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diff --git a/16403-h/16403-h.htm b/16403-h/16403-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d6016c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/16403-h/16403-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6628 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<title>Led Astray and The Sphinx, by Octave Feuillet.</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ + +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Led Astray and The Sphinx, by Octave Feuillet + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Led Astray and The Sphinx + Two Novellas In One Volume + +Author: Octave Feuillet + +Release Date: July 31, 2005 [EBook #16403] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LED ASTRAY AND THE SPHINX *** + + + + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Kylie and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>LED ASTRAY</h1> +<h4>and</h4> +<h1>THE SPHINX</h1> +<h3>or<br> +"JULIA DE TRECŒUR."</h3> +<p> </p> +<h2><i>By</i> OCTAVE FEUILLET,</h2> +<h3><i>author of "Romance of a Poor Young Man," etc.</i></h3> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h4>NEW YORK AND LONDON</h4> +<h4>STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS</h4> +<p> </p> +<h4>Copyright, 1891</h4> +<h4>By STREET & SMITH</h4> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h1>LED ASTRAY.</h1> +<p> </p> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> +<h3>A GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION.</h3> +<p><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">George L—— to Paul B., Paris</span></p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Rozel</span>, <i>15th September</i>.</p> + +<p>It's nine o'clock in the evening, my dear friend, and you have just arrived +from Germany. They hand you my letter, the post-mark of which informs +you at once that I am absent from Paris. You indulge in a gesture of +annoyance, and call me a vagabond. Nevertheless, you settle down in +your best arm-chair, you open my letter, and you hear that I have been +for the past five days domesticated in a flour-mill in Lower Normandy. +In a flour-mill! What the duse can he be doing in a mill? A wrinkle appears +on your forehead, your eyebrows are drawn together; you lay down my +letter for a moment; you attempt to penetrate this mystery by the +unaided power of your imagination. Suddenly a playful expression beams +upon your countenance; your mouth expresses the irony of a wise man +tempered by the indulgence of a friend; you have caught a glimpse, +through an opera-comique cloud, of a miller's pretty wife with powdered +hair, a waist all trimmed with gay ribbons, a light and short skirt, and +stockings with gilded clocks; in short, one of those fair young millers' +wives whose heart goes pit-a-pat with hautboy accompaniment. But the +graces who are ever sporting in your mind sometimes lead it astray; my +fair miller is as much like the creature of your imagination as I am like +a youthful Colin; her head is adorned with a towering cotton night-cap +to which the thickest possible coating of flour fails to restore its +primitive color; she wears a coarse woolen petticoat which would abrade +the hide of an elephant; in short, it frequently happens to me to confound +the miller's wife with the miller himself, after which it is sufficient to +add that I am not the least curious to know whether or not her heart +goes pit-a-pat. The truth is, that, not knowing how to kill time in your +absence, and having no reason to expect you to return before another +month; (it's your own fault!), I solicited a mission. The council-general of +the department of —— had lately, and quite opportunely, expressed +officially the wish that a certain ruined abbey, called Rozel Abbey, should +be classed among historical monuments. I have been commissioned to +investigate closely the candidate's titles. I hastened with all possible +speed to the chief town of this artistic department, where I effected my +entrance with the important gravity of a man who holds within his +hands the life or the death of a monument dear to the country. I made +some inquiries at the hotel; great was my mortification when I discovered +that no one seemed to suspect that such a thing as Rozel Abbey existed +within a circuit of a hundred leagues. I called at the prefecture while +still laboring under the effect of this disappointment; the prefect, +Valton, whom you know very well, received me with his usual affability; +but to the questions I addressed him on the subject of the condition of +the ruins which the council seemed so desirous of preserving for the +admiration of its constituents, he replied with an absent smile, that his +wife, who had visited these ruins on the occasion of an excursion into the +country, while she was sojourning on the sea shore, could tell me a great +deal more about the ruins than he possibly could himself. + +<p>He invited me to dinner, and in the evening, Madame Valton, after the +usual struggles of expiring modesty, showed me, in her album, some +views of the famous ruins sketched with considerable taste. She became +mildly excited while speaking to me of these venerable remains, situated, +if she is to be believed, in the midst of an enchanting site, and, above +all, particularly well suited for picnics and country excursions. A +beseeching and corrupting look terminated her harangue. It seems +evident to me that this worthy lady is the only person in the department +who takes any real interest in that poor old abbey, and that the +conscript fathers of the general council have passed their resolution +authorizing an investigation out of pure gallantry. It is impossible for +me, however, not to concur in their opinion; the abbey has beautiful +eyes; she deserves to be classed—she shall be classed. + +<p>My decision was therefore settled, from that moment, but it was still +necessary to write it down and back it with some documentary evidence. +Unfortunately, the local archives and libraries do not abound in traditions +relative to my subject; after two days of conscientious rummaging, I had +collected but a few rare and insignificant documents, which may be +summed up in these two lines; "Rozel Abbey, in Rozel township, was +inhabited from time immemorial by monks, who left it when it fell in +ruins." + +<p>That is why I resolved to go, without further delay, and ask their secret +of these mysterious ruins, and to multiply, if need be, the artifices of +my pencil, to make up for the compulsory conciseness of my pen. I left +on Wednesday morning for the town of Vitry, which is only two or three +leagues distant from the abbey. A Norman coach, complemented with +a Norman coachman, jogged me about all day, like an indolent monarch, +along the Norman hedges. When night came, I had traveled twelve miles +and my coachman had taken twelve meals. + +<p>The country is fine, though of a character somewhat uniformly rustic. +Under everlasting groves is displayed an opulent and monotonous verdure, +in the thickness of which contented-looking oxen ruminate. I can understand +my coachman's twelve meals; the idea of eating must occur frequently +and almost exclusively to the imagination of any man who spends his life in +the midst of this rich nature, the very grass of which gives an appetite. + +<p>Toward evening, however, the aspect of the landscape changed; we entered +a rolling prairie, quite low, marshy, bare as a Russian steppe, and extending +on both sides of the road; the sound of the wheels on the causeway assumed +a hollow and vibrating sonority; dark-colored reeds and tall, +unhealthy-looking grass covered, as far as the eye could reach, the blackish +surface of the marsh. I noticed in the distance, through the deepening +twilight, and behind a cloud of rain, two or three horsemen running at full +speed, and as if demented, through these boundless spaces; they disappeared +at intervals in the depressions of the meadows, and suddenly came to sight +again, still galloping with the same frenzy. I could not imagine toward +what imaginary goal these equestrian phantoms were thus madly rushing. I +took good care not to inquire; mystery is a sweet and sacred thing. + +<p>The next morning, I started for the abbey, taking with me in my cabriolet +a tall young peasant who had yellow hair, like Ceres. He was a farm-boy +who had lived since his birth within a rod of my monument; he had heard +me in the morning asking for information in the court-yard of the inn, +and had obligingly volunteered to show me the way to the ruins, which +were the first thing he had seen on coming into the world. I had no need +whatever of a guide; I accepted, nevertheless, the fellow's offer, his +officious chattering seeming to promise a well-sustained conversation, in +the course of which I hoped to detect some interesting legend; but as soon +as he had taken his seat by my side, the rascal became dumb; my questions +seemed even, I know not why, to inspire him with a deep mistrust, almost +akin to anger. I had to deal with the genius of the ruins, the faithful +guardian of their treasures. On the other hand, I had the gratification of +taking him home in my carriage; it was apparently all he wished, and he had +every reason to be satisfied with my accommodating spirit. + +<p>After landing this agreeable companion at his own door, it became necessary +for me to alight also; a rocky path, or rather a rude flight of stone steps, +winding down the side of a steep declivity, led me to the bottom of a +narrow valley which spreads and stretches between a double chain of high +wooded hills. A small river flows lazily through it under the shade of +alder-bushes, dividing two strips of meadows as fine and velvety as the +lawns of a park; it is crossed over by an old bridge with a single arch, +which reflects in the placid water the outlines of its graceful ogive. On +the right, the hills stand close together in the form of a circus, and +seemed to join their verdure-clad curves; on the left, they spread out +until they become merged in the deep and somber masses of a vast forest. +The valley is thus closed on all sides, and offers a picture of which the +calm, the freshness, and the isolation penetrate the soul. + +<p>The ruins of the abbey stand with their back against the forest. What +remains of the abbey proper is not a great deal. At the entrance of the +court-yard, a monumental gateway; a wing of the building, dating from +the twelfth century, in which dwell the family of the miller of whom I am +the guest; the chapter-hall, remarkable for some elegant arches and a +few remnants of mural painting; finally, two or three cells, one of which +seems to have been used for the purposes of correction, if I may judge +from the solidity of the door and the strength of the bolts. The rest has +been torn down, and may be found in fragments among the cottages of the +neighborhood. The church, which has almost the proportions of a cathedral, +is finely preserved, and produces a marvelous effect. The portal and the +apse have alone disappeared; the whole interior architecture, the copings, +the tall columns, are intact and as if built yesterday. There, it seems, +that an artist must have presided over the work of destruction; a masterly +stroke of the pick-ax has opened at the two extremities of the church, +where stood the portal and where stood the altar, two gigantic bays, so +that, from the threshold of the edifice, the eye plunges into the forest +beyond as through a deep triumphal arch. In this solitary spot the effect +is unexpected and solemn. I was delighted with it. "Monsieur," I said to +the miller, who, since my arrival, had been watching my every step from +a distance with that fierce mistrust which is a peculiarity of this part of +the country, "I have been requested to examine and to sketch these +ruins. That work will require several days; could you not spare me a +daily trip from the town to the abbey and back, by furnishing me with +such accommodations as you can, for a week or two?" + +<p>The miller, a thorough Norman, examined me from head to foot +without answering, like a man who knows that silence is of gold; he +measured me, he gauged me, he weighed me, and finally, opening his +flour-coated lips, he called his wife. The latter appeared at once upon +the threshold of the chapter-hall, converted into a cow-pen, and I had +to repeat my request to her. She examined me in her turn, but not at +such great length as her husband, and, with the superior scent of her sex, +her conclusion was, as I had the right to expect, that of the <i>præses</i> +in the <i>Malade Imaginaire</i>: "<i>Dignus es intrare</i>." The miller, who saw +what turn things were taking, lifted his cap and treated me to a smile. +I must add that these excellent people, once the ice was broken, tried +in every way to compensate me, by a thousand eager attentions, for the +excessive caution of their reception. They wished to give up to me their +own room, adorned with the Adventures of Telemachus, but I preferred—as +Mentor would have done—a cell of austere nudity, of which the window, +with small, lozenge-shaped panes, opens on the ruined portal of the church +and the horizon of the forest. + +<p>Had I been a few years younger, I would have enjoyed keenly this poetic +installation; but I am turning gray, friend Paul, or at least I fear so, +though I try still to attribute to a mere effect of light the doubtful +shades that dot my beard under the rays of the noon-day sun. Nevertheless, +if my reverie has changed its object, it still lasts, and still has its charms +for me. My poetic feeling has become modified and, I think, more elevated. +The image of a woman is no longer the indispensable element of my dreams; +my heart, peaceful now, and striving to become still more so, is gradually +withdrawing from the field of my mind's labors. I cannot, I confess, find +enough pleasure in the pure and dry meditations of the intellect; my +imagination must speak first and set my brain in motion, for I was born +romantic, and romantic I shall die; and all that can be asked of me, all I +can obtain of myself, at an age when propriety already commands gravity, +is to build romances without love. + +<p>Up to this time, ennui has spared me in my solitude. Shall I confess to you +that I even experience in it a singular feeling of contentment? It seems as +though I were a thousand leagues away from the things of the world, and +that there is a sort of truce and respite in the miserable routine of my +existence, at once so agitated and so commonplace. I relish my complete +independence with the naïve joy of a twelve-year-old Robinson Crusoe. I +sketch when I feel like it; the rest of the time, I walk here and there at +random, being careful only never to go beyond the bounds of the sacred +valley. I sit down upon the parapet of the bridge, and I watch the running +water; I go on voyages of discovery among the ruins; I dive into the +underground vaults; I scale the shattered steps of the belfry, and being +unable to come down again the same way, I remain astride a gargoyle, +cutting a rather sorry figure, until the miller brings me a ladder. I +wander at night through the forest, and I see deer running by in the +moonlight. All these things have a soothing effect on my mind, and +produce the effect of child's dream in middle age. + +<p>Your letter dated from Cologne, and which was forwarded to me here +according to my instructions, has alone disturbed my beatitude. I console +myself with some difficulty for having left Paris almost on the eve of your +return. May Heaven confound your whims and your want of decision! All +I can do now, is to hurry my work; but where shall I find the historical +documents I still need? I am seriously anxious to save these ruins. There +is here a rare landscape, a valuable picture, which it would be sheer +vandalism to allow to perish. + +<p>And then, I admire the old monks! I wish to offer up to their departed +shades this homage of my sympathy. Yes, had I lived some thousand years +ago, I would certainly have sought among them the repose of the cloister +while waiting for the peace of heaven. What existence could have suited +me better? Free from the cares of this world, and assured of the other, +free from any agitations of the heart or the mind, I would have placidly +written simple legends which I would have been credulous enough to +believe; I would have unraveled with intense curiosity some unknown +manuscripts, and discovered with tears of joy the Iliad or the Æneid; +I would have sketched imaginary cathedrals; I would have heated +alembics—and perhaps have invented gunpowder; which is by no means the +best thing I might have done. + +<p>Come! 'tis midnight; brother, we must sleep! + +<p><i>Postscriptum.</i>—There are ghosts! I was closing this letter, my dear +friend, in the midst of a solemn silence, when suddenly my ears were +filled with mysterious and confused sounds that seemed to come from +the outside, and among which I thought I could distinguish the buzzing +murmur of a large crowd. I approached, quite surprised, the window of my +cell, and I could not exactly tell you the nature of the emotion I felt on +discovering the ruins of the church illuminated with a resplendent blaze; +the vast portal and the yawning ogives cast floods of light far as the +distant woods. It was not, it could not be, an accidental conflagration. +Besides, I could see, through the stone trefoils, shadows of superhuman +size flitting through the nave, apparently performing, with a sort of +rhythm, some mysterious ceremony. I threw my window abruptly open; +at the same instant, a loud blast broke forth in the ruins, and rang again +through all the echoes of the valley; after which, I saw issuing from the +church a double file of horsemen bearing torches and blowing horns, some +dressed in red, others draped in black, with plumes waving over their +heads. This strange procession followed, still in the same order, amid the +same dazzling light and the same clangor of trumpets, the shaded path that +skirts the edge of the meadows. Having reached the little bridge, it +stopped; I saw the torches rise, wave, and cast showers of sparks; the +horns sounded a weird and prolonged blast; then suddenly every light +disappeared, every noise ceased, and the valley was again wrapped in the +darkness and the deep silence of the night. That is what I saw and heard. +You who have just arrived from Germany, did you meet the Black Huntsman? +No? Hang yourself, then! +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> +<h3>HUNTING A WILD MAN.</h3> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>16th September.</i></p> + +<p>The forest which once formed part of the demesnes of the abbey, now belongs +to a wealthy landed proprietor of the district, the Marquis de Malouet, a +lineal descendant of Nimrod, whose chateau seems to be the social center of +the district. There are almost daily at this season grand hunts in the +forest; yesterday, the party ended with a supper on the grass, and +afterward a ride home by torch-light. I felt very much disposed to strangle +the honest miller, who gave me this morning, in vulgar language, this +explanation of my midnight ballad. + +<p>There is the world, then, invading with all its pomp my beloved solitude. +I curse it, Paul, with all the bitterness of my heart. I became indebted to +it, last night, it is true, for a fantastic apparition that both charmed +and delighted me; but I am also indebted to it to-day for a ridiculous +adventure which I am the only one not to laugh at, for I was its unlucky +hero. + +<p>I was but little disposed to work this morning; I went on sketching, +however, until noon, but had to give it up then; my head was heavy, I felt +dull and disagreeable, I had a vague presentiment of something fatal in the +air. I returned for a moment to the mill to get rid of my traps; I +quarreled, to her surprise and grief, with the miller's wife, on the +subject of I know not what cruelly indigenous mess she had served me for +breakfast; I scolded the good woman's two children because they were +touching my pencils; finally, I administered a vigorous kick to the +house-dog, accompanied with the celebrated formula: "Judge whether you +had done anything to me!" + +<p>Rather dissatisfied with myself, as you may imagine, after these three +mean little tricks, I directed my steps toward the forest, in order to hide +as much as possible from the light of the day. I walked about for nearly an +hour without being able to shake off the prophetic melancholy that +oppressed me. Perceiving at last, on the edge of one of the avenues that +traverse the forest, and under the dense shade of some beech-trees, a thick +bed of moss, I stretched myself upon it, together with my remorse, and it +was not long before I fell into a sound sleep. Mon Dieu! why was it not the +sleep of death? + +<p>I have no idea how long I had been asleep, when I was suddenly awakened +by a certain concussion of the soil in my immediate vicinity; I jumped +abruptly to my feet, and I saw, within five steps of me, on the road, a +young lady on horseback. My unexpected apparition had somewhat frightened +the horse, who had shied with some violence. The fair equestrian, who had +not yet noticed me, was talking to him and trying to quiet him. She +appeared to be pretty, slender, elegant. I caught a rapid glimpse of blond +hair, eyebrows of a darker shade, keen eyes, a bold expression of +countenance, and a felt hat with blue feathers, set over one ear in rather +too rakish a style. For the better understanding of what is about to +follow, you should know that I was attired in a tourist's blouse stained +with red ochre; besides, I must have had that haggard look and startled +expression which impart to one rudely snatched from sleep a countenance at +once comical and alarming. Add to all this, my hair in utter disorder, my +beard strewn with dead leaves, and you will have no difficulty in +understanding the terror that suddenly overpowered the young huntress at +the first glance she cast upon me; she uttered a feeble cry, and wheeling +her horse around, she fled at full gallop. + +<p>It was impossible for me to mistake the nature of the impression I had just +produced; there was nothing flattering about it. However, I am thirty-five +years of age, and the more or less kindly glance of a woman is no longer +sufficient to disturb the serenity of my soul. I followed with a smiling look +the flying Amazon. At the extremity of the avenue in which I had just +failed to make her conquest, she turned abruptly to the left, to go and +take a parallel road. I only had to cross the adjoining thicket to see her +overtake a cavalcade composed of ten or twelve persons, who seemed to be +waiting for her, and to whom she shouted from a distance, in a broken +voice: + +<p>"Gentlemen! gentlemen! a wild man! there is a wild man in the forest!" + +<p>My interest being highly excited by this beginning, I settle myself +comfortably behind a thick bush, with eye and ear equally attentive. They +crowd around the lady; it is supposed at first that she is jesting, but her +emotion is too serious to have been causeless. She saw, distinctly saw, +not exactly a savage, perhaps, but a man in rags, whose tattered blouse +seemed covered with blood, whose face, hands, and whole person were +repulsively filthy, whose beard was frightful, and whose eyes half +protruded from their sockets; in short, an individual, by the side of whom +the most atrocious of Salvator Rosa's brigands would be as one of Watteau's +shepherds. Never did a man's vanity enjoy such a treat! This charming +person added that I had threatened her, and that I had jumped at her +horse's bridle like the specter of the forest of Mans.[A] + +<p style="margin-left: 1em;">[A] Charles VI., King of France, became demented in consequence +of his horse being stopped, during a hunt in the forest of Mans, by what +seemed to him a supernatural being.—(<span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Trans.</span>) + + +<p>The response to this marvelous story is a general and enthusiastic shout: + +<p>"Let us chase him! let us surround him! let us track him! hip, hip, +hurrah!"—whereupon the whole cavalry force starts off at a gallop in the +direction given by the amiable story teller. + +<p>I had, to all appearances, but to remain quietly ensconced in my +hiding-place in order to completely foil the hunters who were going in +search of me in the avenue where I had met the beautiful Amazon. +Unfortunately, I had the unlucky idea, for greater safety, of making my +way into the opposite thicket. As I was cautiously crossing the open space, +a wild shout of joy informs me that I have been discovered; at the same +time, I see the whole squadron wheeling about and coming down upon me +like a torrent. There remained but one reasonable course for me to pursue; +it was to stop, to affect the surprise of a quiet stroller disturbed in +his walk, and to disconcert my assailants by an attitude at once simple and +dignified; but, seized with a foolish shame which it is easier to conceive +than to explain—convinced, moreover, that a vigorous effort would be +sufficient to rid me of this importunate pursuit and to spare me the +annoyance of an explanation—I commit the error—the ever deplorable +error—of hurrying on faster, or rather, to be frank with you, of running +away as fast as my legs would carry me. I cross the road like a hare, I +penetrate into the thicket, greeted on my passage with a volley of joyous +clamors. From that moment my fate was sealed; all honorable explanation +became impossible for me; I had ostensibly accepted the struggle with its +most extreme chances. + +<p>However, I still possessed a certain presence of mind, and while tearing +furiously through the brambles, I soothed myself with comforting +reflections. Once separated from my persecutors by the whole depth of a +thicket inaccessible to cavalry, it would be an easy matter to gain a +sufficient advance upon them to be able to laugh at their fruitless search. +This last illusion vanished when, on reaching the limit of the covered +space, I discovered that the cursed troop had divided into two squads, +who were both waiting for me at the outlet. At the sight of me, a fresh +storm of shouts and laughter broke forth, and the hunting-horns sounded +in all directions. I became dizzy; I felt the forest whirling around me; I +rushed into the first path that offered itself to me, and my flight assumed +the character of a hopeless rout. + +<p>The implacable legion of hunters and huntresses did not fail to start on +my heels with renewed ardor and stupid mirth. I still recognized at +their head the lady with the waving blue plume, who distinguished herself +by her peculiar animosity, and upon whom I invoked with all my heart the +most serious accidents to which equestrianism may be subject. It was she +who encouraged her odious accomplices, when I had succeeded for a moment +in eluding the pursuit; she discovered me with infernal keen-sightedness, +pointed me out with the tip of her whip, and broke into a barbarous laugh +whenever she saw me resume my race through the bushes, blowing, panting, +desperate, absurd. I ran thus during a space of time of which I am unable +to form any estimate, accomplishing unprecedented feats of gymnastics, +tearing through the thorny brambles, sinking into the miry spots, leaping +over the ditches, bounding upon my feet with the elasticity of a panther, +galloping to the devil, without reason, without object, and without any +other hope but that of seeing the earth open beneath my feet. + +<p>At last, and surely by chance—for I had long since lost all topographical +notions—I discovered the ruins just ahead of me; with a last effort, I +cleared the open space that separates them from the forest; I ran +through the church as if I had been excommunicated, and I arrived +panting before the door of the mill. The miller and his wife were standing +on the threshold, attracted, doubtless, by the noise of the cavalcade that +was following close on my heels; they looked at me with an expression of +stupor; I tried in vain to find a few words of explanation to cast to them +as I ran by, and after incredible efforts of intelligence, I was only able +to murmur in a silly tone: "If any one asks for me, say I am not in!" Then +I cleared in three jumps the stairs leading to my cell, and I sank upon my +bed in a state of complete prostration. + +<p>In the meantime, Paul, the hunting-party were crowding tumultuously into +the court-yard of the abbey; I could hear the stamping of the horses' +feet, the voices of the riders, and even the sound of their boots on the +flagging, which proved that some of them had alighted and were +threatening me with a last assault. I started up with a gesture of rage, +and I glanced at my pistols. Fortunately, after a few minutes' +conversation with the miller, the hunters withdrew, not without giving me +to understand that, if they had formed a better opinion of my character, +they went away with a most amusing idea of the eccentricity of my +disposition. + +<p>Such is, my dear friend, a faithful historical account of that unlucky day, +during which I covered myself frankly, and from head to foot, with a +species of humiliation to which any Frenchman would prefer that of crime. +I have, at this moment, the satisfaction of knowing that I am in a +neighboring chateau, in the midst of a gathering of brilliant men and +lovely young women, an inexhaustible subject for jokes. I feel, moreover, +since my flank movement (as it is customary in war to call precipitate +retreats), that I have lost something of my dignity in my own eyes, and I +cannot conceal to myself, besides, that I am far from enjoying the same +consideration on the part of my rustic hosts. + +<p>In presence of a situation so seriously compromised, it became necessary +to hold council; after a brief deliberation, I rejected far, far from me, +as puerile and pusillanimous, the project suggested to me by my vanity at +bay, that of giving up my lodgings, and even of leaving the district +entirely. I made up my mind to pursue philosophically the course of my +labors and my pleasures, to show a soul superior to circumstances, and in +short, to give to the Amazons, the centaurs, and the millers the fine +spectacle of the wise man in adversity. +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> +<h3>THE MARQUIS DE MALOUET.</h3> + +<p style="text-align: right"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Malouet</span>, <i>20th September</i>.</p> + +<p>I have just received your letter. You belong to the true breed of +Monomotapa friends, Paul. But what puerility! And such is the case of your +sudden return! A trifle, a silly nightmare which for two successive nights +caused you to hear the sound of my voice calling on you for help! Ah! +bitter fruits of the wretched German cuisine! Really, Paul, you are +foolish! And yet, you tell me things that move me to tears. I cannot +answer you as I would like to. My heart is tender, but my speech is dry. +I have never been able to tell any one, "I love you!" There is a jealous +fiend who checks on my lips every word of affection, and imparts to it a +tone of irony. But, thank God, you know me! + +<p>It seems that I make you laugh while you make me weep! Well, I am glad of +it. Yes, my noble adventure in the forest has had a sequel, and a sequel +with which I might very well have dispensed. All the misfortunes which +you felt were threatening me have actually happened to me; rest easy, +therefore. + +<p>The day following this fatal day, I began by re-conquering the esteem +of my hosts at the mill, by relating to them good-naturedly the most +piquant episodes of my famous race. I saw them beaming as they heard the +narrative; the woman in particular was writhing in atrocious convulsions, +and with formidable stretches of her jaws. I have never seen anything so +hideous, in all my life, as this coarse, cowherd's joy! + +<p>As a testimonial of the complete restoration of his sympathy, the miller +asked me if I was fond of hunting, took down from a hook over his +mantelpiece a long, rusty tube, that made me think of Leather Stocking's +rifle, and laid it into my hands, while boasting of the murderous qualities +of that instrument. I acknowledged his kindness with an outward +appearance of lively satisfaction, never having had the heart to undeceive +people who think they are doing something to please me, and I started for +the woods that cover the hill-sides, carrying like a lance that venerable +weapon, which seemed indeed to me of the most dangerous kind. I went to +take a seat on the heather, and I carefully laid down the long gun by me; +then I amused myself driving away, by throwing stones at them, the young +rabbits that ventured imprudently in the vicinity of an engine of war for +the effects of which I could not be responsible. Thanks to these +precautions, for over an hour that this hunt lasted, no accident happened +either to the game or to myself. + +<p>To speak candidly, I was rather glad to allow the hour to pass when the +hunting-party from the chateau are in the habit of taking the field, not +caring very much, through a remnant of vain glory, to find myself on their +passage that day. Toward two o'clock in the afternoon, I left my seat of +mint and wild thyme, satisfied that I had henceforth no unpleasant +encounter to apprehend. I handed the blunderbuss to the miller, who seemed +somewhat surprised to see me empty-handed, and more so, probably, to see +me alive still. I went to take a stand opposite the portal, and I +undertook to finish a general view of the ruin, a water-color, which, I +feel, is certain to secure the approbation of the minister. + +<p>I was deeply absorbed in my work, when I suddenly fancied I could hear +more distinctly than usual that sound of running horses which, since my +misadventure, was forever haunting my ears. I turned around sharply, and I +discovered the enemy within two hundred paces of me. This time, he was +attired in plain clothes, being apparently equipped for an ordinary ride; +he had obtained, since the previous day, several recruits of both sexes, +and now really formed an imposing body. Though long prepared for such an +occurrence, I could not help feeling a certain discomfort, and I secretly +cursed those indefatigable idlers. Nevertheless, the thought of retreating +never occurred to me; I had lost all taste for flight for the rest of my +days. + +<p>As the cavalcade drew nearer, I could hear smothered laughter and +whisperings, the subject of which was but too evident to me. I must confess +that a spark of anger was beginning to burn in my heart, and while going +on with my work with an appearance of unabated interest, and indulging in +admiring motions of the head before my water-color, I was lending to the +scene going on behind me a somber and vigilant attention. However, the +first intention of the party seemed to be to spare my misfortune; instead +of following the path by the side of which I was established, and which +was the shortest way to the ruins, they turned aside toward the right, and +filed by in silence. One alone among them, falling out of the main group, +came rapidly in my direction, and stopped within ten steps of my studio; +though my face was bent over my drawing, I felt, by that strange intuition +which every one knows, a human look fixed upon me. I raised my eyes with +an air of indifference, dropping them again almost immediately; that rapid +gesture had been sufficient to enable me to recognize in that indiscreet +observer the young lady with the blue feathers, the original cause of all +my mishaps. She was there, boldly seated on her horse, her chin raised, her +eyes half closed, examining me from head to foot with admirable insolence. +I had thought it best at first, out of respect for her sex, to abandon +myself without resistance to her impertinent curiosity; but after a few +seconds, as she manifested no intention of putting an end to her +proceedings, I lost patience, and raising my head more openly, I fixed my +eyes upon her with polite gravity, but persistent steadiness. She blushed; +seeing which, I bowed. She returned me a slight inclination of the head, +and moving off at a canter, she disappeared under the vault of the old +church. I thus remained master of the field, keenly relishing the triumph +of fascination I had just obtained over that little person, whom there +certainly was considerable merit in putting out of countenance. + +<p>The ride through the forest lasted some twenty minutes, and I soon beheld +the brilliant fantasia debouching pell-mell from the portal. I feigned +again a profound abstraction; but this time again, one of the riders left +the company and advanced toward me; he was a man of tall stature, who +wore a blue frock-coat, buttoned up to his chin, in military style. He was +marching so straight upon my little establishment, that I could not help +supposing he intended passing right over it for the amusement of the +ladies. I was therefore watching him with a furtive but wide-awake glance, +when I had the satisfaction of seeing him stop within three steps of my +camp-stool, and removing his hat. + +<p>"Monsieur," he said, in a full and frank tone of voice, "will you permit me +to look at your drawing?" + +<p>I returned his salutation, nodded in token of acquiescence, and went on +with my work. After a moment of silent contemplation, the unknown +equestrian, apparently yielding to the violence of his impressions, allowed +a few laudatory epithets to escape him; then, resuming his direct +allocution: + +<p>"Monsieur," he said, "allow me to return thanks to your talent; we shall be +indebted to it, I feel quite sure, for the preservation of these ruins, +which are the ornament of our district." + +<p>I abandoned at once my reserve, which could no longer be anything but +childish sulkiness, and I replied, as I thought I should, that he was +appreciating with too much indulgence a mere amateur's sketch; that I +certainly had the greatest desire of saving these beautiful ruins, but that +the most important part of my work threatened to remain quite +insignificant, for want of historical information which I had vainly tried +to find in the archives of the county-seat. + +<p>"Parbleu, monsieur," rejoined the horseman, "you please me greatly. I have +in my library a large proportion of the archives of the abbey. Come and +consult them at your leisure. I shall feel grateful to you for doing so." + +<p>I thanked him with some embarrassment. I regretted not to have known it +sooner. I feared being recalled to Paris by a letter which I was expecting +this very day. Nevertheless, I had risen to make this answer, the ill grace +of which I strove to attenuate by the courteousness of my attitude. At the +same time, I formed a clearer idea of my interlocutor; he was a handsome +old man, with broad shoulders, who seemed to carry with ease the weight +of some sixty winters, and whose bright blue eyes expressed the kindliest +good feeling. + +<p>"Come! come!" he exclaimed, "let us speak frankly. You feel some +repugnance at mingling with that band of hare-brained scamps you see +yonder, and whom I tried in vain yesterday to keep out of a silly affair, +for which I now beg to tender you my sincere apologies. My name is the +Marquis de Malouet, sir. After all, you went off with the honors of the +day. They wished to see you; you did not wish to be seen. You carried your +point. What else can you ask?" + +<p>I could not help laughing on hearing such a favorable interpretation of my +unlucky scrape. + +<p>"You laugh!" rejoined the old marquis; "bravo! we'll soon come to an +understanding, then. Now, what's to prevent your coming to spend a +few days at my house? My wife has requested me to invite you; she has +heard in detail all your annoyances of yesterday. She has an angel's +disposition, my wife. She is no longer young, always ill; a mere breath; +but she is an angel. I'll locate you in the library—you'll live like a hermit, +if you like. Mon Dieu! I see it all, I tell you; these madcaps of mine +frighten you; you are a serious man; I know all about that sort of +disposition! Well! you'll find congenial company—my wife is full of sense; +I am no fool myself. I am fond of exercise; in fact, it is indispensable +to my health—but you must not take me for a brute! The devil! not at +all! I'll astonish you. You must be fond of whist; we'll have a game +together; you must like to live well—delicately, I mean, as it is proper +and suitable for a man of taste and intelligence. Well! since you +appreciate good living, I am your man; I have an excellent cook. I may +even say that I have two for the present; one coming in and the other +going out; it is a conjunction; the result is, a contest of skill, an +academic tourney, of which you will assist me in adjudging the prize! +Come! sir," he added, laughing ingenuously at his own chattering, +"it's settled, isn't it? I'm going to carry you off." + +<p>Happy Paul, thrice happy is the man who can say No! Alone, he is really +master of his time, of his fortune, and of his honor. One should be able +to say No! even to a beggar, even to a woman, even to an amiable old +man, under penalty of surrendering at hazard his charity, his dignity, and +his independence. For want of a manly No, how much misery, how many +downfalls, how many crimes since Adam! + +<p>While I was considering in my own mind the invitation which had just +been extended to me, these thoughts crowded in my brain; I recognized +their profound wisdom, and I said Yes! Fatal word, through which I lost +my paradise, exchanging a retreat wholly to my taste—peaceful, laborious, +romantic, and free—for the stiffness of a residence where society displays +all the fury of its insipid dissipations. + +<p>I demanded the necessary time for effecting my removal, and Monsieur +de Malouet left me, after grasping my hand cordially, declaring that he was +extremely pleased with me, and that he was going to stimulate his two +cooks to give me a triumphant reception. "I am going," he said in +conclusion, "to announce to them an artist, a poet: that'll work up their +imagination." + +<p>Toward five o'clock, two valets from the chateau came to take charge of my +light baggage, and to advise me that a carriage was waiting for me on top +of the hills. I bade farewell to my cell; I thanked my hosts; and I kissed +their little urchins, all besmeared and ill-kempt as they were. These +kind people seemed to see me going with regret. I felt, myself, an +extraordinary and unaccountable sadness. I know not what strange sentiment +attached me to that valley, but I left it with an aching heart, as one +leaves his native country. + +<p>More to-morrow, Paul, for I am exhausted. +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> +<h3>THE LITTLE COUNTESS.