"Do you think I would receive her, if she deserved all the stones which slander casts at her?"
"I think it is impossible for you to believe any evil."
"Bah! I assure you that you do not show in this case any evidence of penetration. These love-stories which are attributed to her are so little like her! She is a child who does not even know what it is to love!"
"I am convinced of that, madame. Her commonplace coquetry is sufficient evidence of that. I am even ready to swear that the allurements of the imagination or the impulses of passion are wholly foreign to her errors, which thus remain without excuse."
"Oh! mon Dieu!" exclaimed Madame de Malouet, clasping her hands, "do hush! she is a poor, forsaken child! I know her better than you do. I assure you that beneath her appearance—much too frivolous, I admit—she possesses in fact as much heart as she does sense."
"That is precisely what I think, madam; as much one of as of the other."
"Ah! that is really intolerable," murmured Madame de Malouet, dropping her arms in a disconsolate manner.
At the same moment, I saw the curtain that half covered the door by the side of which we sat shake violently, and the Little Countess, leaving the hiding-place where she had been confined by the exigencies of I know not what game, showed herself to us for a moment in the aperture of the door, and returned to join the group of players that stood in the adjoining parlor. I looked at Madame de Malouet:
"What! she was there!"
"Of course she was. She heard us, and, what's more, she could see us. I made all the signs I could, but you were off!"
I remained somewhat embarrassed. I regretted the harshness of my words; for, in attacking so violently this young person, I had yielded to the excitement of controversy much more than to a sentiment of serious animadversion. In point of fact, she is indifferent to me, but it's a little too much to hear her praised.
"And now what am I to do?" I said to Madame de Malouet.
She reflected for a moment, and replied with a slight shrug of her shoulders:
"Ma foi! nothing; that's the best thing you can do."
The least breath causes a full cup to overflow; thus the little unpleasantness of this scene seems to have intensified this feeling of ennui which has scarce left me since my advent into this abode of joy. This continuous gayety, this restless agitation, this racing and dancing and dining, this ceaseless merry-making, and this eternal round of festivity importune me to the point of disgust. I regret bitterly the time I have wasted in reading and investigations which in no wise concern my official mission and have but little advanced its termination; I regret the engagements which the kind entreaties of my hosts have extorted from my weakness; I regret my vale of Tempe; above all, Paul, I regret you. There are certainly in this little social center a sufficient number of superior and kindly disposed minds to form the elements of the pleasantest and even the most elevated relations; but these elements are fairly submerged in the worldly and vulgar throng, and can only be eliminated from it with much trouble and difficulty, and never without admixture. Monsieur and Madame de Malouet, Monsieur de Breuilly even, when his insane jealously does not deprive him of the use of his faculties, certainly possess choice minds and hearts; but the mere difference of age opens an abyss between us. As to the young men and the men of my own age whom I meet here, they all march with more or less eager step in Madame de Palme's wake. It is enough that I should decline to follow them in that path, to cause them to manifest toward me a coolness akin to antipathy. My pride does not attempt to break that ice, though two or three among them appear well gifted, and reveal instincts superior to the life they have adopted.
There is one question I sometimes ask of myself on that subject; are we any better, you and I, youthful Paul, than this crowd of joyous companions and pleasant viveurs, or are we simply different from them? Like ourselves, they possess honesty and honor; like ourselves, they have neither virtue nor religion properly so-called. So far, we are equal. Our tastes alone and our pleasures differ; all their preoccupations turn to the lighter ways of the world, to the cares of gallantry and material activity; ours are almost exclusively given up to the exercise of thought, to the talents of the mind, to the works, good or evil, of the intellect. In the light of human truth, and according to common estimation, it is doubtful whether the difference in this particular is wholly in our favor; but in a more elevated order, in the moral order, and, so to speak, in the presence of God, does that superiority hold good? Are we merely yielding, as they do, to an inclination that leads us rather more to one side than to another, or are we obeying an imperative duty? What is in the eyes of God the merit of intellectual life? It seems to me sometimes that we possess for thought a species of pagan worship to which He attaches no value, and which perhaps even offends Him. More frequently, however, I think that He wishes us to make use of thought, were it even to be turned against Him, and that He accepts as a homage all the quiverings of that noble instrument of joy and torture which He has placed within us.
Is not sadness, in periods of doubt and anxiety, a species of religion? I trust so. We are, you and I, somewhat like those poor dreaming sphinxes who have been asking in vain for so many centuries, from the solitudes of the desert, the solution of the eternal riddle. Would it be a greater and more guilty folly than the happy carelessness of the Little Countess? We shall see. In the meantime, retain, for my sake, that ground-work of melancholy upon which you weave your own gentle mirth; for, thank God! you are not a pedant; you can live, you can laugh, and even laugh aloud; but thy soul is sad unto death, and that is only why I love unto death thy fraternal soul.
CHAPTER VI.
THE MARQUISE INTERCEDES.
1st October.
Paul, there is something going on here that does not please me. I would like to have your advice; send it as soon as possible.
On Thursday morning, after finishing my letter, I went down to give it to the messenger, who leaves quite early; then, as it only wanted a few minutes of the breakfast-hour, I walked into the drawing-room, which was still empty. I was quietly looking over a review by the fireside, when the door was suddenly flung open; I heard the crushing and rustling of a silk dress too broad to get easily through an aperture three feet wide, and I saw the Little Countess appear: she had spent the night at the chateau.
If you remember the unfortunate conversation in which I had become entangled, the previous evening, and which Madame de Palme had overheard from beginning to end, you will readily understand that this lady was the last person in the world with whom it might prove pleasant to find myself alone that morning.
I rose and I addressed to her a deep courtsey; she replied with a nod, which, though slight, was still more than I deserved from her. The first steps she took in the parlor after she had seen me were stamped with hesitation and a sort of wavering; it was like the action of a partridge lightly hit on the wing and somewhat stunned by the shot. Would she go to the piano, to the window, to the right or to the left, or opposite? It was clear that she did not know herself; but indecision is not the weak point of her disposition; she soon made up her mind, and crossing the immense drawing room with very firm step, she came in the direction of the chimney, that is, toward my immediate domain.
Standing in front of my arm-chair with my review in my hand, I was awaiting the event with an apparent gravity that concealed but imperfectly, I fear, a rather powerful inward anxiety. I had indeed every reason to apprehend an explanation and a scene. In every circumstance of this kind, the natural feelings of our heart and the refinement which education and the habits of society add to them, the absolute freedom of the attack and the narrow limits allowed to the defense, give to women an overwhelming superiority over any man who is not a boor or a lover. In the particular crisis that was threatening me, the stinging consciousness of my wrongs, the recollection of the almost insulting form under which my offense had manifested itself, united to deprive me of all thought of resistance; I found myself delivered over, bound hand and foot, to the frightful wrath of a young and imperious woman thirsting for vengeance. My attitude was, therefore, not very brilliant.
