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diff --git a/1683.txt b/1683.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6f6807a --- /dev/null +++ b/1683.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3481 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Honorine, by Honore de Balzac + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Honorine + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: Clara Bell + +Release Date: March, 1998 [Etext #1683] +Posting Date: February 28, 2010 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HONORINE *** + + + + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + + + + + +HONORINE + + +By Honore De Balzac + + + +Translated by Clara Bell + + + + DEDICATION + + To Monsieur Achille Deveria + + An affectionate remembrance from the Author. + + + + + +HONORINE + + +If the French have as great an aversion for traveling as the English +have a propensity for it, both English and French have perhaps +sufficient reasons. Something better than England is everywhere to be +found; whereas it is excessively difficult to find the charms of France +outside France. Other countries can show admirable scenery, and they +frequently offer greater comfort than that of France, which makes but +slow progress in that particular. They sometimes display a bewildering +magnificence, grandeur, and luxury; they lack neither grace nor noble +manners; but the life of the brain, the talent for conversation, the +"Attic salt" so familiar at Paris, the prompt apprehension of what one +is thinking, but does not say, the spirit of the unspoken, which is half +the French language, is nowhere else to be met with. Hence a Frenchman, +whose raillery, as it is, finds so little comprehension, would wither +in a foreign land like an uprooted tree. Emigration is counter to the +instincts of the French nation. Many Frenchmen, of the kind here in +question, have owned to pleasure at seeing the custom-house officers +of their native land, which may seem the most daring hyperbole of +patriotism. + +This preamble is intended to recall to such Frenchmen as have traveled +the extreme pleasure they have felt on occasionally finding their native +land, like an oasis, in the drawing-room of some diplomate: a pleasure +hard to be understood by those who have never left the asphalt of the +Boulevard des Italiens, and to whom the Quais of the left bank of the +Seine are not really Paris. To find Paris again! Do you know what that +means, O Parisians? It is to find--not indeed the cookery of the _Rocher +de Cancale_ as Borel elaborates it for those who can appreciate it, for +that exists only in the Rue Montorgueil--but a meal which reminds you +of it! It is to find the wines of France, which out of France are to be +regarded as myths, and as rare as the woman of whom I write! It is +to find--not the most fashionable pleasantry, for it loses its aroma +between Paris and the frontier--but the witty understanding, the +critical atmosphere in which the French live, from the poet down to the +artisan, from the duchess to the boy in the street. + +In 1836, when the Sardinian Court was residing at Genoa, two Parisians, +more or less famous, could fancy themselves still in Paris when they +found themselves in a palazzo, taken by the French Consul-General, on +the hill forming the last fold of the Apennines between the gate of San +Tomaso and the well-known lighthouse, which is to be seen in all the +keepsake views of Genoa. This palazzo is one of the magnificent villas +on which Genoese nobles were wont to spend millions at the time when the +aristocratic republic was a power. + +If the early night is beautiful anywhere, it surely is at Genoa, after +it has rained as it can rain there, in torrents, all the morning; when +the clearness of the sea vies with that of the sky; when silence reigns +on the quay and in the groves of the villa, and over the marble heads +with yawning jaws, from which water mysteriously flows; when the stars +are beaming; when the waves of the Mediterranean lap one after another +like the avowal of a woman, from whom you drag it word by word. It must +be confessed, that the moment when the perfumed air brings fragrance to +the lungs and to our day-dreams; when voluptuousness, made visible and +ambient as the air, holds you in your easy-chair; when, a spoon in your +hand, you sip an ice or a sorbet, the town at your feet and fair woman +opposite--such Boccaccio hours can be known only in Italy and on the +shores of the Mediterranean. + +Imagine to yourself, round the table, the Marquis di Negro, a knight +hospitaller to all men of talent on their travels, and the Marquis +Damaso Pareto, two Frenchmen disguised as Genoese, a Consul-General +with a wife as beautiful as a Madonna, and two silent children--silent +because sleep has fallen on them--the French Ambassador and his wife, +a secretary to the Embassy who believes himself to be crushed and +mischievous; finally, two Parisians, who have come to take leave of +the Consul's wife at a splendid dinner, and you will have the picture +presented by the terrace of the villa about the middle of May--a picture +in which the predominant figure was that of a celebrated woman, on +whom all eyes centered now and again, the heroine of this improvised +festival. + +One of the two Frenchmen was the famous landscape painter, Leon de Lora; +the other a well known critic Claude Vignon. They had both come with +this lady, one of the glories of the fair sex, Mademoiselle des Touches, +known in the literary world by the name of Camille Maupin. + +Mademoiselle des Touches had been to Florence on business. With the +charming kindness of which she is prodigal, she had brought with her +Leon de Lora to show him Italy, and had gone on as far as Rome that he +might see the Campagna. She had come by Simplon, and was returning by +the Cornice road to Marseilles. She had stopped at Genoa, again on the +landscape painter's account. The Consul-General had, of course, wished +to do the honors of Genoa, before the arrival of the Court, to a woman +whose wealth, name, and position recommend her no less than her talents. +Camille Maupin, who knew her Genoa down to its smallest chapels, had +left her landscape painter to the care of the diplomate and the two +Genoese marquises, and was miserly of her minutes. Though the ambassador +was a distinguished man of letters, the celebrated lady had refused to +yield to his advances, dreading what the English call an exhibition; +but she had drawn in the claws of her refusals when it was proposed that +they should spend a farewell day at the Consul's villa. Leon de Lora had +told Camille that her presence at the villa was the only return he +could make to the Ambassador and his wife, the two Genoese noblemen, the +Consul and his wife. So Mademoiselle des Touches had sacrificed one of +those days of perfect freedom, which are not always to be had in Paris +by those on whom the world has its eye. + +Now, the meeting being accounted for, it is easy to understand that +etiquette had been banished, as well as a great many women even of the +highest rank, who were curious to know whether Camille Maupin's manly +talent impaired her grace as a pretty woman, and to see, in a word, +whether the trousers showed below her petticoats. After dinner till nine +o'clock, when a collation was served, though the conversation had been +gay and grave by turns, and constantly enlivened by Leon de Lora's +sallies--for he is considered the most roguish wit of Paris to-day--and +by the good taste which will surprise no one after the list of guests, +literature had scarcely been mentioned. However, the butterfly flittings +of this French tilting match were certain to come to it, were it only to +flutter over this essentially French subject. But before coming to the +turn in the conversation which led the Consul-General to speak, it will +not be out of place to give some account of him and his family. + +This diplomate, a man of four-and-thirty, who had been married about six +years, was the living portrait of Lord Byron. The familiarity of that +face makes a description of the Consul's unnecessary. It may, however, +be noted that there was no affectation in his dreamy expression. Lord +Byron was a poet, and the Consul was poetical; women know and recognize +the difference, which explains without justifying some of their +attachments. His handsome face, thrown into relief by a delightful +nature, had captivated a Genoese heiress. A Genoese heiress! the +expression might raise a smile at Genoa, where, in consequence of the +inability of daughters to inherit, a woman is rarely rich; but Onorina +Pedrotti, the only child of a banker without heirs male, was an +exception. Notwithstanding all the flattering advances prompted by a +spontaneous passion, the Consul-General had not seemed to wish to marry. +Nevertheless, after living in the town for two years, and after certain +steps taken by the Ambassador during his visits to the Genoese Court, +the marriage was decided on. The young man withdrew his former refusal, +less on account of the touching affection of Onorina Pedrotti than by +reason of an unknown incident, one of those crises of private life which +are so instantly buried under the daily tide of interests that, at a +subsequent date, the most natural actions seem inexplicable. + +This involution of causes sometimes affects the most serious events of +history. This, at any rate, was the opinion of the town of Genoa, where, +to some women, the extreme reserve, the melancholy of the French Consul +could be explained only by the word passion. It may be remarked, in +passing, that women never complain of being the victims of a preference; +they are very ready to immolate themselves for the common weal. Onorina +Pedrotti, who might have hated the Consul if she had been altogether +scorned, loved her _sposo_ no less, and perhaps more, when she know that +he had loved. Women allow precedence in love affairs. All is well if +other women are in question. + +A man is not a diplomate with impunity: the _sposo_ was as secret as the +grave--so secret that the merchants of Genoa chose to regard the young +Consul's attitude as premeditated, and the heiress might perhaps have +slipped through his fingers if he had not played his part of a love-sick +_malade imaginaire_. If it was real, the women thought it too degrading +to be believed. + +Pedrotti's daughter gave him her love as a consolation; she lulled these +unknown griefs in a cradle of tenderness and Italian caresses. + +Il Signor Pedrotti had indeed no reason to complain of the choice to +which he was driven by his beloved child. Powerful protectors in Paris +watched over the young diplomate's fortunes. In accordance with a +promise made by the Ambassador to the Consul-General's father-in-law, +the young man was created Baron and Commander of the Legion of Honor. +Signor Pedrotti himself was made a Count by the King of Sardinia. +Onorina's dower was a million of francs. As to the fortune of the Casa +Pedrotti, estimated at two millions, made in the corn trade, the young +couple came into it within six months of their marriage, for the first +and last Count Pedrotti died in January 1831. + +Onorina Pedrotti is one of those beautiful Genoese women who, when they +are beautiful, are the most magnificent creatures in Italy. Michael +Angelo took his models in Genoa for the tomb of Giuliano. Hence the +fulness and singular placing of the breast in the figures of Day and +Night, which so many critics have thought exaggerated, but which is +peculiar to the women of Liguria. A Genoese beauty is no longer to be +found excepting under the mezzaro, as at Venice it is met with only +under the _fazzioli_. This phenomenon is observed among all fallen +nations. The noble type survives only among the populace, as after the +burning of a town coins are found hidden in the ashes. And Onorina, an +exception as regards her fortune, is no less an exceptional patrician +beauty. Recall to mind the figure of Night which Michael Angelo has +placed at the feet of the _Pensieroso_, dress her in modern garb, twist +that long hair round the magnificent head, a little dark in complexion, +set a spark of fire in those dreamy eyes, throw a scarf about the +massive bosom, see the long dress, white, embroidered with flowers, +imagine the statue sitting upright, with her arms folded like those of +Mademoiselle Georges, and you will see before you the Consul's wife, +with a boy of six, as handsome as a mother's desire, and a little +girl of four on her knees, as beautiful as the type of childhood so +laboriously sought out by the sculptor David to grace a tomb. + +This beautiful family was the object of Camille's secret study. It +struck Mademoiselle des Touches that the Consul looked rather too +absent-minded for a perfectly happy man. + +Although, throughout the day, the husband and wife had offered her the +pleasing spectacle of complete happiness, Camille wondered why one of +the most superior men she had ever met, and whom she had seen too +in Paris drawing-rooms, remained as Consul-General at Genoa when he +possessed a fortune of a hundred odd thousand francs a year. But, at the +same time, she had discerned, by many of the little nothings which women +perceive with the intelligence of the Arab sage in _Zadig_, that the +husband was faithfully devoted. These two handsome creatures would no +doubt love each other without a misunderstanding till the end of their +days. So Camille said to herself alternately, "What is wrong?--Nothing +is wrong," following the misleading symptoms of the Consul's demeanor; +and he, it may be said, had the absolute calmness of Englishmen, of +savages, of Orientals, and of consummate diplomatists. + +In discussing literature, they spoke of the perennial stock-in-trade +of the republic of letters--woman's sin. And they presently found +themselves confronted by two opinions: When a woman sins, is the man +or the woman to blame? The three women present--the Ambassadress, +the Consul's wife, and Mademoiselle des Touches, women, of course, of +blameless reputations--were without pity for the woman. The men tried to +convince these fair flowers of their sex that some virtues might remain +in a woman after she had fallen. + +"How long are we going to play at hide-and-seek in this way?" said Leon +de Lora. + +"_Cara vita_, go and put your children to bed, and send me by Gina the +little black pocket-book that lies on my Boule cabinet," said the Consul +to his wife. + +She rose without a reply, which shows that she loved her husband very +truly, for she already knew French enough to understand that her husband +was getting rid of her. + +"I will tell you a story in which I played a part, and after that we can +discuss it, for it seems to me childish to practise with the scalpel on +an imaginary body. Begin by dissecting a corpse." + +Every one prepared to listen, with all the greater readiness because +they had all talked enough, and this is the moment to be chosen for +telling a story. This, then, is the Consul-General's tale:-- + +"When I was two-and-twenty, and had taken my degree in law, my old +uncle, the Abbe Loraux, then seventy-two years old, felt it necessary +to provide me with a protector, and to start me in some career. This +excellent man, if not indeed a saint, regarded each year of his life as +a fresh gift from God. I need not tell you that the father confessor of +a Royal Highness had no difficulty in finding a place for a young man +brought up by himself, his sister's only child. So one day, towards the +end of the year 1824, this venerable old man, who for five years had +been Cure of the White Friars at Paris, came up to the room I had in his +house, and said: + +"'Get yourself dressed, my dear boy; I am going to introduce you to some +one who is willing to engage you as secretary. If I am not mistaken, he +may fill my place in the event of God's taking me to Himself. I shall +have finished mass at nine o'clock; you have three-quarters of an hour +before you. Be ready.' + +"'What, uncle! must I say good-bye to this room, where for four years I +have been so happy?' + +"'I have no fortune to leave you,' said he. + +"'Have you not the reputation of your name to leave me, the memory of +your good works----?' + +"'We need say nothing of that inheritance,' he replied, smiling. 'You do +not yet know enough of the world to be aware that a legacy of that kind +is hardly likely to be paid, whereas by taking you this morning to M. le +Comte'--Allow me," said the Consul, interrupting himself, "to speak +of my protector by his Christian name only, and to call him Comte +Octave.--'By taking you this morning to M. le Comte Octave, I hope to +secure you his patronage, which, if you are so fortunate as to please +that virtuous statesman--as I make no doubt you can--will be worth, at +least, as much as the fortune I might have accumulated for you, if my +brother-in-law's ruin and my sister's death had not fallen on me like a +thunder-bolt from a clear sky.' + +"'Are you the Count's director?' + +"'If I were, could I place you with him? What priest could be capable +of taking advantage of the secrets which he learns at the tribunal of +repentance? No; you owe this position to his Highness, the Keeper of +the Seals. My dear Maurice, you will be as much at home there as in your +father's house. The Count will give you a salary of two thousand four +hundred francs, rooms in his house, and an allowance of twelve hundred +francs in lieu of feeding you. He will not admit you to his table, +nor give you a separate table, for fear of leaving you to the care of +servants. I did not accept the offer when it was made to me till I was +perfectly certain that Comte Octave's secretary was never to be a mere +upper servant. You will have an immense amount of work, for the Count +is a great worker; but when you leave him, you will be qualified to fill +the highest posts. I need not warn you to be discreet; that is the first +virtue of any man who hopes to hold public appointments.' + +"You may conceive of my curiosity. Comte Octave, at that time, held one +of the highest legal appointments; he was in the confidence of Madame +the Dauphiness, who had just got him made a State Minister; he led such +a life as the Comte de Serizy, whom you all know, I think; but even more +quietly, for his house was in the Marais, Rue Payenne, and he hardly +ever entertained. His private life escaped public comment by its +hermit-like simplicity and by constant hard work. + +"Let me describe my position to you in a few words. Having found in the +solemn headmaster of the College Saint-Louis a tutor to whom my uncle +delegated his authority, at the age of eighteen I had gone through all +the classes; I left school as innocent as a seminarist, full of faith, +on quitting Saint-Sulpice. My mother, on her deathbed, had made my uncle +promise that I should not become a priest, but I was as pious as though +I had to take orders. On leaving college, the Abbe Loraux took me +into his house and made me study law. During the four years of study +requisite for passing all the examinations, I worked hard, but chiefly +at things outside the arid fields of jurisprudence. Weaned from +literature as I had been at college, where I lived in the headmaster's +house, I had a thirst to quench. As soon as I had read a few modern +masterpieces, the works of all the preceding ages were greedily +swallowed. I became crazy about the theatre, and for a long time I went +every night to the play, though my uncle gave me only a hundred francs +a month. This parsimony, to which the good old man was compelled by his +regard for the poor, had the effect of keeping a young man's desires +within reasonable limits. + +"When I went to live with Comte Octave I was not indeed an innocent, but +I thought of my rare escapades as crimes. My uncle was so truly angelic, +and I was so much afraid of grieving him, that in all those four years +I had never spent a night out. The good man would wait till I came in +to go to bed. This maternal care had more power to keep me within bounds +than the sermons and reproaches with which the life of a young man +is diversified in a puritanical home. I was a stranger to the various +circles which make up the world of Paris society; I only knew some women +of the better sort, and none of the inferior class but those I saw as I +walked about, or in the boxes at the play, and then only from the depths +of the pit where I sat. If, at that period, any one had said to me, 'You +will see Canalis, or Camille Maupin,' I should have felt hot coals in +my head and in my bowels. Famous people were to me as gods, who neither +spoke, nor walked, nor ate like other mortals. + +"How many tales of the Thousand-and-one Nights are comprehended in the +ripening of a youth! How many wonderful lamps must we have rubbed before +we understand that the True Wonderful Lamp is either luck, or work, or +genius. In some men this dream of the aroused spirit is but brief; mine +has lasted until now! In those days I always went to sleep as Grand Duke +of Tuscany,--as a millionaire,--as beloved by a princess,--or famous! So +to enter the service of Comte Octave, and have a hundred louis a year, +was entering on independent life. I had glimpses of some chance of +getting into society, and seeking for what my heart desired most, a +protectress, who would rescue me from the paths of danger, which a young +man of two-and-twenty can hardly help treading, however prudent and well +brought up he may be. I began to be afraid of myself. + +"The persistent study of other people's rights into which I had plunged +was not always enough to repress painful imaginings. Yes, sometimes in +fancy I threw myself into theatrical life; I thought I could be a great +actor; I dreamed of endless triumphs and loves, knowing nothing of the +disillusion hidden behind the curtain, as everywhere else--for every +stage has its reverse behind the scenes. I have gone out sometimes, my +heart boiling, carried away by an impulse to rush hunting through Paris, +to attach myself to some handsome woman I might meet, to follow her +to her door, watch her, write to her, throw myself on her mercy, and +conquer her by sheer force of passion. My poor uncle, a heart consumed +by charity, a child of seventy years, as clear-sighted as God, as +guileless as a man of genius, no doubt read the tumult of my soul; for +when he felt the tether by which he held me strained too tightly and +ready to break, he would never fail to say, 'Here, Maurice, you too +are poor! Here are twenty francs; go and amuse yourself, you are not a +priest!' And if you could have seen the dancing light that gilded his +gray eyes, the smile that relaxed his fine lips, puckering the corners +of his mouth, the adorable expression of that august face, whose native +ugliness was redeemed by the spirit of an apostle, you would understand +the feeling which made me answer the Cure of White Friars only with a +kiss, as if he had been my mother. + +"'In Comte Octave you will find not a master, but a friend,' said my +uncle on the way to the Rue Payenne. 