The Lily of the Valley

CHAPTER I

TWO CHILD­HOODS

To what ge­nius fed on tears shall we some day owe that most touch­ing of all ele­gies,--the tale of tor­tures borne silent­ly by souls whose ten­der roots find stony ground in the do­mes­tic soil, whose ear­li­est buds are torn apart by ran­corous hands, whose flow­ers are touched by frost at the mo­ment of their blos­som­ing? What po­et will sing the sor­rows of the child whose lips must suck a bit­ter breast, whose smiles are checked by the cru­el fire of a stern eye? The tale that tells of such poor hearts, op­pressed by be­ings placed about them to pro­mote the de­vel­op­ment of their na­tures, would con­tain the true his­to­ry of my child­hood.

What van­ity could I have wound­ed,--I a child new-​born? What moral or phys­ical in­fir­mi­ty caused by moth­er's cold­ness? Was I the child of du­ty, whose birth is a mere chance, or was I one whose very life was a re­proach? Put to nurse in the coun­try and for­got­ten by my fam­ily for over three years, I was treat­ed with such in­dif­fer­ence on my re­turn to the parental roof that even the ser­vants pitied me. I do not know to what feel­ing or hap­py ac­ci­dent I owed my res­cue from this first ne­glect; as a child I was ig­no­rant of it, as a man I have not dis­cov­ered it. Far from eas­ing my lot, my broth­er and my two sis­ters found amuse­ment in mak­ing me suf­fer. The com­pact in virtue of which chil­dren hide each oth­er's pec­ca­dil­loes, and which ear­ly teach­es them the 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 to prove the in­jus­tice. The fawn­ing spir­it which seems in­stinc­tive in chil­dren taught my broth­er and sis­ters to join in the per­se­cu­tions to which I was sub­ject­ed, and thus keep in the good graces of a moth­er whom they feared as much as I. Was this part­ly the ef­fect of a child­ish love of im­ita­tion; was it from a need of test­ing their pow­ers; or was it sim­ply through lack of pity? Per­haps these caus­es unit­ed to de­prive me of the sweets of fra­ter­nal in­ter­course.

Dis­in­her­it­ed of all af­fec­tion, I could love noth­ing; yet na­ture had made me lov­ing. Is there an an­gel who gar­ners the sighs of feel­ing hearts re­buffed in­ces­sant­ly? If in many such hearts the crushed feel­ings turn to ha­tred, in mine they con­densed and hol­lowed a depth from which, in af­ter years, they gushed forth up­on my life. In many char­ac­ters the habit of trem­bling re­lax­es the fi­bres and begets fear, and fear ends in sub­mis­sion; hence, a weak­ness which emas­cu­lates a man, and makes him more or less a slave. But in my case these per­pet­ual tor­tures led to the de­vel­op­ment of a cer­tain strength, which in­creased through ex­er­cise and pre­dis­posed my spir­it to the habit of moral re­sis­tance. Al­ways in ex­pec­ta­tion of some new grief--as the mar­tyrs ex­pect­ed some fresh blow--my whole be­ing ex­pressed, I doubt not, a sullen res­ig­na­tion which smoth­ered the grace and gai­ety of child­hood, and gave me an ap­pear­ance of id­io­cy which seemed to jus­ti­fy my moth­er's threat­en­ing prophe­cies. The cer­tain­ty of in­jus­tice pre­ma­ture­ly 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 her so­lic­itude; she oc­ca­sion­al­ly spoke of my ed­uca­tion and seemed de­sirous of at­tend­ing to it her­self. Cold chills ran through me at such times when I thought of the tor­ture a dai­ly in­ter­course with her would in­flict up­on me. I blessed the ne­glect in which I lived, and re­joiced that I could stay alone in the gar­den and play with the peb­bles and watch the in­sects and gaze in­to the blue­ness of the sky. Though my lone­li­ness nat­ural­ly led me to rever­ie, my lik­ing for con­tem­pla­tion was first aroused by an in­ci­dent which will give you an idea of my ear­ly trou­bles. So lit­tle no­tice was tak­en of me that the gov­erness oc­ca­sion­al­ly for­got to send me to bed. One evening I was peace­ful­ly crouch­ing un­der a fig-​tree, watch­ing a star with that pas­sion of cu­rios­ity which takes pos­ses­sion of a child's mind, and to which my pre­co­cious melan­choly gave a sort of sen­ti­men­tal in­tu­ition. My sis­ters were play­ing about and laugh­ing; I heard their dis­tant chat­ter like an ac­com­pa­ni­ment to my thoughts. Af­ter a while the noise ceased and dark­ness fell. My moth­er hap­pened to no­tice my ab­sence. To es­cape blame, our gov­erness, a ter­ri­ble Made­moi­selle Car­oline, worked up­on my moth­er's fears,--told her I had a hor­ror of my home and would long ago have run away if she had not watched me; that I was not stupid but sullen; and that in all her ex­pe­ri­ence of chil­dren she had nev­er known one of so bad a dis­po­si­tion as mine. She pre­tend­ed to search for me. I an­swered as soon as I was called, and she came to the fig-​tree, where she very well knew I was. “What are you do­ing there?” she asked. “Watch­ing a star.” “You were not watch­ing a star,” said my moth­er, who was lis­ten­ing on her bal­cony; “chil­dren of your age know noth­ing of as­tron­omy.” “Ah, madame,” cried Made­moi­selle Car­oline, “he has opened the faucet of the reser­voir; the gar­den is in­un­dat­ed!” Then there was a gen­er­al ex­cite­ment. The fact was that my sis­ters had amused them­selves by turn­ing the cock to see the wa­ter flow, but a sud­den spurt wet them all over and fright­ened them so much that they ran away with­out clos­ing it. Ac­cused and con­vict­ed of this piece of mis­chief and told that I lied when I de­nied it, I was severe­ly pun­ished. Worse than all, I was jeered at for my pre­tend­ed love of the stars and for­bid­den to stay in the gar­den af­ter dark.

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

My broth­er Charles, five years old­er than I and as hand­some a boy as he 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 and well-​made, and had a tu­tor. I, puny and even sick­ly, was sent at five years of age as day pupil to a school in the town; tak­en in the morn­ing and brought back at night by my fa­ther's valet. I was sent with a scanty lunch, while my school-​fel­lows brought plen­ty of good food. This tri­fling con­trast be­tween my pri­va­tions and their pros­per­ity made me suf­fer 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 ready when we re­turned from school. This prepa­ra­tion of meat, much prized by cer­tain gour­mands, is sel­dom seen at Tours on aris­to­crat­ic ta­bles; if I had ev­er heard of it be­fore I went to school, I cer­tain­ly had nev­er had the hap­pi­ness of see­ing that brown mess spread on slices of bread and but­ter. Nev­er­the­less, my de­sire for those “ril­lons” was so great that it grew to be a fixed idea, like the long­ing of an el­egant Parisian duchess for the stews cooked by a porter's wife,--long­ings which, be­ing a wom­an, she found means to sat­is­fy. Chil­dren guess each oth­er's cov­etous­ness, just as you are able to read a man's love, by the look in the eyes; con­se­quent­ly I be­came an ad­mirable butt for ridicule. My com­rades, near­ly all be­long­ing to the low­er bour­geoisie, would show me their “ril­lons” and ask if I knew how they were made and where they were sold, and why it was that I nev­er had any. They licked their lips as they talked of them--scraps of pork pressed in their own fat and look­ing like cooked truf­fles; they in­spect­ed my lunch-​bas­ket, and find­ing noth­ing bet­ter than Olivet cheese or dried fruits, they plagued me with ques­tions: “Is that all you have? have you re­al­ly noth­ing else?”--speech­es which made me re­al­ize the dif­fer­ence be­tween my broth­er and my­self.

This con­trast be­tween my own aban­don­ment and the hap­pi­ness of oth­ers nipped the ros­es of my child­hood and blight­ed my bud­ding youth. The first time that I, mis­tak­ing my com­rades' ac­tions for gen­eros­ity, put forth my hand to take the dain­ty I had so long cov­et­ed and which was now hyp­ocrit­ical­ly held out to me, my tor­men­tor pulled back his slice to the great de­light of his com­rades who were ex­pect­ing that re­sult. If no­ble and dis­tin­guished minds are, as we of­ten find them, ca­pa­ble of van­ity, can we blame the child who weeps when de­spised and jeered at? Un­der such a tri­al many boys would have turned in­to glut­tons and cring­ing beg­gars. I fought to es­cape my per­se­cu­tors. The courage of de­spair made me formidable; but I was hat­ed, and thus had no pro­tec­tion against treach­ery. One evening as I left school I was struck in the back by a hand­ful of small stones tied in a hand­ker­chief. When the valet, who pun­ished the per­pe­tra­tor, told this to my moth­er she ex­claimed: “That dread­ful child! he will al­ways be a tor­ment to us.”

Find­ing that I in­spired in my school­mates the same re­pul­sion that was felt for me by my fam­ily, I sank in­to a hor­ri­ble dis­trust of my­self. A sec­ond fall of snow checked the seeds that were ger­mi­nat­ing in my soul. The boys whom I most liked were no­to­ri­ous scamps; this fact roused my pride and I held aloof. Again I was shut up with­in my­self and had no vent for the feel­ings with which my heart was full. The mas­ter of the school, ob­serv­ing that I was gloomy, dis­liked by my com­rades, and al­ways alone, con­firmed the fam­ily ver­dict as to my sulky tem­per. As soon as I could read and write, my moth­er trans­ferred me to Pont-​le-​Voy, a school in charge of Or­ato­ri­ans who took boys of my age in­to a form called the “class of the Latin steps” where dull lads with tor­pid brains were apt to linger.

There I re­mained eight years with­out see­ing my fam­ily; liv­ing the life of a pari­ah,--part­ly for the fol­low­ing rea­son. I re­ceived but three francs a month pock­et-​mon­ey, a sum bare­ly suf­fi­cient to buy the pens, ink, pa­per, knives, and rules which we were forced to sup­ply our­selves. Un­able to buy stilts or skip­ping-​ropes, or any of the things that were used in the play­ground, I was driv­en out of the games; to gain ad­mis­sion on suf­frage I should have had to toady the rich and flat­ter the strong of my di­vi­sion. My heart rose against ei­ther of these mean­ness­es, which, how­ev­er, most chil­dren read­ily em­ploy. I lived un­der a tree, lost in de­ject­ed thought, or read­ing the books dis­tribut­ed to us month­ly by the li­brar­ian. How many griefs were in the shad­ow of that soli­tude; what gen­uine an­guish filled my ne­glect­ed life! Imag­ine what my sore heart felt when, at the first dis­tri­bu­tion of prizes,--of which I ob­tained the two most val­ued, name­ly, for theme and for trans­la­tion,--nei­ther my fa­ther nor my moth­er was present in the the­atre when I came for­ward to re­ceive the awards amid gen­er­al ac­cla­ma­tions, al­though the build­ing was filled with the rel­atives of all my com­rades. In­stead of kiss­ing the dis­trib­utor, ac­cord­ing to cus­tom, I burst in­to tears and threw my­self on his breast. That night I burned my crowns in the stove. The par­ents of the oth­er boys were in town for a whole week pre­ced­ing the dis­tri­bu­tion of the prizes, and my com­rades de­part­ed joy­ful­ly the next day; while I, whose fa­ther and moth­er were on­ly a few miles dis­tant, re­mained at the school with the “out­remers,”--a name giv­en to schol­ars whose fam­ilies were in the colonies or in for­eign coun­tries.

You will no­tice through­out how my un­hap­pi­ness in­creased in pro­por­tion as the so­cial spheres on which I en­tered widened. God knows what ef­forts I made to weak­en the de­cree which con­demned me to live with­in my­self! What hopes, long cher­ished with ea­ger­ness of soul, were doomed to per­ish in a day! To per­suade my par­ents to come and see me, I wrote them let­ters full of feel­ing, too em­phat­ical­ly word­ed, it may be; but sure­ly such let­ters ought not to have drawn up­on me my moth­er's rep­ri­mand, cou­pled with iron­ical re­proach­es for my style. Not dis­cour­aged even then, I im­plored the help of my sis­ters, to whom I al­ways wrote on their birth­days and fete-​days with the per­sis­tence of a ne­glect­ed child; but it was all in vain. As the day for the dis­tri­bu­tion of prizes ap­proached I re­dou­bled my en­treaties, and told of my ex­pect­ed tri­umphs. Mis­led by my par­ents' si­lence, I ex­pect­ed them with a beat­ing heart. I told my schoolfel­lows they were com­ing; and then, when the old porter's step sound­ed in the cor­ri­dors as he called my hap­py com­rades one by one to re­ceive their friends, I was sick with ex­pec­ta­tion. Nev­er did that old man call my name!