</h3> + +<p style="text-align: right"><i>26th September.</i></p> + +<p>The chateau of Malouet is a massive and rather vulgar construction, which +dates some one hundred years back. Fine avenues, a court of honor of a +handsome style, and an ancient park impart to it, however, an aspect truly +seigneurial. + +<p>The old marquis came to receive me at the foot of the stoop, passed his arm +under mine, and after leading me through a long maze of corridors, +introduced me into a vast drawing-room, where almost complete obscurity +prevailed; I could only vaguely distinguish, by the intermittent blaze of +the hearth, some twenty persons of both sexes, scattered here and there +in small groups. Thanks to this blessed twilight, I effected safely my +entrance, which had at a distance offered itself to my imagination, under +a solemn and somewhat alarming light. I had barely time to receive the +compliment of welcome which Madame de Malouet addressed me in a feeble +but penetrating voice. She took my arm almost at once to pass into the +dining-room, having resolved, it appears, to refuse no mark of +consideration to a pedestrian of such surprising agility. + +<p>Once at the table and in the bright light, I was not long in discovering +that my feats of the previous day had by no means been forgotten, and +that I was the center of general attention; but I stood bravely this +cross-fire of curious and ironical glances, intrenched on the one hand +behind a mountain of flowers that ornamented the center of the table, and +on the other assisted in my defensive position by the ingenious kindness +of my neighbor. Madame de Malouet is one of those rare old women whom +superior strength of mind or great purity of soul has preserved against +despair at the fatal hour of the fortieth year, and who have saved from the +wreck of their youth a single waif, itself a supreme charm, grace. Small, +frail, her face pale and withered from the effects of habitual suffering, +she justifies exactly her husband's expression: "She is a breath, a breath +that exhales intelligence and good-nature!" Not a shadow of any pretension +unbecoming her age, an exquisite care of her person without the faintest +trace of coquetry, a complete oblivion of her departed youth, a sort of +bashfulness at being old, and a touching desire, not to please, but to be +forgiven; such is my adorable marquise. She has traveled much, read much, +and knows Paris well. I roamed with her through one of those rapid +conversations in which two minds whirl and for the first time seek to +become acquainted, rambling from one pole to the other, touching lightly +upon all things, disputing gayly, and happy to agree. + +<p>Monsieur de Malouet seized the opportunity of the removal of the colossal +dish that separated us, to ascertain the condition of my relations with his +wife. He seemed satisfied at our evident good intelligence, and raising +his sonorous and cordial voice: + +<p>"Monsieur," he said to me, "I have spoken to you of my two rival cooks; now +is the time to justify the reputation of high discernment which I have +attributed to you in the minds of these artists. + +<p>"Alas! I am about to lose the oldest, and without doubt the most skillful, +of these masters—the illustrious Jean Rostain. It was he, sir, who, on his +arrival from Paris, two years ago, made this remarkable speech to me: +'A man of taste, Monsieur le Marquis, can no longer live in Paris; they +practice there now, a certain romantic style of cooking which will lead us +Heaven knows where!' In short, sir, Rostain is a classic; this singular +man has an opinion of his own! Well! you have just tasted in succession +two <i>entremets</i> dishes of which cream forms the essential foundation; +according to my idea, these dishes are both a success; but Rostain's work +has struck me as greatly superior. Ah, ah! sir, I am curious to know if you +can of your own accord and upon that simple indication, assign to each +tree its fruit, and render unto Cæsar what belongs to Cæsar. Ah, ah, let +us see if you can!" + +<p>I cast a furtive glance at the remnants of the two dishes to which the +marquis had just called my attention, and I had no hesitation in +designating as "classic" the one that was surmounted with a temple of +cupid, and a figure of that god in polychromatic pastry. + +<p>"A hit!" exclaimed the marquis. "Bravo! Rostain shall hear of it, and his +heart will rejoice. Ah! monsieur, why has it not been my good fortune to +receive you in my house a few days sooner? I might perhaps have kept +Rostain, or, to speak more truly, Rostain might perhaps have kept me; for +I cannot conceal the fact, gentlemen hunters, that you are not in the good +graces of the old <i>chef</i>, and I am not far from attributing his departure +with whatever pretexts he may choose to color it, to the annoyance he +feels at your complete indifference. Thinking it might be agreeable to +him, I informed him, a few weeks ago, that our hunting-meetings were about +to secure him a concourse of connoisseurs worthy of his talents." + +<p>"Monsiuer le Marquis will excuse me," replied Rostain with a melancholy +smile, "if I do not share his illusions; in the first place, the hunter +devours and does not eat; he brings to the table the stomach of a man +just saved from shipwreck, <i>iratum ventrem</i>, as Horace says, and +swallows up without choice and without reflection, <i>gulæ parens</i>, the most +serious productions of an artist; in the second place, the violent exercise +of the chase has developed in such guests an inordinate thirst, which they +generally slake without moderation. Now, Monsieur le Marquis is not +ignorant of the opinion of the ancients on the excessive use of wine +during meals; it blunts the taste—<i>ersurdant vina palatum!</i> Nevertheless, +Monsieur le Marquis may rest assured that I shall labor to please his +guests with my usual conscientiousness, though with the painful certainty +of not being understood." + +<p>After uttering these words, Rostain draped himself in his toga, cast to +heaven the look of an unappreciated genius, and left my study. + +<p>"I would have thought," I said to the marquis, "that you would have +spared no sacrifice to retain that great man." + +<p>"You judge me correctly, sir," replied Monsieur de Malouet; "but you'll see +that he carried me to the very limits of impossibility. Precisely a week +ago, Monsieur Rostain, having solicited a private audience, announced to +me that he found himself under the painful necessity of leaving my service. +'Heavens! Monsieur Rostain to leave my service! And where do you expect +to go?' 'To Paris.' 'What! to Paris! But you had shaken upon the great +Babylon the dust of your sandals! The decadence of taste, the increasing +development of the romantic cuisine! Such are your own words, Rostain!' +He replied: 'Doubtless, Monsieur le Marquis; but provincial life has bitter +trials which I had not foreseen!' I offered him fabulous wages; he refused. +'Come, my good fellow, what is the matter? Ah! I see, you don't like the +scullery-maid; she disturbs your meditations by her vulgar songs; very +well, consider her dismissed! That is not enough? Is it Antoine, then, +who is objectionable? I'll discharge him! Is it the coachman? I'll send him +away!' In short, I offered him, gentlemen, the whole household as a +holocaust. But, at all these prodigious concessions, the old <i>chef</i> shook +his head with indifference. But finally, I exclaimed, 'in the name of +Heaven, Monsieur Rostain, do explain!' 'Mon Dieu! Monsieur le Marquis,' +then said Jean Rostain, 'I must confess to you that it is impossible for me +to live in a place where I find no one to play a game of billiards with +me!' <i>Ma foi!</i> it was a little too much!" added the marquis, with a +cheerful good-nature. + +<p>"I could not really offer to play billiards with him myself! I had to +submit. I wrote at once to Paris, and last evening a young cook arrived, +who wears a mustache and gave his name as Jacquemart (of Bordeaux). The +classic Rostain, in a sublime impulse of artistic pride, volunteered to +assist Monsieur Jacquemart (of Bordeaux) in his first effort, and that's +how, gentlemen, I was able to-day to serve this great eclectic dinner, of +which, I fear, we will alone, monsieur and myself, have appreciated the +mysterious beauties." + +<p>Monsieur de Malouet rose from the table as he was concluding the story of +Rostain's epic. After coffee, I followed the smokers into the garden. The +evening was magnificent. The marquis led me away along the main avenue, +the fine sand of which sparkled in the moonlight between the dense shadows +of the tall chestnuts. While talking with apparent carelessness, he +submitted me to a sort of examination upon a variety of subjects, as if to +make sure that I was worthy of the interest he had so gratuitously +manifested toward me up to this time. We were far from agreeing on all +points; but, gifted both with sincerity and good-nature, we found almost as +much pleasure in arguing as we did in agreeing. That epicurean is a +thinker; his thought, always generously inclined, has assumed, in the +solitude where it has developed itself, a peculiar and paradoxical turn. I +wish I could give you an idea of it. + +<p>As we were returning to the chateau, we heard a great noise of voices and +laughter, and we saw at the foot of the stoop some ten or twelve young +men who were jumping and bounding, as if trying to reach, without the +help of the steps, the platform that crowns the double staircase. We were +enabled to understand the explanation of these passionate gymnastics as +soon as the light of the moon enabled us to distinguish a white dress on +the platform. It was evidently a tournament of which the white dress was +to crown the victor. The young lady (had she not been young, they would +not have jumped so high) was leaning over the balustrade, exposing +boldly to the dew of an autumn night, and to the kisses of Diana, her +flower-wreathed head and her bare shoulders; she was slightly stooping +down, and held out to the competitors an object somewhat difficult to +discern at a distance; it was a slender cigarette, the delicate handiwork +of her white fingers and her rosy nails. Although there was nothing in the +sight that was not charming, Monsieur de Malouet probably found in it +something he did not like, for his tone of cheerful good-humor became +suddenly shaded with a perceptible tint of annoyance, when he murmured: + +<p>"There it is again! I was sure of it! It is the Little Countess!" + +<p>It is hardly necessary for me to add that I had recognized, in the Little +Countess, my Amazon with the blue plume, who, with or without plume, +seems to have always the same disposition. She recognized me perfectly +also, on her side, as you'll see directly. At the moment when we were +reaching, Monsieur Malouet and myself, the top of the stoop, leaving the +rival pretenders to vie and struggle with increasing ardor, the little +countess, intimidated perhaps by the presence of the marquis, resolved +to put an end to the scene, and thrust abruptly her cigarette into my hand, +saying: + +<p>"Here! it's for you! After all, you jump better than any of them." + +<p>And she disappeared after this parting shaft, which possessed the double +advantage of hitting at once both the victor and the vanquished. + +<p>This was, so far as I am concerned, the last noticeable episode of the +evening. After a game or two of whist, I pretended a little fatigue, and +Monsieur de Malouet had the kindness to escort me in person to a pretty +little room, hung with chintz and contiguous to the library. I was +disturbed during part of the night by the monotonous sound of the piano +and the rumbling noise of the carriages, indications of civilization which +made me regret more bitterly than ever my poor Thebais. +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>A DENUNCIATION OVERHEARD.</h3> + +<p style="text-align: right"><i>28th September.</i></p> + +<p>I had the satisfaction of discovering in the library of the marquis the +historical documents I needed. They form, indeed, a part of the ancient +archives of the abbey, and have a special interest for the family of +Malouet. It was one William Malouet, a very noble man and a knight, who, +about the middle of the twelfth century, with the consent of messieurs his +sons, Hughes, Foulgues, John, and Thomas, restored the church and founded +the abbey in favor of the order of the Benedictine monks, and for the +salvation of his soul and of the souls of his ancestors, granting unto the +congregation, among other dues and privileges, the fee-simple of the +lands of the abbey, the tithe of all its revenues, half the wool of its +flocks, three loads of wax to be received every year at Mount +Saint-Michel-on-the-sea; then the river, the moors, the woods, and the +mill, <i>et molendinum in eodem situ</i>. I took pleasure in following through +the wretched latin of the time the description of this familiar landscape. +It has not changed. + +<p>The foundation charter bears date 1145. Subsequent charters show that the +abbey of Rozel was in possession, in the thirteenth century, of a sort of +patriarchate over all the institutions of the order of Saint Benedict that +were then in existence in the province of Normandy. A general chapter of +the order was held there every year, presided over by the Abbot of Rozel, +and at which some ten or a dozen other convents were represented by +their highest dignitaries. The discipline, the labors, the temporal and +spiritual management of all the Benedictines of the province were here +controlled and reformed with a severity which the minutes of these little +councils attest in the noblest terms. These scenes replete with dignity, +took place in that Capitulary Hall now so shamefully defiled. + +<p>Aside from the archives, this library is very rich, and this is apt to +divert attention. Moreover, the vortex of worldly dissipation that rages +in the chateau is not without occasionally doing some prejudice to my +independence. Finally, my worthy hosts frequently take away with one hand +the liberty they have granted me with the other; like many persons of the +world, they have not a very clear idea of the degree of connected +occupation which deserves the name of work, and an hour or two of +reading appears to them the utmost extent of labor that a man can bear +in a day. + +<p>"Consider yourself wholly free," Monsieur le Malouet tells me every +morning; "go up to your hermitage; work at your ease." + +<p>An hour later he is knocking at my door: + +<p>"Well! are we hard at work?" + +<p>"Why, yes, I am beginning to get into it." + +<p>"What! the duse! You have been at it more than two hours! You are killing +yourself, my friend. However, you are free. By the way, my wife is in the +parlor; when you have done you'll go and keep her company, won't you?" + +<p>"Most undoubtdedly I will." + +<p>"But only when you have entirely done, of course." + +<p>And, he goes off for a hunt or a ride by the seaside. As to myself, +preoccupied with the idea than I am expected, and satisfied that I shall be +unable to do any further work of value, I soon resolve to go and join +Madame de Malouet, whom I find deeply engaged in conversation with the +parish priest, or with Jacquemart (of Bordeaux). She has disturbed me, I am +in her way, and we smile pleasantly to each other. + +<p>Such is the manner in which the middle of the day usually passes off. + +<p>In the morning, I ride on horseback with the marquis, who is kind enough to +spare me the crowd and tumult of the general riding-parties. In the +evening, I take a hand at whist, then I chat a while with the ladies, and I +try my best to cast off at their feet my bear's skin and reputation; for I +dislike to display any eccentricity of my own, this one rather more so than +any other. There is in a grave disposition, when carried to the point of +stiffness and ill-grace toward women, something coarsely pedantic, that +is unbecoming in great talents and ridiculous in lesser ones. I retire +afterward, and I work rather late in the library. That's the best of my +day. + +<p>The society at the chateau is usually made up of the marquis' guests, who +are always numerous at this season, and of a few persons of the +neighborhood. The object of these entertainments on a grand scale is, +above all, to celebrate the visit of Monsieur de Malouet's only daughter, +who comes every year to spend the autumn with her family. She is a person +of statuesque beauty, who amuses herself with queenly dignity, and who +communicates with ordinary mortals by means of contemptuous mono-syllables +uttered in a deep bass voice. She married, some twelve years ago, an +Englishman, a member of the diplomatic corps, Lord A——, a personage +equally handsome and impassive as herself. He addresses at intervals to his +wife an English monosyllable, to which the latter replies imperturbably +with a French monosyllable. Nevertheless, three little lords, worthy the +pencil of Lawrence, who strut majestically around this Olympian couple, +attest between the two nations a secret intelligence which escapes the +vulgar observer. + +<p>A scarcely less remarkable couple comes over to us daily from a +neighboring chateau. The husband is one Monsiuer de Breuilly, formerly an +officer in King Charles X's body-guards, and a bosom friend of the marquis. +He is a very lively old man, still quite fine-looking, and wearing over +close-cropped gray hair a hat too small for his head. He has an odd, +though perhaps natural, way of scanning his words, and of speaking with a +degree of deliberation that seems affected. He would be quite pleasant, +however, were it not that his mind is constantly tortured by an ardent +jealousy, and by a no less ardent apprehension of betraying his weakness, +which, nevertheless, is a glaring and obvious fact to every one. It is +difficult to understand how, with such a disposition and a great deal of +common sense, he has committed the signal error of marrying, at the age +of fifty-five, a young and pretty woman, and a creole, I believe, in the +bargain. + +<p>"Monsieur de Breuilly!" said the marquis, as he presented me to the +punctilious gentleman, "my best friend, who will infallibly become yours +also, and who, quite as infallibly, will cut your throat if you attempt to +show any attention to his wife." + +<p>"Mon Dieu! my dear friend," replied Monsieur de Breuilly, with a laugh that +was anything but joyful, and accentuating each word in his peculiar style, +"why represent me to this gentleman as a Norman Othello? Monsieur may +surely—monsieur is perfectly free to—besides, he knows and can observe +the proper limits of things. At any rate, sir, here is Madame de Breuilly; +suffer me to recommend her myself to your kind attentions." + +<p>Somewhat surprised at this language, I had the simplicity, or perhaps the +innocent malice, of interpreting it literally. I sat down squarely by the +side of Madame de Breuilly, and I began paying her marked attention, +while, however, "observing the proper limits of things." In the meantime, +Monsieur de Breuilly was watching us from a distance, with an +extraordinary countenance. I could see his little gray eyes sparkling like +glowing ashes; he was laughing loud, grinning, stamping, and fairly +disjointing his fingers with sinister cracks. Monsieur de Malouet came +suddenly to me, handed me a whist card, and taking me aside: + +<p>"What the duse has got into you?" he said. + +<p>"Into me? why, nothing!" + +<p>"Have I not warned you? It's quite a serious matter. Look at Breuilly! It +is the only weakness of that gallant man; every one respects it here. Do +likewise, I beg of you." + +<p>From the weakness of that gallant man, it results that his wife is +condemned in society to perpetual quarantine. The fighting propensities +of a husband are often but an additional attraction for the lightning; +but men hesitate to risk their lives without any prospect of possible +compensation, and we have here a man who threatens you at least with a +public scandal, not only before harvest, as they say, but even before the +seed has been fairly sown. Such a state of affairs manifestly discourages +the most enterprising, and it is quite rare that Madame de Breuilly has not +two vacant seats on her right and on her left, despite her nonchalant +grace, despite her great creole eyes, and despite her plaintive and +beseeching looks, that seem to be ever saying: "Mon Dieu! will no one lead +me into temptation?" + +<p>You would doubtless think that the evident neglect in which the poor wife +lives ought to be, for her husband, a motive of security. Not at all! His +ingenious mania manages to discover in that fact a fresh motive of +perplexity. + +<p>"My friend," he was saying yesterday to Monsieur de Malouet, "you know that +I am no more jealous than any one else; but without being Orosmane, I do +not pretend to be George Dandin. Well! one thing troubles me, my friend; +have you noticed that apparently no one pays any attention to my wife?" + +<p>"Parbleu! if that's what troubles you—" + +<p>"Of course it is; you must admit that it is not natural. My wife is pretty; +why don't they pay attention to her as well as to other ladies? There is +something suspicious there!" + +<p>Fortunately, and to the great advantage of the social question, all the +young women who reside in turn at the chateau are not guarded by dragons +of that caliber. A few even, and among them two or three Parisians out for +a holiday, display a freedom of manner, a love of pleasure, and an +exaggerated elegance that certainly pass the bounds of discretion. You are +aware that I have not the highest opinion of that sort of behavior, which +does not answer my idea of the duties of a woman, and even of a woman of +the world; nevertheless, I take side without hesitation with these giddy +ones; and their conduct even appears to me the very ideal of truth and +sincerity, when I hear nightly certain pious matrons distilling against them, +amid low and vulgar gossip, the venom of the basest envy that can swell +a rural heart. Moreover, it is not always necessary to leave Paris in +order to have the ugly spectacle of these provincials let loose against +what they call vice, namely, youth, elegance, distinction, charm—in a +word, all the qualities which the worthy ladies possess no more, or have +perhaps never possessed. + +<p>Nevertheless, with whatever disgust, these chaste vixens inspire me for the +virtue they pretend to uphold (Oh, virtue! how many crimes are committed +in thy name!), I am compelled, to my great regret to agree with them on +one point, and to admit that one of their victims at least gives an +appearance of justice to their reprobation and to their calumnies. The +angel of kindness himself would hide his face in presence of this complete +specimen of dissipation, of turbulence, of futility, and finally of worldly +extravagance that bears the name of Countess de Palme, and the nickname +of the Little Countess; a rather ill-fitting nickname, by the way, for +the lady is not small, but simply slender and lithe. Madame de Palme is +twenty-five years of age; she is a widow; she spends the winter in Paris +with her sister, and the summer in an old Norman manor-house, with her +aunt, Madame de Pontbrian. Let me get rid of the aunt first. + +<p>This aunt, who is of very ancient nobility, is particularly noted for the +fervor of her hereditary opinions, and for her strict devotion. Those are +both claims to consideration which I admit fully, so far as I am concerned. +Every solid principle and every sincere sentiment command in these days +a peculiar respect. Unfortunately Madame de Pontbrian seems to be +one of those intensely devout persons who are but very indifferent +Christians. She is one of those who, reducing to a few minor observances, +of which they are ridiculously proud, all the duties of their religious or +political faith, impart to both a harsh and hateful appearance, the effect +of which is not exactly to attract proselytes. The outer forms, in all things, +are sufficient for her conscience; otherwise, no trace of charity or +kindness; above all, no trace of humility. Her genealogy, her assiduity to +church, and her annual pilgrimages to the shrine of an illustrious exile +(who would probably be glad to dispense with the sight of her countenance), +inspire in this fairy such a lofty idea of herself and such a profound +contempt for her neighbor, that they make her positively unsociable. +She remains forever absorbed in the latrian worship which she believes +due to herself. She deigns to speak but to God, and He must indeed be a +kind and merciful God if He listens to her. + +<p>Under the nominal patronage of this mystic duenna, the Little Countess +enjoys an absolute independence, which she uses to excess. After +spending the winter in Paris, where she kills off regularly two horses +and a coachman every month for the sole gratification of waltzing ten +minutes every night in half a dozen different balls, Madame de Palme +feels the necessity of seeking rest in the peace of rural life. She +arrives at her aunt's, she jumps upon a horse, and she starts at full +gallop. It matters not which way she goes, provided she keeps going. +Most generally she comes to the Chateau de Malouet, where the kind-hearted +mistress of the house manifests for her an amount of predilection which I +can hardly understand. Familiar with men, impertinent with women, the +Little Countess offers a broad mark to the most indiscreet homage of the +former, and to the jealous hostility of the latter. Indifferent to the +outrages of public opinion, she seems ready to aspire to the coarsest +incense of gallantry; but what she requires above all things is noise, +movement, a whirl, worldly pleasure carried to its most extreme and most +extravagant fury; what she requires every morning, every evening, and +every night, is a break-neck chase, which she conducts with frenzy; a +reckless game, in which she may break the bank; an uninterrupted German, +which she leads until dawn. A stoppage of a single minute, a moment of +rest, of meditation and reflection, would kill her. Never was an existence +at once so busy and so idle; never a more unceasing and more sterile +activity. + +<p>Thus she goes through life hurriedly and without a halt, graceful, +careless, busy, and ignorant as the horse she rides. When she reaches the +fatal goal, that woman will fall from the nothingness of her agitation +into the nothingness of eternal rest, without the shadow of a serious idea, +the faintest notion of duty, the lightest cloud of a thought worthy a human +being, having ever grazed, even in a dream, the narrow brain that is +sheltered behind her pure, smiling, and stupid brow. It might be said that +death, at whatever age it may overtake her, will find the Little Countess +just as she left the cradle, if it were possible to suppose that she has +preserved its innocence as well as she has retained its profound puerility. +Has that madcap a soul? The word nothingness has escaped me. It is +indeed difficult for me to conceive what might survive that body when +it has once lost the vain fever and the frivolous breath that seem alone +to animate it. + +<p>I know too well the miserable ways of the world, to take to the letter the +accusations of immorality of which Madame de Palme is here the object +on the part of the witches, as also on the part of some of her rivals who +are silly enough to envy her social success. It is not in that respect, as +you may understand, that I treat her with so much severity. Men, when +they show themselves unmerciful for certain errors, are too apt to forget +that they have all, more or less, spent part of their lives seeking to +bring them about for their own benefit. But there is in the feminine type +which I have just sketched something more shocking than immorality itself, +which, however, it is rather difficult to separate from it. And so, +notwithstanding my desire of not making myself conspicuous in anything, +I have been unable to take upon myself to join the throng of admirers +whom Madame de Palme drags after her triumphal car. I know not whether + +<p style="margin-left: 2em;">"Le tyran dans sa cour remarqua mon absence:"</p> + +<p>I am sometimes tempted to believe it, from the glances of astonishment and +scorn with which I am overwhelmed when we meet; but it is more simple +to attribute these hostile symptoms to the natural antipathy that separates +two creatures as dissimilar as we are. I look at her at times, myself, +with the gaping surprise which must be excited in the mind of any thinking +being by the monstrosity of such a psychological phenomenon. In that way +we are even. I ought rather to say we were even, for we are really no +longer so, since a rather cruel little adventure that happened to me last +night, and which constitutes in my account-current with Madame de Palme +a considerable advance, which she will find it difficult to make up. I have +told you that Madame de Malouet, through I know not what refinement of +Christian charity, manifested a genuine predilection for the Little Countess. +I was talking with the marquise last evening in a corner of the +drawing-room. I took the liberty of telling her that this predilection, +coming from a woman like her, was a bad example; that I had never very +well understood, for my part, that passage of the Holy Scriptures in which +the return of a single sinner is celebrated above the constant merit of a +thousand just, and that this had always appeared to me very discouraging +for the just. + +<p>"In the first place," answered Madame de Malouet, "the just do not get +discouraged; and in the next place, there are none. Do you fancy yourself +one, by chance?" + +<p>"Certainly not; I am perfectly well aware of the contrary." + +<p>"Well, then, where do you get the right of judging your neighbor so +severely?" + +<p>"I do not acknowledge Madame de Palme as my neighbor." + +<p>"That's convenient! Madame de Palme, sir, has been badly brought up, badly +married, and always spoilt; but, believe me, she is a genuine rough +diamond." + +<p>"I only see the roughness." + +<p>"And rest assured that it only requires a skillful workman—I mean a good +husband—to cut and polish it." + +<p>"Allow me to pity that future lapidary." + +<p>Madame de Malouet tapped the carpet with her foot, and manifested other +signs of impatience, which I knew not at first how to interpret, for she is +never out of humor; but suddenly a thought, which I took for a luminous +one, occurred in my mind; I had no doubt that I had at last discovered +the weak side and the only failing in that charming old woman. She was +possessed with the mania of match making, and, in her Christian anxiety to +snatch the Little Countess from the abyss of perdition, she was secretly +meditating to hurl me into it with her, unworthy though I be. Penetrated +with this modest conviction, I kept upon a defensive that seems to me, at +the present moment, perfectly ridiculous. + +<p>"Mon Dieu!" said Madame de Malouet, "because you doubt her learning!" + +<p>"I do not doubt her learning," I said; "I doubt whether she knows how to +read." + +<p>"But, in short, what fault do you find with her?" rejoined Madame de +Malouet in a singularly agitated tone of voice. + +<p>I determined to demolish, at a single stroke, the matrimonial dream with +which I supposed the marchioness to be deluding herself. + +<p>"I find fault with her," I replied, "for giving to the world the spectacle, +supremely irritating even for a profane being like me, of triumphant +nullity and haughty vice. I am not worth much, it's true, and I have no +right to judge, but there is in me, as well as in any theatrical audience, +a certain sentiment of reason and morality that rises in indignation in +presence of personages wholly devoid of common-sense or virtue, and +that protests against their triumph." + +<p>The old lady's indignation seemed to increase. + +<p>"Do you think I would receive her, if she deserved all the stones which +slander casts at her?" + +<p>"I think it is impossible for you to believe any evil." + +<p>"Bah! I assure you that you do not show in this case any evidence of +penetration. These love-stories which are attributed to her are so little +like her! She is a child who does not even know what it is to love!" + +<p>"I am convinced of that, madame. Her commonplace coquetry is sufficient +evidence of that. I am even ready to swear that the allurements of the +imagination or the impulses of passion are wholly foreign to her errors, +which thus remain without excuse." + +<p>"Oh! mon Dieu!" exclaimed Madame de Malouet, clasping her hands, "do +hush! she is a poor, forsaken child! I know her better than you do. I +assure you that beneath her appearance—much too frivolous, I admit—she +possesses in fact as much heart as she does sense." + +<p>"That is precisely what I think, madam; as much one of as of the other." + +<p>"Ah! that is really intolerable," murmured Madame de Malouet, dropping her +arms in a disconsolate manner. + +<p>At the same moment, I saw the curtain that half covered the door by the +side of which we sat shake violently, and the Little Countess, leaving the +hiding-place where she had been confined by the exigencies of I know not +what game, showed herself to us for a moment in the aperture of the door, +and returned to join the group of players that stood in the adjoining +parlor. I looked at Madame de Malouet: + +<p>"What! she was there!" + +<p>"Of course she was. She heard us, and, what's more, she could see us. +I made all the signs I could, but you were off!" + +<p>I remained somewhat embarrassed. I regretted the harshness of my words; +for, in attacking so violently this young person, I had yielded to the +excitement of controversy much more than to a sentiment of serious +animadversion. In point of fact, she is indifferent to me, but it's a +little too much to hear her praised. + +<p>"And now what am I to do?" I said to Madame de Malouet. + +<p>She reflected for a moment, and replied with a slight shrug of her +shoulders: + +<p>"<i>Ma foi!