'But he is distrustful, or to be +more exact, he is cautious. The statesman's friendship can be won only +with time; for in spite of his deep insight and his habit of gauging +men, he was deceived by the man you are succeeding, and nearly became a +victim to his abuse of confidence. This is enough to guide you in your +behavior to him.' + +"When we knocked at the enormous outer door of a house as large as the +Hotel Carnavalet, with a courtyard in front and a garden behind, the +sound rang as in a desert. While my uncle inquired of an old porter in +livery if the Count were at home, I cast my eyes, seeing everything +at once, over the courtyard where the cobblestones were hidden in the +grass, the blackened walls where little gardens were flourishing above +the decorations of the elegant architecture, and on the roof, as high as +that of the Tuileries. The balustrade of the upper balconies was eaten +away. Through a magnificent colonnade I could see a second court on one +side, where were the offices; the door was rotting. An old coachman +was there cleaning an old carriage. The indifferent air of this servant +allowed me to assume that the handsome stables, where of old so many +horses had whinnied, now sheltered two at most. The handsome facade of +the house seemed to me gloomy, like that of a mansion belonging to the +State or the Crown, and given up to some public office. A bell rang as +we walked across, my uncle and I, from the porter's lodge--_Inquire of +the Porter_ was still written over the door--towards the outside steps, +where a footman came out in a livery like that of Labranche at the +Theatre Francais in the old stock plays. A visitor was so rare that the +servant was putting his coat on when he opened a glass door with small +panes, on each side of which the smoke of a lamp had traced patterns on +the walls. + +"A hall so magnificent as to be worthy of Versailles ended in a +staircase such as will never again be built in France, taking up as much +space as the whole of a modern house. As we went up the marble steps, as +cold as tombstones, and wide enough for eight persons to walk abreast, +our tread echoed under sonorous vaulting. The banister charmed the eye +by its miraculous workmanship--goldsmith's work in iron--wrought by the +fancy of an artist of the time of Henri III. Chilled as by an icy mantle +that fell on our shoulders, we went through ante-rooms, drawing-rooms +opening one out of the other, with carpetless parquet floors, and +furnished with such splendid antiquities as from thence would find their +way to the curiosity dealers. At last we reached a large study in a +cross wing, with all the windows looking into an immense garden. + +"'Monsieur le Cure of the White Friars, and his nephew, Monsieur de +l'Hostal,' said Labranche, to whose care the other theatrical servant +had consigned us in the first ante-chamber. + +"Comte Octave, dressed in long trousers and a gray flannel morning coat, +rose from his seat by a huge writing-table, came to the fireplace, +and signed to me to sit down, while he went forward to take my uncle's +hands, which he pressed. + +"'Though I am in the parish of Saint-Paul,' said he, 'I could scarcely +have failed to hear of the Cure of the White Friars, and I am happy to +make his acquaintance.' + +"'Your Excellency is most kind,' replied my uncle. 'I have brought to +you my only remaining relation. While I believe that I am offering a +good gift to your Excellency, I hope at the same time to give my nephew +a second father.' + +"'As to that, I can only reply, Monsieur l'Abbe, when we shall have +tried each other,' said Comte Octave. 'Your name?' he added to me. + +"'Maurice.' + +"'He has taken his doctor's degree in law,' my uncle observed. + +"'Very good, very good!' said the Count, looking at me from head to +foot. 'Monsieur l'Abbe, I hope that for your nephew's sake in the first +instance, and then for mine, you will do me the honor of dining here +every Monday. That will be our family dinner, our family party.' + +"My uncle and the Count then began to talk of religion from the +political point of view, of charitable institutes, the repression of +crime, and I could at my leisure study the man on whom my fate would +henceforth depend. The Count was of middle height; it was impossible to +judge of his build on account of his dress, but he seemed to me to +be lean and spare. His face was harsh and hollow; the features were +refined. His mouth, which was rather large, expressed both irony and +kindliness. His forehead perhaps too spacious, was as intimidating as +that of a madman, all the more so from the contrast of the lower part of +the face, which ended squarely in a short chin very near the lower lip. +Small eyes, of turquoise blue, were as keen and bright as those of the +Prince de Talleyrand--which I admired at a later time--and endowed, like +the Prince's, with the faculty of becoming expressionless to the verge +of gloom; and they added to the singularity of a face that was not pale +but yellow. This complexion seemed to bespeak an irritable temper and +violent passions. His hair, already silvered, and carefully dressed, +seemed to furrow his head with streaks of black and white alternately. +The trimness of this head spoiled the resemblance I had remarked in the +Count to the wonderful monk described by Lewis after Schedoni in +the _Confessional of the Black Penitents (The Italian)_, a superior +creation, as it seems to me, to _The Monk_. + +"The Count was already shaved, having to attend early at the law courts. +Two candelabra with four lights, screened by lamp-shades, were still +burning at the opposite ends of the writing-table, and showed plainly +that the magistrate rose long before daylight. His hands, which I saw +when he took hold of the bell-pull to summon his servant, were extremely +fine, and as white as a woman's. + +"As I tell you this story," said the Consul-General, interrupting +himself, "I am altering the titles and the social position of this +gentleman, while placing him in circumstances analogous to what his +really were. His profession, rank, luxury, fortune, and style of living +were the same; all these details are true, but I would not be false to +my benefactor, nor to my usual habits of discretion. + +"Instead of feeling--as I really was, socially speaking--an insect in +the presence of an eagle," the narrator went on after a pause, "I felt I +know not what indefinable impression from the Count's appearance, +which, however, I can now account for. Artists of genius" (and he +bowed gracefully to the Ambassador, the distinguished lady, and the +two Frenchmen), "real statesmen, poets, a general who has commanded +armies--in short, all really great minds are simple, and their +simplicity places you on a level with themselves.--You who are all of +superior minds," he said, addressing his guests, "have perhaps observed +how feeling can bridge over the distances created by society. If we +are inferior to you in intellect, we can be your equals in devoted +friendship. By the temperature--allow me the word--of our hearts I felt +myself as near my patron as I was far below him in rank. In short, the +soul has its clairvoyance; it has presentiments of suffering, grief, +joy, antagonism, or hatred in others. + +"I vaguely discerned the symptoms of a mystery, from recognizing in the +Count the same effects of physiognomy as I had observed in my uncle. +The exercise of virtue, serenity of conscience, and purity of mind had +transfigured my uncle, who from being ugly had become quite beautiful. +I detected a metamorphosis of a reverse kind in the Count's face; at the +first glance I thought he was about fifty-five, but after an attentive +examination I found youth entombed under the ice of a great sorrow, +under the fatigue of persistent study, under the glowing hues of some +suppressed passion. At a word from my uncle the Count's eyes recovered +for a moment the softness of the periwinkle flower, and he had an +admiring smile, which revealed what I believed to be his real age, about +forty. These observations I made, not then but afterwards, as I recalled +the circumstances of my visit. + +"The man-servant came in carrying a tray with his master's breakfast on +it. + +"'I did not ask for breakfast,' remarked the Count; 'but leave it, and +show monsieur to his rooms.' + +"I followed the servant, who led the way to a complete set of pretty +rooms, under a terrace, between the great courtyard and the servants' +quarters, over a corridor of communication between the kitchens and +the grand staircase. When I returned to the Count's study, I overheard, +before opening the door, my uncle pronouncing this judgment on me: + +"'He may do wrong, for he has strong feelings, and we are all liable to +honorable mistakes; but he has no vices.' + +"'Well,' said the Count, with a kindly look, 'do you like yourself +there? Tell me. There are so many rooms in this barrack that, if you +were not comfortable, I could put you elsewhere.' + +"'At my uncle's I had but one room,' replied I. + +"'Well, you can settle yourself this evening,' said the Count, 'for your +possessions, no doubt, are such as all students own, and a hackney coach +will be enough to convey them. To-day we will all three dine together,' +and he looked at my uncle. + +"A splendid library opened from the Count's study, and he took us in +there, showing me a pretty little recess decorated with paintings, which +had formerly served, no doubt, as an oratory. + +"'This is your cell,' said he. 'You will sit there when you have to work +with me, for you will not be tethered by a chain;' and he explained in +detail the kind and duration of my employment with him. As I listened I +felt that he was a great political teacher. + +"It took me about a month to familiarize myself with people and things, +to learn the duties of my new office, and accustom myself to the Count's +methods. A secretary necessarily watches the man who makes use of him. +That man's tastes, passions, temper, and manias become the subject of +involuntary study. The union of their two minds is at once more and less +than a marriage. + +"During these months the Count and I reciprocally studied each other. I +learned with astonishment that Comte Octave was but thirty-seven years +old. The merely superficial peacefulness of his life and the propriety +of his conduct were the outcome not solely of a deep sense of duty and +of stoical reflection; in my constant intercourse with this man--an +extraordinary man to those who knew him well--I felt vast depths beneath +his toil, beneath his acts of politeness, his mask of benignity, his +assumption of resignation, which so closely resembled calmness that it +is easy to mistake it. Just as when walking through forest-lands certain +soils give forth under our feet a sound which enables us to guess +whether they are dense masses of stone or a void; so intense egoism, +though hidden under the flowers of politeness, and subterranean caverns +eaten out by sorrow sound hollow under the constant touch of familiar +life. It was sorrow and not despondency that dwelt in that really great +soul. The Count had understood that actions, deeds, are the supreme law +of social man. And he went on his way in spite of secret wounds, looking +to the future with a tranquil eye, like a martyr full of faith. + +"His concealed sadness, the bitter disenchantment from which he +suffered, had not led him into philosophical deserts of incredulity; +this brave statesman was religious, without ostentation; he always +attended the earliest mass at Saint-Paul's for pious workmen and +servants. Not one of his friends, no one at Court, knew that he so +punctually fulfilled the practice of religion. He was addicted to God as +some men are addicted to a vice, with the greatest mystery. Thus one day +I came to find the Count at the summit of an Alp of woe much higher than +that on which many are who think themselves the most tried; who laugh at +the passions and the beliefs of others because they have conquered their +own; who play variations in every key of irony and disdain. He did not +mock at those who still follow hope into the swamps whither she leads, +nor those who climb a peak to be alone, nor those who persist in the +fight, reddening the arena with their blood and strewing it with their +illusions. He looked on the world as a whole; he mastered its beliefs; +he listened to its complaining; he was doubtful of affection, and yet +more of self-sacrifice; but this great and stern judge pitied them, +or admired them, not with transient enthusiasm, but with silence, +concentration, and the communion of a deeply-touched soul. He was a sort +of catholic Manfred, and unstained by crime, carrying his choiceness +into his faith, melting the snows by the fires of a sealed volcano, +holding converse with a star seen by himself alone! + +"I detected many dark riddles in his ordinary life. He evaded my gaze +not like a traveler who, following a path, disappears from time to time +in dells or ravines according to the formation of the soil, but like a +sharpshooter who is being watched, who wants to hide himself, and seeks +a cover. I could not account for his frequent absences at the times when +he was working the hardest, and of which he made no secret from me, for +he would say, 'Go on with this for me,' and trust me with the work in +hand. + +"This man, wrapped in the threefold duties of the statesman, the judge, +and the orator, charmed me by a taste for flowers, which shows an +elegant mind, and which is shared by almost all persons of refinement. +His garden and his study were full of the rarest plants, but he always +bought them half-withered. Perhaps it pleased him to see such an image +of his own fate! He was faded like these dying flowers, whose almost +decaying fragrance mounted strangely to his brain. The Count loved his +country; he devoted himself to public interests with the frenzy of a +heart that seeks to cheat some other passion; but the studies and +work into which he threw himself were not enough for him; there were +frightful struggles in his mind, of which some echoes reached me. +Finally, he would give utterance to harrowing aspirations for happiness, +and it seemed to me he ought yet to be happy; but what was the obstacle? +Was there a woman he loved? This was a question I asked myself. You may +imagine the extent of the circles of torment that my mind had searched +before coming to so simple and so terrible a question. Notwithstanding +his efforts, my patron did not succeed in stifling the movements of his +heart. Under his austere manner, under the reserve of the magistrate, a +passion rebelled, though coerced with such force that no one but I +who lived with him ever guessed the secret. His motto seemed to be, +'I suffer, and am silent.' The escort of respect and admiration +which attended him; the friendship of workers as valiant as +himself--Grandville and Serizy, both presiding judges--had no hold over +the Count: either he told them nothing, or they knew all. Impassible and +lofty in public, the Count betrayed the man only on rare intervals when, +alone in his garden or his study, he supposed himself unobserved; but +then he was a child again, he gave course to the tears hidden beneath +the toga, to the excitement which, if wrongly interpreted, might have +damaged his credit for perspicacity as a statesman. + +"When all this had become to me a matter of certainty, Comte Octave had +all the attractions of a problem, and won on my affection as much as +though he had been my own father. Can you enter into the feeling of +curiosity, tempered by respect? What catastrophe had blasted this +learned man, who, like Pitt, had devoted himself from the age of +eighteen to the studies indispensable to power, while he had no +ambition; this judge, who thoroughly knew the law of nations, political +law, civil and criminal law, and who could find in these a weapon +against every anxiety, against every mistake; this profound legislator, +this serious writer, this pious celibate whose life sufficiently proved +that he was open to no reproach? A criminal could not have been more +hardly punished by God than was my master; sorrow had robbed him of half +his slumbers; he never slept more than four hours. What struggle was +it that went on in the depths of these hours apparently so calm, so +studious, passing without a sound or a murmur, during which I often +detected him, when the pen had dropped from his fingers, with his head +resting on one hand, his eyes like two fixed stars, and sometimes wet +with tears? How could the waters of that living spring flow over the +burning strand without being dried up by the subterranean fire? Was +there below it, as there is under the sea, between it and the central +fires of the globe, a bed of granite? And would the volcano burst at +last? + +"Sometimes the Count would give me a look of that sagacious and +keen-eyed curiosity by which one man searches another when he desires +an accomplice; then he shunned my eye as he saw it open a mouth, so to +speak, insisting on a reply, and seeming to say, 'Speak first!' Now and +then Comte Octave's melancholy was surly and gruff. If these spurts of +temper offended me, he could get over it without thinking of asking my +pardon; but then his manners were gracious to the point of Christian +humility. + +"When I became attached like a son to this man--to me such a mystery, +but so intelligible to the outer world, to whom the epithet eccentric is +enough to account for all the enigmas of the heart--I changed the state +of the house. Neglect of his own interests was carried by the Count +to the length of folly in the management of his affairs. Possessing an +income of about a hundred and sixty thousand francs, without including +the emoluments of his appointments--three of which did not come under +the law against plurality--he spent sixty thousand, of which at least +thirty thousand went to his servants. By the end of the first year I +had got rid of all these rascals, and begged His Excellency to use his +influence in helping me to get honest servants. By the end of the second +year the Count, better fed and better served, enjoyed the comforts of +modern life; he had fine horses, supplied by a coachman to whom I paid +so much a month for each horse; his dinners on his reception days, +furnished by Chevet at a price agreed upon, did him credit; his daily +meals were prepared by an excellent cook found by my uncle, and helped +by two kitchenmaids. The expenditure for housekeeping, not including +purchases, was no more than thirty thousand francs a year; we had two +additional men-servants, whose care restored the poetical aspect of the +house; for this old palace, splendid even in its rust, had an air of +dignity which neglect had dishonored. + +"'I am no longer astonished,' said he, on hearing of these results, 'at +the fortunes made by servants. In seven years I have had two cooks, who +have become rich restaurant-keepers.' + +"Early in the year 1826 the Count had, no doubt, ceased to watch me, and +we were as closely attached as two men can be when one is subordinate to +the other. He had never spoken to me of my future prospects, but he had +taken an interest, both as a master and as a father, in training me. He +often required me to collect materials for his most arduous labors; +I drew up some of his reports, and he corrected them, showing the +difference between his interpretation of the law, his views and mine. +When at last I had produced a document which he could give in as his own +he was delighted; this satisfaction was my reward, and he could see that +I took it so. This little incident produced an extraordinary effect on a +soul which seemed so stern. The Count pronounced sentence on me, to +use a legal phrase, as supreme and royal judge; he took my head in his +hands, and kissed me on the forehead. + +"'Maurice,' he exclaimed, 'you are no longer my apprentice; I know not +yet what you will be to me--but if no change occurs in my life, perhaps +you will take the place of a son.' + +"Comte Octave had introduced me to the best houses in Paris, whither I +went in his stead, with his servants and carriage, on the too frequent +occasions when, on the point of starting, he changed his mind, and sent +for a hackney cab to take him--Where?