Madame de Palme stopped within two steps of me, spread her right hand on the marble of the mantel, and extended toward the blazing hearth the bronzed slipper within which her left foot was held captive. Having accomplished these preliminary dispositions, she turned toward me, and without addressing me a single word, she seemed to enjoy my countenance, which, I repeat, was not worth much. I resolved to sit down again and resume my reading; but previously, and by way of transition, I thought best to say politely:
"Wouldn't you like to have this review, madam?"
"Thank you, sir, I cannot read."
Such was the answer that was promptly shot off at me in a brief tone of voice. I made with my head and my hand a courteous gesture, by which I seemed to sympathize gently with the infirmity that was thus revealed to me, after which I sat down, feeling more easy. I had drawn my adversary's fire. Honor seemed to me satisfied.
Nevertheless, after a few moments of silence, I began again to feel the awkwardness of my situation; I strove in vain to become absorbed in my reading; I kept seeing a multitude of little bronzed slippers dancing all over the paper. An open scene would have appeared to me decidedly preferable to this unpleasant and persistent proximity, to the mute hostility betrayed to my furtive glance by Madame de Palme's restless foot, the jingle of her rings on the marble mantel, and the quivering mobility of her nostrils. I therefore unconsciously uttered a sigh of relief when the door, opening suddenly, introduced upon the stage a new personage, whom I felt justified in considering as an ally.
It was a lady—a school-friend of Lady A——, whose name is Madame Durmaitre. She is a widow, and extremely handsome; she is noted for a lesser degree of folly amid the wild and worldly ladies of the chateau. For this reason, and somewhat also on account of her superior charms, she has long since conquered the ill-will of Madame de Palme, who, in allusion to her rival's somber style of dress, to the languid character of her beauty, and to the somewhat elegiac turn of her conversation, is pleased to designate her, among the young people, as the Malabar Widow. Madame Durmaitre is positively lacking in wit; but she is intelligent, tolerably well read, and much inclined to reverie. She prides herself upon a certain talent for conversation. Seeing that I am myself destitute of any other social accomplishment, she has got it into her head that I must possess that particular one, and she has undertaken to make sure of it. The result has been, between us, a rather assiduous and almost cordial intercourse; for, if I have been unable to fully respond to all her hopes, I listen, at least with religious attention, to the little melancholy pathos which is habitual with her. I appear to understand her, and she seems grateful for it. The truth is that I never tire hearing her voice, which is musical, gazing at her features, which are exquisitely regular, and admiring her large black eyes, over which a fringe of heavy eyelashes casts a mystic shadow. However, do not feel uneasy; I have decided that the time for being loved, and consequently for loving, is over for me; now, love is a malady which no one need fear, if he sincerely strive to repress its first symptoms.
Madame de Palme had turned around at the sound of the opening door; when she recognized Madame Durmaitre, a fierce light gleamed in her blue eyes; chance had sent her a victim. She allowed the beautiful widow to advance a few paces toward us, with the slow and mournful step which is characteristic of her manner, and bursting out laughing:
"Bravo!" she exclaimed, with emphasis, "the march to the scaffold! the victim dragged to the altar! Iphigenia; or, rather, Hermione:
"'Pleurante apres son char vous voulez qu'on me voie!'
"Who is it that has written this verse? I am so ignorant! Ah! it's your friend, M. de Lamartine, I believe. He was thinking of you, my dear!"
"Ah! you quote poetry now, dear madam," said Madame Durmaitre, who is not very skilled at retort.
"Why not, dear madam? Have you a monopoly of it?—'Pleurante apres son char?' I have heard Rachel say that. By the way, it is not by Lamartine, it's by Boileau. I must tell you, dear Nathalie, that I intend to ask you to give me lessons in serious and virtuous conversation. It's so amusing! And to begin at once, come! tell me whom you prefer, Lamartine or Boileau?"
"But, Bathilde, there is no connection," replied Madame Durmaitre, rather sensibly and much too candidly.
"Ah!" rejoined Madame de Palme. And suddenly pointing me out with her finger: "You perhaps prefer this gentleman, who also writes poetry?"
"No, madam," I said, "it is a mistake; I write none."
"Ah! I thought you did. I beg your pardon."
Madame Durmaitre, who doubtless owes the unalterable serenity of her soul to the consciousness of her supreme beauty, had been content with smiling with disdainful nonchalance. She dropped into the arm-chair, which I had given up to her.
"What gloomy weather!" she said to me; "really, this autumnal sky weighs upon the soul. I was looking out of the window; all the trees look like cypress-trees, and the whole country looks like a graveyard. It would really seem that—"
"No, ah! no. I beg of you, Nathalie," interrupted Madame de Palme, "say no more. That's enough fun before breakfast. You'll make yourself sick."
"Well, now! my dear Bathilde, you must really have slept very badly last night," said the beautiful widow.
"I, my dear? ah! do not say that. I had celestial, ecstatic dreams; ecstasies, you know. My soul held converse with other souls—like your own soul. Angels smiled at me through the foliage of the cypress-trees—and so forth, and so forth!"
Madame Durmaitre blushed slightly, shrugged her shoulders, and took up the review I had laid upon the mantel-piece.
"By the bye, Nathalie," resumed Madame de Palme, "do you know who we are going to have at dinner to-day, in the way of men?" The good-natured Nathalie mentioned Monsieur de Breuilly, two or three other married gentlemen, and the parish priest.
"Then I am going away after breakfast," said the Little Countess, looking at me.
"That's very polite to us," murmured Madame Durmaitre.
"You know," replied the other with imperturbable assurance, "that I only like men's society, and there are three classes of individuals whom I do not consider as belonging to that sex, or to any other; those are married men, priests, and savants."
As she concluded this sentence, Madame de Palme cast another glance at me, by which however, I had no need to understand that she included me in her classification of neutral species; it could only be among the individuals of the third category, though I have no claim to it whatever; but it does not require much to be considered a savant by the ladies.
Almost at this very moment, the breakfast-bell rang in the court-yard of the chateau, and she added:
"Ah! there's breakfast, thank Heaven! for I am develish hungry, with all respect for pure spirits and troubled souls."
She then ran and skipped to the other end of the parlor to greet Monsieur de Malouet, who was coming in followed by his guests. As to myself, I promptly offered my arm to Madame Durmaitre, and I endeavored by earnest attentions, to make her forget the storm which the mere shade of sympathy she manifests toward me had just attracted upon her.
As you may have remarked, the Little Countess had exhibited in the course of this scene, as always, an unmeasured and unseemly freedom of language; but she displayed greater resources of mind than I supposed her capable of doing, and though they had been directed against me, I could not help feeling thankful to her—to such an extent do I hate fools, whom I have ever found in this world more pernicious than wicked people. The result was, that with the feeling of repulsion and contempt with which the extravagantly worldly woman inspired me, there was henceforth mingled a shade of gentle pity for the badly brought-up child and the misdirected woman.
