CHAPTER III. A DIVIDED HOUSEHOLD
The servants in the castle of Bergenheim formed a family whose members were far from living in harmony. The Baron managed his household himself, and employed a large number of day-laborers, farm servants, and kitchen-girls, whom the liveried servants treated with great disdain. The rustics, on their side, resisted these privileged lackeys and called them “coxcombs” and “Parisians,” sometimes accompanying these remarks with the most expressive blows. Between these tribes of sworn enemies a third class, much less numerous, found them selves in a critical position; these were the two servants brought by Mademoiselle de Corandeuil. It was fortunate for them that their mistress liked large, vigorous men, and had chosen them for their broad, military shoulders; but for that it would have been impossible for them to come out of their daily quarrels safe and sound.
The question of superiority between the two households had been the first apple of discord; a number of personal quarrels followed to inflame them. They fought for their colors the whole time; the Bergenheim livery was red, the Corandeuil green. There were two flags; each exalted his own while throwing that of his adversaries in the mud. Greenhorn and crab were jokes; cucumber and lobster were insults.
Such were the gracious terms exchanged every day between the two parties. In the midst of this civil war, which was carefully concealed from their masters’ eyes, whose severity they feared, lived one rather singular personage. Leonard Rousselet, Pere Rousselet, as he was generally called, was an old peasant who, disheartened with life, had made various efforts to get out of his sphere, but had never succeeded in doing so. Having been successively hairdresser, sexton, school-teacher, nurse, and gardener, he had ended, when sixty years old, by falling back to the very point whence he started. He had no particular employment in M. de Bergenheim’s house; he went on errands, cared for the gardens, and doctored the mules and horses; he was a tall man, about as much at ease in his clothing as a dry almond in its shell. A long, dark, yellow coat usually hung about the calves of his legs, which were covered with long, blue woollen stockings, and looked more like vine-poles than human legs; a conformation which furnished daily jokes for the other servants, to which the old man deigned no response save a disdainful smile, grumbling through his teeth, “Menials, peasants without education.” This latter speech expressed the late gardener’s scorn, for it had been his greatest grief to pass for an uneducated man; and he had gathered from his various conditions a singularly dignified and pretentious way of speaking.
In spite of his self-confidence, it was not without some emotion that Leonard Rousselet responded to this call to appear in the drawing-room before the person he most feared in the chateau. His bearing showed this feeling when he presented himself at the drawing-room door, where he stood as grave and silent as Banquo’s ghost. Constance arose at sight of this fantastic figure, barked furiously and darted toward a pair of legs for which she seemed to share the irreverence of the liveried servants; but the texture of the blue stocking and the flesh which covered the tibia were rather too hard morsels for the dowager’s teeth; she was obliged to give up the attack and content herself with impotent barks, while the old man, who would gladly have given a month’s wages to break her jaw with the tip of his, boot, caressed her with his hand, saying, “Softly, pretty dear! softly, pretty little creature!” in a hypocritical tone.
This courtier-like conduct touched the old lady’s heart and softened the severe look upon her face.
“Stop your noise, Constance,” said she, “lie down beside your mistress. Rousselet, come nearer.”
The old man obeyed, walking across the floor with reverential bows, and taking a position like a soldier presenting arms.
“You were the one,” said Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, “who was sent to Remiremont yesterday? Did you perform all the commissions that were given you?”
“It is not among the impossibilities, Mademoiselle, that I may have neglected some of them,” replied the old man, fearing to compromise himself by a positive affirmative.
“Tell us, then, what you did.”
Leonard wiped his nose behind his hat, like a well-bred orator, and, balancing himself upon his legs in a way not at all Bourbonic, he said:
“I went to the city that morning myself because Monsieur le Baron had said the night before that he should hunt to-day, and that the groom was to help Monsieur le Baron drive a wild boar out of the Corne woods. I reached Remiremont; I went to the butcher’s; I purchased five kilogrammes of dressed goods—”
“Of dressed goods at the butcher’s!” exclaimed Madame de Bergenheim.
“I would say ten pounds of what uneducated people call pork,” said Rousselet, pronouncing this last word in a strangled voice.
“Pass over these details,” said Mademoiselle de Corandeuil. “You went to the post-office.”
“I went to the post-office, where I put in letters for Mademoiselle, Madame, Monsieur le Baron, and one from Mademoiselle Aline for Monsieur d’Artigues.”
“Aline writing to her cousin! Did you know that?” said the old aunt, turning quickly toward her niece.
“Certainly; they correspond regularly,” replied Clemence with a smile which seemed to say that she saw no harm in it.