--that was the mystery. By the +welcome I met with I could judge of the Count's feelings towards me, and +the earnestness of his recommendations. He supplied all my wants with +the thoughtfulness of a father, and with all the greater liberality +because my modesty left it to him always to think of me. Towards the +end of January 1827, at the house of the Comtesse de Serizy, I had such +persistent ill-luck at play that I lost two thousand francs, and I would +not draw them out of my savings. Next morning I asked myself, 'Had I +better ask my uncle for the money, or put my confidence in the Count?' + +"I decided on the second alternative. + +"'Yesterday,' said I, when he was at breakfast, 'I lost persistently at +play; I was provoked, and went on; I owe two thousand francs. Will you +allow me to draw the sum on account of my year's salary?' + +"'No,' said he, with the sweetest smile; 'when a man plays in society, +he must have a gambling purse. Draw six thousand francs; pay your debts. +Henceforth we must go halves; for since you are my representative on +most occasions, your self-respect must not be made to suffer for it.' + +"I made no speech of thanks. Thanks would have been superfluous between +us. This shade shows the character of our relations. And yet we had not +yet unlimited confidence in each other; he did not open to me the vast +subterranean chambers which I had detected in his secret life; and +I, for my part, never said to him, 'What ails you? From what are you +suffering?' + +"What could he be doing during those long evenings? He would often come +in on foot or in a hackney cab when I returned in a carriage--I, his +secretary! Was so pious a man a prey to vices hidden under hypocrisy? +Did he expend all the powers of his mind to satisfy a jealousy more +dexterous than Othello's? Did he live with some woman unworthy of him? +One morning, on returning from I have forgotten what shop, where I had +just paid a bill, between the Church of Saint-Paul and the Hotel de +Ville, I came across Comte Octave in such eager conversation with an old +woman that he did not see me. The appearance of this hag filled me with +strange suspicions, suspicions that were all the better founded because +I never found that the Count invested his savings. Is it not shocking to +think of? I was constituting myself my patron's censor. At that time I +knew that he had more than six hundred thousand francs to invest; and +if he had bought securities of any kind, his confidence in me was so +complete in all that concerned his pecuniary interests, that I certainly +should have known it. + +"Sometimes, in the morning, the Count took exercise in his garden, to +and fro, like a man to whom a walk is the hippogryph ridden by dreamy +melancholy. He walked and walked! And he rubbed his hands enough to +rub the skin off. And then, if I met him unexpectedly as he came to +the angle of a path, I saw his face beaming. His eyes, instead of +the hardness of a turquoise, had that velvety softness of the blue +periwinkle, which had so much struck me on the occasion of my first +visit, by reason of the astonishing contrast in the two different looks; +the look of a happy man, and the look of an unhappy man. Two or three +times at such a moment he had taken me by the arm and led me on; then +he had said, 'What have you come to ask?' instead of pouring out his +joy into my heart that opened to him. But more often, especially since +I could do his work for him and write his reports, the unhappy man would +sit for hours staring at the goldfish that swarmed in a handsome marble +basin in the middle of the garden, round which grew an amphitheatre +of the finest flowers. He, an accomplished statesman, seemed to have +succeeded in making a passion of the mechanical amusement of crumbling +bread to fishes. + +"This is how the drama was disclosed of this second inner life, so +deeply ravaged and storm-tossed, where, in a circle overlooked by Dante +in his _Inferno_, horrible joys had their birth." + +The Consul-General paused. + + + +"On a certain Monday," he resumed, "as chance would have it, M. le +President de Grandville and M. de Serizy (at that time Vice-President +of the Council of State) had come to hold a meeting at Comte Octave's +house. They formed a committee of three, of which I was the secretary. +The Count had already got me the appointment of Auditor to the Council +of State. All the documents requisite for their inquiry into the +political matter privately submitted to these three gentlemen were laid +out on one of the long tables in the library. MM. de Grandville and de +Serizy had trusted to the Count to make the preliminary examination of +the papers relating to the matter. To avoid the necessity for carrying +all the papers to M. de Serizy, as president of the commission, it was +decided that they should meet first in the Rue Payenne. The Cabinet at +the Tuileries attached great importance to this piece of work, of which +the chief burden fell on me--and to which I owed my appointment, in the +course of that year, to be Master of Appeals. + +"Though the Comtes de Grandville and de Serizy, whose habits were much +the same as my patron's, never dined away from home, we were still +discussing the matter at a late hour, when we were startled by the +man-servant calling me aside to say, 'MM. the Cures of Saint-Paul and of +the White Friars have been waiting in the drawing-room for two hours.' + +"It was nine o'clock. + +"'Well, gentlemen, you find yourselves compelled to dine with priests,' +said Comte Octave to his colleagues. 'I do not know whether Grandville +can overcome his horror of a priest's gown----' + +"'It depends on the priest.' + +"'One of them is my uncle, and the other is the Abbe Gaudron,' said +I. 'Do not be alarmed; the Abbe Fontanon is no longer second priest at +Saint-Paul----' + +"'Well, let us dine,' replied the President de Grandville. 'A bigot +frightens me, but there is no one so cheerful as a truly pious man.' + +"We went into the drawing-room. The dinner was delightful. Men of +real information, politicians to whom business gives both consummate +experience and the practice of speech, are admirable story-tellers, when +they tell stories. With them there is no medium; they are either heavy, +or they are sublime. In this delightful sport Prince Metternich is as +good as Charles Nodier. The fun of a statesman, cut in facets like a +diamond, is sharp, sparkling, and full of sense. Being sure that the +proprieties would be observed by these three superior men, my uncle +allowed his wit full play, a refined wit, gentle, penetrating, and +elegant, like that of all men who are accustomed to conceal their +thoughts under the black robe. And you may rely upon it, there was +nothing vulgar nor idle in this light talk, which I would compare, for +its effect on the soul, to Rossini's music. + +"The Abbe Gaudron was, as M. de Grandville said, a Saint Peter rather +than a Saint Paul, a peasant full of faith, as square on his feet as he +was tall, a sacerdotal of whose ignorance in matters of the world and +of literature enlivened the conversation by guileless amazement and +unexpected questions. They came to talking of one of the plague spots +of social life, of which we were just now speaking--adultery. My uncle +remarked on the contradiction which the legislators of the Code, still +feeling the blows of the revolutionary storm, had established between +civil and religious law, and which he said was at the root of all the +mischief. + +"'In the eyes of the Church,' said he, 'adultery is a crime; in those of +your tribunals it is a misdemeanor. Adultery drives to the police court +in a carriage instead of standing at the bar to be tried. Napoleon's +Council of State, touched with tenderness towards erring women, was +quite inefficient. Ought they not in this case to have harmonized the +civil and the religious law, and have sent the guilty wife to a convent, +as of old?' + +"'To a convent!' said M. de Serizy. 'They must first have created +convents, and in those days monasteries were being turned into barracks. +Besides, think of what you say, M. l'Abbe--give to God what society +would have none of?' + +"'Oh!' said the Comte de Grandville, 'you do not know France. They were +obliged to leave the husband free to take proceedings: well, there are +not ten cases of adultery brought up in a year.' + +"'M. l'Abbe preaches for his own saint, for it was Jesus Christ who +invented adultery,' said Comte Octave. 'In the East, the cradle of +the human race, woman was merely a luxury, and there was regarded as a +chattel; no virtues were demanded of her but obedience and beauty. +By exalting the soul above the body, the modern family in Europe--a +daughter of Christ--invented indissoluble marriage, and made it a +sacrament.' + +"'Ah! the Church saw the difficulties,' exclaimed M. de Grandville. + +"'This institution has given rise to a new world,' the Count went on +with a smile. 'But the practices of that world will never be that of +a climate where women are marriageable at seven years of age, and more +than old at five-and-twenty. The Catholic Church overlooked the needs of +half the globe.--So let us discuss Europe only. + +"'Is woman our superior or our inferior? That is the real question so +far as we are concerned. If woman is our inferior, by placing her on so +high a level as the Church does, fearful punishments for adultery were +needful. And formerly that was what was done. The cloister or death sums +up early legislation. But since then practice has modified the law, as +is always the case. The throne served as a hotbed for adultery, and the +increase of this inviting crime marks the decline of the dogmas of the +Catholic Church. In these days, in cases where the Church now exacts no +more than sincere repentance from the erring wife, society is satisfied +with a brand-mark instead of an execution. The law still condemns +the guilty, but it no longer terrifies them. In short, there are two +standards of morals: that of the world, and that of the Code. Where the +Code is weak, as I admit with our dear Abbe, the world is audacious and +satirical. There are so few judges who would not gladly have committed +the fault against which they hurl the rather stolid thunders of their +"Inasmuch." The world, which gives the lie to the law alike in its +rejoicings, in its habits, and in its pleasures, is severer than the +Code and the Church; the world punishes a blunder after encouraging +hypocrisy. The whole economy of the law on marriage seems to me to +require reconstruction from the bottom to the top. The French law would +be perfect perhaps if it excluded daughters from inheriting.' + +"'We three among us know the question very thoroughly,' said the Comte +de Grandville with a laugh. 'I have a wife I cannot live with. Serizy +has a wife who will not live with him. As for you, Octave, yours +ran away from you. So we three represent every case of the conjugal +conscience, and, no doubt, if ever divorce is brought in again, we shall +form the committee.' + +"Octave's fork dropped on his glass, broke it, and broke his plate. He +had turned as pale as death, and flashed a thunderous glare at M. de +Grandville, by which he hinted at my presence, and which I caught. + +"'Forgive me, my dear fellow. I did not see Maurice,' the President went +on. 'Serizy and I, after being the witnesses to your marriage, became +your accomplices; I did not think I was committing an indiscretion in +the presence of these two venerable priests.' + +"M. de Serizy changed the subject by relating all he had done to please +his wife without ever succeeding. The old man concluded that it was +impossible to regulate human sympathies and antipathies; he maintained +that social law was never more perfect than when it was nearest to +natural law. Now Nature takes no account of the affinities of souls; her +aim is fulfilled by the propagation of the species. Hence, the Code, +in its present form, was wise in leaving a wide latitude to chance. The +incapacity of daughters to inherit so long as there were male heirs was +an excellent provision, whether to hinder the degeneration of the race, +or to make households happier by abolishing scandalous unions and giving +the sole preference to moral qualities and beauty. + +"'But then,' he exclaimed, lifting his hand with a gesture of disgust, +'how are we to perfect legislation in a country which insists on +bringing together seven or eight hundred legislators!--After all, if I +am sacrificed,' he added, 'I have a child to succeed me.' + +"'Setting aside all the religious question,' my uncle said, 'I would +remark to your Excellency that Nature only owes us life, and that it is +society that owes us happiness. Are you a father?' asked my uncle. + +"'And I--have I any children?' said Comte Octave in a hollow voice, and +his tone made such an impression that there was no more talk of wives or +marriage. + +"When coffee had been served, the two Counts and the two priests stole +away, seeing that poor Octave had fallen into a fit of melancholy which +prevented his noticing their disappearance. My patron was sitting in an +armchair by the fire, in the attitude of a man crushed. + +"'You now know the secret of my life, said he to me on noticing that we +were alone. 'After three years of married life, one evening when I came +in I found a letter in which the Countess announced her flight. The +letter did not lack dignity, for it is in the nature of women to +preserve some virtues even when committing that horrible sin.--The +story is now that my wife went abroad in a ship that was wrecked; she +is supposed to be dead. I have lived alone for seven years!--Enough for +this evening, Maurice. We will talk of my situation when I have grown +used to the idea of speaking of it to you. When we suffer from a +chronic disease, it needs time to become accustomed to improvement. That +improvement often seems to be merely another aspect of the complaint.' + +"I went to bed greatly agitated; for the mystery, far from being +explained, seemed to me more obscure than ever. I foresaw some strange +drama indeed, for I understood that there could be no vulgar difference +between the woman that Count could choose and such a character as his. +The events which had driven the Countess to leave a man so noble, so +amiable, so perfect, so loving, so worthy to be loved, must have been +singular, to say the least. M. de Grandville's remark had been like a +torch flung into the caverns over which I had so long been walking; and +though the flame lighted them but dimly, my eyes could perceive their +wide extent! I could imagine the Count's sufferings without knowing +their depths or their bitterness. That sallow face, those parched +temples, those overwhelming studies, those moments of absentmindedness, +the smallest details of the life of this married bachelor, all stood out +in luminous relief during the hour of mental questioning, which is, +as it were, the twilight before sleep, and to which any man would have +given himself up, as I did. + +"Oh! how I loved my poor master! He seemed to me sublime. I read a poem +of melancholy, I saw perpetual activity in the heart I had accused of +being torpid. Must not supreme grief always come at last to stagnation? +Had this judge, who had so much in his power, ever revenged himself? Was +he feeding himself on her long agony? Is it not a remarkable thing in +Paris to keep anger always seething for ten years? What had Octave done +since this great misfortune--for the separation of husband and wife is +a great misfortune in our day, when domestic life has become a social +question, which it never was of old? + +"We allowed a few days to pass on the watch, for great sorrows have a +diffidence of their own; but at last, one evening, the Count said in a +grave voice: + +"'Stay.' + + + +"This, as nearly as may be, is his story. + +"'My father had a ward, rich and lovely, who was sixteen at the time +when I came back from college to live in this old house. Honorine, who +had been brought up by my mother, was just awakening to life. Full of +grace and of childish ways, she dreamed of happiness as she would have +dreamed of jewels; perhaps happiness seemed to her the jewel of the +soul. Her piety was not free from puerile pleasures; for everything, +even religion, was poetry to her ingenuous heart. She looked to the +future as a perpetual fete. Innocent and pure, no delirium had disturbed +her dream. Shame and grief had never tinged her cheek nor moistened +her eye. She did not even inquire into the secret of her involuntary +emotions on a fine spring day. And then, she felt that she was weak and +destined to obedience, and she awaited marriage without wishing for +it. Her smiling imagination knew nothing of the corruption--necessary +perhaps--which literature imparts by depicting the passions; she knew +nothing of the world, and was ignorant of all the dangers of society. +The dear child had suffered so little that she had not even developed +her courage. In short, her guilelessness would have led her to walk +fearless among serpents, like the ideal figure of Innocence a painter +once created. We lived together like two brothers. + +"'At the end of a year I said to her one day, in the garden of this +house, by the basin, as we stood throwing crumbs to the fish: + +"'"Would you like that we should be married? With me you could do +whatever you please, while another man would make you unhappy." + +"'"Mamma," said she to my mother, who came out to join us, "Octave and I +have agreed to be married----" + +"'"What! at seventeen?" said my mother. "No, you must wait eighteen +months; and if eighteen months hence you like each other, well, your +birth and fortunes are equal, you can make a marriage which is suitable, +as well as being a love match." + +"'When I was six-and-twenty, and Honorine nineteen, we were married. +Our respect for my father and mother, old folks of the Bourbon Court, +hindered us from making this house fashionable, or renewing the +furniture; we lived on, as we had done in the past, as children. +However, I went into society; I initiated my wife into the world of +fashion; and I regarded it as one of my duties to instruct her. + +"'I recognized afterwards that marriages contracted under such +circumstances as ours bear in themselves a rock against which many +affections are wrecked, many prudent calculations, many lives. The +husband becomes a pedagogue, or, if you like, a professor, and love +perishes under the rod which, sooner or later, gives pain; for a young +and handsome wife, at once discreet and laughter-loving, will not accept +any superiority above that with which she is endowed by nature. Perhaps +I was in the wrong? During the difficult beginnings of a household I, +perhaps, assumed a magisterial tone? On the other hand, I may have made +the mistake of trusting too entirely to that artless nature; I kept no +watch over the Countess, in whom revolt seemed to me impossible? Alas! +neither in politics nor in domestic life has it yet been ascertained +whether empires and happiness are wrecked by too much confidence or too +much severity! Perhaps again, the husband failed to realize Honorine's +girlish dreams? Who can tell, while happy days last, what precepts he +has neglected?' + +"I remember only the broad outlines of the reproaches the Count +addressed to himself, with all the good faith of an anatomist seeking +the cause of a disease which might be overlooked by his brethren; but +his merciful indulgence struck me then as really worthy of that of Jesus +Christ when He rescued the woman taken in adultery. + +"'It was eighteen months after my father's death--my mother followed him +to the tomb in a few months--when the fearful night came which surprised +me by Honorine's farewell letter. What poetic delusion had seduced my +wife? Was it through her senses? Was it the magnetism of misfortune +or of genius? Which of these powers had taken her by storm or misled +her?--I would not know. The blow was so terrible, that for a month I +remained stunned. Afterwards, reflection counseled me to continue in +ignorance, and Honorine's misfortunes have since taught me too much +about all these things.