THE LILY OF THE VALLEY

 BY

 HONORE DE BALZAC

 Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley

 DEDICATION

 To Monsieur J. B. Nacquart, Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine. 

 Dear Doctor--Here is one of the most carefully hewn stones in the second course of the foundation of a literary edifice which I have slowly and laboriously constructed. I wish to inscribe your name upon it, as much to thank the man whose science once saved me as to honor the friend of my daily life. 

 De Balzac. 

 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY

ENVOI

 Felix de Vandenesse to Madame la Comtesse Natalie de Manerville:

 I yield to your wishes. It is the privilege of the women whom we love more than they love us to make the men who love them ignore the ordinary rules of common-sense. To smooth the frown upon their brow, to soften the pout upon their lips, what obstacles we miraculously overcome! We shed our blood, we risk our future!

 You exact the history of my past life; here it is. But remember this, Natalie; in obeying you I crush under foot a reluctance hitherto unconquerable. Why are you jealous of the sudden reveries which overtake me in the midst of our happiness? Why show the pretty anger of a petted woman when silence grasps me? Could you not play upon the contradictions of my character without inquiring into the causes of them? Are there secrets in your heart which seek absolution through a knowledge of mine? Ah! Natalie, you have guessed mine; and it is better you should know the whole truth. Yes, my life is shadowed by a phantom; a word evokes it; it hovers vaguely above me and about me; within my soul are solemn memories, buried in its depths like those marine productions seen in calmest weather and which the storms of ocean cast in fragments on the shore. 

 The mental labor which the expression of ideas necessitates has revived the old, old feelings which give me so much pain when they come suddenly; and if in this confession of my past they break forth in a way that wounds you, remember that you threatened to punish me if I did not obey your wishes, and do not, therefore, punish my obedience. I would that this, my confidence, might increase your love. 

Until we meet, Felix. 

 CHAPTER I

 TWO CHILDHOODS

To what genius fed on tears shall we some day owe that most touchingof all elegies, --the tale of tortures borne silently by souls whosetender roots find stony ground in the domestic soil, whose earliestbuds are torn apart by rancorous hands, whose flowers are touched byfrost at the moment of their blossoming? What poet will sing thesorrows of the child whose lips must suck a bitter breast, whosesmiles are checked by the cruel fire of a stern eye? The tale thattells of such poor hearts, oppressed by beings placed about them topromote the development of their natures, would contain the truehistory of my childhood. 

What vanity could I have wounded, --I a child new-born? What moral orphysical infirmity caused by mother's coldness? Was I the child ofduty, whose birth is a mere chance, or was I one whose very life was areproach? Put to nurse in the country and forgotten by my family forover three years, I was treated with such indifference on my return tothe parental roof that even the servants pitied me. I do not know towhat feeling or happy accident I owed my rescue from this firstneglect; as a child I was ignorant of it, as a man I have notdiscovered it. Far from easing my lot, my brother and my two sistersfound amusement in making me suffer. The compact in virtue of whichchildren hide each other's peccadilloes, and which early teaches themthe principles of honor, was null and void in my case; more than that, I was often punished for my brother's faults, without being allowed toprove the injustice. The fawning spirit which seems instinctive inchildren taught my brother and sisters to join in the persecutions towhich I was subjected, and thus keep in the good graces of a motherwhom they feared as much as I. Was this partly the effect of achildish love of imitation; was it from a need of testing theirpowers; or was it simply through lack of pity? Perhaps these causesunited to deprive me of the sweets of fraternal intercourse. 

Disinherited of all affection, I could love nothing; yet nature hadmade me loving. Is there an angel who garners the sighs of feelinghearts rebuffed incessantly? If in many such hearts the crushedfeelings turn to hatred, in mine they condensed and hollowed a depthfrom which, in after years, they gushed forth upon my life. In manycharacters the habit of trembling relaxes the fibres and begets fear, and fear ends in submission; hence, a weakness which emasculates aman, and makes him more or less a slave. But in my case theseperpetual tortures led to the development of a certain strength, whichincreased through exercise and predisposed my spirit to the habit ofmoral resistance. Always in expectation of some new grief--as themartyrs expected some fresh blow--my whole being expressed, I doubtnot, a sullen resignation which smothered the grace and gaiety ofchildhood, and gave me an appearance of idiocy which seemed to justifymy mother's threatening prophecies. The certainty of injusticeprematurely roused my pride--that fruit of reason--and thus, no doubt, checked the evil tendencies which an education like mine encouraged. 

Though my mother neglected me I was sometimes the object of hersolicitude; she occasionally spoke of my education and seemed desirousof attending to it herself. Cold chills ran through me at such timeswhen I thought of the torture a daily intercourse with her wouldinflict upon me. I blessed the neglect in which I lived, and rejoicedthat I could stay alone in the garden and play with the pebbles andwatch the insects and gaze into the blueness of the sky. Though myloneliness naturally led me to reverie, my liking for contemplationwas first aroused by an incident which will give you an idea of myearly troubles. So little notice was taken of me that the governessoccasionally forgot to send me to bed. One evening I was peacefullycrouching under a fig-tree, watching a star with that passion ofcuriosity which takes possession of a child's mind, and to which myprecocious melancholy gave a sort of sentimental intuition. My sisterswere playing about and laughing; I heard their distant chatter like anaccompaniment to my thoughts. After a while the noise ceased anddarkness fell. My mother happened to notice my absence. To escapeblame, our governess, a terrible Mademoiselle Caroline, worked upon mymother's fears, --told her I had a horror of my home and would long agohave run away if she had not watched me; that I was not stupid butsullen; and that in all her experience of children she had never knownone of so bad a disposition as mine. She pretended to search for me. Ianswered as soon as I was called, and she came to the fig-tree, whereshe very well knew I was. "What are you doing there?" she asked. "Watching a star. " "You were not watching a star, " said my mother, whowas listening on her balcony; "children of your age know nothing ofastronomy. " "Ah, madame, " cried Mademoiselle Caroline, "he has openedthe faucet of the reservoir; the garden is inundated!" Then there wasa general excitement. The fact was that my sisters had amusedthemselves by turning the cock to see the water flow, but a suddenspurt wet them all over and frightened them so much that they ran awaywithout closing it. Accused and convicted of this piece of mischiefand told that I lied when I denied it, I was severely punished. Worsethan all, I was jeered at for my pretended love of the stars andforbidden to stay in the garden after dark. 

Such tyrannical restrains intensify a passion in the hearts ofchildren even more than in those of men; children think of nothing butthe forbidden thing, which then becomes irresistibly attractive tothem. I was often whipped for my star. Unable to confide in my kind, Itold it all my troubles in that delicious inward prattle with which westammer our first ideas, just as once we stammered our first words. Attwelve years of age, long after I was at school, I still watched thatstar with indescribable delight, --so deep and lasting are theimpressions we receive in the dawn of life. 

My brother Charles, five years older than I and as handsome a boy ashe now is a man, was the favorite of my father, the idol of my mother, and consequently the sovereign of the house. He was robust andwell-made, and had a tutor. I, puny and even sickly, was sent at fiveyears of age as day pupil to a school in the town; taken in the morningand brought back at night by my father's valet. I was sent with a scantylunch, while my school-fellows brought plenty of good food. Thistrifling contrast between my privations and their prosperity made mesuffer deeply. The famous potted pork prepared at Tours and called"rillettes" and "rillons" was the chief feature of their mid-day meal, between the early breakfast and the parent's dinner, which was readywhen we returned from school. This preparation of meat, much prized bycertain gourmands, is seldom seen at Tours on aristocratic tables; ifI had ever heard of it before I went to school, I certainly had neverhad the happiness of seeing that brown mess spread on slices of breadand butter. Nevertheless, my desire for those "rillons" was so greatthat it grew to be a fixed idea, like the longing of an elegantParisian duchess for the stews cooked by a porter's wife, --longingswhich, being a woman, she found means to satisfy. Children guess eachother's covetousness, just as you are able to read a man's love, bythe look in the eyes; consequently I became an admirable butt forridicule. My comrades, nearly all belonging to the lower bourgeoisie, would show me their "rillons" and ask if I knew how they were made andwhere they were sold, and why it was that I never had any. They lickedtheir lips as they talked of them--scraps of pork pressed in their ownfat and looking like cooked truffles; they inspected my lunch-basket, and finding nothing better than Olivet cheese or dried fruits, theyplagued me with questions: "Is that all you have? have you reallynothing else?"--speeches which made me realize the difference betweenmy brother and myself. 

This contrast between my own abandonment and the happiness of othersnipped the roses of my childhood and blighted my budding youth. Thefirst time that I, mistaking my comrades' actions for generosity, putforth my hand to take the dainty I had so long coveted and which wasnow hypocritically held out to me, my tormentor pulled back his sliceto the great delight of his comrades who were expecting that result. If noble and distinguished minds are, as we often find them, capableof vanity, can we blame the child who weeps when despised and jeeredat? Under such a trial many boys would have turned into gluttons andcringing beggars. I fought to escape my persecutors. The courage ofdespair made me formidable; but I was hated, and thus had noprotection against treachery. One evening as I left school I wasstruck in the back by a handful of small stones tied in ahandkerchief. When the valet, who punished the perpetrator, told thisto my mother she exclaimed: "That dreadful child! he will always be atorment to us. "

Finding that I inspired in my schoolmates the same repulsion that wasfelt for me by my family, I sank into a horrible distrust of myself. Asecond fall of snow checked the seeds that were germinating in mysoul. The boys whom I most liked were notorious scamps; this factroused my pride and I held aloof. Again I was shut up within myselfand had no vent for the feelings with which my heart was full. Themaster of the school, observing that I was gloomy, disliked by mycomrades, and always alone, confirmed the family verdict as to mysulky temper. As soon as I could read and write, my mother transferredme to Pont-le-Voy, a school in charge of Oratorians who took boys ofmy age into a form called the "class of the Latin steps" where dulllads with torpid brains were apt to linger. 

There I remained eight years without seeing my family; living the lifeof a pariah, --partly for the following reason. I received but threefrancs a month pocket-money, a sum barely sufficient to buy the pens, ink, paper, knives, and rules which we were forced to supplyourselves. Unable to buy stilts or skipping-ropes, or any of thethings that were used in the playground, I was driven out of thegames; to gain admission on suffrage I should have had to toady therich and flatter the strong of my division. My heart rose againsteither of these meannesses, which, however, most children readilyemploy. I lived under a tree, lost in dejected thought, or reading thebooks distributed to us monthly by the librarian. How many griefs werein the shadow of that solitude; what genuine anguish filled myneglected life! Imagine what my sore heart felt when, at the firstdistribution of prizes, --of which I obtained the two most valued, namely, for theme and for translation, --neither my father nor mymother was present in the theatre when I came forward to receive theawards amid general acclamations, although the building was filledwith the relatives of all my comrades. Instead of kissing thedistributor, according to custom, I burst into tears and threw myselfon his breast. That night I burned my crowns in the stove. The parentsof the other boys were in town for a whole week preceding thedistribution of the prizes, and my comrades departed joyfully the nextday; while I, whose father and mother were only a few miles distant, remained at the school with the "outremers, "--a name given to scholarswhose families were in the colonies or in foreign countries. 

You will notice throughout how my unhappiness increased in proportionas the social spheres on which I entered widened. God knows whatefforts I made to weaken the decree which condemned me to live withinmyself! What hopes, long cherished with eagerness of soul, were doomedto perish in a day! To persuade my parents to come and see me, I wrotethem letters full of feeling, too emphatically worded, it may be; butsurely such letters ought not to have drawn upon me my mother'sreprimand, coupled with ironical reproaches for my style. Notdiscouraged even then, I implored the help of my sisters, to whom Ialways wrote on their birthdays and fete-days with the persistence ofa neglected child; but it was all in vain. As the day for thedistribution of prizes approached I redoubled my entreaties, and toldof my expected triumphs. Misled by my parents' silence, I expectedthem with a beating heart. I told my schoolfellows they were coming;and then, when the old porter's step sounded in the corridors as hecalled my happy comrades one by one to receive their friends, I wassick with expectation. Never did that old man call my name!

One day, when I accused myself to my confessor of having cursed mylife, he pointed to the skies, where grew, he said, the promised palmfor the "Beati qui lugent" of the Saviour. From the period of my firstcommunion I flung myself into the mysterious depths of prayer, attracted to religious ideas whose moral fairyland so fascinates youngspirits. Burning with ardent faith, I prayed to God to renew in mybehalf the miracles I had read of in martyrology. At five years of ageI fled to my star; at twelve I took refuge in the sanctuary. Myecstasy brought dreams unspeakable, which fed my imagination, fosteredmy susceptibilities, and strengthened my thinking powers. I have oftenattributed those sublime visions to the guardian angel charged withmoulding my spirit to its divine destiny; they endowed my soul withthe faculty of seeing the inner soul of things; they prepared my heartfor the magic craft which makes a man a poet when the fatal power ishis to compare what he feels within him with reality, --the greatthings aimed for with the small things gained. Those visions wroteupon my brain a book in which I read that which I must voice; theylaid upon my lips the coal of utterance. 

My father having conceived some doubts as to the tendency of theOratorian teachings, took me from Pont-le-Voy, and sent me to Paris toan institution in the Marais. I was then fifteen. When examined as tomy capacity, I, who was in the rhetoric class at Pont-le-Voy, waspronounced worthy of the third class. The sufferings I had endured inmy family and in school were continued under another form during mystay at the Lepitre Academy. My father gave me no money; I was to befed, clothed, and stuffed with Latin and Greek, for a sum agreed on. During my school life I came in contact with over a thousand comrades;but I never met with such an instance of neglect and indifference asmine. Monsieur Lepitre, who was fanatically attached to the Bourbons, had had relations with my father at the time when all devotedroyalists were endeavoring to bring about the escape of MarieAntoinette from the Temple. They had lately renewed acquaintance; andMonsieur Lepitre thought himself obliged to repair my father'soversight, and to give me a small sum monthly. But not beingauthorized to do so, the amount was small indeed. 

The Lepitre establishment was in the old Joyeuse mansion where, as inall seignorial houses, there was a porter's lodge. During a recess, which preceded the hour when the man-of-all-work took us to theCharlemagne Lyceum, the well-to-do pupils used to breakfast with theporter, named Doisy. Monsieur Lepitre was either ignorant of the factor he connived at this arrangement with Doisy, a regular smuggler whomit was the pupils' interest to protect, --he being the secret guardianof their pranks, the safe confidant of their late returns and theirintermediary for obtaining forbidden books. Breakfast on a cup of"cafe-au-lait" is an aristocratic habit, explained by the high pricesto which colonial products rose under Napoleon. If the use of sugarand coffee was a luxury to our parents, with us it was the sign ofself-conscious superiority. Doisy gave credit, for he reckoned on thesisters and aunts of the pupils, who made it a point of honor to paytheir debts. I resisted the blandishments of his place for a longtime. If my judges knew the strength of its seduction, the heroicefforts I made after stoicism, the repressed desires of my longresistance, they would pardon my final overthrow. But, child as I was, could I have the grandeur of soul that scorns the scorn of others?Moreover, I may have felt the promptings of several social vices whosepower was increased by my longings. 

About the end of the second year my father and mother came to Paris. My brother had written me the day of their arrival. He lived in Paris, but had never been to see me. My sisters, he said, were of the party;we were all to see Paris together. The first day we were to dine inthe Palais-Royal, so as to be near the Theatre-Francais. In spite ofthe intoxication such a programme of unhoped-for delights excited, myjoy was dampened by the wind of a coming storm, which those who areused to unhappiness apprehend instinctively. I was forced to own adebt of a hundred francs to the Sieur Doisy, who threatened to ask myparents himself for the money. I bethought me of making my brother theemissary of Doisy, the mouth-piece of my repentance and the mediatorof pardon. My father inclined to forgiveness, but my mother waspitiless; her dark blue eye froze me; she fulminated cruel prophecies:"What should I be later if at seventeen years of age I committed suchfollies? Was I really a son of hers? Did I mean to ruin my family? DidI think myself the only child of the house? My brother Charles'scareer, already begun, required large outlay, amply deserved by hisconduct which did honor to the family, while mine would alwaysdisgrace it. Did I know nothing of the value of money, and what I costthem? Of what use were coffee and sugar to my education? Such conductwas the first step into all the vices. "

After enduring the shock of this torrent which rasped my soul, I wassent back to school in charge of my brother. I lost the dinner at theFreres Provencaux, and was deprived of seeing Talma in Britannicus. Such was my first interview with my mother after a separation oftwelve years. 

When I had finished school my father left me under the guardianship ofMonsieur Lepitre. I was to study the higher mathematics, follow acourse of law for one year, and begin philosophy. Allowed to study inmy own room and released from the classes, I expected a truce withtrouble. But, in spite of my nineteen years, perhaps because of them, my father persisted in the system which had sent me to school withoutfood, to an academy without pocket-money, and had driven me into debtto Doisy. Very little money was allowed to me, and what can you do inParis without money? Moreover, my freedom was carefully chained up. Monsieur Lepitre sent me to the law school accompanied by aman-of-all-work who handed me over to the professor and fetched me homeagain. A young girl would have been treated with less precaution thanmy mother's fears insisted on for me. Paris alarmed my parents, andjustly. Students are secretly engaged in the same occupation whichfills the minds of young ladies in their boarding-schools. Do what youwill, nothing can prevent the latter from talking of lovers, or theformer of women. But in Paris, and especially at this particular time, such talk among young lads was influenced by the oriental and sultanicatmosphere and customs of the Palais-Royal. 

The Palais-Royal was an Eldorado of love where the ingots melted awayin coin; there virgin doubts were over; there curiosity was appeased. The Palais-Royal and I were two asymptotes bearing one towards theother, yet unable to meet. Fate miscarried all my attempts. My fatherhad presented me to one of my aunts who lived in the Ile St. Louis. With her I was to dine on Sundays and Thursdays, escorted to the houseby either Monsieur or Madame Lepitre, who went out themselves on thosedays and were to call for me on their way home. Singular amusement fora young lad! My aunt, the Marquise de Listomere, was a great lady, ofceremonious habits, who would never have dreamed of offering me money. Old as a cathedral, painted like a miniature, sumptuous in dress, shelived in her great house as though Louis XV. Were not dead, and sawnone but old women and men of a past day, --a fossil society which mademe think I was in a graveyard. No one spoke to me and I had not thecourage to speak first. Cold and alien looks made me ashamed of myyouth, which seemed to annoy them. I counted on this indifference toaid me in certain plans; I was resolved to escape some day directlyafter dinner and rush to the Palais-Royal. Once seated at whist myaunt would pay no attention to me. Jean, the footman, cared little forMonsieur Lepitre and would have aided me; but on the day I chose formy adventure that luckless dinner was longer than usual, --eitherbecause the jaws employed were worn out or the false teeth moreimperfect. At last, between eight and nine o'clock, I reached thestaircase, my heart beating like that of Bianca Capello on the day ofher flight; but when the porter pulled the cord I beheld in the streetbefore me Monsieur Lepitre's hackney-coach, and I heard his pursyvoice demanding me!

Three times did fate interpose between the hell of the Palais-Royaland the heaven of my youth. On the day when I, ashamed at twenty yearsof age of my own ignorance, determined to risk all dangers to put anend to it, at the very moment when I was about to run away fromMonsieur Lepitre as he got into the coach, --a difficult process, forhe was as fat as Louis XVIII. And club-footed, --well, can you believeit, my mother arrived in a post-chaise! Her glance arrested me; Istood still, like a bird before a snake. What fate had brought herthere? The simplest thing in the world. Napoleon was then making hislast efforts. My father, who foresaw the return of the Bourbons, hadcome to Paris with my mother to advise my brother, who was employed inthe imperial diplomatic service. My mother was to take me back withher, out of the way of dangers which seemed, to those who followed themarch of events intelligently, to threaten the capital. In a fewminutes, as it were, I was taken out of Paris, at the very moment whenmy life there was about to become fatal to me. 

The tortures of imagination excited by repressed desires, theweariness of a life depressed by constant privations had driven me tostudy, just as men, weary of fate, confine themselves in a cloister. To me, study had become a passion, which might even be fatal to myhealth by imprisoning me at a period of life when young men ought toyield to the bewitching activities of their springtide youth. 

This slight sketch of my boyhood, in which you, Natalie, can readilyperceive innumerable songs of woe, was needful to explain to you itsinfluence on my future life. At twenty years of age, and affected bymany morbid elements, I was still small and thin and pale. My soul, filled with the will to do, struggled with a body that seemed weakly, but which, in the words of an old physician at Tours, was undergoingits final fusion into a temperament of iron. Child in body and old inmind, I had read and thought so much that I knew life metaphysicallyat its highest reaches at the moment when I was about to enter thetortuous difficulties of its defiles and the sandy roads of itsplains. A strange chance had held me long in that delightful periodwhen the soul awakes to its first tumults, to its desires for joy, andthe savor of life is fresh. I stood in the period between puberty andmanhood, --the one prolonged by my excessive study, the other tardilydeveloping its living shoots. No young man was ever more thoroughlyprepared to feel and to love. To understand my history, let your minddwell on that pure time of youth when the mouth is innocent offalsehood; when the glance of the eye is honest, though veiled by lidswhich droop from timidity contradicting desire; when the soul bendsnot to worldly Jesuitism, and the heart throbs as violently fromtrepidation as from the generous impulses of young emotion. 

I need say nothing of the journey I made with my mother from Paris toTours. The coldness of her behavior repressed me. At each relay Itried to speak; but a look, a word from her frightened away thespeeches I had been meditating. At Orleans, where we had passed thenight, my mother complained of my silence. I threw myself at her feetand clasped her knees; with tears I opened my heart. I tried to touchhers by the eloquence of my hungry love in accents that might havemoved a stepmother. She replied that I was playing comedy. Icomplained that she had abandoned me. She called me an unnaturalchild. My whole nature was so wrung that at Blois I went upon thebridge to drown myself in the Loire. The height of the parapetprevented my suicide. 

When I reached home, my two sisters, who did not know me, showed moresurprise than tenderness. Afterwards, however, they seemed, bycomparison, to be full of kindness towards me. I was given a room onthe third story. You will understand the extent of my hardships when Itell you that my mother left me, a young man of twenty, without otherlinen than my miserable school outfit, or any other outside clothesthan those I had long worn in Paris. If I ran from one end of the roomto the other to pick up her handkerchief, she took it with the coldthanks a lady gives to her footman. Driven to watch her to find ifthere were any soft spot where I could fasten the rootlets ofaffection, I came to see her as she was, --a tall, spare woman, givento cards, egotistical and insolent, like all the Listomeres, who countinsolence as part of their dowry. She saw nothing in life exceptduties to be fulfilled. All cold women whom I have known made, as shedid, a religion of duty; she received our homage as a priest receivesthe incense of the mass. My elder brother appeared to absorb thetrifling sentiment of maternity which was in her nature. She stabbedus constantly with her sharp irony, --the weapon of those who have noheart, --and which she used against us, who could make her no reply. 

Notwithstanding these thorny hindrances, the instinctive sentimentshave so many roots, the religious fear inspired by a mother whom it isdangerous to displease holds by so many threads, that the sublimemistake--if I may so call it--of our love for our mother lasted untilthe day, much later in our lives, when we judged her finally. Thisterrible despotism drove from my mind all thoughts of the voluptuousenjoyments I had dreamed of finding at Tours. In despair I took refugein my father's library, where I set myself to read every book I didnot know. These long periods of hard study saved me from contact withmy mother; but they aggravated the dangers of my moral condition. Sometimes my eldest sister--she who afterwards married our cousin, theMarquis de Listomere--tried to comfort me, without, however, beingable to calm the irritation to which I was a victim. I desired to die. 

Great events, of which I knew nothing, were then in preparation. TheDuc d'Angouleme, who had left Bordeaux to join Louis XVIII. In Paris, was received in every town through which he passed with ovationsinspired by the enthusiasm felt throughout old France at the return ofthe Bourbons. Touraine was aroused for its legitimate princes; thetown itself was in a flutter, every window decorated, the inhabitantsin their Sunday clothes, a festival in preparation, and that namelessexcitement in the air which intoxicates, and which gave me a strongdesire to be present at the ball given by the duke. When I summonedcourage to make this request of my mother, who was too ill to goherself, she became extremely angry. "Had I come from Congo?" sheinquired. "How could I suppose that our family would not berepresented at the ball? In the absence of my father and brother, ofcourse it was my duty to be present. Had I no mother? Was she notalways thinking of the welfare of her children?"

In a moment the semi-disinherited son had become a personage! I wasmore dumfounded by my importance than by the deluge of ironicalreasoning with which my mother received my request. I questioned mysisters, and then discovered that my mother, who liked such theatricalplots, was already attending to my clothes. The tailors in Tours werefully occupied by the sudden demands of their regular customers, andmy mother was forced to employ her usual seamstress, who--according toprovincial custom--could do all kinds of sewing. A bottle-blue coathad been secretly made for me, after a fashion, and silk stockings andpumps provided; waistcoats were then worn short, so that I could wearone of my father's; and for the first time in my life I had a shirtwith a frill, the pleatings of which puffed out my chest and weregathered in to the knot of my cravat. When dressed in this apparel Ilooked so little like myself that my sister's compliments nerved me toface all Touraine at the ball. But it was a bold enterprise. Thanks tomy slimness I slipped into a tent set up in the gardens of the Papionhouse, and found a place close to the armchair in which the duke wasseated. Instantly I was suffocated by the heat, and dazzled by thelights, the scarlet draperies, the gilded ornaments, the dresses, andthe diamonds of the first public ball I had ever witnessed. I waspushed hither and thither by a mass of men and women, who hustled eachother in a cloud of dust. The brazen clash of military music wasdrowned in the hurrahs and acclamations of "Long live the Ducd'Angouleme! Long live the King! Long live the Bourbons!" The ball wasan outburst of pent-up enthusiasm, where each man endeavored to outdothe rest in his fierce haste to worship the rising sun, --an exhibitionof partisan greed which left me unmoved, or rather, it disgusted meand drove me back within myself. 

Swept onward like a straw in the whirlwind, I was seized with achildish desire to be the Duc d'Angouleme himself, to be one of theseprinces parading before an awed assemblage. This silly fancy of aTourangean lad roused an ambition to which my nature and thesurrounding circumstances lent dignity. Who would not envy suchworship?--a magnificent repetition of which I saw a few months later, when all Paris rushed to the feet of the Emperor on his return fromElba. The sense of this dominion exercised over the masses, whosefeelings and whose very life are thus merged into one soul, dedicatedme then and thenceforth to glory, that priestess who slaughters theFrenchmen of to-day as the Druidess once sacrificed the Gauls. 

Suddenly I met the woman who was destined to spur these ambitiousdesires and to crown them by sending me into the heart of royalty. Tootimid to ask any one to dance, --fearing, moreover, to confuse thefigures, --I naturally became very awkward, and did not know what to dowith my arms and legs. Just as I was suffering severely from thepressure of the crowd an officer stepped on my feet, swollen by thenew leather of my shoes as well as by the heat. This disgusted me withthe whole affair. It was impossible to get away; but I took refuge ina corner of a room at the end of an empty bench, where I sat withfixed eyes, motionless and sullen. Misled by my puny appearance, awoman--taking me for a sleepy child--slid softly into the place besideme, with the motion of a bird as she drops upon her nest. Instantly Ibreathed the woman-atmosphere, which irradiated my soul as, in afterdays, oriental poesy has shone there. I looked at my neighbor, and wasmore dazzled by that vision than I had been by the scene of the fete. 

If you have understood this history of my early life you will guessthe feelings which now welled up within me. My eyes rested suddenlyon white, rounded shoulders where I would fain have laid my head, --shoulders faintly rosy, which seemed to blush as if uncovered forthe first time; modest shoulders, that possessed a soul, and reflectedlight from their satin surface as from a silken texture. Theseshoulders were parted by a line along which my eyes wandered. I raisedmyself to see the bust and was spell-bound by the beauty of the bosom, chastely covered with gauze, where blue-veined globes of perfectoutline were softly hidden in waves of lace. The slightest details ofthe head were each and all enchantments which awakened infinitedelights within me; the brilliancy of the hair laid smoothly above aneck as soft and velvety as a child's, the white lines drawn by thecomb where my imagination ran as along a dewy path, --all these thingsput me, as it were, beside myself. Glancing round to be sure that noone saw me, I threw myself upon those shoulders as a child upon thebreast of its mother, kissing them as I laid my head there. The womanuttered a piercing cry, which the noise of the music drowned; sheturned, saw me, and exclaimed, "Monsieur!" Ah! had she said, "Mylittle lad, what possesses you?" I might have killed her; but at theword "Monsieur!" hot tears fell from my eyes. I was petrified by aglance of saintly anger, by a noble face crowned with a diadem ofgolden hair in harmony with the shoulders I adored. The crimson ofoffended modesty glowed on her cheeks, though already it was appeasedby the pardoning instinct of a woman who comprehends a frenzy whichshe inspires, and divines the infinite adoration of those repentanttears. She moved away with the step and carriage of a queen. 

I then felt the ridicule of my position; for the first time I realizedthat I was dressed like the monkey of a barrel organ. I was ashamed. There I stood, stupefied, --tasting the fruit that I had stolen, conscious of the warmth upon my lips, repenting not, and followingwith my eyes the woman who had come down to me from heaven. Sick withthe first fever of the heart I wandered through the rooms, unable tofind mine Unknown, until at last I went home to bed, another man. 

A new soul, a soul with rainbow wings, had burst its chrysalis. Descending from the azure wastes where I had long admired her, my starhad come to me a woman, with undiminished lustre and purity. I loved, knowing naught of love. How strange a thing, this first irruption ofthe keenest human emotion in the heart of a man! I had seen prettywomen in other places, but none had made the slightest impression uponme. Can there be an appointed hour, a conjunction of stars, a union ofcircumstances, a certain woman among all others to awaken an exclusivepassion at the period of life when love includes the whole sex?

The thought that my Elect lived in Touraine made the air I breatheddelicious; the blue of the sky seemed bluer than I had ever yet seenit. I raved internally, but externally I was seriously ill, and mymother had fears, not unmingled with remorse. Like animals who knowwhen danger is near, I hid myself away in the garden to think of thekiss that I had stolen. A few days after this memorable ball my motherattributed my neglect of study, my indifference to her tyrannicallooks and sarcasms, and my gloomy behavior to the condition of myhealth. The country, that perpetual remedy for ills that doctorscannot cure, seemed to her the best means of bringing me out of myapathy. She decided that I should spend a few weeks at Frapesle, achateau on the Indre midway between Montbazon and Azay-le-Rideau, which belonged to a friend of hers, to whom, no doubt, she gaveprivate instructions. 

By the day when I thus for the first time gained my liberty I had swumso vigorously in Love's ocean that I had well-nigh crossed it. I knewnothing of mine unknown lady, neither her name, nor where to find her;to whom, indeed, could I speak of her? My sensitive nature soexaggerated the inexplicable fears which beset all youthful hearts atthe first approach of love that I began with the melancholy whichoften ends a hopeless passion. I asked nothing better than to roamabout the country, to come and go and live in the fields. With thecourage of a child that fears no failure, in which there is somethingreally chivalrous, I determined to search every chateau in Touraine, travelling on foot, and saying to myself as each old tower came insight, "She is there!"

Accordingly, of a Thursday morning I left Tours by the barrier ofSaint-Eloy, crossed the bridges of Saint-Sauveur, reached Poncherwhose every house I examined, and took the road to Chinon. For thefirst time in my life I could sit down under a tree or walk fast orslow as I pleased without being dictated to by any one. To a poor ladcrushed under all sorts of despotism (which more or less does weighupon all youth) the first employment of freedom, even though it beexpended upon nothing, lifts the soul with irrepressible buoyancy. Several reasons combined to make that day one of enchantment. Duringmy school years I had never been taken to walk more than two or threemiles from a city; yet there remained in my mind among the earliestrecollections of my childhood that feeling for the beautiful which thescenery about Tours inspires. Though quite untaught as to the poetryof such a landscape, I was, unknown to myself, critical upon it, likethose who imagine the ideal of art without knowing anything of itspractice. 

To reach the chateau of Frapesle, foot-passengers, or those onhorseback, shorten the way by crossing the Charlemagne moors, --uncultivated tracts of land lying on the summit of the plateau whichseparates the valley of the Cher from that of the Indre, and overwhich there is a cross-road leading to Champy. These moors are flatand sandy, and for more than three miles are dreary enough until youreach, through a clump of woods, the road to Sache, the name of thetownship in which Frapesle stands. This road, which joins that ofChinon beyond Ballan, skirts an undulating plain to the little hamletof Artanne. Here we come upon a valley, which begins at Montbazon, ends at the Loire, and seems to rise and fall, --to bound, as it were, --beneath the chateaus placed on its double hillsides, --a splendidemerald cup, in the depths of which flow the serpentine lines of theriver Indre. I gazed at this scene with ineffable delight, for whichthe gloomy moor-land and the fatigue of the sandy walk had preparedme. 

"If that woman, the flower of her sex, does indeed inhabit this earth, she is here, on this spot. "

Thus musing, I leaned against a walnut-tree, beneath which I haverested from that day to this whenever I return to my dear valley. Beneath that tree, the confidant of my thoughts, I ask myself whatchanges there are in me since last I stood there. 

My heart deceived me not--she lived there; the first castle that I sawon the slope of a hill was the dwelling that held her. As I satbeneath my nut-tree, the mid-day sun was sparkling on the slates ofher roof and the panes of her windows. Her cambric dress made thewhite line which I saw among the vines of an arbor. She was, as youknow already without as yet knowing anything, the Lily of this valley, where she grew for heaven, filling it with the fragrance of hervirtues. Love, infinite love, without other sustenance than thevision, dimly seen, of which my soul was full, was there, expressed tome by that long ribbon of water flowing in the sunshine between thegrass-green banks, by the lines of the poplars adorning with theirmobile laces that vale of love, by the oak-woods coming down betweenthe vineyards to the shore, which the river curved and rounded as itchose, and by those dim varying horizons as they fled confusedly away. 

If you would see nature beautiful and virgin as a bride, go there of aspring morning. If you would still the bleeding wounds of your heart, return in the last days of autumn. In the spring, Love beats his wingsbeneath the broad blue sky; in the autumn, we think of those who areno more. The lungs diseased breathe in a blessed purity; the eyes willrest on golden copses which impart to the soul their peacefulstillness. At this moment, when I stood there for the first time, themills upon the brooksides gave a voice to the quivering valley; thepoplars were laughing as they swayed; not a cloud was in the sky; thebirds sang, the crickets chirped, --all was melody. Do not ask me againwhy I love Touraine. I love it, not as we love our cradle, not as welove the oasis in a desert; I love it as an artist loves art; I loveit less than I love you; but without Touraine, perhaps I might not nowbe living. 

Without knowing why, my eyes reverted ever to that white spot, to thewoman who shone in that garden as the bell of a convolvulus shinesamid the underbrush, and wilts if touched. Moved to the soul, Idescended the slope and soon saw a village, which the superaboundingpoetry that filled my heart made me fancy without an equal. Imaginethree mills placed among islands of graceful outline crowned withgroves of trees and rising from a field of water, --for what other namecan I give to that aquatic vegetation, so verdant, so finely colored, which carpeted the river, rose above its surface and undulated uponit, yielding to its caprices and swaying to the turmoil of the waterwhen the mill-wheels lashed it. Here and there were mounds of gravel, against which the wavelets broke in fringes that shimmered in thesunlight. Amaryllis, water-lilies, reeds, and phloxes decorated thebanks with their glorious tapestry. A trembling bridge of rottenplanks, the abutments swathed with flowers, and the hand-rails greenwith perennials and velvet mosses drooping to the river but notfalling to it; mouldering boats, fishing-nets; the monotonoussing-song of a shepherd; ducks paddling among the islands or preeningon the "jard, "--a name given to the coarse sand which the Loire bringsdown; the millers, with their caps over one ear, busily loading theirmules, --all these details made the scene before me one of primitivesimplicity. Imagine, also, beyond the bridge two or three farm-houses, a dove-cote, turtle-doves, thirty or more dilapidated cottages, separated by gardens, by hedges of honeysuckle, clematis, and jasmine;a dunghill beside each door, and cocks and hens about the road. Suchis the village of Pont-de-Ruan, a picturesque little hamlet leading upto an old church full of character, a church of the days of theCrusades, such a one as painters desire for their pictures. Surroundthis scene with ancient walnut-trees and slim young poplars with theirpale-gold leaves; dot graceful buildings here and there along thegrassy slopes where sight is lost beneath the vaporous, warm sky, andyou will have some idea of one of the points of view of this mostlovely region. 

I followed the road to Sache along the left bank of the river, noticing carefully the details of the hills on the opposite shore. Atlength I reached a park embellished with centennial trees, which Iknew to be that of Frapesle. I arrived just as the bell was ringingfor breakfast. After the meal, my host, who little suspected that Ihad walked from Tours, carried me over his estate, from the borders ofwhich I saw the valley on all sides under its many aspects, --herethrough a vista, there to its broad extent; often my eyes were drawnto the horizon along the golden blade of the Loire, where the sailsmade fantastic figures among the currents as they flew before thewind. As we mounted a crest I came in sight of the chateau d'Azay, like a diamond of many facets in a setting of the Indre, standing onwooden piles concealed by flowers. Farther on, in a hollow, I saw theromantic masses of the chateau of Sache, a sad retreat though full ofharmony; too sad for the superficial, but dear to a poet with a soulin pain. I, too, came to love its silence, its great gnarled trees, and the nameless mysterious influence of its solitary valley. But now, each time that we reached an opening towards the neighboring slopewhich gave to view the pretty castle I had first noticed in themorning, I stopped to look at it with pleasure. 

"Hey!" said my host, reading in my eyes the sparkling desires whichyouth so ingenuously betrays, "so you scent from afar a pretty womanas a dog scents game!"

I did not like the speech, but I asked the name of the castle and ofits owner. 

"It is Clochegourde, " he replied; "a pretty house belonging to theComte de Mortsauf, the head of an historic family in Touraine, whosefortune dates from the days of Louis XI. , and whose name tells thestory to which they owe their arms and their distinction. Monsieur deMortsauf is descended from a man who survived the gallows. The familybear: Or, a cross potent and counter-potent sable, charged with afleur-de-lis or; and 'Dieu saulve le Roi notre Sire, ' for motto. Thecount settled here after the return of the emigration. The estatebelongs to his wife, a demoiselle de Lenoncourt, of the house ofLenoncourt-Givry which is now dying out. Madame de Mortsauf is an onlydaughter. The limited fortune of the family contrasts strangely withthe distinction of their names; either from pride, or, possibly, fromnecessity, they never leave Clochegourde and see no company. Until nowtheir attachment to the Bourbons explained this retirement, but thereturn of the king has not changed their way of living. When I came toreside here last year I paid them a visit of courtesy; they returnedit and invited us to dinner; the winter separated us for some months, and political events kept me away from Frapesle until recently. Madamede Mortsauf is a woman who would hold the highest position wherevershe might be. "

"Does she often come to Tours?"

"She never goes there. However, " he added, correcting himself, "shedid go there lately to the ball given to the Duc d'Angouleme, who wasvery gracious to her husband. "

"It was she!" I exclaimed. 

"She! who?"

"A woman with beautiful shoulders. "

"You will meet a great many women with beautiful shoulders inTouraine, " he said, laughing. "But if you are not tired we can crossthe river and call at Clochegourde and you shall renew acquaintancewith those particular shoulders. "

I agreed, not without a blush of shame and pleasure. About fouro'clock we reached the little chateau on which my eyes had fastenedfrom the first. The building, which is finely effective in thelandscape, is in reality very modest. It has five windows on thefront; those at each end of the facade, looking south, project abouttwelve feet, --an architectural device which gives the idea of twotowers and adds grace to the structure. The middle window serves as adoor from which you descend through a double portico into a terracedgarden which joins the narrow strip of grass-land that skirts theIndre along its whole course. Though this meadow is separated from thelower terrace, which is shaded by a double line of acacias andJapanese ailanthus, by the country road, it nevertheless appears fromthe house to be a part of the garden, for the road is sunken andhemmed in on one side by the terrace, on the other side by a Normanhedge. The terraces being very well managed put enough distancebetween the house and the river to avoid the inconvenience of toogreat proximity to water, without losing the charms of it. Below thehouse are the stables, coach-house, green-houses, and kitchen, thevarious openings to which form an arcade. The roof is charminglyrounded at the angles, and bears mansarde windows with carved mullionsand leaden finials on their gables. This roof, no doubt much neglectedduring the Revolution, is stained by a sort of mildew produced bylichens and the reddish moss which grows on houses exposed to the sun. The glass door of the portico is surmounted by a little tower whichholds the bell, and on which is carved the escutcheon of theBlamont-Chauvry family, to which Madame de Mortsauf belonged, as follows:Gules, a pale vair, flanked quarterly by two hands clasped or, and twolances in chevron sable. The motto, "Voyez tous, nul ne touche!"struck me greatly. The supporters, a griffin and dragon gules, enchained or, made a pretty effect in the carving. The Revolution hasdamaged the ducal crown and the crest, which was a palm-tree vert withfruit or. Senart, the secretary of the committee of public safety wasbailiff of Sache before 1781, which explains this destruction. 

These arrangements give an elegant air to the little castle, dainty asa flower, which seems to scarcely rest upon the earth. Seen from thevalley the ground-floor appears to be the first story; but on theother side it is on a level with a broad gravelled path leading to agrass-plot, on which are several flower-beds. To right and left arevineyards, orchards, and a few acres of tilled land planted withchestnut-trees which surround the house, the ground falling rapidly tothe Indre, where other groups of trees of variegated shades of green, chosen by Nature herself, are spread along the shore. I admired thesegroups, so charmingly disposed, as we mounted the hilly road whichborders Clochegourde; I breathed an atmosphere of happiness. Has themoral nature, like the physical nature, its own electricalcommunications and its rapid changes of temperature? My heart wasbeating at the approach of events then unrevealed which were to changeit forever, just as animals grow livelier when foreseeing fineweather. 

This day, so marked in my life, lacked no circumstance that was neededto solemnize it. Nature was adorned like a woman to meet her lover. Mysoul heard her voice for the first time; my eyes worshipped her, asfruitful, as varied as my imagination had pictured her in thoseschool-dreams the influence of which I have tried in a few unskilfulwords to explain to you, for they were to me an Apocalypse in which mylife was figuratively foretold; each event, fortunate or unfortunate, being mated to some one of these strange visions by ties known only tothe soul. 

We crossed a court-yard surrounded by buildings necessary for the farmwork, --a barn, a wine-press, cow-sheds, and stables. Warned by thebarking of the watch-dog, a servant came to meet us, saying thatMonsieur le comte had gone to Azay in the morning but would soonreturn, and that Madame la comtesse was at home. My companion lookedat me. I fairly trembled lest he should decline to see Madame deMortsauf in her husband's absence; but he told the man to announce us. With the eagerness of a child I rushed into the long antechamber whichcrosses the whole house. 

"Come in, gentlemen, " said a golden voice. 

Though Madame de Mortsauf had spoken only one word at the ball, Irecognized her voice, which entered my soul and filled it as a ray ofsunshine fills and gilds a prisoner's dungeon. Thinking, suddenly, that she might remember my face, my first impulse was to fly; but itwas too late, --she appeared in the doorway, and our eyes met. I knownot which of us blushed deepest. Too much confused for immediatespeech she returned to her seat at an embroidery frame while theservant placed two chairs, then she drew out her needle and countedsome stitches, as if to explain her silence; after which she raisedher head, gently yet proudly, in the direction of Monsieur de Chesselas she asked to what fortunate circumstance she owed his visit. Thoughcurious to know the secret of my unexpected appearance, she looked atneither of us, --her eyes were fixed on the river; and yet you couldhave told by the way she listened that she was able to recognize, asthe blind do, the agitations of a neighboring soul by theimperceptible inflexions of the voice. 

Monsieur de Chessel gave my name and biography. I had lately arrivedat Tours, where my parents had recalled me when the armies threatenedParis. A son of Touraine to whom Touraine was as yet unknown, shewould find me a young man weakened by excessive study and sent toFrapesle to amuse himself; he had already shown me his estate, which Isaw for the first time. I had just told him that I had walked fromTours to Frapesle, and fearing for my health--which was reallydelicate--he had stopped at Clochegourde to ask her to allow me torest there. Monsieur de Chessel told the truth; but the accidentseemed so forced that Madame de Mortsauf distrusted us. She gave me acold, severe glance, under which my own eyelids fell, as much from asense of humiliation as to hide the tears that rose beneath them. Shesaw the moisture on my forehead, and perhaps she guessed the tears;for she offered me the restoratives I needed, with a few kind andconsoling words, which gave me back the power of speech. I blushedlike a young girl, and in a voice as tremulous as that of an old man Ithanked her and declined. 

"All I ask, " I said, raising my eyes to hers, which mine now met forthe second time in a glance as rapid as lightning, --"is to rest here. I am so crippled with fatigue I really cannot walk farther. "

"You must not doubt the hospitality of our beautiful Touraine, " shesaid; then, turning to my companion, she added: "You will give us thepleasure of your dining at Clochegourde?"

I threw such a look of entreaty at Monsieur de Chessel that he beganthe preliminaries of accepting the invitation, though it was given ina manner that seemed to expect a refusal. As a man of the world, herecognized these shades of meaning; but I, a young man withoutexperience, believed so implicitly in the sincerity between word andthought of this beautiful woman that I was wholly astonished when myhost said to me, after we reached home that evening, "I stayed becauseI saw you were dying to do so; but if you do not succeed in making itall right, I may find myself on bad terms with my neighbors. " Thatexpression, "if you do not make it all right, " made me ponder thematter deeply. In other words, if I pleased Madame de Mortsauf, shewould not be displeased with the man who introduced me to her. Heevidently thought I had the power to please her; this in itself gaveme that power, and corroborated my inward hope at a moment when itneeded some outward succor. 

"I am afraid it will be difficult, " he began; "Madame de Chesselexpects us. "

"She has you every day, " replied the countess; "besides, we can sendher word. Is she alone?"

"No, the Abbe de Quelus is there. "

"Well, then, " she said, rising to ring the bell, "you really must dinewith us. "

This time Monsieur de Chessel thought her in earnest, and gave me acongratulatory look. As soon as I was sure of passing a whole eveningunder that roof I seemed to have eternity before me. For manymiserable beings to-morrow is a word without meaning, and I was of thenumber who had no faith in it; when I was certain of a few hours ofhappiness I made them contain a whole lifetime of delight. 

Madame de Mortsauf talked about local affairs, the harvest, thevintage, and other matters to which I was a total stranger. Thisusually argues either a want of breeding or great contempt for thestranger present who is thus shut out from the conversation, but inthis case it was embarrassment. Though at first I thought she treatedme as a child and I envied the man of thirty to whom she talked ofserious matters which I could not comprehend, I came, a few monthslater, to understand how significant a woman's silence often is, andhow many thoughts a voluble conversation masks. At first I attemptedto be at my ease and take part in it, then I perceived the advantagesof my situation and gave myself up to the charm of listening to Madamede Mortsauf's voice. The breath of her soul rose and fell among thesyllables as sound is divided by the notes of a flute; it died away tothe ear as it quickened the pulsation of the blood. Her way ofuttering the terminations in "i" was like a bird's song; the "ch" asshe said it was a kiss, but the "t's" were an echo of her heart'sdespotism. She thus extended, without herself knowing that she did so, the meaning of her words, leading the soul of the listener intoregions above this earth. Many a time I have continued a discussion Icould easily have ended, many a time I have allowed myself to beunjustly scolded that I might listen to those harmonies of the humanvoice, that I might breathe the air of her soul as it left her lips, and strain to my soul that spoken light as I would fain have strainedthe speaker to my breast. A swallow's song of joy it was when she wasgay!--but when she spoke of her griefs, a swan's voice calling to itsmates!

Madame de Mortsauf's inattention to my presence enabled me to examineher. My eyes rejoiced as they glided over the sweet speaker; theykissed her feet, they clasped her waist, they played with the ringletsof her hair. And yet I was a prey to terror, as all who, once in theirlives, have experienced the illimitable joys of a true passion willunderstand. I feared she would detect me if I let my eyes rest uponthe shoulder I had kissed, and the fear sharpened the temptation. Iyielded, I looked, my eyes tore away the covering; I saw the molewhich lay where the pretty line between the shoulders started, andwhich, ever since the ball, had sparkled in that twilight which seemsthe region of the sleep of youths whose imagination is ardent andwhose life is chaste. 

I can sketch for you the leading features which all eyes saw in Madamede Mortsauf; but no drawing, however correct, no color, however warm, can represent her to you. Her face was of those that require theunattainable artist, whose hand can paint the reflection of inwardfires and render that luminous vapor which defies science and is notrevealable by language--but which a lover sees. Her soft, fair hairoften caused her much suffering, no doubt through sudden rushes ofblood to the head. Her brow, round and prominent like that of Joconda, teemed with unuttered thoughts, restrained feelings--flowers drowningin bitter waters. The eyes, of a green tinge flecked with brown, werealways wan; but if her children were in question, or if some keencondition of joy or suffering (rare in the lives of all resignedwomen) seized her, those eyes sent forth a subtile gleam as if fromfires that were consuming her, --the gleam that wrung the tears frommine when she covered me with her contempt, and which sufficed tolower the boldest eyelid. A Grecian nose, designed it might be byPhidias, and united by its double arch to lips that were gracefullycurved, spiritualized the face, which was oval with a skin of thetexture of a white camellia colored with soft rose-tints upon thecheeks. Her plumpness did not detract from the grace of her figure norfrom the rounded outlines which made her shape beautiful though welldeveloped. You will understand the character of this perfection when Isay that where the dazzling treasures which had so fascinated mejoined the arm there was no crease or wrinkle. No hollow disfiguredthe base of her head, like those which make the necks of some womenresemble trunks of trees; her muscles were not harshly defined, andeverywhere the lines were rounded into curves as fugitive to the eyeas to the pencil. A soft down faintly showed upon her cheeks and onthe outline of her throat, catching the light which made it silken. Her little ears, perfect in shape, were, as she said herself, the earsof a mother and a slave. In after days, when our hearts were one, shewould say to me, "Here comes Monsieur de Mortsauf"; and she was right, though I, whose hearing is remarkably acute, could hear nothing. 

Her arms were beautiful. The curved fingers of the hand were long, andthe flesh projected at the side beyond the finger-nails, like those ofantique statues. I should displease you, I know, if you were notyourself an exception to my rule, when I say that flat waists shouldhave the preference over round ones. The round waist is a sign ofstrength; but women thus formed are imperious, self-willed, and morevoluptuous than tender. On the other hand, women with flat waists aredevoted in soul, delicately perceptive, inclined to sadness, moretruly woman than the other class. The flat waist is supple andyielding; the round waist is inflexible and jealous. 

You now know how she was made. She had the foot of a well-bred woman, --the foot that walks little, is quickly tired, and delights the eyewhen it peeps beneath the dress. Though she was the mother of twochildren, I have never met any woman so truly a young girl as she. Herwhole air was one of simplicity, joined to a certain bashfuldreaminess which attracted others, just as a painter arrests our stepsbefore a figure into which his genius has conveyed a world ofsentiment. If you recall the pure, wild fragrance of the heath wegathered on our return from the Villa Diodati, the flower whose tintsof black and rose you praised so warmly, you can fancy how this womancould be elegant though remote from the social world, natural inexpression, fastidious in all things which became part of herself, --inshort, like the heath of mingled colors. Her body had the freshness weadmire in the unfolding leaf; her spirit the clear conciseness of theaboriginal mind; she was a child by feeling, grave through suffering, the mistress of a household, yet a maiden too. Therefore she charmedartlessly and unconsciously, by her way of sitting down or rising, ofthrowing in a word or keeping silence. Though habitually collected, watchful as the sentinel on whom the safety of others depends and wholooks for danger, there were moments when smiles would wreathe herlips and betray the happy nature buried beneath the saddened bearingthat was the outcome of her life. Her gift of attraction wasmysterious. Instead of inspiring the gallant attentions which otherwomen seek, she made men dream, letting them see her virginal natureof pure flame, her celestial visions, as we see the azure heavensthrough rifts in the clouds. This involuntary revelation of her beingmade others thoughtful. The rarity of her gestures, above all, therarity of her glances--for, excepting her children, she seldom lookedat any one--gave a strange solemnity to all she said and did when herwords or actions seemed to her to compromise her dignity. 

On this particular morning Madame de Mortsauf wore a rose-colored gownpatterned in tiny stripes, a collar with a wide hem, a black belt, andlittle boots of the same hue. Her hair was simply twisted round herhead, and held in place by a tortoise-shell comb. Such, my dearNatalie, is the imperfect sketch I promised you. But the constantemanation of her soul upon her family, that nurturing essence shed infloods around her as the sun emits its light, her inward nature, hercheerfulness on days serene, her resignation on stormy ones, --allthose variations of expression by which character is displayed depend, like the effects in the sky, on unexpected and fugitive circumstances, which have no connection with each other except the background againstwhich they rest, though all are necessarily mingled with the events ofthis history, --truly a household epic, as great to the eyes of a wiseman as a tragedy to the eyes of the crowd, an epic in which you willfeel an interest, not only for the part I took in it, but for thelikeness that it bears to the destinies of so vast a number of women. 

Everything at Clochegourde bore signs of a truly English cleanliness. The room in which the countess received us was panelled throughout andpainted in two shades of gray. The mantelpiece was ornamented with aclock inserted in a block of mahogany and surmounted with a tazza, andtwo large vases of white porcelain with gold lines, which held bunchesof Cape heather. A lamp was on a pier-table, and a backgammon board onlegs before the fireplace. Two wide bands of cotton held back thewhite cambric curtains, which had no fringe. The furniture was coveredwith gray cotton bound with a green braid, and the tapestry on thecountess's frame told why the upholstery was thus covered. Suchsimplicity rose to grandeur. No apartment, among all that I have seensince, has given me such fertile, such teeming impressions as thosethat filled my mind in that salon of Clochegourde, calm and composedas the life of its mistress, where the conventual regularity of heroccupations made itself felt. The greater part of my ideas in scienceor politics, even the boldest of them, were born in that room, asperfumes emanate from flowers; there grew the mysterious plant thatcast upon my soul its fructifying pollen; there glowed the solarwarmth which developed my good and shrivelled my evil qualities. Through the windows the eye took in the valley from the heights ofPont-de-Ruan to the chateau d'Azay, following the windings of thefurther shore, picturesquely varied by the towers of Frapesle, thechurch, the village, and the old manor-house of Sache, whose venerablepile looked down upon the meadows. 

In harmony with this reposeful life, and without other excitements toemotion than those arising in the family, this scene conveyed to thesoul its own serenity. If I had met her there for the first time, between the count and her two children, instead of seeing herresplendent in a ball dress, I should not have ravished that deliriouskiss, which now filled me with remorse and with the fear of havinglost the future of my love. No; in the gloom of my unhappy life Ishould have bent my knee and kissed the hem of her garment, wetting itwith tears, and then I might have flung myself into the Indre. Buthaving breathed the jasmine perfume of her skin and drunk the milk ofthat cup of love, my soul had acquired the knowledge and the hope ofhuman joys; I would live and await the coming of happiness as thesavage awaits his hour of vengeance; I longed to climb those trees, tocreep among the vines, to float in the river; I wanted thecompanionship of night and its silence, I needed lassitude of body, Icraved the heat of the sun to make the eating of the delicious appleinto which I had bitten perfect. Had she asked of me the singingflower, the riches buried by the comrades of Morgan the destroyer, Iwould have sought them, to obtain those other riches and that muteflower for which I longed. 

When my dream, the dream into which this first contemplation of myidol plunged me, came to an end and I heard her speaking of Monsieurde Mortsauf, the thought came that a woman must belong to her husband, and a raging curiosity possessed me to see the owner of this treasure. Two emotions filled my mind, hatred and fear, --hatred which allowed ofno obstacles and measured all without shrinking, and a vague, but realfear of the struggle, of its issue, and above all of _her_. 

"Here is Monsieur de Mortsauf, " she said. 

I sprang to my feet like a startled horse. Though the movement wasseen by Monsieur de Chessel and the countess, neither made anyobservation, for a diversion was effected at this moment by theentrance of a little girl, whom I took to be about six years old, whocame in exclaiming, "Here's papa!"

"Madeleine?" said her mother, gently. 

The child at once held out her hand to Monsieur de Chessel, and lookedattentively at me after making a little bow with an air ofastonishment. 

