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diff --git a/1810.txt b/1810.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5184a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/1810.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3172 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Second Home, by Honore de Balzac + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Second Home + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Translator: Clara Bell + +Release Date: July, 1999 [Etext #1810] +Posting Date: March 2, 2010 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SECOND HOME *** + + + + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + + + + + +A SECOND HOME + + +By Honore De Balzac + + + +Translated by Clara Bell + + + + DEDICATION + + To Madame la Comtesse Louise de Turheim as a token of + remembrance and affectionate respect. + + + + + +A SECOND HOME + + +The Rue du Tourniquet-Saint-Jean, formerly one of the darkest and most +tortuous of the streets about the Hotel de Ville, zigzagged round the +little gardens of the Paris Prefecture, and ended at the Rue Martroi, +exactly at the angle of an old wall now pulled down. Here stood the +turnstile to which the street owed its name; it was not removed +till 1823, when the Municipality built a ballroom on the garden plot +adjoining the Hotel de Ville, for the fete given in honor of the Duc +d'Angouleme on his return from Spain. + +The widest part of the Rue du Tourniquet was the end opening into the +Rue de la Tixeranderie, and even there it was less than six feet across. +Hence in rainy weather the gutter water was soon deep at the foot of the +old houses, sweeping down with it the dust and refuse deposited at +the corner-stones by the residents. As the dust-carts could not pass +through, the inhabitants trusted to storms to wash their always +miry alley; for how could it be clean? When the summer sun shed its +perpendicular rays on Paris like a sheet of gold, but as piercing as the +point of a sword, it lighted up the blackness of this street for a +few minutes without drying the permanent damp that rose from the +ground-floor to the first story of these dark and silent tenements. + +The residents, who lighted their lamps at five o'clock in the month +of June, in winter never put them out. To this day the enterprising +wayfarer who should approach the Marais along the quays, past the end +of the Rue du Chaume, the Rues de l'Homme Arme, des Billettes, and des +Deux-Portes, all leading to the Rue du Tourniquet, might think he had +passed through cellars all the way. + +Almost all the streets of old Paris, of which ancient chronicles laud +the magnificence, were like this damp and gloomy labyrinth, where the +antiquaries still find historical curiosities to admire. For instance, +on the house then forming the corner where the Rue du Tourniquet joined +the Rue de la Tixeranderie, the clamps might still be seen of two strong +iron rings fixed to the wall, the relics of the chains put up every +night by the watch to secure public safety. + +This house, remarkable for its antiquity, had been constructed in a way +that bore witness to the unhealthiness of these old dwellings; for, +to preserve the ground-floor from damp, the arches of the cellars +rose about two feet above the soil, and the house was entered up three +outside steps. The door was crowned by a closed arch, of which the +keystone bore a female head and some time-eaten arabesques. Three +windows, their sills about five feet from the ground, belonged to a +small set of rooms looking out on the Rue du Tourniquet, whence they +derived their light. These windows were protected by strong iron bars, +very wide apart, and ending below in an outward curve like the bars of a +baker's window. + +If any passer-by during the day were curious enough to peep into the two +rooms forming this little dwelling, he could see nothing; for only under +the sun of July could he discern, in the second room, two beds hung with +green serge, placed side by side under the paneling of an old-fashioned +alcove; but in the afternoon, by about three o'clock, when the candles +were lighted, through the pane of the first room an old woman might be +seen sitting on a stool by the fireplace, where she nursed the fire in +a brazier, to simmer a stew, such as porters' wives are expert in. A +few kitchen utensils, hung up against the wall, were visible in the +twilight. + +At that hour an old table on trestles, but bare of linen, was laid with +pewter-spoons, and the dish concocted by the old woman. Three wretched +chairs were all the furniture of this room, which was at once the +kitchen and the dining-room. Over the chimney-piece were a piece of +looking-glass, a tinder-box, three glasses, some matches, and a large, +cracked white jug. Still, the floor, the utensils, the fireplace, +all gave a pleasant sense of the perfect cleanliness and thrift that +pervaded the dull and gloomy home. + +The old woman's pale, withered face was quite in harmony with the +darkness of the street and the mustiness of the place. As she sat there, +motionless, in her chair, it might have been thought that she was as +inseparable from the house as a snail from its brown shell; her face, +alert with a vague expression of mischief, was framed in a flat cap made +of net, which barely covered her white hair; her fine, gray eyes were as +quiet as the street, and the many wrinkles in her face might be compared +to the cracks in the walls. Whether she had been born to poverty, or +had fallen from some past splendor, she now seemed to have been long +resigned to her melancholy existence. + +From sunrise till dark, excepting when she was getting a meal ready, or, +with a basket on her arm, was out purchasing provisions, the old woman +sat in the adjoining room by the further window, opposite a young girl. +At any hour of the day the passer-by could see the needlewoman seated +in an old, red velvet chair, bending over an embroidery frame, and +stitching indefatigably. + +Her mother had a green pillow on her knee, and busied herself with +hand-made net; but her fingers could move the bobbin but slowly; +her sight was feeble, for on her nose there rested a pair of those +antiquated spectacles which keep their place on the nostrils by the grip +of a spring. By night these two hardworking women set a lamp between +them; and the light, concentrated by two globe-shaped bottles of water, +showed the elder the fine network made by the threads on her pillow, +and the younger the most delicate details of the pattern she was +embroidering. The outward bend of the window had allowed the girl to +rest a box of earth on the window-sill, in which grew some sweet peas, +nasturtiums, a sickly little honeysuckle, and some convolvulus that +twined its frail stems up the iron bars. These etiolated plants produced +a few pale flowers, and added a touch of indescribable sadness and +sweetness to the picture offered by this window, in which the two +figures were appropriately framed. + +The most selfish soul who chanced to see this domestic scene would carry +away with him a perfect image of the life led in Paris by the working +class of women, for the embroideress evidently lived by her needle. +Many, as they passed through the turnstile, found themselves wondering +how a girl could preserve her color, living in such a cellar. A student +of lively imagination, going that way to cross to the Quartier-Latin, +would compare this obscure and vegetative life to that of the ivy that +clung to these chill walls, to that of the peasants born to labor, who +are born, toil, and die unknown to the world they have helped to feed. +A house-owner, after studying the house with the eye of a valuer, would +have said, "What will become of those two women if embroidery should go +out of fashion?" Among the men who, having some appointment at the +Hotel de Ville or the Palais de Justice, were obliged to go through +this street at fixed hours, either on their way to business or on their +return home, there may have been some charitable soul. Some widower or +Adonis of forty, brought so often into the secrets of these sad lives, +may perhaps have reckoned on the poverty of this mother and daughter, +and have hoped to become the master at no great cost of the innocent +work-woman, whose nimble and dimpled fingers, youthful figure, and +white skin--a charm due, no doubt, to living in this sunless street--had +excited his admiration. Perhaps, again, some honest clerk, with twelve +hundred francs a year, seeing every day the diligence the girl gave to +her needle, and appreciating the purity of her life, was only waiting +for improved prospects to unite one humble life with another, one form +of toil to another, and to bring at any rate a man's arm and a calm +affection, pale-hued like the flowers in the window, to uphold this +home. + +Vague hope certainly gave life to the mother's dim, gray eyes. Every +morning, after the most frugal breakfast, she took up her pillow, though +chiefly for the look of the thing, for she would lay her spectacles on a +little mahogany worktable as old as herself, and look out of the window +from about half-past eight till ten at the regular passers in the +street; she caught their glances, remarked on their gait, their dress, +their countenance, and almost seemed to be offering her daughter, her +gossiping eyes so evidently tried to attract some magnetic sympathy by +manoeuvres worthy of the stage. It was evident that this little review +was as good as a play to her, and perhaps her single amusement. + +The daughter rarely looked up. Modesty, or a painful consciousness of +poverty, seemed to keep her eyes riveted to the work-frame; and only +some exclamation of surprise from her mother moved her to show her small +features. Then a clerk in a new coat, or who unexpectedly appeared with +a woman on his arm, might catch sight of the girl's slightly upturned +nose, her rosy mouth, and gray eyes, always bright and lively in spite +of her fatiguing toil. Her late hours had left a trace on her face by a +pale circle marked under each eye on the fresh rosiness of her cheeks. +The poor child looked as if she were made for love and cheerfulness--for +love, which had drawn two perfect arches above her eyelids, and had +given her such a mass of chestnut hair, that she might have hidden under +it as under a tent, impenetrable to the lover's eye--for cheerfulness, +which gave quivering animation to her nostrils, which carved two +dimples in her rosy cheeks, and made her quick to forget her troubles; +cheerfulness, the blossom of hope, which gave her strength to look out +without shuddering on the barren path of life. + +The girl's hair was always carefully dressed. After the manner of +Paris needlewomen, her toilet seemed to her quite complete when she had +brushed her hair smooth and tucked up the little short curls that played +on each temple in contrast with the whiteness of her skin. The growth of +it on the back of her neck was so pretty, and the brown line, so clearly +traced, gave such a pleasing idea of her youth and charm, that the +observer, seeing her bent over her work, and unmoved by any sound, +was inclined to think of her as a coquette. Such inviting promise had +excited the interest of more than one young man, who turned round in the +vain hope of seeing that modest countenance. + +"Caroline, there is a new face that passes regularly by, and not one of +the old ones to compare with it." + +These words, spoken in a low voice by her mother one August morning +in 1815, had vanquished the young needlewoman's indifference, and she +looked out on the street; but in vain, the stranger was gone. + +"Where has he flown to?" said she. + +"He will come back no doubt at four; I shall see him coming, and will +touch your foot with mine. I am sure he will come back; he has been +through the street regularly for the last three days; but his hours +vary. The first day he came by at six o'clock, the day before yesterday +it was four, yesterday as early as three. I remember seeing him +occasionally some time ago. He is some clerk in the Prefet's office who +has moved to the Marais.--Why!" she exclaimed, after glancing down the +street, "our gentleman of the brown coat has taken to wearing a wig; how +much it alters him!" + +The gentleman of the brown coat was, it would seem, the individual +who commonly closed the daily procession, for the old woman put on her +spectacles and took up her work with a sigh, glancing at her daughter +with so strange a look that Lavater himself would have found it +difficult to interpret. Admiration, gratitude, a sort of hope for better +days, were mingled with pride at having such a pretty daughter. + +At about four in the afternoon the old lady pushed her foot against +Caroline's, and the girl looked up quickly enough to see the new actor, +whose regular advent would thenceforth lend variety to the scene. He +was tall and thin, and wore black, a man of about forty, with a certain +solemnity of demeanor; as his piercing hazel eye met the old woman's +dull gaze, he made her quake, for she felt as though he had the gift of +reading hearts, or much practice in it, and his presence must surely be +as icy as the air of this dank street. Was the dull, sallow complexion +of that ominous face due to excess of work, or the result of delicate +health? + +The old woman supplied twenty different answers to this question; but +Caroline, next day, discerned the lines of long mental suffering on +that brow that was so prompt to frown. The rather hollow cheeks of the +Unknown bore the stamp of the seal which sorrow sets on its victims as +if to grant them the consolation of common recognition and brotherly +union for resistance. Though the girl's expression was at first one of +lively but innocent curiosity, it assumed a look of gentle sympathy +as the stranger receded from view, like a last relation following in a +funeral train. + +The heat of the weather was so great, and the gentleman was so +absent-minded, that he had taken off his hat and forgotten to put it on +again as he went down the squalid street. Caroline could see the stern +look given to his countenance by the way the hair was brushed from his +forehead. The strong impression, devoid of charm, made on the girl by +this man's appearance was totally unlike any sensation produced by the +other passengers who used the street; for the first time in her life +she was moved to pity for some one else than herself and her mother; she +made no reply to the absurd conjectures that supplied material for the +old woman's provoking volubility, and drew her long needle in silence +through the web of stretched net; she only regretted not having seen +the stranger more closely, and looked forward to the morrow to form a +definite opinion of him. + +It was the first time, indeed, that a man passing down the street had +ever given rise to much thought in her mind. She generally had nothing +but a smile in response to her mother's hypotheses, for the old woman +looked on every passer-by as a possible protector for her daughter. And +if such suggestions, so crudely presented, gave rise to no evil thoughts +in Caroline's mind, her indifference must be ascribed to the persistent +and unfortunately inevitable toil in which the energies of her sweet +youth were being spent, and which would infallibly mar the clearness +of her eyes or steal from her fresh cheeks the bloom that still colored +them. + +For two months or more the "Black Gentleman"--the name they had given +him--was erratic in his movements; he did not always come down the Rue +du Tourniquet; the old woman sometimes saw him in the evening when he +had not passed in the morning, and he did not come by at such regular +hours as the clerks who served Madame Crochard instead of a clock; +moreover, excepting on the first occasion, when his look had given the +old mother a sense of alarm, his eyes had never once dwelt on the +weird picture of these two female gnomes. With the exception of two +carriage-gates and a dark ironmonger's shop, there were in the Rue du +Tourniquet only barred windows, giving light to the staircases of the +neighboring houses; thus the stranger's lack of curiosity was not to be +accounted for by the presence of dangerous rivals; and Madame Crochard +was greatly piqued to see her "Black Gentleman" always lost in thought, +his eyes fixed on the ground, or straight before him, as though he hoped +to read the future in the fog of the Rue du Tourniquet. However, one +morning, about the middle of September, Caroline Crochard's roguish face +stood out so brightly against the dark background of the room, looking +so fresh among the belated flowers and faded leaves that twined round +the window-bars, the daily scene was gay with such contrasts of light +and shade, of pink and white blending with the light material on which +the pretty needlewoman was working, and with the red and brown hues of +the chairs, that the stranger gazed very attentively at the effects of +this living picture. In point of fact, the old woman, provoked by her +"Black Gentleman's" indifference, had made such a clatter with her +bobbins that the gloomy and pensive passer-by was perhaps prompted to +look up by the unusual noise. + +The stranger merely exchanged glances with Caroline, swift indeed, but +enough to effect a certain contact between their souls, and both were +aware that they would think of each other. When the stranger came by +again, at four in the afternoon, Caroline recognized the sound of his +step on the echoing pavement; they looked steadily at each other, and +with evident purpose; his eyes had an expression of kindliness which +made him smile, and Caroline colored; the old mother noted them with +satisfaction. Ever after that memorable afternoon, the Gentleman in +Black went by twice a day, with rare exceptions, which both the women +observed. They concluded from the irregularity of the hours of his +homecoming that he was not released so early, nor so precisely punctual +as a subordinate official. + +All through the first three winter months, twice a day, Caroline and the +stranger thus saw each other for so long as it took him to traverse the +piece of road that lay along the length of the door and three windows +of the house. Day after day this brief interview had the hue of friendly +sympathy which at last had acquired a sort of fraternal kindness. +Caroline and the stranger seemed to understand each other from the +first; and then, by dint of scrutinizing each other's faces, they +learned to know them well. Ere long it came to be, as it were, a visit +that the Unknown owed to Caroline; if by any chance her Gentleman in +Black went by without bestowing on her the half-smile of his expressive +lips, or the cordial glance of his brown eyes, something was missing to +her all day. She felt as an old man does to whom the daily study of a +newspaper is such an indispensable pleasure that on the day after any +great holiday he wanders about quite lost, and seeking, as much out of +vagueness as for want of patience, the sheet by which he cheats an hour +of life. + +But these brief meetings had the charm of intimate friendliness, quite +as much for the stranger as for Caroline. The girl could no more hide +a vexation, a grief, or some slight ailment from the keen eye of her +appreciative friend than he could conceal anxiety from hers. + +"He must have had some trouble yesterday," was the thought that +constantly arose in the embroideress' mind as she saw some change in the +features of the "Black Gentleman." + +"Oh, he has been working too hard!" was a reflection due to another +shade of expression which Caroline could discern. + +The stranger, on his part, could guess when the girl had spent Sunday +in finishing a dress, and he felt an interest in the pattern. As +quarter-day came near he could see that her pretty face was clouded by +anxiety, and he could guess when Caroline had sat up late at work; but +above all, he noted how the gloomy thoughts that dimmed the cheerful +and delicate features of her young face gradually vanished by degrees +as their acquaintance ripened. When winter had killed the climbers and +plants of her window garden, and the window was kept closed, it was +not without a smile of gentle amusement that the stranger observed the +concentration of the light within, just at the level of Caroline's head. +The very small fire and the frosty red of the two women's faces betrayed +the poverty of their home; but if ever his own countenance expressed +regretful compassion, the girl proudly met it with assumed cheerfulness. + +Meanwhile the feelings that had arisen in their hearts remained buried +there, no incident occurring to reveal to either of them how deep and +strong they were in the other; they had never even heard the sound of +each other's voice. These mute friends were even on their guard against +any nearer acquaintance, as though it meant disaster. Each seemed to +fear lest it should bring on the other some grief more serious than +those they felt tempted to share. Was it shyness or friendship that +checked them? Was it a dread of meeting with selfishness, or the odious +distrust which sunders all the residents within the walls of a populous +city? Did the voice of conscience warn them of approaching danger? It +would be impossible to explain the instinct which made them as much +enemies as friends, at once indifferent and attached, drawn to each +other by impulse, and severed by circumstance. Each perhaps hoped to +preserve a cherished illusion. It might almost have been thought that +the stranger feared lest he should hear some vulgar word from those lips +as fresh and pure as a flower, and that Caroline felt herself unworthy +of the mysterious personage who was evidently possessed of power and +wealth. + +As to Madame Crochard, that tender mother, almost angry at her +daughter's persistent lack of decisiveness, now showed a sulky face to +the "Black Gentleman," on whom she had hitherto smiled with a sort of +benevolent servility. Never before had she complained so bitterly of +being compelled, at her age, to do the cooking; never had her catarrh +and her rheumatism wrung so many groans from her; finally, she could +not, this winter, promise so many ells of net as Caroline had hitherto +been able to count on. + +Under these circumstances, and towards the end of December, at the time +when bread was dearest, and that dearth of corn was beginning to be felt +which made the year 1816 so hard on the poor, the stranger observed +on the features of the girl whose name was still unknown to him, the +painful traces of a secret sorrow which his kindest smiles could not +dispel. Before long he saw in Caroline's eyes the dimness attributed +to long hours at night. One night, towards the end of the month, the +Gentleman in Black passed down the Rue du Tourniquet at the quite +unwonted hour of one in the morning. The perfect silence allowed of his +hearing before passing the house the lachrymose voice of the old mother, +and Caroline's even sadder tones, mingling with the swish of a shower +of sleet. He crept along as slowly as he could; and then, at the risk +of being taken up by the police, he stood still below the window to hear +the mother and daughter, while watching them through the largest of the +holes in the yellow muslin curtains, which were eaten away by wear as a +cabbage leaf is riddled by caterpillars. The inquisitive stranger saw a +sheet of paper on the table that stood between the two work-frames, and +on which stood the lamp and the globes filled with water. He at once +identified it as a writ. Madame Crochard was weeping, and Caroline's +voice was thick, and had lost its sweet, caressing tone. + +"Why be so heartbroken, mother? Monsieur Molineux will not sell us up or +turn us out before I have finished this dress; only two nights more and +I shall take it home to Madame Roguin." + +"And supposing she keeps you waiting as usual?--And will the money for +the gown pay the baker too?" + +The spectator of this scene had long practice in reading faces; he +fancied he could discern that the mother's grief was as false as the +daughter's was genuine; he turned away, and presently came back. When he +next peeped through the hole in the curtain, Madame Crochard was in bed. +The young needlewoman, bending over her frame, was embroidering with +indefatigable diligence; on the table, with the writ lay a triangular +hunch of bread, placed there, no doubt, to sustain her in the night and +to remind her of the reward of her industry. The stranger was tremulous +with pity and sympathy; he threw his purse in through a cracked pane +so that it should fall at the girl's feet; and then, without waiting to +enjoy her surprise, he escaped, his cheeks tingling. + +Next morning the shy and melancholy stranger went past with a look of +deep preoccupation, but he could not escape Caroline's gratitude; +she had opened her window and affected to be digging in the square +window-box buried in snow, a pretext of which the clumsy ingenuity +plainly told her benefactor that she had been resolved not to see him +only through the pane. Her eyes were full of tears as she bowed her +head, as much as to say to her benefactor, "I can only repay you from my +heart." + +But the Gentleman in Black affected not to understand the meaning of +this sincere gratitude. In the evening, as he came by, Caroline was busy +mending the window with a sheet of paper, and she smiled at him, showing +her row of pearly teeth like a promise. Thenceforth the Stranger went +another way, and was no more seen in the Rue due Tourniquet. + + + +It was one day early in the following May that, as Caroline was giving +the roots of the honeysuckle a glass of water, one Saturday morning, she +caught sight of a narrow strip of cloudless blue between the black lines +of houses, and said to her mother: + +"Mamma, we must go to-morrow for a trip to Montmorency!" + +She had scarcely uttered the words, in a tone of glee, when the +Gentleman in Black came by, sadder and more dejected than ever. +Caroline's innocent and ingratiating glance might have been taken for +an invitation. And, in fact, on the following day, when Madame Crochard, +dressed in a pelisse of claret-colored merinos, a silk bonnet, and +striped shawl of an imitation Indian pattern, came out to choose seats +in a chaise at the corner of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis and the Rue +d'Enghien, there she found her Unknown standing like a man waiting for +his wife. A smile of pleasure lighted up the Stranger's face when +his eye fell on Caroline, her neat feet shod in plum-colored prunella +gaiters, and her white dress tossed by a breeze that would have been +fatal to an ill-made woman, but which displayed her graceful form. Her +face, shaded by a rice-straw bonnet lined with pink silk, seemed to beam +with a reflection from heaven; her broad, plum-colored belt set off a +waist he could have spanned; her hair, parted in two brown bands over a +forehead as white as snow, gave her an expression of innocence which no +other feature contradicted. Enjoyment seemed to have made Caroline as +light as the straw of her hat; but when she saw the Gentleman in Black, +radiant hope suddenly eclipsed her bright dress and her beauty. The +Stranger, who appeared to be in doubt, had not perhaps made up his mind +to be the girl's escort for the day till this revelation of the delight +she felt on seeing him. He at once hired a vehicle with a fairly good +horse, to drive to Saint-Leu-Taverny, and he offered Madame Crochard +and her daughter seats by his side. The mother accepted without ado; but +presently, when they were already on the way to Saint-Denis, she was by +way of having scruples, and made a few civil speeches as to the possible +inconvenience two women might cause their companion. + +"Perhaps, monsieur, you wished to drive alone to Saint-Leu-Taverny," +said she, with affected simplicity. + +Before long she complained of the heat, and especially of her cough, +which, she said, had hindered her from closing her eyes all night; and +by the time the carriage had reached Saint-Denis, Madame Crochard seemed +to be fast asleep. Her snores, indeed, seemed, to the Gentleman in +Black, rather doubtfully genuine, and he frowned as he looked at the old +woman with a very suspicious eye. + +"Oh, she is fast asleep," said Caroline quilelessly; "she never ceased +coughing all night. She must be very tired." + +Her companion made no reply, but he looked at the girl with a smile that +seemed to say: + +"Poor child, you little know your mother!" + +However, in spite of his distrust, as the chaise made its way down the +long avenue of poplars leading to Eaubonne, the Stranger thought that +Madame Crochard was really asleep; perhaps he did not care to inquire +how far her slumbers were genuine or feigned. Whether it were that the +brilliant sky, the pure country air, and the heady fragrance of the +first green shoots of the poplars, the catkins of willow, and the +flowers of the blackthorn had inclined his heart to open like all the +nature around him; or that any long restraint was too oppressive while +Caroline's sparkling eyes responded to his own, the Gentleman in Black +entered on a conversation with his young companion, as aimless as the +swaying of the branches in the wind, as devious as the flitting of the +butterflies in the azure air, as illogical as the melodious murmur of +the fields, and, like it, full of mysterious love. At that season is not +the rural country as tremulous as a bride that has donned her marriage +robe; does it not invite the coldest soul to be happy? What heart could +remain unthawed, and what lips could keep its secret, on leaving the +gloomy streets of the Marais for the first time since the previous +autumn, and entering the smiling and picturesque valley of Montmorency; +on seeing it in the morning light, its endless horizons receding from +view; and then lifting a charmed gaze to eyes which expressed no less +infinitude mingled with love? + +The Stranger discovered that Caroline was sprightly rather than witty, +affectionate, but ill educated; but while her laugh was giddy, her words +promised genuine feeling. When, in response to her companion's shrewd +questioning, the girl spoke with the heartfelt effusiveness of which the +lower classes are lavish, not guarding it with reticence like people of +the world, the Black Gentleman's face brightened, and seemed to renew +its youth. His countenance by degrees lost the sadness that lent +sternness to his features, and little by little they gained a look of +handsome youthfulness which made Caroline proud and happy. The pretty +needlewoman guessed that her new friend had been long weaned from +tenderness and love, and no longer believed in the devotion of woman. +Finally, some unexpected sally in Caroline's light prattle lifted the +last veil that concealed the real youth and genuine character of the +Stranger's physiognomy; he seemed to bid farewell to the ideas that +haunted him, and showed the natural liveliness that lay beneath the +solemnity of his expression. + +Their conversation had insensibly become so intimate, that by the time +when the carriage stopped at the first houses of the straggling village +of Saint-Leu, Caroline was calling the gentleman Monsieur Roger. Then +for the first time the old mother awoke. + +"Caroline, she has heard everything!" said Roger suspiciously in the +girl's ear. + +Caroline's reply was an exquisite smile of disbelief, which dissipated +the dark cloud that his fear of some plot on the old woman's part had +brought to this suspicious mortal's brow. Madame Crochard was amazed +at nothing, approved of everything, followed her daughter and Monsieur +Roger into the park, where the two young people had agreed to wander +through the smiling meadows and fragrant copses made famous by the taste +of Queen Hortense. + +"Good heavens! how lovely!" exclaimed Caroline when standing on the +green ridge where the forest of Montmorency begins, she saw lying at her +feet the wide valley with its combes sheltering scattered villages, its +horizon of blue hills, its church towers, its meadows and fields, whence +a murmur came up, to die on her ear like the swell of the ocean. The +three wanderers made their way by the bank of an artificial stream and +came to the Swiss valley, where stands a chalet that had more than once +given shelter to Hortense and Napoleon. When Caroline had seated +herself with pious reverence on the mossy wooden bench where kings and +princesses and the Emperor had rested, Madame Crochard expressed a wish +to have a nearer view of a bridge that hung across between two rocks at +some little distance, and bent her steps towards that rural curiosity, +leaving her daughter in Monsieur Roger's care, though telling them that +she would not go out of sight. + +"What, poor child!" cried Roger, "have you never longed for wealth and +the pleasures of luxury? Have you never wished that you might wear the +beautiful dresses you embroider?" + +"It would not be the truth, Monsieur Roger, if I were to tell you that +I never think how happy people must be who are rich. Oh yes! I often +fancy, especially when I am going to sleep, how glad I should be to see +my poor mother no longer compelled to go out, whatever the weather, +to buy our little provisions, at her age. I should like her to have a +servant who, every morning before she was up, would bring her up her +coffee, nicely sweetened with white sugar. And she loves reading novels, +poor dear soul! Well, and I would rather see her wearing out her eyes +over her favorite books than over twisting her bobbins from morning +till night. And again, she ought to have a little good wine. In short, I +should like to see her comfortable--she is so good." + +"Then she has shown you great kindness?" + +"Oh yes," said the girl, in a tone of conviction. Then, after a short +pause, during which the two young people stood watching Madame Crochard, +who had got to the middle of the rustic bridge, and was shaking her +finger at them, Caroline went on: + +"Oh yes, she has been so good to me. What care she took of me when I was +little! She sold her last silver forks to apprentice me to the old maid +who taught me to embroider.--And my poor father! What did she not go +through to make him end his days in happiness!" The girl shivered at the +remembrance, and hid her face in her hands.--"Well! come! let us forget +past sorrows!" she added, trying to rally her high spirits. She blushed +as she saw that Roger too was moved, but she dared not look at him. + +"What was your father?" he asked. + +"He was an opera-dancer before the Revolution," said she, with an air +of perfect simplicity, "and my mother sang in the chorus. My father, who +was leader of the figures on the stage, happened to be present at the +siege of the Bastille. He was recognized by some of the assailants, who +asked him whether he could not lead a real attack, since he was used to +leading such enterprises on the boards. My father was brave; he accepted +the post, led the insurgents, and was rewarded by the nomination to the +rank of captain in the army of Sambre-et-Meuse, where he distinguished +himself so far as to rise rapidly to be a colonel. But at Lutzen he was +so badly wounded that, after a year's sufferings, he died in Paris.