--So far, Maurice, the story is commonplace +enough; but one word will change it all: I love Honorine, I have never +ceased to worship her. From the day when she left me I have lived on +memory; one by one I recall the pleasures for which Honorine no doubt +had no taste. + +"'Oh!' said he, seeing the amazement in my eyes, 'do not make a hero of +me, do not think me such a fool, as the Colonel of the Empire would say, +as to have sought no diversion. Alas, my boy! I was either too young or +too much in love; I have not in the whole world met with another woman. +After frightful struggles with myself, I tried to forget; money in hand, +I stood on the very threshold of infidelity, but there the memory of +Honorine rose before me like a white statue. As I recalled the infinite +delicacy of that exquisite skin, through which the blood might be seen +coursing and the nerves quivering; as I saw in fancy that ingenuous +face, as guileless on the eve of my sorrows as on the day when I said +to her, "Shall we marry?" as I remembered a heavenly fragrance, the +very odor of virtue, and the light in her eyes, the prettiness of her +movements, I fled like a man preparing to violate a tomb, who sees +emerging from it the transfigured soul of the dead. At consultations, +in Court, by night, I dream so incessantly of Honorine that only by +excessive strength of mind do I succeed in attending to what I am doing +and saying. This is the secret of my labors. + +"'Well, I felt no more anger with her than a father can feel on seeing +his beloved child in some danger it has imprudently rushed into. I +understood that I had made a poem of my wife--a poem I delighted in +with such intoxication, that I fancied she shared the intoxication. Ah! +Maurice, an indiscriminating passion in a husband is a mistake that may +lead to any crime in a wife. I had no doubt left all the faculties of +this child, loved as a child, entirely unemployed; I had perhaps wearied +her with my love before the hour of loving had struck for her! Too young +to understand that in the constancy of the wife lies the germ of the +mother's devotion, she mistook this first test of marriage for life +itself, and the refractory child cursed life, unknown to me, nor daring +to complain to me, out of sheer modesty perhaps! In so cruel a position +she would be defenceless against any man who stirred her deeply.--And +I, so wise a judge as they say--I, who have a kind heart, but whose mind +was absorbed--I understood too late these unwritten laws of the woman's +code, I read them by the light of the fire that wrecked my roof. Then I +constituted my heart a tribunal by virtue of the law, for the law makes +the husband a judge: I acquitted my wife, and I condemned myself. But +love took possession of me as a passion, the mean, despotic passion +which comes over some old men. At this day I love the absent Honorine as +a man of sixty loves a woman whom he must possess at any cost, and yet +I feel the strength of a young man. I have the insolence of the old man +and the reserve of a boy.--My dear fellow, society only laughs at such +a desperate conjugal predicament. Where it pities a lover, it regards a +husband as ridiculously inept; it makes sport of those who cannot keep +the woman they have secured under the canopy of the Church, and before +the Maire's scarf of office. And I had to keep silence. + +"'Serizy is happy. His indulgence allows him to see his wife; he can +protect and defend her; and, as he adores her, he knows all the perfect +joys of a benefactor whom nothing can disturb, not even ridicule, for he +pours it himself on his fatherly pleasures. "I remain married only for +my wife's sake," he said to me one day on coming out of court. + +"'But I--I have nothing; I have not even to face ridicule, I who live +solely on a love which is starving! I who can never find a word to say +to a woman of the world! I who loathe prostitution! I who am faithful +under a spell!--But for my religious faith, I should have killed myself. +I have defied the gulf of hard work; I have thrown myself into it, and +come out again alive, fevered, burning, bereft of sleep!----' + +"I cannot remember all the words of this eloquent man, to whom passion +gave an eloquence indeed so far above that of the pleader that, as I +listened to him, I, like him, felt my cheeks wet with tears. You may +conceive of my feelings when, after a pause, during which we dried them +away, he finished his story with this revelation:-- + +"'This is the drama of my soul, but it is not the actual living drama +which is at this moment being acted in Paris! The interior drama +interests nobody. I know it; and you will one day admit that it is so, +you, who at this moment shed tears with me; no one can burden his heart +or his skin with another's pain. The measure of our sufferings is in +ourselves.--You even understand my sorrows only by very vague analogy. +Could you see me calming the most violent frenzy of despair by the +contemplation of a miniature in which I can see and kiss her brow, the +smile on her lips, the shape of her face, can breathe the whiteness of +her skin; which enables me almost to feel, to play with the black masses +of her curling hair?--Could you see me when I leap with hope--when I +writhe under the myriad darts of despair--when I tramp through the mire +of Paris to quell my irritation by fatigue? I have fits of collapse +comparable to those of a consumptive patient, moods of wild hilarity, +terrors as of a murderer who meets a sergeant of police. In short, my +life is a continual paroxysm of fears, joy, and dejection. + +"'As to the drama--it is this. You imagine that I am occupied with the +Council of State, the Chamber, the Courts, Politics.--Why, dear me, +seven hours at night are enough for all that, so much are my faculties +overwrought by the life I lead! Honorine is my real concern. To +recover my wife is my only study; to guard her in her cage, without her +suspecting that she is in my power; to satisfy her needs, to supply the +little pleasure she allows herself, to be always about her like a sylph +without allowing her to see or to suspect me, for if she did, the future +would be lost,--that is my life, my true life.--For seven years I +have never gone to bed without going first to see the light of her +night-lamp, or her shadow on the window curtains. + +"'She left my house, choosing to take nothing but the dress she wore +that day. The child carried her magnanimity to the point of folly! +Consequently, eighteen months after her flight she was deserted by her +lover, who was appalled by the cold, cruel, sinister, and revolting +aspect of poverty--the coward! The man had, no doubt, counted on the +easy and luxurious life in Switzerland or Italy which fine ladies +indulge in when they leave their husbands. Honorine has sixty thousand +francs a year of her own. The wretch left the dear creature expecting an +infant, and without a penny. In the month of November 1820 I found means +to persuade the best _accoucheur_ in Paris to play the part of a humble +suburban apothecary. I induced the priest of the parish in which the +Countess was living to supply her needs as though he were performing an +act of charity. Then to hide my wife, to secure her against discovery, +to find her a housekeeper who would be devoted to me and be my +intelligent confidante--it was a task worthy of Figaro! You may suppose +that to discover where my wife had taken refuge I had only to make up my +mind to it. + +"'After three months of desperation rather than despair, the idea of +devoting myself to Honorine with God only in my secret, was one of those +poems which occur only to the heart of a lover through life and death! +Love must have its daily food. And ought I not to protect this child, +whose guilt was the outcome of my imprudence, against fresh disaster--to +fulfil my part, in short, as a guardian angel?--At the age of seven +months her infant died, happily for her and for me. For nine months more +my wife lay between life and death, deserted at the time when she most +needed a manly arm; but this arm,' said he, holding out his own with a +gesture of angelic dignity, 'was extended over her head. Honorine was +nursed as she would have been in her own home. When, on her recovery, +she asked how and by whom she had been assisted, she was told--"By the +Sisters of Charity in the neighborhood--by the Maternity Society--by the +parish priest, who took an interest in her." + +"'This woman, whose pride amounts to a vice, has shown a power of +resistance in misfortune, which on some evenings I call the obstinacy of +a mule. Honorine was bent on earning her living. My wife works! For five +years past I have lodged her in the Rue Saint-Maur, in a charming little +house, where she makes artificial flowers and articles of fashion. She +believes that she sells the product of her elegant fancywork to a shop, +where she is so well paid that she makes twenty francs a day, and in +these six years she had never had a moment's suspicion. She pays for +everything she needs at about the third of its value, so that on six +thousand francs a year she lives as if she had fifteen thousand. She is +devoted to flowers, and pays a hundred crowns to a gardener, who costs +me twelve hundred in wages, and sends me in a bill for two thousand +francs every three months. I have promised the man a market-garden with +a house on it close to the porter's lodge in the Rue Saint-Maur. I +hold this ground in the name of a clerk of the law courts. The smallest +indiscretion would ruin the gardener's prospects. Honorine has her +little house, a garden, and a splendid hothouse, for a rent of +five hundred francs a year. There she lives under the name of her +housekeeper, Madame Gobain, the old woman of impeccable discretion whom +I was so lucky as to find, and whose affection Honorine has won. But her +zeal, like that of the gardener, is kept hot by the promise of reward at +the moment of success. The porter and his wife cost me dreadfully dear +for the same reasons. However, for three years Honorine has been happy, +believing that she owes to her own toil all the luxury of flowers, +dress, and comfort. + +"'Oh! I know what you are about to say,' cried the Count, seeing a +question in my eyes and on my lips. 'Yes, yes; I have made the attempt. +My wife was formerly living in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. One day when, +from what Gobain told me, I believed in some chance of a reconciliation, +I wrote by post a letter, in which I tried to propitiate my wife--a +letter written and re-written twenty times! I will not describe my +agonies. I went from the Rue Payenne to the Rue de Reuilly like a +condemned wretch going from the Palais de Justice to his execution, but +he goes on a cart, and I was on foot. It was dark--there was a fog; I +went to meet Madame Gobain, who was to come and tell me what my wife had +done. Honorine, on recognizing my writing, had thrown the letter into +the fire without reading it.--"Madame Gobain," she had exclaimed, "I +leave this to-morrow." + +"'What a dagger-stroke was this to a man who found inexhaustible +pleasure in the trickery by which he gets the finest Lyons velvet at +twelve francs a yard, a pheasant, a fish, a dish of fruit, for a tenth +of their value, for a woman so ignorant as to believe that she is paying +ample wages with two hundred and fifty francs to Madame Gobain, a cook +fit for a bishop. + +"'You have sometimes found me rubbing my hands in the enjoyment of a +sort of happiness. Well, I had just succeeded in some ruse worthy of +the stage. I had just deceived my wife--I had sent her by a purchaser +of wardrobes an Indian shawl, to be offered to her as the property of an +actress who had hardly worn it, but in which I--the solemn lawyer whom +you know--had wrapped myself for a night! In short, my life at this +day may be summed up in the two words which express the extremes of +torment--I love, and I wait! I have in Madame Gobain a faithful spy on +the heart I worship. I go every evening to chat with the old woman, to +hear from her all that Honorine has done during the day, the lightest +word she has spoken, for a single exclamation might betray to me the +secrets of that soul which is wilfully deaf and dumb. Honorine is pious; +she attends the Church services and prays, but she has never been to +confession or taken the Communion; she foresees what a priest would +tell her. She will not listen to the advice, to the injunction, that she +should return to me. This horror of me overwhelms me, dismays me, for I +have never done her the smallest harm. I have always been kind to her. +Granting even that I may have been a little hasty when teaching her, +that my man's irony may have hurt her legitimate girlish pride, is +that a reason for persisting in a determination which only the most +implacable hatred could have inspired? Honorine has never told Madame +Gobain who she is; she keeps absolute silence as to her marriage, so +that the worthy and respectable woman can never speak a word in my +favor, for she is the only person in the house who knows my secret. The +others know nothing; they live under the awe caused by the name of the +Prefect of Police, and their respect for the power of a Minister. Hence +it is impossible for me to penetrate that heart; the citadel is mine, +but I cannot get into it. I have not a single means of action. An act of +violence would ruin me for ever. + +"'How can I argue against reasons of which I know nothing? Should I +write a letter, and have it copied by a public writer, and laid before +Honorine? But that would be to run the risk of a third removal. The +last cost me fifty thousand francs. The purchase was made in the first +instance in the name of the secretary whom you succeeded. The unhappy +man, who did not know how lightly I sleep, was detected by me in the act +of opening a box in which I had put the private agreement; I coughed, +and he was seized with a panic; next day I compelled him to sell the +house to the man in whose name it now stands, and I turned him out. + +"'If it were not that I feel all my noblest faculties as a man +satisfied, happy, expansive; if the part I am playing were not that of +divine fatherhood; if I did not drink in delight by every pore, there +are moments when I should believe that I was a monomaniac. Sometimes +at night I hear the jingling bells of madness. I dread the violent +transitions from a feeble hope, which sometimes shines and flashes up, +to complete despair, falling as low as man can fall. A few days since I +was seriously considering the horrible end of the story of Lovelace and +Clarissa Harlowe, and saying to myself, if Honorine were the mother of a +child of mine, must she not necessarily return under her husband's roof? + +"'And I have such complete faith in a happy future, that ten months +ago I bought and paid for one of the handsomest houses in the Faubourg +Saint-Honore. If I win back Honorine, I will not allow her to see this +house again, nor the room from which she fled. I mean to place my idol +in a new temple, where she may feel that life is altogether new. That +house is being made a marvel of elegance and taste. I have been told +of a poet who, being almost mad with love for an actress, bought the +handsomest bed in Paris without knowing how the actress would reward his +passion. Well, one of the coldest of lawyers, a man who is supposed to +be the gravest adviser of the Crown, was stirred to the depths of +his heart by that anecdote. The orator of the Legislative Chamber can +understand the poet who fed his ideal on material possibilities. Three +days before the arrival of Maria Louisa, Napoleon flung himself on +his wedding bed at Compiegne. All stupendous passions have the same +impulses. I love as a poet--as an emperor!' + +"As I heard the last words, I believed that Count Octave's fears were +realized; he had risen, and was walking up and down, and gesticulating, +but he stopped as if shocked by the vehemence of his own words. + +"'I am very ridiculous,' he added, after a long pause, looking at me, as +if craving a glance of pity. + +"'No, monsieur, you are very unhappy.' + +"'Ah yes!' said he, taking up the thread of his confidences. 'From the +violence of my speech you may, you must believe in the intensity of a +physical passion which for nine years has absorbed all my faculties; but +that is nothing in comparison with the worship I feel for the soul, the +mind, the heart, all in that woman; the enchanting divinities in the +train of Love, with whom we pass our life, and who form the daily poem +of a fugitive delight. By a phenomenon of retrospection I see now the +graces of Honorine's mind and heart, to which I paid little heed in the +time of my happiness--like all who are happy. From day to day I have +appreciated the extent of my loss, discovering the exquisite gifts of +that capricious and refractory young creature who has grown so strong +and so proud under the heavy hand of poverty and the shock of the most +cowardly desertion. And that heavenly blossom is fading in solitude and +hiding!--Ah! The law of which we were speaking,' he went on with bitter +irony, 'the law is a squad of gendarmes--my wife seized and dragged away +by force! Would not that be to triumph over a corpse? Religion has no +hold on her; she craves its poetry, she prays, but she does not listen +to the commandments of the Church. I, for my part, have exhausted +everything in the way of mercy, of kindness, of love; I am at my wits' +end. Only one chance of victory is left to me; the cunning and patience +with which bird-catchers at last entrap the wariest birds, the swiftest, +the most capricious, and the rarest. Hence, Maurice, when M. de +Grandville's indiscretion betrayed to you the secret of my life, I ended +by regarding this incident as one of the decrees of fate, one of the +utterances for which gamblers listen and pray in the midst of their +most impassioned play.... Have you enough affection for me to show me +romantic devotion?' + +"'I see what you are coming to, Monsieur le Comte,' said I, interrupting +him; 'I guess your purpose. Your first secretary tried to open your deed +box. I know the heart of your second--he might fall in love with your +wife. And can you devote him to destruction by sending him into the +fire? Can any one put his hand into a brazier without burning it?' + +"'You are a foolish boy,' replied the Count. 