or +put<br> + confidence in a stranger. Would M. de Champignelles, on his +next<br> + visit, ask the Vicomtesse if she would consent to receive +him--Gaston<br> + de Nueil? While he asked the Marquis to keep his secret in case +of a<br> + refusal, he very ingeniously insinuated sufficient reasons for +his own<br> + admittance, to be duly passed on to the Vicomtesse. Was not M. +de<br> + Champignelles a man of honor, a loyal gentleman incapable of +lending<br> + himself to any transaction in bad taste, nay, the merest +suspicion of<br> + bad taste! Love lends a young man all the self-possession and +astute<br> + craft of an old ambassador; all the Marquis' harmless vanities +were<br> + gratified, and the haughty grandee was completely duped. He +tried hard<br> + to fathom Gaston's secret; but the latter, who would have been +greatly<br> + perplexed to tell it, turned off M. de Champignelles' adroit<br> + questioning with a Norman's shrewdness, till the Marquis, as a +gallant<br> + Frenchman, complimented his young visitor upon his +discretion.</p> + +<p>M. de Champignelles hurried off at once to Courcelles, with +that<br> + eagerness to serve a pretty woman which belongs to his time of +life.<br> + In the Vicomtesse de Beauseant's position, such a message was +likely<br> + to arouse keen curiosity; so, although her memory supplied no +reason<br> + at all that could bring M. de Nueil to her house, she saw no +objection<br> + to his visit--after some prudent inquiries as to his family +and<br> + condition. At the same time, she began by a refusal. Then +she<br> + discussed the propriety of the matter with M. de +Champignelles,<br> + directing her questions so as to discover, if possible, whether +he<br> + knew the motives for the visit, and finally revoked her +negative<br> + answer. The discussion and the discretion shown perforce by +the<br> + Marquis had piqued her curiosity.</p> + +<p>M. de Champignelles had no mind to cut a ridiculous figure. He +said,<br> + with the air of a man who can keep another's counsel, that +the<br> + Vicomtesse must know the purpose of this visit perfectly well; +while<br> + the Vicomtesse, in all sincerity, had no notion what it could +be. Mme.<br> + de Beauseant, in perplexity, connected Gaston with people whom +he had<br> + never met, went astray after various wild conjectures, and +asked<br> + herself if she had seen this M. de Nueil before. In truth, no +love-<br> + letter, however sincere or skilfully indited, could have +produced so<br> + much effect as this riddle. Again and again Mme. de Beauseant +puzzled<br> + over it.</p> + +<p>When Gaston heard that he might call upon the Vicomtesse, his +rapture<br> + at so soon obtaining the ardently longed-for good fortune was +mingled<br> + with singular embarrassment. How was he to contrive a suitable +sequel<br> + to this stratagem?</p> + +<p>"Bah! I shall see /her/," he said over and over again to +himself as he<br> + dressed. "See her, and that is everything!"</p> + +<p>He fell to hoping that once across the threshold of Courcelles +he<br> + should find an expedient for unfastening this Gordian knot of +his own<br> + tying. There are believers in the omnipotence of necessity who +never<br> + turn back; the close presence of danger is an inspiration that +calls<br> + out all their powers for victory. Gaston de Nueil was one of +these.</p> + +<p>He took particular pains with his dress, imagining, as youth +is apt to<br> + imagine, that success or failure hangs on the position of a +curl, and<br> + ignorant of the fact that anything is charming in youth. And, in +any<br> + case, such women as Mme. de Beauseant are only attracted by the +charms<br> + of wit or character of an unusual order. Greatness of +character<br> + flatters their vanity, promises a great passion, seems to imply +a<br> + comprehension of the requirements of their hearts. Wit amuses +them,<br> + responds to the subtlety of their natures, and they think that +they<br> + are understood. And what do all women wish but to be amused,<br> + understood, or adored? It is only after much reflection on the +things<br> + of life that we understand the consummate coquetry of neglect of +dress<br> + and reserve at a first interview; and by the time we have +gained<br> + sufficient astuteness for successful strategy, we are too old +to<br> + profit by our experience.</p> + +<p>While Gaston's lack of confidence in his mental equipment +drove him to<br> + borrow charms from his clothes, Madame de Beauseant herself +was<br> + instinctively giving more attention to her toilette.</p> + +<p>"I would rather not frighten people, at all events," she said +to<br> + herself as she arranged her hair.</p> + +<p>In M. de Nueil's character, person, and manner there was that +touch of<br> + unconscious originality which gives a kind of flavor to things +that<br> + any one might say or do, and absolves everything that they may +choose<br> + to do or say. He was highly cultivated, he had a keen brain, and +a<br> + face, mobile as his own nature, which won the goodwill of +others. The<br> + promise of passion and tenderness in the bright eyes was +fulfilled by<br> + an essentially kindly heart. The resolution which he made as +he<br> + entered the house at Courcelles was in keeping with his frank +nature<br> + and ardent imagination. But, bold has he was with love, his +heart beat<br> + violently when he had crossed the great court, laid out like +an<br> + English garden, and the man-servant, who had taken his name to +the<br> + Vicomtesse, returned to say that she would receive him.</p> + +<p>"M. le Baron de Nueil."</p> + +<p>Gaston came in slowly, but with sufficient ease of manner; and +it is a<br> + more difficult thing, be it said, to enter a room where there is +but<br> + one woman, than a room that holds a score.</p> + +<p>A great fire was burning on the hearth in spite of the mild +weather,<br> + and by the soft light of the candles in the sconces he saw a +young<br> + woman sitting on a high-backed /bergere/ in the angle by the +hearth.<br> + The seat was so low that she could move her head freely; every +turn of<br> + it was full of grace and delicate charm, whether she bent, +leaning<br> + forward, or raised and held it erect, slowly and languidly, as +though<br> + it were a heavy burden, so low that she could cross her feet and +let<br> + them appear, or draw them back under the folds of a long black +dress.</p> + +<p>The Vicomtesse made as if she would lay the book that she was +reading<br> + on a small, round stand; but as she did so, she turned towards +M. de<br> + Nueil, and the volume, insecurely laid upon the edge, fell to +the<br> + ground between the stand and the sofa. This did not seem to +disconcert<br> + her. She looked up, bowing almost imperceptibly in response to +his<br> + greeting, without rising from the depths of the low chair in +which she<br> + lay. Bending forwards, she stirred the fire briskly, and stooped +to<br> + pick up a fallen glove, drawing it mechanically over her left +hand,<br> + while her eyes wandered in search of its fellow. The glance +was<br> + instantly checked, however, for she stretched out a thin, white, +all-<br> + but-transparent right hand, with flawless ovals of rose-colored +nail<br> + at the tips of the slender, ringless fingers, and pointed to a +chair<br> + as if to bid Gaston be seated. He sat down, and she turned her +face<br> + questioningly towards him. Words cannot describe the subtlety of +the<br> + winning charm and inquiry in that gesture; deliberate in its<br> + kindliness, gracious yet accurate in expression, it was the +outcome of<br> + early education and of a constant use and wont of the +graciousness of<br> + life. These movements of hers, so swift, so deft, succeeded each +other<br> + by the blending of a pretty woman's fastidious carelessness with +the<br> + high-bred manner of a great lady.</p> + +<p>Mme. de Beauseant stood out in such strong contrast against +the<br> + automatons among whom he had spent two months of exile in that +out-of-<br> + the-world district of Normandy, that he could not but find in +her the<br> + realization of his romantic dreams; and, on the other hand, he +could<br> + not compare her perfections with those of other women whom he +had<br> + formerly admired. Here in her presence, in a drawing-room like +some<br> + salon in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, full of costly trifles +lying<br> + about upon the tables, and flowers and books, he felt as if he +were<br> + back in Paris. It was a real Parisian carpet beneath his feet, +he saw<br> + once more the high-bred type of Parisienne, the fragile outlines +of<br> + her form, her exquisite charm, her disdain of the studied +effects<br> + which did so much to spoil provincial women.