--The +Bourbons returned; my mother could obtain no pension, and we fell into +such abject misery that we were compelled to work for our living. For +some time past she has been ailing, poor dear, and I have never known +her so little resigned; she complains a good deal, and, indeed, I cannot +wonder, for she has known the pleasures of an easy life. For my part, +I cannot pine for delights I have never known, I have but one thing to +wish for." + +"And that is?" said Roger eagerly, as if roused from a dream. + +"That women may continue to wear embroidered net dresses, so that I may +never lack work." + +The frankness of this confession interested the young man, who looked +with less hostile eyes on Madame Crochard as she slowly made her way +back to them. + +"Well, children, have you had a long talk?" said she, with a +half-laughing, half-indulgent air. "When I think, Monsieur Roger, that +the 'little Corporal' has sat where you are sitting," she went on after +a pause. "Poor man! how my husband worshiped him! Ah! Crochard did well +to die, for he could not have borne to think of him where _they_ have +sent him!" + +Roger put his finger to his lips, and the good woman went on very +gravely, with a shake of her head: + +"All right, mouth shut and tongue still! But," added she, unhooking a +bit of her bodice, and showing a ribbon and cross tied round her neck by +a piece of black ribbon, "they shall never hinder me from wearing what +_he_ gave to my poor Crochard, and I will have it buried with me." + +On hearing this speech, which at that time was regarded as seditious, +Roger interrupted the old lady by rising suddenly, and they returned to +the village through the park walks. The young man left them for a +few minutes while he went to order a meal at the best eating-house +in Taverny; then, returning to fetch them, he led the way through the +alleys cut in the forest. + +The dinner was cheerful. Roger was no longer the melancholy shade that +was wont to pass along the Rue du Tourniquet; he was not the "Black +Gentleman," but rather a confiding young man ready to take life as it +came, like the two hard-working women who, on the morrow, might lack +bread; he seemed alive to all the joys of youth, his smile was quite +affectionate and childlike. + +When, at five o'clock, this happy meal was ended with a few glasses +of champagne, Roger was the first to propose that they should join the +village ball under the chestnuts, where he and Caroline danced together. +Their hands met with sympathetic pressure, their hearts beat with the +same hopes; and under the blue sky and the slanting, rosy beams of +sunset, their eyes sparkled with fires which, to them, made the glory of +the heavens pale. How strange is the power of an idea, of a desire! +To these two nothing seemed impossible. In such magic moments, when +enjoyment sheds its reflections on the future, the soul foresees nothing +but happiness. This sweet day had created memories for these two to +which nothing could be compared in all their past existence. Would +the source prove to be more beautiful than the river, the desire more +enchanting than its gratification, the thing hoped for more delightful +than the thing possessed? + +"So the day is already at an end!" On hearing this exclamation from +her unknown friend when the dance was over, Caroline looked at him +compassionately, as his face assumed once more a faint shade of sadness. + +"Why should you not be as happy in Paris as you are here?" she asked. +"Is happiness to be found only at Saint-Leu? It seems to me that I can +henceforth never be unhappy anywhere." + +Roger was struck by these words, spoken with the glad unrestraint that +always carries a woman further than she intended, just as prudery often +lends her greater cruelty than she feels. For the first time since that +glance, which had, in a way, been the beginning of their friendship, +Caroline and Roger had the same idea; though they did not express it, +they felt it at the same instant, as a result of a common impression +like that of a comforting fire cheering both under the frost of winter; +then, as if frightened by each other's silence, they made their way to +the spot where the carriage was waiting. But before getting into it, +they playfully took hands and ran together down the dark avenue in front +of Madame Crochard. When they could no longer see the white net +cap, which showed as a speck through the leaves where the old woman +was--"Caroline!" said Roger in a tremulous voice, and with a beating +heart. + +The girl was startled, and drew back a few steps, understanding the +invitation this question conveyed; however, she held out her hand, which +was passionately kissed, but which she hastily withdrew, for by standing +on tiptoe she could see her mother. + +Madame Crochard affected blindness, as if, with a reminiscence of her +old parts, she was only required to figure as a supernumerary. + + + +The adventures of these two young people were not continued in the Rue +du Tourniquet. To see Roger and Caroline once more, we must leap into +the heart of modern Paris, where, in some of the newly-built houses, +there are apartments that seem made on purpose for newly-married couples +to spend their honeymoon in. There the paper and paint are as fresh as +the bride and bridegroom, and the decorations are in blossom like their +love; everything is in harmony with youthful notions and ardent wishes. + +Half-way down the Rue Taitbout, in a house whose stone walls were +still white, where the columns of the hall and the doorway were as yet +spotless, and the inner walls shone with the neat painting which our +recent intimacy with English ways had brought into fashion, there was, +on the second floor, a small set of rooms fitted by the architect as +though he had known what their use would be. A simple airy ante-room, +with a stucco dado, formed an entrance into a drawing-room and +dining-room. Out of the drawing-room opened a pretty bedroom, with a +bathroom beyond. Every chimney-shelf had over it a fine mirror elegantly +framed. The doors were crowded with arabesques in good taste, and the +cornices were in the best style. Any amateur would have discerned there +the sense of distinction and decorative fitness which mark the work of +modern French architects. + +For above a month Caroline had been at home in this apartment, furnished +by an upholsterer who submitted to an artist's guidance. A short +description of the principal room will suffice to give us an idea of the +wonders it offered to Caroline's delighted eyes when Roger installed her +there. Hangings of gray stuff trimmed with green silk adorned the walls +of her bedroom; the seats, covered with light-colored woolen sateen, +were of easy and comfortable shapes, and in the latest fashion; a chest +of drawers of some simple wood, inlaid with lines of a darker hue, +contained the treasures of the toilet; a writing-table to match served +for inditing love-letters on scented paper; the bed, with antique +draperies, could not fail to suggest thoughts of love by its soft +hangings of elegant muslin; the window-curtains, of drab silk with +green fringe, were always half drawn to subdue the light; a bronze clock +represented Love crowning Psyche; and a carpet of Gothic design on a red +ground set off the other accessories of this delightful retreat. There +was a small dressing-table in front of a long glass, and here the +needlewoman sat, out of patience with Plaisir, the famous hairdresser. + +"Do you think you will have done to-day?" said she. + +"Your hair is so long and so thick, madame," replied Plaisir. + +Caroline could not help smiling. The man's flattery had no doubt revived +in her mind the memory of the passionate praises lavished by her lover +on the beauty of her hair, which he delighted in. + +The hairdresser having done, a waiting-maid came and held counsel with +her as to the dress in which Roger would like best to see her. It was +the beginning of September 1816, and the weather was cold; she chose a +green _grenadine_ trimmed with chinchilla. As soon as she was dressed, +Caroline flew into the drawing-room and opened a window, out of which +she stepped on to the elegant balcony, that adorned the front of the +house; there she stood, with her arms crossed, in a charming attitude, +not to show herself to the admiration of the passers-by and see them +turn to gaze at her, but to be able to look out on the Boulevard at the +bottom of the Rue Taitbout. This side view, really very comparable to +the peephole made by actors in the drop-scene of a theatre, enabled +her to catch a glimpse of numbers of elegant carriages, and a crowd of +persons, swept past with the rapidity of _Ombres Chinoises_. Not knowing +whether Roger would arrive in a carriage or on foot, the needlewoman +from the Rue du Tourniquet looked by turns at the foot-passengers, and +at the tilburies--light cabs introduced into Paris by the English. + +Expressions of refractoriness and of love passed by turns over her +youthful face when, after waiting for a quarter of an hour, neither her +keen eye nor her heart had announced the arrival of him whom she knew +to be due. What disdain, what indifference were shown in her beautiful +features for all the other creatures who were bustling like ants below +her feet. Her gray eyes, sparkling with fun, now positively flamed. +Given over to her passion, she avoided admiration with as much care +as the proudest devote to encouraging it when they drive about Paris, +certainly feeling no care as to whether her fair countenance leaning +over the balcony, or her little foot between the bars, and the picture +of her bright eyes and delicious turned-up nose would be effaced or no +from the minds of the passers-by who admired them; she saw but one +face, and had but one idea. When the spotted head of a certain bay +horse happened to cross the narrow strip between the two rows of houses, +Caroline gave a little shiver and stood on tiptoe in hope of recognizing +the white traces and the color of the tilbury. It was he! + +Roger turned the corner of the street, saw the balcony, whipped the +horse, which came up at a gallop, and stopped at the bronze-green door +that he knew as well as his master did. The door of the apartment was +opened at once by the maid, who had heard her mistress' exclamation of +delight. Roger rushed up to the drawing-room, clasped Caroline in his +arms, and embraced her with the effusive feeling natural when two beings +who love each other rarely meet. He led her, or rather they went by a +common impulse, their arms about each other, into the quiet and fragrant +bedroom; a settee stood ready for them to sit by the fire, and for a +moment they looked at each other in silence, expressing their happiness +only by their clasped hands, and communicating their thoughts in a fond +gaze. + +"Yes, it is he!" she said at last. "Yes, it is you. Do you know, I have +not seen you for three long days, an age!--But what is the matter? You +are unhappy." + +"My poor Caroline--" + +"There, you see! 'poor Caroline'--" + +"No, no, do not laugh, my darling; we cannot go to the Feydeau Theatre +together this evening." + +Caroline put on a little pout, but it vanished immediately. + +"How absurd I am! How can I think of going to the play when I see you? +Is not the sight of you the only spectacle I care for?" she cried, +pushing her fingers through Roger's hair. + +"I am obliged to go to the Attorney-General's. We have a knotty case in +hand. He met me in the great hall at the Palais; and as I am to plead, +he asked me to dine with him. But, my dearest, you can go to the theatre +with your mother, and I will join you if the meeting breaks up early." + +"To the theatre without you!" cried she in a tone of amazement; "enjoy +any pleasure you do not share! O my Roger! you do not deserve a +kiss," she added, throwing her arms round his neck with an artless and +impassioned impulse. + +"Caroline, I must go home and dress. The Marais is some way off, and I +still have some business to finish." + +"Take care what you are saying, monsieur," said she, interrupting him. +"My mother says that when a man begins to talk about his business, he is +ceasing to love." + +"Caroline! Am I not here? Have I not stolen this hour from my +pitiless--" + +"Hush!" said she, laying a finger on his mouth. "Don't you see that I am +in jest." + +They had now come back to the drawing-room, and Roger's eye fell on an +object brought home that morning by the cabinetmaker. Caroline's old +rosewood embroidery-frame, by which she and her mother had earned their +bread when they lived in the Rue du Tourniquet-Saint-Jean, had been +refitted and polished, and a net dress, of elaborate design, was already +stretched upon it. + +"Well, then, my dear, I shall do some work this evening. As I stitch, I +shall fancy myself gone back to those early days when you used to +pass by me without a word, but not without a glance; the days when +the remembrance of your look kept me awake all night. Oh my dear old +frame--the best piece of furniture in my room, though you did not give +it me!--You cannot think," said she, seating herself on Roger's knees; +for he, overcome by irresistible feelings, had dropped into a chair. +"Listen.--All I can earn by my work I mean to give to the poor. You have +made me rich. How I love that pretty home at Bellefeuille, less because +of what it is than because you gave it me! But tell me, Roger, I should +like to call myself Caroline de Bellefeuille--can I? You must know: is +it legal or permissible?" + +As she saw a little affirmative grimace--for Roger hated the name of +Crochard--Caroline jumped for glee, and clapped her hands. + +"I feel," said she, "as if I should more especially belong to you. +Usually a woman gives up her own name and takes her husband's--" An idea +forced itself upon her and made her blush. She took Roger's hand and led +him to the open piano.--"Listen," said she, "I can play my sonata now +like an angel!" and her fingers were already running over the ivory +keys, when she felt herself seized round the waist. + +"Caroline, I ought to be far from hence!" + +"You insist on going? Well, go," said she, with a pretty pout, but she +smiled as she looked at the clock and exclaimed joyfully, "At any rate, +I have detained you a quarter of an hour!" + +"Good-bye, Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille," said he, with the gentle irony +of love. + +She kissed him and saw her lover to the door; when the sound of his +steps had died away on the stairs she ran out on to the balcony to see +him get into the tilbury, to see him gather up the reins, to catch a +parting look, hear the crack of his whip and the sound of his wheels on +the stones, watch the handsome horse, the master's hat, the tiger's +gold lace, and at last to stand gazing long after the dark corner of the +street had eclipsed this vision. + + + +Five years after Mademoiselle Caroline de Bellefeuille had taken up her +abode in the pretty house in the Rue Taitbout, we again look in on one +of those home-scenes which tighten the bonds of affection between two +persons who truly love. In the middle of the blue drawing-room, in front +of the window opening to the balcony, a little boy of four was making +a tremendous noise as he whipped the rocking-horse, whose two curved +supports for the legs did not move fast enough to please him; his pretty +face, framed in fair curls that fell over his white collar, smiled up +like a cherub's at his mother when she said to him from the depths of +an easy-chair, "Not so much noise, Charles; you will wake your little +sister." + +The inquisitive boy suddenly got off his horse, and treading on tiptoe +as if he were afraid of the sound of his feet on the carpet, came up +with one finger between his little teeth, and standing in one of those +childish attitudes that are so graceful because they are so perfectly +natural, raised the muslin veil that hid the rosy face of a little girl +sleeping on her mother's knee. + +"Is Eugenie asleep, then?" said he, quite astonished. "Why is she asleep +when we are awake?" he added, looking up with large, liquid black eyes. + +"That only God can know," replied Caroline, with a smile. + +The mother and boy gazed at the infant, only that morning baptized. + +Caroline, now about four-and-twenty, showed the ripe beauty which +had expanded under the influence of cloudless happiness and constant +enjoyment. In her the Woman was complete. + +Delighted to obey her dear Roger's every wish, she had acquired the +accomplishments she had lacked; she played the piano fairly well, and +sang sweetly. Ignorant of the customs of a world that would have treated +her as an outcast, and which she would not have cared for even if it had +welcomed her--for a happy woman does not care for the world--she had +not caught the elegance of manner or learned the art of conversation, +abounding in words and devoid of ideas, which is current in fashionable +drawing-rooms; on the other hand, she worked hard to gain the knowledge +indispensable to a mother whose chief ambition is to bring up her +children well. Never to lose sight of her boy, to give him from the +cradle that training of every minute which impresses on the young a +love of all that is good and beautiful, to shelter him from every evil +influence and fulfil both the painful duties of a nurse and the tender +offices of a mother,--these were her chief pleasures. + +The coy and gentle being had from the first day so fully resigned +herself never to step beyond the enchanted sphere where she found all +her happiness, that, after six years of the tenderest intimacy, she +still knew her lover only by the name of Roger. A print of the picture +of the Psyche lighting her lamp to gaze on Love in spite of his +prohibition, hung in her room, and constantly reminded her of the +conditions of her happiness. Through all these six years her humble +pleasures had never importuned Roger by a single indiscreet ambition, +and his heart was a treasure-house of kindness. Never had she longed for +diamonds or fine clothes, and had again and again refused the luxury of +a carriage which he had offered her. To look out from her balcony for +Roger's cab, to go with him to the play or make excursions with him, +on fine days in the environs of Paris, to long for him, to see him, +and then to long again,--these made up the history of her life, poor in +incidents but rich in happiness. + +As she rocked the infant, now a few months old, on her knee, singing +the while, she allowed herself to recall the memories of the past. She +lingered more especially on the months of September, when Roger was +accustomed to take her to Bellefeuille and spend the delightful days +which seem to combine the charms of every season. Nature is equally +prodigal of flowers and fruit, the evenings are mild, the mornings +bright, and a blaze of summer often returns after a spell of autumn +gloom. During the early days of their love, Caroline had ascribed the +even mind and gentle temper, of which Roger gave her so many proofs, +to the rarity of their always longed-for meetings, and to their mode of +life, which did not compel them to be constantly together, as a husband +and wife must be. But now she could remember with rapture that, tortured +by foolish fears, she had watched him with trembling during their first +stay on this little estate in the Gatinais. Vain suspiciousness of love! +Each of these months of happiness had passed like a dream in the midst +of joys which never rang false. She had always seen that kind creature +with a tender smile on his lips, a smile that seemed to mirror her own. + +As she called up these vivid pictures, her eyes filled with tears; she +thought she could not love him enough, and was tempted to regard her +ambiguous position as a sort of tax levied by Fate on her love. Finally, +invincible curiosity led her to wonder for the thousandth time what +events they could be that led so tender a heart as Roger's to find his +pleasure in clandestine and illicit happiness. She invented a thousand +romances on purpose really to avoid recognizing the true reason, which +she had long suspected but tried not to believe in. She rose, and +carrying the baby in her arms, went into the dining-room to superintend +the preparations for dinner. + +It was the 6th of May 1822, the anniversary of the excursion to the Park +of Saint-Leu, which had been the turning-point of her life; each year it +had been marked by heartfelt rejoicing. Caroline chose the linen to +be used, and arranged the dessert. Having attended with joy to these +details, which touched Roger, she placed the infant in her pretty cot +and went out on to the balcony, whence she presently saw the carriage +which her friend, as he grew to riper years, now used instead of the +smart tilbury of his youth. After submitting to the first fire of +Caroline's embraces and the kisses of the little rogue who addressed +him as papa, Roger went to the cradle, looked at his little sleeping +daughter, kissed her forehead, and then took out of his pocket a +document covered with black writing. + +"Caroline," said he, "here is the marriage portion of Mademoiselle +Eugenie de Bellefeuille." + +The mother gratefully took the paper, a deed of gift of securities in +the State funds. + +"Buy why," said she, "have you given Eugenie three thousand francs a +year, and Charles no more than fifteen hundred?" + +"Charles, my love, will be a man," replied he. "Fifteen hundred francs +are enough for him. With so much for certain, a man of courage is above +poverty. And if by chance your son should turn out a nonentity, I do +not wish him to be able to play the fool. If he is ambitious, this small +income will give him a taste for work.