Women are prompt in catching delicate shades of feeling, and the latter did not escape Madame de Palme. She became vaguely conscious of a slightly favorable change in my opinion of her, and it was not long before she even began to exaggerate its extent and to attempt abusing it. For two days she pursued me with her keenest shafts, which I bore good-naturedly, and to which I even responded with some little attentions, for I had still at heart the rude expressions of my dialogue with Madame de Malouet, and I did not think I had sufficiently expiated them by the feeble martyrdom I had undergone the following day in common with the beautiful Malabar Widow.
This was enough to cause Madame Bathilde de Palme to imagine that she could treat me as a conquered province, and add Ulysses to his companions. Day before yesterday she had tested several times during the day the extent of her growing power over my heart and my will, by asking two or three little services of me; services to the honor of which every one here eagerly aspires, and which for my part, I discharged politely but with evident coolness.
In spite of the extreme reserve with which I had lent myself to these trials during the day, Madame de Palme believed in her complete success; she hastily judged that she now had but to rivet my chains and bind me to her triumph, a feeble addition of glory assuredly, but which had, after all, the merit, in her eyes, of having been contested. During the evening, as I was leaving the whist-table, she advanced toward me deliberately, and requested me to do her the honor of figuring with her in the character dance called the cotillon.[B] I excused myself laughingly on my complete inexperience; she insisted, declaring that I had evident dispositions for dancing, and reminding me of the agility I had displayed in the forest. Finally, and to close the debate, she led me away familiarly by the arm, adding that she was not in the habit of being refused.
[B] The German.
"Nor I, madam," I said, "in that of making a show of myself."
"What! not even to gratify me?"
"Not even for that, madam, and were it the only means of succeeding in doing so."
I bowed to her smilingly after these words, which I had emphasized in such a positive manner that she insisted no more. She dropped my arm abruptly and returned to join a group of dancers who were observing us at a distance with manifest interest. She was received by them with whispers and smiles, to which she replied with a few rapid sentences, among which I only caught the word revanche. I paid no further attention to the matter for the time being, and my soul went to converse amid the clouds with the soul of Madame Durmaitre.
The next day a grand hunt was to take place in the forest. I had arranged to take no share in it, wishing to make the best of a whole day of solitude to push forward my hopeless undertaking. Toward noon, the hunters met in the court-yard of the chateau, which rang again for some fifteen minutes with the loud blast of the trumpets, the stamping of horses, and the yelping of the pack. Then the tumultuous crowd disappeared down the avenue, the noise gradually died away, and I remained master of myself and of my mind, in the midst of a silence the more grateful that it is the more rare on this meridian.
I had been enjoying my solitude for a few minutes, and I was turning over the folio pages of the Neustra pia, while smiling at my own happiness, when I fancied I heard the gallop of a horse in the avenue, and soon after on the pavement of the court. Some hunter behind time, I thought, and, taking up my pen, I began extracting from the enormous volume the passage relating to the General Chapters of the Benedictines; but a new and more serious interruption came to afflict me; some one was knocking at the library-door. I shook my head with ill-humor, and I said "Come in!" in the same tone in which I might have said "Go away!" Some one did come in. I had seen, a few moments before, Madame de Palme taking her flight, feathers and all, at the head of the cavalcade, and I was not a little surprised to find her again within two steps of me as soon as the door was open. Her head was bare, and her hair was tucked up behind in an odd manner; she held her whip in one hand, and with the other lifted up the long train of her riding-habit. The excitement of the rapid ride she had just had seemed further to intensify the expression of audacity which is habitual to her look and to her features. And yet her voice was less assured than usual when she exclaimed as she came in:
"Ah! I beg your pardon! I thought Madame de Malouet was here?"
I had risen at once to my full height.
"No, madam, she is not here."
"Ah! excuse me. Do you know where she is?"
"I do not, madam; but I can go and ascertain, if you wish."
"Thanks, thanks! I'll find her easily enough. The fact is, I met with a little accident."
"Indeed!"
"Oh, not much! a trailing limb tore the band off my hat, and my feathers dropped off."
"Your blue feathers, madam?"
"Yes, my blue feathers. In short, I have returned to the chateau to have my hat-band sewed on again. You are comfortable there to work?"
"Perfectly so, madam, I could not be better."
"Are you very busy just now?"
"Well, yes, madam, rather busy."
"Ah! I am sorry."
"Why so?"
"Because, I had an idea. I thought of asking you to accompany me to the forest. The gentlemen will be nearly there when I am ready to start again—and I cannot very well go on alone so far."
While lisping this somewhat confused explanation, the Little Countess had an expression at once sly and embarrassed, which greatly fortified the sentiment of distrust which the awkwardness of her entrance had excited in my mind.
"Madam," I said, "you really distress me. I shall regret all my life to have missed the delightful occasion you are kind enough to offer me; but it is indispensable that to-morrow's mail shall carry off this report, which the minister is expecting with extreme impatience."
"You are afraid to lose your situation?"
"I have none to lose, madam."
"Well, then, let the minister wait, for my sake; it will flatter me."
"That is impossible, madam."
She assumed a very dry tone:
"But, that is really strange! What! you are not more anxious to be agreeable to me?"
"Madam," I replied rather dryly in my turn, "I should be extremely anxious to be agreeable to you, but I am not at all anxious to help you win your wager."
I threw out that insinuation somewhat at random, resting it upon some recollections and some slight indications which you may have been able to collect here and there in the course of my narrative. Nevertheless, I had hit it exactly. Madame de Palme blushed up to her ear, stammered out two or three words which I failed to catch, and left the room, having lost all countenance.
This precipitate retreat left me quite confused myself. I cannot admit that we should carry out our respect for the weaker sex so far as to lend ourselves to every caprice and every enterprise it may please a woman to direct against our peace or our dignity; but our right of legitimate self-defense in such encounters is circumscribed within narrow and delicate limits, which I feared I had over-stepped. It was enough that Madame de Palme should be alone in the world, and without any other protection than her sex, to make it seem extremely painful to me to have thoughtlessly yielded to the irritation, just though it might be, which her impertinent insistence had aroused. As I was endeavoring to establish between our respective wrongs a balance that might serve to quiet my scruples, there was another knock at the library-door. This time, it was Madame de Malouet who came in. She was much moved.
"Do tell me what has taken place," she said.
I gave her full and minute particulars of my interview with Madame de Palme, and, while expressing much regret at my vivacity, I added that the lady's conduct toward me was inexplicable; that she had taken me twice within twenty-four hours for the subject of her wagers, and that it was a great deal too much attention, on her part, for a man who asked her, as a sole favor, not to trouble herself about him any more than he troubled himself about her.
"Mon Dieu!" said the kind marquise, "I have no fault to find with you. I have been able to appreciate with my own eyes, during the past few days, your conduct and her own. But all this is very disagreeable. That child has just thrown herself in my arms weeping terribly. She says you have treated her like a creature—"
I protested: "I have repeated to you, word for word, madam, what passed between us."
"It was not your words, it was your expression, your tone. Monsieur George, let me speak frankly with you: are you afraid of falling in love with Madame de Palme?"
"Not in the least, madam."
"Are you anxious that she should fall in love with you?"
"Neither, I assure you."