'I will send you well +gloved. It is no secretary of mine that will be lodged in the Rue +Saint-Maur in the little garden-house which I have at his disposal. It +is my distant cousin, Baron de l'Hostal, a lawyer high in office..." + +"After a moment of silent surprise, I heard the gate bell ring, and a +carriage came into the courtyard. Presently the footman announced Madame +de Courteville and her daughter. The Count had a large family connection +on his mother's side. Madame de Courteville, his cousin, was the widow +of a judge on the bench of the Seine division, who had left her a +daughter and no fortune whatever. What could a woman of nine-and-twenty +be in comparison with a young girl of twenty, as lovely as imagination +could wish for an ideal mistress? + +"'Baron, and Master of Appeals, till you get something better, and this +old house settled on her,--would not you have enough good reasons for +not falling in love with the Countess?' he said to me in a whisper, as +he took me by the hand and introduced me to Madame de Courteville and +her daughter. + +"I was dazzled, not so much by these advantages of which I had never +dreamed, but by Amelie de Courteville, whose beauty was thrown into +relief by one of those well-chosen toilets which a mother can achieve +for a daughter when she wants to see her married. + +"But I will not talk of myself," said the Consul after a pause. + +"Three weeks later I went to live in the gardener's cottage, which +had been cleaned, repaired, and furnished with the celerity which is +explained by three words: Paris; French workmen; money! I was as much +in love as the Count could possibly desire as a security. Would the +prudence of a young man of five-and-twenty be equal to the part I was +undertaking, involving a friend's happiness? To settle that matter, I +may confess that I counted very much on my uncle's advice; for I had +been authorized by the Count to take him into confidence in any case +where I deemed his interference necessary. I engaged a garden; I devoted +myself to horticulture; I worked frantically, like a man whom nothing +can divert, turning up the soil of the market-garden, and appropriating +the ground to the culture of flowers. Like the maniacs of England, or +of Holland, I gave it out that I was devoted to one kind of flower, and +especially grew dahlias, collecting every variety. You will understand +that my conduct, even in the smallest details, was laid down for me by +the Count, whose whole intellectual powers were directed to the most +trifling incidents of the tragi-comedy enacted in the Rue Saint-Maur. As +soon as the Countess had gone to bed, at about eleven at night, Octave, +Madame Gobain, and I sat in council. I heard the old woman's report to +the Count of his wife's least proceedings during the day. He inquired +into everything: her meals, her occupations, her frame of mind, her +plans for the morrow, the flowers she proposed to imitate. I understood +what love in despair may be when it is the threefold passion of the +heart, the mind, and the senses. Octave lived only for that hour. + +"During two months, while my work in the garden lasted, I never set +eyes on the little house where my fair neighbor dwelt. I had not even +inquired whether I had a neighbor, though the Countess' garden was +divided from mine by a paling, along which she had planted cypress trees +already four feet high. One fine morning Madame Gobain announced to her +mistress, as a disastrous piece of news, the intention, expressed by +an eccentric creature who had become her neighbor, of building a wall +between the two gardens, at the end of the year. I will say nothing of +the curiosity which consumed me to see the Countess! The wish almost +extinguished my budding love for Amelie de Courteville. My scheme for +building a wall was indeed a dangerous threat. There would be no more +fresh air for Honorine, whose garden would then be a sort of narrow +alley shut in between my wall and her own little house. This dwelling, +formerly a summer villa, was like a house of cards; it was not more +than thirty feet deep, and about a hundred feet long. The garden front, +painted in the German fashion, imitated a trellis with flowers up to the +second floor, and was really a charming example of the Pompadour style, +so well called rococo. A long avenue of limes led up to it. The gardens +of the pavilion and my plot of ground were in the shape of a hatchet, of +which this avenue was the handle. My wall would cut away three-quarters +of the hatchet. + +"The Countess was in despair. + +"'My good Gobain,' said she, 'what sort of man is this florist?' + +"'On my word,' said the housekeeper, 'I do not know whether it will +be possible to tame him. He seems to have a horror of women. He is the +nephew of a Paris cure. I have seen the uncle but once; a fine old man +of sixty, very ugly, but very amiable. It is quite possible that this +priest encourages his nephew, as they say in the neighborhood, in his +love of flowers, that nothing worse may happen----' + +"'Why--what?' + +"'Well, your neighbor is a little cracked!' said Gobain, tapping her +head! + +"Now a harmless lunatic is the only man whom no woman ever distrusts +in the matter of sentiment. You will see how wise the Count had been in +choosing this disguise for me. + +"'What ails him then?' asked the Countess. + +"'He has studied too hard,' replied Gobain; 'he has turned misanthropic. +And he has his reasons for disliking women--well, if you want to know +all that is said about him----' + +"'Well,' said Honorine, 'madmen frighten me less than sane folks; I will +speak to him myself! Tell him that I beg him to come here. If I do not +succeed, I will send for the cure.' + +"The day after this conversation, as I was walking along my graveled +path, I caught sight of the half-opened curtains on the first floor of +the little house, and of a woman's face curiously peeping out. Madame +Gobain called me. I hastily glanced at the Countess' house, and by a +rude shrug expressed, 'What do I care for your mistress!' + +"'Madame,' said Gobain, called upon to give an account of her errand, +'the madman bid me leave him in peace, saying that even a charcoal +seller is master in his own premises, especially when he has no wife.' + +"'He is perfectly right,' said the Countess. + +"'Yes, but he ended by saying, "I will go," when I told him that he +would greatly distress a lady living in retirement, who found her +greatest solace in growing flowers.' + +"Next day a signal from Gobain informed me that I was expected. After +the Countess' breakfast, when she was walking to and fro in front of +her house, I broke out some palings and went towards her. I had dressed +myself like a countryman, in an old pair of gray flannel trousers, +heavy wooden shoes, and shabby shooting coat, a peaked cap on my head, +a ragged bandana round my neck, hands soiled with mould, and a dibble in +my hand. + +"'Madame,' said the housekeeper, 'this good man is your neighbor.' + +"The Countess was not alarmed. I saw at last the woman whom her own +conduct and her husband's confidences had made me so curious to meet. It +was in the early days of May. The air was pure, the weather serene; the +verdure of the first foliage, the fragrance of spring formed a setting +for this creature of sorrow. As I then saw Honorine I understood +Octave's passion and the truthfulness of his description, 'A heavenly +flower!' + +"Her pallor was what first struck me by its peculiar tone of white--for +there are as many tones of white as of red or blue. On looking at the +Countess, the eye seemed to feel that tender skin, where the blood +flowed in the blue veins. At the slightest emotion the blood mounted +under the surface in rosy flushes like a cloud. When we met, the +sunshine, filtering through the light foliage of the acacias, shed on +Honorine the pale gold, ambient glory in which Raphael and Titian, alone +of all painters, have been able to enwrap the Virgin. Her brown +eyes expressed both tenderness and vivacity; their brightness seemed +reflected in her face through the long downcast lashes. Merely by +lifting her delicate eyelids, Honorine could cast a spell; there was +so much feeling, dignity, terror, or contempt in her way of raising or +dropping those veils of the soul. She could freeze or give life by a +look. Her light-brown hair, carelessly knotted on her head, outlined +a poet's brow, high, powerful, and dreamy. The mouth was wholly +voluptuous. And to crown all by a grace, rare in France, though common +in Italy, all the lines and forms of the head had a stamp of nobleness +which would defy the outrages of time. + +"Though slight, Honorine was not thin, and her figure struck me as +being one that might revive love when it believed itself exhausted. She +perfectly represented the idea conveyed by the word _mignonne_, for she +was one of those pliant little women who allow themselves to be taken +up, petted, set down, and taken up again like a kitten. Her small feet, +as I heard them on the gravel, made a light sound essentially their own, +that harmonized with the rustle of her dress, producing a feminine +music which stamped itself on the heart, and remained distinct from the +footfall of a thousand other women. Her gait bore all the quarterings of +her race with so much pride, that, in the street, the least respectful +working man would have made way for her. Gay and tender, haughty and +imposing, it was impossible to understand her, excepting as gifted with +these apparently incompatible qualities, which, nevertheless, had left +her still a child. But it was a child who might be as strong as an +angel; and, like the angel, once hurt in her nature, she would be +implacable. + +"Coldness on that face must no doubt be death to those on whom her eyes +had smiled, for whom her set lips had parted, for those whose soul had +drunk in the melody of that voice, lending to her words the poetry of +song by its peculiar intonation. Inhaling the perfume of violets that +accompanied her, I understood how the memory of this wife had arrested +the Count on the threshold of debauchery, and how impossible it would be +ever to forget a creature who really was a flower to the touch, a flower +to the eye, a flower of fragrance, a heavenly flower to the soul.... +Honorine inspired devotion, chivalrous devotion, regardless of reward. A +man on seeing her must say to himself: + +"'Think, and I will divine your thought; speak, and I will obey. If my +life, sacrificed in torments, can procure you one day's happiness, take +my life, I will smile like a martyr at the stake, for I shall offer that +day to God, as a token to which a father responds on recognizing a +gift to his child.' Many women study their expression, and succeed in +producing effects similar to those which would have struck you at +first sight of the Countess; only, in her, it was all the outcome of a +delightful nature, that inimitable nature went at once to the heart. +If I tell you all this, it is because her soul, her thoughts, the +exquisiteness of her heart, are all we are concerned with, and you would +have blamed me if I had not sketched them for you. + +"I was very near forgetting my part as a half-crazy lout, clumsy, and by +no means chivalrous. + +"'I am told, madame, that you are fond of flowers?' + +"'I am an artificial flower-maker,' said she. 'After growing flowers, I +imitate them, like a mother who is artist enough to have the pleasure of +painting her children.... That is enough to tell you that I am poor and +unable to pay for the concession I am anxious to obtain from you?' + +"'But how,' said I, as grave as a judge, 'can a lady of such rank as +yours would seem to be, ply so humble a calling? Have you, like me, +good reasons for employing your fingers so as to keep your brains from +working?' + +"'Let us stick to the question of the wall,' said she, with a smile. + +"'Why, we have begun at the foundations,' said I. 'Must not I know which +of us ought to yield to the other in behalf of our suffering, or, if you +choose, of our mania?--Oh! what a charming clump of narcissus! They are +as fresh as this spring morning!' + +"I assure you, she had made for herself a perfect museum of flowers and +shrubs, which none might see but the sun, and of which the arrangement +had been prompted by the genius of an artist; the most heartless of +landlords must have treated it with respect. The masses of plants, +arranged according to their height, or in single clumps, were really a +joy to the soul. This retired and solitary garden breathed comforting +scents, and suggested none but sweet thoughts and graceful, nay, +voluptuous pictures. On it was set that inscrutable sign-manual, which +our true character stamps on everything, as soon as nothing compels us +to obey the various hypocrisies, necessary as they are, which Society +insists on. I looked alternately at the mass of narcissus and at the +Countess, affecting to be far more in love with the flowers than with +her, to carry out my part. + +"'So you are very fond of flowers?' said she. + +"'They are,' I replied, 'the only beings that never disappoint our cares +and affection.' And I went on to deliver such a diatribe while comparing +botany and the world, that we ended miles away from the dividing wall, +and the Countess must have supposed me to be a wretched and wounded +sufferer worthy of her pity. However, at the end of half an hour my +neighbor naturally brought me back to the point; for women, when they +are not in love, have all the cold blood of an experienced attorney. + +"'If you insist on my leaving the paling,' said I, 'you will learn all +the secrets of gardening that I want to hide; I am seeking to grow a +blue dahlia, a blue rose; I am crazy for blue flowers. Is not blue the +favorite color of superior souls? We are neither of us really at home; +we might as well make a little door of open railings to unite our +gardens.... You, too, are fond of flowers; you will see mine, I shall +see yours. If you receive no visitors at all, I, for my part, have none +but my uncle, the Cure of the White Friars.' + +"'No,' said she, 'I will give you the right to come into my garden, my +premises at any hour. Come and welcome; you will always be admitted as a +neighbor with whom I hope to keep on good terms. But I like my solitude +too well to burden it with any loss of independence.' + +"'As you please,' said I, and with one leap I was over the paling. + +"'Now, of what use would a door be?' said I, from my own domain, turning +round to the Countess, and mocking her with a madman's gesture and +grimace. + +"For a fortnight I seemed to take no heed of my neighbor. Towards the +end of May, one lovely evening, we happened both to be out on opposite +sides of the paling, both walking slowly. Having reached the end, we +could not help exchanging a few civil words; she found me in such deep +dejection, lost in such painful meditations, that she spoke to me of +hopefulness, in brief sentences that sounded like the songs with which +nurses lull their babies. I then leaped the fence, and found myself for +the second time at her side. The Countess led me into the house, wishing +to subdue my sadness. So at last I had penetrated the sanctuary where +everything was in harmony with the woman I have tried to describe to +you. + +"Exquisite simplicity reigned there. The interior of the little house +was just such a dainty box as the art of the eighteenth century devised +for the pretty profligacy of a fine gentleman. The dining-room, on the +ground floor, was painted in fresco, with garlands of flowers, admirably +and marvelously executed. The staircase was charmingly decorated in +monochrome. The little drawing-room, opposite the dining-room, was very +much faded; but the Countess had hung it with panels of tapestry of +fanciful designs, taken off old screens. A bath-room came next. Upstairs +there was but one bedroom, with a dressing-room, and a library which she +used as her workroom. The kitchen was beneath in the basement on which +the house was raised, for there was a flight of several steps outside. +The balustrade of a balcony in garlands a la Pompadour concealed the +roof; only the lead cornices were visible. In this retreat one was a +hundred leagues from Paris. + +"But for the bitter smile which occasionally played on the beautiful +red lips of this pale woman, it would have been possible to believe that +this violet buried in her thicket of flowers was happy. In a few days +we had reached a certain degree of intimacy, the result of our close +neighborhood and of the Countess' conviction that I was indifferent to +women. A look would have spoilt all, and I never allowed a thought of +her to be seen in my eyes. Honorine chose to regard me as an old friend. +Her manner to me was the outcome of a kind of pity. Her looks, her +voice, her words, all showed that she was a hundred miles away from the +coquettish airs which the strictest virtue might have allowed under such +circumstances. She soon gave me the right to go into the pretty workshop +where she made her flowers, a retreat full of books and curiosities, as +smart as a boudoir where elegance emphasized the vulgarity of the tools +of her trade. The Countess had in the course of time poetized, as I may +say, a thing which is at the antipodes to poetry--a manufacture. + +"Perhaps of all the work a woman can do, the making of artificial +flowers is that of which the details allow her to display most grace. +For coloring prints she must sit bent over a table and devote herself, +with some attention, to this half painting. Embroidering tapestry, as +diligently as a woman must who is to earn her living by it, entails +consumption or curvature of the spine. Engraving music is one of the +most laborious, by the care, the minute exactitude, and the intelligence +it demands. Sewing and white embroidery do not earn thirty sous a day. +But the making of flowers and light articles of wear necessitates a +variety of movements, gestures, ideas even, which do not take a pretty +woman out of her sphere; she is still herself; she may chat, laugh, +sing, or think. + +"There was certainly a feeling for art in the way in which the Countess +arranged on a long deal table the myriad-colored petals which were used +in composing the flowers she was to produce. The saucers of color were +of white china, and always clean, arranged in such order that the eye +could at once see the required shade in the scale of tints. Thus the +aristocratic artist saved time. A pretty little cabinet with a hundred +tiny drawers, of ebony inlaid with ivory, contained the little steel +moulds in which she shaped the leaves and some forms of petals. A fine +Japanese bowl held the paste, which was never allowed to turn sour, and +it had a fitted cover with a hinge so easy that she could lift it with +a finger-tip. The wire, of iron and brass, lurked in a little drawer of +the table before her. + +"Under her eyes, in a Venetian glass, shaped like a flower-cup on its +stem, was the living model she strove to imitate. She had a passion for +achievement; she attempted the most difficult things, close racemes, +the tiniest corollas, heaths, nectaries of the most variegated hues. Her +hands, as swift as her thoughts, went from the table to the flower she +was making, as those of an accomplished pianist fly over the keys. Her +fingers seemed to be fairies, to use Perrault's expression, so infinite +were the different actions of twisting, fitting, and pressure needed +for the work, all hidden under grace of movement, while she adapted each +motion to the result with the lucidity of instinct. + +"I could not tire of admiring her as she shaped a flower from the +materials sorted before her, padding the wire stem and adjusting the +leaves. She displayed the genius of a painter in her bold attempts; +she copied faded flowers and yellowing leaves; she struggled even with +wildflowers, the most artless of all, and the most elaborate in their +simplicity. + +"'This art,' she would say, 'is in its infancy. If the women of Paris +had a little of the genius which the slavery of the harem brings out in +Oriental women, they would lend a complete language of flowers to the +wreaths they wear on their head. To please my own taste as an artist I +have made drooping flowers with leaves of the hue of Florentine bronze, +such as are found before or after the winter. Would not such a crown +on the head of a young woman whose life is a failure have a certain +poetical fitness? How many things a woman might express by her +head-dress! Are there not flowers for drunken Bacchantes, flowers +for gloomy and stern bigots, pensive flowers for women who are bored? +Botany, I believe, may be made to express every sensation and thought of +the soul, even the most subtle.' + +"She would employ me to stamp out the leaves, cut up material, and +prepare wires for the stems. My affected desire for occupation made me +soon skilful. We talked as we worked. When I had nothing to do, I read +new books to her, for I had my part to keep up as a man weary of life, +worn out with griefs, gloomy, sceptical, and soured. My person led to +adorable banter as to my purely physical resemblance--with the exception +of his club foot--to Lord Byron. It was tacitly acknowledged that +her own troubles, as to which she kept the most profound silence, far +outweighed mine, though the causes I assigned for my misanthropy might +have satisfied Young or Job. + +"I will say nothing of the feelings of shame which tormented me as I +inflicted on my heart, like the beggars in the street, false wounds to +excite the compassion of that enchanting woman. I soon appreciated the +extent of my devotedness by learning to estimate the baseness of a spy. +The expressions of sympathy bestowed on me would have comforted the +greatest grief. This charming creature, weaned from the world, and for +so many years alone, having, besides love, treasures of kindliness +to bestow, offered these to me with childlike effusiveness and +such compassion as would inevitably have filled with bitterness any +profligate who should have fallen in love with her; for, alas, it was +all charity, all sheer pity. Her renunciation of love, her dread of what +is called happiness for women, she proclaimed with equal vehemence and +candor. These happy days proved to me that a woman's friendship is far +superior to her love. + +"I suffered the revelations of my sorrows to be dragged from me with as +many grimaces as a young lady allows herself before sitting down to the +piano, so conscious are they of the annoyance that will follow. As +you may imagine, the necessity for overcoming my dislike to speak had +induced the Countess to strengthen the bonds of our intimacy; but she +found in me so exact a counterpart of her own antipathy to love, that +I fancied she was well content with the chance which had brought to her +desert island a sort of Man Friday. Solitude was perhaps beginning to +weigh on her. At the same time, there was nothing of the coquette in +her; nothing survived of the woman; she did not feel that she had a +heart, she told me, excepting in the ideal world where she found refuge. +I involuntarily compared these two lives--hers and the Count's:--his, +all activity, agitation, and emotion; hers, all inaction, quiescence, +and stagnation. The woman and the man were admirably obedient to their +nature. My misanthropy allowed me to utter cynical sallies against men +and women both, and I indulged in them, hoping to bring Honorine to +the confidential point; but she was not to be caught in any trap, and I +began to understand that mulish obstinacy which is commoner among women +than is generally supposed. + +"'The Orientals are right,' I said to her one evening, 'when they shut +you up and regard you merely as the playthings of their pleasure. Europe +has been well punished for having admitted you to form an element of +society and for accepting you on an equal footing. In my opinion, woman +is the most dishonorable and cowardly being to be found. Nay, and that +is where her charm lies. Where would be the pleasure of hunting a tame +thing? When once a woman has inspired a man's passion, she is to him +for ever sacred; in his eyes she is hedged round by an imprescriptible +prerogative. In men gratitude for past delights is eternal. Though he +should find his mistress grown old or unworthy, the woman still has +rights over his heart; but to you women the man you have loved is as +nothing to you; nay, more, he is unpardonable in one thing--he lives on! +You dare not own it, but you all have in your hearts the feeling which +that popular calumny called tradition ascribes to the Lady of the Tour +de Nesle: "What a pity it is that we cannot live on love as we live on +fruit, and that when we have had our fill, nothing should survive but +the remembrance of pleasure!"' + +"'God has, no doubt, reserved such perfect bliss for Paradise,' said +she. 