The old maid shook her head and protruded her under lip, as much as to say: We will attend to this another time.
Madame de Bergenheim, who was out of patience at this questioning, began to speak in a quick tone which was a contrast to her aunt’s solemn slowness.
“Rousselet,” said she, “when you took the newspapers out of the office, did you notice whether the wrappers were intact, or whether they had been opened?”
The good man half concealed his face in his cravat at this precise questioning, and it was with embarrassment that he replied, after a moment’s hesitation:
“Certainly, Madame—as to the wrappers—I do not accuse the postmaster—”
“If the journals were sealed when you received them, you are the only one who could have opened them.”
Rousselet straightened himself up to his full height, and, giving to his nut-cracker face the most dignified look possible, he said in a solemn tone:
“With due deference to you, Madame, Leonard Rousselet is well known. Fifty-seven years old on Saint-Hubert’s day, I am incapable of opening newspapers. When they have been read at the chateau and they send me with them to the cure, I do not say—perhaps on my way—it is a recreation—and then the cure is Jean Bartou, son of Joseph Bartou, the tilemaker. But to read the newspaper before my masters have done so! Never! Leonard Rousselet is an old man incapable of such baseness. Baptized when a child; fifty-seven years on Saint-Hubert’s day.”
“When you speak of your pastor, do so in a more becoming manner,” interrupted Mademoiselle de Colrandeuil, although she herself in private did not speak of the plebeian priest in very respectful terms. But if Joseph Bartou’s son was always the son of Joseph Bartou to her, she meant that he should be Monsieur le Cure to the peasants.
Madame de Bergenheim had not been much affected by Pere Rousselet’s harangue, and shook her head impatiently, saying in an imperative tone:
“I am certain that the newspapers have been opened by you, or by some person to whom you have given them, and I wish to know at once by whom.”
Rousselet dropped his pose of a Roman senator; passing his hand behind his ears, a familiar gesture with people when in embarrassing positions, he continued less emphatically:
“I stopped on my way back at La Fauconnerie, at the ‘Femme-sans-Tete Inn’.”
“And what were you doing in a tavern?” interrupted Mademoiselle de Corandeuil severely. “You know it is not intended that the servants in this house should frequent taverns and such low places, which are not respectable and corrupt the morals of the lower classes.”
“Servants! lower classes! Old aristocrat!” growled Rousselet secretly; but, not daring to show his ill humor, he replied in a bland voice:
“If Mademoiselle had gone the same road that I did, with the same conveyance, she would know that it is a rather thirsty stretch. I stopped at the ‘Femme-sans-Tete’ to wash the dust down my parched throat. Whereupon Mademoiselle Reine—the daughter of Madame Gobillot, the landlady of the inn—Mademoiselle Reine asked me to allow her to look at the yellow-journal in which there are fashions for ladies; I asked her why; she said it was so that she might see how they made their bonnets, gowns, and other finery in Paris. The frivolity of women!”
Mademoiselle de Corandeuil threw herself back in her chair and gave way to an access of hilarity in which she rarely indulged.
“Mademoiselle Gobillot reading La Mode! Mademoiselle Gobillot talking of gowns, shawls, and cashmeres! Clemence, what do you say to that? You will see, she will be ordering her bonnets from Herbault! Ha! ha! This is what is called the progress of civilization, the age of light!”
“Mademoiselle Gobillot,” said Clemence, fixing a penetrating glance upon the old man, “was not the only one who looked at La Mode. Was there no other person in the tavern who saw it?”
“Madame,” replied Rousselet, forced from his last refuge, “there were two young men taking their refection, and one of them wore a beard no longer than a goat’s. Madame will pardon me if I allow myself to use this vulgar expression, but Madame wished to know all.”
“And the other young man?”
“The other had his facial epidermis shaved as close as a lady’s or mine. He was the one who held the journal while his comrade was smoking outside the door.”
Madame de Bergenheim made no further inquiries, but fell into a profound revery. With eyes fixed upon the last number of La Mode, she seemed to study the slightest lines of the sketch that had been made thereon, as if she hoped to find a solution to the mystery. Her irregular breathing, and the bright flush which tinged her usually pale cheeks, would have denoted to an eye-witness one of those tempests of the heart, the physical manifestations of which are like those of a fever. The pale winter flower dying under the snow had suddenly raised its drooping head and recovered its color; the melancholy against which the young woman had so vainly struggled had disappeared as if by enchantment. A little bird surmounted by a coronet, the whole rather badly sketched, was the strange talisman that had produced this change.