"Are you more satisfied about her health?" asked Monsieur de Chessel. 

"She is better, " replied the countess, caressing the little head whichwas already nestling in her lap. 

The next question of Monsieur de Chessel let me know that Madeleinewas nine years old; I showed great surprise, and immediately theclouds gathered on the mother's brow. My companion threw me asignificant look, --one of those which form the education of men of theworld. I had stumbled no doubt upon some maternal wound the coveringof which should have been respected. The sickly child, whose eyes werepallid and whose skin was white as a porcelain vase with a lightwithin it, would probably not have lived in the atmosphere of a city. Country air and her mother's brooding care had kept the life in thatfrail body, delicate as a hot-house plant growing in a harsh andforeign climate. Though in nothing did she remind me of her mother, Madeleine seemed to have her soul, and that soul held her up. Her hairwas scanty and black, her eyes and cheeks hollow, her arms thin, herchest narrow, showing a battle between life and death, a duel withouttruce in which the mother had so far been victorious. The child willedto live, --perhaps to spare her mother, for at times, when notobserved, she fell into the attitude of a weeping-willow. You mighthave thought her a little gypsy dying of hunger, begging her way, exhausted but always brave and dressed up to play her part. 

"Where have you left Jacques?" asked the countess, kissing the whiteline which parted the child's hair into two bands that looked like acrow's wings. 

"He is coming with papa. "

Just then the count entered, holding his son by the hand. Jacques, theimage of his sister, showed the same signs of weakness. Seeing thesesickly children beside a mother so magnificently healthy it wasimpossible not to guess at the causes of the grief which clouded herbrow and kept her silent on a subject she could take to God only. Ashe bowed, Monsieur de Mortsauf gave me a glance that was lessobserving than awkwardly uneasy, --the glance of a man whose distrustgrows out of his inability to analyze. After explaining thecircumstances of our visit, and naming me to him, the countess gavehim her place and left the room. The children, whose eyes were onthose of their mother as if they drew the light of theirs from hers, tried to follow her; but she said, with a finger on her lips, "Staydears!" and they obeyed, but their eyes filled. Ah! to hear that oneword "dears" what tasks they would have undertaken!

Like the children, I felt less warm when she had left us. My nameseemed to change the count's feeling toward me. Cold and superciliousin his first glance, he became at once, if not affectionate, at leastpolitely attentive, showing me every consideration and seeming pleasedto receive me as a guest. My father had formerly done devoted serviceto the Bourbons, and had played an important and perilous, thoughsecret part. When their cause was lost by the elevation of Napoleon, he took refuge in the quietude of the country and domestic life, accepting the unmerited accusations that followed him as theinevitable reward of those who risk all to win all, and who succumbafter serving as pivot to the political machine. Knowing nothing ofthe fortunes, nor of the past, nor of the future of my family, I wasunaware of this devoted service which the Comte de Mortsauf wellremembered. Moreover, the antiquity of our name, the most preciousquality of a man in his eyes, added to the warmth of his greeting. Iknew nothing of these reasons until later; for the time being thesudden transition to cordiality put me at my ease. When the twochildren saw that we were all three fairly engaged in conversation, Madeleine slipped her head from her father's hand, glanced at the opendoor, and glided away like an eel, Jacques following her. Theyrejoined their mother, and I heard their voices and their movements, sounding in the distance like the murmur of bees about a hive. 

I watched the count, trying to guess his character, but I became sointerested in certain leading traits that I got no further than asuperficial examination of his personality. Though he was onlyforty-five years old, he seemed nearer sixty, so much had the greatshipwreck at the close of the eighteenth century aged him. Thecrescent of hair which monastically fringed the back of his head, otherwise completely bald, ended at the ears in little tufts of graymingled with black. His face bore a vague resemblance to that of awhite wolf with blood about its muzzle, for his nose was inflamed andgave signs of a life poisoned at its springs and vitiated by diseasesof long standing. His flat forehead, too broad for the face beneathit, which ended in a point, and transversely wrinkled in crookedlines, gave signs of a life in the open air, but not of any mentalactivity; it also showed the burden of constant misfortunes, but notof any efforts made to surmount them. His cheekbones, which were brownand prominent amid the general pallor of his skin, showed a physicalstructure which was likely to ensure him a long life. His hard, light-yellow eye fell upon mine like a ray of wintry sun, brightwithout warmth, anxious without thought, distrustful without consciouscause. His mouth was violent and domineering, his chin flat and long. Thin and very tall, he had the bearing of a gentleman who relies uponthe conventional value of his caste, who knows himself above others byright, and beneath them in fact. The carelessness of country life hadmade him neglect his external appearance. His dress was that of acountry-man whom peasants and neighbors no longer considered exceptfor his territorial worth. His brown and wiry hands showed that hewore no gloves unless he mounted a horse, or went to church, and hisshoes were thick and common. 

Though ten years of emigration and ten years more of farm-life hadchanged his physical condition, he still retained certain vestiges ofnobility. The bitterest liberal (a term not then in circulation) wouldreadily have admitted his chivalric loyalty and the imperishableconvictions of one who puts his faith to the "Quotidienne"; he wouldhave felt respect for the man religiously devoted to a cause, honestin his political antipathies, incapable of serving his party but verycapable of injuring it, and without the slightest real knowledge ofthe affairs of France. The count was in fact one of those upright menwho are available for nothing, but stand obstinately in the way ofall; ready to die under arms at the post assigned to them, butpreferring to give their life rather than to give their money. 

During dinner I detected, in the hanging of his flaccid cheeks and thecovert glances he cast now and then upon his children, the traces ofsome wearing thought which showed for a moment upon the surface. Watching him, who could fail to understand him? Who would not haveseen that he had fatally transmitted to his children those weaklybodies in which the principle of life was lacking. But if he blamedhimself he denied to others the right to judge him. Harsh as one whoknows himself in fault, yet without greatness of soul or charm tocompensate for the weight of misery he had thrown into the balance, his private life was no doubt the scene of irascibilities that wereplainly revealed in his angular features and by the incessantrestlessness of his eye. When his wife returned, followed by thechildren who seemed fastened to her side, I felt the presence ofunhappiness, just as in walking over the roof of a vault the feetbecome in some way conscious of the depths below. Seeing these fourhuman beings together, holding them all as it were in one glance, letting my eye pass from one to the other, studying their countenancesand their respective attitudes, thoughts steeped in sadness fell uponmy heart as a fine gray rain dims a charming landscape after the sunhas risen clear. 

When the immediate subject of conversation was exhausted the counttold his wife who I was, and related certain circumstances connectedwith my family that were wholly unknown to me. He asked me my age. When I told it, the countess echoed my own exclamation of surprise ather daughter's age. Perhaps she had thought me fifteen. Later on, Idiscovered that this was still another tie which bound her strongly tome. Even then I read her soul. Her motherhood quivered with a tardyray of hope. Seeing me at over twenty years of age so slight anddelicate and yet so nervously strong, a voice cried to her, "They toowill live!" She looked at me searchingly, and in that moment I feltthe barriers of ice melting between us. She seemed to have manyquestions to ask, but uttered none. 

"If study has made you ill, " she said, "the air of our valley willsoon restore you. "

"Modern education is fatal to children, " remarked the count. "We stuffthem with mathematics and ruin their health with sciences, and makethem old before their time. You must stay and rest here, " he added, turning to me. "You are crushed by the avalanche of ideas that haverolled down upon you. What sort of future will this universaleducation bring upon us unless we prevent its evils by replacingpublic education in the hands of the religious bodies?"

These words were in harmony with a speech he afterwards made at theelections when he refused his support to a man whose gifts would havedone good service to the royalist cause. "I shall always distrust menof talent, " he said. 

Presently the count proposed that we should make the tour of thegardens. 

"Monsieur--" said his wife. 

"Well, what, my dear?" he said, turning to her with an arrogantharshness which showed plainly enough how absolute he chose to be inhis own home. 

"Monsieur de Vandenesse walked from Tours this morning and Monsieur deChessel, not aware of it, has already taken him on foot overFrapesle. "

"Very imprudent of you, " the count said, turning to me; "but at yourage--" and he shook his head in sign of regret. 

The conversation was resumed. I soon saw how intractable his royalismwas, and how much care was needed to swim safely in his waters. Theman-servant, who had now put on his livery, announced dinner. Monsieurde Chessel gave his arm to Madame de Mortsauf, and the count gailyseized mine to lead me into the dining-room, which was on theground-floor facing the salon. 

This room, floored with white tiles made in Touraine, and wainscotedto the height of three feet, was hung with a varnished paper dividedinto wide panels by wreaths of flowers and fruit; the windows hadcambric curtains trimmed with red, the buffets were old pieces byBoulle himself, and the woodwork of the chairs, which were covered byhand-made tapestry, was carved oak. The dinner, plentifully supplied, was not luxurious; family silver without uniformity, Dresden chinawhich was not then in fashion, octagonal decanters, knives with agatehandles, and lacquered trays beneath the wine-bottles, were the chieffeatures of the table, but flowers adorned the porcelain vases andoverhung the gilding of their fluted edges. I delighted in thesequaint old things. I thought the Reveillon paper with its flowerygarlands beautiful. The sweet content that filled my sails hindered mefrom perceiving the obstacles which a life so uniform, so unvarying insolitude of the country placed between her and me. I was near her, sitting at her right hand, serving her with wine. Yes, unhoped-forjoy! I touched her dress, I ate her bread. At the end of three hoursmy life had mingled with her life! That terrible kiss had bound us toeach other in a secret which inspired us with mutual shame. A gloriousself-abasement took possession of me. I studied to please the count, Ifondled the dogs, I would gladly have gratified every desire of thechildren, I would have brought them hoops and marbles and played horsewith them; I was even provoked that they did not already fasten uponme as a thing of their own. Love has intuitions like those of genius;and I dimly perceived that gloom, discontent, hostility would destroymy footing in that household. 

The dinner passed with inward happiness on my part. Feeling that I wasthere, under her roof, I gave no heed to her obvious coldness, nor tothe count's indifference masked by his politeness. Love, like life, has an adolescence during which period it suffices unto itself. I madeseveral stupid replies induced by the tumults of passion, but no oneperceived their cause, not even SHE, who knew nothing of love. Therest of my visit was a dream, a dream which did not cease until bymoonlight on that warm and balmy night I recrossed the Indre, watchingthe white visions that embellished meadows, shores, and hills, andlistening to the clear song, the matchless note, full of deepmelancholy and uttered only in still weather, of a tree-frog whosescientific name is unknown to me. Since that solemn evening I havenever heard it without infinite delight. A sense came to me then ofthe marble wall against which my feelings had hitherto dashedthemselves. Would it be always so? I fancied myself under some fatalspell; the unhappy events of my past life rose up and struggled withthe purely personal pleasure I had just enjoyed. Before reachingFrapesle I turned to look at Clochegourde and saw beneath its windowsa little boat, called in Touraine a punt, fastened to an ash-tree andswaying on the water. This punt belonged to Monsieur de Mortsauf, whoused it for fishing. 

"Well, " said Monsieur de Chessel, when we were out of ear-shot. "Ineedn't ask if you found those shoulders; I must, however, congratulate you on the reception Monsieur de Mortsauf gave you. Thedevil! you stepped into his heart at once. "

These words followed by those I have already quoted to you raised myspirits. I had not as yet said a word, and Monsieur de Chessel mayhave attributed my silence to happiness. 

"How do you mean?" I asked. 

"He never, to my knowledge, received any one so well. "

"I will admit that I am rather surprised myself, " I said, conscious ofa certain bitterness underlying my companion's speech. 

Though I was too inexpert in social matters to understand its cause, Iwas much struck by the feeling Monsieur de Chessel betrayed. His realname was Durand, but he had had the weakness to discard the name of aworthy father, a merchant who had made a large fortune under theRevolution. His wife was sole heiress of the Chessels, an oldparliamentary family under Henry IV. , belonging to the middle classes, as did most of the Parisian magistrates. Ambitious of higher flightsMonsieur de Chessel endeavored to smother the original Durand. Hefirst called himself Durand de Chessel, then D. De Chessel, and thatmade him Monsieur de Chessel. Under the Restoration he entailed anestate with the title of count in virtue of letters-patent from LouisXVIII. His children reaped the fruits of his audacity without knowingwhat it cost him in sarcastic comments. Parvenus are like monkeys, whose cleverness they possess; we watch them climbing, we admire theiragility, but once at the summit we see only their absurd andcontemptible parts. The reverse side of my host's character was madeup of pettiness with the addition of envy. The peerage and he were ondiverging lines. To have an ambition and gratify it shows merely theinsolence of strength, but to live below one's avowed ambition is aconstant source of ridicule to petty minds. Monsieur de Chessel didnot advance with the straightforward step of a strong man. Twiceelected deputy, twice defeated; yesterday director-general, to-daynothing at all, not even prefect, his successes and his defeats hadinjured his nature, and given him the sourness of invalided ambition. Though a brave man and a witty one and capable of great things, envy, which is the root of existence in Touraine, the inhabitants of whichemploy their native genius in jealousy of all things, injured him inupper social circles, where a dissatisfied man, frowning at thesuccess of others, slow at compliments and ready at epigram, seldomsucceeds. Had he sought less he might perhaps have obtained more; butunhappily he had enough genuine superiority to make him wish toadvance in his own way. 

At this particular time Monsieur de Chessel's ambition had a seconddawn. Royalty smiled upon him, and he was now affecting the grandmanner. Still he was, I must say, most kind to me, and he pleased mefor the very simple reason that with him I had found peace and restfor the first time. The interest, possibly very slight, which heshowed in my affairs, seemed to me, lonely and rejected as I was, animage of paternal love. His hospitable care contrasted so stronglywith the neglect to which I was accustomed, that I felt a childlikegratitude to the home where no fetters bound me and where I waswelcomed and even courted. 

The owners of Frapesle are so associated with the dawn of my life'shappiness that I mingle them in all those memories I love to revive. Later, and more especially in connection with his letters-patent, Ihad the pleasure of doing my host some service. Monsieur de Chesselenjoyed his wealth with an ostentation that gave umbrage to certain ofhis neighbors. He was able to vary and renew his fine horses andelegant equipages; his wife dressed exquisitely; he received on agrand scale; his servants were more numerous than his neighborsapproved; for all of which he was said to be aping princes. TheFrapesle estate is immense. Before such luxury as this the Comte deMortsauf, with one family cariole, --which in Touraine is somethingbetween a coach without springs and a post-chaise, --forced by limitedmeans to let or farm Clochegourde, was Tourangean up to the time whenroyal favor restored the family to a distinction possibly unlookedfor. His greeting to me, the younger son of a ruined family whoseescutcheon dated back to the Crusades, was intended to show contemptfor the large fortune and to belittle the possessions, the woods, thearable lands, the meadows, of a neighbor who was not of noble birth. Monsieur de Chessel fully understood this. They always met politely;but there was none of that daily intercourse or that agreeableintimacy which ought to have existed between Clochegourde andFrapesle, two estates separated only by the Indre, and whosemistresses could have beckoned to each other from their windows. 

Jealousy, however, was not the sole reason for the solitude in whichthe Count de Mortsauf lived. His early education was that of thechildren of great families, --an incomplete and superficial instructionas to knowledge, but supplemented by the training of society, thehabits of a court life, and the exercise of important duties under thecrown or in eminent offices. Monsieur de Mortsauf had emigrated at thevery moment when the second stage of his education was about to begin, and accordingly that training was lacking to him. He was one of thosewho believed in the immediate restoration of the monarchy; with thatconviction in his mind, his exile was a long and miserable period ofidleness. When the army of Conde, which his courage led him to joinwith the utmost devotion, was disbanded, he expected to find someother post under the white flag, and never sought, like otheremigrants, to take up an industry. Perhaps he had not the sort ofcourage that could lay aside his name and earn his living in the sweatof a toil he despised. His hopes, daily postponed to the morrow, andpossibly a scruple of honor, kept him from offering his services toforeign powers. Trials undermined his courage. Long tramps afoot oninsufficient nourishment, and above all, on hopes betrayed, injuredhis health and discouraged his mind. By degrees he became utterlydestitute. If to some men misery is a tonic, on others it acts as adissolvent; and the count was of the latter. 

Reflecting on the life of this poor Touraine gentleman, tramping andsleeping along the highroads of Hungary, sharing the mutton of PrinceEsterhazy's shepherds, from whom the foot-worn traveller begged thefood he would not, as a gentleman, have accepted at the table of themaster, and refusing again and again to do service to the enemies ofFrance, I never found it in my heart to feel bitterness against him, even when I saw him at his worst in after days. The natural gaiety ofa Frenchman and a Tourangean soon deserted him; he became morose, fellill, and was charitably cared for in some German hospital. His diseasewas an inflammation of the mesenteric membrane, which is often fatal, and is liable, even if cured, to change the constitution and producehypochondria. His love affairs, carefully buried out of sight andwhich I alone discovered, were low-lived, and not only destroyed hishealth but ruined his future. 

After twelve years of great misery he made his way to France, underthe decree of the Emperor which permitted the return of the emigrants. As the wretched wayfarer crossed the Rhine and saw the tower ofStrasburg against the evening sky, his strength gave way. "'France!France!' I cried. 'I see France!'" (he said to me) "as a child cries'Mother!' when it is hurt. " Born to wealth, he was now poor; made tocommand a regiment or govern a province, he was now without authorityand without a future; constitutionally healthy and robust, he returnedinfirm and utterly worn out. Without enough education to take partamong men and affairs, now broadened and enlarged by the march ofevents, necessarily without influence of any kind, he lived despoiledof everything, of his moral strength as well as his physical. Want ofmoney made his name a burden. His unalterable opinions, hisantecedents with the army of Conde, his trials, his recollections, hiswasted health, gave him susceptibilities which are but little sparedin France, that land of jest and sarcasm. Half dead he reached Maine, where, by some accident of the civil war, the revolutionary governmenthad forgotten to sell one of his farms of considerable extent, whichhis farmer had held for him by giving out that he himself was theowner of it. 

When the Lenoncourt family, living at Givry, an estate not far fromthis farm, heard of the arrival of the Comte de Mortsauf, the Duc deLenoncourt invited him to stay at Givry while a house was beingprepared for him. The Lenoncourt family were nobly generous to him, and with them he remained some months, struggling to hide hissufferings during that first period of rest. The Lenoncourts hadthemselves lost an immense property. By birth Monsieur de Mortsauf wasa suitable husband for their daughter. Mademoiselle de Lenoncourt, instead of rejecting a marriage with a feeble and worn-out man ofthirty-five, seemed satisfied to accept it. It gave her theopportunity of living with her aunt, the Duchesse de Verneuil, sisterof the Prince de Blamont-Chauvry, who was like a mother to her. 

Madame de Verneuil, the intimate friend of the Duchesse de Bourbon, was a member of the devout society of which Monsieur Saint-Martin(born in Touraine and called the Philosopher of Mystery) was the soul. The disciples of this philosopher practised the virtues taught them bythe lofty doctrines of mystical illumination. These doctrines hold thekey to worlds divine; they explain existence by reincarnations throughwhich the human spirit rises to its sublime destiny; they liberateduty from its legal degradation, enable the soul to meet the trials oflife with the unalterable serenity of the Quaker, ordain contempt forthe sufferings of this life, and inspire a fostering care of thatangel within us who allies us to the divine. It is stoicism with animmortal future. Active prayer and pure love are the elements of thisfaith, which is born of the Roman Church but returns to theChristianity of the primitive faith. Mademoiselle de Lenoncourtremained, however, in the Catholic communion, to which her aunt wasequally bound. Cruelly tried by revolutionary horrors, the Duchesse deVerneuil acquired in the last years of her life a halo of passionatepiety, which, to use the phraseology of Saint-Martin, shed the lightof celestial love and the chrism of inward joy upon the soul of hercherished niece. 

After the death of her aunt, Madame de Mortsauf received severalvisits at Clochegourde from Saint-Martin, a man of peace and ofvirtuous wisdom. It was at Clochegourde that he corrected his lastbooks, printed at Tours by Letourmy. Madame de Verneuil, wise with thewisdom of an old woman who has known the stormy straits of life, gaveClochegourde to the young wife for her married home; and with thegrace of old age, so perfect where it exists, the duchess yieldedeverything to her niece, reserving for herself only one room above theone she had always occupied, and which she now fitted up for thecountess. Her sudden death threw a gloom over the early days of themarriage, and connected Clochegourde with ideas of sadness in thesensitive mind of the bride. The first period of her settlement inTouraine was to Madame de Mortsauf, I cannot say the happiest, but theleast troubled of her life. 

After the many trials of his exile, Monsieur de Mortsauf, takingcomfort in the thought of a secure future, had a certain recovery ofmind; he breathed anew in this sweet valley the intoxicating essenceof revived hope. Compelled to husband his means, he threw himself intoagricultural pursuits and began to find some happiness in life. Butthe birth of his first child, Jacques, was a thunderbolt which ruinedboth the past and the future. The doctor declared the child had notvitality enough to live. The count concealed this sentence from themother; but he sought other advice, and received the same fatalanswer, the truth of which was confirmed at the subsequent birth ofMadeleine. These events and a certain inward consciousness of thecause of this disaster increased the diseased tendencies of the manhimself. His name doomed to extinction, a pure and irreproachableyoung woman made miserable beside him and doomed to the anguish ofmaternity without its joys--this uprising of his former into hispresent life, with its growth of new sufferings, crushed his spiritand completed its destruction. 

The countess guessed the past from the present, and read the future. Though nothing is so difficult as to make a man happy when he knowshimself to blame, she set herself to that task, which is worthy of anangel. She became stoical. Descending into an abyss, whence she stillcould see the sky, she devoted herself to the care of one man as thesister of charity devotes herself to many. To reconcile him withhimself, she forgave him that for which he had no forgiveness. Thecount grew miserly; she accepted the privations he imposed. Like allwho have known the world only to acquire its suspiciousness, he fearedbetrayal; she lived in solitude and yielded without a murmur to hismistrust. With a woman's tact she made him will to do that which wasright, till he fancied the ideas were his own, and thus enjoyed in hisown person the honors of a superiority that was never his. After dueexperience of married life, she came to the resolution of neverleaving Clochegourde; for she saw the hysterical tendencies of thecount's nature, and feared the outbreaks which might be talked of inthat gossipping and jealous neighborhood to the injury of herchildren. Thus, thanks to her, no one suspected Monsieur de Mortsauf'sreal incapacity, for she wrapped his ruins in a mantle of ivy. Thefickle, not merely discontented but embittered nature of the man foundrest and ease in his wife; his secret anguish was lessened by the balmshe shed upon it. 

This brief history is in part a summary of that forced from Monsieurde Chessel by his inward vexation. His knowledge of the world enabledhim to penetrate several of the mysteries of Clochegourde. But theprescience of love could not be misled by the sublime attitude withwhich Madame de Mortsauf deceived the world. When alone in my littlebedroom, a sense of the full truth made me spring from my bed; I couldnot bear to stay at Frapesle when I saw the lighted windows ofClochegourde. I dressed, went softly down, and left the chateau by thedoor of a tower at the foot of a winding stairway. The coolness of thenight calmed me. I crossed the Indre by the bridge at the Red Mill, took the ever-blessed punt, and rowed in front of Clochegourde, wherea brilliant light was streaming from a window looking towards Azay. 

Again I plunged into my old meditations; but they were now peaceful, intermingled with the love-note of the nightingale and the solitarycry of the sedge-warbler. Ideas glided like fairies through my mind, lifting the black veil which had hidden till then the glorious future. Soul and senses were alike charmed. With what passion my thoughts roseto her! Again and again I cried, with the repetition of a madman, "Will she be mine?" During the preceding days the universe hadenlarged to me, but now in a single night I found its centre. On hermy will and my ambition henceforth fastened; I desired to be all inall to her, that I might heal and fill her lacerated heart. 

Beautiful was that night beneath her windows, amid the murmur ofwaters rippling through the sluices, broken only by a voice that toldthe hours from the clock-tower of Sache. During those hours ofdarkness bathed in light, when this sidereal flower illumined myexistence, I betrothed to her my soul with the faith of the poorCastilian knight whom we laugh at in the pages of Cervantes, --a faith, nevertheless, with which all love begins. 

At the first gleam of day, the first note of the waking birds, I fledback among the trees of Frapesle and reached the house; no one hadseen me, no one suspected by absence, and I slept soundly until thebell rang for breakfast. When the meal was over I went down, in spiteof the heat, to the meadow-lands for another sight of the Indre andits isles, the valley and its slopes, of which I seemed so passionatean admirer. But once there, thanks to a swiftness of foot like that ofa loose horse, I returned to my punt, the willows, and Clochegourde. All was silent and palpitating, as a landscape is at midday in summer. The still foliage lay sharply defined on the blue of the sky; theinsects that live by light, the dragon-flies, the cantharides, wereflying among the reeds and the ash-trees; cattle chewed the cud in theshade, the ruddy earth of the vineyards glowed, the adders glided upand down the banks. What a change in the sparkling and coquettishlandscape while I slept! I sprang suddenly from the boat and ran upthe road which went round Clochegourde for I fancied that I saw thecount coming out. I was not mistaken; he was walking beside the hedge, evidently making for a gate on the road to Azay which followed thebank of the river. 

"How are you this morning, Monsieur le comte?"

He looked at me pleasantly, not being used to hear himself thusaddressed. 

"Quite well, " he answered. "You must love the country, to be ramblingabout in this heat!"

"I was sent here to live in the open air. "

"Then what do you say to coming with me to see them cut my rye?"

"Gladly, " I replied. "I'll own to you that my ignorance is pastbelief; I don't know rye from wheat, nor a poplar from an aspen; Iknow nothing of farming, nor of the various methods of cultivating thesoil. "

"Well, come and learn, " he cried gaily, returning upon his steps. "Come in by the little gate above. "

The count walked back along the hedge, he being within it and Iwithout. 

"You will learn nothing from Monsieur de Chessel, " he remarked; "he isaltogether too fine a gentleman to do more than receive the reports ofhis bailiff. "

The count then showed me his yards and the farm buildings, thepleasure-grounds, orchards, vineyards, and kitchen garden, until wefinally came to the long alley of acacias and ailanthus beside theriver, at the end of which I saw Madame de Mortsauf sitting on abench, with her children. A woman is very lovely under the light andquivering shade of such foliage. Surprised, perhaps, at my promptvisit, she did not move, knowing very well that we should go to her. The count made me admire the view of the valley, which at this pointis totally different from that seen from the heights above. Here Imight have thought myself in a corner of Switzerland. The meadows, furrowed with little brooks which flow into the Indre, can be seen totheir full extent till lost in the misty distance. Towards Montbazonthe eye ranges over a vast green plain; in all other directions it isstopped by hills, by masses of trees, and rocks. We quickened oursteps as we approached Madame de Mortsauf, who suddenly dropped thebook in which Madeleine was reading to her and took Jacques upon herknees, in the paroxysms of a violent cough. 

"What's the matter?" cried the count, turning livid. 

"A sore throat, " answered the mother, who seemed not to see me; "butit is nothing serious. "

She was holding the child by the head and body, and her eyes seemed toshed two rays of life into the poor frail creature. 

"You are so extraordinarily imprudent, " said the count, sharply; "youexpose him to the river damps and let him sit on a stone bench. "

"Why, papa, the stone is burning hot, " cried Madeleine. 

"They were suffocating higher up, " said the countess. 

"Women always want to prove they are right, " said the count, turningto me. 

To avoid agreeing or disagreeing with him by word or look I watchedJacques, who complained of his throat. His mother carried him away, but as she did so she heard her husband say:--

"When they have brought such sickly children into the world they oughtto learn how to take care of them. "

Words that were cruelly unjust; but his self-love drove him to defendhimself at the expense of his wife. The countess hurried up the stepsand across the portico, and I saw her disappear through the glassdoor. Monsieur de Mortsauf seated himself on the bench, his head bowedin gloomy silence. My position became annoying; he neither spoke norlooked at me. Farewell to the walk he had proposed, in the course ofwhich I had hoped to fathom him. I hardly remember a more unpleasantmoment. Ought I to go away, or should I not go? How many painfulthoughts must have arisen in his mind, to make him forget to followJacques and learn how he was! At last however he rose abruptly andcame towards me. We both turned and looked at the smiling valley. 

"We will put off our walk to another day, Monsieur le comte, " I saidgently. 

"No, let us go, " he replied. "Unfortunately, I am accustomed to suchscenes--I, who would give my life without the slightest regret to savethat of the child. "

"Jacques is better, my dear; he has gone to sleep, " said a goldenvoice. Madame de Mortsauf suddenly appeared at the end of the path. She came forward, without bitterness or ill-will, and bowed to me. 

"I am glad to see that you like Clochegourde, " she said. 

"My dear, should you like me to ride over and fetch MonsieurDeslandes?" said the count, as if wishing her to forgive hisinjustice. 

"Don't be worried, " she said. "Jacques did not sleep last night, that's all. The child is very nervous; he had a bad dream, and I toldhim stories all night to keep him quiet. His cough is purely nervous;I have stilled it with a lozenge, and he has gone to sleep. "

"Poor woman!" said her husband, taking her hand in his and giving hera tearful look, "I knew nothing of it. "

"Why should you be troubled when there is no occasion?" she replied. "Now go and attend to the rye. You know if you are not there the menwill let the gleaners of the other villages get into the field beforethe sheaves are carried away. "

"I am going to take a first lesson in agriculture, madame, " I said toher. 

"You have a very good master, " she replied, motioning towards thecount, whose mouth screwed itself into that smile of satisfactionwhich is vulgarly termed a "bouche en coeur. "

Two months later I learned she had passed that night in great anxiety, fearing that her son had the croup; while I was in the boat, rocked bythoughts of love, imagined that she might see me from her windowadoring the gleam of the candle which was then lighting a foreheadfurrowed by fears! The croup prevailed at Tours, and was often fatal. When we were outside the gate, the count said in a voice of emotion, "Madame de Mortsauf is an angel!" The words staggered me. As yet Iknew but little of the family, and the natural conscience of a youngsoul made me exclaim inwardly: "What right have I to trouble thisperfect peace?"

Glad to find a listener in a young man over whom he could lord it soeasily, the count talked to me of the future which the return of theBourbons would secure to France. We had a desultory conversation, inwhich I listened to much childish nonsense which positively amazed me. He was ignorant of facts susceptible of proof that might be calledgeometric; he feared persons of education; he rejected superiority, and scoffed, perhaps with some reason, at progress. I discovered inhis nature a number of sensitive fibres which it required the utmostcaution not to wound; so that a conversation with him of any lengthwas a positive strain upon the mind. When I had, as it were, felt ofhis defects, I conformed to them with the same suppleness that hiswife showed in soothing him. Later in life I should certainly havemade him angry, but now, humble as a child, supposing that I knewnothing and believing that men in their prime knew all, I wasgenuinely amazed at the results obtained at Clochegourde by thispatient agriculturist. I listened admiringly to his plans; and with aninvoluntary flattery which won his good-will, I envied him the estateand its outlook--a terrestrial paradise, I called it, far superior toFrapesle. 

"Frapesle, " I said, "is a massive piece of plate, but Clochegourde isa jewel-case of gems, "--a speech which he often quoted, giving creditto its author. 

"Before we came here, " he said, "it was desolation itself. "

I was all ears when he told of his seed-fields and nurseries. New tocountry life, I besieged him with questions about prices, means ofpreparing and working the soil, etc. , and he seemed glad to answer allin detail. 

"What in the world do they teach you in your colleges?" he exclaimedat last in astonishment. 

On this first day the count said to his wife when he reached home, "Monsieur Felix is a charming young man. "

That evening I wrote to my mother and asked her to send my clothes andlinen, saying that I should remain at Frapesle. Ignorant of the greatrevolution which was just taking place, and not perceiving theinfluence it was to have upon my fate, I expected to return to Paristo resume my legal studies. The Law School did not open till the firstweek in November; meantime I had two months and a half before me. 

The first part of my stay, while I studied to understand the count, was a period of painful impressions to me. I found him a man ofextreme irascibility without adequate cause; hasty in action inhazardous cases to a degree that alarmed me. Sometimes he showedglimpses of the brave gentleman of Conde's army, parabolic flashes ofwill such as may, in times of emergency, tear through politics likebomb-shells, and may also, by virtue of honesty and courage, make aman condemned to live buried on his property an Elbee, a Bonchamp, ora Charette. In presence of certain ideas his nostril contracted, hisforehead cleared, and his eyes shot lightnings, which were soonquenched. Sometimes I feared he might detect the language of my eyesand kill me. I was young then and merely tender. Will, that force thatalters men so strangely, had scarcely dawned within me. My passionatedesires shook me with an emotion that was like the throes of fear. Death I feared not, but I would not die until I knew the happiness ofmutual love--But how tell of what I felt! I was a prey to perplexity;I hoped for some fortunate chance; I watched; I made the children loveme; I tried to identify myself with the family. 

Little by little the count restrained himself less in my presence. Icame to know his sudden outbreaks of temper, his deep and ceaselessmelancholy, his flashes of brutality, his bitter, cutting complaints, his cold hatreds, his impulses of latent madness, his childish moans, his cries of a man's despair, his unexpected fury. The moral naturediffers from the physical nature inasmuch as nothing is absolute init. The force of effects is in direct proportion to the characters orthe ideas which are grouped around some fact. My position atClochegourde, my future life, depended on this one eccentric will. 

I cannot describe to you the distress that filled my soul (as quick inthose days to expand as to contract), whenever I entered Clochegourde, and asked myself, "How will he receive me?" With what anxiety of heartI saw the clouds collecting on that stormy brow. I lived in aperpetual "qui-vive. " I fell under the dominion of that man; and thesufferings I endured taught me to understand those of Madame deMortsauf. We began by exchanging looks of comprehension; tried by thesame fire, how many discoveries I made during those first forty days!--of actual bitterness, of tacit joys, of hopes alternately submergedand buoyant. One evening I found her pensively watching a sunset whichreddened the summits with so ravishing a glow that it was impossiblenot to listen to that voice of the eternal Song of Songs by whichNature herself bids all her creatures love. Did the lost illusions ofher girlhood return to her? Did the woman suffer from an inwardcomparison? I fancied I perceived a desolation in her attitude thatwas favorable to my first appeal, and I said, "Some days are hard tobear. "

"You read my soul, " she answered; "but how have you done so?"

"We touch at many points, " I replied. "Surely we belong to the smallnumber of human beings born to the highest joys and the deepestsorrows; whose feeling qualities vibrate in unison and echo each otherinwardly; whose sensitive natures are in harmony with the principle ofthings. Put such beings among surroundings where all is discord andthey suffer horribly, just as their happiness mounts to exaltationwhen they meet ideas, or feelings, or other beings who are congenialto them. But there is still a third condition, where sorrows are knownonly to souls affected by the same distress; in this alone is thehighest fraternal comprehension. It may happen that such souls find nooutlet either for good or evil. Then the organ within us endowed withexpression and motion is exercised in a void, expends its passionwithout an object, utters sounds without melody, and cries that arelost in solitude, --terrible defeat of a soul which revolts against theinutility of nothingness. These are struggles in which our strengthoozes away without restraint, as blood from an inward wound. Thesensibilities flow to waste and the result is a horrible weakening ofthe soul; an indescribable melancholy for which the confessionalitself has no ears. Have I not expressed our mutual sufferings?"

She shuddered, and then without removing her eyes from the settingsun, she said, "How is it that, young as you are, you know thesethings? Were you once a woman?"

"Ah!" I replied, "my childhood was like a long illness--"

"I hear Madeleine coughing, " she cried, leaving me abruptly. 

The countess showed no displeasure at my constant visits, and for tworeasons. In the first place she was pure as a child, and her thoughtswandered into no forbidden regions; in the next I amused the count andmade a sop for that lion without claws or mane. I found an excuse formy visits which seemed plausible to every one. Monsieur de Mortsaufproposed to teach me backgammon, and I accepted; as I did so thecountess was betrayed into a look of compassion, which seemed to say, "You are flinging yourself into the jaws of the lion. " If I did notunderstand this at the time, three days had not passed before I knewwhat I had undertaken. My patience, which nothing exhausts, the fruitof my miserable childhood, ripened under this last trial. The countwas delighted when he could jeer at me for not putting in practice theprinciples or the rules he had explained; if I reflected before Iplayed he complained of my slowness; if I played fast he was angrybecause I hurried him; if I forgot to mark my points he declared, making his profit out of the mistake, that I was always too rapid. Itwas like the tyranny of a schoolmaster, the despotism of the rod, ofwhich I can really give you no idea unless I compare myself toEpictetus under the yoke of a malicious child. When we played formoney his winnings gave him the meanest and most abject delight. 

A word from his wife was enough to console me, and it frequentlyrecalled him to a sense of politeness and good-breeding. But beforelong I fell into the furnace of an unexpected misery. My money wasdisappearing under these losses. Though the count was always presentduring my visits until I left the house, which was sometimes verylate, I cherished the hope of finding some moment when I might say aword that would reach my idol's heart; but to obtain that moment, forwhich I watched and waited with a hunter's painful patience, I wasforced to continue these weary games, during which my feelings werelacerated and my money lost. Still, there were moments when we weresilent, she and I, looking at the sunlight on the meadows, the cloudsin a gray sky, the misty hills, or the quivering of the moon on thesandbanks of the river; saying only, "Night is beautiful!"

"Night is woman, madame. "

"What tranquillity!"

"Yes, no one can be absolutely wretched here. "

Then she would return to her embroidery frame. I came at last to hearthe inward beatings of an affection which sought its object. But thefact remained--without money, farewell to these evenings. I wrote tomy mother to send me some. She scolded me and sent only enough to lasta week. Where could I get more? My life depended on it. Thus ithappened that in the dawn of my first great happiness I found the samesufferings that assailed me elsewhere; but in Paris, at college, atschool I evaded them by abstinence; there my privations were negative, at Frapesle they were active; so active that I was possessed by theimpulse to theft, by visions of crime, furious desperations which rendthe soul and must be subdued under pain of losing our self-respect. The memory of what I suffered through my mother's parsimony taught methat indulgence for young men which one who has stood upon the brinkof the abyss and measured its depths, without falling into them, mustinevitably feel. Though my own rectitude was strengthened by thosemoments when life opened and let me see the rocks and quicksandsbeneath the surface, I have never known that terrible thing calledhuman justice draw its blade through the throat of a criminal withoutsaying to myself: "Penal laws are made by men who have never knownmisery. "

At this crisis I happened to find a treatise on backgammon in Monsieurde Chessel's library, and I studied it. My host was kind enough togive me a few lessons; less harshly taught by the count I made goodprogress and applied the rules and calculations I knew by heart. Within a few days I was able to beat Monsieur de Mortsauf; but nosooner had I done so and won his money for the first time than histemper became intolerable; his eyes glittered like those of tigers, his face shrivelled, his brows knit as I never saw brows knit beforeor since. His complainings were those of a fretful child. Sometimes heflung down the dice, quivered with rage, bit the dice-box, and saidinsulting things to me. Such violence, however, came to an end. When Ihad acquired enough mastery of the game I played it to suit me; I somanaged that we were nearly equal up to the last moment; I allowed himto win the first half and made matters even during the last half. Theend of the world would have surprised him less than the rapidsuperiority of his pupil; but he never admitted it. The unvaryingresult of our games was a topic of discourse on which he fastened. 

"My poor head, " he would say, "is fatigued; you manage to win the lastof the game because by that time I lose my skill. "

The countess, who knew backgammon, understood my manoeuvres from thefirst, and gave me those mute thanks which swell the heart of a youngman; she granted me the same look she gave to her children. From thatever-blessed evening she always looked at me when she spoke. I cannotexplain to you the condition I was in when I left her. My soul hadannihilated my body; it weighed nothing; I did not walk, I flew. Thatlook I carried within me; it bathed me with light just as her lastwords, "Adieu, monsieur, " still sounded in my soul with the harmoniesof "O filii, o filioe" in the paschal choir. I was born into a newlife, I was something to her! I slept on purple and fine linen. Flamesdarted before my closed eyelids, chasing each other in the darknesslike threads of fire in the ashes of burned paper. In my dreams hervoice became, though I cannot describe it, palpable, an atmosphere oflight and fragrance wrapping me, a melody enfolding my spirit. On themorrow her greeting expressed the fulness of feelings that remainedunuttered, and from that moment I was initiated into the secrets ofher voice. 

That day was to be one of the most decisive of my life. After dinnerwe walked on the heights across a barren plain where no herbage grew;the ground was stony, arid, and without vegetable soil of any kind;nevertheless a few scrub oaks and thorny bushes straggled there, andin place of grass, a carpet of crimped mosses, illuminated by thesetting sun and so dry that our feet slipped upon it. I held Madeleineby the hand to keep her up. Madame de Mortsauf was leading Jacques. The count, who was in front, suddenly turned round and striking theearth with his cane said to me in a dreadful tone: "Such is my life!--but before I knew you, " he added with a look of penitence at hiswife. The reparation was tardy, for the countess had turned pale; whatwoman would not have staggered as she did under the blow?

"But what delightful scenes are wafted here, and what a view of thesunset!" I cried. "For my part I should like to own this barren moor;I fancy there may be treasures if we dig for them. But its greatestwealth is that of being near you. Who would not pay a great cost forsuch a view?--all harmony to the eye, with that winding river wherethe soul may bathe among the ash-trees and the alders. See thedifference of taste! To you this spot of earth is a barren waste; tome, it is paradise. "

She thanked me with a look. 

"Bucolics!" exclaimed the count, with a bitter look. "This is no lifefor a man who bears your name. " Then he suddenly changed his tone--"The bells!" he cried, "don't you hear the bells of Azay? I hearthem ringing. "

Madame de Mortsauf gave me a frightened look. Madeleine clung to myhand. 

"Suppose we play a game of backgammon?" I said. "Let us go back; therattle of the dice will drown the sound of the bells. "

We returned to Clochegourde, conversing by fits and starts. Once inthe salon an indefinable uncertainty and dread took possession of us. The count flung himself into an armchair, absorbed in reverie, whichhis wife, who knew the symptoms of his malady and could foresee anoutbreak, was careful not to interrupt. I also kept silence. As shegave me no hint to leave, perhaps she thought backgammon might divertthe count's mind and quiet those fatal nervous susceptibilities, theexcitements of which were killing him. Nothing was ever harder than tomake him play that game, which, however, he had a great desire toplay. Like a pretty woman, he always required to be coaxed, entreated, forced, so that he might not seem the obliged person. If by chance, being interested in the conversation, I forgot to propose it, he grewsulky, bitter, insulting, and spoiled the talk by contradictingeverything. If, warned by his ill-humor, I suggested a game, he woulddally and demur. "In the first place, it is too late, " he would say;"besides, I don't care for it. " Then followed a series of affectationslike those of women, which often leave you in ignorance of their realwishes. 

On this occasion I pretended a wild gaiety to induce him to play. Hecomplained of giddiness which hindered him from calculating; hisbrain, he said, was squeezed into a vice; he heard noises, he waschoking; and thereupon he sighed heavily. At last, however, heconsented to the game. Madame de Mortsauf left us to put the childrento bed and lead the household in family prayers. All went well duringher absence; I allowed Monsieur de Mortsauf to win, and his delightseemed to put him beside himself. This sudden change from a gloom thatled him to make the darkest predictions to the wild joy of a drunkenman, expressed in a crazy laugh and without any adequate motive, distressed and alarmed me. I had never seen him in quite so marked aparoxysm. Our intimacy had borne fruits in the fact that he no longerrestrained himself before me. Day by day he had endeavored to bring meunder his tyranny, and obtain fresh food, as it were, for his eviltemper; for it really seems as though moral diseases were creatureswith appetites and instincts, seeking to enlarge the boundaries oftheir empire as a landowner seeks to increase his domain. 

Presently the countess came down, and sat close to the backgammontable, apparently for better light on her embroidery, though theanxiety which led her to place her frame was ill-concealed. A piece offatal ill-luck which I could not prevent changed the count's face;from gaiety it fell to gloom, from purple it became yellow, and hiseyes rolled. Then followed worse ill-luck, which I could neither avertnor repair. Monsieur de Mortsauf made a fatal throw which decided thegame. Instantly he sprang up, flung the table at me and the lamp onthe floor, struck the chimney-piece with his fist and jumped, for Icannot say he walked, about the room. The torrent of insults, imprecations, and incoherent words which rushed from his lips wouldhave made an observer think of the old tales of satanic possession inthe Middle Ages. Imagine my position!

"Go into the garden, " said the countess, pressing my hand. 

I left the room before the count could notice my disappearance. On theterrace, where I slowly walked about, I heard his shouts and then hismoans from the bedroom which adjoined the dining-room. Also I heard atintervals through that tempest of sound the voice of an angel, whichrose like the song of a nightingale as the rain ceases. I walked aboutunder the acacias in the loveliest night of the month of August, waiting for the countess to join me. I knew she would come; hergesture promised it. For several days an explanation seemed to floatbetween us; a word would suffice to send it gushing from the spring, overfull, in our souls. What timidity had thus far delayed a perfectunderstanding between us? Perhaps she loved, as I did, thesequiverings of the spirit which resembled emotions of fear and numbedthe sensibilities while we held our life unuttered within us, hesitating to unveil its secrets with the modesty of the young girlbefore the husband she loves. An hour passed. I was sitting on thebrick balustrade when the sound of her footsteps blending with theundulating ripple of her flowing gown stirred the calm air of thenight. These are sensations to which the heart suffices not. 

"Monsieur de Mortsauf is sleeping, " she said. "When he is thus I givehim an infusion of poppies, a cup of water in which a few poppies havebeen steeped; the attacks are so infrequent that this simple remedynever loses its effect--Monsieur, " she continued, changing her toneand using the most persuasive inflexion of her voice, "this mostunfortunate accident has revealed to you a secret which has hithertobeen sedulously kept; promise me to bury the recollection of thatscene. Do this for my sake, I beg of you. I don't ask you to swear it;give me your word of honor and I shall be content. "

"Need I give it to you?" I said. "Do we not understand each other?"

"You must not judge unfavorably of Monsieur de Mortsauf; you see theeffects of his many sufferings under the emigration, " she went on. "To-morrow he will entirely forget all that he has said and done; youwill find him kind and excellent as ever. "

"Do not seek to excuse him, madame, " I replied. "I will do all youwish. I would fling myself into the Indre at this moment if I couldrestore Monsieur de Mortsauf's health and ensure you a happy life. Theonly thing I cannot change is my opinion. I can give you my life, butnot my convictions; I can pay no heed to what he says, but can Ihinder him from saying it? No, in my opinion Monsieur de Mortsaufis--"

"I understand you, " she said, hastily interrupting me; "you are right. The count is as nervous as a fashionable woman, " she added, as if toconceal the idea of madness by softening the word. "But he is only soat intervals, once a year, when the weather is very hot. Ah, whatevils have resulted from the emigration! How many fine lives ruined!He would have been, I am sure of it, a great soldier, an honor to hiscountry--"

"I know, " I said, interrupting in my turn to let her see that it wasuseless to attempt to deceive me. 

She stopped, laid one hand lightly on my brow, and looked at me. "Whohas sent you here, " she said, "into this home? Has God sent me help, atrue friendship to support me?" She paused, then added, as she laidher hand firmly upon mine, "For you are good and generous--" Sheraised her eyes to heaven, as if to invoke some invisible testimony toconfirm her thought, and then let them rest upon me. Electrified bythe look, which cast a soul into my soul, I was guilty, judging bysocial laws, of a want of tact, though in certain natures suchindelicacy really means a brave desire to meet danger, to avert ablow, to arrest an evil before it happens; oftener still, an abruptcall upon a heart, a blow given to learn if it resounds in unison withours. Many thoughts rose like gleams within my mind and bade me washout the stain that blotted my conscience at this moment when I wasseeking a complete understanding. 

"Before we say more, " I said in a voice shaken by the throbbings of myheart, which could be heard in the deep silence that surrounded us, "suffer me to purify one memory of the past. "

"Hush!" she said quickly, touching my lips with a finger which sheinstantly removed. She looked at me haughtily, with the glance of awoman who knows herself too exalted for insult to reach her. "Besilent; I know of what you are about to speak, --the first, the last, the only outrage ever offered to me. Never speak to me of that ball. If as a Christian I have forgiven you, as a woman I still suffer fromyour act. "

"You are more pitiless than God himself, " I said, forcing back thetears that came into my eyes. 

"I ought to be so, I am more feeble, " she replied. 

"But, " I continued with the persistence of a child, "listen to me nowif only for the first, the last, the only time in your life. "

"Speak, then, " she said; "speak, or you will think I dare not hearyou. "

Feeling that this was the turning moment of our lives, I spoke to herin the tone that commands attention; I told her that all women whom Ihad ever seen were nothing to me; but when I met her, I, whose lifewas studious, whose nature was not bold, I had been, as it were, possessed by a frenzy that no one who once felt it could condemn; thatnever heart of man had been so filled with the passion which no beingcan resist, which conquers all things, even death--

"And contempt?" she asked, stopping me. 

"Did you despise me?" I exclaimed. 

"Let us say no more on this subject, " she replied. 

"No, let me say all!" I replied, in the excitement of my intolerablepain. "It concerns my life, my whole being, my inward self; itcontains a secret you must know or I must die in despair. It alsoconcerns you, who, unawares, are the lady in whose hand is the crownpromised to the victor in the tournament!"

Then I related to her my childhood and youth, not as I have told it toyou, judged from a distance, but in the language of a young man whosewounds are still bleeding. My voice was like the axe of a woodsman inthe forest. At every word the dead years fell with echoing sound, bristling with their anguish like branches robbed of their foliage. Idescribed to her in feverish language many cruel details which I havehere spared you. I spread before her the treasure of my radiant hopes, the virgin gold of my desires, the whole of a burning heart kept alivebeneath the snow of these Alps, piled higher and higher by perpetualwinter. When, bowed down by the weight of these remembered sufferings, related as with the live coal of Isaiah, I awaited the reply of thewoman who listened with a bowed head, she illumined the darkness witha look, she quickened the worlds terrestrial and divine with a singlesentence. 

"We have had the same childhood!" she said, turning to me a face onwhich the halo of the martyrs shone. 

After a pause, in which our souls were wedded in the one consolingthought, "I am not alone in suffering, " the countess told me, in thevoice she kept for her little ones, how unwelcome she was as a girlwhen sons were wanted. She showed me how her troubles as a daughterbound to her mother's side differed from those of a boy cast out uponthe world of school and college life. My desolate neglect seemed to mea paradise compared to that contact with a millstone under which hersoul was ground until the day when her good aunt, her true mother, hadsaved her from this misery, the ever-recurring pain of which she nowrelated to me; misery caused sometimes by incessant faultfinding, always intolerable to high-strung natures which do not shrink beforedeath itself but die beneath the sword of Damocles; sometimes by thecrushing of generous impulses beneath an icy hand, by the coldrebuffal of her kisses, by a stern command of silence, first imposedand then as often blamed; by inward tears that dared not flow butstayed within the heart; in short, by all the bitterness and tyrannyof convent rule, hidden to the eyes of the world under the appearanceof an exalted motherly devotion. She gratified her mother's vanitybefore strangers, but she dearly paid in private for this homage. When, believing that by obedience and gentleness she had softened hermother's heart, she opened hers, the tyrant only armed herself withthe girl's confidence. No spy was ever more traitorous and base. Allthe pleasures of girlhood, even her fete days, were dearly purchased, for she was scolded for her gaiety as much as for her faults. Noteaching and no training for her position had been given in love, always with sarcastic irony. She was not angry against her mother; infact she blamed herself for feeling more terror than love for her. "Perhaps, " she said, dear angel, "these severities were needful; theyhad certainly prepared her for her present life. " As I listened itseemed to me that the harp of Job, from which I had drawn such savagesounds, now touched by the Christian fingers gave forth the litaniesof the Virgin at the foot of the cross. 

"We lived in the same sphere before we met in this, " I said; "youcoming from the east, I from the west. "

She shook her head with a gesture of despair. 

"To you the east, to me the west, " she replied. "You will live happy, I must die of pain. Life is what we make of it, and mine is madeforever. No power can break the heavy chain to which a woman isfastened by this ring of gold--the emblem of a wife's purity. "

We knew we were twins of one womb; she never dreamed of ahalf-confidence between brothers of the same blood. After a short sigh, natural to pure hearts when they first open to each other, she told meof her first married life, her deceptions and disillusions, therebirth of her childhood's misery. Like me, she had suffered undertrifles; mighty to souls whose limpid substance quivers to the leastshock, as a lake quivers on the surface and to its utmost depths whena stone is flung into it. When she married she possessed some girlishsavings; a little gold, the fruit of happy hours and repressedfancies. These, in a moment when they were needed, she gave to herhusband, not telling him they were gifts and savings of her own. Hetook no account of them, and never regarded himself her debtor. Shedid not even obtain the glance of thanks that would have paid for all. Ah! how she went from trial to trial! Monsieur de Mortsauf habituallyneglected to give her money for the household. When, after a strugglewith her timidity, she asked him for it, he seemed surprised and neveronce spared her the mortification of petitioning for necessities. Whatterror filled her mind when the real nature of the ruined man'sdisease was revealed to her, and she quailed under the first outbreakof his mad anger! What bitter reflections she had made before shebrought herself to admit that her husband was a wreck! What horriblecalamities had come of her bearing children! What anguish she felt atthe sight of those infants born almost dead! With what courage had shesaid in her heart: "I will breathe the breath of life into them; Iwill bear them anew day by day!" Then conceive the bitterness offinding her greatest obstacle in the heart and hand from which a wifeshould draw her greatest succor! She saw the untold disaster thatthreatened him. As each difficulty was conquered, new deserts openedbefore her, until the day when she thoroughly understood her husband'scondition, the constitution of her children, and the character of theneighborhood in which she lived; a day when (like the child taken byNapoleon from a tender home) she taught her feet to trample throughmud and snow, she trained her nerves to bullets and all her being tothe passive obedience of a soldier. 

These things, of which I here make a summary, she told me in all theirdark extent, with every piteous detail of conjugal battles lost andfruitless struggles. 

"You would have to live here many months, " she said, in conclusion, "to understand what difficulties I have met with in improvingClochegourde; what persuasions I have had to use to make him do athing which was most important to his interests. You cannot imaginethe childish glee he has shown when anything that I advised was not atonce successful. All that turned out well he claimed for himself. Yes, I need an infinite patience to bear his complaints when I amhalf-exhausted in the effort to amuse his weary hours, to sweeten hislife and smooth the paths which he himself has strewn with stones. Thereward he gives me is that awful cry: 'Let me die, life is a burden tome!' When visitors are here and he enjoys them, he forgets his gloomand is courteous and polite. You ask me why he cannot be so to hisfamily. I cannot explain that want of loyalty in a man who is trulychivalrous. He is quite capable of riding at full speed to Paris tobuy me a set of ornaments, as he did the other day before the ball. Miserly in his household, he would be lavish upon me if I wished it. Iwould it were reversed; I need nothing for myself, but the wants ofthe household are many. In my strong desire to make him happy, and notreflecting that I might be a mother, I began my married life byletting him treat me as a victim, I, who at that time by using a fewcaresses could have led him like a child--but I was unable to play apart I should have thought disgraceful. Now, however, the welfare ofmy family requires me to be as calm and stern as the figure of Justice--and yet, I too have a heart that overflows with tenderness. "

"But why, " I said, "do you not use this great influence to master himand govern him?"