"Well, then, do me a favor; lay aside your pride for one day, and escort Madame de Palme to the hunt."
"Madam!"
"The advice may seem singular to you. But rest assured that I do not offer it without mature reflection. The repulsion which you manifest for Madame de Palme is precisely what attracts toward you that imperious and spoilt child. She becomes irritated and obstinate in presence of a resistance to which she has not been accustomed. Be meek enough to yield to her fancy. Do that for me."
"Seriously madam, you think?—"
"I think," interrupted the old lady laughingly, "with due respect to you, that you will lose your principal merit in her eyes as soon as she sees you submit to her yoke like all the rest."
"Really, madam, you present things to me under an entirely novel aspect. It never occurred to me to attribute Madame de Palme's mischievous pranks to a sentiment of which I might have reason to be proud."
"And you have been quite right," she resumed sharply; "there is, thank heaven! nothing of the kind as yet; but it might have come and you are too fair a man to desire it, with the views which I know you to entertain."
"I trust myself wholly to your direction, madam; I am going too fetch my hat and gloves. The question is now, how Madame de Palme will receive my somewhat tardy civility."
"She will receive it very well, if you offer it with good grace."
"As to that, madam, I shall offer it with all the good grace I can command."
On this assurance, Madame de Malouet held out her hand, which I kissed with profound respect but rather slim gratitude.
When I entered the parlor, booted and spurred, Madame de Palme was alone there; deeply seated in an arm-chair, buried under her skirts, she was putting the finishing touches to her hat. She raised and dropped rapidly again her eyes, which were fiery red.
"Madam," I said, "I am sincerely so sorry to have offended you, that I venture to ask your pardon for an unpardonable piece of rudeness. I have come to hold myself at your disposition; if you decline my escort, you will not only be inflicting upon me an amply deserved mortification, but you will leave me still more unhappy than I have been guilty, and that is saying a great deal." Madame de Palme, taking into consideration the emotion of my voice rather more than my diplomatic pathos, lifted her eyes upon me again, opened her lips slightly, said nothing, and finally advanced a somewhat tremulous hand, which I hastened to receive within my own. She availed herself at once of this point d'appui to get on her feet, and bounded lightly to the floor. A few minutes later, we were both on horseback and leaving the court-yard of the chateau.
We reached the extremity of the avenue without having exchanged a single word. I felt deeply, as you may believe, how much this silence, on my part at least, was awkward, stiff, and ridiculous; but, as it often happens in circumstances which demand most imperatively the resources of eloquence, I was stricken with an invincible sterility of mind. I tried in vain to find some plausible subject of conversation, and the more annoyed I felt at finding none, the less capable I became of doing so.
"Suppose we have a run?" said Madame de Palme suddenly.
"Let us have a run!" I said; and we started at a gallop, to my infinite relief.
Nevertheless, it became absolutely necessary to check our speed at the entrance of the tortuous path that leads down into the valley of the ruins. The care required to guide our horses during that difficult descent served for a few minutes longer as a pretext for my silence; but, on reaching the level ground of the valley, I saw that I must speak at any cost, and I was about to begin with some commonplace remark, when Madame de Palme was kind enough to anticipate me:
"They say, sir, that you are very witty?"
"You may judge for yourself, madam," I replied laughingly.
"Rather difficult so far, even if I were able, which you are very far from conceding. Oh! you need not deny it! Its perfectly useless, after the conversation which chance made me overhear the other night."
"I have made so many mistakes concerning you, madam, you must realize the pitiful confusion I feel toward you."
"And in what respect have you been mistaken?"
"In all respects, I believe."
"You are not quite sure? Admit at least that I am a good-natured woman."
"Oh! with all my heart, madam!"
"You said that well. I believe you think it. You are not bad either, I believe, and yet you have been cruelly so to me."
"That is true."
"What sort of man are you, then, pray?" resumed the Little Countess in her brief and abrupt tone; "I cannot understand it very well. By what right, on what ground, do you despise me? Suppose I am really guilty of all the intrigues which are attributed to me; what is that to you? Are you a saint yourself? a reformer? Have you never gone astray? Are you any more virtuous than other men of your age and condition? What right have you to despise me? Explain!"
"Were I guilty of the sentiments which you attribute to me, madam, I should answer, that never has any one, either in your sex or mine, taken his own morality as the rule of his opinion and his judgment upon others; we live as we can, and we judge as we should; it is more particularly a very frequent inconsistency among men, to frown down unmercifully the very weaknesses which they encourage and of which they derive the benefit. For my part, I hold severely aloof from a degree of austerity as ridiculous in a man as uncharitable in a Christian. And as to that unfortunate conversation which a deplorable chance caused you to hear, and in which my expressions, as it always happens, went far beyond the measure of my thought, it is an offense which I can never obliterate, I know; but I shall at least explain frankly. Every one has his own tastes and his own way of understanding life in this world; we differ so much, you and I, and you conceived for me, at first sight, an extreme antipathy. This disposition, which, on one side at least, madam, was to be singularly modified on better acquaintance, prompted me to some thoughtless manifestations of ill-humor and vivacity of controversy. You have doubtless suffered, madam, from the violence of my language, but much less, I beg you to believe, than I was to suffer from it myself, after I had recognized its profound and irreparable injustice."
This apology, more sincere than lucid, drew forth no answer. We were at this moment just coming out of the old abbey church, and we found ourselves unexpectedly mingled in the last ranks of the cavalcade. Our appearance caused a suppressed murmur to run through the dense crowd of hunters. Madame de Palme was at once surrounded by a merry throng that seemed to address congratulations to her on the winning of her wager. She received them with an indifferent and pouting look, whipped up her horse, and made her way to the front before entering the forest.
In the meantime, Monsieur de Malouet had received me with still more cordial affability than usual, and without making any direct allusion to the accident which had brought me against my will to this cynegetic feast, he omitted no attention that could make me forget its trifling annoyance. Soon after the hounds started a deer, and I followed them with keen relish, being by no means indifferent to that manly pastime, though it is not sufficient for my happiness in this world.
The pack was thrown off the scent two or three times, and the deer had the best of the day. At about four o'clock we started on our way back to the chateau. When we crossed the valley on our return, the twilight was already marking out more clearly upon the sky the outline of the trees and the crest of the hills; a melancholy shade was falling upon the woods, and a whitish fog chilled the grass on the meadows, while a thicker mist indicated the sinuous course of the little river. As I remained absorbed in the contemplation of the scene which reminded me of better days, I discovered suddenly Madame de Palme at my side.
"I believe, after due reflection," she said with her usual brusqueness, "that you scorn my ignorance and my lack of wit much more than my supposed want of morality. You think less of virtue than you do of intelligence. Is that it?"