“They were commercial travellers,” said the old aunt; “they always pretend to know everything. One of them, doubtless, when reading the well-known name of Monsieur de Bergenheim upon the wrapper, sketched the animal in question. These gentlemen of industry usually have a rather good education! But this is giving the affair more importance than it merits. Leonard Rousselet,” said she, raising her voice as a judge does in court when pronouncing his charge, “you were wrong to let anything addressed to your master leave your hands. We will excuse you this time, but I warn you to be more careful in future; when you go to Madame Gobillot’s, you may say to Mademoiselle Reine, from me, that if she wishes to read La Mode I shall be delighted to procure a subscriber to one of our journals. You may retire now.”
Without waiting for this invitation to be repeated, Rousselet backed out of the room like an ambassador leaving the royal presence, escorted by Constance acting as master of ceremonies. Not having calculated the distance, he had just bumped against the door, when it suddenly opened and a person of extreme vivacity bounded into the middle of the room.
It was a very young and petite lady, whose perfectly developed form predicted an inclination to stoutness in the future. She belonged to the Bergenheim family, if one could credit the resemblance between her characteristic features and several of the old portraits in the room; she wore a dark-brown riding-habit, a gray hat perched on one side, showing on the left a mass of very curly, bright blond hair. This coiffure and the long green veil, floating at each movement like the plume in a helmet, gave a singularly easy air to the fresh face of this pretty amazon, who brandished, in guise of a lance, a billiard cue.
“Clemence,” she exclaimed, “I have just beaten Christian; I made the red ball, I made the white, and then the double stroke; I made all! Mademoiselle, I have just beaten Christian two games; is it not glorious? He made only eighteen points in a single game. Pere Rousselet, I have just beaten Christian! Do you know how to play billiards?”
“Mademoiselle Aline, I am absolutely ignorant of the game,” replied the old man, with as gracious a smile as was possible, while he tried to recover his equilibrium.
“You are needed no longer, Rousselet,” said Mademoiselle de Corandeuil; “close the door as you go out.”
When she had been obeyed, the old maid turned gravely toward Aline, who was still dancing about the room, having seized her sister-in-law’s hands in order to force her to share her childish joy.
“Mademoiselle,” said she in a severe tone, “is it the custom at the ‘Sacred Heart’ to enter a room without greeting the persons who are in it, and to jump about like a crazy person? a thing that is never permitted even in a peasant’s house.”
Aline stopped short in the midst of her dance and blushed a trifle; she caressed the pug dog, instead of replying, for she knew as well as Rousselet that it was the surest way of softening the old maid’s heart. The cajolery was lost this time.
“Do not touch Constance, I beg of you,” exclaimed the aunt, as if a dagger had been raised against the object of her love, “do not soil this poor beast with your hands. What dreadful thing have you on your fingers? Have you just come out of an indigo bag?”
The young girl blushed still deeper and gazed at her pretty hands, which were really a little daubed, and began to wipe them with an embroidered handkerchief which she took from her pocket.
“It was the billiards,” she said, in a low voice, “it is the blue chalk they rub the cue with in order to make good shots and caroms.”
“Make good shots! Caroms! Will you be so good as to spare us your slang speeches,” continued Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, who seemed to become more crabbed as the young girl’s confusion increased. “What a fine education for a young lady! and one who has just come from the ‘Sacred Heart’! One that has taken five prizes not fifteen days ago! I really do not know what to think of those ladies, your teachers! And now I suppose you are going to ride. Billiards and horses, horses and billiards! It is fine! It is admirable!”
“But, Mademoiselle,” said Aline, raising her large blue eyes, which were on the verge of tears, “it is vacation now, and there is no wrong in my playing a game of billiards with my brother; we have no billiards at the ‘Sacred Heart,’ and it is such fun! It is like riding; the doctor said that it would be very healthful for me, and Christian hoped that it might make me grow a little.”
As she said these words, the young girl glanced into the mirror in order to see whether her brother’s hopes had been realized; for her small stature was her sole anxiety. But this glance was as quick as a flash, for she feared that the severe old maid would make this act of coquetry serve as the text for another sermon.
“You are not my niece, and I am thankful for it,” continued the old lady. “I am too old to begin another education; thank goodness, one is quite enough! I have no authority over you, and your conduct is your brother’s concern. The advice which I give you is entirely disinterested; your amusements are not such as seem to me proper for a young girl of good birth. It may be possible that it is the fashion today, so I will say no more about it; but there is one thing more serious, upon which I should advise you to reflect. In my youth, a young lady never was allowed to write letters except to her father and mother. Your letters to your cousin d’Artigues are inconsiderate—do not interrupt me—they are inconsiderate, and I should advise you to mend your ways.”