</p> + +<p>Mme. de Beauseant had fair hair and dark eyes, and the pale +complexion<br> + that belongs to fair hair. She held up her brow nobly like some +fallen<br> + angel, grown proud through the fall, disdainful of pardon. Her +way of<br> + gathering her thick hair into a crown of plaits above the +broad,<br> + curving lines of the bandeaux upon her forehead, added to +the<br> + queenliness of her face. Imagination could discover the ducal +coronet<br> + of Burgundy in the spiral threads of her golden hair; all the +courage<br> + of her house seemed to gleam from the great lady's brilliant +eyes,<br> + such courage as women use to repel audacity or scorn, for they +were<br> + full of tenderness for gentleness. The outline of that little +head, so<br> + admirably poised above the long, white throat, the delicate, +fine<br> + features, the subtle curves of the lips, the mobile face itself, +wore<br> + an expression of delicate discretion, a faint semblance of +irony<br> + suggestive of craft and insolence. Yet it would have been +difficult to<br> + refuse forgiveness to those two feminine failings in her; for +the<br> + lines that came out in her forehead whenever her face was not +in<br> + repose, like her upward glances (that pathetic trick of manner), +told<br> + unmistakably of unhappiness, of a passion that had all but cost +her<br> + her life. A woman, sitting in the great, silent salon, a woman +cut off<br> + from the rest of the world in this remote little valley, alone, +with<br> + the memories of her brilliant, happy, and impassioned youth, +of<br> + continual gaiety and homage paid on all sides, now replaced by +the<br> + horrors of the void--was there not something in the sight to +strike<br> + awe that deepened with reflection? Consciousness of her own +value<br> + lurked in her smile. She was neither wife nor mother, she was +an<br> + outlaw; she had lost the one heart that could set her pulses +beating<br> + without shame; she had nothing from without to support her +reeling<br> + soul; she must even look for strength from within, live her own +life,<br> + cherish no hope save that of forsaken love, which looks forward +to<br> + Death's coming, and hastens his lagging footsteps. And this +while life<br> + was in its prime. Oh! to feel destined for happiness and to +die--never<br> + having given nor received it! A woman too! What pain was this! +These<br> + thoughts flashing across M. de Nueil's mind like lightning, left +him<br> + very humble in the presence of the greatest charm with which +woman can<br> + be invested. The triple aureole of beauty, nobleness, and +misfortune<br> + dazzled him; he stood in dreamy, almost open-mouthed admiration +of the<br> + Vicomtesse. But he found nothing to say to her.</p> + +<p>Mme. de Beauseant, by no means displeased, no doubt, by his +surprise,<br> + held out her hand with a kindly but imperious gesture; then, +summoning<br> + a smile to her pale lips, as if obeying, even yet, the woman's +impulse<br> + to be gracious:</p> + +<p>"I have heard from M. de Champignelles of a message which you +have<br> + kindly undertaken to deliver, monsieur," she said. "Can it +be<br> + from----"</p> + +<p>With that terrible phrase Gaston understood, even more clearly +than<br> + before, his own ridiculous position, the bad taste and bad faith +of<br> + his behavior towards a woman so noble and so unfortunate. He +reddened.<br> + The thoughts that crowded in upon him could be read in his +troubled<br> + eyes; but suddenly, with the courage which youth draws from a +sense of<br> + its own wrongdoing, he gained confidence, and very humbly +interrupted<br> + Mme. de Beauseant.</p> + +<p>"Madame," he faltered out, "I do not deserve the happiness of +seeing<br> + you. I have deceived you basely. However strong the motive may +have<br> + been, it can never excuse the pitiful subterfuge which I used to +gain<br> + my end. But, madame, if your goodness will permit me to tell +you----"</p> + +<p>The Vicomtesse glanced at M. de Nueil, haughty disdain in her +whole<br> + manner. She stretched her hand to the bell and rang it.</p> + +<p>"Jacques," she said, "light this gentleman to the door," and +she<br> + looked with dignity at the visitor.</p> + +<p>She rose proudly, bowed to Gaston, and then stooped for the +fallen<br> + volume. If all her movements on his entrance had been +caressingly<br> + dainty and gracious, her every gesture now was no less +severely<br> + frigid. M. de Nueil rose to his feet, but he stood waiting. Mme. +de<br> + Beauseant flung another glance at him. "Well, why do you not +go?" she<br> + seemed to say.</p> + +<p>There was such cutting irony in that glance that Gaston grew +white as<br> + if he were about to faint. Tears came into his eyes, but he +would not<br> + let them fall, and scorching shame and despair dried them. He +looked<br> + back at Madame de Beauseant, and a certain pride and +consciousness of<br> + his own worth was mingled with his humility; the Vicomtesse had +a<br> + right to punish him, but ought she to use her right? Then he +went out.</p> + +<p>As he crossed the ante-chamber, a clear head, and wits +sharpened by<br> + passion, were not slow to grasp the danger of his situation.</p> + +<p>"If I leave this house, I can never come back to it again," he +said to<br> + himself. "The Vicomtesse will always think of me as a fool. It +is<br> + impossible that a woman, and such a woman, should not guess the +love<br> + that she has called forth. Perhaps she feels a little, +vague,<br> + involuntary regret for dismissing me so abruptly.--But she could +not<br> + do otherwise, and she cannot recall her sentence. It rests with +me to<br> + understand her."</p> + +<p>At that thought Gaston stopped short on the flight of steps +with an<br> + exclamation; he turned sharply, saying, "I have forgotten +something,"<br> + and went back to the salon. The lackey, all respect for a baron +and<br> + the rights of property, was completely deceived by the +natural<br> + utterance, and followed him. Gaston returned quietly and +unannounced.<br> + The Vicomtesse, thinking that the intruder was the servant, +looked up<br> + and beheld M. de Nueil.</p> + +<p>"Jacques lighted me to the door," he said, with a half-sad +smile which<br> + dispelled any suspicion of jest in those words, while the tone +in<br> + which they were spoken went to the heart. Mme. de Beauseant +was<br> + disarmed.</p> + +<p>"Very well, take a seat," she said.</p> + +<p>Gaston eagerly took possession of a chair. His eyes were +shining with<br> + happiness; the Vicomtesse, unable to endure the brilliant light +in<br> + them, looked down at the book. She was enjoying a delicious, +ever new<br> + sensation; the sense of a man's delight in her presence is +an<br> + unfailing feminine instinct. And then, besides, he had divined +her,<br> + and a woman is so grateful to the man who has mastered the +apparently<br> + capricious, yet logical, reasoning of her heart; who can track +her<br> + thought through the seemingly contradictory workings of her +mind, and<br> + read the sensations, shy or bold, written in fleeting red, a<br> + bewildering maze of coquetry and self-revelation.</p> + +<p>"Madame," Gaston exclaimed in a low voice, "my blunder you +know, but<br> + you do not know how much I am to blame. If you only knew what +joy it<br> + was to----"</p> + +<p>"Ah! take care," she said, holding up one finger with an air +of<br> + mystery, as she put out her hand towards the bell.</p> + +<p>The charming gesture, the gracious threat, no doubt called up +some sad<br> + thought, some memory of the old happy time when she could be +wholly<br> + charming and gentle without an afterthought; when the gladness +of her<br> + heart justified every caprice, and put charm into every +least<br> + movement. The lines in her forehead gathered between her brows, +and<br> + the expression of her face grew dark in the soft candle-light. +Then<br> + looking across at M. de Nueil gravely but not unkindly, she +spoke like<br> + a woman who deeply feels the meaning of every word.</p> + +<p>"This is all very ridiculous! Once upon a time, monsieur, +when<br> + thoughtless high spirits were my privilege, I should have +laughed<br> + fearlessly over your visit with you. But now my life is very +much<br> + changed. I cannot do as I like, I am obliged to think. What +brings you<br> + here? Is it curiosity? In that case I am paying dearly for a +little<br> + fleeting pleasure. Have you fallen /passionately/ in love +already with<br> + a woman whom you have never seen, a woman with whose name +slander has,<br> + of course, been busy? If so, your motive in making this visit is +based<br> + on disrespect, on an error which accident brought into +notoriety."</p> + +<p>She flung her book down scornfully upon the table, then, with +a<br> + terrible look at Gaston, she went on: "Because I once was weak, +must<br> + it be supposed that I am always weak? This is horrible, +degrading. Or<br> + have you come here to pity me? You are very young to offer +sympathy<br> + with heart troubles. Understand this clearly, sir, that I would +rather<br> + have scorn than pity. I will not endure compassion from any +one."</p> + +<p>There was a brief pause.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," she continued (and the face that she turned to +him was<br> + gentle and sad), "whatever motive induced this rash intrusion +upon my<br> + solitude, it is very painful to me, you see. You are too young +to be<br> + totally without good feeling, so surely you will feel that +this<br> + behavior of yours is improper. I forgive you for it, and, as you +see,<br> + I am speaking of it to you without bitterness. You will not come +here<br> + again, will you? I am entreating when I might command. If you +come to<br> + see me again, neither you nor I can prevent the whole place +from<br> + believing that you are my lover, and you would cause me +great<br> + additional annoyance. You do not mean to do that, I think."</p> + +<br> +She said no more, but looked at him with a great dignity which +abashed<br> +him. + +<p>"I have done wrong, madame," he said, with deep feeling in his +voice,<br> + "but it was through enthusiasm and thoughtlessness and eager +desire of<br> + happiness, the qualities and defects of my age. Now, I +understand that<br> + I ought not to have tried to see you," he added; "but, at the +same<br> + time, the desire was a very natural one"--and, making an appeal +to<br> + feeling rather than to the intellect, he described the weariness +of<br> + his enforced exile. He drew a portrait of a young man in whom +the<br> + fires of life were burning themselves out, conveying the +impression<br> + that here was a heart worthy of tender love, a heart which,<br> + notwithstanding, had never known the joys of love for a young +and<br> + beautiful woman of refinement and taste. He explained, +without<br> + attempting to justify, his unusual conduct. He flattered Mme. +de<br> + Beauseant by showing that she had realized for him the ideal +lady of a<br> + young man's dream, the ideal sought by so many, and so often +sought in<br> + vain. Then he touched upon his morning prowlings under the walls +of<br> + Courcelles, and his wild thoughts at the first sight of the +house,<br> + till he excited that vague feeling of indulgence which a woman +can<br> + find in her heart for the follies committed for her sake.