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Letters of Two Brides

by Honoré de Balzac · English · Gutenberg #1941 · 479,420 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Letters of Two Brides

Author: Honoré de Balzac

Translator: R. S. Scott


        
Release date: October 1, 1999 [eBook #1941]
                Most recently updated: November 23, 2009

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1941

Credits: Produced by John Bickers, Dagny, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES ***




Produced by John Bickers and Dagny





LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES

By Honore de Balzac

Translated by R. S. Scott




DEDICATION

  To George Sand

  Your name, dear George, while casting a reflected radiance on my
  book, can gain no new glory from this page. And yet it is neither
  self-interest nor diffidence which has led me to place it there,
  but only the wish that it should bear witness to the solid
  friendship between us, which has survived our wanderings and
  separations, and triumphed over the busy malice of the world. This
  feeling is hardly likely now to change. The goodly company of
  friendly names, which will remain attached to my works, forms an
  element of pleasure in the midst of the vexation caused by their
  increasing number. Each fresh book, in fact, gives rise to fresh
  annoyance, were it only in the reproaches aimed at my too prolific
  pen, as though it could rival in fertility the world from which I
  draw my models! Would it not be a fine thing, George, if the
  future antiquarian of dead literatures were to find in this
  company none but great names and generous hearts, friends bound by
  pure and holy ties, the illustrious figures of the century? May I
  not justly pride myself on this assured possession, rather than on
  a popularity necessarily unstable? For him who knows you well, it
  is happiness to be able to sign himself, as I do here,

  Your friend,
  DE BALZAC.

  PARIS, June 1840.





LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES




FIRST PART




I. LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE MAUCOMBE. PARIS, September.

Sweetheart, I too am free! And I am the first too, unless you have
written to Blois, at our sweet tryst of letter-writing.

Raise those great black eyes of yours, fixed on my opening sentence,
and keep this excitement for the letter which shall tell you of my first
love. By the way, why always "first?" Is there, I wonder, a second love?

Don't go running on like this, you will say, but tell me rather how
you made your escape from the convent where you were to take your vows.
Well, dear, I don't know about the Carmelites, but the miracle of my own
deliverance was, I can assure you, most humdrum. The cries of an alarmed
conscience triumphed over the dictates of a stern policy--there's the
whole mystery. The sombre melancholy which seized me after you left
hastened the happy climax, my aunt did not want to see me die of a
decline, and my mother, whose one unfailing cure for my malady was a
novitiate, gave way before her.

So I am in Paris, thanks to you, my love! Dear Renee, could you have
seen me the day I found myself parted from you, well might you have
gloried in the deep impression you had made on so youthful a bosom. We
had lived so constantly together, sharing our dreams and letting our
fancy roam together, that I verily believe our souls had become welded
together, like those two Hungarian girls, whose death we heard about
from M. Beauvisage--poor misnamed being! Never surely was man better cut
out by nature for the post of convent physician!

Tell me, did you not droop and sicken with your darling?

In my gloomy depression, I could do nothing but count over the ties
which bind us. But it seemed as though distance had loosened them; I
wearied of life, like a turtle-dove widowed of her mate. Death smiled
sweetly on me, and I was proceeding quietly to die. To be at Blois, at
the Carmelites, consumed by dread of having to take my vows there, a
Mlle. de la Valliere, but without her prelude, and without my Renee! How
could I not be sick--sick unto death?

How different it used to be! That monotonous existence, where every hour
brings its duty, its prayer, its task, with such desperate regularity
that you can tell what a Carmelite sister is doing in any place, at any
hour of the night or day; that deadly dull routine, which crushes out
all interest in one's surroundings, had become for us two a world of
life and movement. Imagination had thrown open her fairy realms, and in
these our spirits ranged at will, each in turn serving as magic steed
to the other, the more alert quickening the drowsy; the world from
which our bodies were shut out became the playground of our fancy, which
reveled there in frolicsome adventure. The very _Lives of the Saints_
helped us to understand what was so carefully left unsaid! But the day
when I was reft of your sweet company, I became a true Carmelite, such
as they appeared to us, a modern Danaid, who, instead of trying to fill
a bottomless barrel, draws every day, from Heaven knows what deep, an
empty pitcher, thinking to find it full.

My aunt knew nothing of this inner life. How could she, who has made a
paradise for herself within the two acres of her convent, understand my
revolt against life? A religious life, if embraced by girls of our age,
demands either an extreme simplicity of soul, such as we, sweetheart, do
not possess, or else an ardor for self-sacrifice like that which makes
my aunt so noble a character. But she sacrificed herself for a brother
to whom she was devoted; to do the same for an unknown person or an idea
is surely more than can be asked of mortals.

For the last fortnight I have been gulping down so many reckless words,
burying so many reflections in my bosom, and accumulating such a store
of things to tell, fit for your ear alone, that I should certainly
have been suffocated but for the resource of letter-writing as a sorry
substitute for our beloved talks. How hungry one's heart gets! I am
beginning my journal this morning, and I picture to myself that yours
is already started, and that, in a few days, I shall be at home in your
beautiful Gemenos valley, which I know only through your descriptions,
just as you will live that Paris life, revealed to you hitherto only in
our dreams.

Well, then, sweet child, know that on a certain morning--a red-letter
day in my life--there arrived from Paris a lady companion and Philippe,
the last remaining of my grandmother's valets, charged to carry me off.
When my aunt summoned me to her room and told me the news, I could not
speak for joy, and only gazed at her stupidly.

"My child," she said, in her guttural voice, "I can see that you leave
me without regret, but this farewell is not the last; we shall meet
again. God has placed on your forehead the sign of the elect. You have
the pride which leads to heaven or to hell, but your nature is too noble
to choose the downward path. I know you better than you know yourself;
with you, passion, I can see, will be very different from what it is
with most women."

She drew me gently to her and kissed my forehead. The kiss made my flesh
creep, for it burned with that consuming fire which eats away her life,
which has turned to black the azure of her eyes, and softened the lines
about them, has furrowed the warm ivory of her temples, and cast a
sallow tinge over the beautiful face.

Before replying, I kissed her hands.

"Dear aunt," I said, "I shall never forget your kindness; and if it has
not made your nunnery all that it ought to be for my health of body and
soul, you may be sure nothing short of a broken heart will bring me
back again--and that you would not wish for me. You will not see me
here again till my royal lover has deserted me, and I warn you that if I
catch him, death alone shall tear him from me. I fear no Montespan."

She smiled and said:

"Go, madcap, and take your idle fancies with you. There is certainly
more of the bold Montespan in you than of the gentle la Valliere."

I threw my arms round her. The poor lady could not refrain from
escorting me to the carriage. There her tender gaze was divided between
me and the armorial bearings.

At Beaugency night overtook me, still sunk in a stupor of the mind
produced by these strange parting words. What can be awaiting me in this
world for which I have so hungered?

To begin with, I found no one to receive me; my heart had been schooled
in vain. My mother was at the Bois de Boulogne, my father at the
Council; my brother, the Duc de Rhetore, never comes in, I am told,
till it is time to dress for dinner. Miss Griffith (she is not unlike a
griffin) and Philippe took me to my rooms.

The suite is the one which belonged to my beloved grandmother, the
Princess de Vauremont, to whom I owe some sort of a fortune which no
one has ever told me about. As you read this, you will understand
the sadness which came over me as I entered a place sacred to so many
memories, and found the rooms just as she had left them! I was to sleep
in the bed where she died.

Sitting down on the edge of the sofa, I burst into tears, forgetting I
was not alone, and remembering only how often I had stood there by her
knees, the better to hear her words. There I had gazed upon her face,
buried in its brown laces, and worn as much by age as by the pangs of
approaching death. The room seemed to me still warm with the heat which
she kept up there. How comes it that Armande-Louise-Marie de Chaulieu
must be like some peasant girl, who sleeps in her mother's bed the very
morrow of her death? For to me it was as though the Princess, who died
in 1817, had passed away but yesterday.

I saw many things in the room which ought to have been removed. Their
presence showed the carelessness with which people, busy with the
affairs of state, may treat their own, and also the little thought which
had been given since her death to this grand old lady, who will always
remain one of the striking figures of the eighteenth century. Philippe
seemed to divine something of the cause of my tears. He told me that the
furniture of the Princess had been left to me in her will and that my
father had allowed all the larger suites to remain dismantled, as the
Revolution had left them. On hearing this I rose, and Philippe opened
the door of the small drawing-room which leads into the reception-rooms.

In these I found all the well-remembered wreckage; the panels above
the doors, which had contained valuable pictures, bare of all but empty
frames; broken marbles, mirrors carried off. In old days I was afraid
to go up the state staircase and cross these vast, deserted rooms; so I
used to get to the Princess' rooms by a small staircase which runs
under the arch of the larger one and leads to the secret door of her
dressing-room.

My suite, consisting of a drawing-room, bedroom, and the pretty
morning-room in scarlet and gold, of which I have told you, lies in the
wing on the side of the Invalides. The house is only separated from the
boulevard by a wall, covered with creepers, and by a splendid avenue
of trees, which mingle their foliage with that of the young elms on
the sidewalk of the boulevard. But for the blue-and-gold dome of the
Invalides and its gray stone mass, you might be in a wood.

The style of decoration in these rooms, together with their situation,
indicates that they were the old show suite of the duchesses, while
the dukes must have had theirs in the wing opposite. The two suites are
decorously separated by the two main blocks, as well as by the central
one, which contained those vast, gloomy, resounding halls shown me
by Philippe, all despoiled of their splendor, as in the days of my
childhood.

Philippe grew quite confidential when he saw the surprise depicted on my
countenance. For you must know that in this home of diplomacy the very
servants have a reserved and mysterious air. He went on to tell me that
it was expected a law would soon be passed restoring to the fugitives
of the Revolution the value of their property, and that my father is
waiting to do up his house till this restitution is made, the king's
architect having estimated the damage at three hundred thousand livres.

This piece of news flung me back despairing on my drawing-room sofa.
Could it be that my father, instead of spending this money in arranging
a marriage for me, would have left me to die in the convent? This was
the first thought to greet me on the threshold of my home.

Ah! Renee, what would I have given then to rest my head upon your
shoulder, or to transport myself to the days when my grandmother made
the life of these rooms? You two in all the world have been alone in
loving me--you away at Maucombe, and she who survives only in my heart,
the dear old lady, whose still youthful eyes used to open from sleep at
my call. How well we understood each other!

These memories suddenly changed my mood. What at first had seemed
profanation, now breathed of holy association. It was sweet to inhale
the faint odor of the powder she loved still lingering in the room;
sweet to sleep beneath the shelter of those yellow damask curtains with
their white pattern, which must have retained something of the spirit
emanating from her eyes and breath. I told Philippe to rub up the old
furniture and make the rooms look as if they were lived in; I explained
to him myself how I wanted everything arranged, and where to put each
piece of furniture. In this way I entered into possession, and showed
how an air of youth might be given to the dear old things.

The bedroom is white in color, a little dulled with time, just as the
gilding of the fanciful arabesques shows here and there a patch of red;
but this effect harmonizes well with the faded colors of the Savonnerie
tapestry, which was presented to my grandmother by Louis XV. along with
his portrait. The timepiece was a gift from the Marechal de Saxe,
and the china ornaments on the mantelpiece came from the Marechal de
Richelieu. My grandmother's portrait, painted at the age of twenty-five,
hangs in an oval frame opposite that of the King. The Prince, her
husband, is conspicuous by his absence. I like this frank negligence,
untinged by hypocrisy--a characteristic touch which sums up her charming
personality. Once when my grandmother was seriously ill, her confessor
was urgent that the Prince, who was waiting in the drawing-room, should
be admitted.

"He can come in with the doctor and his drugs," was the reply.

The bed has a canopy and well-stuffed back, and the curtains are looped
up with fine wide bands. The furniture is of gilded wood, upholstered in
the same yellow damask with white flowers which drapes the windows,
and which is lined there with a white silk that looks as though it were
watered. The panels over the doors have been painted, by what artist
I can't say, but they represent one a sunrise, the other a moonlight
scene.

The fireplace is a very interesting feature in the room. It is easy to
see that life in the last century centered largely round the hearth,
where great events were enacted. The copper gilt grate is a marvel
of workmanship, and the mantelpiece is most delicately finished; the
fire-irons are beautifully chased; the bellows are a perfect gem.
The tapestry of the screen comes from the Gobelins and is exquisitely
mounted; charming fantastic figures run all over the frame, on the feet,
the supporting bar, and the wings; the whole thing is wrought like a
fan.

Dearly should I like to know who was the giver of this dainty work of
art, which was such a favorite with her. How often have I seen the old
lady, her feet upon the bar, reclining in the easy-chair, with her dress
half raised in front, toying with the snuff-box, which lay upon the
ledge between her box of pastilles and her silk mits. What a coquette
she was! to the day of her death she took as much pains with her
appearance as though the beautiful portrait had been painted only
yesterday, and she were waiting to receive the throng of exquisites from
the Court! How the armchair recalls to me the inimitable sweep of her
skirts as she sank back in it!

These women of a past generation have carried off with them secrets
which are very typical of their age. The Princess had a certain turn
of the head, a way of dropping her glance and her remarks, a choice of
words, which I look for in vain, even in my mother. There was subtlety
in it all, and there was good-nature; the points were made without any
affectation. Her talk was at once lengthy and concise; she told a good
story, and could put her meaning in three words. Above all, she was
extremely free-thinking, and this has undoubtedly had its effect on my
way of looking at things.

From seven years old till I was ten, I never left her side; it pleased
her to attract me as much as it pleased me to go. This preference was
the cause of more than one passage at arms between her and my mother,
and nothing intensifies feeling like the icy breath of persecution. How
charming was her greeting, "Here you are, little rogue!" when curiosity
had taught me how to glide with stealthy snake-like movements to her
room. She felt that I loved her, and this childish affection was welcome
as a ray of sunshine in the winter of her life.

I don't know what went on in her rooms at night, but she had many
visitors; and when I came on tiptoe in the morning to see if she
were awake, I would find the drawing-room furniture disarranged, the
card-tables set out, and patches of snuff scattered about.

This drawing-room is furnished in the same style as the bedroom. The
chairs and tables are oddly shaped, with claw feet and hollow mouldings.
Rich garlands of flowers, beautifully designed and carved, wind over the
mirrors and hang down in festoons. On the consoles are fine china
vases. The ground colors are scarlet and white. My grandmother was a
high-spirited, striking brunette, as might be inferred from her choice
of colors. I have found in the drawing-room a writing-table I remember
well; the figures on it used to fascinate me; it is plaited in graven
silver, and was a present from one of the Genoese Lomellini. Each side
of the table represents the occupations of a different season; there are
hundreds of figures in each picture, and all in relief.

I remained alone for two hours, while old memories rose before me,
one after another, on this spot, hallowed by the death of a woman most
remarkable even among the witty and beautiful Court ladies of Louis
XV.'s day.

You know how abruptly I was parted from her, at a day's notice, in 1816.

"Go and bid good-bye to your grandmother," said my mother.

The Princess received me as usual, without any display of feeling, and
expressed no surprise at my departure.

"You are going to the convent, dear," she said, "and will see your aunt
there, who is an excellent woman. I shall take care, though, that they
don't make a victim of you; you shall be independent, and able to marry
whom you please."

Six months later she died. Her will had been given into the keeping of
the Prince de Talleyrand, the most devoted of all her old friends. He
contrived, while paying a visit to Mlle. de Chargeboeuf, to intimate
to me, through her, that my grandmother forbade me to take the vows. I
hope, sooner or later, to meet the Prince, and then I shall doubtless
learn more from him.

Thus, sweetheart, if I have found no one in flesh and blood to meet me,
I have comforted myself with the shade of the dear Princess, and have
prepared myself for carrying out one of our pledges, which was, as you
know, to keep each other informed of the smallest details in our homes
and occupations. It makes such a difference to know where and how the
life of one we love is passed. Send me a faithful picture of the veriest
trifles around you, omitting nothing, not even the sunset lights among
the tall trees.

October 19th.

It was three in the afternoon when I arrived. About half-past five, Rose
came and told me that my mother had returned, so I went downstairs to
pay my respects to her.

My mother lives in a suite on the ground floor, exactly corresponding
to mine, and in the same block. I am just over her head, and the same
secret staircase serves for both. My father's rooms are in the block
opposite, but are larger by the whole of the space occupied by the grand
staircase on our side of the building. These ancestral mansions are so
spacious, that my father and mother continue to occupy the ground-floor
rooms, in spite of the social duties which have once more devolved on
them with the return of the Bourbons, and are even able to receive in
them.

I found my mother, dressed for the evening, in her drawing-room, where
nothing is changed. I came slowly down the stairs, speculating with
every step how I should be met by this mother who had shown herself so
little of a mother to me, and from whom, during eight years, I had heard
nothing beyond the two letters of which you know. Judging it unworthy to
simulate an affection I could not possibly feel, I put on the air of
a pious imbecile, and entered the room with many inward qualms, which
however soon disappeared. My mother's tack was equal to the occasion.
She made no pretence of emotion; she neither held me at arm's-length nor
hugged me to her bosom like a beloved daughter, but greeted me as though
we had parted the evening before. Her manner was that of the kindliest
and most sincere friend, as she addressed me like a grown person, first
kissing me on the forehead.

"My dear little one," she said, "if you were to die at the convent, it
is much better to live with your family. You frustrate your father's
plans and mine; but the age of blind obedience to parents is past. M. de
Chaulieu's intention, and in this I am quite at one with him, is to lose
no opportunity of making your life pleasant and of letting you see the
world. At your age I should have thought as you do, therefore I am not
vexed with you; it is impossible you should understand what we expected
from you. You will not find any absurd severity in me; and if you have
ever thought me heartless, you will soon find out your mistake. Still,
though I wish you to feel perfectly free, I think that, to begin with,
you would do well to follow the counsels of a mother, who wishes to be a
sister to you."

I was quite charmed by the Duchess, who talked in a gentle voice,
straightening my convent tippet as she spoke. At the age of thirty-eight
she is still exquisitely beautiful. She has dark-blue eyes, with silken
lashes, a smooth forehead, and a complexion so pink and white that you
might think she paints. Her bust and shoulders are marvelous, and her
waist is as slender as yours. Her hand is milk-white and extraordinarily
beautiful; the nails catch the light in their perfect polish, the thumb
is like ivory, the little finger stands just a little apart from the
rest, and the foot matches the hand; it is the Spanish foot of Mlle. de
Vandenesse. If she is like this at forty, at sixty she will still be a
beautiful woman.

I replied, sweetheart, like a good little girl. I was as nice to her as
she to me, nay, nicer. Her beauty completely vanquished me; it seemed
only natural that such a woman should be absorbed in her regal part. I
told her this as simply as though I had been talking to you. I daresay
it was a surprise to her to hear words of affection from her daughter's
mouth, and the unfeigned homage of my admiration evidently touched her
deeply. Her manner changed and became even more engaging; she dropped
all formality as she said:

"I am much pleased with you, and I hope we shall remain good friends."

The words struck me as charmingly naive, but I did not let this appear,
for I saw at once that the prudent course was to allow her to believe
herself much deeper and cleverer than her daughter. So I only stared
vacantly and she was delighted. I kissed her hands repeatedly, telling
her how happy it made me to be so treated and to feel at my ease with
her. I even confided to her my previous tremors. She smiled, put her
arm round my neck, and drawing me towards her, kissed me on the forehead
most affectionately.

"Dear child," she said, "we have people coming to dinner to-day. Perhaps
you will agree with me that it is better for you not to make your first
appearance in society till you have been in the dressmaker's hands; so,
after you have seen your father and brother, you can go upstairs again."

I assented most heartily. My mother's exquisite dress was the first
revelation to me of the world which our dreams had pictured; but I did
not feel the slightest desire to rival her.

My father now entered, and the Duchess presented me to him.

He became all at once most affectionate, and played the father's part so
well, that I could not but believe his heart to be in it. Taking my two
hands in his, and kissing them, with more of the lover than the father
in his manner, he said:

"So this is my rebel daughter!"

And he drew me towards him, with his arm passed tenderly round my waist,
while he kissed me on the cheeks and forehead.

"The pleasure with which we shall watch your success in society will
atone for the disappointment we felt at your change of vocation," he
said. Then, turning to my mother, "Do you know that she is going to turn
out very pretty, and you will be proud of her some day?--Here is your
brother, Rhetore.--Alphonse," he said to a fine young man who came in,
"here is your convent-bred sister, who threatens to send her nun's frock
to the deuce."

