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diff --git a/1437-0.txt b/1437-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..027855e --- /dev/null +++ b/1437-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2325 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1437 *** + +JUANA + + +BY HONORE DE BALZAC + + + +Translated By Katharine Prescott Wormeley + + + + DEDICATION + + To Madame la Comtesse Merlin. + + + + +JUANA + +(THE MARANAS) + + + + +CHAPTER I. EXPOSITION + +Notwithstanding the discipline which Marechal Suchet had introduced into +his army corps, he was unable to prevent a short period of trouble and +disorder at the taking of Tarragona. According to certain fair-minded +military men, this intoxication of victory bore a striking resemblance +to pillage, though the marechal promptly suppressed it. Order being +re-established, each regiment quartered in its respective lines, and +the commandant of the city appointed, military administration began. The +place assumed a mongrel aspect. Though all things were organized on a +French system, the Spaniards were left free to follow “in petto” their +national tastes. + +This period of pillage (it is difficult to determine how long it lasted) +had, like all other sublunary effects, a cause, not so difficult +to discover. In the marechal’s army was a regiment, composed almost +entirely of Italians and commanded by a certain Colonel Eugene, a man +of remarkable bravery, a second Murat, who, having entered the military +service too late, obtained neither a Grand Duchy of Berg nor a Kingdom +of Naples, nor balls at the Pizzo. But if he won no crown he had ample +opportunity to obtain wounds, and it was not surprising that he met with +several. His regiment was composed of the scattered fragments of the +Italian legion. This legion was to Italy what the colonial battalions +are to France. Its permanent cantonments, established on the island of +Elba, served as an honorable place of exile for the troublesome sons of +good families and for those great men who have just missed greatness, +whom society brands with a hot iron and designates by the term “mauvais +sujets”; men who are for the most part misunderstood; whose existence +may become either noble through the smile of a woman lifting them out +of their rut, or shocking at the close of an orgy under the influence of +some damnable reflection dropped by a drunken comrade. + +Napoleon had incorporated these vigorous beings in the sixth of the +line, hoping to metamorphose them finally into generals,--barring those +whom the bullets might take off. But the emperor’s calculation was +scarcely fulfilled, except in the matter of the bullets. This regiment, +often decimated but always the same in character, acquired a great +reputation for valor in the field and for wickedness in private life. +At the siege of Tarragona it lost its celebrated hero, Bianchi, the man +who, during the campaign, had wagered that he would eat the heart of a +Spanish sentinel, and did eat it. Though Bianchi was the prince of the +devils incarnate to whom the regiment owed its dual reputation, he had, +nevertheless, that sort of chivalrous honor which excuses, in the army, +the worst excesses. In a word, he would have been, at an earlier period, +an admirable pirate. A few days before his death he distinguished +himself by a daring action which the marechal wished to reward. Bianchi +refused rank, pension, and additional decoration, asking, for sole +recompense, the favor of being the first to mount the breach at the +assault on Tarragona. The marechal granted the request and then forgot +his promise; but Bianchi forced him to remember Bianchi. The enraged +hero was the first to plant our flag on the wall, where he was shot by a +monk. + +This historical digression was necessary, in order to explain how it was +that the 6th of the line was the regiment to enter Tarragona, and why +the disorder and confusion, natural enough in a city taken by storm, +degenerated for a time into a slight pillage. + +This regiment possessed two officers, not at all remarkable among these +men of iron, who played, nevertheless, in the history we shall now +relate, a somewhat important part. + +The first, a captain in the quartermaster’s department, an officer half +civil, half military, was considered, in soldier phrase, to be fighting +his own battle. He pretended bravery, boasted loudly of belonging to +the 6th of the line, twirled his moustache with the air of a man who was +ready to demolish everything; but his brother officers did not esteem +him. The fortune he possessed made him cautious. He was nicknamed, for +two reasons, “captain of crows.” In the first place, he could smell +powder a league off, and took wing at the sound of a musket; secondly, +the nickname was based on an innocent military pun, which his position +in the regiment warranted. Captain Montefiore, of the illustrious +Montefiore family of Milan (though the laws of the Kingdom of Italy +forbade him to bear his title in the French service) was one of the +handsomest men in the army. This beauty may have been among the secret +causes of his prudence on fighting days. A wound which might have +injured his nose, cleft his forehead, or scarred his cheek, would have +destroyed one of the most beautiful Italian faces which a woman ever +dreamed of in all its delicate proportions. This face, not unlike the +type which Girodet has given to the dying young Turk, in the “Revolt at +Cairo,” was instinct with that melancholy by which all women are more or +less duped. + +The Marquis de Montefiore possessed an entailed property, but his income +was mortgaged for a number of years to pay off the costs of certain +Italian escapades which are inconceivable in Paris. He had ruined +himself in supporting a theatre at Milan in order to force upon a public +a very inferior prima donna, whom he was said to love madly. A fine +future was therefore before him, and he did not care to risk it for the +paltry distinction of a bit of red ribbon. He was not a brave man, but +he was certainly a philosopher; and he had precedents, if we may use so +parliamentary an expression. Did not Philip the Second register a vow +after the battle of Saint Quentin that never again would he put himself +under fire? And did not the Duke of Alba encourage him in thinking that +the worst trade in the world was the involuntary exchange of a crown +for a bullet? Hence, Montefiore was Philippiste in his capacity of rich +marquis and handsome man; and in other respects also he was quite as +profound a politician as Philip the Second himself. He consoled himself +for his nickname, and for the disesteem of the regiment by thinking +that his comrades were blackguards, whose opinion would never be of any +consequence to him if by chance they survived the present war, which +seemed to be one of extermination. He relied on his face to win him +promotion; he saw himself made colonel by feminine influence and a +carefully managed transition from captain of equipment to orderly +officer, and from orderly officer to aide-de-camp on the staff of some +easy-going marshal. By that time, he reflected, he should come into his +property of a hundred thousand scudi a year, some journal would speak of +him as “the brave Montefiore,” he would marry a girl of rank, and no one +would dare to dispute his courage or verify his wounds. + +Captain Montefiore had one friend in the person of the quartermaster, +--a Provencal, born in the neighborhood of Nice, whose name was Diard. +A friend, whether at the galleys or in the garret of an artist, consoles +for many troubles. Now Montefiore and Diard were two philosophers, who +consoled each other for their present lives by the study of vice, +as artists soothe the immediate disappointment of their hopes by the +expectation of future fame. Both regarded the war in its results, not +its action; they simply considered those who died for glory fools. +Chance had made soldiers of them; whereas their natural proclivities +would have seated them at the green table of a congress. Nature had +poured Montefiore into the mould of a Rizzio, and Diard into that of +a diplomatist. Both were endowed with that nervous, feverish, +half-feminine organization, which is equally strong for good or evil, +and from which may emanate, according to the impulse of these singular +temperaments, a crime or a generous action, a noble deed or a base one. +The fate of such natures depends at any moment on the pressure, more +or less powerful, produced on their nervous systems by violent and +transitory passions. + +Diard was considered a good accountant, but no soldier would have +trusted him with his purse or his will, possibly because of the +antipathy felt by all real soldiers against the bureaucrats. The +quartermaster was not without courage and a certain juvenile generosity, +sentiments which many men give up as they grow older, by dint of +reasoning or calculating. Variable as the beauty of a fair woman, Diard +was a great boaster and a great talker, talking of everything. He said +he was artistic, and he made prizes (like two celebrated generals) of +works of art, solely, he declared, to preserve them for posterity. +His military comrades would have been puzzled indeed to form a correct +judgment of him. Many of them, accustomed to draw upon his funds when +occasion obliged them, thought him rich; but in truth, he was a gambler, +and gamblers may be said to have nothing of their own. Montefiore was +also a gambler, and all the officers of the regiment played with the +pair; for, to the shame of men be it said, it is not a rare thing to +see persons gambling together around a green table who, when the game is +finished, will not bow to their companions, feeling no respect for them. +Montefiore was the man with whom Bianchi made his bet about the heart of +the Spanish sentinel. + +Montefiore and Diard were among the last to mount the breach at +Tarragona, but the first in the heart of the town as soon as it was +taken. Accidents of this sort happen in all attacks, but with this pair +of friends they were customary. Supporting each other, they made their +way bravely through a labyrinth of narrow and gloomy little streets in +quest of their personal objects; one seeking for painted madonnas, the +other for madonnas of flesh and blood. + +In what part of Tarragona it happened I cannot say, but Diard presently +recognized by its architecture the portal of a convent, the gate of +which was already battered in. Springing into the cloister to put a +stop to the fury of the soldiers, he arrived just in time to prevent two +Parisians from shooting a Virgin by Albano. In spite of the moustache +with which in their military fanaticism they had decorated her face, he +bought the picture. Montefiore, left alone during this episode, noticed, +nearly opposite the convent, the house and shop of a draper, from which +a shot was fired at him at the moment when his eyes caught a flaming +glance from those of an inquisitive young girl, whose head was advanced +under the shelter of a blind. Tarragona taken by assault, Tarragona +furious, firing from every window, Tarragona violated, with dishevelled +hair, and half-naked, was indeed an object of curiosity,--the curiosity +of a daring Spanish woman. It was a magnified bull-fight. + +Montefiore forgot the pillage, and heard, for the moment, neither the +cries, nor the musketry, nor the growling of the artillery. The profile +of that Spanish girl was the most divinely delicious thing which he, +an Italian libertine, weary of Italian beauty, and dreaming of an +impossible woman because he was tired of all women, had ever seen. +He could still quiver, he, who had wasted his fortune on a thousand +follies, the thousand passions of a young and blase man--the most +abominable monster that society generates. An idea came into his head, +suggested perhaps by the shot of the draper-patriot, namely,--to set +fire to the house. But he was now alone, and without any means of +action; the fighting was centred in the market-place, where a few +obstinate beings were still defending the town. A better idea then +occurred to him. Diard came out of the convent, but Montefiore said not +a word of his discovery; on the contrary, he accompanied him on a series +of rambles about the streets. But the next day, the Italian had obtained +his military billet in the house of the draper,--an appropriate lodging +for an equipment captain! + +The house of the worthy Spaniard consisted, on the ground-floor, of a +vast and gloomy shop, externally fortified with stout iron bars, such +as we see in the old storehouses of the rue des Lombards. This shop +communicated with a parlor lighted from an interior courtyard, a large +room breathing the very spirit of the middle-ages, with smoky old +pictures, old tapestries, antique “brazero,” a plumed hat hanging to +a nail, the musket of the guerrillas, and the cloak of Bartholo. The +kitchen adjoined this unique living-room, where the inmates took their +meals and warmed themselves over the dull glow of the brazier, smoking +cigars and discoursing bitterly to animate all hearts with hatred +against the French. Silver pitchers and precious dishes of plate and +porcelain adorned a buttery shelf of the old fashion. But the light, +sparsely admitted, allowed these dazzling objects to show but slightly; +all things, as in pictures of the Dutch school, looked brown, even the +faces. Between the shop and this living-room, so fine in color and +in its tone of patriarchal life, was a dark staircase leading to +a ware-room where the light, carefully distributed, permitted the +examination of goods. Above this were the apartments of the merchant and +his wife. Rooms for an apprentice and a servant-woman were in a garret +under the roof, which projected over the street and was supported by +buttresses, giving a somewhat fantastic appearance to the exterior of +the building. These chambers were now taken by the merchant and his +wife who gave up their own rooms to the officer who was billeted upon +them,--probably because they wished to avoid all quarrelling. + +Montefiore gave himself out as a former Spanish subject, persecuted by +Napoleon, whom he was serving against his will; and these semi-lies +had the success he expected. He was invited to share the meals of the +family, and was treated with the respect due to his name, his birth, +and his title. He had his reasons for capturing the good-will of the +merchant and his wife; he scented his madonna as the ogre scented +the youthful flesh of Tom Thumb and his brothers. But in spite of +the confidence he managed to inspire in the worthy pair the latter +maintained the most profound silence as to the said madonna; and not +only did the captain see no trace of the young girl during the first day +he spent under the roof of the honest Spaniard, but he heard no sound +and came upon no indication which revealed her presence in that ancient +building. Supposing that she was the only daughter of the old couple, +Montefiore concluded they had consigned her to the garret, where, for +the time being, they made their home. + +But no revelation came to betray the hiding-place of that precious +treasure. The marquis glued his face to the lozenge-shaped leaded panes +which looked upon the black-walled enclosure of the inner courtyard; +but in vain; he saw no gleam of light except from the windows of the old +couple, whom he could see and hear as they went and came and talked and +coughed. Of the young girl, not a shadow! + +Montefiore was far too wary to risk the future of his passion by +exploring the house nocturnally, or by tapping softly on the doors. +Discovery by that hot patriot, the mercer, suspicious as a Spaniard +must be, meant ruin infallibly. The captain therefore resolved to wait +patiently, resting his faith on time and the imperfection of men, which +always results--even with scoundrels, and how much more with honest +men!