One day, when I ac­cused my­self to my con­fes­sor of hav­ing cursed my life, he point­ed to the skies, where grew, he said, the promised palm for the “Beati qui lu­gent” of the Saviour. From the pe­ri­od of my first com­mu­nion I flung my­self in­to the mys­te­ri­ous depths of prayer, at­tract­ed to re­li­gious ideas whose moral fairy­land so fas­ci­nates young spir­its. Burn­ing with ar­dent faith, I prayed to God to re­new in my be­half the mir­acles I had read of in mar­ty­rol­ogy. At five years of age I fled to my star; at twelve I took refuge in the sanc­tu­ary. My ec­sta­sy brought dreams un­speak­able, which fed my imag­ina­tion, fos­tered my sus­cep­ti­bil­ities, and strength­ened my think­ing pow­ers. I have of­ten at­tribut­ed those sub­lime vi­sions to the guardian an­gel charged with mould­ing my spir­it to its di­vine des­tiny; they en­dowed my soul with the fac­ul­ty of see­ing the in­ner soul of things; they pre­pared my heart for the mag­ic craft which makes a man a po­et when the fa­tal pow­er is his to com­pare what he feels with­in him with re­al­ity,--the great things aimed for with the small things gained. Those vi­sions wrote up­on my brain a book in which I read that which I must voice; they laid up­on my lips the coal of ut­ter­ance.

My fa­ther hav­ing con­ceived some doubts as to the ten­den­cy of the Or­ato­ri­an teach­ings, took me from Pont-​le-​Voy, and sent me to Paris to an in­sti­tu­tion in the Marais. I was then fif­teen. When ex­am­ined as to my ca­pac­ity, I, who was in the rhetoric class at Pont-​le-​Voy, was pro­nounced wor­thy of the third class. The suf­fer­ings I had en­dured in my fam­ily and in school were con­tin­ued un­der an­oth­er form dur­ing my stay at the Lep­itre Acade­my. My fa­ther gave me no mon­ey; I was to be fed, 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 as mine. Mon­sieur Lep­itre, who was fa­nat­ical­ly at­tached to the Bour­bons, had had re­la­tions with my fa­ther at the time when all de­vot­ed roy­al­ists were en­deav­or­ing to bring about the es­cape of Marie An­toinette from the Tem­ple. They had late­ly re­newed ac­quain­tance; and Mon­sieur Lep­itre thought him­self obliged to re­pair my fa­ther's over­sight, and to give me a small sum month­ly. But not be­ing au­tho­rized to do so, the amount was small in­deed.

The Lep­itre es­tab­lish­ment was in the old Joyeuse man­sion where, as in all seigno­ri­al hous­es, there was a porter's lodge. Dur­ing a re­cess, which pre­ced­ed the hour when the man-​of-​all-​work took us to the Charle­magne Lyceum, the well-​to-​do pupils used to break­fast with the porter, named Doisy. Mon­sieur Lep­itre was ei­ther ig­no­rant of the fact or he con­nived at this ar­range­ment with Doisy, a reg­ular smug­gler whom it was the pupils' in­ter­est to pro­tect,--he be­ing the se­cret guardian of their pranks, the safe con­fi­dant of their late re­turns and their in­ter­me­di­ary for ob­tain­ing for­bid­den books. Break­fast on a cup of “cafe-​au-​lait” is an aris­to­crat­ic habit, ex­plained by the high prices to which colo­nial prod­ucts rose un­der Napoleon. If the use of sug­ar and cof­fee was a lux­ury to our par­ents, with us it was the sign of self-​con­scious su­pe­ri­or­ity. Doisy gave cred­it, for he reck­oned on the sis­ters and aunts of the pupils, who made it a point of hon­or to pay their debts. I re­sist­ed the blan­dish­ments of his place for a long time. If my judges knew the strength of its se­duc­tion, the hero­ic ef­forts I made af­ter sto­icism, the re­pressed de­sires of my long re­sis­tance, 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 whose pow­er 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 in the Palais-​Roy­al, so as to be near the The­atre-​Fran­cais. In spite of the in­tox­ica­tion such a pro­gramme of un­hoped-​for de­lights ex­cit­ed, my joy was damp­ened by the wind of a com­ing storm, which those who are used to un­hap­pi­ness ap­pre­hend in­stinc­tive­ly. I was forced to own a debt of a hun­dred francs to the Sieur Doisy, who threat­ened to ask my par­ents him­self for the mon­ey. I bethought me of mak­ing my broth­er the emis­sary of Doisy, the mouth-​piece of my re­pen­tance and the me­di­ator of par­don. My fa­ther in­clined to for­give­ness, but my moth­er was piti­less; her dark blue eye froze me; she ful­mi­nat­ed cru­el prophe­cies: “What should I be lat­er if at sev­en­teen years of age I com­mit­ted such fol­lies? Was I re­al­ly a son of hers? Did I mean to ru­in my fam­ily? Did I think my­self the on­ly child of the house? My broth­er Charles's ca­reer, al­ready be­gun, re­quired large out­lay, am­ply de­served by his con­duct which did hon­or to the fam­ily, while mine would al­ways dis­grace it. Did I know noth­ing of the val­ue of mon­ey, and what I cost them? Of what use were cof­fee and sug­ar to my ed­uca­tion? Such con­duct was the first step in­to all the vices.”

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

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

The Palais-​Roy­al was an El­do­ra­do of love where the in­gots melt­ed away in coin; there vir­gin doubts were over; there cu­rios­ity was ap­peased. The Palais-​Roy­al and I were two asymp­totes bear­ing one to­wards the oth­er, yet un­able to meet. Fate mis­car­ried all my at­tempts. My fa­ther had 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 house by ei­ther Mon­sieur or Madame Lep­itre, who went out them­selves on those days and were to call for me on their way home. Sin­gu­lar amuse­ment for a young lad! My aunt, the Mar­quise de Lis­tomere, was a great la­dy, of cer­emo­ni­ous habits, who would nev­er have dreamed of of­fer­ing me mon­ey. Old as a cathe­dral, paint­ed like a minia­ture, sump­tu­ous in dress, she lived in her great house as though Louis XV. were not dead, and saw none but old wom­en and men of a past day,--a fos­sil so­ci­ety which made me think I was in a grave­yard. No one spoke to me and I had not the courage to speak first. Cold and alien looks made me ashamed of my youth, which seemed to an­noy them. I count­ed on this in­dif­fer­ence to aid me in cer­tain plans; I was re­solved to es­cape some day di­rect­ly af­ter din­ner and rush to the Palais-​Roy­al. Once seat­ed at whist my aunt would pay no at­ten­tion to me. Jean, the foot­man, cared lit­tle for Mon­sieur Lep­itre and would have aid­ed me; but on the day I chose for my ad­ven­ture that luck­less din­ner was longer than usu­al,--ei­ther be­cause the jaws em­ployed were worn out or the false teeth more im­per­fect. At last, be­tween eight and nine o'clock, I reached the stair­case, my heart beat­ing like that of Bian­ca Capel­lo on the day of her flight; but when the porter pulled the cord I be­held in the street be­fore me Mon­sieur Lep­itre's hack­ney-​coach, and I heard his pursy voice de­mand­ing me!

Three times did fate in­ter­pose be­tween the hell of the Palais-​Roy­al and the heav­en of my youth. On the day when I, ashamed at twen­ty years of age of my own ig­no­rance, de­ter­mined to risk all dan­gers to put an end to it, at the very mo­ment when I was about to run away from Mon­sieur Lep­itre as he got in­to the coach,--a dif­fi­cult pro­cess, for he was as fat as Louis XVI­II. and club-​foot­ed,--well, can you be­lieve it, my moth­er ar­rived in a post-​chaise! Her glance ar­rest­ed me; I stood still, like a bird be­fore a snake. What fate had brought her there? The sim­plest thing in the world. Napoleon was then mak­ing his last ef­forts. My fa­ther, who fore­saw the re­turn of the Bour­bons, had come to Paris with my moth­er to ad­vise my broth­er, who was em­ployed in the im­pe­ri­al diplo­mat­ic ser­vice. My moth­er was to take me back with her, out of the way of dan­gers which seemed, to those who fol­lowed the march of events in­tel­li­gent­ly, to threat­en the cap­ital. In a few min­utes, as it were, I was tak­en out of Paris, at the very mo­ment when my life there was about to be­come fa­tal to me.

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

This slight sketch of my boy­hood, in which you, Na­tal­ie, can read­ily per­ceive in­nu­mer­able songs of woe, was need­ful to ex­plain to you its in­flu­ence on my fu­ture life. At twen­ty years of age, and af­fect­ed by many 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 un­der­go­ing its fi­nal fu­sion in­to a tem­per­ament of iron. Child in body and old in mind, I had read and thought so much that I knew life meta­phys­ical­ly at its high­est reach­es at the mo­ment when I was about to en­ter the tor­tu­ous dif­fi­cul­ties of its de­files and the sandy roads of its plains. A strange chance had held me long in that de­light­ful pe­ri­od when the soul awakes to its first tu­mults, to its de­sires for joy, and the sa­vor of life is fresh. I stood in the pe­ri­od be­tween pu­ber­ty and man­hood,--the one pro­longed by my ex­ces­sive study, the oth­er tardi­ly de­vel­op­ing its liv­ing shoots. No young man was ev­er more thor­ough­ly pre­pared to feel and to love. To un­der­stand my his­to­ry, let your mind dwell on that pure time of youth when the mouth is in­no­cent of false­hood; when the glance of the eye is hon­est, though veiled by lids which droop from timid­ity con­tra­dict­ing de­sire; when the soul bends not to world­ly Je­suit­ism, and the heart throbs as vi­olent­ly from trep­ida­tion as from the gen­er­ous im­puls­es of young emo­tion.

I need say noth­ing of the jour­ney I made with my moth­er from Paris to Tours. The cold­ness of her be­hav­ior re­pressed me. At each re­lay I tried to speak; but a look, a word from her fright­ened away the speech­es I had been med­itat­ing. At Or­leans, where we had passed the night, my moth­er com­plained of my si­lence. I threw my­self at her feet and clasped her knees; with tears I opened my heart. I tried to touch hers by the elo­quence of my hun­gry love in ac­cents that might have moved a step­moth­er. She replied that I was play­ing com­edy. I com­plained that she had aban­doned me. She called me an un­nat­ural child. My whole na­ture was so wrung that at Blois I went up­on the bridge to drown my­self in the Loire. The height of the para­pet pre­vent­ed my sui­cide.

When I reached home, my two sis­ters, who did not know me, showed more sur­prise than ten­der­ness. Af­ter­wards, how­ev­er, they seemed, by com­par­ison, to be full of kind­ness to­wards me. I was giv­en a room on the third sto­ry. You will un­der­stand the ex­tent of my hard­ships when I tell you that my moth­er left me, a young man of twen­ty, with­out oth­er linen than my mis­er­able school out­fit, or any oth­er out­side clothes than those I had long worn in Paris. If I ran from one end of the room to the oth­er to pick up her hand­ker­chief, she took it with the cold thanks a la­dy gives to her foot­man. Driv­en to watch her to find if there were any soft spot where I could fas­ten the rootlets of af­fec­tion, I came to see her as she was,--a tall, spare wom­an, giv­en to cards, ego­tis­ti­cal and in­so­lent, like all the Lis­tomeres, who count in­so­lence as part of their dowry. She saw noth­ing in life ex­cept du­ties to be ful­filled. All cold wom­en whom I have known made, as she did, a re­li­gion of du­ty; she re­ceived our homage as a priest re­ceives the in­cense of the mass. My el­der broth­er ap­peared to ab­sorb the tri­fling sen­ti­ment of ma­ter­ni­ty which was in her na­ture. She stabbed us con­stant­ly with her sharp irony,--the weapon of those who have no heart,--and which she used against us, who could make her no re­ply.

Notwith­stand­ing these thorny hin­drances, the in­stinc­tive sen­ti­ments have so many roots, the re­li­gious fear in­spired by a moth­er whom it is dan­ger­ous to dis­please holds by so many threads, that the sub­lime mis­take--if I may so call it--of our love for our moth­er last­ed un­til the day, much lat­er in our lives, when we judged her fi­nal­ly. This ter­ri­ble despo­tism drove from my mind all thoughts of the volup­tuous en­joy­ments I had dreamed of find­ing at Tours. In de­spair I took refuge in my fa­ther's li­brary, where I set my­self to read ev­ery book I did not know. These long pe­ri­ods of hard study saved me from con­tact with my moth­er; but they ag­gra­vat­ed the dan­gers of my moral con­di­tion. Some­times my el­dest sis­ter--she who af­ter­wards mar­ried our cousin, the Mar­quis de Lis­tomere--tried to com­fort me, with­out, how­ev­er, be­ing able 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. The Duc d'An­gouleme, who had left Bor­deaux to join Louis XVI­II. in Paris, was re­ceived in ev­ery town through which he passed with ova­tions in­spired by the en­thu­si­asm felt through­out old France at the re­turn of the Bour­bons. Touraine was aroused for its le­git­imate princes; the town it­self was in a flut­ter, ev­ery win­dow dec­orat­ed, the in­hab­itants in their Sun­day clothes, a fes­ti­val in prepa­ra­tion, and that name­less ex­cite­ment in the air which in­tox­icates, and which gave me a strong de­sire to be present at the ball giv­en by the duke. When I sum­moned courage to make this re­quest of my moth­er, who was too ill to go her­self, she be­came ex­treme­ly an­gry. “Had I come from Con­go?” she in­quired. “How could I sup­pose that our fam­ily would not be rep­re­sent­ed at the ball? In the ab­sence of my fa­ther and broth­er, of course it was my du­ty to be present. Had I no moth­er? Was she not al­ways think­ing of the wel­fare of her chil­dren?”