My brother came up in a leisurely way and took my hand, which he
pressed.

"Come, come, you may kiss her," said my father.

And he kissed me on both cheeks.

"I am delighted to see you," he said, "and I take your side against my
father."

I thanked him, but could not help thinking he might have come to Blois
when he was at Orleans visiting our Marquis brother in his quarters.

Fearing the arrival of strangers, I now withdrew. I tidied up my rooms,
and laid out on the scarlet velvet of my lovely table all the materials
necessary for writing to you, meditating all the while on my new
situation.

This, my fair sweetheart, is a true and veracious account of the return
of a girl of eighteen, after an absence of nine years, to the bosom of
one of the noblest families in the kingdom. I was tired by the journey
as well as by all the emotions I had been through, so I went to bed in
convent fashion, at eight o'clock after supper. They have preserved even
a little Saxe service which the dear Princess used when she had a fancy
for taking her meals alone.




II. THE SAME TO THE SAME November 25th.

Next day I found my rooms done out and dusted, and even flowers put
in the vases, by old Philippe. I began to feel at home. Only it didn't
occur to anybody that a Carmelite schoolgirl has an early appetite, and
Rose had no end of trouble in getting breakfast for me.

"Mlle. goes to bed at dinner-time," she said to me, "and gets up when
the Duke is just returning home."

I began to write. About one o'clock my father knocked at the door of the
small drawing-room and asked if he might come in. I opened the door; he
came in, and found me writing to you.

"My dear," he began, "you will have to get yourself clothes, and to make
these rooms comfortable. In this purse you will find twelve thousand
francs, which is the yearly income I purpose allowing you for your
expenses. You will make arrangements with your mother as to some
governess whom you may like, in case Miss Griffith doesn't please
you, for Mme. de Chaulieu will not have time to go out with you in the
mornings. A carriage and man-servant shall be at your disposal."

"Let me keep Philippe," I said.

"So be it," he replied. "But don't be uneasy; you have money enough of
your own to be no burden either to your mother or me."

"May I ask how much I have?"

"Certainly, my child," he said. "Your grandmother left you five hundred
thousand francs; this was the amount of her savings, for she would not
alienate a foot of land from the family. This sum has been placed in
Government stock, and, with the accumulated interest, now brings in
about forty thousand francs a year. With this I had purposed making an
independence for your second brother, and it is here that you have upset
my plans. Later, however, it is possible that you may fall in with them.
It shall rest with yourself, for I have confidence in your good sense
far more than I had expected.

"I do not need to tell you how a daughter of the Chaulieus ought
to behave. The pride so plainly written in your features is my best
guarantee. Safeguards, such as common folk surround their daughters
with, would be an insult in our family. A slander reflecting on your
name might cost the life of the man bold enough to utter it, or the life
of one of your brothers, if by chance the right should not prevail. No
more on this subject. Good-bye, little one."

He kissed me on the forehead and went out. I cannot understand the
relinquishment of this plan after nine years' persistence in it. My
father's frankness is what I like. There is no ambiguity about his
words. My money ought to belong to his Marquis son. Who, then, has had
bowels of mercy? My mother? My father? Or could it be my brother?

I remained sitting on my grandmother's sofa, staring at the purse which
my father had left on the mantelpiece, at once pleased and vexed that
I could not withdraw my mind from the money. It is true, further
speculation was useless. My doubts had been cleared up and there was
something fine in the way my pride was spared.

Philippe has spent the morning rushing about among the various shops and
workpeople who are to undertake the task of my metamorphosis. A
famous dressmaker, by name Victorine, has come, as well as a woman for
underclothing, and a shoemaker. I am as impatient as a child to know
what I shall be like when I emerge from the sack which constituted the
conventual uniform; but all these tradespeople take a long time; the
corset-maker requires a whole week if my figure is not to be spoilt. You
see, I have a figure, dear; this becomes serious. Janssen, the Operatic
shoemaker, solemnly assures me that I have my mother's foot. The whole
morning has gone in these weighty occupations. Even a glovemaker has
come to take the measure of my hand. The underclothing woman has got my
orders.

At the meal which I call dinner, and the others lunch, my mother told me
that we were going together to the milliner's to see some hats, so that
my taste should be formed, and I might be in a position to order my own.

This burst of independence dazzles me. I am like a blind man who has
just recovered his sight. Now I begin to understand the vast interval
which separates a Carmelite sister from a girl in society. Of ourselves
we could never have conceived it.

During this lunch my father seemed absent-minded, and we left him to his
thoughts; he is deep in the King's confidence. I was entirely forgotten;
but, from what I have seen, I have no doubt he will remember me when he
has need of me. He is a very attractive man in spite of his fifty years.
His figure is youthful; he is well made, fair, and extremely graceful
in his movements. He has a diplomatic face, at once dumb and expressive;
his nose is long and slender, and he has brown eyes.

What a handsome pair! Strange thoughts assail me as it becomes plain
to me that these two, so perfectly matched in birth, wealth, and mental
superiority, live entirely apart, and have nothing in common but their
name. The show of unity is only for the world.

The cream of the Court and diplomatic circles were here last night. Very
soon I am going to a ball given by the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and
I shall be presented to the society I am so eager to know. A
dancing-master is coming every morning to give me lessons, for I must be
able to dance in a month, or I can't go to the ball.

Before dinner, my mother came to talk about the governess with me. I
have decided to keep Miss Griffith, who was recommended by the English
ambassador. Miss Griffith is the daughter of a clergyman; her mother was
of good family, and she is perfectly well bred. She is thirty-six, and
will teach me English. The good soul is quite handsome enough to have
ambitions; she is Scotch--poor and proud--and will act as my chaperon.
She is to sleep in Rose's room. Rose will be under her orders. I saw at
a glance that my governess would be governed by me. In the six days we
have been together, she has made very sure that I am the only
person likely to take an interest in her; while, for my part, I have
ascertained that, for all her statuesque features, she will prove
accommodating. She seems to me a kindly soul, but cautious. I have not
been able to extract a word of what passed between her and my mother.

Another trifling piece of news! My father has this morning refused the
appointment as Minister of State which was offered him. This accounts
for his preoccupied manner last night. He says he would prefer an
embassy to the worries of public debate. Spain in especial attracts him.

This news was told me at lunch, the one moment of the day when my
father, mother, and brother see each other in an easy way. The servants
then only come when they are rung for. The rest of the day my brother,
as well as my father, spends out of the house. My mother has her toilet
to make; between two and four she is never visible; at four o'clock she
goes out for an hour's drive; when she is not dining out, she receives
from six to seven, and the evening is given to entertainments of various
kinds--theatres, balls, concerts, at homes. In short, her life is so
full, that I don't believe she ever has a quarter of an hour to herself.
She must spend a considerable time dressing in the morning; for at
lunch, which takes place between eleven and twelve, she is exquisite.
The meaning of the things that are said about her is dawning on me. She
begins the day with a bath barely warmed, and a cup of cold coffee with
cream; then she dresses. She is never, except on some great emergency,
called before nine o'clock. In summer there are morning rides, and at
two o'clock she receives a young man whom I have never yet contrived to
see.

Behold our family life! We meet at lunch and dinner, though often I
am alone with my mother at this latter meal, and I foresee that still
oftener I shall take it in my own rooms (following the example of
my grandmother) with only Miss Griffith for company, for my mother
frequently dines out. I have ceased to wonder at the indifference my
family have shown to me. In Paris, my dear, it is a miracle of virtue to
love the people who live with you, for you see little enough of them; as
for the absent--they do not exist!

Knowing as this may sound, I have not yet set foot in the streets, and
am deplorably ignorant. I must wait till I am less of the country cousin
and have brought my dress and deportment into keeping with the society
I am about to enter, the whirl of which amazes me even here, where only
distant murmurs reach my ear. So far I have not gone beyond the garden;
but the Italian opera opens in a few days, and my mother has a box
there. I am crazy with delight at the thought of hearing Italian music
and seeing French acting.

Already I begin to drop convent habits for those of society. I spend the
evening writing to you till the moment for going to bed arrives. This
has been postponed to ten o'clock, the hour at which my mother goes out,
if she is not at the theatre. There are twelve theatres in Paris.

I am grossly ignorant and I read a lot, but quite indiscriminately, one
book leading to another. I find the names of fresh books on the cover of
the one I am reading; but as I have no one to direct me, I light on some
which are fearfully dull. What modern literature I have read all turns
upon love, the subject which used to bulk so largely in our thoughts,
because it seemed that our fate was determined by man and for man. But
how inferior are these authors to two little girls, known as Sweetheart
and Darling--otherwise Renee and Louise. Ah! my love, what wretched
plots, what ridiculous situations, and what poverty of sentiment!
Two books, however, have given me wonderful pleasure--_Corinne_ and
_Adolphe_. Apropos of this, I asked my father one day whether it would
be possible for me to see Mme. de Stael. My father, mother, and Alphonse
all burst out laughing, and Alphonse said:

"Where in the world has she sprung from?"

To which my father replied:

"What fools we are! She springs from the Carmelites."

"My child, Mme. de Stael is dead," said my mother gently.

When I finished _Adolphe_, I asked Miss Griffith how a woman could be
betrayed.

"Why, of course, when she loves," was her reply.

Renee, tell me, do you think we could be betrayed by a man?

Miss Griffith has at last discerned that I am not an utter ignoramus,
that I have somewhere a hidden vein of knowledge, the knowledge we
learned from each other in our random arguments. She sees that it is
only superficial facts of which I am ignorant. The poor thing has opened
her heart to me. Her curt reply to my question, when I compare it with
all the sorrows I can imagine, makes me feel quite creepy. Once more she
urged me not to be dazzled by the glitter of society, to be always on my
guard, especially against what most attracted me. This is the sum-total
of her wisdom, and I can get nothing more out of her. Her lectures,
therefore, become a trifle monotonous, and she might be compared in this
respect to the bird which has only one cry.




III. THE SAME TO THE SAME December.

My Darling,--Here I am ready to make my bow to the world. By way of
preparation I have been trying to commit all the follies I could think
of before sobering down for my entry. This morning, I have seen myself,
after many rehearsals, well and duly equipped--stays, shoes, curls,
dress, ornaments,--all in order. Following the example of duelists
before a meeting, I tried my arms in the privacy of my chamber. I wanted
to see how I would look, and had no difficulty in discovering a certain
air of victory and triumph, bound to carry all before it. I mustered all
my forces, in accordance with that splendid maxim of antiquity,
"Know thyself!" and boundless was my delight in thus making my own
acquaintance. Griffith was the sole spectator of this doll's play,
in which I was at once doll and child. You think you know me? You are
hugely mistaken.

Here is a portrait, then, Renee, of your sister, formerly disguised as a
Carmelite, now brought to life again as a frivolous society girl. She is
one of the greatest beauties in France--Provence, of course, excepted.
I don't see that I can give a more accurate summary of this interesting
topic.

True, I have my weak points; but were I a man, I should adore them. They
arise from what is most promising in me. When you have spent a fortnight
admiring the exquisite curves of your mother's arms, and that mother the
Duchesse de Chaulieu, it is impossible, my dear, not to deplore your own
angular elbows. Yet there is consolation in observing the fineness of
the wrist, and a certain grace of line in those hollows, which will yet
fill out and show plump, round, and well modeled, under the satiny skin.
The somewhat crude outline of the arms is seen again in the shoulders.
Strictly speaking, indeed, I have no shoulders, but only two bony
blades, standing out in harsh relief. My figure also lacks pliancy;
there is a stiffness about the side lines.

Poof! There's the worst out. But then the contours are bold and
delicate, the bright, pure flame of health bites into the vigorous
lines, a flood of life and of blue blood pulses under the transparent
skin, and the fairest daughter of Eve would seem a Negress beside me! I
have the foot of a gazelle! My joints are finely turned, my features
of a Greek correctness. It is true, madame, that the flesh tints do not
melt into each other; but, at least, they stand out clear and bright. In
short, I am a very pretty green fruit, with all the charm of unripeness.
I see a great likeness to the face in my aunt's old missal, which rises
out of a violet lily.

There is no silly weakness in the blue of my insolent eyes; the white
is pure mother-of-pearl, prettily marked with tiny veins, and the thick,
long lashes fall like a silken fringe. My forehead sparkles, and the
hair grows deliciously; it ripples into waves of pale gold, growing
browner towards the centre, whence escape little rebel locks, which
alone would tell that my fairness is not of the insipid and hysterical
type. I am a tropical blonde, with plenty of blood in my veins, a
blonde more apt to strike than to turn the cheek. What do you think the
hairdresser proposed? He wanted, if you please, to smooth my hair into
two bands, and place over my forehead a pearl, kept in place by a gold
chain! He said it would recall the Middle Ages.

I told him I was not aged enough to have reached the middle, or to need
an ornament to freshen me up!

The nose is slender, and the well-cut nostrils are separated by a
sweet little pink partition--an imperious, mocking nose, with a tip
too sensitive ever to grow fat or red. Sweetheart, if this won't find
a husband for a dowerless maiden, I'm a donkey. The ears are daintily
curled, a pearl hanging from either lobe would show yellow. The neck
is long, and has an undulating motion full of dignity. In the shade the
white ripens to a golden tinge. Perhaps the mouth is a little large. But
how expressive! what a color on the lips! how prettily the teeth laugh!

Then, dear, there is a harmony running through all. What a gait! what
a voice! We have not forgotten how our grandmother's skirts fell into
place without a touch. In a word, I am lovely and charming. When the
mood comes, I can laugh one of our good old laughs, and no one will
think the less of me; the dimples, impressed by Comedy's light fingers
on my fair cheeks, will command respect. Or I can let my eyes fall
and my heart freeze under my snowy brows. I can pose as a Madonna with
melancholy, swan-like neck, and the painters' virgins will be nowhere;
my place in heaven would be far above them. A man would be forced to
chant when he spoke to me.

So, you see, my panoply is complete, and I can run the whole gamut of
coquetry from deepest bass to shrillest treble. It is a huge advantage
not to be all of one piece. Now, my mother is neither playful nor
virginal. Her only attitude is an imposing one; when she ceases to be
majestic, she is ferocious. It is difficult for her to heal the wounds
she makes, whereas I can wound and heal together. We are absolutely
unlike, and therefore there could not possibly be rivalry between us,
unless indeed we quarreled over the greater or less perfection of our
extremities, which are similar. I take after my father, who is shrewd
and subtle. I have the manner of my grandmother and her charming voice,
which becomes falsetto when forced, but is a sweet-toned chest voice at
the ordinary pitch of a quiet talk.

I feel as if I had left the convent to-day for the first time. For
society I do not yet exist; I am unknown to it. What a ravishing moment!
I still belong only to myself, like a flower just blown, unseen yet of
mortal eye.

In spite of this, my sweet, as I paced the drawing-room during my
self-inspection, and saw the poor cast-off school-clothes, a queer
feeling came over me. Regret for the past, anxiety about the future,
fear of society, a long farewell to the pale daisies which we used to
pick and strip of their petals in light-hearted innocence, there was
something of all that; but strange, fantastic visions also rose, which I
crushed back into the inner depths, whence they had sprung, and whither
I dared not follow them.

My Renee, I have a regular trousseau! It is all beautifully laid away
and perfumed in the cedar-wood drawers with lacquered front of my
charming dressing-table. There are ribbons, shoes, gloves, all in lavish
abundance. My father has kindly presented me with the pretty gewgaws a
girl loves--a dressing-case, toilet service, scent-box, fan, sunshade,
prayer-book, gold chain, cashmere shawl. He has also promised to give
me riding lessons. And I can dance! To-morrow, yes, to-morrow evening, I
come out!

My dress is white muslin, and on my head I wear a garland of white
roses in Greek style. I shall put on my Madonna face; I mean to play the
simpleton, and have all the women on my side. My mother is miles away
from any idea of what I write to you. She believes me quite destitute of
mind, and would be dumfounded if she read my letter. My brother honors
me with a profound contempt, and is uniformly and politely indifferent.

He is a handsome young fellow, but melancholy, and given to moods. I
have divined his secret, though neither the Duke nor Duchess has an
inkling of it. In spite of his youth and his title, he is jealous of his
father. He has no position in the State, no post at Court, he never has
to say, "I am going to the Chamber." I alone in the house have sixteen
hours for meditation. My father is absorbed in public business and his
own amusements; my mother, too, is never at leisure; no member of the
household practises self-examination, they are constantly in company,
and have hardly time to live.

I should immensely like to know what is the potent charm wielded by
society to keep people prisoner from nine every evening till two or
three in the morning, and force them to be so lavish alike of strength
and money. When I longed for it, I had no idea of the separations it
brought about, or its overmastering spell. But, then, I forget, it is
Paris which does it all.

It is possible, it seems, for members of one family to live side by side
and know absolutely nothing of each other. A half-fledged nun arrives,
and in a couple of weeks has grasped domestic details, of which the
master diplomatist at the head of the house is quite ignorant. Or
perhaps he _does_ see, and shuts his eyes deliberately, as part of the
father's _role_. There is a mystery here which I must plumb.




IV. THE SAME TO THE SAME December 15th.

Yesterday, at two o'clock, I went to drive in the Champs-Elysees and the
Bois de Boulogne. It was one of those autumn days which we used to find
so beautiful on the banks of the Loire. So I have seen Paris at last!
The Place Louis XV. is certainly very fine, but the beauty is that of
man's handiwork.

I was dressed to perfection, pensive, with set face (though inwardly
much tempted to laugh), under a lovely hat, my arms crossed. Would you
believe it? Not a single smile was thrown at me, not one poor youth was
struck motionless as I passed, not a soul turned to look again; and yet
the carriage proceeded with a deliberation worthy of my pose.

No, I am wrong, there was one--a duke, and a charming man--who suddenly
reined in as we went by. The individual who thus saved appearances for
me was my father, and he proclaimed himself highly gratified by what he
saw. I met my mother also, who sent me a butterfly kiss from the tips
of her fingers. The worthy Griffith, who fears no man, cast her glances
hither and thither without discrimination. In my judgment, a young woman
should always know exactly what her eye is resting on.

I was mad with rage. One man actually inspected my carriage without
noticing me. This flattering homage probably came from a carriage-maker.
I have been quite out in the reckoning of my forces. Plainly, beauty,
that rare gift which comes from heaven, is commoner in Paris than I
thought. I saw hats doffed with deference to simpering fools; a purple
face called forth murmurs of, "It is she!" My mother received an immense
amount of admiration. There is an answer to this problem, and I mean to
find it.

The men, my dear, seemed to me generally very ugly. The very few
exceptions are bad copies of us. Heaven knows what evil genius has
inspired their costume; it is amazingly inelegant compared with those
of former generations. It has no distinction, no beauty of color or
romance; it appeals neither to the senses, nor the mind, nor the eye,
and it must be very uncomfortable. It is meagre and stunted. The hat,
above all, struck me; it is a sort of truncated column, and does not
adapt itself in the least to the shape of the head; but I am told it
is easier to bring about a revolution than to invent a graceful hat.
Courage in Paris recoils before the thought of appearing in a round
felt; and for lack of one day's daring, men stick all their lives to
this ridiculous headpiece. And yet Frenchmen are said to be fickle!

The men are hideous anyway, whatever they put on their heads. I have
seen nothing but worn, hard faces, with no calm nor peace in the
expression; the harsh lines and furrows speak of foiled ambition and
smarting vanity. A fine forehead is rarely seen.

"And these are the product of Paris!" I said to Miss Griffith.

"Most cultivated and pleasant men," she replied.

I was silent. The heart of a spinster of thirty-six is a well of
tolerance.

In the evening I went to the ball, where I kept close to my mother's
side. She gave me her arm with a devotion which did not miss its
reward. All the honors were for her; I was made the pretext for charming
compliments. She was clever enough to find me fools for my partners, who
one and all expatiated on the heat and the beauty of the ball, till you
might suppose I was freezing and blind. Not one failed to enlarge on the
strange, unheard-of, extraordinary, odd, remarkable fact--that he saw me
for the first time.

My dress, which dazzled me as I paraded alone in my white-and-gold
drawing-room, was barely noticeable amidst the gorgeous finery of most
of the married women. Each had her band of faithful followers, and they
all watched each other askance. A few were radiant in triumphant
beauty, and amongst these was my mother. A girl at a ball is a mere
dancing-machine--a thing of no consequence whatever.