</i> nothing; that's the best thing you can do." + +<p>The least breath causes a full cup to overflow; thus the little +unpleasantness of this scene seems to have intensified this feeling of +ennui which has scarce left me since my advent into this abode of joy. +This continuous gayety, this restless agitation, this racing and dancing +and dining, this ceaseless merry-making, and this eternal round of +festivity importune me to the point of disgust. I regret bitterly the time +I have wasted in reading and investigations which in no wise concern my +official mission and have but little advanced its termination; I regret the +engagements which the kind entreaties of my hosts have extorted from +my weakness; I regret my vale of Tempe; above all, Paul, I regret you. +There are certainly in this little social center a sufficient number of +superior and kindly disposed minds to form the elements of the +pleasantest and even the most elevated relations; but these elements are +fairly submerged in the worldly and vulgar throng, and can only be +eliminated from it with much trouble and difficulty, and never without +admixture. Monsieur and Madame de Malouet, Monsieur de Breuilly even, +when his insane jealously does not deprive him of the use of his faculties, +certainly possess choice minds and hearts; but the mere difference of age +opens an abyss between us. As to the young men and the men of my own +age whom I meet here, they all march with more or less eager step in +Madame de Palme's wake. It is enough that I should decline to follow them +in that path, to cause them to manifest toward me a coolness akin to +antipathy. My pride does not attempt to break that ice, though two or three +among them appear well gifted, and reveal instincts superior to the life +they have adopted. + +<p>There is one question I sometimes ask of myself on that subject; are we +any better, you and I, youthful Paul, than this crowd of joyous companions +and pleasant <i>viveurs</i>, or are we simply different from them? Like +ourselves, they possess honesty and honor; like ourselves, they have +neither virtue nor religion properly so-called. So far, we are equal. Our +tastes alone and our pleasures differ; all their preoccupations turn to +the lighter ways of the world, to the cares of gallantry and material +activity; ours are almost exclusively given up to the exercise of thought, +to the talents of the mind, to the works, good or evil, of the intellect. +In the light of human truth, and according to common estimation, it is +doubtful whether the difference in this particular is wholly in our favor; +but in a more elevated order, in the moral order, and, so to speak, in +the presence of God, does that superiority hold good? Are we merely +yielding, as they do, to an inclination that leads us rather more to one +side than to another, or are we obeying an imperative duty? What is in +the eyes of God the merit of intellectual life? It seems to me sometimes +that we possess for thought a species of pagan worship to which He +attaches no value, and which perhaps even offends Him. More frequently, +however, I think that He wishes us to make use of thought, were it even to +be turned against Him, and that He accepts as a homage all the +quiverings of that noble instrument of joy and torture which He has placed +within us. + +<p>Is not sadness, in periods of doubt and anxiety, a species of religion? I trust +so. We are, you and I, somewhat like those poor dreaming sphinxes who +have been asking in vain for so many centuries, from the solitudes of the +desert, the solution of the eternal riddle. Would it be a greater and more +guilty folly than the happy carelessness of the Little Countess? We shall +see. In the meantime, retain, for my sake, that ground-work of melancholy +upon which you weave your own gentle mirth; for, thank God! you are not a +pedant; you can live, you can laugh, and even laugh aloud; but thy soul +is sad unto death, and that is only why I love unto death thy fraternal +soul. +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>THE MARQUISE INTERCEDES.</h3> + +<p style="text-align: right"><i>1st October.</i></p> + +<p>Paul, there is something going on here that does not please me. I would +like to have your advice; send it as soon as possible. + +<p>On Thursday morning, after finishing my letter, I went down to give it to +the messenger, who leaves quite early; then, as it only wanted a few +minutes of the breakfast-hour, I walked into the drawing-room, which +was still empty. I was quietly looking over a review by the fireside, when +the door was suddenly flung open; I heard the crushing and rustling of a +silk dress too broad to get easily through an aperture three feet wide, and +I saw the Little Countess appear: she had spent the night at the chateau. + +<p>If you remember the unfortunate conversation in which I had become +entangled, the previous evening, and which Madame de Palme had +overheard from beginning to end, you will readily understand that this lady +was the last person in the world with whom it might prove pleasant to find +myself alone that morning. + +<p>I rose and I addressed to her a deep courtsey; she replied with a nod, +which, though slight, was still more than I deserved from her. The first +steps she took in the parlor after she had seen me were stamped with +hesitation and a sort of wavering; it was like the action of a partridge +lightly hit on the wing and somewhat stunned by the shot. Would she go +to the piano, to the window, to the right or to the left, or opposite? It +was clear that she did not know herself; but indecision is not the weak +point of her disposition; she soon made up her mind, and crossing the +immense drawing room with very firm step, she came in the direction of +the chimney, that is, toward my immediate domain. + +<p>Standing in front of my arm-chair with my review in my hand, I was awaiting +the event with an apparent gravity that concealed but imperfectly, I fear, +a rather powerful inward anxiety. I had indeed every reason to apprehend +an explanation and a scene. In every circumstance of this kind, the +natural feelings of our heart and the refinement which education and the +habits of society add to them, the absolute freedom of the attack and the +narrow limits allowed to the defense, give to women an overwhelming +superiority over any man who is not a boor or a lover. In the particular +crisis that was threatening me, the stinging consciousness of my wrongs, +the recollection of the almost insulting form under which my offense had +manifested itself, united to deprive me of all thought of resistance; I +found myself delivered over, bound hand and foot, to the frightful wrath +of a young and imperious woman thirsting for vengeance. My attitude was, +therefore, not very brilliant. + +<p>Madame de Palme stopped within two steps of me, spread her right hand on +the marble of the mantel, and extended toward the blazing hearth the +bronzed slipper within which her left foot was held captive. Having +accomplished these preliminary dispositions, she turned toward me, and +without addressing me a single word, she seemed to enjoy my countenance, +which, I repeat, was not worth much. I resolved to sit down again and +resume my reading; but previously, and by way of transition, I thought best +to say politely: + +<p>"Wouldn't you like to have this review, madam?" + +<p>"Thank you, sir, I cannot read." + +<p>Such was the answer that was promptly shot off at me in a brief tone of +voice. I made with my head and my hand a courteous gesture, by which I +seemed to sympathize gently with the infirmity that was thus revealed to +me, after which I sat down, feeling more easy. I had drawn my adversary's +fire. Honor seemed to me satisfied. + +<p>Nevertheless, after a few moments of silence, I began again to feel the +awkwardness of my situation; I strove in vain to become absorbed in my +reading; I kept seeing a multitude of little bronzed slippers dancing all +over the paper. An open scene would have appeared to me decidedly +preferable to this unpleasant and persistent proximity, to the mute +hostility betrayed to my furtive glance by Madame de Palme's restless +foot, the jingle of her rings on the marble mantel, and the quivering +mobility of her nostrils. I therefore unconsciously uttered a sigh of +relief when the door, opening suddenly, introduced upon the stage a new +personage, whom I felt justified in considering as an ally. + +<p>It was a lady—a school-friend of Lady A——, whose name is Madame +Durmaitre. She is a widow, and extremely handsome; she is noted for a +lesser degree of folly amid the wild and worldly ladies of the chateau. +For this reason, and somewhat also on account of her superior charms, she +has long since conquered the ill-will of Madame de Palme, who, in allusion +to her rival's somber style of dress, to the languid character of her +beauty, and to the somewhat elegiac turn of her conversation, is pleased +to designate her, among the young people, as the Malabar Widow. Madame +Durmaitre is positively lacking in wit; but she is intelligent, tolerably +well read, and much inclined to reverie. She prides herself upon a certain +talent for conversation. Seeing that I am myself destitute of any other +social accomplishment, she has got it into her head that I must possess that +particular one, and she has undertaken to make sure of it. The result has +been, between us, a rather assiduous and almost cordial intercourse; for, +if I have been unable to fully respond to all her hopes, I listen, at +least with religious attention, to the little melancholy pathos which is +habitual with her. I appear to understand her, and she seems grateful for +it. The truth is that I never tire hearing her voice, which is musical, +gazing at her features, which are exquisitely regular, and admiring her +large black eyes, over which a fringe of heavy eyelashes casts a +mystic shadow. However, do not feel uneasy; I have decided that the time +for being loved, and consequently for loving, is over for me; now, love is +a malady which no one need fear, if he sincerely strive to repress its +first symptoms. + +<p>Madame de Palme had turned around at the sound of the opening door; +when she recognized Madame Durmaitre, a fierce light gleamed in her +blue eyes; chance had sent her a victim. She allowed the beautiful widow +to advance a few paces toward us, with the slow and mournful step which +is characteristic of her manner, and bursting out laughing: + +<p>"Bravo!" she exclaimed, with emphasis, "the march to the scaffold! the +victim dragged to the altar! Iphigenia; or, rather, Hermione: + +<p style="margin-left: 2em;">"'Pleurante apres son char vous voulez qu'on me voie!' + +<p>"Who is it that has written this verse? I am so ignorant! Ah! it's your +friend, M. de Lamartine, I believe. He was thinking of you, my dear!" + +<p>"Ah! you quote poetry now, dear madam," said Madame Durmaitre, who is not +very skilled at retort. + +<p>"Why not, dear madam? Have you a monopoly of it?—'Pleurante apres son +char?' I have heard Rachel say that. By the way, it is not by Lamartine, +it's by Boileau. I must tell you, dear Nathalie, that I intend to ask you +to give me lessons in serious and virtuous conversation. It's so amusing! +And to begin at once, come! tell me whom you prefer, Lamartine or Boileau?" + +<p>"But, Bathilde, there is no connection," replied Madame Durmaitre, rather +sensibly and much too candidly. + +<p>"Ah!" rejoined Madame de Palme. And suddenly pointing me out with her +finger: "You perhaps prefer this gentleman, who also writes poetry?" + +<p>"No, madam," I said, "it is a mistake; I write none." + +<p>"Ah! I thought you did. I beg your pardon." + +<p>Madame Durmaitre, who doubtless owes the unalterable serenity of her soul +to the consciousness of her supreme beauty, had been content with smiling +with disdainful nonchalance. She dropped into the arm-chair, which I had +given up to her. + +<p>"What gloomy weather!" she said to me; "really, this autumnal sky weighs +upon the soul. I was looking out of the window; all the trees look like +cypress-trees, and the whole country looks like a graveyard. It would +really seem that—" + +<p>"No, ah! no. I beg of you, Nathalie," interrupted Madame de Palme, "say no +more. That's enough fun before breakfast. You'll make yourself sick." + +<p>"Well, now! my dear Bathilde, you must really have slept very badly last +night," said the beautiful widow. + +<p>"I, my dear? ah! do not say that. I had celestial, ecstatic dreams; +ecstasies, you know. My soul held converse with other souls—like your own +soul. Angels smiled at me through the foliage of the cypress-trees—and +so forth, and so forth!" + +<p>Madame Durmaitre blushed slightly, shrugged her shoulders, and took up the +review I had laid upon the mantel-piece. + +<p>"By the bye, Nathalie," resumed Madame de Palme, "do you know who we are +going to have at dinner to-day, in the way of men?" The good-natured +Nathalie mentioned Monsieur de Breuilly, two or three other married +gentlemen, and the parish priest. + +<p>"Then I am going away after breakfast," said the Little Countess, looking +at me. + +<p>"That's very polite to us," murmured Madame Durmaitre. + +<p>"You know," replied the other with imperturbable assurance, "that I only +like men's society, and there are three classes of individuals whom I do +not consider as belonging to that sex, or to any other; those are married +men, priests, and savants." + +<p>As she concluded this sentence, Madame de Palme cast another glance at me, +by which however, I had no need to understand that she included me in her +classification of neutral species; it could only be among the individuals +of the third category, though I have no claim to it whatever; but it does +not require much to be considered a savant by the ladies. + +<p>Almost at this very moment, the breakfast-bell rang in the court-yard of +the chateau, and she added: + +<p>"Ah! there's breakfast, thank Heaven! for I am develish hungry, with all +respect for pure spirits and troubled souls." + +<p>She then ran and skipped to the other end of the parlor to greet Monsieur +de Malouet, who was coming in followed by his guests. As to myself, I +promptly offered my arm to Madame Durmaitre, and I endeavored by earnest +attentions, to make her forget the storm which the mere shade of sympathy +she manifests toward me had just attracted upon her. + +<p>As you may have remarked, the Little Countess had exhibited in the course +of this scene, as always, an unmeasured and unseemly freedom of language; +but she displayed greater resources of mind than I supposed her capable of +doing, and though they had been directed against me, I could not help +feeling thankful to her—to such an extent do I hate fools, whom I have +ever found in this world more pernicious than wicked people. The result +was, that with the feeling of repulsion and contempt with which the +extravagantly worldly woman inspired me, there was henceforth mingled a +shade of gentle pity for the badly brought-up child and the misdirected +woman. + +<p>Women are prompt in catching delicate shades of feeling, and the latter did +not escape Madame de Palme. She became vaguely conscious of a slightly +favorable change in my opinion of her, and it was not long before she even +began to exaggerate its extent and to attempt abusing it. For two days she +pursued me with her keenest shafts, which I bore good-naturedly, and to +which I even responded with some little attentions, for I had still at +heart the rude expressions of my dialogue with Madame de Malouet, and I +did not think I had sufficiently expiated them by the feeble martyrdom I +had undergone the following day in common with the beautiful Malabar Widow. + +<p>This was enough to cause Madame Bathilde de Palme to imagine that she +could treat me as a conquered province, and add Ulysses to his companions. +Day before yesterday she had tested several times during the day the +extent of her growing power over my heart and my will, by asking two or +three little services of me; services to the honor of which every one here +eagerly aspires, and which for my part, I discharged politely but with +evident coolness. + +<p>In spite of the extreme reserve with which I had lent myself to these +trials during the day, Madame de Palme believed in her complete success; +she hastily judged that she now had but to rivet my chains and bind me to +her triumph, a feeble addition of glory assuredly, but which had, after +all, the merit, in her eyes, of having been contested. During the evening, +as I was leaving the whist-table, she advanced toward me deliberately, +and requested me to do her the honor of figuring with her in the character +dance called the cotillon.[B] I excused myself laughingly on my complete +inexperience; she insisted, declaring that I had evident dispositions for +dancing, and reminding me of the agility I had displayed in the forest. +Finally, and to close the debate, she led me away familiarly by the arm, +adding that she was not in the habit of being refused. + +<p style="margin-left: 1em;">[B] The German.</p> + + +<p>"Nor I, madam," I said, "in that of making a show of myself." + +<p>"What! not even to gratify me?" + +<p>"Not even for that, madam, and were it the only means of succeeding in +doing so." + +<p>I bowed to her smilingly after these words, which I had emphasized in +such a positive manner that she insisted no more. She dropped my arm +abruptly and returned to join a group of dancers who were observing us at +a distance with manifest interest. She was received by them with whispers +and smiles, to which she replied with a few rapid sentences, among which I +only caught the word <i>revanche</i>. I paid no further attention to the matter +for the time being, and my soul went to converse amid the clouds with the +soul of Madame Durmaitre. + +<p>The next day a grand hunt was to take place in the forest. I had arranged +to take no share in it, wishing to make the best of a whole day of solitude +to push forward my hopeless undertaking. Toward noon, the hunters met +in the court-yard of the chateau, which rang again for some fifteen +minutes with the loud blast of the trumpets, the stamping of horses, and +the yelping of the pack. Then the tumultuous crowd disappeared down the +avenue, the noise gradually died away, and I remained master of myself +and of my mind, in the midst of a silence the more grateful that it is the +more rare on this meridian. + +<p>I had been enjoying my solitude for a few minutes, and I was turning over +the folio pages of the <i>Neustra pia</i>, while smiling at my own happiness, +when I fancied I heard the gallop of a horse in the avenue, and soon after +on the pavement of the court. Some hunter behind time, I thought, and, +taking up my pen, I began extracting from the enormous volume the +passage relating to the General Chapters of the Benedictines; but a new +and more serious interruption came to afflict me; some one was knocking +at the library-door. I shook my head with ill-humor, and I said "Come in!" +in the same tone in which I might have said "Go away!" Some one did come +in. I had seen, a few moments before, Madame de Palme taking her flight, +feathers and all, at the head of the cavalcade, and I was not a little +surprised to find her again within two steps of me as soon as the door +was open. Her head was bare, and her hair was tucked up behind in an +odd manner; she held her whip in one hand, and with the other lifted up +the long train of her riding-habit. The excitement of the rapid ride she +had just had seemed further to intensify the expression of audacity which +is habitual to her look and to her features. And yet her voice was less +assured than usual when she exclaimed as she came in: + +<p>"Ah! I beg your pardon! I thought Madame de Malouet was here?" + +<p>I had risen at once to my full height. + +<p>"No, madam, she is not here." + +<p>"Ah! excuse me. Do you know where she is?" + +<p>"I do not, madam; but I can go and ascertain, if you wish." + +<p>"Thanks, thanks! I'll find her easily enough. The fact is, I met with a +little accident." + +<p>"Indeed!" + +<p>"Oh, not much! a trailing limb tore the band off my hat, and my feathers +dropped off." + +<p>"Your blue feathers, madam?" + +<p>"Yes, my blue feathers. In short, I have returned to the chateau to have +my hat-band sewed on again. You are comfortable there to work?" + +<p>"Perfectly so, madam, I could not be better." + +<p>"Are you very busy just now?" + +<p>"Well, yes, madam, rather busy." + +<p>"Ah! I am sorry." + +<p>"Why so?" + +<p>"Because, I had an idea. I thought of asking you to accompany me to the +forest. The gentlemen will be nearly there when I am ready to start +again—and I cannot very well go on alone so far." + +<p>While lisping this somewhat confused explanation, the Little Countess had +an expression at once sly and embarrassed, which greatly fortified the +sentiment of distrust which the awkwardness of her entrance had excited +in my mind. + +<p>"Madam," I said, "you really distress me. I shall regret all my life to +have missed the delightful occasion you are kind enough to offer me; but +it is indispensable that to-morrow's mail shall carry off this report, +which the minister is expecting with extreme impatience." + +<p>"You are afraid to lose your situation?" + +<p>"I have none to lose, madam." + +<p>"Well, then, let the minister wait, for my sake; it will flatter me." + +<p>"That is impossible, madam." + +<p>She assumed a very dry tone: + +<p>"But, that is really strange! What! you are not more anxious to be +agreeable to me?" + +<p>"Madam," I replied rather dryly in my turn, "I should be extremely anxious +to be agreeable to you, but I am not at all anxious to help you win your +wager." + +<p>I threw out that insinuation somewhat at random, resting it upon some +recollections and some slight indications which you may have been able +to collect here and there in the course of my narrative. Nevertheless, +I had hit it exactly. Madame de Palme blushed up to her ear, stammered +out two or three words which I failed to catch, and left the room, having +lost all countenance. + +<p>This precipitate retreat left me quite confused myself. I cannot admit that we +should carry out our respect for the weaker sex so far as to lend +ourselves to every caprice and every enterprise it may please a woman to +direct against our peace or our dignity; but our right of legitimate +self-defense in such encounters is circumscribed within narrow and delicate +limits, which I feared I had over-stepped. It was enough that Madame de +Palme should be alone in the world, and without any other protection than +her sex, to make it seem extremely painful to me to have thoughtlessly +yielded to the irritation, just though it might be, which her impertinent +insistence had aroused. As I was endeavoring to establish between our +respective wrongs a balance that might serve to quiet my scruples, there +was another knock at the library-door. This time, it was Madame de Malouet +who came in. She was much moved. + +<p>"Do tell me what has taken place," she said. + +<p>I gave her full and minute particulars of my interview with Madame de +Palme, and, while expressing much regret at my vivacity, I added that +the lady's conduct toward me was inexplicable; that she had taken me +twice within twenty-four hours for the subject of her wagers, and that it +was a great deal too much attention, on her part, for a man who asked her, +as a sole favor, not to trouble herself about him any more than he troubled +himself about her. + +<p>"Mon Dieu!" said the kind marquise, "I have no fault to find with you. +I have been able to appreciate with my own eyes, during the past few days, +your conduct and her own. But all this is very disagreeable. That child has +just thrown herself in my arms weeping terribly. She says you have treated +her like a creature—" + +<p>I protested: "I have repeated to you, word for word, madam, what passed +between us." + +<p>"It was not your words, it was your expression, your tone. Monsieur George, +let me speak frankly with you: are you afraid of falling in love with +Madame de Palme?" + +<p>"Not in the least, madam." + +<p>"Are you anxious that she should fall in love with you?" + +<p>"Neither, I assure you." + +<p>"Well, then, do me a favor; lay aside your pride for one day, and escort +Madame de Palme to the hunt." + +<p>"Madam!" + +<p>"The advice may seem singular to you. But rest assured that I do not offer +it without mature reflection. The repulsion which you manifest for Madame +de Palme is precisely what attracts toward you that imperious and spoilt +child. She becomes irritated and obstinate in presence of a resistance +to which she has not been accustomed. Be meek enough to yield to her +fancy. Do that for me." + +<p>"Seriously madam, you think?—" + +<p>"I think," interrupted the old lady laughingly, "with due respect to you, +that you will lose your principal merit in her eyes as soon as she sees +you submit to her yoke like all the rest." + +<p>"Really, madam, you present things to me under an entirely novel aspect. +It never occurred to me to attribute Madame de Palme's mischievous pranks +to a sentiment of which I might have reason to be proud." + +<p>"And you have been quite right," she resumed sharply; "there is, thank +heaven! nothing of the kind as yet; but it might have come and you are +too fair a man to desire it, with the views which I know you to entertain." + +<p>"I trust myself wholly to your direction, madam; I am going too fetch my +hat and gloves. The question is now, how Madame de Palme will receive +my somewhat tardy civility." + +<p>"She will receive it very well, if you offer it with good grace." + +<p>"As to that, madam, I shall offer it with all the good grace I can +command." + +<p>On this assurance, Madame de Malouet held out her hand, which I kissed +with profound respect but rather slim gratitude. + +<p>When I entered the parlor, booted and spurred, Madame de Palme was +alone there; deeply seated in an arm-chair, buried under her skirts, she +was putting the finishing touches to her hat. She raised and dropped +rapidly again her eyes, which were fiery red. + +<p>"Madam," I said, "I am sincerely so sorry to have offended you, that I +venture to ask your pardon for an unpardonable piece of rudeness. I have +come to hold myself at your disposition; if you decline my escort, you will +not only be inflicting upon me an amply deserved mortification, but you +will leave me still more unhappy than I have been guilty, and that is +saying a great deal." Madame de Palme, taking into consideration the +emotion of my voice rather more than my diplomatic pathos, lifted her +eyes upon me again, opened her lips slightly, said nothing, and finally +advanced a somewhat tremulous hand, which I hastened to receive within +my own. She availed herself at once of this <i>point d'appui</i> to get on her +feet, and bounded lightly to the floor. A few minutes later, we were both +on horseback and leaving the court-yard of the chateau. + +<p>We reached the extremity of the avenue without having exchanged a +single word. I felt deeply, as you may believe, how much this silence, on +my part at least, was awkward, stiff, and ridiculous; but, as it often +happens in circumstances which demand most imperatively the resources of +eloquence, I was stricken with an invincible sterility of mind. I tried in vain +to find some plausible subject of conversation, and the more annoyed I +felt at finding none, the less capable I became of doing so. + +<p>"Suppose we have a run?" said Madame de Palme suddenly. + +<p>"Let us have a run!" I said; and we started at a gallop, to my infinite +relief. + +<p>Nevertheless, it became absolutely necessary to check our speed at the +entrance of the tortuous path that leads down into the valley of the ruins. +The care required to guide our horses during that difficult descent served +for a few minutes longer as a pretext for my silence; but, on reaching the +level ground of the valley, I saw that I must speak at any cost, and I was +about to begin with some commonplace remark, when Madame de Palme +was kind enough to anticipate me: + +<p>"They say, sir, that you are very witty?" + +<p>"You may judge for yourself, madam," I replied laughingly. + +<p>"Rather difficult so far, even if I were able, which you are very far from +conceding. Oh! you need not deny it! Its perfectly useless, after the +conversation which chance made me overhear the other night." + +<p>"I have made so many mistakes concerning you, madam, you must realize +the pitiful confusion I feel toward you." + +<p>"And in what respect have you been mistaken?" + +<p>"In all respects, I believe." + +<p>"You are not quite sure? Admit at least that I am a good-natured woman." + +<p>"Oh! with all my heart, madam!" + +<p>"You said that well. I believe you think it. You are not bad either, I +believe, and yet you have been cruelly so to me." + +<p>"That is true." + +<p>"What sort of man are you, then, pray?" resumed the Little Countess in her +brief and abrupt tone; "I cannot understand it very well. By what right, +on what ground, do you despise me? Suppose I am really guilty of all the +intrigues which are attributed to me; what is that to you? Are you a saint +yourself? a reformer? Have you never gone astray? Are you any more +virtuous than other men of your age and condition? What right have you to +despise me? Explain!" + +<p>"Were I guilty of the sentiments which you attribute to me, madam, I +should answer, that never has any one, either in your sex or mine, taken +his own morality as the rule of his opinion and his judgment upon others; +we live as we can, and we judge as we should; it is more particularly a +very frequent inconsistency among men, to frown down unmercifully the +very weaknesses which they encourage and of which they derive the +benefit. For my part, I hold severely aloof from a degree of austerity as +ridiculous in a man as uncharitable in a Christian. And as to that +unfortunate conversation which a deplorable chance caused you to hear, +and in which my expressions, as it always happens, went far beyond the +measure of my thought, it is an offense which I can never obliterate, I +know; but I shall at least explain frankly. Every one has his own tastes +and his own way of understanding life in this world; we differ so much, +you and I, and you conceived for me, at first sight, an extreme antipathy. +This disposition, which, on one side at least, madam, was to be singularly +modified on better acquaintance, prompted me to some thoughtless +manifestations of ill-humor and vivacity of controversy. You have +doubtless suffered, madam, from the violence of my language, but much +less, I beg you to believe, than I was to suffer from it myself, after I +had recognized its profound and irreparable injustice." + +<p>This apology, more sincere than lucid, drew forth no answer. We were at +this moment just coming out of the old abbey church, and we found +ourselves unexpectedly mingled in the last ranks of the cavalcade. Our +appearance caused a suppressed murmur to run through the dense crowd +of hunters. Madame de Palme was at once surrounded by a merry throng +that seemed to address congratulations to her on the winning of her +wager. She received them with an indifferent and pouting look, whipped +up her horse, and made her way to the front before entering the forest. + +<p>In the meantime, Monsieur de Malouet had received me with still more +cordial affability than usual, and without making any direct allusion to +the accident which had brought me against my will to this cynegetic feast, +he omitted no attention that could make me forget its trifling annoyance. +Soon after the hounds started a deer, and I followed them with keen +relish, being by no means indifferent to that manly pastime, though it is +not sufficient for my happiness in this world. + +<p>The pack was thrown off the scent two or three times, and the deer had +the best of the day. At about four o'clock we started on our way back to +the chateau. When we crossed the valley on our return, the twilight was +already marking out more clearly upon the sky the outline of the trees and +the crest of the hills; a melancholy shade was falling upon the woods, and +a whitish fog chilled the grass on the meadows, while a thicker mist +indicated the sinuous course of the little river. As I remained absorbed +in the contemplation of the scene which reminded me of better days, I +discovered suddenly Madame de Palme at my side. + +<p>"I believe, after due reflection," she said with her usual brusqueness, +"that you scorn my ignorance and my lack of wit much more than my +supposed want of morality. You think less of virtue than you do of +intelligence. Is that it?" + +<p>"Certainly not," I said, laughingly; "that isn't it; that isn't it at all. In +the first place, the word scorn must be suppressed, having nothing to do +here; then, I don't much believe in your ignorance, and not at all in your +lack of wit. Finally, I see nothing above virtue, when I see it at all, +which is not often. Furthermore, madam, I feel confused at the importance +you attach to my opinion. The secret of my likes and dislikes is quite +simple; I have, as I was telling you, the most religious respect for +virtue, but all mine is limited to a deep-seated sentiment of a few +essential duties which I practice as best I can; I could not therefore ask +any more of others. As to the intellect, I confess that I value it +greatly, and life seems too serious a matter to me to be treated on the +footing of a perpetual ball, from the cradle to the grave. Moreover, the +productions of the mind, works of art in particular, are the object of my +most passionate preoccupations, and it is natural that I should like being +able to speak of what interests me. That's all." + +<p>"Is it absolutely necessary to be forever talking of the ecstasies of +the soul, of cemeteries, and the Venus of Milo, in order to obtain in your +opinion the rank of a serious woman and a woman of taste? But, after +all, you are right; I never think; if I did for one single minute, it +seems to me that I should go mad, that my head would split. And what +were you thinking about yourself, in that old convent cell?" + +<p>"I thought a great deal about you," I replied gayly, "on the evening of +that day when you hunted me down so unmercifully, and I abused you most +heartily." + +<p>"I can understand that." She began laughing, looking all around her, and +added: "What a lovely valley! what a delightful evening! And now, are +you still disposed to abuse me?" + +<p>"Now, I wish from the bottom of my soul I were able to do something for +your happiness." + +<p>"And I for yours," she said, quietly. + +<p>I bowed for all answer, and a brief pause followed: + +<p>"If I were a man," suddenly said Madame de Palme, "I believe I would like +to be a hermit." + +<p>"Oh! what a pity!" + +<p>"That idea does not surprise you?" + +<p>"No, madam." + +<p>"Nothing from me would surprise you, I suppose. You believe me capable +of anything—of anything, perhaps even of being fond of you?" + +<p>"Why not? Greater wonders have been seen! Am I not fond of you myself at +the present moment? That's a fine example to follow!" + +<p>"You must give me time to think about it?" + +<p>"Not long!" + +<p>"As long as it may be necessary. We are friends in the meantime?" + +<p>"If we are friends, there is nothing further to expect," I said, holding +out my hand frankly to the Little Countess. I felt that she was pressing +it lightly, and the conversation ended there. We had reached the top of +the hills; it was now quite dark, and we galloped all the rest of the way +to the chateau. + +<p>As I was coming down from my room for dinner, I met Madame de Malouet in +the vestibule. + +<p>"Well!" she said, laughingly, "did you conform to the prescription?" + +<p>"Rigidly, madam." + +<p>"You showed yourself subjugated? + +<p>"I did, madam." + +<p>"Excellent! She is satisfied now, and so are you." + +<p>"Amen!" I said. + +<p>The evening passed off without further incident. + +<p>I took pleasure in doing for Madame de Palme some trifling services which +she was no longer asking. She left the dance two or three times to come +and address me some good-natured jests that passed through her brain, and +when I withdrew, she followed me to the door with a smiling and cordial +look. + +<p>I ask you now, friend Paul, to sift the precise meaning and the moral of +this tale. You may perhaps judge, and I hope you will, that a chimerical +imagination can alone magnify into an event this vulgar episode of society +life; but if you see in the facts I have just told you the least germ of +danger, the slightest element of a serious complication, tell me so; I'll +break the engagements that were to detain me here some ten or twelve +days longer, and I'll leave at once. + +<p>I do not love Madame de Palme; I cannot and will not love her. My opinion +of her has evidently changed greatly; I look upon her henceforth as a good +little woman. Her head is light and will always be so; her behavior is better +than she gets credit for, though perhaps not as good as she represents it +herself; finally, her heart has both weight and value. I feel some friendship +for her, an affection that has something fraternal in it; but between her +and me, nothing further is at all likely; the expanse of the heavens divides +us. The idea of being her husband makes me burst out laughing, and though +a sentiment which you will readily appreciate, the thought of being her +lover inspires me with horror. As to her, I believe she may feel the +shadow of a caprice, but not even the dawn of a passion. Here I am now +upon her etagere with the rest of the figure-heads, and I think, as does +Madame de Malouet, that may be enough to satisfy her. However, what do +you think of it yourself? +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3>A MISDIRECTED PASSION.</h3> + +<p style="text-align: right"><i>7th October.