In a mo­ment the se­mi-​dis­in­her­it­ed son had be­come a per­son­age! I was more dum­found­ed by my im­por­tance than by the del­uge of iron­ical rea­son­ing with which my moth­er re­ceived my re­quest. I ques­tioned my sis­ters, and then dis­cov­ered that my moth­er, who liked such the­atri­cal plots, was al­ready at­tend­ing to my clothes. The tai­lors in Tours were ful­ly oc­cu­pied by the sud­den de­mands of their reg­ular cus­tomers, and my moth­er was forced to em­ploy her usu­al seam­stress, who--ac­cord­ing to provin­cial cus­tom--could do all kinds of sewing. A bot­tle-​blue coat had been se­cret­ly made for me, af­ter a fash­ion, and silk stock­ings and pumps pro­vid­ed; waist­coats were then worn short, so that I could wear one of my fa­ther's; and for the first time in my life I had a shirt with a frill, the pleat­ings of which puffed out my chest and were gath­ered in to the knot of my cra­vat. When dressed in this ap­par­el I looked so lit­tle like my­self that my sis­ter's com­pli­ments nerved me to face all Touraine at the ball. But it was a bold en­ter­prise. Thanks to my slim­ness I slipped in­to a tent set up in the gar­dens of the Pa­pi­on house, and found a place close to the arm­chair in which the duke was seat­ed. In­stant­ly I was suf­fo­cat­ed by the heat, and daz­zled by the lights, the scar­let draperies, the gild­ed or­na­ments, the dress­es, and the di­amonds of the first pub­lic ball I had ev­er wit­nessed. I was pushed hith­er and thith­er by a mass of men and wom­en, who hus­tled each oth­er in a cloud of dust. The brazen clash of mil­itary mu­sic was drowned in the hur­rahs and ac­cla­ma­tions of “Long live the Duc d'An­gouleme! Long live the King! Long live the Bour­bons!” The ball was an out­burst of pent-​up en­thu­si­asm, where each man en­deav­ored to out­do the rest in his fierce haste to wor­ship the ris­ing sun,--an ex­hi­bi­tion of par­ti­san greed which left me un­moved, or rather, it dis­gust­ed me and drove me back with­in my­self.

Swept on­ward like a straw in the whirl­wind, I was seized with a child­ish de­sire to be the Duc d'An­gouleme him­self, to be one of these princes parad­ing be­fore an awed as­sem­blage. This sil­ly fan­cy of a Tourangean lad roused an am­bi­tion to which my na­ture and the sur­round­ing cir­cum­stances lent dig­ni­ty. Who would not en­vy such wor­ship?--a mag­nif­icent rep­eti­tion of which I saw a few months lat­er, when all Paris rushed to the feet of the Em­per­or on his re­turn from El­ba. The sense of this do­min­ion ex­er­cised over the mass­es, whose feel­ings and whose very life are thus merged in­to one soul, ded­icat­ed me then and thence­forth to glo­ry, that priest­ess who slaugh­ters the French­men of to-​day as the Druidess once sac­ri­ficed the Gauls.

Sud­den­ly I met the wom­an who was des­tined to spur these am­bi­tious de­sires and to crown them by send­ing me in­to the heart of roy­al­ty. Too timid to ask any one to dance,--fear­ing, more­over, to con­fuse the fig­ures,--I nat­ural­ly be­came very awk­ward, and did not know what to do with my arms and legs. Just as I was suf­fer­ing severe­ly from the pres­sure of the crowd an of­fi­cer stepped on my feet, swollen by the new leather of my shoes as well as by the heat. This dis­gust­ed me with the whole af­fair. It was im­pos­si­ble to get away; but I took refuge in a cor­ner of a room at the end of an emp­ty bench, where I sat with fixed eyes, mo­tion­less and sullen. Mis­led by my puny ap­pear­ance, a wom­an--tak­ing me for a sleepy child--slid soft­ly in­to the place be­side me, with the mo­tion of a bird as she drops up­on her nest. In­stant­ly I breathed the wom­an-​at­mo­sphere, which ir­ra­di­at­ed my soul as, in af­ter days, ori­en­tal poesy has shone there. I looked at my neigh­bor, and was more 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 guess the feel­ings which now welled up with­in me. My eyes rest­ed sud­den­ly on white, round­ed shoul­ders where I would fain have laid my head, --shoul­ders faint­ly rosy, which seemed to blush as if un­cov­ered for the first time; mod­est shoul­ders, that pos­sessed a soul, and re­flect­ed light from their satin sur­face as from a silken tex­ture. These shoul­ders were part­ed by a line along which my eyes wan­dered. I raised my­self to see the bust and was spell-​bound by the beau­ty of the bo­som, chaste­ly cov­ered with gauze, where blue-​veined globes of per­fect out­line were soft­ly hid­den in waves of lace. The slight­est de­tails of the head were each and all en­chant­ments which awak­ened in­fi­nite de­lights with­in me; the bril­lian­cy of the hair laid smooth­ly above a neck as soft and vel­vety as a child's, the white lines drawn by the comb where my imag­ina­tion ran as along a dewy path,--all these things put me, as it were, be­side my­self. Glanc­ing round to be sure that no one saw me, I threw my­self up­on those shoul­ders as a child up­on the breast of its moth­er, kiss­ing them as I laid my head there. The wom­an ut­tered a pierc­ing cry, which the noise of the mu­sic drowned; she turned, saw me, and ex­claimed, “Mon­sieur!” Ah! had she said, “My lit­tle lad, what pos­sess­es you?” I might have killed her; but at the word “Mon­sieur!” hot tears fell from my eyes. I was pet­ri­fied by a glance of saint­ly anger, by a no­ble face crowned with a di­adem of gold­en hair in har­mo­ny with the shoul­ders I adored. The crim­son of of­fend­ed mod­esty glowed on her cheeks, though al­ready it was ap­peased by the par­don­ing in­stinct of a wom­an who com­pre­hends a fren­zy which she in­spires, and di­vines the in­fi­nite ado­ra­tion of those re­pen­tant tears. She moved away with the step and car­riage of a queen.

I then felt the ridicule of my po­si­tion; for the first time I re­al­ized that 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 fol­low­ing with my eyes the wom­an who had come down to me from heav­en. Sick with the first fever of the heart I wan­dered through the rooms, un­able to find 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 star had come to me a wom­an, with undi­min­ished lus­tre and pu­ri­ty. I loved, know­ing naught of love. How strange a thing, this first ir­rup­tion of the keen­est hu­man emo­tion in the heart of a man! I had seen pret­ty wom­en in oth­er places, but none had made the slight­est im­pres­sion up­on me. Can there be an ap­point­ed hour, a con­junc­tion of stars, a union of cir­cum­stances, a cer­tain wom­an among all oth­ers to awak­en an ex­clu­sive pas­sion at the pe­ri­od of life when love in­cludes the whole sex?

The thought that my Elect lived in Touraine made the air I breathed de­li­cious; the blue of the sky seemed bluer than I had ev­er yet seen it. I raved in­ter­nal­ly, but ex­ter­nal­ly I was se­ri­ous­ly ill, and my moth­er had fears, not un­min­gled with re­morse. Like an­imals who know when dan­ger is near, I hid my­self away in the gar­den to think of the kiss that I had stolen. A few days af­ter this mem­orable ball my moth­er at­tribut­ed my ne­glect of study, my in­dif­fer­ence to her tyran­ni­cal looks and sar­casms, and my gloomy be­hav­ior to the con­di­tion of my health. The coun­try, that per­pet­ual rem­edy for ills that doc­tors can­not cure, seemed to her the best means of bring­ing me out of my ap­athy. She de­cid­ed that I should spend a few weeks at Frapesle, a chateau on the In­dre mid­way be­tween Mont­bazon and Azay-​le-​Rideau, which be­longed to a friend of hers, to whom, no doubt, she gave pri­vate in­struc­tions.

By the day when I thus for the first time gained my lib­er­ty I had swum so vig­or­ous­ly in Love's ocean that I had well-​nigh crossed it. I knew noth­ing of mine un­known la­dy, nei­ther her name, nor where to find her; to whom, in­deed, could I speak of her? My sen­si­tive na­ture so ex­ag­ger­at­ed the in­ex­pli­ca­ble fears which be­set all youth­ful hearts at the first ap­proach of love that I be­gan with the melan­choly which of­ten ends a hope­less pas­sion. I asked noth­ing bet­ter than to roam about the coun­try, to come and go and live in the fields. With the courage of a child that fears no fail­ure, in which there is some­thing re­al­ly chival­rous, I de­ter­mined to search ev­ery chateau in Touraine, trav­el­ling on foot, and say­ing to my­self as each old tow­er came in sight, “She is there!”

Ac­cord­ing­ly, of a Thurs­day morn­ing I left Tours by the bar­ri­er of Saint-​Eloy, crossed the bridges of Saint-​Sauveur, reached Ponch­er whose ev­ery house I ex­am­ined, and took the road to Chi­non. For the first time in my life I could sit down un­der a tree or walk fast or slow as I pleased with­out be­ing dic­tat­ed to by any one. To a poor lad crushed un­der all sorts of despo­tism (which more or less does weigh up­on all youth) the first em­ploy­ment of free­dom, even though it be ex­pend­ed up­on noth­ing, lifts the soul with ir­re­press­ible buoy­an­cy. Sev­er­al rea­sons com­bined to make that day one of en­chant­ment. Dur­ing my school years I had nev­er been tak­en to walk more than two or three miles from a city; yet there re­mained in my mind among the ear­li­est rec­ol­lec­tions of my child­hood that feel­ing for the beau­ti­ful which the scenery about Tours in­spires. Though quite un­taught as to the po­et­ry of such a land­scape, I was, un­known to my­self, crit­ical up­on it, like those who imag­ine the ide­al of art with­out know­ing any­thing of its prac­tice.

To reach the chateau of Frapesle, foot-​pas­sen­gers, or those on horse­back, short­en the way by cross­ing the Charle­magne moors, --un­cul­ti­vat­ed tracts of land ly­ing on the sum­mit of the plateau which sep­arates the val­ley of the Cher from that of the In­dre, and over which there is a cross-​road lead­ing to Champy. These moors are flat and sandy, and for more than three miles are drea­ry enough un­til you reach, through a clump of woods, the road to Sache, the name of the town­ship in which Frapesle stands. This road, which joins that of Chi­non be­yond Bal­lan, skirts an un­du­lat­ing plain to the lit­tle ham­let of 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 splen­did emer­ald cup, in the depths of which flow the ser­pen­tine lines of the riv­er In­dre. I gazed at this scene with in­ef­fa­ble de­light, for which the gloomy moor-​land and the fa­tigue of the sandy walk had pre­pared me.

“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 have rest­ed from that day to this when­ev­er I re­turn to my dear val­ley. Be­neath that tree, the con­fi­dant of my thoughts, I ask my­self what changes there are in me since last I stood there.

My heart de­ceived me not--she lived there; the first cas­tle that I saw on the slope of a hill was the dwelling that held her. As I sat be­neath my nut-​tree, the mid-​day sun was sparkling on the slates of her roof and the panes of her win­dows. Her cam­bric dress made the white line which I saw among the vines of an ar­bor. She was, as you know al­ready with­out as yet know­ing any­thing, the Lily of this val­ley, where she grew for heav­en, fill­ing it with the fra­grance of her virtues. Love, in­fi­nite love, with­out oth­er sus­te­nance than the vi­sion, dim­ly seen, of which my soul was full, was there, ex­pressed to me by that long rib­bon of wa­ter flow­ing in the sun­shine be­tween the grass-​green banks, by the lines of the poplars adorn­ing with their mo­bile laces that vale of love, by the oak-​woods com­ing down be­tween the vine­yards to the shore, which the riv­er curved and round­ed as it chose, 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 a spring morn­ing. If you would still the bleed­ing wounds of your heart, re­turn in the last days of au­tumn. In the spring, Love beats his wings be­neath the broad blue sky; in the au­tumn, we think of those who are no more. The lungs dis­eased breathe in a blessed pu­ri­ty; the eyes will rest on gold­en copses which im­part to the soul their peace­ful still­ness. At this mo­ment, when I stood there for the first time, the mills up­on the brook­sides gave a voice to the quiv­er­ing val­ley; the poplars were laugh­ing as they swayed; not a cloud was in the sky; the birds sang, the crick­ets chirped,--all was melody. Do not ask me again why I love Touraine. I love it, not as we love our cra­dle, not as we love the oa­sis in a desert; I love it as an artist loves art; I love it less than I love you; but with­out Touraine, per­haps I might not now be liv­ing.