The men, with rare exceptions, did not impress me more favorably here
than at the Champs-Elysees. They have a used-up look; their features
are meaningless, or rather they have all the same meaning. The proud,
stalwart bearing which we find in the portraits of our ancestors--men
who joined moral to physical vigor--has disappeared. Yet in this
gathering there was one man of remarkable ability, who stood out from
the rest by the beauty of his face. But even he did not rouse in me the
feeling which I should have expected. I do not know his works, and he is
a man of no family. Whatever the genius and the merits of a plebeian
or a commoner, he could never stir my blood. Besides, this man was
obviously so much more taken up with himself than with anybody else,
that I could not but think these great brain-workers must look on us as
things rather than persons. When men of intellectual power love, they
ought to give up writing, otherwise their love is not the real thing.
The lady of their heart does not come first in all their thoughts. I
seemed to read all this in the bearing of the man I speak of. I am told
he is a professor, orator, and author, whose ambition makes him the
slave of every bigwig.

My mind was made up on the spot. It was unworthy of me, I determined,
to quarrel with society for not being impressed by my merits, and I gave
myself up to the simple pleasure of dancing, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
I heard a great deal of inept gossip about people of whom I know
nothing; but perhaps it is my ignorance on many subjects which prevents
me from appreciating it, as I saw that most men and women took a lively
pleasure in certain remarks, whether falling from their own lips or
those of others. Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve.
It is a perfect maze of intrigue. Yet I am fairly quick of sight and
hearing, and as to my wits, Mlle. de Maucombe does not need to be told!

I returned home tired with a pleasant sort of tiredness, and in all
innocence began describing my sensations to my mother, who was with me.
She checked me with the warning that I must never say such things to any
one but her.

"My dear child," she added, "it needs as much tact to know when to be
silent as when to speak."

This advice brought home to me the nature of the sensations which ought
to be concealed from every one, not excepting perhaps even a mother. At
a glance I measured the vast field of feminine duplicity. I can assure
you, sweetheart, that we, in our unabashed simplicity, would pass for
two very wide-awake little scandal-mongers. What lessons may be conveyed
in a finger on the lips, in a word, a look! All in a moment I was seized
with excessive shyness. What! may I never again speak of the natural
pleasure I feel in the exercise of dancing? "How then," I said to
myself, "about the deeper feelings?"

I went to bed sorrowful, and I still suffer from the shock produced by
this first collision of my frank, joyous nature with the harsh laws
of society. Already the highway hedges are flecked with my white wool!
Farewell, beloved.




V. RENEE DE MAUCOMBE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU October.

How deeply your letter moved me; above all, when I compare our widely
different destinies! How brilliant is the world you are entering, how
peaceful the retreat where I shall end my modest career!

In the Castle of Maucombe, which is so well known to you by description
that I shall say no more of it, I found my room almost exactly as I
left it; only now I can enjoy the splendid view it gives of the Gemenos
valley, which my childish eyes used to see without comprehending. A
fortnight after my arrival, my father and mother took me, along with my
two brothers, to dine with one of our neighbors, M. de l'Estorade,
an old gentleman of good family, who has made himself rich, after the
provincial fashion, by scraping and paring.

M. de l'Estorade was unable to save his only son from the clutches of
Bonaparte; after successfully eluding the conscription, he was forced
to send him to the army in 1813, to join the Emperor's bodyguard. After
Leipsic no more was heard of him. M. de Montriveau, whom the father
interviewed in 1814, declared that he had seen him taken by the
Russians. Mme. de l'Estorade died of grief whilst a vain search was
being made in Russia. The Baron, a very pious old man, practised that
fine theological virtue which we used to cultivate at Blois--Hope!
Hope made him see his son in dreams. He hoarded his income for him, and
guarded carefully the portion of inheritance which fell to him from the
family of the late Mme. de l'Estorade, no one venturing to ridicule the
old man.

At last it dawned upon me that the unexpected return of this son was the
cause of my own. Who could have imagined, whilst fancy was leading us
a giddy dance, that my destined husband was slowly traveling on foot
through Russia, Poland, and Germany? His bad luck only forsook him
at Berlin, where the French Minister helped his return to his native
country. M. de l'Estorade, the father, who is a small landed proprietor
in Provence, with an income of about ten thousand livres, has not
sufficient European fame to interest the world in the wandering Knight
de l'Estorade, whose name smacks of his adventures.

The accumulated income of twelve thousand livres from the property of
Mme. de l'Estorade, with the addition of the father's savings, provides
the poor guard of honor with something like two hundred and fifty
thousand livres, not counting house and lands--quite a considerable
fortune in Provence. His worthy father had bought, on the very eve
of the Chevalier's return, a fine but badly-managed estate, where he
designs to plant ten thousand mulberry-trees, raised in his nursery
with a special view to this acquisition. The Baron, having found his
long-lost son, has now but one thought, to marry him, and marry him to a
girl of good family.

My father and mother entered into their neighbor's idea with an eye to
my interests so soon as they discovered that Renee de Maucombe would be
acceptable without a dowry, and that the money the said Renee ought
to inherit from her parents would be duly acknowledged as hers in the
contract. In a similar way, my younger brother, Jean de Maucombe, as
soon as he came of age, signed a document stating that he had received
from his parents an advance upon the estate equal in amount to one-third
of whole. This is the device by which the nobles of Provence elude the
infamous Civil Code of M. de Bonaparte, a code which will drive as many
girls of good family into convents as it will find husbands for. The
French nobility, from the little I have been able to gather, seem to be
divided on these matters.

The dinner, darling, was a first meeting between your sweetheart and the
exile. The Comte de Maucombe's servants donned their old laced
liveries and hats, the coachman his great top-boots; we sat five in the
antiquated carriage, and arrived in state about two o'clock--the dinner
was for three--at the grange, which is the dwelling of the Baron de
l'Estorade.

My father-in-law to be has, you see, no castle, only a simple country
house, standing beneath one of our hills, at the entrance of that noble
valley, the pride of which is undoubtedly the Castle of Maucombe.
The building is quite unpretentious: four pebble walls covered with a
yellowish wash, and roofed with hollow tiles of a good red, constitute
the grange. The rafters bend under the weight of this brick-kiln.
The windows, inserted casually, without any attempt at symmetry, have
enormous shutters, painted yellow. The garden in which it stands is a
Provencal garden, enclosed by low walls, built of big round pebbles set
in layers, alternately sloping or upright, according to the artistic
taste of the mason, which finds here its only outlet. The mud in which
they are set is falling away in places.

Thanks to an iron railing at the entrance facing the road, this simple
farm has a certain air of being a country-seat. The railing, long sought
with tears, is so emaciated that it recalled Sister Angelique to me.
A flight of stone steps leads to the door, which is protected by a
pent-house roof, such as no peasant on the Loire would tolerate for his
coquettish white stone house, with its blue roof, glittering in the sun.
The garden and surrounding walks are horribly dusty, and the trees seem
burnt up. It is easy to see that for years the Baron's life has been a
mere rising up and going to bed again, day after day, without a thought
beyond that of piling up coppers. He eats the same food as his two
servants, a Provencal lad and the old woman who used to wait on his
wife. The rooms are scantily furnished.

Nevertheless, the house of l'Estorade had done its best; the cupboards
had been ransacked, and its last man beaten up for the dinner, which was
served to us on old silver dishes, blackened and battered. The exile, my
darling pet, is like the railing, emaciated! He is pale and silent, and
bears traces of suffering. At thirty-seven he might be fifty. The once
beautiful ebon locks of youth are streaked with white like a lark's
wing. His fine blue eyes are cavernous; he is a little deaf, which
suggests the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance.

Spite of all this, I have graciously consented to become Mme. de
l'Estorade and to receive a dowry of two hundred and fifty thousand
livres, but only on the express condition of being allowed to work my
will upon the grange and make a park there. I have demanded from my
father, in set terms, a grant of water, which can be brought thither
from Maucombe. In a month I shall be Mme. de l'Estorade; for, dear, I
have made a good impression. After the snows of Siberia a man is ready
enough to see merit in those black eyes, which according to you, used to
ripen fruit with a look. Louis de l'Estorade seems well content to marry
the _fair Renee de Maucombe_--such is your friend's splendid title.

Whilst you are preparing to reap the joys of that many-sided existence
which awaits a young lady of the Chaulieu family, and to queen it in
Paris, your poor little sweetheart, Renee, that child of the desert,
has fallen from the empyrean, whither together we had soared, into
the vulgar realities of a life as homely as a daisy's. I have vowed to
myself to comfort this young man, who has never known youth, but passed
straight from his mother's arms to the embrace of war, and from the joys
of his country home to the frosts and forced labor of Siberia.

Humble country pleasures will enliven the monotony of my future. It
shall be my ambition to enlarge the oasis round my house, and to give
it the lordly shade of fine trees. My turf, though Provencal, shall be
always green. I shall carry my park up the hillside and plant on the
highest point some pretty kiosque, whence, perhaps, my eyes may catch
the shimmer of the Mediterranean. Orange and lemon trees, and all
choicest things that grow, shall embellish my retreat; and there will I
be a mother among my children. The poetry of Nature, which nothing can
destroy, shall hedge us round; and standing loyally at the post of
duty, we need fear no danger. My religious feelings are shared by my
father-in-law and by the Chevalier.

Ah! darling, my life unrolls itself before my eyes like one of the great
highways of France, level and easy, shaded with evergreen trees. This
century will not see another Bonaparte; and my children, if I have
any, will not be rent from me. They will be mine to train and make men
of--the joy of my life. If you also are true to your destiny, you
who ought to find your mate amongst the great ones of the earth, the
children of your Renee will not lack a zealous protectress.

Farewell, then, for me at least, to the romances and thrilling
adventures in which we used ourselves to play the part of heroine. The
whole story of my life lies before me now; its great crises will be
the teething and nutrition of the young Masters de l'Estorade, and the
mischief they do to my shrubs and me. To embroider their caps, to
be loved and admired by a sickly man at the mouth of the Gemenos
valley--there are my pleasures. Perhaps some day the country dame may go
and spend a winter in Marseilles; but danger does not haunt the purlieus
of a narrow provincial stage. There will be nothing to fear, not even an
admiration such as could only make a woman proud. We shall take a great
deal of interest in the silkworms for whose benefit our mulberry-leaves
will be sold! We shall know the strange vicissitudes of life in
Provence, and the storms that may attack even a peaceful household.
Quarrels will be impossible, for M. de l'Estorade has formally announced
that he will leave the reins in his wife's hands; and as I shall
do nothing to remind him of this wise resolve, it is likely he may
persevere in it.

You, my dear Louise, will supply the romance of my life. So you must
narrate to me in full all your adventures, describe your balls and
parties, tell me what you wear, what flowers crown your lovely golden
locks, and what are the words and manners of the men you meet. Your
other self will be always there--listening, dancing, feeling her
finger-tips pressed--with you. If only I could have some fun in Paris
now and then, while you played the house-mother at La Crampade! such
is the name of our grange. Poor M. de l'Estorade, who fancies he is
marrying one woman! Will he find out there are two?

I am writing nonsense now, and as henceforth I can only be foolish by
proxy, I had better stop. One kiss, then, on each cheek--my lips are
still virginal, he has only dared to take my hand. Oh! our deference and
propriety are quite disquieting, I assure you. There, I am off again....
Good-bye, dear.

_P. S._--I have just opened your third letter. My dear, I have about one
thousand livres to dispose of; spend them for me on pretty things, such
as we can't find here, nor even at Marseilles. While speeding on your
own business, give a thought to the recluse of La Crampade. Remember
that on neither side have the heads of the family any people of taste in
Paris to make their purchases. I shall reply to your letter later.




VI. DON FELIPE HENAREZ TO DON FERNAND PARIS, September.

The address of this letter, my brother, will show you that the head of
your house is out of reach of danger. If the massacre of our ancestors
in the Court of Lions made Spaniards and Christians of us against our
will, it left us a legacy of Arab cunning; and it may be that I owe my
safety to the blood of the Abencerrages still flowing in my veins.

Fear made Ferdinand's acting so good, that Valdez actually believed in
his protestations. But for me the poor Admiral would have been done
for. Nothing, it seems, will teach the Liberals what a king is. This
particular Bourbon has been long known to me; and the more His Majesty
assured me of his protection, the stronger grew my suspicions. A true
Spaniard has no need to repeat a promise. A flow of words is a sure sign
of duplicity.

Valdez took ship on an English vessel. For myself, no sooner did I see
the cause of my beloved Spain wrecked in Andalusia, than I wrote to the
steward of my Sardinian estate to make arrangements for my escape. Some
hardy coral fishers were despatched to wait for me at a point on the
coast; and when Ferdinand urged the French to secure my person, I was
already in my barony of Macumer, amidst brigands who defy all law and
all avengers.

The last Hispano-Moorish family of Granada has found once more the
shelter of an African desert, and even a Saracen horse, in an estate
which comes to it from Saracens. How the eyes of these brigands--who but
yesterday had dreaded my authority--sparkled with savage joy and
pride when they found they were protecting against the King of Spain's
vendetta the Duc de Soria, their master and a Henarez--the first who had
come to visit them since the time when the island belonged to the Moors.
More than a score of rifles were ready to point at Ferdinand of Bourbon,
son of a race which was still unknown when the Abencerrages arrived as
conquerors on the banks of the Loire.

My idea had been to live on the income of these huge estates, which,
unfortunately, we have so greatly neglected; but my stay there convinced
me that this was impossible, and that Queverdo's reports were only too
correct. The poor man had twenty-two lives at my disposal, and not
a single _real_; prairies of twenty thousand acres, and not a house;
virgin forests, and not a stick of furniture! A million piastres and
a resident master for half a century would be necessary to make these
magnificent lands pay. I must see to this.

The conquered have time during their flight to ponder their own case and
that of their vanquished party. At the spectacle of my noble country, a
corpse for monks to prey on, my eyes filled with tears; I read in it the
presage of Spain's gloomy future.

At Marseilles I heard of Riego's end. Painfully did it come home to
me that my life also would henceforth be a martyrdom, but a martyrdom
protracted and unnoticed. Is existence worthy the name, when a man can
no longer die for his country or live for a woman? To love, to conquer,
this twofold form of the same thought, is the law graven on our sabres,
emblazoned on the vaulted roofs of our palaces, ceaselessly whispered
by the water, which rises and falls in our marble fountains. But in vain
does it nerve my heart; the sabre is broken, the palace in ashes, the
living spring sucked up by the barren sand.

Here, then, is my last will and testament.

Don Fernand, you will understand now why I put a check upon your ardor
and ordered you to remain faithful to the _rey netto_. As your brother
and friend, I implore you to obey me; as your master, I command. You
will go to the King and will ask from him the grant of my dignities and
property, my office and titles. He will perhaps hesitate, and may treat
you to some regal scowls; but you must tell him that you are loved by
Marie Heredia, and that Marie can marry none but a Duc de Soria. This
will make the King radiant. It is the immense fortune of the Heredia
family which alone has stood between him and the accomplishment of my
ruin. Your proposal will seem to him, therefore, to deprive me of a last
resource, and he will gladly hand over to you my spoils.

You will then marry Marie. The secret of the mutual love against which
you fought was no secret to me, and I have prepared the old Count to see
you take my place. Marie and I were merely doing what was expected of us
in our position and carrying out the wishes of our fathers; everything
else is in your favor. You are beautiful as a child of love, and are
possessed of Marie's heart. I am an ill-favored Spanish grandee, for
whom she feels an aversion to which she will not confess. Some slight
reluctance there may be on the part of the noble Spanish girl on account
of my misfortunes, but this you will soon overcome.

Duc de Soria, your predecessor would neither cost you a regret nor rob
you of a maravedi. My mother's diamonds, which will suffice to make me
independent, I will keep, because the gap caused by them in the family
estate can be filled by Marie's jewels. You can send them, therefore, by
my nurse, old Urraca, the only one of my servants whom I wish to retain.
No one can prepare my chocolate as she does.

During our brief revolution, my life of unremitting toil was reduced to
the barest necessaries, and these my salary was sufficient to provide.
You will therefore find the income of the last two years in the hands of
your steward. This sum is mine; but a Duc de Soria cannot marry without
a large expenditure of money, therefore we will divide it. You will not
refuse this wedding-present from your brigand brother. Besides, I mean
to have it so.

The barony of Macumer, not being Spanish territory, remains to me. Thus
I have still a country and a name, should I wish to take up a position
in the world again.

Thank Heaven, this finishes our business, and the house of Soria is
saved!

At the very moment when I drop into simple Baron de Macumer, the French
cannon announce the arrival of the Duc d'Angouleme. You will understand
why I break off....

October.

When I arrived here I had not ten doubloons in my pocket. He would
indeed be a poor sort of leader who, in the midst of calamities he has
not been able to avert, has found means to feather his own nest. For the
vanquished Moor there remains a horse and the desert; for the Christian
foiled of his hopes, the cloister and a few gold pieces.

But my present resignation is mere weariness. I am not yet so near the
monastery as to have abandoned all thoughts of life. Ozalga had given me
several letters of introduction to meet all emergencies, amongst these
one to a bookseller, who takes with our fellow-countrymen the place
which Galignani holds with the English in Paris. This man has found
eight pupils for me at three francs a lesson. I go to my pupils every
alternate day, so that I have four lessons a day and earn twelve francs,
which is more than I require. When Urraca comes I shall make some
Spanish exile happy by passing on to him my connection.

I lodge in the Rue Hillerin-Bertin with a poor widow, who takes
boarders. My room faces south and looks out on a little garden. It is
perfectly quiet; I have green trees to look upon, and spend the sum
of one piastre a day. I am amazed at the amount of calm, pure pleasure
which I enjoy in this life, after the fashion of Dionysius at Corinth.
From sunrise until ten o'clock I smoke and take my chocolate, sitting at
my window and contemplating two Spanish plants, a broom which rises out
of a clump of jessamine--gold on a white ground, colors which must send
a thrill through any scion of the Moors. At ten o'clock I start for my
lessons, which last till four, when I return for dinner. Afterwards I
read and smoke till I go to bed.

I can put up for a long time with a life like this, compounded of work
and meditation, of solitude and society. Be happy, therefore, Fernand;
my abdication has brought no afterthoughts; I have no regrets like
Charles V., no longing to try the game again like Napoleon. Five days
and nights have passed since I wrote my will; to my mind they might have
been five centuries. Honor, titles, wealth, are for me as though they
had never existed.

Now that the conventional barrier of respect which hedged me round has
fallen, I can open my heart to you, dear boy. Though cased in the armor
of gravity, this heart is full of tenderness and devotion, which have
found no object, and which no woman has divined, not even she who, from
her cradle, has been my destined bride. In this lies the secret of
my political enthusiasm. Spain has taken the place of a mistress and
received the homage of my heart. And now Spain, too, is gone! Beggared
of all, I can gaze upon the ruin of what once was me and speculate over
the mysteries of my being.

Why did life animate this carcass, and when will it depart? Why has that
race, pre-eminent in chivalry, breathed all its primitive virtues--its
tropical love, its fiery poetry--into this its last offshoot, if the
seed was never to burst its rugged shell, if no stem was to spring
forth, no radiant flower scatter aloft its Eastern perfumes? Of what
crime have I been guilty before my birth that I can inspire no love? Did
fate from my very infancy decree that I should be stranded, a useless
hulk, on some barren shore! I find in my soul the image of the deserts
where my fathers ranged, illumined by a scorching sun which shrivels up
all life. Proud remnant of a fallen race, vain force, love run to waste,
an old man in the prime of youth, here better than elsewhere shall I
await the last grace of death. Alas! under this murky sky no spark will
kindle these ashes again to flame. Thus my last words may be those of
Christ, _My God, Thou hast forsaken me!_ Cry of agony and terror, to the
core of which no mortal has ventured yet to penetrate!

You can realize now, Fernand, what a joy it is to me to live afresh in
you and Marie. I shall watch you henceforth with the pride of a creator
satisfied in his work. Love each other well and go on loving if you
would not give me pain; any discord between you would hurt me more than
it would yourselves.

Our mother had a presentiment that events would one day serve her
wishes. It may be that the longing of a mother constitutes a pact
between herself and God. Was she not, moreover, one of those mysterious
beings who can hold converse with Heaven and bring back thence a vision
of the future? How often have I not read in the lines of her forehead
that she was coveting for Fernand the honors and the wealth of Felipe!
When I said so to her, she would reply with tears, laying bare the
wounds of a heart, which of right was the undivided property of both her
sons, but which an irresistible passion gave to you alone.