</p> + +<p>An impassioned voice was speaking in the chill solitude; the +speaker<br> + brought with him a warm breath of youth and the charms of a +carefully<br> + cultivated mind. It was so long since Mme. de Beauseant had +felt<br> + stirred by real feeling delicately expressed, that it affected +her<br> + very strongly now. In spite of herself, she watched M. de +Nueil's<br> + expressive face, and admired the noble countenance of a soul, +unbroken<br> + as yet by the cruel discipline of the life of the world, +unfretted by<br> + continual scheming to gratify personal ambition and vanity. +Gaston was<br> + in the flower of his youth, he impressed her as a man with +something<br> + in him, unaware as yet of the great career that lay before him. +So<br> + both these two made reflections most dangerous for their peace +of<br> + mind, and both strove to conceal their thoughts. M. de Nueil saw +in<br> + the Vicomtesse a rare type of woman, always the victim of +her<br> + perfections and tenderness; her graceful beauty is the least of +her<br> + charms for those who are privileged to know the infinite of +feeling<br> + and thought and goodness in the soul within; a woman whose +instinctive<br> + feeling for beauty runs through all the most varied expressions +of<br> + love, purifying its transports, turning them to something almost +holy;<br> + wonderful secret of womanhood, the exquisite gift that Nature +so<br> + seldom bestows. And the Vicomtesse, on her side, listening to +the ring<br> + of sincerity in Gaston's voice, while he told of his +youthful<br> + troubles, began to understand all that grown children of +five-and-<br> + twenty suffer from diffidence, when hard work has kept them +alike from<br> + corrupting influences and intercourse with men and women of the +world<br> + whose sophistical reasoning and experience destroys the fair +qualities<br> + of youth. Here was the ideal of a woman's dreams, a man +unspoiled as<br> + yet by the egoism of family or success, or by that narrow +selfishness<br> + which blights the first impulses of honor, devotion, +self-sacrifice,<br> + and high demands of self; all the flowers so soon wither that +enrich<br> + at first the life of delicate but strong emotions, and keep +alive the<br> + loyalty of the heart.</p> + +<p>But these two, once launched forth into the vast of sentiment, +went<br> + far indeed in theory, sounding the depths in either soul, +testing the<br> + sincerity of their expressions; only, whereas Gaston's +experiments<br> + were made unconsciously, Mme. de Beauseant had a purpose in all +that<br> + she said. Bringing her natural and acquired subtlety to the +work, she<br> + sought to learn M. de Nueil's opinions by advancing, as far as +she<br> + could do so, views diametrically opposed to her own. So witty +and so<br> + gracious was she, so much herself with this stranger, with whom +she<br> + felt completely at ease, because she felt sure that they should +never<br> + meet again, that, after some delicious epigram of hers, +Gaston<br> + exclaimed unthinkingly:</p> + +<p>"Oh! madame, how could any man have left you?"</p> + +<p>The Vicomtesse was silent. Gaston reddened, he thought that he +had<br> + offended her; but she was not angry. The first deep thrill of +delight<br> + since the day of her calamity had taken her by surprise. The +skill of<br> + the cleverest /roue/ could not have made the impression that M. +de<br> + Nueil made with that cry from the heart. That verdict wrung from +a<br> + young man's candor gave her back innocence in her own eyes, +condemned<br> + the world, laid the blame upon the lover who had left her, +and<br> + justified her subsequent solitary drooping life. The world's<br> + absolution, the heartfelt sympathy, the social esteem so longed +for,<br> + and so harshly refused, nay, all her secret desires were given +her to<br> + the full in that exclamation, made fairer yet by the heart's +sweetest<br> + flatteries and the admiration that women always relish eagerly. +He<br> + understood her, understood all, and he had given her, as if it +were<br> + the most natural thing in the world, the opportunity of rising +higher<br> + through her fall. She looked at the clock.</p> + +<p>"Ah! madame, do not punish me for my heedlessness. If you +grant me but<br> + one evening, vouchsafe not to shorten it."</p> + +<p>She smiled at the pretty speech.</p> + +<p>"Well, as we must never meet again," she said, "what signifies +a<br> + moment more or less? If you were to care for me, it would be a +pity."</p> + +<p>"It is too late now," he said.</p> + +<p>"Do not tell me that," she answered gravely. "Under any +other<br> + circumstances I should be very glad to see you. I will speak +frankly,<br> + and you will understand how it is that I do not choose to see +you<br> + again, and ought not to do so. You have too much magnanimity not +to<br> + feel that if I were so much as suspected of a second trespass, +every<br> + one would think of me as a contemptible and vulgar woman; I +should be<br> + like other women. A pure and blameless life will bring my +character<br> + into relief. I am too proud not to endeavor to live like one +apart in<br> + the world, a victim of the law through my marriage, man's +victim<br> + through my love. If I were not faithful to the position which I +have<br> + taken up, then I should deserve all the reproach that is heaped +upon<br> + me; I should be lowered in my own eyes. I had not enough lofty +social<br> + virtue to remain with a man whom I did not love. I have snapped +the<br> + bonds of marriage in spite of the law; it was wrong, it was a +crime,<br> + it was anything you like, but for me the bonds meant death. I +meant to<br> + live. Perhaps if I had been a mother I could have endured the +torture<br> + of a forced marriage of suitability. At eighteen we scarcely +know what<br> + is done with us, poor girls that we are! I have broken the laws +of the<br> + world, and the world has punished me; we both did rightly. I +sought<br> + happiness. Is it not a law of our nature to seek for happiness? +I was<br> + young, I was beautiful . . . I thought that I had found a nature +as<br> + loving, as apparently passionate. I was loved indeed; for a +little<br> + while . . ."</p> + +<p>She paused.</p> + +<p>"I used to think," she said, "that no one could leave a woman +in such<br> + a position as mine. I have been forsaken; I must have offended +in some<br> + way. Yes, in some way, no doubt, I failed to keep some law of +our<br> + nature, was too loving, too devoted, too exacting--I do not +know. Evil<br> + days have brought light with them! For a long while I blamed +another,<br> + now I am content to bear the whole blame. At my own expense, I +have<br> + absolved that other of whom I once thought I had a right to +complain.<br> + I had not the art to keep him; fate has punished me heavily for +my<br> + lack of skill. I only knew how to love; how can one keep oneself +in<br> + mind when one loves? So I was a slave when I should have sought +to be<br> + a tyrant. Those who know me may condemn me, but they will +respect me<br> + too. Pain has taught me that I must not lay myself open to this +a<br> + second time. I cannot understand how it is that I am living yet, +after<br> + the anguish of that first week of the most fearful crisis in a +woman's<br> + life. Only from three years of loneliness would it be possible +to draw<br> + strength to speak of that time as I am speaking now. Such +agony,<br> + monsieur, usually ends in death; but this--well, it was the +agony of<br> + death with no tomb to end it. Oh! I have known pain indeed!"</p> + +<p>The Vicomtesse raised her beautiful eyes to the ceiling; and +the<br> + cornice, no doubt, received all the confidences which a stranger +might<br> + not hear. When a woman is afraid to look at her interlocutor, +there is<br> + in truth no gentler, meeker, more accommodating confidant than +the<br> + cornice. The cornice is quite an institution in the boudoir; +what is<br> + it but the confessional, /minus/ the priest?</p> + +<p>Mme. de Beauseant was eloquent and beautiful at that moment; +nay,<br> + "coquettish," if the word were not too heavy. By justifying +herself<br> + and love, she was stimulating every sentiment in the man before +her;<br> + nay, more, the higher she set the goal, the more conspicuous it +grew.<br> + At last, when her eyes had lost the too eloquent expression +given to<br> + them by painful memories, she let them fall on Gaston.</p> + +<p>"You acknowledge, do you not, that I am bound to lead a +solitary,<br> + self-contained life?" she said quietly.</p> + +<p>So sublime was she in her reasoning and her madness, that M. +de Nueil<br> + felt a wild longing to throw himself at her feet; but he was +afraid of<br> + making himself ridiculous, so he held his enthusiasm and his +thoughts<br> + in check. He was afraid, too, that he might totally fail to +express<br> + them, and in no less terror of some awful rejection on her part, +or of<br> + her mockery, an apprehension which strikes like ice to the most +fervid<br> + soul. The revulsion which led him to crush down every feeling as +it<br> + sprang up in his heart cost him the intense pain that diffident +and<br> + ambitious natures experience in the frequent crises when they +are<br> + compelled to stifle their longings. And yet, in spite of +himself, he<br> + broke the silence to say in a faltering voice:</p> + +<p>"Madame, permit me to give way to one of the strongest +emotions of my<br> + life, and own to all that you have made me feel. You set the +heart in<br> + me swelling high! I feel within me a longing to make you forget +your<br> + mortifications, to devote my life to this, to give you love for +all<br> + who ever have given you wounds or hate. But this is a very +sudden<br> + outpouring of the heart, nothing can justify it to-day, and I +ought<br> + not----"</p> + +<p>"Enough, monsieur," said Mme. de Beauseant; "we have both of +us gone<br> + too far. By giving you the sad reasons for a refusal which I +am<br> + compelled to give, I meant to soften it and not to elicit +homage.