</i></p> + +<p>Dear Paul, I take part in your grief from the bottom of my heart. Allow +me, however, to assure you, from the very details of your own letter that +your dear mother's illness offers no alarming symptoms whatever. It is +one of those painful but harmless crises which the approach of winter +brings back upon her almost invariably every year, as you know. Patience +therefore, and courage, I beseech you. + +<p>It requires, my friend, the formal expression of your wishes to induce me +to venture upon mingling my petty troubles with your grave solicitude. As +you anticipated in your wisdom and in your kind friendship, it was +consolation and not advice that I stood in need of when I received your +letter. My heart is not at peace, and, what is worse for me, neither is my +conscience; and yet, I think I have done my duty. Have I understood it +right or not? Judge for yourself. + +<p>I take up my situation toward Madame de Palme where I had left it in my +last letter. The day after our mutual explanation, I took every care to +maintain our relations upon the footing of good-fellowship on which they +seemed established, and which constituted, in my idea, the only sort of +intelligence desirable and even possible between us. It seemed to me, on +that day, that she manifested the same vivacity and the same spirit as +usual; yet I fancied that her voice and her look, when she addressed me, +assumed a meek gravity which is not part of her usual disposition; but on +the following days, though I had not deviated from the line of conduct I +had marked out for myself, it became impossible for me not to notice +that Madame de Palme had lost something of her gayety, and that a +vague preoccupation clouded the serenity of her brow. I could see her +dancing-partners surprised at her frequent absence of mind; she still +followed the whirl, but she no longer led it. Under pretext of fatigue, she +would leave suddenly and abruptly her partner's arm, in the midst of a +waltz, to go and sit in some corner with a pensive and even a pouting +look. If there happened to be a vacant seat next to mine, she threw +herself into it, and began from behind her fan some whimsical and +disjointed conversation like the following: + +<p>"If I cannot be a hermit, I am going to become a nun. What would you say, +if you saw me enter a convent to-morrow?" + +<p>"I should say that you would leave it the day after to-morrow." + +<p>"You have no confidence in my resolutions?" + +<p>"When they are unwise, no." + +<p>"I can only form unwise ones, according to you?" + +<p>"According to me, you waltz admirably. When a person waltzes as you do, +it's an art, almost a virtue." + +<p>"Is it customary to flatter one's friends?" + +<p>"I am not flattering you. I never speak a single word to you that I have +not carefully weighed, and that is not the most earnest expression of my +thought. I am a serious man, madam." + +<p>"It does not seem so when you are with me. I verily believe, however, you +have undertaken to make me hate laughter as much as I used to like it." + +<p>"I do not understand you." + +<p>"How do you think I look to-night?" + +<p>"Dazzling!" + +<p>"That's too much! I know that I am not handsome." + +<p>"I don't say you are handsome, but you are extremely graceful." + +<p>"That's better; and it must be true, for I feel it. The Malabar Widow is +really handsome." + +<p>"Yes, I should like to see her at the funeral pile." + +<p>"To jump into it with her?" + +<p>"Exactly." + +<p>"Do you expect to leave soon?" + +<p>"Next week, I believe." + +<p>"Will you come and see me in Paris?" + +<p>"If you will allow me." + +<p>"No, I don't allow you." + +<p>"And why not? great heavens!" + +<p>"In the first place, I don't think I am going back to Paris myself." + +<p>"That's a good reason. And where do you expect to go, madam?" + +<p>"I don't know. Let us make a pedestrian tour somewhere, you and I +together; will you?" + +<p>"I should like nothing better. When shall we start?" + +<p><i>Et cetera</i>. I shall not tire you, my friend, with the particulars of some +dozen similar conversations, every occasion of which for four days +Madame de Palme evidently sought. There was on her part a constantly +growing effort to leave aside all commonplace topics, and impart to our +interviews a character of greater intimacy; there was on mine an equal +amount of obstinacy in confining them within the strictest limits of social +jargon, and remaining resolutely on the ground of worldly futility. + +<p>I now come to the scene that was to bring this painful struggle to a close, +and unfortunately prove all its vanity to me. + +<p>Monsieur and Madame de Malouet were giving last night a grand farewell +ball to their daughter, whose husband has been recalled to his post of +duty, and the whole neighborhood within a circuit of ten leagues had been +summoned to the feast. Toward ten o'clock an immense crowd was +overflowing the vast ground floor of the chateau, in which the elegant +dresses, the lights, and the flowers were mingled in dazzling confusion. +As I was trying to make my way into the main drawing-room, I found myself +face to face with Madame de Malouet, who drew me slightly aside. + +<p>"Well! my dear sir," she said, "I do not like the looks of things." + +<p>"Mon Dieu! what is there new?" + +<p>"I don't know exactly, but be on your guard. Ah! mon Dieu! I have +remarkable confidence in you, sir; you will not take advantage of her, will +you?" + +<p>Her voice was tender and her eyes moist. + +<p>"You may rely upon me, madam; but I sincerely wish I had gone a week ago." + +<p>"Eh! mon Dieu! who could have foreseen such a thing? Hush! there she comes!" + +<p>I turned round and saw Madame de Palme coming out of the parlor; before +her the throng opened with that timorous eagerness and that species of +terror which the supreme elegance of one of society's queens generally +inspires in our sex. For the first time, Madame de Palme appeared handsome +to me; the expression of her countenance was wholly novel to me, and a +weird animation gleamed in her eyes and transfigured her features. + +<p>"Am I to your taste?" she said. + +<p>I manifested by I know not what movement an assent, which was moreover +but too evident to the keen eye of a woman. + +<p>"I was looking for you," she added, "to show you the conservatory; it's +fairy-like. Come!" + +<p>She took my arm, and we started in the direction of the conservatory door +which opened at the other end of the parlor, extending as far as the park, +through the vines and the perfumes of hundreds of exotic plants, all the +splendors of the feast. While we were admiring the effect of the girandoles +that sparkled amid the luxuriant tropical flora like the bright +constellations of another hemisphere, several gentlemen came to claim +Madame de Palme's hand for a waltz; she refused them all, though I was +sufficiently disinterested to join my entreaties to theirs. + +<p>"Our respective roles seem to me somewhat inverted," she said: "it is I who +am detaining you, and you wish to get rid of me!" + +<p>"Heaven preserve me from such an idea! but I am afraid lest you may deprive +yourself, out of kindness to me, of a pleasure you are so fond of." + +<p>"No! I know very well that I seek you and you avoid me. It is rather +absurd in the eyes of the world, but I care nothing for that. For this one +evening at least, I mean to amuse myself as I like. I forbid you to disturb +my happiness. I am really very happy. I have everything I +require—beautiful flowers, excellent music around me, and a friend at my +side. Only—and that's a dark spot on my blue sky—I am much more certain +of the music and the flowers than I am of the friend." + +<p>"You are entirely wrong." + +<p>"Explain your conduct, then, once for all. Why will you never talk +seriously with me? Why do you obstinately refuse to tell me one single +word that savors of confidence, of intimacy—of friendship, in a word?" + +<p>"Please reflect for a minute, madam; where would that lead us to?" + +<p>"What is that to you? That would lead us where it would. It is singular +that you should be more anxious about it than I am." + +<p>"Come, what would you think of me if I ventured to speak of love to you?" + +<p>"I don't ask you to make love to me!" she said, sharply. + +<p>"I know it, madam; and yet it is the inevitable turn my language would +take if it ceased for a moment to be frivolous and commonplace. Now, admit +that there is one man in the world who could not speak of love to you +without incurring your contempt, and that I am that very man. I cannot say +that I am very much pleased with having placed myself in such a position; +but, after all, it is so, and I cannot forget it." + +<p>"That is showing a great deal of judgment." + +<p>"That is showing a great deal of courage." + +<p>She shook her head with an air of doubt, and resumed after a moment of +silence: + +<p>"Do you know that you have just spoken to me as if I were what is called +a 'fast' woman?" + +<p>"Oh! madam!" + +<p>"Of course, you think that I can never attribute to a man who pays his +addresses to me any but improper intentions. If it were so, I would deserve +being called a 'fast' woman, and I do not. I know you don't believe it, +but it is the pure truth, as there is a God—yes, as there is a God! God +knows me, and I pray to Him much oftener than is thought. He has kept me +from doing harm thus far, and I hope He will keep me from it forever; but +it is a thing of which He has not the sole control—" She stopped for a +moment, and then added in a firm tone: + +<p>"You can do much toward it." + +<p>"I, madam?" + +<p>"I have allowed you to take, I know not how—I really do not know how!—a +great influence over my destiny. Will you be willing to use it? That is the +question." + +<p>"And in what capacity could I do so, pray, madam?" I said slowly and in a +tone of cold reserve. + +<p>"Ah!" she exclaimed, in a hoarse and energetic accent, "how can you ask me +that? It is too hard! you humiliate me too much!" + +<p>She left my arm and returned abruptly into the parlor. I remained for some +time uncertain as to what course to pursue. I thought first of following +Madame de Palme and explaining to her that she was mistaken—which was +true—as to the interrogative answer which had offended her. She had +applied that answer to some thought that pervaded her mind, which I did not +understand, or at least which her words had revealed to me much less +clearly than she had imagined; but after thinking over it, I shrank from +the new and formidable explanation which such a course must inevitably +bring about. + +<p>I left the conservatory, and walked into the garden to escape the hum of +the ball-room, which importuned my ears. The night was cold but beautiful. +With my heart still filled with the bitterness of this scene, I wandered +instinctively beyond the luminous zone projected around the chateau through +the apertures of the resplendent windows. I walked rapidly toward a double +row of spruce trees, crossed by a rustic bridge thrown over a small brook +which divided the garden from the park, and where the shade was more +dense. I had just reached this somber spot, when a hand was laid on my arm +and stopped me; at the same time a short and troubled voice, which I could +not mistake, said: + +<p>"I must speak to you!" + +<p>"Madam! for mercy's sake! in the name of Heaven! what are you doing? you +will ruin your reputation! Do return to the house! Come, come, let me +escort you back!" + +<p>I attempted to seize her arm, but she eluded my grasp. + +<p>"I want to speak to you—I have decided to do so. Oh, mon Dieu! how +awkwardly I do go about it, don't I? You must believe me more than ever a +miserable creature! and yet there is nothing in it, not a thing; it's the +truth, the pure truth, mon ami! You are the first man for whose sake I +have forgotten—all that I am now forgetting! Yes, the first! Never has any +other man heard from my lips a single word of tenderness, never! And you +do not believe!" + +<p>I took both her hands in mine: + +<p>"I believe you, I swear it—I swear that I esteem you—that I respect you as +a beloved daughter—but listen to me; pray, listen! do not brave openly this +pitiless world—return to the ball-room—I'll join you there soon, I promise +you—but in the name of Heaven, do not compromise your fair fame!" + +<p>The poor child melted into tears, and I felt that she was staggering; I +supported her and helped her to a seat on a bench close by. I remained +standing before her, holding one of her hands. The darkness was intense +around us; I gazed into space, and I listened, in a state of vague stupor, +to the clear and regular murmur of the brook flowing under the spruce +trees, to the convulsive sobs that swelled the unhappy woman's bosom, and +to the odious sounds of revelry which the orchestra sent us at intervals +from afar. It was one of those moments that can never be forgotten. + +<p>She succeeded in mastering her grief at last, and seemed, after this +explosion, to recover all her firmness. + +<p>"Monsieur," she said, rising and withdrawing her hand, "have no fears about +my reputation. The world is accustomed to my follies. However, I have +taken care that the present one shall not be noticed. Besides, I would not +care if it was. You are the only man whose esteem I have ever desired, and, +unfortunately the only one also whose contempt I have incurred—that is +most cruel!—and yet something must tell you that I do not deserve it." + +<p>"Madam!" + +<p>"Listen to me! and may God convince you. This is a solemn hour in my +existence. Since the first glance you ever cast upon me, sir—on that day +when I went up to you while you were sketching the old church—since that +first glance, I belonged to you. I have never loved, I shall never love any +man but you. Will you take me for your wife? I am worthy of it—I swear it +to you in the presence of that Heaven which is looking down upon us!" + +<p>"Dear madam—dear child—your kindness, your affection move me to the +depths of my soul; in mercy, be more calm; let me retain a gleam of +reason!" + +<p>"Ah! if your heart speaks, listen to it, sir! It is not with reason that +I can be judged! Alas! I feel it! you still doubt me, you still doubt my +past life. Oh, Heavens! that opinion of the world which I have always +scorned, how it is killing me now!" + +<p>"No, madam, you are mistaken; but what could I offer you in exchange for +all you wish to sacrifice for my sake—for the habits, the tastes, the +pleasures of your whole life?" + +<p>"But that life inspires me with horror! You think that I would regret it? +You think that some day I may again become the woman I have been, +the madcap you have known?—you think so! And how can I help your +believing it? And yet I know very well that I would never cause you that +sorrow, nor any other—never! I have discovered in your eyes a new world +I did not know—a more dignified, more lofty world, of which I had never +conceived the idea—and outside of which I can no longer live. Ah! you must +certainly feel that I am telling you the truth!" + +<p>"Yes, madam, you are telling me the truth—the truth of the hour—of a +moment of fever and excitement; but this new world, which appears +dimly to you now—this ideal world in which you desire to seek an eternal +refuge against mere transient evils—would never keep all it seems to +promise. Disappointment, regret, misery await you within it—and do not +await you alone. I know not if there be a man gifted with a sufficiently +noble mind, with a sufficiently lofty soul to make you love the new +existence of which you are dreaming to preserve in the reality the almost +divine character which your imagination imparts to it; but I do know that +such a task, sweet as it might be, is beyond my strength; I would be +insane, I would be a wretch, if I were to accept it." + +<p>"Is that your final decision? Cannot reflection alter it in any way?" + +<p>"In no way." + +<p>"Farewell then, sir—ah! unhappy woman that I am!—farewell!" + +<p>She grasped my hand, which she wrung convulsively, and then left me. + +<p>After she had disappeared, I sat down on the bench, upon which she had +been seated. There, my dear Paul, my whole strength gave way. I hid my +head in my hands and I wept like a child. Thank God, she did not return! + +<p>I had at last to gather all my courage in order to appear once more and +for a moment in the ball-room. There was nothing to indicate that my +absence had been noticed, or unfavorably commented upon. Madame de Palme +was dancing and displaying a degree of gayety amounting almost to delirium. +Soon after, supper was announced, and I availed myself of the general +commotion attending that incident, to retire to my room. + +<p>Early this morning, I requested a private interview with Madame de Malouet. +It appeared to me that my entire confidence was due to her. She heard me +with profound sadness, but without manifesting any surprise. + +<p>"I had guessed," she told me, "something of the kind—I did not sleep all +night. I believe that you have done your duty as a wise man and as an +honest man. Yes, you have. Still, it seems very hard. Society life is +detestable in this, that it creates fictitious characters and passions, +unexpected situations, subtle shades, which complicate strangely the +practice of duty, and obscure the straight path which ought to be always +simple and easy to discover. And now you wish to leave, I suppose?" + +<p>"Certainly, madam." + +<p>"Very well; but you had better stay two or three days longer. You will thus +remove from your departure the semblance of flight which, after what +may have been observed, might prove somewhat ridiculous and perhaps +damaging. It is a sacrifice I ask of you. To-day, we are all to dine at +Madame de Breuilly's; I'll undertake to excuse you. In this manner, this +day at least will rest lightly upon you. To-morrow, we'll act for the best. +Day after to-morrow, you can leave." + +<p>I accepted these terms. I shall soon see you again, then, Paul. But in the +meantime, how lonely and forsaken I feel! How I long to grasp your firm +and loyal hand; to hear your voice tell me: "You have done right!" +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3>"I AM A DISGRACED WOMAN."</h3> + +<p style="text-align: right"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Rozel</span>, <i>October 10.</i></p> + +<p>Here I am back in my cell, my friend. Why did I ever leave it? Never has +a man felt a more troubled heart beat between these cold walls, than +my own wretched heart! Ah! I will not curse our poor human reason, our +philosophy; are they not, after all, the noblest and best conquests of our +nature? But, great Heaven! how little they amount to! What unreliable +guides, and what feeble supports! Listen to a sad story: Yesterday, +thanks to Madame de Malouet, I remained alone at the chateau the +whole day and the whole evening. I was therefore as much at peace as +it was possible for me to be. Toward midnight I heard the carriages +returning, and soon after all noise ceased. It was, I think, about three +o'clock in the morning when I was aroused from the species of torpor that +has stood me in lieu of sleep for the past few nights, by the sound quite +close to me, of a door cautiously opened or closed in the yard. I know +not by what strange and sudden connection of ideas so simple an +incident attracted my attention and disturbed my mind. I left abruptly +the arm-chair in which I had been slumbering, and I went up to a +window. I distinctly saw a man moving off with discreet steps in the +direction of the avenue. I had no difficulty in satisfying myself that the +door through which he had just passed, was that which gives access to +the wing of the chateau contiguous to the library. This part of the house +contains several rooms devoted to transient guests; I knew that all were +vacant at this moment, unless Madame de Palme, as it often happened, +had occupied for the night the lodging that was always set apart for her +in that wing. + +<p>You may guess what strange thought floated across my brain. I repelled +it at first as sheer madness; but remembering, within the field of my +somewhat extended experience, certain facts that lent probability to that +thought, I entertained it with a sort of cynical irony, and I was almost ready +to admit it, as an odious but decisive denouement. The early dawn found me +struggling still in this mental anguish, calling up my recollections, examining +in a childish way the most minute circumstances that might tend to +confirm or to banish my suspicions. Excess of fatigue, brought on at last +two hours of prostration, from which I emerged with a better command of +my reason. It was impossible for me to doubt the reality of the apparition +that had struck my eyes during the night; but it appeared to me that I had +put upon it a hasty and senseless construction, and that my ailing spirit +had attributed to it the least likely explanation. + +<p>I went down at half past ten o'clock as usual. Madame de Palme was in +the parlor; she must therefore have spent the night at the chateau. +Nevertheless, a mere glance at her was enough to remove from my mind the +very shadow of suspicion. She was talking quietly in the center of a +group. She greeted me with her usual gentle smile. I felt relieved of an +immense weight. I was escaping a torment of such a painful and bitter +nature, that the positive impression of my previous grief, freed from the +disgraceful complications with which I had for a moment thought it +aggravated, appeared almost pleasant. Never had my heart rendered to +this woman a more tender and more sincere homage. I was grateful to her +from the bottom of my soul, for having restored purity to my wound and to +my memory. + +<p>The afternoon was to be devoted to a horseback ride along the sea-shore. +In the effusion of heart that succeeded the anxieties of the night, I +yielded quite readily to the entreaties of Monsieur de Malouet, who, +arguing on my approaching departure, was urging me to accompany him +on this excursion. It was about two o'clock when our cavalcade, recruited +as usual by a few young men of the neighborhood, marched out of the +chateau's gate. We had been traveling merrily for a few minutes, and I was +not the least merry of the band, when Madame de Palme suddenly came to +take her place by my side. + +<p>"I am about to be guilty of a base deed," she said; "and yet, I had so +strongly resolved—but I am choking!" + +<p>I looked at her; the haggard expression of her eyes and of her features +suddenly struck me with terror. + +<p>"Well!" she went on, in a voice of which I shall never forget the tone, +"you have willed it so! I am a disgraced woman!" + +<p>She urged at once her horse forward, leaving me crushed by this blow, the +more terrible that I had wholly ceased to fear it, and that it struck me +with a keen cruelty I had not even foreseen. There had indeed been in the +unhappy woman's voice no trace whatever of insolent swaggering; it was +the very voice of despair, a cry of heart-rending grief and timid +reproach; everything that might add in my soul to the torture of a stained +and shattered love, the disorder of a profound pity and an uneasy +conscience. + +<p>When I had found strength enough to look around me I was surprised at my +own blindness. Among Madame de Palme's most assiduous courtiers, figures +one Monsieur de Mauterne, whose antipathy for me, though confined within +the limits of good-breeding, often seemed to me to assume an almost +hostile tinge. Monsieur de Mauterne is a man of my age, tall, blonde, with +a figure more robust than elegant, and features regularly handsome, but +stiff and without expression. He possesses social accomplishments, much +audacity, and no wit. His bearing and his conduct during the course of +that fatal ride would have informed me from the start, if I had only +thought of observing them, that he believed he had the right of fearing +henceforth no rivalry near Madame de Palme. He assumed frankly the +leading part in all the scenes in which she participated; he overwhelmed +her with attentions, affected to speak to her in a whisper, and neglected +nothing, in a word, to initiate the public into the secret of his success. +In that respect, he lost his trouble; the world, after exhausting its +wickedness upon imaginary errors, seems thus far to refuse the evidence +which vainly stares it in the face. + +<p>As to myself, my friend, it would be difficult to depict the chaos of +emotions and thoughts that tossed and tumbled in my brain. The feeling +that swayed me perhaps with the greatest violence, was that of hatred +against that man—a feeling of implacable hatred, of eternal hatred. I +was, however, more shocked and more distressed than surprised at the +choice that had been made of him; he had happened in the way, and he +had been taken up with a sort of indifference and of scorn, as one picks +up any weapon to commit suicide with, when once the suicide has been +resolved upon. As to my feelings toward her, you may guess them; not a +shadow of anger, frightful sadness, tender compassion, vague remorse, +and above all, passionate, furious regret. I realized at last how much I +had loved her! I could scarcely understand the motives which, two days +before, had appeared to me so powerful, so imperative, and which had +seemed to raise between her and me an insurmountable barrier. All these +obstacles of the past disappeared before the abyss of the present which +seemed the only real one, the only one that was impossible to overcome, +the only one that ever existed. Strange fact! I could see clearly, as clearly +as I saw the sun, that the impossible, the irreparable was there, and I +could not accept it, I could not submit to it. I could see that woman lost +to me as irrevocably as if the grave had closed over her coffin, and I could +not give her up! My mind wandered through insane projects and resolutions; +I thought of picking a quarrel with Monsieur de Mauterne, and compelling +him to fight on the spot. I felt that I would have crushed him! Then I +thought of fleeing with her, of marrying her, of taking her with her +shame, after having refused her pure! Yes, this madness tempted me! To +remove it from my thoughts, I had to repeat a hundred times to myself that +mutual disgust and dispair were the only fruits that could ever be +expected of that union of a dishonored hand with a bloody hand. Ah; Paul, +how much I did suffer! + +<p>Madame de Palme manifested during the entire course of our ride a feverish +excitement which betrayed itself more particularly in reckless feats of +horsemanship. I heard at intervals her loud bursts of merriment, that +sounded to my ears like heart-rending wails. Once again she spoke to me +as she was going by. + +<p>"I inspire you with horror, don't I?" she said. + +<p>I shook my head and dropped my eyes without replying. + +<p>We returned to the chateau at about four o'clock. I was making my way to +my room when a confused tumult of voices, shrieks, and hurried steps in +the vestibule chilled my heart. I went down again in all haste, and I was +informed that Madame de Palme had just been taken with a nervous fit. She +had been carried into the parlor. I recognized through the door the grave +and gentle voice of Madame de Malouet, to which was mingled I know not +what moan, like that of a sick child. I ran away. I was resolved to leave this +fatal spot without further delay. Nothing could have induced me to remain +a moment longer. Your letter, which had been handed to me on our return, +served me as a likely pretext for my sudden departure. The friendship that +binds us is well-known here. I said you needed me within twenty-four +hours. I had taken care, at all hazards, to send three days before to the +nearest town for a carriage and horses. In a few minutes my preparations +were made; I gave orders to the driver to start ahead and wait for me at +the extremity of the avenue while I was taking my leave. Monsieur de +Malouet seemed to have no suspicion of the truth; the worthy old gentleman +appeared quite moved as he received my thanks, and really manifested for +me a singular affection out of all proportion to the brief duration of our +acquaintance. I had to be scarcely less thankful to M. de Breuilly. I regret +now the caricature I once gave you as the portrait of that noble heart. + +<p>Madame de Malouet insisted upon accompanying me down the avenue a few +steps farther than her husband. I felt her arm trembling under mine while +she was intrusting me with a few trifling errands for Paris. At the moment +of parting, and as I was pressing her hand with effusion, she detained me +gently: + +<p>"Well! sir," she said in a feeble voice, "God did not bless our wisdom." + +<p>"Our hearts are open to Him, madam; He must have read our sincerity; He +sees how much I am suffering, and I humbly hope He may forgive me!" + +<p>"Do not doubt it—do not doubt it," she replied in a broken voice; "but +she? she!—ah! poor child!" + +<p>"Have pity on her, madam. Do not forsake her. Farewell!" + +<p>I left her hastily, and I started, but instead of going direct to the town, +I had myself driven along the abbey road as far as the top of the hills; I +requested the coachman to go alone to the town, and to return for me +to-morrow morning early at the same place. I cannot explain to you, my +dear friend, the singular and irresistible fancy that I took to spend one +last night in that solitude where I spent such quick and happy days, and +so recently, mon Dieu! + +<p>Here I am, then, back in my cell. How cold, dark, and gloomy it seems! The +sky also has gone into mourning. Since my arrival in this neighborhood, +and in spite of the season, I had seen none but summer days and nights. +To-night a cold autumnal storm has burst over the valley; the wind howls +among the ruins, blowing off fragments that fall heavily upon the ground. +A driving rain is pattering against my window-panes. It seems to me as +if it were raining tears! + +<p>Tears! my heart is overflowing with them—and not a single one will rise +to my eyes. And yet, I have prayed, I have long prayed to God—not, my +friend to that untangible God whom we pursue in vain beyond the stars and +the worlds, but the only true God, truly kind and helpful to suffering +humanity, the God of my childhood, the God of that poor woman! + +<p>Ah! I wish to think now only of my approaching meeting with you, the day +after to-morrow, dear friend, and perhaps before this letter— +<p> </p> +<hr/> +<p> </p> +<p>Come, Paul! If you can leave your mother, come, I beseech you, come to +uphold me. God's hand is upon me! + +<p>I was writing that interrupted line when, in the midst of the confused +noises of the tempest, I fancied I heard the sound of a voice, of a human +groan. I rushed to my window; I leaned outside to pierce the darkness, +and I discovered lying upon the drenched soil a vague form, something like +a white bundle. At the same time, a more distinct moan rose up to me. A +gleam of the terrible truth flashed through my brain like a keen blade. I +groped through the darkness as far as the door of the mill; near the +threshold, stood a horse bearing a side-saddle. I ran madly around to the +other side of the ruins, and within the inclosure situated beneath the +window of my cell, and which still retains some traces of the former +cemetery of the monks, I found the unhappy creature. She was there, +sitting on an old tomb-stone, as if overwhelmed, shivering in all her +limbs under the chilling torrent of rain which a pitiless sky was pouring +without interruption over her light party-dress. I seized her two hands, +trying to raise her up. + +<p>"Ah! unhappy child! what have you done!" + +<p>"Yes, most unhappy!" she murmured, in a voice as faint as a breath. + +<p>"But you are killing yourself." + +<p>"So much the better—so much the better!" + +<p>"You cannot remain there! Come!—" + +<p>I saw that she was unable to stand up alone. + +<p>"Ah! <i>Dieu bon! Dieu puissant!</i> what shall I do? What's to become of you +now? What do you wish with me?" + +<p>She made no reply. She was trembling, and her teeth were chattering. I +lifted her up in my arms and I carried her in. The mind works fast in such +moments. No conceivable means of removing her from this valley where +carriages cannot penetrate; nothing was henceforth possible to save her +honor; I must only think of her life. I scaled rapidly the steps leading +to my cell, and I seated her on a chair in front of the chimney in which I +hastily kindled a fire; then I woke up my hosts. I gave to the miller's wife a +vague and confused explanation. I know not how much of it she understood; +but she is a woman, she took pity and went on bestowing upon Madame de +Palme such care as was in her power. Her husband started at once on +horseback, carrying to Madame de Malouet the following note from +me: + +<blockquote> +<p>"<span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Madam</span>:—She is here, dying. In the name of the God of mercy, I beseech +you, I implore you—come to console, come to bless her who can no +longer expect words of kindness and forgiveness from any one but you +in this world. + +<p>"Pray tell Madame de Pontbrian whatever you think proper." +</blockquote> + +<p>She was calling me. I returned to her side. I found her still seated +before the fire. She had refused to be put into the bed that had been +prepared for her. When she saw me—singular womanly preoccupation!—her +first thought was for the coarse peasant's dress she had just exchanged +for her own water-soaked and mud-stained garments. She laughed as she +called my attention to it; but her laughter soon turned into convulsions +which I had much difficulty in quieting. + +<p>I had placed myself close to her; she had a consuming fever, her eyes +glistened. I begged her to consent to take the absolute rest which was +alone suitable to her condition. + +<p>"What is the use?" she replied. "I am not ill. It is not the fever that is +killing me, nor the cold, it is the thought that is burning me there;"—she +touched her forehead—"it is shame—it is your scorn and your hatred; +now, alas! but too well deserved!" + +<p>My heart overflowed then, Paul; I told her everything; my passion, my +regrets, my remorse! I covered with kisses her trembling hands, her cold +forehead, her damp hair. I poured into her poor shattered soul all the +tenderness, all the pity, all the adoration a man's soul can contain! She +knew now that I loved her; she could not doubt it! + +<p>She listened to me with rapture. "Now," she said, "now, I am no longer +to be pitied. I have never been so happy in all my life. I did not deserve +it—I have nothing further to wish—nothing further to hope—I shall not +regret anything." + +<p>She fell into a slumber. Her parted lips are smiling a pure and placid +smile; but she is taken at intervals with terrible spasms, and her features +are becoming terribly altered. I am watching her while writing these +lines. +<p> </p> +<hr /> +<p> </p> +<p>Madame de Malouet has just arrived with her husband. I had judged her +rightly! Her voice and her words were those of a mother. She had taken +care to bring her physician. The patient is lying in a comfortable bed, +surrounded by loving and attentive friends. I feel more easy, although +she has just awakened with a fearful delirium. + +<p>Madame de Pontbrian has positively refused to come to her niece. I had +judged her rightly too, the excellent Christian! + +<p>I have deemed it my duty not to set foot again in the cell which Madame +de Malouet no longer leaves. The expression of M. de Malouet's countenance +terrifies me, and yet he assures me that the physician has not yet +pronounced. +<p> </p> +<hr /> +<p> </p> +<p>The doctor has just come out; I have spoken to him. + +<p>"It is pneumonia," he told me, "complicated with brain fever." + +<p>"It is very serious, is it not?" + +<p>"Very serious." + +<p>"But is there any immediate danger?" + +<p>"I'll tell you that to-night. Her condition is so acute that it cannot last +long. Either the crisis must abate or nature must yield." + +<p>He looked up to heaven and went off. + +<p>I know not what is going on within me, my friend—all these blows are +striking me in such rapid succession. It is the lightning! +<p> </p> +<p>FIVE O'CLOCK P.M. + +<p>The old priest whom I have often met at the chateau has been sent for in +haste. He is a friend of Madame de Malouet, a simple old man, full of +charity; I dared not question him. I know not what is going on. I fear to +hear, and yet my ear catches eagerly the least noises, the most +insignificant sounds; a closing door, a rapid step on the stairs strikes me +dumb with terror. And yet—so quick! it seems impossible! +<p> </p> +<hr /> +<p> </p> +<p>Paul, my friend—my brother! where are you?—all is over! + +<p>An hour ago I saw the doctor and the priest coming down. Monsieur de +Malouet was following them. + +<p>"Go up," he told me. "Come, courage, sir. Be a man!" I walked into the +cell; Madame de Malouet had remained alone there; she was kneeling by the +bedside and beckoned me to approach. I gazed upon her who was about to +cease suffering. A few hours had been enough to stamp upon that lovely +face all the ravages of death; but life and thought still lingered in her +eyes; she recognized me at once. + +<p>"Monsieur," she began; then, after a pause: "George, I have loved you +much. Forgive my having embittered your life with the memory of this +sad incident!" + +<p>I fell on my knees; I tried to speak, I could not; my tears flowed hot and +fast upon her hand already cold and inert as a piece of marble. + +<p>"And you, too, madam," she added; "forgive me the trouble I have given +you—the grief I am causing you now." + +<p>"My child!" said the old lady, "I bless you from the bottom of my heart." + +<p>Then there was a pause, in the midst of which I suddenly heard a deep and +broken breath—ah! that supreme breath, that last sob of a deadly sorrow; +God also has heard it, has received it! + +<p>He has heard it—He hears also my ardent, my weeping prayer. I must +believe that He does, my friend. Yes, that I may not yield at this moment +to some temptation of despair, I must firmly believe in a God who loves us, +who looks with compassionate eyes upon the anguish of our feeble +hearts—who will deign some day to tie again with His paternal hand the +knots broken by cruel death!—ah! in presence of the lifeless remains of a +beloved being, what heart so withered, what brain so blighted by doubt, as +not to repel forever the odious thought that these sacred words: God, +Justice, Love, Immortality—are but vain syllables devoid of meaning! + +<p>Farewell, Paul. You know what there still remains for me to do. If you can +come, I expect you; if not, my friend, expect me. Farewell! +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3>A CHALLENGE AND DUEL.</h3> + +<p><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">The Marquis de Malouet to Paul B——, Paris.</span></p> + +<p style="text-align: right"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Chateau de Malouet.</span> <i>October 20.