Her spirit, therefore, will hover joyfully above your heads as you bow
them at the altar. My mother, have you not a caress for your Felipe now
that he has yielded to your favorite even the girl whom you regretfully
thrust into his arms? What I have done is pleasing to our womankind,
to the dead, and to the King; it is the will of God. Make no difficulty
then, Fernand; obey, and be silent.

_P. S._ Tell Urraca to be sure and call me nothing but M. Henarez. Don't
say a word about me to Marie. You must be the one living soul to know
the secrets of the last Christianized Moor, in whose veins runs the
blood of a great family, which took its rise in the desert and is now
about to die out in the person of a solitary exile.

Farewell.




VII. LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE MAUCOMBE

WHAT! To be married so soon. But this is unheard of. At the end of a
month you become engaged to a man who is a stranger to you, and about
whom you know nothing. The man may be deaf--there are so many kinds of
deafness!--he may be sickly, tiresome, insufferable!

Don't you see, Renee, what they want with you? You are needful for
carrying on the glorious stock of the l'Estorades, that is all. You will
be buried in the provinces. Are these the promises we made each other?
Were I you, I would sooner set off to the Hyeres islands in a caique,
on the chance of being captured by an Algerian corsair and sold to the
Grand Turk. Then I should be a Sultana some day, and wouldn't I make a
stir in the harem while I was young--yes, and afterwards too!

You are leaving one convent to enter another. I know you; you are a
coward, and you will submit to the yoke of family life with a lamblike
docility. But I am here to direct you; you must come to Paris. There
we shall drive the men wild and hold a court like queens. Your husband,
sweetheart, in three years from now may become a member of the Chamber.
I know all about members now, and I will explain it to you. You will
work that machine very well; you can live in Paris, and become there
what my mother calls a woman of fashion. Oh! you needn't suppose I will
leave you in your grange!

Monday.

For a whole fortnight now, my dear, I have been living the life of
society; one evening at the Italiens, another at the Grand Opera, and
always a ball afterwards. Ah! society is a witching world. The music of
the Opera enchants me; and whilst my soul is plunged in divine pleasure,
I am the centre of admiration and the focus of all the opera-glasses.
But a single glance will make the boldest youth drop his eyes.

I have seen some charming young men there; all the same, I don't care
for any of them; not one has roused in me the emotion which I feel when
I listen to Garcia in his splendid duet with Pellegrini in _Otello_.
Heavens! how jealous Rossini must have been to express jealousy so well!
What a cry in "Il mio cor si divide!" I'm speaking Greek to you, for you
never heard Garcia, but then you know how jealous I am!

What a wretched dramatist Shakespeare is! Othello is in love with glory;
he wins battles, he gives orders, he struts about and is all over the
place while Desdemona sits at home; and Desdemona, who sees herself
neglected for the silly fuss of public life, is quite meek all the time.
Such a sheep deserves to be slaughtered. Let the man whom I deign to
love beware how he thinks of anything but loving me!

For my part, I like those long trials of the old-fashioned chivalry.
That lout of a young lord, who took offence because his sovereign-lady
sent him down among the lions to fetch her glove, was, in my opinion,
very impertinent, and a fool too. Doubtless the lady had in reserve
for him some exquisite flower of love, which he lost, as he well
deserved--the puppy!

But here am I running on as though I had not a great piece of news to
tell you. My father is certainly going to represent our master the King
at Madrid. I say _our_ master, for I shall make part of the embassy. My
mother wishes to remain here, and my father will take me so as to have
some woman with him.

My dear, this seems to you, no doubt, very simple, but there are horrors
behind it, all the same: in a fortnight I have probed the secrets of the
house. My mother would accompany my father to Madrid if he would take
M. de Canalis as a secretary to the embassy. But the King appoints
the secretaries; the Duke dare neither annoy the King, who hates to be
opposed, nor vex my mother; and the wily diplomat believes he has cut
the knot by leaving the Duchess here. M. de Canalis, who is the great
poet of the day, is the young man who cultivates my mother's society,
and who no doubt studies diplomacy with her from three o'clock to five.
Diplomacy must be a fine subject, for he is as regular as a gambler on
the Stock Exchange.

The Duc de Rhetore, our elder brother, solemn, cold, and whimsical,
would be extinguished by his father at Madrid, therefore he remains in
Paris. Miss Griffith has found out also that Alphonse is in love with a
ballet-girl at the Opera. How is it possible to fall in love with legs
and pirouettes? We have noticed that my brother comes to the theatre
only when Tullia dances there; he applauds the steps of this creature,
and then goes out. Two ballet-girls in a family are, I fancy, more
destructive than the plague. My second brother is with his regiment, and
I have not yet seen him. Thus it comes about that I have to act as
the Antigone of His Majesty's ambassador. Perhaps I may get married in
Spain, and perhaps my father's idea is a marriage there without dowry,
after the pattern of yours with this broken-down guard of honor. My
father asked if I would go with him, and offered me the use of his
Spanish master.

"Spain, the country for castles in the air!" I cried. "Perhaps you hope
that it may mean marriages for me!"

For sole reply he honored me with a meaning look. For some days he has
amused himself with teasing me at lunch; he watches me, and I dissemble.
In this way I have played with him cruelly as father and ambassador _in
petto_. Hadn't he taken me for a fool? He asked me what I thought of
this and that young man, and of some girls whom I had met in several
houses. I replied with quite inane remarks on the color of their hair,
their faces, and the difference in their figures. My father seemed
disappointed at my crassness, and inwardly blamed himself for having
asked me.

"Still, father," I added, "don't suppose I am saying what I really
think: mother made me afraid the other day that I had spoken more
frankly than I ought of my impressions."

"With your family you can speak quite freely," my mother replied.

"Very well, then," I went on. "The young men I have met so far strike
me as too self-centered to excite interest in others; they are much more
taken up with themselves than with their company. They can't be accused
of lack of candor at any rate. They put on a certain expression to talk
to us, and drop it again in a moment, apparently satisfied that we don't
use our eyes. The man as he converses is the lover; silent, he is the
husband. The girls, again, are so artificial that it is impossible to
know what they really are, except from the way they dance; their figures
and movements alone are not a sham. But what has alarmed me most in this
fashionable society is its brutality. The little incidents which take
place when supper is announced give one some idea--to compare small
things with great--of what a popular rising might be. Courtesy is only
a thin veneer on the general selfishness. I imagined society very
different. Women count for little in it; that may perhaps be a survival
of Bonapartist ideas."

"Armande is coming on extraordinarily," said my mother.

"Mother, did you think I should never get beyond asking to see Mme. de
Stael?"

My father smiled, and rose from the table.

Saturday.

My dear, I have left one thing out. Here is the tidbit I have reserved
for you. The love which we pictured must be extremely well hidden; I
have seen not a trace of it. True, I have caught in drawing-rooms now
and again a quick exchange of glances, but how colorless it all is!
Love, as we imagined it, a world of wonders, of glorious dreams, of
charming realities, of sorrows that waken sympathy, and smiles that make
sunshine, does not exist. The bewitching words, the constant interchange
of happiness, the misery of absence, the flood of joy at the presence
of the beloved one--where are they? What soil produces these radiant
flowers of the soul? Which is wrong? We or the world?

I have already seen hundreds of men, young and middle-aged; not one has
stirred the least feeling in me. No proof of admiration and devotion on
their part, not even a sword drawn in my behalf, would have moved me.
Love, dear, is the product of such rare conditions that it is quite
possible to live a lifetime without coming across the being on whom
nature has bestowed the power of making one's happiness. The thought is
enough to make one shudder; for if this being is found too late, what
then?

For some days I have begun to tremble when I think of the destiny of
women, and to understand why so many wear a sad face beneath the flush
brought by the unnatural excitement of social dissipation. Marriage is
a mere matter of chance. Look at yours. A storm of wild thoughts
has passed over my mind. To be loved every day the same, yet with a
difference, to be loved as much after ten years of happiness as on the
first day!--such a love demands years. The lover must be allowed to
languish, curiosity must be piqued and satisfied, feeling roused and
responded to.

Is there, then, a law for the inner fruits of the heart, as there is
for the visible fruits of nature? Can joy be made lasting? In what
proportion should love mingle tears with pleasures? The cold policy of
the funereal, monotonous, persistent routine of the convent seemed to me
at these moments the only real life; while the wealth, the splendor, the
tears, the delights, the triumph, the joy, the satisfaction, of a love
equal, shared, and sanctioned, appeared a mere idle vision.

I see no room in this city for the gentle ways of love, for precious
walks in shady alleys, the full moon sparkling on the water, while the
suppliant pleads in vain. Rich, young, and beautiful, I have only to
love, and love would become my sole occupation, my life; yet in the
three months during which I have come and gone, eager and curious,
nothing has appealed to me in the bright, covetous, keen eyes around me.
No voice has thrilled me, no glance has made the world seem brighter.

Music alone has filled my soul, music alone has at all taken the place
of our friendship. Sometimes, at night, I will linger for an hour by
my window, gazing into the garden, summoning the future, with all it
brings, out of the mystery which shrouds it. There are days too when,
having started for a drive, I get out and walk in the Champs-Elysees,
and picture to myself that the man who is to waken my slumbering soul
is at hand, that he will follow and look at me. Then I meet only
mountebanks, vendors of gingerbread, jugglers, passers-by hurrying to
their business, or lovers who try to escape notice. These I am tempted
to stop, asking them, "You who are happy, tell me what is love."

But the impulse is repressed, and I return to my carriage, swearing
to die an old maid. Love is undoubtedly an incarnation, and how many
conditions are needful before it can take place! We are not certain of
never quarreling with ourselves, how much less so when there are two?
This is a problem which God alone can solve.

I begin to think that I shall return to the convent. If I remain in
society, I shall do things which will look like follies, for I cannot
possibly reconcile myself to what I see. I am perpetually wounded either
in my sense of delicacy, my inner principles, or my secret thoughts.

Ah! my mother is the happiest of women, adored as she is by Canalis,
her great little man. My love, do you know I am seized sometimes with a
horrible craving to know what goes on between my mother and that young
man? Griffith tells me she has gone through all these moods; she has
longed to fly at women, whose happiness was written in their face; she
has blackened their character, torn them to pieces. According to her,
virtue consists in burying all these savage instincts in one's innermost
heart. But what then of the heart? It becomes the sink of all that is
worst in us.

It is very humiliating that no adorer has yet turned up for me. I am
a marriageable girl, but I have brothers, a family, relations, who are
sensitive on the point of honor. Ah! if that is what keeps men back,
they are poltroons.

The part of Chimene in the _Cid_ and that of the Cid delight me. What a
marvelous play! Well, good-bye.




VIII. THE SAME TO THE SAME January.

Our master is a poor refugee, forced to keep in hiding on account of
the part he played in the revolution which the Duc d'Angouleme has
just quelled--a triumph to which we owe some splendid fetes. Though a
Liberal, and doubtless a man of the people, he has awakened my interest:
I fancy that he must have been condemned to death. I make him talk for
the purpose of getting at his secret; but he is of a truly Castilian
taciturnity, proud as though he were Gonsalvo di Cordova, and
nevertheless angelic in his patience and gentleness. His pride is not
irritable like Miss Griffith's, it belongs to his inner nature; he
forces us to civility because his own manners are so perfect, and holds
us at a distance by the respect he shows us. My father declares that
there is a great deal of the nobleman in Senor Henarez, whom, among
ourselves, he calls in fun Don Henarez.

A few days ago I took the liberty of addressing him thus. He raised his
eyes, which are generally bent on the ground, and flashed a look from
them that quite abashed me; my dear, he certainly has the most beautiful
eyes imaginable. I asked him if I had offended him in any way, and he
said to me in his grand, rolling Spanish:

"I am here only to teach you Spanish."

I blushed and felt quite snubbed. I was on the point of making some pert
answer, when I remembered what our dear mother in God used to say to us,
and I replied instead:

"It would be a kindness to tell me if you have anything to complain of."

A tremor passed through him, the blood rose in his olive cheeks; he
replied in a voice of some emotion:

"Religion must have taught you, better than I can, to respect the
unhappy. Had I been a _don_ in Spain, and lost everything in the triumph
of Ferdinand VII., your witticism would be unkind; but if I am only
a poor teacher of languages, is it not a heartless satire? Neither is
worthy of a young lady of rank."

I took his hand, saying:

"In the name of religion also, I beg you to pardon me."

He bowed, opened my _Don Quixote_, and sat down.

This little incident disturbed me more than the harvest of compliments,
gazing and pretty speeches on my most successful evening. During the
lesson I watched him attentively, which I could do the more safely, as
he never looks at me.

As the result of my observations, I made out that the tutor, whom we
took to be forty, is a young man, some years under thirty. My governess,
to whom I had handed him over, remarked on the beauty of his black hair
and of his pearly teeth. As to his eyes, they are velvet and fire; but
he is plain and insignificant. Though the Spaniards have been described
as not a cleanly people, this man is most carefully got up, and his
hands are whiter than his face. He stoops a little, and has an extremely
large, oddly-shaped head. His ugliness, which, however, has a dash of
piquancy, is aggravated by smallpox marks, which seam his face. His
forehead is very prominent, and the shaggy eyebrows meet, giving a
repellent air of harshness. There is a frowning, plaintive look on his
face, reminding one of a sickly child, which owes its life to superhuman
care, as Sister Marthe did. As my father observed, his features are a
shrunken reproduction of those of Cardinal Ximenes. The natural dignity
of our tutor's manners seems to disconcert the dear Duke, who doesn't
like him, and is never at ease with him; he can't bear to come in
contact with superiority of any kind.

As soon as my father knows enough Spanish, we start for Madrid. When
Henarez returned, two days after the reproof he had given me, I remarked
by way of showing my gratitude:

"I have no doubt that you left Spain in consequence of political events.
If my father is sent there, as seems to be expected, we shall be in a
position to help you, and might be able to obtain your pardon, in case
you are under sentence."

"It is impossible for any one to help me," he replied.

"But," I said, "is that because you refuse to accept any help, or
because the thing itself is impossible?"

"Both," he said, with a bow, and in a tone which forbade continuing the
subject.

My father's blood chafed in my veins. I was offended by this haughty
demeanor, and promptly dropped Senor Henarez.

All the same, my dear, there is something fine in this rejection of
any aid. "He would not accept even our friendship," I reflected, whilst
conjugating a verb. Suddenly I stopped short and told him what was in
my mind, but in Spanish. Henarez replied very politely that equality
of sentiment was necessary between friends, which did not exist in this
case, and therefore it was useless to consider the question.

"Do you mean equality in the amount of feeling on either side, or
equality in rank?" I persisted, determined to shake him out of this
provoking gravity.

He raised once more those awe-inspiring eyes, and mine fell before them.
Dear, this man is a hopeless enigma. He seemed to ask whether my words
meant love; and the mixture of joy, pride, and agonized doubt in his
glance went to my heart. It was plain that advances, which would be
taken for what they were worth in France, might land me in difficulties
with a Spaniard, and I drew back into my shell, feeling not a little
foolish.

The lesson over, he bowed, and his eyes were eloquent of the humble
prayer: "Don't trifle with a poor wretch."

This sudden contrast to his usual grave and dignified manner made a
great impression on me. It seems horrible to think and to say, but I
can't help believing that there are treasures of affection in that man.




IX. MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MLLE. DE CHAULIEU. December.

All is over, my dear child, and it is Mme. de l'Estorade who writes to
you. But between us there is no change; it is only a girl the less.

Don't be troubled; I did not give my consent recklessly or without much
thought. My life is henceforth mapped out for me, and the freedom
from all uncertainty as to the road for me to follow suits my mind and
disposition. A great moral power has stepped in, and once for all swept
what we call chance out of my life. We have the property to develop, our
home to beautify and adorn; for me there is also a household to direct
and sweeten and a husband to reconcile to life. In all probability I
shall have a family to look after, children to educate.

What would you have? Everyday life cannot be cast in heroic mould. No
doubt there seems, at any rate at first sight, no room left in this
scheme of life for that longing after the infinite which expands the
mind and soul. But what is there to prevent me from launching on that
boundless sea our familiar craft? Nor must you suppose that the humble
duties to which I dedicate my life give no scope for passion. To restore
faith in happiness to an unfortunate, who has been the sport of adverse
circumstances, is a noble work, and one which alone may suffice to
relieve the monotony of my existence. I can see no opening left for
suffering, and I see a great deal of good to be done. I need not hide
from you that the love I have for Louis de l'Estorade is not of the kind
which makes the heart throb at the sound of a step, and thrills us at
the lightest tones of a voice, or the caress of a burning glance; but,
on the other hand, there is nothing in him which offends me.

What am I to do, you will ask, with that instinct for all which is great
and noble, with those mental energies, which have made the link between
us, and which we still possess? I admit that this thought has troubled
me. But are these faculties less ours because we keep them concealed,
using them only in secret for the welfare of the family, as instruments
to produce the happiness of those confided to our care, to whom we are
bound to give ourselves without reserve? The time during which a woman
can look for admiration is short, it will soon be past; and if my life
has not been a great one, it will at least have been calm, tranquil,
free from shocks.

Nature has favored our sex in giving us a choice between love and
motherhood. I have made mine. My children shall be my gods, and this
spot of earth my Eldorado.

I can say no more to-day. Thank you much for all the things you have
sent me. Give a glance at my needs on the enclosed list. I am determined
to live in an atmosphere of refinement and luxury, and to take from
provincial life only what makes its charm. In solitude a woman can never
be vulgarized--she remains herself. I count greatly on your kindness for
keeping me up to the fashion. My father-in-law is so delighted that he
can refuse me nothing, and turns his house upside down. We are getting
workpeople from Paris and renovating everything.




X. MLLE. DE CHAULIEU TO MME. DE L'ESTORADE January.

Oh! Renee, you have made me miserable for days! So that bewitching body,
those beautiful proud features, that natural grace of manner, that soul
full of priceless gifts, those eyes, where the soul can slake its thirst
as at a fountain of love, that heart, with its exquisite delicacy,
that breadth of mind, those rare powers--fruit of nature and of
our interchange of thought--treasures whence should issue a unique
satisfaction for passion and desire, hours of poetry to outweigh years,
joys to make a man serve a lifetime for one gracious gesture,--all this
is to be buried in the tedium of a tame, commonplace marriage, to vanish
in the emptiness of an existence which you will come to loath! I hate
your children before they are born. They will be monsters!

So you know all that lies before you; you have nothing left to hope,
or fear, or suffer? And supposing the glorious morning rises which will
bring you face to face with the man destined to rouse you from the sleep
into which you are plunging!... Ah! a cold shiver goes through me at the
thought!

Well, at least you have a friend. You, it is understood, are to be the
guardian angel of your valley. You will grow familiar with its beauties,
will live with it in all its aspects, till the grandeur of nature,
the slow growth of vegetation, compared with the lightning rapidity of
thought, become like a part of yourself; and as your eye rests on
the laughing flowers, you will question your own heart. When you walk
between your husband, silent and contented, in front, and your children
screaming and romping behind, I can tell you beforehand what you
will write to me. Your misty valley, your hills, bare or clothed with
magnificent trees, your meadow, the wonder of Provence, with its
fresh water dispersed in little runlets, the different effects of the
atmosphere, this whole world of infinity which laps you round, and which
God has made so various, will recall to you the infinite sameness of
your soul's life. But at least I shall be there, my Renee, and in me you
will find a heart which no social pettiness shall ever corrupt, a heart
all your own.

Monday.

My dear, my Spaniard is quite adorably melancholy; there is something
calm, severe, manly, and mysterious about him which interests me
profoundly. His unvarying solemnity and the silence which envelops him
act like an irritant on the mind. His mute dignity is worthy of a fallen
king. Griffith and I spend our time over him as though he were a riddle.

How odd it is! A language-master captures my fancy as no other man has
done. Yet by this time I have passed in review all the young men of
family, the attaches to embassies, and the ambassadors, generals, and
inferior officers, the peers of France, their sons and nephews, the
court, and the town.

The coldness of the man provokes me. The sandy waste which he tries to
place, and does place, between us is covered by his deeprooted pride; he
wraps himself in mystery. The hanging back is on his side, the boldness
on mine. This odd situation affords me the more amusement because the
whole thing is mere trifling. What is a man, a Spaniard, and a teacher
of languages to me? I make no account of any man whatever, were he a
king. We are worth far more, I am sure, than the greatest of them. What
a slave I would have made of Napoleon! If he had loved me, shouldn't he
have felt the whip!