Mademoiselle de Corandeuil arose, and, as she had found an opportunity to read three sermons in one forenoon, she could not say, like Titus, “I have wasted my morning.” She left the room with a majestic step, escorted by her dog and satisfied with herself, bestowing an ironical curtsey on the young girl, which the latter did not think it necessary to return.
“How hateful your aunt is!” exclaimed Mademoiselle de Bergenheim to her sister-in-law, when they were alone. “Christian says that I must pay no attention to her, because all women become like her if they never marry. As for myself, I know very well that if I am an old maid I shall try not to hurt others’ feelings—I, inconsiderate! When she can think of nothing more to say, she scolds me about my cousin. It is hardly worth while, for what we write about! Alphonse wrote of nothing, in his last letter, but of the partridge he had shot and his hunting costume; he is such a boy! But why do you not say something? You sit there speechless; are you angry with me, too?”
She approached Clemence and was about to seat herself in her lap, when the latter arose to avoid this loving familiarity.
“So you really have beaten Christian,” said she, in a listless tone; “are you going for a ride now? Your habit is very becoming.”
“Truly? oh! I am so glad!” replied the young girl, planting herself before the glass to look at her pretty figure. She pulled down her waist, adjusted the folds of the skirt of her dress and arranged her veil, placed her hat on her head with a little more jaunty air, turned three quarters around to get a better view of her costume; in one word, she went through the coquettish movements that all pretty women learn upon entering society. On the whole, she seemed very well pleased with her examination, for she smiled and showed a row of small teeth which were as white as milk.
“I am sorry now,” said she, “that I did not send for a black hat; my hair is so light that gray makes me look ugly. Do you not think so? Why do you not reply, Clemence? One can not get a word out of you to-day; is it because you have your neuralgia?”
“I have a trifle of it,” said Madame de Bergenheim, in order to give some pretext for her preoccupation.
“Now, then, you ought to come with us for a ride; the fresh air will do you good. Look how fine the weather is now; we will have a good gallop. Will you? I will help you put on your habit, and in five minutes you will be ready. Listen, I hear them in the yard now. I am going to tell Christian to have your horse saddled; come.”
Aline took her sister-in-law by the hand, led her into the next room and opened the window to see what was going on outside, where the cracking of whips and several voices were to be heard. A servant was walking up and down the yard leading a large horse which he had just brought from the stable; the Baron was holding a smaller one, which bore a lady’s saddle, while he carefully examined all the buckles. As he heard the window open above his head, he turned and bowed to Clemence with much chivalrous gallantry.
“You still refuse to go with us?” he asked.
“Is Aline going to ride Titania,” replied Madame de Bergenheim, making an effort to speak; “I am sure the mare will end by playing her some trick.”
The young girl, who had a fancy for Titania because the skittish creature had the attraction of forbidden fruit, nudged her sister with her elbow, and made a little grimace.
“Aline is afraid of nothing,” said the Baron; “we will enlist her with the hussars as soon as she leaves the ‘Sacred Heart.’ Come, Aline.”
The young girl kissed the Baroness, gathered up her skirt, and in a few moments was in the yard patting the neck of her dear brown mare.
“Up with you!” said Christian, taking his sister’s foot in one hand while he raised her with the other, placing her in the saddle as easily as he would a six-year-old child. Then he mounted his large horse, saluted his wife, and the couple, starting at a trot, soon disappeared down the avenue, which began at the gate of the courtyard.
As soon as they were out of sight, Clemence went to her room, took a shawl from her bed, and went rapidly down a secret stairway which led into the gardens.
CHAPTER IV. THE GALLANT IN THE GARDEN
Madame de Bergenheim’s apartments occupied the first floor of the wing on the left side of the house. On the ground floor were the library, a bathroom, and several guest-chambers. The large windows had a modern look, but they were made to harmonize with the rest of the house by means of grayish paint. At the foot of this facade was a lawn surrounded by a wall and orange-trees planted in tubs, forming a sort of English garden, a sanctuary reserved for the mistress of the castle, and which brought her, as a morning tribute, the perfume of its flowers and the coolness of its shade.
Through the tops of the fir-trees and the tuliptrees, which rose above the group of smaller shrubs, the eye could follow the winding river until it finally disappeared at the extremity of the valley. It was this picturesque view and a more extensive horizon which had induced the Baroness to choose this part of the Gothic manor for her own private apartments.