With­out know­ing why, my eyes re­vert­ed ev­er to that white spot, to the wom­an who shone in that gar­den as the bell of a con­volvu­lus shines amid the un­der­brush, and wilts if touched. Moved to the soul, I de­scend­ed the slope and soon saw a vil­lage, which the su­per­abound­ing po­et­ry that filled my heart made me fan­cy with­out an equal. Imag­ine three mills placed among is­lands of grace­ful out­line crowned with groves of trees and ris­ing from a field of wa­ter,--for what oth­er name can I give to that aquat­ic veg­eta­tion, so ver­dant, so fine­ly col­ored, which car­pet­ed the riv­er, rose above its sur­face and un­du­lat­ed up­on it, yield­ing to its caprices and sway­ing to the tur­moil of the wa­ter when the mill-​wheels lashed it. Here and there were mounds of grav­el, against which the wavelets broke in fringes that shim­mered in the sun­light. Amaryl­lis, wa­ter-​lilies, reeds, and phlox­es dec­orat­ed the banks with their glo­ri­ous tapestry. A trem­bling bridge of rot­ten planks, the abut­ments swathed with flow­ers, and the hand-​rails green with peren­ni­als and vel­vet moss­es droop­ing to the riv­er but not falling to it; moul­der­ing boats, fish­ing-​nets; the monotonous sing-​song of a shep­herd; ducks pad­dling among the is­lands or preen­ing on the “jard,”--a name giv­en to the coarse sand which the Loire brings down; the millers, with their caps over one ear, busi­ly load­ing their mules,--all these de­tails made the scene be­fore me one of prim­itive sim­plic­ity. 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. Such is the vil­lage of Pont-​de-​Ru­an, a pic­turesque lit­tle ham­let lead­ing up to an old church full of char­ac­ter, a church of the days of the Cru­sades, such a one as painters de­sire for their pic­tures. Sur­round this scene with an­cient wal­nut-​trees and slim young poplars with their pale-​gold leaves; dot grace­ful build­ings here and there along the grassy slopes where sight is lost be­neath the va­porous, warm sky, and you will have some idea of one of the points of view of this most love­ly 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. At length I reached a park em­bel­lished with cen­ten­ni­al trees, which I knew to be that of Frapesle. I ar­rived just as the bell was ring­ing for break­fast. Af­ter the meal, my host, who lit­tle sus­pect­ed that I had walked from Tours, car­ried me over his es­tate, from the bor­ders of which I saw the val­ley on all sides un­der its many as­pects,--here through a vista, there to its broad ex­tent; of­ten my eyes were drawn to the hori­zon along the gold­en blade of the Loire, where the sails made fan­tas­tic fig­ures among the cur­rents as they flew be­fore the wind. 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 on wood­en piles con­cealed by flow­ers. Far­ther on, in a hol­low, I saw the ro­man­tic mass­es of the chateau of Sache, a sad re­treat though full of har­mo­ny; too sad for the su­per­fi­cial, but dear to a po­et with a soul in 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 slope which gave to view the pret­ty cas­tle I had first no­ticed in the morn­ing, I stopped to look at it with plea­sure.

“Hey!” said my host, read­ing in my eyes the sparkling de­sires which youth so in­gen­uous­ly be­trays, “so you scent from afar a pret­ty wom­an as a dog scents game!”

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

“It is Clochegourde,” he replied; “a pret­ty house be­long­ing to the Comte de Mort­sauf, the head of an his­toric fam­ily in Touraine, whose for­tune dates from the days of Louis XI., and whose name tells the sto­ry to which they owe their arms and their dis­tinc­tion. Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf is de­scend­ed from a man who sur­vived the gal­lows. The fam­ily bear: Or, a cross po­tent and counter-​po­tent sable, charged with a fleur-​de-​lis or; and 'Dieu saul­ve le Roi notre Sire,' for mot­to. The count set­tled here af­ter the re­turn of the em­igra­tion. The es­tate be­longs to his wife, a demoi­selle de Lenon­court, of the house of Lenon­court-​Givry which is now dy­ing out. Madame de Mort­sauf is an on­ly daugh­ter. The lim­it­ed for­tune of the fam­ily con­trasts strange­ly with the dis­tinc­tion of their names; ei­ther from pride, or, pos­si­bly, from ne­ces­si­ty, they nev­er leave Clochegourde and see no com­pa­ny. Un­til now their at­tach­ment to the Bour­bons ex­plained this re­tire­ment, but the re­turn of the king has not changed their way of liv­ing. When I came to re­side here last year I paid them a vis­it of cour­tesy; they re­turned it and in­vit­ed us to din­ner; the win­ter sep­arat­ed us for some months, and po­lit­ical events kept me away from Frapesle un­til re­cent­ly. Madame de Mort­sauf is a wom­an who would hold the high­est po­si­tion wher­ev­er she might be.”

“Does she of­ten come to Tours?”

“She nev­er goes there. How­ev­er,” he added, cor­rect­ing him­self, “she did go there late­ly to the ball giv­en to the Duc d'An­gouleme, who was very 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 in Touraine,” he said, laugh­ing. “But if you are not tired we can cross the riv­er and call at Clochegourde and you shall re­new ac­quain­tance with those par­tic­ular shoul­ders.”

I agreed, not with­out a blush of shame and plea­sure. About four o'clock we reached the lit­tle chateau on which my eyes had fas­tened from the first. The build­ing, which is fine­ly ef­fec­tive in the land­scape, is in re­al­ity very mod­est. It has five win­dows on the front; those at each end of the fa­cade, look­ing south, project about twelve feet,--an ar­chi­tec­tural de­vice which gives the idea of two tow­ers and adds grace to the struc­ture. The mid­dle win­dow serves as a door from which you de­scend through a dou­ble por­ti­co in­to a ter­raced gar­den which joins the nar­row strip of grass-​land that skirts the In­dre along its whole course. Though this mead­ow is sep­arat­ed from the low­er ter­race, which is shad­ed by a dou­ble line of aca­cias and Japanese ailan­thus, by the coun­try road, it nev­er­the­less ap­pears from the house to be a part of the gar­den, for the road is sunken and hemmed in on one side by the ter­race, on the oth­er side by a Nor­man hedge. The ter­races be­ing very well man­aged put enough dis­tance be­tween the house and the riv­er to avoid the in­con­ve­nience of too great prox­im­ity to wa­ter, with­out los­ing the charms of it. Be­low the house are the sta­bles, coach-​house, green-​hous­es, and kitchen, the var­ious open­ings to which form an ar­cade. The roof is charm­ing­ly round­ed at the an­gles, and bears mansarde win­dows with carved mul­lions and lead­en finials on their gables. This roof, no doubt much ne­glect­ed dur­ing the Rev­olu­tion, is stained by a sort of mildew pro­duced by lichens and the red­dish moss which grows on hous­es ex­posed to the sun. The glass door of the por­ti­co is sur­mount­ed by a lit­tle tow­er which holds the bell, and on which is carved the es­cutcheon of the Bla­mont-​Chau­vry fam­ily, to which Madame de Mort­sauf be­longed, as fol­lows: Gules, a pale vair, flanked quar­ter­ly by two hands clasped or, and two lances 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 has dam­aged the ducal crown and the crest, which was a palm-​tree vert with fruit or. Senart, the sec­re­tary of the com­mit­tee of pub­lic safe­ty was bailiff of Sache be­fore 1781, which ex­plains this de­struc­tion.

These ar­range­ments give an el­egant air to the lit­tle cas­tle, dain­ty as a flow­er, which seems to scarce­ly rest up­on the earth. Seen from the val­ley the ground-​floor ap­pears to be the first sto­ry; but on the oth­er side it is on a lev­el with a broad grav­elled path lead­ing to a grass-​plot, on which are sev­er­al flow­er-​beds. To right and left are vine­yards, or­chards, and a few acres of tilled land plant­ed with chest­nut-​trees which sur­round the house, the ground falling rapid­ly to the In­dre, where oth­er groups of trees of var­ie­gat­ed shades of green, cho­sen by Na­ture her­self, are spread along the shore. I ad­mired these groups, so charm­ing­ly dis­posed, as we mount­ed the hilly road which bor­ders Clochegourde; I breathed an at­mo­sphere of hap­pi­ness. Has the moral na­ture, like the phys­ical na­ture, its own elec­tri­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions and its rapid changes of tem­per­ature? My heart was beat­ing at the ap­proach of events then un­re­vealed which were to change it for­ev­er, just as an­imals grow live­li­er when fore­see­ing fine weath­er.

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

We crossed a court-​yard sur­round­ed by build­ings nec­es­sary for the farm work,--a barn, a wine-​press, cow-​sheds, and sta­bles. Warned by the bark­ing of the watch-​dog, a ser­vant came to meet us, say­ing that Mon­sieur le comte had gone to Azay in the morn­ing but would soon re­turn, and that Madame la comtesse was at home. My com­pan­ion looked at me. I fair­ly trem­bled lest he should de­cline to see Madame de Mort­sauf 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 which cross­es the whole house.

“Come in, gen­tle­men,” said a gold­en voice.

Though Madame de Mort­sauf had spo­ken on­ly one word at the ball, I rec­og­nized her voice, which en­tered my soul and filled it as a ray of sun­shine fills and gilds a pris­on­er's dun­geon. Think­ing, sud­den­ly, that she might re­mem­ber my face, my first im­pulse was to fly; but it was too late,--she ap­peared in the door­way, and our eyes met. I know not which of us blushed deep­est. Too much con­fused for im­me­di­ate speech she re­turned to her seat at an em­broi­dery frame while the ser­vant placed two chairs, then she drew out her nee­dle and count­ed some stitch­es, as if to ex­plain her si­lence; af­ter which she raised her head, gen­tly yet proud­ly, in the di­rec­tion of Mon­sieur de Ches­sel as she asked to what for­tu­nate cir­cum­stance she owed his vis­it. Though cu­ri­ous to know the se­cret of my un­ex­pect­ed ap­pear­ance, she looked at nei­ther of us,--her eyes were fixed on the riv­er; and yet you could have told by the way she lis­tened that she was able to rec­og­nize, as the blind do, the ag­ita­tions of a neigh­bor­ing soul by the im­per­cep­ti­ble in­flex­ions of the voice.

Mon­sieur de Ches­sel gave my name and bi­og­ra­phy. I had late­ly ar­rived at Tours, where my par­ents had re­called me when the armies threat­ened Paris. A son of Touraine to whom Touraine was as yet un­known, she would find me a young man weak­ened by ex­ces­sive study and sent to Frapesle to amuse him­self; he had al­ready shown me his es­tate, which I saw for the first time. I had just told him that I had walked from Tours to Frapesle, and fear­ing for my health--which was re­al­ly del­icate--he had stopped at Clochegourde to ask her to al­low me to rest there. Mon­sieur de Ches­sel told the truth; but the ac­ci­dent seemed so forced that Madame de Mort­sauf dis­trust­ed us. She gave me a cold, se­vere glance, un­der which my own eye­lids fell, as much from a sense of hu­mil­ia­tion as to hide the tears that rose be­neath them. She saw the mois­ture on my fore­head, and per­haps she guessed the tears; for she of­fered me the restora­tives I need­ed, with a few kind and con­sol­ing words, which gave me back the pow­er of speech. I blushed like a young girl, and in a voice as tremu­lous as that of an old man I thanked her and de­clined.

“All I ask,” I said, rais­ing my eyes to hers, which mine now met for the 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,” she said; then, turn­ing to my com­pan­ion, she added: “You will give us the plea­sure of your din­ing at Clochegourde?”

I threw such a look of en­treaty at Mon­sieur de Ches­sel that he be­gan the pre­lim­inar­ies of ac­cept­ing the in­vi­ta­tion, though it was giv­en in a man­ner that seemed to ex­pect a re­fusal. As a man of the world, he rec­og­nized these shades of mean­ing; but I, a young man with­out ex­pe­ri­ence, be­lieved so im­plic­it­ly in the sin­cer­ity be­tween word and thought of this beau­ti­ful wom­an that I was whol­ly as­ton­ished when my host said to me, af­ter we reached home that evening, “I stayed be­cause I saw you were dy­ing to do so; but if you do not suc­ceed in mak­ing it all right, I may find my­self on bad terms with my neigh­bors.” That ex­pres­sion, “if you do not make it all right,” made me pon­der the mat­ter deeply. In oth­er words, if I pleased Madame de Mort­sauf, she would not be dis­pleased with the man who in­tro­duced me to her. He ev­ident­ly thought I had the pow­er to please her; this in it­self gave me that pow­er, and cor­rob­orat­ed my in­ward hope at a mo­ment when it need­ed some out­ward suc­cor.