"Certainly not," I said, laughingly; "that isn't it; that isn't it at all. In the first place, the word scorn must be suppressed, having nothing to do here; then, I don't much believe in your ignorance, and not at all in your lack of wit. Finally, I see nothing above virtue, when I see it at all, which is not often. Furthermore, madam, I feel confused at the importance you attach to my opinion. The secret of my likes and dislikes is quite simple; I have, as I was telling you, the most religious respect for virtue, but all mine is limited to a deep-seated sentiment of a few essential duties which I practice as best I can; I could not therefore ask any more of others. As to the intellect, I confess that I value it greatly, and life seems too serious a matter to me to be treated on the footing of a perpetual ball, from the cradle to the grave. Moreover, the productions of the mind, works of art in particular, are the object of my most passionate preoccupations, and it is natural that I should like being able to speak of what interests me. That's all."
"Is it absolutely necessary to be forever talking of the ecstasies of the soul, of cemeteries, and the Venus of Milo, in order to obtain in your opinion the rank of a serious woman and a woman of taste? But, after all, you are right; I never think; if I did for one single minute, it seems to me that I should go mad, that my head would split. And what were you thinking about yourself, in that old convent cell?"
"I thought a great deal about you," I replied gayly, "on the evening of that day when you hunted me down so unmercifully, and I abused you most heartily."
"I can understand that." She began laughing, looking all around her, and added: "What a lovely valley! what a delightful evening! And now, are you still disposed to abuse me?"
"Now, I wish from the bottom of my soul I were able to do something for your happiness."
"And I for yours," she said, quietly.
I bowed for all answer, and a brief pause followed:
"If I were a man," suddenly said Madame de Palme, "I believe I would like to be a hermit."
"Oh! what a pity!"
"That idea does not surprise you?"
"No, madam."
"Nothing from me would surprise you, I suppose. You believe me capable of anything—of anything, perhaps even of being fond of you?"
"Why not? Greater wonders have been seen! Am I not fond of you myself at the present moment? That's a fine example to follow!"
"You must give me time to think about it?"
"Not long!"
"As long as it may be necessary. We are friends in the meantime?"
"If we are friends, there is nothing further to expect," I said, holding out my hand frankly to the Little Countess. I felt that she was pressing it lightly, and the conversation ended there. We had reached the top of the hills; it was now quite dark, and we galloped all the rest of the way to the chateau.
As I was coming down from my room for dinner, I met Madame de Malouet in the vestibule.
"Well!" she said, laughingly, "did you conform to the prescription?"
"Rigidly, madam."
"You showed yourself subjugated?
"I did, madam."
"Excellent! She is satisfied now, and so are you."
"Amen!" I said.
The evening passed off without further incident.
I took pleasure in doing for Madame de Palme some trifling services which she was no longer asking. She left the dance two or three times to come and address me some good-natured jests that passed through her brain, and when I withdrew, she followed me to the door with a smiling and cordial look.
I ask you now, friend Paul, to sift the precise meaning and the moral of this tale. You may perhaps judge, and I hope you will, that a chimerical imagination can alone magnify into an event this vulgar episode of society life; but if you see in the facts I have just told you the least germ of danger, the slightest element of a serious complication, tell me so; I'll break the engagements that were to detain me here some ten or twelve days longer, and I'll leave at once.
I do not love Madame de Palme; I cannot and will not love her. My opinion of her has evidently changed greatly; I look upon her henceforth as a good little woman. Her head is light and will always be so; her behavior is better than she gets credit for, though perhaps not as good as she represents it herself; finally, her heart has both weight and value. I feel some friendship for her, an affection that has something fraternal in it; but between her and me, nothing further is at all likely; the expanse of the heavens divides us. The idea of being her husband makes me burst out laughing, and though a sentiment which you will readily appreciate, the thought of being her lover inspires me with horror. As to her, I believe she may feel the shadow of a caprice, but not even the dawn of a passion. Here I am now upon her etagere with the rest of the figure-heads, and I think, as does Madame de Malouet, that may be enough to satisfy her. However, what do you think of it yourself?
CHAPTER VII.
A MISDIRECTED PASSION.
7th October.
Dear Paul, I take part in your grief from the bottom of my heart. Allow me, however, to assure you, from the very details of your own letter that your dear mother's illness offers no alarming symptoms whatever. It is one of those painful but harmless crises which the approach of winter brings back upon her almost invariably every year, as you know. Patience therefore, and courage, I beseech you.
It requires, my friend, the formal expression of your wishes to induce me to venture upon mingling my petty troubles with your grave solicitude. As you anticipated in your wisdom and in your kind friendship, it was consolation and not advice that I stood in need of when I received your letter. My heart is not at peace, and, what is worse for me, neither is my conscience; and yet, I think I have done my duty. Have I understood it right or not? Judge for yourself.
I take up my situation toward Madame de Palme where I had left it in my last letter. The day after our mutual explanation, I took every care to maintain our relations upon the footing of good-fellowship on which they seemed established, and which constituted, in my idea, the only sort of intelligence desirable and even possible between us. It seemed to me, on that day, that she manifested the same vivacity and the same spirit as usual; yet I fancied that her voice and her look, when she addressed me, assumed a meek gravity which is not part of her usual disposition; but on the following days, though I had not deviated from the line of conduct I had marked out for myself, it became impossible for me not to notice that Madame de Palme had lost something of her gayety, and that a vague preoccupation clouded the serenity of her brow. I could see her dancing-partners surprised at her frequent absence of mind; she still followed the whirl, but she no longer led it. Under pretext of fatigue, she would leave suddenly and abruptly her partner's arm, in the midst of a waltz, to go and sit in some corner with a pensive and even a pouting look. If there happened to be a vacant seat next to mine, she threw herself into it, and began from behind her fan some whimsical and disjointed conversation like the following:
"If I cannot be a hermit, I am going to become a nun. What would you say, if you saw me enter a convent to-morrow?"
"I should say that you would leave it the day after to-morrow."
"You have no confidence in my resolutions?"
"When they are unwise, no."
"I can only form unwise ones, according to you?"
"According to me, you waltz admirably. When a person waltzes as you do, it's an art, almost a virtue."
"Is it customary to flatter one's friends?"
"I am not flattering you. I never speak a single word to you that I have not carefully weighed, and that is not the most earnest expression of my thought. I am a serious man, madam."
"It does not seem so when you are with me. I verily believe, however, you have undertaken to make me hate laughter as much as I used to like it."
"I do not understand you."
"How do you think I look to-night?"
"Dazzling!"
"That's too much! I know that I am not handsome."
"I don't say you are handsome, but you are extremely graceful."
"That's better; and it must be true, for I feel it. The Malabar Widow is really handsome."
"Yes, I should like to see her at the funeral pile."
"To jump into it with her?"
"Exactly."
"Do you expect to leave soon?"
"Next week, I believe."
"Will you come and see me in Paris?"
"If you will allow me."
"No, I don't allow you."
"And why not? great heavens!"
"In the first place, I don't think I am going back to Paris myself."
"That's a good reason. And where do you expect to go, madam?"
"I don't know. Let us make a pedestrian tour somewhere, you and I together; will you?"
"I should like nothing better. When shall we start?"