Yesterday I aimed a shaft at M. Henarez which must have touched him to
the quick. He made no reply; the lesson was over, and he bowed with a
glance at me, in which I read that he would never return. This suits
me capitally; there would be something ominous in starting an imitation
_Nouvelle Heloise_. I have just been reading Rousseau's, and it has left
me with a strong distaste for love. Passion which can argue and moralize
seems to me detestable.

Clarissa also is much too pleased with herself and her long, little
letter; but Richardson's work is an admirable picture, my father tells
me, of English women. Rousseau's seems to me a sort of philosophical
sermon, cast in the form of letters.

Love, as I conceive it, is a purely subjective poem. In all that books
tell us about it, there is nothing which is not at once false and true.
And so, my pretty one, as you will henceforth be an authority only on
conjugal love, it seems to me my duty--in the interest, of course, of
our common life--to remain unmarried, and have a grand passion, so that
we may enlarge our experience.

Tell me every detail of what happens to you, especially in the first
few days, with that strange animal called a husband. I promise to do the
same for you if ever I am loved.

Farewell, poor martyred darling.




XI. MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MLLE. DE CHAULIEU La Crampade.

Your Spaniard and you make me shudder, my darling. I write this line to
beg of you to dismiss him. All that you say of him corresponds with the
character of those dangerous adventurers who, having nothing to lose,
will take any risk. This man cannot be your husband, and must not be
your lover. I will write to you more fully about the inner history of my
married life when my heart is free from the anxiety your last letter has
roused in it.




XII. MLLE. DE CHAULIEU TO MME. DE L'ESTORADE February.

At nine o'clock this morning, sweetheart, my father was announced in my
rooms. I was up and dressed. I found him solemnly seated beside the fire
in the drawing-room, looking more thoughtful than usual. He pointed to
the armchair opposite to him. Divining his meaning, I sank into it
with a gravity, which so well aped his, that he could not refrain from
smiling, though the smile was dashed with melancholy.

"You are quite a match for your grandmother in quick-wittedness," he
said.

"Come, father, don't play the courtier here," I replied; "you want
something from me."

He rose, visibly agitated, and talked to me for half an hour. This
conversation, dear, really ought to be preserved. As soon as he had
gone, I sat down to my table and tried to recall his words. This is the
first time that I have seen my father revealing his inner thoughts.

He began by flattering me, and he did not do it badly. I was bound to be
grateful to him for having understood and appreciated me.

"Armande," he said, "I was quite mistaken in you, and you have agreeably
surprised me. When you arrived from the convent, I took you for an
average young girl, ignorant and not particularly intelligent, easily
to be bought off with gewgaws and ornaments, and with little turn for
reflection."

"You are complimentary to young girls, father."

"Oh! there is no such thing as youth nowadays," he said, with the air
of a diplomat. "Your mind is amazingly open. You take everything at
its proper worth; your clear-sightedness is extraordinary, there is no
hoodwinking you. You pass for being blind, and all the time you have
laid your hand on causes, while other people are still puzzling over
effects. In short, you are a minister in petticoats, the only person
here capable of understanding me. It follows, then, that if I have any
sacrifice to ask from you, it is only to yourself I can turn for help in
persuading you.

"I am therefore going to explain to you, quite frankly, my former plans,
to which I still adhere. In order to recommend them to you, I must show
that they are connected with feelings of a very high order, and I
shall thus be obliged to enter into political questions of the greatest
importance to the kingdom, which might be wearisome to any one less
intelligent than you are. When you have heard me, I hope you will take
time for consideration, six months if necessary. You are entirely your
own mistress; and if you decline to make the sacrifice I ask, I shall
bow to your decision and trouble you no further."

This preface, my sweetheart, made me really serious, and I said:

"Speak, father."

Here, then, is the deliverance of the statesman:

"My child, France is in a very critical position, which is understood
only by the King and a few superior minds. But the King is a head
without arms; the great nobles, who are in the secret of the danger,
have no authority over the men whose co-operation is needful in order
to bring about a happy result. These men, cast up by popular election,
refuse to lend themselves as instruments. Even the able men among them
carry on the work of pulling down society, instead of helping us to
strengthen the edifice.

"In a word, there are only two parties--the party of Marius and the
party of Sulla. I am for Sulla against Marius. This, roughly speaking,
is our position. To go more into details: the Revolution is still
active; it is embedded in the law and written on the soil; it fills
people's minds. The danger is all the greater because the greater number
of the King's counselors, seeing it destitute of armed forces and of
money, believe it completely vanquished. The King is an able man, and
not easily blinded; but from day to day he is won over by his brother's
partisans, who want to hurry things on. He has not two years to live,
and thinks more of a peaceful deathbed than of anything else.

"Shall I tell you, my child, which is the most destructive of all the
consequences entailed by the Revolution? You would never guess. In Louis
XVI. the Revolution has decapitated every head of a family. The family
has ceased to exist; we have only individuals. In their desire to become
a nation, Frenchmen have abandoned the idea of empire; in proclaiming
the equal rights of all children to their father's inheritance, they
have killed the family spirit and created the State treasury. But all
this has paved the way for weakened authority, for the blind force
of the masses, for the decay of art and the supremacy of individual
interests, and has left the road open to the foreign invader.

"We stand between two policies--either to found the State on the basis
of the family, or to rest it on individual interest--in other words,
between democracy and aristocracy, between free discussion and
obedience, between Catholicism and religious indifference. I am among
the few who are resolved to oppose what is called the people, and
that in the people's true interest. It is not now a question of feudal
rights, as fools are told, nor of rank; it is a question of the State
and of the existence of France. The country which does not rest on the
foundation of paternal authority cannot be stable. That is the foot of
the ladder of responsibility and subordination, which has for its summit
the King.

"The King stands for us all. To die for the King is to die for oneself,
for one's family, which, like the kingdom, cannot die. All animals have
certain instincts; the instinct of man is for family life. A country
is strong which consists of wealthy families, every member of whom is
interested in defending a common treasure; it is weak when composed of
scattered individuals, to whom it matters little whether they obey seven
or one, a Russian or a Corsican, so long as each keeps his own plot
of land, blind, in their wretched egotism, to the fact that the day is
coming when this too will be torn from them.

"Terrible calamities are in store for us, in case our party fails.
Nothing will be left but penal or fiscal laws--your money or your life.
The most generous nation on the earth will have ceased to obey the
call of noble instincts. Wounds past curing will have been fostered and
aggravated, an all pervading jealousy being the first. Then the upper
classes will be submerged; equality of desire will be taken for equality
of strength; true distinction, even when proved and recognized, will
be threatened by the advancing tide of middle-class prejudice. It
was possible to choose one man out of a thousand, but, amongst three
millions, discrimination becomes impossible, when all are moved by
the same ambitions and attired in the same livery of mediocrity. No
foresight will warn this victorious horde of that other terrible horde,
soon to be arrayed against them in the peasant proprietors; in other
words, twenty million acres of land, alive, stirring, arguing, deaf to
reason, insatiable of appetite, obstructing progress, masters in their
brute force----"

"But," said I, interrupting my father, "what can I do to help the State.
I feel no vocation for playing Joan of Arc in the interests of the
family, or for finding a martyr's block in the convent."

"You are a little hussy," cried my father. "If I speak sensibly to you,
you are full of jokes; when I jest, you talk like an ambassadress."

"Love lives on contrasts," was my reply.

And he laughed till the tears stood in his eyes.

"You will reflect on what I have told you; you will do justice to the
large and confiding spirit in which I have broached the matter, and
possibly events may assist my plans. I know that, so far as you are
concerned, they are injurious and unfair, and this is the reason why I
appeal for your sanction of them less to your heart and your imagination
than to your reason. I have found more judgment and commonsense in you
than in any one I know----"

"You flatter yourself," I said, with a smile, "for I am every inch your
child!"

"In short," he went on, "one must be logical. You can't have the end
without the means, and it is our duty to set an example to others. From
all this I deduce that you ought not to have money of your own till your
younger brother is provided for, and I want to employ the whole of your
inheritance in purchasing an estate for him to go with the title."

"But," I said, "you won't interfere with my living in my own fashion and
enjoying life if I leave you my fortune?"

"Provided," he replied, "that your view of life does not conflict with
the family honor, reputation, and, I may add, glory."

"Come, come," I cried, "what has become of my excellent judgment?"

"There is not in all France," he said with bitterness, "a man who would
take for wife a daughter of one of our noblest families without a dowry
and bestow one on her. If such a husband could be found, it would
be among the class of rich _parvenus_; on this point I belong to the
eleventh century."

"And I also," I said. "But why despair? Are there no aged peers?"

"You are an apt scholar, Louise!" he exclaimed.

Then he left me, smiling and kissing my hand.

I received your letter this very morning, and it led me to contemplate
that abyss into which you say that I may fall. A voice within seemed
to utter the same warning. So I took my precautions. Henarez, my dear,
dares to look at me, and his eyes are disquieting. They inspire me with
what I can only call an unreasoning dread. Such a man ought no more to
be looked at than a frog; he is ugly and fascinating.

For two days I have been hesitating whether to tell my father
point-blank that I want no more Spanish lessons and have Henarez sent
about his business. But in spite of all my brave resolutions, I feel
that the horrible sensation which comes over me when I see that man has
become necessary to me. I say to myself, "Once more, and then I will
speak."

His voice, my dear, is sweetly thrilling; his speaking is just like la
Fodor's singing. His manners are simple, entirely free from affectation.
And what teeth!

Just now, as he was leaving, he seemed to divine the interest I take
in him, and made a gesture--oh! most respectfully--as though to take my
hand and kiss it; then checked himself, apparently terrified at his own
boldness and the chasm he had been on the point of bridging. There was
the merest suggestion of all this, but I understood it and smiled, for
nothing is more pathetic than to see the frank impulse of an inferior
checking itself abashed. The love of a plebeian for a girl of noble
birth implies such courage!

My smile emboldened him. The poor fellow looked blindly about for his
hat; he seemed determined not to find it, and I handed it to him with
perfect gravity. His eyes were wet with unshed tears. It was a mere
passing moment, yet a world of facts and ideas were contained in it. We
understood each other so well that, on a sudden, I held out my hand for
him to kiss.

Possibly this was equivalent to telling him that love might bridge
the interval between us. Well, I cannot tell what moved me to do it.
Griffith had her back turned as I proudly extended my little white paw.
I felt the fire of his lips, tempered by two big tears. Oh! my love, I
lay in my armchair, nerveless, dreamy. I was happy, and I cannot
explain to you how or why. What I felt only a poet could express.
My condescension, which fills me with shame now, seemed to me then
something to be proud of; he had fascinated me, that is my one excuse.

Friday.

This man is really very handsome. He talks admirably, and has remarkable
intellectual power. My dear, he is a very Bossuet in force and
persuasiveness when he explains the mechanism, not only of the Spanish
tongue, but also of human thought and of all language. His mother tongue
seems to be French. When I expressed surprise at this, he replied that
he came to France when quite a boy, following the King of Spain to
Valencay.

What has passed within this enigmatic being? He is no longer the same
man. He came, dressed quite simply, but just as any gentleman would for
a morning walk. He put forth all his eloquence, and flashed wit, like
rays from a beacon, all through the lesson. Like a man roused from
lethargy, he revealed to me a new world of thoughts. He told me the
story of some poor devil of a valet who gave up his life for a single
glance from a queen of Spain.

"What could he do but die?" I exclaimed.

This delighted him, and he looked at me in a way which was truly
alarming.

In the evening I went to a ball at the Duchesse de Lenoncourt's. The
Prince de Talleyrand happened to be there; and I got M. de Vandenesse,
a charming young man, to ask him whether, among the guests at his
country-place in 1809, he remembered any one of the name of Henarez.
Vandenesse reported the Prince's reply, word for word, as follows:

"Henarez is the Moorish name of the Soria family, who are, they say,
descendants of the Abencerrages, converted to Christianity. The old Duke
and his two sons were with the King. The eldest, the present Duke de
Soria, has just had all his property, titles, and dignities confiscated
by King Ferdinand, who in this way avenges a long-standing feud. The
Duke made a huge mistake in consenting to form a constitutional ministry
with Valdez. Happily, he escaped from Cadiz before the arrival of the
Duc d'Angouleme, who, with the best will in the world, could not have
saved him from the King's wrath."

This information gave me much food for reflection. I cannot describe to
you the suspense in which I passed the time till my next lesson, which
took place this morning.

During the first quarter of an hour I examined him closely, debating
inwardly whether he were duke or commoner, without being able to come to
any conclusion. He seemed to read my fancies as they arose and to take
pleasure in thwarting them. At last I could endure it no longer. Putting
down my book suddenly, I broke off the translation I was making of it
aloud, and said to him in Spanish:

"You are deceiving us. You are no poor middle-class Liberal. You are the
Duke de Soria!"

"Mademoiselle," he replied, with a gesture of sorrow, "unhappily, I am
not the Duc de Soria."

I felt all the despair with which he uttered the word "unhappily." Ah!
my dear, never should I have conceived it possible to throw so much
meaning and passion into a single word. His eyes had dropped, and he
dared no longer look at me.

"M. de Talleyrand," I said, "in whose house you spent your years of
exile, declares that any one bearing the name of Henarez must either be
the late Duc de Soria or a lacquey."

He looked at me with eyes like two black burning coals, at once blazing
and ashamed. The man might have been in the torture-chamber. All he said
was:

"My father was in truth the servant of the King of Spain."

Griffith could make nothing of this sort of lesson. An awkward silence
followed each question and answer.

"In one word," I said, "are you a nobleman or not?"

"You know that in Spain even beggars are noble."

This reticence provoked me. Since the last lesson I had given play to my
imagination in a little practical joke. I had drawn an ideal portrait
of the man whom I should wish for my lover in a letter which I designed
giving to him to translate. So far, I had only put Spanish into French,
not French into Spanish; I pointed this out to him, and begged Griffith
to bring me the last letter I had received from a friend of mine.

"I shall find out," I thought, from the effect my sketch has on him,
"what sort of blood runs in his veins."

I took the paper from Griffith's hands, saying:

"Let me see if I have copied it rightly."

For it was all in my writing. I handed him the paper, or, if you will,
the snare, and I watched him while he read as follows:

"He who is to win my heart, my dear, must be harsh and unbending with
men, but gentle with women. His eagle eye must have power to quell with
a single glance the least approach to ridicule. He will have a pitying
smile for those who would jeer at sacred things, above all, at
that poetry of the heart, without which life would be but a dreary
commonplace. I have the greatest scorn for those who would rob us of
the living fountain of religious beliefs, so rich in solace. His faith,
therefore, should have the simplicity of a child, though united to the
firm conviction of an intelligent man, who has examined the foundations
of his creed. His fresh and original way of looking at things must be
entirely free from affectation or desire to show off. His words will
be few and fit, and his mind so richly stored, that he cannot possibly
become a bore to himself any more than to others.

"All his thoughts must have a high and chivalrous character, without
alloy of self-seeking; while his actions should be marked by a total
absence of interested or sordid motives. Any weak points he may have
will arise from the very elevation of his views above those of the
common herd, for in every respect I would have him superior to his age.
Ever mindful of the delicate attentions due to the weak, he will be
gentle to all women, but not prone lightly to fall in love with any; for
love will seem to him too serious to turn into a game.

"Thus it might happen that he would spend his life in ignorance of
true love, while all the time possessing those qualities most fitted
to inspire it. But if ever he find the ideal woman who has haunted his
waking dreams, if he meet with a nature capable of understanding his
own, one who could fill his soul and pour sunlight over his life, could
shine as a star through the mists of this chill and gloomy world, lend
fresh charm to existence, and draw music from the hitherto silent chords
of his being--needless to say, he would recognize and welcome his good
fortune.

"And she, too, would be happy. Never, by word or look, would he wound
the tender heart which abandoned itself to him, with the blind trust of
a child reposing in its mother's arms. For were the vision shattered, it
would be the wreck of her inner life. To the mighty waters of love she
would confide her all!

"The man I picture must belong, in expression, in attitude, in gait, in
his way of performing alike the smallest and the greatest actions, to
that race of the truly great who are always simple and natural. He need
not be good-looking, but his hands must be beautiful. His upper lip will
curl with a careless, ironic smile for the general public, whilst he
reserves for those he loves the heavenly, radiant glance in which he
puts his soul."

"Will mademoiselle allow me," he said in Spanish, in a voice full of
agitation, "to keep this writing in memory of her? This is the last
lesson I shall have the honor of giving her, and that which I have just
received in these words may serve me for an abiding rule of life. I
left Spain, a fugitive and penniless, but I have to-day received from
my family a sum sufficient for my needs. You will allow me to send some
poor Spaniard in my place."

In other words, he seemed to me to say, "This little game must stop." He
rose with an air of marvelous dignity, and left me quite upset by such
unheard-of delicacy in a man of his class. He went downstairs and asked
to speak with my father.

At dinner my father said to me with a smile:

"Louise, you have been learning Spanish from an ex-minister and a man
condemned to death."

"The Duc de Soria," I said.

"Duke!" replied my father. "No, he is not that any longer; he takes the
title now of Baron de Macumer from a property which still remains to him
in Sardinia. He is something of an original, I think."

"Don't brand with that word, which with you always implies some mockery
and scorn, a man who is your equal, and who, I believe, has a noble
nature."

"Baronne de Macumer?" exclaimed my father, with a laughing glance at me.

Pride kept my eyes fixed on the table.

"But," said my mother, "Henarez must have met the Spanish ambassador on
the steps?"

"Yes," replied my father, "the ambassador asked me if I was conspiring
against the King, his master; but he greeted the ex-grandee of Spain
with much deference, and placed his services at his disposal."

All this, dear, Mme. de l'Estorade, happened a fortnight ago, and it
is a fortnight now since I have seen the man who loves me, for that he
loves me there is not a doubt. What is he about? If only I were a fly,
or a mouse, or a sparrow! I want to see him alone, myself unseen, at his
house. Only think, a man exists, to whom I can say, "Go and die for me!"
And he is so made that he would go, at least I think so. Anyhow, there
is in Paris a man who occupies my thoughts, and whose glance pours
sunshine into my soul. Is not such a man an enemy, whom I ought to
trample under foot? What? There is a man who has become necessary to
me--a man without whom I don't know how to live! You married, and I--in
love! Four little months, and those two doves, whose wings erst bore
them so high, have fluttered down upon the flat stretches of real life!

Sunday.

Yesterday, at the Italian Opera, I could feel some one was looking at
me; my eyes were drawn, as by a magnet, to two wells of fire, gleaming
like carbuncles in a dim corner of the orchestra. Henarez never moved
his eyes from me. The wretch had discovered the one spot from which
he could see me--and there he was. I don't know what he may be as a
politician, but for love he has a genius.

  Behold, my fair Renee, where our business now stands,

as the great Corneille has said.




XIII. MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MLLE. DE CHAULIEU LA CRAMPADE, February.

My dear Louise,--I was bound to wait some time before writing to you;
but now I know, or rather I have learned, many things which, for the
sake of your future happiness, I must tell you. The difference between
a girl and a married woman is so vast, that the girl can no more
comprehend it than the married woman can go back to girlhood again.

I chose to marry Louis de l'Estorade rather than return to the convent;
that at least is plain. So soon as I realized that the convent was the
only alternative to marrying Louis, I had, as girls say, to "submit,"
and my submission once made, the next thing was to examine the situation
and try to make the best of it.

The serious nature of what I was undertaking filled me at first with
terror. Marriage is a matter concerning the whole of life, whilst love
aims only at pleasure. On the other hand, marriage will remain when
pleasures have vanished, and it is the source of interests far more
precious than those of the man and woman entering on the alliance. Might
it not therefore be that the only requisite for a happy marriage was
friendship--a friendship which, for the sake of these advantages, would
shut its eyes to many of the imperfections of humanity? Now there was
no obstacle to the existence of friendship between myself and Louis
de l'Estorade. Having renounced all idea of finding in marriage those
transports of love on which our minds used so often, and with such
perilous rapture, to dwell, I found a gentle calm settling over me.
"If debarred from love, why not seek for happiness?" I said to myself.
"Moreover, I am loved, and the love offered me I shall accept. My
married life will be no slavery, but rather a perpetual reign. What is
there to say against such a situation for a woman who wishes to remain
absolute mistress of herself?"

The important point of separating marriage from marital rights was
settled in a conversation between Louis and me, in the course of which
he gave proof of an excellent temper and a tender heart. Darling, my
desire was to prolong that fair season of hope which, never culminating
in satisfaction, leaves to the soul its virginity. To grant nothing
to duty or the law, to be guided entirely by one's own will, retaining
perfect independence--what could be more attractive, more honorable?