After crossing the lawn, the young woman opened a gate concealed by shrubs and entered the avenue by the banks of the river. This avenue described a curve around the garden, and led to the principal entrance of the chateau. Night was approaching, the countryside, which had been momentarily disturbed by the storm, had resumed its customary serenity. The leaves of the trees, as often happens after a rain, looked as fresh as a newly varnished picture. The setting sun cast long shadows through the trees, and their interlaced branches looked like a forest of boa-constrictors.
Clemence advanced slowly under this leafy dome, which became darker and more mysterious every moment, with head bent and enveloped in a large cashmere shawl which fell in irregular folds to the ground. Madame de Bergenheim had one of those faces which other women would call not at all remarkable, but which intelligent men ardently admire. At the first glance she seemed hardly pretty; at the second, she attracted involuntary admiration; afterward, it was difficult to keep her out of one’s thoughts. Her features, which taken separately might seem irregular, were singularly harmonious, and, like a thin veil which tempers a too dazzling light, softened the whole expression. Her light chestnut hair was arranged about the temples in ingenious waves; while her still darker eyebrows gave, at times, an imposing gravity to her face. The same contrast was to be found in the mouth; the short distance which separated it from the nose would indicate, according to Lavater, unusual energy; but the prominent underlip impregnated her smile with enchanting voluptuousness. Her rather clearcut features, the exceeding brilliancy of her brown eyes, which seemed like diamonds set in jet, would, perhaps, have given to the whole rather too strong a character had not these eyes when veiled given to their dazzling rays a glamour of indescribable softness.
The effect produced by this face might be compared to that of a prism, every facet of which reflects a different color. The ardor burning under this changeable surface, which, through some sudden cause, betrayed its presence, was so deeply hidden, however, that it seemed impossible to fathom it completely. Was she a coquette, or simply a fashionable lady, or a devotee? In one word, was she imbued with the most egotistical pride or the most exalted love? One might suppose anything, but know nothing; one remained undecided and thoughtful, but fascinated, the mind plunged into ecstatic contemplation such as the portrait of Monna Lisa inspires. An observer might have perceived that she had one of those hearts, so finely strung, from which a clever hand might make incomparable harmonies of passion gush; but perhaps he would be mistaken. So many women have their souls only in their eyes!
Madame de Bergenheim’s revery rendered the mysterious and impenetrable veil which usually enveloped her countenance more unfathomable yet. What sentiment made her bend her head and walk slowly as she meditated? Was it the ennui of which she had just complained to her aunt? Was it pure melancholy? The monotonous ripple of the stream, the singing of the birds in the woods, the long golden reflections under the trees, all seemed to unite in filling the soul with sadness; but neither the murmuring water, the singing birds, nor the sun’s splendor was paid any attention to by Madame de Bergenheim; she gave them neither a glance nor a sigh. Her meditation was not revery, but thought; not thoughts of the past, but of the present. There was something precise and positive in the rapid, intelligent glance which flashed from her eyes when she raised them; it was as if she had a lucid foresight of an approaching drama.
A moment after she had passed over the wooden bridge which led from the avenue, a man wearing a blouse crossed it and followed her. Hearing the sound of hurried steps behind her, she turned and saw, not two steps from her, the stranger who, during the storm, had vainly tried to attract her attention. There was a moment’s silence. The young man stood motionless, trying to catch his breath, which had been hurried, either by emotion or rapid walking. Madame de Bergenheim, with head thrown back and widely opened eyes, looked at him with a more agitated than surprised look.
“It is you,” exclaimed he, impulsively, “you whom I had lost and now find again!”
“What madness, Monsieur!” she replied, in a low voice, putting out her hand as if to stop him.
“I beg of you, do not look at me so! Let me gaze at you and assure myself that it is really you—I have dreamed of this moment for so long! Have I not paid dear enough for it? Two months passed away from you—from heaven! Two months of sadness, grief, and unhappiness! But you are pale! Do you suffer, too?”
“Much, at this moment.”
“Clemence!”
“Call me Madame, Monsieur de Gerfaut,” she interrupted, severely.
“Why should I disobey you? Are you not my lady, my queen?”
He bent his knee as a sign of bondage, and tried to seize her hand, which she immediately withdrew. Madame de Bergenheim seemed to pay very little attention to the words addressed her; her uneasy glances wandered in every direction, into the depths of the bushes and the slightest undulations of the ground. Gerfaut understood this pantomime. He glanced, in his turn, over the place, and soon discovered at some distance a more propitious place for such a conversation as theirs. It was a semicircular recess in one of the thickets in the park. A rustic seat under a large oak seemed to have been placed there expressly for those who came to seek solitude and speak of love. From there, one could see the approach of danger, and, in case of alarm, the wood offered a secure retreat. The young man had had enough experience in gallant strategies to seize the advantage of this position, and wended his steps in that direction while continuing to converse. It may be that instinct which, in a critical situation, makes us follow mechanically an unknown impulse; it may be that the same idea of prudence had also struck her, for Madame de Bergenheim walked beside him.