'But,' she added, 'if your argument seems to you very witty, to me +it has the disadvantage of being false. What can those women be who give +themselves up to a succession of loves?' she asked, looking at me as the +Virgin in Ingres' picture looks at Louis XIII. offering her his kingdom. + +"'You are an actress in good faith,' said I, 'for you gave me a look +just now which would make the fame of an actress. Still, lovely as you +are, you have loved; _ergo_, you forget.' + +"'I!' she exclaimed, evading my question, 'I am not a woman. I am a nun, +and seventy-two years old!' + +"'Then, how can you so positively assert that you feel more keenly than +I? Sorrow has but one form for women. The only misfortunes they regard +are disappointments of the heart.' + +"She looked at me sweetly, and, like all women when stuck between the +issues of a dilemma, or held in the clutches of truth, she persisted, +nevertheless, in her wilfulness. + +"'I am a nun,' she said, 'and you talk to me of the world where I shall +never again set foot.' + +"'Not even in thought?' said I. + +"'Is the world so much to be desired?' she replied. 'Oh! when my mind +wanders, it goes higher. The angel of perfection, the beautiful angel +Gabriel, often sings in my heart. If I were rich, I should work, all the +same, to keep me from soaring too often on the many-tinted wings of the +angel, and wandering in the world of fancy. There are meditations which +are the ruin of us women! I owe much peace of mind to my flowers, though +sometimes they fail to occupy me. On some days I find my soul invaded +by a purposeless expectancy; I cannot banish some idea which takes +possession of me, which seems to make my fingers clumsy. I feel that +some great event is impending, that my life is about to change; I listen +vaguely, I stare into the darkness, I have no liking for my work, and +after a thousand fatigues I find life once more--everyday life. Is this +a warning from heaven? I ask myself----' + +"After three months of this struggle between two diplomates, concealed +under the semblance of youthful melancholy, and a woman whose disgust of +life made her invulnerable, I told the Count that it was impossible +to drag this tortoise out of her shell; it must be broken. The evening +before, in our last quite friendly discussion, the Countess had +exclaimed: + +"'Lucretia's dagger wrote in letters of blood the watchword of woman's +charter: _Liberty!_' + +"From that moment the Count left me free to act. + +"'I have been paid a hundred francs for the flowers and caps I made this +week!' Honorine exclaimed gleefully one Saturday evening when I went +to visit her in the little sitting-room on the ground floor, which the +unavowed proprietor had had regilt. + +"It was ten o'clock. The twilight of July and a glorious moon lent +us their misty light. Gusts of mingled perfumes soothed the soul; the +Countess was clinking in her hand the five gold pieces given to her by +a supposititious dealer in fashionable frippery, another of Octave's +accomplices found for him by a judge, M. Popinot. + +"'I earn my living by amusing myself,' said she; 'I am free, when +men, armed with their laws, have tried to make us slaves. Oh, I have +transports of pride every Saturday! In short, I like M. Gaudissart's +gold pieces as much as Lord Byron, your double, liked Mr. Murray's.' + +"'This is not becoming in a woman,' said I. + +"'Pooh! Am I a woman? I am a boy gifted with a soft soul, that is all; a +boy whom no woman can torture----' + +"'Your life is the negation of your whole being,' I replied. 'What? You, +on whom God has lavished His choicest treasures of love and beauty, do +you never wish----' + +"'For what?' said she, somewhat disturbed by a speech which, for the +first time, gave the lie to the part I had assumed. + +"'For a pretty little child, with curling hair, running, playing among +the flowers, like a flower itself of life and love, and calling you +mother!' + +"I waited for an answer. A too prolonged silence led me to perceive the +terrible effect of my words, though the darkness at first concealed it. +Leaning on her sofa, the Countess had not indeed fainted, but frozen +under a nervous attack of which the first chill, as gentle as everything +that was part of her, felt, as she afterwards said, like the influence +of a most insidious poison. I called Madame Gobain, who came and led +away her mistress, laid her on her bed, unlaced her, undressed her, and +restored her, not to life, it is true, but to the consciousness of some +dreadful suffering. I meanwhile walked up and down the path behind the +house, weeping, and doubting my success. I only wished to give up this +part of the bird-catcher which I had so rashly assumed. Madame Gobain, +who came down and found me with my face wet with tears, hastily went up +again to say to the Countess: + +"'What has happened, madame? Monsieur Maurice is crying like a child.' + +"Roused to action by the evil interpretation that might be put on our +mutual behavior, she summoned superhuman strength to put on a wrapper +and come down to me. + +"'You are not the cause of this attack,' said she. 'I am subject to +these spasms, a sort of cramp of the heart----' + +"'And will you not tell me of your troubles?' said I, in a voice which +cannot be affected, as I wiped away my tears. 'Have you not just now +told me that you have been a mother, and have been so unhappy as to lose +your child?' + +"'Marie!' she called as she rang the bell. Gobain came in. + +"'Bring lights and some tea,' said she, with the calm decision of a +Mylady clothed in the armor of pride by the dreadful English training +which you know too well. + +"When the housekeeper had lighted the tapers and closed the shutters, +the Countess showed me a mute countenance; her indomitable pride and +gravity, worthy of a savage, had already reasserted their mastery. She +said: + +"'Do you know why I like Lord Byron so much? It is because he suffered +as animals do. Of what use are complaints when they are not an elegy +like Manfred's, nor bitter mockery like Don Juan's, nor a reverie like +Childe Harold's? Nothing shall be known of me. My heart is a poem that I +lay before God.' + +"'If I chose----' said I. + +"'If?' she repeated. + +"'I have no interest in anything,' I replied, 'so I cannot be +inquisitive; but, if I chose, I could know all your secrets by +to-morrow.' + +"'I defy you!' she exclaimed, with ill-disguised uneasiness. + +"'Seriously?' + +"'Certainly,' said she, tossing her head. 'If such a crime is possible, +I ought to know it.' + +"'In the first place, madame,' I went on, pointing to her hands, +'those pretty fingers, which are enough to show that you are not a mere +girl--were they made for toil? Then you call yourself Madame Gobain, +you, who, in my presence the other day on receiving a letter, said to +Marie: "Here, this is for you?" Marie is the real Madame Gobain; so +you conceal your name behind that of your housekeeper.--Fear nothing, +madame, from me. You have in me the most devoted friend you will ever +have: Friend, do you understand me? I give this word its sacred and +pathetic meaning, so profaned in France, where we apply it to our +enemies. And your friend, who will defend you against everything, only +wishes that you should be as happy as such a woman ought to be. Who +can tell whether the pain I have involuntarily caused you was not a +voluntary act?' + +"'Yes,' replied she with threatening audacity, 'I insist on it. Be +curious, and tell me all that you can find out about me; but,' and she +held up her finger, 'you must also tell me by what means you obtain +your information. The preservation of the small happiness I enjoy here +depends on the steps you take.' + +"'That means that you will fly----' + +"'On wings!' she cried, 'to the New World----' + +"'Where you will be at the mercy of the brutal passions you will +inspire,' said I, interrupting her. 'Is it not the very essence of +genius and beauty to shine, to attract men's gaze, to excite desires and +evil thoughts? Paris is a desert with Bedouins; Paris is the only place +in the world where those who must work for their livelihood can hide +their life. What have you to complain of? Who am I? An additional +servant--M. Gobain, that is all. If you have to fight a duel, you may +need a second.' + +"'Never mind; find out who I am. I have already said that I insist. Now, +I beg that you will,' she went on, with the grace which you ladies have +at command," said the Consul, looking at the ladies. + +"'Well, then, to-morrow, at the same hour, I will tell you what I may +have discovered,' replied I. 'But do not therefore hate me! Will you +behave like other women?' + +"'What do other women do?' + +"'They lay upon us immense sacrifices, and when we have made them, they +reproach us for it some time later as if it were an injury.' + +"'They are right if the thing required appears to be a sacrifice!' +replied she pointedly. + +"'Instead of sacrifices, say efforts and----' + +"'It would be an impertinence,' said she. + +"'Forgive me,' said I. 'I forget that woman and the Pope are +infallible.' + +"'Good heavens!' said she after a long pause, 'only two words would be +enough to destroy the peace so dearly bought, and which I enjoy like a +fraud----' + +"She rose and paid no further heed to me. + +"'Where can I go?' she said. 'What is to become of me?--Must I leave +this quiet retreat, that I had arranged with such care to end my days +in?' + +"'To end your days!' exclaimed I with visible alarm. 'Has it never +struck you that a time would come when you could no longer work, +when competition will lower the price of flowers and articles of +fashion----?' + +"'I have already saved a thousand crowns,' she said. + +"'Heavens! what privations such a sum must represent!' I exclaimed. + +"'Leave me,' said she, 'till to-morrow. This evening I am not myself; I +must be alone. Must I not save my strength in case of disaster? For, +if you should learn anything, others besides you would be informed, and +then--Good-night,' she added shortly, dismissing me with an imperious +gesture. + +"'The battle is to-morrow, then,' I replied with a smile, to keep up the +appearance of indifference I had given to the scene. But as I went down +the avenue I repeated the words: + +"'The battle is to-morrow.' + +"Octave's anxiety was equal to Honorine's. The Count and I remained +together till two in the morning, walking to and fro by the trenches of +the Bastille, like two generals who, on the eve of a battle, calculate +all the chances, examine the ground, and perceive that the victory must +depend on an opportunity to be seized half-way through the fight. These +two divided beings would each lie awake, one in the hope, the other +in agonizing dread of reunion. The real dramas of life are not in +circumstances, but in feelings; they are played in the heart, or, if you +please, in that vast realm which we ought to call the Spiritual World. +Octave and Honorine moved and lived altogether in the world of lofty +spirits. + +"I was punctual. At ten next evening I was, for the first time, shown +into a charming bedroom furnished with white and blue--the nest of this +wounded dove. The Countess looked at me, and was about to speak, but was +stricken dumb by my respectful demeanor. + +"'Madame la Comtesse,' said I with a grave smile. + +"The poor woman, who had risen, dropped back into her chair and remained +there, sunk in an attitude of grief, which I should have liked to see +perpetuated by a great painter. + +"'You are,' I went on, 'the wife of the noblest and most highly +respected of men; of a man who is acknowledged to be great, but who is +far greater in his conduct to you than he is in the eyes of the world. +You and he are two lofty natures.--Where do you suppose yourself to be +living?' I asked her. + +"'In my own house,' she replied, opening her eyes with a wide stare of +astonishment. + +"'In Count Octave's,' I replied. 'You have been tricked. M. Lenormand, +the usher of the Court, is not the real owner; he is only a screen for +your husband. The delightful seclusion you enjoy is the Count's work, +the money you earn is paid by him, and his protection extends to the +most trivial details of your existence. Your husband has saved you +in the eyes of the world; he has assigned plausible reasons for your +disappearance; he professes to hope that you were not lost in the wreck +of the _Cecile_, the ship in which you sailed for Havana to secure the +fortune to be left to you by an old aunt, who might have forgotten +you; you embarked, escorted by two ladies of her family and an old +man-servant. The Count says that he has sent agents to various spots, +and received letters which give him great hopes. He takes as many +precautions to hide you from all eyes as you take yourself. In short, he +obeys you...' + +"'That is enough,' she said. 'I want to know but one thing more. From +whom have you obtained all these details?' + +"'Well, madame, my uncle got a place for a penniless youth as secretary +to the Commissary of police in this part of Paris. That young man told +me everything. If you leave this house this evening, however stealthily, +your husband will know where you are gone, and his care will follow +you everywhere.--How could a woman so clever as you are believe that +shopkeepers buy flowers and caps as dear as they sell them? Ask +a thousand crowns for a bouquet, and you will get it. No mother's +tenderness was ever more ingenious than your husband's! I have learned +from the porter of this house that the Count often comes behind the +fence when all are asleep, to see the glimmer of your nightlight! Your +large cashmere shawl cost six thousand francs--your old-clothes-seller +brings you, as second hand, things fresh from the best makers. In short, +you are living here like Venus in the toils of Vulcan; but you are alone +in your prison by the devices of a sublime magnanimity, sublime for +seven years past, and at every hour.' + +"The Countess was trembling as a trapped swallow trembles while, as you +hold it in your hand, it strains its neck to look about it with wild +eyes. She shook with a nervous spasm, studying me with a defiant look. +Her dry eyes glittered with a light that was almost hot: still, she +was a woman! The moment came when her tears forced their way, and she +wept--not because she was touched, but because she was helpless; they +were tears of desperation. She had believed herself independent and +free; marriage weighed on her as the prison cell does on the captive. + +"'I will go!' she cried through her tears. 'He forces me to it; I will +go where no one certainly will come after me.' + +"'What,' I said, 'you would kill yourself?--Madame, you must have some +very powerful reasons for not wishing to return to Comte Octave.' + +"'Certainly I have!' + +"'Well, then, tell them to me; tell them to my uncle. In us you will +find two devoted advisers. Though in the confessional my uncle is a +priest, he never is one in a drawing-room. We will hear you; we will try +to find a solution of the problems you may lay before us; and if you are +the dupe or the victim of some misapprehension, perhaps we can clear the +matter up. Your soul, I believe, is pure; but if you have done wrong, +your fault is fully expiated.... At any rate, remember that in me you +have a most sincere friend. If you should wish to evade the Count's +tyranny, I will find you the means; he shall never find you.' + +"'Oh! there is always a convent!' said she. + +"'Yes. But the Count, as Minister of State, can procure your rejection +by every convent in the world. Even though he is powerful, I will save +you from him--; but--only when you have demonstrated to me that you +cannot and ought not to return to him. Oh! do not fear that you would +escape his power only to fall into mine,' I added, noticing a glance of +horrible suspicion, full of exaggerated dignity. 'You shall have peace, +solitude, and independence; in short, you shall be as free and as little +annoyed as if you were an ugly, cross old maid. I myself would never be +able to see you without your consent.' + +"'And how? By what means?' + +"'That is my secret. I am not deceiving you, of that you may be +sure. Prove to me that this is the only life you can lead, that it is +preferable to that of the Comtesse Octave, rich, admired, in one of the +finest houses in Paris, beloved by her husband, a happy mother... and I +will decide in your favor.' + +"'But,' said she, 'will there never be a man who understands me?' + +"'No. And that is why I appeal to religion to decide between us. The +Cure of the White Friars is a saint, seventy-five years of age. My uncle +is not a Grand Inquisitor, he is Saint John; but for you he will be +Fenelon--the Fenelon who said to the Duc de Bourgogne: 'Eat a calf on a +Friday by all means, monseigneur. But be a Christian.' + +"'Nay, nay, monsieur, the convent is my last hope and my only refuge. +There is none but God who can understand me. No man, not Saint Augustine +himself, the tenderest of the Fathers of the Church, could enter into +the scruples of my conscience, which are to me as the circles of Dante's +hell, whence there is no escape. Another than my husband, a different +man, however unworthy of the offering, has had all my love. No, he has +not had it, for he did not take it; I gave it him as a mother gives her +child a wonderful toy, which it breaks. For me there never could be two +loves. In some natures love can never be on trial; it is, or it is not. +When it comes, when it rises up, it is complete.--Well, that life of +eighteen months was to me a life of eighteen years; I threw into it +all the faculties of my being, which were not impoverished by their +effusiveness; they were exhausted by that delusive intimacy in which +I alone was genuine. For me the cup of happiness is not drained, nor +empty; and nothing can refill it, for it is broken. I am out of the +fray; I have no weapons left. Having thus utterly abandoned myself, +what am I?--the leavings of a feast. I had but one name bestowed on +me, Honorine, as I had but one heart. My husband had the young girl, a +worthless lover had the woman--there is nothing left!--Then let myself +be loved! that is the great idea you mean to utter to me. Oh! but I +still am something, and I rebel at the idea of being a prostitute! Yes, +by the light of the conflagration I saw clearly; and I tell you--well, I +could imagine surrendering to another man's love, but to Octave's?--No, +never.' + +"'Ah! you love him,' I said. + +"'I esteem him, respect him, venerate him; he never has done me the +smallest hurt; he is kind, he is tender; but I can never more love him. +However,' she went on, 'let us talk no more of this. Discussion makes +everything small. I will express my notions on this subject in writing +to you, for at this moment they are suffocating me; I am feverish, my +feet are standing in the ashes of my Paraclete. All that I see, these +things which I believed I had earned by my labor, now remind me of +everything I wish to forget. Ah! I must fly from hence as I fled from my +home.' + +"'Where will you go?' I asked. 'Can a woman exist unprotected? At +thirty, in all the glory of your beauty, rich in powers of which you +have no suspicion, full of tenderness to be bestowed, are you prepared +to live in the wilderness where I could hide you?--Be quite easy. The +Count, who for nine years has never allowed himself to be seen here, +will never go there without your permission. You have his sublime +devotion of nine years as a guarantee for your tranquillity. You may +therefore discuss the future in perfect confidence with my uncle and +me. My uncle has as much influence as a Minister of State. So compose +yourself; do not exaggerate your misfortune. A priest whose hair has +grown white in the exercise of his functions is not a boy; you will be +understood by him to whom every passion has been confided for nearly +fifty years now, and who weighs in his hands the ponderous heart of +kings and princes. If he is stern under his stole, in the presence of +your flowers he will be as tender as they are, and as indulgent as his +Divine Master.' + +"I left the Countess at midnight; she was apparently calm, but +depressed, and had some secret purpose which no perspicacity could +guess. I found the Count a few paces off, in the Rue Saint-Maur. Drawn +by an irresistible attraction, he had quitted the spot on the Boulevards +where we had agreed to meet. + +"'What a night my poor child will go through!' he exclaimed, when I had +finished my account of the scene that had just taken place. 'Supposing I +were to go to her!' he added; 'supposing she were to see me suddenly?' + +"'At this moment she is capable of throwing herself out of the window,' +I replied. 