“I am afraid it will be dif­fi­cult,” he be­gan; “Madame de Ches­sel ex­pects us.”

“She has you ev­ery day,” replied the count­ess; “be­sides, we can send her word. Is she alone?”

“No, the Abbe de Quelus is there.”

“Well, then,” she said, ris­ing to ring the bell, “you re­al­ly must dine with us.”

This time Mon­sieur de Ches­sel thought her in earnest, and gave me a con­grat­ula­to­ry look. As soon as I was sure of pass­ing a whole evening un­der that roof I seemed to have eter­ni­ty be­fore me. For many mis­er­able be­ings to-​mor­row is a word with­out mean­ing, and I was of the num­ber who had no faith in it; when I was cer­tain of a few hours of hap­pi­ness I made them con­tain a whole life­time of de­light.

Madame de Mort­sauf talked about lo­cal af­fairs, the har­vest, the vin­tage, and oth­er mat­ters to which I was a to­tal stranger. This usu­al­ly ar­gues ei­ther a want of breed­ing or great con­tempt for the stranger present who is thus shut out from the con­ver­sa­tion, but in this case it was em­bar­rass­ment. Though at first I thought she treat­ed me as a child and I en­vied the man of thir­ty to whom she talked of se­ri­ous mat­ters which I could not com­pre­hend, I came, a few months lat­er, to un­der­stand how sig­nif­icant a wom­an's si­lence of­ten is, and how many thoughts a vol­uble con­ver­sa­tion masks. At first I at­tempt­ed to be at my ease and take part in it, then I per­ceived the ad­van­tages of my sit­ua­tion and gave my­self up to the charm of lis­ten­ing to Madame de Mort­sauf's voice. The breath of her soul rose and fell among the syl­la­bles as sound is di­vid­ed by the notes of a flute; it died away to the ear as it quick­ened the pul­sa­tion of the blood. Her way of ut­ter­ing the ter­mi­na­tions in “i” was like a bird's song; the “ch” as she said it was a kiss, but the “t's” were an echo of her heart's despo­tism. She thus ex­tend­ed, with­out her­self know­ing that she did so, the mean­ing of her words, lead­ing the soul of the lis­ten­er in­to re­gions above this earth. Many a time I have con­tin­ued a dis­cus­sion I could eas­ily have end­ed, many a time I have al­lowed my­self to be un­just­ly scold­ed that I might lis­ten to those har­monies of the hu­man voice, 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 strained the speak­er to my breast. A swal­low's song of joy it was when she was gay!--but when she spoke of her griefs, a swan's voice call­ing to its mates!

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

I can sketch for you the lead­ing fea­tures which all eyes saw in Madame de Mort­sauf; but no draw­ing, how­ev­er cor­rect, no col­or, how­ev­er warm, can rep­re­sent her to you. Her face was of those that re­quire the unattain­able artist, whose hand can paint the re­flec­tion of in­ward fires and ren­der that lu­mi­nous va­por which de­fies sci­ence and is not re­veal­able by lan­guage--but which a lover sees. Her soft, fair hair of­ten caused her much suf­fer­ing, no doubt through sud­den rush­es of blood to the head. Her brow, round and promi­nent like that of Jo­con­da, teemed with un­ut­tered thoughts, re­strained feel­ings--flow­ers drown­ing in bit­ter wa­ters. The eyes, of a green tinge flecked with brown, were al­ways wan; but if her chil­dren were in ques­tion, or if some keen con­di­tion of joy or suf­fer­ing (rare in the lives of all re­signed wom­en) seized her, those eyes sent forth a sub­tile gleam as if from fires that were con­sum­ing her,--the gleam that wrung the tears from mine when she cov­ered me with her con­tempt, and which suf­ficed to low­er the bold­est eye­lid. A Gre­cian nose, de­signed it might be by Phidias, and unit­ed by its dou­ble arch to lips that were grace­ful­ly curved, spir­itu­al­ized the face, which was oval with a skin of the tex­ture of a white camel­lia col­ored with soft rose-​tints up­on the cheeks. Her plump­ness did not de­tract from the grace of her fig­ure nor from the round­ed out­lines which made her shape beau­ti­ful though well de­vel­oped. You will un­der­stand the char­ac­ter of this per­fec­tion when I say that where the daz­zling trea­sures which had so fas­ci­nat­ed me joined the arm there was no crease or wrin­kle. No hol­low dis­fig­ured the base of her head, like those which make the necks of some wom­en re­sem­ble trunks of trees; her mus­cles were not harsh­ly de­fined, and ev­ery­where the lines were round­ed in­to curves as fugi­tive to the eye as to the pen­cil. A soft down faint­ly showed up­on her cheeks and on the out­line of her throat, catch­ing the light which made it silken. Her lit­tle ears, per­fect in shape, were, as she said her­self, the ears of a moth­er and a slave. In af­ter days, when our hearts were one, she would 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, and the flesh pro­ject­ed at the side be­yond the fin­ger-​nails, like those of an­tique stat­ues. I should dis­please you, I know, if you were not your­self an ex­cep­tion to my rule, when I say that flat waists should have the pref­er­ence over round ones. The round waist is a sign of strength; but wom­en thus formed are im­pe­ri­ous, self-​willed, and more volup­tuous than ten­der. On the oth­er hand, wom­en with flat waists are de­vot­ed in soul, del­icate­ly per­cep­tive, in­clined to sad­ness, more tru­ly wom­an than the oth­er class. The flat waist is sup­ple and yield­ing; 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 eye when it peeps be­neath the dress. Though she was the moth­er of two chil­dren, I have nev­er met any wom­an so tru­ly a young girl as she. Her whole air was one of sim­plic­ity, joined to a cer­tain bash­ful dreami­ness which at­tract­ed oth­ers, just as a painter ar­rests our steps be­fore a fig­ure in­to which his ge­nius has con­veyed a world of sen­ti­ment. If you re­call the pure, wild fra­grance of the heath we gath­ered on our re­turn from the Vil­la Dio­dati, the flow­er whose tints of black and rose you praised so warm­ly, you can fan­cy how this wom­an could be el­egant though re­mote from the so­cial world, nat­ural in ex­pres­sion, fas­tid­ious in all things which be­came part of her­self,--in short, like the heath of min­gled col­ors. Her body had the fresh­ness we ad­mire in the un­fold­ing leaf; her spir­it the clear con­cise­ness of the abo­rig­inal mind; she was a child by feel­ing, grave through suf­fer­ing, the mis­tress of a house­hold, yet a maid­en too. There­fore she charmed art­less­ly and un­con­scious­ly, by her way of sit­ting down or ris­ing, of throw­ing in a word or keep­ing si­lence. Though ha­bit­ual­ly col­lect­ed, watch­ful as the sen­tinel on whom the safe­ty of oth­ers de­pends and who looks for dan­ger, there were mo­ments when smiles would wreathe her lips and be­tray the hap­py na­ture buried be­neath the sad­dened bear­ing that was the out­come of her life. Her gift of at­trac­tion was mys­te­ri­ous. In­stead of in­spir­ing the gal­lant at­ten­tions which oth­er wom­en seek, she made men dream, let­ting them see her vir­ginal na­ture of pure flame, her ce­les­tial vi­sions, as we see the azure heav­ens through rifts in the clouds. This in­vol­un­tary rev­ela­tion of her be­ing made oth­ers thought­ful. The rar­ity of her ges­tures, above all, the rar­ity of her glances--for, ex­cept­ing her chil­dren, she sel­dom looked at any one--gave a strange solem­ni­ty to all she said and did when her words or ac­tions seemed to her to com­pro­mise her dig­ni­ty.

On this par­tic­ular morn­ing Madame de Mort­sauf wore a rose-​col­ored gown pat­terned in tiny stripes, a col­lar with a wide hem, a black belt, and lit­tle boots of the same hue. Her hair was sim­ply twist­ed round her head, and held in place by a tor­toise-​shell comb. Such, my dear Na­tal­ie, is the im­per­fect sketch I promised you. But the con­stant em­ana­tion of her soul up­on her fam­ily, that nur­tur­ing essence shed in floods around her as the sun emits its light, her in­ward na­ture, her cheer­ful­ness on days serene, her res­ig­na­tion on stormy ones,--all those 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 against which they rest, though all are nec­es­sar­ily min­gled with the events of this his­to­ry,--tru­ly a house­hold epic, as great to the eyes of a wise man as a tragedy to the eyes of the crowd, an epic in which you will feel an in­ter­est, not on­ly for the part I took in it, but for the like­ness 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 and paint­ed in two shades of gray. The man­tel­piece was or­na­ment­ed with a clock in­sert­ed in a block of ma­hogany and sur­mount­ed with a taz­za, and two large vas­es of white porce­lain with gold lines, which held bunch­es of Cape heather. A lamp was on a pier-​ta­ble, and a backgam­mon board on legs be­fore the fire­place. Two wide bands of cot­ton held back the white cam­bric cur­tains, which had no fringe. The fur­ni­ture was cov­ered with gray cot­ton bound with a green braid, and the tapestry on the count­ess's frame told why the up­hol­stery was thus cov­ered. Such sim­plic­ity rose to grandeur. No apart­ment, among all that I have seen since, has giv­en me such fer­tile, such teem­ing im­pres­sions as those that filled my mind in that sa­lon of Clochegourde, calm and com­posed as the life of its mis­tress, where the con­ven­tu­al reg­ular­ity of her oc­cu­pa­tions made it­self felt. The greater part of my ideas in sci­ence or pol­itics, even the bold­est of them, were born in that room, as per­fumes em­anate from flow­ers; there grew the mys­te­ri­ous plant that cast up­on my soul its fruc­ti­fy­ing pollen; there glowed the so­lar warmth which de­vel­oped my good and shriv­elled my evil qual­ities. Through the win­dows the eye took in the val­ley from the heights of Pont-​de-​Ru­an to the chateau d'Azay, fol­low­ing the wind­ings of the fur­ther shore, pic­turesque­ly var­ied by the tow­ers of Frapesle, the church, the vil­lage, and the old manor-​house of Sache, whose ven­er­able pile looked down up­on the mead­ows.

In har­mo­ny with this re­pose­ful life, and with­out oth­er ex­cite­ments to emo­tion than those aris­ing in the fam­ily, this scene con­veyed to the soul its own seren­ity. If I had met her there for the first time, be­tween the count and her two chil­dren, in­stead of see­ing her re­splen­dent in a ball dress, I should not have rav­ished that deliri­ous kiss, which now filled me with re­morse and with the fear of hav­ing lost the fu­ture of my love. No; in the gloom of my un­hap­py life I should have bent my knee and kissed the hem of her gar­ment, wet­ting it with tears, and then I might have flung my­self in­to the In­dre. But hav­ing breathed the jas­mine per­fume of her skin and drunk the milk of that cup of love, my soul had ac­quired the knowl­edge and the hope of hu­man joys; I would live and await the com­ing of hap­pi­ness as the sav­age awaits his hour of vengeance; I longed to climb those trees, to creep among the vines, to float in the riv­er; I want­ed the com­pan­ion­ship of night and its si­lence, I need­ed las­si­tude of body, I craved the heat of the sun to make the eat­ing of the de­li­cious ap­ple in­to which I had bit­ten per­fect. Had she asked of me the singing flow­er, the rich­es buried by the com­rades of Mor­gan the de­stroy­er, I would have sought them, to ob­tain those oth­er rich­es and that mute flow­er for which I longed.

When my dream, the dream in­to which this first con­tem­pla­tion of my idol plunged me, came to an end and I heard her speak­ing of Mon­sieur de 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 of no ob­sta­cles and mea­sured all with­out shrink­ing, and a vague, but re­al fear 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 was seen by Mon­sieur de Ches­sel and the count­ess, nei­ther made any ob­ser­va­tion, for a di­ver­sion was ef­fect­ed at this mo­ment by the en­trance of a lit­tle girl, whom I took to be about six years old, who came in ex­claim­ing, “Here's pa­pa!”

“Madeleine?” said her moth­er, gen­tly.

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

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

“She is bet­ter,” replied the count­ess, ca­ress­ing the lit­tle head which was al­ready nestling in her lap.