Et cetera. I shall not tire you, my friend, with the particulars of some dozen similar conversations, every occasion of which for four days Madame de Palme evidently sought. There was on her part a constantly growing effort to leave aside all commonplace topics, and impart to our interviews a character of greater intimacy; there was on mine an equal amount of obstinacy in confining them within the strictest limits of social jargon, and remaining resolutely on the ground of worldly futility.
I now come to the scene that was to bring this painful struggle to a close, and unfortunately prove all its vanity to me.
Monsieur and Madame de Malouet were giving last night a grand farewell ball to their daughter, whose husband has been recalled to his post of duty, and the whole neighborhood within a circuit of ten leagues had been summoned to the feast. Toward ten o'clock an immense crowd was overflowing the vast ground floor of the chateau, in which the elegant dresses, the lights, and the flowers were mingled in dazzling confusion. As I was trying to make my way into the main drawing-room, I found myself face to face with Madame de Malouet, who drew me slightly aside.
"Well! my dear sir," she said, "I do not like the looks of things."
"Mon Dieu! what is there new?"
"I don't know exactly, but be on your guard. Ah! mon Dieu! I have remarkable confidence in you, sir; you will not take advantage of her, will you?"
Her voice was tender and her eyes moist.
"You may rely upon me, madam; but I sincerely wish I had gone a week ago."
"Eh! mon Dieu! who could have foreseen such a thing? Hush! there she comes!"
I turned round and saw Madame de Palme coming out of the parlor; before her the throng opened with that timorous eagerness and that species of terror which the supreme elegance of one of society's queens generally inspires in our sex. For the first time, Madame de Palme appeared handsome to me; the expression of her countenance was wholly novel to me, and a weird animation gleamed in her eyes and transfigured her features.
"Am I to your taste?" she said.
I manifested by I know not what movement an assent, which was moreover but too evident to the keen eye of a woman.
"I was looking for you," she added, "to show you the conservatory; it's fairy-like. Come!"
She took my arm, and we started in the direction of the conservatory door which opened at the other end of the parlor, extending as far as the park, through the vines and the perfumes of hundreds of exotic plants, all the splendors of the feast. While we were admiring the effect of the girandoles that sparkled amid the luxuriant tropical flora like the bright constellations of another hemisphere, several gentlemen came to claim Madame de Palme's hand for a waltz; she refused them all, though I was sufficiently disinterested to join my entreaties to theirs.
"Our respective roles seem to me somewhat inverted," she said: "it is I who am detaining you, and you wish to get rid of me!"
"Heaven preserve me from such an idea! but I am afraid lest you may deprive yourself, out of kindness to me, of a pleasure you are so fond of."
"No! I know very well that I seek you and you avoid me. It is rather absurd in the eyes of the world, but I care nothing for that. For this one evening at least, I mean to amuse myself as I like. I forbid you to disturb my happiness. I am really very happy. I have everything I require—beautiful flowers, excellent music around me, and a friend at my side. Only—and that's a dark spot on my blue sky—I am much more certain of the music and the flowers than I am of the friend."
"You are entirely wrong."
"Explain your conduct, then, once for all. Why will you never talk seriously with me? Why do you obstinately refuse to tell me one single word that savors of confidence, of intimacy—of friendship, in a word?"
"Please reflect for a minute, madam; where would that lead us to?"
"What is that to you? That would lead us where it would. It is singular that you should be more anxious about it than I am."
"Come, what would you think of me if I ventured to speak of love to you?"
"I don't ask you to make love to me!" she said, sharply.
"I know it, madam; and yet it is the inevitable turn my language would take if it ceased for a moment to be frivolous and commonplace. Now, admit that there is one man in the world who could not speak of love to you without incurring your contempt, and that I am that very man. I cannot say that I am very much pleased with having placed myself in such a position; but, after all, it is so, and I cannot forget it."
"That is showing a great deal of judgment."
"That is showing a great deal of courage."
She shook her head with an air of doubt, and resumed after a moment of silence:
"Do you know that you have just spoken to me as if I were what is called a 'fast' woman?"
"Oh! madam!"
"Of course, you think that I can never attribute to a man who pays his addresses to me any but improper intentions. If it were so, I would deserve being called a 'fast' woman, and I do not. I know you don't believe it, but it is the pure truth, as there is a God—yes, as there is a God! God knows me, and I pray to Him much oftener than is thought. He has kept me from doing harm thus far, and I hope He will keep me from it forever; but it is a thing of which He has not the sole control—" She stopped for a moment, and then added in a firm tone:
"You can do much toward it."
"I, madam?"
"I have allowed you to take, I know not how—I really do not know how!—a great influence over my destiny. Will you be willing to use it? That is the question."
"And in what capacity could I do so, pray, madam?" I said slowly and in a tone of cold reserve.
"Ah!" she exclaimed, in a hoarse and energetic accent, "how can you ask me that? It is too hard! you humiliate me too much!"
She left my arm and returned abruptly into the parlor. I remained for some time uncertain as to what course to pursue. I thought first of following Madame de Palme and explaining to her that she was mistaken—which was true—as to the interrogative answer which had offended her. She had applied that answer to some thought that pervaded her mind, which I did not understand, or at least which her words had revealed to me much less clearly than she had imagined; but after thinking over it, I shrank from the new and formidable explanation which such a course must inevitably bring about.
I left the conservatory, and walked into the garden to escape the hum of the ball-room, which importuned my ears. The night was cold but beautiful. With my heart still filled with the bitterness of this scene, I wandered instinctively beyond the luminous zone projected around the chateau through the apertures of the resplendent windows. I walked rapidly toward a double row of spruce trees, crossed by a rustic bridge thrown over a small brook which divided the garden from the park, and where the shade was more dense. I had just reached this somber spot, when a hand was laid on my arm and stopped me; at the same time a short and troubled voice, which I could not mistake, said:
"I must speak to you!"
"Madam! for mercy's sake! in the name of Heaven! what are you doing? you will ruin your reputation! Do return to the house! Come, come, let me escort you back!"
I attempted to seize her arm, but she eluded my grasp.
"I want to speak to you—I have decided to do so. Oh, mon Dieu! how awkwardly I do go about it, don't I? You must believe me more than ever a miserable creature! and yet there is nothing in it, not a thing; it's the truth, the pure truth, mon ami! You are the first man for whose sake I have forgotten—all that I am now forgetting! Yes, the first! Never has any other man heard from my lips a single word of tenderness, never! And you do not believe!"
I took both her hands in mine:
"I believe you, I swear it—I swear that I esteem you—that I respect you as a beloved daughter—but listen to me; pray, listen! do not brave openly this pitiless world—return to the ball-room—I'll join you there soon, I promise you—but in the name of Heaven, do not compromise your fair fame!"
The poor child melted into tears, and I felt that she was staggering; I supported her and helped her to a seat on a bench close by. I remained standing before her, holding one of her hands. The darkness was intense around us; I gazed into space, and I listened, in a state of vague stupor, to the clear and regular murmur of the brook flowing under the spruce trees, to the convulsive sobs that swelled the unhappy woman's bosom, and to the odious sounds of revelry which the orchestra sent us at intervals from afar. It was one of those moments that can never be forgotten.