“If you could understand what I suffered,” said he, “when I found that you had left Paris! I could not discover at first where you had gone; some spoke of Corandeuil, others of Italy. I thought, from this hasty departure and the care you took to conceal your abiding-place, that you were fleeing from me. Oh! tell me that I was mistaken; or, if it is true that you wished to separate yourself from me, say that this cruel resolve had left your mind, and that you will pardon me for following you! You will pardon me, will you not? If I trouble or annoy you, lay the blame entirely upon my love, which I can not restrain, and which drives me at times to do the most extravagant things; call it reckless, insane love, if you will; but believe it to be true and devoted!”
Clemence replied to this passionate tirade by simply shaking her head as a child does who hears the buzzing of a wasp and fears its sting; then, as they reached the bench, she said with affected surprise:
“You have made a mistake, this is not your road; you should have gone over the bridge.”
There was a little palpable insincerity in these words; for if the road which they had taken did not lead to the bridge, neither did it lead to the chateau, and the mistake, if there was one, was mutual.
“Listen to me, I beg of you,” replied the lover, with ‘a supplicating glance, “I have so many things to say to you! I beg of you, grant me one moment.”
“Afterward, will you obey me?”
“Only a few words, and I will then do all that you wish.”
She hesitated a moment; then, her conscience doubtless lulled by this promise, she seated herself and made a gesture for M. de Gerfaut to do likewise. The young man did not make her repeat this invitation, but hypocritically seated himself on the farther end of the seat.
“Now, talk reasonably,” she said, in a calm tone. “I suppose that you are on your way to Germany or Switzerland, and as you passed near me you wished to favor me with a call. I ought to be proud of this mark of respect from a man so celebrated as you are, although you are rather hiding your light under this garb. We are not very strict as to dress in the country, but, really, yours is quite unceremonious. Tell me, where did you find that headdress?”
These last words were spoken with the careless, mocking gayety of a young girl.
Gerfaut smiled, but he took off his cap. Knowing the importance that women attach to little things, and what an irreparable impression an ugly cravat or unblacked boots might produce in the most affecting moments, he did not wish to compromise himself by a ridiculous head-gear. He passed his hand through his hair, pushing it back from his large, broad forehead, and said softly:
“You know very well that I am not going to Germany or Switzerland, and that Bergenheim is the end of my journey, as it has been its aim.”
“Then will you be so good as to tell me what your intention was in taking such a step, and whether you have realized how strange, inconsiderate, and in every way extravagant your conduct is?”
“I have realized it; I know it. You were here, I came because there is a loadstone within you, that is my heart’s sole attraction, and I must follow my heart. I came because I wanted to see your beautiful eyes again, to be intoxicated by your sweet voice, because to live away from you is impossible for me; because your presence is as necessary to my happiness as air to my life; because I love you. That is why I came. Is it possible that you do not understand me, that you will not pardon me?”
“I do not wish to believe that you are speaking seriously,” said Clemence, with increased severity. “What sort of an idea can you have of me, if you think I will allow such conduct? And then, even if I were foolish enough for that-which I never shall be—to what would it lead? You know perfectly well that it is impossible for you to come to the castle, as you are not acquainted with Monsieur de Bergenheim, and I certainly shall not introduce you to him. My aunt is here, and she would persecute me the whole day long with questions! Mon Dieu! how you disturb me! how unhappy you make me!”
“Your aunt never goes out, so she will not see me, unless I am officially received at the chateau, and then there could be no danger.”
“But the servants she brought with her, and mine, who have seen you in her house! I tell you, the whole thing is as perilous as it is crazy, and you will make me die of fright and chagrin.”
“If one of those servants should chance to meet me, how could he ever recognize me in this costume? Do not fear, I shall be prudent! I would live in a log cabin, if necessary, for the joy of seeing you occasionally.”
Madame de Bergenheim smiled disdainfully.
“That would be quite pastoral,” she replied; “but I believe that such disguises are seldom seen now except upon the stage. If this is a scene out of a play, which you wish to rehearse in order to judge its effect, I warn you that it is entirely lost upon me, and that I consider the play itself very ill-timed, improper, and ridiculous. Besides, for a man of talent and a romantic poet you have not exhibited any very great imagination. It is a classical imitation, nothing better. There is something like it in mythology, I believe. Did not Apollo disguise himself as a shepherd?”