A contract of this kind, directly opposed to the legal contract, and
even to the sacrament itself, could be concluded only between Louis and
me. This difficulty, the first which has arisen, is the only one which
has delayed the completion of our marriage. Although, at first, I
may have made up my mind to accept anything rather than return to the
convent, it is only in human nature, having got an inch, to ask for an
ell, and you and I, sweet love, are of those who would have it all.

I watched Louis out of the corner of my eye, and put it to myself, "Has
suffering had a softening or a hardening effect on him?" By dint of
close study, I arrived at the conclusion that his love amounted to a
passion. Once transformed into an idol, whose slightest frown would turn
him white and trembling, I realized that I might venture anything. I
drew him aside in the most natural manner on solitary walks, during
which I discreetly sounded his feelings. I made him talk, and got him to
expound to me his ideas and plans for our future. My questions betrayed
so many preconceived notions, and went so straight for the weak points
in this terrible dual existence, that Louis has since confessed to me
the alarm it caused him to find in me so little of the ignorant maiden.

Then I listened to what he had to say in reply. He got mixed up in his
arguments, as people do when handicapped by fear; and before long it
became clear that chance had given me for adversary one who was the
less fitted for the contest because he was conscious of what you
magniloquently call my "greatness of soul." Broken by sufferings and
misfortune, he looked on himself as a sort of wreck, and three fears in
especial haunted him.

First, we are aged respectively thirty-seven and seventeen; and he could
not contemplate without quaking the twenty years that divide us. In the
next place, he shares our views on the subject of my beauty, and it is
cruel for him to see how the hardships of his life have robbed him
of youth. Finally, he felt the superiority of my womanhood over his
manhood. The consciousness of these three obvious drawbacks made him
distrustful of himself; he doubted his power to make me happy, and
guessed that he had been chosen as the lesser of two evils.

One evening he tentatively suggested that I only married him to escape
the convent.

"I cannot deny it," was my grave reply.

My dear, it touched me to the heart to see the two great tears which
stood in his eyes. Never before had I experienced the shock of emotion
which a man can impart to us.

"Louis," I went on, as kindly as I could, "it rests entirely with you
whether this marriage of convenience becomes one to which I can give
my whole heart. The favor I am about to ask from you will demand
unselfishness on your part, far nobler than the servitude to which a
man's love, when sincere, is supposed to reduce him. The question is,
Can you rise to the height of friendship such as I understand it?

"Life gives us but one friend, and I wish to be yours. Friendship is the
bond between a pair of kindred souls, united in their strength, and yet
independent. Let us be friends and comrades to bear jointly the burden
of life. Leave me absolutely free. I would put no hindrance in the
way of your inspiring me with a love similar to your own; but I am
determined to be yours only of my own free gift. Create in me the wish
to give up my freedom, and at once I lay it at your feet.

"Infuse with passion, then, if you will, this friendship, and let the
voice of love disturb its calm. On my part I will do what I can to bring
my feelings into accord with yours. One thing, above all, I would beg
of you. Spare me the annoyances to which the strangeness of our mutual
position might give rise to our relations with others. I am neither
whimsical nor prudish, and should be sorry to get that reputation; but
I feel sure that I can trust to your honor when I ask you to keep up the
outward appearance of wedded life."

Never, dear, have I seen a man so happy as my proposal made Louis. The
blaze of joy which kindled in his eyes dried up the tears.

"Do not fancy," I concluded, "that I ask this from any wish to be
eccentric. It is the great desire I have for your respect which prompts
my request. If you owe the crown of your love merely to the legal and
religious ceremony, what gratitude could you feel to me later for a
gift in which my goodwill counted for nothing? If during the time that I
remained indifferent to you (yielding only a passive obedience, such as
my mother has just been urging on me) a child were born to us, do you
suppose that I could feel towards it as I would towards one born of our
common love? A passionate love may not be necessary in marriage, but, at
least, you will admit that there should be no repugnance. Our position
will not be without its dangers; in a country life, such as ours will
be, ought we not to bear in mind the evanescent nature of passion? Is it
not simple prudence to make provision beforehand against the calamities
incident to change of feeling?"

He was greatly astonished to find me at once so reasonable and so apt at
reasoning; but he made me a solemn promise, after which I took his hand
and pressed it affectionately.

We were married at the end of the week. Secure of my freedom, I was able
to throw myself gaily into the petty details which always accompany a
ceremony of the kind, and to be my natural self. Perhaps I may have been
taken for an old bird, as they say at Blois. A young girl, delighted
with the novel and hopeful situation she had contrived to make for
herself, and may have passed for a strong-minded female.

Dear, the difficulties which would beset my life had appeared to
me clearly as in a vision, and I was sincerely anxious to make the
happiness of the man I married. Now, in the solitude of a life like
ours, marriage soon becomes intolerable unless the woman is the
presiding spirit. A woman in such a case needs the charm of a mistress,
combined with the solid qualities of a wife. To introduce an element
of uncertainty into pleasure is to prolong illusion, and render lasting
those selfish satisfactions which all creatures hold, and should shroud
a woman in expectancy, crown her sovereign, and invest her with an
exhaustless power, a redundancy of life, that makes everything blossom
around her. The more she is mistress of herself, the more certainly will
the love and happiness she creates be fit to weather the storms of life.

But, above all, I have insisted on the greatest secrecy in regard to
our domestic arrangements. A husband who submits to his wife's yoke
is justly held an object of ridicule. A woman's influence ought to be
entirely concealed. The charm of all we do lies in its unobtrusiveness.
If I have made it my task to raise a drooping courage and restore their
natural brightness to gifts which I have dimly descried, it must all
seem to spring from Louis himself.

Such is the mission to which I dedicate myself, a mission surely not
ignoble, and which might well satisfy a woman's ambition. Why, I could
glory in this secret which shall fill my life with interest, in this
task towards which my every energy shall be bent, while it remains
concealed from all but God and you.

I am very nearly happy now, but should I be so without a friendly heart
in which to pour the confession? For how make a confidant of him? My
happiness would wound him, and has to be concealed. He is sensitive as a
woman, like all men who have suffered much.

For three months we remained as we were before marriage. As you may
imagine, during this time I made a close study of many small personal
matters, which have more to do with love than is generally supposed. In
spite of my coldness, Louis grew bolder, and his nature expanded. I saw
on his face a new expression, a look of youth. The greater refinement
which I introduced into the house was reflected in his person.
Insensibly I became accustomed to his presence, and made another self
of him. By dint of constant watching I discovered how his mind and
countenance harmonize. "The animal that we call a husband," to quote
your words, disappeared, and one balmy evening I discovered in his stead
a lover, whose words thrilled me and on whose arm I leant with pleasure
beyond words. In short, to be open with you, as I would be with God,
before whom concealment is impossible, the perfect loyalty with which
he had kept his oath may have piqued me, and I felt a fluttering of
curiosity in my heart. Bitterly ashamed, I struggled with myself. Alas!
when pride is the only motive for resistance, excuses for capitulation
are soon found.

We celebrated our union in secret, and secret it must remain between us.
When you are married you will approve this reserve. Enough that nothing
was lacking either of satisfaction for the most fastidious sentiment, or
of that unexpectedness which brings, in a sense, its own sanction. Every
witchery of imagination, of passion, of reluctance overcome, of the
ideal passing into reality, played its part.

Yet, in spite of all this enchantment, I once more stood out for my
complete independence. I can't tell you all my reasons for this. To
you alone shall I confide even as much as this. I believe that women,
whether passionately loved or not, lose much in their relation with
their husbands by not concealing their feelings about marriage and the
way they look at it.

My one joy, and it is supreme, springs from the certainty of having
brought new life to my husband before I have borne him any children.
Louis has regained his youth, strength, and spirits. He is not the same
man. With magic touch I have effaced the very memory of his sufferings.
It is a complete metamorphosis. Louis is really very attractive now.
Feeling sure of my affection, he throws off his reserve and displays
unsuspected gifts.

To be the unceasing spring of happiness for a man who knows it and adds
gratitude to love, ah! dear one, this is a conviction which fortifies
the soul, even more than the most passionate love can do. The force
thus developed--at once impetuous and enduring, simple and
diversified--brings forth ultimately the family, that noble product of
womanhood, which I realize now in all its animating beauty.

The old father has ceased to be a miser. He gives blindly whatever I
wish for. The servants are content; it seems as though the bliss of
Louis had let a flood of sunshine into the household, where love has
made me queen. Even the old man would not be a blot upon my pretty home,
and has brought himself into line with all my improvements; to please me
he has adopted the dress, and with the dress, the manners of the day.

We have English horses, a coupe, a barouche, and a tilbury. The livery
of our servants is simple but in good taste. Of course we are looked
on as spendthrifts. I apply all my intellect (I am speaking quite
seriously) to managing my household with economy, and obtaining for it
the maximum of pleasure with the minimum of cost.

I have already convinced Louis of the necessity of getting roads made,
in order that he may earn the reputation of a man interested in the
welfare of his district. I insist too on his studying a great deal.
Before long I hope to see him a member of the Council General of the
Department, through the influence of my family and his mother's. I have
told him plainly that I am ambitious, and that I was very well pleased
his father should continue to look after the estate and practise
economies, because I wished him to devote himself exclusively to
politics. If we had children, I should like to see them all prosperous
and with good State appointments. Under penalty, therefore, of
forfeiting my esteem and affection, he must get himself chosen deputy
for the department at the coming elections; my family would support his
candidature, and we should then have the delight of spending all our
winters in Paris. Ah! my love, by the ardor with which he embraced my
plans, I can gauge the depth of his affection.

To conclude here is a letter he wrote me yesterday from Marseilles,
where he had gone to spend a few hours:

  "MY SWEET RENEE,--When you gave me permission to love you, I began
  to believe in happiness; now, I see it unfolding endlessly before
  me. The past is merely a dim memory, a shadowy background, without
  which my present bliss would show less radiant. When I am with
  you, love so transports me that I am powerless to express the
  depth of my affection; I can but worship and admire. Only at a
  distance does the power of speech return. You are supremely
  beautiful, Renee, and your beauty is of the statuesque and regal
  type, on which time leaves but little impression. No doubt the
  love of husband and wife depends less on outward beauty than on
  graces of character, which are yours also in perfection; still,
  let me say that the certainty of having your unchanging beauty, on
  which to feast my eyes, gives me a joy that grows with every
  glance. There is a grace and dignity in the lines of your face,
  expressive of the noble soul within, and breathing of purity
  beneath the vivid coloring. The brilliance of your dark eyes, the
  bold sweep of your forehead, declare a spirit of no common
  elevation, sound and trustworthy in every relation, and well
  braced to meet the storms of life, should such arise. The keynote
  of your character is its freedom from all pettiness. You do not
  need to be told all this; but I write it because I would have you
  know that I appreciate the treasure I possess. Your favors to me,
  however slight, will always make my happiness in the far-distant
  future as now; for I am sensible how much dignity there is in our
  promise to respect each other's liberty. Our own impulse shall
  with us alone dictate the expression of feeling. We shall be free
  even in our fetters. I shall have the more pride in wooing you
  again now that I know the reward you place on victory. You cannot
  speak, breathe, act, or think, without adding to the admiration I
  feel for your charm both of body and mind. There is in you a rare
  combination of the ideal, the practical, and the bewitching which
  satisfies alike judgment, a husband's pride, desire, and hope, and
  which extends the boundaries of love beyond those of life itself.
  Oh! my loved one, may the genius of love remain faithful to me,
  and the future be full of those delights by means of which you
  have glorified all that surrounds me! I long for the day which
  shall make you a mother, that I may see you content with the
  fulness of your life, may hear you, in the sweet voice I love and
  with the thoughts, bless the love which has refreshed my soul and
  given new vigor to my powers, the love which is my pride, and
  whence I have drawn, as from a magic fountain, fresh life. Yes, I
  shall be all that you would have me. I shall take a leading part
  in the public life of the district, and on you shall fall the rays
  of a glory which will owe its existence to the desire of pleasing
  you."

So much for my pupil, dear! Do you suppose he could have written like
this before? A year hence his style will have still further improved.
Louis is now in his first transport; what I look forward to is the
uniform and continuous sensation of content which ought to be the fruit
of a happy marriage, when a man and woman, in perfect trust and mutual
knowledge, have solved the problem of giving variety to the infinite.
This is the task set before every true wife; the answer begins to dawn
on me, and I shall not rest till I have made it mine.

You see that he fancies himself--vanity of men!--the chosen of my heart,
just as though there were no legal bonds. Nevertheless, I have not yet
got beyond that external attraction which gives us strength to put up
with a good deal. Yet Louis is lovable; his temper is wonderfully even,
and he performs, as a matter of course, acts on which most men would
plume themselves. In short, if I do not love him, I shall find no
difficulty in being good to him.

So here are my black hair and my black eyes--whose lashes act, according
to you, like Venetian blinds--my commanding air, and my whole person,
raised to the rank of sovereign power! Ten years hence, dear, why should
we not both be laughing and gay in your Paris, whence I shall carry you
off now and again to my beautiful oasis in Provence?

Oh! Louise, don't spoil the splendid future which awaits us both! Don't
do the mad things with which you threaten me. My husband is a young man,
prematurely old; why don't you marry some young-hearted graybeard in the
Chamber of Peers? There lies your vocation.




XIV. THE DUC DE SORIA TO THE BARON DE MACUMER MADRID.

MY DEAR BROTHER,--You did not make me Duc de Soria in order that my
actions should belie the name. How could I tolerate my happiness if
I knew you to be a wanderer, deprived of the comforts which wealth
everywhere commands? Neither Marie nor I will consent to marry till we
hear that you have accepted the money which Urraca will hand over to
you. These two millions are the fruit of your own savings and Marie's.

We have both prayed, kneeling before the same altar--and with what
earnestness, God knows!--for your happiness. My dear brother, it cannot
be that these prayers will remain unanswered. Heaven will send you the
love which you seek, to be the consolation of your exile. Marie read
your letter with tears, and is full of admiration for you. As for me,
I consent, not for my own sake, but for that of the family. The King
justified your expectations. Oh! that I might avenge you by letting him
see himself, dwarfed before the scorn with which you flung him his toy,
as you might toss a tiger its food.

The only thing I have taken for myself, dear brother, is my happiness.
I have taken Marie. For this I shall always be beholden to you, as the
creature to the Creator. There will be in my life and in Marie's one day
not less glorious than our wedding day--it will be the day when we hear
that your heart has found its mate, that a woman loves you as you ought
to be, and would be, loved. Do not forget that if you live for us, we
also live for you.

You can write to us with perfect confidence under cover to the Nuncio,
sending your letters _via_ Rome. The French ambassador at Rome will,
no doubt, undertake to forward them to Monsignore Bemboni, at the State
Secretary's office, whom our legate will have advised. No other way
would be safe. Farewell, dear exile, dear despoiled one. Be proud at
least of the happiness which you have brought to us, if you cannot be
happy in it. God will doubtless hear our prayers, which are full of your
name.




XV. LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO MME. DE L'ESTORADE March.

Ah! my love, marriage is making a philosopher of you! Your darling face
must, indeed, have been jaundiced when you wrote me those terrible views
of human life and the duty of women. Do you fancy you will convert me to
matrimony by your programme of subterranean labors?

Alas! is this then the outcome for you of our too-instructed dreams! We
left Blois all innocent, armed with the pointed shafts of meditation,
and, lo! the weapons of that purely ideal experience have turned against
your own breast! If I did not know you for the purest and most angelic
of created beings, I declare I should say that your calculations smack
of vice. What, my dear, in the interest of your country home, you submit
your pleasures to a periodic thinning, as you do your timber. Oh! rather
let me perish in all the violence of the heart's storms than live in the
arid atmosphere of your cautious arithmetic!

As girls, we were both unusually enlightened, because of the large
amount of study we gave to our chosen subjects; but, my child,
philosophy without love, or disguised under a sham love, is the most
hideous of conjugal hypocrisies. I should imagine that even the biggest
of fools might detect now and again the owl of wisdom squatting in your
bower of roses--a ghastly phantom sufficient to put to flight the most
promising of passions. You make your own fate, instead of waiting, a
plaything in its hands.

We are each developing in strange ways. A large dose of philosophy to
a grain of love is your recipe; a large dose of love to a grain of
philosophy is mine. Why, Rousseau's Julie, whom I thought so learned, is
a mere beginner to you. Woman's virtue, quotha! How you have weighed up
life! Alas! I make fun of you, and, after all, perhaps you are right.

In one day you have made a holocaust of your youth and become a miser
before your time. Your Louis will be happy, I daresay. If he loves you,
of which I make no doubt, he will never find out, that, for the sake of
your family, you are acting as a courtesan does for money; and certainly
men seem to find happiness with them, judging by the fortunes they
squander thus. A keen-sighted husband might no doubt remain in love
with you, but what sort of gratitude could he feel in the long run for a
woman who had made of duplicity a sort of moral armor, as indispensable
as her stays?

Love, dear, is in my eyes the first principle of all the virtues,
conformed to the divine likeness. Like all other first principles, it is
not a matter of arithmetic; it is the Infinite in us. I cannot but think
you have been trying to justify in your own eyes the frightful position
of a girl, married to a man for whom she feels nothing more than esteem.
You prate of duty, and make it your rule and measure; but surely to take
necessity as the spring of action is the moral theory of atheism?
To follow the impulse of love and feeling is the secret law of every
woman's heart. You are acting a man's part, and your Louis will have to
play the woman!

Oh! my dear, your letter has plunged me into an endless train of
thought. I see now that the convent can never take the place of mother
to a girl. I beg of you, my grand angel with the black eyes, so pure
and proud, so serious and so pretty, do not turn away from these cries,
which the first reading of your letter has torn from me! I have taken
comfort in the thought that, while I was lamenting, love was doubtless
busy knocking down the scaffolding of reason.

It may be that I shall do worse than you without any reasoning or
calculations. Passion is an element in life bound to have a logic not
less pitiless than yours.

Monday.

Yesterday night I placed myself at the window as I was going to bed, to
look at the sky, which was wonderfully clear. The stars were like silver
nails, holding up a veil of blue. In the silence of the night I could
hear some one breathing, and by the half-light of the stars I saw my
Spaniard, perched like a squirrel on the branches of one of the trees
lining the boulevard, and doubtless lost in admiration of my windows.

The first effect of this discovery was to make me withdraw into the
room, my feet and hands quite limp and nerveless; but, beneath the fear,
I was conscious of a delicious undercurrent of joy. I was overpowered
but happy. Not one of those clever Frenchmen, who aspire to marry me,
has had the brilliant idea of spending the night in an elm-tree at the
risk of being carried off by the watch. My Spaniard has, no doubt, been
there for some time. Ah! he won't give me any more lessons, he wants to
receive them--well, he shall have one. If only he knew what I said to
myself about his superficial ugliness! Others can philosophize besides
you, Renee! It was horrid, I argued, to fall in love with a handsome
man. Is it not practically avowing that the senses count for three parts
out of four in a passion which ought to be super-sensual?

Having got over my first alarm, I craned my neck behind the window in
order to see him again--and well was I rewarded! By means of a hollow
cane he blew me in through the window a letter, cunningly rolled round a
leaden pellet.

Good Heavens! will he suppose I left the window open on purpose?

But what was to be done? To shut it suddenly would be to make oneself an
accomplice.

I did better. I returned to my window as though I had seen nothing and
heard nothing of the letter, then I said aloud:

"Come and look at the stars, Griffith."

Griffith was sleeping as only old maids can. But the Moor, hearing me,
slid down, and vanished with ghostly rapidity.

He must have been dying of fright, and so was I, for I did not hear him
go away; apparently he remained at the foot of the elm. After a good
quarter of an hour, during which I lost myself in contemplation of the
heavens, and battled with the waves of curiosity, I closed my widow and
sat down on the bed to unfold the delicate bit of paper, with the tender
touch of a worker amongst the ancient manuscripts at Naples. It felt
redhot to my fingers. "What a horrible power this man has over me!" I
said to myself.

All at once I held out the paper to the candle--I would burn it without
reading a word. Then a thought stayed me, "What can he have to say that
he writes so secretly?" Well, dear, I _did_ burn it, reflecting that,
though any other girl in the world would have devoured the letter, it
was not fitting that I--Armande-Louise-Marie de Chaulieu--should read
it.