<br> + Coquetry only suits a happy woman. Believe me, we must +remain<br> + strangers to each other. At a later day you will know that ties +which<br> + must inevitably be broken ought not to be formed at all."</p> + +<p>She sighed lightly, and her brows contracted, but almost +immediately<br> + grew clear again.</p> + +<p>"How painful it is for a woman to be powerless to follow the +man she<br> + loves through all the phases of his life! And if that man loves +her<br> + truly, his heart must surely vibrate with pain to the deep +trouble in<br> + hers. Are they not twice unhappy?"</p> + +<p>There was a short pause. Then she rose smiling.</p> + +<p>"You little suspected, when you came to Courcelles, that you +were to<br> + hear a sermon, did you?"</p> + +<p>Gaston felt even further than at first from this extraordinary +woman.<br> + Was the charm of that delightful hour due after all to the +coquetry of<br> + the mistress of the house? She had been anxious to display her +wit. He<br> + bowed stiffly to the Vicomtesse, and went away in +desperation.</p> + +<p>On the way home he tried to detect the real character of a +creature<br> + supple and hard as a steel spring; but he had seen her pass +through so<br> + many phases, that he could not make up his mind about her. The +tones<br> + of her voice, too, were ringing in his ears; her gestures, the +little<br> + movements of her head, and the varying expression of her eyes +grew<br> + more gracious in memory, more fascinating as he thought of them. +The<br> + Vicomtesse's beauty shone out again for him in the darkness; +his<br> + reviving impressions called up yet others, and he was enthralled +anew<br> + by womanly charm and wit, which at first he had not perceived. +He fell<br> + to wandering musings, in which the most lucid thoughts grow +refractory<br> + and flatly contradict each other, and the soul passes through a +brief<br> + frenzy fit. Youth only can understand all that lies in the +dithyrambic<br> + outpourings of youth when, after a stormy siege, of the most +frantic<br> + folly and coolest common-sense, the heart finally yields to +the<br> + assault of the latest comer, be it hope, or despair, as some<br> + mysterious power determines.</p> + +<p>At three-and-twenty, diffidence nearly always rules a man's +conduct;<br> + he is perplexed with a young girl's shyness, a girl's trouble; +he is<br> + afraid lest he should express his love ill, sees nothing but<br> + difficulties, and takes alarm at them; he would be bolder if he +loved<br> + less, for he has no confidence in himself, and with a growing +sense of<br> + the cost of happiness comes a conviction that the woman he +loves<br> + cannot easily be won; perhaps, too, he is giving himself up +too<br> + entirely to his own pleasure, and fears that he can give none; +and<br> + when, for his misfortune, his idol inspires him with awe, he +worships<br> + in secret and afar, and unless his love is guessed, it dies +away. Then<br> + it often happens that one of these dead early loves lingers on, +bright<br> + with illusions in many a young heart. What man is there but +keeps<br> + within him these virgin memories that grow fairer every time +they rise<br> + before him, memories that hold up to him the ideal of perfect +bliss?<br> + Such recollections are like children who die in the flower +of<br> + childhood, before their parents have known anything of them but +their<br> + smiles.</p> + +<p>So M. de Nueil came home from Courcelles, the victim of a mood +fraught<br> + with desperate resolutions. Even now he felt that Mme. de +Beauseant<br> + was one of the conditions of his existence, and that death would +be<br> + preferable to life without her. He was still young enough to +feel the<br> + tyrannous fascination which fully-developed womanhood exerts +over<br> + immature and impassioned natures; and, consequently, he was to +spend<br> + one of those stormy nights when a young man's thoughts travel +from<br> + happiness to suicide and back again--nights in which youth +rushes<br> + through a lifetime of bliss and falls asleep from sheer +exhaustion.<br> + Fateful nights are they, and the worst misfortune that can +happen is<br> + to awake a philosopher afterwards. M. de Nueil was far too +deeply in<br> + love to sleep; he rose and betook to inditing letters, but none +of<br> + them were satisfactory, and he burned them all.</p> + +<p>The next day he went to Courcelles to make the circuit of her +garden<br> + walls, but he waited till nightfall; he was afraid that she +might see<br> + him. The instinct that led him to act in this way arose out of +so<br> + obscure a mood of the soul, that none but a young man, or a man +in<br> + like case, can fully understand its mute ecstasies and its +vagaries,<br> + matter to set those people who are lucky enough to see life only +in<br> + its matter-of-fact aspect shrugging their shoulders. After +painful<br> + hesitation, Gaston wrote to Mme. de Beauseant. Here is the +letter,<br> + which may serve as a sample of the epistolary style peculiar +to<br> + lovers, a performance which, like the drawings prepared with +great<br> + secrecy by children for the birthdays of father or mother, is +found<br> + insufferable by every mortal except the recipients:--</p> + +<p>"MADAME,--Your power over my heart, my soul, myself, is so +great<br> + that my fate depends wholly upon you to-day. Do not throw +this<br> + letter into the fire; be so kind as to read it through. +Perhaps<br> + you may pardon the opening sentence when you see that it is +no<br> + commonplace, selfish declaration, but that it expresses a +simple<br> + fact. Perhaps you may feel moved, because I ask for so little, +by<br> + the submission of one who feels himself so much beneath you, +by<br> + the influence that your decision will exercise upon my life. At +my<br> + age, madame, I only know how to love, I am utterly ignorant +of<br> + ways of attracting and winning a woman's love, but in my own +heart<br> + I know raptures of adoration of her. I am irresistibly drawn +to<br> + you by the great happiness that I feel through you; my +thoughts<br> + turn to you with the selfish instinct which bids us draw nearer +to<br> + the fire of life when we find it. I do not imagine that I am<br> + worthy of you; it seems impossible that I, young, ignorant, +and<br> + shy, could bring you one-thousandth part of the happiness that +I<br> + drink in at the sound of your voice and the sight of you. For +me<br> + you are the only woman in the world. I cannot imagine life +without<br> + you, so I have made up my mind to leave France, and to risk +my<br> + life till I lose it in some desperate enterprise, in the +Indies,<br> + in Africa, I care not where. How can I quell a love that knows +no<br> + limits save by opposing to it something as infinite? Yet, if +you<br> + will allow me to hope, not to be yours, but to win your<br> + friendship, I will stay. Let me come, not so very often, if +you<br> + require it, to spend a few such hours with you as those +stolen<br> + hours of yesterday. The keen delight of that brief happiness to +be<br> + cut short at the least over-ardent word from me, will suffice +to<br> + enable me to endure the boiling torrent in my veins. Have I<br> + presumed too much upon your generosity by this entreaty to +suffer<br> + an intercourse in which all the gain is mine alone? You could +find<br> + ways of showing the world, to which you sacrifice so much, that +I<br> + am nothing to you; you are so clever and so proud! What have +you<br> + to fear? If I could only lay bare my heart to you at this +moment,<br> + to convince you that it is with no lurking afterthought that +I<br> + make this humble request! Should I have told you that my love +was<br> + boundless, while I prayed you to grant me friendship, if I had +any<br> + hope of your sharing this feeling in the depths of my soul? +No,<br> + while I am with you, I will be whatever you will, if only I may +be<br> + with you. If you refuse (as you have the power to refuse), I +will<br> + not utter one murmur, I will go. And if, at a later day, any +other<br> + woman should enter into my life, you will have proof that you +were<br> + right; but if I am faithful till death, you may feel some +regret<br> + perhaps. The hope of causing you a regret will soothe my +agony,<br> + and that thought shall be the sole revenge of a slighted<br> + heart. . . ."</p> + +<p>Only those who have passed through all the exceeding +tribulations of<br> + youth, who have seized on all the chimeras with two white +pinions, the<br> + nightmare fancies at the disposal of a fervid imagination, can +realize<br> + the horrors that seized upon Gaston de Nueil when he had reason +to<br> + suppose that his ultimatum was in Mme. de Beauseant's hands. He +saw<br> + the Vicomtesse, wholly untouched, laughing at his letter and his +love,<br> + as those can laugh who have ceased to believe in love. He could +have<br> + wished to have his letter back again. It was an absurd letter. +There<br> + were a thousand and one things, now that he came to think of it, +that<br> + he might have said, things infinitely better and more moving +than<br> + those stilted phrases of his, those accursed, sophisticated,<br> + pretentious, fine-spun phrases, though, luckily, the punctuation +had<br> + been pretty bad and the lines shockingly crooked. He tried not +to<br> + think, not to feel; but he felt and thought, and was wretched. +If he<br> + had been thirty years old, he might have got drunk, but the +innocence<br> + of three-and-twenty knew nothing of the resources of opium nor +of the<br> + expedients of advanced civilization. Nor had he at hand one of +those<br> + good friends of the Parisian pattern who understand so well how +to say<br> + /Poete, non dolet!