Nothing more is to be feared by a lover than a witty woman who does not love or loves but half; he is obliged to wear velvet gloves in all such sentimental controversies; he owes it to himself out of propriety first, out of prudence afterward. For it is not a question of taking part in a conversation for the simple pleasure of brilliant repartee; and while he applies himself carefully to play his part well, he feels that he has been dexterously cut to pieces with a well-sharpened knife.
Gerfaut indulged in these unpleasant reflections while gazing at Madame de Bergenheim. Seated up on the bench as proudly as a queen upon her throne, with shining eyes, scornful lips, and arms tightly folded under her cashmere shawl, with that haughty gesture familiar to her, the young woman looked as invulnerable under this light wrap as if she had been covered with Ajax’s shield, formed, if we can credit Homer, of seven bulls’ hides and a sheet of brass.
After gazing at this scornful face for a moment, Gerfaut glanced at his coarse blouse, his leggings, and muddy boots. His usual dainty ways made the details of this costume yet more shocking to him, and he exaggerated this little disaster. He felt degraded and almost ridiculous. The thought took away for a moment his presence of mind; he began mechanically to twirl his hat in his hands, exactly as if he had been Pere Rousselet himself. But instead of being hurtful to him, this awkwardness served him better than the eloquence of Rousseau or the coolness of Richelieu. Was it not a genuine triumph for Clemence to reduce a man of his recognized talent, who was usually anything but timid, to this state of embarrassment? What witty response, what passionate speech could equal the flattery of this poet with bent head and this expression of deep sadness upon his face?
Madame de Bergenheim continued her raillery, but in a softer tone.
“This time, instead of staying in a cabin, the god of poetry has descended to a tavern. Have you not established your general headquarters at La Fauconnerie?”
“How did you know that?”
“By the singular visiting-card that you drew in La Mode. Do I not know your coat-of-arms? An expressive one, as my aunt would say.”
At these words, which probably referred to some letters, doubtless read without very much anger, since they were thus recalled, Gerfaut took courage.
“Yes,” said he, “I am staying at La Fauconnerie; but I can not stay there any longer, for I think your servants make the tavern their pleasure-ground. I must come to some decision. I have two propositions to submit to you: the first is, that you will allow me to see you occasionally; there are numerous promenades about here; you go out alone, so it would be very easy.”
“Let us hear the second,” said Clemence, with a shrug of the shoulders.
“If you will not grant my first, I beg of you to persuade your aunt that she is ill and to take her with you to Plombieres or Baden. The season is not very far advanced; there, at least, I should be able to see you.”
“Let us end this folly,” said the Baroness; “I have listened patiently to you; now, in your turn, listen to me. You will be sensible, will you not? You will leave me and go. You will go to Switzerland, and return to the Montanvert, where you met me for the first time, which I shall always remember, if you, yourself, do not make it painful for me to do so. You will obey me, Octave, will you not? Give me this proof of your esteem and friendship. You know very well that it is impossible for me to grant what you ask; believe me, it is painful to me to be forced to refuse you. So, say farewell to me; you shall see me again next winter in Paris. Adieu!”
She arose and extended her hand; he took it, but, thinking to profit by the emotion betrayed by Madame de Bergenheim’s voice, he exclaimed in a sort of transport:
“No! I will not wait until next winter to see you. I was about to submit to your will; if you repulse me I will consult only myself; if you repulse me, Clemence, I warn you that tomorrow I shall be in your house, seated at your table and admitted to your drawing-room.”
“You?” “I!”
“To-morrow?”
“To-morrow.”
“And how will you do it, pray?” said she, defiantly.
“That is my secret, Madame,” he replied, coldly.
Although her curiosity was greatly aroused, Clemence felt that it would be beneath her to ask any more questions. She replied with an affectation of mocking indifference:
“Since I am to have the pleasure of seeing you tomorrow, I hope you will permit me to leave you today. You know that I am not well, and it is showing me very little attention to allow me to stand here in this wet grass.”
She raised her skirt a trifle and extended her foot, showing her slipper, which was really covered with pearly drops of rain. Octave threw himself quickly upon his knees, and, taking a silk handkerchief from his pocket, began to wipe away all traces of the storm. His action was so rapid that Madame de Bergenheim stood for a moment motionless and speechless, but when she felt her foot imprisoned in the hand of the man who had just declared war against her, her surprise gave place to a mingled feeling of impatience and anger. She drew her foot back with a sudden movement, but unfortunately the foot went one way and the slipper another. A fencing-master, who sees his foil carried ten steps away from him by a back stroke, could not feel more astonishment than that felt by Madame de Bergenheim. Her first movement was to place her foot, so singularly undressed, upon the ground; an instinctive horror of the damp, muddy walk made her draw it quickly back. She stood thus with one foot lifted; the movement which she had started to make threw her off her balance and as she was about to fall she extended her hand to find some support. This support proved to be Octave’s head, for he still remained upon his knees. With the usual presumption of lovers, he believed that he had the right to give her the assistance which she seemed to ask for, and passed his arm about the slender waist which was bent toward him.