She succeeded in mastering her grief at last, and seemed, after this explosion, to recover all her firmness.
"Monsieur," she said, rising and withdrawing her hand, "have no fears about my reputation. The world is accustomed to my follies. However, I have taken care that the present one shall not be noticed. Besides, I would not care if it was. You are the only man whose esteem I have ever desired, and, unfortunately the only one also whose contempt I have incurred—that is most cruel!—and yet something must tell you that I do not deserve it."
"Madam!"
"Listen to me! and may God convince you. This is a solemn hour in my existence. Since the first glance you ever cast upon me, sir—on that day when I went up to you while you were sketching the old church—since that first glance, I belonged to you. I have never loved, I shall never love any man but you. Will you take me for your wife? I am worthy of it—I swear it to you in the presence of that Heaven which is looking down upon us!"
"Dear madam—dear child—your kindness, your affection move me to the depths of my soul; in mercy, be more calm; let me retain a gleam of reason!"
"Ah! if your heart speaks, listen to it, sir! It is not with reason that I can be judged! Alas! I feel it! you still doubt me, you still doubt my past life. Oh, Heavens! that opinion of the world which I have always scorned, how it is killing me now!"
"No, madam, you are mistaken; but what could I offer you in exchange for all you wish to sacrifice for my sake—for the habits, the tastes, the pleasures of your whole life?"
"But that life inspires me with horror! You think that I would regret it? You think that some day I may again become the woman I have been, the madcap you have known?—you think so! And how can I help your believing it? And yet I know very well that I would never cause you that sorrow, nor any other—never! I have discovered in your eyes a new world I did not know—a more dignified, more lofty world, of which I had never conceived the idea—and outside of which I can no longer live. Ah! you must certainly feel that I am telling you the truth!"
"Yes, madam, you are telling me the truth—the truth of the hour—of a moment of fever and excitement; but this new world, which appears dimly to you now—this ideal world in which you desire to seek an eternal refuge against mere transient evils—would never keep all it seems to promise. Disappointment, regret, misery await you within it—and do not await you alone. I know not if there be a man gifted with a sufficiently noble mind, with a sufficiently lofty soul to make you love the new existence of which you are dreaming to preserve in the reality the almost divine character which your imagination imparts to it; but I do know that such a task, sweet as it might be, is beyond my strength; I would be insane, I would be a wretch, if I were to accept it."
"Is that your final decision? Cannot reflection alter it in any way?"
"In no way."
"Farewell then, sir—ah! unhappy woman that I am!—farewell!"
She grasped my hand, which she wrung convulsively, and then left me.
After she had disappeared, I sat down on the bench, upon which she had been seated. There, my dear Paul, my whole strength gave way. I hid my head in my hands and I wept like a child. Thank God, she did not return!
I had at last to gather all my courage in order to appear once more and for a moment in the ball-room. There was nothing to indicate that my absence had been noticed, or unfavorably commented upon. Madame de Palme was dancing and displaying a degree of gayety amounting almost to delirium. Soon after, supper was announced, and I availed myself of the general commotion attending that incident, to retire to my room.
Early this morning, I requested a private interview with Madame de Malouet. It appeared to me that my entire confidence was due to her. She heard me with profound sadness, but without manifesting any surprise.
"I had guessed," she told me, "something of the kind—I did not sleep all night. I believe that you have done your duty as a wise man and as an honest man. Yes, you have. Still, it seems very hard. Society life is detestable in this, that it creates fictitious characters and passions, unexpected situations, subtle shades, which complicate strangely the practice of duty, and obscure the straight path which ought to be always simple and easy to discover. And now you wish to leave, I suppose?"
"Certainly, madam."
"Very well; but you had better stay two or three days longer. You will thus remove from your departure the semblance of flight which, after what may have been observed, might prove somewhat ridiculous and perhaps damaging. It is a sacrifice I ask of you. To-day, we are all to dine at Madame de Breuilly's; I'll undertake to excuse you. In this manner, this day at least will rest lightly upon you. To-morrow, we'll act for the best. Day after to-morrow, you can leave."
I accepted these terms. I shall soon see you again, then, Paul. But in the meantime, how lonely and forsaken I feel! How I long to grasp your firm and loyal hand; to hear your voice tell me: "You have done right!"
CHAPTER VIII.
"I AM A DISGRACED WOMAN."
Rozel, October 10.
Here I am back in my cell, my friend. Why did I ever leave it? Never has a man felt a more troubled heart beat between these cold walls, than my own wretched heart! Ah! I will not curse our poor human reason, our philosophy; are they not, after all, the noblest and best conquests of our nature? But, great Heaven! how little they amount to! What unreliable guides, and what feeble supports! Listen to a sad story: Yesterday, thanks to Madame de Malouet, I remained alone at the chateau the whole day and the whole evening. I was therefore as much at peace as it was possible for me to be. Toward midnight I heard the carriages returning, and soon after all noise ceased. It was, I think, about three o'clock in the morning when I was aroused from the species of torpor that has stood me in lieu of sleep for the past few nights, by the sound quite close to me, of a door cautiously opened or closed in the yard. I know not by what strange and sudden connection of ideas so simple an incident attracted my attention and disturbed my mind. I left abruptly the arm-chair in which I had been slumbering, and I went up to a window. I distinctly saw a man moving off with discreet steps in the direction of the avenue. I had no difficulty in satisfying myself that the door through which he had just passed, was that which gives access to the wing of the chateau contiguous to the library. This part of the house contains several rooms devoted to transient guests; I knew that all were vacant at this moment, unless Madame de Palme, as it often happened, had occupied for the night the lodging that was always set apart for her in that wing.
You may guess what strange thought floated across my brain. I repelled it at first as sheer madness; but remembering, within the field of my somewhat extended experience, certain facts that lent probability to that thought, I entertained it with a sort of cynical irony, and I was almost ready to admit it, as an odious but decisive denouement. The early dawn found me struggling still in this mental anguish, calling up my recollections, examining in a childish way the most minute circumstances that might tend to confirm or to banish my suspicions. Excess of fatigue, brought on at last two hours of prostration, from which I emerged with a better command of my reason. It was impossible for me to doubt the reality of the apparition that had struck my eyes during the night; but it appeared to me that I had put upon it a hasty and senseless construction, and that my ailing spirit had attributed to it the least likely explanation.
I went down at half past ten o'clock as usual. Madame de Palme was in the parlor; she must therefore have spent the night at the chateau. Nevertheless, a mere glance at her was enough to remove from my mind the very shadow of suspicion. She was talking quietly in the center of a group. She greeted me with her usual gentle smile. I felt relieved of an immense weight. I was escaping a torment of such a painful and bitter nature, that the positive impression of my previous grief, freed from the disgraceful complications with which I had for a moment thought it aggravated, appeared almost pleasant. Never had my heart rendered to this woman a more tender and more sincere homage. I was grateful to her from the bottom of my soul, for having restored purity to my wound and to my memory.