The next day, at the Italian opera, he was at his post. But I feel sure
that, ex-prime minister of a constitutional government though he is, he
could not discover the slightest agitation of mind in any movement of
mine. I might have seen nothing and received nothing the evening before.
This was most satisfactory to me, but he looked very sad. Poor man! in
Spain it is so natural for love to come in at the window!

During the interval, it seems, he came and walked in the passages. This
I learned from the chief secretary of the Spanish embassy, who also told
the story of a noble action of his.

As Duc de Soria he was to marry one of the richest heiresses in Spain,
the young princess Marie Heredia, whose wealth would have mitigated the
bitterness of exile. But it seems that Marie, disappointing the wishes
of the fathers, who had betrothed them in their earliest childhood,
loved the younger son of the house of Soria, to whom my Felipe, gave her
up. Allowing himself to be despoiled by the King of Spain.

"He would perform this piece of heroism quite simply," I said to the
young man.

"You know him then?" was his ingenuous reply.

My mother smiled.

"What will become of him, for he is condemned to death?" I asked.

"Though dead to Spain, he can live in Sardinia."

"Ah! then Spain is the country of tombs as well as castles?" I said,
trying to carry it off as a joke.

"There is everything in Spain, even Spaniards of the old school," my
mother replied.

"The Baron de Macumer obtained a passport, not without difficulty, from
the King of Sardinia," the young diplomatist went on. "He has now become
a Sardinian subject, and he possesses a magnificent estate in the island
with full feudal rights. He has a palace at Sassari. If Ferdinand VII.
were to die, Macumer would probably go in for diplomacy, and the Court
of Turin would make him ambassador. Though young, he is--"

"Ah! he is young?"

"Certainly, mademoiselle... though young, he is one of the most
distinguished men in Spain."

I scanned the house meanwhile through my opera-glass, and seemed to
lend an inattentive ear to the secretary; but, between ourselves, I was
wretched at having burnt his letter. In what terms would a man like that
express his love? For he does love me. To be loved, adored in secret;
to know that in this house, where all the great men of Paris were
collected, there was one entirely devoted to me, unknown to everybody!
Ah! Renee, now I understand the life of Paris, its balls, and its
gaieties. It all flashed on me in the true light. When we love, we
must have society, were it only to sacrifice it to our love. I felt
a different creature--and such a happy one! My vanity, pride,
self-love,--all were flattered. Heaven knows what glances I cast upon
the audience!

"Little rogue!" the Duchess whispered in my ear with a smile.

Yes, Renee, my wily mother had deciphered the hidden joy in my bearing,
and I could only haul down my flag before such feminine strategy. Those
two words taught me more of worldly wisdom than I have been able to pick
up in a year--for we are in March now. Alas! no more Italian opera in
another month. How will life be possible without that heavenly music,
when one's heart is full of love?

When I got home, my dear, with determination worthy of a Chaulieu, I
opened my window to watch a shower of rain. Oh! if men knew the magic
spell that a heroic action throws over us, they would indeed rise to
greatness! a poltroon would turn hero! What I had learned about my
Spaniard drove me into a very fever. I felt certain that he was there,
ready to aim another letter at me.

I was right, and this time I burnt nothing. Here, then, is the first
love-letter I have received, madame logician: each to her kind:--

  "Louise, it is not for your peerless beauty I love you, nor for
  your gifted mind, your noble feeling, the wondrous charm of all
  you say and do, nor yet for your pride, your queenly scorn of
  baser mortals--a pride blent in you with charity, for what angel
  could be more tender?--Louise, I love you because, for the sake of
  a poor exile, you have unbent this lofty majesty, because by a
  gesture, a glance, you have brought consolation to a man so far
  beneath you that the utmost he could hope for was your pity, the
  pity of a generous heart. You are the one woman whose eyes have
  shone with a tenderer light when bent on me.

  "And because you let fall this glance--a mere grain of dust, yet a
  grace surpassing any bestowed on me when I stood at the summit of
  a subject's ambition--I long to tell you, Louise, how dear you are
  to me, and that my love is for yourself alone, without a thought
  beyond, a love that far more than fulfils the conditions laid down
  by you for an ideal passion.

  "Know, then, idol of my highest heaven, that there is in the world
  an offshoot of the Saracen race, whose life is in your hands, who
  will receive your orders as a slave, and deem it an honor to
  execute them. I have given myself to you absolutely and for the
  mere joy of giving, for a single glance of your eye, for a touch
  of the hand which one day you offered to your Spanish master. I am
  but your servitor, Louise; I claim no more.

  "No, I dare not think that I could ever be loved; but perchance my
  devotion may win for me toleration. Since that morning when you
  smiled upon me with generous girlish impulse, divining the misery
  of my lonely and rejected heart, you reign there alone. You are
  the absolute ruler of my life, the queen of my thoughts, the god
  of my heart; I find you in the sunshine of my home, the fragrance
  of my flowers, the balm of the air I breathe, the pulsing of my
  blood, the light that visits me in sleep.

  "One thought alone troubled this happiness--your ignorance. All
  unknown to you was this boundless devotion, the trusty arm, the
  blind slave, the silent tool, the wealth--for henceforth all I
  possess is mine only as a trust--which lay at your disposal;
  unknown to you, the heart waiting to receive your confidence, and
  yearning to replace all that your life (I know it well) has lacked
  --the liberal ancestress, so ready to meet your needs, a father to
  whom you could look for protection in every difficulty, a friend,
  a brother. The secret of your isolation is no secret to me! If I
  am bold, it is because I long that you should know how much is
  yours.

  "Take all, Louise, and is so doing bestow on me the one life
  possible for me in this world--the life of devotion. In placing
  the yoke on my neck, you run no risk; I ask nothing but the joy of
  knowing myself yours. Needless even to say you will never love me;
  it cannot be otherwise. I must love you from afar, without hope,
  without reward beyond my own love.

  "In my anxiety to know whether you will accept me as your servant,
  I have racked my brain to find some way in which you may
  communicate with me without any danger of compromising yourself.
  Injury to your self-respect there can be none in sanctioning a
  devotion which has been yours for many days without your
  knowledge. Let this, then, be the token. At the opera this
  evening, if you carry in your hand a bouquet consisting of one red
  and one white camellia--emblem of a man's blood at the service of
  the purity he worships--that will be my answer. I ask no more;
  thenceforth, at any moment, ten years hence or to-morrow, whatever
  you demand shall be done, so far as it is possible for man to do
  it, by your happy servant,

  "FELIPE HENAREZ."

_P. S._--You must admit, dear, that great lords know how to love! See
the spring of the African lion! What restrained fire! What loyalty! What
sincerity! How high a soul in low estate! I felt quite small and dazed
as I said to myself, "What shall I do?"

It is the mark of a great man that he puts to flight all ordinary
calculations. He is at once sublime and touching, childlike and of the
race of giants. In a single letter Henarez has outstripped volumes from
Lovelace or Saint-Preux. Here is true love, no beating about the bush.
Love may be or it may not, but where it is, it ought to reveal itself in
its immensity.

Here am I, shorn of all my little arts! To refuse or accept! That is the
alternative boldly presented me, without the ghost of an opening for a
middle course. No fencing allowed! This is no longer Paris; we are in
the heart of Spain or the far East. It is the voice of Abencerrage,
and it is the scimitar, the horse, and the head of Abencerrage which
he offers, prostrate before a Catholic Eve! Shall I accept this last
descendant of the Moors? Read again and again his Hispano-Saracenic
letter, Renee dear, and you will see how love makes a clean sweep of all
the Judaic bargains of your philosophy.

Renee, your letter lies heavy on my heart; you have vulgarized life for
me. What need have I for finessing? Am I not mistress for all time of
this lion whose roar dies out in plaintive and adoring sighs? Ah! how he
must have raged in his lair of the Rue Hillerin-Bertin! I know where he
lives, I have his card: _F., Baron de Macumer_.

He has made it impossible for me to reply. All I can do is to fling
two camellias in his face. What fiendish arts does love possess--pure,
honest, simple-minded love! Here is the most tremendous crisis of a
woman's heart resolved into an easy, simple action. Oh, Asia! I have
read the _Arabian Nights_, here is their very essence: two flowers,
and the question is settled. We clear the fourteen volumes of _Clarissa
Harlowe_ with a bouquet. I writhe before this letter, like a thread in
the fire. To take, or not to take, my two camellias. Yes or No, kill or
give life! At last a voice cries to me, "Test him!" And I will test him.




XVI. THE SAME TO THE SAME March.

I am dressed in white--white camellias in my hair, and another in my
hand. My mother has red camellias; so it would not be impossible to
take one from her--if I wished! I have a strange longing to put off the
decision to the last moment, and make him pay for his red camellia by a
little suspense.

What a vision of beauty! Griffith begged me to stop for a little and
be admired. The solemn crisis of the evening and the drama of my secret
reply have given me a color; on each cheek I sport a red camellia laid
upon a white!

1 A. M.

Everybody admired me, but only one adored. He hung his head as I entered
with a white camellia, but turned pale as the flower when, later, I took
a red one from my mother's hand. To arrive with the two flowers might
possibly have been accidental; but this deliberate action was a reply.
My confession, therefore, is fuller than it need have been.

The opera was _Romeo and Juliet_. As you don't know the duet of the two
lovers, you can't understand the bliss of two neophytes in love, as they
listen to this divine outpouring of the heart.

On returning home I went to bed, but only to count the steps which
resounded on the sidewalk. My heart and head, darling, are all on fire
now. What is he doing? What is he thinking of? Has he a thought, a
single thought, that is not of me? Is he, in very truth, the devoted
slave he painted himself? How to be sure? Or, again, has it ever entered
his head that, if I accept him, I lay myself open to the shadow of a
reproach or am in any sense rewarding or thanking him? I am harrowed by
the hair-splitting casuistry of the heroines in _Cyrus_ and _Astraea_,
by all the subtle arguments of the court of love.

Has he any idea that, in affairs of love, a woman's most trifling
actions are but the issue of long brooding and inner conflicts, of
victories won only to be lost! What are his thoughts at this moment? How
can I give him my orders to write every evening the particulars of the
day just gone? He is my slave whom I ought to keep busy. I shall deluge
him with work!

Sunday Morning.

Only towards morning did I sleep a little. It is midday now. I have just
got Griffith to write the following letter:

  "_To the Baron de Macumer_.

  "Mademoiselle de Chaulieu begs me, Monsieur le Baron, to ask you
  to return to her the copy of a letter written to her by a friend,
  which is in her own handwriting, and which you carried away.--
  Believe me, etc.,

  "GRIFFITH."

My dear, Griffith has gone out; she has gone to the Rue Hillerin-Bertin;
she had handed in this little love-letter for my slave, who returned to
me in an envelope my sweet portrait, stained with tears. He has obeyed.
Oh! my sweet, it must have been dear to him! Another man would have
refused to send it in a letter full of flattery; but the Saracen has
fulfilled his promises. He has obeyed. It moves me to tears.




XVII. THE SAME TO THE SAME April 2nd.

Yesterday the weather was splendid. I dressed myself like a girl who
wants to look her best in her sweetheart's eyes. My father, yielding
to my entreaties, has given me the prettiest turnout in Paris--two
dapple-gray horses and a barouche, which is a masterpiece of elegance.
I was making a first trial of this, and peeped out like a flower from
under my sunshade lined with white silk.

As I drove up the avenue of the Champs-Elysees, I saw my Abencerrage
approaching on an extraordinarily beautiful horse. Almost every man
nowadays is a finished jockey, and they all stopped to admire and
inspect it. He bowed to me, and on receiving a friendly sign of
encouragement, slackened his horse's pace so that I was able to say to
him:

"You are not vexed with me for asking for my letter; it was no use to
you." Then in a lower voice, "You have already transcended the ideal.
... Your horse makes you an object of general interest," I went on
aloud.

"My steward in Sardinia sent it to me. He is very proud of it; for this
horse, which is of Arab blood, was born in my stables."

This morning, my dear, Henarez was on an English sorrel, also very fine,
but not such as to attract attention. My light, mocking words had done
their work. He bowed to me and I replied with a slight inclination of
the head.

The Duc d'Angouleme has bought Macumer's horse. My slave understood that
he was deserting the role of simplicity by attracting the notice of the
crowd. A man ought to be remarked for what he is, not for his horse, or
anything else belonging to him. To have too beautiful a horse seems to
me a piece of bad taste, just as much as wearing a huge diamond pin. I
was delighted at being able to find fault with him. Perhaps there may
have been a touch of vanity in what he did, very excusable in a poor
exile, and I like to see this childishness.

Oh! my dear old preacher, do my love affairs amuse you as much as
your dismal philosophy gives me the creeps? Dear Philip the Second in
petticoats, are you comfortable in my barouche? Do you see those velvet
eyes, humble, yet so eloquent, and glorying in their servitude, which
flash on me as some one goes by? He is a hero, Renee, and he wears my
livery, and always a red camellia in his buttonhole, while I have always
a white one in my hand.

How clear everything becomes in the light of love! How well I know my
Paris now! It is all transfused with meaning. And love here is lovelier,
grander, more bewitching than elsewhere.

I am convinced now that I could never flirt with a fool or make any
impression on him. It is only men of real distinction who can enter into
our feelings and feel our influence. Oh! my poor friend, forgive me. I
forgot our l'Estorade. But didn't you tell me you were going to make a
genius of him? I know what that means. You will dry nurse him till some
day he is able to understand you.

Good-bye. I am a little off my head, and must stop.




XVIII. MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU April.

My angel--or ought I not rather to say my imp of evil?--you have,
without meaning it, grieved me sorely. I would say wounded were we not
one soul. And yet it is possible to wound oneself.

How plain it is that you have never realized the force of the word
_indissoluble_ as applied to the contract binding man and woman! I
have no wish to controvert what has been laid down by philosophers or
legislators--they are quite capable of doing this for themselves--but,
dear one, in making marriage irrevocable and imposing on it a relentless
formula, which admits of no exceptions, they have rendered each union
a thing as distinct as one individual is from another. Each has its
own inner laws which differ from those of others. The laws regulating
married life in the country, for instance, cannot be the same as those
regulating a household in town, where frequent distractions give variety
to life. Or conversely, married life in Paris, where existence is one
perpetual whirl, must demand different treatment from the more peaceful
home in the provinces.

But if place alters the conditions of marriage, much more does
character. The wife of a man born to be a leader need only resign
herself to his guidance; whereas the wife of a fool, conscious of
superior power, is bound to take the reins in her own hand if she would
avert calamity.

You speak of vice; and it is possible that, after all, reason and
reflection produce a result not dissimilar from what we call by that
name. For what does a woman mean by it but perversion of feeling through
calculation? Passion is vicious when it reasons, admirable only when it
springs from the heart and spends itself in sublime impulses that set
at naught all selfish considerations. Sooner or later, dear one, you too
will say, "Yes! dissimulation is the necessary armor of a woman, if by
dissimulation be meant courage to bear in silence, prudence to foresee
the future."

Every married woman learns to her cost the existence of certain social
laws, which, in many respects, conflict with the laws of nature.
Marrying at our age, it would be possible to have a dozen children. What
is this but another name for a dozen crimes, a dozen misfortunes? It
would be handing over to poverty and despair twelve innocent darlings;
whereas two children would mean the happiness of both, a double
blessing, two lives capable of developing in harmony with the customs
and laws of our time. The natural law and the code are in hostility,
and we are the battle ground. Would you give the name of vice to the
prudence of the wife who guards her family from destruction through its
own acts? One calculation or a thousand, what matter, if the decision no
longer rests with the heart?

And of this terrible calculation you will be guilty some day, my noble
Baronne de Macumer, when you are the proud and happy wife of the man who
adores you; or rather, being a man of sense, he will spare you by making
it himself. (You see, dear dreamer, that I have studied the code in its
bearings on conjugal relations.) And when at last that day comes, you
will understand that we are answerable only to God and to ourselves for
the means we employ to keep happiness alight in the heart of our homes.
Far better is the calculation which succeeds in this than the reckless
passion which introduces trouble, heart-burnings, and dissension.

I have reflected painfully on the duties of a wife and mother of a
family. Yes, sweet one, it is only by a sublime hypocrisy that we can
attain the noblest ideal of a perfect woman. You tax me with insincerity
because I dole out to Louis, from day to day, the measure of his
intimacy with me; but is it not too close an intimacy which provokes
rupture? My aim is to give him, in the very interest of his happiness,
many occupations, which will all serve as distractions to his love; and
this is not the reasoning of passion. If affection be inexhaustible,
it is not so with love: the task, therefore, of a woman--truly no light
one--is to spread it out thriftily over a lifetime.

At the risk of exciting your disgust, I must tell you that I persist in
the principles I have adopted, and hold myself both heroic and generous
in so doing. Virtue, my pet, is an abstract idea, varying in
its manifestations with the surroundings. Virtue in Provence, in
Constantinople, in London, and in Paris bears very different fruit, but
is none the less virtue. Each human life is a substance compacted of
widely dissimilar elements, though, viewed from a certain height, the
general effect is the same.

If I wished to make Louis unhappy and to bring about a separation, all
I need do is to leave the helm in his hands. I have not had your good
fortune in meeting with a man of the highest distinction, but I may
perhaps have the satisfaction of helping him on the road to it. Five
years hence let us meet in Paris and see! I believe we shall succeed
in mystifying you. You will tell me then that I was quite mistaken, and
that M. de l'Estorade is a man of great natural gifts.

As for this brave love, of which I know only what you tell me, these
tremors and night watches by starlight on the balcony, this idolatrous
worship, this deification of woman--I knew it was not for me. You can
enlarge the borders of your brilliant life as you please; mine is hemmed
in to the boundaries of La Crampade.

And you reproach me for the jealous care which alone can nurse this
modest and fragile shoot into a wealth of lasting and mysterious
happiness! I believed myself to have found out how to adapt the charm of
a mistress to the position of a wife, and you have almost made me blush
for my device. Who shall say which of us is right, which is wrong?
Perhaps we are both right and both wrong. Perhaps this is the heavy
price which society exacts for our furbelows, our titles, and our
children.

I too have my red camellias, but they bloom on my lips in smiles for my
double charge--the father and the son--whose slave and mistress I am.
But, my dear, your last letters made me feel what I have lost! You have
taught me all a woman sacrifices in marrying. One single glance did
I take at those beautiful wild plateaus where you range at your sweet
will, and I will not tell you the tears that fell as I read. But regret
is not remorse, though it may be first cousin to it.

You say, "Marriage has made you a philosopher!" Alas! bitterly did I
feel how far this was from the truth, as I wept to think of you swept
away on love's torrent. But my father has made me read one of the
profoundest thinkers of these parts, the man on whom the mantle of
Boussuet has fallen, one of those hard-headed theorists whose words
force conviction. While you were reading _Corinne_, I conned Bonald; and
here is the whole secret of my philosophy. He revealed to me the Family
in its strength and holiness. According to Bonald, your father was right
in his homily.

Farewell, my dear fancy, my friend, my wild other self.




XIX. LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO MME. DE L'ESTORADE

Well, my Renee, you are a love of a woman, and I quite agree now that we
can only be virtuous by cheating. Will that satisfy you? Moreover, the
man who loves us is our property; we can make a fool or a genius of him
as we please; only, between ourselves, the former happens more commonly.
You will make yours a genius, and you won't tell the secret--there are
two heroic actions, if you will!

Ah! if there were no future life, how nicely you would be sold, for this
is martyrdom into which you are plunging of your own accord. You want to
make him ambitious and to keep him in love! Child that you are, surely
the last alone is sufficient.

Tell me, to what point is calculation a virtue, or virtue calculation?
You won't say? Well, we won't quarrel over that, since we have Bonald to
refer to. We are, and intend to remain, virtuous; nevertheless at this
moment I believe that you, with all your pretty little knavery, are a
better woman than I am.

Yes, I am shockingly deceitful. I love Felipe, and I conceal it from him
with an odious hypocrisy. I long to see him leap from his tree to the
top of the wall, and from the wall to my balcony--and if he did, how I
should wither him with my scorn! You see, I am frank enough with you.

What restrains me? Where is the mysterious power which prevents me from
telling Felipe, dear fellow, how supremely happy he has made me by
the outpouring of his love--so pure, so absolute, so boundless, so
unobtrusive, and so overflowing?