--in the neglect of precautions. + +The next day he discovered a hammock in the kitchen, showing plainly +where the servant-woman slept. As for the apprentice, his bed was +evidently made on the shop counter. During supper on the second day +Montefiore succeeded, by cursing Napoleon, in smoothing the anxious +forehead of the merchant, a grave, black-visaged Spaniard, much like the +faces formerly carved on the handles of Moorish lutes; even the wife let +a gay smile of hatred appear in the folds of her elderly face. The lamp +and the reflections of the brazier illumined fantastically the shadows +of the noble room. The mistress of the house offered a “cigarrito” to +their semi-compatriot. At this moment the rustle of a dress and the fall +of a chair behind the tapestry were plainly heard. + +“Ah!” cried the wife, turning pale, “may the saints assist us! God grant +no harm has happened!” + +“You have some one in the next room, have you not?” said Montefiore, +giving no sign of emotion. + +The draper dropped a word of imprecation against the girls. Evidently +alarmed, the wife opened a secret door, and led in, half fainting, the +Italian’s madonna, to whom he was careful to pay no attention; only, +to avoid a too-studied indifference, he glanced at the girl before he +turned to his host and said in his own language:-- + +“Is that your daughter, signore?” + +Perez de Lagounia (such was the merchant’s name) had large commercial +relations with Genoa, Florence, and Livorno; he knew Italian, and +replied in the same language:-- + +“No; if she were my daughter I should take less precautions. The child +is confided to our care, and I would rather die than see any evil happen +to her. But how is it possible to put sense into a girl of eighteen?” + +“She is very handsome,” said Montefiore, coldly, not looking at her face +again. + +“Her mother’s beauty is celebrated,” replied the merchant, briefly. + +They continued to smoke, watching each other. Though Montefiore +compelled himself not to give the slightest look which might contradict +his apparent coldness, he could not refrain, at a moment when Perez +turned his head to expectorate, from casting a rapid glance at the young +girl, whose sparkling eyes met his. Then, with that science of vision +which gives to a libertine, as it does to a sculptor, the fatal power of +disrobing, if we may so express it, a woman, and divining her shape by +inductions both rapid and sagacious, he beheld one of those masterpieces +of Nature whose creation appears to demand as its right all the +happiness of love. Here was a fair young face, on which the sun of Spain +had cast faint tones of bistre which added to its expression of seraphic +calmness a passionate pride, like a flash of light infused beneath +that diaphanous complexion,--due, perhaps, to the Moorish blood which +vivified and colored it. Her hair, raised to the top of her head, fell +thence with black reflections round the delicate transparent ears and +defined the outlines of a blue-veined throat. These luxuriant locks +brought into strong relief the dazzling eyes and the scarlet lips of +a well-arched mouth. The bodice of the country set off the lines of +a figure that swayed as easily as a branch of willow. She was not the +Virgin of Italy, but the Virgin of Spain, of Murillo, the only artist +daring enough to have painted the Mother of God intoxicated with the joy +of conceiving the Christ,--the glowing imagination of the boldest and +also the warmest of painters. + +In this young girl three things were united, a single one of which would +have sufficed for the glory of a woman: the purity of the pearl in the +depths of ocean; the sublime exaltation of the Spanish Saint Teresa; and +a passion of love which was ignorant of itself. The presence of such a +woman has the virtue of a talisman. Montefiore no longer felt worn and +jaded. That young girl brought back his youthful freshness. + +But, though the apparition was delightful, it did not last. The girl was +taken back to the secret chamber, where the servant-woman carried to her +openly both light and food. + +“You do right to hide her,” said Montefiore in Italian. “I will keep +your secret. The devil! we have generals in our army who are capable of +abducting her.” + +Montefiore’s infatuation went so far as to suggest to him the idea of +marrying her. He accordingly asked her history, and Perez very willingly +told him the circumstances under which she had become his ward. The +prudent Spaniard was led to make this confidence because he had heard of +Montefiore in Italy, and knowing his reputation was desirous to let him +see how strong were the barriers which protected the young girl from the +possibility of seduction. Though the good-man was gifted with a certain +patriarchal eloquence, in keeping with his simple life and customs, his +tale will be improved by abridgment. + +At the period when the French Revolution changed the manners and +morals of every country which served as the scene of its wars, a street +prostitute came to Tarragona, driven from Venice at the time of its +fall. The life of this woman had been a tissue of romantic adventures +and strange vicissitudes. To her, oftener than to any other woman of her +class, it had happened, thanks to the caprice of great lords struck with +her extraordinary beauty, to be literally gorged with gold and jewels +and all the delights of excessive wealth,--flowers, carriages, pages, +maids, palaces, pictures, journeys (like those of Catherine II.); in +short, the life of a queen, despotic in her caprices and obeyed, often +beyond her own imaginings. Then, without herself, or any one, chemist, +physician, or man of science, being able to discover how her gold +evaporated, she would find herself back in the streets, poor, denuded of +everything, preserving nothing but her all-powerful beauty, yet living +on without thought or care of the past, the present, or the future. +Cast, in her poverty, into the hands of some poor gambling officer, she +attached herself to him as a dog to its master, sharing the discomforts +of the military life, which indeed she comforted, as content under the +roof of a garret as beneath the silken hangings of opulence. Italian and +Spanish both, she fulfilled very scrupulously the duties of religion, +and more than once she had said to love:-- + +“Return to-morrow; to-day I belong to God.” + +But this slime permeated with gold and perfumes, this careless +indifference to all things, these unbridled passions, these religious +beliefs cast into that heart like diamonds into mire, this life begun, +and ended, in a hospital, these gambling chances transferred to the +soul, to the very existence,--in short, this great alchemy, for which +vice lit the fire beneath the crucible in which fortunes were melted +up and the gold of ancestors and the honor of great names evaporated, +proceeded from a _cause_, a particular heredity, faithfully transmitted +from mother to daughter since the middle ages. The name of this woman +was La Marana. In her family, existing solely in the female line, the +idea, person, name and power of a father had been completely unknown +since the thirteenth century. The name Marana was to her what the +designation of Stuart is to the celebrated royal race of Scotland, a +name of distinction substituted for the patronymic name by the constant +heredity of the same office devolving on the family. + +Formerly, in France, Spain, and Italy, when those three countries had, +in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, mutual interests which united +and disunited them by perpetual warfare, the name Marana served to +express in its general sense, a prostitute. In those days women of that +sort had a certain rank in the world of which nothing in our day can +give an idea. Ninon de l’Enclos and Marian Delorme have alone played, +in France, the role of the Imperias, Catalinas, and Maranas who, in +preceding centuries, gathered around them the cassock, gown, and +sword. An Imperia built I forget which church in Rome in a frenzy of +repentance, as Rhodope built, in earlier times, a pyramid in Egypt. The +name Marana, inflicted at first as a disgrace upon the singular family +with which we are now concerned, had ended by becoming its veritable +name and by ennobling its vice by incontestable antiquity. + +One day, a day of opulence or of penury I know not which, for this event +was a secret between herself and God, but assuredly it was in a moment +of repentance and melancholy, this Marana of the nineteenth century +stood with her feet in the slime and her head raised to heaven. She +cursed the blood in her veins, she cursed herself, she trembled lest she +should have a daughter, and she swore, as such women swear, on the honor +and with the will of the galleys--the firmest will, the most scrupulous +honor that there is on earth--she swore, before an altar, and believing +in that altar, to make her daughter a virtuous creature, a saint, and +thus to gain, after that long line of lost women, criminals in love, an +angel in heaven for them all. + +The vow once made, the blood of the Maranas spoke; the courtesan +returned to her reckless life, a thought the more within her heart. At +last she loved, with the violent love of such women, as Henrietta Wilson +loved Lord Ponsonby, as Mademoiselle Dupuis loved Bolingbroke, as the +Marchesa Pescara loved her husband--but no, she did not love, she adored +one of those fair men, half women, to whom she gave the virtues which +she had not, striving to keep for herself all that there was of vice +between them. It was from that weak man, that senseless marriage +unblessed by God or man which happiness is thought to justify, but which +no happiness absolves, and for which men blush at last, that she had a +daughter, a daughter to save, a daughter for whom to desire a noble life +and the chastity she had not. Henceforth, happy or not happy, opulent or +beggared, she had in her heart a pure, untainted sentiment, the highest +of all human feelings because the most disinterested. Love has its +egotism, but motherhood has none. La Marana was a mother like none +other; for, in her total, her eternal shipwreck, motherhood might still +redeem her. To accomplish sacredly through life the task of sending +a pure soul to heaven, was not that a better thing than a tardy +repentance? was it not, in truth, the only spotless prayer which she +could lift to God? + +So, when this daughter, when her Marie-Juana-Pepita (she would fain have +given her all the saints in the calendar as guardians), when this dear +little creature was granted to her, she became possessed of so high an +idea of the dignity of motherhood that she entreated vice to grant her a +respite. She made herself virtuous and lived in solitude. No more fetes, +no more orgies, no more love. All joys, all fortunes were centred now +in the cradle of her child. The tones of that infant voice made an oasis +for her soul in the burning sands of her existence. That sentiment could +not be measured or estimated by any other. Did it not, in fact, comprise +all human sentiments, all heavenly hopes? La Marana was so resolved not +to soil her daughter with any stain other than that of birth, that she +sought to invest her with social virtues; she even obliged the young +father to settle a handsome patrimony upon the child and to give her +his name. Thus the girl was not know as Juana Marana, but as Juana di +Mancini. + +Then, after seven years of joy, and kisses, and intoxicating happiness, +the time came when the poor Marana deprived herself of her idol. That +Juana might never bow her head under their hereditary shame, the mother +had the courage to renounce her child for her child’s sake, and to seek, +not without horrible suffering, for another mother, another home, other +principles to follow, other and saintlier examples to imitate. The +abdication of a mother is either a revolting act or a sublime one; in +this case, was it not sublime? + +At Tarragona a lucky accident threw the Lagounias in her way, under +circumstances which enabled her to recognize the integrity of the +Spaniard and the noble virtue of his wife. She came to them at a time +when her proposal seemed that of a liberating angel. The fortune and +honor of the merchant, momentarily compromised, required a prompt and +secret succor. La Marana made over to the husband the whole sum she +had obtained of the father for Juana’s “dot,” requiring neither +acknowledgment nor interest. According to her own code of honor, a +contract, a trust, was a thing of the heart, and God its supreme +judge. After stating the miseries of her position to Dona Lagounia, she +confided her daughter and her daughter’s fortune to the fine old Spanish +honor, pure and spotless, which filled the precincts of that ancient +house. Dona Lagounia had no child, and she was only too happy to obtain +one to nurture. The mother then parted from her Juana, convinced that +the child’s future was safe, and certain of having found her a mother, a +mother who would bring her up as a Mancini, and not as a Marana. + +Leaving her child in the simple modest house of the merchant where the +burgher virtues reigned, where religion and sacred sentiments and honor +filled the air, the poor prostitute, the disinherited mother was enabled +to bear her trial by visions of Juana, virgin, wife, and mother, a +mother throughout her life. On the threshold of that house Marana left a +tear such as the angels garner up. + +Since that day of mourning and hope the mother, drawn by some invincible +presentiment, had thrice returned to see her daughter. Once when Juana +fell ill with a dangerous complaint: + +“I knew it,” she said to Perez when she reached the house. + +Asleep, she had seen her Juana dying. She nursed her and watched her, +until one morning, sure of the girl’s convalescence, she kissed her, +still asleep, on the forehead and left her without betraying whom she +was. A second time the Marana came to the church where Juana made her +first communion. Simply dressed, concealing herself behind a column, the +exiled mother recognized herself in her daughter such as she once had +been, pure as the snow fresh-fallen on the Alps. A courtesan even +in maternity, the Marana felt in the depths of her soul a jealous +sentiment, stronger for the moment than that of love, and she left +the church, incapable of resisting any longer the desire to kill Dona +Lagounia, as she sat there, with radiant face, too much the mother of +her child. A third and last meeting had taken place between mother and +daughter in the streets of Milan, to which city the merchant and his +wife had paid a visit. The Marana drove through the Corso in all +the splendor of a sovereign; she passed her daughter like a flash of +lightning and was not recognized. Horrible anguish! To this Marana, +surfeited with kisses, one was lacking, a single one, for which she +would have bartered all the others: the joyous, girlish kiss of a +daughter to a mother, an honored mother, a mother in whom shone all the +domestic virtues. Juana living was dead to her. One thought revived the +soul of the courtesan--a precious thought! Juana was henceforth safe. +She might be the humblest of women, but at least she was not what her +mother was--an infamous courtesan. + +The merchant and his wife had fulfilled their trust with scrupulous +integrity. Juana’s fortune, managed by them, had increased tenfold. +Perez de Lagounia, now the richest merchant in the provinces, felt for +the young girl a sentiment that was semi-superstitious. Her money had +preserved his ancient house from dishonorable ruin, and the presence of +so precious a treasure had brought him untold prosperity. His wife, a +heart of gold, and full of delicacy, had