/ by producing a bottle of champagne, or +alleviate<br> + the agony of suspense by carrying you off somewhere to make a +night of<br> + it. Capital fellows are they, always in low water when you are +in<br> + funds, always off to some watering-place when you go to look +them up,<br> + always with some bad bargain in horse-flesh to sell you; it is +true,<br> + that when you want to borrow of them, they have always just lost +their<br> + last louis at play; but in all other respects they are the +best<br> + fellows on earth, always ready to embark with you on one of the +steep<br> + down-grades where you lose your time, your soul, and your +life!</p> + +<p><br> + At length M. de Nueil received a missive through the +instrumentality<br> + of Jacques, a letter that bore the arms of Burgundy on the +scented<br> + seal, a letter written on vellum notepaper.</p> + +<p>He rushed away at once to lock himself in, and read and +re-read /her/<br> + letter:--</p> + +<p>"You are punishing me very severely, monsieur, both for +the<br> + friendliness of my effort to spare you a rebuff, and for the<br> + attraction which intellect always has for me. I put confidence +in<br> + the generosity of youth, and you have disappointed me. And yet, +if<br> + I did not speak unreservedly (which would have been +perfectly<br> + ridiculous), at any rate I spoke frankly of my position, so +that<br> + you might imagine that I was not to be touched by a young soul. +My<br> + distress is the keener for my interest in you. I am +naturally<br> + tender-hearted and kindly, but circumstances force me to act<br> + unkindly. Another woman would have flung your letter, unread, +into<br> + the fire; I read it, and I am answering it. My answer will make +it<br> + clear to you that while I am not untouched by the expression +of<br> + this feeling which I have inspired, albeit unconsciously, I +am<br> + still far from sharing it, and the step which I am about to +take<br> + will show you still more plainly that I mean what I say. I +wish<br> + besides, to use, for your welfare, that authority, as it +were,<br> + which you give me over your life; and I desire to exercise it +this<br> + once to draw aside the veil from your eyes.</p> + +<p>"I am nearly thirty years old, monsieur; you are barely +two-and-<br> + twenty. You yourself cannot know what your thoughts will be at +my<br> + age. The vows that you make so lightly to-day may seem a +very<br> + heavy burden to you then. I am quite willing to believe that +at<br> + this moment you would give me your whole life without a +regret,<br> + you would even be ready to die for a little brief happiness; +but<br> + at the age of thirty experience will take from you the very +power<br> + of making daily sacrifices for my sake, and I myself should +feel<br> + deeply humiliated if I accepted them. A day would come when<br> + everything, even Nature, would bid you leave me, and I have<br> + already told you that death is preferable to desertion. +Misfortune<br> + has taught me to calculate; as you see, I am arguing +perfectly<br> + dispassionately. You force me to tell you that I have no love +for<br> + you; I ought not to love, I cannot, and I will not. It is too +late<br> + to yield, as women yield, to a blind unreasoning impulse of +the<br> + heart, too late to be the mistress whom you seek. My +consolations<br> + spring from God, not from earth. Ah, and besides, with the<br> + melancholy insight of disappointed love, I read hearts too +clearly<br> + to accept your proffered friendship. It is only instinct. I<br> + forgive the boyish ruse, for which you are not responsible as +yet.<br> + In the name of this passing fancy of yours, for the sake of +your<br> + career and my own peace of mind, I bid you stay in your own<br> + country; you must not spoil a fair and honorable life for an<br> + illusion which, by its very nature, cannot last. At a later +day,<br> + when you have accomplished your real destiny, in the fully<br> + developed manhood that awaits you, you will appreciate this +answer<br> + of mine, though to-day it may be that you blame its hardness. +You<br> + will turn with pleasure to an old woman whose friendship +will<br> + certainly be sweet and precious to you then; a friendship +untried<br> + by the extremes of passion and the disenchanting processes +of<br> + life; a friendship which noble thoughts and thoughts of +religion<br> + will keep pure and sacred. Farewell; do my bidding with the<br> + thought that your success will bring a gleam of pleasure into +my<br> + solitude, and only think of me as we think of absent +friends."</p> + +<p>Gaston de Nueil read the letter, and wrote the following +lines:--</p> + +<p>"MADAME,--If I could cease to love you, to take the chances +of<br> + becoming an ordinary man which you hold out to me, you must +admit<br> + that I should thoroughly deserve my fate. No, I shall not do +as<br> + you bid me; the oath of fidelity which I swear to you shall +only<br> + be absolved by death. Ah! take my life, unless indeed you do +not<br> + fear to carry a remorse all through your own----"</p> + +<p>When the man returned from his errand, M. de Nueil asked him +with whom<br> + he left the note?</p> + +<p>"I gave it to Mme. la Vicomtesse herself, sir; she was in her +carriage<br> + and just about to start."</p> + +<p>"For the town?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think so, sir. Mme. la Vicomtesse had +post-horses."</p> + +<p>"Ah! then she is going away," said the Baron.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," the man answered.</p> + +<p>Gaston de Nueil at once prepared to follow Mme. de Beauseant. +She led<br> + the way as far as Geneva, without a suspicion that he followed. +And<br> + he? Amid the many thoughts that assailed him during that +journey, one<br> + all-absorbing problem filled his mind--"Why did she go away?" +Theories<br> + grew thickly on such ground for supposition, and naturally he +inclined<br> + to the one that flattered his hopes--"If the Vicomtesse cares +for me,<br> + a clever woman would, of course, choose Switzerland, where +nobody<br> + knows either of us, in preference to France, where she would +find<br> + censorious critics."</p> + +<p>An impassioned lover of a certain stamp would not feel +attracted to a<br> + woman clever enough to choose her own ground; such women are +too<br> + clever. However, there is nothing to prove that there was any +truth in<br> + Gaston's supposition.</p> + +<p>The Vicomtesse took a small house by the side of the lake. As +soon as<br> + she was installed in it, Gaston came one summer evening in +the<br> + twilight. Jacques, that flunkey in grain, showed no sign of +surprise,<br> + and announced /M. le Baron de Nueil/ like a discreet domestic +well<br> + acquainted with good society. At the sound of the name, at the +sight<br> + of its owner, Mme. de Beauseant let her book fall from her +hands; her<br> + surprise gave him time to come close to her, and to say in tones +that<br> + sounded like music in her ears:</p> + +<p>"What a joy it was to me to take the horses that brought you +on this<br> + journey!"</p> + +<p>To have the inmost desires of the heart so fulfilled! Where is +the<br> + woman who could resist such happiness as this? An Italian woman, +one<br> + of those divine creatures who, psychologically, are as far +removed<br> + from the Parisian as if they lived at the Antipodes, a being who +would<br> + be regarded as profoundly immoral on this side of the Alps, an +Italian<br> + (to resume) made the following comment on some French novels +which she<br> + had been reading. "I cannot see," she remarked, "why these poor +lovers<br> + take such a time over coming to an arrangement which ought to be +the<br> + affair of a single morning." Why should not the novelist take a +hint<br> + from this worthy lady, and refrain from exhausting the theme and +the<br> + reader? Some few passages of coquetry it would certainly be +pleasant<br> + to give in outline; the story of Mme. de Beauseant's demurs and +sweet<br> + delayings, that, like the vestal virgins of antiquity, she might +fall<br> + gracefully, and by lingering over the innocent raptures of first +love<br> + draw from it its utmost strength and sweetness. M. de Nueil was +at an<br> + age when a man is the dupe of these caprices, of the fence which +women<br> + delight to prolong; either to dictate their own terms, or to +enjoy the<br> + sense of their power yet longer, knowing instinctively as they +do that<br> + it must soon grow less. But, after all, these little boudoir<br> + protocols, less numerous than those of the Congress of London, +are too<br> + small to be worth mention in the history of this passion.</p> + +<p>For three years Mme. de Beauseant and M. de Nueil lived in the +villa<br> + on the lake of Geneva. They lived quite alone, received no +visitors,<br> + caused no talk, rose late, went out together upon the lake, +knew, in<br> + short, the happiness of which we all of us dream. It was a +simple<br> + little house, with green shutters, and broad balconies shaded +with<br> + awnings, a house contrived of set purpose for lovers, with its +white<br> + couches, soundless carpets, and fresh hangings, everything +within it<br> + reflecting their joy. Every window looked out on some new view +of the<br> + lake; in the far distance lay the mountains, fantastic visions +of<br> + changing color and evanescent cloud; above them spread the sunny +sky,<br> + before them stretched the broad sheet of water, never the same +in its<br> + fitful changes. All their surroundings seemed to dream for them, +all<br> + things smiled upon them.