"If it concerned myself only I should not attempt either to overcomethe dogged silence with which for days together he meets my arguments, nor to answer his irrational remarks, his childish reasons. I have nocourage against weakness, any more than I have against childhood; theymay strike me as they will, I cannot resist. Perhaps I might meetstrength with strength, but I am powerless against those I pity. If Iwere required to coerce Madeleine in some matter that would save herlife, I should die with her. Pity relaxes all my fibres and unstringsmy nerves. So it is that the violent shocks of the last ten years havebroken me down; my feelings, so often battered, are numb at times;nothing can revive them; even the courage with which I once faced mytroubles begins to fail me. Yes, sometimes I am beaten. For want ofrest--I mean repose--and sea-baths by which to recover my nervousstrength, I shall perish. Monsieur de Mortsauf will have killed me, and he will die of my death. "

"Why not leave Clochegourde for a few months? Surely you could takeyour children and go to the seashore. "

"In the first place, Monsieur de Mortsauf would think he were lost ifI left him. Though he will not admit his condition he is well aware ofit. He is both sane and mad, two natures in one man, a contradictionwhich explains many an irrational action. Besides this, he would havegood reason for objecting. Nothing would go right here if I wereabsent. You may have seen in me the mother of a family watchful toprotect her young from the hawk that is hovering over them; a weightytask, indeed, but harder still are the cares imposed upon me byMonsieur de Mortsauf, whose constant cry, as he follows me about is, 'Where is Madame?' I am Jacques' tutor and Madeleine's governess; butthat is not all, I am bailiff and steward too. You will understandwhat that means when you come to see, as you will, that the working ofan estate in these parts is the most fatiguing of all employments. Weget small returns in money; the farms are cultivated on shares, asystem which needs the closest supervision. We are obliged ourselvesto sell our own produce, our cattle and harvests of all kinds. Ourcompetitors in the markets are our own farmers, who meet consumers inthe wine-shops and determine prices by selling first. I should wearyyou if I explained the many difficulties of agriculture in thisregion. No matter what care I give to it, I cannot always prevent ourtenants from putting our manure upon their ground, I cannot be ever onthe watch lest they take advantage of us in the division of the crops;neither can I always know the exact moment when sales should be made. So, if you think of Monsieur de Mortsauf's defective memory, and thedifficulty you have seen me have in persuading him to attend tobusiness, you can understand the burden that is on my shoulders, andthe impossibility of my laying it down for a single day. If I wereabsent we should be ruined. No one would obey Monsieur de Mortsauf. Inthe first place his orders are conflicting; then no one likes him; hefinds incessant fault, and he is very domineering. Moreover, like allmen of feeble mind, he listens too readily to his inferiors. If I leftthe house not a servant would be in it in a week's time. So you see Iam attached to Clochegourde as those leaden finals are to our roof. Ihave no reserves with you. The whole country-side is still ignorant ofthe secrets of this house, but you know them, you have seen them. Saynothing but what is kind and friendly, and you shall have my esteem--my gratitude, " she added in a softer voice. "On those terms you arewelcome at Clochegourde, where you will find friends. "

"Ah!" I exclaimed, "I see that I have never really suffered, whileyou--"

"No, no!" she exclaimed, with a smile, that smile of all resignedwomen which might melt a granite rock. "Do not be astonished at myfrank confidence; it shows you life as it is, not as your imaginationpictures it. We all have our defects and our good qualities. If I hadmarried a spendthrift he would have ruined me. If I had given myselfto an ardent and pleasure-loving young man, perhaps I could not haveretained him; he might have left me, and I should have died ofjealousy. For I am jealous!" she said, in a tone of excitement, whichwas like the thunderclap of a passing storm. "But Monsieur de Mortsaufloves me as much as he is capable of loving; all that his heartcontains of affection he pours at my feet, like the Magdalen's cup ofointment. Believe me, a life of love is an exception to the laws ofthis earth; all flowers fade; great joys and emotions have a morrow ofevil--if a morrow at all. Real life is a life of anguish; its image isin that nettle growing there at the foot of the wall, --no sun canreach it and it keeps green. Yet, here, as in parts of the North, there are smiles in the sky, few to be sure, but they compensate formany a grief. Moreover, women who are naturally mothers live and lovefar more through sacrifices than through pleasures. Here I draw uponmyself the storms I fear may break upon my children or my people; andin doing so I feel a something I cannot explain, which gives me secretcourage. The resignation of the night carries me through the day thatfollows. God does not leave me comfortless. Time was when thecondition of my children filled me with despair; to-day as theyadvance in life they grow healthier and stronger. And then, after all, our home is improved and beautified, our means are improving also. Whoknows but Monsieur de Mortsauf's old age may be a blessing to me? Ah, believe me! those who stand before the Great Judge with palms in theirhands, leading comforted to Him the beings who cursed their lives, they, they have turned their sorrows into joy. If my sufferings bringabout the happiness of my family, are they sufferings at all?"

"Yes, " I said, "they are; but they were necessary, as mine have been, to make us understand the true flavor of the fruit that has ripened onour rocks. Now, surely, we shall taste it together; surely we mayadmire its wonders, the sweetness of affection it has poured into oursouls, that inward sap which revives the searing leaves--Good God! doyou not understand me?" I cried, falling into the mystical language towhich our religious training had accustomed us. "See the paths bywhich we have approached each other; what magnet led us through thatocean of bitterness to these springs of running water, flowing at thefoot of those hills above the shining sands and between their greenand flowery meadows? Have we not followed the same star? We standbefore the cradle of a divine child whose joyous carol will renew theworld for us, teach us through happiness a love of life, give to ournights their long-lost sleep, and to the days their gladness. Whathand is this that year by year has tied new cords between us? Are wenot more than brother and sister? That which heaven has joined we mustnot keep asunder. The sufferings you reveal are the seeds scattered bythe sower for the harvest already ripening in the sunshine. Shall wenot gather it sheaf by sheaf? What strength is in me that I dareaddress you thus! Answer, or I will never again recross that river!"

"You have spared me the word _love_, " she said, in a stern voice, "butyou have spoken of a sentiment of which I know nothing and which isnot permitted to me. You are a child; and again I pardon you, but forthe last time. Endeavor to understand, Monsieur, that my heart is, asit were, intoxicated with motherhood. I love Monsieur de Mortsaufneither from social duty nor from a calculated desire to win eternalblessings, but from an irresistible feeling which fastens all thefibres of my heart upon him. Was my marriage a mistake? My sympathyfor misfortune led to it. It is the part of women to heal the woescaused by the march of events, to comfort those who rush into thebreach and return wounded. How shall I make you understand me? I havefelt a selfish pleasure in seeing that you amused him; is not thatpure motherhood? Did I not make you see by what I owned just now, the_three_ children to whom I am bound, to whom I shall never fail, on whomI strive to shed a healing dew and the light of my own soul withoutwithdrawing or adulterating a single particle? Do not embitter themother's milk! though as a wife I am invulnerable, you must neveragain speak thus to me. If you do not respect this command, simple asit is, the door of this house will be closed to you. I believed inpure friendship, in a voluntary brotherhood, more real, I thought, than the brotherhood of blood. I was mistaken. I wanted a friend whowas not a judge, a friend who would listen to me in those moments ofweakness when reproof is killing, a sacred friend from whom I shouldhave nothing to fear. Youth is noble, truthful, capable of sacrifice, disinterested; seeing your persistency in coming to us, I believed, yes, I will admit that I believed in some divine purpose; I thought Ishould find a soul that would be mine, as the priest is the soul ofall; a heart in which to pour my troubles when they deluged mine, afriend to hear my cries when if I continued to smother them they wouldstrangle me. Could I but have this friend, my life, so precious tothese children, might be prolonged until Jacques had grown to manhood. But that is selfish! The Laura of Petrarch cannot be lived again. Imust die at my post, like a soldier, friendless. My confessor isharsh, austere, and--my aunt is dead. "

Two large tears filled her eyes, gleamed in the moonlight, and rolleddown her cheeks; but I stretched my hand in time to catch them, and Idrank them with an avidity excited by her words, by the thought ofthose ten years of secret woe, of wasted feelings, of constant care, of ceaseless dread--years of the lofty heroism of her sex. She lookedat me with gentle stupefaction. 

"It is the first communion of love, " I said. "Yes, I am now a sharerof your sorrows. I am united to your soul as our souls are united toChrist in the sacrament. To love, even without hope, is happiness. Ah!what woman on earth could give me a joy equal to that of receivingyour tears! I accept the contract which must end in suffering tomyself. I give myself to you with no ulterior thought. I will be toyou that which you will me to be--"

She stopped me with a motion of her hand, and said in her deep voice, "I consent to this agreement if you will promise never to tighten thebonds which bind us together. "

"Yes, " I said; "but the less you grant the more evidence of possessionI ought to have. "

"You begin by distrusting me, " she replied, with an expression ofmelancholy doubt. 

"No, I speak from pure happiness. Listen; give me a name by which noone calls you; a name to be ours only, like the feeling which unitesus. "

"That is much to ask, " she said, "but I will show you that I am notpetty. Monsieur de Mortsauf calls me Blanche. One only person, the oneI have most loved, my dear aunt, called me Henriette. I will beHenriette once more, to you. "

I took her hand and kissed it. She left it in mine with thetrustfulness that makes a woman so far superior to men; a trustfulnessthat shames us. She was leaning on the brick balustrade and gazing atthe river. 

"Are you not unwise, my friend, to rush at a bound to the extremes offriendship? You have drained the cup, offered in all sincerity, at adraught. It is true that a real feeling is never piecemeal; it must bewhole, or it does not exist. Monsieur de Mortsauf, " she added after ashort silence, "is above all things loyal and brave. Perhaps for mysake you will forget what he said to you to-day; if he has forgottenit to-morrow, I will myself tell him what occurred. Do not come toClochegourde for a few days; he will respect you more if you do not. On Sunday, after church, he will go to you. I know him; he will wishto undo the wrong he did, and he will like you all the better fortreating him as a man who is responsible for his words and actions. "

"Five days without seeing you, without hearing your voice!"

"Do not put such warmth into your manner of speaking to me, " she said. 

We walked twice round the terrace in silence. Then she said, in a toneof command which proved to me that she had taken possession of mysoul, "It is late; we will part. "

I wished to kiss her hand; she hesitated, then gave it to me, and saidin a voice of entreaty: "Never take it unless I give it to you; leaveme my freedom; if not, I shall be simply a thing of yours, and thatought not to be. "

"Adieu, " I said. 

I went out by the little gate of the lower terrace, which she openedfor me. Just as she was about to close it she opened it again andoffered me her hand, saying: "You have been truly good to me thisevening; you have comforted my whole future; take it, my friend, takeit. "

I kissed her hand again and again, and when I raised my eyes I saw thetears in hers. She returned to the upper terrace and I watched her fora moment from the meadow. When I was on the road to Frapesle I againsaw her white robe shimmering in a moonbeam; then, a few momentslater, a light was in her bedroom. 

"Oh, my Henriette!" I cried, "to you I pledge the purest love thatever shone upon this earth. "

I turned at every step as I regained Frapesle. Ineffable contentmentfilled my mind. A way was open for the devotion that swells in allyouthful hearts and which in mine had been so long inert. Like thepriest who by one solemn step enters a new life, my vows were taken; Iwas consecrated. A simple "Yes" had bound me to keep my love within mysoul and never to abuse our friendship by leading this woman step bystep to love. All noble feelings were awakened within me, and I heardthe murmur of their voices. Before confining myself within the narrowwalls of a room, I stopped beneath the azure heavens sown with stars, I listened to the ring-dove plaints of my own heart, I heard again thesimple tones of that ingenuous confidence, I gathered in the air theemanations of that soul which henceforth must ever seek me. How grandthat woman seemed to me, with her absolute forgetfulness of self, herreligion of mercy to wounded hearts, feeble or suffering, her declaredallegiance to her legal yoke. She was there, serene upon her pyre ofsaint and martyr. I adored her face as it shone to me in the darkness. Suddenly I fancied I perceived a meaning in her words, a mysterioussignificance which made her to my eyes sublime. Perhaps she longedthat I should be to her what she was to the little world around her. Perhaps she sought to draw from me her strength and consolation, putting me thus within her sphere, her equal, or perhaps above her. The stars, say some bold builders of the universe, communicate to eachother light and motion. This thought lifted me to ethereal regions. Ientered once more the heaven of my former visions; I found a meaningfor the miseries of my childhood in the illimitable happiness to whichthey had led me. 

Spirits quenched by tears, hearts misunderstood, saintly ClarissaHarlowes forgotten or ignored, children neglected, exiles innocent ofwrong, all ye who enter life through barren ways, on whom men's faceseverywhere look coldly, to whom ears close and hearts are shut, ceaseyour complaints! You alone can know the infinitude of joy held in thatmoment when one heart opens to you, one ear listens, one look answersyours. A single day effaces all past evil. Sorrow, despondency, despair, and melancholy, passed but not forgotten, are links by whichthe soul then fastens to its mate. Woman falls heir to all our past, our sighs, our lost illusions, and gives them back to us ennobled; sheexplains those former griefs as payment claimed by destiny for joyseternal, which she brings to us on the day our souls are wedded. Theangels alone can utter the new name by which that sacred love iscalled, and none but women, dear martyrs, truly know what Madame deMortsauf now became to me--to me, poor and desolate. 

 CHAPTER II

 FIRST LOVE

This scene took place on a Tuesday. I waited until Sunday and did notcross the river. During those five days great events were happening atClochegourde. The count received his brevet as general of brigade, thecross of Saint Louis, and a pension of four thousand francs. The Ducde Lenoncourt-Givry, made peer of France, recovered possession of twoforests, resumed his place at court, and his wife regained all herunsold property, which had been made part of the imperial crown lands. The Comtesse de Mortsauf thus became an heiress. Her mother hadarrived at Clochegourde, bringing her a hundred thousand francseconomized at Givry, the amount of her dowry, still unpaid and neverasked for by the count in spite of his poverty. In all such matters ofexternal life the conduct of this man was proudly disinterested. Adding to this sum his own few savings he was able to buy twoneighboring estates, which would yield him some nine thousand francs ayear. His son would of course succeed to the grandfather's peerage, and the count now saw his way to entail the estate upon him withoutinjury to Madeleine, for whom the Duc de Lenoncourt would no doubtassist in promoting a good marriage. 

These arrangements and this new happiness shed some balm upon thecount's sore mind. The presence of the Duchesse de Lenoncourt atClochegourde was a great event to the neighborhood. I reflectedgloomily that she was a great lady, and the thought made me consciousof the spirit of caste in the daughter which the nobility of hersentiments had hitherto hidden from me. Who was I--poor, insignificant, and with no future but my courage and my faculties? Idid not then think of the consequences of the Restoration either forme or for others. On Sunday morning, from the private chapel where Isat with Monsieur and Madame de Chessel and the Abbe de Quelus, I castan eager glance at another lateral chapel occupied by the duchess andher daughter, the count and his children. The large straw hat whichhid my idol from me did not tremble, and this unconsciousness of mypresence seemed to bind me to her more than all the past. This nobleHenriette de Lenoncourt, my Henriette, whose life I longed to garland, was praying earnestly; faith gave to her figure an abandonment, aprosternation, the attitude of some religious statue, which moved meto the soul. 

According to village custom, vespers were said soon after mass. Comingout of church Madame de Chessel naturally proposed to her neighbors topass the intermediate time at Frapesle instead of crossing the Indreand the meadows twice in the great heat. The offer was accepted. Monsieur de Chessel gave his arm to the duchess, Madame de Chesseltook that of the count. I offered mine to the countess, and felt, forthe first time, that beautiful arm against my side. As we walked fromthe church to Frapesle by the woods of Sache, where the light, filtering down through the foliage, made those pretty patterns on thepath which seem like painted silk, such sensations of pride, suchideas took possession of me that my heart beat violently. 

"What is the matter?" she said, after walking a little way in asilence I dared not break. "Your heart beats too fast--"

"I have heard of your good fortune, " I replied, "and, like all otherswho love truly, I am beset with vague fears. Will your new dignitieschange you and lessen your friendship?"

"Change me!" she said; "oh, fie! Another such idea and I shall--notdespise you, but forget you forever. "

I looked at her with an ecstasy which should have been contagious. 

"We profit by the new laws which we have neither brought about nordemanded, " she said; "but we are neither place-hunters nor beggars;besides, as you know very well, neither Monsieur de Mortsauf nor I canleave Clochegourde. By my advice he has declined the command to whichhis rank entitled him at the Maison Rouge. We are quite content thatmy father should have the place. This forced modesty, " she added withsome bitterness, "has already been of service to our son. The king, towhose household my father is appointed, said very graciously that hewould show Jacques the favor we were not willing to accept. Jacques'education, which must now be thought of, is already being discussed. He will be the representative of two houses, the Lenoncourt and theMortsauf families. I can have no ambition except for him, andtherefore my anxieties seem to have increased. Not only must Jacqueslive, but he must be made worthy of his name; two necessities which, as you know, conflict. And then, later, what friend will keep him safefor me in Paris, where all things are pitfalls for the soul anddangers for the body? My friend, " she said, in a broken voice, "whocould not see upon your brow and in your eyes that you are one whowill inhabit heights? Be some day the guardian and sponsor of our boy. Go to Paris; if your father and brother will not second you, ourfamily, above all my mother, who has a genius for the management oflife, will help you. Profit by our influence; you will never bewithout support in whatever career you choose; put the strength ofyour desires into a noble ambition--"

"I understand you, " I said, interrupting her; "ambition is to be mymistress. I have no need of that to be wholly yours. No, I will not berewarded for my obedience here by receiving favors there. I will go; Iwill make my own way; I will rise alone. From you I would accepteverything, from others nothing. "

"Child!" she murmured, ill-concealing a smile of pleasure. 

"Besides, I have taken my vows, " I went on. "Thinking over oursituation I am resolved to bind myself to you by ties that never canbe broken. "

She trembled slightly and stopped short to look at me. 

"What do you mean?" she asked, letting the couples who preceded uswalk on, and keeping the children at her side. 

"This, " I said; "but first tell me frankly how you wish me to loveyou. "

"Love me as my aunt loved me; I gave you her rights when I permittedyou to call me by the name which she chose for her own among myothers. "

"Then I am to love without hope and with an absolute devotion. Well, yes; I will do for you what some men do for God. I shall feel that youhave asked it. I will enter a seminary and make myself a priest, andthen I will educate your son. Jacques shall be myself in his own form;political conceptions, thoughts, energy, patience, I will give himall. In that way I shall live near to you, and my love, enclosed inreligion as a silver image in a crystal shrine, can never be suspectedof evil. You will not have to fear the undisciplined passions whichgrasp a man and by which already I have allowed myself to bevanquished. I will consume my own being in the flame, and I will loveyou with a purified love. "

She turned pale and said, hurrying her words: "Felix, do not putyourself in bonds that might prove an obstacle to our happiness. Ishould die of grief for having caused a suicide like that. Child, doyou think despairing love a life's vocation? Wait for life's trialsbefore you judge of life; I command it. Marry neither the Church nor awoman; marry not at all, --I forbid it. Remain free. You are twenty-oneyears old--My God! can I have mistaken him? I thought two monthssufficed to know some souls. "

"What hope have you?" I cried, with fire in my eyes. 

"My friend, accept our help, rise in life, make your way and yourfortune and you shall know my hope. And, " she added, as if she werewhispering a secret, "never release the hand you are holding at thismoment. "

She bent to my ear as she said these words which proved her deepsolicitude for my future. 

"Madeleine!" I exclaimed "never!"

We were close to a wooden gate which opened into the park of Frapesle;I still seem to see its ruined posts overgrown with climbing plantsand briers and mosses. Suddenly an idea, that of the count's death, flashed through my brain, and I said, "I understand you. "

"I am glad of it, " she answered in a tone which made me know I hadsupposed her capable of a thought that could never be hers. 

Her purity drew tears of admiration from my eyes which the selfishnessof passion made bitter indeed. My mind reacted and I felt that she didnot love me enough even to wish for liberty. So long as love recoilsfrom a crime it seems to have its limits, and love should be infinite. A spasm shook my heart. 

"She does not love me, " I thought. 

To hide what was in my soul I stooped over Madeleine and kissed herhair. 

"I am afraid of your mother, " I said to the countess presently, torenew the conversation. 

"So am I, " she answered with a gesture full of childlike gaiety. "Don't forget to call her Madame la duchesse, and to speak to her inthe third person. The young people of the present day have lost thesepolite manners; you must learn them; do that for my sake. Besides, itis such good taste to respect women, no matter what their age may be, and to recognize social distinctions without disputing them. Therespect shown to established superiority is guarantee for that whichis due to you. Solidarity is the basis of society. Cardinal DellaRovere and Raffaelle were two powers equally revered. You have suckedthe milk of the Revolution in your academy and your political ideasmay be influenced by it; but as you advance in life you will find thatcrude and ill-defined principles of liberty are powerless to createthe happiness of the people. Before considering, as a Lenoncourt, whatan aristocracy ought to be, my common-sense as a woman of the peopletells me that societies can exist only through a hierarchy. You arenow at a turning-point in your life, when you must choose wisely. Beon our side, --especially now, " she added, laughing, "when ittriumphs. "

I was keenly touched by these words, in which the depth of herpolitical feeling mingled with the warmth of affection, --a combinationwhich gives to women so great a power of persuasion; they know how togive to the keenest arguments a tone of feeling. In her desire tojustify all her husband's actions Henriette had foreseen thecriticisms that would rise in my mind as soon as I saw the servileeffects of a courtier's life upon him. Monsieur de Mortsauf, king inhis own castle and surrounded by an historic halo, had, to my eyes, acertain grandiose dignity. I was therefore greatly astonished at thedistance he placed between the duchess and himself by manners thatwere nothing less than obsequious. A slave has his pride and will onlyserve the greatest despots. I confess I was humiliated at thedegradation of one before whom I trembled as the power that ruled mylove. This inward repulsion made me understand the martyrdom of womenof generous souls yoked to men whose meannesses they bury daily. Respect is a safeguard which protects both great and small alike; eachside can hold its own. I was respectful to the duchess because of myyouth; but where others saw only a duchess I saw the mother of myHenriette, and that gave sanctity to my homage. 

We reached the great court-yard of Frapesle, where we found theothers. The Comte de Mortsauf presented me very gracefully to theduchess, who examined me with a cold and reserved air. Madame deLenoncourt was then a woman fifty-six years of age, wonderfully wellpreserved and with grand manners. When I saw the hard blue eyes, thehollow temples, the thin emaciated face, the erect, imposing figureslow of movement, and the yellow whiteness of the skin (reproducedwith such brilliancy in the daughter), I recognized the cold type towhich my own mother belonged, as quickly as a mineralogist recognizesSwedish iron. Her language was that of the old court; she pronouncedthe "oit" like "ait, " and said "frait" for "froid, " "porteux" for"porteurs. " I was not a courtier, neither was I stiff-backed in mymanner to her; in fact I behaved so well that as I passed the countessshe said in a low voice, "You are perfect. "

The count came to me and took my hand, saying: "You are not angry withme, Felix, are you? If I was hasty you will pardon an old soldier? Weshall probably stay here to dinner, and I invite you to dine with uson Thursday, the evening before the duchess leaves. I must go to Toursto-morrow to settle some business. Don't neglect Clochegourde. Mymother-in-law is an acquaintance I advise you to cultivate. Her salonwill set the tone for the faubourg St. Germain. She has all thetraditions of the great world, and possesses an immense amount ofsocial knowledge; she knows the blazon of the oldest as well as thenewest family in Europe. "

The count's good taste, or perhaps the advice of his domestic genius, appeared under his altered circumstances. He was neither arrogant noroffensively polite, nor pompous in any way, and the duchess was notpatronizing. Monsieur and Madame de Chessel gratefully accepted theinvitation to dinner on the following Thursday. I pleased the duchess, and by her glance I knew she was examining a man of whom her daughterhad spoken to her. As we returned from vespers she questioned me aboutmy family, and asked if the Vandenesse now in diplomacy was myrelative. "He is my brother, " I replied. On that she became almostaffectionate. She told me that my great-aunt, the old Marquise deListomere, was a Grandlieu. Her manners were as cordial as those ofMonsieur de Mortsauf the day he saw me for the first time; the haughtyglance with which these sovereigns of the earth make you measure thedistance that lies between you and them disappeared. I knew almostnothing of my family. The duchess told me that my great-uncle, an oldabbe whose very name I did not know, was to be member of the privycouncil, that my brother was already promoted, and also that by aprovision of the Charter, of which I had not yet heard, my fatherbecame once more Marquis de Vandenesse. 

"I am but one thing, the serf of Clochegourde, " I said in a low voiceto the countess. 

The transformation scene of the Restoration was carried through with arapidity which bewildered the generation brought up under the imperialregime. To me this revolution meant nothing. The least word or gesturefrom Madame de Mortsauf were the sole events to which I attachedimportance. I was ignorant of what the privy council was, and knew aslittle of politics as of social life; my sole ambition was to loveHenriette better than Petrarch loved Laura. This indifference made theduchess take me for a child. A large company assembled at Frapesle andwe were thirty at table. What intoxication it is for a young manunused to the world to see the woman he loves more beautiful than allothers around her, the centre of admiring looks; to know that for himalone is reserved the chaste fire of those eyes, that none but he candiscern in the tones of that voice, in the words it utters, howevergay or jesting they may be, the proofs of unremitting thought. Thecount, delighted with the attentions paid to him, seemed almost young;his wife looked hopeful of a change; I amused myself with Madeleine, who, like all children with bodies weaker than their minds, madeothers laugh with her clever observations, full of sarcasm, thoughnever malicious, and which spared no one. It was a happy day. A word, a hope awakened in the morning illumined nature. Seeing me so joyous, Henriette was joyful too. 

"This happiness smiling on my gray and cloudy life seems good, " shesaid to me the next day. 

That day I naturally spent at Clochegourde. I had been banished forfive days, I was athirst for life. The count left at six in themorning for Tours. A serious disagreement had arisen between motherand daughter. The duchess wanted the countess to move to Paris, whereshe promised her a place at court, and where the count, reconsideringhis refusal, might obtain some high position. Henriette, who wasthought happy in her married life, would not reveal, even to hermother, her tragic sufferings and the fatal incapacity of her husband. It was to hide his condition from the duchess that she persuaded himto go to Tours and transact business with his notaries. I alone, asshe had truly said, knew the dark secret of Clochegourde. Havinglearned by experience how the pure air and the blue sky of the lovelyvalley calmed the excitements and soothed the morbid griefs of thediseased mind, and what beneficial effect the life at Clochegourde hadupon the health of her children, she opposed her mother's desire thatshe should leave it with reasons which the overbearing woman, who wasless grieved than mortified by her daughter's bad marriage, vigorouslycombated. 

Henriette saw that the duchess cared little for Jacques and Madeleine, --a terrible discovery! Like all domineering mothers who expect tocontinue the same authority over their married daughters that theymaintained when they were girls, the duchess brooked no opposition;sometimes she affected a crafty sweetness to force her daughter tocompliance, at other times a cold severity, intending to obtain byfear what gentleness had failed to win; then, when all means failed, she displayed the same native sarcasm which I had often observed in myown mother. In those ten days Henriette passed through all thecontentions a young woman must endure to establish her independence. You, who for your happiness have the best of mothers, can scarcelycomprehend such trials. To gain a true idea of the struggle betweenthat cold, calculating, ambitious woman and a daughter abounding inthe tender natural kindness that never faileth, you must imagine alily, to which my heart has always compared her, bruised beneath thepolished wheels of a steel car. That mother had nothing in common withher daughter; she was unable even to imagine the real difficultieswhich hindered her from taking advantage of the Restoration and forcedher to continue a life of solitude. Though families bury theirinternal dissensions with the utmost care, enter behind the scenes, and you will find in nearly all of them deep, incurable wounds, whichlessen the natural affections. Sometimes these wounds are given bypassions real and most affecting, rendered eternal by the dignity ofthose who feel them; sometimes by latent hatreds which slowly freezethe heart and dry all tears when the hour of parting comes. Torturedyesterday and to-day, wounded by all, even by the suffering childrenwho were guiltless of the ills they endured, how could that poor soulfail to love the one human being who did not strike her, who wouldfain have built a wall of defence around her to guard her from storms, from harsh contacts and cruel blows? Though I suffered from aknowledge of these debates, there were moments when I was happy in thesense that she rested upon my heart; for she told me of these newtroubles. Day by day I learned more fully the meaning of her words, --"Love me as my aunt loved me. "

"Have you no ambition?" the duchess said to me at dinner, with a sternair. 

"Madame, " I replied, giving her a serious look, "I have enough in meto conquer the world; but I am only twenty-one, and I am all alone. "

She looked at her daughter with some astonishment. Evidently shebelieved that Henriette had crushed my ambition in order to keep menear her. The visit of Madame de Lenoncourt was a period of unrelievedconstraint. The countess begged me to be cautious; she was frightenedby the least kind word; to please her I wore the harness of deceit. The great Thursday came; it was a day of wearisome ceremonial, --one ofthose stiff days which lovers hate, when their chair is no longer inits place, and the mistress of the house cannot be with them. Love hasa horror of all that does not concern itself. But the duchess returnedat last to the pomps and vanities of the court, and Clochegourderecovered its accustomed order. 

My little quarrel with the count resulted in making me more at home inthe house than ever; I could go there at all times without hindrance;and the antecedents of my life inclined me to cling like a climbingplant to the beautiful soul which had opened to me the enchantingworld of shared emotions. Every hour, every minute, our fraternalmarriage, founded on trust, became a surer thing; each of us settledfirmly into our own position; the countess enfolded me with hernurturing care, with the white draperies of a love that was whollymaternal; while my love for her, seraphic in her presence, seared meas with hot irons when away from her. I loved her with a double lovewhich shot its arrows of desire, and then lost them in the sky, wherethey faded out of sight in the impermeable ether. If you ask me why, young and ardent, I continued in the deluding dreams of Platonic love, I must own to you that I was not yet man enough to torture that woman, who was always in dread of some catastrophe to her children, alwaysfearing some outburst of her husband's stormy temper, martyrized byhim when not afflicted by the illness of Jacques or Madeleine, andsitting beside one or the other of them when her husband allowed her alittle rest. The mere sound of too warm a word shook her whole being;a desire shocked her; what she needed was a veiled love, supportmingled with tenderness, --that, in short, which she gave to others. Then, need I tell you, who are so truly feminine? this situationbrought with it hours of delightful languor, moments of divinesweetness and content which followed by secret immolation. Herconscience was, if I may call it so, contagious; her self-devotionwithout earthly recompense awed me by its persistence; the living, inward piety which was the bond of her other virtues filled the airabout her with spiritual incense. Besides, I was young, --young enoughto concentrate my whole being on the kiss she allowed me too seldom tolay upon her hand, of which she gave me only the back, and never thepalm, as though she drew the line of sensual emotions there. No twosouls ever clasped each other with so much ardor, no bodies were evermore victoriously annihilated. Later I understood the cause of thissufficing joy. At my age no worldly interests distracted my heart; noambitions blocked the stream of a love which flowed like a torrent, bearing all things on its bosom. Later, we love the woman in a woman;but the first woman we love is the whole of womanhood; her childrenare ours, her interests are our interests, her sorrows our greatestsorrow; we love her gown, the familiar things about her; we are moregrieved by a trifling loss of hers than if we knew we had losteverything. This is the sacred love that makes us live in the being ofanother; whereas later, alas! we draw another life into ours, andrequire a woman to enrich our pauper spirit with her young soul. 

I was now one of the household, and I knew for the first time aninfinite sweetness, which to a nature bruised as mine was like a bathto a weary body; the soul is refreshed in every fibre, comforted toits very depths. You will hardly understand me, for you are a woman, and I am speaking now of a happiness women give but do not receive. Aman alone knows the choice happiness of being, in the midst of astrange household, the privileged friend of its mistress, the secretcentre of her affections. No dog barks at you; the servants, like thedogs, recognize your rights; the children (who are never misled, andknow that their power cannot be lessened, and that you cherish thelight of their life), the children possess the gift of divination, they play with you like kittens and assume the friendly tyranny theyshow only to those they love; they are full of intelligent discretionand come and go on tiptoe without noise. Every one hastens to do youservice; all like you, and smile upon you. True passions are likebeautiful flowers all the more charming to the eye when they grow in abarren soil. 

But if I enjoyed the delightful benefits of naturalization in a familywhere I found relations after my own heart, I had also to pay somecosts for it. Until then Monsieur de Mortsauf had more or lessrestrained himself before me. I had only seen his failings in themass; I was now to see the full extent of their application anddiscover how nobly charitable the countess had been in the account shehad given me of these daily struggles. I learned now all the angles ofher husband's intolerable nature; I heard his perpetual scolding aboutnothing, complaints of evils of which not a sign existed; I saw theinward dissatisfaction which poisoned his life, and the incessant needof his tyrannical spirit for new victims. When we went to walk in theevenings he selected the way; but whichever direction we took he wasalways bored; when we reached home he blamed others; his wife hadinsisted on going where she wanted; why was he governed by her in allthe trifling things of life? was he to have no will, no thought of hisown? must he consent to be a cipher in his own house? If his harshnesswas to be received in patient silence he was angry because he felt alimit to his power; he asked sharply if religion did not require awife to please her husband, and whether it was proper to despise thefather of her children? He always ended by touching some sensitivechord in his wife's mind; and he seemed to find a domineering pleasurein making it sound. Sometimes he tried gloomy silence and a morbiddepression, which always alarmed his wife and made her pay him themost tender attentions. Like petted children, who exercise their powerwithout thinking of the distress of their mother, he would let herwait upon him as upon Jacques and Madeleine, of whom he was jealous. 

I discovered at last that in small things as well as in great ones thecount acted towards his servants, his children, his wife, precisely ashe had acted to me about the backgammon. The day when I understood, root and branch, these difficulties, which like a rampant overgrowthrepressed the actions and stifled the breathing of the whole family, hindered the management of the household and retarded the improvementof the estate by complicating the most necessary acts, I felt anadmiring awe which rose higher than my love and drove it back into myheart. Good God! what was I? Those tears that I had taken on my lipssolemnized my spirit; I found happiness in wedding the sufferings ofthat woman. Hitherto I had yielded to the count's despotism as thesmuggler pays his fine; henceforth I was a voluntary victim that Imight come the nearer to her. The countess understood me, allowed me aplace beside her, and gave me permission to share her sorrows; likethe repentant apostate, eager to rise to heaven with his brethren, Iobtained the favor of dying in the arena. 

"Were it not for you I must have succumbed under this life, " Henriettesaid to me one evening when the count had been, like the flies on ahot day, more stinging, venomous, and persistent than usual. 

He had gone to bed. Henriette and I remained under the acacias; thechildren were playing about us, bathed in the setting sun. Our fewexclamatory words revealed the mutuality of the thoughts in which werested from our common sufferings. When language failed silence asfaithfully served our souls, which seemed to enter one another withouthindrance; together they luxuriated in the charms of pensive languor, they met in the undulations of the same dream, they plunged as oneinto the river and came out refreshed like two nymphs as closelyunited as their souls could wish, but with no earthly tie to bindthem. We entered the unfathomable gulf, we returned to the surfacewith empty hands, asking each other by a look, "Among all our days onearth will there be one for us?"

In spite of the tranquil poetry of evening which gave to the bricks ofthe balustrade their orange tones, so soothing and so pure; in spiteof the religious atmosphere of the hour, which softened the voices ofthe children and wafted them towards us, desire crept through my veinslike the match to the bonfire. After three months of repression I wasunable to content myself with the fate assigned me. I took Henriette'shand and softly caressed it, trying to convey to her the ardor thatinvaded me. She became at once Madame de Mortsauf, and withdrew herhand; tears rolled from my eyes, she saw them and gave me a chillinglook, as she offered her hand to my lips. 

"You must know, " she said, "that this will cause me grief. Afriendship that asks so great a favor is dangerous. "

Then I lost my self-control; I reproached her, I spoke of mysufferings, and the slight alleviation that I asked for them. I daredto tell her that at my age, if the senses were all soul still the soulhad a sex; that I could meet death, but not with closed lips. Sheforced me to silence with her proud glance, in which I seemed to readthe cry of the Mexican: "And I, am I on a bed of roses?" Ever sincethat day by the gate of Frapesle, when I attributed to her the hopethat our happiness might spring from a grave, I had turned with shamefrom the thought of staining her soul with the desires of a brutalpassion. She now spoke with honeyed lip, and told me that she nevercould be wholly mine, and that I ought to know it. As she said thewords I know that in obeying her I dug an abyss between us. I bowed myhead. She went on, saying she had an inward religious certainty thatshe might love me as a brother without offending God or man; such lovewas a living image of the divine love, which her good Saint-Martintold her was the life of the world. If I could not be to her somewhatas her old confessor was, less than a lover yet more than a brother, Imust never see her again. She could die and take to God her sheaf ofsufferings, borne not without tears and anguish. 

"I gave you, " she said in conclusion, "more than I ought to havegiven, so that nothing might be left to take, and I am punished. "

I was forced to calm her, to promise never to cause her pain, and tolove her at twenty-one years of age as old men love their youngestchild. 

The next day I went early. There were no flowers in the vases of hergray salon. I rushed into the fields and vineyards to make her twobouquets; but as I gathered the flowers, one by one, cutting theirlong stalks and admiring their beauty, the thought occurred to me thatthe colors and foliage had a poetry, a harmony, which meant somethingto the understanding while they charmed the eye; just as musicalmelodies awaken memories in hearts that are loving and beloved. Ifcolor is light organized, must it not have a meaning of its own, asthe combinations of the air have theirs? I called in the assistance ofJacques and Madeleine, and all three of us conspired to surprise ourdear one. I arranged, on the lower steps of the portico, where weestablished our floral headquarters, two bouquets by which I tried toconvey a sentiment. Picture to yourself a fountain of flowers gushingfrom the vases and falling back in curving waves; my message springingfrom its bosom in white roses and lilies with their silver cups. Allthe blue flowers, harebells, forget-me-nots, and ox-tongues, whosetines, caught from the skies, blended so well with the whiteness ofthe lilies, sparkled on this dewy texture; were they not the type oftwo purities, the one that knows nothing, the other that knows all; animage of the child, an image of the martyr? Love has its blazon, andthe countess discerned it inwardly. She gave me a poignant glancewhich was like the cry of a soldier when his wound is touched; she washumbled but enraptured too. My reward was in that glance; to refreshher heart, to have given her comfort, what encouragement for me! Thenit was that I pressed the theories of Pere Castel into the service oflove, and recovered a science lost to Europe, where written pages havesupplanted the flowery missives of the Orient with their balmy tints. What charm in expressing our sensations through these daughters of thesun, sisters to the flowers that bloom beneath the rays of love!Before long I communed with the flora of the fields, as a man whom Imet in after days at Grandlieu communed with his bees. 

Twice a week during the remainder of my stay at Frapesle I continuedthe slow labor of this poetic enterprise, for the ultimateaccomplishment of which I needed all varieties of herbaceous plants;into these I made a deep research, less as a botanist than as a poet, studying their spirit rather than their form. To find a flower in itsnative haunts I walked enormous distances, beside the brooklets, through the valleys, to the summit of the cliffs, across the moorland, garnering thoughts even from the heather. During these rambles Iinitiated myself into pleasures unthought of by the man of science wholives in meditation, unknown to the horticulturist busy withspecialities, to the artisan fettered to a city, to the merchantfastened to his desk, but known to a few foresters, to a few woodsmen, and to some dreamers. Nature can show effects the significations ofwhich are limitless; they rise to the grandeur of the highest moralconceptions--be it the heather in bloom, covered with the diamonds ofthe dew on which the sunlight dances; infinitude decked for the singleglance that may chance to fall upon it:--be it a corner of the foresthemmed in with time-worn rocks crumbling to gravel and clothed withmosses overgrown with juniper, which grasps our minds as somethingsavage, aggressive, terrifying as the cry of the kestrel issuing fromit:--be it a hot and barren moor without vegetation, stony, rigid, itshorizon like those of the desert, where once I gathered a sublime andsolitary flower, the anemone pulsatilla, with its violet petalsopening for the golden stamens; affecting image of my pure idol alonein her valley:--be it great sheets of water, where nature casts thosespots of greenery, a species of transition between the plant andanimal, where life makes haste to come in flowers and insects, floating there like worlds in ether:--be it a cottage with its gardenof cabbages, its vineyards, its hedges overhanging a bog, surroundedby a few sparse fields of rye; true image of many humble existences:--be it a forest path like some cathedral nave, where the trees arecolumns and their branches arch the roof, at the far end of which alight breaks through, mingled with shadows or tinted with sunset redsathwart the leaves which gleam like the colored windows of a chancel:--then, leaving these woods so cool and branchy, behold a chalk-landlying fallow, where among the warm and cavernous mosses adders glideto their lairs, or lift their proud slim heads. Cast upon all thesepictures torrents of sunlight like beneficent waters, or the shadow ofgray clouds drawn in lines like the wrinkles of an old man's brow, orthe cool tones of a sky faintly orange and streaked with lines of apaler tint; then listen--you will hear indefinable harmonies amid asilence which blends them all. 

During the months of September and October I did not make a singlebouquet which cost me less than three hours search; so much did Iadmire, with the real sympathy of a poet, these fugitive allegories ofhuman life, that vast theatre I was about to enter, the scenes ofwhich my memory must presently recall. Often do I now compare thosesplendid scenes with memories of my soul thus expending itself onnature; again I walk that valley with my sovereign, whose white robebrushed the coppice and floated on the green sward, whose spirit rose, like a promised fruit, from each calyx filled with amorous stamens. 

No declaration of love, no vows of uncontrollable passion everconveyed more than these symphonies of flowers; my baffled desiresimpelled me to efforts of expression through them like those ofBeethoven through his notes, to the same bitter reactions, to the samemighty bounds towards heaven. In their presence Madame de Mortsauf wasmy Henriette. She looked at them constantly; they fed her spirit, shegathered all the thoughts I had given them, saying, as she raised herhead from the embroidery frame to receive my gift, "Ah, howbeautiful!"

Natalie, you will understand this delightful intercourse through thedetails of a bouquet, just as you would comprehend Saadi from afragment of his verse. Have you ever smelt in the fields in the monthof May the perfume that communicates to all created beings theintoxicating sense of a new creation; the sense that makes you trailyour hand in the water from a boat, and loosen your hair to the breezewhile your mind revives with the springtide greenery of the trees? Alittle plant, a species of vernal grass, is a powerful element in thisveiled harmony; it cannot be worn with impunity; take into your handits shining blade, striped green and white like a silken robe, andmysterious emotions will stir the rosebuds your modesty keeps hiddenin the depths of your heart. Round the neck of a porcelain vaseimagine a broad margin of the gray-white tufts peculiar to the sedumof the vineyards of Touraine, vague image of submissive forms; fromthis foundation come tendrils of the bind-weed with its silver bells, sprays of pink rest-barrow mingled with a few young shoots ofoak-leaves, lustrous and magnificently colored; these creep forthprostrate, humble as the weeping-willow, timid and supplicating asprayer. Above, see those delicate threads of the purple amoret, withits flood of anthers that are nearly yellow; the snowy pyramids of themeadow-sweet, the green tresses of the wild oats, the slender plumesof the agrostis, which we call wind-ear; roseate hopes, decking love'searliest dream and standing forth against the gray surroundings. Buthigher still, remark the Bengal roses, sparsely scattered among thelaces of the daucus, the plumes of the linaria, the marabouts of themeadow-queen; see the umbels of the myrrh, the spun glass of theclematis in seed, the dainty petals of the cross-wort, white as milk, the corymbs of the yarrow, the spreading stems of the fumitory withtheir black and rosy blossoms, the tendrils of the grape, the twistedshoots of the honeysuckle; in short, all the innocent creatures havethat is most tangled, wayward, wild, --flames and triple darts, leaveslanceolated or jagged, stalks convoluted like passionate desireswrithing in the soul. From the bosom of this torrent of love rises thescarlet poppy, its tassels about to open, spreading its flaming flakesabove the starry jessamine, dominating the rain of pollen--that softmist fluttering in the air and reflecting the light in its myriadparticles. What woman intoxicated with the odor of the vernal grasseswould fail to understand this wealth of offered thoughts, these ardentdesires of a love demanding the happiness refused in a hundredstruggles which passion still renews, continuous, unwearying, eternal!

Put this speech of the flowers in the light of a window to show itscrisp details, its delicate contrasts, its arabesques of color, andallow the sovereign lady to see a tear upon some petal more expandedthan the rest. What do we give to God? perfumes, light, and song, thepurest expression of our nature. Well, these offerings to God, arethey not likewise offered to love in this poem of luminous flowersmurmuring their sadness to the heart, cherishing its hiddentransports, its unuttered hopes, its illusions which gleam and fallto fragments like the gossamer of a summer's night?

Such neutral pleasures help to soothe a nature irritated by longcontemplation of the person beloved. They were to me, I dare not sayto her, like those fissures in a dam through which the water finds avent and avoids disaster. Abstinence brings deadly exhaustion, which afew crumbs falling from heaven like manna in the desert, suffices torelieve. Sometimes I found my Henriette standing before these bouquetswith pendant arms, lost in agitated reverie, thoughts swelling herbosom, illumining her brow as they surged in waves and sank again, leaving lassitude and languor behind them. Never again have I made abouquet for any one. When she and I had created this language andformed it to our uses, a satisfaction filled our souls like that of aslave who escapes his masters. 

During the rest of this month as I came from the meadows through thegardens I often saw her face at the window, and when I reached thesalon she was ready at her embroidery frame. If I did not arrive atthe hour expected (though never appointed), I saw a white formwandering on the terrace, and when I joined her she would say, "I cameto meet you; I must show a few attentions to my youngest child. "

The miserable games of backgammon had come to end. The count's latepurchases took all his time in going hither and thither about theproperty, surveying, examining, and marking the boundaries of his newpossessions. He had orders to give, rural works to overlook whichneeded a master's eye, --all of them planned and decided on by his wifeand himself. We often went to meet him, the countess and I, with thechildren, who amused themselves on the way by running after insects, stag-beetles, darning-needles, they too making their bouquets, or tospeak more truly, their bundles of flowers. To walk beside the womanwe love, to take her on our arm, to guide her steps, --these areillimitable joys that suffice a lifetime. Confidence is then complete. We went alone, we returned with the "general, " a title given to thecount when he was good-humored. These two ways of taking the same pathgave light and shade to our pleasure, a secret known only to heartsdebarred from union. Our talk, so free as we went, had hiddensignifications as we returned, when either of us gave an answer tosome furtive interrogation, or continued a subject, already begun, inthe enigmatic phrases to which our language lends itself, and whichwomen are so ingenious in composing. Who has not known the pleasure ofsuch secret understandings in a sphere apart from those about us, asphere where spirits meet outside of social laws?

One day a wild hope, quickly dispelled, took possession of me, whenthe count, wishing to know what we were talking of, put the inquiry, and Henriette answered in words that allowed another meaning, whichsatisfied him. This amused Madeleine, who laughed; after a moment hermother blushed and gave me a forbidding look, as if to say she mightstill withdraw from me her soul as she had once withdrawn her hand. But our purely spiritual union had far too many charms, and on themorrow it continued as before. 

The hours, days, and weeks fled by, filled with renascent joys. Grapeharvest, the festal season in Touraine, began. Toward the end ofSeptember the sun, less hot than during the wheat harvest, allows ofour staying in the vineyards without danger of becoming overheated. Itis easier to gather grapes than to mow wheat. Fruits of all kinds areripe, harvests are garnered, bread is less dear; the sense of plentymakes the country people happy. Fears as to the results of rural toil, in which more money than sweat is often spent, vanish before a fullgranary and cellars about to overflow. The vintage is then like a gaydessert after the dinner is eaten; the skies of Touraine, where theautumns are always magnificent, smile upon it. In this hospitable landthe vintagers are fed and lodged in the master's house. The meals arethe only ones throughout the year when these poor people tastesubstantial, well-cooked food; and they cling to the custom as thechildren of patriarchal families cling to anniversaries. As the timeapproaches they flock in crowds to those houses where the masters areknown to treat the laborers liberally. The house is full of people andof provisions. The presses are open. The country is alive with thecoming and going of itinerant coopers, of carts filled with laughinggirls and joyous husbandmen, who earn better wages than at any othertime during the year, and who sing as they go. There is also anothercause of pleasurable content: classes and ranks are equal; women, children, masters, and men, all that little world, share in thegarnering of the divine hoard. These various elements of satisfactionexplain the hilarity of the vintage, transmitted from age to age inthese last glorious days of autumn, the remembrance of which inspiredRabelais with the bacchic form of his great work. 

The children, Jacques and Madeleine, had never seen a vintage; I waslike them, and they were full of infantine delight at finding a sharerof their pleasure; their mother, too, promised to accompany us. Wewent to Villaines, where baskets are manufactured, in quest of theprettiest that could be bought; for we four were to cut certain rowsreserved for our scissors; it was, however, agreed that none of uswere to eat too many grapes. To eat the fat bunches of Touraine in avineyard seemed so delicious that we all refused the finest grapes onthe dinner-table. Jacques made me swear I would go to no othervineyard, but stay closely at Clochegourde. Never were these fraillittle beings, usually pallid and smiling, so fresh and rosy andactive as they were this morning. They chattered for chatter's sake, and trotted about without apparent object; they suddenly seemed, likeother children, to have more life than they needed; neither Monsieurnor Madame de Mortsauf had ever seen them so before. I became a childagain with them, more of a child than either of them, perhaps; I, too, was hoping for my harvest. It was glorious weather when we went to thevineyard, and we stayed there half the day. How we disputed as to whohad the finest grapes and who could fill his basket quickest! Thelittle human shoots ran to and fro from the vines to their mother; nota bunch could be cut without showing it to her. She laughed with thegood, gay laugh of her girlhood when I, running up with my basketafter Madeleine, cried out, "Mine too! See mine, mamma!" To which sheanswered: "Don't get overheated, dear child. " Then passing her handround my neck and through my hair, she added, giving me a little tapon the cheek, "You are melting away. " It was the only caress she evergave me. I looked at the pretty line of purple clusters, the hedgesfull of haws and blackberries; I heard the voices of the children; Iwatched the trooping girls, the cart loaded with barrels, the men withthe panniers. Ah, it is all engraved on my memory, even to thealmond-tree beside which she stood, girlish, rosy, smiling, beneath thesunshade held open in her hand. Then I busied myself in cutting thebunches and filling my basket, going forward to empty it in the vat, silently, with measured bodily movement and slow steps that left myspirit free. I discovered then the ineffable pleasure of an externallabor which carries life along, and thus regulates the rush ofpassion, often so near, but for this mechanical motion, to kindle intoflame. I learned how much wisdom is contained in uniform labor; Iunderstood monastic discipline. 

For the first time in many days the count was neither surly nor cruel. His son was so well; the future Duc de Lenoncourt-Mortsauf, fair androsy and stained with grape-juice, rejoiced his heart. This day beingthe last of the vintage, he had promised a dance in front ofClochegourde in honor of the return of the Bourbons, so that ourfestival gratified everybody. As we returned to the house, thecountess took my arm and leaned upon it, as if to let my heart feelthe weight of hers, --the instinctive movement of a mother who seeks toconvey her joy. Then she whispered in my ear, "You bring ushappiness. "

Ah, to me, who knew her sleepless nights, her cares, her fears, herformer existence, in which, although the hand of God sustained her, all was barren and wearisome, those words uttered by that rich voicebrought pleasures no other woman in the world could give me. 

"The terrible monotony of my life is broken, all things are radiantwith hope, " she said after a pause. "Oh, never leave me! Do notdespise my harmless superstitions; be the elder son, the protector ofthe younger. "

In this, Natalie, there is nothing romantic. To know the infinite ofour deepest feelings, we must in youth cast our lead into those greatlakes upon whose shores we live. Though to many souls passions arelava torrents flowing among arid rocks, other souls there be in whompassion, restrained by insurmountable obstacles, fills with purestwater the crater of the volcano. 

We had still another fete. Madame de Mortsauf, wishing to accustom herchildren to the practical things of life, and to give them someexperience of the toil by which men earn their living, had providedeach of them with a source of income, depending on the chances ofagriculture. To Jacques she gave the produce of the walnut-trees, toMadeleine that of the chestnuts. The gathering of the nuts began soonafter the vintage, --first the chestnuts, then the walnuts. To beatMadeleine's trees with a long pole and hear the nuts fall and reboundon the dry, matted earth of a chestnut-grove; to see the seriousgravity of the little girl as she examined the heaps and estimatedtheir probable value, which to her represented many pleasures on whichshe counted; the congratulations of Manette, the trusted servant whoalone supplied Madame de Mortsauf's place with the children; theexplanations of the mother, showing the necessity of labor to obtainall crops, so often imperilled by the uncertainties of climate, --allthese things made up a charming scene of innocent, childlike happinessamid the fading colors of the late autumn. 

Madeleine had a little granary of her own, in which I was to see herbrown treasure garnered and share her delight. Well, I quiver stillwhen I recall the sound of each basketful of nuts as it was emptied onthe mass of yellow husks, mixed with earth, which made the floor ofthe granary. The count bought what was needed for the household; thefarmers and tenants, indeed, every one around Clochegourde, sentbuyers to the Mignonne, a pet name which the peasantry give even tostrangers, but which in this case belonged exclusively to Madeleine. 

Jacques was less fortunate in gathering his walnuts. It rained forseveral days; but I consoled him with the advice to hold back his nutsand sell them a little later. Monsieur de Chessel had told me that thewalnut-trees in the Brehemont, also those about Amboise and Vouvray, were not bearing. Walnut oil is in great demand in Touraine. Jacquesmight get at least forty sous for the product of each tree, and as hehad two hundred the amount was considerable; he intended to spend iton the equipment of a pony. This wish led to a discussion with hisfather, who bade him think of the uncertainty of such returns, and thewisdom of creating a reserve fund for the years when the trees mightnot bear, and so equalizing his resources. I felt what was passingthrough the mother's mind as she sat by in silence; she rejoiced inthe way Jacques listened to his father, the father seeming to recoverthe paternal dignity that was lacking to him, thanks to the ideaswhich she herself had prompted in him. Did I not tell you truly thatin picturing this woman earthly language was insufficient to rendereither her character or her spirit. When such scenes occurred my souldrank in their delights without analyzing them; but now, with whatvigor they detach themselves on the dark background of my troubledlife! Like diamonds they shine against the settling of thoughtsdegraded by alloy, of bitter regrets for a lost happiness. Why do thenames of the two estates purchased after the Restoration, and in whichMonsieur and Madame de Mortsauf both took the deepest interest, theCassine and the Rhetoriere, move me more than the sacred names of theHoly Land or of Greece? "Who loves, knows!" cried La Fontaine. Thosenames possess the talismanic power of words uttered under certainconstellations by seers; they explain magic to me; they awakensleeping forms which arise and speak to me; they lead me to the happyvalley; they recreate skies and landscape. But such evocations are inthe regions of the spiritual world; they pass in the silence of my ownsoul. Be not surprised, therefore, if I dwell on all these homelyscenes; the smallest details of that simple, almost common life areties which, frail as they may seem, bound me in closest union to thecountess. 

The interests of her children gave Madame de Mortsauf almost as muchanxiety as their health. I soon saw the truth of what she had told meas to her secret share in the management of the family affairs, intowhich I became slowly initiated. After ten years' steady effort Madamede Mortsauf had changed the method of cultivating the estate. She had"put it in fours, " as the saying is in those parts, meaning the newsystem under which wheat is sown every four years only, so as to makethe soil produce a different crop yearly. To evade the obstinateunwillingness of the peasantry it was found necessary to cancel theold leases and give new ones, to divide the estate into four greatfarms and let them on equal shares, the sort of lease that prevails inTouraine and its neighborhood. The owner of the estate gives thehouse, farm-buildings, and seed-grain to tenants-at-will, with whom hedivides the costs of cultivation and the crops. This division issuperintended by an agent or bailiff, whose business it is to take theshare belonging to the owner; a costly system, complicated by themarket changes of values, which alter the character of the sharesconstantly. The countess had induced Monsieur de Mortsauf to cultivatea fifth farm, made up of the reserved lands about Clochegourde, asmuch to occupy his mind as to show other farmers the excellence of thenew method by the evidence of facts. Being thus, in a hidden way, themistress of the estate, she had slowly and with a woman's persistencyrebuilt two of the farm-houses on the principle of those in Artois andFlanders. It is easy to see her motive. She wished, after theexpiration of the leases on shares, to relet to intelligent andcapable persons for rental in money, and thus simplify the revenues ofClochegourde. Fearing to die before her husband, she was anxious tosecure for him a regular income, and to her children a property whichno incapacity could jeopardize. At the present time the fruit-treesplanted during the last ten years were in full bearing; the hedges, which secured the boundaries from dispute, were in good order; theelms and poplars were growing well. With the new purchases and the newfarming system well under way, the estate of Clochegourde, dividedinto four great farms, two of which still needed new houses, wascapable of bringing in forty thousand francs a year, ten thousand foreach farm, not counting the yield of the vineyards, and the twohundred acres of woodland which adjoined them, nor the profits of themodel home-farm. The roads to the great farms all opened on an avenuewhich followed a straight line from Clochegourde to the main roadleading to Chinon. The distance from the entrance of this avenue toTours was only fifteen miles; tenants would never be wanting, especially now that everybody was talking of the count's improvementsand the excellent condition of his land. 