--Eugenie is a girl; she must have +a little fortune." + +The father then turned to play with his boy, whose effusive affection +showed the independence and freedom in which he was brought up. No sort +of shyness between the father and child interfered with the charm which +rewards a parent for his devotion; and the cheerfulness of the little +family was as sweet as it was genuine. In the evening a magic-lantern +displayed its illusions and mysterious pictures on a white sheet +to Charles' great surprise, and more than once the innocent child's +heavenly rapture made Caroline and Roger laugh heartily. + +Later, when the little boy was in bed, the baby woke and craved its +limpid nourishment. By the light of a lamp in the chimney corner, Roger +enjoyed the scene of peace and comfort, and gave himself up to the +happiness of contemplating the sweet picture of the child clinging to +Caroline's white bosom as she sat, as fresh as a newly opened lily, +while her hair fell in long brown curls that almost hid her neck. The +lamplight enhanced the grace of the young mother, shedding over her, +her dress, and the infant, the picturesque effects of strong light and +shadow. + +The calm and silent woman's face struck Roger as a thousand times +sweeter than ever, and he gazed tenderly at the rosy, pouting lips +from which no harsh word had ever been heard. The very same thought was +legible in Caroline's eyes as she gave a sidelong look at Roger, either +to enjoy the effect she was producing on him, or to see what the end +of the evening was to be. He, understanding the meaning of this cunning +glance, said with assumed regret, "I must be going. I have a serious +case to be finished, and I am expected at home. Duty before all +things--don't you think so, my darling?" + +Caroline looked him in the face with an expression at once sad and +sweet, with the resignation which does not, however, disguise the pangs +of a sacrifice. + +"Good-bye, then," said she. "Go, for if you stay an hour longer I cannot +so lightly bear to set you free." + +"My dearest," said he with a smile, "I have three days' holiday, and am +supposed to be twenty leagues away from Paris." + + + +A few days after this anniversary of the 6th of May, Mademoiselle de +Bellefeuille hurried off one morning to the Rue Saint-Louis, in the +Marais, only hoping she might not arrive too late at a house where she +commonly went once a week. An express messenger had just come to inform +her that her mother, Madame Crochard, was sinking under a complication +of disorders produced by constant catarrh and rheumatism. + +While the hackney coach-driver was flogging up his horses at Caroline's +urgent request, supported by the promise of a handsome present, the +timid old women, who had been Madame Crochard's friends during her later +years, had brought a priest into the neat and comfortable second-floor +rooms occupied by the old widow. Madame Crochard's maid did not know +that the pretty lady at whose house her mistress so often dined was +her daughter, and she was one of the first to suggest the services of a +confessor, in the hope that this priest might be at least as useful +to herself as to the sick woman. Between two games of boston, or +out walking in the Jardin Turc, the old beldames with whom the widow +gossiped all day had succeeded in rousing in their friend's stony heart +some scruples as to her former life, some visions of the future, some +fears of hell, and some hopes of forgiveness if she should return in +sincerity to a religious life. So on this solemn morning three ancient +females had settled themselves in the drawing-room where Madame Crochard +was "at home" every Tuesday. Each in turn left her armchair to go to the +poor old woman's bedside and sit with her, giving her the false hopes +with which people delude the dying. + +At the same time, when the end was drawing near, when the physician +called in the day before would no longer answer for her life, the three +dames took counsel together as to whether it would not be well to +send word to Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille. Francoise having been duly +informed, it was decided that a commissionaire should go to the Rue +Taitbout to inform the young relation whose influence was so disquieting +to the four women; still, they hoped that the Auvergnat would be too +late in bringing back the person who so certainly held the first +place in the widow Crochard's affections. The widow, evidently in the +enjoyment of a thousand crowns a year, would not have been so fondly +cherished by this feminine trio, but that neither of them, nor Francoise +herself knew of her having any heir. The wealth enjoyed by Mademoiselle +de Bellefeuille, whom Madame Crochard, in obedience to the traditions of +the older opera, never allowed herself to speak of by the affectionate +name of daughter, almost justified the four women in their scheme of +dividing among themselves the old woman's "pickings." + +Presently the one of these three sibyls who kept guard over the sick +woman came shaking her head at the other anxious two, and said: + +"It is time we should be sending for the Abbe Fontanon. In another two +hours she will neither have the wit nor the strength to write a line." + +Thereupon the toothless old cook went off, and returned with a man +wearing a black gown. A low forehead showed a small mind in this +priest, whose features were mean; his flabby, fat cheeks and double chin +betrayed the easy-going egotist; his powdered hair gave him a pleasant +look, till he raised his small, brown eyes, prominent under a flat +forehead, and not unworthy to glitter under the brows of a Tartar. + +"Monsieur l'Abbe," said Francoise, "I thank you for all your advice; but +believe me, I have taken the greatest care of the dear soul." + +But the servant, with her dragging step and woe-begone look, was silent +when she saw that the door of the apartment was open, and that the most +insinuating of the three dowagers was standing on the landing to be the +first to speak with the confessor. When the priest had politely faced +the honeyed and bigoted broadside of words fired off from the widow's +three friends, he went into the sickroom to sit by Madame Crochard. +Decency, and some sense of reserve, compelled the three women and old +Francoise to remain in the sitting-room, and to make such grimaces of +grief as are possible in perfection only to such wrinkled faces. + +"Oh, is it not ill-luck!" cried Francoise, heaving a sigh. "This is +the fourth mistress I have buried. The first left me a hundred francs a +year, the second a sum of fifty crowns, and the third a thousand crowns +down. After thirty years' service, that is all I have to call my own." + +The woman took advantage of her freedom to come and go, to slip into a +cupboard, whence she could hear the priest. + +"I see with pleasure, daughter," said Fontanon, "that you have pious +sentiments; you have a sacred relic round your neck." + +Madame Crochard, with a feeble vagueness which seemed to show that she +had not all her wits about her, pulled out the Imperial Cross of the +Legion of Honor. The priest started back at seeing the Emperor's head; +he went up to the penitent again, and she spoke to him, but in such a +low tone that for some minutes Francoise could hear nothing. + +"Woe upon me!" cried the old woman suddenly. "Do not desert me. What, +Monsieur l'Abbe, do you think I shall be called to account for my +daughter's soul?" + +The Abbe spoke too low, and the partition was too thick for Francoise to +hear the reply. + +"Alas!" sobbed the woman, "the wretch has left me nothing that I can +bequeath. When he robbed me of my dear Caroline, he parted us, and only +allowed me three thousand francs a year, of which the capital belongs to +my daughter." + +"Madame has a daughter, and nothing to live on but an annuity," shrieked +Francoise, bursting into the drawing-room. + +The three old crones looked at each other in dismay. One of them, whose +nose and chin nearly met with an expression that betrayed a superior +type of hypocrisy and cunning, winked her eyes; and as soon as +Francoise's back was turned, she gave her friends a nod, as much as to +say, "That slut is too knowing by half; her name has figured in three +wills already." + +So the three old dames sat on. + +However, the Abbe presently came out, and at a word from him the witches +scuttered down the stairs at his heels, leaving Francoise alone with her +mistress. Madame Crochard, whose sufferings increased in severity, rang, +but in vain, for this woman, who only called out, "Coming, coming--in +a minute!" The doors of cupboards and wardrobes were slamming as though +Francoise were hunting high and low for a lost lottery ticket. + +Just as this crisis was at a climax, Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille came +to stand by her mother's bed, lavishing tender words on her. + +"Oh my dear mother, how criminal I have been! You are ill, and I did not +know it; my heart did not warn me. However, here I am--" + +"Caroline--" + +"What is it?" + +"They fetched a priest--" + +"But send for a doctor, bless me!" cried Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille. +"Francoise, a doctor! How is it that these ladies never sent for a +doctor?" + +"They sent for a priest----" repeated the old woman with a gasp. + +"She is so ill--and no soothing draught, nothing on her table!" + +The mother made a vague sign, which Caroline's watchful eye understood, +for she was silent to let her mother speak. + +"They brought a priest--to hear my confession, as they said.--Beware, +Caroline!" cried the old woman with an effort, "the priest made me tell +him your benefactor's name." + +"But who can have told you, poor mother?" + +The old woman died, trying to look knowingly cunning. If Mademoiselle de +Bellefeuille had noted her mother's face she might have seen what no one +ever will see--Death laughing. + +To enter into the interests that lay beneath this introduction to my +tale, we must for a moment forget the actors in it, and look back at +certain previous incidents, of which the last was closely concerned with +the death of Madame Crochard. The two parts will then form a whole--a +story which, by a law peculiar to life in Paris, was made up of two +distinct sets of actions. + +Towards the close of the month of November 1805, a young barrister, aged +about six-and-twenty, was going down the stairs of the hotel where +the High Chancellor of the Empire resided, at about three o'clock one +morning. Having reached the courtyard in full evening dress, under +a keen frost, he could not help giving vent to an exclamation of +dismay--qualified, however, by the spirit which rarely deserts a +Frenchman--at seeing no hackney coach waiting outside the gates, and +hearing no noises such as arise from the wooden shoes or harsh voices +of the hackney-coachmen of Paris. The occasional pawing of the horses +of the Chief Justice's carriage--the young man having left him still +playing _bouillote_ with Cambaceres--alone rang out in the paved court, +which was scarcely lighted by the carriage lamps. Suddenly the young +lawyer felt a friendly hand on his shoulder, and turning round, found +himself face to face with the Judge, to whom he bowed. As the footman +let down the steps of his carriage, the old gentleman, who had served +the Convention, suspected the junior's dilemma. + +"All cats are gray in the dark," said he good-humoredly. "The Chief +Justice cannot compromise himself by putting a pleader in the right +way! Especially," he went on, "when the pleader is the nephew of an old +colleague, one of the lights of the grand Council of State which gave +France the Napoleonic Code." + +At a gesture from the chief magistrate of France under the Empire, the +foot-passenger got into the carriage. + +"Where do you live?" asked the great man, before the footman who awaited +his orders had closed the door. + +"Quai des Augustins, monseigneur." + +The horses started, and the young man found himself alone with the +Minister, to whom he had vainly tried to speak before and after the +sumptuous dinner given by Cambaceres; in fact, the great man had +evidently avoided him throughout the evening. + +"Well, Monsieur _de_ Granville, you are on the high road!" + +"So long as I sit by your Excellency's side--" + +"Nay, I am not jesting," said the Minister. "You were called two years +since, and your defence in the case of Simeuse and Hauteserre had raised +you high in your profession." + +"I had supposed that my interest in those unfortunate emigres had done +me no good." + +"You are still very young," said the great man gravely. "But the High +Chancellor," he went on, after a pause, "was greatly pleased with you +this evening. Get a judgeship in the lower courts; we want men. The +nephew of a man in whom Cambaceres and I take great interest must not +remain in the background for lack of encouragement. Your uncle helped +us to tide over a very stormy season, and services of that kind are not +forgotten." The Minister sat silent for a few minutes. "Before long," he +went on, "I shall have three vacancies open in the Lower Courts and +in the Imperial Court in Paris. Come to see me, and take the place you +prefer. Till then work hard, but do not be seen at my receptions. In the +first place, I am overwhelmed with work; and besides that, your rivals +may suspect your purpose and do you harm with the patron. Cambaceres +and I, by not speaking a word to you this evening, have averted the +accusation of favoritism." + +As the great man ceased speaking, the carriage drew up on the Quai des +Augustins; the young lawyer thanked his generous patron for the two +lifts he had conferred on him, and then knocked at his door pretty +loudly, for the bitter wind blew cold about his calves. At last the old +lodgekeeper pulled up the latch; and as the young man passed his window, +called out in a hoarse voice, "Monsieur Granville, here is a letter for +you." + +The young man took the letter, and in spite of the cold, tried to +identify the writing by the gleam of a dull lamp fast dying out. "From +my father!" he exclaimed, as he took his bedroom candle, which the +porter at last had lighted. And he ran up to his room to read the +following epistle:-- + + "Set off by the next mail; and if you can get here soon enough, + your fortune is made. Mademoiselle Angelique Bontems has lost her + sister; she is now an only child; and, as we know, she does not + hate you. Madame Bontems can now leave her about forty thousand + francs a year, besides whatever she may give her when she marries. + I have prepared the way. + + "Our friends will wonder to see a family of old nobility allying + itself to the Bontems; old Bontems was a red republican of the + deepest dye, owning large quantities of the nationalized land, + that he bought for a mere song. But he held nothing but convent + lands, and the monks will not come back; and then, as you have + already so far derogated as to become a lawyer, I cannot see why + we should shrink from a further concession to the prevalent ideas. + The girl will have three hundred thousand francs; I can give you a + hundred thousand; your mother's property must be worth fifty + thousand crowns, more or less; so if you choose to take a + judgeship, my dear son, you are quite in a position to become a + senator as much as any other man. My brother-in-law the Councillor + of State will not indeed lend you a helping-hand; still, as he is + not married, his property will some day be yours, and if you are + not senator by your own efforts, you will get it through him. Then + you will be perched high enough to look on at events. Farewell. + Yours affectionately." + +So young Granville went to bed full of schemes, each fairer than the +last. Under the powerful protection of the High Chancellor, the Chief +Justice, and his mother's brother--one of the originators of the +Code--he was about to make a start in a coveted position before the +highest court of the Empire, and he already saw himself a member of the +bench whence Napoleon selected the chief functionaries of the realm. +He could also promise himself a fortune handsome enough to keep up +his rank, for which the slender income of five thousand francs from an +estate left him by his mother would be quite insufficient. + +To crown his ambitious dreams with a vision of happiness, he called up +the guileless face of Mademoiselle Angelique Bontems, the companion of +his childhood. Until he came to boyhood his father and mother had +made no objection to his intimacy with their neighbor's pretty little +daughter; but when, during his brief holiday visits to Bayeux, his +parents, who prided themselves on their good birth, saw what friends the +young people were, they forbade his ever thinking of her. Thus for ten +years past Granville had only had occasional glimpses of the girl, whom +he still sometimes thought of as "his little wife." And in those +brief moments when they met free from the active watchfulness of their +families, they had scarcely exchanged a few vague civilities at the +church door or in the street. Their happiest days had been those when, +brought together by one of those country festivities known in Normandy +as _Assemblees_, they could steal a glance at each other from afar. + +In the course of the last vacation Granville had twice seen Angelique, +and her downcast eyes and drooping attitude had led him to suppose that +she was crushed by some unknown tyranny. + +He was off by seven next morning to the coach office in the Rue +Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, and was so lucky as to find a vacant seat in +the diligence then starting for Caen. + +It was not without deep emotion that the young lawyer saw once more the +spires of the cathedral at Bayeux. As yet no hope of his life had been +cheated, and his heart swelled with the generous feelings that expand in +the youthful soul. + +After the too lengthy feast of welcome prepared by his father, who +awaited him with some friends, the impatient youth was conducted to a +house, long familiar to him, standing in the Rue Teinture. His heart +beat high when his father--still known in the town of Bayeux as the +Comte de Granville--knocked loudly at a carriage gate off which the +green paint was dropping in scales. It was about four in the afternoon. +A young maid-servant, in a cotton cap, dropped a short curtsey to the +two gentlemen, and said that the ladies would soon be home from vespers. + +The Count and his son were shown into a low room used as a drawing-room, +but more like a convent parlor. Polished panels of dark walnut made +it gloomy enough, and around it some old-fashioned chairs covered with +worsted work and stiff armchairs were symmetrically arranged. The stone +chimney-shelf had no ornament but a discolored mirror, and on each side +of it were the twisted branches of a pair of candle-brackets, such as +were made at the time of the Peace of Utrecht. Against a panel opposite, +young Granville saw an enormous crucifix of ebony and ivory surrounded +by a wreath of box that had been blessed. Though there were three +windows to the room, looking out on a country-town garden, laid out +in formal square beds edged with box, the room was so dark that it was +difficult to discern, on the wall opposite the windows, three pictures +of sacred subjects painted by a skilled hand, and purchased, no doubt, +during the Revolution by old Bontems, who, as governor of the district, +had never neglected his opportunities. From the carefully polished floor +to the green checked holland curtains everything shone with conventual +cleanliness. + +The young man's heart felt an involuntary chill in this silent retreat +where Angelique dwelt. The habit of frequenting the glittering Paris +drawing-rooms, and the constant whirl of society, had effaced from his +memory the dull and peaceful surroundings of a country life, and the +contrast was so startling as to give him a sort of internal shiver. To +have just left a party at the house of Cambaceres, where life was so +large, where minds could expand, where the splendor of the Imperial +Court was so vividly reflected, and to be dropped suddenly into a +sphere of squalidly narrow ideas--was it not like a leap from Italy into +Greenland?