</i></p> + +<p>Monsieur:—It has become my imperative though painful duty to relate to +you the facts which have brought about the crowning disaster of which you +have already been advised, by more rapid means and with such precautions +as we were able to take; a disaster that completely overwhelms our souls +already so cruelly tried. As you are aware, sir, a few weeks, a few days +had been sufficient to enable Madame de Malouet and myself to know and +appreciate your friend, to conceive for him an eternal affection soon, +alas! to be changed into eternal regret. You are also aware, I know, of +all the sad circumstances that preceded and led to this sad catastrophe. + +<p>Monsieur George's conduct during the melancholy days that followed the +death of Madame de Palme, the depth of feeling as well as the elevation of +soul which he constantly manifested had completely won our hearts over to +him. I desired to send him back to you at once, sir; I wished to get him +away from this sorrowful spot, I wished to take him to you myself, since a +painful preoccupation detained you in Paris; but he had imposed upon +himself the duty of not forsaking so soon what was left of the unhappy +woman. + +<p>We had removed him to our house; we were surrounding him with attentions. +He never left the chateau, except to go each day on a pious pilgrimage +within a few steps. Still, his health was perceptibly failing. Day before +yesterday morning, Madame de Malouet pressed him to join Monsieur de +Breuilly and myself in a horseback ride. He consented, though somewhat +reluctantly. We started. On the way, he strove manfully to respond to the +efforts we were making to draw him into conversation and rouse him from +his prostration. I saw him smile for the first time in many hours, and I +began to hope that time, the strength of his soul, the attentions of +friendship, might restore some calm to his memory, when, at a turn in the +road, a deplorable chance brought us face to face with Monsieur de +Mauterne. + +<p>This gentleman was on horseback; two friends and two ladies made up his +party. We were following the same direction, but his gait was much more +rapid than ours; he passed us, saluting as he did so, and I noticed, so +far as I am concerned, nothing in his manner that could attract attention. +I was therefore much surprised to hear M. de Breuilly the next moment +murmur between his teeth: "That is an infamous trick!" Monsieur George, +who, at the moment of meeting, had become pale and turned his head +slightly away, looked sharply at Monsieur de Breuilly: + +<p>"What do you mean, sir? What do you refer to?" + +<p>"I refer to the impertinence of that brainless fool!" + +<p>I appealed energetically to Monsieur de Breuilly, reproaching him with his +quarrelsome disposition, and affirming that there had been no trace of +defiance either in the attitude or the features of Monsieur de Mauterne +when he had passed by us. + +<p>"Come, my friend," said Monsieur de Breuilly, "your eyes must have been +closed—or else you must have seen, as I saw myself, that the wretch +giggled as he looked at our friend. I don't know why you should wish the +gentleman to suffer an insult which neither you nor I would suffer!" + +<p>These unlucky words had been scarcely uttered, when Monsieur George +started his horse at a gallop. + +<p>"Are you mad?" I said to De Breuilly, who was trying to detain me; "and +what means such an invention?" + +<p>"My friend," he replied, "it was necessary to divert that boy's mind at +any cost." + +<p>I shrugged my shoulders. I freed myself from him and dashed after Monsieur +George; but, being better mounted than myself, he had already gained +considerable advance. I was still a hundred paces behind him when he +overtook Monsieur de Mauterne, who had stopped on hearing him coming. It +seemed to me that they were exchanging a few words, and almost at once I +saw Monsieur George's whip lashing several times, and with a sort of fury, +Monsieur de Mauterne's face. We barely arrived in time, Monsieur de +Breuilly and myself, to prevent that scene from assuming an odious +character of brutality. + +<p>A meeting having unfortunately become inevitable between the parties, we +took with us the two friends who accompanied Mauterne, Messieurs de +Quiroy and Astley, the latter an Englishman. Monsieur George had preceded +us to the chateau. The choice of weapons belonged without any possible +doubt to our adversary. Nevertheless, having noticed that his seconds +seemed to hesitate with a sort of indifference, or perhaps of +circumspection between swords and pistols, I thought that we might, with a +little good management, influence their decisions in the direction least +unfavorable to us. We went, therefore, Monsieur de Breuilly and I, to +consult Monsieur George on the subject. He pronounced at once in favor of +swords. + +<p>"But," remarked Monsieur de Breuilly, "you are a very good pistol-shot. I +have seen you at work. Are you certain to be a better swordsman? Do not +deceive yourself; this will be a mortal combat." + +<p>"I am satisfied of that," he replied, with a smile; "but I am particularly +anxious for swords, if at all possible." + +<p>After the expression of so formal a wish, we could but esteem ourselves +fortunate in obtaining the choice of arms, and the meeting was settled for +the next morning at nine o'clock. + +<p>During the remainder of the day, Monsieur George manifested an ease of +mind, and even at intervals a certain gayety, at which we were quite +surprised, and which Madame de Malouet, in particular, was at a loss to +understand. My poor wife of course had been left in ignorance of these +recent events. + +<p>At ten o'clock he retired, and I could still see a light through his window +two hours later. Impelled by my earnest affection and I know not what vague +anxiety was haunting me, I entered his room at about midnight; I found him +very calm; he had been writing and was just sealing up a few envelopes. + +<p>"There!" he said, handing me the papers. "Now the worst is over, and I am +going to sleep the sleep of the just." + +<p>I thought it best to offer him a few more technical suggestions on the +handling of the weapon he was soon to use. He listened to me without much +attention, and suddenly extending his arm: + +<p>"Feel my pulse," he said. + +<p>I did so, and ascertained that his calm and his cheerfulness were neither +affected nor feverish. + +<p>"In such a condition," he added, "if a man is killed it is because he is +willing to be. Good-night, my dear sir!" Whereupon I left him. + +<p>Yesterday morning, at half-past eight, we repaired, Monsieur George, +Monsieur de Breuilly, and myself, to an unfrequented path situated about +half way between Mauterne and Malouet, and which had been selected +for the dueling-ground. Our adversary arrived almost immediately after, +accompanied by Messieurs de Quiroy and Astley. The nature of the insult +admitted of no attempt at conciliation. We had therefore to proceed at +once to the fight. + +<p>Scarcely had Monsieur George placed himself in position, when we +became convinced of his complete inexperience in the use of the sword. +Monsieur de Breuilly cast upon me a look of stupor. However, after the +blades had been crossed, there was a semblance of fight and of defense; +but at the third pass, Monsieur George fell pierced through the chest. + +<p>I threw myself upon him; he was already in the grasp of death. +Nevertheless he pressed my hand feebly, smiled once more, then gave vent, +with his last breath, to his last thought, which was for you, sir: + +<p>"Tell Paul that I love him, that I forbid him seeking to avenge me, and +that I die—happy." He expired. + +<p>I shall not attempt, sir, to add anything to this narrative. It has already +been too long and too painful to me; but I deemed this faithful and minute +account due to you. I had reason to believe, besides, that your friendship +would like to follow to the last instant that existence which was so justly +dear to you. Now you know all, you have understood all, even what I have +left unsaid. + +<p>He lies in peace by her side. You will doubtless come, dear sir. We +expect you. We shall mingle our tears over those two beloved beings, both +kind and charming, both crushed by passion and seized by death with +relentless rapidity in the midst of the pleasantest scenes of life. +<p> </p> + +<h3>[THE END.]</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>THE SPHINX;</h1> + +<h2>OR,</h2> + +<h1>"JULIA DE TRECŒUR."</h1> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>"A BALEFUL AFFECTION."</h3><br> + +<p>All those who, like ourselves, knew Raoul de Trecœur during his early +youth, believed that he was destined to great fame. He had received quite +remarkable gifts from nature; there are left from him two or three +sketches and a few hundred verses that promised a master; but he was very +rich, and had been very badly brought up; he soon gave himself up to +dilettanteism. A perfect stranger, like most men of his generation, to the +sentiment of duty, he permitted himself to be recklessly carried away by +his instincts, which, fortunately for others, were more ardent than hurtful. +Therefore was he generally pitied when he died, in the flower of his age, +for having loved and enjoyed immoderately everything that he thought +pleasant. + +<p>The poor fellow, they said, never did any harm but to himself; which, in +point of fact, was not the exact truth. Trecœur had married, at the +age of twenty-five, his cousin, Clotilde Andree de Pers, a modest and +graceful person who had of the world nothing but its elegance. Madame de +Trecœur had lived with her husband in an atmosphere of unhealthy +storms, where she felt out of place, and, as it were, degraded. He +tormented her with his remorse almost as much as he did with his faults. He +looked upon her, and justly, as an angel, and wept at her feet when he had +betrayed her, lamenting that he was unworthy of her; that he was the +victim of his temperament, and that he had been born in a faithless age. +He threatened once to kill himself in his wife's boudoir if she did not +forgive him; she forgave him, of course. All this dramatic action disturbed +Clotilde in her resigned existence. She would have preferred that her +misery should have been more quiet and less declamatory. + +<p>All the friends of her husband had been in love with her, and had built +great hopes upon her forlorn condition, but unfaithful husbands do not +always make guilty wives. The reverse is rather more frequently the case, +so little is this poor world submitted to the rules of logic. In short, Madame +de Trecœur, after her husband's death was left forlorn, exhausted, and +broken down, but spotless. + +<p>From this melancholy union, a daughter had been born, named Julia, and +whom her father, notwithstanding all Clotilde's efforts of resistance, had +spoilt to excess. Monsieur de Trecœur's idolatry for his daughter was +well-known, and the world, with its habitual weakness of judgment, forgave +him readily his scandalous existence in consideration of that merit, which is +not always a great one. It is not, indeed, a very difficult matter to love +one's children; it is sufficient for that not to be a monster. The love +that one has for them is not in itself a virtue; it is a passion which, like all +others, may be good or bad, as one is its master or its slave. It may +even be thought that there is no passion which may be more than this one, +pregnant with good or with evil. + +<p>Julia seemed splendidly gifted; but her ardent and precocious disposition +had been developed, thanks to the paternal education, as in the primeval +forest, wholly at random. She was small in person, dark and pale, lithe +and slender, with large blue eyes full of fire, unruly black hair, and +superbly arched eyebrows. Her habitual air was reserved and haughty; +nevertheless she laid aside, at home, these majestic appearances to +frolic on the carpet. She played games of her own invention. She +translated her history lessons into little dramas interspersed with +speeches to the people, dialogues, music, and particularly chariot-races. +In spite of her serious countenance, she could be very funny at times, and +made cruel fun of those she did not like. + +<p>She manifested for her father a passionate predilection, singularly +mitigated by the sentiments of tender pity which her mother's unhappiness +inspired in her youthful heart. She saw her weep often; she would then +throw herself upon the floor, curled up at her feet, and there remain for +hours, motionless and dumb, looking at her with moist eyes, and drinking +from time to time a tear from her cheek. + +<p>She had apparently caught, as many children do, some echoes of the +domestic woes. Doubtless her quick intellect appreciated her father's +wrong-doings; but her father—that handsome gentleman, so witty, +generous, and wild—she worshiped him; she was proud to be his daughter; +she palpitated with joy when he clasped her to his heart. She could +neither judge him nor blame him; he was a superior being. She contented +herself with pitying and consoling, as best she could, that gentle and +charming creature who was her mother, and who suffered. + +<p>Within the circle of Madame de Trecœur's acquaintances, Julia simply +passed for a little plague. The dear madames, as she called them, who +formed the ornament of her mother's Thursdays, related with bitterness to +each other the scenes of comical imitation with which the child followed +their entrance and their departure. The men considered themselves +fortunate when they did not carry off a bit of paper or silk on the back +of their coats. All this amused Monsieur de Trecœur extremely. When his +daughter performed with half a dozen chairs some of those Olympian races +that knocked every piano in the neighborhood out of tune—. + +<p>"Julia!" he would exclaim, "you don't make noise enough. Smash a vase." + +<p>And a vase she did smash; whereupon her father kissed her with +enthusiasm. + +<p>This method of education assumed a graver character as the child grew +older. Her father's affection became shaded with a species of gallantry. He +took her with him to the Bois, to the races, to the theater. She had not a +fancy that he did not anticipate and gratify. At thirteen years of age, she +had her horse, her groom, and a carriage bearing her monogram. Already +ill, and having perhaps a presentiment of his death, the unfortunate man +overwhelmed that beloved daughter with the tokens of his baleful +affection. He was thus blunting all her tastes by too precocious satiety, +as if he had intended to leave her no taste save for the forbidden fruit. + +<p>Julia wept over him with furious transports, and preserved for his memory +a fervid worship. She had a private room which she filled with the +portraits of her father and with a thousand personal souvenirs, around +which she kept up flowers. + +<p>Madame de Trecœur, like the greater number of young girls who +marry their cousins, had married very young. She was left a widow at +twenty-eight, and her mother, the Baroness de Pers, who was still living, +and who was even of the liveliest, was not long in suggesting discreetly +to her the propriety of a second marriage. After having exhausted the +practical and, in fact, quite sensible reasons that seemed to urge that +course, the baroness then came down to the sentimental reasons: + +<p>"In good faith, my poor child," she said, "you have not had, up too this +time, your just share of happiness in this world. I would not speak ill +of your husband, since he is dead; but, <i>entre nous</i>, he was a horrid +brute. Mon Dieu! charming at times, I grant you,—since I have been caught +myself—like all worthless scamps! but in fact, beastly, beastly! Well, +certainly, I shall not undertake to say that marriage is ever a state of +perfect bliss; nevertheless it is the best thing that has been imagined up to +this time, to enjoy life decently among respectable people. You are in the +flower of your age—you are quite good-looking, quite—and, by the way, it +will do you no harm to wear your skirts a little higher up behind, with a +proper sort of bustle; for you don't even know what they wear now, my +poor pet. Here, look! It's horrible, I know; but what can we do? we must +not attract attention. In short, what I meant to tell you is that you still +have all that is necessary, and even more than is necessary, to fix a +husband—if indeed there are any that can be fixed, which I hope is the +case—otherwise, we should have to despair wholly of Providence, if it did +not have some compensation in store for us after all our trials. It is +already a manifest sign of its kindness that you should have recovered +your <i>embonpoint</i>, my darling! Kiss your mother. Come, now, when is our +pretty little woman going to be married?" + +<p>There was no maternal exaggeration whatever in the compliments which the +baroness was addressing to Clotilde. All Paris looked upon her with the +same eyes as her mother. She had never been so attractive as now, and she +had always been infinitely so. Her person, reposed in the peace of her +mourning, had then the bright lustre of a fine fruit, ripe and fresh. Her +black eyes full of timid tenderness, her pure brow crowned with splendid +and life-like braids, her shoulders of rosy marble, her particular grace of a +young matron, at once handsome, loving, and chaste—all that, joined +to a spotless reputation and to sixty thousand francs a year, could not +fail to bring forward more than one pretender. And indeed they sprang +up in legions. Reason, and public opinion itself, which had done full justice +to her husband and to herself, were both urging her to a second wedding. +Her own private feelings, whatever might be their natural delicacy, did +not seem likely to prove an obstacle, for there was nothing in her heart +that was not true. She had been faithful to her husband, she had shed +sincere and bitter tears over that wretched companion of her youth; but he +had exhausted and worn out her affection, and without ever joining her +mother in her posthumous recriminations against Monsieur de Trecœur, +she felt that she had no further duty to fulfill toward him but that of +prayer. + +<p>She had, however, been for many months a widow, and she still continued to +oppose to the solicitations of the baroness, a resistance of which the +latter sought in vain to ascertain the mysterious cause. One day she +fancied she had discovered it. + +<p>"Confess the truth," she said to her; "you are afraid to cause some +annoyance to Julia. Now, if that is so, my dear daughter, it is pure +folly. You cannot have any serious scruple on that score. Julia will be +very rich in her own right, and will have no need of your fortune. She will +herself marry in three or four years (much pleasure do I wish her husband, +by the way!); and see a little in what a nice situation you will find +yourself then! But, mon Dieu! are we never going to be done with them? +After the father, here is the daughter now! Eh! mon Dieu! let her erect +chapels with her father's portraits and spurs as much as she likes—that's +her business; I am certainly not the one to enter into competition with +her. But she must at least allow us to live in peace! What! You could not +dispose of your person without her leave! Then if you are her slave, my +dear child, show me the door at once! You could not do anything more +agreeable to her for she cannot bear the sight of me, your daughter! And +then, after all, in all candor, what possible objection can she have to +your getting married again? A step-father is not a step-mother; it's quite +another thing. Eh! mon Dieu! her step-father will be charming to her—all +men will be charming to her; I predict her that; she may feel easy about +it! Now, will you admit that it is the true cause of your hesitation?" + +<p>"I assure you that it is not, mother," said Clotilde. + +<p>"I assure you that it is, my daughter. Well, come; would you like me to +speak to Julia, to try and reason with her? I would prefer giving her a +good whipping; however—!" + +<p>"Poor, dear mother," rejoined Clotilde, "must I then tell you +everything?" + +<p>She came to kneel down in front of the baroness. + +<p>"By all means, daughter; tell me everything, but don't make me cry, I beg +of you! Is what you have to tell very sad?" + +<p>"Not very gay." + +<p>"Mon Dieu! But no matter; go on." + +<p>"In the first place, mother, I must confess that I would personally feel +no scruple in marrying again—" + +<p>"I should think not! That would be carrying it just a little too far!" + +<p>"As to Julia—whom I adore, who loves me sincerely, and who loves you +very much too, whatever you may say—" + +<p>"Satisfied of the contrary," said the baroness. "But no matter; proceed." + +<p>"As to Julia, I have more confidence than you have in her good sense and +in her good heart; notwithstanding the exalted affection she has preserved +for her father, I am sure that she would understand, that she would +respect my determination, and that she would not love me one whit the +less, especially if her step-father did not happen to be personally +objectionable to her; for you are aware of the extreme violence of her +sympathies and of her antipathies—" + +<p>"I am aware of it!" said the baroness, bitterly. "Well, you must give her a +list of your gentlemen friends, the dear little thing, and she will pick out +her own choice for you." + +<p>"There is no need of that, good mother," said Clotilde. "The choice has +already been made by the mainly interested party, and I am certain that +it would not be disagreeable to Julia." + +<p>"Well, then, my darling, everything is for the best." + +<p>"Alas! no. I am going to tell you something that covers me with confusion. +Among all the men we know, the only one who—the only one I like, in +fact, is also the only one who has never been in love with me." + +<p>"He must be a savage, then! he cannot but be a savage. But who is he?" + +<p>"I have told you, dear mother, the only one of our friends who is not in +love with me—" + +<p>"Bah! who is that? Your cousin Pierre?" + +<p>"No, but you are not—" + +<p>"Monsieur de Lucan!" exclaimed the baroness. "It could not fail to be so! +The very flower of the flock! Mon Dieu, my darling, how very similar our +tastes are, both of us! He is charming, your Lucan, he is charming. +Kiss me, dear—don't look any farther, don't look any farther; he is +positively just the man for us." + +<p>"But, mother, since he does not want me!" + +<p>"Good! he does not want you now! What nonsense! what do you know about +it? Did you ask him? Besides, it is impossible, my darling; you were made +for each other in all eternity. He is charming, <i>distingue</i>, well-bred, +rich, intelligent, everything, in a word—everything." + +<p>"Everything, mother, except in love with me." + +<p>The baroness exclaiming anew against such a very unlikely thing, Clotilde +exposed to her eyes a series of facts and particulars which left no room +for illusions. The dismayed mother was compelled to resign herself to the +painful conviction that there really was in the world a man of sufficiently +bad taste not to be in love with her daughter, and that this man +unfortunately was Monsieur de Lucan. + +<p>She returned slowly to her residence, meditating on the way upon that +strange mystery the explanation of which, however, she was not long to +wait. +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>TWO FAST FRIENDS.</h3><br> + +<p>George-Rene de Lucan was an intimate friend of the Count Pierre de +Moras, Clotilde's cousin. They had been companions in boyhood, in youth, +in travels, and even in battle; for, chance having led them to the United +States at the outbreak of the war of the rebellion, they had deemed it a +favorable opportunity to receive the baptism of fire. Their friendship had +become still more sternly tempered in the midst of these dangers of +warfare sustained fraternally far from their own country. That friendship +had had, moreover, for a long time, a character of rare confidence, +delicacy, and strength. They entertained the highest esteem for each +other, and their mutual confidence was not misplaced. They, however, bore +no resemblance whatever to each other. Pierre de Moras was of tall +stature, blonde as a Scandinavian, handsome and strong as a lion, but as a +good-natured lion. Lucan was dark, slender, elegant and grave. There was +in his cold and gentle accent, in his very bearing, a certain grace +mingled with authority, that was both imposing and charming. + +<p>They were not less dissimilar in a moral point of view; the former a jolly +companion, an absolute and settled skeptic, the careless possessor of a +danseuse; the latter always agitated despite his outer calm, romantic, +passionate, tormented with love and theology. Pierre de Moras, on their +return from America, had presented Lucan to his cousin Clotilde, and from +that moment there were at least two points upon which they agreed +perfectly; profound esteem for Clotilde, and deep-seated antipathy for her +husband. + +<p>They appreciated, however, each in his own way, Monsieur de Trecœur's +character and conduct. For the Count Pierre, Trecœur was simply a +mischievous being; in Monsieur de Lucan's eyes, he was a criminal. + +<p>"Why criminal?" Pierre said. "Is it his fault if he was born with the +eternal flames on the marrow of his bones? I admit that I feel quite +disposed to break his head when I see Clotilde's eyes red; but I would +not feel any more angry about it, than if I were crushing a serpent under +my heel. Since it is his nature, the poor man can't help it." + +<p>"That little system of yours would simply suppress all merit, all will, all +liberty; in a word, the whole moral world. If we are not the masters of +our own passions, at least to a great extent, and if, on the contrary, it +is our passions that fatally control us; if a man is necessarily good or +bad, honest or a knave, loyal or a traitor, at the mercy of his instincts, +tell me, if you please, why you honor me with your esteem and your +friendship? I have no right to them any more than any one else, any +more than Trecœur himself." + +<p>"I beg your pardon, my friend," said Pierre gravely; "in the vegetable +world I prefer a rose to a thistle; in the moral world, I prefer you to +Trecœur. You were born a gallant fellow; I rejoice at it, and I make +the best of it." + +<p>"Well, <i>mon cher</i>, you are laboring under a complete mistake," rejoined +Lucan. "I was born, on the contrary, with the most detestable instincts, +with the germ of all vices." + +<p>"Like Socrates?" + +<p>"Like Socrates, exactly. And if my father had not chastised me in time, +if my mother had not been a saint, finally, if I had not myself placed, +with the utmost energy, my will at the service of my conscience, I would +be to-day, a faithless and lawless scoundrel." + +<p>"But nothing proves that you will not turn out a scoundrel one of these +days, my dear friend. There is no one but may become a scoundrel at the +proper time. Everything depends upon the extent and strength of the +temptation. Whatever may be your instinct of honor and dignity, are you +yourself quite sure never to meet with a temptation sufficiently powerful +to overcome your principles? Can you not conceive, for instance, some +circumstance in which you might love a woman enough to commit a crime?" + +<p>"No," said Lucan; "do you?" + +<p>"I!—I deserve no credit. I have no passions. It is extremely mortifying, +but I have none. I was born to be an exemplary man. You remember my +childhood; I was a little model. Now I am a big model, that's all the +difference—and it does not cost me any effort whatever. Shall we go and +see Clotilde?" + +<p>"Let us go!" + +<p>And they went to Clotilde's, very worthy herself of the friendship of +these two excellent fellows. + +<p>There they were received with marked consideration, even by Mademoiselle +Julia, who seemed to feel, to a certain degree, the prestige of these +superior natures. Both had, moreover, in their manners and language an +elegant correctness that apparently satisfied the child's delicate taste +and her artistic instincts. + +<p>During the early period of her mourning, Julia's disposition had assumed a +somewhat shy and somber cast; when her mother received visitors, she left +the parlor abruptly, and went to lock herself up in her own room, not, +however, without manifesting toward the indiscreet guests a haughty +displeasure. Cousin Pierre and his friend had alone the privilege of a +kindly greeting; she even deigned to leave her apartment and come and +join them at her mother's side when she knew that they were there. + +<p>Clotilde had therefore good reasons to believe that her preference for +Monsieur de Lucan would obtain her daughter's approbation; she +unfortunately had better ones still to doubt that Monsieur de Lucan's +disposition corresponded with her own. Not only, indeed, had he always +maintained toward her the terms of the most reserved friendship, but, +since she had been a widow, that reserve had become perceptibly +aggravated. Lucan's visits became fewer and briefer; he even seemed to +take particular care in avoiding all occasions of finding himself alone +with Clotilde, as if he had penetrated her secret feelings, and had +affected to discourage them. Such were the sadly significant symptoms +which Clotilde had communicated in confidence to her mother. + +<p>On the very day when the baroness was receiving this unpleasant +information at the residence of her daughter, a conversation was taking +place upon the same subject between the Count de Moras and George de +Lucan, in the latter's apartment. They had taken together, during the +forenoon a ride through the Bois, and Lucan had shown himself even more +silent than usual. At the moment of parting: + +<p>"<i>Apropos</i>, Pierre," he said, "I am tired of Paris; I am going to travel." + +<p>"Going to travel! Where on earth?" + +<p>"I am going to Sweden. I have always wished to see Sweden." + +<p>"What a singular thing! Will you be gone long?" + +<p>"Two or three months." + +<p>"When do you expect to leave?" + +<p>"To-morrow." + +<p>"Alone?" + +<p>"Entirely so. I'll see you again at the club, to-night, won't I?" + +<p>The strange reserve of this dialogue left upon the mind of Monsieur de +Moras an impression of surprise and uneasiness. He was unable to withstand +the feeling, and two hours later he returned to Lucan's. As he went in, +preparations for traveling greeted his eyes on all sides. Lucan was engaged +writing in his study. + +<p>"Now, my dear fellow!" said the count to him, "if I am impertinent, say so +frankly and at once; but this sudden and hurried voyage doesn't look like +anything. Seriously, what is the matter? Are you going to fight a duel +outside the frontier?": + +<p>"Bah! In that case I should take you with me; you know that very well." + +<p>"A woman, then?" + +<p>"Yes," said Lucan dryly. + +<p>"Excuse my importunity, and good-by." + +<p>"I have wounded your feelings, dear friend?" said Lucan, detaining him. + +<p>"Yes," said the count, "I certainly do not pretend to enter into your +secrets; but I do not absolutely understand the tone of restraint, and +almost of hostility, in which you are answering me on the subject of this +journey. It is not, moreover, the first symptoms of that nature that strike +and grieve me; for some time past, I find you visibly embarrassed in +your intercourse with me; it seems as though I were in your way and my +friendship were a burden to you, and the cruel idea has occurred to my +mind that this journey is merely a way of putting an end to it." + +<p>"Mon Dieu!" murmured Lucan. "Well, then," he went on with evident +agitation in his voice, "I must tell you the whole truth; I hoped that you +would have guessed it—it is so simple. Your cousin, Clotilde, has +now been a widow for nearly two years; that, I believe, is the term +consecrated by custom to the mourning of a husband. I am aware of your +feelings toward her; you may now marry her, and you will be perfectly +right in doing so. Nothing seems to me more just, more natural, more +worthy of her and of yourself. I beg to assure you that my friendship for +you shall remain faithful and entire, but I trust you will not object to my +keeping away for a short time. That's all." + +<p>Monsieur de Moras seemed to have infinite difficulty in comprehending the +meaning of this speech; he remained for several seconds after Lucan had +ceased to speak, with wondering countenance and fixed gaze, as if trying +to find the solution of a riddle; then rising abruptly and grasping both +Lucan's hands: + +<p>"Ah! that's kind of you, that is!" he said with grave emotion. + +<p>And after another cordial grasp, he added gayly: + +<p>"But if you expect to stay in Sweden until I have married Clotilde, you may +begin building and even planting there, for I swear to you that you shall +stay long enough for either purpose." + +<p>"Is it possible that you do not love her?" said Lucan in a half whisper. + +<p>"I love her very much, on the contrary; I appreciate her, I admire her; but +she is a sister to me, purely a sister. The most delightful thing about it, +<i>mon cher</i>, is that it has always been my dream to have you and Clotilde +marry; only you seemed to be so cold, so little attentive, so rebellious, +particularly lately. Mon Dieu! how pale you are, George!" + +<p>The final result of this conversation was that Monsieur de Lucan, instead +of starting for Sweden, called a little later to see the Baroness de +Pers, to whom he exposed his aspirations, and who thought herself, as she +listened to him, in the midst of an enchanting dream. She had, however, +beneath her frivolous manners too profound a sentiment of her own dignity +and that of her daughter, to manifest in the presence of Monsieur de Lucan +the joy that overwhelmed her. Whatever desire she might have felt of +clasping immediately upon her heart this ideal son-in-law, she deferred +that satisfaction and contented herself with expressing to him her +personal sympathy. Appreciating, however, Monsieur de Lucan's just +impatience, she advised him to call that very evening upon Madame de +Trecœur, of whose personal sentiments she was herself ignorant, but who +could not fail to meet his advances with the esteem and the consideration +due to a man of his merit and standing. Being left alone, the baroness +gave way to her feelings in a soliloquy mingled with tears; she, however, +purposely omitted to notify Clotilde, preferring with her maternal taste +to leave her the whole enjoyment of that surprise. + +<p>The heart of woman is an organ infinitely more delicate than ours. The +constant exercise which they give it develops within it finer and subtler +faculties than the dry masculine intellect can ever hope to possess; that +accounts for their presentiments, less rare and more certain than ours. It +seems as though their sensibility, always strained and vibrating, might be +warned by mysterious currents of divine instinct, and that it guesses even +before it can understand. Clotilde, when Monsieur de Lucan was announced, +was, as it were, struck by one of these secret electric thrills, and in spite of +all the objections to the contrary that beset her mind, she felt that she was +loved, and that she was on the point of being told so. She sat down in her +great arm-chair, drawing up with both hands the silk of her dress, with the +gesture of a bird that flaps its wings. Lucan's visible agitation further +enlightened and delighted her. In such men, armed with powerful but +sternly restrained passions, accustomed to control their own feelings, +intrepid and calm, agitation is either frightful or charming. + +<p>After informing her—which was entirely useless—that his visit to her +was one of unusual importance: + +<p>"Madam," he added, "the request I am about to address you demands, +I know, a well-matured answer. I will therefore beg of you not to give that +answer to-day, the more so that it would indeed be painful to me to hear +it from your own lips if it where not a favorable one." + +<p>"Mon Dieu! monsieur!" said Clotilde faintly. + +<p>"The baroness, your mother, madam, whom I had the pleasure of seeing +during the day, was kind enough to hold out some encouragement to +me—in a measure—and to permit me to hope that you might entertain some +esteem for me, or at least that you had no prejudice against me. As to +myself madam, I—mon Dieu! I love you, in a word, and I cannot imagine a +greater happiness in the world than that which I would hold at your hands. +You have known me for a long time; I have nothing to tell you concerning +myself. And now, I shall wait." + +<p>She detained him with a sign of her hand, and tried to speak; but her eyes +filled with tears. She hid her face in her hands, and she murmured: + +<p>"Excuse me! I have been so rarely happy! I don't know what it is!" + +<p>Lucan got gently down upon his knees before her, and when their eyes met, +their two hearts suddenly filled like two cups. + +<p>"Speak, my friend!" she resumed. "Tell me again that you love me. I was so +far from thinking it! And why is it? And since when?" + +<p>He explained to her his mistake, his painful struggle between his love for +her and his friendship for Pierre. + +<p>"Poor Pierre!" said Clotilde, "what an excellent fellow. But no, really!" + +<p>Then he made her smile by telling her what mortal terror and apprehension +had taken possession of his soul at the moment when he was asking her to +decide upon his fate; she had seemed too him, more than ever, at that +moment, a lovely and sainted creature, and so much above him, that his +pretension of being loved by her, of becoming her husband, had suddenly +appeared to him as a pretension almost sacrilegious. + +<p>"Oh, mon Dieu!" she said, "what an opinion have you formed of me, then? +It's frightful! On the contrary, I thought myself too simple, too +commonplace for you; I thought that you must be fond of romantic passions, +of great adventures; you have somewhat the appearance of it, and even +the reputation; and I am so far from being a woman of that kind!" + +<p>Upon that slight invitation, he told her two events of his past life which +had been full of trite excitement, and had afforded him nothing but +disappointment and disgust. Never, however, before having met her, had +the thought of marrying occurred to him; in the matter of love as in the +matter of friendship, he had always had the imagination taken up with a +certain ideal, somewhat romantic indeed, and he had feared never to find +it in marriage. He might have looked for it elsewhere, in great adventures, +as she said; but he loved order and dignity in life, and he had the +misfortune of being unable to live at war with his own conscience. Such +had been his agitated youth. + +<p>"You ask me," he went on with effusion, "why I love you. I love you +because you alone have succeeded in harmonizing within my heart two +sentiments which had hitherto struggled for its mastery at the cost of +fearful anguish; honor and passion. Never before knowing you had I +yielded to one of these sentiments without being made wretched by the +other. They always seemed, irreconcilable to me. Never had I yielded to +passion without remorse; never had I resisted it without regret. Whether +weak or strong, I have always been unhappy and tortured. You alone made +me understand that I could love at once with all the ardor and all the +dignity of my soul; and I selected you because you are affectionate and +you are sincere; because you are handsome and you are pure; because +there are embodied in you both duty and rapture, love and respect, +intoxication and peace. Such is the woman, such is the angel you are to +me, Clotilde." + +<p>She listened to him half reclining, drinking in his words and manifesting +in her eyes a sort of celestial surprise. + +<p>But it seems—who has not experienced it?