The countess wished to put some fifteen thousand francs into each ofthe estates lately purchased, and to turn the present dwellings intotwo large farm-houses and buildings, in order that the property mightbring in a better rent after the ground had been cultivated for a yearor two. These ideas, so simple in themselves, but complicated with thethirty odd thousand francs it was necessary to expend upon them, werejust now the topic of many discussions between herself and the count, sometimes amounting to bitter quarrels, in which she was sustained bythe thought of her children's interests. The fear, "If I die to-morrowwhat will become of them?" made her heart beat. The gentle, peacefulhearts to whom anger is an impossibility, and whose sole desire is toshed on those about them their own inward peace, alone know whatstrength is needed for such struggles, what demands upon the spiritmust be made before beginning the contest, what weariness ensues whenthe fight is over and nothing has been won. At this moment, just asher children seemed less anemic, less frail, more active (for thefruit season had had its effect on them), and her moist eyes followedthem as they played about her with a sense of contentment whichrenewed her strength and refreshed her heart, the poor woman wascalled upon to bear the sharp sarcasms and attacks of an angryopposition. The count, alarmed at the plans she proposed, denied withstolid obstinacy the advantages of all she had done and thepossibility of doing more. He replied to conclusive reasoning with thefolly of a child who denies the influence of the sun in summer. Thecountess, however, carried the day. The victory of commonsense overinsanity so healed her wounds that she forgot the battle. That day weall went to the Cassine and the Rhetoriere, to decide upon thebuildings. The count walked alone in front, the children went next, and we ourselves followed slowly, for she was speaking in a low, gentle tone, which made her words like the murmur of the sea as itripples on a smooth beach. 

She was, she said, certain of success. A new line of communicationbetween Tours and Chinon was to be opened by an active man, a carrier, a cousin of Manette's, who wanted a large farm on the route. Hisfamily was numerous; the eldest son would drive the carts, the secondcould attend to the business, the father living half-way along theroad, at Rabelaye, one of the farms then to let, would look after therelays and enrich his land with the manure of the stables. As to theother farm, la Baude, the nearest to Clochegourde, one of their ownpeople, a worthy, intelligent, and industrious man, who saw theadvantages of the new system of agriculture, was ready to take a leaseon it. The Cassine and the Rhetoriere need give no anxiety; their soilwas the very best in the neighborhood; the farm-houses once built, andthe ground brought into cultivation, it would be quite enough toadvertise them at Tours; tenants would soon apply for them. In twoyears' time Clochegourde would be worth at least twenty-four thousandfrancs a year. Gravelotte, the farm in Maine, which Monsieur deMortsauf had recovered after the emigration, was rented for seventhousand francs a year for nine years; his pension was four thousand. This income might not be a fortune, but it was certainly a competence. Later, other additions to it might enable her to go to Paris andattend to Jacques' education; in two years, she thought, his healthwould be established. 

With what feeling she uttered the word "Paris!" I knew her thought;she wished to be as little separated as possible from her friend. Onthat I broke forth; I told her that she did not know me; that withouttalking of it, I had resolved to finish my education by working dayand night so as to fit myself to be Jacques' tutor. She looked grave. 

"No, Felix, " she said, "that cannot be, any more than your priesthood. I thank you from my heart as a mother, but as a woman who loves yousincerely I can never allow you to be the victim of your attachment tome. Such a position would be a social discredit to you, and I couldnot allow it. No! I cannot be an injury to you in any way. You, Vicomte de Vandenesse, a tutor! You, whose motto is 'Ne se vend!' Wereyou Richelieu himself it would bar your way in life; it would give theutmost pain to your family. My friend, you do not know what insultwomen of the world, like my mother, can put into a patronizing glance, what degradation into a word, what contempt into a bow. "

"But if you love me, what is the world to me?"

She pretended not to hear, and went on:--

"Though my father is most kind and desirous of doing all I ask, hewould never forgive your taking so humble a position; he would refuseyou his protection. I could not consent to your becoming tutor to theDauphin even. You must accept society as it is; never commit the faultof flying in the face of it. My friend, this rash proposal of--"

"Love, " I whispered. 

"No, charity, " she said, controlling her tears, "this wild ideaenlightens me as to your character; your heart will be your bane. Ishall claim from this moment the right to teach you certain things. Let my woman's eye see for you sometimes. Yes, from the solitudes ofClochegourde I mean to share, silently, contentedly, in yoursuccesses. As to a tutor, do not fear; we shall find some good oldabbe, some learned Jesuit, and my father will gladly devote a handsomesum to the education of the boy who is to bear his name. Jacques is mypride. He is, however, eleven years old, " she added after a pause. "But it is with him as with you; when I first saw you I took you to beabout thirteen. "

We now reached the Cassine, where Jacques, Madeleine, and I followedher about as children follow a mother; but we were in her way; I lefther presently and went into the orchard where Martineau the elder, keeper of the place, was discussing with Martineau the younger, thebailiff, whether certain trees ought or ought not to be taken down;they were arguing the matter as if it concerned their own property. Ithen saw how much the countess was beloved. I spoke of it to a poorlaborer, who, with one foot on his spade and an elbow on its handle, stood listening to the two doctors of pomology. 

"Ah, yes, monsieur, " he answered, "she is a good woman, and nothaughty like those hussies at Azay, who would see us die like dogssooner than yield us one penny of the price of a grave! The day whenthat woman leaves these parts the Blessed Virgin will weep, and wetoo. She knows what is due to her, but she knows our hardships, too, and she puts them into the account. "

With what pleasure I gave that man all the money I had. 

A few days later a pony arrived for Jacques, his father, an excellenthorseman, wishing to accustom the child by degrees to the fatigues ofsuch exercise. The boy had a pretty riding-dress, bought with theproduct of the nuts. The morning when he took his first lessonaccompanied by his father and by Madeleine, who jumped and shoutedabout the lawn round which Jacques was riding, was a great maternalfestival for the countess. The boy wore a blue collar embroidered byher, a little sky-blue overcoat fastened by a polished leather belt, apair of white trousers pleated at the waist, and a Scotch cap, fromwhich his fair hair flowed in heavy locks. He was charming to behold. All the servants clustered round to share the domestic joy. The littleheir smiled at his mother as he passed her, sitting erect, and quitefearless. This first manly act of a child to whom death had oftenseemed so near, the promise of a sound future warranted by this ridewhich showed him so handsome, so fresh, so rosy, --what a reward forall her cares! Then too the joy of the father, who seemed to renew hisyouth, and who smiled for the first time in many long months; thepleasure shown on all faces, the shout of an old huntsman of theLenoncourts, who had just arrived from Tours, and who, seeing how theboy held the reins, shouted to him, "Bravo, monsieur le vicomte!"--allthis was too much for the poor mother, and she burst into tears; she, so calm in her griefs, was too weak to bear the joy of admiring herboy as he bounded over the gravel, where so often she had led him inthe sunshine inwardly weeping his expected death. She leaned upon myarm unreservedly, and said: "I think I have never suffered. Do notleave us to-day. "

The lesson over, Jacques jumped into his mother's arms; she caught himand held him tightly to her, kissing him passionately. I went withMadeleine to arrange two magnificent bouquets for the dinner-table inhonor of the young equestrian. When we returned to the salon thecountess said: "The fifteenth of October is certainly a great day withme. Jacques has taken his first riding lesson, and I have just set thelast stitch in my furniture cover. "

"Then, Blanche, " said the count, laughing, "I must pay you for it. "

He offered her his arm and took her to the first courtyard, wherestood an open carriage which her father had sent her, and for whichthe count had purchased two English horses. The old huntsman hadprepared the surprise while Jacques was taking his lesson. We got intothe carriage, and went to see where the new avenue entered the mainroad towards Chinon. As we returned, the countess said to me in ananxious tone, "I am too happy; to me happiness is like an illness, --itoverwhelms me; I fear it may vanish like a dream. "

I loved her too passionately not to feel jealous, --I who could giveher nothing! In my rage against myself I longed for some means ofdying for her. She asked me to tell her the thoughts that filled myeyes, and I told her honestly. She was more touched than by all herpresents; then taking me to the portico, she poured comfort into myheart. "Love me as my aunt loved me, " she said, "and that will begiving me your life; and if I take it, must I not ever be grateful toyou?

"It was time I finished my tapestry, " she added as we re-entered thesalon, where I kissed her hand as if to renew my vows. "Perhaps you donot know, Felix, why I began so formidable a piece of work. Men findthe occupations of life a great resource against troubles; themanagement of affairs distracts their mind; but we poor women have nosupport within ourselves against our sorrows. To be able to smilebefore my children and my husband when my heart was heavy I felt theneed of controlling my inward sufferings by some physical exercise. Inthis way I escaped the depression which is apt to follow a greatstrain upon the moral strength, and likewise all outbursts ofexcitement. The mere action of lifting my arm regularly as I drew thestitches rocked my thoughts and gave to my spirit when the tempestraged a monotonous ebb and flow which seemed to regulate its emotions. To every stitch I confided my secrets, --you understand me, do you not?Well, while doing my last chair I have thought much, too much, of you, dear friend. What you have put into your bouquets I have said in myembroidery. "

The dinner was lovely. Jacques, like all children when you take noticeof them, jumped into my arms when he saw the flowers I had arrangedfor him as a garland. His mother pretended to be jealous; ah, Natalie, you should have seen the charming grace with which the dear childoffered them to her. In the afternoon we played a game of backgammon, I alone against Monsieur and Madame de Mortsauf, and the count wascharming. They accompanied me along the road to Frapesle in thetwilight of a tranquil evening, one of those harmonious evenings whenour feelings gain in depth what they lose in vivacity. It was a day ofdays in this poor woman's life; a spot of brightness which oftencomforted her thoughts in painful hours. 

Soon, however, the riding lessons became a subject of contention. Thecountess justly feared the count's harsh reprimands to his son. Jacques grew thin, dark circles surrounded his sweet blue eyes; ratherthan trouble his mother, he suffered in silence. I advised him to tellhis father he was tired when the count's temper was violent; but thatexpedient proved unavailing, and it became necessary to substitute theold huntsman as a teacher in place of the father, who could withdifficulty be induced to resign his pupil. Angry reproaches andcontentions began once more; the count found a text for his continualcomplaints in the base ingratitude of women; he flung the carriage, horses, and liveries in his wife's face twenty times a day. At last acircumstance occurred on which a man with his nature and his diseasenaturally fastened eagerly. The cost of the buildings at the Cassineand the Rhetoriere proved to be half as much again as the estimate. This news was unfortunately given in the first instance to Monsieur deMortsauf instead of to his wife. It was the ground of a quarrel, whichbegan mildly but grew more and more embittered until it seemed asthough the count's madness, lulled for a short time, was demanding itsarrearages from the poor wife. 

That day I had started from Frapesle at half-past ten to search forflowers with Madeleine. The child had brought the two vases to theportico, and I was wandering about the gardens and adjoining meadowsgathering the autumn flowers, so beautiful, but too rare. Returningfrom my final quest, I could not find my little lieutenant with herwhite cape and broad pink sash; but I heard cries within the house, and Madeleine presently came running out. 

"The general, " she said, crying (the term with her was an expressionof dislike), "the general is scolding mamma; go and defend her. "

I sprang up the steps of the portico and reached the salon withoutbeing seen by either the count or his wife. Hearing the madman's sharpcries I first shut all the doors, then I returned and found Henrietteas white as her dress. 

"Never marry, Felix, " said the count as soon as he saw me; "a woman isled by the devil; the most virtuous of them would invent evil if itdid not exist; they are all vile. "

Then followed arguments without beginning or end. Harking back to theold troubles, Monsieur de Mortsauf repeated the nonsense of thepeasantry against the new system of farming. He declared that if hehad had the management of Clochegourde he should be twice as rich ashe now was. He shouted these complaints and insults, he swore, hesprang around the room knocking against the furniture and displacingit; then in the middle of a sentence he stopped short, complained thathis very marrow was on fire, his brains melting away like his money, his wife had ruined him! The countess smiled and looked upward. 

"Yes, Blanche, " he cried, "you are my executioner; you are killing me;I am in your way; you want to get rid of me; you are monster ofhypocrisy. She is smiling! Do you know why she smiles, Felix?"

I kept silence and looked down. 

"That woman, " he continued, answering his own question, "denies me allhappiness; she is no more to me than she is to you, and yet shepretends to be my wife! She bears my name and fulfils none of theduties which all laws, human and divine, impose upon her; she lies toGod and man. She obliges me to go long distances, hoping to wear meout and make me leave her to herself; I am displeasing to her, shehates me; she puts all her art into keeping me away from her; she hasmade me mad through the privations she imposes on me--for everythingflies to my poor head; she is killing me by degrees, and she thinksherself a saint and takes the sacrament every month!"

The countess was weeping bitterly, humiliated by the degradation ofthe man, to whom she kept saying for all answer, "Monsieur! monsieur!monsieur!"

Though the count's words made me blush, more for him than forHenriette, they stirred my heart violently, for they appealed to thesense of chastity and delicacy which is indeed the very warp and woofof first love. 

"She is virgin at my expense, " cried the count. 

At these words the countess cried out, "Monsieur!"

"What do you mean with your imperious 'Monsieur!'" he shouted. "Am Inot your master? Must I teach you that I am?"

He came towards her, thrusting forward his white wolf's head, nowhideous, for his yellow eyes had a savage expression which made himlook like a wild beast rushing out of a wood. Henriette slid from herchair to the ground to avoid a blow, which however was not given; shelay at full length on the floor and lost consciousness, completelyexhausted. The count was like a murderer who feels the blood of hisvictim spurting in his face; he stopped short, bewildered. I took thepoor woman in my arms, and the count let me take her, as though hefelt unworthy to touch her; but he went before me to open the door ofher bedroom next the salon, --a sacred room I had never entered. I putthe countess on her feet and held her for a moment in one arm, passingthe other round her waist, while Monsieur de Mortsauf took theeider-down coverlet from the bed; then together we lifted her and laidher, still dressed, on the bed. When she came to herself she motioned tous to unfasten her belt. Monsieur de Mortsauf found a pair of scissors, and cut through it; I made her breathe salts, and she opened her eyes. The count left the room, more ashamed than sorry. Two hours passed inperfect silence. Henriette's hand lay in mine; she pressed it to mine, but could not speak. From time to time she opened her eyes as if totell me by a look that she wished to be still and silent; thensuddenly, for an instant, there seemed a change; she rose on her elbowand whispered, "Unhappy man!--ah! if you did but know--"

She fell back upon the pillow. The remembrance of her past sufferings, joined to the present shock, threw her again into the nervousconvulsions I had just calmed by the magnetism of love, --a power thenunknown to me, but which I used instinctively. I held her with gentleforce, and she gave me a look which made me weep. When the nervousmotions ceased I smoothed her disordered hair, the first and only timethat I ever touched it; then I again took her hand and sat looking atthe room, all brown and gray, at the bed with its simple chintzcurtains, at the toilet table draped in a fashion now discarded, atthe commonplace sofa with its quilted mattress. What poetry I couldread in that room! What renunciations of luxury for herself; the onlyluxury being its spotless cleanliness. Sacred cell of a married nun, filled with holy resignation; its sole adornments were the crucifix ofher bed, and above it the portrait of her aunt; then, on each side ofthe holy water basin, two drawings of the children made by herself, with locks of their hair when they were little. What a retreat for awoman whose appearance in the great world of fashion would have madethe handsomest of her sex jealous! Such was the chamber where thedaughter of an illustrious family wept out her days, sunken at thismoment in anguish, and denying herself the love that might havecomforted her. Hidden, irreparable woe! Tears of the victim for herslayer, tears of the slayer for his victim! When the children andwaiting-woman came at length into the room I left it. The count waswaiting for me; he seemed to seek me as a mediating power betweenhimself and his wife. He caught my hands, exclaiming, "Stay, stay withus, Felix!"

"Unfortunately, " I said, "Monsieur de Chessel has a party, and myabsence would cause remark. But after dinner I will return. "

He left the house when I did, and took me to the lower gate withoutspeaking; then he accompanied me to Frapesle, seeming not to know whathe was doing. At last I said to him, "For heaven's sake, Monsieur lecomte, let her manage your affairs if it pleases her, and don'ttorment her. "

"I have not long to live, " he said gravely; "she will not suffer longthrough me; my head is giving way. "

He left me in a spasm of involuntary self-pity. After dinner Ireturned for news of Madame de Mortsauf, who was already better. Ifsuch were the joys of marriage, if such scenes were frequent, howcould she survive them long? What slow, unpunished murder was this?During that day I understood the tortures by which the count waswearing out his wife. Before what tribunal can we arraign such crimes?These thoughts stunned me; I could say nothing to Henriette by word ofmouth, but I spent the night in writing to her. Of the three or fourletters that I wrote I have kept only the beginning of one, with whichI was not satisfied. Here it is, for though it seems to me to expressnothing, and to speak too much of myself when I ought only to havethought of her, it will serve to show you the state my soul was in:--

 To Madame de Mortsauf:

 How many things I had to say to you when I reached the house! I thought of them on the way, but I forgot them in your presence. Yes, when I see you, dear Henriette, I find my thoughts no longer in keeping with the light from your soul which heightens your beauty; then, too, the happiness of being near you is so ineffable as to efface all other feelings. Each time we meet I am born into a broader life; I am like the traveller who climbs a rock and sees before him a new horizon. Each time you talk with me I add new treasures to my treasury. There lies, I think, the secret of long and inexhaustible affections. I can only speak to you of yourself when away from you. In your presence I am too dazzled to see, too happy to question my happiness, too full of you to be myself, too eloquent through you to speak, too eager in seizing the present moment to remember the past. You must think of this state of intoxication and forgive me its consequent mistakes. 

 When near you I can only feel. Yet, I have courage to say, dear Henriette, that never, in all the many joys you have given me, never did I taste such joy as filled my soul when, after that dreadful storm through which you struggled with superhuman courage, you came to yourself alone with me, in the twilight of your chamber where that unhappy scene had brought me. I alone know the light that shines from a woman when through the portals of death she re-enters life with the dawn of a rebirth tinting her brow. What harmonies were in your voice! How words, even your words, seemed paltry when the sound of that adored voice--in itself the echo of past pains mingled with divine consolations --blessed me with the gift of your first thought. I knew you were brilliant with all human splendor, but yesterday I found a new Henriette, who might be mine if God so willed; I beheld a spirit freed from the bodily trammels which repress the ardors of the soul. Ah! thou wert beautiful indeed in thy weakness, majestic in thy prostration. Yesterday I found something more beautiful than thy beauty, sweeter than thy voice; lights more sparkling than the light of thine eyes, perfumes for which there are no words --yesterday thy soul was visible and palpable. Would I could have opened my heart and made thee live there! Yesterday I lost the respectful timidity with which thy presence inspires me; thy weakness brought us nearer together. Then, when the crisis passed and thou couldst bear our atmosphere once more, I knew what it was to breathe in unison with thy breath. How many prayers rose up to heaven in that moment! Since I did not die as I rushed through space to ask of God that he would leave thee with me, no human creature can die of joy nor yet of sorrow. That moment has left memories buried in my soul which never again will reappear upon its surface and leave me tearless. Yes, the fears with which my soul was tortured yesterday are incomparably greater than all sorrows that the future can bring upon me, just as the joys which thou hast given me, dear eternal thought of my life! will be forever greater than any future joy God may be pleased to grant me. Thou hast made me comprehend the love divine, that sure love, sure in strength and in duration, that knows no doubt or jealousy. 

Deepest melancholy gnawed my soul; the glimpse into that hidden lifewas agonizing to a young heart new to social emotions; it was an awfulthing to find this abyss at the opening of life, --a bottomless abyss, a Dead Sea. This dreadful aggregation of misfortunes suggested manythoughts; at my first step into social life I found a standard ofcomparison by which all other events and circumstances must seempetty. 

The next day when I entered the salon she was there alone. She lookedat me for a moment, held out her hand, and said, "My friend is alwaystoo tender. " Her eyes grew moist; she rose, and then she added, in atone of desperate entreaty, "Never write thus to me again. "

Monsieur de Mortsauf was very kind. The countess had recovered hercourage and serenity; but her pallor betrayed the sufferings of theprevious night, which were calmed, but not extinguished. That eveningshe said to me, as she paced among the autumn leaves which rustledbeneath our footsteps, "Sorrow is infinite; joys are limited, "--wordswhich betrayed her sufferings by the comparison she made with thefleeting delights of the previous week. 

"Do not slander life, " I said to her. "You are ignorant of love; lovegives happiness which shines in heaven. "

"Hush!" she said. "I wish to know nothing of it. The Icelander woulddie in Italy. I am calm and happy beside you; I can tell you all mythoughts; do not destroy my confidence. Why will you not combine thevirtue of the priest with the charm of a free man. "

"You make me drink the hemlock!" I cried, taking her hand and layingit on my heart, which was beating fast. 

"Again!" she said, withdrawing her hand as if it pained her. "Are youdetermined to deny me the sad comfort of letting my wounds be stanchedby a friendly hand? Do not add to my sufferings; you do not know themall; those that are hidden are the worst to bear. If you were a womanyou would know the melancholy disgust that fills her soul when shesees herself the object of attentions which atone for nothing, but arethought to atone for all. For the next few days I shall be courted andcaressed, that I may pardon the wrong that has been done. I could thenobtain consent to any wish of mine, however unreasonable. I amhumiliated by his humility, by caresses which will cease as soon as heimagines that I have forgotten that scene. To owe our master's goodgraces to his faults--"

"His crimes!" I interrupted quickly. 

"Is not that a frightful condition of existence?" she continued, witha sad smile. "I cannot use this transient power. At such times I amlike the knights who could not strike a fallen adversary. To see inthe dust a man whom we ought to honor, to raise him only to enable himto deal other blows, to suffer from his degradation more than hesuffers himself, to feel ourselves degraded if we profit by suchinfluence for even a useful end, to spend our strength, to waste thevigor of our souls in struggles that have no grandeur, to have nopower except for a moment when a fatal crisis comes--ah, better death!If I had no children I would let myself drift on the wretched currentof this life; but if I lose my courage, what will become of them? Imust live for them, however cruel this life may be. You talk to me oflove. Ah! my dear friend, think of the hell into which I should flingmyself if I gave that pitiless being, pitiless like all weakcreatures, the right to despise me. The purity of my conduct is mystrength. Virtue, dear friend, is holy water in which we gain freshstrength, from which we issue renewed in the love of God. "

"Listen to me, dear Henriette; I have only another week to stay here, and I wish--"

"Ah, you mean to leave us!" she exclaimed. 

"You must know what my father intends to do with me, " I replied. "Itis now three months--"

"I have not counted the days, " she said, with momentaryself-abandonment. Then she checked herself and cried, "Come, let usgo to Frapesle. "

She called the count and the children, sent for a shawl, and when allwere ready she, usually so calm and slow in all her movements, becameas active as a Parisian, and we started in a body to pay a visit atFrapesle which the countess did not owe. She forced herself to talk toMadame de Chessel, who was fortunately discursive in her answers. Thecount and Monsieur de Chessel conversed on business. I was afraid theformer might boast of his carriage and horses; but he committed nosuch solecisms. His neighbor questioned him about his projectedimprovements at the Cassine and the Rhetoriere. I looked at the count, wondering if he would avoid a subject of conversation so full ofpainful memories to all, so cruelly mortifying to him. On thecontrary, he explained how urgent a duty it was to better theagricultural condition of the canton, to build good houses and makethe premises salubrious; in short, he glorified himself with hiswife's ideas. I blushed as I looked at her. Such want of scruple in aman who, on certain occasions, could be scrupulous enough, thisoblivion of the dreadful scene, this adoption of ideas against whichhe had fought so violently, this confident belief in himself, petrified me. 

When Monsieur de Chessel said to him, "Do you expect to recover youroutlay?"

"More than recover it!" he exclaimed, with a confident gesture. 

Such contradictions can be explained only by the word "insanity. "Henriette, celestial creature, was radiant. The count was appearing tobe a man of intelligence, a good administrator, an excellentagriculturist; she played with her boy's curly head, joyous for him, happy for herself. What a comedy of pain, what mockery in this drama;I was horrified by it. Later in life, when the curtain of the world'sstage was lifted before me, how many other Mortsaufs I saw without theloyalty and the religious faith of this man. What strange, relentlesspower is it that perpetually awards an angel to a madman; to a man ofheart, of true poetic passion, a base woman; to the petty, grandeur;to this demented brain, a beautiful, sublime being; to Juana, CaptainDiard, whose history at Bordeaux I have told you; to Madame deBeauseant, an Ajuda; to Madame d'Aiglemont, her husband; to theMarquis d'Espard, his wife! Long have I sought the meaning of thisenigma. I have ransacked many mysteries, I have discovered the reasonof many natural laws, the purport of some divine hieroglyphics; of themeaning of this dark secret I know nothing. I study it as I would theform of an Indian weapon, the symbolic construction of which is knownonly to the Brahmans. In this dread mystery the spirit of Evil is toovisibly the master; I dare not lay the blame to God. Anguishirremediable, what power finds amusement in weaving you? Can Henrietteand her mysterious philosopher be right? Does their mysticism containthe explanation of humanity?

The autumn leaves were falling during the last few days which I passedin the valley, days of lowering clouds, which do sometimes obscure theheaven of Touraine, so pure, so warm at that fine season. The eveningbefore my departure Madame de Mortsauf took me to the terrace beforedinner. 

"My dear Felix, " she said, after we had taken a turn in silence underthe leafless trees, "you are about to enter the world, and I wish togo with you in thought. Those who have suffered much have lived andknown much. Do not think that solitary souls know nothing of theworld; on the contrary, they are able to judge it. Hear me: If I am tolive in and for my friend I must do what I can for his heart and forhis conscience. When the conflict rages it is hard to remember rules;therefore let me give you a few instructions, the warnings of a motherto her son. The day you leave us I shall give you a letter, a longletter, in which you will find my woman's thoughts on the world, onsociety, on men, on the right methods of meeting difficulty in thisgreat clash of human interests. Promise me not to read this lettertill you reach Paris. I ask it from a fanciful sentiment, one of thosesecrets of womanhood not impossible to understand, but which we grieveto find deciphered; leave me this covert way where as a woman I wishto walk alone. "

"Yes, I promise it, " I said, kissing her hand. 

"Ah, " she added, "I have one more promise to ask of you; but grant itfirst. "

"Yes, yes!" I cried, thinking it was surely a promise of fidelity. 

"It does not concern myself, " she said smiling, with some bitterness. "Felix, do not gamble in any house, no matter whose it be; I exceptnone. "

"I will never play at all, " I replied. 

"Good, " she said. "I have found a better use for your time than towaste it on cards. The end will be that where others must sooner orlater be losers you will invariably win. "

"How so?"

"The letter will tell you, " she said, with a playful smile, which tookfrom her advice the serious tone which might certainly have been thatof a grandfather. 

The countess talked to me for an hour, and proved the depth of heraffection by the study she had made of my nature during the last threemonths. She penetrated the recesses of my heart, entering it with herown; the tones of her voice were changeful and convincing; the wordsfell from maternal lips, showing by their tone as well as by theirmeaning how many ties already bound us to each other. 

"If you knew, " she said in conclusion, "with what anxiety I shallfollow your course, what joy I shall feel if you walk straight, whattears I must shed if you strike against the angles! Believe that myaffection has no equal; it is involuntary and yet deliberate. Ah, Iwould that I might see you happy, powerful, respected, --you who are tome a living dream. "

She made me weep, so tender and so terrible was she. Her feelings cameboldly to the surface, yet they were too pure to give the slightesthope even to a young man thirsting for pleasure. Ignoring my torturedflesh, she shed the rays, undeviating, incorruptible, of the divinelove, which satisfies the soul only. She rose to heights whither theprismatic pinions of a love like mine were powerless to bear me. Toreach her a man must needs have won the white wings of the seraphim. 

"In all that happens to me I will ask myself, " I said, "'What would myHenriette say?'"

"Yes, I will be the star and the sanctuary both, " she said, alludingto the dreams of my childhood. 

"You are my light and my religion, " I cried; "you shall be my all. "

"No, " she answered; "I can never be the source of your pleasures. "

She sighed; the smile of secret pain was on her lips, the smile of theslave who momentarily revolts. From that day forth she was to me, notmerely my beloved, but my only love; she was not IN my heart as awoman who takes a place, who makes it hers by devotion or by excess ofpleasure given; but she was my heart itself, --it was all hers, asomething necessary to the play of my muscles. She became to me asBeatrice to the Florentine, as the spotless Laura to the Venetian, themother of great thoughts, the secret cause of resolutions which savedme, the support of my future, the light shining in the darkness like alily in a wood. Yes, she inspired those high resolves which passthrough flames, which save the thing in peril; she gave me a constancylike Coligny's to vanquish conquerors, to rise above defeat, to wearythe strongest wrestler. 

The next day, having breakfasted at Frapesle and bade adieu to my kindhosts, I went to Clochegourde. Monsieur and Madame de Mortsauf hadarranged to drive with me to Tours, whence I was to start the samenight for Paris. During the drive the countess was silent; shepretended at first to have a headache; then she blushed at thefalsehood, and expiated it by saying that she could not see me gowithout regret. The count invited me to stay with them whenever, inthe absence of the Chessels, I might long to see the valley of theIndre once more. We parted heroically, without apparent tears, butJacques, who like other delicate children was quickly touched, beganto cry, while Madeleine, already a woman, pressed her mother's hand. 

"Dear little one!" said the countess, kissing Jacques passionately. 

When I was alone at Tours after dinner a wild, inexplicable desireknown only to young blood possessed me. I hired a horse and rode fromTours to Pont-de-Ruan in an hour and a quarter. There, ashamed of myfolly, I dismounted, and went on foot along the road, steppingcautiously like a spy till I reached the terrace. The countess was notthere, and I imagined her ill; I had kept the key of the little gate, by which I now entered; she was coming down the steps of the porticowith the two children to breathe in sadly and slowly the tendermelancholy of the landscape, bathed at that moment in the setting sun. 

"Mother, here is Felix, " said Madeleine. 

"Yes, " I whispered; "it is I. I asked myself why I should stay atTours while I still could see you; why not indulge a desire that in afew days more I could not gratify. "

"He won't leave us again, mother, " cried Jacques, jumping round me. 

"Hush!" said Madeleine; "if you make such a noise the general willcome. "

"It is not right, " she said. "What folly!"

The tears in her voice were the payment of what must be called ausurious speculation of love. 

"I had forgotten to return this key, " I said smiling. 

"Then you will never return, " she said. 

"Can we ever be really parted?" I asked, with a look which made herdrop her eyelids for all answer. 

I left her after a few moments passed in that happy stupor of thespirit where exaltation ends and ecstasy begins. I went with laggingstep, looking back at every minute. When, from the summit of the hill, I saw the valley for the last time I was struck with the contrast itpresented to what it was when I first came there. Then it was verdant, then it glowed, glowed and blossomed like my hopes and my desires. Initiated now into the gloomy secrets of a family, sharing the anguishof a Christian Niobe, sad with her sadness, my soul darkened, I sawthe valley in the tone of my own thoughts. The fields were bare, theleaves of the poplars falling, the few that remained were rusty, thevine-stalks were burned, the tops of the trees were tan-colored, likethe robes in which royalty once clothed itself as if to hide thepurple of its power beneath the brown of grief. Still in harmony withmy thoughts, the valley, where the yellow rays of the setting sun werecoldly dying, seemed to me a living image of my heart. 

To leave a beloved woman is terrible or natural, according as the mindtakes it. For my part, I found myself suddenly in a strange land ofwhich I knew not the language. I was unable to lay hold of things towhich my soul no longer felt attachment. Then it was that the heightand the breadth of my love came before me; my Henriette rose in allher majesty in this desert where I existed only through thoughts ofher. That form so worshipped made me vow to keep myself spotlessbefore my soul's divinity, to wear ideally the white robe of theLevite, like Petrarch, who never entered Laura's presence unlessclothed in white. With what impatience I awaited the first night of myreturn to my father's roof, when I could read the letter which I feltof during the journey as a miser fingers the bank-bills he carriesabout him. During the night I kissed the paper on which my Henriettehad manifested her will; I sought to gather the mysterious emanationsof her hand, to recover the intonations of her voice in the hush of mybeing. Since then I have never read her letters except as I read thatfirst letter; in bed, amid total silence. I cannot understand how theletters of our beloved can be read in any other way; yet there aremen, unworthy to be loved, who read such letters in the turmoil of theday, laying them aside and taking them up again with odious composure. 

Here, Natalie, is the voice which echoed through the silence of thatnight. Behold the noble figure which stood before me and pointed tothe right path among the cross-ways at which I stood. 

 To Monsieur le Vicomte Felix de Vandenesse:

 What happiness for me, dear friend, to gather the scattered elements of my experience that I may arm you against the dangers of the world, through which I pray that you pass scatheless. I have felt the highest pleasures of maternal love as night after night I have thought of these things. While writing this letter, sentence by sentence, projecting my thoughts into the life you are about to lead, I went often to my window. Looking at the towers of Frapesle, visible in the moonlight, I said to myself, "He sleeps, I wake for him. " Delightful feelings! which recall the happiest of my life, when I watched Jacques sleeping in his cradle and waited till he wakened, to feed him with my milk. You are the man-child whose soul must now be strengthened by precepts never taught in schools, but which we women have the privilege of inculcating. These precepts will influence your success; they prepare the way for it, they will secure it. Am I not exercising a spiritual motherhood in giving you a standard by which to judge the actions of your life; a motherhood comprehended, is it not, by the child? Dear Felix, let me, even though I may make a few mistakes, let me give to our friendship a proof of the disinterestedness which sanctifies it. 

 In yielding you to the world I am renouncing you; but I love you too well not to sacrifice my happiness to your welfare. For the last four months you have made me reflect deeply on the laws and customs which regulate our epoch. The conversations I have had with my aunt, well-known to you who have replaced her, the events of Monsieur de Mortsauf's life, which he has told me, the tales related by my father, to whom society and the court are familiar in their greatest as well as in their smallest aspects, all these have risen in my memory for the benefit of my adopted child at the moment when he is about to be launched, well-nigh alone, among men; about to act without adviser in a world where many are wrecked by their own best qualities thoughtlessly displayed, while others succeed through a judicious use of their worst. 

 I ask you to ponder this statement of my opinion of society as a whole; it is concise, for to you a few words are sufficient. 

 I do not know whether societies are of divine origin or whether they were invented by man. I am equally ignorant of the direction in which they tend. What I do know certainly is the fact of their existence. No sooner therefore do you enter society, instead of living a life apart, than you are bound to consider its conditions binding; a contract is signed between you. Does society in these days gain more from a man than it returns to him? I think so; but as to whether the individual man finds more cost than profit, or buys too dear the advantages he obtains, concerns the legislator only; I have nothing to say to that. In my judgment you are bound to obey in all things the general law, without discussion, whether it injures or benefits your personal interests. This principle may seem to you a very simple one, but it is difficult of application; it is like sap, which must infiltrate the smallest of the capillary tubes to stir the tree, renew its verdure, develop its flowers, and ripen fruit. Dear, the laws of society are not all written in a book; manners and customs create laws, the more important of which are often the least known. Believe me, there are neither teachers, nor schools, nor text-books for the laws that are now to regulate your actions, your language, your visible life, the manner of your presentation to the world, and your quest of fortune. Neglect those secret laws or fail to understand them, and you stay at the foot of the social system instead of looking down upon it. Even though this letter may seem to you diffuse, telling you much that you have already thought, let me confide to you a woman's ethics. 

 To explain society on the theory of individual happiness adroitly won at the cost of the greater number is a monstrous doctrine, which in its strict application leads men to believe that all they can secretly lay hold of before the law or society or other individuals condemn it as a wrong is honestly and fairly theirs. Once admit that claim and the clever thief goes free; the woman who violates her marriage vow without the knowledge of the world is virtuous and happy; kill a man, leaving no proof for justice, and if, like Macbeth, you win a crown you have done wisely; your selfish interests become the higher law; the only question then is how to evade, without witnesses or proof, the obstacles which law and morality place between you and your self-indulgence. To those who hold this view of society, the problem of making their fortune, my dear friend, resolves itself into playing a game where the stakes are millions or the galleys, political triumphs or dishonor. Still, the green cloth is not long enough for all the players, and a certain kind of genius is required to play the game. I say nothing of religious beliefs, nor yet of feelings; what concerns us now is the running-gear of the great machine of gold and iron, and its practical results with which men's lives are occupied. Dear child of my heart, if you share my horror at this criminal theory of the world, society will present to your mind, as it does to all sane minds, the opposite theory of duty. Yes, you will see that man owes himself to man in a thousand differing ways. To my mind, the duke and peer owe far more to the workman and the pauper than the pauper and the workman owe to the duke. The obligations of duty enlarge in proportion to the benefits which society bestows on men; in accordance with the maxim, as true in social politics as in business, that the burden of care and vigilance is everywhere in proportion to profits. Each man pays his debt in his own way. When our poor toiler at the Rhetoriere comes home weary with his day's work has he not done his duty? Assuredly he has done it better than many in the ranks above him. 

 If you take this view of society, in which you are about to seek a place in keeping with your intellect and your faculties, you must set before you as a generating principle and mainspring, this maxim: never permit yourself to act against either your own conscience or the public conscience. Though my entreaty may seem to you superfluous, yet I entreat, yes, your Henriette implores you to ponder the meaning of that rule. It seems simple but, dear, it means that integrity, loyalty, honor, and courtesy are the safest and surest instruments for your success. In this selfish world you will find many to tell you that a man cannot make his way by sentiments, that too much respect for moral considerations will hinder his advance. It is not so; you will see men ill-trained, ill-taught, incapable of measuring the future, who are rough to a child, rude to an old woman, unwilling to be irked by some worthy old man on the ground that they can do nothing for him; later, you will find the same men caught by the thorns which they might have rendered pointless, and missing their triumph for some trivial reason; whereas the man who is early trained to a sense of duty does not meet the same obstacles; he may attain success less rapidly, but when attained it is solid and does not crumble like that of others. 

 When I show you that the application of this doctrine demands in the first place a mastery of the science of manners, you may think my jurisprudence has a flavor of the court and of the training I received as a Lenoncourt. My dear friend, I do attach great importance to that training, trifling as it seems. You will find that the habits of the great world are as important to you as the wide and varied knowledge that you possess. Often they take the place of such knowledge; for some really ignorant men, born with natural gifts and accustomed to give connection to their ideas, have been known to attain a grandeur never reached by others far more worthy of it. I have studied you thoroughly, Felix, wishing to know if your education, derived wholly from schools, has injured your nature. God knows the joy with which I find you fit for that further education of which I speak. 

 The manners of many who are brought up in the traditions of the great world are purely external; true politeness, perfect manners, come from the heart, and from a deep sense of personal dignity. This is why some men of noble birth are, in spite of their training, ill-mannered, while others, among the middle classes, have instinctive good taste and only need a few lessons to give them excellent manners without any signs of awkward imitation. Believe a poor woman who no longer leaves her valley when she tells you that this dignity of tone, this courteous simplicity in words, in gesture, in bearing, and even in the character of the home, is a living and material poem, the charm of which is irresistible; imagine therefore what it is when it takes its inspiration from the heart. Politeness, dear, consists in seeming to forget ourselves for others; with many it is social cant, laid aside when personal self-interest shows its cloven-foot; a noble then becomes ignoble. But--and this is what I want you to practise, Felix--true politeness involves a Christian principle; it is the flower of Love, it requires that we forget ourselves really. In memory of your Henriette, for her sake, be not a fountain without water, have the essence and the form of true courtesy. Never fear to be the dupe and victim of this social virtue; you will some day gather the fruit of seeds scattered apparently to the winds. 

 My father used to say that one of the great offences of sham politeness was the neglect of promises. When anything is demanded of you that you cannot do, refuse positively and leave no loopholes for false hopes; on the other hand, grant at once whatever you are willing to bestow. Your prompt refusal will make you friends as well as your prompt benefit, and your character will stand the higher; for it is hard to say whether a promise forgotten, a hope deceived does not make us more enemies than a favor granted brings us friends. 

 Dear friend, there are certain little matters on which I may dwell, for I know them, and it comes within my province to impart them. Be not too confiding, nor frivolous, nor over enthusiastic, --three rocks on which youth often strikes. Too confiding a nature loses respect, frivolity brings contempt, and others take advantage of excessive enthusiasm. In the first place, Felix, you will never have more than two or three friends in the course of your life. Your entire confidence is their right; to give it to many is to betray your real friends. If you are more intimate with some men than with others keep guard over yourself; be as cautious as though you knew they would one day be your rivals, or your enemies; the chances and changes of life require this. Maintain an attitude which is neither cold nor hot; find the medium point at which a man can safely hold intercourse with others without compromising himself. Yes, believe me, the honest man is as far from the base cowardice of Philinte as he is from the harsh virtue of Alceste. The genius of the poet is displayed in the mind of this true medium; certainly all minds do enjoy more the ridicule of virtue than the sovereign contempt of easy-going selfishness which underlies that picture of it; but all, nevertheless, are prompted to keep themselves from either extreme. 

 As to frivolity, if it causes fools to proclaim you a charming man, others who are accustomed to judge of men's capacities and fathom character, will winnow out your tare and bring you to disrepute, for frivolity is the resource of weak natures, and weakness is soon appraised in a society which regards its members as nothing more than organs--and perhaps justly, for nature herself puts to death imperfect beings. A woman's protecting instincts may be roused by the pleasure she feels in supporting the weak against the strong, and in leading the intelligence of the heart to victory over the brutality of matter; but society, less a mother than a stepmother, adores only the children who flatter her vanity. 

 As to ardent enthusiasm, that first sublime mistake of youth, which finds true happiness in using its powers, and begins by being its own dupe before it is the dupe of others, keep it within the region of the heart's communion, keep it for woman and for God. Do not hawk its treasures in the bazaars of society or of politics, where trumpery will be offered in exchange for them. Believe the voice which commands you to be noble in all things when it also prays you not to expend your forces uselessly. Unhappily, men will rate you according to your usefulness, and not according to your worth. To use an image which I think will strike your poetic mind, let a cipher be what it may, immeasurable in size, written in gold, or written in pencil, it is only a cipher after all. A man of our times has said, "No zeal, above all, no zeal!" The lesson may be sad, but it is true, and it saves the soul from wasting its bloom. Hide your pure sentiments, or put them in regions inaccessible, where their blossoms may be passionately admired, where the artist may dream amorously of his master-piece. But duties, my friend, are not sentiments. To do what we ought is by no means to do what we like. A man who would give his life enthusiastically for a woman must be ready to die coldly for his country. 

 One of the most important rules in the science of manners is that of almost absolute silence about ourselves. Play a little comedy for your own instruction; talk of yourself to acquaintances, tell them about your sufferings, your pleasures, your business, and you will see how indifference succeeds pretended interest; then annoyance follows, and if the mistress of the house does not find some civil way of stopping you the company will disappear under various pretexts adroitly seized. Would you, on the other hand, gather sympathies about you and be spoken of as amiable and witty, and a true friend? talk to others of themselves, find a way to bring them forward, and brows will clear, lips will smile, and after you leave the room all present will praise you. Your conscience and the voice of your own heart will show you the line where the cowardice of flattery begins and the courtesy of intercourse ceases. 

 One word more about a young man's demeanor in public. My dear friend, youth is always inclined to a rapidity of judgment which does it honor, but also injury. This was why the old system of education obliged young people to keep silence and study life in a probationary period beside their elders. Formerly, as you know, nobility, like art, had its apprentices, its pages, devoted body and soul to the masters who maintained them. To-day youth is forced in a hot-house; it is trained to judge of thoughts, actions, and writings with biting severity; it slashes with a blade that has not been fleshed. Do not make this mistake. Such judgments will seem like censures to many about you, who would sooner pardon an open rebuke than a secret wound. Young people are pitiless because they know nothing of life and its difficulties. The old critic is kind and considerate, the young critic is implacable; the one knows nothing, the other knows all. Moreover, at the bottom of all human actions there is a labyrinth of determining reasons on which God reserves for himself the final judgment. Be severe therefore to none but yourself. 

 Your future is before you; but no one in the world can make his way unaided. Therefore, make use of my father's house; its doors are open to you; the connections that you will create for yourself under his roof will serve you in a hundred ways. But do not yield an inch of ground to my mother; she will crush any one who gives up to her, but she will admire the courage of whoever resists her. She is like iron, which if beaten, can be fused with iron, but when cold will break everything less hard than itself. Cultivate my mother; for if she thinks well of you she will introduce you into certain houses where you can acquire the fatal science of the world, the art of listening, speaking, answering, presenting yourself to the company and taking leave of it; the precise use of language, the something--how shall I explain it?--which is no more superiority than the coat is the man, but without which the highest talent in the world will never be admitted within those portals. 

 I know you well enough to be quite sure I indulge no illusion when I imagine that I see you as I wish you to be; simple in manners, gentle in tone, proud without conceit, respectful to the old, courteous without servility, above all, discreet. Use your wit but never display it for the amusement of others; for be sure that if your brilliancy annoys an inferior man, he will retire from the field and say of you in a tone of contempt, "He is very amusing. " Let your superiority be leonine. Moreover, do not be always seeking to please others. I advise a certain coldness in your relations with men, which may even amount to indifference; this will not anger others, for all persons esteem those who slight them; and it will win you the favor of women, who will respect you for the little consequence that you attach to men. Never remain in company with those who have lost their reputation, even though they may not have deserved to do so; for society holds us responsible for our friendships as well as for our enmities. In this matter let your judgments be slowly and maturely weighed, but see that they are irrevocable. When the men whom you have repulsed justify the repulsion, your esteem and regard will be all the more sought after; you have inspired the tacit respect which raises a man among his peers. I behold you now armed with a youth that pleases, grace which attracts, and wisdom with which to preserve your conquests. All that I have now told you can be summed up in two words, two old-fashioned words, "Noblesse oblige. "

 Now apply these precepts to the management of life. You will hear many persons say that strategy is the chief element of success; that the best way to press through the crowd is to set some men against other men and so take their places. That was a good system for the Middle Ages, when princes had to destroy their rivals by pitting one against the other; but in these days, all things being done in open day, I am afraid it would do you ill-service. No, you must meet your competitors face to face, be they loyal and true men, or traitorous enemies whose weapons are calumny, evil-speaking, and fraud. But remember this, you have no more powerful auxiliaries than these men themselves; they are their own enemies; fight them with honest weapons, and sooner or later they are condemned. As to the first of them, loyal men and true, your straightforwardness will obtain their respect, and the differences between you once settled (for all things can be settled), these men will serve you. Do not be afraid of making enemies; woe to him who has none in the world you are about to enter; but try to give no handle for ridicule or disparagement. I say _try_, for in Paris a man cannot always belong solely to himself; he is sometimes at the mercy of circumstances; you will not always be able to avoid the mud in the gutter nor the tile that falls from the roof. The moral world has gutters where persons of no reputation endeavor to splash the mud in which they live upon men of honor. But you can always compel respect by showing that you are, under all circumstances, immovable in your principles. In the conflict of opinions, in the midst of quarrels and cross-purposes, go straight to the point, keep resolutely to the question; never fight except for the essential thing, and put your whole strength into that. You know how Monsieur de Mortsauf hates Napoleon, how he curses him and pursues him as justice does a criminal; demanding punishment day and night for the death of the Duc d'Enghien, the only death, the only misfortune, that ever brought the tears to his eyes; well, he nevertheless admired him as the greatest of captains, and has often explained to me his strategy. May not the same tactics be applied to the war of human interests; they would economize time as heretofore they economized men and space. Think this over, for as a woman I am liable to be mistaken on such points which my sex judges only by instinct and sentiment. One point, however, I may insist on; all trickery, all deception, is certain to be discovered and to result in doing harm; whereas every situation presents less danger if a man plants himself firmly on his own truthfulness. If I may cite my own case, I can tell you that, obliged as I am by Monsieur de Mortsauf's condition to avoid litigation and to bring to an immediate settlement all difficulties which arise in the management of Clochegourde, and which would otherwise cause him an excitement under which his mind would succumb, I have invariably settled matters promptly by taking hold of the knot of the difficulty and saying to our opponents: "We will either untie it or cut it!"

 It will often happen that you do a service to others and find yourself ill-rewarded; I beg you not to imitate those who complain of men and declare them to be all ungrateful. That is putting themselves on a pedestal indeed! and surely it is somewhat silly to admit their lack of knowledge of the world. But you, I trust, will not do good as a usurer lends his money; you will do it--will you not?--for good's sake. Noblesse oblige. Nevertheless, do not bestow such services as to force others to ingratitude, for if you do, they will become your most implacable enemies; obligations sometimes lead to despair, like the despair of ruin itself, which is capable of very desperate efforts. As for yourself, accept as little as you can from others. Be no man's vassal; and bring yourself out of your own difficulties. 

 You see, dear friend, I am advising you only on the lesser points of life. In the world of politics things wear a different aspect; the rules which are to guide your individual steps give way before the national interests. If you reach that sphere where great men revolve you will be, like God himself, the sole arbiter of your determinations. You will no longer be a man, but law, the living law; no longer an individual, you are then the Nation incarnate. But remember this, though you judge, you will yourself be judged; hereafter you will be summoned before the ages, and you know history well enough to be fully informed as to what deeds and what sentiments have led to true grandeur. 

 I now come to a serious matter, your conduct towards women. Wherever you visit make it a principle not to fritter yourself away in a petty round of gallantry. A man of the last century who had great social success never paid attention to more than one woman of an evening, choosing the one who seemed the most neglected. That man, my dear child, controlled his epoch. He wisely reckoned that by a given time all women would speak well of him. Many young men waste their most precious possession, namely, the time necessary to create connections which contribute more than all else to social success. Your springtime is short, endeavor to make the most of it. Cultivate influential women. Influential women are old women; they will teach you the intermarriages and the secrets of all the families of the great world; they will show you the cross-roads which will bring you soonest to your goal. They will be fond of you. The bestowal of protection is their last form of love--when they are not devout. They will do you innumerable good services; sing your praises and make you desirable to society. Avoid young women. Do not think I say this from personal self-interest. The woman of fifty will do all for you, the woman of twenty will do nothing; she wants your whole life while the other asks only a few attentions. Laugh with the young women, meet them for pastime merely; they are incapable of serious thought. Young women, dear friend, are selfish, vain, petty, ignorant of true friendship; they love no one but themselves; they would sacrifice you to an evening's success. Besides, they all want absolute devotion, and your present situation requires that devotion be shown to you; two irreconcilable needs! None of these young women would enter into your interests; they would think of themselves and not of you; they would injure you more by their emptiness and frivolity than they could serve you by their love; they will waste your time unscrupulously, hinder your advance to fortune, and end by destroying your future with the best grace possible. If you complain, the silliest of them will make you think that her glove is more precious than fortune, and that nothing is so glorious as to be her slave. They will all tell you that they bestow happiness, and thus lull you to forget your nobler destiny. Believe me, the happiness they give is transitory; your great career will endure. You know not with what perfidious cleverness they contrive to satisfy their caprices, nor the art with which they will convert your passing fancy into a love which ought to be eternal. The day when they abandon you they will tell you that the words, "I no longer love you, " are a full justification of their conduct, just as the words, "I love, " justified their winning you; they will declare that love is involuntary and not to be coerced. Absurd! Believe me, dear, true love is eternal, infinite, always like unto itself; it is equable, pure, without violent demonstration; white hair often covers the head but the heart that holds it is ever young. No such love is found among the women of the world; all are playing comedy; this one will interest you by her misfortunes; she seems the gentlest and least exacting of her sex, but when once she is necessary to you, you will feel the tyranny of weakness and will do her will; you may wish to be a diplomat, to go and come, and study men and interests, --no, you must stay in Paris, or at her country-place, sewn to her petticoat, and the more devotion you show the more ungrateful and exacting she will be. Another will attract you by her submissiveness; she will be your attendant, follow you romantically about, compromise herself to keep you, and be the millstone about your neck. You will drown yourself some day, but the woman will come to the surface. 

 The least manoeuvring of these women of the world have many nets. The silliest triumph because too foolish to excite distrust. The one to be feared least may be the woman of gallantry whom you love without exactly knowing why; she will leave you for no motive and go back to you out of vanity. All these women will injure you, either in the present or the future. Every young woman who enters society and lives a life of pleasure and of gratified vanity is semi-corrupt and will corrupt you. Among them you will not find the chaste and tranquil being in whom you may forever reign. Ah! she who loves you will love solitude; the festivals of her heart will be your glances; she will live upon your words. May she be all the world to you, for you will be all in all to her. Love her well; give her neither griefs nor rivals; do not rouse her jealousy. To be loved, dear, to be comprehended, is the greatest of all joys; I pray that you may taste it! But run no risk of injuring the flower of your soul; be sure, be very sure of the heart in which you place your affections. That woman will never be her own self; she will never think of herself, but of you. She will never oppose you, she will have no interests of her own; for you she will see a danger where you can see none and where she would be oblivious of her own. If she suffers it will be in silence; she will have no personal vanity, but deep reverence for whatever in her has won your love. Respond to such a love by surpassing it. If you are fortunate enough to find that which I, your poor friend, must ever be without, I mean a love mutually inspired, mutually felt, remember that in a valley lives a mother whose heart is so filled with the feelings you have put there that you can never sound its depths. Yes, I bear you an affection which you will never know to its full extent; before it could show itself for what it is you would have to lose your mind and intellect, and then you would be unable to comprehend the length and breadth of my devotion. 

 Shall I be misunderstood in bidding you avoid young women (all more or less artful, satirical, vain, frivolous, and extravagant) and attach yourself to influential women, to those imposing dowagers full of excellent good-sense, like my aunt, who will help your career, defend you from attacks, and say for you the things that you cannot say for yourself? Am I not, on the contrary, generous in bidding you reserve your love for the coming angel with the guileless heart? If the motto Noblesse oblige sums up the advice I gave you just now, my further advice on your relations to women is based upon that other motto of chivalry, "Serve all, love one!"

 Your educational knowledge is immense; your heart, saved by early suffering, is without a stain; all is noble, all is well with you. Now, Felix, WILL! Your future lies in that one word, that word of great men. My child, you will obey your Henriette, will you not? You will permit her to tell you from time to time the thoughts that are in her mind of you and of your relations to the world? I have an eye in my soul which sees the future for you as for my children; suffer me to use that faculty for your benefit; it is a faculty, a mysterious gift bestowed by my lonely life; far from its growing weaker, I find it strengthened and exalted by solitude and silence. 

 I ask you in return to bestow a happiness on me; I desire to see you becoming more and more important among men, without one single success that shall bring a line of shame upon my brow; I desire that you may quickly bring your fortunes to the level of your noble name, and be able to tell me I have contributed to your advancement by something better than a wish. This secret co-operation in your future is the only pleasure I can allow myself. For it, I will wait and hope. 

 I do not say farewell. We are separated; you cannot put my hand to your lips, but you must surely know the place you hold in the heart of your

Henriette. 

As I read this letter I felt the maternal heart beating beneath myfingers which held the paper while I was still cold from the harshgreeting of my own mother. I understood why the countess had forbiddenme to open it in Touraine; no doubt she feared that I would fall ather feet and wet them with my tears. 

I now made the acquaintance of my brother Charles, who up to this timehad been a stranger to me. But in all our intercourse he showed ahaughtiness which kept us apart and prevented brotherly affection. Kindly feelings depend on similarity of soul, and there was no pointof touch between us. He preached to me dogmatically those socialtrifles which head or heart can see without instruction; he seemed tomistrust me. If I had not had the inward support of my great love hewould have made me awkward and stupid by affecting to believe that Iknew nothing of life. He presented me in society under the expectationthat my dulness would be a foil to his qualities. Had I not rememberedthe sorrows of my childhood I might have taken his protecting vanityfor brotherly affection; but inward solitude produces the same effectsas outward solitude; silence within our souls enables us to hear thefaintest sound; the habit of taking refuge within ourselves develops aperception which discerns every quality of the affections about us. Before I knew Madame de Mortsauf a hard look grieved me, a rough wordwounded me to the heart; I bewailed these things without as yetknowing anything of a life of tenderness; whereas now, since my returnfrom Clochegourde, I could make comparisons which perfected myinstinctive perceptions. All deductions derived only from sufferingsendured are incomplete. Happiness has a light to cast. I now allowedmyself the more willingly to be kept under the heel of primogeniturebecause I was not my brother's dupe. 

I always went alone to the Duchesse de Lenoncourt's, where Henriette'sname was never mentioned; no one, except the good old duke, who wassimplicity itself, ever spoke of her to me; but by the way he welcomedme I guessed that his daughter had privately commended me to his care. At the moment when I was beginning to overcome the foolish wonder andshyness which besets a young man at his first entrance into the greatworld, and to realize the pleasures it could give through theresources it offers to ambition, just, too, as I was beginning to makeuse of Henriette's maxims, admiring their wisdom, the events of the20th of March took place. 