made the child religious, and +as pure as she was beautiful. Juana might well become the wife of either +a great seigneur or a wealthy merchant; she lacked no virtue necessary +to the highest destiny. Perez had intended taking her to Madrid and +marrying her to some grandee, but the events of the present war delayed +the fulfilment of this project. + +“I don’t know where the Marana now is,” said Perez, ending the above +history, “but in whatever quarter of the world she may be living, when +she hears of the occupation of our province by your armies, and of the +siege of Tarragona, she will assuredly set out at once to come here and +see to her daughter’s safety.” + + + + +CHAPTER II. AUCTION + + +The foregoing narrative changed the intentions of the Italian captain; +no longer did he think of making a Marchesa di Montefiore of Juana di +Mancini. He recognized the blood of the Maranas in the glance the girl +had given from behind the blinds, in the trick she had just played to +satisfy her curiosity, and also in the parting look she had cast upon +him. The libertine wanted a virtuous woman for a wife. + +The adventure was full of danger, but danger of a kind that never +daunts the least courageous man, for love and pleasure followed it. The +apprentice sleeping in the shop, the cook bivouacking in the kitchen, +Perez and his wife sleeping, no doubt, the wakeful sleep of the aged, +the echoing sonority of the old mansion, the close surveillance of the +girl in the day-time,--all these things were obstacles, and made success +a thing well-nigh impossible. But Montefiore had in his favor against +all impossibilities the blood of the Maranas which gushed in the heart +of that inquisitive girl, Italian by birth, Spanish in principles, +virgin indeed, but impatient to love. Passion, the girl, and Montefiore +were ready and able to defy the whole universe. + +Montefiore, impelled as much by the instinct of a man of gallantry as +by those vague hopes which cannot be explained, and to which we give +the name of presentiments (a word of astonishing verbal accuracy), +Montefiore spent the first hours of the night at his window, endeavoring +to look below him to the secret apartment where, undoubtedly, the +merchant and his wife had hidden the love and joyfulness of their old +age. The ware-room of the “entresol” separated him from the rooms on the +ground-floor. The captain therefore could not have recourse to noises +significantly made from one floor to the other, an artificial language +which all lovers know well how to create. But chance, or it may have +been the young girl herself, came to his assistance. At the moment when +he stationed himself at his window, he saw, on the black wall of the +courtyard, a circle of light, in the centre of which the silhouette of +Juana was clearly defined; the consecutive movement of the arms, and the +attitude, gave evidence that she was arranging her hair for the night. + +“Is she alone?” Montefiore asked himself; “could I, without danger, +lower a letter filled with coin and strike it against that circular +window in her hiding-place?” + +At once he wrote a note, the note of a man exiled by his family to Elba, +the note of a degraded marquis now a mere captain of equipment. Then he +made a cord of whatever he could find that was capable of being turned +into string, filled the note with a few silver crowns, and lowered it in +the deepest silence to the centre of that spherical gleam. + +“The shadows will show if her mother or the servant is with her,” + thought Montefiore. “If she is not alone, I can pull up the string at +once.” + +But, after succeeding with infinite trouble in striking the glass, a +single form, the little figure of Juana, appeared upon the wall. The +young girl opened her window cautiously, saw the note, took it, and +stood before the window while she read it. In it, Montefiore had given +his name and asked for an interview, offering, after the style of the +old romances, his heart and hand to the Signorina Juana di Mancini--a +common trick, the success of which is nearly always certain. At Juana’s +age, nobility of soul increases the dangers which surround youth. A poet +of our day has said: “Woman succumbs only to her own nobility. The lover +pretends to doubt the love he inspires at the moment when he is most +beloved; the young girl, confident and proud, longs to make sacrifices +to prove her love, and knows the world and men too little to continue +calm in the midst of her rising emotions and repel with contempt the man +who accepts a life offered in expiation of a false reproach.” + +Ever since the constitution of societies the young girl finds herself +torn by a struggle between the caution of prudent virtue and the evils +of wrong-doing. Often she loses a love, delightful in prospect, and the +first, if she resists; on the other hand, she loses a marriage if she +is imprudent. Casting a glance over the vicissitudes of social life +in Paris, it is impossible to doubt the necessity of religion; and +yet Paris is situated in the forty-eighth degree of latitude, while +Tarragona is in the forty-first. The old question of climates is still +useful to narrators to explain the sudden denouements, the imprudences, +or the resistances of love. + +Montefiore kept his eyes fixed on the exquisite black profile projected +by the gleam upon the wall. Neither he nor Juana could see each other; +a troublesome cornice, vexatiously placed, deprived them of the mute +correspondence which may be established between a pair of lovers as they +bend to each other from their windows. Thus the mind and the attention +of the captain were concentrated on that luminous circle where, without +perhaps knowing it herself, the young girl would, he thought, innocently +reveal her thoughts by a series of gestures. But no! The singular +motions she proceeded to make gave not a particle of hope to the +expectant lover. Juana was amusing herself by cutting up his missive. +But virtue and innocence sometimes imitate the clever proceedings +inspired by jealousy to the Bartholos of comedy. Juana, without +pens, ink, or paper, was replying by snip of scissors. Presently she +refastened the note to the string; the officer drew it up, opened it, +and read by the light of his lamp one word, carefully cut out of the +paper: COME. + +“Come!” he said to himself; “but what of poison? or the dagger or +carbine of Perez? And that apprentice not yet asleep, perhaps, in the +shop? and the servant in her hammock? Besides, this old house echoes the +slightest sound; I can hear old Perez snoring even here. Come, indeed! +She can have nothing more to lose.” + +Bitter reflection! rakes alone are logical and will punish a woman for +devotion. Man created Satan and Lovelace; but a virgin is an angel +on whom he can bestow naught but his own vices. She is so grand, so +beautiful, that he cannot magnify or embellish her; he has only the +fatal power to blast her and drag her down into his own mire. + +Montefiore waited for a later and more somnolent hour of the night; +then, in spite of his reflections, he descended the stairs without +boots, armed with his pistols, moving step by step, stopping to question +the silence, putting forth his hands, measuring the stairs, peering into +the darkness, and ready at the slightest incident to fly back into his +room. The Italian had put on his handsomest uniform; he had perfumed his +black hair, and now shone with the particular brilliancy which dress and +toilet bestow upon natural beauty. Under such circumstances most men are +as feminine as a woman. + +The marquis arrived without hindrance before the secret door of the room +in which the girl was hidden, a sort of cell made in the angle of the +house and belonging exclusively to Juana, who had remained there hidden +during the day from every eye while the siege lasted. Up to the present +time she had slept in the room of her adopted mother, but the limited +space in the garret where the merchant and his wife had gone to make +room for the officer who was billeted upon them, did not allow of her +going with them. Dona Lagounia had therefore left the young girl to the +guardianship of lock and key, under the protection of religious ideas, +all the more efficacious because they were partly superstitious, and +also under the shield of a native pride and sensitive modesty which made +the young Mancini in sort an exception among her sex. Juana possessed +in an equal degree the most attaching virtues and the most passionate +impulses; she had needed the modesty and sanctity of this monotonous +life to calm and cool the tumultuous blood of the Maranas which bounded +in her heart, the desires of which her adopted mother told her were an +instigation of the devil. + +A faint ray of light traced along the sill of the secret door guided +Montefiore to the place; he scratched the panel softly and Juana opened +to him. Montefiore entered, palpitating, but he recognized in the +expression of the girl’s face complete ignorance of her peril, a sort of +naive curiosity, and an innocent admiration. He stopped short, arrested +for a moment by the sacredness of the picture which met his eyes. + +He saw before him a tapestry on the walls with a gray ground sprinkled +with violets, a little coffer of ebony, an antique mirror, an immense +and very old arm chair also in ebony and covered with tapestry, a table +with twisted legs, a pretty carpet on the floor, near the table a +single chair; and that was all. On the table, however, were flowers and +embroidery; in a recess at the farther end of the room was the narrow +little bed where Juana dreamed. Above the bed were three pictures; +and near the pillow a crucifix, with a holy water basin and a prayer, +printed in letters of gold and framed. Flowers exhaled their perfume +faintly; the candles cast a tender light; all was calm and pure and +sacred. The dreamy thoughts of Juana, but above all Juana herself, had +communicated to all things her own peculiar charm; her soul appeared +to shine there, like the pearl in its matrix. Juana, dressed in white, +beautiful with naught but her own beauty, laying down her rosary to +answer love, might have inspired respect, even in a Montefiore, if +the silence, if the night, if Juana herself had not seemed so amorous. +Montefiore stood still, intoxicated with an unknown happiness, possibly +that of Satan beholding heaven through a rift of the clouds which form +its enclosure. + +“As soon as I saw you,” he said in pure Tuscan, and in the modest tone +of voice so peculiarly Italian, “I loved you. My soul and my life are +now in you, and in you they will be forever, if you will have it so.” + +Juana listened, inhaling from the atmosphere the sound of these words +which the accents of love made magnificent. + +“Poor child! how have you breathed so long the air of this dismal house +without dying of it? You, made to reign in the world, to inhabit the +palace of a prince, to live in the midst of fetes, to feel the joys +which love bestows, to see the world at your feet, to efface all other +beauty by your own which can have no rival--you, to live here, solitary, +with those two shopkeepers!” + +Adroit question! He wished to know if Juana had a lover. + +“True,” she replied. “But who can have told you my secret thoughts? For +the last few months I have nearly died of sadness. Yes, I would _rather_ +die than stay longer in this house. Look at that embroidery; there is +not a stitch there which I did not set with dreadful thoughts. How many +times I have thought of escaping to fling myself into the sea! Why? I +don’t know why,--little childish troubles, but very keen, though they +are so silly. Often I have kissed my mother at night as one would kiss +a mother for the last time, saying in my heart: ‘To-morrow I will kill +myself.’ But I do not die. Suicides go to hell, you know, and I am so +afraid of hell that I resign myself to live, to get up in the morning +and go to bed at night, and work the same hours, and do the same things. +I am not so weary of it, but I suffer--And yet, my father and mother +adore me. Oh! I am bad, I am bad; I say so to my confessor.” + +“Do you always live here alone, without amusement, without pleasures?” + +“Oh! I have not always been like this. Till I was fifteen the festivals +of the church, the chants, the music gave me pleasure. I was happy, +feeling myself like the angels without sin and able to communicate every +week--I loved God then. But for the last three years, from day to day, +all things have changed. First, I wanted flowers here--and I have them, +lovely flowers! Then I wanted--but I want nothing now,” she added, after +a pause, smiling at Montefiore. “Have you not said that you would love +me always?” + +“Yes, my Juana,” cried Montefiore, softly, taking her round the waist +and pressing her to his heart, “yes. But let me speak to you as you +speak to God. Are you not as beautiful as Mary in heaven? Listen. I +swear to you,” he continued, kissing her hair, “I swear to take that +forehead for my altar, to make you my idol, to lay at your feet all the +luxuries of the world. For you, my palace at Milan; for you my horses, +my jewels, the diamonds of my ancient family; for you, each day, fresh +jewels, a thousand pleasures, and all the joys of earth!” + +“Yes,” she said reflectively, “I would like that; but I feel within my +soul that I would like better than all the world my husband. Mio caro +sposo!” she said, as if it were impossible to give in any other language +the infinite tenderness, the loving elegance with which the Italian +tongue and accent clothe those delightful words. Besides, Italian was +Juana’s maternal language. + +“I should find,” she continued, with a glance at Montefiore in which +shone the purity of the cherubim, “I should find in _him_ my dear +religion, him and God--God and him. Is he to be you?” she said. “Yes, +surely it will be you,” she cried, after a pause. “Come, and see the +picture my father brought me from Italy.” + +She took a candle, made a sign to Montefiore, and showed him at the foot +of her bed a Saint Michael overthrowing the demon. + +“Look!” she said, “has he not your eyes? When I saw you from my window +in the street, our meeting seemed to me a sign from heaven. Every day +during my morning meditation, while waiting for my mother to call me to +prayer, I have so gazed at that picture, that angel, that I have ended +by thinking him my husband--oh! heavens, I speak to you as though you +were myself. I must seem crazy to you; but if you only knew how a poor +captive wants to tell the thoughts that choke her! When alone, I talk to +my flowers, to my tapestry; they can understand me better, I think, than +my father and mother, who are so grave.” + +“Juana,” said Montefiore, taking her hands and kissing them with the +passion that gushed in his eyes, in his gestures, in the tones of his +voice, “speak to me as your husband, as yourself. I have suffered all +that you have suffered. Between us two few words are needed to make +us comprehend our past, but there will never be enough to express our +coming happiness. Lay your hand upon my heart. Feel how it beats. Let us +promise before God, who sees and hears us, to be faithful to each other +throughout our lives. Here, take my ring--and give me yours.” + +“Give you my ring!” she said in terror. + +“Why not?” asked Montefiore, uneasy at such artlessness. + +“But our holy father the Pope has blessed it; it was put upon my finger +in childhood by a beautiful lady who took care of me, and who told me +never to part with it.” + +“Juana, you cannot love me!” + +“Ah!” she said, “here it is; take it. You, are you not another myself?” + +She held out the ring with a trembling hand, holding it tightly as she +looked at Montefiore with a clear and penetrating eye that questioned +him. That ring! all of herself was in it; but she