The afternoon was to be devoted to a horseback ride along the sea-shore. In the effusion of heart that succeeded the anxieties of the night, I yielded quite readily to the entreaties of Monsieur de Malouet, who, arguing on my approaching departure, was urging me to accompany him on this excursion. It was about two o'clock when our cavalcade, recruited as usual by a few young men of the neighborhood, marched out of the chateau's gate. We had been traveling merrily for a few minutes, and I was not the least merry of the band, when Madame de Palme suddenly came to take her place by my side.
"I am about to be guilty of a base deed," she said; "and yet, I had so strongly resolved—but I am choking!"
I looked at her; the haggard expression of her eyes and of her features suddenly struck me with terror.
"Well!" she went on, in a voice of which I shall never forget the tone, "you have willed it so! I am a disgraced woman!"
She urged at once her horse forward, leaving me crushed by this blow, the more terrible that I had wholly ceased to fear it, and that it struck me with a keen cruelty I had not even foreseen. There had indeed been in the unhappy woman's voice no trace whatever of insolent swaggering; it was the very voice of despair, a cry of heart-rending grief and timid reproach; everything that might add in my soul to the torture of a stained and shattered love, the disorder of a profound pity and an uneasy conscience.
When I had found strength enough to look around me I was surprised at my own blindness. Among Madame de Palme's most assiduous courtiers, figures one Monsieur de Mauterne, whose antipathy for me, though confined within the limits of good-breeding, often seemed to me to assume an almost hostile tinge. Monsieur de Mauterne is a man of my age, tall, blonde, with a figure more robust than elegant, and features regularly handsome, but stiff and without expression. He possesses social accomplishments, much audacity, and no wit. His bearing and his conduct during the course of that fatal ride would have informed me from the start, if I had only thought of observing them, that he believed he had the right of fearing henceforth no rivalry near Madame de Palme. He assumed frankly the leading part in all the scenes in which she participated; he overwhelmed her with attentions, affected to speak to her in a whisper, and neglected nothing, in a word, to initiate the public into the secret of his success. In that respect, he lost his trouble; the world, after exhausting its wickedness upon imaginary errors, seems thus far to refuse the evidence which vainly stares it in the face.
As to myself, my friend, it would be difficult to depict the chaos of emotions and thoughts that tossed and tumbled in my brain. The feeling that swayed me perhaps with the greatest violence, was that of hatred against that man—a feeling of implacable hatred, of eternal hatred. I was, however, more shocked and more distressed than surprised at the choice that had been made of him; he had happened in the way, and he had been taken up with a sort of indifference and of scorn, as one picks up any weapon to commit suicide with, when once the suicide has been resolved upon. As to my feelings toward her, you may guess them; not a shadow of anger, frightful sadness, tender compassion, vague remorse, and above all, passionate, furious regret. I realized at last how much I had loved her! I could scarcely understand the motives which, two days before, had appeared to me so powerful, so imperative, and which had seemed to raise between her and me an insurmountable barrier. All these obstacles of the past disappeared before the abyss of the present which seemed the only real one, the only one that was impossible to overcome, the only one that ever existed. Strange fact! I could see clearly, as clearly as I saw the sun, that the impossible, the irreparable was there, and I could not accept it, I could not submit to it. I could see that woman lost to me as irrevocably as if the grave had closed over her coffin, and I could not give her up! My mind wandered through insane projects and resolutions; I thought of picking a quarrel with Monsieur de Mauterne, and compelling him to fight on the spot. I felt that I would have crushed him! Then I thought of fleeing with her, of marrying her, of taking her with her shame, after having refused her pure! Yes, this madness tempted me! To remove it from my thoughts, I had to repeat a hundred times to myself that mutual disgust and dispair were the only fruits that could ever be expected of that union of a dishonored hand with a bloody hand. Ah; Paul, how much I did suffer!
Madame de Palme manifested during the entire course of our ride a feverish excitement which betrayed itself more particularly in reckless feats of horsemanship. I heard at intervals her loud bursts of merriment, that sounded to my ears like heart-rending wails. Once again she spoke to me as she was going by.
"I inspire you with horror, don't I?" she said.
I shook my head and dropped my eyes without replying.
We returned to the chateau at about four o'clock. I was making my way to my room when a confused tumult of voices, shrieks, and hurried steps in the vestibule chilled my heart. I went down again in all haste, and I was informed that Madame de Palme had just been taken with a nervous fit. She had been carried into the parlor. I recognized through the door the grave and gentle voice of Madame de Malouet, to which was mingled I know not what moan, like that of a sick child. I ran away. I was resolved to leave this fatal spot without further delay. Nothing could have induced me to remain a moment longer. Your letter, which had been handed to me on our return, served me as a likely pretext for my sudden departure. The friendship that binds us is well-known here. I said you needed me within twenty-four hours. I had taken care, at all hazards, to send three days before to the nearest town for a carriage and horses. In a few minutes my preparations were made; I gave orders to the driver to start ahead and wait for me at the extremity of the avenue while I was taking my leave. Monsieur de Malouet seemed to have no suspicion of the truth; the worthy old gentleman appeared quite moved as he received my thanks, and really manifested for me a singular affection out of all proportion to the brief duration of our acquaintance. I had to be scarcely less thankful to M. de Breuilly. I regret now the caricature I once gave you as the portrait of that noble heart.
Madame de Malouet insisted upon accompanying me down the avenue a few steps farther than her husband. I felt her arm trembling under mine while she was intrusting me with a few trifling errands for Paris. At the moment of parting, and as I was pressing her hand with effusion, she detained me gently:
"Well! sir," she said in a feeble voice, "God did not bless our wisdom."
"Our hearts are open to Him, madam; He must have read our sincerity; He sees how much I am suffering, and I humbly hope He may forgive me!"
"Do not doubt it—do not doubt it," she replied in a broken voice; "but she? she!—ah! poor child!"
"Have pity on her, madam. Do not forsake her. Farewell!"
I left her hastily, and I started, but instead of going direct to the town, I had myself driven along the abbey road as far as the top of the hills; I requested the coachman to go alone to the town, and to return for me to-morrow morning early at the same place. I cannot explain to you, my dear friend, the singular and irresistible fancy that I took to spend one last night in that solitude where I spent such quick and happy days, and so recently, mon Dieu!
Here I am, then, back in my cell. How cold, dark, and gloomy it seems! The sky also has gone into mourning. Since my arrival in this neighborhood, and in spite of the season, I had seen none but summer days and nights. To-night a cold autumnal storm has burst over the valley; the wind howls among the ruins, blowing off fragments that fall heavily upon the ground. A driving rain is pattering against my window-panes. It seems to me as if it were raining tears!
Tears! my heart is overflowing with them—and not a single one will rise to my eyes. And yet, I have prayed, I have long prayed to God—not, my friend to that untangible God whom we pursue in vain beyond the stars and the worlds, but the only true God, truly kind and helpful to suffering humanity, the God of my childhood, the God of that poor woman!