My brother followed the court to Ghent; I, by Henriette's advice (forI kept up a correspondence with her, active on my side only), wentthere also with the Duc de Lenoncourt. The natural kindness of the oldduke turned to a hearty and sincere protection as soon as he saw meattached, body and soul, to the Bourbons. He himself presented me tohis Majesty. Courtiers are not numerous when misfortunes are rife; butyouth is gifted with ingenuous admiration and uncalculating fidelity. The king had the faculty of judging men; a devotion which might havepassed unobserved in Paris counted for much at Ghent, and I had thehappiness of pleasing Louis XVIII. 

A letter from Madame de Mortsauf to her father, brought withdespatches by an emissary of the Vendeens, enclosed a note to me bywhich I learned that Jacques was ill. Monsieur de Mortsauf, in despairat his son's ill-health, and also at the news of a second emigration, added a few words which enabled me to guess the situation of my dearone. Worried by him, no doubt, when she passed all her time atJacques' bedside, allowed no rest either day or night, superior toannoyance, yet unable always to control herself when her whole soulwas given to the care of her child, Henriette needed the support of afriendship which might lighten the burden of her life, were it only bydiverting her husband's mind. Though I was now most impatient to rivalthe career of my brother, who had lately been sent to the Congress ofVienna, and was anxious at any risk to justify Henriette's appeal andbecome a man myself, freed from all vassalage, nevertheless myambition, my desire for independence, the great interest I had in notleaving the king, all were of no account before the vision of Madamede Mortsauf's sad face. I resolved to leave the court at Ghent andserve my true sovereign. God rewarded me. The emissary sent by theVendeens was unable to return. The king wanted a messenger who wouldfaithfully carry back his instructions. The Duc de Lenoncourt knewthat the king would never forget the man who undertook so perilous anenterprise; he asked for the mission without consulting me, and Igladly accepted it, happy indeed to be able to return to Clochegourdeemployed in the good cause. 

After an audience with the king I returned to France, where, both inParis and in Vendee, I was fortunate enough to carry out his Majesty'sinstructions. Towards the end of May, being tracked by the Bonapartistauthorities to whom I was denounced, I was obliged to fly from placeto place in the character of a man endeavoring to get back to hisestate. I went on foot from park to park, from wood to wood, acrossthe whole of upper Vendee, the Bocage and Poitou, changing mydirection as danger threatened. 

I reached Saumur, from Saumur I went to Chinon, and from Chinon Ireached, in a single night, the woods of Nueil, where I met the counton horseback; he took me up behind him and we reached Clochegourdewithout passing any one who recognized me. 

"Jacques is better, " were the first words he said to me. 

I explained to him my position of diplomatic postman, hunted like awild beast, and the brave gentleman in his quality of royalist claimedthe danger over Chessel of receiving me. As we came in sight ofClochegourde the past eight months rolled away like a dream. When weentered the salon the count said: "Guess whom I bring you?--Felix!"

"Is it possible!" she said, with pendant arms and a bewildered face. 

I showed myself and we both remained motionless; she in her armchair, I on the threshold of the door; looking at each other with that hungerof the soul which endeavors to make up in a single glance for the lostmonths. Then, recovering from a surprise which left her heartunveiled, she rose and I went up to her. 

"I have prayed for your safety, " she said, giving me her hand to kiss. 

She asked news of her father; then she guessed my weariness and wentto prepare my room, while the count gave me something to eat, for Iwas dying of hunger. My room was the one above hers, her aunt's room;she requested the count to take me there, after setting her foot onthe first step of the staircase, deliberating no doubt whether toaccompany me; I turned my head, she blushed, bade me sleep well, andwent away. When I came down to dinner I heard for the first time ofthe disasters at Waterloo, the flight of Napoleon, the march of theAllies to Paris, and the probable return of the Bourbons. These eventswere all in all to the count; to us they were nothing. What think youwas the great event I was to learn, after kissing the children?--for Iwill not dwell on the alarm I felt at seeing the countess pale andshrunken; I knew the injury I might do by showing it and was carefulto express only joy at seeing her. But the great event for us was toldin the words, "You shall have ice to-day!" She had often fretted theyear before that the water was not cold enough for me, who, neverdrinking anything else, liked it iced. God knows how many entreatiesit had cost her to get an ice-house built. You know better than anyone that a word, a look, an inflection of the voice, a triflingattention, suffices for love; love's noblest privilege is to proveitself by love. Well, her words, her look, her pleasure, showed me herfeelings, as I had formerly shown her mine by that first game ofbackgammon. These ingenuous proofs of her affection were many; on theseventh day after my arrival she recovered her freshness, she sparkledwith health and youth and happiness; my lily expanded in beauty justas the treasures of my heart increased. Only in petty minds or incommon hearts can absence lessen love or efface the features ordiminish the beauty of our dear one. To ardent imaginations, to allbeings through whose veins enthusiasm passes like a crimson tide, andin whom passion takes the form of constancy, absence has the sameeffect as the sufferings of the early Christians, which strengthenedtheir faith and made God visible to them. In hearts that abound inlove are there not incessant longings for a desired object, to whichthe glowing fire of our dreams gives higher value and a deeper tint?Are we not conscious of instigations which give to the belovedfeatures the beauty of the ideal by inspiring them with thought? Thepast, dwelt on in all its details becomes magnified; the future teemswith hope. When two hearts filled with these electric clouds meet eachother, their interview is like the welcome storm which revives theearth and stimulates it with the swift lightnings of the thunderbolt. How many tender pleasures came to me when I found these thoughts andthese sensations reciprocal! With what glad eyes I followed thedevelopment of happiness in Henriette! A woman who renews her lifefrom that of her beloved gives, perhaps, a greater proof of feelingthan she who dies killed by a doubt, withered on her stock for want ofsap; I know not which of the two is the more touching. 

The revival of Madame de Mortsauf was wholly natural, like the effectsof the month of May upon the meadows, or those of the sun and of thebrook upon the drooping flowers. Henriette, like our dear valley oflove, had had her winter; she revived like the valley in thespringtime. Before dinner we went down to the beloved terrace. There, with one hand stroking the head of her son, who walked feebly besideher, silent, as though he were breeding an illness, she told me of hernights beside his pillow. 

For three months, she said, she had lived wholly within herself, inhabiting, as it were, a dark palace; afraid to enter sumptuous roomswhere the light shone, where festivals were given, to her denied, atthe door of which she stood, one glance turned upon her child, anotherto a dim and distant figure; one ear listening for moans, another fora voice. She told me poems, born of solitude, such as no poet eversang; but all ingenuously, without one vestige of love, one trace ofvoluptuous thought, one echo of a poesy orientally soothing as therose of Frangistan. When the count joined us she continued in the sametone, like a woman secure within herself, able to look proudly at herhusband and kiss the forehead of her son without a blush. She hadprayed much; she had clasped her hands for nights together over herchild, refusing to let him die. 

"I went, " she said, "to the gate of the sanctuary and asked his lifeof God. "

She had had visions, and she told them to me; but when she said, inthat angelic voice of hers, these exquisite words, "While I slept myheart watched, " the count harshly interrupted her. 

"That is to say, you were half crazy, " he cried. 

She was silent, as deeply hurt as though it were a first wound;forgetting that for thirteen years this man had lost no chance toshoot his arrows into her heart. Like a soaring bird struck on thewing by vulgar shot, she sank into a dull depression; then she rousedherself. 

"How is it, monsieur, " she said, "that no word of mine ever findsfavor in your sight? Have you no indulgence for my weakness, --nocomprehension of me as a woman?"

She stopped short. Already she regretted the murmur, and measured thefuture by the past; how could she expect comprehension? Had she notdrawn upon herself some virulent attack? The blue veins of her templesthrobbed; she shed no tears, but the color of her eyes faded. Then shelooked down, that she might not see her pain reflected on my face, herfeelings guessed, her soul wooed by my soul; above all, not see thesympathy of young love, ready like a faithful dog to spring at thethroat of whoever threatened his mistress, without regard to theassailant's strength or quality. At such cruel moments the count's airof superiority was supreme. He thought he had triumphed over his wife, and he pursued her with a hail of phrases which repeated the one idea, and were like the blows of an axe which fell with unvarying sound. 

"Always the same?" I said, when the count left us to follow thehuntsman who came to speak to him. 

"Always, " answered Jacques. 

"Always excellent, my son, " she said, endeavoring to withdraw Monsieurde Mortsauf from the judgment of his children. "You see only thepresent, you know nothing of the past; therefore you cannot criticiseyour father without doing him injustice. But even if you had the painof seeing that your father was to blame, family honor requires you tobury such secrets in silence. "

"How have the changes at the Cassine and the Rhetoriere answered?" Iasked, to divert her mind from bitter thoughts. 

"Beyond my expectations, " she replied. "As soon as the buildings werefinished we found two excellent farmers ready to hire them; one atfour thousand five hundred francs, taxes paid; the other at fivethousand; both leases for fifteen years. We have already planted threethousand young trees on the new farms. Manette's cousin is delightedto get the Rabelaye; Martineau has taken the Baude. All _our_ effortshave been crowned with success. Clochegourde, without the reservedland which we call the home-farm, and without the timber andvineyards, brings in nineteen thousand francs a year, and theplantations are becoming valuable. I am battling to let the home-farmto Martineau, the keeper, whose eldest son can now take his place. Heoffers three thousand francs if Monsieur de Mortsauf will build him afarm-house at the Commanderie. We might then clear the approach toClochegourde, finish the proposed avenue to the main road, and haveonly the woodland and the vineyards to take care of ourselves. If theking returns, _our_ pension will be restored; WE shall consent afterclashing a little with _our_ wife's common-sense. Jacques' fortune willthen be permanently secured. That result obtained, I shall leavemonsieur to lay by as much as he likes for Madeleine, though the kingwill of course dower her, according to custom. My conscience is easy;I have all but accomplished my task. And you?" she said. 

I explained to her the mission on which the king had sent me, andshowed her how her wise counsel had borne fruit. Was she endowed withsecond sight thus to foretell events?

"Did I not write it to you?" she answered. "For you and for mychildren alone I possess a remarkable faculty, of which I have spokenonly to my confessor, Monsieur de la Berge; he explains it by divineintervention. Often, after deep meditation induced by fears about thehealth of my children, my eyes close to the things of earth and seeinto another region; if Jacques and Madeleine there appear to me astwo luminous figures they are sure to have good health for a certainperiod of time; if wrapped in mist they are equally sure to fall illsoon after. As for you, I not only see you brilliantly illuminated, but I hear a voice which explains to me without words, by some mentalcommunication, what you ought to do. Does any law forbid me to usethis wonderful gift for my children and for you?" she asked, fallinginto a reverie. Then, after a pause, she added, "Perhaps God wills totake the place of their father. "

"Let me believe that my obedience is due to none but you, " I cried. 

She gave me one of her exquisitely gracious smiles, which so exaltedmy heart that I should not have felt a death-blow if given at thatmoment. 

"As soon as the king returns to Paris, go there; leave Clochegourde, "she said. "It may be degrading to beg for places and favors, but itwould be ridiculous to be out of the way of receiving them. Greatchanges will soon take place. The king needs capable and trustworthymen; don't fail him. It is well for you to enter young into theaffairs of the nation and learn your way; for statesmen, like actors, have a routine business to acquire, which genius does not reveal, itmust be learnt. My father heard the Duc de Choiseul say this. Think ofme, " she said, after a pause; "let me enjoy the pleasures ofsuperiority in a soul that is all my own; for are you not my son?"

"Your son?" I said, sullenly. 

"Yes, my son!" she cried, mocking me; "is not that a good place in myheart?"

The bell rang for dinner; she took my arm and leaned contentedly uponit. 

"You have grown, " she said, as we went up the steps. When we reachedthe portico she shook my arm a little, as if my looks wereimportunate; for though her eyes were lowered she knew that I saw onlyher. Then she said, with a charming air of pretended impatience, fullof grace and coquetry, "Come, why don't you look at our dear valley?"

She turned, held her white silk sun-shade over our heads and drewJacques closely to her side. The motion of her head as she lookedtowards the Indre, the punt, the meadows, showed me that in my absenceshe had come to many an understanding with those misty horizons andtheir vaporous outline. Nature was a mantle which sheltered herthoughts. She now knew what the nightingale was sighing the livelongnight, what the songster of the sedges hymned with his plaintive note. 

At eight o'clock that evening I was witness of a scene which touchedme deeply, and which I had never yet witnessed, for in my formervisits I had played backgammon with the count while his wife took thechildren into the dining-room before their bedtime. The bell rangtwice, and all the servants of the household entered the room. 

"You are now our guest and must submit to convent rule, " said thecountess, leading me by the hand with that air of innocent gaietywhich distinguishes women who are naturally pious. 

The count followed. Masters, children, and servants knelt down, alltaking their regular places. It was Madeleine's turn to read theprayers. The dear child said them in her childish voice, the ingenuoustones of which rose clear in the harmonious silence of the country, and gave to the words the candor of holy innocence, the grace ofangels. It was the most affecting prayer I ever heard. Nature repliedto the child's voice with the myriad murmurs of the coming night, likethe low accompaniment of an organ lightly touched, Madeleine was onthe right of the countess, Jacques on her left. The graceful curlyheads, between which rose the smooth braids of the mother, and aboveall three the perfectly white hair and yellow cranium of the father, made a picture which repeated, in some sort, the ideas aroused by themelody of the prayer. As if to fulfil all conditions of the unitywhich marks the sublime, this calm and collected group were bathed inthe fading light of the setting sun; its red tints coloring the room, impelling the soul--be it poetic or superstitious--to believe that thefires of heaven were visiting these faithful servants of God as theyknelt there without distinction of rank, in the equality which heavendemands. Thinking back to the days of the patriarchs my mind stillfurther magnified this scene, so grand in its simplicity. 

The children said good-night, the servants bowed, the countess wentaway holding a child by each hand, and I returned to the salon withthe count. 

"We provide you with salvation there, and hell here, " he said, pointing to the backgammon-board. 

The countess returned in half an hour, and brought her frame near thetable. 

"This is for you, " she said, unrolling the canvas; "but for the lastthree months it has languished. Between that rose and this heartseasemy poor child was ill. "

"Come, come, " said Monsieur de Mortsauf, "don't talk of that any more. Six--five, emissary of the king!"

When alone in my room I hushed my breathing that I might hear herpassing to and fro in hers. She was calm and pure, but I was lashedwith maddening ideas. "Why should she not be mine?" I thought;"perhaps she is, like me, in this whirlwind of agitation. " At oneo'clock, I went down, walking noiselessly, and lay before her door. With my ear pressed to a chink I could hear her equable, gentlebreathing, like that of a child. When chilled to the bone I went backto bed and slept tranquilly till morning. I know not what prenatalinfluence, what nature within me, causes the delight I take in goingto the brink of precipices, sounding the gulf of evil, seeking to knowits depths, feeling its icy chill, and retreating in deep emotion. That hour of night passed on the threshold of her door where I weptwith rage, --though she never knew that on the morrow her foot had trodupon my tears and kisses, on her virtue first destroyed and thenrespected, cursed and adored, --that hour, foolish in the eyes of many, was nevertheless an inspiration of the same mysterious impulse whichimpels the soldier. Many have told me they have played their livesupon it, flinging themselves before a battery to know if they couldescape the shot, happy in thus galloping into the abyss ofprobabilities, and smoking like Jean Bart upon the gunpowder. 

The next day I went to gather flowers and made two bouquets. The countadmired them, though generally nothing of the kind appealed to him. The clever saying of Champcenetz, "He builds dungeons in Spain, "seemed to have been made for him. 

I spent several days at Clochegourde, going but seldom to Frapesle, where, however, I dined three times. The French army now occupiedTours. Though my presence was health and strength to Madame deMortsauf, she implored me to make my way to Chateauroux, and so roundby Issoudun and Orleans to Paris with what haste I could. I tried toresist; but she commanded me, saying that my guardian angel spoke. Iobeyed. Our farewell was, this time, dim with tears; she feared theallurements of the life I was about to live. Is it not a serious thingto enter the maelstrom of interests, passions, and pleasures whichmake Paris a dangerous ocean for chaste love and purity of conscience?I promised to write to her every night, relating the events andthoughts of the day, even the most trivial. When I gave the promiseshe laid her head on my shoulder and said: "Leave nothing out;everything will interest me. "

She gave me letters for the duke and duchess, which I delivered thesecond day after my return. 

"You are in luck, " said the duke; "dine here to-day, and go with methis evening to the Chateau; your fortune is made. The king spoke ofyou this morning, and said, 'He is young, capable, and trustworthy. 'His Majesty added that he wished he knew whether you were living ordead, and in what part of France events had thrown you after you hadexecuted your mission so ably. "

That night I was appointed master of petitions to the council ofState, and I also received a private and permanent place in theemployment of Louis XVIII. Himself, --a confidential position, nothighly distinguished, but without any risks, a position which put meat the very heart of the government and has been the source of all mysubsequent prosperity. Madame de Mortsauf had judged rightly. I nowowed everything to her; power and wealth, happiness and knowledge; sheguided and encouraged me, purified my heart, and gave to my will thatunity of purpose without which the powers of youth are wasted. Later Ihad a colleague; we each served six months. We were allowed to supplyeach other's place if necessary; we had rooms at the Chateau, acarriage, and large allowances for travelling when absent on missions. Strange position! We were the secret disciples of a monarch in apolicy to which even his enemies have since done signal justice; alonewith us he gave judgment on all things, foreign and domestic, yet wehad no legitimate influence; often we were consulted like Laforet byMoliere, and made to feel that the hesitations of long experience wereconfirmed or removed by the vigorous perceptions of youth. 

In other respects my future was secured in a manner to satisfyambition. Beside my salary as master of petitions, paid by the budgetof the council of State, the king gave me a thousand francs a monthfrom his privy purse, and often himself added more to it. Though theking knew well that no young man of twenty-three could long bear upunder the labors with which he loaded me, my colleague, now a peer ofFrance, was not appointed till August, 1817. The choice was adifficult one; our functions demanded so many capabilities that theking was long in coming to a decision. He did me the honor to askwhich of the young men among whom he was hesitating I should like foran associate. Among them was one who had been my school-fellow atLepitre's; I did not select him. His Majesty asked why. 

"The king, " I replied, "chooses men who are equally faithful, butwhose capabilities differ. I choose the one whom I think the mostable, certain that I shall always be able to get on with him. "

My judgment coincided with that of the king, who was pleased with thesacrifice I had made. He said on this occasion, "You are to be thechief"; and he related these circumstances to my colleague, whobecame, in return for the service I had done him, my good friend. Theconsideration shown to me by the Duc de Lenoncourt set the tone ofthat which I met with in society. To have it said, "The king takes aninterest in the young man; that young man has a future, the king likeshim, " would have served me in place of talents; and it now gave to thekindly welcome accorded to youth a certain respect that is only givento power. In the salon of the Duchesse de Lenoncourt and also at thehouse of my sister who had just married the Marquis de Listomere, sonof the old lady in the Ile St. Louis, I gradually came to know theinfluential personages of the Faubourg St. Germain. 

Henriette herself put me at the heart of the circle then called "lePetit Chateau" by the help of her great-aunt, the Princesse deBlamont-Chauvry, to whom she wrote so warmly in my behalf that theprincess immediately sent for me. I cultivated her and contrived toplease her, and she became, not my protectress but a friend, in whosekindness there was something maternal. The old lady took pains to makeme intimate with her daughter Madame d'Espard, with the Duchesse deLangeais, the Vicomtesse de Beauseant, and the Duchesse deMaufrigneuse, women who held the sceptre of fashion, and who were allthe more gracious to me because I made no pretensions and was alwaysready to be useful and agreeable to them. My brother Charles, far fromavoiding me, now began to lean upon me; but my rapid success roused asecret jealousy in his mind which in after years caused me greatvexation. My father and mother, surprised by a triumph so unexpected, felt their vanity flattered, and received me at last as a son. Buttheir feeling was too artificial, I might say false, to let theirpresent treatment have much influence upon a sore heart. Affectationsstained with selfishness win little sympathy; the heart abhorscalculations and profits of all kinds. 

I wrote regularly to Henriette, who answered by two letters a month. Her spirit hovered over me, her thoughts traversed space and made theatmosphere around me pure. No woman could captivate me. The kingnoticed my reserve, and as, in this respect, he belonged to the schoolof Louis XV. , he called me, in jest, Mademoiselle de Vandenesse; butmy conduct pleased him. I am convinced that the habit of patience Iacquired in my childhood and practised at Clochegourde had much to doin my winning the favor of the king, who was always most kind to me. He no doubt took a fancy to read my letters, for he soon gave up hisnotion of my life as that of a young girl. One day when the duke wason duty, and I was writing at the king's dictation, the lattersuddenly remarked, in that fine, silvery voice of his, to which hecould give, when he chose, the biting tone of epigram:--

"So that poor devil of a Mortsauf persists in living?"

"Yes, " replied the duke. 

"Madame de Mortsauf is an angel, whom I should like to see at mycourt, " continued the king; "but if I cannot manage it, my chancellorhere, " turning to me, "may be more fortunate. You are to have sixmonths' leave; I have decided on giving you the young man we spoke ofyesterday as colleague. Amuse yourself at Clochegourde, friend Cato!"and he laughed as he had himself wheeled out of the room. 

I flew like a swallow to Touraine. For the first time I was to showmyself to my beloved, not merely a little less insignificant, butactually in the guise of an elegant young man, whose manners had beenformed in the best salons, his education finished by gracious women;who had found at last a compensation for all his sufferings, and hadput to use the experience given to him by the purest angel to whomheaven had ever committed the care of a child. You know how my motherhad equipped me for my three months' visit at Frapesle. When I reachedClochegourde after fulfilling my mission in Vendee, I was dressed likea huntsman; I wore a jacket with white and red buttons, stripedtrousers, leathern gaiters and shoes. Tramping through underbrush hadso injured my clothes that the count was obliged to lend me linen. Onthe present occasion, two years' residence in Paris, constantintercourse with the king, the habits of a life at ease, my completedgrowth, a youthful countenance, which derived a lustre from theplacidity of the soul within magnetically united with the pure soulthat beamed on me from Clochegourde, --all these things combined hadtransformed me. I was self-possessed without conceit, inwardly pleasedto find myself, in spite of my years, at the summit of affairs; aboveall, I had the consciousness of being secretly the support and comfortof the dearest woman on earth, and her unuttered hope. Perhaps I felta flutter of vanity as the postilions cracked their whips along thenew avenue leading from the main road to Clochegourde and through aniron gate I had never seen before, which opened into a circularenclosure recently constructed. I had not written to the countess ofmy coming, wishing to surprise her. For this I found myself doubly infault: first, she was overwhelmed with the excitement of a pleasurelong desired, but supposed to be impossible; and secondly, she provedto me that all such deliberate surprises are in bad taste. 

When Henriette saw a young man in him who had hitherto seemed but achild to her, she lowered her eyes with a sort of tragic slowness. Sheallowed me to take and kiss her hand without betraying her inwardpleasure, which I nevertheless felt in her sensitive shiver. When sheraised her face to look at me again, I saw that she was pale. 

"Well, you don't forget your old friends?" said Monsieur de Mortsauf, who had neither changed nor aged. 

The children sprang upon me. I saw them behind the grave face of theAbbe Dominis, Jacques' tutor. 

"No, " I replied, "and in future I am to have six months' leave, whichwill always be spent here--Why, what is the matter?" I said to thecountess, putting my arm round her waist and holding her up inpresence of them all. 

"Oh, don't!" she said, springing away from me; "it is nothing. "

I read her mind, and answered to its secret thought by saying, "Am Inot allowed to be your faithful slave?"

She took my arm, left the count, the children, and the abbe, and ledme to a distance on the lawn, though still within sight of the others;then, when sure that her voice could not be heard by them, she spoke. 

"Felix, my dear friend, " she said, "forgive my fears; I have but onethread by which to guide me in the labyrinth of life, and I dread tosee it broken. Tell me that I am more than ever Henriette to you, thatyou will never abandon me, that nothing shall prevail against me, thatyou will ever be my devoted friend. I have suddenly had a glimpse intomy future, and you were not there, as hitherto, your eyes shining andfixed upon me--"

"Henriette! idol whose worship is like that of the Divine, --lily, flower of my life, how is it that you do not know, you who are myconscience, that my being is so fused with yours that my soul is herewhen my body is in Paris? Must I tell you that I have come inseventeen hours, that each turn of the wheels gathered thoughts anddesires in my breast, which burst forth like a tempest when I sawyou?"

"Yes, tell me! tell me!" she cried; "I am so sure of myself that I canhear you without wrong. God does not will my death. He sends you to meas he sends his breath to his creatures; as he pours the rain of hisclouds upon a parched earth, --tell me! tell me! Do you love mesacredly?"

"Sacredly. "

"For ever?"

"For ever. "

"As a virgin Mary, hidden behind her veil, beneath her white crown. "

"As a virgin visible. "

"As a sister?"

"As a sister too dearly loved. "

"With chivalry and without hope?"

"With chivalry and with hope. "

"As if you were still twenty years of age, and wearing that absurdblue coat?"

"Oh better far! I love you thus, and I also love you"--she looked atme with keen apprehension--"as you loved your aunt. "

"I am happy! You dispel my terrors, " she said, returning towards thefamily, who were surprised at our private conference. "Be still achild at Clochegourde--for you are one still. It may be your policy tobe a man with the king, but here, let me tell you, monsieur, your bestpolicy is to remain a child. As a child you shall be loved. I canresist a man, but to a child I can refuse nothing, nothing! He can askfor nothing I will not give him. --Our secrets are all told, " she said, looking at the count with a mischievous air, in which her girlish, natural self reappeared. "I leave you now; I must go and dress. "

Never for three years had I heard her voice so richly happy. For thefirst time I heard those swallow cries, the infantile notes of which Itold you. I had brought Jacques a hunting outfit, and for Madeleine awork-box--which her mother afterwards used. The joy of the twochildren, delighted to show their presents to each other, seemed toannoy the count, always dissatisfied when attention was withdrawn fromhimself. I made a sign to Madeleine and followed her father, whowanted to talk to me of his ailments. 

"My poor Felix, " he said, "you see how happy and well they all are. Iam the shadow on the picture; all their ills are transferred to me, and I bless God that it is so. Formerly I did not know what was thematter with me; now I know. The orifice of my stomach is affected; Ican digest nothing. "

"How do you come to be as wise as the professor of a medical school?"I asked, laughing. "Is your doctor indiscreet enough to tell you suchthings?"

"God forbid I should consult a doctor, " he cried, showing the aversionmost imaginary invalids feel for the medical profession. 

I now listened to much crazy talk, in the course of which he made themost absurd confidences, --complained of his wife, of the servants, ofthe children, of life, evidently pleased to repeat his daily speechesto a friend who, not having heard them daily, might be alarmed, andwho at any rate was forced to listen out of politeness. He must havebeen satisfied, for I paid him the utmost attention, trying topenetrate his inconceivable nature, and to guess what new tortures hehad been inflicting on his wife, of which she had not written to me. Henriette presently put an end to the monologue by appearing in theportico. The count saw her, shook his head, and said to me: "Youlisten to me, Felix; but here no one pities me. "

He went away, as if aware of the constraint he imposed on myintercourse with Henriette, or perhaps from a really chivalrousconsideration for her, knowing he could give her pleasure by leavingus alone. His character exhibited contradictions that were ofteninexplicable; he was jealous, like all weak beings, but his confidencein his wife's sanctity was boundless. It may have been the sufferingsof his own self-esteem, wounded by the superiority of that loftyvirtue, which made him so eager to oppose every wish of the poorwoman, whom he braved as children brave their masters or theirmothers. 

Jacques was taking his lessons, and Madeleine was being dressed; I hadtherefore a whole hour to walk with the countess alone on the terrace. 

"Dear angel!" I said, "the chains are heavier, the sands hotter, thethorns grow apace. "

"Hush!" she said, guessing the thoughts my conversation with the counthad suggested. "You are here, and all is forgotten! I don't suffer; Ihave never suffered. "

She made a few light steps as if to shake her dress and give to thebreeze its ruches of snowy tulle, its floating sleeves and freshribbons, the laces of her pelerine, and the flowing curls of hercoiffure a la Sevigne; I saw her for the first time a young girl, --gaywith her natural gaiety, ready to frolic like a child. I knew then themeaning of tears of happiness; I knew the joy a man feels in bringinghappiness to another. 

"Sweet human flower, wooed by my thought, kissed by my soul, oh mylily!" I cried, "untouched, untouchable upon thy stem, white, proud, fragrant, and solitary--"

"Enough, enough, " she said, smiling. "Speak to me of yourself; tell meeverything. "

Then, beneath the swaying arch of quivering leaves, we had a longconversation, filled with interminable parentheses, subjects taken, dropped, and retaken, in which I told her my life and my occupations;I even described my apartment in Paris, for she wished to knoweverything; and (happiness then unappreciated) I had nothing toconceal. Knowing thus my soul and all the details of a daily life fullof incessant toil, learning the full extent of my functions, which toany one not sternly upright offered opportunities for deception anddishonest gains, but which I had exercised with such rigid honor thatthe king, I told her, called me Mademoiselle de Vandenesse, she seizedmy hand and kissed it, and dropped a tear, a tear of joy, upon it. 

This sudden transposition of our roles, this homage, coupled with thethought--swiftly expressed but as swiftly comprehended--"Here is themaster I have sought, here is my dream embodied!" all that there wasof avowal in the action, grand in its humility, where love betrayeditself in a region forbidden to the senses, --this whirlwind ofcelestial things fell on my heart and crushed it. I felt myself toosmall; I wished to die at her feet. 

"Ah!" I said, "you surpass us in all things. Can you doubt me?--foryou did doubt me just now, Henriette. "

"Not now, " she answered, looking at me with ineffable tenderness, which, for a moment, veiled the light of her eyes. "But seeing you sochanged, so handsome, I said to myself, 'Our plans for Madeleine willbe defeated by some woman who will guess the treasures in his heart;she will steal our Felix, and destroy all happiness here. '"

"Always Madeleine!" I replied. "Is it Madeleine to whom I amfaithful?"

We fell into a silence which Monsieur de Mortsauf inconvenientlyinterrupted. I was forced to keep up a conversation bristling withdifficulties, in which my honest replies as to the king's policyjarred with the count's ideas, and he forced me to explain again andagain the king's intentions. In spite of all my questions as to hishorses, his agricultural affairs, whether he was satisfied with hisfive farms, whether he meant to cut the timber of the old avenue, hereturned to the subject of politics with the pestering faculty of anold maid and the persistency of a child. Minds like his prefer to dashthemselves against the light; they return again and again and humabout it without ever getting into it, like those big flies whichweary our ears as they buzz upon the glass. 

Henriette was silent. To stop the conversation, in which I feared myyoung blood might take fire, I answered in monosyllables, mostlyacquiescent, avoiding discussion; but Monsieur de Mortsauf had toomuch sense not to perceive the meaning of my politeness. Presently hewas angry at being always in the right; he grew refractory, hiseyebrows and the wrinkles of his forehead worked, his yellow eyesblazed, his rufous nose grew redder, as it did on the day I firstwitnessed an attack of madness. Henriette gave me a supplicating look, making me understand that she could not employ on my behalf anauthority to which she had recourse to protect her children. I at onceanswered the count seriously, taking up the political question, andmanaging his peevish spirit with the utmost care. 

"Poor dear! poor dear!" she murmured two or three times; the wordsreaching my ear like a gentle breeze. When she could intervene withsuccess she said, interrupting us, "Let me tell you, gentlemen, thatyou are very dull company. "

Recalled by this conversation to his chivalrous sense of what was dueto a woman, the count ceased to talk politics, and as we bored him inour turn by commonplace matters, he presently left us to continue ourwalk, declaring that it made his head spin to go round and round onthe same path. 

My sad conjectures were true. The soft landscape, the warm atmosphere, the cloudless skies, the soothing poetry of this valley, which forfifteen years had calmed the stinging fancies of that diseased mind, were now impotent. At a period of life when the asperities of othermen are softened and their angles smoothed, the disposition of thisman became more and more aggressive. For the last few months he hadtaken a habit of contradicting for the sake of contradiction, withoutreason, without even trying to justify his opinions; he insisted onknowing the why and the wherefore of everything; grew restless under adelay or an omission; meddled with every item of the householdaffairs, and compelled his wife and the servants to render him themost minute and fatiguing account of all that was done; never allowingthem the slightest freedom of action. Formerly he did not lose histemper except for some special reason; now his irritation wasconstant. Perhaps the care of his farms, the interests of agriculture, an active out-door life had formerly soothed his atrabilious temper bygiving it a field for its uneasiness, and by furnishing employment forhis activity. Possibly the loss of such occupation had allowed hismalady to prey upon itself; no longer exercised on matters without, itwas showing itself in more fixed ideas; the moral being was layinghold of the physical being. He had lately become his own doctor; hestudied medical books, fancied he had the diseases he read of, andtook the most extraordinary and unheard of precautions about hishealth, --precautions never the same, impossible to foresee, andconsequently impossible to satisfy. Sometimes he wanted no noise;then, when the countess had succeeded in establishing absolutesilence, he would declare he was in a tomb, and blame her for notfinding some medium between incessant noise and the stillness of LaTrappe. Sometimes he affected a perfect indifference for all earthlythings. Then the whole household breathed freely; the children played;family affairs went on without criticism. Suddenly he would cry outlamentably, "They want to kill me!--My dear, " he would say to hiswife, increasing the injustice of his words by the aggravating tonesof his sharp voice, "if it concerned your children you would know verywell what was the matter with them. "

He dressed and re-dressed himself incessantly, watching every changeof temperature, and doing nothing without consulting the barometer. Notwithstanding his wife's attentions, he found no food to suit him, his stomach being, he said, impaired, and digestion so painful as tokeep him awake all night. In spite of this he ate, drank, digested, and slept, in a manner to satisfy any doctor. His capricious willexhausted the patience of the servants, accustomed to the beaten trackof domestic service and unable to conform to the requirements of hisconflicting orders. Sometimes he bade them keep all the windows open, declaring that his health required a current of fresh air; a few dayslater the fresh air, being too hot or too damp, as the case might be, became intolerable; then he scolded, quarrelled with the servants, andin order to justify himself, denied his former orders. This defect ofmemory, or this bad faith, call it which you will, always carried theday against his wife in the arguments by which she tried to pit himagainst himself. Life at Clochegourde had become so intolerable thatthe Abbe Dominis, a man of great learning, took refuge in the study ofscientific problems, and withdrew into the shelter of pretendedabstraction. The countess had no longer any hope of hiding the secretof these insane furies within the circle of her own home; the servantshad witnessed scenes of exasperation without exciting cause, in whichthe premature old man passed the bounds of reason. They were, however, so devoted to the countess that nothing so far had transpired outside;but she dreaded daily some public outburst of a frenzy no longercontrolled by respect for opinion. 

Later I learned the dreadful details of the count's treatment of hiswife. Instead of supporting her when the children were ill, heassailed her with dark predictions and made her responsible for allfuture illnesses, because she refused to let the children take thecrazy doses which he prescribed. When she went to walk with them thecount would predict a storm in the face of a clear sky; if by chancethe prediction proved true, the satisfaction he felt made him quiteindifferent to any harm to the children. If one of them was ailing, the count gave his whole mind to fastening the cause of the illnessupon the system of nursing adopted by his wife, whom he carped at forevery trifling detail, always ending with the cruel words, "If yourchildren fall ill again you have only yourself to thank for it. "

He behaved in the same way in the management of the household, seeingthe worst side of everything, and making himself, as his old coachmansaid, "the devil's own advocate. " The countess arranged that Jacquesand Madeleine should take their meals alone at different hours fromthe family, so as to save them from the count's outbursts and draw allthe storms upon herself. In this way the children now saw but littleof their father. By one of the hallucinations peculiar to selfishpersons, the count had not the slightest idea of the misery he caused. In the confidential communication he made to me on my arrival heparticularly dwelt on his goodness to his family. He wielded theflail, beat, bruised, and broke everything about him as a monkey mighthave done. Then, having half-destroyed his prey, he denied havingtouched it. I now understood the lines on Henriette's forehead, --finelines, traced as it were with the edge of a razor, which I had noticedthe moment I saw her. There is a pudicity in noble minds whichwithholds them from speaking of their personal sufferings; proudlythey hide the extent of their woes from hearts that love them, feelinga merciful joy in doing so. Therefore in spite of my urgency, I didnot immediately obtain the truth from Henriette. She feared to grieveme; she made brief admissions, and then blushed for them; but I soonperceived myself the increase of trouble which the count's presentwant of regular occupation had brought upon the household. 

"Henriette, " I said, after I had been there some days, "don't youthink you have made a mistake in so arranging the estate that thecount has no longer anything to do?"

"Dear, " she said, smiling, "my situation is critical enough to takeall my attention; believe me, I have considered all my resources, andthey are now exhausted. It is true that the bickerings are gettingworse and worse. As Monsieur de Mortsauf and I are always together, Icannot lessen them by diverting his attention in other directions; infact the pain would be the same to me in any case. I did think ofadvising him to start a nursery for silk-worms at Clochegourde, wherewe have many mulberry-trees, remains of the old industry of Touraine. But I reflected that he would still be the same tyrant at home, and Ishould have many more annoyances through the enterprise. You willlearn, my dear observer, that in youth a man's ill qualities arerestrained by society, checked in their swing by the play of passions, subdued under the fear of public opinion; later, a middle-aged man, living in solitude, shows his native defects, which are all the moreterrible because so long repressed. Human weaknesses are essentiallybase; they allow of neither peace nor truce; what you yield to themto-day they exact to-morrow, and always; they fasten on concessionsand compel more of them. Power, on the other hand, is merciful; itconforms to evidence, it is just and it is peaceable. But the passionsborn of weakness are implacable. Monsieur de Mortsauf takes anabsolute pleasure in getting the better of me; and he who woulddeceive no one else, deceives me with delight. "

One morning as we left the breakfast table, about a month after myarrival, the countess took me by the arm, darted through an iron gatewhich led into the vineyard, and dragged me hastily among the vines. 

"He will kill me!" she cried. "And I want to live--for my children'ssake. But oh! not a day's respite! Always to walk among thorns! tocome near falling every instant! every instant to have to summon allmy strength to keep my balance! No human being can long endure suchstrain upon the system. If I were certain of the ground I ought totake, if my resistance could be a settled thing, then my mind mightconcentrate upon it--but no, every day the attacks change characterand leave me without defence; my sorrows are not one, they aremanifold. Ah! my friend--" she cried, leaning her head upon myshoulder, and not continuing her confidence. "What will become of me?Oh, what shall I do?" she said presently, struggling with thoughts shedid not express. "How can I resist? He will kill me! No, I will killmyself--but that would be a crime! Escape? yes, but my children!Separate from him? how, after fifteen years of marriage, how could Iever tell my parents that I will not live with him? for if my fatherand mother came here he would be calm, polite, intelligent, judicious. Besides, can married women look to fathers or mothers? Do they notbelong body and soul to their husbands? I could live tranquil if nothappy--I have found strength in my chaste solitude, I admit it; but ifI am deprived of this negative happiness I too shall become insane. Myresistance is based on powerful reasons which are not personal tomyself. It is a crime to give birth to poor creatures condemned toendless suffering. Yet my position raises serious questions, soserious that I dare not decide them alone; I cannot be judge and partyboth. To-morrow I will go to Tours and consult my new confessor, theAbbe Birotteau--for my dear and virtuous Abbe de la Berge is dead, "she said, interrupting herself. "Though he was severe, I miss andshall always miss his apostolic power. His successor is an angel ofgoodness, who pities but does not reprimand. Still, all courage drawsfresh life from the heart of religion; what soul is not strengthenedby the voice of the Holy Spirit? My God, " she said, drying her tearsand raising her eyes to heaven, "for what sin am I thus punished?--Ibelieve, yes, Felix, I believe it, we must pass through a fieryfurnace before we reach the saints, the just made perfect of the upperspheres. Must I keep silence? Am I forbidden, oh, my God, to cry tothe heart of a friend? Do I love him too well?" She pressed me to herheart as though she feared to lose me. "Who will solve my doubts? Myconscience does not reproach me. The stars shine from above on men;may not the soul, the human star, shed its light upon a friend, if wego to him with pure thoughts?"

I listened to this dreadful cry in silence, holding her moist hand inmine that was still more moist. I pressed it with a force to whichHenriette replied with an equal pressure. 

"Where are you?" cried the count, who came towards us, bareheaded. 

Ever since my return he had insisted on sharing our interviews, --either because he wanted amusement, or feared the countess wouldtell me her sorrows and complain to me, or because he was jealous ofa pleasure he did not share. 

"How he follows me!" she cried, in a tone of despair. "Let us go intothe orchard, we shall escape him. We can stoop as we run by the hedge, and he will not see us. "

We made the hedge a rampart and reached the enclosure, where we weresoon at a good distance from the count in an alley of almond-trees. 

"Dear Henriette, " I then said to her, pressing her arm against myheart and stopping to contemplate her in her sorrow, "you have guidedme with true knowledge along the perilous ways of the great world; letme in return give you some advice which may help you to end this duelwithout witnesses, in which you must inevitably be worsted, for youare fighting with unequal weapons. You must not struggle any longerwith a madman--"

"Hush!" she said, dashing aside the tears that rolled from her eyes. 

"Listen to me, dear, " I continued. "After a single hour's talk withthe count, which I force myself to endure for love of you, my thoughtsare bewildered, my head heavy; he makes me doubtful of my ownintellect; the same ideas repeated over and over again seem to burnthemselves on my brain. Well-defined monomanias are not communicated;but when the madness consists in a distorted way of looking ateverything, and when it lurks under all discussions, then it can anddoes injure the minds of those who live with it. Your patience issublime, but will it not end in disordering you? For your sake, forthat of your children, change your system with the count. Youradorable kindness has made him selfish; you have treated him as amother treats the child she spoils; but now, if you want to live--andyou do want it, " I said, looking at her, "use the control you haveover him. You know what it is; he loves you and he fears you; make himfear you more; oppose his erratic will with your firm will. Extendyour power over him, confine his madness to a moral sphere just as welock maniacs in a cell. "

"Dear child, " she said, smiling bitterly, "a woman without a heartmight do it. But I am a mother; I should make a poor jailer. Yes, Ican suffer, but I cannot make others suffer. Never!" she said, "never!not even to obtain some great and honorable result. Besides, I shouldhave to lie in my heart, disguise my voice, lower my head, degrade mygesture--do not ask of me such falsehoods. I can stand betweenMonsieur de Mortsauf and his children, I willingly receive his blowsthat they may not fall on others; I can do all that, and will do it toconciliate conflicting interests, but I can do no more. "

"Let me worship thee, O saint, thrice holy!" I exclaimed, kneeling ather feet and kissing her robe, with which I wiped my tears. "But if hekills you?" I cried. 

She turned pale and said, lifting her eyes to heaven:

"God's will be done!"

"Do you know that the king said to your father, 'So that devil of aMortsauf is still living'?"

"A jest on the lips of the king, " she said, "is a crime when repeatedhere. "

In spite of our precautions the count had tracked us; he now arrived, bathed in perspiration, and sat down under a walnut-tree where thecountess had stopped to give me that rebuke. I began to talk about thevintage; the count was silent, taking no notice of the dampness underthe tree. After a few insignificant remarks, interspersed with pausesthat were very significant, he complained of nausea and headache; buthe spoke gently, and did not appeal to our pity, or describe hissufferings in his usual exaggerated way. We paid no attention to him. When we reached the house, he said he felt worse and should go to bed;which he did, quite naturally and with much less complaint than usual. We took advantage of the respite and went down to our dear terraceaccompanied by Madeleine. 

"Let us get that boat and go upon the river, " said the countess afterwe had made a few turns. "We might go and look at the fishing which isgoing on to-day. "

We went out by the little gate, found the punt, jumped into it andwere presently paddling up the Loire. Like three children amused withtrifles, we looked at the sedges along the banks and the blue andgreen dragon-flies; the countess wondered perhaps that she was able toenjoy such peaceful pleasures in the midst of her poignant griefs; butNature's calm, indifferent to our struggles, has a magic gift ofconsolation. The tumults of a love full of restrained desiresharmonize with the wash of the water; the flowers that the hand of manhas never wilted are the voice of his secret dreams; the voluptuousswaying of the boat vaguely responds to the thoughts that are floatingin his soul. We felt the languid influence of this double poesy. Words, tuned to the diapason of nature, disclosed mysterious graces;looks were impassioned rays sharing the light shed broadcast by thesun on the glowing meadows. The river was a path along which we flew. Our spirit, no longer kept down by the measured tread of ourfootsteps, took possession of the universe. The abounding joy of achild at liberty, graceful in its motions, enticing in its play, isthe living expression of two freed souls, delighting themselves bybecoming ideally the wondrous being dreamed of by Plato and known toall whose youth has been filled with a blessed love. To describe toyou that hour, not in its indescribable details but in its essence, Imust say to you that we loved each other in all the creations animateand inanimate which surrounded us; we felt without us the happinessour own hearts craved; it so penetrated our being that the countesstook off her gloves and let her hands float in the water as if to coolan inward ardor. Her eyes spoke; but her mouth, opening like a rose tothe breeze, gave voice to no desire. You know the harmony of deeptones mingling perfectly with high ones? Ever, when I hear it now, itrecalls to me the harmony of our two souls in this one hour, whichnever came again. 

"Where do you fish?" I asked, "if you can only do so from the banksyou own?"

"Near Pont-de-Ruan, " she replied. "Ah! we now own the river fromPont-de-Ruan to Clochegourde; Monsieur de Mortsauf has lately boughtforty acres of the meadow lands with the savings of two years and thearrearage of his pension. Does that surprise you?"

"Surprise me?" I cried; "I would that all the valley were yours. " Sheanswered me with a smile. Presently we came below the bridge to aplace where the Indre widens and where the fishing was going on. 

"Well, Martineau?" she said. 

"Ah, Madame la comtesse, such bad luck! We have fished up from themill the last three hours, and have taken nothing. "

We landed near them to watch the drawing in of the last net, and allthree of us sat down in the shade of a "bouillard, " a sort of poplarwith a white bark, which grows on the banks of the Danube and theLoire (probably on those of other large rivers), and sheds, in thespring of the year, a white and silky fluff, the covering of itsflower. The countess had recovered her august serenity; she halfregretted the unveiling of her griefs, and mourned that she had criedaloud like Job, instead of weeping like the Magdalen, --a Magdalenwithout loves, or galas, or prodigalities, but not without beauty andfragrance. The net came in at her feet full of fish; tench, barbels, pike, perch, and an enormous carp, which floundered about on thegrass. 

"Madame brings luck!" exclaimed the keeper. 

All the laborers opened their eyes as they looked with admiration atthe woman whose fairy wand seemed to have touched the nets. Just thenthe huntsman was seen urging his horse over the meadows at a fullgallop. Fear took possession of her. Jacques was not with us, and themother's first thought, as Virgil so poetically says, is to press herchildren to her breast when danger threatens. 

"Jacques! Where is Jacques? What has happened to my boy?"

She did not love me! If she had loved me I should have seen upon herface when confronted with my sufferings that expression of a lionessin despair. 

"Madame la comtesse, Monsieur le comte is worse. "

She breathed more freely and started to run towards Clochegourde, followed by me and by Madeleine. 

"Follow me slowly, " she said, looking back; "don't let the dear childoverheat herself. You see how it is; Monsieur de Mortsauf took thatwalk in the sun which put him into a perspiration, and sitting underthe walnut-tree may be the cause of a great misfortune. "

The words, said in the midst of her agitation, showed plainly thepurity of her soul. The death of the count a misfortune! She reachedClochegourde with great rapidity, passing through a gap in the walland crossing the fields. I returned slowly. Henriette's words lightedmy mind, but as the lightning falls and blasts the gathered harvest. On the river I had fancied I was her chosen one; now I felt bitterlythe sincerity of her words. The lover who is not everything isnothing. I loved with the desire of a love that knows what it seeks;which feeds in advance on coming transports, and is content with thepleasures of the soul because it mingles with them others which thefuture keeps in store. If Henriette loved, it was certain that sheknew neither the pleasures of love nor its tumults. She lived byfeelings only, like a saint with God. I was the object on which herthoughts fastened as bees swarm upon the branch of a flowering tree. In my mad jealousy I reproached myself that I had dared nothing, thatI had not tightened the bonds of a tenderness which seemed to me atthat moment more subtile than real, by the chains of positivepossession. 

The count's illness, caused perhaps by a chill under the walnut-tree, became alarming in a few hours. I went to Tours for a famous doctornamed Origet, but was unable to find him until evening. He spent thatnight and the next day at Clochegourde. We had sent the huntsman inquest of leeches, but the doctor, thinking the case urgent, wished tobleed the count immediately, but had brought no lancet with him. I atonce started for Azay in the midst of a storm, roused a surgeon, Monsieur Deslandes, and compelled him to come with the utmost celerityto Clochegourde. Ten minutes later and the count would have died; thebleeding saved him. But in spite of this preliminary success thedoctor predicted an inflammatory fever of the worst kind. The countesswas overcome by the fear that she was the secret cause of this crisis. Two weak to thank me for my exertions, she merely gave me a fewsmiles, the equivalent of the kiss she had once laid upon my hand. Fain would I have seen in those haggard smiles the remorse of illicitlove; but no, they were only the act of contrition of an innocentrepentance, painful to see in one so pure, the expression of admiringtenderness for me whom she regarded as noble while reproaching herselffor an imaginary wrong. Surely she loved as Laura loved Petrarch, andnot as Francesca da Rimini loved Paolo, --a terrible discovery for himwho had dreamed the union of the two loves. 

The countess half lay, her body bent forwards, her arms hanging, in asoiled armchair in a room that was like the lair of a wild boar. Thenext evening before the doctor departed he said to the countess, whohad sat up the night before, that she must get a nurse, as the illnesswould be a long one. 

"A nurse!" she said; "no, no! We will take care of him, " she added, looking at me; "we owe it to ourselves to save him. "

The doctor gave us both an observing look full of astonishment. Thewords were of a nature to make him suspect an atonement. He promisedto come twice a week, left directions for the treatment with MonsieurDeslandes, and pointed out the threatening symptoms that might obligeus to send for him. I asked the countess to let me sit up thealternate nights and then, not without difficulty, I persuaded her togo to bed on the third night. When the house was still and the countsleeping I heard a groan from Henriette's room. My anxiety was so keenthat I went to her. She was kneeling before the crucifix bathed intears. "My God!" she cried; "if this be the cost of a murmur, I willnever complain again. "

"You have left him!" she said on seeing me. 

"I heard you moaning, and I was frightened. "

"Oh, I!" she said; "I am well. "

Wishing to be certain that Monsieur de Mortsauf was asleep she camedown with me; by the light of the lamp we looked at him. The count wasweakened by the loss of blood and was more drowsy than asleep; hishands picked the counterpane and tried to draw it over him. 

"They say the dying do that, " she whispered. "Ah! if he were to die ofthis illness, that I have caused, never will I marry again, I swearit, " she said, stretching her hand over his head with a solemngesture. 

"I have done all I could to save him, " I said. 

"Oh, you!" she said, "you are good; it is I who am guilty. "

She stooped to that discolored brow, wiped the perspiration from itand laid a kiss there solemnly; but I saw, not without joy, that shedid it as an expiation. 

"Blanche, I am thirsty, " said the count in a feeble voice. 

"You see he knows me, " she said giving him to drink. 

Her accent, her affectionate manner to him seemed to me to take thefeelings that bound us together and immolate them to the sick man. 

"Henriette, " I said, "go and rest, I entreat you. "

"No more Henriette, " she said, interrupting me with imperious haste. 

"Go to bed if you would not be ill. Your children, _he himself_ wouldorder you to be careful; it is a case where selfishness becomes avirtue. "

"Yes, " she said. 

She went away, recommending her husband to my care by a gesture whichwould have seemed like approaching delirium if childlike grace had notbeen mingled with the supplicating forces of repentance. But the scenewas terrible, judged by the habitual state of that pure soul; italarmed me; I feared the exaltation of her conscience. When the doctorcame again, I revealed to him the nature of my pure Henriette'sself-reproach. This confidence, made discreetly, removed MonsieurOriget's suspicions, and enabled him to quiet the distress of thatnoble soul by telling her that in any case the count had to passthrough this crisis, and that as for the nut-tree, his remaining therehad done more good than harm by developing the disease. 

For fifty-two days the count hovered between life and death. Henrietteand I each watched twenty-six nights. Undoubtedly, Monsieur deMortsauf owed his life to our nursing and to the careful exactitudewith which we carried out the orders of Monsieur Origet. Like allphilosophical physicians, whose sagacious observation of what passesbefore them justifies many a doubt of noble actions when they are onlythe accomplishment of a duty, this man, while assisting the countessand me in our rivalry of devotion, could not help watching us, withscrutinizing glances, so afraid was he of being deceived in hisadmiration. 

"In diseases of this nature, " he said to me at his third visit, "deathhas a powerful auxiliary in the moral nature when that is seriouslydisturbed, as it is in this case. The doctor, the family, the nurseshold the patient's life in their hands; sometimes a single word, afear expressed by a gesture, has the effect of poison. "

As he spoke Origet studied my face and expression; but he saw in myeyes the clear look of an honest soul. In fact during the whole courseof this distressing illness there never passed through my mind asingle one of the involuntary evil thoughts which do sometimes searthe consciences of the innocent. To those who study nature in itsgrandeur as a whole all tends to unity through assimilation. The moralworld must undoubtedly be ruled by an analogous principle. In an puresphere all is pure. The atmosphere of heaven was around my Henriette;it seemed as though an evil desire must forever part me from her. Thusshe not only stood for happiness, but for virtue; she _was_ virtue. Finding us always equally careful and attentive, the doctor's wordsand manners took a tone of respect and even pity; he seemed to say tohimself, "Here are the real sufferers; they hide their ills, andforget them. " By a fortunate change, which, according to our excellentdoctor, is common enough in men who are completely shattered, Monsieurde Mortsauf was patient, obedient, complained little, and showedsurprising docility, --he, who when well never did the simplest thingwithout discussion. The secret of this submission to medical care, which he formerly so derided, was an innate dread of death; anothercontradiction in a man of tried courage. This dread may perhapsexplain several other peculiarities in the character which the cruelyears of exile had developed. 

Shall I admit to you, Natalie, and will you believe me? these fiftydays and the month that followed them were the happiest moments of mylife. Love, in the celestial spaces of the soul is like a noble riverflowing through a valley; the rains, the brooks, the torrents hie toit, the trees fall upon its surface, so do the flowers, the gravel ofits shores, the rocks of the summits; storms and the loitering tributeof the crystal streams alike increase it. Yes, when love comes allcomes to love!

The first great danger over, the countess and I grew accustomed toillness. In spite of the confusion which the care of the sick entails, the count's room, once so untidy, was now clean and inviting. Soon wewere like two beings flung upon a desert island, for not only doanxieties isolate, but they brush aside as petty the conventions ofthe world. The welfare of the sick man obliged us to have points ofcontact which no other circumstances would have authorized. Many atime our hands, shy or timid formerly, met in some service that werendered to the count--was I not there to sustain and help myHenriette? Absorbed in a duty comparable to that of a soldier at thepickets, she forgot to eat; then I served her, sometimes on her lap, ahasty meal which necessitated a thousand little attentions. We werelike children at a grave. She would order me sharply to preparewhatever might ease the sick man's suffering; she employed me in ahundred petty ways. During the time when actual danger obscured, as itdoes during the battle, the subtile distinctions which characterizethe facts of ordinary life, she necessarily laid aside the reservewhich all women, even the most unconventional, preserve in their looksand words and actions before the world or their own family. At thefirst chirping of the birds she would come to relieve my watch, wearing a morning garment which revealed to me once more the dazzlingtreasures that in my folly I had treated as my own. Always dignified, nay imposing, she could still be familiar. 

Thus it came to pass that we found ourselves unconsciously intimate, half-married as it were. She showed herself nobly confiding, as sureof me as she was of herself. I was thus taken deeper and deeper intoher heart. The countess became once more my Henriette, Henrietteconstrained to love with increasing strength the friend who endeavoredto be her second soul. Her hand unresistingly met mine at the leastsolicitation; my eyes were permitted to follow with delight the linesof her beauty during the long hours when we listened to the count'sbreathing, without driving her from their sight. The meagre pleasureswhich we allowed ourselves--sympathizing looks, words spoken inwhispers not to wake the count, hopes and fears repeated and againrepeated, in short, the thousand incidents of the fusion of two heartslong separated--stand out in bright array upon the sombre backgroundof the actual scene. Our souls knew each other to their depths underthis test, which many a warm affection is unable to bear, finding lifetoo heavy or too flimsy in the close bonds of hourly intercourse. 