gave it to him. + +“Oh, my Juana!” said Montefiore, again pressing her in his arms. “I +should be a monster indeed if I deceived you. I will love you forever.” + +Juana was thoughtful. Montefiore, reflecting that in this first +interview he ought to venture upon nothing that might frighten a young +girl so ignorantly pure, so imprudent by virtue rather than from desire, +postponed all further action to the future, relying on his beauty, of +which he knew the power, and on this innocent ring-marriage, the hymen +of the heart, the lightest, yet the strongest of all ceremonies. For the +rest of that night, and throughout the next day, Juana’s imagination was +the accomplice of her passion. + +On this first evening Montefiore forced himself to be as respectful as +he was tender. With that intention, in the interests of his passion and +the desires with which Juana inspired him, he was caressing and unctuous +in language; he launched the young creature into plans for a new +existence, described to her the world under glowing colors, talked to +her of household details always attractive to the mind of girls, giving +her a sense of the rights and realities of love. Then, having agreed +upon the hour for their future nocturnal interviews, he left her happy, +but changed; the pure and pious Juana existed no longer; in the last +glance she gave him, in the pretty movement by which she brought her +forehead to his lips, there was already more of passion than a girl +should feel. Solitude, weariness of employments contrary to her nature +had brought this about. To make the daughter of the Maranas truly +virtuous, she ought to have been habituated, little by little, to the +world, or else to have been wholly withdrawn from it. + +“The day, to-morrow, will seem very long to me,” she said, receiving his +kisses on her forehead. “But stay in the salon, and speak loud, that I +may hear your voice; it fills my soul.” + +Montefiore, clever enough to imagine the girl’s life, was all the more +satisfied with himself for restraining his desires because he saw +that it would lead to his greater contentment. He returned to his room +without accident. + +Ten days went by without any event occurring to trouble the peace and +solitude of the house. Montefiore employed his Italian cajolery on old +Perez, on Dona Lagounia, on the apprentice, even on the cook, and they +all liked him; but, in spite of the confidence he now inspired in them, +he never asked to see Juana, or to have the door of her mysterious +hiding-place opened to him. The young girl, hungry to see her lover, +implored him to do so; but he always refused her from an instinct of +prudence. Besides, he had used his best powers and fascinations to lull +the suspicions of the old couple, and had now accustomed them to see +him, a soldier, stay in bed till midday on pretence that he was ill. +Thus the lovers lived only in the night-time, when the rest of +the household were asleep. If Montefiore had not been one of those +libertines whom the habit of gallantry enables to retain their +self-possession under all circumstances, he might have been lost a dozen +times during those ten days. A young lover, in the simplicity of a +first love, would have committed the enchanting imprudences which are +so difficult to resist. But he did resist even Juana herself, Juana +pouting, Juana making her long hair a chain which she wound about his +neck when caution told him he must go. + +The most suspicious of guardians would however have been puzzled to +detect the secret of their nightly meetings. It is to be supposed +that, sure of success, the Italian marquis gave himself the ineffable +pleasures of a slow seduction, step by step, leading gradually to the +fire which should end the affair in a conflagration. On the eleventh +day, at the dinner-table, he thought it wise to inform old Perez, under +seal of secrecy, that the reason of his separation from his family was +an ill-assorted marriage. This false revelation was an infamous thing +in view of the nocturnal drama which was being played under that roof. +Montefiore, an experienced rake, was preparing for the finale of that +drama which he foresaw and enjoyed as an artist who loves his art. He +expected to leave before long, and without regret, the house and his +love. It would happen, he thought, in this way: Juana, after waiting for +him in vain for several nights, would risk her life, perhaps, in asking +Perez what had become of his guest; and Perez would reply, not aware of +the importance of his answer,-- + +“The Marquis de Montefiore is reconciled to his family, who consent to +receive his wife; he has gone to Italy to present her to them.” + +And Juana?--The marquis never asked himself what would become of Juana; +but he had studied her character, its nobility, candor, and strength, +and he knew he might be sure of her silence. + +He obtained a mission from one of the generals. Three days later, on the +night preceding his intended departure, Montefiore, instead of returning +to his own room after dinner, contrived to enter unseen that of Juana, +to make that farewell night the longer. Juana, true Spaniard and true +Italian, was enchanted with such boldness; it argued ardor! For herself +she did not fear discovery. To find in the pure love of marriage the +excitements of intrigue, to hide her husband behind the curtains of her +bed, and say to her adopted father and mother, in case of detection: “I +am the Marquise de Montefiore!”--was to an ignorant and romantic young +girl, who for three years past had dreamed of love without dreaming of +its dangers, delightful. The door closed on this last evening upon her +folly, her happiness, like a veil, which it is useless here to raise. + +It was nine o’clock; the merchant and his wife were reading their +evening prayers; suddenly the noise of a carriage drawn by several +horses resounded in the street; loud and hasty raps echoed from the +shop where the servant hurried to open the door, and into that venerable +salon rushed a woman, magnificently dressed in spite of the mud upon the +wheels of her travelling-carriage, which had just crossed Italy, France, +and Spain. It was, of course, the Marana,--the Marana who, in spite +of her thirty-six years, was still in all the glory of her ravishing +beauty; the Marana who, being at that time the mistress of a king, had +left Naples, the fetes, the skies of Naples, the climax of her life of +luxury, on hearing from her royal lover of the events in Spain and the +siege of Tarragona. + +“Tarragona! I must get to Tarragona before the town is taken!” she +cried. “Ten days to reach Tarragona!” + +Then without caring for crown or court, she arrived in Tarragona, +furnished with an almost imperial safe-conduct; furnished too with gold +which enabled her to cross France with the velocity of a rocket. + +“My daughter! my daughter!” cried the Marana. + +At this voice, and the abrupt invasion of their solitude, the +prayer-book fell from the hands of the old couple. + +“She is there,” replied the merchant, calmly, after a pause during which +he recovered from the emotion caused by the abrupt entrance, and the +look and voice of the mother. “She is there,” he repeated, pointing to +the door of the little chamber. + +“Yes, but has any harm come to her; is she still--” + +“Perfectly well,” said Dona Lagounia. + +“O God! send me to hell if it so pleases thee!” cried the Marana, +dropping, exhausted and half dead, into a chair. + +The flush in her cheeks, due to anxiety, paled suddenly; she had +strength to endure suffering, but none to bear this joy. Joy was more +violent in her soul than suffering, for it contained the echoes of her +pain and the agonies of its own emotion. + +“But,” she said, “how have you kept her safe? Tarragona is taken.” + +“Yes,” said Perez, “but since you see me living why do you ask that +question? Should I not have died before harm could have come to Juana?” + +At that answer, the Marana seized the calloused hand of the old man, and +kissed it, wetting it with the tears that flowed from her eyes--she who +never wept! those tears were all she had most precious under heaven. + +“My good Perez!” she said at last. “But have you had no soldiers +quartered in your house?” + +“Only one,” replied the Spaniard. “Fortunately for us the most loyal +of men; a Spaniard by birth, but now an Italian who hates Bonaparte; a +married man. He is ill, and gets up late and goes to bed early.” + +“An Italian! What is his name?” + +“Montefiore.” + +“Can it be the Marquis de Montefiore--” + +“Yes, Senora, he himself.” + +“Has he seen Juana?” + +“No,” said Dona Lagounia. + +“You are mistaken, wife,” said Perez. “The marquis must have seen her +for a moment, a short moment, it is true; but I think he looked at her +that evening she came in here during supper.” + +“Ah, let me see my daughter!” + +“Nothing easier,” said Perez; “she is now asleep. If she has left the +key in the lock we must waken her.” + +As he rose to take the duplicate key of Juana’s door his eyes fell by +chance on the circular gleam of light upon the black wall of the inner +courtyard. Within that circle he saw the shadow of a group such as +Canova alone has attempted to render. The Spaniard turned back. + +“I do not know,” he said to the Marana, “where to find the key.” + +“You are very pale,” she said. + +“And I will show you why,” he cried, seizing his dagger and rapping its +hilt violently on Juana’s door as he shouted,-- + +“Open! open! open! Juana!” + +Juana did not open, for she needed time to conceal Montefiore. She knew +nothing of what was passing in the salon; the double portieres of thick +tapestry deadened all sounds. + +“Madame, I lied to you in saying I could not find the key. Here it is,” + added Perez, taking it from a sideboard. “But it is useless. Juana’s key +is in the lock; her door is barricaded. We have been deceived, my wife!” + he added, turning to Dona Lagounia. “There is a man in Juana’s room.” + +“Impossible! By my eternal salvation I say it is impossible!” said his +wife. + +“Do not swear, Dona Lagounia. Our honor is dead, and this woman--” + He pointed to the Marana, who had risen and was standing motionless, +blasted by his words, “this woman has the right to despise us. She saved +our life, our fortune, and our honor, and we have saved nothing for her +but her money--Juana!” he cried again, “open, or I will burst in your +door.” + +His voice, rising in violence, echoed through the garrets in the roof. +He was cold and calm. The life of Montefiore was in his hands; he would +wash away his remorse in the blood of that Italian. + +“Out, out, out! out, all of you!” cried the Marana, springing like +a tigress on the dagger, which she wrenched from the hand of the +astonished Perez. “Out, Perez,” she continued more calmly, “out, you and +your wife and servants! There will be murder here. You might be shot by +the French. Have nothing to do with this; it is my affair, mine only. +Between my daughter and me there is none but God. As for the man, he +belongs to _me_. The whole earth could not tear him from my grasp. Go, +go! I forgive you. I see plainly that the girl is a Marana. You, your +religion, your virtue, were too weak to fight against my blood.” + +She gave a dreadful sigh, turning her dry eyes on them. She had lost +all, but she knew how to suffer,--a true courtesan. + +The door opened. The Marana forgot all else, and Perez, making a sign to +his wife, remained at his post. With his old invincible Spanish honor he +was determined to share the vengeance of the betrayed mother. Juana, all +in white, and softly lighted by the wax candles, was standing calmly in +the centre of her chamber. + +“What do you want with me?” she said. + +The Marana could not repress a passing shudder. + +“Perez,” she asked, “has this room another issue?” + +Perez made a negative gesture; confiding in that gesture, the mother +entered the room. + +“Juana,” she said, “I am your mother, your judge; you have placed +yourself in the only situation in which I could reveal myself to you. +You have come down to me, you, whom I thought in heaven. Ah! you have +fallen low indeed. You have a lover in this room.” + +“Madame, there is and can be no one but my husband,” answered the girl. +“I am the Marquise de Montefiore.” + +“Then there are two,” said Perez, in a grave voice. “He told me he was +married.” + +“Montefiore, my love!” cried the girl, tearing aside the curtain and +revealing the officer. “Come! they are slandering you.” + +The Italian appeared, pale and speechless; he saw the dagger in the +Marana’s hand, and he knew her well. With one bound he sprang from the +room, crying out in a thundering voice,-- + +“Help! help! they are murdering a Frenchman. Soldiers of the 6th of the +line, rush for Captain Diard! Help, help!” + +Perez had gripped the man and was trying to gag him with his large hand, +but the Marana stopped him, saying,-- + +“Bind him fast, but let him shout. Open the doors, leave them open, +and go, go, as I told you; go, all of you.--As for you,” she said, +addressing Montefiore, “shout, call for help if you choose; by the +time your soldiers get here this blade will be in your heart. Are you +married? Answer.” + +Montefiore, who had fallen on the threshold of the door, scarcely a step +from Juana, saw nothing but the blade of the dagger, the gleam of which +blinded him. + +“Has he deceived me?” said Juana, slowly. “He told me he was free.” + +“He told me that he was married,” repeated Perez, in his solemn voice. + +“Holy Virgin!” murmured Dona Lagounia. + +“Answer, soul of corruption,” said the Marana, in a low voice, bending +to the ear of the marquis. + +“Your daughter--” began Montefiore. + +“The daughter that was mine is dead or dying,” interrupted the Marana. +“I have no daughter; do not utter that word. Answer, are you married?” + +“No, madame,” said Montefiore, at last, striving to gain time, “I desire +to marry your daughter.” + +“My noble Montefiore!” said Juana, drawing a deep breath. + +“Then why did you attempt to fly and cry for help?” asked Perez. + +Terrible, revealing light! + +Juana said nothing, but she wrung her hands and went to her arm-chair +and sat down. + +At that moment a tumult rose in the street which was plainly heard in +the silence of the room. A soldier of the 6th, hearing Montefiore’s cry +for help, had summoned Diard. The quartermaster, who was fortunately in +his bivouac, came, accompanied by friends. + +“Why did I fly?” said Montefiore, hearing the voice of his friend. +“Because I told you the truth; I am married--Diard! Diard!” he shouted +in a piercing voice. + +But, at a word from Perez, the apprentice closed and bolted the doors, +so that the soldiers were delayed by battering them in. Before they +could enter, the Marana had time to strike her dagger into the guilty +man; but anger hindered her aim, the blade slipped upon the Italian’s +epaulet, though she struck her blow with such force that he fell at the +very feet of Juana, who took no notice of him. The Marana sprang upon +him, and this time, resolved not to miss her prey, she caught him by the +throat. + +“I am free and I will marry her! I swear it, by God, by my mother, by +all there is most sacred in the world; I am a bachelor; I will marry +her, on my honor!” + +And he bit the arm of the courtesan. + +“Mother,” said Juana, “kill him. He is so base that I will not have him +for my husband, were he ten times as beautiful.” + +“Ah! I recognize my daughter!” cried the mother. + +“What is all this?” demanded the quartermaster, entering the room. + +“They are murdering me,” cried Montefiore, “on account of this girl; she +says I am her lover. She inveigled me into a trap, and they are forcing +me to marry her--” + +“And you reject her?” cried Diard, struck with the splendid beauty which +contempt, hatred, and indignation had given to the girl, already so +beautiful. “Then you are hard to please. If she wants a husband I am +ready to marry her. Put up your weapons; there is no trouble here.” + +The Marana pulled the Italian to the side of her daughter’s bed and said +to him, in a low voice,-- + +“If I spare you, give thanks for the rest of your life; but, remember +this, if your tongue ever injures my daughter you will see me again. +Go!