—that human happiness cannot +touch certain heights without drawing the lightning upon itself. Clotilde +in the midst of her ecstasy shuddered suddenly and started to her feet. +She had just heard a smothered cry, followed by the dull sound of a falling +body. She ran, opened the door, and in the center of the adjoining room +saw Julia stretched upon the floor. + +<p>She supposed that the child at the moment of entering the parlor had +overheard some of their words, and then the thought of seeing her father's +place occupied by another, striking her thus without warning, had stirred +to its very depths that passionate young soul. Clotilde followed her into +her room, where she had her carried, and expressed the wish of remaining +alone with her. While lavishing upon her cares, caresses, and kisses, it was +not without fearful anguish that she awaited her daughter's first glance. +That glance fell upon her at first with vague uncertainty, then with a +sort of wild stupor. The child pushed her away, gently; she was trying to +collect her ideas, and as the expression of her thought grew firmer in her +eyes, her mother could plainly read in them a violent strife of opposing +feelings. + +<p>"I beg of you, I beseech you, my darling daughter," murmured Clotilde, +whose tears fell drop by drop upon the pale visage of the child. + +<p>Suddenly Julia seized her by the neck, drew her down upon herself, and +kissing her passionately: + +<p>"You have hurt me much," she said, "oh! very much more than you can +imagine; but I love you. I love you a great deal; I shall, I must always, +I assure you." + +<p>She burst into sobs, and both wept long, closely clasped to each other. + +<p>In the meantime Monsieur de Lucan had deemed it advisable to send for the +Baroness de Pers, whom he was entertaining in the parlor. The baroness on +hearing what was going on had manifested more agitation than surprise. + +<p>"Mon Dieu!" she exclaimed, "I expected it fully, my dear sir. I did not tell +you anything about it, because we hadn't got so far yet; but I expected it +fully. That child will kill my daughter. She will finish what her father has so +well begun; for it is purely a miracle if my daughter, after all she has +suffered, has been able to recover as far as you see. I must leave them +together. I am not going in there. Oh, mon Dieu! I am not going in there! +In the first place, I would be afraid of annoying my daughter, and +besides, that would be entirely out of my character." + +<p>"How old is Mademoiselle Julia?" inquired Lucan, who retained under these +painful circumstances his quiet courtesy. + +<p>"Why, she is almost fifteen, and I'm not sorry for it, by the way, for, +<i>entre nous</i>, we may reasonably hope to get honestly rid of her within +a year or two. Oh! she will have no trouble in getting married, no +trouble whatever, you may be sure. In the first place she is rich, and +then, after all, she is a pretty monster, there is no gainsaying that, and +there is no lack of men who admire that style." + +<p>Clotilde joined them at last. Whatever might have been her inward emotion, +she appeared calm, having nothing theatrical in her ways. She replied +simply, in a low and gentle voice, to her mother's feverish questions; she +remained convinced that this misfortune would not have happened, if she +could have herself informed Julia, with some precautions, of the event +which chance had abruptly revealed to her. Addressing then a sad smile to +Monsieur de Lucan: + +<p>"These family difficulties, sir," she said to him, "could not have formed +a part of your anticipations, and I should deem it quite natural were they +to lead to some modification of your plans.": + +<p>An expressive anxiety became depicted upon Lucan's features. "If you ask +me to restore to you your freedom," he said, "I cannot but comply; if +it is your delicacy alone that has spoken, I beg to assure you that you +are still dearer to me since I have seen you suffer on my account, and +suffer with so much dignity." + +<p>She held out her hand, which he seized, bowing low at the same time. + +<p>"I shall love your daughter so much," he said, "that she will forgive me." + +<p>"Yes, I hope so," said Clotilde; "nevertheless, she wishes to enter a +convent for a few months, and I have consented." + +<p>Her voice trembled and her eyes became moist. + +<p>"Excuse me, sir," she added; "I have no right as yet to make you +participate to such an extent in my sorrows. May I beg of you to leave me +alone with my mother?" + +<p>Lucan murmured a few words of respect, and withdrew. It was quite true, +as he had said, that Clotilde was dearer to him than ever. Nothing had +inspired him with such a lofty idea of the moral worth of that woman as +her attitude during that trying evening. Stricken in the midst of her +flight of happiness, she had fallen without a cry, without a groan, +striving to hide her wound; she had manifested in his presence that +exquisite modesty in suffering so rare among her sex. He was the more +grateful to her for it, that he was deeply averse to those pathetic and +turbulent demonstrations which most women never fail to eagerly exhibit +on every occasion, when they are indeed kind enough not to bring them +about. +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>JULIA'S CHAMPION.</h3><br> + +<p>Monsieur de Lucan had been Clotilde's husband for several months when the +rumor spread among society that Mademoiselle de Trecœur, formerly +known as such an incarnate little devil, was about taking the vail in the +convent of the Faubourg Saint Germain, to which she had withdrawn before +her mother's marriage. That rumor was well founded. Julia had endured at +first with some difficulty the discipline and the observances to which the +simple boarders of the establishment were themselves bound to submit; then +she had been gradually taken with a pious fervor, the excesses of which +they had been compelled to moderate. She had begged her mother not +to put an obstacle to the irresistible inclination which she felt for a +religious life, and Clotilde had with difficulty obtained permission that +she should adjourn her resolution until the accomplishment of her +sixteenth year. + +<p>Madame de Lucan's relations with her daughter since her marriage had +been of a singular character. She came almost daily to visit her, and +always received the liveliest manifestations of affection at her hands; +but on two points, and those the most sensitive, the young girl had +remained inflexible; she had never consented either to return to the +maternal roof, nor to see her mother's husband. + +<p>She had even remained for a long time without making the slightest +allusion to Clotilde's altered situation, which she affected to ignore. +One day, at last, feeling the intolerable torture of such a reserve, +she made up her mind, and fixing her flashing eyes upon her mother: + +<p>"Well, are you happy at last?" she said. + +<p>"How can I be," said Clotilde, "since you hate the man I love?" + +<p>"I hate no one," replied Julia, dryly. "How is your husband?" + +<p>From that moment she inquired regularly after Monsieur de Lucan in a tone +of polite indifference; but she never uttered without hesitation and +evident discomfort the name of the man who had taken her father's +place. + +<p>In the meantime she had reached her sixteenth year. Her mother's promise +had been formal. Julia was henceforth free to follow her vocation, and she +was preparing for it with an impatient ardor that edified the good ladies +of the convent. Madame de Lucan expressing, one morning, in the presence +of her mother and her husband the anxiety that oppressed her heart during +these last days of respite: + +<p>"As to me, my daughter," said the baroness, "I must confess that I am +urging with all my wishes and prayers the moment which you seem to +dread. The life you have been leading since your marriage has nothing +human about it; but what forms its principal torment, is the constant +struggle which you have to sustain against that child's obstinacy. Well, +when she has become a nun, there will no longer be any struggle; the +situation will be clearer; and note that you will not be in reality any +more separated than you are now, since the house is not a cloister; I would +just as lief it were, myself; but it is not. And then, why oppose a vocation +which I really look upon as providential? In the interest of the child herself, +you should congratulate yourself upon the resolution she has taken; I +appeal to your husband to say if that is not so. Come, let me ask you, my +dear sir, what could be expected of such an organization, if she were once +let loose upon the world? Why! she would be a dangerous character for +society! You know what a head she has! a volcano! And pray observe, my +friend, that at this present moment she is a perfect odalisk. You have not +seen her for some time; you cannot imagine how she has developed. I, who +enjoy the treat of seeing her twice a week, can positively assure you that +she is a perfect odalisk, and besides, divinely dressed. In fact, she is +so well made! you might throw a window-curtain over her with a pitch-fork, +and she would look as if she were just coming out of Worth's! There, ask +Pierre what he thinks about it, he who has the honor of being admitted to +her good graces!" + +<p>Monsieur de Moras, who was coming in at that very moment, shared, +indeed, with a very limited number of friends of the family, the privilege +of accompanying Clotilde occasionally on her visits to Julia's convent. + +<p>"Well, my good Pierre," resumed the baroness, "we were speaking of Julia, +and I was telling my son-in-law that it was really quite fortunate that +she was willing to become a saint, because otherwise she would certainly +set Paris on fire!" + +<p>"Because?" asked the count. + +<p>"Because she is beautiful as Sin!" + +<p>"Undoubtedly she is quite good-looking," said the count somewhat +coldly. + +<p>The baroness having gone out on some errands with Clotilde, Monsieur de +Moras remained alone with Lucan. + +<p>"It really seems to me," he said to the latter, "that our poor Julia is +being very harshly treated." + +<p>"In what way?" + +<p>"Her grandmother speaks of her as of a perverse creature! And what fault +do they find with her after all? Her worship of her father's memory! +It is excessive, I grant; but filial piety, even when exaggerated, is not a +vice, that I know of. Her sentiments are exalted; what does it matter if +they are generous? Is that a reason why she should be devoted to the +infernal divinities and thrust out of the way to be forgotten?" + +<p>"But you are very strange, my friend, I assure you," said Lucan. "What is +the matter with you? whom do you mean to blame? You are certainly +aware that Julia proposes taking the vail wholly of her own accord; that +her mother is distressed about it, and that she has spared no effort to +dissuade her from that step. As to myself, I have no reason whatever to be +fond of her; she has caused and is still causing me much grief; but you +know well enough that I have ever been ready to greet her as my daughter, +if she had deigned to return to us." + +<p>"Oh! I accuse neither her mother nor yourself, of course; it is the +baroness who irritates me; she is unnatural! Julia is her grandchild +after all, and she rejoices—she positively rejoices—at the prospect +of seeing her a nun!" + +<p>"<i>Ma foi</i>, I declare to you that I am not far from rejoicing too. The +situation is too painful for Clotilde; it must be brought to an end; and +as I see no other possible solution—" + +<p>"But I beg your pardon; there might be another." + +<p>"And which?" + +<p>"She might marry." + +<p>"How likely! and marry—whom, pray?" + +<p>The count approached nearer to Lucan, looked him straight in the face, and +smiling with some embarrassment: + +<p>"Me!" he said. + +<p>"Repeat that!" said Lucan. + +<p>"<i>Mon cher</i>," rejoined the count, "you see that I am as red as a peony; +spare me. I have wished for a long time to broach that delicate question +to you, but my courage has failed me; since I have found it, at last, +don't deprive me of it." + +<p>"My dear friend," said Lucan, "allow me to recover a little first, for +I am falling from the clouds. What! you are in love with Julia?" + +<p>"To an extraordinary degree, my friend." + +<p>"No! there is something under that; you have discovered this means of +drawing us together, and you wish to sacrifice yourself for the peace of +the family." + +<p>"I swear to you that I am not thinking in the least of the peace of the +family; I am thinking wholly of my own, which is very much disturbed, +for I love that child with an energy of feeling that I never knew before. +If I don't marry her, I shall never console myself for the rest of my +life." + +<p>"To that extent?" said Lucan, dumfounded. + +<p>"It is a terrible thing, <i>mon cher</i>," rejoined Monsieur de Moras. "I am +absolutely in love; when she looks at me, when I touch her hand, when her +dress rustles against me, I feel, as it were, a philter running through +my veins. I had heard of emotions of that kind, but I had never felt them. +I must confess that they delight me; but at the same time they distress +me, for I cannot conceal the fact to myself that there are a thousand +chances against one that my passion will not be reciprocated, and it +really seems as though my heart should wear mourning for it as long as it +shall beat." + +<p>"What an adventure!" said Lucan, who had recovered all his gravity. "That +is a very serious matter; very annoying." + +<p>He walked a few steps about the parlor, absorbed in thoughts that seemed +of a rather somber character. + +<p>"Is Julia aware of your sentiments?" he said, suddenly. + +<p>"Most certainly not; I would not have taken the liberty of informing her +of them without first speaking to you. Will you be kind enough to act as +my ambassador to her mother?" + +<p>"Why, yes, with pleasure," said Lucan, with a shade of hesitation that did +not escape his friend. + +<p>"You think that is useless, don't you?" said the count with a forced smile. + +<p>"Useless—why so?" + +<p>"In the first place, it is very late." + +<p>"It is somewhat late, no doubt. Things have gone very far; but I +have never had much confidence in the stability of Julia's ideas of +her vocation. Besides, in these restless imaginations, the sincerest +resolutions of to-day become readily the dislikes of the morrow." + +<p>"But you doubt that—that I should succeed in pleasing her?" + +<p>"Why should you not please her? You are more than good-looking. You are +thirty-two years old; she is sixteen. You are a little richer than she is. +All that does very well." + +<p>"Well, then, why do you hesitate to serve me?" + +<p>"I do not hesitate to serve you; only I see you very much in love; you +are not accustomed to it, and I fear that a condition of things so novel +for you might be urging you somewhat hastily to such a grave determination +as marriage. A wife is not a mistress. In short, before taking an +irrevocable step I would beg of you to think well and further over it." + +<p>"My good friend," said the count, "I do not wish, and I believe quite +sincerely that I cannot, do so. You know my ideas. Genuine passions +always have the best of it, and I am not quite sure that honor itself is a +very effective argument against them. As to setting up reason against +them, it is worse than folly. Besides, come, Lucan, what is there so +unreasonable in the simple fact of marrying a person I love? I don't see +that it is absolutely necessary for a man not to love his wife—Well! can +I rely upon you?" + +<p>"Completely so," said Lucan, taking his hand. "I raised my objections; +now I am wholly at your service. I shall speak to Clotilde in a moment. +She is going to see her daughter this afternoon. Come and dine with us +to-night; but summon up all your courage, for, after all, success is very +uncertain." + +<p>Monsieur de Lucan found it no difficult task to gain the cause of Monsieur +de Moras with Clotilde. After hearing him, not, however, without +interrupting him more than once with exclamations of surprise: + +<p>"Mon Dieu!" she replied, "that would be an ideal! Not only would that +marriage put an end to projects that break my heart, but it offers all the +conditions of happiness that I can possibly think of for my daughter; and +furthermore, the friendship that binds you to Pierre would naturally, some +day, bring about a <i>rapprochement</i> between his wife and yourself. All +that would be too fortunate; but how could we hope for such a complete +and sudden revolution in Julia's ideas? She will not even allow me to +deliver my message to the end." + +<p>She left, palpitating with anxiety. She found Julia alone in her room, +trying on before a mirror her novice's dress; the vail that was to +conceal her luxuriant hair was laid upon the bed; she was simply dressed +in a long, white woolen tunic, whose folds she was engaged in adjusting. + +<p>She blushed when she saw her mother come in; then with an insipient +laugh: + +<p>"Cymodocea in the circus, isn't it, mother?" + +<p>Clotilde made no answer; she had joined her hands in a supplicating +attitude, and wept as she looked at her. Julia was moved by that mute +sorrow; two tears rolled from her eyes, and she threw her arms around +her mother's neck; then, taking a seat by her side: + +<p>"What can I do?" she said; "I, too, feel some regret at heart, for, after +all, I was fond of life; but aside from my vocation, which I believe quite +real, I am yielding to a positive necessity. There is no other existence +possible for me but that one. I know very well—it's my own fault; I have +been somewhat foolish—I should not have left you in the first place, +or at least, I should have returned to your house immediately after your +marriage. Now, after months, and even years, is it possible, I ask you? +In the first place, I would die with shame. Can you imagine me in the +presence of your husband? What sort of countenance could I put on? +And then, he must fairly detest me, the bent must be firmly taken in his +mind. Finally, I should be in all respects terribly in your way!" + +<p>"But, my dear child, no one hates you; you would be received with +transports of joy, like the prodigal child. If you deem it too painful to +return to my home—if you fear to find or to bring trouble there with +you—God knows how mistaken you are on this point! but still, if you do +fear it, is that a reason why you should bury yourself alive and break +my heart? Could you not return into the world without returning to my +own house, and without having to face all those difficulties that frighten +you? There would be a very simple way of doing that, you know!" + +<p>"What is it?" said Julia quietly; "to marry?" + +<p>"Undoubtedly," said Clotilde, shaking her head gently and lowering her +voice. + +<p>"But, mon Dieu! mother, what possible chance is there of such a thing? +Suppose I were willing—and I am far from it—I know no one, no one knows +me." + +<p>"There is some one," rejoined Clotilde, with increasing timidity; "some one +whom you know perfectly well, and who—who adores you." + +<p>Julia opened her eyes wide with a pensive and surprised expression, and +after a brief pause of reflection: + +<p>"Pierre?" she said. + +<p>"Yes," murmured Clotilde, pale with anxiety. + +<p>Julia's eyebrows became slightly contracted; she raised her head and +remained for a few seconds with her eyes fixed upon the ceiling; then, +with a slight shrug of her shoulders: + +<p>"Why not?" she said gravely. "I would as soon have him as any one else!" + +<p>Clotilde uttered a feeble cry, and grasping both her daughter's hands: + +<p>"You consent?" she said; "you really consent? And may I take your answer +to him?" + +<p>"Yes, but you had better change the text of it," said Julia, laughing. + +<p>"Oh! my darling, darling dear!" exclaimed Clotilde, covering Julia's hands +with kisses; "but repeat again that it is all true—that by to-morrow you +will not have changed your mind." + +<p>"I will not change my mind," said Julia, firmly, in her grave and musical +voice. + +<p>She meditated for a moment and then resumed: + +<p>"Really, he loves me, that big fellow!" + +<p>"Like a madman." + +<p>"Poor man! And he is waiting for an answer?" + +<p>"With the utmost anxiety." + +<p>"Well, go and quiet his fears. We will take up the subject again to-morrow. +I require to put a little order in my thoughts after all this confusion +and excitement, you understand; but you may rest easy. I have decided." + +<p>When Madame de Lucan returned home, Pierre de Moras was waiting for her +in the parlor. He turned very pale when he saw her. + +<p>"Pierre!" she said, all panting still, "come and kiss me, you are my son! +Respectfully, if you please, respectfully!" she added laughingly as he +lifted her up and clasped her to his heart. + +<p>A little later, he had the gratification of treating in the same manner the +Baroness de Pers, who had been sent for in haste. + +<p>"My dear friend," said the baroness, "I am delighted, really delighted, +but you are choking me—yes, yes, it is all for the best, my dear +fellow—but you are literally choking me, I tell you! Reserve yourself, my friend, reserve yourself!—The dear child! that's quite nice of her, quite +nice! In point of fact, she has a heart of gold! And then she has good +taste, too, for you are very handsome yourself, very handsome, <i>mon cher</i>, +very handsome! To be perfectly candid, I always had an idea that, at the +moment of cutting off her hair, she would think the matter over. And she +has such beautiful hair, the poor child!" + +<p>And the baroness melted into tears; then addressing the count in the midst +of her sobs: + +<p>"You'll not be very unhappy either, by the way; she is a goddess!" + +<p>Monsieur de Lucan, though deeply moved by this family tableau, and above +all, by Clotilde's joy, took more coolly that unexpected event. Besides +that he did not generally show himself very demonstrative in public, he +was sad and anxious at heart. The future prospects of this marriage seemed +extremely uncertain to him, and in his profound friendship for the count he +felt alarmed. He had not ventured, through a sentiment of delicate reserve +toward Julia, upon telling him all he thought of her character and +disposition. He strove to banish from his mind as partial and unjust the +opinion he had formed of her; but still he could not help remembering the +terrible child he had known once, at times wild as a hurricane, at others +pensive and wrapped in gloomy reserve; he tried to imagine her such as she +had been described to him since; tall, handsome, ascetic; then he fancied +her suddenly casting her vail to the winds, like one of the fantastic +nuns in "Robert le Diable," and returning swift-footed into the world; of +all these various impressions he composed, in spite of himself, a figure +of Chimera and Sphinx, which he found very difficult to connect with the +idea of domestic happiness. + +<p>They discussed in the family circle, during the whole evening, the +complications which might arise from that marriage project, and the means of +avoiding them. Monsieur de Lucan entered into all these details with +the utmost good grace, and declared that he would lend himself heartily, +for his own part, to all the arrangements which his daughter-in-law might +wish. That precaution was not destined to be useless. + +<p>Early the next morning, Clotilde returned to the convent. Julia, after +listening with slightly ironical nonchalance to the account which her +mother gave her of the transports and the joy of her intended, assumed +a more serious air. + +<p>"And your husband," she said, "what does he think of it?" + +<p>"He is delighted, as we all are." + +<p>"I am going to ask you a single question: does he expect to be present at +our wedding?" + +<p>"That will be just as you like." + +<p>"Listen, good little mother, and don't grieve in advance. I know very well +that sooner or later, this marriage must be the means of bringing us all +together; but let me have a little time to become accustomed to the idea. +Grant me a few months so that the old Julia may be forgotten, and I may +forget her myself—you will; say, won't you?" + +<p>"Anything you please," said Clotilde, with a sigh. + +<p>"I beg of you. Tell him that I beg of him, too." + +<p>"I'll tell him; but do you know that Pierre is here?" + +<p>"Ah! <i>mon Dieu!</i> and where did you leave him?" + +<p>"I left him in the garden." + +<p>"In the garden! how imprudent, mother! why, the ladies are going to tear +him to pieces—like Orpheus, for you may well believe that he is not in +the odor of sanctity here." + +<p>Monsieur de Moras was sent for at once, and he came up in all haste. Julia +began laughing as he appeared at the door, which facilitated his entree. +She had several times, during their interview, fits of that nervous +laughter which is so useful to women in trying circumstances. Deprived of +that resource, Monsieur de Moras contented himself with kissing the +beautiful hands of his cousin, and was otherwise generally wanting in +eloquence; but his handsome and manly features were resplendent, and his +large blue eyes were moist with gratified affection. He appeared to leave +a favorable impression. + +<p>"I had never considered him in that light," said Julia to her mother; "he +is very handsome—he will make a splendid-looking husband." + +<p>The marriage took place three months later, privately and without any +display. The Count de Moras and his youthful bride left for Italy the +same evening. + +<p>Monsieur de Lucan had left Paris two or three weeks before, and had taken +up his quarters in an old family residence at the very extremity of +Normandy, where Clotilde hastened to join him immediately after Julia's +departure. +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>A GREWSOME ABODE.</h3><br> + +<p>Vastville, the patrimonial domain of the Lucan family, is situated a short +distance from the sea, on the west coast of the Norman Finisterre. It is a +manor with high roof and wrought-iron balconies, which dates from the time +of Louis XIII., and which has taken the place of the old castle, a few +ruins of which still serve to ornament the park. It is concealed in a thickly +shaded depression of the soil, and a long avenue of antique elms precedes +it. The aspect of it is singularly retired and melancholy, owing to the +dense woods that surround it on all sides. This wooded thicket marks, on +this point of the peninsula, the last effort of the vigorous vegetation of +Normandy. As soon as its edge has been crossed, the view extends suddenly +and without obstacle over the vast moors which form the triangular plateau +of the Cape La Hague; fields of furze and heather, stone fences without +cement, here and there a cross of granite, on the right and on the left the +distant undulations of the ocean—such is the severe but grand landscape +that is suddenly unfolded to the eyes beneath the unobstructed light of +the heavens. + +<p>Monsieur de Lucan was born in Vastville. The poetic reminiscences of +childhood mingled in his imagination with the natural poetry of that site, +and made it dear to him. Under pretext of hunting, he came on a +pilgrimage to it every year. Since his marriage only, he had given up that +habit of the heart, in order not to leave Clotilde, who was detained in +Paris by her daughter; but it had been agreed upon that they would go +and bury themselves in that retreat for a season as soon as they had +recovered their liberty. Clotilde only knew Vastville from her husband's +enthusiastic descriptions; she loved it on his representations, and it +was for her, in advance, an enchanted spot. Nevertheless, when the +carriage that brought her from the station entered, at nightfall, among +the wooded hills, in the gloomy avenue that led up to the chateau, she +felt an impression as of cold. + +<p>"Mon Dieu! my dear," she said, laughingly, "your chateau is a perfect +castle of Udolpho!" + +<p>Lucan excused his chateau as best he could, and protested, moreover, that +he was ready to leave it the very next day, if she were not better pleased +with its appearance after sunrise. + +<p>It was not long before she became passionately fond of it. Her happiness, +hitherto so constrained, blossomed freely for the first time in that solitude, +and shed upon it a charming light. She even expressed the wish of spending +the winter and waiting there for Julia, who was to return to France in the +course of the following year. Lucan offered some slight opposition to that +project, which appeared to him rather over-heroic for a Parisian, but +ended by adopting it, too happy himself to harbor the romance of his love +in that romantic spot. He began, however, taxing his ingenuity to +attenuate what there might be too austere in that abode, by opening +relations with some of the neighbors for Clotilde's benefit, and by +procuring her, at intervals, her mother's society. Madame de Pers was kind +enough to lend herself to that combination, although the country was +generally repulsive to her, and Vastville in particular had in her eyes a +sinister character. She pretended that she heard at night noises in the +walls and moans in the woods. She slept with one eye open and two candles +burning. The magnificent cliffs that bordered the coast a short distance +off, and which they tried to make her admire, caused her a painful sensation. + +<p>"Very fine!" she said, "very wild! quite wild! But it makes me sick; +I feel as though I were on top of the towers of Notre Dame! Besides, my +children, love beautifies everything, and I understand your transports +perfectly. As to myself, you must excuse me if I do not share them. I can +never go into ecstasies over such a country as this. I am as fond of the +country as any one, but this is not the country—it is the desert, Arabia +Petrœa, I know not what. And as to your chateau, my dear friend—I am +sorry to tell you so: it has a savor of crime. Look well, and you'll see +that a murder has been committed in it." + +<p>"Why, no, my dear madam," replied Lucan laughingly, "I know perfectly the +history of my family, and I can guarantee you—" + +<p>"Rest assured, my friend, that some one has been killed in it—in old +times. You know how little they troubled themselves about those things +formerly!" + +<p>Julia's letters to her mother were frequent. It was a regular journal of +travels written helter-skelter, with a striking originality of style, in +which the vivacity of the impressions was corrected by that shade of +haughty irony which was a peculiarity of the writer. Julia spoke rather +briefly of her husband, but always in pleasant terms. There was generally +a rapid and kindly postscript addressed to Monsieur de Lucan. + +<p>Monsieur de Moras was more chary of descriptions. He seemed to +see no one but his wife in Italy. He extolled her beauty, still further +enhanced, he said, by the contact of all those marvels of art with which +she was becoming impregnated; he praised her extraordinary taste, her +intelligence, and even her good disposition. In this latter respect, she +was extremely matured, and he found her almost too staid and too grave +for her age. These particulars delighted Clotilde, and finished instilling +into her heart a peace she had never yet enjoyed. + +<p>The count's letters were not less reassuring for the future than the +present. He did not think it necessary, he said, to urge Julia on the +subject of her reconciliation with her step-father; but he felt that she was +quite ready for it. He was, besides, preparing her more and more for it by +conversing habitually with her of the old friendship that united him to +Monsieur de Lucan, of their past life, of their travels, of the perils +they had braved together. Not only did Julia hear these narratives without +revolt, but she often solicited them, as if she had regretted her +prejudices, and had sought good reasons to forget them. + +<p>"Come, Pylades, speak to me of Orestes!" she would say. + +<p>After having spent the whole winter season and part of the spring in +Italy, Monsieur and Madame de Moras visited Switzerland, announcing their +intention of sojourning there until the middle of summer. The thought +occurred to Monsieur and Madame de Lucan to go and join them there, and +thus abruptly bring about a reconciliation that seemed henceforth to be +but a mere matter of form. Clotilde was preparing to submit that project +to her daughter when she received, one beautiful May morning, the +following letter dated from Paris: + +<blockquote> +<p>"<span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Beloved Mother</span>:—'No more Switzerland!' too much Switzerland! Here +I am; don't disturb yourself. I know how much you are enjoying yourself at Vastville. We'll go and join you there one of these fine mornings, and +we'll all come home together in the autumn. I only ask of you a few days +to look after our future establishment here. + +<p>"We are at the Grand Hotel. I did not choose to stop at your house, for +all sorts of reasons, nor at my grandmother's, who, however, insisted very +kindly upon our doing so: + +<p>"'Oh! mon Dieu! my dear children—that must not be—in a hotel! why, that +is not proper. You cannot remain in a hotel! come and stay with me. mon +Dieu! you'll be very uncomfortable. You'll be camping out, as it were. +I don't even know how I'll manage to give you anything to eat, for my +cook is sick abed, and that stupid coachman of mine, by the way, has a +stye on his eye! But why not let people know you were coming? You fall +upon me like two flower-pots from a window! It's incredible! You are in +good health, my friend? I need not ask you. It shows plainly enough. +And you, my beautiful pet? Why! it is the sun; the sun itself. Hide +yourself—you are dazzling my eyes! Have you any luggage? Well, we'll +just put it in the parlor; it can't be helped. And as to yourselves, I'll +give you my own room. I'll engage a housekeeper and hire a driver from +some livery stable. You'll not be in my way at all, not at all, not at +all!' + +<p>"In short, we did not accept. + +<p>"But the explanation of this sudden return! Here it is: + +<p>"'Are you not tired of Switzerland, my dear?' I asked of my husband. + +<p>"'I am tired of Switzerland,' replied that faithful echo. + +<p>"'Suppose we go away, then?' + +<p>"And away we went. + +<p>"Glad and moved to the bottom of my soul at the thought of soon kissing +you, + +<p><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Julia.</span> + +<p>"P.S.—I beg Monsieur de Lucan not to intimidate me." +</blockquote> + +<p>The days that followed were delightfully busy for Clotilde. She herself +unpacked the parcels that constantly kept coming, and put the contents +away with her own maternal hands. She unfolded and folded again, she +caressed those skirts, those waists of fine and perfumed linen, which were +already to her like a part of her daughter's person. Lucan, a little +jealous, surprised her meditating lovingly over these pretty things. She +went to the stables to see Julia's horse, which had followed soon after +the boxes; she gave him lumps of sugar and chatted with him. She filled +with flowers and verdant foliage the apartments set apart for the young +couple. + +<p>This fever of happiness soon came to its happy termination. About a week +after her arrival in Paris, Julia wrote to her mother that they expected, +her husband and herself, to leave that evening, and that they would be in +Cherbourg the next morning. Clotilde prepared, of course, to go and meet +them with her carriage. Monsieur de Lucan, after duly conferring with her +on the subject, thought best not to accompany her. He feared that he might +interfere with the first emotions of the return, and yet, not wishing that +Julia should attribute his absence to a lack of attention, he resolved to +go and meet the travelers on horseback. +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>FATHER AND STEP-DAUGHTER.