Clemence drew herself up at once, and with frowning brow regained her coolness, standing upright upon one foot, like Cupid in the painting by Gerard; like him, also, she seemed about to fly away, there was so much airy lightness in her improvised attitude.
Many puerile incidents and ridiculous events occur in life, which it would render impossible for the most imperturbable of mandarins to struggle against in order to preserve his gravity. When Louis XIV, this king so expert in courtly ways, dressed his hair alone behind his curtains before presenting himself to the eyes of his courtiers, he feared that this disarray of costume might compromise even his royal majesty. So, upon such authority, if one looks upon a complete head of hair as indispensable to the dignity of manhood, the same reasoning should exist for the covering of one’s feet. In less than a second, Madame de Bergenheim comprehended that in such circumstances prudish airs would fail of their effect. Meanwhile, the agreeable side of her position operated within her; she felt unable to keep up the show of anger that she had wished to assume. The involuntary smile upon her lips smoothed her forehead as a ray of sun dissipates a cloud. Thus, disposed to clemency by reflection or fascination, it was in a very sweet and coaxing voice that she said: “Octave, give me my slipper.” Gerfaut gazed at the lovely face bent toward him with an expression of childish entreaty, then he glanced with an irresolute air at the trophy which he held in his hand. This slipper, which was as small as Cinderella’s, was not green, but gray, the lining was of rose-colored silk, and the whole was so pretty, coquettish, and dainty that it seemed impossible its owner could be vexed with him if he examined it closely. “I will give it back to you,” said he, at last, “on condition that you will allow me to put it on for you.”
“As to that, certainly not,” said she, in a sharp tone; “I should much prefer to leave it with you and return home as I am.”
Gerfaut shook his head and smiled incredulously.
“Think of your delicate lungs and of this terrible mud?”
Clemence drew her foot suddenly back under her skirt, concealing it entirely from the sight of the young man, who gazed at it more than she thought proper. Then she exclaimed, with the obstinacy of a spoiled child:
“Very well! I will return hopping on one foot; I could hop very well when I was young, I should be able to do so now.”
To give more weight to this observation, she took two little jumps with a grace and sprightliness worthy of Mademoiselle Taglioni.
Octave arose.
“I have had the pleasure of seeing you waltz,” said he; “but I admit that I shall be pleased to witness a new dance, and one executed for me alone.”
As he said these words, he pretended to conceal the innocent object of this dispute in his blouse. The pretty dancer saw by this that a compromise would be necessary. Recourse to concessions is often as fatal to women as to kings; but what can one do when every other exit is closed? Obliged by absolute necessity to accept the conditions imposed upon her, Clemence wished at least to cover this defeat with sufficient dignity, and escape from an awkward position with the honors of war.
“Get down upon your knees, then,” she said, haughtily, “and put on my slipper, since you exact it, and let this end this ridiculous scene. I think you should be too proud to regard a maid’s privilege as a favor.”
“As a favor which a king would envy,” replied Gerfaut, in a voice as tender as hers had been disdainful. He put one knee on the ground, placed the little slipper upon the other and seemed to await his enemy’s pleasure. But the latter found a new subject for complaint in the pedestal offered her, for she said with increased severity:
“On the ground, Monsieur; and let that end it.”
He obeyed, without a reply, after giving her a reproachful glance by which she was as much moved as by his silent obedience. She put out her foot with a more gracious air, and thrust it into the slipper. To be a correct historian, we must admit that this time she left it in the hands which softly pressed it longer than was strictly necessary. When Octave had fastened it with skill but with no haste, he bent his head and pressed his lips to the openwork stocking, through which he could catch a glimpse of white, satiny skin.
“My husband!” exclaimed Madame de Bergenheim, as she heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs at the end of the avenue; and without adding a word she fled rapidly toward the chateau. Gerfaut arose from his position no less rapidly and darted into the woods. A rustling of branches which he heard a few steps from him made him uneasy at first, for he feared that an invisible witness had been present at this imprudent interview; but he was soon reassured by the silence which reigned about him.
After the Baron and his sister had passed, he crossed the avenue and soon disappeared over the winding road on the other side of the bridge.