--How much ‘dot’ do you give her?” she continued, going up to Perez. + +“She has two hundred thousand gold piastres,” replied the Spaniard. + +“And that is not all, monsieur,” said the Marana, turning to Diard. “Who +are you?--Go!” she repeated to Montefiore. + +The marquis, hearing this statement of gold piastres, came forward once +more, saying,-- + +“I am really free--” + +A glance from Juana silenced him. + +“You are really free to go,” she said. + +And he went immediately. + +“Alas! monsieur,” said the girl, turning to Diard, “I thank you with +admiration. But my husband is in heaven. To-morrow I shall enter a +convent--” + +“Juana, my Juana, hush!” cried the mother, clasping her in her arms. +Then she whispered in the girl’s ear. “You _must_ have another husband.” + +Juana turned pale. She freed herself from her mother and sat down once +more in her arm-chair. + +“Who are you, monsieur?” repeated the Marana, addressing Diard. + +“Madame, I am at present only the quartermaster of the 6th of the line. +But for such a wife I have the heart to make myself a marshal of France. +My name is Pierre-Francois Diard. My father was provost of merchants. I +am not--” + +“But, at least, you are an honest man, are you not?” cried the Marana, +interrupting him. “If you please the Signorina Juana di Mancini, you can +marry her and be happy together.--Juana,” she continued in a grave tone, +“in becoming the wife of a brave and worthy man remember that you will +also be a mother. I have sworn that you shall kiss your children without +a blush upon your face” (her voice faltered slightly). “I have sworn +that you shall live a virtuous life; expect, therefore, many troubles. +But, whatever happens, continue pure, and be faithful to your husband. +Sacrifice all things to him, for he will be the father of your +children--the father of your children! If you take a lover, I, your +mother, will stand between you and him. Do you see that dagger? It is in +your ‘dot,’” she continued, throwing the weapon on Juana’s bed. “I leave +it there as the guarantee of your honor so long as my eyes are open and +my arm free. Farewell,” she said, restraining her tears. “God grant that +we may never meet again.” + +At that idea, her tears began to flow. + +“Poor child!” she added, “you have been happier than you knew in this +dull home.--Do not allow her to regret it,” she said, turning to Diard. + +The foregoing rapid narrative is not the principal subject of this +Study, for the understanding of which it was necessary to explain how +it happened that the quartermaster Diard married Juana di Mancini, that +Montefiore and Diard were intimately known to each other, and to show +plainly what blood and what passions were in Madame Diard. + + + + +CHAPTER III. THE HISTORY OF MADAME DIARD + + +By the time that the quartermaster had fulfilled all the long and +dilatory formalities without which no French soldier can be married, he +was passionately in love with Juana di Mancini, and Juana had had time +to think of her coming destiny. + +An awful destiny! Juana, who felt neither esteem nor love for Diard, +was bound to him forever, by a rash but necessary promise. The man was +neither handsome nor well-made. His manners, devoid of all distinction, +were a mixture of the worst army tone, the habits of his province, and +his own insufficient education. How could she love Diard, she, a young +girl all grace and elegance, born with an invincible instinct for luxury +and good taste, her very nature tending toward the sphere of the higher +social classes? As for esteeming him, she rejected the very thought +precisely because he had married her. This repulsion was natural. Woman +is a saintly and noble creature, but almost always misunderstood, and +nearly always misjudged because she is misunderstood. If Juana had loved +Diard she would have esteemed him. Love creates in a wife a new woman; +the woman of the day before no longer exists on the morrow. Putting on +the nuptial robe of a passion in which life itself is concerned, the +woman wraps herself in purity and whiteness. Reborn into virtue and +chastity, there is no past for her; she is all future, and should forget +the things behind her to relearn life. In this sense the famous words +which a modern poet has put into the lips of Marion Delorme is infused +with truth,-- + +“And Love remade me virgin.” + +That line seems like a reminiscence of a tragedy of Corneille, so +truly does it recall the energetic diction of the father of our modern +theatre. Yet the poet was forced to sacrifice it to the essentially +vaudevillist spirit of the pit. + +So Juana loveless was doomed to be Juana humiliated, degraded, hopeless. +She could not honor the man who took her thus. She felt, in all +the conscientious purity of her youth, that distinction, subtle in +appearance but sacredly true, legal with the heart’s legality, which +women apply instinctively to all their feelings, even the least +reflective. Juana became profoundly sad as she saw the nature and the +extent of the life before her. Often she turned her eyes, brimming +with tears proudly repressed, upon Perez and Dona Lagounia, who fully +comprehended, both of them, the bitter thoughts those tears contained. +But they were silent: of what good were reproaches now; why look for +consolations? The deeper they were, the more they enlarged the wound. + +One evening, Juana, stupid with grief, heard through the open door of +her little room, which the old couple had thought shut, a pitying moan +from her adopted mother. + +“The child will die of grief.” + +“Yes,” said Perez, in a shaking voice, “but what can we do? I cannot now +boast of her beauty and her chastity to Comte d’Arcos, to whom I hoped +to marry her.” + +“But a single fault is not vice,” said the old woman, pitying as the +angels. + +“Her mother gave her to this man,” said Perez. + +“Yes, in a moment; without consulting the poor child!” cried Dona +Lagounia. + +“She knew what she was doing.” + +“But oh! into what hands our pearl is going!” + +“Say no more, or I shall seek a quarrel with that Diard.” + +“And that would only lead to other miseries.” + +Hearing these dreadful words Juana saw the happy future she had lost by +her own wrongdoing. The pure and simple years of her quiet life would +have been rewarded by a brilliant existence such as she had fondly +dreamed,--dreams which had caused her ruin. To fall from the height of +Greatness to Monsieur Diard! She wept. At times she went nearly mad. +She floated for a while between vice and religion. Vice was a speedy +solution, religion a lifetime of suffering. The meditation was stormy +and solemn. The next day was the fatal day, the day for the marriage. +But Juana could still remain free. Free, she knew how far her misery +would go; married, she was ignorant of where it went or what it might +bring her. + +Religion triumphed. Dona Lagounia stayed beside her child and prayed and +watched as she would have prayed and watched beside the dying. + +“God wills it,” she said to Juana. + +Nature gives to woman alternately a strength which enables her to suffer +and a weakness which leads her to resignation. Juana resigned herself; +and without restriction. She determined to obey her mother’s prayer, +and cross the desert of life to reach God’s heaven, knowing well that no +flowers grew for her along the way of that painful journey. + +She married Diard. As for the quartermaster, though he had no grace in +Juana’s eyes, we may well absolve him. He loved her distractedly. The +Marana, so keen to know the signs of love, had recognized in that man +the accents of passion and the brusque nature, the generous impulses, +that are common to Southerners. In the paroxysm of her anger and her +distress she had thought such qualities enough for her daughter’s +happiness. + +The first days of this marriage were apparently happy; or, to express +one of those latent facts, the miseries of which are buried by women +in the depths of their souls, Juana would not cast down her husband’s +joy,--a double role, dreadful to play, but to which, sooner or later, +all women unhappily married come. This is a history impossible to +recount in its full truth. Juana, struggling hourly against her nature, +a nature both Spanish and Italian, having dried up the source of her +tears by dint of weeping, was a human type, destined to represent +woman’s misery in its utmost expression, namely, sorrow undyingly +active; the description of which would need such minute observations +that to persons eager for dramatic emotions they would seem insipid. +This analysis, in which every wife would find some one of her own +sufferings, would require a volume to express them all; a fruitless, +hopeless volume by its very nature, the merit of which would consist in +faintest tints and delicate shadings which critics would declare to be +effeminate and diffuse. Besides, what man could rightly approach, +unless he bore another heart within his heart, those solemn and touching +elegies which certain women carry with them to their tomb; melancholies, +misunderstood even by those who cause them; sighs unheeded, devotions +unrewarded,--on earth at least,--splendid silences misconstrued; +vengeances withheld, disdained; generosities perpetually bestowed and +wasted; pleasures longed for and denied; angelic charities secretly +accomplished,--in short, all the religions of womanhood and its +inextinguishable love. + +Juana knew that life; fate spared her nought. She was wholly a wife, +but a sorrowful and suffering wife; a wife incessantly wounded, yet +forgiving always; a wife pure as a flawless diamond,--she who had the +beauty and the glow of the diamond, and in that beauty, that glow, a +vengeance in her hand; for she was certainly not a woman to fear the +dagger added to her “dot.” + +At first, inspired by a real love, by one of those passions which for +the time being change even odious characters and bring to light all that +may be noble in a soul, Diard behaved like a man of honor. He forced +Montefiore to leave the regiment and even the army corps, so that his +wife might never meet him during the time they remained in Spain. +Next, he petitioned for his own removal, and succeeded in entering the +Imperial Guard. He desired at any price to obtain a title, honors, and +consideration in keeping with his present wealth. With this idea in +his mind, he behaved courageously in one of the most bloody battles in +Germany, but, unfortunately, he was too severely wounded to remain in +the service. Threatened with the loss of a leg, he was forced to retire +on a pension, without the title of baron, without those rewards he hoped +to win, and would have won had he not been Diard. + +This event, this wound, and his thwarted hopes contributed to change his +character. His Provencal energy, roused for a time, sank down. At first +he was sustained by his wife, in whom his efforts, his courage, his +ambition had induced some belief in his nature, and who showed herself, +what women are, tender and consoling in the troubles of life. Inspired +by a few words from Juana, the retired soldier came to Paris, resolved +to win in an administrative career a position to command respect, bury +in oblivion the quartermaster of the 6th of the line, and secure for +Madame Diard a noble title. His passion for that seductive creature +enabled him to divine her most secret wishes. Juana expressed nothing, +but he understood her. He was not loved as a lover dreams of being +loved; he knew this, and he strove to make himself respected, loved, and +cherished. He foresaw a coming happiness, poor man, in the patience and +gentleness shown on all occasions by his wife; but that patience, that +gentleness, were only the outward signs of the resignation which had +made her his wife. Resignation, religion, were they love? Often Diard +wished for refusal where he met with chaste obedience; often he would +have given his eternal life that Juana might have wept upon his bosom +and not disguised her secret thoughts behind a smiling face which lied +to him nobly. Many young men--for after a certain age men no longer +struggle--persist in the effort to triumph over an evil fate, the +thunder of which they hear, from time to time, on the horizon of their +lives; and when at last they succumb and roll down the precipice +of evil, we ought to do them justice and acknowledge these inward +struggles. + +Like many men Diard tried all things, and all things were hostile to +him. His wealth enabled him to surround his wife with the enjoyments of +Parisian luxury. She lived in a fine house, with noble rooms, where she +maintained a salon, in which abounded artists (by nature no judges +of men), men of pleasure ready to amuse themselves anywhere, a few +politicians who swelled the numbers, and certain men of fashion, all +of whom admired Juana. Those who put themselves before the eyes of the +public in Paris must either conquer Paris or be subject to it. Diard’s +character was not sufficiently strong, compact, or persistent to +command society at that epoch, because it was an epoch when all men were +endeavoring to rise. Social classifications ready-made are perhaps a +great boon even for the people. Napoleon has confided to us the pains +he took to inspire respect in his court, where most of the courtiers had +been his equals. But Napoleon was Corsican, and Diard Provencal. Given +equal genius, an islander will always be more compact and rounded than +the man of terra firma in the same latitude; the arm of the sea which +separates Corsica from Provence is, in spite of human science, an ocean +which has made two nations. + +Diard’s mongrel position, which he himself made still more questionable, +brought him great troubles. Perhaps there is useful instruction to be +derived from the almost imperceptible connection of acts which led to +the finale of this history. + +In the first place, the sneerers of Paris did not see without malicious +smiles and words the pictures with which the former quartermaster +adorned his handsome mansion. Works of art purchased the night before +were said to be spoils from Spain; and this accusation was the revenge +of those who were jealous of his present fortune. Juana comprehended +this reproach, and by her advice Diard sent back to Tarragona all the +pictures he had brought from there. But the public, determined to see +things in the worst light, only said, “That Diard is shrewd; he has +sold his pictures.” Worthy people continued to think that those which +remained in the Diard salons were not honorably acquired. Some jealous +women asked how it was that a _Diard_ (!) had been able to marry so rich +and beautiful a young girl. Hence comments and satires without end, such +as Paris contributes. And yet, it must be said, that Juana met on +all sides the respect inspired by her pure and religious life, which +triumphed over everything, even Parisian calumny; but this respect +stopped short with her, her husband received none of it. Juana’s +feminine perception and her keen eye hovering over her salons, brought +her nothing but pain. + +This lack of esteem was perfectly natural. Diard’s comrades, in spite of +the virtues which our imaginations attribute to soldiers, never forgave +the former quartermaster of the 6th of the line for becoming suddenly so +rich and for attempting to cut a figure in Paris. Now in Paris, from +the last house in the faubourg Saint-Germain to the last in the rue +Saint-Lazare, between the heights