The next ques­tion of Mon­sieur de Ches­sel let me know that Madeleine was nine years old; I showed great sur­prise, and im­me­di­ate­ly the clouds gath­ered on the moth­er's brow. My com­pan­ion threw me a sig­nif­icant look,--one of those which form the ed­uca­tion of men of the world. I had stum­bled no doubt up­on some ma­ter­nal wound the cov­er­ing of which should have been re­spect­ed. The sick­ly child, whose eyes were pal­lid and whose skin was white as a porce­lain vase with a light with­in 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 that frail body, del­icate as a hot-​house plant grow­ing in a harsh and for­eign cli­mate. Though in noth­ing did she re­mind me of her moth­er, Madeleine seemed to have her soul, and that soul held her up. Her hair was scanty and black, her eyes and cheeks hol­low, her arms thin, her chest nar­row, show­ing a bat­tle be­tween life and death, a du­el with­out truce in which the moth­er had so far been vic­to­ri­ous. The child willed to live,--per­haps to spare her moth­er, for at times, when not ob­served, she fell in­to the at­ti­tude of a weep­ing-​wil­low. You might have 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 white line which part­ed the child's hair in­to two bands that looked like a crow's wings.

“He is com­ing with pa­pa.”

Just then the count en­tered, hold­ing his son by the hand. Jacques, the im­age of his sis­ter, showed the same signs of weak­ness. See­ing these sick­ly chil­dren be­side a moth­er so mag­nif­icent­ly healthy it was im­pos­si­ble not to guess at the caus­es of the grief which cloud­ed her brow and kept her silent on a sub­ject she could take to God on­ly. As he bowed, Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf gave me a glance that was less ob­serv­ing than awk­ward­ly un­easy,--the glance of a man whose dis­trust grows out of his in­abil­ity to an­alyze. Af­ter ex­plain­ing the cir­cum­stances of our vis­it, and nam­ing me to him, the count­ess gave him her place and left the room. The chil­dren, whose eyes were on those 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, “Stay dears!” and they obeyed, but their eyes filled. Ah! to hear that one word “dears” what tasks they would have un­der­tak­en!

Like the chil­dren, I felt less warm when she had left us. My name seemed to change the count's feel­ing to­ward me. Cold and su­per­cil­ious in his first glance, he be­came at once, if not af­fec­tion­ate, at least po­lite­ly at­ten­tive, show­ing me ev­ery con­sid­er­ation and seem­ing pleased to re­ceive me as a guest. My fa­ther had for­mer­ly done de­vot­ed ser­vice to the Bour­bons, and had played an im­por­tant and per­ilous, though se­cret 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 the in­evitable re­ward of those who risk all to win all, and who suc­cumb af­ter serv­ing as piv­ot to the po­lit­ical ma­chine. Know­ing noth­ing of the for­tunes, nor of the past, nor of the fu­ture of my fam­ily, I was un­aware of this de­vot­ed ser­vice which the Comte de Mort­sauf well re­mem­bered. More­over, the an­tiq­ui­ty of our name, the most pre­cious qual­ity of a man in his eyes, added to the warmth of his greet­ing. I knew noth­ing of these rea­sons un­til lat­er; for the time be­ing the sud­den tran­si­tion to cor­dial­ity put me at my ease. When the two chil­dren saw that we were all three fair­ly en­gaged in con­ver­sa­tion, Madeleine slipped her head from her fa­ther's hand, glanced at the open door, and glid­ed away like an eel, Jacques fol­low­ing her. They re­joined 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 so in­ter­est­ed in cer­tain lead­ing traits that I got no fur­ther than a su­per­fi­cial ex­am­ina­tion of his per­son­al­ity. Though he was on­ly forty-​five years old, he seemed near­er six­ty, so much had the great ship­wreck at the close of the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry aged him. The cres­cent of hair which monas­ti­cal­ly fringed the back of his head, oth­er­wise com­plete­ly bald, end­ed at the ears in lit­tle tufts of gray min­gled with black. His face bore a vague re­sem­blance to that of a white wolf with blood about its muz­zle, for his nose was in­flamed and gave signs of a life poi­soned at its springs and vi­ti­at­ed by dis­eases of long stand­ing. His flat fore­head, too broad for the face be­neath it, which end­ed in a point, and trans­verse­ly wrin­kled in crooked lines, gave signs of a life in the open air, but not of any men­tal ac­tiv­ity; it al­so showed the bur­den of con­stant mis­for­tunes, but not of any ef­forts made to sur­mount them. His cheek­bones, which were brown and promi­nent amid the gen­er­al pal­lor of his skin, showed a phys­ical struc­ture which was like­ly to en­sure him a long life. His hard, light-​yel­low eye fell up­on mine like a ray of win­try sun, bright with­out warmth, anx­ious with­out thought, dis­trust­ful with­out con­scious cause. His mouth was vi­olent and dom­ineer­ing, his chin flat and long. Thin and very tall, he had the bear­ing of a gen­tle­man who re­lies up­on the con­ven­tion­al val­ue of his caste, who knows him­self above oth­ers by right, and be­neath them in fact. The care­less­ness of coun­try life had made him ne­glect his ex­ter­nal ap­pear­ance. His dress was that of a coun­try-​man whom peas­ants and neigh­bors no longer con­sid­ered ex­cept for his ter­ri­to­ri­al worth. His brown and wiry hands showed that he wore no gloves un­less he mount­ed a horse, or went to church, and his shoes were thick and com­mon.

Though ten years of em­igra­tion and ten years more of farm-​life had changed his phys­ical con­di­tion, he still re­tained cer­tain ves­tiges of no­bil­ity. The bit­ter­est lib­er­al (a term not then in cir­cu­la­tion) would read­ily have ad­mit­ted his chival­ric loy­al­ty and the im­per­ish­able con­vic­tions of one who puts his faith to the “Quo­ti­di­enne”; he would have felt re­spect for the man re­li­gious­ly de­vot­ed to a cause, hon­est in his po­lit­ical an­tipathies, in­ca­pable of serv­ing his par­ty but very ca­pa­ble of in­jur­ing it, and with­out the slight­est re­al knowl­edge of the af­fairs of France. The count was in fact one of those up­right men who are avail­able for noth­ing, but stand ob­sti­nate­ly in the way of all; ready to die un­der arms at the post as­signed to them, but pre­fer­ring to give their life rather than to give their mon­ey.

Dur­ing din­ner I de­tect­ed, in the hang­ing of his flac­cid cheeks and the covert glances he cast now and then up­on his chil­dren, the traces of some wear­ing thought which showed for a mo­ment up­on the sur­face. Watch­ing him, who could fail to un­der­stand him? Who would not have seen that he had fa­tal­ly trans­mit­ted to his chil­dren those weak­ly bod­ies in which the prin­ci­ple of life was lack­ing. But if he blamed him­self he de­nied to oth­ers the right to judge him. Harsh as one who knows him­self in fault, yet with­out great­ness of soul or charm to com­pen­sate for the weight of mis­ery he had thrown in­to the bal­ance, his pri­vate life was no doubt the scene of iras­ci­bil­ities that were plain­ly re­vealed in his an­gu­lar fea­tures and by the in­ces­sant rest­less­ness of his eye. When his wife re­turned, fol­lowed by the chil­dren who seemed fas­tened to her side, I felt the pres­ence of un­hap­pi­ness, just as in walk­ing over the roof of a vault the feet be­come in some way con­scious of the depths be­low. See­ing these four hu­man be­ings to­geth­er, hold­ing them all as it were in one glance, let­ting my eye pass from one to the oth­er, study­ing their coun­te­nances and their re­spec­tive at­ti­tudes, thoughts steeped in sad­ness fell up­on my heart as a fine gray rain dims a charm­ing land­scape af­ter the sun has risen clear.

When the im­me­di­ate sub­ject of con­ver­sa­tion was ex­haust­ed the count told his wife who I was, and re­lat­ed cer­tain cir­cum­stances con­nect­ed with 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 at her daugh­ter's age. Per­haps she had thought me fif­teen. Lat­er on, I dis­cov­ered that this was still an­oth­er tie which bound her strong­ly to me. Even then I read her soul. Her moth­er­hood quiv­ered with a tardy ray of hope. See­ing me at over twen­ty years of age so slight and del­icate and yet so ner­vous­ly strong, a voice cried to her, “They too will live!” She looked at me search­ing­ly, and in that mo­ment I felt the bar­ri­ers of ice melt­ing be­tween us. She seemed to have many ques­tions to ask, but ut­tered none.

“If study has made you ill,” she said, “the air of our val­ley will soon re­store you.”

“Mod­ern ed­uca­tion is fa­tal to chil­dren,” re­marked the count. “We stuff them with math­emat­ics and ru­in their health with sci­ences, and make them old be­fore their time. You must stay and rest here,” he added, turn­ing to me. “You are crushed by the avalanche of ideas that have rolled down up­on you. What sort of fu­ture will this uni­ver­sal ed­uca­tion bring up­on us un­less we pre­vent its evils by re­plac­ing pub­lic ed­uca­tion in the hands of the re­li­gious bod­ies?”

These words were in har­mo­ny with a speech he af­ter­wards made at the elec­tions when he re­fused his sup­port to a man whose gifts would have done good ser­vice to the roy­al­ist cause. “I shall al­ways dis­trust men of tal­ent,” he said.

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

“Mon­sieur--” said his wife.

“Well, what, my dear?” he said, turn­ing to her with an ar­ro­gant harsh­ness which showed plain­ly enough how ab­so­lute he chose to be in his own home.

“Mon­sieur de Van­de­nesse walked from Tours this morn­ing and Mon­sieur de Ches­sel, not aware of it, has al­ready tak­en him on foot over Frapesle.”

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

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

This room, floored with white tiles made in Touraine, and wain­scot­ed to the height of three feet, was hung with a var­nished pa­per di­vid­ed in­to wide pan­els by wreaths of flow­ers and fruit; the win­dows had cam­bric cur­tains trimmed with red, the buf­fets were old pieces by Boulle him­self, and the wood­work of the chairs, which were cov­ered by hand-​made tapestry, was carved oak. The din­ner, plen­ti­ful­ly sup­plied, was not lux­uri­ous; fam­ily sil­ver with­out uni­for­mi­ty, Dres­den chi­na which was not then in fash­ion, oc­tag­onal de­canters, knives with agate han­dles, and lac­quered trays be­neath the wine-​bot­tles, were the chief fea­tures of the ta­ble, but flow­ers adorned the porce­lain vas­es and over­hung the gild­ing of their flut­ed edges. I de­light­ed in these quaint old things. I thought the Reveil­lon pa­per with its flow­ery gar­lands beau­ti­ful. The sweet con­tent that filled my sails hin­dered me from per­ceiv­ing the ob­sta­cles which a life so uni­form, so un­vary­ing in soli­tude of the coun­try placed be­tween her and me. I was near her, sit­ting at her right hand, serv­ing her with wine. Yes, un­hoped-​for joy! I touched her dress, I ate her bread. At the end of three hours my life had min­gled with her life! That ter­ri­ble kiss had bound us to each oth­er in a se­cret which in­spired us with mu­tu­al shame. A glo­ri­ous self-​abase­ment took pos­ses­sion of me. I stud­ied to please the count, I fon­dled the dogs, I would glad­ly have grat­ified ev­ery de­sire of the chil­dren, I would have brought them hoops and mar­bles and played horse with them; I was even pro­voked that they did not al­ready fas­ten up­on me as a thing of their own. Love has in­tu­itions like those of ge­nius; and I dim­ly per­ceived that gloom, dis­con­tent, hos­til­ity would de­stroy my foot­ing in that house­hold.

The din­ner passed with in­ward hap­pi­ness on my part. Feel­ing that I was there, un­der her roof, I gave no heed to her ob­vi­ous cold­ness, nor to the count's in­dif­fer­ence masked by his po­lite­ness. Love, like life, has an ado­les­cence dur­ing which pe­ri­od it suf­fices un­to it­self. I made sev­er­al stupid replies in­duced by the tu­mults of pas­sion, but no one per­ceived their cause, not even SHE, who knew noth­ing of love. The rest of my vis­it was a dream, a dream which did not cease un­til by moon­light on that warm and balmy night I re­crossed the In­dre, watch­ing the white vi­sions that em­bel­lished mead­ows, shores, and hills, and lis­ten­ing to the clear song, the match­less note, full of deep melan­choly and ut­tered on­ly in still weath­er, of a tree-​frog whose sci­en­tif­ic name is un­known to me. Since that solemn evening I have nev­er heard it with­out in­fi­nite de­light. A sense came to me then of the mar­ble wall against which my feel­ings had hith­er­to dashed them­selves. Would it be al­ways so? I fan­cied my­self un­der some fa­tal spell; the un­hap­py events of my past life rose up and strug­gled with the pure­ly per­son­al plea­sure I had just en­joyed. Be­fore reach­ing Frapesle I turned to look at Clochegourde and saw be­neath its win­dows a lit­tle boat, called in Touraine a punt, fas­tened to an ash-​tree and sway­ing on the wa­ter. This punt be­longed to Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf, who used it for fish­ing.