--"Living here is not life!" said he to himself, as he looked +round the Methodistical room. The old Count, seeing his son's dismay, +went up to him, and taking his hand, led him to a window, where there +was still a gleam of daylight, and while the maid was lighting the +yellow tapers in the candle branches he tried to clear away the clouds +that the dreary place had brought to his brow. + +"Listen, my boy," said he. "Old Bontems' widow is a frenzied bigot. +'When the devil is old--' you know! I see that the place goes +against the grain. Well, this is the whole truth; the old woman is +priest-ridden; they have persuaded her that it was high time to make +sure of heaven, and the better to secure Saint Peter and his keys she +pays before-hand. She goes to Mass every day, attends every service, +takes the communion every Sunday God has made, and amuses herself +by restoring chapels. She had given so many ornaments, and albs, and +chasubles, she has crowned the canopy with so many feathers, that on +the occasion of the last Corpus Christi procession as great a crowd came +together as to see a man hanged, just to stare at the priests in their +splendid dresses and all the vessels regilt. This house too is a sort of +Holy Land. It was I who hindered her from giving those three pictures to +the Church--a Domenichino, a Correggio, and an Andrea del Sarto--worth a +good deal of money." + +"But Angelique?" asked the young man. + +"If you do not marry her, Angelique is done for," said the Count. "Our +holy apostles counsel her to live a virgin martyr. I have had the utmost +difficulty in stirring up her little heart, since she has been the only +child, by talking to her of you; but, as you will easily understand, +as soon as she is married you will carry her off to Paris. There, +festivities, married life, the theatres, and the rush of Parisian +society, will soon make her forget confessionals, and fasting, and +hair shirts, and Masses, which are the exclusive nourishment of such +creatures." + +"But the fifty thousand francs a year derived from Church property? Will +not all that return--" + +"That is the point!" exclaimed the Count, with a cunning glance. "In +consideration of this marriage--for Madame Bontems' vanity is not +a little flattered by the notion of grafting the Bontems on to the +genealogical tree of the Granvilles--the aforenamed mother agrees +to settle her fortune absolutely on the girl, reserving only a +life-interest. The priesthood, therefore, are set against the marriage; +but I have had the banns published, everything is ready, and in a week +you will be out of the clutches of the mother and her Abbes. You will +have the prettiest girl in Bayeux, a good little soul who will give you +no trouble, because she has sound principles. She has been mortified, as +they say in their jargon, by fasting and prayer--and," he added in a low +voice, "by her mother." + +A modest tap at the door silenced the Count, who expected to see the two +ladies appear. A little page came in, evidently in a great hurry; +but, abashed by the presence of the two gentlemen, he beckoned to a +housekeeper, who followed him. Dressed in a blue cloth jacket with +short tails, and blue-and-white striped trousers, his hair cut short all +round, the boy's expression was that of a chorister, so strongly was +it stamped with the compulsory propriety that marks every member of a +bigoted household. + +"Mademoiselle Gatienne," said he, "do you know where the books are for +the offices of the Virgin? The ladies of the Congregation of the Sacred +Heart are going in procession this evening round the church." + +Gatienne went in search of the books. + +"Will they go on much longer, my little man?" asked the Count. + +"Oh, half an hour at most." + +"Let us go to look on," said the father to his son. "There will be some +pretty women there, and a visit to the Cathedral can do us no harm." + +The young lawyer followed him with a doubtful expression. + +"What is the matter?" asked the Count. + +"The matter, father, is that I am sure I am right." + +"But you have said nothing." + +"No; but I have been thinking that you have still ten thousand francs a +year left of your original fortune. You will leave them to me--as long +a time hence as possible, I hope. But if you are ready to give me a +hundred thousand francs to make a foolish match, you will surely allow +me to ask you for only fifty thousand to save me from such a misfortune, +and enjoy as a bachelor a fortune equal to what your Mademoiselle +Bontems would bring me." + +"Are you crazy?" + +"No, father. These are the facts. The Chief Justice promised me +yesterday that I should have a seat on the Bench. Fifty thousand francs +added to what I have, and to the pay of my appointment, will give me an +income of twelve thousand francs a year. And I then shall most certainly +have a chance of marrying a fortune, better than this alliance, which +will be poor in happiness if rich in goods." + +"It is very clear," said his father, "that you were not brought up under +the old _regime_. Does a man of our rank ever allow his wife to be in +his way?" + +"But, my dear father, in these days marriage is--" + +"Bless me!" cried the Count, interrupting his son, "then what my old +_emigre_ friends tell me is true, I suppose. The Revolution has left +us habits devoid of pleasure, and has infected all the young men with +vulgar principles. You, like my Jacobin brother-in-law, will +harangue me, I suppose, on the Nation, Public Morals, and +Disinterestedness!--Good Heavens! But for the Emperor's sisters, where +should we be?" + +The still hale old man, whom the peasants on the estate persisted in +calling the Signeur de Granville, ended his speech as they entered the +Cathedral porch. In spite of the sanctity of the place, and even as he +dipped his fingers in the holy water, he hummed an air from the opera of +_Rose et Colas_, and then led the way down the side aisles, stopping +by each pillar to survey the rows of heads, all in lines like ranks of +soldiers on parade. + +The special service of the Sacred Heart was about to begin. The ladies +affiliated to that congregation were in front near the choir, so the +Count and his son made their way to that part of the nave, and stood +leaning against one of the columns where there was least light, whence +they could command a view of this mass of faces, looking like a meadow +full of flowers. Suddenly, close to young Granville, a voice, sweeter +than it seemed possible to ascribe to a human being, broke into song, +like the first nightingale when winter is past. Though it mingled with +the voices of a thousand other women and the notes of the organ, that +voice stirred his nerves as though they vibrated to the too full and too +piercing sounds of a harmonium. The Parisian turned round, and, seeing +a young figure, though, the head being bent, her face was entirely +concealed by a large white bonnet, concluded that the voice was hers. He +fancied that he recognized Angelique in spite of a brown merino pelisse +that wrapped her, and he nudged his father's elbow. + +"Yes, there she is," said the Count, after looking where his son +pointed, and then, by an expressive glance, he directed his attention +to the pale face of an elderly woman who had already detected the +strangers, though her false eyes, deep set in dark circles, did not seem +to have strayed from the prayer-book she held. + +Angelique raised her face, gazing at the altar as if to inhale the heavy +scent of the incense that came wafted in clouds over the two women. And +then, in the doubtful light that the tapers shed down the nave, with +that of a central lamp and of some lights round the pillars, the young +man beheld a face which shook his determination. A white watered-silk +bonnet closely framed features of perfect regularity, the oval being +completed by the satin ribbon tie that fastened it under her dimpled +chin. Over her forehead, very sweet though low, hair of a pale gold +color parted in two bands and fell over her cheeks, like the shadow +of leaves on a flower. The arches of her eyebrows were drawn with the +accuracy we admire in the best Chinese paintings. Her nose, almost +aquiline in profile, was exceptionally firmly cut, and her lips were +like two rose lines lovingly traced with a delicate brush. Her eyes, of +a light blue, were expressive of innocence. + +Though Granville discerned a sort of rigid reserve in this girlish face, +he could ascribe it to the devotion in which Angelique was rapt. The +solemn words of prayer, visible in the cold, came from between rows of +pearls, like a fragrant mist, as it were. The young man involuntarily +bent over her a little to breathe this diviner air. This movement +attracted the girl's notice; her gaze, raised to the altar, was diverted +to Granville, whom she could see but dimly in the gloom; but she +recognized him as the companion of her youth, and a memory more vivid +than prayer brought a supernatural glow to her face; she blushed. The +young lawyer was thrilled with joy at seeing the hopes of another life +overpowered by those of love, and the glory of the sanctuary eclipsed by +earthly reminiscences; but his triumph was brief. Angelique dropped her +veil, assumed a calm demeanor, and went on singing without letting her +voice betray the least emotion. + +Granville was a prey to one single wish, and every thought of prudence +vanished. By the time the service was ended, his impatience was so great +that he could not leave the ladies to go home alone, but came at once to +make his bow to "his little wife." They bashfully greeted each other in +the Cathedral porch in the presence of the congregation. Madame Bontems +was tremulous with pride as she took the Comte de Granville's arm, +though he, forced to offer it in the presence of all the world was vexed +enough with his son for his ill-advised impatience. + +For about a fortnight, between the official announcement of the intended +marriage of the Vicomte de Granville to Mademoiselle Bontems and the +solemn day of the wedding, he came assiduously to visit his lady-love in +the dismal drawing-room, to which he became accustomed. His long calls +were devoted to watching Angelique's character; for his prudence, +happily, had made itself heard again in the day after their first +meeting. He always found her seated at a little table of some West +Indian wood, and engaged in marking the linen of her trousseau. +Angelique never spoke first on the subject of religion. If the young +lawyer amused himself with fingering the handsome rosary that she kept +in a little green velvet bag, if he laughed as he looked at a relic such +as usually is attached to this means of grace, Angelique would gently +take the rosary out of his hands and replace it in the bag without a +word, putting it away at once. When, now and then, Granville was so bold +as to make mischievous remarks as to certain religious practices, the +pretty girl listened to him with the obstinate smile of assurance. + +"You must either believe nothing, or believe everything the Church +teaches," she would say. "Would you wish to have a woman without a +religion as the mother of your children?--No.--What man may dare judge +as between disbelievers and God? And how can I then blame what the +Church allows?" + +Angelique appeared to be animated by such fervent charity, the young man +saw her look at him with such perfect conviction, that he sometimes felt +tempted to embrace her religious views; her firm belief that she was in +the only right road aroused doubts in his mind, which she tried to turn +to account. + +But then Granville committed the fatal blunder of mistaking the +enchantment of desire for that of love. Angelique was so happy in +reconciling the voice of her heart with that of duty, by giving way to +a liking that had grown up with her from childhood, that the deluded man +could not discern which of the two spoke the louder. Are not all young +men ready to trust the promise of a pretty face and to infer beauty +of soul from beauty of feature? An indefinable impulse leads them to +believe that moral perfection must co-exist with physical perfection. If +Angelique had not been at liberty to give vent to her sentiments, they +would soon have dried up in her heart like a plant watered with some +deadly acid. How should a lover be aware of bigotry so well hidden? + +This was the course of young Granville's feelings during that fortnight, +devoured by him like a book of which the end is absorbing. Angelique, +carefully watched by him, seemed the gentlest of creatures, and he even +caught himself feeling grateful to Madame Bontems, who, by implanting so +deeply the principles of religion, had in some degree inured her to meet +the troubles of life. + +On the day named for signing the inevitable contract, Madame Bontems +made her son-in-law pledge himself solemnly to respect her daughter's +religious practices, to allow her entire liberty of conscience, to +permit her to go to communion, to church, to confession as often as she +pleased, and never to control her choice of priestly advisers. At this +critical moment Angelique looked at her future husband with such pure +and innocent eyes, that Granville did not hesitate to give his word. A +smile puckered the lips of the Abbe Fontanon, a pale man, who directed +the consciences of this household. Mademoiselle Bontems, by a slight +nod, seemed to promise that she would never take an unfair advantage of +this freedom. As to the old Count, he gently whistled the tune of an +old song, _Va-t-en-voir s'ils viennent_ ("Go and see if they are coming +on!") + + + +A few days after the wedding festivities of which so much is thought in +the provinces, Granville and his wife went to Paris, whither the young +man was recalled by his appointment as public prosecutor to the Supreme +Court of the Seine circuit. + +When the young couple set out to find a residence, Angelique used the +influence that the honeymoon gives to every wife in persuading her +husband to take a large apartment in the ground-floor of a house at the +corner of the Vieille Rue du Temple and the Rue Nueve Saint-Francois. +Her chief reason for this choice was that the house was close to the Rue +d'Orleans, where there was a church, and not far from a small chapel in +the Rue Saint-Louis. + +"A good housewife provides for everything," said her husband, laughing. + +Angelique pointed out to him that this part of Paris, known as the +Marais, was within easy reach of the Palais de Justice, and that the +lawyers they knew lived in the neighborhood. A fairly large garden +made the apartment particularly advantageous to a young couple; the +children--if Heaven should send them any--could play in the open air; +the courtyard was spacious, and there were good stables. + +The lawyer wished to live in the Chaussee d'Antin, where everything is +fresh and bright, where the fashions may be seen while still new, where +a well-dressed crowd throngs the Boulevards, and the distance is less to +the theatres or places of amusement; but he was obliged to give way to +the coaxing ways of a young wife, who asked this as his first favor; so, +to please her, he settled in the Marais. Granville's duties required him +to work hard--all the more, because they were new to him--so he devoted +himself in the first place to furnishing his private study and arranging +his books. He was soon established in a room crammed with papers, and +left the decoration of the house to his wife. He was all the better +pleased to plunge Angelique into the bustle of buying furniture and +fittings, the source of so much pleasure and of so many associations to +most young women, because he was rather ashamed of depriving her of his +company more often than the usages of early married life require. As +soon as his work was fairly under way, he gladly allowed his wife +to tempt him out of his study to consider the effect of furniture or +hangings, which he had before only seen piecemeal or unfinished. + +If the old adage is true that says a woman may be judged of from her +front door, her rooms must express her mind with even greater fidelity. +Madame de Granville had perhaps stamped the various things she had +ordered with the seal of her own character; the young lawyer was +certainly startled by the cold, arid solemnity that reigned in these +rooms; he found nothing to charm his taste; everything was discordant, +nothing gratified the eye. The rigid mannerism that prevailed in the +sitting-room at Bayeux had invaded his home; the broad panels were +hollowed in circles, and decorated with those arabesques of which +the long, monotonous mouldings are in such bad taste. Anxious to find +excuses for his wife, the young husband began again, looking