of the Luxembourg and the heights of +Montmartre, all that clothes itself and gabbles, clothes itself to +go out and goes out to gabble. All that world of great and small +pretensions, that world of insolence and humble desires, of envy and +cringing, all that is gilded or tarnished, young or old, noble of +yesterday or noble from the fourth century, all that sneers at a +parvenu, all that fears to commit itself, all that wants to demolish +power and worships power if it resists,--_all_ those ears hear, _all_ +those tongues say, _all_ those minds know, in a single evening, where +the new-comer who aspires to honor among them was born and brought up, +and what that interloper has done, or has not done, in the course of his +life. There may be no court of assizes for the upper classes of society; +but at any rate they have the most cruel of public prosecutors, an +intangible moral being, both judge and executioner, who accuses and +brands. Do not hope to hide anything from him; tell him all yourself; +he wants to know all and he will know all. Do not ask what mysterious +telegraph it was which conveyed to him in the twinkling of an eye, at +any hour, in any place, that story, that bit of news, that scandal; +do not ask what prompts him. That telegraph is a social mystery; +no observer can report its effects. Of many extraordinary instances +thereof, one may suffice: The assassination of the Duc de Berry, which +occurred at the Opera-house, was related within ten minutes in the +Ile-Saint-Louis. Thus the opinion of the 6th of the line as to its +quartermaster filtered through society the night on which he gave his +first ball. + +Diard was therefore debarred from succeeding in society. Henceforth his +wife alone had the power to make anything of him. Miracle of our strange +civilization! In Paris, if a man is incapable of being anything himself, +his wife, when she is young and clever, may give him other chances +for elevation. We sometimes meet with invalid women, feeble beings +apparently, who, without rising from sofas or leaving their chambers, +have ruled society, moved a thousand springs, and placed their husbands +where their ambition or their vanity prompted. But Juana, whose +childhood was passed in her retreat in Tarragona, knew nothing of the +vices, the meannesses, or the resources of Parisian society; she looked +at that society with the curiosity of a girl, but she learned from it +only that which her sorrow and her wounded pride revealed to her. + +Juana had the tact of a virgin heart which receives impressions in +advance of the event, after the manner of what are called “sensitives.” + The solitary young girl, so suddenly become a woman and a wife, saw +plainly that were she to attempt to compel society to respect her +husband, it must be after the manner of Spanish beggars, carbine in +hand. Besides, the multiplicity of the precautions she would have to +take, would they meet the necessity? Suddenly she divined society as, +once before, she had divined life, and she saw nothing around her but +the immense extent of an irreparable disaster. She had, moreover, the +additional grief of tardily recognizing her husband’s peculiar form +of incapacity; he was a man unfitted for any purpose that required +continuity of ideas. He could not understand a consistent part, such as +he ought to play in the world; he perceived it neither as a whole nor +in its gradations, and its gradations were everything. He was in one of +those positions where shrewdness and tact might have taken the place +of strength; when shrewdness and tact succeed, they are, perhaps, the +highest form of strength. + +Now Diard, far from arresting the spot of oil on his garments left by +his antecedents, did his best to spread it. Incapable of studying the +phase of the empire in the midst of which he came to live in Paris, he +wanted to be made prefect. At that time every one believed in the genius +of Napoleon; his favor enhanced the value of all offices. Prefectures, +those miniature empires, could only be filled by men of great names, or +chamberlains of H.M. the emperor and king. Already the prefects were +a species of vizier. The myrmidons of the great man scoffed at Diard’s +pretensions to a prefecture, whereupon he lowered his demand to a +sub-prefecture. There was, of course, a ridiculous discrepancy between +this latter demand and the magnitude of his fortune. To frequent the +imperial salons and live with insolent luxury, and then to abandon that +millionaire life and bury himself as sub-prefect at Issoudun or Savenay +was certainly holding himself below his position. Juana, too late aware +of our laws and habits and administrative customs, did not enlighten her +husband soon enough. Diard, desperate, petitioned successively all the +ministerial powers; repulsed everywhere, he found nothing open to him; +and society then judged him as the government judged him and as he +judged himself. Diard, grievously wounded on the battlefield, was +nevertheless not decorated; the quartermaster, rich as he was, was +allowed no place in public life, and society logically refused him that +to which he pretended in its midst. + +Finally, to cap all, the luckless man felt in his own home the +superiority of his wife. Though she used great tact--we might say velvet +softness if the term were admissible--to disguise from her husband this +supremacy, which surprised and humiliated herself, Diard ended by being +affected by it. + +At a game of life like this men are either unmanned, or they grow the +stronger, or they give themselves to evil. The courage or the ardor of +this man lessened under the reiterated blows which his own faults dealt +to his self-appreciation, and fault after fault he committed. In the +first place he had to struggle against his own habits and character. +A passionate Provencal, frank in his vices as in his virtues, this man +whose fibres vibrated like the strings of a harp, was all heart to his +former friends. He succored the shabby and spattered man as readily as +the needy of rank; in short, he accepted everybody, and gave his hand in +his gilded salons to many a poor devil. Observing this on one occasion, +a general of the empire, a variety of the human species of which no +type will presently remain, refused his hand to Diard, and called him, +insolently, “my good fellow” when he met him. The few persons of really +good society whom Diard knew, treated him with that elegant, polished +contempt against which a new-made man has seldom any weapons. The +manners, the semi-Italian gesticulations, the speech of Diard, his +style of dress,--all contributed to repulse the respect which careful +observation of matters of good taste and dignity might otherwise obtain +for vulgar persons; the yoke of such conventionalities can only be cast +off by great and unthinkable powers. So goes the world. + +These details but faintly picture the many tortures to which Juana was +subjected; they came upon her one by one; each social nature pricked her +with its own particular pin; and to a soul which preferred the thrust of +a dagger, there could be no worse suffering than this struggle in which +Diard received insults he did not feel and Juana felt those she did not +receive. A moment came, an awful moment, when she gained a clear and +lucid perception of society, and felt in one instant all the sorrows +which were gathering themselves together to fall upon her head. She +judged her husband incapable of rising to the honored ranks of the +social order, and she felt that he would one day descend to where his +instincts led him. Henceforth Juana felt pity for him. + +The future was very gloomy for this young woman. She lived in constant +apprehension of some disaster. This presentiment was in her soul as +a contagion is in the air, but she had strength of mind and will to +disguise her anguish beneath a smile. Juana had ceased to think of +herself. She used her influence to make Diard resign his various +pretensions and to show him, as a haven, the peaceful and consoling life +of home. Evils came from society--why not banish it? In his home Diard +found peace and respect; he reigned there. She felt herself strong to +accept the trying task of making him happy,--he, a man dissatisfied with +himself. Her energy increased with the difficulties of life; she had all +the secret heroism necessary to her position; religion inspired her with +those desires which support the angel appointed to protect a Christian +soul--occult poesy, allegorical image of our two natures! + +Diard abandoned his projects, closed his house to the world, and lived +in his home. But here he found another reef. The poor soldier had one of +those eccentric souls which need perpetual motion. Diard was one of +the men who are instinctively compelled to start again the moment they +arrive, and whose vital object seems to be to come and go incessantly, +like the wheels mentioned in Holy Writ. Perhaps he felt the need of +flying from himself. Without wearying of Juana, without blaming Juana, +his passion for her, rendered tranquil by time, allowed his natural +character to assert itself. Henceforth his days of gloom were more +frequent, and he often gave way to southern excitement. The more +virtuous a woman is and the more irreproachable, the more a man likes +to find fault with her, if only to assert by that act his legal +superiority. But if by chance she seems really imposing to him, he feels +the need of foisting faults upon her. After that, between man and wife, +trifles increase and grow till they swell to Alps. + +But Juana, patient and without pride, gentle and without that bitterness +which women know so well how to cast into their submission, left Diard +no chance for planned ill-humor. Besides, she was one of those noble +creatures to whom it is impossible to speak disrespectfully; her glance, +in which her life, saintly and pure, shone out, had the weight of a +fascination. Diard, embarrassed at first, then annoyed, ended by feeling +that such high virtue was a yoke upon him. The goodness of his wife gave +him no violent emotions, and violent emotions were what he wanted. What +myriads of scenes are played in the depths of his souls, beneath the +cold exterior of lives that are, apparently, commonplace! Among these +dramas, lasting each but a short time, though they influence life so +powerfully and are frequently the forerunners of the great misfortune +doomed to fall on so many marriages, it is difficult to choose an +example. There was a scene, however, which particularly marked the +moment when in the life of this husband and wife estrangement began. +Perhaps it may also serve to explain the finale of this narrative. + +Juana had two children, happily for her, two sons. The first was born +seven months after her marriage. He was called Juan, and he strongly +resembled his mother. The second was born about two years after her +arrival in Paris. The latter resembled both Diard and Juana, but more +particularly Diard. His name was Francisque. For the last five years +Francisque had been the object of Juana’s most tender and watchful care. +The mother was constantly occupied with that child; to him her prettiest +caresses; to him the toys, but to him, especially, the penetrating +mother-looks. Juana had watched him from his cradle; she had studied his +cries, his motions; she endeavored to discern his nature that she might +educate him wisely. It seemed at times as if she had but that one child. +Diard, seeing that the eldest, Juan, was in a way neglected, took him +under his own protection; and without inquiring even of himself whether +the boy was the fruit of that ephemeral love to which he owed his wife, +he made him his Benjamin. + +Of all the sentiments transmitted to her through the blood of her +grandmothers which consumed her, Madame Diard accepted one alone, +--maternal love. But she loved her children doubly: first with the +noble violence of which her mother the Marana had given her the example; +secondly, with grace and purity, in the spirit of those social +virtues the practice of which was the glory of her life and her inward +recompense. The secret thought, the conscience of her motherhood, which +gave to the Marana’s life its stamp of untaught poesy, was to Juana an +acknowledged life, an open consolation at all hours. Her mother had +been virtuous as other women are criminal,--in secret; she had stolen a +fancied happiness, she had never really tasted it. But Juana, unhappy +in her virtue as her mother was unhappy in her vice, could enjoy at all +moments the ineffable delights which her mother had so craved and could +not have. To her, as to her mother, maternity comprised all earthly +sentiments. Each, from differing causes, had no other comfort in their +misery. Juana’s maternal love may have been the strongest because, +deprived of all other affections, she put the joys she lacked into the +one joy of her children; and there are noble passions that resemble +vice; the more they are satisfied the more they increase. Mothers and +gamblers are alike insatiable. + +When Juana saw the generous pardon laid silently on the head of Juan by +Diard’s fatherly affection, she was much moved, and from the day when +the husband and wife changed parts she felt for him the true and deep +interest she had hitherto shown to him as a matter of duty only. If that +man had been more consistent in his life; if he had not destroyed +by fitful inconstancy and restlessness the forces of a true though +excitable sensibility, Juana would doubtless have loved him in the end. +Unfortunately, he was a type of those southern natures which are keen in +perceptions they cannot follow out; capable of great things over-night, +and incapable the next morning; often the victim of their own virtues, +and often lucky through their worst passions; admirable men in some +respects, when their good qualities are kept to a steady energy by some +outward bond. For two years after his retreat from active life Diard +was held captive in his home by the softest chains. He lived, almost in +spite of himself, under the influence of his wife, who made herself gay +and amusing to cheer him, who used the resources of feminine genius +to attract and seduce him to a love of virtue, but whose ability and +cleverness did not go so far as to simulate love. + +At this time all Paris was talking of the affair of a captain in the +army who in a paroxysm of libertine jealousy had killed a woman. Diard, +on coming home to dinner, told his wife that the officer was dead. He +had killed himself to avoid the dishonor of a trial and the shame of +death upon the scaffold. Juana did not see at first the logic of +such conduct, and her husband was obliged to explain to her the fine +jurisprudence of French law, which does not prosecute the dead. + +“But, papa, didn’t you tell us the other day that the king could +pardon?” asked Francisque. + +“The king can give nothing but life,” said Juan, half scornfully. + +Diard and Juana, the spectators of this little scene, were differently +affected by it. The glance, moist with joy, which his wife cast upon her +eldest child was a fatal revelation to the husband of the secrets of +a heart hitherto impenetrable. That eldest child was all Juana; Juana +comprehended him; she was sure of his heart, his future; she adored him, +but her ardent love was a secret between herself, her child, and God. +Juan instinctively enjoyed the seeming indifference of his mother in +presence of his father and brother, for she pressed him to her heart +when alone. Francisque was Diard, and Juana’s incessant care and +watchfulness betrayed her desire to correct in the son the vices of the +father and to encourage his better qualities. Juana, unaware that her +glance had said too much and that her husband had rightly interpreted +it, took Francisque in her lap and gave