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diff --git a/old/20061210-1683.txt b/old/20061210-1683.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..51fa6c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/20061210-1683.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3541 @@ +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.net + + +Title: Honorine + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Release Date: December 10, 2006 [EBook #1683] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HONORINE *** + + + + +Produced by Dagny, and John Bickers + + + + + + + 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 that 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.net/1/6/8/1683/ + +Produced by Dagny, and John Bickers + +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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