Mme. de Mirbel is painting my portrait, and I intend to give it to him,
my dear. What surprises me more and more every day is the animation
which love puts into life. How full of interest is every hour, every
action, every trifle! and what amazing confusion between the past, the
future, and the present! One lives in three tenses at once. Is it still
so after the heights of happiness are reached? Oh! tell me, I implore
you, what is happiness? Does it soothe, or does it excite? I am horribly
restless; I seem to have lost all my bearings; a force in my heart drags
me to him, spite of reason and spite of propriety. There is this gain,
that I am better able to enter into your feelings.

Felipe's happiness consists in feeling himself mine; the aloofness of
his love, his strict obedience, irritate me, just as his attitude of
profound respect provoked me when he was only my Spanish master. I am
tempted to cry out to him as he passes, "Fool, if you love me so much as
a picture, what will it be when you know the real me?"

Oh! Renee, you burn my letters, don't you? I will burn yours. If other
eyes than ours were to read these thoughts which pass from heart to
heart, I should send Felipe to put them out, and perhaps to kill the
owners, by way of additional security.

Monday.

Oh! Renee, how is it possible to fathom the heart of man? My father
ought to introduce me to M. Bonald, since he is so learned; I would ask
him. I envy the privilege of God, who can read the undercurrents of the
heart.

Does he still worship? That is the whole question.

If ever, in gesture, glance, or tone, I were to detect the slightest
falling off in the respect he used to show me in the days when he was
my instructor in Spanish, I feel that I should have strength to put the
whole thing from me. "Why these fine words, these grand resolutions?"
you will say. Dear, I will tell you.

My fascinating father, who treats me with the devotion of an Italian
_cavaliere servente_ for his lady, had my portrait painted, as I told
you, by Mme. de Mirbel. I contrived to get a copy made, good enough
to do for the Duke, and sent the original to Felipe. I despatched it
yesterday, and these lines with it:

  "Don Felipe, your single-hearted devotion is met by a blind
  confidence. Time will show whether this is not to treat a man as
  more than human."

It was a big reward. It looked like a promise and--dreadful to say--a
challenge; but--which will seem to you still more dreadful--I quite
intended that it should suggest both these things, without going so far
as actually to commit me. If in his reply there is "Dear Louise!" or
even "Louise," he is done for!

Tuesday.

No, he is not done for. The constitutional minister is perfect as a
lover. Here is his letter:--

  "Every moment passed away from your sight has been filled by me
  with ideal pictures of you, my eyes closed to the outside world
  and fixed in meditation on your image, which used to obey the
  summons too slowly in that dim palace of dreams, glorified by your
  presence. Henceforth my gaze will rest upon this wondrous ivory--
  this talisman, might I not say?--since your blue eyes sparkle with
  life as I look, and paint passes into flesh and blood. If I have
  delayed writing, it is because I could not tear myself away from
  your presence, which wrung from me all that I was bound to keep
  most secret.

  "Yes, closeted with you all last night and to-day, I have, for the
  first time in my life, given myself up to full, complete, and
  boundless happiness. Could you but see yourself where I have
  placed you, between the Virgin and God, you might have some idea
  of the agony in which the night has passed. But I would not offend
  you by speaking of it; for one glance from your eyes, robbed of
  the tender sweetness which is my life, would be full of torture
  for me, and I implore your clemency therefore in advance. Queen of
  my life and of my soul, oh! that you could grant me but one-
  thousandth part of the love I bear you!

  "This was the burden of my prayer; doubt worked havoc in my soul
  as I oscillated between belief and despair, between life and
  death, darkness and light. A criminal whose verdict hangs in the
  balance is not more racked with suspense than I, as I own to my
  temerity. The smile imaged on your lips, to which my eyes turned
  ever and again, and alone able to calm the storm roused by the
  dread of displeasing you. From my birth no one, not even my
  mother, has smiled on me. The beautiful young girl who was
  designed for me rejected my heart and gave hers to my brother.
  Again, in politics all my efforts have been defeated. In the eyes
  of my king I have read only thirst for vengeance; from childhood
  he has been my enemy, and the vote of the Cortes which placed me
  in power was regarded by him as a personal insult.

  "Less than this might breed despondency in the stoutest heart.
  Besides, I have no illusion; I know the gracelessness of my
  person, and am well aware how difficult it is to do justice to the
  heart within so rugged a shell. To be loved had ceased to be more
  than a dream to me when I met you. Thus when I bound myself to
  your service I knew that devotion alone could excuse my passion.

  "But, as I look upon this portrait and listen to your smile that
  whispers of rapture, the rays of a hope which I had sternly
  banished pierced the gloom, like the light of dawn, again to be
  obscured by rising mists of doubt and fear of your displeasure, if
  the morning should break to day. No, it is impossible you should
  love me yet--I feel it; but in time, as you make proof of the
  strength, the constancy, and depth of my affection, you may yield
  me some foothold in your heart. If my daring offends you, tell me
  so without anger, and I will return to my former part. But if you
  consent to try and love me, be merciful and break it gently to one
  who has placed the happiness of his life in the single thought of
  serving you."

My dear, as I read these last words, he seemed to rise before me,
pale as the night when the camellias told their story and he knew his
offering was accepted. These words, in their humility, were clearly
something quite different from the usual flowery rhetoric of lovers, and
a wave of feeling broke over me; it was the breath of happiness.

The weather has been atrocious; impossible to go to the Bois without
exciting all sorts of suspicions. Even my mother, who often goes out,
regardless of rain, remains at home, and alone.

Wednesday evening.

I have just seen _him_ at the Opera, my dear; he is another man. He came
to our box, introduced by the Sardinian ambassador.

Having read in my eyes that this audacity was taken in good part, he
seemed awkwardly conscious of his limbs, and addressed the Marquise
d'Espard as "mademoiselle." A light far brighter than the glare of the
chandeliers flashed from his eyes. At last he went out with the air of a
man who didn't know what he might do next.

"The Baron de Macumer is in love!" exclaimed Mme. de Maufrigneuse.

"Strange, isn't it, for a fallen minister?" replied my mother.

I had sufficient presence of mind myself to regard with curiosity Mmes.
de Maufrigneuse and d'Espard and my mother, as though they were talking
a foreign language and I wanted to know what it was all about, but
inwardly my soul sank in the waves of an intoxicating joy. There is
only one word to express what I felt, and that is: rapture. Such love
as Felipe's surely makes him worthy of mine. I am the very breath of
his life, my hands hold the thread that guides his thoughts. To be quite
frank, I have a mad longing to see him clear every obstacle and stand
before me, asking boldly for my hand. Then I should know whether this
storm of love would sink to placid calm at a glance from me.

Ah! my dear, I stopped here, and I am still all in a tremble. As I
wrote, I heard a slight noise outside, and rose to see what it was. From
my window I could see him coming along the ridge of the wall at the risk
of his life. I went to the bedroom window and made him a sign, it was
enough; he leaped from the wall--ten feet--and then ran along the road,
as far as I could see him, in order to show me that he was not hurt.
That he should think of my fear at the moment when he must have been
stunned by his fall, moved me so much that I am still crying; I don't
know why. Poor ungainly man! what was he coming for? what had he to say
to me?

I dare not write my thoughts, and shall go to bed joyful, thinking of
all that we would say if we were together. Farewell, fair silent one. I
have not time to scold you for not writing, but it is more than a month
since I have heard from you! Does this mean that you are at last happy?
Have you lost the "complete independence" which you were so proud of,
and which to-night has so nearly played me false?




XX. RENEE DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU May.

If love be the life of the world, why do austere philosophers count it
for nothing in marriage? Why should Society take for its first law that
the woman must be sacrificed to the family, introducing thus a note of
discord into the very heart of marriage? And this discord was foreseen,
since it was to meet the dangers arising from it that men were armed
with new-found powers against us. But for these, we should have been
able to bring their whole theory to nothing, whether by the force of
love or of a secret, persistent aversion.

I see in marriage, as it at present exists, two opposing forces which
it was the task of the lawgiver to reconcile. "When will they be
reconciled?" I said to myself, as I read your letter. Oh! my dear, one
such letter alone is enough to overthrow the whole fabric constructed by
the sage of Aveyron, under whose shelter I had so cheerfully ensconced
myself! The laws were made by old men--any woman can see that--and
they have been prudent enough to decree that conjugal love, apart from
passion, is not degrading, and that a woman in yielding herself may
dispense with the sanction of love, provided the man can legally call
her his. In their exclusive concern for the family they have imitated
Nature, whose one care is to propagate the species.

Formerly I was a person, now I am a chattel. Not a few tears have I
gulped down, alone and far from every one. How gladly would I have
exchanged them for a consoling smile! Why are our destinies so unequal?
Your soul expands in the atmosphere of a lawful passion. For you, virtue
will coincide with pleasure. If you encounter pain, it will be of your
own free choice. Your duty, if you marry Felipe, will be one with the
sweetest, freest indulgence of feeling. Our future is big with the
answer to my question, and I look for it with restless eagerness.

You love and are adored. Oh! my dear, let this noble romance, the
old subject of our dreams, take full possession of your soul. Womanly
beauty, refined and spiritualized in you, was created by God, for His
own purposes, to charm and to delight. Yes, my sweet, guard well the
secret of your heart, and submit Felipe to those ingenious devices of
ours for testing a lover's metal. Above all, make trial of your own
love, for this is even more important. It is so easy to be misled by
the deceptive glamour of novelty and passion, and by the vision of
happiness.

Alone of the two friends, you remain in your maiden independence; and
I beseech you, dearest, do not risk the irrevocable step of marriage
without some guarantee. It happens sometimes, when two are talking
together, apart from the world, their souls stripped of social disguise,
that a gesture, a word, a look lights up, as by a flash, some dark
abyss. You have courage and strength to tread boldly in paths where
others would be lost.

You have no conception in what anxiety I watch you. Across all this
space I see you; my heart beats with yours. Be sure, therefore, to write
and tell me everything. Your letters create an inner life of passion
within my homely, peaceful household, which reminds me of a level
highroad on a gray day. The only event here, my sweet, is that I am
playing cross-purposes with myself. But I don't want to tell you about
it just now; it must wait for another day. With dogged obstinacy, I pass
from despair to hope, now yielding, now holding back. It may be that
I ask from life more than we have a right to claim. In youth we are so
ready to believe that the ideal and the real will harmonize!

I have been pondering alone, seated beneath a rock in my park, and the
fruit of my pondering is that love in marriage is a happy accident on
which it is impossible to base a universal law. My Aveyron philosopher
is right in looking on the family as the only possible unit in society,
and in placing woman in subjection to the family, as she has been in all
ages. The solution of this great--for us almost awful--question lies in
our first child. For this reason, I would gladly be a mother, were it
only to supply food for the consuming energy of my soul.

Louis' temper remains as perfect as ever; his love is of the active, my
tenderness of the passive, type. He is happy, plucking the flowers which
bloom for him, without troubling about the labor of the earth which has
produced them. Blessed self-absorption! At whatever cost to myself, I
fall in with his illusions, as a mother, in my idea of her, should be
ready to spend herself to satisfy a fancy of her child. The intensity of
his joy blinds him, and even throws its reflection upon me. The smile
or look of satisfaction which the knowledge of his content brings to my
face is enough to satisfy him. And so, "my child" is the pet name which
I give him when we are alone.

And I wait for the fruit of all these sacrifices which remain a secret
between God, myself, and you. On motherhood I have staked enormously;
my credit account is now too large, I fear I shall never receive full
payment. To it I look for employment of my energy, expansion of my
heart, and the compensation of a world of joys. Pray Heaven I be not
deceived! It is a question of all my future and, horrible thought, of my
virtue.




XXI. LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE L'ESTORADE June.

Dear wedded sweetheart,--Your letter has arrived at the very moment to
hearten me for a bold step which I have been meditating night and day.
I feel within me a strange craving for the unknown, or, if you will, the
forbidden, which makes me uneasy and reveals a conflict in progress in
my soul between the laws of society and of nature. I cannot tell whether
nature in me is the stronger of the two, but I surprise myself in the
act of meditating between the hostile powers.

In plain words, what I wanted was to speak with Felipe, alone, at night,
under the lime-trees at the bottom of our garden. There is no denying
that this desire beseems the girl who has earned the epithet of an
"up-to-date young lady," bestowed on me by the Duchess in jest, and
which my father has approved.

Yet to me there seems a method in this madness. I should recompense
Felipe for the long nights he has passed under my window, at the same
time that I should test him, by seeing what he thinks of my escapade and
how he comports himself at a critical moment. Let him cast a halo round
my folly--behold in him my husband; let him show one iota
less of the tremulous respect with which he bows to me in the
Champs-Elysees--farewell, Don Felipe.

As for society, I run less risk in meeting my lover thus than when I
smile to him in the drawing-rooms of Mme. de Maufrigneuse and the old
Marquise de Beauseant, where spies now surround us on every side; and
Heaven only knows how people stare at the girl, suspected of a weakness
for a grotesque, like Macumer.

I cannot tell you to what a state of agitation I am reduced by dreaming
of this idea, and the time I have given to planning its execution. I
wanted you badly. What happy hours we should have chattered away, lost
in the mazes of uncertainty, enjoying in anticipation all the delights
and horrors of a first meeting in the silence of night, under the noble
lime-trees of the Chaulieu mansion, with the moonlight dancing through
the leaves! As I sat alone, every nerve tingling, I cried, "Oh! Renee,
where are you?" Then your letter came, like a match to gunpowder, and my
last scruples went by the board.

Through the window I tossed to my bewildered adorer an exact tracing of
the key of the little gate at the end of the garden, together with this
note:

  "Your madness must really be put a stop to. If you broke your
  neck, you would ruin the reputation of the woman you profess to
  love. Are you worthy of a new proof of regard, and do you deserve
  that I should talk with you under the limes at the foot of the
  garden at the hour when the moon throws them into shadow?"

Yesterday at one o'clock, when Griffith was going to bed, I said to her:

"Take your shawl, dear, and come out with me. I want to go to the bottom
of the garden without anyone knowing."

Without a word, she followed me. Oh! my Renee, what an awful moment
when, after a little pause full of delicious thrills of agony, I saw him
gliding along like a shadow. When he had reached the garden safely, I
said to Griffith:

"Don't be astonished, but the Baron de Macumer is here, and, indeed, it
is on that account I brought you with me."

No reply from Griffith.

"What would you have with me?" said Felipe, in a tone of such agitation
that it was easy to see he was driven beside himself by the noise,
slight as it was, of our dresses in the silence of the night and of our
steps upon the gravel.

"I want to say to you what I could not write," I replied.

Griffith withdrew a few steps. It was one of those mild nights, when
the air is heavy with the scent of flowers. My head swam with the
intoxicating delight of finding myself all but alone with him in the
friendly shade of the lime-trees, beyond which lay the garden, shining
all the more brightly because the white facade of the house reflected
the moonlight. The contrast seemed, as it were, an emblem of our
clandestine love leading up to the glaring publicity of a wedding.
Neither of us could do more at first than drink in silently the ecstasy
of a moment, as new and marvelous for him as for me. At last I found
tongue to say, pointing to the elm-tree:

"Although I am not afraid of scandal, you shall not climb that tree
again. We have long enough played schoolboy and schoolgirl, let us rise
now to the height of our destiny. Had that fall killed you, I should
have died disgraced..."

I looked at him. Every scrap of color had left his face.

"And if you had been found there, suspicion would have attached either
to my mother or to me..."

"Forgive me," he murmured.

"If you walk along the boulevard, I shall hear your step; and when I
want to see you, I will open my window. But I would not run such a risk
unless some emergency arose. Why have you forced me by your rash act to
commit another, and one which may lower me in your eyes?"

The tears which I saw in his eyes were to me the most eloquent of
answers.

"What I have done to-night," I went on with a smile, "must seem to you
the height of madness..."

After we had walked up and down in silence more than once, he recovered
composure enough to say:

"You must think me a fool; and, indeed, the delirium of my joy has
robbed me of both nerve and wits. But of this at least be assured,
whatever you do is sacred in my eyes from the very fact that it seemed
right to you. I honor you as I honor only God besides. And then, Miss
Griffith is here."

"She is here for the sake of the others, not for us," I put in hastily.

My dear, he understood me at once.

"I know very well," he said, with the humblest glance at me, "that
whether she is there or not makes no difference. Unseen of men, we are
still in the presence of God, and our own esteem is not less important
to us than that of the world."

"Thank you, Felipe," I said, holding out my hand to him with a gesture
which you ought to see. "A woman, and I am nothing, if not a woman,
is on the road to loving the man who understands her. Oh! only on the
road," I went on, with a finger on my lips. "Don't let your hopes carry
you beyond what I say. My heart will belong only to the man who can
read it and know its every turn. Our views, without being absolutely
identical, must be the same in their breadth and elevation. I have no
wish to exaggerate my own merits; doubtless what seem virtues in my
eyes have their corresponding defects. All I can say is, I should be
heartbroken without them."

"Having first accepted me as your servant, you now permit me to love
you," he said, trembling and looking in my face at each word. "My first
prayer has been more than answered."

"But," I hastened to reply, "your position seems to me a better one than
mine. I should not object to change places, and this change it lies with
you to bring about."

"In my turn, I thank you," he replied. "I know the duties of a faithful
lover. It is mine to prove that I am worthy of you; the trials shall
be as long as you choose to make them. If I belie your hopes, you have
only--God! that I should say it--to reject me."

"I know that you love me," I replied. "_So far_," with a cruel emphasis
on the words, "you stand first in my regard. Otherwise you would not be
here."

Then we began to walk up and down as we talked, and I must say that
so soon as my Spaniard had recovered himself he put forth the genuine
eloquence of the heart. It was not passion it breathed, but a marvelous
tenderness of feeling which he beautifully compared to the divine
love. His thrilling voice, which lent an added charm to thoughts, in
themselves so exquisite, reminded me of the nightingale's note. He spoke
low, using only the middle tones of a fine instrument, and words flowed
upon words with the rush of a torrent. It was the overflow of the heart.

"No more," I said, "or I shall not be able to tear myself away."

And with a gesture I dismissed him.

"You have committed yourself now, mademoiselle," said Griffith.

"In England that might be so, but not in France," I replied with
nonchalance. "I intend to make a love match, and am feeling my way--that
is all."

You see, dear, as love did not come to me, I had to do as Mahomet did
with the mountain.

Friday.

Once more I have seen my slave. He has become very timid, and puts on an
air of pious devotion, which I like, for it seems to say that he feels
my power and fascination in every fibre. But nothing in his look or
manner can rouse in these society sibyls any suspicion of the boundless
love which I see. Don't suppose though, dear, that I am carried away,
mastered, tamed; on the contrary, the taming, mastering, and carrying
away are on my side...

In short, I am quite capable of reason. Oh! to feel again the terror of
that fascination in which I was held by the schoolmaster, the plebeian,
the man I kept at a distance!

The fact is that love is of two kinds--one which commands, and one which
obeys. The two are quite distinct, and the passion to which the one
gives rise is not the passion of the other. To get her full of life,
perhaps a woman ought to have experience of both. Can the two passions
ever co-exist? Can the man in whom we inspire love inspire it in us?
Will the day ever come when Felipe is my master? Shall I tremble then,
as he does now? These are questions which make me shudder.

He is very blind! In his place I should have thought Mlle. de Chaulieu,
meeting me under the limes, a cold, calculating coquette, with starched
manners. No, that is not love, it is playing with fire. I am still fond
of Felipe, but I am calm and at my ease with him now. No more obstacles!
What a terrible thought! It is all ebb-tide within, and I fear to
question my heart. His mistake was in concealing the ardor of his love;
he ought to have forced my self-control.

In a word, I was naughty, and I have not got the reward such naughtiness
brings. No, dear, however sweet the memory of that half-hour beneath
the trees, it is nothing like the excitement of the old time with its:
"Shall I go? Shall I not go? Shall I write to him? Shall I not write?"

Is it thus with all our pleasures? Is suspense always better than
enjoyment? Hope than fruition? Is it the rich who in very truth are
the poor? Have we not both perhaps exaggerated feeling by giving to
imagination too free a rein? There are times when this thought freezes
me. Shall I tell you why? Because I am meditating another visit to
the bottom of the garden--without Griffith. How far could I go in this
direction? Imagination knows no limit, but it is not so with pleasure.
Tell me, dear be-furbelowed professor, how can one reconcile the two
goals of a woman's existence?




XXII. LOUISE TO FELIPE

I am not pleased with you. If you did not cry over Racine's _Berenice_,
and feel it to be the most terrible of tragedies, there is no kinship in
our souls; we shall never get on together, and had better break off
at once. Let us meet no more. Forget me; for if 

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