him, in a gentle voice still +trembling with the pleasure that Juan’s answer had brought her, a lesson +upon honor, simplified to his childish intelligence. + +“That boy’s character requires care,” said Diard. + +“Yes,” she replied simply. + +“How about Juan?” + +Madame Diard, struck by the tone in which the words were uttered, looked +at her husband. + +“Juan was born perfect,” he added. + +Then he sat down gloomily, and reflected. Presently, as his wife +continued silent, he added:-- + +“You love one of _your_ children better than the other.” + +“You know that,” she said. + +“No,” said Diard, “I did not know until now which of them you +preferred.” + +“But neither of them have ever given me a moment’s uneasiness,” she +answered quickly. + +“But one of them gives you greater joys,” he said, more quickly still. + +“I never counted them,” she said. + +“How false you women are!” cried Diard. “Will you dare to say that Juan +is not the child of your heart?” + +“If that were so,” she said, with dignity, “do you think it a +misfortune?” + +“You have never loved me. If you had chosen, I would have conquered +worlds for your sake. You know all that I have struggled to do in life, +supported by the hope of pleasing you. Ah! if you had only loved me!” + +“A woman who loves,” said Juana, “likes to live in solitude, far from +the world, and that is what we are doing.” + +“I know, Juana, that _you_ are never in the wrong.” + +The words were said bitterly, and cast, for the rest of their lives +together, a coldness between them. + +On the morrow of that fatal day Diard went back to his old companions +and found distractions for his mind in play. Unfortunately, he won +much money, and continued playing. Little by little, he returned to the +dissipated life he had formerly lived. Soon he ceased even to dine in +his own home. + +Some months went by in the enjoyment of this new independence; he was +determined to preserve it, and in order to do so he separated himself +from his wife, giving her the large apartments and lodging himself in +the entresol. By the end of the year Diard and Juana only saw each other +in the morning at breakfast. + +Like all gamblers, he had his alternations of loss and gain. Not +wishing to cut into the capital of his fortune, he felt the necessity +of withdrawing from his wife the management of their income; and the day +came when he took from her all she had hitherto freely disposed of +for the household benefit, giving her instead a monthly stipend. The +conversation they had on this subject was the last of their married +intercourse. The silence that fell between them was a true divorce; +Juana comprehended that from henceforth she was only a mother, and she +was glad, not seeking for the causes of this evil. For such an event is +a great evil. Children are conjointly one with husband and wife in the +home, and the life of her husband could not be a source of grief and +injury to Juana only. + +As for Diard, now emancipated, he speedily grew accustomed to win and +lose enormous sums. A fine player and a heavy player, he soon became +celebrated for his style of playing. The social consideration he had +been unable to win under the Empire, he acquired under the Restoration +by the rolling of his gold on the green cloth and by his talent for +all games that were in vogue. Ambassadors, bankers, persons with +newly-acquired large fortunes, and all those men who, having sucked life +to the dregs, turn to gambling for its feverish joys, admired Diard at +their clubs,--seldom in their own houses,--and they all gambled with +him. He became the fashion. Two or three times during the winter he +gave a fete as a matter of social pride in return for the civilities he +received. At such times Juana once more caught a glimpse of the world of +balls, festivities, luxury, and lights; but for her it was a sort of +tax imposed upon the comfort of her solitude. She, the queen of these +solemnities, appeared like a being fallen from some other planet. Her +simplicity, which nothing had corrupted, her beautiful virginity of +soul, which her peaceful life restored to her, her beauty and her +true modesty, won her sincere homage. But observing how few women ever +entered her salons, she came to understand that though her husband +was following, without communicating its nature to her, a new line of +conduct, he had gained nothing actually in the world’s esteem. + +Diard was not always lucky; far from it. In three years he had +dissipated three fourths of his fortune, but his passion for play gave +him the energy to continue it. He was intimate with a number of men, +more particularly with the roues of the Bourse, men who, since the +revolution, have set up the principle that robbery done on a large scale +is only a _smirch_ to the reputation,--transferring thus to financial +matters the loose principles of love in the eighteenth century. Diard +now became a sort of business man, and concerned himself in several of +those affairs which are called _shady_ in the slang of the law-courts. +He practised the decent thievery by which so many men, cleverly +masked, or hidden in the recesses of the political world, make their +fortunes,--thievery which, if done in the streets by the light of an oil +lamp, would see a poor devil to the galleys, but, under gilded ceilings +and by the light of candelabra, is sanctioned. Diard brought up, +monopolized, and sold sugars; he sold offices; he had the glory of +inventing the “man of straw” for lucrative posts which it was necessary +to keep in his own hands for a short time; he bought votes, receiving, +on one occasion, so much per cent on the purchase of fifteen +parliamentary votes which all passed on one division from the benches of +the Left to the benches of the Right. Such actions are no longer crimes +or thefts,--they are called governing, developing industry, becoming +a financial power. Diard was placed by public opinion on the bench of +infamy where many an able man was already seated. On that bench is the +aristocracy of evil. It is the upper Chamber of scoundrels of high life. +Diard was, therefore, not a mere commonplace gambler who is seen to be a +blackguard, and ends by begging. That style of gambler is no longer +seen in society of a certain topographical height. In these days bold +scoundrels die brilliantly in the chariot of vice with the trappings of +luxury. Diard, at least, did not buy his remorse at a low price; he made +himself one of these privileged men. Having studied the machinery of +government and learned all the secrets and the passions of the men in +power, he was able to maintain himself in the fiery furnace into which +he had sprung. + +Madame Diard knew nothing of her husband’s infernal life. Glad of his +abandonment, she felt no curiosity about him, and all her hours were +occupied. She devoted what money she had to the education of her +children, wishing to make men of them, and giving them straight-forward +reasons, without, however, taking the bloom from their young +imaginations. Through them alone came her interests and her emotions; +consequently, she suffered no longer from her blemished life. Her +children were to her what they are to many mothers for a long period +of time,--a sort of renewal of their own existence. Diard was now an +accidental circumstance, not a participator in her life, and since he +had ceased to be the father and the head of the family, Juana felt +bound to him by no tie other than that imposed by conventional laws. +Nevertheless, she brought up her children to the highest respect for +paternal authority, however imaginary it was for them. In this she was +greatly seconded by her husband’s continual absence. If he had been much +in the home Diard would have neutralized his wife’s efforts. The boys +had too much intelligence and shrewdness not to have judged their +father; and to judge a father is moral parricide. + +In the long run, however, Juana’s indifference to her husband wore +itself away; it even changed to a species of fear. She understood at +last how the conduct of a father might long weigh on the future of +her children, and her motherly solicitude brought her many, though +incomplete, revelations of the truth. From day to day the dread of some +unknown but inevitable evil in the shadow of which she lived became +more and more keen and terrible. Therefore, during the rare moments when +Diard and Juana met she would cast upon his hollow face, wan from nights +of gambling and furrowed by emotions, a piercing look, the penetration +of which made Diard shudder. At such times the assumed gaiety of her +husband alarmed Juana more than his gloomiest expressions of anxiety +when, by chance, he forgot that assumption of joy. Diard feared his wife +as a criminal fears the executioner. In him, Juana saw her children’s +shame; and in her Diard dreaded a calm vengeance, the judgment of that +serene brow, an arm raised, a weapon ready. + +After fifteen years of marriage Diard found himself without resources. +He owed three hundred thousand francs and he could scarcely muster one +hundred thousand. The house, his only visible possession, was mortgaged +to its fullest selling value. A few days more, and the sort of prestige +with which opulence had invested him would vanish. Not a hand would be +offered, not a purse would be open to him. Unless some favorable event +occurred he would fall into a slough of contempt, deeper perhaps than +he deserved, precisely because he had mounted to a height he could +not maintain. At this juncture he happened to hear that a number of +strangers of distinction, diplomats and others, were assembled at the +watering-places in the Pyrenees, where they gambled for enormous sums, +and were doubtless well supplied with money. + +He determined to go at once to the Pyrenees; but he would not leave his +wife in Paris, lest some importunate creditor might reveal to her the +secret of his horrible position. He therefore took her and the two +children with him, refusing to allow her to take the tutor and scarcely +permitting her to take a maid. His tone was curt and imperious; he +seemed to have recovered some energy. This sudden journey, the cause of +which escaped her penetration, alarmed Juana secretly. Her husband made +it gaily. Obliged to occupy the same carriage, he showed himself day +by day more attentive to the children and more amiable to their +mother. Nevertheless, each day brought Juana dark presentiments, the +presentiments of mothers who tremble without apparent reason, but who +are seldom mistaken when they tremble thus. For them the veil of the +future seems thinner than for others. + +At Bordeaux, Diard hired in a quiet street a quiet little house, neatly +furnished, and in it he established his wife. The house was at the +corner of two streets, and had a garden. Joined to the neighboring house +on one side only, it was open to view and accessible on the other three +sides. Diard paid the rent in advance, and left Juana barely enough +money for the necessary expenses of three months, a sum not exceeding +a thousand francs. Madame Diard made no observation on this unusual +meanness. When her husband told her that he was going to the +watering-places and that she would stay at Bordeaux, Juana offered no +difficulty, and at once formed a plan to teach the children Spanish +and Italian, and to make them read the two masterpieces of the two +languages. She was glad to lead a retired life, simply and naturally +economical. To spare herself the troubles of material life, she arranged +with a “traiteur” the day after Diard’s departure to send in their +meals. Her maid then sufficed for the service of the house, and she thus +found herself without money, but her wants all provided for until her +husband’s return. Her pleasures consisted in taking walks with the +children. She was then thirty-three years old. Her beauty, greatly +developed, was in all its lustre. Therefore as soon as she appeared, +much talk was made in Bordeaux about the beautiful Spanish stranger. At +the first advances made to her Juana ceased to walk abroad, and confined +herself wholly to her own large garden. + +Diard at first made a fortune at the baths. In two months he won three +hundred thousand dollars, but it never occurred to him to send any money +to his wife; he kept it all, expecting to make some great stroke of +fortune on a vast stake. Towards the end of the second month the Marquis +de Montefiore appeared at the same baths. The marquis was at this time +celebrated for his wealth, his handsome face, his fortunate marriage +with an Englishwoman, and more especially for his love of play. Diard, +his former companion, encountered him, and desired to add his spoils to +those of others. A gambler with four hundred thousand francs in hand is +always in a position to do as he pleases. Diard, confident in his luck, +renewed acquaintance with Montefiore. The latter received him very +coldly, but nevertheless they played together, and Diard lost every +penny that he possessed, and more. + +“My dear Montefiore,” said the ex-quartermaster, after making a tour +of the salon, “I owe you a hundred thousand francs; but my money is in +Bordeaux, where I have left my wife.” + +Diard had the money in bank-bills in his pocket; but with the +self-possession and rapid bird’s-eye view of a man accustomed to catch +at all resources, he still hoped to recover himself by some one of the +endless caprices of play. Montefiore had already mentioned his intention +of visiting Bordeaux. Had he paid his debt on the spot, Diard would +have been left without the power to take his revenge; a revenge at cards +often exceeds the amount of all preceding losses. But these burning +expectations depended on the marquis’s reply. + +“Wait, my dear fellow,” said Montefiore, “and we will go together to +Bordeaux. In all conscience, I am rich enough to-day not to wish to take +the money of an old comrade.” + +Three days later Diard and Montefiore were in Bordeaux at a gambling +table. Diard, having won enough to pay his hundred thousand francs, went +on until he had lost two hundred thousand more on his word. He was gay +as a man who swam in gold. Eleven o’clock sounded; the night was superb. +Montefiore may have felt, like Diard, a desire to breathe the open air +and recover from such emotions in a walk. The latter proposed to the +marquis to come home with him to take a cup of tea and get his money. + +“But Madame Diard?” said Montefiore. + +“Bah!” exclaimed the husband. + +They went down-stairs; but before taking his hat Diard entered the +dining-room of the establishment and asked for a glass of water. While +it was being brought, he walked up and down the room, and was able, +without being noticed, to pick up one of those small sharp-pointed steel +knives with pearl handles which are used for cutting fruit at dessert. + +“Where do you live?” said Montefiore, in the courtyard, “for I want to +send a carriage there to fetch me.” + +Diard told him the exact address. + +“You see,” said Montefiore, in a low voice, taking Diard’s arm, “that as +long as I am with you I have nothing to fear; but if I came home alone +and a scoundrel were to follow me, I should be profitable to kill.” + +“Have you much with you?” + +“No, not much,” said the wary Italian, “only my winnings. But they would +make a pretty fortune for a beggar and turn him into an honest man for +the rest of his life.” + +Diard led the marquis along a lonely street where he remembered to have +seen a house, the door of which was at the end of an avenue of trees +with high and gloomy walls on either side of it. When they reached this +spot he coolly invited the marquis to precede him; but as if the latter +understood him he preferred to keep at his side. Then, no sooner were +they fairly in the avenue, then Diard, with the agility of a tiger, +tripped up the marquis with a