You know what disturbance follows the illness of a master; how theaffairs of life seem to come to a standstill. Though the real care ofthe family and estate fell upon Madame de Mortsauf, the count wasuseful in his way; he talked with the farmers, transacted businesswith his bailiff, and received the rents; if she was the soul, he wasthe body. I now made myself her steward so that she could nurse thecount without neglecting the property. She accepted this as a matterof course, in fact without thanking me. It was another sweet communionto share her family cares, to transmit her orders. In the evenings weoften met in her room to discuss these interests and those of herchildren. Such conversations gave one semblance the more to ourtransitory marriage. With what delight she encouraged me to take ahusband's place, giving me his seat at table, sending me to talk withthe bailiff, --all in perfect innocence, yet not without that inwardpleasure the most virtuous woman in the world will feel when she findsa course where strict obedience to duty and the satisfaction of herwishes are combined. 

Nullified, as it were, by illness, the count no longer oppressed hiswife or his household, the countess then became her natural self; shebusied herself with my affairs and showed me a thousand kindnesses. With what joy I discovered in her mind a thought, vaguely conceivedperhaps, but exquisitely expressed, namely, to show me the full valueof her person and her qualities and make me see the change that wouldcome over her if she lived understood. This flower, kept in the coldatmosphere of such a home, opened to my gaze, and to mine only; shetook as much delight in letting me comprehend her as I felt instudying her with the searching eyes of love. She proved to me in allthe trifling things of daily life how much I was in her thoughts. When, after my turn of watching, I went to bed and slept late, Henriette would keep the house absolutely silent near me; Jacques andMadeleine played elsewhere, though never ordered to do so; sheinvented excuses to serve my breakfast herself--ah, with whatsparkling pleasure in her movements, what swallow-like rapidity, whatlynx-eyed perception! and then! what carnation on her cheeks, whatquiverings in her voice!

Can such expansions of the soul be described in words?

Often she was wearied out; but if, at such moments of lassitude mywelfare came in question, for me, as for her children, she found freshstrength and sprang up eagerly and joyfully. How she loved to shed hertenderness like sunbeams in the air! Ah, Natalie, some women share theprivileges of angels here below; they diffuse that light whichSaint-Martin, the mysterious philosopher, declared to be intelligent, melodious, and perfumed. Sure of my discretion, Henriette tookpleasure in raising the curtain which hid the future and in showing metwo women in her, --the woman bound hand and foot who had won me inspite of her severity, and the woman freed, whose sweetness shouldmake my love eternal! What a difference. Madame de Mortsauf was theskylark of Bengal, transported to our cold Europe, mournful on itsperch, silent and dying in the cage of a naturalist; Henriette was thesinging bird of oriental poems in groves beside the Ganges, flyingfrom branch to branch like a living jewel amid the roses of avolkameria that ever blooms. Her beauty grew more beautiful, her mindrecovered strength. The continual sparkle of this happiness was asecret between ourselves, for she dreaded the eye of the Abbe Dominis, the representative of the world; she masked her contentment withplayfulness, and covered the proofs of her tenderness with the bannerof gratitude. 

"We have put your friendship to a severe test, Felix; we may give youthe same rights we give to Jacques, may we not, Monsieur l'abbe?" shesaid one day. 

The stern abbe answered with the smile of a man who can read the humanheart and see its purity; for the countess he always showed therespect mingled with adoration which the angels inspire. Twice duringthose fifty days the countess passed beyond the limits in which weheld our affection. But even these infringements were shrouded in aveil, never lifted until the final hour when avowal came. One morning, during the first days of the count's illness, when she repented herharsh treatment in withdrawing the innocent privileges she hadformerly granted me, I was expecting her to relieve my watch. Muchfatigued, I fell asleep, my head against the wall. I wakened suddenlyat the touch of something cool upon my forehead which gave me asensation as if a rose had rested there. I opened my eyes and saw thecountess, standing a few steps distant, who said, "I have just come. "I rose to leave the room, but as I bade her good-bye I took her hand;it was moist and trembling. 

"Are you ill?" I said. 

"Why do you ask that question?" she replied. 

I looked at her blushing and confused. "I was dreaming, " I replied. 

Another time, when Monsieur Origet had announced positively that thecount was convalescent, I was lying with Jacques and Madeleine on thestep of the portico intent on a game of spillikins which we wereplaying with bits of straw and hooks made of pins; Monsieur deMortsauf was asleep. The doctor, while waiting for his horse to beharnessed, was talking with the countess in the salon. Monsieur Origetwent away without my noticing his departure. After he left, Henrietteleaned against the window, from which she watched us for some timewithout our seeing her. It was one of those warm evenings when the skyis copper-colored and the earth sends up among the echoes a myriadmingling noises. A last ray of sunlight was leaving the roofs, theflowers in the garden perfumed the air, the bells of the cattlereturning to their stalls sounded in the distance. We were allconforming to the silence of the evening hour and hushing our voicesthat we might not wake the count. Suddenly, I heard the guttural soundof a sob violently suppressed; I rushed into the salon and found thecountess sitting by the window with her handkerchief to her face. Sheheard my step and made me an imperious gesture, commanding me to leaveher. I went up to her, my heart stabbed with fear, and tried to takeher handkerchief away by force. Her face was bathed in tears and shefled into her room, which she did not leave again until the hour forevening prayer. When that was over, I led her to the terrace and askedthe cause of her emotion; she affected a wild gaiety and explained itby the news Monsieur Origet had given her. 

"Henriette, Henriette, you knew that news when I saw you weeping. Between you and me a lie is monstrous. Why did you forbid me to dryyour tears? were they mine?"

"I was thinking, " she said, "that for me this illness has been a haltin pain. Now that I no longer fear for Monsieur de Mortsauf I fear formyself. "

She was right. The count's recovery was soon attested by the return ofhis fantastic humor. He began by saying that neither the countess, norI, nor the doctor had known how to take care of him; we were ignorantof his constitution and also of his disease; we misunderstood hissufferings and the necessary remedies. Origet, infatuated with his owndoctrines, had mistaken the case, he ought to have attended only tothe pylorus. One day he looked at us maliciously, with an air ofhaving guessed our thoughts, and said to his wife with a smile, "Now, my dear, if I had died you would have regretted me, no doubt, but prayadmit you would have been quite resigned. "

"Yes, I should have mourned you in pink and black, court mourning, "she answered laughing, to change the tone of his remarks. 

But it was chiefly about his food, which the doctor insisted onregulating, that scenes of violence and wrangling now took place, unlike any that had hitherto occurred; for the character of the countwas all the more violent for having slumbered. The countess, fortifiedby the doctor's orders and the obedience of her servants, stimulatedtoo by me, who thought this struggle a good means to teach her toexercise authority over the count, held out against his violence. Sheshowed a calm front to his demented cries, and even grew accustomed tohis insulting epithets, taking him for what he was, a child. I had thehappiness of at last seeing her take the reins in hand and govern thatunsound mind. The count cried out, but he obeyed; and he obeyed allthe better when he had made an outcry. But in spite of the evidence ofgood results, Henriette often wept at the spectacle of this emaciated, feeble old man, with a forehead yellower than the falling leaves, hiseyes wan, his hands trembling. She blamed herself for too muchseverity, and could not resist the joy she saw in his eyes when, inmeasuring out his food, she gave him more than the doctor allowed. Shewas even more gentle and gracious to him than she had been to me; butthere were differences here which filled my heart with joy. She wasnot unwearying, and she sometimes called her servants to wait upon thecount when his caprices changed too rapidly, and he complained of notbeing understood. 

The countess wished to return thanks to God for the count's recovery;she directed a mass to be said, and asked if I would take her tochurch. I did so, but I left her at the door, and went to see Monsieurand Madame Chessel. On my return she reproached me. 

"Henriette, " I said, "I cannot be false. I will throw myself into thewater to save my enemy from drowning, and give him my coat to keep himwarm; I will forgive him, but I cannot forget the wrong. "

She was silent, but she pressed my arm. 

"You are an angel, and you were sincere in your thanksgiving, " I said, continuing. "The mother of the Prince of the Peace was saved from thehands of an angry populace who sought to kill her, and when the queenasked, 'What did you do?' she answered, 'I prayed for them. ' Women areever thus. I am a man, and necessarily imperfect. "

"Don't calumniate yourself, " she said, shaking my arm, "perhaps youare more worthy than I. "

"Yes, " I replied, "for I would give eternity for a day of happiness, and you--"

"I!" she said haughtily. 

I was silent and lowered my eyes to escape the lightning of hers. 

"There is many an I in me, " she said. "Of which do you speak? Thosechildren, " pointing to Jacques and Madeleine, "are one--Felix, " shecried in a heartrending voice, "do you think me selfish? Ought I tosacrifice eternity to reward him who devotes to me his life? Thethought is dreadful; it wounds every sentiment of religion. Could awoman so fallen rise again? Would her happiness absolve her? These arequestions you force me to consider. --Yes, I betray at last the secretof my conscience; the thought has traversed my heart; often do Iexpiate it by penance; it caused the tears you asked me to account foryesterday--"

"Do you not give too great importance to certain things which commonwomen hold at a high price, and--"

"Oh!" she said, interrupting me; "do you hold them at a lower?"

This logic stopped all argument. 

"Know this, " she continued. "I might have the baseness to abandon thatpoor old man whose life I am; but, my friend, those other feeblecreatures there before us, Madeleine and Jacques, would remain withtheir father. Do you think, I ask you do you think they would be alivein three months under the insane dominion of that man? If my failureof duty concerned only myself--" A noble smile crossed her face. "Butshall I kill my children! My God!" she exclaimed. "Why speak of thesethings? Marry, and let me die!"

She said the words in a tone so bitter, so hollow, that they stifledthe remonstrances of my passion. 

"You uttered cries that day beneath the walnut-tree; I have uttered mycries here beneath these alders, that is all, " I said; "I will besilent henceforth. "

"Your generosity shames me, " she said, raising her eyes to heaven. 

We reached the terrace and found the count sitting in a chair, in thesun. The sight of that sunken face, scarcely brightened by a feeblesmile, extinguished the last flames that came from the ashes. I leanedagainst the balustrade and considered the picture of that poor wreck, between his sickly children and his wife, pale with her vigils, wornout by extreme fatigue, by the fears, perhaps also by the joys ofthese terrible months, but whose cheeks now glowed from the emotionsshe had just passed through. At the sight of that suffering familybeneath the trembling leafage through which the gray light of a cloudyautumn sky came dimly, I felt within me a rupture of the bonds whichhold the body to the spirit. There came upon me then that moral spleenwhich, they say, the strongest wrestlers know in the crisis of theircombats, a species of cold madness which makes a coward of the bravestman, a bigot of an unbeliever, and renders those it grasps indifferentto all things, even to vital sentiments, to honor, to love--for thedoubt it brings takes from us the knowledge of ourselves and disgustsus with life itself. Poor, nervous creatures, whom the very richnessof your organization delivers over to this mysterious, fatal power, who are your peers and who your judges? Horrified by the thoughts thatrose within me, and demanding, like the wicked man, "Where is now thyGod?" I could not restrain the tears that rolled down my cheeks. 

"What is it, dear Felix?" said Madeleine in her childish voice. 

Then Henriette put to flight these dark horrors of the mind by a lookof tender solicitude which shone into my soul like a sunbeam. Justthen the old huntsman brought me a letter from Tours, at sight ofwhich I made a sudden cry of surprise, which made Madame de Mortsauftremble. I saw the king's signet and knew it contained my recall. Igave her the letter and she read it at a glance. 

"What will become of me?" she murmured, beholding her desert sunless. 

We fell into a stupor of thought which oppressed us equally; never hadwe felt more strongly how necessary we were to one another. Thecountess, even when she spoke indifferently of other things, seemed tohave a new voice, as if the instrument had lost some chords and otherswere out of tune. Her movements were apathetic, her eyes withoutlight. I begged her to tell me her thoughts. 

"Have I any?" she replied in a dazed way. 

She drew me into her chamber, made me sit upon the sofa, took apackage from the drawer of her dressing-table, and knelt before me, saying: "This hair has fallen from my head during the last year; takeit, it is yours; you will some day know how and why. "

Slowly I bent to meet her brow, and she did not avoid my lips. Ikissed her sacredly, without unworthy passion, without one impureimpulse, but solemnly, with tenderness. Was she willing to make thesacrifice; or did she merely come, as I did once, to the verge of theprecipice? If love were leading her to give herself could she haveworn that calm, that holy look; would she have asked, in that purevoice of hers, "You are not angry with me, are you?"

I left that evening; she wished to accompany me on the road toFrapesle; and we stopped under my walnut-tree. I showed it to her, andtold her how I had first seen her four years earlier from that spot. "The valley was so beautiful then!" I cried. 

"And now?" she said quickly. 

"You are beneath my tree, and the valley is ours!"

She bowed her head and that was our farewell; she got into hercarriage with Madeleine, and I into mine alone. 

On my return to Paris I was absorbed in pressing business which tookall my time and kept me out of society, which for a while forgot me. Icorresponded with Madame de Mortsauf, and sent her my journal once aweek. She answered twice a month. It was a life of solitude yetteeming, like those sequestered spots, blooming unknown, which I hadsometimes found in the depths of woods when gathering the flowers formy poems. 

Oh, you who love! take these obligations on you; accept these dailyduties, like those the Church imposes upon Christians. The rigorousobservances of the Roman faith contain a great idea; they plough thefurrow of duty in the soul by the daily repetition of acts which keepalive the sense of hope and fear. Sentiments flow clearer in furrowedchannels which purify their stream; they refresh the heart, theyfertilize the life from the abundant treasures of a hidden faith, thesource divine in which the single thought of a single love ismultiplied indefinitely. 

My love, an echo of the Middle Ages and of chivalry, was known, I knownot how; possibly the king and the Duc de Lenoncourt had spoken of it. From that upper sphere the romantic yet simple story of a young manpiously adoring a beautiful woman remote from the world, noble in hersolitude, faithful without support to duty, spread, no doubt quickly, through the faubourg St. Germain. In the salons I was the object ofembarrassing notice; for retired life has advantages which if onceexperienced make the burden of a constant social intercourseinsupportable. Certain minds are painfully affected by violentcontrasts, just as eyes accustomed to soft colors are hurt by glaringlight. This was my condition then; you may be surprised at it now, buthave patience; the inconsistencies of the Vandenesse of to-day will beexplained to you. 

I found society courteous and women most kind. After the marriage ofthe Duc de Berry the court resumed its former splendor and the gloryof the French fetes revived. The Allied occupation was over, prosperity reappeared, enjoyments were again possible. Notedpersonages, illustrious by rank, prominent by fortune, came from allparts of Europe to the capital of the intellect, where the merits andthe vices of other countries were found magnified and whetted by thecharms of French intellect. 

Five months after leaving Clochegourde my good angel wrote me, in themiddle of the winter, a despairing letter, telling me of the seriousillness of her son. He was then out of danger, but there were manyfears for the future; the doctor said that precautions were necessaryfor his lungs--the suggestion of a terrible idea which had put themother's heart in mourning. Hardly had Jacques begun to convalesce, and she could breathe again, when Madeleine made them all uneasy. Thatpretty plant, whose bloom had lately rewarded the mother's culture, was now frail and pallid and anemic. The countess, worn-out byJacques' long illness, found no courage, she said, to bear thisadditional blow, and the ever present spectacle of these two dearfailing creatures made her insensible to the redoubled torment of herhusband's temper. Thus the storms were again raging; tearing up by theroots the hopes that were planted deepest in her bosom. She was now atthe mercy of the count; weary of the struggle, she allowed him toregain all the ground he had lost. 

"When all my strength is employed in caring for my children, " shewrote, "how is it possible to employ it against Monsieur de Mortsauf;how can I struggle against his aggressions when I am fighting againstdeath? Standing here to-day, alone and much enfeebled, between thesetwo young images of mournful fate, I am overpowered with disgust, invincible disgust for life. What blow can I feel, to what affectioncan I answer, when I see Jacques motionless on the terrace, scarcely asign of life about him, except in those dear eyes, large byemaciation, hollow as those of an old man and, oh, fatal sign, full ofprecocious intelligence contrasting with his physical debility. When Ilook at my pretty Madeleine, once so gay, so caressing, so blooming, now white as death, her very hair and eyes seem to me to have paled;she turns a languishing look upon me as if bidding me farewell;nothing rouses her, nothing tempts her. In spite of all my efforts Icannot amuse my children; they smile at me, but their smile is only inanswer to my endearments, it does not come from them. They weepbecause they have no strength to play with me. Suffering has enfeebledtheir whole being, it has loosened even the ties that bound them tome. 

"Thus you can well believe that Clochegourde is very sad. Monsieur deMortsauf now rules everything--Oh my friend! you, my glory!" shewrote, farther on, "you must indeed love me well to love me still; tolove me callous, ungrateful, turned to stone by grief. "

 CHAPTER III

 THE TWO WOMEN

It was at this time, when I was never more deeply moved in my wholebeing, when I lived in that soul to which I strove to send theluminous breeze of the mornings and the hope of the crimsonedevenings, that I met, in the salons of the Elysee-Bourbon, one ofthose illustrious ladies who reign as sovereigns in society. Immenselyrich, born of a family whose blood was pure from all misalliance sincethe Conquest, married to one of the most distinguished old men of theBritish peerage, it was nevertheless evident that these advantageswere mere accessories heightening this lady's beauty, graces, manners, and wit, all of which had a brilliant quality which dazzled before itcharmed. She was the idol of the day; reigning the more securely overParisian society because she possessed the quality most necessary tosuccess, --the hand of iron in the velvet glove spoken of byBernadotte. 

You know the singular characteristics of English people, the distanceand coldness of their own Channel which they put between them andwhoever has not been presented to them in a proper manner. Humanityseems to be an ant-hill on which they tread; they know none of theirspecies except the few they admit into their circle; they ignore eventhe language of the rest; tongues may move and eyes may see in theirpresence but neither sound nor look has reached them; to them, thepeople are as if they were not. The British present an image of theirown island, where law rules everything, where all is automatic inevery station of life, where the exercise of virtue appears to be thenecessary working of a machine which goes by clockwork. Fortificationsof polished steel rise around the Englishwoman behind the golden wiresof her household cage (where the feed-box and the drinking-cup, theperches and the food are exquisite in quality), but they make herirresistibly attractive. No people ever trained married women socarefully to hypocrisy by holding them rigidly between the twoextremes of death or social station; for them there is no middle pathbetween shame and honor; either the wrong is completed or it does notexist; it is all or nothing, --Hamlet's "To be or not to be. " Thisalternative, coupled with the scorn to which the customs of hercountry have trained her, make an Englishwoman a being apart in theworld. She is a helpless creature, forced to be virtuous yet ready toyield, condemned to live a lie in her heart, yet delightful in outwardappearance--for these English rest everything on appearances. Hencethe special charms of their women: the enthusiasm for a love which isall their life; the minuteness of their care for their persons; thedelicacy of their passion, so charmingly rendered in the famous sceneof Romeo and Juliet in which, with one stroke, Shakespeare's geniusdepicted his country-women. 

You, who envy them so many things, what can I tell you that you do notknow of these white sirens, impenetrable apparently but easilyfathomed, who believe that love suffices love, and turn enjoyments tosatiety by never varying them; whose soul has one note only, theirvoice one syllable--an ocean of love in themselves, it is true, and hewho has never swum there misses part of the poetry of the senses, ashe who has never seen the sea has lost some strings of his lyre. Youknow the why and wherefore of these words. My relations with theMarchioness of Dudley had a disastrous celebrity. At an age when thesenses have dominion over our conduct, and when in my case they hadbeen violently repressed by circumstances, the image of the saintbearing her slow martyrdom at Clochegourde shone so vividly before mymind that I was able to resist all seductions. It was the lustre ofthis fidelity which attracted Lady Dudley's attention. My resistancestimulated her passion. What she chiefly desired, like manyEnglishwoman, was the spice of singularity; she wanted pepper, capsicum, with her heart's food, just as Englishmen need condiments toexcite their appetite. The dull languor forced into the lives of thesewomen by the constant perfection of everything about them, themethodical regularity of their habits, leads them to adore theromantic and to welcome difficulty. I was wholly unable to judge ofsuch a character. The more I retreated to a cold distance the moreimpassioned Lady Dudley became. The struggle, in which she gloried, excited the curiosity of several persons, and this in itself was aform of happiness which to her mind made ultimate triumph obligatory. Ah! I might have been saved if some good friend had then repeated tome her cruel comment on my relations with Madame de Mortsauf. 

"I am wearied to death, " she said, "of these turtle-dove sighings. "

Without seeking to justify my crime, I ask you to observe, Natalie, that a man has fewer means of resisting a woman than she has ofescaping him. Our code of manners forbids the brutality of repressinga woman, whereas repression with your sex is not only allurement toours, but is imposed upon you by conventions. With us, on thecontrary, some unwritten law of masculine self-conceit ridicules aman's modesty; we leave you the monopoly of that virtue, that you mayhave the privilege of granting us favors; but reverse the case, andman succumbs before sarcasm. 

Though protected by my love, I was not of an age to be whollyinsensible to the triple seductions of pride, devotion, and beauty. When Arabella laid at my feet the homage of a ball-room where shereigned a queen, when she watched by glance to know if my tasteapproved of her dress, and when she trembled with pleasure on seeingthat she pleased me, I was affected by her emotion. Besides, sheoccupied a social position where I could not escape her; I could notrefuse invitations in the diplomatic circle; her rank admitted hereverywhere, and with the cleverness all women display to obtain whatpleases them, she often contrived that the mistress of the houseshould place me beside her at dinner. On such occasions she spoke inlow tones to my ear. "If I were loved like Madame de Mortsauf, " shesaid once, "I should sacrifice all. " She did submit herself with alaugh in many humble ways; she promised me a discretion equal to anytest, and even asked that I would merely suffer her to love me. "Yourfriend always, your mistress when you will, " she said. At last, afteran evening when she had made herself so beautiful that she was certainto have excited my desires, she came to me. The scandal resoundedthrough England, where the aristocracy was horrified like heavenitself at the fall of its highest angel. Lady Dudley abandoned herplace in the British empyrean, gave up her wealth, and endeavored toeclipse by her sacrifices _her_ whose virtue had been the cause of thisgreat disaster. She took delight, like the devil on the pinnacle ofthe temple, in showing me all the riches of her passionate kingdom. 

Read me, I pray you, with indulgence. The matter concerns one of themost interesting problems of human life, --a crisis to which most menare subjected, and which I desire to explain, if only to place awarning light upon the reef. This beautiful woman, so slender, sofragile, this milk-white creature, so yielding, so submissive, sogentle, her brow so endearing, the hair that crowns it so fair andfine, this tender woman, whose brilliancy is phosphorescent andfugitive, has, in truth, an iron nature. No horse, no matter how fieryhe may be, can conquer her vigorous wrist, or strive against that handso soft in appearance, but never tired. She has the foot of a doe, athin, muscular little foot, indescribably graceful in outline. She isso strong that she fears no struggle; men cannot follow her onhorseback; she would win a steeple-chase against a centaur; she canbring down a stag without stopping her horse. Her body neverperspires; it inhales the fire of the atmosphere, and lives in waterunder pain of not living at all. Her love is African; her desires arelike the whirlwinds of the desert--the desert, whose torrid expanse isin her eyes, the azure, love-laden desert, with its changeless skies, its cool and starry nights. What a contrast to Clochegourde! the eastand the west! the one drawing into her every drop of moisture for herown nourishment, the other exuding her soul, wrapping her dear ones inher luminous atmosphere; the one quick and slender; the other slow andmassive. 

Have you ever reflected on the actual meaning of the manners andcustoms and morals of England? Is it not the deification of matter? awell-defined, carefully considered Epicureanism, judiciously applied?No matter what may be said against the statement, England ismaterialist, --possibly she does not know it herself. She lays claim toreligion and morality, from which, however, divine spirituality, thecatholic soul, is absent; and its fructifying grace cannot be replacedby any counterfeit, however well presented it may be. Englandpossesses in the highest degree that science of existence which turnsto account every particle of materiality; the science that makes herwomen's slippers the most exquisite slippers in the world, gives totheir linen ineffable fragrance, lines their drawers with cedar, serves tea carefully drawn, at a certain hour, banishes dust, nailsthe carpets to the floors in every corner of the house, brushes thecellar walls, polishes the knocker of the front door, oils the springsof the carriage, --in short, makes matter a nutritive and downy pulp, clean and shining, in the midst of which the soul expires of enjoymentand the frightful monotony of comfort in a life without contrasts, deprived of spontaneity, and which, to sum all in one word, makes amachine of you. 

Thus I suddenly came to know, in the bosom of this British luxury, awoman who is perhaps unique among her sex; who caught me in the netsof a love excited by my indifference, and to the warmth of which Iopposed a stern continence, --one of those loves possessed ofoverwhelming charm, an electricity of their own, which lead us to theskies through the ivory gates of slumber, or bear us thither on theirpowerful pinions. A love monstrously ungrateful, which laughs at thebodies of those it kills; love without memory, a cruel love, resembling the policy of the English nation; a love to which, alas, most men yield. You understand the problem? Man is composed of matterand spirit; animality comes to its end in him, and the angel begins inhim. There lies the struggle we all pass through, between the futuredestiny of which we are conscious and the influence of anteriorinstincts from which we are not wholly detached, --carnal love anddivine love. One man combines them, another abstains altogether; somethere are who seek the satisfaction of their anterior appetites fromthe whole sex; others idealize their love in one woman who is to themthe universe; some float irresolutely between the delights of matterand the joys of soul, others spiritualize the body, requiring of itthat which it cannot give. 

If, thinking over these leading characteristics of love, you take intoaccount the dislikes and the affinities which result from thediversity of organisms, and which sooner or later break all tiesbetween those who have not fully tried each other; if you add to thisthe mistakes arising from the hopes of those who live moreparticularly either by their minds, or by their hearts, or by action, who either think, or feel, or act, and whose tendency is misunderstoodin the close association in which two persons, equal counterparts, find themselves, you will have great indulgence for sorrows to whichthe world is pitiless. Well, Lady Dudley gratified the instincts, organs, appetites, the vices and virtues of the subtile matter ofwhich we are made; she was the mistress of the body; Madame deMortsauf was the wife of the soul. The love which the mistresssatisfies has its limits; matter is finite, its inherent qualitieshave an ascertained force, it is capable of saturation; often I felt avoid even in Paris, near Lady Dudley. Infinitude is the region of theheart, love had no limits at Clochegourde. I loved Lady Dudleypassionately; and certainly, though the animal in her was magnificent, she was also superior in mind; her sparkling and satiricalconversation had a wide range. But I adored Henriette. At night I weptwith happiness, in the morning with remorse. 

Some women have the art to hide their jealousy under a tone of angelickindness; they are, like Lady Dudley, over thirty years of age. Suchwomen know how to feel and how to calculate; they press out the juicesof to-day and think of the future also; they can stifle a moan, oftena natural one, with the will of a huntsman who pays no heed to a woundin the ardor of the chase. Without ever speaking of Madame deMortsauf, Arabella endeavored to kill her in my soul, where she everfound her, her own passion increasing with the consciousness of thatinvincible love. Intending to triumph by comparisons which would turnto her advantage, she was never suspicious, or complaining, orinquisitive, as are most young women; but, like a lioness who hasseized her prey and carries it to her lair to devour, she watched thatnothing should disturb her feast, and guarded me like a rebelliouscaptive. I wrote to Henriette under her very eyes, but she never reada line of my letters; she never sought in any way to know to whom theywere addressed. I had my liberty; she seemed to say to herself, "If Ilose him it shall be my own fault, " and she proudly relied on a lovethat would have given me her life had I asked for it, --in fact sheoften told me that if I left her she would kill herself. I have heardher praise the custom of Indian widows who burn themselves upon theirhusband's grave. "In India that is a distinction reserved for thehigher classes, " she said, "and is very little understood byEuropeans, who are incapable of understanding the grandeur of theprivilege; you must admit, however, that on the dead level of ourmodern customs aristocracy can rise to greatness only throughunparalleled devotions. How can I prove to the middle classes that theblood in my veins is not the same as theirs, unless I show them that Ican die as they cannot? Women of no birth can have diamonds and satinsand horses--even coats-of-arms, which ought to be sacred to us, forany one can buy a name. But to love, with our heads up, in defiance oflaw; to die for the idol we have chosen, with the sheets of our bedfor a shroud; to lay earth and heaven at his feet, robbing theAlmighty of his right to make a god, and never to betray that man, never, never, even for virtue's sake, --for, to refuse him anything inthe name of duty is to devote ourselves to something that is not _he_, and let that something be a man or an idea, it is betrayal all thesame, --these are heights to which common women cannot attain; theyknow but two matter-of-fact ways; the great high-road of virtue, orthe muddy path of the courtesan. "

Pride, you see, was her instrument; she flattered all vanities bydeifying them. She put me so high that she might live at my feet; infact, the seductions of her spirit were literally expressed by anattitude of subserviency and her complete submission. In what wordsshall I describe those first six months when I was lost in enervatingenjoyments, in the meshes of a love fertile in pleasures and knowinghow to vary them with a cleverness learned by long experience, yethiding that knowledge beneath the transports of passion. Thesepleasures, the sudden revelation of the poetry of the senses, constitute the powerful tie which binds young men to women older thanthey. It is the chain of the galley-slave; it leaves an ineffaceablebrand upon the soul, filling it with disgust for pure and innocentlove decked with flowers only, which serves no alcohol in curiouslychased cups inlaid with jewels and sparkling with unquenchable fires. 

Recalling my early dreams of pleasures I knew nothing of, expressed atClochegourde in my "selams, " the voice of my flowers, pleasures whichthe union of souls renders all the more ardent, I found manysophistries by which I excused to myself the delight with which Idrained that jewelled cup. Often, when, lost in infinite lassitude, mysoul disengaged itself from the body and floated far from earth, Ithought that these pleasures might be the means of abolishing matterand of rendering to the spirit its power to soar. Sometimes LadyDudley, like other women, profited by the exaltation in which I was tobind me by promises; under the lash of a desire she wrung blasphemiesfrom my lips against the angel at Clochegourde. Once a traitor Ibecame a scoundrel. I continued to write to Madame de Mortsauf, in thetone of the lad she had first known in his strange blue coat; but, Iadmit it, her gift of second-sight terrified me when I thought whatruin the indiscretion of a word might bring to the dear castle of myhopes. Often, in the midst of my pleasure a sudden horror seized me; Iheard the name of Henriette uttered by a voice above me, like that inthe Scriptures, demanding: "Cain, where is thy brother Abel?"

At last my letters remained unanswered. I was seized with horribleanxiety and wished to leave for Clochegourde. Arabella did not opposeit, but she talked of accompanying me to Touraine. Her woman's wittold her that the journey might be a means of finally detaching mefrom her rival; while I, blind with fear and guilelessly unsuspicious, did not see the trap she set for me. Lady Dudley herself proposed thehumblest concessions. She would stay near Tours, at a littlecountry-place, alone, disguised; she would refrain from going out inthe day-time, and only meet me in the evening when people were notlikely to be about. I left Tours on horseback. I had my reasons forthis; my evening excursions to meet her would require a horse, and minewas an Arab which Lady Hester Stanhope had sent to the marchioness, andwhich she had lately exchanged with me for that famous picture ofRembrandt which I obtained in so singular a way, and which now hangs inher drawing-room in London. I took the road I had traversed on foot sixyears earlier and stopped beneath my walnut-tree. From there I sawMadame de Mortsauf in a white dress standing at the edge of theterrace. Instantly I rode towards her with the speed of lightning, ina straight line and across country. She heard the stride of theswallow of the desert and when I pulled him up suddenly at theterrace, she said to me: "Oh, you here!"

Those three words blasted me. She knew my treachery. Who had told her?her mother, whose hateful letter she afterwards showed me. The feeble, indifferent voice, once so full of life, the dull pallor of its tonesrevealed a settled grief, exhaling the breath of flowers cut and leftto wither. The tempest of infidelity, like those freshets of the Loirewhich bury the meadows for all time in sand, had torn its way throughher soul, leaving a desert where once the verdure clothed the fields. I led my horse through the little gate; he lay down on the grass at mycommand and the countess, who came forward slowly, exclaimed, "What afine animal!" She stood with folded arms lest I should try to take herhand; I guessed her meaning. 

"I will let Monsieur de Mortsauf know you are here, " she said, leavingme. 

I stood still, confounded, letting her go, watching her, always noble, slow, and proud, --whiter than I had ever seen her; on her brow theyellow imprint of bitterest melancholy, her head bent like a lilyheavy with rain. 

"Henriette!" I cried in the agony of a man about to die. 

She did not turn or pause; she disdained to say that she withdrew fromme that name, but she did not answer to it and continued on. I mayfeel paltry and small in this dreadful vale of life where myriads ofhuman beings now dust make the surface of the globe, small indeedamong that crowd, hurrying beneath the luminous spaces which lightthem; but what sense of humiliation could equal that with which Iwatched her calm white figure inflexibly mounting with even steps theterraces of her chateau of Clochegourde, the pride and the torture ofthat Christian Dido? I cursed Arabella in a single imprecation whichmight have killed her had she heard it, she who had left all for me assome leave all for God. I remained lost in a world of thought, conscious of utter misery on all sides. Presently I saw the wholefamily coming down; Jacques, running with the eagerness of his age. Madeleine, a gazelle with mournful eyes, walked with her mother. Monsieur de Mortsauf came to me with open arms, pressed me to him andkissed me on both cheeks crying out, "Felix, I know now that I owedyou my life. "

Madame de Mortsauf stood with her back towards me during this littlescene, under pretext of showing the horse to Madeleine. 

"Ha, the devil! that's what women are, " cried the count; "admiringyour horse!"

Madeleine turned, came up to me, and I kissed her hand, looking at thecountess, who colored. 

"Madeleine seems much better, " I said. 

"Poor little girl!" said the countess, kissing her on her forehead. 

"Yes, for the time being they are all well, " answered the count. "Except me, Felix; I am as battered as an old tower about to fall. "

"The general is still depressed, " I remarked to Madame de Mortsauf. 

"We all have our blue devils--is not that the English term?" shereplied. 

The whole party walked on towards the vineyard with the feeling thatsome serious event had happened. She had no wish to be alone with me. Still, I was her guest. 

"But about your horse? why isn't he attended to?" said the count. 

"You see I am wrong if I think of him, and wrong if I do not, "remarked the countess. 

"Well, yes, " said her husband; "there is a time to do things, and atime not to do them. "

"I will attend to him, " I said, finding this sort of greetingintolerable. "No one but myself can put him into his stall; my groomis coming by the coach from Chinon; he will rub him down. "

"I suppose your groom is from England, " she said. 

"That is where they all come from, " remarked the count, who grewcheerful in proportion as his wife seemed depressed. Her coldness gavehim an opportunity to oppose her, and he overwhelmed me withfriendliness. 

"My dear Felix, " he said, taking my hand, and pressing itaffectionately, "pray forgive Madame de Mortsauf; women are sowhimsical. But it is owing to their weakness; they cannot have theevenness of temper we owe to our strength of character. She reallyloves you, I know it; only--"

While the count was speaking Madame de Mortsauf gradually moved awayfrom us so as to leave us alone. 

"Felix, " said the count, in a low voice, looking at his wife, who wasnow going up to the house with her two children, "I don't know what isgoing on in Madame de Mortsauf's mind, but for the last six weeks herdisposition has completely changed. She, so gentle, so devotedhitherto, is now extraordinarily peevish. "

Manette told me later that the countess had fallen into a state ofdepression which made her indifferent to the count's provocations. Nolonger finding a soft substance in which he could plant his arrows, the man became as uneasy as a child when the poor insect it istormenting ceases to move. He now needed a confidant, as the hangmanneeds a helper. 

"Try to question Madame de Mortsauf, " he said after a pause, "and findout what is the matter. A woman always has secrets from her husband;but perhaps she will tell you what troubles her. I would sacrificeeverything to make her happy, even to half my remaining days or halfmy fortune. She is necessary to my very life. If I have not that angelat my side as I grow old I shall be the most wretched of men. I dodesire to die easy. Tell her I shall not be here long to trouble her. Yes, Felix, my poor friend, I am going fast, I know it. I hide thefatal truth from every one; why should I worry them beforehand? Thetrouble is in the orifice of the stomach, my friend. I have at lastdiscovered the true cause of this disease; it is my sensibility thatis killing me. Indeed, all our feelings affect the gastric centre. "

"Then do you mean, " I said, smiling, "that the best-hearted people dieof their stomachs?"

"Don't laugh, Felix; nothing is more absolutely true. Too keen asensibility increases the play of the sympathetic nerve; theseexcitements of feeling keep the mucous membrane of the stomach in astate of constant irritation. If this state continues it deranges, atfirst insensibly, the digestive functions; the secretions change, theappetite is impaired, and the digestion becomes capricious; sharppains are felt; they grow worse day by day, and more frequent; thenthe disorder comes to a crisis, as if a slow poison were passing thealimentary canal; the mucous membrane thickens, the valve of thepylorus becomes indurated and forms a scirrhus, of which the patientdies. Well, I have reached that point, my dear friend. The indurationis proceeding and nothing checks it. Just look at my yellow skin, myfeverish eyes, my excessive thinness. I am withering away. But what isto be done? I brought the seeds of the disease home with me from theemigration; heaven knows what I suffered then! My marriage, whichmight have repaired the wrong, far from soothing my ulcerated mindincreased the wound. What did I find? ceaseless fears for thechildren, domestic jars, a fortune to remake, economies which requiredgreat privations, which I was obliged to impose upon my wife, butwhich I was the one to suffer from; and then, --I can tell this to nonebut you, Felix, --I have a worse trouble yet. Though Blanche is anangel, she does not understand me; she knows nothing of my sufferingsand she aggravates them; but I forgive her. It is a dreadful thing tosay, my friend, but a less virtuous woman might have made me morehappy by lending herself to consolations which Blanche never thinksof, for she is as silly as a child. Moreover my servants torment me;blockheads who take my French for Greek! When our fortune was finallyremade inch by inch, and I had some relief from care, it was too late, the harm was done; I had reached the period when the appetite isvitiated. Then came my severe illness, so ill-managed by Origet. Inshort, I have not six months to live. "

I listened to the count in terror. On meeting the countess I had beenstruck with her yellow skin and the feverish brilliancy of her eyes. Iled the count towards the house while seeming to listen to hiscomplaints and his medical dissertations; but my thoughts were allwith Henriette, and I wanted to observe her. We found her in thesalon, where she was listening to a lesson in mathematics which theAbbe Dominis was giving Jacques, and at the same time showingMadeleine a stitch of embroidery. Formerly she would have laid asideevery occupation the day of my arrival to be with me. But my love wasso deeply real that I drove back into my heart the grief I felt atthis contrast between the past and the present, and thought only ofthe fatal yellow tint on that celestial face, which resembled the haloof divine light Italian painters put around the faces of their saints. I felt the icy wind of death pass over me. Then when the fire of hereyes, no longer softened by the liquid light in which in former timesthey moved, fell upon me, I shuddered; I noticed several changes, caused by grief, which I had not seen in the open air. The slenderlines which, at my last visit, were so lightly marked upon herforehead had deepened; her temples with their violet veins seemedburning and concave; her eyes were sunk beneath the brows, theircircles browned;--alas! she was discolored like a fruit when decay isbeginning to show upon the surface, or a worm is at the core. I, whosewhole ambition had been to pour happiness into her soul, I it was whoembittered the spring from which she had hoped to refresh her life andrenew her courage. I took a seat beside her and said in a voice filledwith tears of repentance, "Are you satisfied with your own health?"

"Yes, " she answered, plunging her eyes into mine. "My health isthere, " she added, motioning to Jacques and Madeleine. 

The latter, just fifteen, had come victoriously out of her strugglewith anaemia, and was now a woman. She had grown tall; the Bengalroses were blooming in her once sallow cheeks. She had lost theunconcern of a child who looks every one in the face, and now droppedher eyes; her movements were slow and infrequent, like those of hermother; her figure was slim, but the gracefulness of the bust wasalready developing; already an instinct of coquetry had smoothed themagnificent black hair which lay in bands upon her Spanish brow. Shewas like those pretty statuettes of the Middle Ages, so delicate inoutline, so slender in form that the eye as it seizes their charmfears to break them. Health, the fruit of untold efforts, had made hercheeks as velvety as a peach and given to her throat the silken downwhich, like her mother's, caught the light. She was to live! God hadwritten it, dear bud of the loveliest of human flowers, on the longlashes of her eyelids, on the curve of those shoulders which gavepromise of a development as superb as her mother's! This brown younggirl, erect as a poplar, contrasted with Jacques, a fragile youth ofseventeen, whose head had grown immensely, causing anxiety by therapid expansion of the forehead, while his feverish, weary eyes werein keeping with a voice that was deep and sonorous. The voice gaveforth too strong a volume of tone, the eye too many thoughts. It wasHenriette's intellect and soul and heart that were here devouring withswift flames a body without stamina; for Jacques had the milk-whiteskin and high color which characterize young English women doomedsooner or later to the consumptive curse, --an appearance of healththat deceives the eye. Following a sign by which Henriette, aftershowing me Madeleine, made me look at Jacques drawing geometricalfigures and algebraic calculations on a board before the Abbe Dominis, I shivered at the sight of death hidden beneath the roses, and wasthankful for the self-deception of his mother. 

"When I see my children thus, happiness stills my griefs--just asthose griefs are dumb, and even disappear, when I see them failing. Myfriend, " she said, her eyes shining with maternal pleasure, "if otheraffections fail us, the feelings rewarded here, the duties done andcrowned with success, are compensation enough for defeat elsewhere. Jacques will be, like you, a man of the highest education, possessedof the worthiest knowledge; he will be, like you, an honor to hiscountry, which he may assist in governing, helped by you, whosestanding will be so high; but I will strive to make him faithful tohis first affections. Madeleine, dear creature, has a noble heart; sheis pure as the snows on the highest Alps; she will have a woman'sdevotion and a woman's graceful intellect. She is proud; she is worthyof being a Lenoncourt. My motherhood, once so tried, so tortured, ishappy now, happy with an infinite happiness, unmixed with pain. Yes, my life is full, my life is rich. You see, God makes my joy to blossomin the heart of these sanctified affections, and turns to bitternessthose that might have led me astray--"

"Good!" cried the abbe, joyfully. "Monsieur le vicomte begins to knowas much as I--"

Just then Jacques coughed. 

"Enough for to-day, my dear abbe, " said the countess, "above all, nochemistry. Go for a ride on horseback, Jacques, " she added, lettingher son kiss her with the tender and yet dignified pleasure of amother. "Go, dear, but take care of yourself. "

"But, " I said, as her eyes followed Jacques with a lingering look, "you have not answered me. Do you feel ill?"

"Oh, sometimes, in my stomach. If I were in Paris I should have thehonors of gastritis, the fashionable disease. "

"My mother suffers very much and very often, " said Madeleine. 

"Ah!" she said, "does my health interest you?"

Madeleine, astonished at the irony of these words, looked from one tothe other; my eyes counted the roses on the cushion of the gray andgreen sofa which was in the salon. 

"This situation is intolerable, " I whispered in her ear. 

"Did I create it?" she asked. "Dear child, " she said aloud, with oneof those cruel levities by which women point their vengeance, "don'tyou read history? France and England are enemies, and ever have been. Madeleine knows that; she knows that a broad sea, and a cold andstormy one, separates them. "

The vases on the mantelshelf had given place to candelabra, no doubtto deprive me of the pleasure of filling them with flowers; I foundthem later in my own room. When my servant arrived I went out to givehim some orders; he had brought me certain things I wished to place inmy room. 

"Felix, " said the countess, "do not make a mistake. My aunt's old roomis now Madeleine's. Yours is over the count's. "

Though guilty, I had a heart; those words were dagger thrusts coldlygiven at its tenderest spot, for which she seemed to aim. Moralsufferings are not fixed quantities; they depend on the sensitivenessof souls. The countess had trod each round of the ladder of pain; but, for that very reason, the kindest of women was now as cruel as she wasonce beneficent. I looked at Henriette, but she averted her head. Iwent to my new room, which was pretty, white and green. Once there Iburst into tears. Henriette heard me as she entered with a bunch offlowers in her hand. 

"Henriette, " I said, "will you never forgive a wrong that is indeedexcusable?"

"Do not call me Henriette, " she said. "She no longer exists, poorsoul; but you may feel sure of Madame de Mortsauf, a devoted friend, who will listen to you and who will love you. Felix, we will talk ofthese things later. If you have still any tenderness for me let megrow accustomed to seeing you. Whenever words will not rend my heart, if the day should ever come when I recover courage, I will speak toyou, but not till then. Look at the valley, " she said, pointing to theIndre, "it hurts me, I love it still. "

"Ah, perish England and all her women! I will send my resignation tothe king; I will live and die here, pardoned. "

"No, love her; love that woman! Henriette is not. This is no play, andyou should know it. "

She left the room, betraying by the tone of her last words the extentof her wounds. I ran after her and held her back, saying, "Do you nolonger love me?"

"You have done me more harm than all my other troubles put together. To-day I suffer less, therefore I love you less. Be kind; do notincrease my pain; if you suffer, remember that--I--live. "

She withdrew her hand, which I held, cold, motionless, but moist, inmine, and darted like an arrow through the corridor in which thisscene of actual tragedy took place. 

At dinner, the count subjected me to a torture I had little expected. "So the Marchioness of Dudley is not in Paris?" he said. 

I blushed excessively, but answered, "No. "

"She is not in Tours, " continued the count. 

"She is not divorced, and she can go back to England. Her husbandwould be very glad if she would return to him, " I said, eagerly. 

"Has she children?" asked Madame de Mortsauf, in a changed voice. 

"Two sons, " I replied. 

"Where are they?"

"In England, with their father. "

"Come, Felix, " interposed the count; "be frank; is she as handsome asthey say?"

"How can you ask him such a question?" cried the countess. "Is not thewoman you love always the handsomest of women?"

"Yes, always, " I said, firmly, with a glance which she could notsustain. 

"You are a happy fellow, " said the count; "yes, a very happy one. Ha!in my young days, I should have gone mad over such a conquest--"

"Hush!" said Madame de Mortsauf, reminding the count of Madeleine by alook. 

"I am not a child, " he said. 

When we left the table I followed the countess to the terrace. When wewere alone she exclaimed, "How is it possible that some women cansacrifice their children to a man? Wealth, position, the world, I canconceive of; eternity? yes, possibly; but children! deprive one's selfof one's children!"

"Yes, and such women would give even more if they had it; theysacrifice everything. "

The world was suddenly reversed before her, her ideas became confused. The grandeur of that thought struck her; a suspicion entered her mindthat sacrifice, immolation justified happiness; the echo of her owninward cry for love came back to her; she stood dumb in presence ofher wasted life. Yes, for a moment horrible doubts possessed her; thenshe rose, grand and saintly, her head erect. 

"Love her well, Felix, " she said, with tears in her eyes; "she shallbe my happy sister. I will forgive her the harm she has done me if shegives you what you could not have here. You are right; I have nevertold you that I loved you, and I never have loved you as the worldloves. But if she is a mother how can she love you so?"

"Dear saint, " I answered, "I must be less moved than I am now, beforeI can explain to you how it is that you soar victoriously above her. She is a woman of earth, the daughter of decaying races; you are thechild of heaven, an angel worthy of worship; you have my heart, she myflesh only. She knows this and it fills her with despair; she wouldchange parts with you even though the cruellest martyrdom were theprice of the change. But all is irremediable. To you the soul, to youthe thoughts, the love that is pure, to you youth and old age; to herthe desires and joys of passing passion; to you remembrance forever, to her oblivion--"

"Tell me, tell me that again, oh, my friend!" she turned to a benchand sat down, bursting into tears. "If that be so, Felix, virtue, purity of life, a mother's love, are not mistakes. Oh, pour that balmupon my wounds! Repeat the words which bear me back to heaven, whereonce I longed to rise with you. Bless me by a look, by a sacred word, --I forgive you for the sufferings you have caused me the last twomonths. "

"Henriette, there are mysteries in the life of men of which you knownothing. I met you at an age when the feelings of the heart stifle thedesires implanted in our nature; but many scenes, the memory of whichwill kindle my soul to the hour of death, must have told you that thisage was drawing to a close, and it was your constant triumph still toprolong its mute delights. A love without possession is maintained bythe exasperation of desire; but there comes a moment when all issuffering within us--for in this we have no resemblance to you. Wepossess a power we cannot abdicate, or we cease to be men. Deprived ofthe nourishment it needs, the heart feeds upon itself, feeling anexhaustion which is not death, but which precedes it. Nature cannotlong be silenced; some trifling accident awakens it to a violence thatseems like madness. No, I have not loved, but I have thirsted in thedesert. "

"The desert!" she said bitterly, pointing to the valley. "Ah!" sheexclaimed, "how he reasons! what subtle distinctions! Faithful heartsare not so learned. "

"Henriette, " I said, "do not quarrel with me for a chance expression. No, my soul has not vacillated, but I have not been master of mysenses. That woman is not ignorant that you are the only one I everloved. She plays a secondary part in my life; she knows it and isresigned. I have the right to leave her as men leave courtesans. "

"And then?"

"She tells me that she will kill herself, " I answered, thinking thatthis resolve would startle Henriette. But when she heard it adisdainful smile, more expressive than the thoughts it conveyed, flickered on her lips. "My dear conscience, " I continued, "if youwould take into account my resistance and the seductions that led tomy fall you would understand the fatal--"

"Yes, fatal!" she cried. "I believed in you too much. I believed youcapable of the virtue a priest practises. All is over, " she continued, after a pause. "I owe you much, my friend; you have extinguished in methe fires of earthly life. The worst of the way is over; age is comingon. I am ailing now, soon I may be ill; I can never be the brilliantfairy who showers you with favors. Be faithful to Lady Dudley. Madeleine, whom I was training to be yours, ah! who will have her now?Poor Madeleine, poor Madeleine!" she repeated, like the mournfulburden of a song. "I would you had heard her say to me when you came:'Mother, you are not kind to Felix!' Dear creature!"

She looked at me in the warm rays of the setting sun as they glidedthrough the foliage. Seized with compassion for the shipwreck of ourlives she turned back to memories of our pure past, yielding tomeditations which were mutual. We were silent, recalling past scenes;our eyes went from the valley to the fields, from the windows ofClochegourde to those of Frapesle, peopling the dream with mybouquets, the fragrant language of our desires. It was her last hourof pleasure, enjoyed with the purity of her Catholic soul. This scene, so grand to each of us, cast its melancholy on both. She believed mywords, and saw where I placed her--in the skies. 

"My friend, " she said, "I obey God, for his hand is in all this. "

I did not know until much later the deep meaning of her words. Weslowly returned up the terraces. She took my arm and leaned upon itresignedly, bleeding still, but with a bandage on her wound. 

"Human life is thus, " she said. "What had Monsieur de Mortsauf done todeserve his fate? It proves the existence of a better world. Alas, forthose who walk in happier ways!"

She went on, estimating life so truly, considering its diverse aspectsso profoundly that these cold judgments revealed to me the disgustthat had come upon her for all things here below. When we reached theportico she dropped my arm and said these last words: "If God hasgiven us the sentiment and the desire for happiness ought he not totake charge himself of innocent souls who have found sorrow only inthis low world? Either that must be so, or God is not, and our life isno more than a cruel jest. "

She entered and turned the house quickly; I found her on the sofa, crouching, as though blasted by the voice which flung Saul to theground. 

"What is the matter?" I asked. 

"I no longer know what is virtue, " she replied; "I have noconsciousness of my own. "

We were silent, petrified, listening to the echo of those words whichfell like a stone cast into a gulf. 

"If I am mistaken in my life _she_ is right in _hers_, " Henriette saidat last. 

Thus her last struggle followed her last happiness. When the countcame in she complained of illness, she who never complained. Iconjured her to tell me exactly where she suffered; but she refused toexplain and went to bed, leaving me a prey to unending remorse. Madeleine went with her mother, and the next day I heard that thecountess had been seized with nausea, caused, she said, by the violentexcitements of that day. Thus I, who longed to give my life for hers, I was killing her. 

"Dear count, " I said to Monsieur de Mortsauf, who obliged me to playbackgammon, "I think the countess very seriously ill. There is stilltime to save her; pray send for Origet, and persuade her to follow hisadvice. "

"Origet, who half killed me?" cried the count. "No, no; I'll consultCarbonneau. "

During this week, especially the first days of it, everything wasanguish to me--the beginning of paralysis of the heart--my vanity wasmortified, my soul rent. One must needs have been the centre of alllooks and aspirations, the mainspring of the life about him, the torchfrom which all others drew their light, to understand the horror ofthe void that was now about me. All things were there, the same, butthe spirit that gave life to them was extinct, like a blown-out flame. I now understood the desperate desire of lovers never to see eachother again when love has flown. To be nothing where we were once somuch! To find the chilling silence of the grave where life so latelysparkled! Such comparisons are overwhelming. I came at last to envythe dismal ignorance of all happiness which had darkened my youth. Mydespair became so great that the countess, I thought, felt pity forit. One day after dinner as we were walking on the meadows beside theriver I made a last effort to obtain forgiveness. I told Jacques to goon with his sister, and leaving the count to walk alone, I tookHenriette to the punt. 

"Henriette, " I said; "one word of forgiveness, or I fling myself intothe Indre! I have sinned, --yes, it is true; but am I not like a dog inhis faithful attachments? I return like him, like him ashamed. If hedoes wrong he is struck, but he loves the hand that strikes him;strike me, bruise me, but give me back your heart. "

"Poor child, " she said, "are you not always my son?"

She took my arm and silently rejoined her children, with whom shereturned to Clochegourde, leaving me to the count, who began to talkpolitics apropos of his neighbors. 

"Let us go in, " I said; "you are bare-headed, and the dew may do youan injury. "

"You pity me, my dear Felix, " he answered; "you understand me, but mywife never tries to comfort me, --on principle, perhaps. "

Never would she have left me to walk home with her husband; it was nowI who had to find excuses to join her. I found her with her children, explaining the rules of backgammon to Jacques. 

"See there, " said the count, who was always jealous of the affectionshe showed for her children; "it is for them that I am neglected. Husbands, my dear Felix, are always suppressed. The most virtuouswoman in the world has ways of satisfying her desire to rob conjugalaffection. "

She said nothing and continued as before. 

"Jacques, " he said, "come here. "

Jacques objected slightly. 

"Your father wants you; go at once, my son, " said his mother, pushinghim. 

"They love me by order, " said the old man, who sometimes perceived hissituation. 

"Monsieur, " she answered, passing her hand over Madeleine's smoothtresses, which were dressed that day "a la belle Ferronniere"; "do notbe unjust to us poor women; life is not so easy for us to bear. Perhaps the children are the virtues of a mother. "

"My dear, " said the count, who took it into his head to be logical, "what you say signifies that women who have no children would have novirtue, and would leave their husbands in the lurch. "

The countess rose hastily and took Madeleine to the portico. 

"That's marriage, my dear fellow, " remarked the count to me. "Do youmean to imply by going off in that manner that I am talking nonsense?"he cried to his wife, taking his son by the hand and going to theportico after her with a furious look in his eyes. 

"On the contrary, Monsieur, you frightened me. Your words hurt mecruelly, " she added, in a hollow voice. "If virtue does not consist insacrificing everything to our children and our husband, what isvirtue?"

"Sac-ri-ficing!" cried the count, making each syllable the blow of asledge-hammer on the heart of his victim. "What have you sacrificed toyour children? What do you sacrifice to me? Speak! what means allthis? Answer. What is going on here? What did you mean by what yousaid?"

"Monsieur, " she replied, "would you be satisfied to be loved for loveof God, or to know your wife virtuous for virtue's sake?"

"Madame is right, " I said, interposing in a shaken voice whichvibrated in two hearts; "yes, the noblest privilege conferred byreason is to attribute our virtues to the beings whose happiness isour work, and whom we render happy, not from policy, nor from duty, but from an inexhaustible and voluntary affection--"

A tear shone in Henriette's eyes. 