first at +the long and lofty ante-room through which the apartment was entered. +The color of the panels, as ordered by his wife, was too heavy, and the +very dark green velvet used to cover the benches added to the gloom of +this entrance--not, to be sure, an important room, but giving a first +impression--just as we measure a man's intelligence by his first +address. An ante-room is a kind of preface which announces what is to +follow, but promises nothing. + +The young husband wondered whether his wife could really have chosen the +lamp of an antique pattern, which hung in the centre of this bare hall, +the pavement of black and white marble, and the paper in imitation of +blocks of stone, with green moss on them in places. A handsome, but +not new, barometer hung on the middle of one of the walls, as if to +accentuate the void. At the sight of it all, he looked round at his +wife; he saw her so much pleased by the red braid binding to the cotton +curtains, so satisfied with the barometer and the strictly decent statue +that ornamented a large Gothic stove, that he had not the barbarous +courage to overthrow such deep convictions. Instead of blaming his wife, +Granville blamed himself, accusing himself of having failed in his duty +of guiding the first steps in Paris of a girl brought up at Bayeux. + +From this specimen, what might not be expected of the other rooms? What +was to be looked for from a woman who took fright at the bare legs of +a Caryatid, and who would not look at a chandelier or a candle-stick if +she saw on it the nude outlines of an Egyptian bust? At this date the +school of David was at the height of its glory; all the art of France +bore the stamp of his correct design and his love of antique types, +which indeed gave his pictures the character of colored sculpture. But +none of these devices of Imperial luxury found civic rights under Madame +de Granville's roof. The spacious, square drawing-room remained as it +had been left from the time of Louis XV., in white and tarnished gold, +lavishly adorned by the architect with checkered lattice-work and the +hideous garlands due to the uninventive designers of the time. Still, if +harmony at least had prevailed, if the furniture of modern mahogany had +but assumed the twisted forms of which Boucher's corrupt taste first set +the fashion, Angelique's room would only have suggested the fantastic +contrast of a young couple in the nineteenth century living as though +they were in the eighteenth; but a number of details were in ridiculous +discord. The consoles, the clocks, the candelabra, were decorated with +the military trophies which the wars of the Empire commended to the +affections of the Parisians; and the Greek helmets, the Roman crossed +daggers, and the shields so dear to military enthusiasm that they were +introduced on furniture of the most peaceful uses, had no fitness side +by side with the delicate and profuse arabesques that delighted Madame +de Pompadour. + +Bigotry tends to an indescribably tiresome kind of humility which +does not exclude pride. Whether from modesty or by choice, Madame de +Granville seemed to have a horror of light and cheerful colors; perhaps, +too, she imagined that brown and purple beseemed the dignity of a +magistrate. How could a girl accustomed to an austere life have admitted +the luxurious divans that may suggest evil thoughts, the elegant and +tempting boudoirs where naughtiness may be imagined? + +The poor husband was in despair. From the tone in which he approved, +only seconding the praises she bestowed on herself, Angelique understood +that nothing really pleased him; and she expressed so much regret at her +want of success, that Granville, who was very much in love, regarded her +disappointment as a proof of her affection instead of resentment for +an offence to her self-conceit. After all, could he expect a girl just +snatched from the humdrum of country notions, with no experience of the +niceties and grace of Paris life, to know or do any better? Rather would +he believe that his wife's choice had been overruled by the tradesmen +than allow himself to own the truth. If he had been less in love, he +would have understood that the dealers, always quick to discern their +customers' ideas, had blessed Heaven for sending them a tasteless little +bigot, who would take their old-fashioned goods off their hands. So he +comforted the pretty provincial. + +"Happiness, dear Angelique, does not depend on a more or less elegant +piece of furniture; it depends on the wife's sweetness, gentleness, and +love." + +"Why, it is my duty to love you," said Angelique mildly, "and I can have +no more delightful duty to carry out." + +Nature has implanted in the heart of woman so great a desire to please, +so deep a craving for love, that, even in a youthful bigot, the ideas of +salvation and a future existence must give way to the happiness of early +married life. And, in fact, from the month of April, when they were +married, till the beginning of winter, the husband and wife lived +in perfect union. Love and hard work have the grace of making a man +tolerably indifferent to external matters. Being obliged to spend half +the day in court fighting for the gravest interests of men's lives +or fortunes, Granville was less alive than another might have been to +certain facts in his household. + +If, on a Friday, he found none but Lenten fare, and by chance asked for +a dish of meat without getting it, his wife, forbidden by the Gospel to +tell a lie, could still, by such subterfuges as are permissible in the +interests of religion, cloak what was premeditated purpose under some +pretext of her own carelessness or the scarcity in the market. She would +often exculpate herself at the expense of the cook, and even go so far +as to scold him. At that time young lawyers did not, as they do now, +keep the fasts of the Church, the four rogation seasons, and the +vigils of festivals; so Granville was not at first aware of the regular +recurrence of these Lenten meals, which his wife took care should be +made dainty by the addition of teal, moor-hen, and fish-pies, that their +amphibious meat or high seasoning might cheat his palate. Thus the +young man unconsciously lived in strict orthodoxy, and worked out his +salvation without knowing it. + +On week-days he did not know whether his wife went to Mass or no. On +Sundays, with very natural amiability, he accompanied her to church to +make up to her, as it were, for sometimes giving up vespers in favor of +his company; he could not at first fully enter into the strictness of +his wife's religious views. The theatres being impossible in summer by +reason of the heat, Granville had not even the opportunity of the great +success of a piece to give rise to the serious question of play-going. +And, in short, at the early stage of a union to which a man has been +led by a young girl's beauty, he can hardly be exacting as to his +amusements. Youth is greedy rather than dainty, and possession has a +charm in itself. How should he be keen to note coldness, dignity, and +reserve in the woman to whom he ascribes the excitement he himself +feels, and lends the glow of the fire that burns within him? He must +have attained a certain conjugal calm before he discovers that a bigot +sits waiting for love with her arms folded. + +Granville, therefore, believed himself happy till a fatal event brought +its influence to bear on his married life. In the month of November 1808 +the Canon of Bayeux Cathedral who had been the keeper of Madame Bontems' +conscience and her daughter's, came to Paris, spurred by the ambition to +be at the head of a church in the capital--a position which he regarded +perhaps as the stepping-stone to a bishopric. On resuming his former +control of this wandering lamb, he was horrified to find her already so +much deteriorated by the air of Paris, and strove to reclaim her to his +chilly fold. Frightened by the exhortations of this priest, a man of +about eight-and-thirty, who brought with him, into the circle of the +enlightened and tolerant Paris clergy, the bitter provincial catholicism +and the inflexible bigotry which fetter timid souls with endless +exactions, Madame de Granville did penance and returned from her +Jansenist errors. + +It would be tiresome to describe minutely all the circumstances which +insensibly brought disaster on this household; it will be enough to +relate the simple facts without giving them in strict order of time. + +The first misunderstanding between the young couple was, however, a +serious one. + +When Granville took his wife into society she never declined solemn +functions, such as dinners, concerts, or parties given by the Judges +superior to her husband in the legal profession; but for a long time she +constantly excused herself on the plea of a sick headache when they were +invited to a ball. One day Granville, out of patience with these assumed +indispositions, destroyed a note of invitation to a ball at the house of +a Councillor of State, and gave his wife only a verbal invitation. Then, +on the evening, her health being quite above suspicion, he took her to a +magnificent entertainment. + +"My dear," said he, on their return home, seeing her wear an offensive +air of depression, "your position as a wife, the rank you hold in +society, and the fortune you enjoy, impose on you certain duties of +which no divine law can relieve you. Are you not your husband's pride? +You are required to go to balls when I go, and to appear in a becoming +manner." + +"And what is there, my dear, so disastrous in my dress?" + +"It is your manner, my dear. When a young man comes up to speak to you, +you look so serious that a spiteful person might believe you doubtful +of your own virtue. You seem to fear lest a smile should undo you. You +really look as if you were asking forgiveness of God for the sins +that may be committed around you. The world, my dearest, is not a +convent.--But, as you mentioned your dress, I may confess to you that it +is no less a duty to conform to the customs and fashions of Society." + +"Do you wish that I should display my shape like those indecent women +who wear gowns so low that impudent eyes can stare at their bare +shoulders and their--" + +"There is a difference, my dear," said her husband, interrupting her, +"between uncovering your whole bust and giving some grace to your dress. +You wear three rows of net frills that cover your throat up to your +chin. You look as if you had desired your dressmaker to destroy the +graceful line of your shoulders and bosom with as much care as a +coquette would devote to obtaining from hers a bodice that might +emphasize her covered form. Your bust is wrapped in so many folds that +every one was laughing at your affectation of prudery. You would be +really grieved if I were to repeat the ill-natured remarks made on your +appearance." + +"Those who admire such obscenity will not have to bear the burthen if we +sin," said the lady tartly. + +"And you did not dance?" asked Granville. + +"I shall never dance," she replied. + +"If I tell you that you ought to dance!" said her husband sharply. "Yes, +you ought to follow the fashions, to wear flowers in your hair, and +diamonds. Remember, my dear, that rich people--and we are rich--are +obliged to keep up luxury in the State. Is it not far better to +encourage manufacturers than to distribute money in the form of alms +through the medium of the clergy?" + +"You talk as a statesman!" said Angelique. + +"And you as a priest," he retorted. + +The discussion was bitter. Madame de Granville's answers, though +spoken very sweetly and in a voice as clear as a church bell, showed +an obstinacy that betrayed priestly influence. When she appealed to +the rights secured to her by Granville's promise, she added that her +director specially forbade her going to balls; then her husband pointed +out to her that the priest was overstepping the regulations of the +Church. + +This odious theological dispute was renewed with great violence and +acerbity on both sides when Granville proposed to take his wife to the +play. Finally, the lawyer, whose sole aim was to defeat the pernicious +influence exerted over his wife by her old confessor, placed the +question on such a footing that Madame de Granville, in a spirit of +defiance, referred it by writing to the Court of Rome, asking in so many +words whether a woman could wear low gowns and go to the play and to +balls without compromising her salvation. + +The reply of the venerable Pope Pius VII. came at once, strongly +condemning the wife's recalcitrancy and blaming the priest. This letter, +a chapter on conjugal duties, might have been dictated by the spirit of +Fenelon, whose grace and tenderness pervaded every line. + +"A wife is right to go wherever her husband may take her. Even if she +sins by his command, she will not be ultimately held answerable." These +two sentences of the Pope's homily only made Madame de Granville and her +director accuse him of irreligion. + +But before this letter had arrived, Granville had discovered the strict +observance of fast days that his wife forced upon him, and gave his +servants orders to serve him with meat every day in the year. However +much annoyed his wife might be by these commands, Granville, who cared +not a straw for such indulgence or abstinence, persisted with manly +determination. + +Is it not an offence to the weakest creature that can think at all to +be compelled to do, by the will of another, anything that he would +otherwise have done simply of his own accord? Of all forms of tyranny, +the most odious is that which constantly robs the soul of the merit of +its thoughts and deeds. It has to abdicate without having reigned. The +word we are readiest to speak, the feelings we most love to express, die +when we are commanded to utter them. + +Ere long the young man ceased to invite his friends, to give parties or +dinners; the house might have been shrouded in crape. A house where the +mistress is a bigot has an atmosphere of its own. The servants, who are, +of course, under her immediate control, are chosen among a class who +call themselves pious, and who have an unmistakable physiognomy. Just +as the jolliest fellow alive, when he joins the _gendarmerie_, has the +countenance of a gendarme, so those who give themselves over to the +habit of lowering their eyes and preserving a sanctimonious mien clothes +them in a livery of hypocrisy which rogues can affect to perfection. + +And besides, bigots constitute a sort of republic; they all know each +other; the servants they recommend and hand on from one to another are +a race apart, and preserved by them, as horse-breeders will admit +no animal into their stables that has not a pedigree. The more the +impious--as they are thought--come to understand a household of bigots, +the more they perceive that everything is stamped with an indescribable +squalor; they find there, at the same time, an appearance of avarice and +mystery, as in a miser's home, and the dank scent of cold incense which +gives a chill to the stale atmosphere of a chapel. This methodical +meanness, this narrowness of thought, which is visible in every detail, +can only be expressed by one word--Bigotry. In these sinister and +pitiless houses Bigotry is written on the furniture, the prints, the +pictures; speech is bigoted, the silence is bigoted, the faces are +those of bigots. The transformation of men and things into bigotry is +an inexplicable mystery, but the fact is evident. Everybody can see that +bigots do not walk, do not sit, do not speak, as men of the world +walk, sit, and speak. Under their roof every one is ill at ease, no one +laughs, stiffness and formality infect everything, from the mistress' +cap down to her pincushion; eyes are not honest, the folks are more like +shadows, and the lady of the house seems perched on a throne of ice. + +One morning poor Granville discerned with grief and pain that all +the symptoms of bigotry had invaded his home. There are in the world +different spheres in which the same effects are seen though produced by +dissimilar causes. Dulness hedges such miserable homes round with walls +of brass, enclosing the horrors of the desert and the infinite void. The +home is not so much a tomb as that far worse thing--a convent. In +the center of this icy sphere the lawyer could study his wife +dispassionately. He observed, not without keen regret, the +narrow-mindedness that stood confessed in the very way that her hair +grew, low on the forehead, which was slightly depressed; he discovered +in the perfect regularity of her features a certain set rigidity which +before long made him hate the assumed sweetness that had bewitched him. +Intuition told him that one day of disaster those thin lips might say, +"My dear, it is for your good!" + +Madame de Granville's complexion was acquiring a dull pallor and an +austere expression that were a kill-joy to all who came near her. Was +this change wrought by the ascetic habits of a pharisaism which is not +piety any more than avarice is economy? It would be hard to say. Beauty +without expression is perhaps an imposture. This imperturbable set smile +that the young wife always wore when she looked at Granville seemed to +be a sort of Jesuitical formula of happiness, by which she thought +to satisfy all the requirements of married life. Her charity was an +offence, her soulless beauty was monstrous to those who knew her; the +mildness of her speech was an irritation: she acted, not on feeling, but +on duty. + +There are faults which may yield in a wife to the stern lessons of +experience, or to a husband's warnings; but nothing can counteract false +ideas of religion. An eternity of happiness to be won, set in the scale +against worldly enjoyment, triumphs over everything and makes every +pang endurable. Is it not the apotheosis of egotism, of Self beyond the +grave? Thus even the Pope was censured at the tribunal of the priest and +the young devotee. To be always in the right is a feeling which absorbs +every other in these tyrannous souls. + +For some time past a secret struggle had been going on between the ideas +of the husband and wife, and the young man was soon weary of a battle to +which there could be no end. What man, what temper, can endure the sight +of a hypocritically affectionate face and categorical resistance to his +slightest wishes? What is to be done with a wife who takes advantage +of his passion to protect her coldness, who seems determined on being +blandly inexorable, prepares herself ecstatically to play the martyr, +and looks on her husband as a scourge from God, a means of flagellation +that may spare her the fires of purgatory? What picture can give an idea +of these women who make virtue hateful by defying the gentle precepts of +that faith which Saint