kick behind the knees, and putting a foot +on his neck stabbed him again and again to the heart till the blade of +the knife broke in it. Then he searched Montefiore’s pockets, took his +wallet, money, everything. But though he had taken the Italian unawares, +and had done the deed with lucid mind and the quickness of a pickpocket, +Montefiore had time to cry “Murder! Help!” in a shrill and piercing +voice which was fit to rouse every sleeper in the neighborhood. His last +sighs were given in those horrible shrieks. + +Diard was not aware that at the moment when they entered the avenue a +crowd just issuing from a theatre was passing at the upper end of the +street. The cries of the dying man reached them, though Diard did his +best to stifle the noise by setting his foot firmly on Montefiore’s +neck. The crowd began to run towards the avenue, the high walls of which +appeared to echo back the cries, directing them to the very spot where +the crime was committed. The sound of their coming steps seemed to beat +on Diard’s brain. But not losing his head as yet, the murderer left +the avenue and came boldly into the street, walking very gently, like a +spectator who sees the inutility of trying to give help. He even turned +round once or twice to judge of the distance between himself and the +crowd, and he saw them rushing up the avenue, with the exception of one +man, who, with a natural sense of caution, began to watch Diard. + +“There he is! there he is!” cried the people, who had entered the avenue +as soon as they saw Montefiore stretched out near the door of the empty +house. + +As soon as that clamor rose, Diard, feeling himself well in the advance, +began to run or rather to fly, with the vigor of a lion and the bounds +of a deer. At the other end of the street he saw, or fancied he saw, a +mass of persons, and he dashed down a cross street to avoid them. But +already every window was open, and heads were thrust forth right and +left, while from every door came shouts and gleams of light. Diard kept +on, going straight before him, through the lights and the noise; and +his legs were so actively agile that he soon left the tumult behind him, +though without being able to escape some eyes which took in the +extent of his course more rapidly than he could cover it. Inhabitants, +soldiers, gendarmes, every one, seemed afoot in the twinkling of an eye. +Some men awoke the commissaries of police, others stayed by the body +to guard it. The pursuit kept on in the direction of the fugitive, who +dragged it after him like the flame of a conflagration. + +Diard, as he ran, had all the sensations of a dream when he heard a +whole city howling, running, panting after him. Nevertheless, he kept +his ideas and his presence of mind. Presently he reached the wall of the +garden of his house. The place was perfectly silent, and he thought he +had foiled his pursuers, though a distant murmur of the tumult came to +his ears like the roaring of the sea. He dipped some water from a brook +and drank it. Then, observing a pile of stones on the road, he hid +his treasure in it; obeying one of those vague thoughts which come to +criminals at a moment when the faculty to judge their actions under all +bearings deserts them, and they think to establish their innocence by +want of proof of their guilt. + +That done, he endeavored to assume a placid countenance; he even tried +to smile as he rapped softly on the door of his house, hoping that no +one saw him. He raised his eyes, and through the outer blinds of one +window came a gleam of light from his wife’s room. Then, in the midst of +his trouble, visions of her gentle life, spent with her children, beat +upon his brain with the force of a hammer. The maid opened the door, +which Diard hastily closed behind him with a kick. For a moment he +breathed freely; then, noticing that he was bathed in perspiration, +he sent the servant back to Juana and stayed in the darkness of the +passage, where he wiped his face with his handkerchief and put his +clothes in order, like a dandy about to pay a visit to a pretty woman. +After that he walked into a track of the moonlight to examine his hands. +A quiver of joy passed over him as he saw that no blood stains were on +them; the hemorrhage from his victim’s body was no doubt inward. + +But all this took time. When at last he mounted the stairs to Juana’s +room he was calm and collected, and able to reflect on his position, +which resolved itself into two ideas: to leave the house, and get to the +wharves. He did not _think_ these ideas, he _saw_ them written in fiery +letters on the darkness. Once at the wharves he could hide all day, +return at night for his treasure, then conceal himself, like a rat, +in the hold of some vessel and escape without any one suspecting +his whereabouts. But to do all this, money, gold, was his first +necessity,--and he did not possess one penny. + +The maid brought a light to show him up. + +“Felicie,” he said, “don’t you hear a noise in the street, shouts, +cries? Go and see what it means, and come and tell me.” + +His wife, in her white dressing-gown, was sitting at a table, reading +aloud to Francisque and Juan from a Spanish Cervantes, while the boys +followed her pronunciation of the words from the text. They all three +stopped and looked at Diard, who stood in the doorway with his hands in +his pockets; overcome, perhaps, by finding himself in this calm scene, +so softly lighted, so beautiful with the faces of his wife and children. +It was a living picture of the Virgin between her son and John. + +“Juana, I have something to say to you.” + +“What has happened?” she asked, instantly perceiving from the livid +paleness of her husband that the misfortune she had daily expected was +upon them. + +“Oh, nothing; but I want to speak to you--to you, alone.” + +And he glanced at his sons. + +“My dears, go to your room, and go to bed,” said Juana; “say your +prayers without me.” + +The boys left the room in silence, with the incurious obedience of +well-trained children. + +“My dear Juana,” said Diard, in a coaxing voice, “I left you with very +little money, and I regret it now. Listen to me; since I relieved you +of the care of our income by giving you an allowance, have you not, like +other women, laid something by?” + +“No,” replied Juana, “I have nothing. In making that allowance you did +not reckon the costs of the children’s education. I don’t say that to +reproach you, my friend, only to explain my want of money. All that you +gave me went to pay masters and--” + +“Enough!” cried Diard, violently. “Thunder of heaven! every instant is +precious! Where are your jewels?” + +“You know very well I have never worn any.” + +“Then there’s not a sou to be had here!” cried Diard, frantically. + +“Why do you shout in that way?” she asked. + +“Juana,” he replied, “I have killed a man.” + +Juana sprang to the door of her children’s room and closed it; then she +returned. + +“Your sons must hear nothing,” she said. “With whom have you fought?” + +“Montefiore,” he replied. + +“Ah!” she said with a sigh, “the only man you had the right to kill.” + +“There were many reasons why he should die by my hand. But I can’t lose +time--Money, money! for God’s sake, money! I may be pursued. We did not +fight. I--I killed him.” + +“Killed him!” she cried, “how?” + +“Why, as one kills anything. He stole my whole fortune and I took it +back, that’s all. Juana, now that everything is quiet you must go down +to that heap of stones--you know the heap by the garden wall--and get +that money, since you haven’t any in the house.” + +“The money that you stole?” said Juana. + +“What does that matter to you? Have you any money to give me? I tell you +I must get away. They are on my traces.” + +“Who?” + +“The people, the police.” + +Juana left the room, but returned immediately. + +“Here,” she said, holding out to him at arm’s length a jewel, “that is +Dona Lagounia’s cross. There are four rubies in it, of great value, I +have been told. Take it and go--go!” + +“Felicie hasn’t come back,” he cried, with a sudden thought. “Can she +have been arrested?” + +Juana laid the cross on the table, and sprang to the windows that looked +on the street. There she saw, in the moonlight, a file of soldiers +posting themselves in deepest silence along the wall of the house. She +turned, affecting to be calm, and said to her husband:-- + +“You have not a minute to lose; you must escape through the garden. Here +is the key of the little gate.” + +As a precaution she turned to the other windows, looking on the garden. +In the shadow of the trees she saw the gleam of the silver lace on the +hats of a body of gendarmes; and she heard the distant mutterings of +a crowd of persons whom sentinels were holding back at the end of the +streets up which curiosity had drawn them. Diard had, in truth, been +seen to enter his house by persons at their windows, and on their +information and that of the frightened maid-servant, who was arrested, +the troops and the people had blocked the two streets which led to the +house. A dozen gendarmes, returning from the theatre, had climbed the +walls of the garden, and guarded all exit in that direction. + +“Monsieur,” said Juana, “you cannot escape. The whole town is here.” + +Diard ran from window to window with the useless activity of a captive +bird striking against the panes to escape. Juana stood silent and +thoughtful. + +“Juana, dear Juana, help me! give me, for pity’s sake, some advice.” + +“Yes,” said Juana, “I will; and I will save you.” + +“Ah! you are always my good angel.” + +Juana left the room and returned immediately, holding out to Diard, with +averted head, one of his own pistols. Diard did not take it. Juana heard +the entrance of the soldiers into the courtyard, where they laid down +the body of the murdered man to confront the assassin with the sight of +it. She turned round and saw Diard white and livid. The man was nearly +fainting, and tried to sit down. + +“Your children implore you,” she said, putting the pistol beneath his +hand. + +“But--my good Juana, my little Juana, do you think--Juana! is it so +pressing?--I want to kiss you.” + +The gendarmes were mounting the staircase. Juana grasped the pistol, +aimed it at Diard, holding him, in spite of his cries, by the throat; +then she blew his brains out and flung the weapon on the ground. + +At that instant the door was opened violently. The public prosecutor, +followed by an examining judge, a doctor, a sheriff, and a posse of +gendarmes, all the representatives, in short, of human justice, entered +the room. + +“What do you want?” asked Juana. + +“Is that Monsieur Diard?” said the prosecutor, pointing to the dead body +bent double on the floor. + +“Yes, monsieur.” + +“Your gown is covered with blood, madame.” + +“Do you not see why?” replied Juana. + +She went to the little table and sat down, taking up the volume of +Cervantes; she was pale, with a nervous agitation which she nevertheless +controlled, keeping it wholly inward. + +“Leave the room,” said the prosecutor to the gendarmes. + +Then he signed to the examining judge and the doctor to remain. + +“Madame, under the circumstances, we can only congratulate you on the +death of your husband,” he said. “At least he has died as a soldier +should, whatever crime his passions may have led him to commit. His act +renders negatory that of justice. But however we may desire to spare you +at such a moment, the law requires that we should make an exact report +of all violent deaths. You will permit us to do our duty?” + +“May I go and change my dress?” she asked, laying down the volume. + +“Yes, madame; but you must bring it back to us. The doctor may need it.” + +“It would be too painful for madame to see me operate,” said the doctor, +understanding the suspicions of the prosecutor. “Messieurs,” he added, +“I hope you will allow her to remain in the next room.” + +The magistrates approved the request of the merciful physician, +and Felicie was permitted to attend her mistress. The judge and the +prosecutor talked together in a low voice. Officers of the law are +very unfortunate in being forced to suspect all, and to imagine evil +everywhere. By dint of supposing wicked intentions, and of comprehending +them, in order to reach the truth hidden under so many contradictory +actions, it is impossible that the exercise of their dreadful functions +should not, in the long run, dry up at their source the generous +emotions they are constrained to repress. If the sensibilities of the +surgeon who probes into the mysteries of the human body end by growing +callous, what becomes of those of the judge who is incessantly compelled +to search the inner folds of the soul? Martyrs to their mission, +magistrates are all their lives in mourning for their lost illusions; +crime weighs no less heavily on them than on the criminal. An old man +seated on the bench is venerable, but a young judge makes a thoughtful +person shudder. The examining judge in this case was young, and he felt +obliged to say to the public prosecutor,-- + +“Do you think that woman was her husband’s accomplice? Ought we to take +her into custody? Is it best to question her?” + +The prosecutor replied, with a careless shrug of his shoulders,-- + +“Montefiore and Diard were two well-known scoundrels. The maid evidently +knew nothing of the crime. Better let the thing rest there.” + +The doctor performed the autopsy, and dictated his report to the +sheriff. Suddenly he stopped, and hastily entered the next room. + +“Madame--” he said. + +Juana, who had removed her bloody gown, came towards him. + +“It was you,” he whispered, stooping to her ear, “who killed your +husband.” + +“Yes, monsieur,” she replied. + +The doctor returned and continued his dictation as follows,-- + +“And, from the above assemblage of facts, it appears evident that the +said Diard killed himself voluntarily and by his own hand.” + +“Have you finished?” he said to the sheriff after a pause. + +“Yes,” replied the writer. + +The doctor signed the report. Juana, who had followed him into the room, +gave him one glance, repressing with difficulty the tears which for an +instant rose into her eyes and moistened them. + +“Messieurs,” she said to the public prosecutor and the judge, “I am a +stranger here, and a Spaniard. I am ignorant of the laws, and I know +no one in Bordeaux. I ask of you one kindness: enable me to obtain a +passport for Spain.” + +“One moment!” cried the examining judge. “Madame, what has become of the +money stolen from the Marquis de Montefiore?” + +“Monsieur Diard,” she replied, “said something to me vaguely about a +heap of stones, under which he must have hidden it.” + +“Where?” + +“In the street.” + +The two magistrates looked at each other. Juana made a noble gesture and +motioned to the doctor. + +“Monsieur,” she said in his ear, “can I be suspected of some infamous +action? I! The pile of stones must be close to the wall of my garden. Go +yourself, I implore you. Look, search, find that money.” + +The doctor went out, taking with him the examining judge, and together +they found Montefiore’s treasure. + +Within two days Juana had sold her cross to pay the costs of a journey. +On her way with her two children to take the diligence which would carry +her to the frontiers of Spain, she heard herself being called in the +street. Her dying mother was being carried to a hospital, and through +the curtains of her litter she had seen her daughter. Juana made the +bearers enter a porte-cochere that was near them, and there the last +interview between the mother and the daughter took place. Though the two +spoke to each other in a low voice, Juan heard these parting words,-- + +“Mother, die in peace; I have suffered for you all.” + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Juana, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1437 *** |