'The Countess is one of those Lucretias who could not survive +any violence, even if it were done by a man into whose arms she could +throw herself.' + +"'You are young,' he answered; 'you do not know that in a soul tossed by +such dreadful alternatives the will is like waters of a lake lashed by a +tempest; the wind changes every instant, and the waves are driven now to +one shore, now to the other. During this night the chances are quite +as great that on seeing me Honorine might rush into my arms as that she +would throw herself out of the window.' + +"'And you would accept the equal chances,' said I. + +"'Well, come,' said he, 'I have at home, to enable me to wait till +to-morrow, a dose of opium which Desplein prepared for me to send me to +sleep without any risk!' + +"Next day at noon Gobain brought me a letter, telling me that the +Countess had gone to bed at six, worn out with fatigue, and that, having +taken a soothing draught prepared by the chemist, she had now fallen +asleep. + +"This is her letter, of which I kept a copy--for you, mademoiselle," +said the Consul, addressing Camille, "know all the resources of art, the +tricks of style, and the efforts made in their compositions by writers +who do not lack skill; but you will acknowledge that literature could +never find such language in its assumed pathos; there is nothing so +terrible as truth. Here is the letter written by this woman, or rather +by this anguish:-- + +"'MONSIEUR MAURICE,-- + +"'I know all your uncle would say to me; he is not better informed than +my own conscience. Conscience is the interpreter of God to man. I know +that if I am not reconciled to Octave, I shall be damned; that is the +sentence of religious law. Civil law condemns me to obey, cost what it +may. If my husband does not reject me, the world will regard me as pure, +as virtuous, whatever I may have done. Yes, that much is sublime in +marriage; society ratifies the husband's forgiveness; but it forgets +that the forgiveness must be accepted. Legally, religiously, and from +the world's point of view I ought to go back to Octave. Keeping only +to the human aspect of the question, is it not cruel to refuse him +happiness, to deprive him of children, to wipe his name out of the +Golden Book and the list of peers? My sufferings, my repugnance, my +feelings, all my egoism--for I know that I am an egoist--ought to be +sacrificed to the family. I shall be a mother; the caresses of my child +will wipe away many tears! I shall be very happy; I certainly shall +be much looked up to. I shall ride, haughty and wealthy, in a handsome +carriage! I shall have servants and a fine house, and be the queen of as +many parties as there are weeks in the year. The world will receive +me handsomely. I shall not have to climb up again to the heaven of +aristocracy, I shall never have come down from it. So God, the law, +society are all in accord. + +"'"What are you rebelling against?" I am asked from the height of +heaven, from the pulpit, from the judge's bench, and from the throne, +whose august intervention may at need be invoked by the Count. Your +uncle, indeed, at need, would speak to me of a certain celestial grace +which will flood my heart when I know the pleasure of doing my duty. + +"'God, the law, the world, and Octave all wish me to live, no doubt. +Well, if there is no other difficulty, my reply cuts the knot: I will +not live. I will become white and innocent again; for I will lie in my +shroud, white with the blameless pallor of death. This is not in the +least "mulish obstinacy." That mulish obstinacy of which you jestingly +accused me is in a woman the result of confidence, of a vision of the +future. Though my husband, sublimely generous, may forget all, I +shall not forget. Does forgetfulness depend on our will? When a widow +re-marries, love makes a girl of her; she marries a man she loves. But I +cannot love the Count. It all lies in that, do not you see? + +"'Every time my eyes met his I should see my sin in them, even when his +were full of love. The greatness of his generosity would be the measure +of the greatness of my crime. My eyes, always uneasy, would be for ever +reading an invisible condemnation. My heart would be full of confused +and struggling memories; marriage can never move me to the cruel +rapture, the mortal delirium of passion. I should kill my husband by +my coldness, by comparisons which he would guess, though hidden in the +depths of my conscience. Oh! on the day when I should read a trace of +involuntary, even of suppressed reproach in a furrow on his brow, in a +saddened look, in some imperceptible gesture, nothing could hold me: I +should be lying with a fractured skull on the pavement, and find that +less hard than my husband. It might be my own over-susceptibility that +would lead me to this horrible but welcome death; I might die the victim +of an impatient mood in Octave caused by some matter of business, or be +deceived by some unjust suspicion. Alas! I might even mistake some proof +of love for a sign of contempt! + +"'What torture on both sides! Octave would be always doubting me, I +doubting him. I, quite involuntarily, should give him a rival wholly +unworthy of him, a man whom I despise, but with whom I have known +raptures branded on me with fire, which are my shame, but which I cannot +forget. + +"'Have I shown you enough of my heart? No one, monsieur, can convince +me that love may be renewed, for I neither can nor will accept love from +any one. A young bride is like a plucked flower; but a guilty wife is +like a flower that had been walked over. You, who are a florist, you +know whether it is ever possible to restore the broken stem, to revive +the faded colors, to make the sap flow again in the tender vessels of +which the whole vegetative function lies in their perfect rigidity. If +some botanist should attempt the operation, could his genius smooth out +the folds of the bruised corolla? If he could remake a flower, he +would be God! God alone can remake me! I am drinking the bitter cup +of expiation; but as I drink it I painfully spell out this sentence: +Expiation is not annihilation. + +"'In my little house, alone, I eat my bread soaked in tears; but no one +sees me eat nor sees me weep. If I go back to Octave, I must give up +my tears--they would offend him. Oh! monsieur, how many virtues must a +woman tread under foot, not to give herself, but to restore herself to a +betrayed husband? Who could count them? God alone; for He alone can know +and encourage the horrible refinements at which the angels must turn +pale. Nay, I will go further. A woman has courage in the presence of her +husband if he knows nothing; she shows a sort of fierce strength in her +hypocrisy; she deceives him to secure him double happiness. But common +knowledge is surely degrading. Supposing I could exchange humiliation +for ecstasy? Would not Octave at last feel that my consent was sheer +depravity? Marriage is based on esteem, on sacrifices on both sides; but +neither Octave nor I could esteem each other the day after our reunion. +He would have disgraced me by a love like that of an old man for a +courtesan, and I should for ever feel the shame of being a chattel +instead of a lady. I should represent pleasure, and not virtue, in his +house. These are the bitter fruits of such a sin. I have made myself a +bed where I can only toss on burning coals, a sleepless pillow. + +"'Here, when I suffer, I bless my sufferings; I say to God, "I thank +Thee!" But in my husband's house I should be full of terror, tasting +joys to which I have no right. + +"'All this, monsieur, is not argument; it is the feeling of a soul made +vast and hollow by seven years of suffering. Finally, must I make a +horrible confession? I shall always feel at my bosom the lips of a child +conceived in rapture and joy, and in the belief in happiness, of a child +I nursed for seven months, that I shall bear in my womb all the days of +my life. If other children should draw their nourishment from me, they +would drink in tears mingling with the milk, and turning it sour. I +seem a light thing, you regard me as a child--Ah yes! I have a child's +memory, the memory which returns to us on the verge of the tomb. So, you +see, there is not a situation in that beautiful life to which the world +and my husband's love want to recall me, which is not a false position, +which does not cover a snare or reveal a precipice down which I must +fall, torn by pitiless rocks. For five years now I have been wandering +in the sandy desert of the future without finding a place convenient to +repent in, because my soul is possessed by true repentance. + +"'Religion has its answers ready to all this, and I know them by heart. +This suffering, these difficulties, are my punishment, she says, and God +will give me strength to endure them. This, monsieur, is an argument to +certain pious souls gifted with an energy which I have not. I have made +my choice between this hell, where God does not forbid my blessing Him, +and the hell that awaits me under Count Octave's roof. + +"'One word more. If I were still a girl, with the experience I now have, +my husband is the man I should choose; but that is the very reason of +my refusal. I could not bear to blush before that man. What! I should +be always on my knees, he always standing upright; and if we were to +exchange positions, I should scorn him! I will not be better treated +by him in consequence of my sin. The angel who might venture under such +circumstances on certain liberties which are permissible when both are +equally blameless, is not on earth; he dwells in heaven! Octave is +full of delicate feeling, I know; but even in his soul (which, however +generous, is a man's soul after all) there is no guarantee for the new +life I should lead with him. + +"'Come then, and tell me where I may find the solitude, the peace, the +silence, so kindly to irreparable woes, which you promised me.' + +"After making this copy of the letter to preserve it complete, I went +to the Rue Payenne. Anxiety had conquered the power of opium. Octave was +walking up and down his garden like a madman. + +"'Answer that!' said I, giving him his wife's letter. 'Try to reassure +the modesty of experience. It is rather more difficult than conquering +the modesty of ignorance, which curiosity helps to betray.' + +"'She is mine!' cried the Count, whose face expressed joy as he went on +reading the letter. + +"He signed to me with his hand to leave him to himself. I understood +that extreme happiness and extreme pain obey the same laws; I went in +to receive Madame de Courteville and Amelie, who were to dine with the +Count that day. However handsome Mademoiselle de Courteville might be, I +felt, on seeing her once more, that love has three aspects, and that +the women who can inspire us with perfect love are very rare. As I +involuntarily compared Amelie with Honorine, I found the erring wife +more attractive than the pure girl. To Honorine's heart fidelity had not +been a duty, but the inevitable; while Amelie would serenely pronounce +the most solemn promises without knowing their purport or to what they +bound her. The crushed, the dead woman, so to speak, the sinner to be +reinstated, seemed to me sublime; she incited the special generosities +of a man's nature; she demanded all the treasures of the heart, all +the resources of strength; she filled his life and gave the zest of +a conflict to happiness; whereas Amelie, chaste and confiding, +would settle down into the sphere of peaceful motherhood, where the +commonplace must be its poetry, and where my mind would find no struggle +and no victory. + +"Of the plains of Champagne and the snowy, storm-beaten but sublime +Alps, what young man would choose the chalky, monotonous level? No; such +comparisons are fatal and wrong on the threshold of the Mairie. Alas! +only the experience of life can teach us that marriage excludes passion, +that a family cannot have its foundation on the tempests of love. After +having dreamed of impossible love, with its infinite caprices, after +having tasted the tormenting delights of the ideal, I saw before me +modest reality. Pity me, for what could be expected! At five-and-twenty +I did not trust myself; but I took a manful resolution. + +"I went back to the Count to announce the arrival of his relations, and +I saw him grown young again in the reflected light of hope. + +"'What ails you, Maurice?' said he, struck by my changed expression. + +"'Monsieur le Comte----' + +"'No longer Octave? You, to whom I shall owe my life, my happiness----' + +"'My dear Octave, if you should succeed in bringing the Countess back +to her duty, I have studied her well'--(he looked at me as Othello must +have looked at Iago when Iago first contrived to insinuate a suspicion +into the Moor's mind)--'she must never see me again; she must never know +that Maurice was your secretary. Never mention my name to her, or +all will be undone.... You have got me an appointment as Maitre +des Requetes--well, get me instead some diplomatic post abroad, a +consulship, and do not think of my marrying Amelie.--Oh! do not be +uneasy,' I added, seeing him draw himself up, 'I will play my part to +the end.' + +"'Poor boy!' said he, taking my hand, which he pressed, while he kept +back the tears that were starting to his eyes. + +"'You gave me the gloves,' I said, laughing, 'but I have not put them +on; that is all.' + +"We then agreed as to what I was to do that evening at Honorine's house, +whither I presently returned. It was now August; the day had been hot +and stormy, but the storm hung overhead, the sky was like copper; the +scent of the flowers was heavy, I felt as if I were in an oven, and +caught myself wishing that the Countess might have set out for the +Indies; but she was sitting on a wooden bench shaped like a sofa, under +an arbor, in a loose dress of white muslin fastened with blue bows, +her hair unadorned in waving bands over her cheeks, her feet on a small +wooden stool, and showing a little way beyond her skirt. She did not +rise; she showed me with her hand to the seat by her side, saying: + +"'Now, is not life at a deadlock for me?' + +"'Life as you have made it, I replied. 'But not the life I propose to +make for you; for, if you choose, you may be very happy....' + +"'How?' said she; her whole person was a question. + +"'Your letter is in the Count's hands.' + +"Honorine started like a frightened doe, sprang to a few paces off, +walked down the garden, turned about, remained standing for some +minutes, and finally went in to sit alone in the drawing-room, where I +joined her, after giving her time to get accustomed to the pain of this +poniard thrust. + +"'You--a friend? Say rather a traitor! A spy, perhaps, sent by my +husband.' + +"Instinct in women is as strong as the perspicacity of great men. + +"'You wanted an answer to your letter, did you not? And there was but +one man in the world who could write it. You must read the reply, my +dear Countess; and if after reading it you still find that your life is +a deadlock, the spy will prove himself a friend; I will place you in +a convent whence the Count's power cannot drag you. But, before going +there, let us consider the other side of the question. There is a law, +alike divine and human, which even hatred affects to obey, and which +commands us not to condemn the accused without hearing his defence. +Till now you have passed condemnation, as children do, with your ears +stopped. The devotion of seven years has its claims. So you must read +the answer your husband will send you. I have forwarded to him, through +my uncle, a copy of your letter, and my uncle asked him what his reply +would be if his wife wrote him a letter in such terms. Thus you are not +compromised. He will himself bring the Count's answer. In the presence +of that saintly man, and in mine, out of respect for your own dignity, +you must read it, or you will be no better than a wilful, passionate +child. You must make this sacrifice to the world, to the law, and to +God.' + +"As she saw in this concession no attack on her womanly resolve, she +consented. All the labor or four or five months had been building up to +this moment. But do not the Pyramids end in a point on which a bird may +perch? The Count had set all his hopes on this supreme instant, and he +had reached it. + +"In all my life I remember nothing more formidable than my uncle's +entrance into that little Pompadour drawing-room, at ten that evening. +The fine head, with its silver hair thrown into relief by the entirely +black dress, and the divinely calm face, had a magical effect on the +Comtesse Honorine; she had the feeling of cool balm on her wounds, and +beamed in the reflection of that virtue which gave light without knowing +it. + +"'Monsieur the Cure of the White Friars,' said old Gobain. + +"'Are you come, uncle, with a message of happiness and peace?' said I. + +"'Happiness and peace are always to be found in obedience to the +precepts of the Church,' replied my uncle, and he handed the Countess +the following letter:-- + +"'MY DEAR HONORINE,-- + +"'If you had but done me the favor of trusting me, if you had read the +letter I wrote to you five years since, you would have spared yourself +five years of useless labor, and of privations which have grieved me +deeply. In it I proposed an arrangement of which the stipulations will +relieve all your fears, and make our domestic life possible. I have much +to reproach myself with, and in seven years of sorrow I have discovered +all my errors. I misunderstood marriage. I failed to scent danger when +it threatened you. An angel was in the house. The Lord bid me guard it +well! The Lord has punished me for my audacious confidence. + +"'You cannot give yourself a single lash without striking me. Have mercy +on me, my dear Honorine. I so fully appreciated your susceptibilities +that I would not bring you back to the old house in the Rue Payenne, +where I can live without you, but which I could not bear to see again +with you. I am decorating, with great pleasure, another house, in the +Faubourg Saint-Honore, to which, in hope, I conduct not a wife whom I +owe to her ignorance of life, and secured to me by law, but a sister +who will allow me to press on her brow such a kiss as a father gives the +daughter he blesses every day. + +"'Will you bereave me of the right I have conquered from your +despair--that of watching more closely over your needs, your pleasures, +your life even? Women have one heart always on their side, always +abounding in excuses--their mother's; you never knew any mother but my +mother, who would have brought you back to me. But how is it that you +never guessed that I had for you the heart of a mother, both of my +mother and of your own? Yes, dear, my affection is neither mean nor +grasping; it is one of those which will never let any annoyance last +long enough to pucker the brow of the child it worships. What can you +think of the companion of your childhood, Honorine, if you believe +him capable of accepting kisses given in trembling, of living between +delight and anxiety? Do not fear that you will be exposed to the laments +of a suppliant passion; I would not want you back until I felt certain +of my own strength to leave you in perfect freedom. + +"'Your solitary pride has exaggerated the difficulties. You may, if you +will, look on at the life of a brother, or of a father, without either +suffering or joy; but you will find neither mockery nor indifference, +nor have any doubt as to his intentions. The warmth of the atmosphere +in which you live will be always equable and genial, without tempests, +without a possible squall. If, later, when you feel secure that you +are as much at home as in your own little house, you desire to try some +other elements of happiness, pleasures, or amusements, you can expand +their circle at your will. The tenderness of a mother knows neither +contempt nor pity. What is it? Love without desire. Well, in me +admiration shall hide every sentiment in which you might see an offence. + +"'Thus, living side by side, we may both be magnanimous. In you the +kindness of a sister, the affectionate thoughtfulness of a friend, will +satisfy the ambition of him who wishes to be your life's companion; and +you may measure his tenderness by the care he will take to conceal +it. Neither you nor I will be jealous of the past, for we may each +acknowledge that the other has sense enough to look only straight +forward. + +"'Thus you will be at home in your new house exactly as you are in the +Rue Saint-Maur; unapproachable, alone, occupied as you please, living by +your own law; but having in addition the legitimate protection, of +which you are now exacting the most chivalrous labors of love, with the +consideration which lends so much lustre to a woman, and the fortune +which will allow of your doing many good works. Honorine, when you long +for an unnecessary absolution, you have only to ask for it; it will not +be forced upon you by the Church or by the Law; it will wait on your +pride, on your own impulsion. My wife might indeed have to fear all the +things you dread; but not my friend and sister, towards whom I am bound +to show every form and refinement of politeness. To see you happy is +enough happiness for me; I have proved this for the seven years past. +The guarantee for this, Honorine, is to be seen in all the flowers made +by you, carefully preserved, and watered by my tears. Like the _quipos_, +the tally cords of the Peruvians, they are the record of our sorrows. + +"'If this secret compact does not suit you, my child, I have begged +the saintly man who takes charge of this letter not to say a word in +my behalf. I will not owe your return to the terrors threatened by the +Church, nor to the bidding of the Law. I will not accept the simple and +quiet happiness that I ask from any one but yourself. If you persist +in condemning me to the lonely life, bereft even of a fraternal smile, +which I have led for nine years, if you remain in your solitude and show +no sign, my will yields to yours. Understand me perfectly: you shall be +no more troubled than you have been until this day. I will get rid +of the crazy fellow who has meddled in your concerns, and has perhaps +caused you some annoyance...' + +"'Monsieur,' said Honorine, folding up the letter, which she placed in +her bosom, and looking at my uncle, 'thank you very much. I will avail +myself of Monsieur le Comte's permission to remain here----' + +"'Ah!' I exclaimed. + +"This exclamation made my uncle look at me uneasily, and won from the +Countess a mischievous glance, which enlightened me as to her motives. + +"Honorine had wanted to ascertain whether I were an actor, a bird +snarer; and I had the melancholy satisfaction of deceiving her by my +exclamation, which was one of those cries from the heart which women +understand so well. + +"'Ah, Maurice,' said she, 'you know how to love.' + +"The light that flashed in my eyes was another reply which would have +dissipated the Countess' uneasiness if she still had any. Thus the Count +found me useful to the very last. + +"Honorine then took out the Count's letter again to finish reading it. +My uncle signed to me, and I rose. + +"'Let us leave the Countess,' said he. + +"'You are going already Maurice?' she said, without looking at me. + +"She rose, and still reading, followed us to the door. On the threshold +she took my hand, pressed it very affectionately, and said, 'We shall +meet again...' + +"'No,' I replied, wringing her hand, so that she cried out. 