John epitomized in the words, "Love one another"? + +If there was a bonnet to be found in a milliner's shop that was +condemned to remain in the window, or to be packed off to the colonies, +Granville was certain to see it on his wife's head; if a material of +bad color or hideous design were to be found, she would select it. These +hapless bigots are heart-breaking in their notions of dress. Want of +taste is a defect inseparable from false pietism. + +And so, in the home-life that needs the fullest sympathy, Granville had +no true companionship. He went out alone to parties and the theatres. +Nothing in his house appealed to him. A huge Crucifix that hung between +his bed and Angelique's seemed figurative of his destiny. Does it not +represent a murdered Divinity, a Man-God, done to death in all the prime +of life and beauty? The ivory of that cross was less cold than Angelique +crucifying her husband under the plea of virtue. This it was that lay +at the root of their woes; the young wife saw nothing but duty where +she should have given love. Here, one Ash Wednesday, rose the pale and +spectral form of Fasting in Lent, of Total Abstinence, commanded in a +severe tone--and Granville did not deem it advisable to write in his +turn to the Pope and take the opinion of the Consistory on the proper +way of observing Lent, the Ember days, and the eve of great festivals. + +His misfortune was too great! He could not even complain, for what +could he say? He had a pretty young wife attached to her duties, +virtuous--nay, a model of all the virtues. She had a child every year, +nursed them herself, and brought them up in the highest principles. +Being charitable, Angelique was promoted to rank as an angel. The old +women who constituted the circle in which she moved--for at that time it +was not yet "the thing" for young women to be religious as a matter of +fashion--all admired Madame de Granville's piety, and regarded her, +not indeed as a virgin, but as a martyr. They blamed not the wife's +scruples, but the barbarous philoprogenitiveness of the husband. + +Granville, by insensible degrees, overdone with work, bereft of conjugal +consolations, and weary of a world in which he wandered alone, by the +time he was two-and-thirty had sunk into the Slough of Despond. He hated +life. Having too lofty a notion of the responsibilities imposed on him +by his position to set the example of a dissipated life, he tried to +deaden feeling by hard study, and began a great book on Law. + +But he was not allowed to enjoy the monastic peace he had hoped for. +When the celestial Angelique saw him desert worldly society to work at +home with such regularity, she tried to convert him. It had been a real +sorrow to her to know that her husband's opinions were not strictly +Christian; and she sometimes wept as she reflected that if her husband +should die it would be in a state of final impenitence, so that she +could not hope to snatch him from the eternal fires of Hell. Thus +Granville was a mark for the mean ideas, the vacuous arguments, the +narrow views by which his wife--fancying she had achieved the first +victory--tried to gain a second by bringing him back within the pale of +the Church. + +This was the last straw. What can be more intolerable than the blind +struggle in which the obstinacy of a bigot tries to meet the acumen of a +lawyer? What more terrible to endure than the acrimonious pin-pricks to +which a passionate soul prefers a dagger-thrust? Granville neglected his +home. Everything there was unendurable. His children, broken by their +mother's frigid despotism, dared not go with him to the play; indeed, +Granville could never give them any pleasure without bringing down +punishment from their terrible mother. His loving nature was weaned to +indifference, to a selfishness worse than death. His boys, indeed, he +saved from this hell by sending them to school at an early age, and +insisting on his right to train them. He rarely interfered between his +wife and her daughters; but he was resolved that they should marry as +soon as they were old enough. + +Even if he had wished to take violent measures, he could have found no +justification; his wife, backed by a formidable army of dowagers, would +have had him condemned by the whole world. Thus Granville had no choice +but to live in complete isolation; but, crushed under the tyranny of +misery, he could not himself bear to see how altered he was by grief and +toil. And he dreaded any connection or intimacy with women of the world, +having no hope of finding any consolation. + +The improving history of this melancholy household gave rise to no +events worthy of record during the fifteen years between 1806 and 1825. +Madame de Granville was exactly the same after losing her husband's +affection as she had been during the time when she called herself happy. +She paid for Masses, beseeching God and the Saints to enlighten her as +to what the faults were which displeased her husband, and to show her +the way to restore the erring sheep; but the more fervent her prayers, +the less was Granville to be seen at home. + +For about five years now, having achieved a high position as a judge, +Granville had occupied the _entresol_ of the house to avoid living with +the Comtesse de Granville. Every morning a little scene took place, +which, if evil tongues are to be believed, is repeated in many +households as the result of incompatibility of temper, of moral or +physical malady, or of antagonisms leading to such disaster as is +recorded in this history. At about eight in the morning a housekeeper, +bearing no small resemblance to a nun, rang at the Comte de Granville's +door. Admitted to the room next to the Judge's study, she always +repeated the same message to the footman, and always in the same tone: + +"Madame would be glad to know whether Monsieur le Comte has had a good +night, and if she is to have the pleasure of his company at breakfast." + +"Monsieur presents his compliments to Madame la Comtesse," the valet +would say, after speaking with his master, "and begs her to hold him +excused; important business compels him to be in court this morning." + +A minute later the woman reappeared and asked on madame's behalf whether +she would have the pleasure of seeing Monsieur le Comte before he went +out. + +"He is gone," was always the rely, though often his carriage was still +waiting. + +This little dialogue by proxy became a daily ceremonial. Granville's +servant, a favorite with his master, and the cause of more than one +quarrel over his irreligious and dissipated conduct, would even go into +his master's room, as a matter of form, when the Count was not there, +and come back with the same formula in reply. + +The aggrieved wife was always on the watch for her husband's return, and +standing on the steps so as to meet him like an embodiment of remorse. +The petty aggressiveness which lies at the root of the monastic +temper was the foundation of Madame de Granville's; she was now +five-and-thirty, and looked forty. When the count was compelled by +decency to speak to his wife or to dine at home, she was only too well +pleased to inflict her company upon him, with her acid-sweet remarks and +the intolerable dulness of her narrow-minded circle, and she tried to +put him in the wrong before the servants and her charitable friends. + +When, at this time, the post of President in a provincial court was +offered to the Comte de Granville, who was in high favor, he begged to +be allowed to remain in Paris. This refusal, of which the Keeper of the +Seals alone knew the reasons, gave rise to extraordinary conjectures +on the part of the Countess' intimate friends and of her director. +Granville, a rich man with a hundred thousand francs a year, belonged to +one of the first families of Normandy. His appointment to be Presiding +Judge would have been the stepping-stone to a peer's seat; whence this +strange lack of ambition? Why had he given up his great book on Law? +What was the meaning of the dissipation which for nearly six years had +made him a stranger to his home, his family, his study, to all he +ought to hold dear? The Countess' confessor, who based his hopes of a +bishopric quite as much on the families he governed as on the services +he rendered to an association of which he was an ardent propagator, +was much disappointed by Granville's refusal, and tried to insinuate +calumnious explanations: "If Monsieur le Comte had such an objection to +provincial life, it was perhaps because he dreaded finding himself under +the necessity of leading a regular life, compelled to set an example of +moral conduct, and to live with the Countess, from whom nothing could +have alienated him but some illicit connection; for how could a woman so +pure as Madame de Granville ever tolerate the disorderly life into which +her husband had drifted?" The sanctimonious woman accepted as facts +these hints, which unluckily were not merely hypothetical, and Madame de +Granville was stricken as by a thunderbolt. + +Angelique, knowing nothing of the world, of love and its follies, was so +far from conceiving of any conditions of married life unlike those +that had alienated her husband as possible, that she believed him to be +incapable of the errors which are crimes in the eyes of any wife. +When the Count ceased to demand anything of her, she imagined that the +tranquillity he now seemed to enjoy was in the course of nature; and, as +she had really given to him all the love which her heart was capable +of feeling for a man, while the priest's conjectures were the utter +destruction of the illusions she had hitherto cherished, she defended +her husband; at the same time, she could not eradicate the suspicion +that had been so ingeniously sown in her soul. + +These alarms wrought such havoc in her feeble brain that they made her +ill; she was worn by low fever. These incidents took place during Lent +1822; she would not pretermit her austerities, and fell into a decline +that put her life in danger. Granville's indifference was added torture; +his care and attention were such as a nephew feels himself bound to give +to some old uncle. + +Though the Countess had given up her persistent nagging and +remonstrances, and tried to receive her husband with affectionate words, +the sharpness of the bigot showed through, and one speech would often +undo the work of a week. + +Towards the end of May, the warm breath of spring, and more nourishing +diet than her Lenten fare, restored Madame de Granville to a little +strength. One morning, on coming home from Mass, she sat down on a stone +bench in the little garden, where the sun's kisses reminded her of the +early days of her married life, and she looked back across the years to +see wherein she might have failed in her duty as a wife and mother. She +was broken in upon by the Abbe Fontanon in an almost indescribable state +of excitement. + +"Has any misfortune befallen you, Father?" she asked with filial +solicitude. + +"Ah! I only wish," cried the Normandy priest, "that all the woes +inflicted on you by the hand of God were dealt out to me; but, my +admirable friend, there are trials to which you can but bow." + +"Can any worse punishments await me than those with which Providence +crushes me by making my husband the instrument of His wrath?" + +"You must prepare yourself, daughter, to yet worse mischief than we and +your pious friends had ever conceived of." + +"Then I may thank God," said the Countess, "for vouchsafing to use you +as the messenger of His will, and thus, as ever, setting the treasures +of mercy by the side of the scourges of His wrath, just as in bygone +days He showed a spring to Hagar when He had driven her into the +desert." + +"He measures your sufferings by the strength of your resignation and the +weight of your sins." + +"Speak; I am ready to hear!" As she said it she cast her eyes up to +heaven. "Speak, Monsieur Fontanon." + +"For seven years Monsieur Granville has lived in sin with a concubine, +by whom he has two children; and on this adulterous connection he has +spent more than five hundred thousand francs, which ought to have been +the property of his legitimate family." + +"I must see it to believe it!" cried the Countess. + +"Far be it from you!" exclaimed the Abbe. "You must forgive, my +daughter, and wait in patience and prayer till God enlightens your +husband; unless, indeed, you choose to adopt against him the means +offered you by human laws." + +The long conversation that ensued between the priest and his penitent +resulted in an extraordinary change in the Countess; she abruptly +dismissed him, called her servants who were alarmed at her flushed face +and crazy energy. She ordered her carriage--countermanded it--changed +her mind twenty times in the hour; but at last, at about three o'clock, +as if she had come to some great determination, she went out, leaving +the whole household in amazement at such a sudden transformation. + +"Is the Count coming home to dinner?" she asked of his servant, to whom +she would never speak. + +"No, madame." + +"Did you go with him to the Courts this morning?" + +"Yes, madame." + +"And to-day is Monday?" + +"Yes, madame." + +"Then do the Courts sit on Mondays nowadays?" + +"Devil take you!" cried the man, as his mistress drove off after saying +to the coachman: + +"Rue Taitbout." + + + +Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille was weeping: Roger, sitting by her side, +held one of her hands between his own. He was silent, looking by turns +at little Charles--who, not understanding his mother's grief, stood +speechless at the sight of her tears--at the cot where Eugenie lay +sleeping, and Caroline's face, on which grief had the effect of rain +falling across the beams of cheerful sunshine. + +"Yes, my darling," said Roger, after a long silence, "that is the great +secret: I am married. But some day I hope we may form but one family. My +wife has been given over ever since last March. I do not wish her dead; +still, if it should please God to take her to Himself, I believe +she will be happier in Paradise than in a world to whose griefs and +pleasures she is equally indifferent." + +"How I hate that woman! How could she bear to make you unhappy? And yet +it is to that unhappiness that I owe my happiness!" + +Her tears suddenly ceased. + +"Caroline, let us hope," cried Roger. "Do not be frightened by anything +that priest may have said to you. Though my wife's confessor is a man to +be feared for his power in the congregation, if he should try to blight +our happiness I would find means--" + +"What could you do?" + +"We would go to Italy: I would fly--" + +A shriek that rang out from the adjoining room made Roger start +and Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille quake; but she rushed into the +drawing-room, and there found Madame de Granville in a dead faint. When +the Countess recovered her senses, she sighed deeply on finding herself +supported by the Count and her rival, whom she instinctively pushed +away with a gesture of contempt. Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille rose to +withdraw. + +"You are at home, madame," said Granville, taking Caroline by the arm. +"Stay." + +The Judge took up his wife in his arms, carried her to the carriage, and +got into it with her. + +"Who is it that has brought you to the point of wishing me dead, of +resolving to fly?" asked the Countess, looking at her husband with grief +mingled with indignation. "Was I not young? you thought me pretty--what +fault have you to find with me? Have I been false to you? Have I not +been a virtuous and well-conducted wife? My heart has cherished no image +but yours, my ears have listened to no other voice. What duty have I +failed in? What have I ever denied you?" + +"Happiness, madame," said the Count severely. "You know, madame, that +there are two ways of serving God. Some Christians imagine that by +going to church at fixed hours to say a _Paternoster_, by attending Mass +regularly and avoiding sin, they may win heaven--but they, madame, will +go to hell; they have not loved God for himself, they have not worshiped +Him as He chooses to be worshiped, they have made no sacrifice. Though +mild in seeming, they are hard on their neighbors; they see the law, the +letter, not the spirit.--This is how you have treated me, your earthly +husband; you have sacrificed my happiness to your salvation; you were +always absorbed in prayer when I came to you in gladness of heart; +you wept when you should have cheered my toil; you have never tried to +satisfy any demands I have made on you." + +"And if they were wicked," cried the Countess hotly, "was I to lose my +soul to please you?" + +"It is a sacrifice which another, a more loving woman, has dared to +make," said Granville coldly. + +"Dear God!" she cried, bursting into tears, "Thou hearest! Has he been +worthy of the prayers and penance I have lived in, wearing myself out to +atone for his sins and my own?--Of what avail is virtue?" + +"To win Heaven, my dear. A woman cannot be at the same time the wife of +a man and the spouse of Christ. That would be bigamy; she must choose +between a husband and a nunnery. For the sake of future advantage you +have stripped your soul of all the love, all the devotion, which God +commands that you should have for me, you have cherished no feeling but +hatred--" + +"Have I not loved you?" she put in. + +"No, madame." + +"Then what is love?" the Countess involuntarily inquired. + +"Love, my dear," replied Granville, with a sort of ironical surprise, +"you are incapable of understanding it. The cold sky of Normandy is not +that of Spain. This difference of climate is no doubt the secret of our +disaster.--To yield to our caprices, to guess them, to find pleasure in +pain, to sacrifice the world's opinion, your pride, your religion even, +and still regard these offerings as mere grains of incense burnt in +honor of the idol--that is love--" + +"The love of ballet-girls!" cried the Countess in horror. "Such flames +cannot last, and must soon leave nothing but ashes and cinders, regret +or despair. A wife ought, in my opinion, to bring you true friendship, +equable warmth--" + +"You speak of warmth as negroes speak of ice," retorted the Count, with +a sardonic smile. "Consider that the humblest daisy has more charms than +the proudest and most gorgeous of the red hawthorns that attract us in +spring by their strong scent and brilliant color.