</p> + +<p>Then weighty matters recalled M. de Nueil to France. His +father and<br> + brother died, and he was obliged to leave Geneva. The lovers +bought<br> + the house; and if they could have had their way, they would +have<br> + removed the hills piecemeal, drawn off the lake with a siphon, +and<br> + taken everything away with them.</p> + +<p><br> + Mme. de Beauseant followed M. de Nueil. She realized her +property, and<br> + bought a considerable estate near Manerville, adjoining +Gaston's<br> + lands, and here they lived together; Gaston very graciously +giving up<br> + Manerville to his mother for the present in consideration of +the<br> + bachelor freedom in which she left him.</p> + +<p>Mme. de Beauseant's estate was close to a little town in one +of the<br> + most picturesque spots in the valley of the Auge. Here the +lovers<br> + raised barriers between themselves and social intercourse, +barriers<br> + which no creature could overleap, and here the happy days of<br> + Switzerland were lived over again. For nine whole years they +knew<br> + happiness which it serves no purpose to describe; happiness +which may<br> + be divined from the outcome of the story by those whose souls +can<br> + comprehend poetry and prayer in their infinite +manifestations.</p> + +<p>All this time Mme. de Beauseant's husband, the present Marquis +(his<br> + father and elder brother having died), enjoyed the soundest +health.<br> + There is no better aid to life than a certain knowledge that +our<br> + demise would confer a benefit on some fellow-creature. M. de +Beauseant<br> + was one of those ironical and wayward beings who, like holders +of<br> + life-annuities, wake with an additional sense of relish every +morning<br> + to a consciousness of good health. For the rest, he was a man of +the<br> + world, somewhat methodical and ceremonious, and a calculator +of<br> + consequences, who could make a declaration of love as quietly as +a<br> + lackey announces that "Madame is served."</p> + +<p>This brief biographical notice of his lordship the Marquis +de<br> + Beauseant is given to explain the reasons why it was impossible +for<br> + the Marquise to marry M. de Nueil.</p> + +<p>So, after a nine years' lease of happiness, the sweetest +agreement to<br> + which a woman ever put her hand, M. de Nueil and Mme. de +Beauseant<br> + were still in a position quite as natural and quite as false as +at the<br> + beginning of their adventure. And yet they had reached a fatal +crisis,<br> + which may be stated as clearly as any problem in +mathematics.</p> + +<p>Mme. la Comtesse de Nueil, Gaston's mother, a strait-laced +and<br> + virtuous person, who had made the late Baron happy in strictly +legal<br> + fashion would never consent to meet Mme. de Beauseant. Mme. +de<br> + Beauseant quite understood that the worthy dowager must of +necessity<br> + be her enemy, and that she would try to draw Gaston from his<br> + unhallowed and immoral way of life. The Marquise de Beauseant +would<br> + willingly have sold her property and gone back to Geneva, but +she<br> + could not bring herself to do it; it would mean that she +distrusted M.<br> + de Nueil. Moreover, he had taken a great fancy to this very +Valleroy<br> + estate, where he was making plantations and improvements. She +would<br> + not deprive him of a piece of pleasurable routine-work, such as +women<br> + always wish for their husbands, and even for their lovers.</p> + +<p>A Mlle. de la Rodiere, twenty-two years of age, an heiress +with a<br> + rent-roll of forty thousand livres, had come to live in the<br> + neighborhood. Gaston always met her at Manerville whenever he +was<br> + obliged to go thither. These various personages being to each +other as<br> + the terms of a proportion sum, the following letter will throw +light<br> + on the appalling problem which Mme. de Beauseant had been trying +for<br> + the past month to solve:--</p> + +<p>"My beloved angel, it seems like nonsense, does it not, to +write<br> + to you when there is nothing to keep us apart, when a caress +so<br> + often takes the place of words, and words too are caresses? +Ah,<br> + well, no, love. There are some things that a woman cannot say +when<br> + she is face to face with the man she loves; at the bare thought +of<br> + them her voice fails her, and the blood goes back to her +heart;<br> + she has no strength, no intelligence left. It hurts me to +feel<br> + like this when you are near me, and it happens often. I feel +that<br> + my heart should be wholly sincere for you; that I should +disguise<br> + no thought, however transient, in my heart; and I love the +sweet<br> + carelessness, which suits me so well, too much to endure +this<br> + embarrassment and constraint any longer. So I will tell you +about<br> + my anguish--yes, it is anguish. Listen to me! do not begin +with<br> + the little 'Tut, tut, tut,' that you use to silence me, an<br> + impertinence that I love, because anything from you pleases +me.<br> + Dear soul from heaven, wedded to mine, let me first tell you +that<br> + you have effaced all memory of the pain that once was crushing +the<br> + life out of me. I did not know what love was before I knew +you.<br> + Only the candor of your beautiful young life, only the purity +of<br> + that great soul of yours, could satisfy the requirements of +an<br> + exacting woman's heart. Dear love, how very often I have +thrilled<br> + with joy to think that in these nine long, swift years, my<br> + jealousy has not been once awakened. All the flowers of your +soul<br> + have been mine, all your thoughts. There has not been the +faintest<br> + cloud in our heaven; we have not known what sacrifice is; we +have<br> + always acted on the impulses of our hearts. I have known<br> + happiness, infinite for a woman. Will the tears that drench +this<br> + sheet tell you all my gratitude? I could wish that I had knelt +to<br> + write the words!--Well, out of this felicity has arisen +torture<br> + more terrible than the pain of desertion. Dear, there are +very<br> + deep recesses in a woman's heart; how deep in my own heart, I +did<br> + not know myself until to-day, as I did not know the whole +extent<br> + of love. The greatest misery which could overwhelm us is a +light<br> + burden compared with the mere thought of harm for him whom +we<br> + love. And how if we cause the harm, is it not enough to make +one<br> + die? . . . This is the thought that is weighing upon me. But<br> + it brings in its train another thought that is heavier far, +a<br> + thought that tarnishes the glory of love, and slays it, and +turns<br> + it into a humiliation which sullies life as long as it lasts. +You<br> + are thirty years old; I am forty. What dread this difference +in<br> + age calls up in a woman who loves! It is possible that, first +of<br> + all unconsciously, afterwards in earnest, you have felt the<br> + sacrifices that you have made by renouncing all in the world +for<br> + me. Perhaps you have thought of your future from the social +point<br> + of view, of the marriage which would, of course, increase +your<br> + fortune, and give you avowed happiness and children who +would<br> + inherit your wealth; perhaps you have thought of reappearing +in<br> + the world, and filling your place there honorably. And then, +if<br> + so, you must have repressed those thoughts, and felt glad to<br> + sacrifice heiress and fortune and a fair future to me without +my<br> + knowledge. In your young man's generosity, you must have +resolved<br> + to be faithful to the vows which bind us each to each in the +sight<br> + of God. My past pain has risen up before your mind, and the +misery<br> + from which you rescued me has been my protection. To owe your +love<br> + to your pity! The thought is even more painful to me than the +fear<br> + of spoiling your life for you. The man who can bring himself +to<br> + stab his mistress is very charitable if he gives her her +deathblow<br> + while she is happy and ignorant of evil, while illusions are +in<br> + full blossom. . . . Yes, death is preferable to the two +thoughts<br> + which have secretly saddened the hours for several days. +To-day,<br> + when you asked 'What ails you?' so tenderly, the sound of +your<br> + voice made me shiver. I thought that, after your wont, you +were<br> + reading my very soul, and I waited for your confidence to +come,<br> + thinking that my presentiments had come true, and that I had<br> + guessed all that was going on in your mind. Then I began to +think<br> + over certain little things that you always do for me, and I<br> + thought I could see in you the sort of affection by which a +man<br> + betrays a consciousness that his loyalty is becoming a burden. +And<br> + in that moment I paid very dear for my happiness. I felt +that<br> + Nature always demands the price for the treasure called +love.<br> + Briefly, has not fate separated us? Can you have said, 'Sooner +or<br> + later I must leave poor Claire; why not separate in time?' I +read<br> + that thought in the depths of your eyes, and went away to cry +by<br> + myself. Hiding my tears from you! the first tears that I have +shed<br> + for sorrow for these ten years; I am too proud to let you +see<br> + them, but I did not reproach you in the least.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you are right. I ought not to be so selfish as to bind +your<br> + long and brilliant career to my so-soon out-worn life. . . . +And<br> + yet--how if I have been mistaken? How if I have taken your +love<br> + melancholy for a deliberation? Oh, my love, do not leave me +in<br> + suspense; punish this jealous wife of yours, but give her back +the<br> + sense of her love and yours; the whole woman lies in +that--that<br> + consciousness sanctifies everything.</p> + +<br> +"Since your mother came, since you paid a visit to Mlle. de<br> +Rodiere, I have been gnawed by doubts dishonoring to us both. +Make<br> +me suffer for this, but do not deceive me; I want to know<br> +everything that your mother said and that you think! If you +have<br> +hesitated between some alternative and me, I give you back +your<br> +liberty. . . . I will not let you know what happens to me; I +will<br> +not shed tears for you to see; only--I will not see you +again.