'You love +your husband. I leave to-morrow.' + +"And I rushed away, leaving my uncle, to whom she said: + +"'Why, what is the matter with your nephew?' + +"The good Abbe completed my work by pointing to his head and heart, as +much as to say, 'He is mad, madame; you must forgive him!' and with all +the more truth, because he really thought it. + +"Six days after, I set out with an appointment as vice-consul in Spain, +in a large commercial town, where I could quickly qualify to rise in the +career of a consul, to which I now restricted my ambition. After I had +established myself there, I received this letter from the Count:-- + +"'MY DEAR MAURICE,-- + +"'If I were happy, I should not write to you, but I have entered on a +new life of suffering. I have grown young again in my desires, with all +the impatience of a man of forty, and the prudence of a diplomatist, who +has learned to moderate his passion. When you left I had not yet been +admitted to the _pavillon_ in the Rue Saint-Maur, but a letter had +promised me that I should have permission--the mild and melancholy +letter of a woman who dreaded the agitations of a meeting. After waiting +for more than a month, I made bold to call, and desired Gobain to +inquire whether I could be received. I sat down in a chair in the avenue +near the lodge, my head buried in my hands, and there I remained for +almost an hour. + +"'"Madame had to dress," said Gobain, to hide Honorine's hesitancy under +a pride of appearance which was flattering to me. + +"'During a long quarter of an hour we both of us were possessed by an +involuntary nervous trembling as great as that which seizes a speaker on +the platform, and we spoke to each other sacred phrases, like those of +persons taken by surprise who "make believe" a conversation. + +"'"You see, Honorine," said I, my eyes full of tears, "the ice is +broken, and I am so tremulous with happiness that you must forgive the +incoherency of my language. It will be so for a long time yet." + +"'"There is no crime in being in love with your wife," said she with a +forced smile. + +"'"Do me the favor," said I, "no longer to work as you do. I have heard +from Madame Gobain that for three weeks you have been living on your +savings; you have sixty thousand francs a year of your own, and if you +cannot give me back your heart, at least do not abandon your fortune to +me." + +"'"I have long known your kindness," said she. + +"'"Though you should prefer to remain here," said I, "and to preserve +your independence; though the most ardent love should find no favor in +your eyes, still, do not toil." + +"'I gave her three certificates for twelve thousand francs a year each; +she took them, opened them languidly, and after reading them through she +gave me only a look as my reward. She fully understood that I was not +offering her money, but freedom. + +"'"I am conquered," said she, holding out her hand, which I kissed. +"Come and see me as often as you like." + +"'So she had done herself a violence in receiving me. Next day I found +her armed with affected high spirits, and it took two months of habit +before I saw her in her true character. But then it was like a delicious +May, a springtime of love that gave me ineffable bliss; she was no +longer afraid; she was studying me. Alas! when I proposed that she +should go to England to return ostensibly to me, to our home, that she +should resume her rank and live in our new residence, she was seized +with alarm. + +"'"Why not live always as we are?" she said. + +"'I submitted without saying a word. + +"'"Is she making an experiment?" I asked myself as I left her. On my way +from my own house to the Rue Saint-Maur thoughts of love had swelled in +my heart, and I had said to myself, like a young man, "This evening she +will yield." + +"'All my real or affected force was blown to the winds by a smile, by a +command from those proud, calm eyes, untouched by passion. I remembered +the terrible words you once quoted to me, "Lucretia's dagger wrote in +letters of blood the watchword of woman's charter--Liberty!" and +they froze me. I felt imperatively how necessary to me was Honorine's +consent, and how impossible it was to wring it from her. Could she guess +the storms that distracted me when I left as when I came? + +"'At last I painted my situation in a letter to her, giving up the +attempt to speak of it. Honorine made no answer, and she was so sad that +I made as though I had not written. I was deeply grieved by the idea +that I could have distressed her; she read my heart and forgave me. And +this was how. Three days ago she received me, for the first time, in +her own blue-and-white room. It was bright with flowers, dressed, and +lighted up. Honorine was in a dress that made her bewitching. Her hair +framed that face that you know in its light curls; and in it were some +sprays of Cape heath; she wore a white muslin gown, a white sash with +long floating ends. You know what she is in such simplicity, but that +day she was a bride, the Honorine of long past days. My joy was chilled +at once, for her face was terribly grave; there were fires beneath the +ice. + +"'"Octave," she said, "I will return as your wife when you will. But +understand clearly that this submission has its dangers. I can be +resigned----" + +"'I made a movement. + +"'"Yes," she went on, "I understand: resignation offends you, and you +want what I cannot give--Love. Religion and pity led me to renounce my +vow of solitude; you are here!" She paused. + +"'"At first," she went on, "you asked no more. Now you demand your wife. +Well, here I give you Honorine, such as she is, without deceiving you as +to what she will be.--What shall I be? A mother? I hope it. Believe +me, I hope it eagerly. Try to change me; you have my consent; but if +I should die, my dear, do not curse my memory, and do not set down to +obstinacy what I should call the worship of the Ideal, if it were not +more natural to call the indefinable feeling which must kill me the +worship of the Divine! The future will be nothing to me; it will be your +concern; consult your own mind." + +"'And she sat down in the calm attitude you used to admire, and watched +me turning pale with the pain she had inflicted. My blood ran cold. On +seeing the effect of her words she took both my hands, and, holding them +in her own, she said: + +"'"Octave, I do love you, but not in the way you wish to be loved. I +love your soul.... Still, understand that I love you enough to die in +your service like an Eastern slave, and without a regret. It will be my +expiation." + +"'She did more; she knelt before me on a cushion, and in a spirit of +sublime charity she said: + +"'"And perhaps I shall not die!" + +"'For two months now I have been struggling with myself. What shall I +do? My heart is too full; I therefore seek a friend, and send out this +cry, "What shall I do?"' + +"I did not answer this letter. Two months later the newspapers announced +the return on board an English vessel of the Comtesse Octave, restored +to her family after adventures by land and sea, invented with sufficient +probability to arouse no contradiction. + +"When I moved to Genoa I received a formal announcement of the happy +event of the birth of a son to the Count and Countess. I held that +letter in my hand for two hours, sitting on this terrace--on this bench. +Two months after, urged by Octave, by M. de Grandville, and Monsieur de +Serizy, my kind friends, and broken by the death of my uncle, I agreed +to take a wife. + +"Six months after the revolution of July I received this letter, which +concludes the story of this couple:-- + +"'MONSIEUR MAURICE,--I am dying though I am a mother--perhaps because +I am a mother. I have played my part as a wife well; I have deceived my +husband. I have had happiness not less genuine than the tears shed by +actresses on the stage. I am dying for society, for the family, for +marriage, as the early Christians died for God! I know not of what I am +dying, and I am honestly trying to find out, for I am not perverse; but +I am bent on explaining my malady to you--you who brought that heavenly +physician your uncle, at whose word I surrendered. He was my director; +I nursed him in his last illness, and he showed me the way to heaven, +bidding me persevere in my duty. + +"'And I have done my duty. + +"'I do not blame those who forget. I admire them as strong and necessary +natures; but I have the malady of memory! I have not been able twice to +feel that love of the heart which identifies a woman with the man she +loves. To the last moment, as you know, I cried to your heart, in the +confessional, and to my husband, "Have mercy!" But there was no mercy. +Well, and I am dying, dying with stupendous courage. No courtesan was +ever more gay than I. My poor Octave is happy; I let his love feed on +the illusions of my heart. I throw all my powers into this terrible +masquerade; the actress is applauded, feasted, smothered in flowers; but +the invisible rival comes every day to seek its prey--a fragment of +my life. I am rent and I smile. I smile on two children, but it is the +elder, the dead one, that will triumph! I told you so before. The dead +child calls me, and I am going to him. + +"'The intimacy of marriage without love is a position in which my soul +feels degraded every hour. I can never weep or give myself up to dreams +but when I am alone. The exigencies of society, the care of my child, +and that of Octave's happiness never leave me a moment to refresh +myself, to renew my strength, as I could in my solitude. The incessant +need for watchfulness startles my heart with constant alarms. I have not +succeeded in implanting in my soul the sharp-eared vigilance that lies +with facility, and has the eyes of a lynx. It is not the lip of one I +love that drinks my tears and kisses them; my burning eyes are cooled +with water, and not with tender lips. It is my soul that acts a part, +and that perhaps is why I am dying! I lock up my griefs with so much +care that nothing is to be seen of it; it must eat into something, and +it has attacked my life. + +"'I said to the doctors, who discovered my secret, "Make me die of some +plausible complaint, or I shall drag my husband with me." + +"'So it is quite understood by M. Desplein, Bianchon, and myself that +I am dying of the softening of some bone which science has fully +described. Octave believes that I adore him, do you understand? So I am +afraid lest he should follow me. I now write to beg you in that case +to be the little Count's guardian. You will find with this a codicil in +which I have expressed my wish; but do not produce it excepting in case +of need, for perhaps I am fatuously vain. My devotion may perhaps leave +Octave inconsolable but willing to live.--Poor Octave! I wish him a +better wife than I am, for he deserves to be well loved. + +"'Since my spiritual spy is married, I bid him remember what the florist +of the Rue Saint-Maur hereby bequeaths to him as a lesson: May your wife +soon be a mother! Fling her into the vulgarest materialism of household +life; hinder her from cherishing in her heart the mysterious flower +of the Ideal--of that heavenly perfection in which I believed, that +enchanted blossom with glorious colors, and whose perfume disgusts us +with reality. I am a Saint-Theresa who has not been suffered to live on +ecstasy in the depths of a convent, with the Holy Infant, and a spotless +winged angel to come and go as she wished. + +"'You saw me happy among my beloved flowers. I did not tell you all: I +saw love budding under your affected madness, and I concealed from you +my thoughts, my poetry; I did not admit you to my kingdom of beauty. +Well, well; you will love my child for love of me if he should one day +lose his poor father. Keep my secrets as the grave will keep them. Do +not mourn for me; I have been dead this many a day, if Saint Bernard +was right in saying that where there is no more love there is no more +life.'" + +"And the Countess died," said the Consul, putting away the letters and +locking the pocket-book. + +"Is the Count still living?" asked the Ambassador, "for since the +revolution of July he has disappeared from the political stage." + +"Do you remember, Monsieur de Lora," said the Consul-General, "having +seen me going to the steamboat with----" + +"A white-haired man! an old man?" said the painter. + +"An old man of forty-five, going in search of health and amusement in +Southern Italy. That old man was my poor friend, my patron, passing +through Genoa to take leave of me and place his will in my hands. +He appoints me his son's guardian. I had no occasion to tell him of +Honorine's wishes." + +"Does he suspect himself of murder?" said Mademoiselle des Touches to +the Baron de l'Hostal. + +"He suspects the truth," replied the Consul, "and that is what is +killing him. I remained on board the steam packet that was to take him +to Naples till it was out of the roadstead; a small boat brought me +back. We sat for some little time taking leave of each other--for ever, +I fear. God only knows how much we love the confidant of our love when +she who inspired it is no more. + +"'That man,' said Octave, 'holds a charm and wears an aureole.' the +Count went to the prow and looked down on the Mediterranean. It happened +to be fine, and, moved no doubt by the spectacle, he spoke these last +words: 'Ought we not, in the interests of human nature, to inquire +what is the irresistible power which leads us to sacrifice an exquisite +creature to the most fugitive of all pleasures, and in spite of our +reason? In my conscience I heard cries. Honorine was not alone in her +anguish. And yet I would have it!... I am consumed by remorse. In the +Rue Payenne I was dying of the joys I had not; now I shall die in Italy +of the joys I have had.... Wherein lay the discord between two natures, +equally noble, I dare assert?'" + +For some minutes profound silence reigned on the terrace. + +Then the Consul, turning to the two women, asked, "Was she virtuous?" + +Mademoiselle des Touches rose, took the Consul's arm, went a few steps +away, and said to him: + +"Are not men wrong too when they come to us and make a young girl a wife +while cherishing at the bottom of their heart some angelic image, and +comparing us to those unknown rivals, to perfections often borrowed from +a remembrance, and always finding us wanting?" + +"Mademoiselle, you would be right if marriage were based on passion; and +that was the mistake of those two, who will soon be no more. Marriage +with heart-deep love on both sides would be Paradise." + +Mademoiselle des Touches turned from the Consul, and was immediately +joined by Claude Vignon, who said in her ear: + +"A bit of a coxcomb is M. de l'Hostal." + +"No," replied she, whispering to Claude these words: "for he has not yet +guessed that Honorine would have loved him.--Oh!" she exclaimed, seeing +the Consul's wife approaching, "his wife was listening! Unhappy man!" + +Eleven was striking by all the clocks, and the guests went home on foot +along the seashore. + +"Still, that is not life," said Mademoiselle des Touches. "That woman +was one of the rarest, and perhaps the most extraordinary exceptions in +intellect--a pearl! Life is made up of various incidents, of pain and +pleasure alternately. The Paradise of Dante, that sublime expression of +the ideal, that perpetual blue, is to be found only in the soul; to ask +it of the facts of life is a luxury against which nature protests every +hour. To such souls as those the six feet of a cell, and the kneeling +chair are all they need." + +"You are right," said Leon de Lora; "but good-for-nothing as I may be, I +cannot help admiring a woman who is capable, as that one was, of living +by the side of a studio, under a painter's roof, and never coming down, +nor seeing the world, nor dipping her feet in the street mud." + +"Such a thing has been known--for a few months," said Claude Vignon, +with deep irony. + +"Comtesse Honorine is not unique of her kind," replied the Ambassador +to Mademoiselle des Touches. "A man, nay, and a politician, a bitter +writer, was the object of such a passion; and the pistol shot which +killed him hit not him alone; the woman who loved lived like a nun ever +after." + +"Then there are yet some great souls in this age!" said Camille Maupin, +and she stood for some minutes pensively leaning on the balustrade of +the quay. + + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + + Bauvan, Comte Octave de + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + + Bianchon, Horace + Father Goriot + The Atheist's Mass + Cesar Birotteau + The Commission in Lunacy + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Bachelor's Establishment + The Secrets of a Princess + The Government Clerks + Pierrette + A Study of Woman + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + The Seamy Side of History + The Magic Skin + A Second Home + A Prince of Bohemia + Letters of Two Brides + The Muse of the Department + The Imaginary Mistress + The Middle Classes + Cousin Betty + The Country Parson + In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: + Another Study of Woman + La Grande Breteche + + Desplein + The Atheist's Mass + Cousin Pons + Lost Illusions + The Thirteen + The Government Clerks + Pierrette + A Bachelor's Establishment + The Seamy Side of History + Modeste Mignon + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + + Fontanon, Abbe + A Second Home + The Government Clerks + The Member for Arcis + + Gaudissart, Felix + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + Cousin Pons + Cesar Birotteau + Gaudissart the Great + + Gaudron, Abbe + The Government Clerks + A Start in Life + + Granville, Vicomte de (later Comte) + The Gondreville Mystery + A Second Home + Farewell (Adieu) + Cesar Birotteau + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + A Daughter of Eve + Cousin Pons + + Lora, Leon de + The Unconscious Humorists + A Bachelor's Establishment + A Start in Life + Pierre Grassou + Cousin Betty + Beatrix + + Loraux, Abbe + A Start in Life + A Bachelor's Establishment + Cesar Birotteau + + Popinot, Jean-Jules + Cesar Birotteau + The Commission in Lunacy + The Seamy Side of History + The Middle Classes + + Serizy, Comte Hugret de + A Start in Life + A Bachelor's Establishment + Modeste Mignon + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + + Touches, Mademoiselle Felicite des + Beatrix + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Bachelor's Establishment + Another Study of Woman + A Daughter of Eve + Beatrix + The Muse of the Department + + Vignon, Claude + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Daughter of Eve + Honorine + Beatrix + Cousin Betty + The Unconscious Humorists + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Honorine, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HONORINE *** + +***** This file should be named 1683.txt or 1683.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/8/1683/ + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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