</h3><br> + +<p>It was on one of the first days of June. Clotilde had left early in the +morning, fresh and radiant as the dawn. Two hours later, Lucan mounted his +horse and started at a walk. The roads are lovely in Normandy at this +season. The hawthorn hedges perfume the country, and sprinkle here and +there the edges of the road with their rosy snow. A profusion of fresh +verdure, dotted with wild flowers, covers the face of the ditches. All +that, under the gay morning sun, is a feast for the eyes. M. de Lucan, +however, greatly contrary to his custom, bestowed but very slight +attention upon the spectacle of that smiling nature. He was preoccupied, +to a degree that surprised himself, with his coming meeting with his +step-daughter. Julia had been such a besetting thought in his mind that he +had retained of her an exaggerated impression. He strove in vain to +restore her to her natural proportions, which were, after all, only those +of a child, formerly a naughty child, now a prodigal child. He had become +accustomed to invest her, in his imagination, with a mysterious importance +and a sort of fatal power, of which he found it difficult to strip her. He +laughed and felt irritated at his own weakness; but he experienced an +agitation mingled with curiosity and vague uneasiness, at the moment of +beholding face to face that sphinx whose shadow had so long disturbed his +life, and who now came in person to sit at his fireside. + +<p>An open barouche, decked with parasols, appeared at the summit of a hill; +Lucan saw a head leaning and a handkerchief waving outside the carriage; +he urged at once his horse to a gallop. Almost at the same instant the +carriage stopped, and a young woman jumped lightly upon the road; she +turned around to address a few words to her traveling-companions, and +advanced alone toward Lucan. Not wishing to be outdone in politeness, he +alighted also, handed his horse to the groom who followed him, and started +with cheerful alacrity in the direction of the young woman, whom he did +not recognize, but who was evidently Julia. She was coming toward him +without haste, with a sliding walk, rocking gently her flexible figure. As +she drew near, she threw off her vail with a rapid motion of her hand, and +Lucan was enabled to find again upon that youthful face, in those large +and slightly clouded eyes, and the pure and stretching arch of the +eyebrows, some features of the child he had known. + +<p>When Julia's glance met that of Lucan, her pale complexion became suffused +with a purple blush. + +<p>He bowed very low to her, and with a smile full of affectionate grace: + +<p>"Welcome!" he said. + +<p>"Thank you, sir," said Julia, in a voice whose grave and melodious suavity +struck Lucan; "friends, are we not?" And she held out both her hands to +him with charming resolution. + +<p>He drew her gently to himself to kiss her; but thinking that he felt a +slight resistance in the suddenly stiffening arms of his step-daughter, +he contented himself with kissing her wrist just above her glove. Then +affecting to look at her with a polite admiration, which, however, was +perfectly sincere: + +<p>"I really feel," he said, laughingly, "like asking you to whom I have the +honor of speaking." + +<p>"You find me grown?" she said, showing her dazzling teeth. + +<p>"Surprisingly so," said Lucan; "most surprisingly. I understand Pierre +perfectly now." + +<p>"Poor Pierre!" said Julia; "he is so fond of you. Don't let us keep him +waiting any longer, if you please." + +<p>They started in the direction of the carriage, in front of which Monsieur +de Moras was awaiting them, and while walking side by side: + +<p>"What a lovely country!" resumed Julia. "And the sea quite near?" + +<p>"Quite near." + +<p>"We'll take a ride on horseback after breakfast, will we not?" + +<p>"Quite willingly; but you must be horribly fatigued, my dear child. Excuse +me! my dear—? By the way, how do you wish me to call you?" + +<p>"Call me madam. I was such a bad child!" + +<p>And she broke forth into a roll of that sudden, graceful, but somewhat +equivocal laughter that was habitual with her. Then raising her voice: + +<p>"You may come, Pierre; your friend is my friend now!" + +<p>She left the two men shaking hands cordially, and exchanging the usual +greetings, jumped into the carriage, and resuming her seat at her mother's +side: + +<p>"Mother," she said, kissing her at the same time, "the meeting came off +very well—didn't it, Monsieur de Lucan?" + +<p>"Very well, indeed," said Lucan, laughingly, "except some minor details." + +<p>"Oh! you are too hard to please, sir!" said Julia, drawing her wrappings +around her. + +<p>The next moment Monsieur de Lucan was cantering by the carriage door, +while the three travelers inside were indulging in one of those expansive +talks that usually follow the happy solution of a dreaded crisis. Clotilde, +henceforth in the full possession of all her affections, was fairly soaring +in the ethereal blue. + +<p>"You are too handsome, mother," said Julia. "With such a big girl as I am, +it is a positive crime!" + +<p>And she kissed her again. + +<p>Lucan, while participating in the conversation and doing to Julia the +honors of the landscape, was trying to sum up within himself his +impressions of the ceremony which had just taken place. Upon the whole he +thought, as did his step-daughter, that it had come off very well, +although it was not quite perfection. Perfection would have been to find +in Julia a plain and unaffected woman, who would have simply thrown +herself in her step-father's arms and laughed with him at her spoilt +child's escapade; but he had never expected Julia's manners to be quite as +frank and open as that. She had done in the present circumstances all that +could be expected of a nature like hers; she had shown herself graciously +friendly; she had, it is true, imparted to this first interview a certain solemn +and dramatic turn. She was romantic, and as Lucan was tolerably so +himself, this whim of hers had not proved unpleasant to him. + +<p>He had been, moreover, agreeably surprised at the beauty of Madame de +Moras, which was indeed striking. The severe regularity of her features, +the deep luster of her blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, the +exquisite harmony of her form were not her only, nor indeed her principal +attractions; she owed her rare and personal charm to a sort of strange +grace mingled with flexibility and strength, that lent enchantment to her +every motion. She had in the play of her countenance, in her step, in her +gestures, the sovereign ease of a woman who does not feel a single weak +point in her beauty, and who moves, grows, and blossoms with all the +freedom of a child in his cradle or a fallow deer in the forest. Made as +she was, she had no difficulty in dressing well; the simplest costumes +fitted her person with an elegant precision that caused the Baroness de +Pers to say in her inaccurate though expressive language: + +<p>"A pair of kid gloves would be enough to dress her with." + +<p>During that same day and those that followed, Julia conquered new titles +to Monsieur de Lucan's good graces, by manifesting a strong liking for the +chateau of Vastville and the surrounding sites. The chateau pleased her +for its romantic style, its old-fashioned garden ornamented with yews and +evergreens, the lonely avenues of the park, and its melancholy woods +scattered with ruins. She went into ecstasies at the sight of the vast +heather plains lashed by the ocean winds, the trees with twisted and +convulsive tops, the tall granite cliffs worn by the everlasting waves. + +<p>"All that," she said, laughingly, "has a great deal of character;" and as +she had a great deal of it herself, she felt in her element. She had +found the home of her dreams, she was happy. + +<p>Her mother, to whom she paid up in passionate effusions all arrearages +of tenderness, was still more so. + +<p>The greater part of the day was spent riding about on horseback. After +dinner, Julia, with that joyous and somewhat feverish spirit that animated +her, related her travels, parodying in a good-natured manner her own +enthusiasm and her husband's relative indifference in presence of the +masterpieces of antique art. She illustrated these recollections with +scenes of mimicry in which she displayed the skill of a fairy, the +imagination of an artist, and sometimes the broad humor of a low comedian. +In a turn of the hand, with a flower, a bit of silk, a sheet of paper, she +composed a Neapolitan, Roman, or Sicilian head-dress. She performed +scenes from ballets or operas, pushing back the train of her dress with a +tragic sweep of her foot, and accentuating strongly the commonplace +exclamations of Italian lyricism: + +<blockquote> +<p>"Oh, Ciel! Crudel! Perfido! Oh, dio! Perdona!" +</blockquote> + +<p>Or else, kneeling on an arm-chair, she imitated the voice and manner of a +preacher she had heard in Rome, and who did not seem to have sufficiently +edified her. + +<p>Through all these various performances she never lost a particle of her +grace, and her most comical attitudes retained a certain elegance. + +<p>After all these frolics she would resume her expression of a listless queen. +Beneath the charm of the life and prestige of this brilliant nature, +Monsieur de Lucan readily forgave Julia the caprices and peculiarities of +which she was lavishly prodigal, especially toward her step-father. She +showed herself generally with him what she had been at the start; friendly +and polite, with a shade of haughty irony; but she had strong inequalities +of temper. Lucan surprised sometimes her gaze riveted upon him with a +painful and almost fierce expression. One day she repelled with sullen +rudeness the hand he offered to assist her in alighting from her horse or +in climbing over a fence. She seemed to avoid every occasion of finding +herself alone with him, and when she could not escape a tete-a-tete of a +few moments, she manifested either restless irritation or mocking +impertinence. Lucan fancied she reproached herself sometimes with belying +too much her former sentiments, and that she thought she owed it to +herself to give them from time to time a token of fidelity. He was +grateful to her, however, for reserving for himself alone these equivocal +manifestations, and for not troubling her mother with them. Upon the whole +he attached but a slight importance to these symptoms. If there still was in +the affectionate manifestations of his step-daughter something of a +struggle and an effort, it was on the part of that haughty nature an +excusable feature, a last resistance, which he flattered himself soon to +remove by multiplying his delicate attentions toward her. + +<p>Some two weeks after Julia's arrival, there was a ball given by the +Marchioness de Boisfresnay, in her chateau of Boisfresnay, which is +situated two or three miles from Vastville. Monsieur and Madame de Lucan +were on pleasant visiting-terms with the marchioness. They went to that +ball with Julia and her husband, the gentlemen in the coupe, the ladies, +on account of their dresses, occupying the carriage alone. Toward +midnight, Clotilde took her husband aside, and pointing to her daughter, +who was waltzing in the adjoining parlor with a naval officer: + +<p>"Hush! my dear," she said; "I have a frightful headache, and Pierre is +fairly bored to death; but we have not the courage to take Julia away so +early. Do you wish to make yourself very agreeable? You'll bring her home, +and we will start now, Pierre and myself; we'll leave you the carriage." + +<p>"Very well, dear," said Lucan, "run off, then." + +<p>Clotilde and Monsieur de Moras slipped away at once. + +<p>A moment later Julia, cleaving her way scornfully through the throng that +parted before her as before an angel of light, raised her superb brow and +made a sign to Lucan. + +<p>"I don't see mother," she said. + +<p>Lucan informed her in a few words of the arrangement which had just been +settled upon. A sudden flash darted across Julia's eyes; her brows became +contracted; she shrugged her shoulders slightly without replying, and +returned into the ball-room, waltzing through the crowd with the same +tranquil insolence. She betook herself again to the arm of a naval +officer, and seemed to enjoy whirling in all her splendor. And indeed her +ball-dress added a strange luster to her beauty. Her shoulders and throat, +emerging from her dress with a sort of chaste indifference, retained even +in the animation of the dance the cold and lustrous purity of marble. + +<p>Lucan asked her to waltz with him; she hesitated, but having consulted her +memory, she discovered that she had not yet exhausted the list of naval +officers who had swooped down in squadrons upon that rich prey. At the +end of an hour she got tired of being admired and called for the carriage. +As she was draping herself in her wrappings in the vestibule, her +step-father volunteered his services. + +<p>"No! I beg of you," she said, impatiently; "men don't know—don't know at all!" + +<p>Then she threw herself in the carriage with a wearied look. However, as +the horses were starting: + +<p>"Smoke, sir," she said with a better grace. + +<p>Lucan thanked her for the permission, but without availing himself of it; +then, while making all his little arrangements of neighborly comfort: + +<p>"You were remarkably handsome to-night, my dear child!" he said. + +<p>"Monsieur," said Julia, in a nonchalant but affirmative tone, "I forbid you +to think me handsome, and I forbid you to call me 'my dear child!'" + +<p>"As you please," said Lucan. "Well, then, you are not handsome, you are +not dear to me, and you are not a child." + +<p>"As for being a child, no!" she said, energetically. + +<p>She wound her vail around her head, crossed her arms over her bosom, and +settled herself in her corner, where a stray moonbeam came occasionally +to play over her whiteness. + +<p>"May I sleep?" she asked. + +<p>"Why, most certainly! Shall I close the window?" + +<p>"If you please. My flowers will not incommode you?" + +<p>"Not in the least." + +<p>After a pause: + +<p>"Monsieur de Lucan?" resumed Julia. + +<p>"Dear madam?" + +<p>"Do explain to me in what consist the usages of society; for there are +things which I do not understand. Is it admissible—is it proper to allow +a woman of my age and a gentleman of yours to return from a ball, +tete-a-tete, at two o'clock in the morning?" + +<p>"But," said Lucan, not without a certain gravity, "I am not a gentleman; +I am your mother's husband." + +<p>"Ah! that is true; of course, you are my mother's husband!" she said, +emphasizing these words in a ringing voice, which caused Lucan to fear +some explosion. + +<p>But, appearing to overcome a violent emotion, she went on in an almost +cheerful tone: + +<p>"Yes, you are my mother's husband; and what is more, you are, according to +my notion, a very bad husband for my mother." + +<p>"According to your notion!" said Lucan, quietly. "And why so?" + +<p>"Because you are not at all suited to her." + +<p>"Have you consulted your mother on that subject, my dear madam? It seems +to me that she must be a better judge of it than yourself." + +<p>"I need not consult her. It is enough to see you both together. My mother +is an angelic creature, whereas you;—no!" + +<p>"What am I, then?" + +<p>"A romantic, restless man—the very reverse, in fact. Sooner or later, +you'll betray her." + +<p>"Never!" said Lucan, somewhat sternly. + +<p>"Are you quite sure of that, sir?" said Julia, riveting her gaze upon him +from the depths of her hood. + +<p>"Dear madam," replied Monsieur de Lucan, "you were asking me, a moment +since, to explain to you what was proper and what was improper; well, it +is improper that we should take, you your mother, and I my wife, as the +text for a jest of that kind, and consequently, it is proper that we +should drop the subject." + +<p>She hushed, remained motionless and closed her eyes. In the course of a +minute or two, Lucan saw a tear fall down her long eyelashes and roll over +her cheek. + +<p>"Mon Dieu! my child," he said, "I have wounded your feelings! Allow me to +tender you my sincere apologies." + +<p>"Keep your apologies to yourself!" she said, in a hoarse voice, opening +her eyes wide at the same time. "I have no need of your apologies any +more than of your lessons! Your lessons! What have I done to deserve such +a humiliation? I cannot understand. What is there more innocent than my +words, and what do you expect me to tell you? Is it my fault if I am here +alone with you! if I am compelled to speak to you?—if I know not what to +say? Why am I exposed to such things? Why ask me more than I can do? It +is presuming too much on my strength! It is enough—it is a thousand +times too much already—to be compelled to act such a comedy as I am +compelled to act every day. God knows I am tired of it!" + +<p>Lucan found it difficult to overcome the painful surprise that had seized +him. + +<p>"Julia," he said at last, "you were kind enough to tell me that we were +friends; I believed you. Is it not true, then?" + +<p>"No!" + +<p>After launching that word with somber energy, she wrapped up her head +and face in her hood and vail, and remained during the rest of the way +plunged into a silence which Monsieur de Lucan did not attempt to disturb. +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>A DISILLUSION.</h3><br> + +<p>After a few hours of painful sleep, Monsieur de Lucan rose the next day, +his brain laden with cares. + +<p>The resumption of hostilities, which had been clearly signified to him +foreboded surely fresh troubles for his peace and fresh anguish for +Clotilde's happiness. Was he, then, about returning to those odious +agitations which had so long harassed his existence, and this time without +any hopes of escape? How, indeed, was it possible not to despair of that +untamable nature which age and reason, which so much attention and +affection had left unmoved in her prejudices and her hatred? How was it +possible to understand, and, above all, ever to overcome the quixotic +sentiment, or rather the mania which had taken possession of that +concentrated soul, and which was smoldering in it, ever ready to break +forth in furious outbursts? + +<p>Clotilde and Julia had not yet made their appearance. Lucan went to take +a walk in the garden, to breathe once more the peace of his beloved +solitude, pending the anticipated storms. At the extremity of an alley of +evergreens, he discovered the Count de Moras, his arm resting on the +pedestal of an old statue, and his eyes fixed on the ground. + +<p>Monsieur de Moras had never been a dreamer, but since his arrival at the +chateau, he had, on more than one occasion, manifested to Lucan a +melancholy state of mind quite foreign to his natural disposition. Lucan +had felt alarmed; nevertheless, as he did not himself like any one to +intrude upon his confidence, he had abstained from questioning him. + +<p>They shook hands as they met. + +<p>"You came home late last night?" inquired the count. + +<p>"At about three o'clock." + +<p>"Oh! <i>povero! Apropos</i>, thanks for your kindness to Julia. How did she +behave to you?" + +<p>"Why—well enough," said Lucan—"a little peculiar, as usual." + +<p>"Oh! peculiar of course!" + +<p>He smiled rather sadly, took Monsieur de Lucan's arm, and leading him +through the meandering paths of the garden: + +<p>"<i>Voyons, mon cher</i>," he said in a suppressed voice, "between you and me, +what is Julia?" + +<p>"How, my friend?" + +<p>"Yes, what sort of a woman is my wife? If you know, do tell me, I beg of +you." + +<p>"Excuse me, but it is the very question I would like to ask of you myself." + +<p>"Of me?" said the count. "But I have not the slightest idea. She is a +Sphinx, a riddle, the solution of which escapes me completely. She both +charms and frightens me. She is peculiar, you said? She is more than that; +she is fantastic. She is not of this world. I know not whom or what I have +married. You remember that cold and beautiful creature in the Arabian +tales who rose at night to go and feast in the graveyard. It's absurd, +but she reminds me of that." + +<p>The count's troubled look, the constrained laugh with which he accompanied +his words, moved Lucan deeply. + +<p>"So, then," said the latter, "you are unhappy?" + +<p>"It is impossible to be more so," replied the count, pressing his hand +hard. "I adore her, and I am jealous—without knowing of whom and of what! +She does not love me—and yet she loves some one—she must love some one! +How can I doubt it? Look at her; she is the very embodiment of passion; +the fire of passion overflows in her words, in her looks, in the blood of +her veins! And near me, she is as cold as the statue upon a tomb!" + +<p>"Frankly, <i>mon cher</i>," said Lucan, "you seem to exaggerate your disasters +greatly. In reality they seem to amount to very little. In the first +place, you are seriously in love for the first time in your life, I think; +you had heard a great deal said about love, about passion, and perhaps +you were expecting of them excessive wonders. In the second place, I must +beg you to observe that very young women are rarely very passionate. +The sort of coolness of which you complain is therefore quite easy to +explain without the intervention of anything supernatural. Young women, +I repeat, are generally idealists; their love has no substance. You ask of +whom or of what you should be jealous? Be jealous, then, of all those +vague and romantic aspirations that torment youthful imaginations; be +jealous of the wind, of the tempest, of the barren moors, of the rugged +cliffs, of my old manor, of my words and of my ruins—for Julia adores all +that. Be jealous, above all, of that ardent worship she has avowed to her +father's memory, and which still absorbs her—I have lately had a proof of +the fact—the keenest of her passion." + +<p>"You do me good," rejoined Pierre de Moras, breathing more freely, +"and yet I had already thought of all these things. But if she does not +love now, she will some day—and suppose it should not be me! Were she to +bestow upon another all that she refuses me! my friend," added the count, +whose handsome features turned pale, "I would kill her with my own hand!" + +<p>"So much for being in love," said Lucan; "and I, am I nothing more to you, +then?" + +<p>"You, my friend," said Moras with emotion, "you see my confidence in you! +I have revealed to you weaknesses of which I am ashamed. Ah! why have +I ever known any other feeling than that of friendship! Friendship alone +returns as much as it receives; it fortifies instead of enervating; it is +the only passion worthy of a man. Never forsake me, my friend; you will +console me, whatever may happen." + +<p>The bell that was ringing for breakfast called them back to the chateau. +Julia pretended being tired and ailing. Under shelter of this pretext, her +silent humor, her more than dry answers to Lucan's polite questions, passed +at first without awakening either her mother's or her husband's attention; +but during the remainder of the day, and amid the various incidents of +family life, Julia's aggressive tone and disagreeable manners toward Lucan +became too strongly marked not to be noticed. However, as Lucan had the +patience and good taste not to seem to notice them, each one kept his own +impressions to himself. The dinner was, that day, more quiet than usual. +The conversation fell, toward the end of the meal, upon extremely delicate +ground, and it was Julia who brought it there, though, however, without the +least thought of evil. She was exhausting her mocking <i>verve</i> upon a +little boy of eight or ten—the son of the Marchioness de Boisfresnay—who +had annoyed her extremely the night before, by parading through the ball +his own pretentious little person, and by throwing himself pleasantly like +a top between the legs of the gentlemen and through the dresses of the +ladies. The marchioness went into ecstasies at these charming pranks. +Clotilde defended her mildly, alleging that this child was her only son. + +<p>"That is no reason for bestowing upon society one scoundrel the more," +said Lucan. + +<p>"However," rejoined Julia, who hastened to be no longer of her own opinion +as soon as her step-father seemed to have rallied to it, "it is a well +acknowledged fact that spoiled children are those who turn out the best." + +<p>"There are at least some exceptions," said Lucan, coldly. + +<p>"I know of none," said Julia. + +<p>"Mon Dieu!" said the Count de Moras in a tone of conciliation, "right or +wrong, it is quite the fashion, nowadays, to spoil children." + +<p>"It is a criminal fashion," said Lucan. "Formerly their parents whipped +them, and thus made men of them." + +<p>"When a man has such a disposition as that," said Julia, "he does not +deserve to have any children—and he has none!" she added with a direct +look that further aggravated the unkind and even cruel intention of her +words. + +<p>Monsieur de Lucan turned very pale. Clotilde's eyes filled with tears. +Julia, embarrassed at her triumph, left the room. Her mother, after +remaining for a few moments, her face covered with her hands, rose from +the table and went to join her. + +<p>"Now, <i>mon cher</i>," said Monsieur de Moras as soon as he found himself +alone with Lucan, "what the mischief took place between you two last night? +You did tell me something about it this morning, but I was so much +absorbed in my own selfish preoccupations, that I paid no attention to it. +But tell me, what did take place between you?" + +<p>"Nothing serious. Only I was able to satisfy myself that she had not yet +forgiven my occupying a place which, according to her ideas, should never +have been filled." + +<p>"What would you advise me to do, George?" rejoined Monsieur de Moras. +"I am ready to do whatever you say. + +<p>"My dear friend," said Lucan, laying gently his hands upon Pierre's +shoulders, "don't be offended, but life in common, under such conditions, +becomes a very difficult matter. It is best not to wait until some +irreparable scene. In Paris we will be able to see each other without +difficulty. I advise you to take her away." + +<p>"Suppose she is not willing." + +<p>"I should speak firmly," said Lucan, looking him straight in the eyes; +"I have some work to do this evening; it happens well and will give you a +good opportunity. In the meantime, <i>au revoir</i>." + +<p>Monsieur de Lucan locked himself up in his library. An hour later, Clotilde +came to join him. + +<p>He could see that she had wept a great deal; but she held out her forehead +to him with her sweetest smile. While he was kissing her, she murmured +simply and in a whisper: + +<p>"Forgive her for my sake!" + +<p>And the charming creature withdrew in haste to hide her emotions. + +<p>The next morning, Monsieur de Lucan, who, as usual, had risen quite early, +had been writing for some time near the library window, which opened at +quite a moderate height on the garden. He was not a little surprised to see +his step-daughter's face appear among the honeysuckle vines that crept +over the iron trellis of the balcony: + +<p>"Monsieur," she said in her most melodious tone, "are you very busy?" + +<p>"Oh, not at all!" he replied, rising at the same time. + +<p>"It's because, you see, the weather is perfectly delightful," she said. +"Will you come and take a walk with me?" + +<p>"Of course I will." + +<p>"Well, come then. Good Heavens! how sweet this honeysuckle does smell!" + +<p>And she snatched off a few flowers, which she threw to Lucan through the +window, with a burst of laughter. He fastened them in his button-hole, +making the gesture of a man who understands nothing of what is going on, +but who has no reason to be angry. + +<p>He found her in fresh morning costume, stamping upon the sand with her +light and impatient foot. + +<p>"Monsieur de Lucan," she cries, gayly, "my mother wishes me to be amiable +with you, my husband wishes it, Heaven wills it, too, I suppose; that's why +I am willing also, and I assure you that I can be very amiable when I try. +You'll see!" + +<p>"Is it possible?" said Lucan. + +<p>"You'll see, sir!" she replied, dropping him with all possible grace, a +regular stage curtsey. + +<p>"And where are we going, pray, madam?" + +<p>"Wherever you like—through the woods, at random, if you please." + +<p>The wooded hills came so close to the chateau, that they bordered with a +fringe of shade one side of the yard. Monsieur de Lucan and Julia took the +first path that came in their way; but it was not long before Julia left the +beaten road-way, to walk at hazard from tree to tree, wandering at random, +beating the thickets with her cane, picking flowers or leaves, stopping in +ecstasy before the luminous bands that striped here and there the mossy +carpets, frankly intoxicated with movement, open air, sunshine, and youth. +While walking, she cast to her companion words of pleasant fellowship, +playful interpellation, childish jests, and caused the woods to ring again +with the melody of her laughter. + +<p>In her admiration for the wild flowers, she had gradually collected a +regular bundle, of which Monsieur de Lucan accepted the burden with +cheerful resignation. Noticing that he was almost bending under the +weight, she sat down upon the gnarled roots of an old oak, in order, she +said, to make a selection among all this pell-mell. She then took upon her +lap the bundles of grass and flowers, and began throwing out everything +that appeared to her of inferior quality. She handed over to Lucan, seated +a step or two from her, whatever she thought fit to retain for the final +bouquet, justifying gravely her decision upon each plant that she +examined: + +<p>"You, my dear, you are too thin! you're pretty, but too short! you, you +smell bad! you, you look stupid." + +<p>Then, turning abruptly into another train of thought, which was not at +first without causing some uneasiness to Monsieur de Lucan: + +<p>"It was you, wasn't it, who advised Pierre to speak to me with firmness?" + +<p>"I?" said Lucan, "what an idea!" + +<p>"It must have been you. You," she went on again, speaking to her flowers, +"you look sickly, good-night! Yes, it must have been you. One might think +you quite meek, to look at you, whereas, on the contrary, you are very +harsh, very tyrannical." + +<p>"Ferocious!" said Lucan. + +<p>"At any rate, I have no fault to find with you for that. You were right; +poor Pierre is too weak with me. I like a man to be a man. And yet he is +very brave, is he not?" + +<p>"Extremely so," said Lucan; "he is capable of the most energetic actions." + +<p>"He looks like it, and yet with me—he is an angel." + +<p>"It is because he loves you." + +<p>"Quite probable!—some of those flowers are so curious. Look at this one; +it looks like a little lady!" + +<p>"I hope that you love him too, my good Pierre?" + +<p>"Quite probable, too!" + +<p>After a pause, she shook her head: + +<p>"And why should I love him?" + +<p>"What a question!" said Lucan. "Why, because he is perfectly worthy of +being loved; because he has every quality; intelligence, heart, and even +beauty—finally, because you have married him." + +<p>"Monsieur de Lucan, will you allow me to tell you something +confidentially?" + +<p>"I beg you to do so." + +<p>"That trip to Italy has been very injurious to me." + +<p>"In what way?" + +<p>"Before my marriage, I did not think myself positively ugly, but I fancied +myself at least quite plain." + +<p>"Yes! Well?" + +<p>"Well! while traveling about Italy, among all those souvenirs and those +marbles, so much admired, I made strange reflections. I said to myself +that, after all, these princesses and goddesses of the ancient world, who +drove shepherds and kings mad, for whose sake wars broke out and +sacrileges were committed, were persons pretty much after my own style. +Then occurred to me the fatal idea of my own beauty! I felt that I +disposed of an exceptional power; that I was a sacred object that could +not be given away for a vulgar trifle, and which could only be the +reward—how can I say?—of a great deed or of a crime!" + +<p>Lucan remained for a moment astonished at the audacious naivete of +that language. He thought best, however, to laugh at it. + +<p>"But, my dear Julia," he said, "take care; you mistake the age. We are no +longer in the days when nations went to war for the sake of a woman's +pretty eyes. However, speak about it to Pierre; he has everything required +to furnish the great action you want. As to the crime, I think you had +better give it up." + +<p>"Do you think so?" said Julia. "What a pity!" she added, bursting out +into a hearty laugh. "You see, I tell you all the nonsense that comes in my +head. That's amiable enough, I hope, is it not?" + +<p>"It is certainly extremely amiable," said Lucan. "Keep on." + +<p>"With such precious encouragement, sir!" she said, rising and finishing +her sentence with a courtesy; "but for the present, let us go to breakfast. +I recommend my bouquet to your attention. Hold the head down. Walk +ahead, sir, and by the shortest road, if you please, for I have an +appetite that is bringing tears to my eyes." + +<p>Lucan took the path that led most directly to the chateau. She followed +him with nimble step, at times humming a cavatina, at others addressing +him fresh instructions as to the manner of holding her bouquet, or +touching him lightly with the end of her cane, to make him admire some +birds perched upon a branch. + +<p>Clotilde and Monsieur de Moras were waiting for them, seated upon a +bench outside the gate of the chateau. The anxiety depicted upon their +countenances vanished at the sound of Julia's laughing voice. + +<p>As soon as she saw them, she snatched the bouquet from Lucan's hands, ran +toward Clotilde, and throwing on her lap her fragrant harvest: + +<p>"Mother," she said, "we have had a delightful walk—I had a great deal +of fun; Monsieur de Lucan also, and what's more, he has improved very +much by my conversation, I opened up new horizons to him!" + +<p>She described with her hand a great curve in the air, to indicate the +immensity of the horizons she had opened up to Monsieur de Lucan. Then, +drawing her mother toward the dining-room, and snuffing the air with +apparent relish: + +<p>"Oh! that kitchen of my mother's!" she said. "What an aroma!" + +<p>This charming humor, which was a source of great rejoicing to all the +guests of the chateau, never flagged during that entire day, and, most +unexpected of all, it continued during the next and the following days +without perceptible change. If Julia did still nurture any remnants of her +moody cares, she had at least the kindness of keeping them to herself, and +to suffer alone. More than once, still, she was seen returning from her +solitary excursions with gloomy eye and clouded brow; but she shook off +these equivocal dispositions as soon as she found herself again in the +family circle, and was all amiability. + +<p>Toward Monsieur de Lucan particularly she showed herself most agreeable; +feeling, probably, that she had many amends to make in that direction. +She went so far as to take up a great deal of his time without much +discretion, and to call him a little too often in requisition for walks or +rides, for tapestry drawings, for playing duets with her, sometimes for +nothing, simply to disturb him, standing in front of his windows, and +asking him, in the midst of his reading, all sorts of burlesque questions. +All this was charming; Monsieur de Lucan lent himself to it with the +utmost good nature, and did not surely deserve great credit for doing so. + +<p>About this time, the Baroness de Pers came to spend three days with +her daughter. She was at once advised, with full particulars, of the +miraculous change that had taken place in Julia's character, and of her +behavior toward her step-father. On witnessing the gracious attentions +which she lavished upon Monsieur de Lucan, Madame de Pers manifested +the liveliest satisfaction, in the midst of which, however, could be +seen at times some slight traces of her former prejudices against her +grand-daughter. + +<p>The day before the expected departure of the baroness, some of the +neighbors were invited to dinner for her gratification, for she had but +very little taste for the intimacy of family life, and was passionately +fond of strangers. For want of time to do any better, they gave her for +company, the cure of Vastville, the local physician, the receiver of +taxes, and recorder of deeds, all of whom were tolerably frequent guests +at the chateau, and great admirers of Julia. It was doubtless not a great +deal; it was enough, however, to furnish to the baroness an occasion for +wearing one of her handsome dinner-dresses. + +<p>Julia, during the dinner, seemed to make it a point to effect the conquest +of the cure, a simple old man, who yielded to his fair neighbor's +fascinations with a sort of joyous stupor. She made him eat, she made him +drink, she made him laugh. + +<p>"What a little serpent she is, isn't she, Monsieur le Cure?" said the +baroness. + +<p>"She is very lovely," said the cure. + +<p>"Enough to make one shudder," rejoined the baroness. + +<p>In the evening, after waltzing for a little while around the room, Julia, +accompanied by her husband, sang in her beautiful, grave voice, some +unpublished melodies and national songs she had brought back from Italy. +One of these tunes having reminded her of a sort of tarentella she had +seen danced by some women at Procida, she requested her husband to play +it. She was explaining at the same time, with much animation, how this +tarentella was danced, giving a rapid outline of the steps, the gestures +and the attitudes; then, suddenly carried away by the ardor of her +narrative: + +<p>"Wait a moment, Pierre," she said, "I am going to dance it. That will be +much more simple." + +<p>She lifted the long train of her dress, which impeded her movements, and +requested her mother to loop it up with pins. In the meantime she was +right busy herself; there were on the mantel-piece, and on the consoles, +vases filled with flowers and verdure; she drew freely from them with her +nimble fingers, and, standing before a mirror, she fastened and twined +pell-mell, in her magnificent hair, flowers, leaves, bunches, ears, +anything that happened to fall under her hands. With her head loaded with +that heavy and quivering wreath, she came to place herself in the center +of the parlor. + +<p>"Go on now, dear!" she said to Monsieur de Moras. He played the +tarentella, that began with a sort of slow and measured ballet-step, +which Julia performed in her own masterly style, folding and unfolding in +turn, like two garlands, her peri's arms; then the rhythm becoming more +and more animated, she struck the floor with her rapid and repeated steps, +with the wild suppleness and the wanton smile of a young bacchante. +Suddenly she brought the performance to a close with a long slide that +carried her, all panting, before Monsieur de Lucan, seated opposite to +her. There, she bent one knee, lay with rapid gesture both her hands upon +her hair, and tossing about at the same time her inclined head, she shook +off her crown in a shower of flowers at the feet of Lucan, saying in her +sweetest voice, and in a tone of gracious homage: + +<p>"There! sir!" + +<p>After which, she rose, and, still sliding, made her way to an arm-chair, +into which she threw herself, and taking up the cure's three-cornered hat, +she began to fan herself vigorously with it. + +<p>In the midst of the applause and the laughter that filled the parlor, the +Baroness de Pers drew gently nearer to Lucan on the sofa which they +were jointly occupying, and said to him in a whisper: + +<p>"Tell me, my dear sir, what in the world is the meaning of this new +system? Do you know that I still preferred the old style myself?" + +<p>"How, dear madam? And why so?" said Lucan simply. + +<p>But before the baroness had time to explain, admitting that such was her +intention, Julia was taken with another fancy. + +<p>"Really," she said, "I am smothering here. Monsieur de Lucan, do offer me +your arm." + +<p>She went out, and Lucan followed her. She stopped in the vestibule to +cover her head with her great white vail, seemed to hesitate between the +door that led into the garden and that which led into the yard, and then +deciding: + +<p>"To the Ladies' Walk," she said; "it's coolest there." + +<p>"The Ladies' Walk," which was Julia's favorite strolling resort, opened +opposite the avenue, on the other side of the court-yard. It was a gently +sloping path contrived between the rocky base of the wooded hill and the +banks of a ravine that seemed to have been one of the moats of the old +castle. A brook flowed at the bottom of this ravine with a melancholy +murmur; it became merged, a little farther off, into a small lake shaded +by willows, and guarded by two old marble nymphs, to which the Ladies' +Walk was indebted for its name, consecrated by the local tradition. +Half-way between the yard and the pond, fragments of wall and broken +arches, the evident remnants of some outer fortification, rose against the +hill-side; for the space of a few paces, these ruins bordered the path +with their heavy buttresses, and projected into it, together with festoons +of ivy and briar, a mass of shade which night changed into densest +darkness. It looked then as if the passage was broken by an abyss. The +gloomy character of this site was not, however, without some mitigating +features; the path was strewn with fine, dry sand; rustic benches stood +against the bluff; finally, the grassy banks that sloped down into the +ravine were dotted with hyacinths, violets, and dwarf roses whose perfume +rose and lingered in that shaded alley like the odor of incense in a +church. + +<p>It was then about the end of July, and the heat had been overpowering +during the day. After leaving the atmosphere of the court-yard, still aglow +with the fires of the setting sun, Julia breathed eagerly the cool air of +the woods and of the brook. + +<p>"Dieu! how delightful this is!" she said. + +<p>"But I am afraid this may be a little too delightful," said Lucan; "allow +me." + +<p>And he wound up in a double fold round her neck the floating ends of her +vail. + +<p>"What! do you value my life, then?" she said. + +<p>"Most undoubtedly." + +<p>"That's magnanimous!" + +<p>She walked a few steps in silence, resting lightly upon the arm of her +companion, and rocking, in her peculiar way, her graceful figure. + +<p>"Your good cure must take me for a species of demon," she added. + +<p>"He is not the only one," said Lucan, with ironical coldness. + +<p>She laughed a short and constrained laugh; then, after another pause, and +while continuing to walk with downcast eyes: + +<p>"You must certainly hate me a little less now; say, don't you?" + +<p>"A little less." + +<p>"Be serious, will you? I know that I have made you suffer a great deal. +Are you beginning to forgive me now?" + +<p>Her voice had assumed an accent of tenderness quite unusual to it, and +which touched Monsieur de Lucan. + +<p>"I forgive you with all my heart, my child," he replied. + +<p>She stopped, and grasping his two hands: + +<p>"True? We will not hate each other any more?" she said, in a low and +apparently timid tone. "You love me a little?" + +<p>"Thank you," said Lucan, with grave emotion; "thank you; I love you very +much." + +<p>As she was drawing him gently toward her he clasped her in a frank and +affectionate embrace, and pressed his lips upon the forehead she was +holding up to him; but at the same instant he felt her supple figure +stiffen; her head rolled back; then she sank bodily, and slipped in his +arms like a flower whose stem has suddenly been mowed down. + +<p>There was a bench within two steps; he carried her there, but after laying +her upon it, instead of affording her the required assistance, he remained +in an attitude of strange immobility before that lovely and helpless form. +A long silence followed, broken only by the gentle and monotonous ripple +of the brook. Shaking off his stupor at last, Monsieur de Lucan called out +several times in a loud and almost harsh voice: + +<p>"Julia! Julia!" + +<p>As she remained motionless still, he ran down into the ravine, took some +water in the hollow of his hand, and bathed her temples with it. In the +course of a minute or two, he saw her eyes opening in the darkness, and +he helped her raise her head. + +<p>"What is it?" she said, looking at him with a wild expression; "what has +happened, sir?" + +<p>"Why, you fainted," said Lucan, laughing. + +<p>"Fainted?" repeated Julia. + +<p>"Of course; that's just what I feared; you must have been benumbed by the +cold. Can you walk? Come, try." + +<p>"Perfectly well," she said, rising and taking his arm. + +<p>Like all those who experience sudden prostration, Julia remembered, but in +a very indistinct manner, the circumstance that had brought about her fainting. + +<p>In the meantime they had resumed their walk slowly in the direction of the +chateau. + +<p>"Fainted!" she repeated, gayly; "mon Dieu! how perfectly ridiculous!" + +<p>Then, with sudden animation: + +<p>"But what did I say? Did I speak at all?" + +<p>"You said, 'I am cold!' and away you went!" + +<p>"Just like that?" + +<p>"Just like that." + +<p>"Did you think I was dead?" + +<p>"I did hope for a moment that you were," said Lucan, coldly. + +<p>"How horrid of you! But we were talking before that. What were we +saying?" + +<p>"We were making a pact of amity and friendship." + +<p>"Well! it doesn't look much like it now, Monsieur de Lucan!" + +<p>"Madam?" + +<p>"You seem positively angry with me because I fainted." + +<p>"Of course I am. In the first place, I don't like that sort of adventures, +and then, it is wholly your own fault; you are so imprudent, so +unreasonable!" + +<p>"Oh! mon Dieu! Don't you want a switch?" + +<p>And as the lights of the chateau were coming into sight: + +<p>"<i>Apropos</i>, don't trouble mother with any of that nonsense, will you?" + +<p>"Certainly not; you may rest easy on that score." + +<p>"You are just as cross as you can be, you know?" + +<p>"Probably I am; but I have just spent there a few minutes so very painful." + +<p>"I pity you with all my heart," said Julia, dryly. + +<p>She threw off her vail in the vestibule, and returned to the parlor. + +<p>The Baroness de Pers, who was to leave early the next day, had already +retired. Julia performed some four-handed pieces on the piano with her +mother. Monsieur de Lucan took the place of the "dummy" at the whist +table, and the evening ended quietly. +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3>VICTORY AND DEFEAT.