"And, dear count, " I continued, "if by chance a woman is involuntarilysubjected to feelings other than those society imposes on her, youmust admit that the more irresistible that feeling is, the morevirtuous she is in smothering it, in sacrificing herself to herhusband and children. This theory is not applicable to me whounfortunately show an example to the contrary, nor to you whom it willnever concern. "

"You have a noble soul, Felix, " said the count, slipping his arm, notungracefully, round his wife's waist and drawing her towards him tosay: "Forgive a poor sick man, dear, who wants to be loved more thanhe deserves. "

"There are some hearts that are all generosity, " she said, resting herhead upon his shoulder. The scene made her tremble to such a degreethat her comb fell, her hair rolled down, and she turned pale. Thecount, holding her up, gave a sort of groan as he felt her fainting;he caught her in his arms as he might a child, and carried her to thesofa in the salon, where we all surrounded her. Henriette held my handin hers as if to tell me that we two alone knew the secret of thatscene, so simple in itself, so heart-rending to her. 

"I do wrong, " she said to me in a low voice, when the count left theroom to fetch a glass of orange-flower water. "I have many wrongs torepent of towards you; I wished to fill you with despair when I oughtto have received you mercifully. Dear, you are kindness itself, and Ialone can appreciate it. Yes, I know there is a kindness prompted bypassion. Men have various ways of being kind; some from contempt, others from impulse, from calculation, through indolence of nature;but you, my friend, you have been absolutely kind. "

"If that be so, " I replied, "remember that all that is good or greatin me comes through you. You know well that I am of your making. "

"That word is enough for any woman's happiness, " she said, as thecount re-entered the room. "I feel better, " she said, rising; "I wantair. "

We went down to the terrace, fragrant with the acacias which werestill in bloom. She had taken my right arm, and pressed it against herheart, thus expressing her sad thoughts; but they were, she said, of asadness dear to her. No doubt she would gladly have been alone withme; but her imagination, inexpert in women's wiles, did not suggest toher any way of sending her children and the count back to the house. We therefore talked on indifferent subjects, while she pondered ameans of pouring a few last thoughts from her heart to mine. 

"It is a long time since I have driven out, " she said, looking at thebeauty of the evening. "Monsieur, will you please order the carriagethat I may take a turn?"

She knew that after evening prayer she could not speak with me, forthe count was sure to want his backgammon. She might have returned tothe warm and fragrant terrace after her husband had gone to bed, butshe feared, perhaps, to trust herself beneath those shadows, or towalk by the balustrade where our eyes could see the course of theIndre through the dear valley. As the silent and sombre vaults of acathedral lift the soul to prayer, so leafy ways, lighted by the moon, perfumed with penetrating odors, alive with the murmuring noises ofthe spring-tide, stir the fibres and weaken the resolves of those wholove. The country calms the old, but excites the young. We knew itwell. Two strokes of the bell announced the hour of prayer. Thecountess shivered. 

"Dear Henriette, are you ill?"

"There is no Henriette, " she said. "Do not bring her back. She wascapricious and exacting; now you have a friend whose courage has beenstrengthened by the words which heaven itself dictated to you. We willtalk of this later. We must be punctual at prayers, for it is my dayto lead them. "

As Madame de Mortsauf said the words in which she begged the help ofGod through all the adversities of life, a tone came into her voicewhich struck all present. Did she use her gift of second sight toforesee the terrible emotion she was about to endure through myforgetfulness of an engagement made with Arabella?

"We have time to make three kings before the horses are harnessed, "said the count, dragging me back to the salon. "You can go and drivewith my wife, and I'll go to bed. "

The game was stormy, like all others. The countess heard the count'svoice either from her room or from Madeleine's. 

"You show a strange hospitality, " she said, re-entering the salon. 

I looked at her with amazement; I could not get accustomed to thechange in her; formerly she would have been most careful not toprotect me against the count; then it gladdened her that I shouldshare her sufferings and bear them with patience for love of her. 

"I would give my life, " I whispered in her ear, "if I could hear yousay again, as you once said, 'Poor dear, poor dear!'"

She lowered her eyes, remembering the moment to which I alluded, yether glance turned to me beneath her eyelids, expressing the joy of awoman who finds the mere passing tones from her heart preferred to thedelights of another love. The count was losing the game; he said hewas tired, as an excuse to give it up, and we went to walk on the lawnwhile waiting for the carriage. When the count left us, such pleasureshone on my face that Madame de Mortsauf questioned me by a look ofsurprise and curiosity. 

"Henriette does exist, " I said. "You love me still. You wound me withan evident intention to break my heart. I may yet be happy!"

"There was but a fragment of that poor woman left, and you have nowdestroyed even that, " she said. "God be praised; he gives me strengthto bear my righteous martyrdom. Yes, I still love you, and I mighthave erred; the English woman shows me the abyss. "

We got into the carriage and the coachman asked for orders. 

"Take the road to Chinon by the avenue, and come back by theCharlemagne moor and the road to Sache. "

"What day is it?" I asked, with too much eagerness. 

"Saturday. "

"Then don't go that way, madame, the road will be crowded withpoultry-men and their carts returning from Tours. "

"Do as I told you, " she said to the coachman. We knew the tones of ourvoices too well to be able to hide from each other our least emotion. Henriette understood all. 

"You did not think of the poultry-men when you appointed thisevening, " she said with a tinge of irony. "Lady Dudley is at Tours, and she is coming here to meet you; do not deny it. 'What day isit?--the poultry-men--their carts!' Did you ever take notice of suchthings in our old drives?"

"It only shows that at Clochegourde I forget everything, " I answered, simply. 

"She is coming to meet you?"

"Yes. "

"At what hour?"

"Half-past eleven. "

"Where?"

"On the moor. "

"Do not deceive me; is it not at the walnut-tree?"

"On the moor. "

"We will go there, " she said, "and I shall see her. "

When I heard these words I regarded my future life as settled. I atonce resolved to marry Lady Dudley and put an end to the miserablestruggle which threatened to exhaust my sensibilities and destroy bythese repeated shocks the delicate delights which had hithertoresembled the flower of fruits. My sullen silence wounded thecountess, the grandeur of whose mind I misjudged. 

"Do not be angry with me, " she said, in her golden voice. "This, dear, is my punishment. You can never be loved as you are here, " shecontinued, laying my hand upon her heart. "I now confess it; but LadyDudley has saved me. To her the stains, --I do not envy them, --to methe glorious love of angels! I have traversed vast tracts of thoughtsince you returned here. I have judged life. Lift up the soul and yourend it; the higher we go the less sympathy we meet; instead ofsuffering in the valley, we suffer in the skies, as the soaring eaglebears in his heart the arrow of some common herdsman. I comprehend atlast that earth and heaven are incompatible. Yes, to those who wouldlive in the celestial sphere God must be all in all. We must love ourfriends as we love our children, --for them, not for ourselves. Self isthe cause of misery and grief. My soul is capable of soaring higherthan the eagle; there is a love which cannot fail me. But to live forthis earthly life is too debasing, --here the selfishness of the sensesreigns supreme over the spirituality of the angel that is within us. The pleasures of passion are stormy, followed by enervating anxietieswhich impair the vigor of the soul. I came to the shores of the seawhere such tempests rage; I have seen them too near; they have wrappedme in their clouds; the billows did not break at my feet, they caughtme in a rough embrace which chilled my heart. No! I must escape tohigher regions; I should perish on the shores of this vast sea. I seein you, as in all others who have grieved me, the guardian of myvirtue. My life has been mingled with anguish, fortunatelyproportioned to my strength; it has thus been kept free from evilpassions, from seductive peace, and ever near to God. Our attachmentwas the mistaken attempt, the innocent effort of two children strivingto satisfy their own hearts, God, and men--folly, Felix! Ah, " she saidquickly, "what does that woman call you?"

"'Amedee, '" I answered, "'Felix' is a being apart, who belongs to nonebut you. "

"'Henriette' is slow to die, " she said, with a gentle smile, "butdie she will at the first effort of the humble Christian, theself-respecting mother; she whose virtue tottered yesterday and isfirm to-day. What may I say to you? This. My life has been, and is, consistent with itself in all its circumstances, great and small. Theheart to which the rootlets of my first affection should have clung, my mother's heart, was closed to me, in spite of my persistence inseeking a cleft through which they might have slipped. I was a girl; Icame after the death of three boys; and I vainly strove to take theirplace in the hearts of my parents; the wound I gave to the familypride was never healed. When my gloomy childhood was over and I knewmy aunt, death took her from me all too soon. Monsieur de Mortsauf, towhom I vowed myself, has repeatedly, nay without respite, smitten me, not being himself aware of it, poor man! His love has thesimple-minded egotism our children show to us. He has no conception ofthe harm he does me, and he is heartily forgiven for it. My children, those dear children who are bound to my flesh through theirsufferings, to my soul by their characters, to my nature by theirinnocent happiness, --those children were surely given to show me howmuch strength and patience a mother's breast contains. Yes, mychildren are my virtues. You know how my heart has been harrowed forthem, by them, in spite of them. To be a mother was, for me, to buythe right to suffer. When Hagar cried in the desert an angel came andopened a spring of living water for that poor slave; but I, when thelimpid stream to which (do you remember?) you tried to guide me flowedpast Clochegourde, its waters changed to bitterness for me. Yes, thesufferings you have inflicted on my soul are terrible. God, no doubt, will pardon those who know affection only through its pains. But ifthe keenest of these pains has come to me through you, perhaps Ideserved them. God is not unjust. Ah, yes, Felix, a kiss furtivelytaken may be a crime. Perhaps it is just that a woman should harshlyexpiate the few steps taken apart from husband and children that shemight walk alone with thoughts and memories that were not of them, andso walking, marry her soul to another. Perhaps it is the worst ofcrimes when the inward being lowers itself to the region of humankisses. When a woman bends to receive her husband's kiss with a maskupon her face, that is a crime! It is a crime to think of a futurespringing from a death, a crime to imagine a motherhood withoutterrors, handsome children playing in the evening with a belovedfather before the eyes of a happy mother. Yes, I sinned, sinnedgreatly. I have loved the penances inflicted by the Church, --which didnot redeem the faults, for the priest was too indulgent. God hasplaced the punishment in the faults themselves, committing theexecution of his vengeance to the one for whom the faults werecommitted. When I gave my hair, did I not give myself? Why did I sooften dress in white? because I seemed the more your lily; did you notsee me here, for the first time, all in white? Alas! I have loved mychildren less, for all intense affection is stolen from the naturalaffections. Felix, do you not see that all suffering has its meaning. Strike me, wound me even more than Monsieur de Mortsauf and mychildren's state have wounded me. That woman is the instrument ofGod's anger; I will meet her without hatred; I will smile upon her;under pain of being neither Christian, wife, nor mother, I ought tolove her. If, as you tell me, I contributed to keep your heartunsoiled by the world, that Englishwoman ought not to hate me. A womanshould love the mother of the man she loves, and I am your mother. What place have I sought in your heart? that left empty by Madame deVandenesse. Yes, yes, you have always complained of my coldness; yes, I am indeed your mother only. Forgive me therefore the involuntaryharshness with which I met you on your return; a mother ought torejoice that her son is so well loved--"

She laid her head for a moment on my breast, repeating the words, "Forgive me! oh, forgive me!" in a voice that was neither her girlishvoice with its joyous notes, nor the woman's voice with despoticendings; not the sighing sound of the mother's woe, but an agonizingnew voice for new sorrows. 

"You, Felix, " she presently continued, growing animated; "you are thefriend who can do no wrong. Ah! you have lost nothing in my heart; donot blame yourself, do not feel the least remorse. It was the heightof selfishness in me to ask you to sacrifice the joys of life to animpossible future; impossible, because to realize it a woman mustabandon her children, abdicate her position, and renounce eternity. Many a time I have thought you higher than I; you were great andnoble, I, petty and criminal. Well, well, it is settled now; I can beto you no more than a light from above, sparkling and cold, butunchanging. Only, Felix, let me not love the brother I have chosenwithout return. Love me, cherish me! The love of a sister has nodangerous to-morrow, no hours of difficulty. You will never find itnecessary to deceive the indulgent heart which will live in futurewithin your life, grieve for your griefs, be joyous with your joys, which will love the women who make you happy, and resent theirtreachery. I never had a brother to love in that way. Be noble enoughto lay aside all self-love and turn our attachment, hitherto sodoubtful and full of trouble, into this sweet and sacred love. In thisway I shall be enabled to still live. I will begin to-night by takingLady Dudley's hand. "

She did not weep as she said these words so full of bitter knowledge, by which, casting aside the last remaining veil which hid her soulfrom mine, she showed by how many ties she had linked herself to me, how many chains I had hewn apart. Our emotions were so great that fora time we did not notice it was raining heavily. 

"Will Madame la comtesse wait here under shelter?" asked the coachman, pointing to the chief inn of Ballan. 

She made a sign of assent, and we stayed nearly half an hour under thevaulted entrance, to the great surprise of the inn-people who wonderedwhat brought Madame de Mortsauf on that road at eleven o'clock atnight. Was she going to Tours? Had she come from there? When the stormceased and the rain turned to what is called in Touraine a "brouee, "which does not hinder the moon from shining through the higher mistsas the wind with its upper currents whirls them away, the coachmandrove from our shelter, and, to my great delight, turned to go backthe way we came. 

"Follow my orders, " said the countess, gently. 

We now took the road across the Charlemagne moor, where the rain beganagain. Half-way across I heard the barking of Arabella's dog; a horsecame suddenly from beneath a clump of oaks, jumped the ditch whichowners of property dig around their cleared lands when they considerthem suitable for cultivation, and carried Lady Dudley to the moor tomeet the carriage. 

"What pleasure to meet a love thus if it can be done without sin, "said Henriette. 

The barking of the dog had told Lady Dudley that I was in thecarriage. She thought, no doubt, that I had brought it to meet her onaccount of the rain. When we reached the spot where she was waiting, she urged her horse to the side of the road with the equestriandexterity for which she was famous, and which to Henriette seemedmarvellous. 

"Amedee, " she said, and the name in her English pronunciation had afairy-like charm. 

"He is here, madame, " said the countess, looking at the fantasticcreature plainly visible in the moonlight, whose impatient face wasoddly swathed in locks of hair now out of curl. 

You know with what swiftness two women examine each other. TheEnglishwoman recognized her rival, and was gloriously English; shegave us a look full of insular contempt, and disappeared in theunderbrush with the rapidity of an arrow. 

"Drive on quickly to Clochegourde, " cried the countess, to whom thatcutting look was like the blow of an axe upon her heart. 

The coachman turned to get upon the road to Chinon which was betterthan that to Sache. As the carriage again approached the moor we heardthe furious galloping of Arabella's horse and the steps of her dog. All three were skirting the wood behind the bushes. 

"She is going; you will lose her forever, " said Henriette. 

"Let her go, " I answered, "and without a regret. "

"Oh, poor woman!" cried the countess, with a sort of compassionatehorror. "Where will she go?"

"Back to La Grenadiere, --a little house near Saint-Cyr, " I said, "where she is staying. "

Just as we were entering the avenue of Clochegourde Arabella's dogbarked joyfully and bounded up to the carriage. 

"She is here before us!" cried the countess; then after a pause sheadded, "I have never seen a more beautiful woman. What a hand and whata figure! Her complexion outdoes the lily, her eyes are literallybright as diamonds. But she rides too well; she loves to display herstrength; I think her violent and too active, --also too bold for ourconventions. The woman who recognizes no law is apt to listen only toher caprices. Those who seek to shine, to make a stir, have not thegift of constancy. Love needs tranquillity; I picture it to myselflike a vast lake in which the lead can find no bottom; where tempestsmay be violent, but are rare and controlled within certain limits;where two beings live on a flowery isle far from the world whoseluxury and display offend them. Still, love must take the imprint ofthe character. Perhaps I am wrong. If nature's elements are compelledto take certain forms determined by climate, why is it not the samewith the feelings of individuals? No doubt sentiments, feelings, whichhold to the general law in the mass, differ in expression only. Eachsoul has its own method. Lady Dudley is the strong woman who cantraverse distances and act with the vigor of a man; she would rescueher lover and kill jailers and guards; while other women can only lovewith their whole souls; in moments of danger they kneel down to pray, and die. Which of the two women suits you best? That is the question. Yes, yes, Lady Dudley must surely love; she has made many sacrifices. Perhaps she will love you when you have ceased to love her!"

"Dear angel, " I said, "let me ask the question you asked me; how is itthat you know these things?"

"Every sorrow teaches a lesson, and I have suffered on so many pointsthat my knowledge is vast. "

My servant had heard the order given, and thinking we should return bythe terraces he held my horse ready for me in the avenue. Arabella'sdog had scented the horse, and his mistress, drawn by very naturalcuriosity, had followed the animal through the woods to the avenue. 

"Go and make your peace, " said Henriette, smiling without a tinge ofsadness. "Say to Lady Dudley how much she mistakes my intention; Iwished to show her the true value of the treasure which has fallen toher; my heart holds none but kind feelings, above all neither angernor contempt. Explain to her that I am her sister, and not her rival. "

"I shall not go, " I said. 

"Have you never discovered, " she said with lofty pride, "that certainpropitiations are insulting? Go!"

I rode towards Lady Dudley wishing to know the state of her mind. "Ifshe would only be angry and leave me, " I thought, "I could return toClochegourde. "

The dog led me to an oak, from which, as I came up, Arabella gallopedcrying out to me, "Come! away! away!" All that I could do was tofollow her to Saint Cyr, which we reached about midnight. 

"That lady is in perfect health, " said Arabella as she dismounted. 

Those who know her can alone imagine the satire contained in thatremark, dryly said in a tone which meant, "I should have died!"

"I forbid you to utter any of your sarcasms about Madame de Mortsauf, "I said. 

"Do I displease your Grace in remarking upon the perfect health of oneso dear to your precious heart? Frenchwomen hate, so I am told, eventheir lover's dog. In England we love all that our masters love; wehate all they hate, because we are flesh of their flesh. Permit metherefore to love this lady as much as you yourself love her. Only, mydear child, " she added, clasping me in her arms which were damp withrain, "if you betray me, I shall not be found either lying down orstanding up, not in a carriage with liveried lackeys, nor on horsebackon the moors of Charlemagne, nor on any other moor beneath the skies, nor in my own bed, nor beneath a roof of my forefathers; I shall notbe anywhere, for I will live no longer. I was born in Lancashire, acountry where women die for love. Know you, and give you up? I willyield you to none, not even to Death, for I should die with you. "

She led me to her rooms, where comfort had already spread its charms. 

"Love her, dear, " I said warmly. "She loves you sincerely, not injest. "

"Sincerely! you poor child!" she said, unfastening her habit. 

With a lover's vanity I tried to exhibit Henriette's noble characterto this imperious creature. While her waiting-woman, who did notunderstand a word of French, arranged her hair I endeavored to pictureMadame de Mortsauf by sketching her life; I repeated many of the greatthoughts she had uttered at a crisis when nearly all women becomeeither petty or bad. Though Arabella appeared to be paying noattention she did not lose a single word. 

"I am delighted, " she said when we were alone, "to learn your tastefor pious conversation. There's an old vicar on one of my estateswho understands writing sermons better than any one I know; thecountry-people like him, for he suits his prosing to his hearers. I'llwrite to my father to-morrow and ask him to send the good man here bysteamboat; you can meet him in Paris, and when once you have heard himyou will never wish to listen to any one else, --all the more becausehis health is perfect. His moralities won't give you shocks that makeyou weep; they flow along without tempests, like a limpid stream, andwill send you to sleep. Every evening you can if you like satisfy yourpassion for sermons by digesting one with your dinner. Englishmorality, I do assure you, is as superior to that of Touraine as ourcutlery, our plate, and our horses are to your knives and your turf. Do me the kindness to listen to my vicar; promise me. I am only awoman, my dearest; I can love, I can die for you if you will; but Ihave never studied at Eton, or at Oxford, or in Edinburgh. I amneither a doctor of laws nor a reverend; I can't preach morality; infact, I am altogether unfit for it, I should be awkward if I tried. Idon't blame your tastes; you might have others more depraved, and Ishould still endeavor to conform to them, for I want you to find nearme all you like best, --pleasures of love, pleasures of food, pleasuresof piety, good claret, and virtuous Christians. Shall I wearhair-cloth to-night? She is very lucky, that woman, to suit you inmorality. From what college did she graduate? Poor I, who can onlygive you myself, who can only be your slave--"

"Then why did you rush away when I wanted to bring you together?"

"Are you crazy, Amedee? I could go from Paris to Rome disguised as avalet; I would do the most unreasonable thing for your sake; but howcan you expect me to speak to a woman on the public roads who hasnever been presented to me, --and who, besides, would have preached mea sermon under three heads? I speak to peasants, and if I am hungry Iwould ask a workman to share his bread with me and pay him in guineas, --that is all proper enough; but to stop a carriage on the highway, like the gentlemen of the road in England, is not at all within mycode of manners. You poor child, you know only how to love; you don'tknow how to live. Besides, I am not like you as yet, dear angel; Idon't like morality. Still, I am capable of great efforts to pleaseyou. Yes, I will go to work; I will learn how to preach; you shallhave no more kisses without verses of the Bible interlarded. "

She used her power and abused it as soon as she saw in my eyes theardent expression which was always there when she began her sorceries. She triumphed over everything, and I complacently told myself that thewoman who loses all, sacrifices the future, and makes love her onlyvirtue, is far above Catholic polemics. 

"So she loves herself better than she loves you?" Arabella went on. "She sets something that is not you above you. Is that love? how canwe women find anything to value in ourselves except that which youvalue in us? No woman, no matter how fine a moralist she may be, isthe equal of a man. Tread upon us, kill us; never embarrass your liveson our account. It is for us to die, for you to live, great andhonored. For us the dagger in your hand; for you our pardoning love. Does the sun think of the gnats in his beams, that live by his light?they stay as long as they can and when he withdraws his face theydie--"

"Or fly somewhere else, " I said interrupting her. 

"Yes, somewhere else, " she replied, with an indifference that wouldhave piqued any man into using the power with which she invested him. "Do you really think it is worthy of womanhood to make a man eat hisbread buttered with virtue, and to persuade him that religion isincompatible with love? Am I a reprobate? A woman either gives herselfor she refuses. But to refuse and moralize is a double wrong, and iscontrary to the rule of the right in all lands. Here, you will getonly excellent sandwiches prepared by the hand of your servantArabella, whose sole morality is to imagine caresses no man has yetfelt and which the angels inspire. "

I know nothing more destructive than the wit of an Englishwoman; shegives it the eloquent gravity, the tone of pompous conviction withwhich the British hide the absurdities of their life of prejudice. French wit and humor, on the other hand, is like a lace with which ourwomen adorn the joys they give and the quarrels they invent; it is amental jewelry, as charming as their pretty dresses. English wit is anacid which corrodes all those on whom it falls until it bares theirbones, which it scrapes and polishes. The tongue of a cleverEnglishwoman is like that of a tiger tearing the flesh from the bonewhen he is only in play. All-powerful weapon of a sneering devil, English satire leaves a deadly poison in the wound it makes. Arabellachose to show her power like the sultan who, to prove his dexterity, cut off the heads of unoffending beings with his own scimitar. 

"My angel, " she said, "I can talk morality too if I choose. I haveasked myself whether I commit a crime in loving you; whether I violatethe divine laws; and I find that my love for you is both natural andpious. Why did God create some beings handsomer than others if not toshow us that we ought to adore them? The crime would be in not lovingyou. This lady insults you by confounding you with other men; the lawsof morality are not applicable to you; for God has created you abovethem. Am I not drawing nearer to divine love in loving you? will Godpunish a poor woman for seeking the divine? Your great and luminousheart so resembles the heavens that I am like the gnats which flutterabout the torches of a fete and burn themselves; are they to bepunished for their error? besides, is it an error? may it not be pureworship of the light? They perish of too much piety, --if you call itperishing to fling one's self on the breast of him we love. I have theweakness to love you, whereas that woman has the strength to remain inher Catholic shrine. Now, don't frown. You think I wish her ill. No, Ido not. I adore the morality which has led her to leave you free, andenables me to win you and hold you forever--for you are mine forever, are you not?"

"Yes. "

"Forever and ever?"

"Yes. "

"Ah! I have found favor in my lord! I alone have understood his worth!She knows how to cultivate her estate, you say. Well, I leave that tofarmers; I cultivate your heart. "

I try to recall this intoxicating babble, that I may picture to youthe woman as she is, confirm all I have said of her, and let you intothe secret of what happened later. But how shall I describe theaccompaniment of the words? She sought to annihilate by the passion ofher impetuous love the impressions left in my heart by the chaste anddignified love of my Henriette. Lady Dudley had seen the countess asplainly as the countess had seen her; each had judged the other. Theforce of Arabella's attack revealed to me the extent of her fear, andher secret admiration for her rival. In the morning I found her withtearful eyes, complaining that she had not slept. 

"What troubles you?" I said. 

"I fear that my excessive love will ruin me, " she answered; "I havegiven all. Wiser than I, that woman possesses something that you stilldesire. If you prefer her, forget me; I will not trouble you with mysorrows, my remorse, my sufferings; no, I will go far away and die, like a plant deprived of the life-giving sun. "

She was able to wring protestations of love from my reluctant lips, which filled her with joy. 

"Ah!" she exclaimed, drying her eyes, "I am happy. Go back to her; Ido not choose to owe you to the force of my love, but to the action ofyour own will. If you return here I shall know that you love me asmuch as I love you, the possibility of which I have always doubted. "

She persuaded me to return to Clochegourde. The false position inwhich I thus placed myself did not strike me while still under theinfluence of her wiles. Yet, had I refused to return I should havegiven Lady Dudley a triumph over Henriette. Arabella would then havetaken me to Paris. To go now to Clochegourde was an open insult toMadame de Mortsauf; in that case Arabella was sure of me. Did anywoman ever pardon such crimes against love? Unless she were an angeldescended from the skies, instead of a purified spirit ascending tothem, a loving woman would rather see her lover die than know himhappy with another. Thus, look at it as I would, my situation, after Ihad once left Clochegourde for the Grenadiere, was as fatal to thelove of my choice as it was profitable to the transient love that heldme. Lady Dudley had calculated all this with consummate cleverness. She owned to me later that if she had not met Madame de Mortsauf onthe moor she had intended to compromise me by haunting Clochegourdeuntil she did so. 

When I met the countess that morning, and found her pale and depressedlike one who has not slept all night, I was conscious of exercisingthe instinctive perception given to hearts still fresh and generous toshow them the true bearing of actions little regarded by the world atlarge, but judged as criminal by lofty spirits. Like a child goingdown a precipice in play and gathering flowers, who sees with dreadthat it can never climb that height again, feels itself alone, withnight approaching, and hears the howls of animals, so I now knew thatshe and I were separated by a universe. A wail arose within our soulslike an echo of that woeful "Consummatum est" heard in the churches onGood Friday at the hour the Saviour died, --a dreadful scene which awesyoung souls whose first love is religion. All Henriette's illusionswere killed at one blow; her heart had endured its passion. She didnot look at me; she refused me the light that for six long years hadshone upon my life. She knew well that the spring of the effulgentrays shed by our eyes was in our souls, to which they served aspathways to reach each other, to blend them in one, meeting, parting, playing, like two confiding women who tell each other all. Bitterly Ifelt the wrong of bringing beneath this roof, where pleasure wasunknown, a face on which the wings of pleasure had shaken theirprismatic dust. If, the night before, I had allowed Lady Dudley todepart alone, if I had then returned to Clochegourde, where, it maybe, Henriette awaited me, perhaps--perhaps Madame de Mortsauf mightnot so cruelly have resolved to be my sister. But now she paid me manyostentatious attentions, --playing her part vehemently for the verypurpose of not changing it. During breakfast she showed me a thousandcivilities, humiliating attentions, caring for me as though I were asick man whose fate she pitied. 

"You were out walking early, " said the count; "I hope you have broughtback a good appetite, you whose stomach is not yet destroyed. "

This remark, which brought the smile of a sister to Henriette's lips, completed my sense of the ridicule of my position. It was impossibleto be at Clochegourde by day and Saint-Cyr by night. During the day Ifelt how difficult it was to become the friend of a woman we have longloved. The transition, easy enough when years have brought it about, is like an illness in youth. I was ashamed; I cursed the pleasure LadyDudley gave me; I wished that Henriette would demand my blood. I couldnot tear her rival in pieces before her, for she avoided speaking ofher; indeed, had I spoken of Arabella, Henriette, noble and sublime tothe inmost recesses of her heart, would have despised my infamy. Afterfive years of delightful intercourse we now had nothing to say to eachother; our words had no connection with our thoughts; we were hidingfrom each other our intolerable pain, --we, whose mutual sufferings hadbeen our first interpreter. 

Henriette assumed a cheerful look for me as for herself, but she wassad. She spoke of herself as my sister, and yet found no ground onwhich to converse; and we remained for the greater part of the time inconstrained silence. She increased my inward misery by feigning tobelieve that she was the only victim. 

"I suffer more than you, " I said to her at a moment when myself-styled sister was betrayed into a feminine sarcasm. 

"How so?" she said haughtily. 

"Because I am the one to blame. "

At last her manner became so cold and indifferent that I resolved toleave Clochegourde. That evening, on the terrace, I said farewell tothe whole family, who were there assembled. They all followed me tothe lawn where my horse was waiting. The countess came to me as I tookthe bridle in my hand. 

"Let us walk down the avenue together, alone, " she said. 

I gave her my arm, and we passed through the courtyard with slow andmeasured steps, as though our rhythmic movement were consoling to us. When we reached the grove of trees which forms a corner of theboundary she stopped. 

"Farewell, my friend, " she said, throwing her head upon my breast andher arms around my neck, "Farewell, we shall never meet again. God hasgiven me the sad power to look into the future. Do you remember theterror that seized me the day you first came back, so young, sohandsome! and I saw you turn your back on me as you do this day whenyou are leaving Clochegourde and going to Saint-Cyr? Well, once again, during the past night I have seen into the future. Friend, we arespeaking together for the last time. I can hardly now say a few wordsto you, for it is but a part of me that speaks at all. Death hasalready seized on something in me. You have taken the mother from herchildren, I now ask you to take her place to them. You can; Jacquesand Madeleine love you--as if you had always made them suffer. "

"Death!" I cried, frightened as I looked at her and beheld the fire ofher shining eyes, of which I can give no idea to those who have neverknown their dear ones struck down by her fatal malady, unless Icompare those eyes to balls of burnished silver. "Die!" I said. "Henriette, I command you to live. You used to ask an oath of me, Inow ask one of you. Swear to me that you will send for Origet and obeyhim in everything. "

"Would you oppose the mercy of God?" she said, interrupting me with acry of despair at being thus misunderstood. 

"You do not love me enough to obey me blindly, as that miserable LadyDudley does?"

"Yes, yes, I will do all you ask, " she cried, goaded by jealousy. 

"Then I stay, " I said, kissing her on the eyelids. 

Frightened at the words, she escaped from my arms and leaned against atree; then she turned and walked rapidly homeward without lookingback. But I followed her; she was weeping and praying. When we reachedthe lawn I took her hand and kissed it respectfully. This submissiontouched her. 

"I am yours--forever, and as you will, " I said; "for I love you asyour aunt loved you. "

She trembled and wrung my hand. 

"One look, " I said, "one more, one last of our old looks! The womanwho gives herself wholly, " I cried, my soul illumined by the glanceshe gave me, "gives less of life and soul than I have now received. Henriette, thou art my best-beloved--my only love. "

"I shall live!" she said; "but cure yourself as well. "

That look had effaced the memory of Arabella's sarcasms. Thus I wasthe plaything of the two irreconcilable passions I have now describedto you; I was influenced by each alternately. I loved an angel and ademon; two women equally beautiful, --one adorned with all the virtueswhich we decry through hatred of our own imperfections, the other withall the vices which we deify through selfishness. Returning along thatavenue, looking back again and again at Madame de Mortsauf, as sheleaned against a tree surrounded by her children who waved theirhandkerchiefs, I detected in my soul an emotion of pride in findingmyself the arbiter of two such destinies; the glory, in ways sodifferent, of women so distinguished; proud of inspiring such greatpassions that death must come to whichever I abandoned. Ah! believeme, that passing conceit has been doubly punished!

I know not what demon prompted me to remain with Arabella and awaitthe moment when the death of the count might give me Henriette; forshe would ever love me. Her harshness, her tears, her remorse, herChristian resignation, were so many eloquent signs of a sentiment thatcould no more be effaced from her heart than from mine. Walking slowlydown that pretty avenue and making these reflections, I was no longertwenty-five, I was fifty years old. A man passes in a moment, evenmore quickly than a woman, from youth to middle age. Though long ago Idrove these evil thoughts away from me, I was then possessed by them, I must avow it. Perhaps I owed their presence in my mind to theTuileries, to the king's cabinet. Who could resist the pollutingspirit of Louis XVIII. ?

When I reached the end of the avenue I turned and rushed back in thetwinkling of an eye, seeing that Henriette was still there, and alone!I went to bid her a last farewell, bathed in repentant tears, thecause of which she never knew. Tears sincere indeed; given, although Iknew it not, to noble loves forever lost, to virgin emotions--thoseflowers of our life which cannot bloom again. Later, a man givesnothing, he receives; he loves himself in his mistress; but in youthhe loves his mistress in himself. Later, we inoculate with our tastes, perhaps our vices, the woman who loves us; but in the dawn of life shewhom we love conveys to us her virtues, her conscience. She invites uswith a smile to the noble life; from her we learn the self-devotionwhich she practises. Woe to the man who has not had his Henriette. Woeto that other one who has never known a Lady Dudley. The latter, if hemarries, will not be able to keep his wife; the other will beabandoned by his mistress. But joy to him who can find the two womenin one woman; happy the man, dear Natalie, whom you love. 

After my return to Paris Arabella and I became more intimate thanever. Soon we insensibly abandoned all the conventional restrictions Ihad carefully imposed, the strict observance of which often makes theworld forgive the false position in which Lady Dudley had placedherself. Society, which delights in looking behind appearances, sanctions much as soon as it knows the secrets they conceal. Loverswho live in the great world make a mistake in flinging down thesebarriers exacted by the law of salons; they do wrong not to obeyscrupulously all conventions which the manners and customs of acommunity impose, --less for the sake of others than for their own. Outward respect to be maintained, comedies to play, concealments to bemanaged; all such strategy of love occupies the life, renews desire, and protects the heart against the palsy of habit. But all youngpassions, being, like youth itself, essentially spendthrift, razetheir forests to the ground instead of merely cutting the timber. Arabella adopted none of these bourgeois ideas, and yielded to themonly to please me; she wished to exhibit me to the eyes of all Parisas her "sposo. " She employed her powers of seduction to keep me underher roof, for she was not content with a rumored scandal which, forwant of proof, was only whispered behind the fans. Seeing her so happyin committing an imprudence which frankly admitted her position, howcould I help believing in her love?

But no sooner was I plunged into the comforts of illegal marriage thandespair seized upon me; I saw my life bound to a course in directdefiance of the ideas and the advice given me by Henriette. Thenceforth I lived in the sort of rage we find in consumptivepatients who, knowing their end is near, cannot endure that theirlungs should be examined. There was no corner in my heart where Icould fly to escape suffering; an avenging spirit filled meincessantly with thoughts on which I dared not dwell. My letters toHenriette depicted this moral malady and did her infinite harm. "Atthe cost of so many treasures lost, I wished you to be at leasthappy, " she wrote in the only answer I received. But I was not happy. Dear Natalie, happiness is absolute; it allows of no comparisons. Myfirst ardor over, I necessarily compared the two women, --a contrast Ihad never yet studied. In fact, all great passions press so stronglyon the character that at first they check its asperities and cover thetrack of habits which constitute our defects and our better qualities. But later, when two lovers are accustomed to each other, the featuresof their moral physiognomies reappear; they mutually judge each other, and it often happens during this reaction of the character afterpassion, that natural antipathies leading to disunion (whichsuperficial people seize upon to accuse the human heart ofinstability) come to the surface. This period now began with me. Lessblinded by seductions, and dissecting, as it were, my pleasure, Iundertook, without perhaps intending to do so, a critical examinationof Lady Dudley which resulted to her injury. 

In the first place, I found her wanting in the qualities of mind whichdistinguish Frenchwomen and make them so delightful to love; as allthose who have had the opportunity of loving in both countriesdeclare. When a Frenchwoman loves she is metamorphosed; her notedcoquetry is used to deck her love; she abandons her dangerous vanityand lays no claim to any merit but that of loving well. She espousesthe interests, the hatreds, the friendships, of the man she loves; sheacquires in a day the experience of a man of business; she studies thecode, she comprehends the mechanism of credit, and could manage abanker's office; naturally heedless and prodigal, she will make nomistakes and waste not a single louis. She becomes, in turn, mother, adviser, doctor, giving to all her transformations a grace ofhappiness which reveals, in its every detail, her infinite love. Shecombines the special qualities of the women of other countries andgives unity to the mixture by her wit, that truly French product, which enlivens, sanctions, justifies, and varies all, thus relievingthe monotony of a sentiment which rests on a single tense of a singleverb. The Frenchwoman loves always, without abatement and withoutfatigue, in public or in solitude. In public she uses a tone which hasmeaning for one only; she speaks by silence; she looks at you withlowered eyelids. If the occasion prevents both speech and look shewill use the sand and write a word with the point of her little foot;her love will find expression even in sleep; in short, she bends theworld to her love. The Englishwoman, on the contrary, makes her lovebend to the world. Educated to maintain the icy manners, the Britannicand egotistic deportment which I described to you, she opens and shutsher heart with the ease of a British mechanism. She possesses animpenetrable mask, which she puts on or takes off phlegmatically. Passionate as an Italian when no eye sees her, she becomes coldlydignified before the world. A lover may well doubt his empire when hesees the immobility of face, the aloofness of countenance, and hearsthe calm voice, with which an Englishwoman leaves her boudoir. Hypocrisy then becomes indifference; she has forgotten all. 

Certainly the woman who can lay aside her love like a garment may bethought to be capable of changing it. What tempests arise in the heartof a man, stirred by wounded self-love, when he sees a woman takingand dropping and again picking up her love like a piece of embroidery. These women are too completely mistresses of themselves ever to belongwholly to you; they are too much under the influence of society everto let you reign supreme. Where a Frenchwoman comforts by a look, orbetrays her impatience with visitors by witty jests, an Englishwoman'ssilence is absolute; it irritates the soul and frets the mind. Thesewomen are so constantly, and, under all circumstances, on theirdignity, that to most of them fashion reigns omnipotent even overtheir pleasures. An Englishwoman forces everything into form; thoughin her case the love of form does not produce the sentiment of art. Nomatter what may be said against it, Protestantism and Catholicismexplain the differences which make the love of Frenchwomen so farsuperior to the calculating, reasoning love of Englishwomen. Protestantism doubts, searches, and kills belief; it is the death ofart and love. Where worldliness is all in all, worldly people mustneeds obey; but passionate hearts flee from it; to them its laws areinsupportable. 

You can now understand what a shock my self-love received when I foundthat Lady Dudley could not live without the world, and that theEnglish system of two lives was familiar to her. It was no sacrificeshe felt called upon to make; on the contrary she fell naturally intotwo forms of life that were inimical to each other. When she loved sheloved madly, --no woman of any country could be compared to her; butwhen the curtain fell upon that fairy scene she banished even thememory of it. In public she never answered to a look or a smile; shewas neither mistress nor slave; she was like an ambassadress, obligedto round her phrases and her elbows; she irritated me by hercomposure, and outraged my heart with her decorum. Thus she degradedlove to a mere need, instead of raising it to an ideal throughenthusiasm. She expressed neither fear, nor regrets, nor desire; butat a given hour her tenderness reappeared like a fire suddenlylighted. 

In which of these two women ought I to believe? I felt, as it were bya thousand pin-pricks, the infinite differences between Henriette andArabella. When Madame de Mortsauf left me for a while she seemed toleave to the air the duty of reminding me of her; the folds of hergown as she went away spoke to the eye, as their undulating sound tothe ear when she returned; infinite tenderness was in the way shelowered her eyelids and looked on the ground; her voice, that musicalvoice, was a continual caress; her words expressed a constant thought;she was always like unto herself; she did not halve her soul to suittwo atmospheres, one ardent, the other icy. In short, Madame deMortsauf reserved her mind and the flower of her thought to expressher feelings; she was coquettish in ideas with her children and withme. But Arabella's mind was never used to make life pleasant; it wasnever used at all for my benefit; it existed only for the world and bythe world, and it was spent in sarcasm. She loved to rend, to bite, asit were, --not for amusement but to satisfy a craving. Madame deMortsauf would have hidden her happiness from every eye, Lady Dudleychose to exhibit hers to all Paris; and yet with her impenetrableEnglish mask she kept within conventions even while parading in theBois with me. This mixture of ostentation and dignity, love andcoldness, wounded me constantly; for my soul was both virgin andpassionate, and as I could not pass from one temperature to the other, my temper suffered. When I complained (never without precaution), sheturned her tongue with its triple sting against me; mingling boasts ofher love with those cutting English sarcasms. As soon as she foundherself in opposition to me, she made it an amusement to hurt myfeelings and humiliate my mind; she kneaded me like dough. To anyremark of mine as to keeping a medium in all things, she replied bycaricaturing my ideas and exaggerating them. When I reproached her forher manner to me, she asked if I wished her to kiss me at the operabefore all Paris; and she said it so seriously that I, knowing herdesire to make people talk, trembled lest she should execute herthreat. In spite of her real passion she was never meditative, self-contained, or reverent, like Henriette; on the contrary she wasinsatiable as a sandy soil. Madame de Mortsauf was always composed, able to feel my soul in an accent or a glance. Lady Dudley was neveraffected by a look, or a pressure of the hand, nor yet by a tenderword. No proof of love surprised her. She felt so strong a necessityfor excitement, noise, celebrity, that nothing attained to her idealin this respect; hence her violent love, her exaggerated fancy, --everything concerned herself and not me. 

The letter you have read from Madame de Mortsauf (a light which stillshone brightly on my life), a proof of how the most virtuous of womenobeyed the genius of a Frenchwoman, revealing, as it did, herperpetual vigilance, her sound understanding of all my prospects--thatletter must have made you see with what care Henriette had studied mymaterial interests, my political relations, my moral conquests, andwith what ardor she took hold of my life in all permissibledirections. On such points as these Lady Dudley affected the reticenceof a mere acquaintance. She never informed herself about my affairs, nor of my likings or dislikings as a man. Prodigal for herself withoutbeing generous, she separated too decidedly self-interest and love. Whereas I knew very well, without proving it, that to save me a pangHenriette would have sought for me that which she would never seek forherself. In any great and overwhelming misfortune I should have gonefor counsel to Henriette, but I would have let myself be dragged toprison sooner than say a word to Lady Dudley. 

Up to this point the contrast relates to feelings; but it was the samein outward things. In France, luxury is the expression of the man, thereproduction of his ideas, of his personal poetry; it portrays thecharacter, and gives, between lovers, a precious value to every littleattention by keeping before them the dominant thought of the beingloved. But English luxury, which at first allured me by its choicenessand delicacy, proved to be mechanical also. The thousand and oneattentions shown me at Clochegourde Arabella would have considered thebusiness of servants; each one had his own duty and speciality. Thechoice of the footman was the business of her butler, as if it were amatter of horses. She never attached herself to her servants; thedeath of the best of them would not have affected her, for money couldreplace the one lost by another equally efficient. As to her dutytowards her neighbor, I never saw a tear in her eye for themisfortunes of another; in fact her selfishness was so naively candidthat it absolutely created a laugh. The crimson draperies of the greatlady covered an iron nature. The delightful siren who sounded at nightevery bell of her amorous folly could soon make a young man forget thehard and unfeeling Englishwoman, and it was only step by step that Idiscovered the stony rock on which my seeds were wasted, bringing noharvest. Madame de Mortsauf had penetrated that nature at a glance intheir brief encounter. I remembered her prophetic words. She wasright; Arabella's love became intolerable to me. I have since remarkedthat most women who ride well on horseback have little tenderness. Like the Amazons, they lack a breast; their hearts are hard in somedirection, but I do not know in which. 

At the moment when I begin to feel the burden of the yoke, whenweariness took possession of soul and body too, when at last Icomprehended the sanctity that true feeling imparts to love, whenmemories of Clochegourde were bringing me, in spite of distance, thefragrance of the roses, the warmth of the terrace, and the warble ofthe nightingales, --at this frightful moment, when I saw the stony bedbeneath me as the waters of the torrent receded, I received a blowwhich still resounds in my heart, for at every hour its echo wakes. 

I was working in the cabinet of the king, who was to drive out at fouro'clock. The Duc de Lenoncourt was on service. When he entered theroom the king asked him news of the countess. I raised my head hastilyin too eager a manner; the king, offended by the action, gave me thelook which always preceded the harsh words he knew so well how to say. 

"Sire, my poor daughter is dying, " replied the duke. 

"Will the king deign to grant me leave of absence?" I cried, withtears in my eyes, braving the anger which I saw about to burst. 

"Go, _my lord_, " he answered, smiling at the satire in his words, andwithholding his reprimand in favor of his own wit. 

More courtier than father, the duke asked no leave but got into thecarriage with the king. I started without bidding Lady Dudleygood-bye; she was fortunately out when I made my preparations, and Ileft a note telling her I was sent on a mission by the king. At theCroix de Berny I met his Majesty returning from Verrieres. He threw mea look full of his royal irony, always insufferable in meaning, whichseemed to say: "If you mean to be anything in politics come back; don'tparley with the dead. " The duke waved his hand to me sadly. The twopompous equipages with their eight horses, the colonels and their goldlace, the escort and the clouds of dust rolled rapidly away, to criesof "Vive le Roi!" It seemed to me that the court had driven over thedead body of Madame de Mortsauf with the utter insensibility whichnature shows for our catastrophes. Though the duke was an excellentman he would no doubt play whist with Monsieur after the king hadretired. As for the duchess, she had long ago given her daughter thefirst stab by writing to her of Lady Dudley. 

My hurried journey was like a dream, --the dream of a ruined gambler; Iwas in despair at having received no news. Had the confessor pushedausterity so far as to exclude me from Clochegourde? I accusedMadeleine, Jacques, the Abbe Dominis, all, even Monsieur de Mortsauf. Beyond Tours, as I came down the road bordered with poplars whichleads to Poncher, which I so much admired that first day of my searchfor mine Unknown, I met Monsieur Origet. He guessed that I was goingto Clochegourde; I guessed that he was returning. We stopped ourcarriages and got out, I to ask for news, he to give it. 

"How is Madame de Mortsauf?" I said. 

"I doubt if you find her living, " he replied. "She is dying afrightful death--of inanition. When she called me in, last June, nomedical power could control the disease; she had the symptoms whichMonsieur de Mortsauf has no doubt described to you, for he thinks hehas them himself. Madame la comtesse was not in any transientcondition of ill-health, which our profession can direct and which isoften the cause of a better state, nor was she in the crisis of adisorder the effects of which can be repaired; no, her disease hadreached a point where science is useless; it is the incurable resultof grief, just as a mortal wound is the result of a stab. Her physicalcondition is produced by the inertia of an organ as necessary to lifeas the action of the heart itself. Grief has done the work of adagger. Don't deceive yourself; Madame de Mortsauf is dying of somehidden grief. "

"Hidden!" I exclaimed. "Her children have not been ill?"

"No, " he said, looking at me significantly, "and since she has been soseriously attacked Monsieur de Mortsauf has ceased to torment her. Iam no longer needed; Monsieur Deslandes of Azay is all-sufficient;nothing can be done; her sufferings are dreadful. Young, beautiful, and rich, to die emaciated, shrunken with hunger--for she dies ofhunger! During the last forty days the stomach, being as it wereclosed up, has rejected all nourishment, under whatever form weattempt to give it. "

Monsieur Origet pressed my hand with a gesture of respect. 

"Courage, monsieur, " he said, lifting his eyes to heaven. 

The words expressed his compassion for sufferings he thought shared;he little suspected the poisoned arrow which they shot into my heart. I sprang into the carriage and ordered the postilion to drive on, promising a good reward if I arrived in time. 

Notwithstanding my impatience I seemed to do the distance in a fewminutes, so absorbed was I in the bitter reflections that crowded uponmy soul. Dying of grief, yet her children were well? then she diedthrough me! My conscience uttered one of those arraignments which echothroughout our lives and sometimes beyond them. What weakness, whatimpotence in human justice, which avenges none but open deeds! Whyshame and death to the murderer who kills with a blow, who comes uponyou unawares in your sleep and makes it last eternally, who strikeswithout warning and spares you a struggle? Why a happy life, anhonored life, to the murderer who drop by drop pours gall into thesoul and saps the body to destroy it? How many murderers gounpunished! What indulgence for fashionable vice! What condoning ofthe homicides caused by moral wrongs! I know not whose avenging handit was that suddenly, at that moment, raised the painted curtain thatreveals society. I saw before me many victims known to you and me, --Madame de Beauseant, dying, and starting for Normandy only a fewdays earlier; the Duchesse de Langeais lost; Lady Brandon hiding herselfin Touraine in the little house where Lady Dudley had stayed two weeks, and dying there, killed by a frightful catastrophe, --you know it. Ourperiod teems with such events. Who does not remember that poor youngwoman who poisoned herself, overcome by jealousy, which was perhapskilling Madame de Mortsauf? Who has not shuddered at the fate of thatenchanting young girl who perished after two years of marriage, like aflower torn by the wind, the victim of her chaste ignorance, thevictim of a villain with whom Ronquerolles, Montriveau, and de Marsayshake hands because he is useful to their political projects? Whatheart has failed to throb at the recital of the last hours of thewoman whom no entreaties could soften, and who would never see herhusband after nobly paying his debts? Madame d'Aiglemont saw deathbeside her and was saved only by my brother's care. Society andscience are accomplices in crimes for which there are no assizes. Theworld declares that no one dies of grief, or of despair; nor yet oflove, of anguish hidden, of hopes cultivated yet fruitless, again andagain replanted yet forever uprooted. Our new scientific nomenclaturehas plenty of words to explain these things; gastritis, pericarditis, all the thousand maladies of women the names of which are whispered inthe ear, all serve as passports to the coffin followed by hypocriticaltears that are soon wiped by the hand of a notary. Can there be at thebottom of this great evil some law which we do not know? Must thecentenary pitilessly strew the earth with corpses and dry them to dustabout him that he may raise himself, as the millionaire battens on amyriad of little industries? Is there some powerful and venomous lifewhich feasts on these gentle, tender creatures? My God! do I belong tothe race of tigers?

Remorse gripped my heart in its scorching fingers, and my cheeks werefurrowed with tears as I entered the avenue of Clochegourde on a dampOctober morning, which loosened the dead leaves of the poplars plantedby Henriette in the path where once she stood and waved herhandkerchief as if to recall me. Was she living? Why did I feel hertwo white hands upon my head laid prostrate in the dust? In thatmoment I paid for all the pleasures that Arabella had given me, and Iknew that I paid dearly. I swore not to see her again, and a hatred ofEngland took possession of me. Though Lady Dudley was only a varietyof her species, I included all Englishwomen in my judgment. 

I received a fresh shock as I neared Clochegourde. Jacques, Madeleine, and the Abbe Dominis were kneeling at the foot of a wooden crossplaced on a piece of ground that was taken into the enclosure when theiron gate was put up, which the count and countess had never beenwilling to remove. I sprang from the carriage and went towards them, my heart aching at the sight of these children and that grave old manimploring the mercy of God. The old huntsman was there too, with baredhead, standing a little apart. 

I stooped to kiss Jacques and Madeleine, who gave me a cold look andcontinued praying. The abbe rose from his knees; I took him by the armto support myself, saying, "Is she still alive?" He bowed his headsadly and gently. "Tell me, I implore you for Christ's sake, why areyou praying at the foot of this cross? Why are you here, and not withher? Why are the children kneeling here this chilly morning? Tell meall, that I may do no harm through ignorance. "

"For the last few days Madame le comtesse has been unwilling to seeher children except at stated times. --Monsieur, " he continued after apause, "perhaps you had better wait a few hours before seeing Madamede Mortsauf; she is greatly changed. It is necessary to prepare herfor this interview, or it might cause an increase in her sufferings--death would be a blessed release from them. "

I wrung the hand of the good man, whose look and voice soothed thepangs of others without sharpening them. 

"We are praying God to help her, " he continued; "for she, so saintly, so resigned, so fit to die, has shown during the last few weeks ahorror of death; for the first time in her life she looks at otherswho are full of health with gloomy, envious eyes. This aberrationcomes less, I think, from the fear of death than from some inwardintoxication, --from the flowers of her youth which ferment as theywither. Yes, an evil angel is striving against heaven for thatglorious soul. She is passing through her struggle on the Mount ofOlives; her tears bathe the white roses of her crown as they fall, oneby one, from the head of this wedded Jephtha. Wait; do not see heryet. You would bring to her the atmosphere of the court; she would seein your face the reflection of the things of life, and you would addto the bitterness of her regret. Have pity on a weakness which GodHimself forgave to His Son when He took our nature upon Him. Whatmerit would there be in conquering if we had no adversary? Permit herconfessor or me, two old men whose worn-out lives cause her no pain, to prepare her for this unlooked-for meeting, for emotions which theAbbe Birotteau has required her to renounce. But, in the things ofthis world there is an invisible thread of divine purpose whichreligion alone can see; and since you have come perhaps you are led bysome celestial star of the moral world which leads to the tomb as tothe manger--"

He then told me, with that tempered eloquence which falls like dewupon the heart, that for the last six months the countess had suffereddaily more and more, in spite of Monsieur Origet's care. The doctorhad come to Clochegourde every evening for two months, striving torescue her from death; for her one cry had been, "Oh, save me!" "Toheal the body the heart must first be healed, " the doctor hadexclaimed one day. 

"As the illness increased, the words of this poor woman, once sogentle, have grown bitter, " said the Abbe. "She calls on earth to keepher, instead of asking God to take her; then she repents these murmursagainst the divine decree. Such alternations of feeling rend her heartand make the struggle between body and soul most horrible. Often thebody triumphs. 'You have cost me dear, ' she said one day to Jacquesand Madeleine; but in a moment, recalled to God by the look on myface, she turned to Madeleine with these angelic words, 'The happinessof others is the joy of those who cannot themselves be happy, '--andthe tone with which she said them brought tears to my eyes. She falls, it is true, but each time that her feet stumble she rises highertowards heaven. "

Struck by the tone of the successive intimations chance had sent me, and which in this great concert of misfortunes were like a prelude ofmournful modulations to a funereal theme, the mighty cry of expiringlove, I cried out: "Surely you believe that this pure lily cut fromearth will flower in heaven?"

"You left her still a flower, " he answered, "but you will find herconsumed, purified by the forces of suffering, pure as a diamondburied in the ashes. Yes, that shining soul, angelic star, will issueglorious from the clouds and pass into the kingdom of the Light. "

As I pressed the hand of the good evangelist, my heart overflowingwith gratitude, the count put his head, now entirely white, out of thedoor and immediately sprang towards me with signs of surprise. 

"She was right! He is here! 'Felix, Felix, Felix has come!' she keptcrying. My dear friend, " he continued, beside himself with terror, "death is here. Why did it not take a poor madman like me with onefoot in the grave?"

I walked towards the house summoning my courage, but on the thresholdof the long antechamber which crossed the house and led to the lawn, the Abbe Birotteau stopped me. 

"Madame la comtesse begs you will not enter at present, " he said tome. 

Giving a glance within the house I saw the servants coming and going, all busy, all dumb with grief, surprised perhaps by the orders Manettegave them. 

"What has happened?" cried the count, alarmed by the commotion, asmuch from fear of the coming event as from the natural uneasiness ofhis character. 

"Only a sick woman's fancy, " said the abbe. "Madame la comtesse doesnot wish to receive monsieur le vicomte as she now is. She talks ofdressing; why thwart her?"

Manette came in search of Madeleine, whom I saw leave the house a fewmoments after she had entered her mother's room. We were all, Jacquesand his father, the two abbes and I, silently walking up and down thelawn in front of the house. I looked first at Montbazon and then atAzay, noticing the seared and yellow valley which answered in itsmourning (as it ever did on all occasions) to the feelings of myheart. Suddenly I beheld the dear "mignonne" gathering the autumnflowers, no doubt to make a bouquet at her mother's bidding. Thinkingof all which that signified, I was so convulsed within me that Istaggered, my sight was blurred, and the two abbes, between whom Iwalked, led me to the wall of a terrace, where I sat for some timecompletely broken down but not unconscious. 