--At the same time," +he went on, "I will do you justice. You have kept so precisely in the +straight path of imaginary duty prescribed by law, that only to make you +understand wherein you have failed towards me, I should be obliged to +enter into details which would offend your dignity, and instruct you in +matters which would seem to you to undermine all morality." + +"And you dare to speak of morality when you have but just left the house +where you have dissipated your children's fortune in debaucheries?" +cried the Countess, maddened by her husband's reticence. + +"There, madame, I must correct you," said the Count, coolly interrupting +his wife. "Though Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille is rich, it is at +nobody's expense. My uncle was master of his fortune, and had several +heirs. In his lifetime, and out of pure friendship, regarding her as his +niece, he gave her the little estate of Bellefeuille. As for anything +else, I owe it to his liberality--" + +"Such conduct is only worthy of a Jacobin!" said the sanctimonious +Angelique. + +"Madame, you are forgetting that your own father was one of the Jacobins +whom you scorn so uncharitably," said the Count severely. "Citizen +Bontems was signing death-warrants at a time when my uncle was doing +France good service." + +Madame de Granville was silenced. But after a short pause, the +remembrance of what she had just seen reawakened in her soul the +jealousy which nothing can kill in a woman's heart, and she murmured, +as if to herself--"How can a woman thus destroy her own soul and that of +others?" + +"Bless me, madame," replied the Count, tired of this dialogue, "you +yourself may some day have to answer that question." The Countess was +scared. "You perhaps will be held excused by the merciful Judge, who +will weigh our sins," he went on, "in consideration of the conviction +with which you have worked out my misery. I do not hate you--I hate +those who have perverted your heart and your reason. You have prayed +for me, just as Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille has given me her heart +and crowned my life with love. You should have been my mistress and the +prayerful saint by turns.--Do me the justice to confess that I am no +reprobate, no debauchee. My life was cleanly. Alas! after seven years +of wretchedness, the craving for happiness led me by an imperceptible +descent to love another woman and make a second home. And do not imagine +that I am singular; there are in this city thousands of husbands, all +led by various causes to live this twofold life." + +"Great God!" cried the Countess. "How heavy is the cross Thou hast laid +on me to bear! If the husband Thou hast given me here below in Thy wrath +can only be made happy through my death, take me to Thyself!" + +"If you had always breathed such admirable sentiments and such devotion, +we should be happy yet," said the Count coldly. + +"Indeed," cried Angelique, melting into a flood of tears, "forgive me +if I have done any wrong. Yes, monsieur, I am ready to obey you in all +things, feeling sure that you will desire nothing but what is just and +natural; henceforth I will be all you can wish your wife to be." + +"If your purpose, madame, is to compel me to say that I no longer love +you, I shall find the cruel courage to tell you so. Can I command my +heart? Can I wipe out in an instant the traces of fifteen years of +suffering?--I have ceased to love.--These words contain a mystery as +deep as lies the words _I love_. Esteem, respect, friendship may be won, +lost, regained; but as to love--I might school myself for a thousand +years, and it would not blossom again, especially for a woman too old to +respond to it." + +"I hope, Monsieur le Comte, I sincerely hope, that such words may not +be spoken to you some day by the woman you love, and in such a tone and +accent--" + +"Will you put on a dress _a la Grecque_ this evening, and come to the +Opera?" + +The shudder with which the Countess received the suggestion was a mute +reply. + + + +Early in December 1833, a man, whose perfectly white hair and worn +features seemed to show that he was aged by grief rather than by years, +was walking at midnight along the Rue Gaillon. Having reached a house +of modest appearance, and only two stories high, he paused to look up at +one of the attic windows that pierced the roof at regular intervals. A +dim light scarcely showed through the humble panes, some of which +had been repaired with paper. The man below was watching the wavering +glimmer with the vague curiosity of a Paris idler, when a young man came +out of the house. As the light of the street lamp fell full on the face +of the first comer, it will not seem surprising that, in spite of the +darkness, this young man went towards the passer-by, though with the +hesitancy that is usual when we have any fear of making a mistake in +recognizing an acquaintance. + +"What, is it you," cried he, "Monsieur le President? Alone at this hour, +and so far from the Rue Saint-Lazare. Allow me to have the honor of +giving you my arm.--The pavement is so greasy this morning, that if +we do not hold each other up," he added, to soothe the elder man's +susceptibilities, "we shall find it hard to escape a tumble." + +"But, my dear sir, I am no more than fifty-five, unfortunately for me," +replied the Comte de Granville. "A physician of your celebrity must know +that at that age a man is still hale and strong." + +"Then you are in waiting on a lady, I suppose," replied Horace Bianchon. +"You are not, I imagine, in the habit of going about Paris on foot. When +a man keeps such fine horses----" + +"Still, when I am not visiting in the evening, I commonly return from +the Courts or the club on foot," replied the Count. + +"And with large sums of money about you, perhaps!" cried the doctor. "It +is a positive invitation to the assassin's knife." + +"I am not afraid of that," said Granville, with melancholy indifference. + +"But, at least, do not stand about," said the doctor, leading the Count +towards the boulevard. "A little more and I shall believe that you are +bent of robbing me of your last illness, and dying by some other hand +than mine." + +"You caught me playing the spy," said the Count. "Whether on foot or in +a carriage, and at whatever hour of the night I may come by, I have for +some time past observed at a window on the third floor of your house the +shadow of a person who seems to work with heroic constancy." + +The Count paused as if he felt some sudden pain. "And I take as great an +interest in that garret," he went on, "as a citizen of Paris must feel +in the finishing of the Palais Royal." + +"Well," said Horace Bianchon eagerly, "I can tell you--" + +"Tell me nothing," replied Granville, cutting the doctor short. "I would +not give a centime to know whether the shadow that moves across that +shabby blind is that of a man or a woman, nor whether the inhabitant of +that attic is happy or miserable. Though I was surprised to see no one +at work there this evening, and though I stopped to look, it was solely +for the pleasure of indulging in conjectures as numerous and as idiotic +as those of idlers who see a building left half finished. For nine +years, my young--" the Count hesitated to use a word; then he waved his +hand, exclaiming--"No, I will not say friend--I hate everything that +savors of sentiment.--Well, for nine years past I have ceased to wonder +that old men amuse themselves with growing flowers and planting trees; +the events of life have taught them disbelief in all human affection; +and I grew old within a few days. I will no longer attach myself to any +creature but to unreasoning animals, or plants, or superficial things. +I think more of Taglioni's grace than of all human feeling. I abhor life +and the world in which I live alone. Nothing, nothing," he went on, in +a tone that startled the younger man, "no, nothing can move or interest +me." + +"But you have children?" + +"My children!" he repeated bitterly. "Yes--well, is not my eldest +daughter the Comtesse de Vandenesse? The other will, through her +sister's connections, make some good match. As to my sons, have they +not succeeded? The Viscount was public prosecutor at Limoges, and is now +President of the Court at Orleans; the younger is public prosecutor +in Paris.--My children have their own cares, their own anxieties and +business to attend to. If of all those hearts one had been devoted to +me, if one had tried by entire affection to fill up the void I have +here," and he struck his breast, "well, that one would have failed +in life, have sacrificed it to me. And why should he? Why? To bring +sunshine into my few remaining years--and would he have succeeded? Might +I not have accepted such generosity as a debt? But, doctor," and the +Count smiled with deep irony, "it is not for nothing that we teach them +arithmetic and how to count. At this moment perhaps they are waiting for +my money." + +"O Monsieur le Comte, how could such an idea enter your head--you who +are kind, friendly, and humane! Indeed, if I were not myself a living +proof of the benevolence you exercise so liberally and so nobly--" + +"To please myself," replied the Count. "I pay for a sensation, as I +would to-morrow pay a pile of gold to recover the most childish illusion +that would but make my heart glow.--I help my fellow-creatures for my +own sake, just as I gamble; and I look for gratitude from none. I should +see you die without blinking; and I beg of you to feel the same with +regard to me. I tell you, young man, the events of life have swept +over my heart like the lavas of Vesuvius over Herculaneum. The town is +there--dead." + +"Those who have brought a soul as warm and as living as yours was to +such a pitch of indifference are indeed guilty!" + +"Say no more," said the Count, with a shudder of aversion. + +"You have a malady which you ought to allow me to treat," said Bianchon +in a tone of deep emotion. + +"What, do you know of a cure for death?" cried the Count irritably. + +"I undertake, Monsieur le Comte, to revive the heart you believe to be +frozen." + +"Are you a match for Talma, then?" asked the Count satirically. + +"No, Monsieur le Comte. But Nature is as far above Talma as Talma is +superior to me.--Listen: the garret you are interested in is inhabited +by a woman of about thirty, and in her love is carried to fanaticism. +The object of her adoration is a young man of pleasing appearance but +endowed by some malignant fairy with every conceivable vice. This fellow +is a gambler, and it is hard to say which he is most addicted to--wine +or women; he has, to my knowledge, committed acts deserving punishment +by law. Well, and to him this unhappy woman sacrificed a life of ease, +a man who worshiped her, and the father of her children.--But what is +wrong, Monsieur le Comte?" + +"Nothing. Go on." + +"She has allowed him to squander a perfect fortune; she would, I +believe, give him the world if she had it; she works night and day; and +many a time she has, without a murmur, seen the wretch she adores rob +her even of the money saved to buy the clothes the children need, and +their food for the morrow. Only three days ago she sold her hair, the +finest hair I ever saw; he came in, she could not hide the gold piece +quickly enough, and he asked her for it. For a smile, for a kiss, she +gave up the price of a fortnight's life and peace. Is it not dreadful, +and yet sublime?--But work is wearing her cheeks hollow. Her children's +crying has broken her heart; she is ill, and at this moment on her +wretched bed. This evening they had nothing to eat; the children have +not strength to cry, they were silent when I went up." + +Horace Bianchon stood still. Just then the Comte de Granville, in spite +of himself, as it were, had put his hand into his waistcoat pocket. + +"I can guess, my young friend, how it is that she is yet alive if you +attend her," said the elder man. + +"O poor soul!" cried the doctor, "who could refuse to help her? I only +wish I were richer, for I hope to cure her of her passion." + +"But how can you expect me to pity a form of misery of which the joys +to me would seem cheaply purchased with my whole fortune!" exclaimed +the Count, taking his hand out of his pocket empty of the notes which +Bianchon had supposed his patron to be feeling for. "That woman feels, +she is alive! Would not Louis XV. have given his kingdom to rise from +the grave and have three days of youth and life! And is not that the +history of thousands of dead men, thousands of sick men, thousands of +old men?" + +"Poor Caroline!" cried Bianchon. + +As he heard the name the Count shuddered, and grasped the doctor's arm +with the grip of an iron vise, as it seemed to Bianchon. + +"Her name is Caroline Crochard?" asked the President, in a voice that +was evidently broken. + +"Then you know her?" said the doctor, astonished. + +"And the wretch's name is Solvet.--Ay, you have kept your word!" +exclaimed Granville; "you have roused my heart to the most terrible pain +it can suffer till it is dust. That emotion, too, is a gift from hell, +and I always know how to pay those debts." + +By this time the Count and the doctor had reached the corner of the Rue +de la Chaussee d'Antin. One of those night-birds who wonder round with a +basket on their back and crook in hand, and were, during the Revolution, +facetiously called the Committee of Research, was standing by the +curbstone where the two men now stopped. This scavenger had a shriveled +face worthy of those immortalized by Charlet in his caricatures of the +sweepers of Paris. + +"Do you ever pick up a thousand-franc note?" + +"Now and then, master." + +"And you restore them?" + +"It depends on the reward offered." + +"You're the man for me," cried the Count, giving the man a +thousand-franc note. "Take this, but, remember, I give it to you on +condition of your spending it at the wineshop, of your getting drunk, +fighting, beating your wife, blacking your friends' eyes. That will give +work to the watch, the surgeon, the druggist--perhaps to the police, the +public prosecutor, the judge, and the prison warders. Do not try to do +anything else, or the devil will be revenged on you sooner or later." + +A draughtsman would need at once the pencil of Charlet and of Callot, +the brush of Teniers and of Rembrandt, to give a true notion of this +night-scene. + +"Now I have squared accounts with hell, and had some pleasure for my +money," said the Count in a deep voice, pointing out the indescribable +physiognomy of the gaping scavenger to the doctor, who stood stupefied. +"As for Caroline Crochard!--she may die of hunger and thirst, hearing +the heartrending shrieks of her starving children, and convinced of the +baseness of the man she loves. I will not give a sou to rescue her; and +because you have helped her, I will see you no more----" + +The Count left Bianchon standing like a statue, and walked as briskly +as a young man to the Rue Saint-Lazare, soon reaching the little house +where he resided, and where, to his surprise, he found a carriage +waiting at the door. + +"Monsieur, your son, the attorney-general, came about an hour since," +said the man-servant, "and is waiting for you in your bedroom." + +Granville signed to the man to leave him. + +"What motive can be strong enough to require you to infringe the order +I have given my children never to come to me unless I send for them?" +asked the Count of his son as he went into the room. + +"Father," replied the younger man in a tremulous voice, and with great +respect, "I venture to hope that you will forgive me when you have heard +me." + +"Your reply is proper," said the Count. "Sit down," and he pointed to +a chair, "But whether I walk up and down, or take a seat, speak without +heeding me." + +"Father," the son went on, "this afternoon, at four o'clock, a very +young man who was arrested in the house of a friend of mine, whom he had +robbed to a considerable extent, appealed to you.--He says he is your +son." + +"His name?" asked the Count hoarsely. + +"Charles Crochard." + +"That will do," said the father, with an imperious wave of the hand. + +Granville paced the room in solemn silence, and his son took care not to +break it. + +"My son," he began, and the words were pronounced in a voice so mild +and fatherly, that the young lawyer started, "Charles Crochard spoke the +truth.--I am glad you came to me to-night, my good Eugene," he added. +"Here is a considerable sum of money"--and he gave him a bundle of +banknotes--"you can make any use of them you think proper in this +matter. I trust you implicitly, and approve beforehand whatever +arrangements you may make, either in the present or for the +future.--Eugene my dear son, kiss me. We part perhaps for the last time. +I shall to-morrow crave my dismissal from the King, and I am going to +Italy. + +"Though a father owes no account of his life to his children, he is +bound to bequeath to them the experience Fate sells him so dearly--is +it not a part of their inheritance?--When you marry," the count went on, +with a little involuntary shudder, "do not undertake it lightly; that +act is the most important of all which society requires of us. Remember +to study at your leisure the character of the woman who is to be your +partner; but consult me too, I will judge of her myself. A lack of +union between husband and wife, from whatever cause, leads to terrible +misfortune; sooner or later we are always punished for contravening the +social law.--But I will write to you on this subject from Florence. A +father who has the honor of presiding over a supreme court of justice +must not have to blush in the presence of his son. Good-bye." + + +PARIS, February 1830-January 1842. + + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + + Beaumesnil, Mademoiselle + The Middle Classes + 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 + Honorine + The Seamy Side of History + The Magic Skin + 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 + + Crochard, Charles + The Middle Classes + + Fontanon, Abbe + The Government Clerks + Honorine + The Member for Arcis + + Granville, Vicomte de (later Comte) + The Gondreville Mystery + Honorine + Farewell (Adieu) + Cesar Birotteau + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + A Daughter of Eve + Cousin Pons + + Granville, Comtesse Angelique de + The Thirteen + A Daughter of Eve + + Granville, Vicomte de + A Daughter of Eve + The Country Parson + + Granville, Baron Eugene de + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + + Molineux, Jean-Baptiste + The Purse + Cesar Birotteau + + Regnier, Claude-Antoine + The Gondreville Mystery + + Roguin, Madame + Cesar Birotteau + At the Sign of the Cat and Racket + Pierrette + A Daughter of Eve + + Vandenesse, Comtesse Felix de + A Daughter of Eve + The Muse of the Department + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Second Home, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SECOND HOME *** + +***** This file should be named 1810.txt or 1810.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/1/1810/ + +Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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