</h3><br> + +<p>The next morning, Clotilde was preparing to accompany her mother to the +station in the carriage; Monsieur de Lucan, detained at the chateau by a +business appointment, was present to take leave of his mother-in-law. +He remarked the thoughtful countenance of the baroness; she was silent, +much against her habit, and she cast embarrassed looks upon him; she +approached him several times with a constrained smile and confidential +manner, but confined herself to addressing to him a few commonplace +words. Availing herself at last of a moment when Clotilde was giving some +orders, she leaned out of the carriage-window, and, pressing significantly +Monsieur de Lucan's hand: + +<p>"Be true and faithful to her, sir!" she said. + +<p>The carriage started almost immediately, but not before he had had time to +notice that her eyes were filled with tears. + +<p>The matter that was engrossing Monsieur de Lucan's attention at the time, +and on the subject of which he had had a long conversation that very +morning with his lawyer and his advocate, who had come over from Caen +during the night, was an old family law-suit which the mayor of Vastville, +an ambitious personage and restless busy-body, had taken pride in bringing +to light again. The question at issue was a claim for some public property +the effect of which would have been to strip Monsieur de Lucan of a portion +of his timbered lands and to curtail materially his patrimonial estate. He +had gained his suit in the lower court, but an appeal was soon to be heard, +and he was not without fears as to the final result. He had no difficulty +in using that pretext, to account during the next few days, to the eyes of +the inhabitants of the chateau, for a severity of physiognomy, a briefness +of language, and a fondness for solitude, which concealed perhaps graver +cares. That pretext, however, soon failed him. A telegram informed him, +early the following week, that the suit had been finally decided in his +favor, and he was compelled to manifest on this occasion an apparent joy +that was far indeed from his heart. + +<p>He resumed from that moment the usual routine of family life to which +Julia continued to impart the movement of her active imagination. +However, he ceased to lend himself with the same affectionate +familiarity to the caprices of his step-daughter. She noticed it; but she +was not the only one who did. Lucan detected surprise in the eyes of +Monsieur de Moras, reproaches in those of Clotilde. A new danger appeared +before him; he was acting in a manner which it was equally impossible, +equally perilous to explain or to allow being interpreted. + +<p>With time, however, the frightful light that had flashed across his brain +in a recent circumstance was growing gradually fainter; it had ceased to +fill his mind with the same convincing force. He conceived doubts; he +accused himself at times on a veritable aberration; he charged the +baroness with cruel and guilty prejudices; he thought, in a word, that, +at all events, the wisest course was to avoid believing in the drama, and +giving it life by taking a serious part in it. Unfortunately Julia's +disposition, full of surprises and unforeseen whims, scarcely admitted of +any regular plan of conduct toward her. + +<p>One beautiful afternoon, the guests of the chateau accompanied by a few +of the neighbors, had gone on a horseback excursion to the extremity +of Cape La Hague. On the return home, and when they had come about +half-way, Julia, who had been remarkably quiet all day, left the principal +group of riders, and, casting aside to Monsieur de Lucan an expressive +glance, she urged her horse slightly forward. He overtook her almost +immediately. She cast upon him again an oblique glance, and abruptly, +with her bitterest and most incisive accent: + +<p>"Is my presence dangerous to you, sir?" + +<p>"How, dangerous?" he said, laughingly. "I do not understand you, my dear +madam." + +<p>"Why do you avoid me? What have I done to you? What means this new +and disagreeable manner which you affect toward me? It is really a very +strange thing that you should become less polite to me, as I am more so to +you. They persecute one for years to induce me to show you a pleasant +countenance, and when I try my best to do so, you pout. What does it mean? +What has got into your head? I should be infinitely curious to know." + +<p>"It is quite simple, and I am going to enlighten you in two words. It has +got into my head that after being not very amiable to me, you are now +almost too much so. I am sincerely touched and charmed at it; but I really +fear, sometimes, to turn too much to my own profit attentions to which +I am far from having the sole right. You know how fond I am of your +husband. There can be no question of jealousy in this case, of course; +but a man's love is proud and prompt to take umbrage. Without stooping to +low and otherwise impossible sentiments, Pierre, seeing himself somewhat +neglected, might feel offended and afflicted, at which we would both be +greatly grieved, would we not?" + +<p>"I do not know how to do anything half-way," she said with a gesture of +impatience. "How can I change my nature? It is with my own heart, and not +with that of another, that I love and that I hate; and then, why should it +not enter into my plans to excite Pierre's jealousy? My old traditional +hatred for you has perhaps made this deep calculation; he would kill +either you or me, and that would be as good a denouement as any other." + +<p>"You must allow me to prefer another," said Lucan, still trying, but +without much success, to give a cheerful turn to this wildly passionate +conversation. + +<p>"However," she went on, "you may rest easy, my dear sir. Pierre is not +jealous. He suspects nothing, as they say in plays!" + +<p>She laughed one of her wicked laughs, and added at once in a graver tone: + +<p>"And what could he suspect? In being amiable toward you, I am merely +acting under order, and no one can tell how much of it is genuine and +how much put on." + +<p>"I feel quite certain that you don't know yourself," he said, laughingly. +"You are a person of naturally restless disposition; you require agitation, +and when there is none you try to imitate it as best as you can. +Whether you like, or whether you don't like your step-father, is not a very +dramatic affair. There is no room here for any but very simple and very +ordinary sentiments. It is well enough to complicate them a little—is it +not, my dear?" + +<p>"Yes, my dear!" she said, emphasizing ironically the last word. + +<p>Whereupon she started her horse at a gallop. + +<p>They were then just reaching the edge of the woods. He soon saw her leave +the direct road that led across them, and take a path over the heath as +if intending to dash through the thickest of the timber. At the same +instant Clotilde ran up to him, and touching his shoulder with the tip of +her whip: + +<p>"Where in the world is Julia going?" she said. + +<p>Lucan replied with a vague gesture and a smile. + +<p>"I am sure," rejoined Clotilde, "that she is going to drink at that +fountain, yonder. She was complaining a little while since of being +thirsty. Do follow her, dear, will you, and prevent her doing so. She is +so warm! It might be fatal to her. Run, I beg of you." + +<p>Monsieur de Lucan gave the reins to his horse, and he started like the +wind. Julia had already disappeared under cover of the woods. He +followed her track; but among the timber, the roots and the roughness of +the ground somewhat checked his speed. At a short distance, in the center +of a narrow clearing, the labor of ages and the filtrations of the soil +had hollowed out one of those mysterious fountains whose limpid water, +moss-grown banks, and aspect of deep solitude delight the imagination, +and give rise to so many poetic legends. When Monsieur de Lucan was able +once more to see Julia, she had alighted from her horse. The admirably +trained animal stood quietly two or three steps away, browsing the young +foliage, while his mistress, down on her knees and stooping over the edge +of the spring, was drinking from her hands. + +<p>"Julia, I beg of you!" exclaimed Monsieur de Lucan in an imploring tone. + +<p>She started to her feet with a sort of elastic spring, and greeted him +gayly. + +<p>"Too late, sir!" she said; "but I only drank a few drops, just a few +little wee drops, I assure you!" + +<p>"You must really be out of your mind!" said Lucan who was by this time +quite close to her. + +<p>"Do you think so?" + +<p>She was shaking her beautiful white hands, which had served her for a +drinking-cup, and which seemed to throw off a shower of diamonds. + +<p>"Give me your handkerchief!" + +<p>Lucan handed her his handkerchief. She wiped her hands gravely; then, as +she returned the handkerchief with her right hand, she raised herself on +tiptoe and held her left hand up to the level of his face: + +<p>"There! now; don't scold any more!" + +<p>Lucan kissed the hand. + +<p>"The other now," she said again. "Please don't turn so pale, sir!" + +<p>Monsieur Lucan affected not to have heard these last words, and came +down abruptly from his horse. + +<p>"I must help you to mount," he said, in a dry and harsh voice. + +<p>She was putting on her gloves with downcast look. Suddenly raising her +head and looking at him with fixed gaze: + +<p>"What a miserable wretch I am, am I not?" she said. + +<p>"No," said Lucan; "but what an unhappy being!" + +<p>She leaned against one of the trees that shaded the spring, her head +partially thrown back and one hand over her eyes. + +<p>"Come!" said Lucan. + +<p>She obeyed, and he assisted her to get on her horse. They rode out of the +wood without uttering another word, made their way to the road, and +soon overtook the cavalcade. + +<p>As soon as he had recovered from the anguish of that scene, Monsieur de +Lucan did not hesitate to think that the departure of Julia and of her +husband must be the immediate and inevitable consequence of it; but when +he came to seek some means of bringing about their sudden departure, his +mind became lost in difficulties that he could not solve. What motive +could he indeed offer to justify, in the eyes of Clotilde and of Monsieur +de Moras, a determination so novel and so unexpected? It was now the +middle of August, and it had been agreed for a long time that the entire +family should return to Paris on the first of September. The very proximity +of the time fixed upon for the general departure would only serve to make +the pretext invoked to explain this sudden separation appear more +unlikely. It was almost impossible that it should not awaken in the mind +of Clotilde, and in that of the count, irreparable suspicions and a light +fatal to the happiness of both. The remedy seemed indeed more to be +dreaded than the evil itself; for, if the evil was great, it was at least +unknown to those whose lives and whose hearts it would have shattered, and +it could still be hoped that it might remain so forever. Monsieur de Lucan +thought for a moment of going away himself; but it was still more +impossible to justify his departure than it was that of Julia's. + +<p>All these reflections being made, he resolved to arm himself with patience +and courage. Once in Paris, separate dwellings, less frequent intercourse, +the obligations of the world, and the activity of life, would doubtless +afford relief and then a peaceful solution to a painful and formidable +situation which it was henceforth impossible for him not to view in its +true light. He relied upon himself, and also upon Julia's natural +generosity, for reaching without outburst and without rupture the +approaching term that was to put an end to their life in common and to its +incessant perils. It ought not to be impossible to endure, for the short +period of two weeks more, the threatenings of a storm that had been +brewing for months without revealing its lightning. He was forgetting with +what frightful rapidity the maladies of the soul, as well as those of the +body, after reaching slowly and gradually certain stages, suddenly +precipitate their progress and their ravages. + +<p>Monsieur de Lucan asked himself whether he should not inform Julia of the +conduct he had resolved to follow, and of the reasons that had dictated +it; but every shadow of an explanation between them appeared to him +eminently improper and dangerous. Their confidential understanding upon +such a subject would have assumed an air of complicity which was repugnant +to all his sentiments of honor. Despite the terrible light that had flashed +forth, there still remained between them something obscure, undecided, and +unconfessed that he thought best to preserve at any cost. Far, therefore, +from seeking opportunities for some private interview, he avoided them all +from that moment with scrupulous care. Julia seemed penetrated with the +same feeling of reserve, and anxious to the same degree as himself to +avoid any tete-a-tete, while striving to save appearances; but in that +respect she did not dispose of that power of dissimulation which Lucan +owed to his natural and acquired firmness. He was able, without visible +effort, to hide under his habitual air of gravity the anxieties that +consumed him. Julia did not succeed, without an almost convulsive +restraint, in carrying with bold and smiling countenance the burden of her +thought. To the only witness who knew the secret of her struggles, it was +a poignant spectacle to behold the gracious and feverish animation of +which the unhappy child sustained the appearance with so much difficulty. +He saw her sometimes at a distance, like an exhausted comedienne, retiring +to some isolated bench in the garden, and fairly panting with her hand +pressing upon her bosom, as if to keep down her rebellious heart. He felt +then, in spite of all, overcome with immense pity in presence of so much +beauty and so much misery. + +<p>Was it only pity? + +<p>The attitude, the words, the looks of Clotilde and of Julia's husband +were at the same time, for Monsieur de Lucan, the objects of constant and +uneasy observation. Clotilde had evidently not conceived the slightest +alarm. The gentle serenity of her features remained unaltered. A few +oddities, more or less, in Julia's ways did not constitute a sufficient +novelty to attract her particular attention. Her mind, moreover, was too +far away from the monstrous abysses yawning at her side; she might have +stepped into them and been swallowed up, before she had suspected their +existence. + +<p>The blonde, placid, and handsome countenance of the Count de Moras +retained at all times, like Lucan's dark face, a sort of sculptural +firmness. It was, therefore, rather difficult to read upon it the +impressions of a soul which was naturally strong and self-controlling. On +one point, however, that soul had become weak. Monsieur de Lucan was not +ignorant of the fact; he was aware of the count's ardent love for Julia, +and of the sickly susceptibility of his passion. + +<p>It seemed unlikely that such a sentiment, if it were seriously set at +defiance, should not betray itself in some violent or at least perceptible +exterior sign. Monsieur de Lucan, in reality, was unable to observe any of +these dreaded symptoms. If he did occasionally surprise a fugitive wrinkle +on his brow, a doubtful intonation, a fugitive or absent glance, he might +believe at most in some return of that vague and chimerical jealousy with +which he knew the count to have been long tormented. Besides, he saw him +carrying into their family circle the same impassive and smiling face, +and he continued to receive from him the same tokens of cordiality. +Oppressed, nevertheless by his legitimate scruples of loyalty and +friendship, he had for one moment the mad temptation of revealing to the +count the trial that was imposed upon them; but while revealing his own +heart, would not such a delicate and cruel confession break the heart of +his friend? And, moreover, would not such a pretended act of loyalty, +involving the betrayal of a woman's secret, be tainted with cowardice and +treason? + +<p>It was necessary, therefore, amid so many dangers and so much anxiety, to +sustain alone, and to the end, the weight of that trial, more complicated +and more perilous still, perhaps, than Monsieur de Lucan was willing to +admit to himself. + +<p>It was to come to an end much sooner than he could possibly have +anticipated. + +<p>Clotilde and her husband, accompanied by Monsieur and Madame de Moras, +went one day, in the carriage, to visit the ruins of a covered gallery +which is one of the rarest of druidical antiquities in the country. These +ruins lay at the back of a picturesque little bay, scooped out in the +rocky wall that borders the eastern shore of the peninsula. Their +shapeless masses are strewn over one of those grass-clad spurs that extend +here and there to the foot of the cliff like giant buttresses. They are +reached, despite the steepness of the hill, by an easy winding road that +leads, with long, meandering turns, down to the yellow, sandy beach of the +little bay. Clotilde and Julia made a sketch of the old Celtic temple +while the gentlemen were smoking; then they amused themselves for some +time watching the rising waves spreading upon the sand its fringes of +foam. It was agreed to return to the top of the hill on foot in order to +relieve the horses. + +<p>The carriage, on a sign from Lucan, started ahead. Clotilde took the arm +of Monsieur de Moras, and they began ascending slowly the sinuous road. +Lucan was waiting Julia's good pleasure before following them; she had +remained a few steps aside, engaged in animated conversation with an old +fisherman who was busy setting his bait in the hollow of the rocks. She +turned toward Lucan, and slightly raising her voice: + +<p>"He says there is another path, much shorter and quite easy, close by +here, along the face of the cliff. I am strongly inclined to take it and +avoid that tiresome road." + +<p>"Believe me, do nothing of the kind," said Lucan; "what is a very easy +path for the country people may prove a very arduous one for you and +even for me." + +<p>After further conference with the fisherman: + +<p>"He says," rejoined Julia, "that there is really no danger, and that +children go up and down that way every day. He is going to guide me to +the foot of the path, and then I'll only have to go straight up. Tell +mother I'll be up there as soon as you all are." + +<p>"Your mother will be dreadfully anxious." + +<p>"Tell her there is no danger." + +<p>Lucan, giving up the attempt to resist any longer a fancy that was growing +impatient, went up to the footman who carried Julia's album and shawl; he +requested him to reassure Clotilde and Monsieur de Moras, who had +already disappeared behind one of the angles of the road; then returned +to Julia. + +<p>"Whenever you are ready," he said. + +<p>"You are coming with me?" + +<p>"As a matter of course." + +<p>The old fisherman preceded them, following close to the foot of the +cliffs. After leaving the sandy beach of the bay, the shore was covered +with angular rocks and gigantic fragments of granite that made walking +extremely painful. Although the distance was very short, they were already +breaking down with fatigue when they reached the entrance to the path, +which appeared to Lucan, and perhaps to Julia herself, much less safe +and commodious than the fisherman had pretended. Neither one nor the +other, however, attempted to make any objection. After a few last +recommendations and directions, their old guide withdrew, quite pleased +with Lucan's generosity. Both began then resolutely to scale the cliff +which, at this point of the coast, is known as the cliff of Jobourg, and +rises some three hundred feet above the level of the ocean. + +<p>At the beginning of this ascension, they broke the silence they had +hitherto maintained, in order to exchange some jesting remarks upon the +charms and comforts of this goat's-path; but the real and even alarming +difficulties of the road soon proved sufficient to absorb their entire +attention. The faintly beaten path disappeared at times on the barren +rock, or under some recent land-slide. They had much trouble finding the +broken thread again. Their feet hesitated upon the polished surface of the +stone, or the short and slippery grass. There were moments when they felt +as if they stood upon an almost vertical slope, and if they attempted to +stop and take breath, the vast spaces stretching before them, the +boundless extent, the dazzling and metallic brilliancy of the sea, caused +them a sensation of dizziness and as of a floating motion. Though the sky +was low and cloudy, a heavy and storm-laden heat weighed upon them +and stimulated the action of their blood. Lucan walked first, with a sort +of feverish excitement, turning around from time to time to cast a +glance at Julia, who followed him closely, then looking up to see some +resting-point, some platform upon which they might breathe for a moment in +safety. But above him, as below, there was naught save the perpendicular +and sometimes overhanging cliff. Suddenly Julia called out to him in a +tone of anguish: + +<p>"Monsieur! monsieur! please, oh! please—my head is whirling!" + +<p>He walked rapidly back a few steps at the risk +of tumbling down, and, grasping her hand energetically: + +<p>"Come! come!" he said, with a smile, "what is the matter?—a brave person +like you!" + +<p>"It would require wings!" she said, faintly. + +<p>Lucan began at once to climb the path again, supporting and almost +dragging Julia, who had nearly fainted. + +<p>He had at last the gratification of setting his foot upon a projection of +the ground, a sort of narrow esplanade jutting from the rock. He succeeded +in drawing Julia upon it. But she sank at once in his arms, and her head +rested upon his chest. He could hear her arteries and her heart throbbing +with frightful force. Then, gradually, her agitation subsided. She lifted +her head gently, opened her long eyelashes, and looking at him with +rapturous eyes: + +<p>"I am so happy!" she murmured; "I wish I could die so!" + +<p>Lucan pushed her off from him the length of his arm, then, suddenly +seizing her again and clasping her tightly to his heart, he cast upon her +a troubled glance, and then another upon the abyss. She certainly thought +they were about to die. A slight tremor passed across her lips; she +smiled; her head half rolled back: + +<p>"With you?" she said—"what happiness!" + +<p>At the same moment, the sound of voices was heard a short distance above +them. Lucan recognized Clotilde's and the count's voices. His arm suddenly +relaxed and dropped from Julia's waist. He pointed out to her, without +speaking, but with an imperious gesture, the path that wound around +the rock. + +<p>"Without you, then!" she said, in a gentle and proud tone. And she began +ascending. + +<p>Two minutes later, they reached the plateau above the cliff, and related +to Clotilde the perils of their ascension, which explained sufficiently +their evident agitation. At least they thought so. + +<p>During the evening of this same day, Julia, Monsieur de Moras, and +Clotilde were walking after dinner under the evergreens of the garden. +Monsieur de Lucan, after keeping them company for a short time, had just +retired, under pretense of writing some letters. He remained, however, +but a few minutes in the library, where the sound of the others' voices +reached his ears and disturbed his attention. A desire for absolute +solitude, for meditation, perhaps also some whimsical and unaccountable +feeling, led him to that very ladies' walk stamped for him with such an +indelible recollection. + +<p>He walked slowly through it for some time, in the deepening shades with +which the falling night was rapidly filling it. He wished to consult his +soul, as it were, face to face, to probe like a man his mind to its utmost +depths. What he discovered there terrified him. It was a mad intoxication, +which the savor of crime further heightened. Duty, loyalty, honor, all +that rose before his passion to oppose it only exasperated its fury. The +pagan Venus was gnawing at his heart, and instilling her most subtle +poisons into it. The image of the fatal beauty was there without truce, +present in his burning brain, before his dazzled eyes; he inhaled with +avidity and in spite of himself, its languor, its perfume, its breath. + +<p>The sound of light footsteps upon the sand caused him to suspend +his march. He caught through the darkness a glimpse of a white form +approaching him. + +<p>It was she! + +<p>Without giving scarce a thought to the act, he threw himself behind the +obscure angle formed by one of those massive pillars that supported the +ruins against the side of the hill. A mass of verdure made the darkness +there more dense still. She went by, her eyes fixed upon the ground, with +her supple and rhythmical step. She walked as far as the little pond that +received the waters of the brook, stood dreaming for a few moments upon +its edge, and then returned. A second tune she went by the ruins, without +raising her eyes, and as if deeply absorbed. Lucan remained convinced that +she had not suspected his presence, when suddenly she turned her head +slightly around, without interrupting her march, and she cast behind her +that single word, "Farewell," in a tone so gentle, so musical, so +sorrowful, that it was somewhat like the sound of a tear falling upon a +sonorous crystal. + +<p>That minute was a supreme one. It was one of those moments during which a +man's life is decided for eternal good or for eternal evil. Monsieur de +Lucan felt it so. Had he yielded to the attraction of passion, of +intoxication, of pity, that was urging him with almost irresistible force +on the footsteps of that beautiful and unhappy woman—that was on the +point of casting him at her feet, upon her heart—he felt that he became +at once and forever a lost and desperate soul. Such a crime, were it even +to remain wholly ignored, separated him forever from all he had ever +respected, all he had ever held sacred and inviolate; there was nothing +left for him either upon earth or in heaven; there was no longer any +faith, probity, honor, friend, or God! The whole moral world vanished for +him in that single instant. + +<p>He accepted her farewell, and made no reply. The white form moved away +and soon disappeared in the darkness. + +<p>The evening was spent in the home circle as usual. Julia, pale, moody, and +haughty, worked silently at her tapestry. Lucan observed that on taking +leave of her mother she was kissing her with unusual effusion. + +<p>He soon retired also. Assailed by the most formidable apprehensions, he +did not undress. Toward morning only, he threw himself all dressed upon +the bed. It was about five o'clock, and scarcely daylight as yet, when he +fancied he heard muffled steps on the carpet, in the hall and on the +stairs. He rose again at once. The windows of his room opened upon the +court. He saw Julia cross it, dressed in riding costume. She went into the +stable and came out again after a few moments. A groom brought her her +horse, and assisted her in mounting. The man, accustomed to Julia's +somewhat eccentric manners, saw apparently nothing alarming in that fancy +for an early ride. Monsieur de Lucan, after a few minutes of excited +thought, took his resolution. He directed his steps toward the room of the +Count de Moras. To his extreme surprise, he found him up and dressed. The +count, seeing Lucan coming in, seemed struck with astonishment. He +fastened upon him a penetrating and visibly agitated look. + +<p>"What is the matter?" he said, at last, in a low and tremulous voice. + +<p>"Nothing serious, I hope," replied Lucan. "Nevertheless, I am uneasy. +Julia has just gone out on horseback. You have, doubtless, seen and heard +her as I have myself, since you are up." + +<p>"Yes," said Moras, who had continued to gaze upon Lucan with an expression +of indescribable stupor; "yes," he repeated, recovering himself, not +without difficulty, "and I am glad, really very glad to see you, my dear +friend." + +<p>While uttering these simple words, the voice of Moras became hesitating; a +damp cloud obscured his eyes. + +<p>"Where can she be going at this hour?" he resumed with his usual firmness +of speech. + +<p>"I do not know; merely some new fancy, I suppose. At any rate, she has +seemed to me lately more strange, more moody, and I feel uneasy. Let us +try and follow her, if you like." + +<p>"Let us go, my friend," said the count after a pause of singular +hesitation. + +<p>They both left the chateau together, taking their fowling-pieces with +them, in order to induce the belief that they were going, according to a +quite frequent habit, to shoot sea-birds. At the moment of selecting a +direction, Monsieur de Moras turned to Lucan with an inquiring glance. + +<p>"I see no danger," said Lucan, "save in the direction of the cliffs. A few +words that escaped her yesterday lead me to fear that the peril may be +there; but with her horse, she is compelled to make a long detour. By +cutting across the woods, we'll be there ahead of her." + +<p>They entered the timber to the west of the chateau, and walked in silence +and with rapid steps. + +<p>The path they had taken led them directly to the plateau overlooking the +cliffs they had visited the previous day. The woods extended in that +direction in an irregular triangle, the last trees of which almost touched +the very brink of the cliff. + +<p>As they were approaching with feverish steps that extreme point, Lucan +suddenly stopped. + +<p>"Listen!" he said. + +<p>The sound of a horse's gallop upon the hard soil could be distinctly +heard. They ran. + +<p>A sloping bank of moderate elevation divided the wood from the plateau. +This they climbed half way with the help of trailing branches; screened +then by the bushes and the foliage, they beheld before them a most +impressive spectacle. At a short distance to the left, Julia was coming +on at break-neck speed; she was following the oblique line of the woods, +apparently shaping her course straight toward the edge of the cliff. They +thought at first that her horse had run away, but they saw that she was +lashing him with her whip to further accelerate his speed. + +<p>She was still some hundred paces from the two men, and she was about +passing before them. Lucan was preparing to leap to the other side of the +bank, when the hand of Monsieur de Moras fell violently upon his arm and +held him back—firmly. + +<p>They looked at each other. Lucan was amazed at the profound alteration +that had suddenly contracted the count's features and sunken his eyes; he +read at the same time in his fixed gaze an immense sorrow, but also an +immovable resolve. He understood that there was no longer any secret +between them. He yielded to that glance, which, so far as he was +concerned—he felt sure of that—conveyed nothing but an expression of +confidence and friendly supplication. He grasped his friend's hand within +his own and remained motionless. The horse shot by within a few steps of +them, his flanks white with foam, while Julia, beautiful, graceful, and +charming still in that terrible moment, sat lightly upon the saddle. + +<p>Within a few feet of the edge of the cliff, the horse, scenting the danger, +shied violently and wheeled around in a semi-circle. She led him back +upon the plateau, and, urging him both with whip and voice, she started +him again toward the yawning chasm. + +<p>Lucan felt Monsieur de Moras' nails cutting into his flesh. At last the +horse was conquered; the ground gave way under his hind feet, which only +met the vacant space. He fell backward; his fore legs pawed the air +convulsively. + +<p>The next moment the plateau was empty. No sound had been heard. In that +deep chasm the fall had been noiseless and death instantaneous. +<p> </p> +<h3>[THE END.]</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<pre style="margin-left: 8em;"> + <b><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">The Story of a Fight for a Throne</span> + + D'ARTAGNAN, THE KING MAKER + + By ALEXANDRE DUMAS.</b> + +Written originally by Dumas as a play, and now for the +first time novelized and translated into English. + +<i>The Philadelphia Enquirer says</i>: + + "A pretty love story in which the debonair + cavalier falls victim to Cupid's wiles is one + of the interesting threads running through + the book." + +<i>The Chicago Record-Herald says</i>: + + "It is singular that this bit of romance + has been suffered to remain hidden away + for so long a time. 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It is a pathetic situation and +if one true woman's heart breaks before the +man's mission is ended who is to blame? + +There are many touching incidents in the +book, but none more full of pathos than +when the woman who loves bares her soul +to the woman who is loved. + +<b>12mo., Cloth. Price, $1.00.</b> +</pre> +<hr style="text-align: left; width: 50%;" /> +<pre style="margin-left: 8em;"> + <b><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">A Book Full of "Human" Interest.</span> + + QUEER PEOPLE + + By WILLIAM HENRY BISHOP. + + <i>Author of</i> "<span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Detmold</span>."</b> + + +Not one story, but a number of charming +storyettes, terse, snappy and absorbingly +interesting. + +There is a delightful pen sketch of a +woman of small means who aspires to a +connection with the smart set. 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