"Poor Felix, " said the count, "she forbade me to write to you. Sheknew how much you loved her. "

Though prepared to suffer, I found I had no strength to bear a scenewhich recalled my memories of past happiness. "Ah!" I thought, "I seeit still, that barren moor, dried like a skeleton, lit by a gray sky, in the centre of which grew a single flowering bush, which again andagain I looked at with a shudder, --the forecast of this mournfulhour!"

All was gloom in the little castle, once so animated, so full of life. The servants were weeping; despair and desolation everywhere. Thepaths were not raked, work was begun and left undone, the workmenstanding idly about the house. Though the grapes were being gatheredin the vineyard, not a sound reached us. The place seemed uninhabited, so deep the silence! We walked about like men whose grief rejects allordinary topics, and we listened to the count, the only one of us whospoke. 

After a few words prompted by the mechanical love he felt for his wifehe was led by the natural bent of his mind to complain of her. She hadnever, he said, taken care of herself or listened to him when he gaveher good advice. He had been the first to notice the symptoms of herillness, for he had studied them in his own case; he had fought themand cured them without other assistance than careful diet and theavoidance of all emotion. He could have cured the countess, but ahusband ought not to take so much responsibility upon himself, especially when he has the misfortune of finding his experience, inthis as in everything, despised. In spite of all he could say, thecountess insisted on seeing Origet, --Origet, who had managed his caseso ill, was now killing his wife. If this disease was, as they said, the result of excessive grief, surely he was the one who had been in acondition to have it. What griefs could the countess have had? She wasalways happy; she had never had troubles or annoyances. Their fortune, thanks to his care and to his sound ideas, was now in a mostsatisfactory state; he had always allowed Madame de Mortsauf to reignat Clochegourde; her children, well trained and now in health, gaveher no anxiety, --where, then, did this grief they talked of come from?

Thus he argued and discussed the matter, mingling his expressions ofdespair with senseless accusations. Then, recalled by some suddenmemory to the admiration which he felt for his wife, tears rolled fromhis eyes which had been dry so long. 

Madeleine came to tell me that her mother was ready. The AbbeBirotteau followed me. Madeleine, now a grave young girl, stayed withher father, saying that the countess desired to be alone with me, andalso that the presence of too many persons would fatigue her. Thesolemnity of this moment gave me that sense of inward heat and outwardcold which overcomes us often in the great events of life. The AbbeBirotteau, one of those men whom God marks for his own by investingthem with sweetness and simplicity, together with patience andcompassion, took me aside. 

"Monsieur, " he said, "I wish you to know that I have done all in mypower to prevent this meeting. The salvation of this saint requiredit. I have considered her only, and not you. Now that you are about tosee her to whom access ought to have been denied you by the angels, let me say that I shall be present to protect you against yourself andperhaps against her. Respect her weakness. I do not ask this of you asa priest, but as a humble friend whom you did not know you had, andwho would fain save you from remorse. Our dear patient is dying ofhunger and thirst. Since morning she is a victim to the feverishirritation which precedes that horrible death, and I cannot concealfrom you how deeply she regrets life. The cries of her rebelliousflesh are stifled in my heart--where they wake echoes of a wound stilltender. But Monsieur de Dominis and I accept this duty that we mayspare the sight of this moral anguish to her family; as it is, they nolonger recognize their star by night and by day in her; they all, husband, children, servants, all are asking, 'Where is she?'--she isso changed! When she sees you, her regrets will revive. Lay aside yourthoughts as a man of the world, forget its vanities, be to her theauxiliary of heaven, not of earth. Pray God that this dear saint dienot in a moment of doubt, giving voice to her despair. "

I did not answer. My silence alarmed the poor confessor. I saw, Iheard, I walked, and yet I was no longer on the earth. The thought, "In what state shall I find her? Why do they use these precautions?"gave rise to apprehensions which were the more cruel because soindefinite; all forms of suffering crowded my mind. 

We reached the door of the chamber and the abbe opened it. I then sawHenriette, dressed in white, sitting on her little sofa which wasplaced before the fireplace, on which were two vases filled withflowers; flowers were also on a table near the window. The expressionof the abbe's face, which was that of amazement at the change in theroom, now restored to its former state, showing me that the dyingwoman had sent away the repulsive preparations which surround asick-bed. She had spent the last waning strength of fever in decoratingher room to receive him whom in that final hour she loved above allthings else. Surrounded by clouds of lace, her shrunken face, which hadthe greenish pallor of a magnolia flower as it opens, resembled thefirst outline of a cherished head drawn in chalks upon the yellowcanvas of a portrait. To feel how deeply the vulture's talons nowburied themselves in my heart, imagine the eyes of that outlined facefinished and full of life, --hollow eyes which shone with a brilliancyunusual in a dying person. The calm majesty given to her in the pastby her constant victory over sorrow was there no longer. Her forehead, the only part of her face which still kept its beautiful proportions, wore an expression of aggressive will and covert threats. In spite ofthe waxy texture of her elongated face, inward fires were issuing fromit like the fluid mist which seems to flame above the fields of a hotday. Her hollow temples, her sunken cheeks showed the interiorformation of the face, and the smile upon her whitened lips vaguelyresembled the grin of death. Her robe, which was folded across herbreast, showed the emaciation of her beautiful figure. The expressionof her head said plainly that she knew she was changed, and that thethought filled her with bitterness. She was no longer the archHenriette, nor the sublime and saintly Madame de Mortsauf, but thenameless something of Bossuet struggling against annihilation, drivento the selfish battle of life against death by hunger and balkeddesire. I took her hand, which was dry and burning, to kiss it, as Iseated myself beside her. She guessed my sorrowful surprise from thevery effort that I made to hide it. Her discolored lips drew up fromher famished teeth trying to form a smile, --the forced smile withwhich we strive to hide either the irony of vengeance, the expectationof pleasure, the intoxication of our souls, or the fury ofdisappointment. 

"Ah, my poor Felix, this is death, " she said, "and you do not likedeath; odious death, of which every human creature, even the boldestlover, feels a horror. This is the end of love; I knew it would be so. Lady Dudley will never see you thus surprised at the change in her. Ah! why have I so longed for you, Felix? You have come at last, and Ireward your devotion by the same horrible sight that made the Comte deRance a Trappist. I, who hoped to remain ever beautiful and noble inyour memory, to live there eternally a lily, I it is who destroy yourillusions! True love cannot calculate. But stay; do not go, stay. Monsieur Origet said I was much better this morning; I shall recover. Your looks will bring me back to life. When I regain a littlestrength, when I can take some nourishment, I shall be beautifulagain. I am scarcely thirty-five, there are many years of happinessbefore me, --happiness renews our youth; yes, I must know happiness! Ihave made delightful plans, --we will leave Clochegourde and go toItaly. "

Tears filled my eyes and I turned to the window as if to look at theflowers. The abbe followed me hastily, and bending over the bouquetwhispered, "No tears!"

"Henriette, do you no longer care for our dear valley, " I said, as ifto explain my sudden movement. 

"Oh, yes!" she said, turning her forehead to my lips with a fondmotion. "But without you it is fatal to me, --without _thee_, " sheadded, putting her burning lips to my ear and whispering the wordslike a sigh. 

I was horror-struck at the wild caress, and my will was not strongenough to repress the nervous agitation I felt throughout this scene. I listened without reply; or rather I replied by a fixed smile andsigns of comprehension; wishing not to thwart her, but to treat her asa mother does a child. Struck at first with the change in her person, I now perceived that the woman, once so dignified in her bearing, showed in her attitude, her voice, her manners, in her looks and herideas, the naive ignorance of a child, its artless graces, its eagermovements, its careless indifference to everything that is not its owndesire, --in short all the weaknesses which commend a child to ourprotection. Is it so with all dying persons? Do they strip off socialdisguises till they are like children who have never put them on? Orwas it that the countess feeling herself on the borders of eternity, rejected every human feeling except love?

"You will bring me health as you used to do, Felix, " she said, "andour valley will still be my blessing. How can I help eating what youwill give me? You are such a good nurse. Besides, you are so rich inhealth and vigor that life is contagious beside you. My friend, proveto me that I need not die--die blighted. They think my worst sufferingis thirst. Oh, yes, my thirst is great, dear friend. The waters of theIndre are terrible to see; but the thirst of my heart is greater far. I thirsted for thee, " she said in a smothered voice, taking my handsin hers, which were burning, and drawing me close that she mightwhisper in my ear. "My anguish has been in not seeing thee! Did younot bid me live? I will live; I too will ride on horseback; I willknow life, Paris, fetes, pleasures, all!"

Ah! Natalie, that awful cry--which time and distance render cold--rangin the ears of the old priest and in mine; the tones of that gloriousvoice pictured the battles of a lifetime, the anguish of a true lovelost. The countess rose with an impatient movement like that of achild which seeks a plaything. When the confessor saw her thus thepoor man fell upon his knees and prayed with clasped hands. 

"Yes, to live!" she said, making me rise and support her; "to livewith realities and not with delusions. All has been delusions in mylife; I have counted them up, these lies, these impostures! How can Idie, I who have never lived? I who have never roamed a moor to meethim!" She stopped, seemed to listen, and to smell some odor throughthe walls. "Felix, the vintagers are dining, and I, I, " she said, inthe voice of a child, "I, the mistress, am hungry. It is so in love, --they are happy, they, they!--"

"Kyrie eleison!" said the poor abbe, who with clasped hands and eyesraised to heaven was reciting his litanies. 

She flung an arm around my neck, kissed me violently, and pressed meto her, saying, "You shall not escape me now!" She gave the little nodwith which in former days she used, when leaving me for an instant, tosay she would return. "We will dine together, " she said; "I will goand tell Manette. " She turned to go, but fainted; and I laid her, dressed as she was, upon the bed. 

"You carried me thus before, " she murmured, opening her eyes. 

She was very light, but burning; as I took her in my arms I felt theheat of her body. Monsieur Deslandes entered and seemed surprised atthe decoration of the room; but seeing me, all was explained to him. 

"We must suffer much to die, " she said in a changed voice. 

The doctor sat down and felt her pulse, then he rose quickly and saida few words in a low voice to the priest, who left the room beckoningme to follow him. 

"What are you going to do?" I said to the doctor. 

"Save her from intolerable agony, " he replied. "Who could havebelieved in so much strength? We cannot understand how she can havelived in this state so long. This is the forty-second day since shehas either eaten or drunk. "

Monsieur Deslandes called for Manette. The Abbe Birotteau took me tothe gardens. 

"Let us leave her to the doctor, " he said; "with Manette's help hewill wrap her in opium. Well, you have heard her now--if indeed it isshe herself. "

"No, " I said, "it is not she. "

I was stupefied with grief. I left the grounds by the little gate ofthe lower terrace and went to the punt, in which I hid to be alonewith my thoughts. I tried to detach myself from the being in which Ilived, --a torture like that with which the Tartars punish adultery byfastening a limb of the guilty man in a piece of wood and leaving himwith a knife to cut it off if he would not die of hunger. My life wasa failure, too! Despair suggested many strange ideas to me. SometimesI vowed to die beside her; sometimes to bury myself at Meillerayeamong the Trappists. I looked at the windows of the room whereHenriette was dying, fancying I saw the light that was burning therethe night I betrothed my soul to hers. Ah! ought I not to havefollowed the simple life she had created for me, keeping myselffaithfully to her while I worked in the world? Had she not bidden mebecome a great man expressly that I might be saved from base andshameful passions? Chastity! was it not a sublime distinction which Ihad not know how to keep? Love, as Arabella understood it, suddenlydisgusted me. As I raised my humbled head asking myself where, infuture, I could look for light and hope, what interest could hold meto life, the air was stirred by a sudden noise. I turned to theterrace and there saw Madeleine walking alone, with slow steps. Duringthe time it took me to ascend the terrace, intending to ask the dearchild the reason of the cold look she had given me when kneeling atthe foot of the cross, she had seated herself on the bench. When shesaw me approach her, she rose, pretending not to have seen me, andreturned towards the house in a significantly hasty manner. She hatedme; she fled from her mother's murderer. 

When I reached the portico I saw Madeleine like a statue, motionlessand erect, evidently listening to the sound of my steps. Jacques wassitting in the portico. His attitude expressed the same insensibilityto what was going on about him that I had noticed when I first sawhim; it suggested ideas such as we lay aside in some corner of ourmind to take up and study at our leisure. I have remarked that youngpersons who carry death within them are usually unmoved at funerals. Ilonged to question that gloomy spirit. Had Madeleine kept her thoughtsto herself, or had she inspired Jacques with her hatred?

"You know, Jacques, " I said, to begin the conversation, "that in meyou have a most devoted brother. "

"Your friendship is useless to me; I shall follow my mother, " he said, giving me a sullen look of pain. 

"Jacques!" I cried, "you, too, against me?"

He coughed and walked away; when he returned he showed me hishandkerchief stained with blood. 

"Do you understand that?" he said. 

Thus they had each of them a fatal secret. I saw before long that thebrother and sister avoided each other. Henriette laid low, all was inruins at Clochegourde. 

"Madame is asleep, " Manette came to say, quite happy in knowing thatthe countess was out of pain. 

In these dreadful moments, though each person knows the inevitableend, strong affections fasten on such minor joys. Minutes arecenturies which we long to make restorative; we wish our dear ones tolie on roses, we pray to bear their sufferings, we cling to the hopethat their last moment may be to them unexpected. 

"Monsieur Deslandes has ordered the flowers taken away; they excitedMadame's nerves, " said Manette. 

Then it was the flowers that caused her delirium; she herself was nota part of it. 

"Come, Monsieur Felix, " added Manette, "come and see Madame; she isbeautiful as an angel. "

I returned to the dying woman just as the setting sun was gilding thelace-work on the roofs of the chateau of Azay. All was calm and pure. A soft light lit the bed on which my Henriette was lying, wrapped inopium. The body was, as it were, annihilated; the soul alone reignedon that face, serene as the skies when the tempest is over. Blancheand Henriette, two sublime faces of the same woman, reappeared; allthe more beautiful because my recollection, my thought, myimagination, aiding nature, repaired the devastation of each dearfeature, where now the soul triumphant sent its gleams through thecalm pulsations of her breathing. The two abbes were sitting at thefoot of the bed. The count stood, as though stupefied by the bannersof death which floated above that adored being. I took her seat on thesofa. We all four turned to each other looks in which admiration forthat celestial beauty mingled with tears of mourning. The lights ofthought announced the return of the Divine Spirit to that glorioustabernacle. 

The Abbe Dominis and I spoke in signs, communicating to each other ourmutual ideas. Yes, the angels were watching her! yes, their flamingswords shone above that noble brow, which the august expression of hervirtue made, as it were, a visible soul conversing with the spirits ofits sphere. The lines of her face cleared; all in her was exalted andbecame majestic beneath the unseen incense of the seraphs who guardedher. The green tints of bodily suffering gave place to pure whitetones, the cold wan pallor of approaching death. Jacques and Madeleineentered. Madeleine made us quiver by the adoring impulse which flungher on her knees beside the bed, crying out, with clasped hand: "Mymother! here is my mother!" Jacques smiled; he knew he would followher where she went. 

"She is entering the haven, " said the Abbe Birotteau. 

The Abbe Dominis looked at me as if to say: "Did I not tell you thestar would rise in all its glory?"

Madeleine knelt with her eyes fixed on her mother, breathing when shebreathed, listening to the soft breath, the last thread by which sheheld to life, and which we followed in terror, fearing that everyeffort of respiration might be the last. Like an angel at the gates ofthe sanctuary, the young girl was eager yet calm, strong but reverent. At that moment the Angelus rang from the village clock-tower. Waves oftempered air brought its reverberations to remind us that this was thesacred hour when Christianity repeats the words said by the angel tothe woman who has redeemed the faults of her sex. "Ave Maria!"--surely, at this moment the words were a salutation from heaven. Theprophecy was so plain, the event so near that we burst into tears. Themurmuring sounds of evening, melodious breezes in the leafage, lastwarbling of the birds, the hum and echo of the insects, the voices ofthe waters, the plaintive cry of the tree-frog, --all country thingswere bidding farewell to the loveliest lily of the valley, to hersimple, rural life. The religious poesy of the hour, now added to thatof Nature, expressed so vividly the psalm of the departing soul thatour sobs redoubled. 

Though the door of the chamber was open we were all so plunged incontemplation of the scene, as if to imprint its memories forever onour souls, that we did not notice the family servants who werekneeling as a group and praying fervently. These poor people, livingon hope, had believed their mistress might be spared, and this plainwarning overcame them. At a sign from the Abbe Birotteau the oldhuntsman went to fetch the curate of Sache. The doctor, standing bythe bed, calm as science, and holding the hand of the still sleepingwoman, had made the confessor a sign to say that this sleep was theonly hour without pain which remained for the recalled angel. Themoment had come to administer the last sacraments of the Church. Atnine o'clock she awoke quietly, looked at us with surprised but gentleeyes, and we beheld our idol once more in all the beauty of formerdays. 

"Mother! you are too beautiful to die--life and health are coming backto you!" cried Madeleine. 

"Dear daughter, I shall live--in thee, " she answered, smiling. 

Then followed heart-rending embraces of the mother and her children. Monsieur de Mortsauf kissed his wife upon her brow. She colored whenshe saw me. 

"Dear Felix, " she said, "this is, I think, the only grief that I shallever have caused you. Forget all that I may have said, --I, a poorcreature much beside myself. " She held out her hand; I took it andkissed it. Then she said, with her chaste and gracious smile, "As inthe old days, Felix?"

We all left the room and went into the salon during the lastconfession. I approached Madeleine. In presence of others she couldnot escape me without a breach of civility; but, like her mother, shelooked at no one, and kept silence without even once turning her eyesin my direction. 

"Dear Madeleine, " I said in a low voice, "What have you against me?Why do you show such coldness in the presence of death, which ought toreconcile us all?"

"I hear in my heart what my mother is saying at this moment, " shereplied, with a look which Ingres gave to his "Mother of God, "--thatvirgin, already sorrowful, preparing herself to protect the world forwhich her son was about to die. 

"And you condemn me at the moment when your mother absolves me, --ifindeed I am guilty. "

"You, _you_, " she said, "always _your self_!"

The tones of her voice revealed the determined hatred of a Corsican, implacable as the judgments of those who, not having studied life, admit of no extenuation of faults committed against the laws of theheart. 

An hour went by in deepest silence. The Abbe Birotteau came to usafter receiving the countess's general confession, and we followed himback to the room where Henriette, under one of those impulses whichoften come to noble minds, all sisters of one intent, had made themdress her in the long white garment which was to be her shroud. Wefound her sitting up; beautiful from expiation, beautiful in hope. Isaw in the fireplace the black ashes of my letters which had just beenburned, a sacrifice which, as her confessor afterwards told me, shehad not been willing to make until the hour of her death. She smiledupon us all with the smile of other days. Her eyes, moist with tears, gave evidence of inward lucidity; she saw the celestial joys of thepromised land. 

"Dear Felix, " she said, holding out her hand and pressing mine, "staywith us. You must be present at the last scene of my life, not theleast painful among many such, but one in which you are concerned. "

She made a sign and the door was closed. At her request the count satdown; the Abbe Birotteau and I remained standing. Then with Manette'shelp the countess rose and knelt before the astonished count, persisting in remaining there. A moment after, when Manette had leftthe room, she raised her head which she had laid upon her husband'sknees. 

"Though I have been a faithful wife to you, " she said, in a faintvoice, "I have sometimes failed in my duty. I have just prayed to Godto give me strength to ask your pardon. I have given to a friendshipoutside of my family more affectionate care than I have shown to you. Perhaps I have sometimes irritated you by the comparisons you may havemade between these cares, these thoughts, and those I gave to you. Ihave had, " she said, in a sinking voice, "a deep friendship, which noone, not even he who has been its object, has fully known. Though Ihave continued virtuous according to all human laws, though I havebeen a irreproachable wife to you, still other thoughts, voluntary orinvoluntary, have often crossed my mind and, in this hour, I fear Ihave welcomed them too warmly. But as I have tenderly loved you, andcontinued to be your submissive wife, and as the clouds passingbeneath the sky do not alter its purity, I now pray for your blessingwith a clean heart. I shall die without one bitter thought if I canhear from your lips a tender word for your Blanche, for the mother ofyour children, --if I know that you forgive her those things for whichshe did not forgive herself till reassured by the great tribunal whichpardons all. "

"Blanche, Blanche!" cried the broken man, shedding tears upon hiswife's head, "Would you kill me?" He raised her with a strengthunusual to him, kissed her solemnly on the forehead, and thus holdingher continued: "Have I no forgiveness to ask of you? Have I never beenharsh? Are you not making too much of your girlish scruples?"

"Perhaps, " she said. "But, dear friend, indulge the weakness of adying woman; tranquillize my mind. When you reach this hour you willremember that I left you with a blessing. Will you grant me permissionto leave to our friend now here that pledge of my affection?" shecontinued, showing a letter that was on the mantelshelf. "He is now myadopted son, and that is all. The heart, dear friend, makes itsbequests; my last wishes impose a sacred duty on that dear Felix. Ithink I do not put too great a burden on him; grant that I do not asktoo much of you in desiring to leave him these last words. You see, Iam always a woman, " she said, bending her head with mournfulsweetness; "after obtaining pardon I ask a gift--Read this, " sheadded, giving me the letter; "but not until after my death. "

The count saw her color change: he lifted her and carried her himselfto the bed, where we all surrounded her. 

"Felix, " she said, "I may have done something wrong to you. Often Igave you pain by letting you hope for that I could not give you; butsee, it was that very courage of wife and mother that now enables meto die forgiven of all. You will forgive me too; you who have so oftenblamed me, and whose injustice was so dear--"

The Abbe Birotteau laid a finger on his lips. At that sign the dyingwoman bowed her head, faintness overcame her; presently she waved herhands as if summoning the clergy and her children and the servants toher presence, and then, with an imploring gesture, she showed me thedesolate count and the children beside him. The sight of that father, the secret of whose insanity was known to us alone, now to be leftsole guardian of those delicate beings, brought mute entreaties to herface, which fell upon my heart like sacred fire. Before receivingextreme unction she asked pardon of her servants if by a hasty wordshe had sometimes hurt them; she asked their prayers and commendedeach one, individually, to the count; she nobly confessed that duringthe last two months she had uttered complaints that were not Christianand might have shocked them; she had repulsed her children and clungto life unworthily; but she attributed this failure of submission tothe will of God to her intolerable sufferings. Finally, she publiclythanked the Abbe Birotteau with heartfelt warmth for having shown herthe illusion of all earthly things. 

When she ceased to speak, prayers were said again, and the curate ofSache gave her the viaticum. A few moments later her breathing becamedifficult; a film overspread her eyes, but soon they cleared again;she gave me a last look and died to the eyes of earth, hearing perhapsthe symphony of our sobs. As her last sigh issued from her lips, --theeffort of a life that was one long anguish, --I felt a blow within methat struck on all my faculties. The count and I remained beside thebier all night with the two abbes and the curate, watching, in theglimmer of the tapers, the body of the departed, now so calm, laidupon the mattress of her bed, where once she had suffered cruelly. Itwas my first communion with death. I remained the whole of that nightwith my eyes fixed on Henriette, spell-bound by the pure expressionthat came from the stilling of all tempests, by the whiteness of thatface where still I saw the traces of her innumerable affections, although it made no answer to my love. What majesty in that silence, in that coldness! How many thoughts they expressed! What beauty inthat cold repose, what power in that immobility! All the past wasthere and futurity had begun. Ah! I loved her dead as much as I hadloved her living. In the morning the count went to bed; the threewearied priests fell asleep in that heavy hour of dawn so well knownto those who watch. I could then, without witnesses, kiss that sacredbrow with all the love I had never been allowed to utter. 

The third day, in a cool autumn morning, we followed the countess toher last home. She was carried by the old huntsman, the twoMartineaus, and Manette's husband. We went down by the road I had sojoyously ascended the day I first returned to her. We crossed thevalley of the Indre to the little cemetery of Sache--a poor villagegraveyard, placed behind the church on the slope of the hill, wherewith true humility she had asked to be buried beneath a simple crossof black wood, "like a poor country-woman, " she said. When I saw, fromthe centre of the valley, the village church and the place of thegraveyard a convulsive shudder seized me. Alas! we have all ourGolgothas, where we leave the first thirty-three years of our lives, with the lance-wound in our side, the crown of thorns and not of roseson our brow--that hill-slope was to me the mount of expiation. 

We were followed by an immense crowd, seeking to express the grief ofthe valley where she had silently buried so many noble actions. Manette, her faithful woman, told me that when her savings did notsuffice to help the poor she economized upon her dress. There werebabes to be provided for, naked children to be clothed, motherssuccored in their need, sacks of flour brought to the millers inwinter for helpless old men, a cow sent to some poor home, --deeds of aChristian woman, a mother, and the lady of the manor. Besides thesethings, there were dowries paid to enable loving hearts to marry;substitutes bought for youths to whom the draft had brought despair, tender offerings of the loving woman who had said: "The happiness ofothers is the consolation of those who cannot themselves be happy. "Such things, related at the "veillees, " made the crowd immense. Iwalked with Jacques and the two abbes behind the coffin. According tocustom neither the count nor Madeleine were present; they remainedalone at Clochegourde. But Manette insisted in coming with us. "Poormadame! poor madame! she is happy now, " I heard her saying to herselfamid her sobs. 

As the procession left the road to the mills I heard a simultaneousmoan and a sound of weeping as though the valley were lamenting forits soul. The church was filled with people. After the service wasover we went to the graveyard where she wished to be buried near thecross. When I heard the pebbles and the gravel falling upon the coffinmy courage gave way; I staggered and asked the two Martineaus tosteady me. They took me, half-dead, to the chateau of Sache, where theowners very kindly invited me to stay, and I accepted. I will own toyou that I dreaded a return to Clochegourde, and it was equallyrepugnant to me to go to Frapesle, where I could see my Henriette'swindows. Here, at Sache, I was near her. I lived for some days in aroom which looked on the tranquil, solitary valley I have mentioned toyou. It is a deep recess among the hills, bordered by oaks that aredoubly centenarian, through which a torrent rushes after rain. Thescene was in keeping with the stern and solemn meditations to which Idesired to abandon myself. 

I had perceived, during the day which followed the fatal night, howunwelcome my presence might be at Clochegourde. The count had gonethrough violent emotions at the death of his wife; but he had expectedthe event; his mind was made up to it in a way that was something likeindifference. I had noticed this several times, and when the countessgave me that letter (which I still dared not read) and when she spokeof her affection for me, I remarked that the count, usually so quickto take offence, made no sign of feeling any. He attributedHenriette's wording to the extreme sensitiveness of a conscience whichhe knew to be pure. This selfish insensibility was natural to him. Thesouls of these two beings were no more married than their bodies; theyhad never had the intimate communion which keeps feeling alive; theyhad shared neither pains nor pleasures, those strong links which tearus by a thousand edges when broken, because they touch on all ourfibers, and are fastened to the inmost recesses of our hearts. 

Another consideration forbade my return to Clochegourde, --Madeleine'shostility. That hard young girl was not disposed to modify her hatredbeside her mother's coffin. Between the count, who would have talkedto me incessantly of himself, and the new mistress of the house, whowould have shown me invincible dislike, I should have found myselfhorribly annoyed. To be treated thus where once the very flowerswelcomed me, where the steps of the portico had a voice, where mymemory clothed with poetry the balconies, the fountains, thebalustrades, the trees, the glimpses of the valleys! to be hated whereI once was loved--the thought was intolerable to me. So, from thefirst, my mind was made up. 

Alas! alas! was this the end of the keenest love that ever entered theheart of man? To the eyes of strangers my conduct might bereprehensible, but it had the sanction of my own conscience. It isthus that the noblest feelings, the sublimest dramas of our youth mustend. We start at dawn, as I from Tours to Clochegourde, we clutch theworld, our hearts hungry for love; then, when our treasure is in thecrucible, when we mingle with men and circumstances, all becomesgradually debased and we find but little gold among the ashes. Such islife! life as it is; great pretensions, small realities. I meditatedlong about myself, debating what I could do after a blow like thiswhich had mown down every flower of my soul. I resolved to rush intothe science of politics, into the labyrinth of ambition, to cast womanfrom my life and to make myself a statesman, cold and passionless, andso remain true to the saint I loved. My thoughts wandered into far-offregions while my eyes were fastened on the splendid tapestry of theyellowing oaks, the stern summits, the bronzed foothills. I askedmyself if Henriette's virtue were not, after all, that of ignorance, and if I were indeed guilty of her death. I fought against remorse. Atlast, in the sweetness of an autumn midday, one of those last smilesof heaven which are so beautiful in Touraine, I read the letter whichat her request I was not to open before her death. Judge of myfeelings as I read it. 

 Madame de Mortsauf to the Vicomte Felix de Vandenesse:

 Felix, friend, loved too well, I must now lay bare my heart to you, --not so much to prove my love as to show you the weight of obligation you have incurred by the depth and gravity of the wounds you have inflicted on it. At this moment, when I sink exhausted by the toils of life, worn out by the shocks of its battle, the woman within me is, mercifully, dead; the mother alone survives. Dear, you are now to see how it was that you were the original cause of all my sufferings. Later, I willingly received your blows; to-day I am dying of the final wound your hand has given, --but there is joy, excessive joy in feeling myself destroyed by him I love. 

 My physical sufferings will soon put an end to my mental strength; I therefore use the last clear gleams of intelligence to implore you to befriend my children and replace the heart of which you have deprived them. I would solemnly impose this duty upon you if I loved you less; but I prefer to let you choose it for yourself as an act of sacred repentance, and also in faithful continuance of your love--love, for us, was ever mingled with repentant thoughts and expiatory fears! but--I know it well--we shall forever love each other. Your wrong to me was not so fatal an act in itself as the power which I let it have within me. Did I not tell you I was jealous, jealous unto death? Well, I die of it. But, be comforted, we have kept all human laws. The Church has told me, by one of her purest voices, that God will be forgiving to those who subdue their natural desires to His commandments. My beloved, you are now to know all, for I would not leave you in ignorance of any thought of mine. What I confide to God in my last hour you, too, must know, --you, king of my heart as He is King of Heaven. 

 Until the ball given to the Duc d'Angouleme (the only ball at which I was ever present), marriage had left me in that ignorance which gives to the soul of a young girl the beauty of the angels. True, I was a mother, but love had never surrounded me with its permitted pleasures. How did this happen? I do not know; neither do I know by what law everything within me changed in a moment. You remember your kisses? they have mastered my life, they have furrowed my soul; the ardor of your blood awoke the ardor of mine; your youth entered my youth, your desires my soul. When I rose and left you proudly I was filled with an emotion for which I know no name in any language--for children have not yet found a word to express the marriage of their eyes with light, nor the kiss of life laid upon their lips. Yes, it was sound coming in the echo, light flashing through the darkness, motion shaking the universe; at least, it was rapid like all these things, but far more beautiful, for it was the birth of the soul! I comprehended then that something, I knew not what, existed for me in the world, --a force nobler than thought; for it was all thoughts, all forces, it was the future itself in a shared emotion. I felt I was but half a mother. Falling thus upon my heart this thunderbolt awoke desires which slumbered there without my knowledge; suddenly I divined all that my aunt had meant when she kissed my forehead, murmuring, "Poor Henriette!"

 When I returned to Clochegourde, the springtime, the first leaves, the fragrance of the flowers, the white and fleecy clouds, the Indre, the sky, all spoke to me in a language till then unknown. If you have forgotten those terrible kisses, I have never been able to efface them from my memory, --I am dying of them! Yes, each time that I have met you since, their impress is revived. I was shaken from head to foot when I first saw you; the mere presentiment of your coming overcame me. Neither time nor my firm will has enabled me to conquer that imperious sense of pleasure. I asked myself involuntarily, "What must be such joys?" Our mutual looks, the respectful kisses you laid upon my hand, the pressure of my arm on yours, your voice with its tender tones, --all, even the slightest things, shook me so violently that clouds obscured my sight; the murmur of rebellious senses filled my ears. Ah! if in those moments when outwardly I increased my coldness you had taken me in your arms I should have died of happiness. Sometimes I desired it, but prayer subdued the evil thought. Your name uttered by my children filled my heart with warmer blood, which gave color to my cheeks; I laid snares for my poor Madeleine to induce her to say it, so much did I love the tumults of that sensation. Ah! what shall I say to you? Your writing had a charm; I gazed at your letters as we look at a portrait. 

 If on that first day you obtained some fatal power over me, conceive, dear friend, how infinite that power became when it was given to me to read your soul. What delights filled me when I found you so pure, so absolutely truthful, gifted with noble qualities, capable of noblest things, and already so tried! Man and child, timid yet brave! What joy to find we both were consecrated by a common grief! Ever since that evening when we confided our childhoods to each other, I have known that to lose you would be death, --yes, I have kept you by me selfishly. The certainty felt by Monsieur de la Berge that I should die if I lost you touched him deeply, for he read my soul. He knew how necessary I was to my children and the count; he did not command me to forbid you my house, for I promised to continue pure in deed and thought. "Thought, " he said to me, "is involuntary, but it can be watched even in the midst of anguish. " "If I think, " I replied, "all will be lost; save me from myself. Let him remain beside me and keep me pure!" The good old man, though stern, was moved by my sincerity. "Love him as you would a son, and give him your daughter, " he said. I accepted bravely that life of suffering that I might not lose you, and I suffered joyfully, seeing that we were called to bear the same yoke--My God! I have been firm, faithful to my husband; I have given you no foothold, Felix, in your kingdom. The grandeur of my passion has reacted on my character; I have regarded the tortures Monsieur de Mortsauf has inflicted on me as expiations; I bore them proudly in condemnation of my faulty desires. Formerly I was disposed to murmur at my life, but since you entered it I have recovered some gaiety, and this has been the better for the count. Without this strength, which I derived through you, I should long since have succumbed to the inward life of which I told you. 

 If you have counted for much in the exercise of my duty so have my children also. I felt I had deprived them of something, and I feared I could never do enough to make amends to them; my life was thus a continual struggle which I loved. Feeling that I was less a mother, less an honest wife, remorse entered my heart; fearing to fail in my obligations, I constantly went beyond them. Often have I put Madeleine between you and me, giving you to each other, raising barriers between us, --barriers that were powerless! for what could stifle the emotions which you caused me? Absent or present, you had the same power. I preferred Madeleine to Jacques because Madeleine was sometime to be yours. But I did not yield you to my daughter without a struggle. I told myself that I was only twenty-eight when I first met you, and you were nearly twenty-two; I shortened the distance between us; I gave myself up to delusive hopes. Oh, Felix! I tell you these things to save you from remorse; also, perhaps, to show you that I was not cold and insensible, that our sufferings were cruelly mutual; that Arabella had no superiority of love over mine. I too am the daughter of a fallen race, such as men love well. 

 There came a moment when the struggle was so terrible that I wept the long nights through; my hair fell off, --you have it! Do you remember the count's illness? Your nobility of soul far from raising my soul belittled it. Alas! I dreamed of giving myself to you some day as the reward of so much heroism; but the folly was a brief one. I laid it at the feet of God during the mass that day when you refused to be with me. Jacques' illness and Madeleine's sufferings seemed to me the warnings of God calling back to Him His lost sheep. 

 Then your love--which is so natural--for that Englishwoman revealed to me secrets of which I had no knowledge. I loved you better than I knew. The constant emotions of this stormy life, the efforts that I made to subdue myself with no other succor than that religion gave me, all, all has brought about the malady of which I die. The terrible shocks I have undergone brought on attacks about which I kept silence. I saw in death the sole solution of this hidden tragedy. A lifetime of anger, jealousy, and rage lay in those two months between the time my mother told me of your relations with Lady Dudley, and your return to Clochegourde. I wished to go to Paris; murder was in my heart; I desired that woman's death; I was indifferent to my children. Prayer, which had hitherto been to me a balm, was now without influence on my soul. Jealousy made the breach through which death has entered. And yet I have kept a placid brow. Yes, that period of struggle was a secret between God and myself. After your return and when I saw that I was loved, even as I loved you, that nature had betrayed me and not your thought, I wished to live, --it was then too late! God had taken me under His protection, filled no doubt with pity for a being true with herself, true with Him, whose sufferings had often led her to the gates of the sanctuary. 

 My beloved! God has judged me, Monsieur de Mortsauf will pardon me, but you--will you be merciful? Will you listen to this voice which now issues from my tomb? Will you repair the evils of which we are equally guilty?--you, perhaps, less than I. You know what I wish to ask of you. Be to Monsieur de Mortsauf what a sister of charity is to a sick man; listen to him, love him--no one loves him. Interpose between him and his children as I have done. Your task will not be a long one. Jacques will soon leave home to be in Paris near his grandfather, and you have long promised me to guide him through the dangers of that life. As for Madeleine, she will marry; I pray that you may please her. She is all myself, but stronger; she has the will in which I am lacking; the energy necessary for the companion of a man whose career destines him to the storms of political life; she is clever and perceptive. If your lives are united she will be happier than her mother. By acquiring the right to continue my work at Clochegourde you will blot out the faults I have not sufficiently expiated, though they are pardoned in heaven and also on earth, for _he_ is generous and will forgive me. You see I am ever selfish; is it not the proof of a despotic love? I wish you to still love me in mine. Unable to be yours in life, I bequeath to you my thoughts and also my duties. If you do not wish to marry Madeleine you will at least seek the repose of my soul by making Monsieur de Mortsauf as happy as he ever can be. 

 Farewell, dear child of my heart; this is the farewell of a mind absolutely sane, still full of life; the farewell of a spirit on which thou hast shed too many and too great joys to suffer thee to feel remorse for the catastrophe they have caused. I use that word "catastrophe" thinking of you and how you love me; as for me, I reach the haven of my rest, sacrificed to duty and not without regret--ah! I tremble at that thought. God knows better than I whether I have fulfilled his holy laws in accordance with their spirit. Often, no doubt, I have tottered, but I have not fallen; the most potent cause of my wrong-doing lay in the grandeur of the seductions that encompassed me. The Lord will behold me trembling when I enter His presence as though I had succumbed. Farewell again, a long farewell like that I gave last night to our dear valley, where I soon shall rest and where you will often--will you not?--return. 

Henriette. 

I fell into an abyss of terrible reflections, as I perceived thedepths unknown of the life now lighted up by this expiring flame. Theclouds of my egotism rolled away. She had suffered as much as I--morethan I, for she was dead. She believed that others would be kind toher friend; she was so blinded by love that she had never so much assuspected the enmity of her daughter. That last proof of hertenderness pained me terribly. Poor Henriette wished to give meClochegourde and her daughter. 

Natalie, from that dread day when first I entered a graveyardfollowing the remains of my noble Henriette, whom now you know, thesun has been less warm, less luminous, the nights more gloomy, movement less agile, thought more dull. There are some departed whomwe bury in the earth, but there are others more deeply loved for whomour souls are winding-sheets, whose memory mingles daily with ourheart-beats; we think of them as we breathe; they are in us by thetender law of a metempsychosis special to love. A soul is within mysoul. When some good thing is done by me, when some true word isspoken, that soul acts and speaks. All that is good within me issuesfrom that grave, as the fragrance of a lily fills the air; sarcasm, bitterness, all that you blame in me is mine. Natalie, when next myeyes are darkened by a cloud or raised to heaven after longcontemplation of earth, when my lips make no reply to your words oryour devotion, do not ask me again, "Of what are you thinking?"

 * * * * *

Dear Natalie, I ceased to write some days ago; these memories were toobitter for me. Still, I owe you an account of the events whichfollowed this catastrophe; they need few words. When a life is made upof action and movement it is soon told, but when it passes in thehigher regions of the soul its story becomes diffuse. Henriette'sletter put the star of hope before my eyes. In this great shipwreck Isaw an isle on which I might be rescued. To live at Clochegourde withMadeleine, consecrating my life to hers, was a fate which satisfiedthe ideas of which my heart was full. But it was necessary to know thetruth as to her real feelings. As I was bound to bid the countfarewell, I went to Clochegourde to see him, and met him on theterrace. We walked up and down for some time. At first he spoke of thecountess like a man who knew the extent of his loss, and all theinjury it was doing to his inner self. But after the first outbreak ofhis grief was over he seemed more concerned about the future than thepresent. He feared his daughter, who, he told me, had not her mother'sgentleness. Madeleine's firm character, in which there was somethingheroic blending with her mother's gracious nature, alarmed the oldman, used to Henriette's tenderness, and he now foresaw the power of awill that never yielded. His only consolation for his irreparableloss, he said, was the certainty of soon rejoining his wife; theagitations, the griefs of these last few weeks had increased hisillness and brought back all his former pains; the struggle which heforesaw between his authority as a father and that of his daughter, now mistress of the house, would end his days in bitterness; forthough he should have struggled against his wife, he should, he knew, be forced to give way before his child. Besides, his son was soon toleave him; his daughter would marry, and what sort of son-in-law washe likely to have? Though he thus talked of dying, his real distresswas in feeling himself alone for many years to come without sympathy. 

During this hour when he spoke only of himself, and asked for myfriendship in his wife's name, he completed a picture in my mind ofthe remarkable figure of the Emigre, --one of the most imposing typesof our period. In appearance he was frail and broken, but life seemedpersistent in him because of his sober habits and his countryavocations. He is still living. 

Though Madeleine could see me on the terrace, she did not come down. Several times she came out upon the portico and went back in again, asif to signify her contempt. I seized a moment when she appeared to begthe count to go to the house and call her, saying I had a last wish ofher mother to convey to her, and this would be my only opportunity ofdoing so. The count brought her, and left us alone together on theterrace. 

"Dear Madeleine, " I said, "if I am to speak to you, surely it shouldbe here where your mother listened to me when she felt she had lessreason to complain of me than of the circumstances of life. I knowyour thoughts; but are you not condemning me without a knowledge ofthe facts? My life and happiness are bound up in this place; you knowthat, and yet you seek to banish me by the coldness you show, in placeof the brotherly affection which has always united us, and which deathshould have strengthened by the bonds of a common grief. DearMadeleine, you for whom I would gladly give my life without hope ofrecompense, without your even knowing it, --so deeply do we love thechildren of those who have succored us, --you are not aware of theproject your adorable mother cherished during the last seven years. Ifyou knew it your feelings would doubtless soften towards me; but I donot wish to take advantage of you now. All that I ask is that you donot deprive me of the right to come here, to breathe the air on thisterrace, and to wait until time has changed your ideas of social life. At this moment I desire not to ruffle them; I respect a grief whichmisleads you, for it takes even from me the power of judging soberlythe circumstances in which I find myself. The saint who now looks downupon us will approve the reticence with which I simply ask that youstand neutral between your present feelings and my wishes. I love youtoo well, in spite of the aversion you are showing me, to say one wordto the count of a proposal he would welcome eagerly. Be free. Later, remember that you know no one in the world as you know me, that no manwill ever have more devoted feelings--"

Up to this moment Madeleine had listened with lowered eyes; now shestopped me by a gesture. 

"Monsieur, " she said, in a voice trembling with emotion. "I know allyour thoughts; but I shall not change my feelings towards you. I wouldrather fling myself into the Indre than ally myself to you. I will notspeak to you of myself, but if my mother's name still possesses anypower over you, in her name I beg you never to return to Clochegourdeso long as I am in it. The mere sight of you causes me a repugnance Icannot express, but which I shall never overcome. "

She bowed to me with dignity, and returned to the house withoutlooking back, impassible as her mother had been for one day only, butmore pitiless. The searching eye of that young girl had discovered, though tardily, the secrets of her mother's heart, and her hatred tothe man whom she fancied fatal to her mother's life may have beenincreased by a sense of her innocent complicity. 

All before me was now chaos. Madeleine hated me, without consideringwhether I was the cause or the victim of these misfortunes. She mighthave hated us equally, her mother and me, had we been happy. Thus itwas that the edifice of my happiness fell in ruins. I alone knew thelife of that unknown, noble woman. I alone had entered every region ofher soul; neither mother, father, husband, nor children had ever knownher. --Strange truth! I stir this heap of ashes and take pleasure inspreading them before you; all hearts may find something in them oftheir closest experience. How many families have had their Henriette!How many noble feelings have left this earth with no historian tofathom their hearts, to measure the depth and breadth of theirspirits. Such is human life in all its truth! Often mothers know theirchildren as little as their children know them. So it is withhusbands, lovers, brothers. Did I imagine that one day, beside myfather's coffin, I should contend with my brother Charles, for whoseadvancement I had done so much? Good God! how many lessons in thesimplest history. 

When Madeleine disappeared into the house, I went away with a brokenheart. Bidding farewell to my host at Sache, I started for Paris, following the right bank of the Indre, the one I had taken when Ientered the valley for the first time. Sadly I drove through thepretty village of Pont-de-Ruan. Yet I was rich, political life courtedme; I was not the weary plodder of 1814. Then my heart was full ofeager desires, now my eyes were full of tears; once my life was allbefore me to fill as I could, now I knew it to be a desert. I wasstill young, --only twenty-nine, --but my heart was withered. A fewyears had sufficed to despoil that landscape of its early glory, andto disgust me with life. You can imagine my feelings when, on turninground, I saw Madeleine on the terrace. 

A prey to imperious sadness, I gave no thought to the end of myjourney. Lady Dudley was far, indeed, from my mind, and I entered thecourtyard of her house without reflection. The folly once committed, Iwas forced to carry it out. My habits were conjugal in her house, andI went upstairs thinking of the annoyances of a rupture. If you havefully understood the character and manners of Lady Dudley, you canimagine my discomfiture when her majordomo ushered me, still in mytravelling dress, into a salon where I found her sumptuously dressedand surrounded by four persons. Lord Dudley, one of the mostdistinguished old statesmen of England, was standing with his back tothe fireplace, stiff, haughty, frigid, with the sarcastic air hedoubtless wore in parliament; he smiled when he heard my name. Arabella's two children, who were amazingly like de Marsay (a naturalson of the old lord), were near their mother; de Marsay himself was onthe sofa beside her. As soon as Arabella saw me she assumed a distantair, and glanced at my travelling cap as if to ask what brought methere. She looked me over from head to foot, as though I were somecountry gentlemen just presented to her. As for our intimacy, thateternal passion, those vows of suicide if I ceased to love her, thosevisions of Armida, all had vanished like a dream. I had never claspedher hand; I was a stranger; she knew me not. In spite of thediplomatic self-possession to which I was gradually being trained, Iwas confounded; and all others in my place would have felt the same. De Marsay smiled at his boots, which he examined with remarkableinterest. I decided at once upon my course. From any other woman Ishould modestly have accepted my defeat; but, outraged at the glowingappearance of the heroine who had vowed to die for love, and who hadscoffed at the woman who was really dead, I resolved to meet insolencewith insolence. She knew very well the misfortunes of Lady Brandon; toremind her of them was to send a dagger to her heart, though theweapon might be blunted by the blow. 

"Madame, " I said, "I am sure you will pardon my unceremoniousentrance, when I tell you that I have just arrived from Touraine, andthat Lady Brandon has given me a message for you which allows of nodelay. I feared you had already started for Lancashire, but as you arestill in Paris I will await your orders at any hour you may be pleasedto appoint. "

She bowed, and I left the room. Since that day I have only met her insociety, where we exchange a friendly bow, and occasionally a sarcasm. I talk to her of the inconsolable women of Lancashire; she makesallusion to Frenchwomen who dignify their gastric troubles by callingthem despair. Thanks to her, I have a mortal enemy in de Marsay, ofwhom she is very fond. In return, I call her the wife of twogenerations. 

So my disaster was complete; it lacked nothing. I followed the plan Ihad laid out for myself during my retreat at Sache; I plunged intowork and gave myself wholly to science, literature, and politics. Ientered the diplomatic service on the accession of Charles X. , whosuppressed the employment I held under the late king. From that momentI was firmly resolved to pay no further attention to any woman, nomatter how beautiful, witty, or loving she might be. Thisdetermination succeeded admirably; I obtained a really marvelloustranquillity of mind, and great powers of work, and I came tounderstand how much these women waste our lives, believing, all thewhile, that a few gracious words will repay us. 

But--all my resolutions came to naught; you know how and why. DearNatalie, in telling you my life, without reserve, without concealment, precisely as I tell it to myself, in relating to you feelings in whichyou have had no share, perhaps I have wounded some corner of yoursensitive and jealous heart. But that which might anger a common womanwill be to you--I feel sure of it--an additional reason for loving me. Noble women have indeed a sublime mission to fulfil to suffering andsickened hearts, --the mission of the sister of charity who stanchesthe wound, of the mother who forgives a child. Artists and poets arenot the only ones who suffer; men who work for their country, for thefuture destiny of the nations, enlarging thus the circle of theirpassions and their thoughts, often make for themselves a cruelsolitude. They need a pure, devoted love beside them, --believe me, they understand its grandeur and its worth. 

To-morrow I shall know if I have deceived myself in loving you. 

Felix. 

ANSWER TO THE ENVOI

 Madame la Comtesse Natalie de Manerville to Monsieur le Comte Felix de Vandenesse. 

 Dear Count, --You received a letter from poor Madame de Mortsauf, which, you say, was of use in guiding you through the world, --a letter to which you owe your distinguished career. Permit me to finish your education. 

 Give up, I beg of you, a really dreadful habit; do not imitate certain widows who talk of their first husband and throw the virtues of the deceased in the face of their second. I am a Frenchwoman, dear count; I wish to marry the whole of the man I love, and I really cannot marry Madame de Mortsauf too. Having read your tale with all the attention it deserves, --and you know the interest I feel in you, --it seems to me that you must have wearied Lady Dudley with the perfections of Madame de Mortsauf, and done great harm to the countess by overwhelming her with the experiences of your English love. Also you have failed in tact to me, poor creature without other merit than that of pleasing you; you have given me to understand that I cannot love as Henriette or Arabella loved you. I acknowledge my imperfections; I know them; but why so roughly make me feel them?

 Shall I tell you whom I pity?--the fourth woman whom you love. She will be forced to struggle against three others. Therefore, in your interests as well as in hers, I must warn you against the dangers of your tale. For myself, I renounce the laborious glory of loving you, --it needs too many virtues, Catholic or Anglican, and I have no fancy for rivalling phantoms. The virtues of the virgin of Clochegourde would dishearten any woman, however sure of herself she might be, and your intrepid English amazon discourages even a wish for that sort of happiness. No matter what a poor woman may do, she can never hope to give you the joys she will aspire to give. Neither heart nor senses can triumph against these memories of yours. I own that I have never been able to warm the sunshine chilled for you by the death of your sainted Henriette. I have felt you shuddering beside me. 

 My friend, --for you will always be my friend, --never make such confidences again; they lay bare your disillusions; they discourage love, and compel a woman to feel doubtful of herself. Love, dear count, can only live on trustfulness. The woman who before she says a word or mounts her horse, must ask herself whether a celestial Henriette might not have spoken better, whether a rider like Arabella was not more graceful, that woman you may be very sure, will tremble in all her members. You certainly have given me a desire to receive a few of those intoxicating bouquets--but you say you will make no more. There are many other things you dare no longer do; thoughts and enjoyments you can never reawaken. No woman, and you ought to know this, will be willing to elbow in your heart the phantom whom you hold there. 

 You ask me to love you out of Christian charity. I could do much, I candidly admit, for charity; in fact I could do all--except love. You are sometimes wearisome and wearied; you call your dulness melancholy. Very good, --so be it; but all the same it is intolerable, and causes much cruel anxiety to one who loves you. I have often found the grave of that saint between us. I have searched my own heart, I know myself, and I own I do not wish to die as she did. If you tired out Lady Dudley, who is a very distinguished woman, I, who have not her passionate desires, should, I fear, turn coldly against you even sooner than she did. Come, let us suppress love between us, inasmuch as you can find happiness only with the dead, and let us be merely friends--I wish it. 

 Ah! my dear count, what a history you have told me! At your entrance into life you found an adorable woman, a perfect mistress, who thought of your future, made you a peer, loved you to distraction, only asked that you would be faithful to her, and you killed her! I know nothing more monstrous. Among all the passionate and unfortunate young men who haunt the streets of Paris, I doubt if there is one who would not stay virtuous ten years to obtain one half of the favors you did not know how to value! When a man is loved like that how can he ask more? Poor woman! she suffered indeed; and after you have written a few sentimental phrases you think you have balanced your account with her coffin. Such, no doubt, is the end that awaits my tenderness for you. Thank you, dear count, I will have no rival on either side of the grave. When a man has such a crime upon his conscience, at least he ought not to tell of it. I made you an imprudent request; but I was true to my woman's part as a daughter of Eve, --it was your part to estimate the effect of the answer. You ought to have deceived me; later I should have thanked you. Is it possible that you have never understood the special virtue of lovers? Can you not feel how generous they are in swearing that they have never loved before, and love at last for the first time?

 No, your programme cannot be carried out. To attempt to be both Madame de Mortsauf and Lady Dudley, --why, my dear friend, it would be trying to unite fire and water within me! Is it possible that you don't know women? Believe me, they are what they are, and they have therefore the defects of their virtues. You met Lady Dudley too early in life to appreciate her, and the harm you say of her seems to me the revenge of your wounded vanity. You understood Madame de Mortsauf too late; you punished one for not being the other, --what would happen to me if I were neither the one nor the other? I love you enough to have thought deeply about your future; in fact, I really care for you a great deal. Your air of the Knight of the Sad Countenance has always deeply interested me; I believed in the constancy of melancholy men; but I little thought that you had killed the loveliest and the most virtuous of women at the opening of your life. 

 Well, I ask myself, what remains for you to do? I have thought it over carefully. I think, my friend, that you will have to marry a Mrs. Shandy, who will know nothing of love or of passion, and will not trouble herself about Madame de Mortsauf or Lady Dudley; who will be wholly indifferent to those moments of ennui which you call melancholy, during which you are as lively as a rainy day, --a wife who will be to you, in short, the excellent sister of charity whom you are seeking. But as for loving, quivering at a word, anticipating happiness, giving it, receiving it, experiencing all the tempests of passion, cherishing the little weaknesses of a beloved woman--my dear count, renounce it all! You have followed the advice of your good angel about young women too closely; you have avoided them so carefully that now you know nothing about them. Madame de Mortsauf was right to place you high in life at the start; otherwise all women would have been against you, and you never would have risen in society. 

 It is too late now to begin your training over again; too late to learn to tell us what we long to hear; to be superior to us at the right moment, or to worship our pettiness when it pleases us to be petty. We are not so silly as you think us. When we love we place the man of our choice above all else. Whatever shakes our faith in our supremacy shakes our love. In flattering us men flatter themselves. If you intend to remain in society, to enjoy an intercourse with women, you must carefully conceal from them all that you have told me; they will not be willing to sow the flowers of their love upon the rocks or lavish their caresses to soothe a sickened spirit. Women will discover the barrenness of your heart and you will be ever more and more unhappy. Few among them would be frank enough to tell you what I have told you, or sufficiently good-natured to leave you without rancor, offering their friendship, like the woman who now subscribes herself

Your devoted friend, Natalie de Manerville. 

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. 

Birotteau, Abbe Francois Cesar Birotteau The Vicar of Tours

Blamont-Chauvry, Princesse de The Thirteen Madame Firmiani

Brandon, Lady Marie Augusta The Member for Arcis La Grenadiere

Chessel, Madame de The Government Clerks

Dudley, Lord The Thirteen A Man of Business Another Study of Woman A Daughter of Eve

Dudley, Lady Arabella The Ball at Sceaux The Magic Skin The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve Letters of Two Brides

Givry Letters of Two Brides Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Lenoncourt, Duc de Cesar Birotteau Jealousies of a Country Town The Gondreville Mystery Beatrix

Lenoncourt-Givry, Duchesse de Letters of Two Brides Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Listomere, Marquis de A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Study of Woman

Listomere, Marquise de Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Study of Woman A Daughter of Eve

Louis XVIII. , Louis-Stanislas-Xavier The Chouans The Seamy Side of History The Gondreville Mystery Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Ball at Sceaux Colonel Chabert The Government Clerks

Manerville, Comtesse Paul de A Marriage Settlement A Daughter of Eve

Marsay, Henri de The Thirteen The Unconscious Humorists Another Study of Woman Father Goriot Jealousies of a Country Town Ursule Mirouet A Marriage Settlement Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Letters of Two Brides The Ball at Sceaux Modeste Mignon The Secrets of a Princess The Gondreville Mystery A Daughter of Eve

Stanhope, Lady Esther Lost Illusions

Vandenesse, Comte Felix de Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Cesar Birotteau Letters of Two Brides A Start in Life The Marriage Settlement The Secrets of a Princess Another Study of Woman The Gondreville Mystery A Daughter of Eve