<br> +. . . Ah! I cannot go on, my heart is breaking . . . . . . . . . +.<br> +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I have been +sitting<br> +benumbed and stupid for some moments. Dear love, I do not +find<br> +that any feeling of pride rises against you; you are so kind-<br> +hearted, so open; you would find it impossible to hurt me or +to<br> +deceive me; and you will tell me the truth, however cruel it +may<br> +be. Do you wish me to encourage your confession? Well, then, +heart<br> +of mine, I shall find comfort in a woman's thought. Has not +the<br> +youth of your being been mine, your sensitive, wholly +gracious,<br> +beautiful, and delicate youth? No woman shall find henceforth +the<br> +Gaston whom I have known, nor the delicious happiness that he +has<br> +given me. . . . No; you will never love again as you have +loved,<br> +as you love me now; no, I shall never have a rival, it is<br> +impossible. There will be no bitterness in my memories of our<br> +love, and I shall think of nothing else. It is out of your +power<br> +to enchant any woman henceforth by the childish provocations, +the<br> +charming ways of a young heart, the soul's winning charm, the<br> +body's grace, the swift communion of rapture, the whole +divine<br> +cortege of young love, in fine. + +<p>"Oh, you are a man now, you will obey your destiny, weighing +and<br> + considering all things. You will have cares, and anxieties, +and<br> + ambitions, and concerns that will rob /her/ of the +unchanging<br> + smile that made your lips fair for me. The tones that were +always<br> + so sweet for me will be troubled at times; and your eyes +that<br> + lighted up with radiance from heaven at the sight of me, +will<br> + often be lustreless for /her/. And besides, as it is impossible +to<br> + love you as I love you, you will never care for that woman as +you<br> + have cared for me. She will never keep a constant watch over<br> + herself as I have done; she will never study your happiness +at<br> + every moment with an intuition which has never failed me. Ah, +yes,<br> + the man, the heart and soul, which I shall have known will +exist<br> + no longer. I shall bury him deep in my memory, that I may have +the<br> + joy of him still; I shall live happy in that fair past life +of<br> + ours, a life hidden from all but our inmost selves.</p> + +<p>"Dear treasure of mine, if all the while no least thought +of<br> + liberty has risen in your mind, if my love is no burden on you, +if<br> + my fears are chimerical, if I am still your Eve--the one woman +in<br> + the world for you--come to me as soon as you have read this<br> + letter, come quickly! Ah, in one moment I will love you more +than<br> + I have ever loved you, I think, in these nine years. After<br> + enduring the needless torture of these doubts of which I am<br> + accusing myself, every added day of love, yes, every single +day,<br> + will be a whole lifetime of bliss. So speak, and speak openly; +do<br> + not deceive me, it would be a crime. Tell me, do you wish for +your<br> + liberty? Have you thought of all that a man's life means? Is +there<br> + any regret in your mind? That /I/ should cause you a regret! +I<br> + should die of it. I have said it: I love you enough to set +your<br> + happiness above mine, your life before my own. Leave on one +side,<br> + if you can, the wealth of memories of our nine years' +happiness,<br> + that they may not influence your decision, but speak! I +submit<br> + myself to you as to God, the one Consoler who remains if you<br> + forsake me."</p> + +<p>When Mme. de Beauseant knew that her letter was in M. de +Nueil's<br> + hands, she sank in such utter prostration, the over-pressure of +many<br> + thoughts so numbed her faculties, that she seemed almost drowsy. +At<br> + any rate, she was suffering from a pain not always proportioned +in its<br> + intensity to a woman's strength; pain which women alone know. +And<br> + while the unhappy Marquise awaited her doom, M. de Nueil, +reading her<br> + letter, felt that he was "in a very difficult position," to use +the<br> + expression that young men apply to a crisis of this kind.</p> + +<p>By this time he had all but yielded to his mother's +importunities and<br> + to the attractions of Mlle. de la Rodiere, a somewhat +insignificant,<br> + pink-and-white young person, as straight as a poplar. It is true +that,<br> + in accordance with the rules laid down for marriageable young +ladies,<br> + she scarcely opened her mouth, but her rent-roll of forty +thousand<br> + livres spoke quite sufficiently for her. Mme. de Nueil, with +a<br> + mother's sincere affection, tried to entangle her son in +virtuous<br> + courses. She called his attention to the fact that it was a +flattering<br> + distinction to be preferred by Mlle. de la Rodiere, who had +refused so<br> + many great matches; it was quite time, she urged, that he should +think<br> + of his future, such a good opportunity might not repeat itself, +some<br> + day he would have eighty thousand livres of income from land; +money<br> + made everything bearable; if Mme. de Beauseant loved him for his +own<br> + sake, she ought to be the first to urge him to marry. In short, +the<br> + well-intentioned mother forgot no arguments which the +feminine<br> + intellect can bring to bear upon the masculine mind, and by +these<br> + means she had brought her son into a wavering condition.</p> + +<p>Mme. de Beauseant's letter arrived just as Gaston's love of +her was<br> + holding out against the temptations of a settled life +conformable to<br> + received ideas. That letter decided the day. He made up his mind +to<br> + break off with the Marquise and to marry.</p> + +<p>"One must live a man's life," said he to himself.</p> + +<p>Then followed some inkling of the pain that this decision +would give<br> + to Mme. de Beauseant. The man's vanity and the lover's +conscience<br> + further exaggerated this pain, and a sincere pity for her seized +upon<br> + him. All at once the immensity of the misery became apparent to +him,<br> + and he thought it necessary and charitable to deaden the deadly +blow.<br> + He hoped to bring Mme. de Beauseant to a calm frame of mind +by<br> + gradually reconciling her to the idea of separation; while Mlle. +de la<br> + Rodiere, always like a shadowy third between them, should be<br> + sacrificed to her at first, only to be imposed upon her later. +His<br> + marriage should take place later, in obedience to Mme. de +Beauseant's<br> + expressed wish. He went so far as to enlist the Marquise's +nobleness<br> + and pride and all the great qualities of her nature to help him +to<br> + succeed in this compassionate design. He would write a letter at +once<br> + to allay her suspicions. /A letter!/ For a woman with the +most<br> + exquisite feminine perception, as well as the intuition of +passionate<br> + love, a letter in itself was a sentence of death.</p> + +<p>So when Jacques came and brought Mme. de Beauseant a sheet of +paper<br> + folded in a triangle, she trembled, poor woman, like a snared +swallow.<br> + A mysterious sensation of physical cold spread from head to +foot,<br> + wrapping her about in an icy winding sheet. If he did not rush +to her<br> + feet, if he did not come to her in tears, and pale, and like a +lover,<br> + she knew that all was lost. And yet, so many hopes are there in +the<br> + heart of a woman who loves, that she is only slain by stab after +stab,<br> + and loves on till the last drop of life-blood drains away.</p> + +<p>"Does madame need anything?" Jacques asked gently, as he went +away.</p> + +<p>"No," she said.</p> + +<p>"Poor fellow!" she thought, brushing a tear from her eyes, "he +guesses<br> + my feelings, servant though he is!"</p> + +<p>She read: "My beloved, you are inventing idle terrors for<br> + yourself . . ." The Marquise gazed at the words, and a thick +mist<br> + spread before her eyes. A voice in her heart cried, "He +lies!"--Then<br> + she glanced down the page with the clairvoyant eagerness of +passion,<br> + and read these words at the foot, "/Nothing has been decided +as<br> + yet . . ./" Turning to the other side with convulsive quickness, +she<br> + saw the mind of the writer distinctly through the intricacies of +the<br> + wording; this was no spontaneous outburst of love. She crushed +it in<br> + her fingers, twisted it, tore it with her teeth, flung it in the +fire,<br> + and cried aloud, "Ah! base that he is! I was his, and he had +ceased to<br> + love me!"</p> + +<br> +She sank half dead upon the couch. + +<p>M. de Nueil went out as soon as he had written his letter. +When he<br> + came back, Jacques met him on the threshold with a note. "Madame +la<br> + Marquise has left the chateau," said the man.</p> + +<p>M. de Nueil, in amazement, broke the seal and read:--</p> + +<p>"MADAME,--If I could cease to love you, to take the chances +of<br> + becoming an ordinary man which you hold out to me, you must +admit<br> + that I should thoroughly deserve my fate. No, I shall not do +as<br> + you bid me; the oath of fidelity which I swear to you shall +only<br> + be absolved by death. Ah! take my life, unless indeed you do +not<br> + fear to carry a remorse all through your own . . ."</p> + +<p>It was his own letter, written to the Marquise as she set out +for<br> + Geneva nine years before. At the foot of it Claire de Bourgogne +had<br> + written, "Monsieur, you are free."</p> + +<p>M. de Nueil went to his mother at Manerville. In less than +three weeks<br> + he married Mlle. Stephanie de la Rodiere.