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

These words fol­lowed by those I have al­ready quot­ed to you raised my spir­its. I had not as yet said a word, and Mon­sieur de Ches­sel may have 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 of a cer­tain bit­ter­ness un­der­ly­ing my com­pan­ion's speech.

Though I was too in­ex­pert in so­cial mat­ters to un­der­stand its cause, I was much struck by the feel­ing Mon­sieur de Ches­sel be­trayed. His re­al name was Du­rand, but he had had the weak­ness to dis­card the name of a wor­thy fa­ther, a mer­chant who had made a large for­tune un­der the Rev­olu­tion. His wife was sole heiress of the Ches­sels, an old par­lia­men­tary fam­ily un­der Hen­ry IV., be­long­ing to the mid­dle class­es, as did most of the Parisian mag­is­trates. Am­bi­tious of high­er flights Mon­sieur de Ches­sel en­deav­ored to smoth­er the orig­inal Du­rand. He first called him­self Du­rand de Ches­sel, then D. de Ches­sel, and that made him Mon­sieur de Ches­sel. Un­der the Restora­tion he en­tailed an es­tate with the ti­tle of count in virtue of let­ters-​patent from Louis XVI­II. His chil­dren reaped the fruits of his au­dac­ity with­out know­ing what it cost him in sar­cas­tic com­ments. Par­venus are like mon­keys, whose clev­er­ness they pos­sess; we watch them climb­ing, we ad­mire their agili­ty, but once at the sum­mit we see on­ly their ab­surd and con­temptible parts. The re­verse side of my host's char­ac­ter was made up of pet­ti­ness with the ad­di­tion of en­vy. The peer­age and he were on di­verg­ing lines. To have an am­bi­tion and grat­ify it shows mere­ly the in­so­lence of strength, but to live be­low one's avowed am­bi­tion is a con­stant source of ridicule to pet­ty minds. Mon­sieur de Ches­sel did not ad­vance with the straight­for­ward step of a strong man. Twice elect­ed deputy, twice de­feat­ed; yes­ter­day di­rec­tor-​gen­er­al, to-​day noth­ing at all, not even pre­fect, his suc­cess­es and his de­feats had in­jured 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 which em­ploy their na­tive ge­nius in jeal­ousy of all things, in­jured him in up­per so­cial cir­cles, where a dis­sat­is­fied man, frown­ing at the suc­cess of oth­ers, slow at com­pli­ments and ready at epi­gram, sel­dom suc­ceeds. Had he sought less he might per­haps have ob­tained more; but un­hap­pi­ly he had enough gen­uine su­pe­ri­or­ity to make him wish to ad­vance in his own way.

At this par­tic­ular time Mon­sieur de Ches­sel's am­bi­tion had a sec­ond dawn. Roy­al­ty smiled up­on him, and he was now af­fect­ing the grand man­ner. Still he was, I must say, most kind to me, and he pleased me for the very sim­ple rea­son that with him I had found peace and rest for the first time. The in­ter­est, pos­si­bly very slight, which he showed in my af­fairs, seemed to me, lone­ly and re­ject­ed as I was, an im­age of pa­ter­nal love. His hos­pitable care con­trast­ed so strong­ly with the ne­glect to which I was ac­cus­tomed, that I felt a child­like grat­itude to the home where no fet­ters bound me and where I was wel­comed and even court­ed.

The own­ers of Frapesle are so as­so­ci­at­ed with the dawn of my life's hap­pi­ness that I min­gle them in all those mem­ories I love to re­vive. Lat­er, and more es­pe­cial­ly in con­nec­tion with his let­ters-​patent, I had the plea­sure of do­ing my host some ser­vice. Mon­sieur de Ches­sel en­joyed his wealth with an os­ten­ta­tion that gave um­brage to cer­tain of his neigh­bors. He was able to vary and re­new his fine hors­es and el­egant equipages; his wife dressed exquisite­ly; he re­ceived on a grand scale; his ser­vants were more nu­mer­ous than his neigh­bors ap­proved; for all of which he was said to be ap­ing princes. The Frapesle es­tate is im­mense. Be­fore such lux­ury as this the Comte de Mort­sauf, with one fam­ily car­iole,--which in Touraine is some­thing be­tween a coach with­out springs and a post-​chaise,--forced by lim­it­ed means to let or farm Clochegourde, was Tourangean up to the time when roy­al fa­vor re­stored the fam­ily to a dis­tinc­tion pos­si­bly un­looked for. His greet­ing to me, the younger son of a ru­ined fam­ily whose es­cutcheon dat­ed back to the Cru­sades, was in­tend­ed to show con­tempt for the large for­tune and to be­lit­tle the pos­ses­sions, the woods, the arable 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 agree­able in­ti­ma­cy which ought to have ex­ist­ed be­tween Clochegourde and Frapesle, two es­tates sep­arat­ed on­ly by the In­dre, and whose mis­tress­es could have beck­oned to each oth­er from their win­dows.

Jeal­ousy, how­ev­er, was not the sole rea­son for the soli­tude in which the Count de Mort­sauf lived. His ear­ly ed­uca­tion was that of the chil­dren of great fam­ilies,--an in­com­plete and su­per­fi­cial in­struc­tion as to knowl­edge, but sup­ple­ment­ed by the train­ing of so­ci­ety, the habits of a court life, and the ex­er­cise of im­por­tant du­ties un­der the crown or in em­inent of­fices. Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf had em­igrat­ed at the very mo­ment when the sec­ond stage of his ed­uca­tion was about to be­gin, and ac­cord­ing­ly that train­ing was lack­ing to him. He was one of those who be­lieved in the im­me­di­ate restora­tion of the monar­chy; with that con­vic­tion in his mind, his ex­ile was a long and mis­er­able pe­ri­od of idle­ness. When the army of Conde, which his courage led him to join with the ut­most de­vo­tion, was dis­band­ed, he ex­pect­ed to find some oth­er post un­der the white flag, and nev­er sought, like oth­er em­igrants, to take up an in­dus­try. Per­haps he had not the sort of courage that could lay aside his name and earn his liv­ing in the sweat of a toil he de­spised. His hopes, dai­ly post­poned to the mor­row, and pos­si­bly a scru­ple of hon­or, kept him from of­fer­ing his ser­vices to for­eign pow­ers. Tri­als un­der­mined his courage. Long tramps afoot on in­suf­fi­cient nour­ish­ment, and above all, on hopes be­trayed, in­jured his health and dis­cour­aged his mind. By de­grees he be­came ut­ter­ly des­ti­tute. If to some men mis­ery is a ton­ic, on oth­ers it acts as a dis­sol­vent; and the count was of the lat­ter.

Re­flect­ing on the life of this poor Touraine gen­tle­man, tramp­ing and sleep­ing along the high­roads of Hun­gary, shar­ing the mut­ton of Prince Es­ter­hazy's shep­herds, from whom the foot-​worn trav­eller begged the food he would not, as a gen­tle­man, have ac­cept­ed at the ta­ble of the mas­ter, and re­fus­ing again and again to do ser­vice to the en­emies of France, 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 of a French­man and a Tourangean soon de­sert­ed him; he be­came mo­rose, fell ill, and was char­ita­bly cared for in some Ger­man hos­pi­tal. His dis­ease was an in­flam­ma­tion of the mesen­ter­ic mem­brane, which is of­ten fa­tal, and is li­able, even if cured, to change the con­sti­tu­tion and pro­duce hypochon­dria. His love af­fairs, care­ful­ly buried out of sight and which I alone dis­cov­ered, were low-​lived, and not on­ly de­stroyed his health but ru­ined his fu­ture.

Af­ter twelve years of great mis­ery he made his way to France, un­der the de­cree of the Em­per­or which per­mit­ted the re­turn of the em­igrants. As the wretched way­far­er crossed the Rhine and saw the tow­er of Stras­burg 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 to com­mand a reg­iment or gov­ern a province, he was now with­out au­thor­ity and with­out a fu­ture; con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly healthy and ro­bust, he re­turned in­firm and ut­ter­ly worn out. With­out enough ed­uca­tion to take part among men and af­fairs, now broad­ened and en­larged by the march of events, nec­es­sar­ily with­out in­flu­ence of any kind, he lived de­spoiled of ev­ery­thing, of his moral strength as well as his phys­ical. Want of mon­ey made his name a bur­den. His un­al­ter­able opin­ions, his an­tecedents with the army of Conde, his tri­als, his rec­ol­lec­tions, his wast­ed health, gave him sus­cep­ti­bil­ities which are but lit­tle spared in France, that land of jest and sar­casm. Half dead he reached Maine, where, by some ac­ci­dent of the civ­il war, the rev­olu­tion­ary gov­ern­ment had for­got­ten to sell one of his farms of con­sid­er­able ex­tent, which his farmer had held for him by giv­ing out that he him­self was the own­er of it.

When the Lenon­court fam­ily, liv­ing at Givry, an es­tate not far from this farm, heard of the ar­rival of the Comte de Mort­sauf, the Duc de Lenon­court in­vit­ed him to stay at Givry while a house was be­ing pre­pared for him. The Lenon­court fam­ily were nobly gen­er­ous to him, and with them he re­mained some months, strug­gling to hide his suf­fer­ings dur­ing that first pe­ri­od of rest. The Lenon­courts had them­selves lost an im­mense prop­er­ty. By birth Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf was a suit­able hus­band for their daugh­ter. Made­moi­selle de Lenon­court, in­stead of re­ject­ing a mar­riage with a fee­ble and worn-​out man of thir­ty-​five, seemed sat­is­fied to ac­cept it. It gave her the op­por­tu­ni­ty of liv­ing with her aunt, the Duchesse de Verneuil, sis­ter of 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 by the lofty doc­trines of mys­ti­cal il­lu­mi­na­tion. These doc­trines hold the key to worlds di­vine; they ex­plain ex­is­tence by rein­car­na­tions through which the hu­man spir­it ris­es to its sub­lime des­tiny; they lib­er­ate du­ty from its le­gal degra­da­tion, en­able the soul to meet the tri­als of life with the un­al­ter­able seren­ity of the Quak­er, or­dain con­tempt for the suf­fer­ings of this life, and in­spire a fos­ter­ing care of that an­gel with­in us who al­lies us to the di­vine. It is sto­icism with an im­mor­tal fu­ture. Ac­tive prayer and pure love are the el­ements of this faith, which is born of the Ro­man Church but re­turns to the Chris­tian­ity of the prim­itive faith. Made­moi­selle de Lenon­court re­mained, how­ev­er, in the Catholic com­mu­nion, to which her aunt was equal­ly bound. Cru­el­ly tried by rev­olu­tion­ary hor­rors, the Duchesse de Verneuil ac­quired in the last years of her life a ha­lo of pas­sion­ate piety, which, to use the phrase­ol­ogy of Saint-​Mar­tin, shed the light of ce­les­tial love and the chrism of in­ward joy up­on the soul of her cher­ished niece.

Af­ter the death of her aunt, Madame de Mort­sauf re­ceived sev­er­al vis­its at Clochegourde from Saint-​Mar­tin, a man of peace and of vir­tu­ous wis­dom. It was at Clochegourde that he cor­rect­ed his last books, print­ed at Tours by Le­tourmy. Madame de Verneuil, wise with the wis­dom of an old wom­an who has known the stormy straits of life, gave Clochegourde to the young wife for her mar­ried home; and with the grace of old age, so per­fect where it ex­ists, the duchess yield­ed ev­ery­thing to her niece, re­serv­ing for her­self on­ly one room above the one she had al­ways oc­cu­pied, and which she now fit­ted up for the count­ess. Her sud­den death threw a gloom over the ear­ly days of the mar­riage, and con­nect­ed Clochegourde with ideas of sad­ness in the sen­si­tive mind of the bride. The first pe­ri­od of her set­tle­ment in Touraine was to Madame de Mort­sauf, I can­not say the hap­pi­est, but the least trou­bled of her life.