</p> + +<p>If this commonplace story of real life ended here, it would be +to some<br> + extent a sort of mystification. The first man you meet can tell +you a<br> + better. But the widespread fame of the catastrophe (for, +unhappily,<br> + this is a true tale), and all the memories which it may arouse +in<br> + those who have known the divine delights of infinite passion, +and lost<br> + them by their own deed, or through the cruelty of fate,--these +things<br> + may perhaps shelter the story from criticism.</p> + +<p>Mme. la Marquise de Beauseant never left Valleroy after her +parting<br> + from M. de Nueil. After his marriage she still continued to +live<br> + there, for some inscrutable woman's reason; any woman is at +liberty to<br> + assign the one which most appeals to her. Claire de Bourgogne +lived in<br> + such complete retirement that none of the servants, save Jacques +and<br> + her own woman, ever saw their mistress. She required absolute +silence<br> + all about her, and only left her room to go to the chapel on +the<br> + Valleroy estate, whither a neighboring priest came to say mass +every<br> + morning.</p> + +<p>The Comte de Nueil sank a few days after his marriage into +something<br> + like conjugal apathy, which might be interpreted to mean +happiness or<br> + unhappiness equally easily.</p> + +<p>"My son is perfectly happy," his mother said everywhere.</p> + +<p>Mme. Gaston de Nueil, like a great many young women, was a +rather<br> + colorless character, sweet and passive. A month after her +marriage she<br> + had expectations of becoming a mother. All this was quite in<br> + accordance with ordinary views. M. de Nueil was very nice to +her; but<br> + two months after his separation from the Marquise, he grew +notably<br> + thoughtful and abstracted. But then he always had been serious, +his<br> + mother said.</p> + +<p>After seven months of this tepid happiness, a little thing +occurred,<br> + one of those seemingly small matters which imply such great<br> + development of thought and such widespread trouble of the soul, +that<br> + only the bare fact can be recorded; the interpretation of it +must be<br> + left to the fancy of each individual mind. One day, when M. de +Nueil<br> + had been shooting over the lands of Manerville and Valleroy, +he<br> + crossed Mme. de Beauseant's park on his way home, summoned +Jacques,<br> + and when the man came, asked him, "Whether the Marquise was as +fond of<br> + game as ever?"</p> + +<p>Jacques answering in the affirmative, Gaston offered him a +good round<br> + sum (accompanied by plenty of specious reasoning) for a very +little<br> + service. Would he set aside for the Marquise the game that the +Count<br> + would bring? It seemed to Jacques to be a matter of no great<br> + importance whether the partridge on which his mistress dined had +been<br> + shot by her keeper or by M. de Nueil, especially since the +latter<br> + particularly wished that the Marquise should know nothing about +it.</p> + +<p>"It was killed on her land," said the Count, and for some days +Jacques<br> + lent himself to the harmless deceit. Day after day M. de Nueil +went<br> + shooting, and came back at dinner-time with an empty bag. A +whole week<br> + went by in this way. Gaston grew bold enough to write a long +letter to<br> + the Marquise, and had it conveyed to her. It was returned to +him<br> + unopened. The Marquise's servant brought it back about +nightfall. The<br> + Count, sitting in the drawing-room listening, while his wife at +the<br> + piano mangled a /Caprice/ of Herold's, suddenly sprang up and +rushed<br> + out to the Marquise, as if he were flying to an assignation. He +dashed<br> + through a well-known gap into the park, and went slowly along +the<br> + avenues, stopping now and again for a little to still the loud +beating<br> + of his heart. Smothered sounds as he came nearer the chateau +told him<br> + that the servants must be at supper, and he went straight to +Mme. de<br> + Beauseant's room.</p> + +<p>Mme. de Beauseant never left her bedroom. M. de Nueil could +gain the<br> + doorway without making the slightest sound. There, by the light +of two<br> + wax candles, he saw the thin, white Marquise in a great +armchair; her<br> + head was bowed, her hands hung listlessly, her eyes gazing +fixedly at<br> + some object which she did not seem to see. Her whole attitude +spoke of<br> + hopeless pain. There was a vague something like hope in her +bearing,<br> + but it was impossible to say whither Claire de Bourgogne was +looking--<br> + forwards to the tomb or backwards into the past. Perhaps M. de +Nueil's<br> + tears glittered in the deep shadows; perhaps his breathing +sounded<br> + faintly; perhaps unconsciously he trembled, or again it may have +been<br> + impossible that he should stand there, his presence unfelt by +that<br> + quick sense which grows to be an instinct, the glory, the +delight, the<br> + proof of perfect love. However it was, Mme. de Beauseant slowly +turned<br> + her face towards the doorway, and beheld her lover of bygone +days.<br> + Then Gaston de Nueil came forward a few paces.</p> + +<p>"If you come any further, sir," exclaimed the Marquise, +growing paler,<br> + "I shall fling myself out of the window!"</p> + +<p>She sprang to the window, flung it open, and stood with one +foot on<br> + the ledge, her hand upon the iron balustrade, her face turned +towards<br> + Gaston.</p> + +<p>"Go out! go out!" she cried, "or I will throw myself +over."</p> + +<p>At that dreadful cry the servants began to stir, and M. de +Nueil fled<br> + like a criminal.</p> + +<p>When he reached his home again he wrote a few lines and gave +them to<br> + his own man, telling him to give the letter himself into Mme. +de<br> + Beauseant's hands, and to say that it was a matter of life and +death<br> + for his master. The messenger went. M. de Nueil went back to +the<br> + drawing-room where his wife was still murdering the /Caprice/, +and sat<br> + down to wait till the answer came. An hour later, when the +/Caprice/<br> + had come to an end, and the husband and wife sat in silence +on<br> + opposite sides of the hearth, the man came back from Valleroy +and gave<br> + his master his own letter, unopened.</p> + +<p>M. de Nueil went into a small room beyond the drawing-room, +where he<br> + had left his rifle, and shot himself.</p> + +<p>The swift and fatal ending of the drama, contrary as it is to +all the<br> + habits of young France, is only what might have been expected. +Those<br> + who have closely observed, or known for themselves by +delicious<br> + experience, all that is meant by the perfect union of two +beings, will<br> + understand Gaston de Nueil's suicide perfectly well. A woman +does not<br> + bend and form herself in a day to the caprices of passion. +The<br> + pleasure of loving, like some rare flower, needs the most +careful<br> + ingenuity of culture. Time alone, and two souls attuned each to +each,<br> + can discover all its resources, and call into being all the +tender and<br> + delicate delights for which we are steeped in a thousand<br> + superstitions, imagining them to be inherent in the heart +that<br> + lavishes them upon us. It is this wonderful response of one +nature to<br> + another, this religious belief, this certainty of finding +peculiar or<br> + excessive happiness in the presence of one we love, that +accounts in<br> + part for perdurable attachments and long-lived passion. If a +woman<br> + possesses the genius of her sex, love never comes to be a matter +of<br> + use and wont. She brings all her heart and brain to love, +clothes her<br> + tenderness in forms so varied, there is such art in her most +natural<br> + moments, or so much nature in her art, that in absence her +memory is<br> + almost as potent as her presence. All other women are as +shadows<br> + compared with her. Not until we have lost or known the dread of +losing<br> + a love so vast and glorious, do we prize it at its just worth. +And if<br> + a man who has once possessed this love shuts himself out from it +by<br> + his own act and deed, and sinks to some loveless marriage; if by +some<br> + incident, hidden in the obscurity of married life, the woman +with whom<br> + he hoped to know the same felicity makes it clear that it will +never<br> + be revived for him; if, with the sweetness of divine love still +on his<br> + lips, he has dealt a deadly wound to /her/, his wife in truth, +whom he<br> + forsook for a social chimera,--then he must either die or take +refuge<br> + in a materialistic, selfish, and heartless philosophy, from +which<br> + impassioned souls shrink in horror.</p> + +<p>As for Mme. de Beauseant, she doubtless did not imagine that +her<br> + friend's despair could drive him to suicide, when he had drunk +deep of<br> + love for nine years. Possibly she may have thought that she +alone was<br> + to suffer. At any rate, she did quite rightly to refuse the +most<br> + humiliating of all positions; a wife may stoop for weighty +social<br> + reasons to a kind of compromise which a mistress is bound to +hold in<br> + abhorrence, for in the purity of her passion lies all its<br> + justification.</p> + +<p>ANGOULEME, September 1832.</p> + +<h2><br> + ADDENDUM</h2> + +<p>The following personages appear in other stories of the Human +Comedy.</p> + +<p>Beauseant, Marquis and Comte de<br> + Father Goriot<br> + An Episode under the Terror</p> + +<p>Beauseant, Marquise de<br> + Letters of Two Brides</p> + +<p>Beauseant, Vicomte de<br> + Father Goriot</p> + +<p>Beauseant, Vicomtesse de<br> + Father Goriot<br> + Albert Savarus</p> + +<p>Champignelles, De<br> + The Seamy Side of History</p> + +<p>Jacques (M. de Beauseant's butler)<br> + Father Goriot</p> + +<p>Nueil, Gaston de<br> + The Deserted Woman<br> + Albert Savarus</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Deserted Woman, by Honore +de Balzac</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> +</body> +</html> + + diff --git a/old/dswmn10h.zip b/old/dswmn10h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7d40835 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/dswmn10h.zip |