Af­ter the many tri­als of his ex­ile, Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf, tak­ing com­fort in the thought of a se­cure fu­ture, had a cer­tain re­cov­ery of mind; he breathed anew in this sweet val­ley the in­tox­icat­ing essence of re­vived hope. Com­pelled to hus­band his means, he threw him­self in­to agri­cul­tur­al pur­suits and be­gan to find some hap­pi­ness in life. But the birth of his first child, Jacques, was a thun­der­bolt which ru­ined both the past and the fu­ture. The doc­tor de­clared the child had not vi­tal­ity enough to live. The count con­cealed this sen­tence from the moth­er; but he sought oth­er ad­vice, and re­ceived the same fa­tal an­swer, the truth of which was con­firmed at the sub­se­quent birth of Madeleine. These events and a cer­tain in­ward con­scious­ness of the cause of this dis­as­ter in­creased the dis­eased ten­den­cies of the man him­self. His name doomed to ex­tinc­tion, a pure and ir­re­proach­able young wom­an made mis­er­able be­side him and doomed to the an­guish of ma­ter­ni­ty with­out its joys--this up­ris­ing of his for­mer in­to his present life, with its growth of new suf­fer­ings, crushed his spir­it and 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 knows him­self to blame, she set her­self to that task, which is wor­thy of an an­gel. She be­came sto­ical. De­scend­ing in­to an abyss, whence she still could see the sky, she de­vot­ed her­self to the care of one man as the sis­ter of char­ity de­votes her­self to many. To rec­on­cile him with him­self, she for­gave him that for which he had no for­give­ness. The count grew miser­ly; she ac­cept­ed the pri­va­tions he im­posed. Like all who have known the world on­ly to ac­quire its sus­pi­cious­ness, he feared be­tray­al; she lived in soli­tude and yield­ed with­out a mur­mur to his mis­trust. With a wom­an's tact she made him will to do that which was right, till he fan­cied the ideas were his own, and thus en­joyed in his own per­son the hon­ors of a su­pe­ri­or­ity that was nev­er his. Af­ter due ex­pe­ri­ence of mar­ried life, she came to the res­olu­tion of nev­er leav­ing Clochegourde; for she saw the hys­ter­ical ten­den­cies of the count's na­ture, and feared the out­breaks which might be talked of in that gos­sip­ping and jeal­ous neigh­bor­hood to the in­jury of her chil­dren. Thus, thanks to her, no one sus­pect­ed Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf's re­al in­ca­pac­ity, for she wrapped his ru­ins in a man­tle of ivy. The fick­le, not mere­ly dis­con­tent­ed but em­bit­tered na­ture of the man found rest and ease in his wife; his se­cret an­guish was less­ened by the balm she shed up­on it.

This brief his­to­ry is in part a sum­ma­ry of that forced from Mon­sieur de Ches­sel by his in­ward vex­ation. His knowl­edge of the world en­abled him to pen­etrate sev­er­al of the mys­ter­ies of Clochegourde. But the pre­science of love could not be mis­led by the sub­lime at­ti­tude with which Madame de Mort­sauf de­ceived the world. When alone in my lit­tle bed­room, a sense of the full truth made me spring from my bed; I could not bear to stay at Frapesle when I saw the light­ed win­dows of Clochegourde. I dressed, went soft­ly down, and left the chateau by the door of a tow­er at the foot of a wind­ing stair­way. The cool­ness of the night calmed me. I crossed the In­dre by the bridge at the Red Mill, took the ev­er-​blessed punt, and rowed in front of Clochegourde, where a 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 soli­tary cry 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 rose to her! Again and again I cried, with the rep­eti­tion of a mad­man, “Will she be mine?” Dur­ing the pre­ced­ing days the uni­verse had en­larged to me, but now in a sin­gle night I found its cen­tre. On her my will and my am­bi­tion hence­forth fas­tened; I de­sired to be all in all to her, that I might heal and fill her lac­er­at­ed heart.

Beau­ti­ful was that night be­neath her win­dows, amid the mur­mur of wa­ters rip­pling through the sluices, bro­ken on­ly by a voice that told the hours from the clock-​tow­er of Sache. Dur­ing those hours of dark­ness bathed in light, when this side­re­al flow­er il­lu­mined my ex­is­tence, I be­trothed to her my soul with the faith of the poor Castil­ian 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 fled back among the trees of Frapesle and reached the house; no one had seen me, no one sus­pect­ed by ab­sence, and I slept sound­ly un­til the bell rang for break­fast. When the meal was over I went down, in spite of the heat, to the mead­ow-​lands for an­oth­er sight of the In­dre and its isles, the val­ley and its slopes, of which I seemed so pas­sion­ate an ad­mir­er. But once there, thanks to a swift­ness of foot like that of a 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; the in­sects that live by light, the drag­on-​flies, the can­tharides, were fly­ing among the reeds and the ash-​trees; cat­tle chewed the cud in the shade, the rud­dy earth of the vine­yards glowed, the adders glid­ed up and down the banks. What a change in the sparkling and co­quet­tish land­scape while I slept! I sprang sud­den­ly from the boat and ran up the road which went round Clochegourde for I fan­cied that I saw the count com­ing out. I was not mis­tak­en; he was walk­ing be­side the hedge, ev­ident­ly mak­ing for a gate on the road to Azay which fol­lowed the bank of the riv­er.

“How are you this morn­ing, Mon­sieur le comte?”

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

“Quite well,” he an­swered. “You must love the coun­try, to be ram­bling about 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 past be­lief; I don't know rye from wheat, nor a poplar from an as­pen; I know noth­ing of farm­ing, nor of the var­ious meth­ods of cul­ti­vat­ing the soil.”

“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 I with­out.

“You will learn noth­ing from Mon­sieur de Ches­sel,” he re­marked; “he is al­to­geth­er too fine a gen­tle­man to do more than re­ceive the re­ports of his bailiff.”

The count then showed me his yards and the farm build­ings, the plea­sure-​grounds, or­chards, vine­yards, and kitchen gar­den, un­til we fi­nal­ly came to the long al­ley of aca­cias and ailan­thus be­side the riv­er, at the end of which I saw Madame de Mort­sauf sit­ting on a bench, with her chil­dren. A wom­an is very love­ly un­der the light and quiv­er­ing shade of such fo­liage. Sur­prised, per­haps, at my prompt vis­it, 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 point is to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent from that seen from the heights above. Here I might have thought my­self in a cor­ner of Switzer­land. The mead­ows, fur­rowed with lit­tle brooks which flow in­to the In­dre, can be seen to their full ex­tent till lost in the misty dis­tance. To­wards Mont­bazon the eye ranges over a vast green plain; in all oth­er di­rec­tions it is stopped by hills, by mass­es of trees, and rocks. We quick­ened our steps as we ap­proached Madame de Mort­sauf, who sud­den­ly dropped the book in which Madeleine was read­ing to her and took Jacques up­on her knees, 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; “but it is noth­ing se­ri­ous.”

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

“You are so ex­traor­di­nar­ily im­pru­dent,” said the count, sharply; “you ex­pose 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, turn­ing to me.

To avoid agree­ing or dis­agree­ing with him by word or look I watched Jacques, 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 ought to learn how to take care of them.”

Words that were cru­el­ly un­just; but his self-​love drove him to de­fend him­self at the ex­pense of his wife. The count­ess hur­ried up the steps and across the por­ti­co, and I saw her dis­ap­pear through the glass door. Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf seat­ed him­self on the bench, his head bowed in gloomy si­lence. My po­si­tion be­came an­noy­ing; he nei­ther spoke nor looked at me. Farewell to the walk he had pro­posed, in the course of which I had hoped to fath­om him. I hard­ly re­mem­ber a more un­pleas­ant mo­ment. Ought I to go away, or should I not go? How many painful thoughts must have arisen in his mind, to make him for­get to fol­low Jacques and learn how he was! At last how­ev­er he rose abrupt­ly and came to­wards me. We both turned and looked at the smil­ing val­ley.

“We will put off our walk to an­oth­er day, Mon­sieur le comte,” I said gen­tly.

“No, let us go,” he replied. “Un­for­tu­nate­ly, I am ac­cus­tomed to such scenes--I, who would give my life with­out the slight­est re­gret to save that of the child.”

“Jacques is bet­ter, my dear; he has gone to sleep,” said a gold­en voice. 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 Mon­sieur Des­lan­des?” said the count, as if wish­ing her to for­give his in­jus­tice.

“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 told him 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 her a 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 men will let the glean­ers of the oth­er vil­lages get in­to the field be­fore the sheaves are car­ried away.”

“I am go­ing to take a first les­son in agri­cul­ture, madame,” I said to her.

“You have a very good mas­ter,” she replied, mo­tion­ing to­wards the count, whose mouth screwed it­self in­to that smile of sat­is­fac­tion which 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 by thoughts of love, imag­ined that she might see me from her win­dow ador­ing the gleam of the can­dle which was then light­ing a fore­head fur­rowed 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 I knew but lit­tle of the fam­ily, and the nat­ural con­science of a young soul made me ex­claim in­ward­ly: “What right have I to trou­ble this per­fect peace?”

Glad to find a lis­ten­er in a young man over whom he could lord it so eas­ily, the count talked to me of the fu­ture which the re­turn of the Bour­bons would se­cure to France. We had a desul­to­ry con­ver­sa­tion, in which I lis­tened to much child­ish non­sense which pos­itive­ly amazed me. He was ig­no­rant of facts sus­cep­ti­ble of proof that might be called ge­omet­ric; he feared per­sons of ed­uca­tion; he re­ject­ed su­pe­ri­or­ity, and scoffed, per­haps with some rea­son, at progress. I dis­cov­ered in his na­ture a num­ber of sen­si­tive fi­bres which it re­quired the ut­most cau­tion not to wound; so that a con­ver­sa­tion with him of any length was a pos­itive strain up­on the mind. When I had, as it were, felt of his de­fects, I con­formed to them with the same sup­ple­ness that his wife showed in sooth­ing him. Lat­er in life I should cer­tain­ly have made him an­gry, but now, hum­ble as a child, sup­pos­ing that I knew noth­ing and be­liev­ing that men in their prime knew all, I was gen­uine­ly amazed at the re­sults ob­tained at Clochegourde by this pa­tient agri­cul­tur­ist. I lis­tened ad­mir­ing­ly to his plans; and with an in­vol­un­tary flat­tery which won his good-​will, I en­vied him the es­tate and its out­look--a ter­res­tri­al par­adise, I called it, far su­pe­ri­or to Frapesle.

“Frapesle,” I said, “is a mas­sive piece of plate, but Clochegourde is a jew­el-​case of gems,”--a speech which he of­ten quot­ed, giv­ing cred­it to 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 to coun­try life, I be­sieged him with ques­tions about prices, means of prepar­ing and work­ing the soil, etc., and he seemed glad to an­swer all in de­tail.

“What in the world do they teach you in your col­leges?” he ex­claimed at 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 and linen, say­ing that I should re­main at Frapesle. Ig­no­rant of the great rev­olu­tion which was just tak­ing place, and not per­ceiv­ing the in­flu­ence it was to have up­on my fate, I ex­pect­ed to re­turn to Paris to re­sume my le­gal stud­ies. The Law School did not open till the first week 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 of ex­treme iras­ci­bil­ity with­out ad­equate cause; hasty in ac­tion in haz­ardous cas­es to a de­gree that alarmed me. Some­times he showed glimpses of the brave gen­tle­man of Conde's army, parabol­ic flash­es of will such as may, in times of emer­gen­cy, tear through pol­itics like bomb-​shells, and may al­so, by virtue of hon­esty and courage, make a man con­demned to live buried on his prop­er­ty an El­bee, a Bon­champ, or a Charette. In pres­ence of cer­tain ideas his nos­tril con­tract­ed, his fore­head cleared, and his eyes shot light­nings, which were soon quenched. Some­times I feared he might de­tect the lan­guage of my eyes and kill me. I was young then and mere­ly ten­der. Will, that force that al­ters men so strange­ly, had scarce­ly dawned with­in me. My pas­sion­ate de­sires 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 of mu­tu­al 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 love me; I tried to iden­ti­fy my­self with the fam­ily.

Lit­tle by lit­tle the count re­strained him­self less in my pres­ence. I came to know his sud­den out­breaks of tem­per, his deep and cease­less melan­choly, 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 na­ture dif­fers from the phys­ical na­ture inas­much as noth­ing is ab­so­lute in it. The force of ef­fects is in di­rect pro­por­tion to the char­ac­ters or the ideas which are grouped around some fact. My po­si­tion at Clochegourde, my fu­ture life, de­pend­ed on this one ec­cen­tric will.

I can­not de­scribe to you the dis­tress that filled my soul (as quick in those days to ex­pand as to con­tract), when­ev­er I en­tered Clochegourde, and asked my­self, “How will he re­ceive me?” With what anx­iety of heart I saw the clouds col­lect­ing on that stormy brow. I lived in a per­pet­ual “qui-​vive.” I fell un­der the do­min­ion of that man; and the suf­fer­ings I en­dured taught me to un­der­stand those of Madame de Mort­sauf. We be­gan by ex­chang­ing looks of com­pre­hen­sion; tried by the same fire, how many dis­cov­er­ies I made dur­ing those first forty days! --of ac­tu­al bit­ter­ness, of tac­it joys, of hopes al­ter­nate­ly sub­merged and buoy­ant. One evening I found her pen­sive­ly watch­ing a sun­set which red­dened the sum­mits with so rav­ish­ing a glow that it was im­pos­si­ble not to lis­ten to that voice of the eter­nal Song of Songs by which Na­ture her­self bids all her crea­tures love. Did the lost il­lu­sions of her girl­hood re­turn to her? Did the wom­an suf­fer from an in­ward com­par­ison? I fan­cied I per­ceived a des­ola­tion in her at­ti­tude that was fa­vor­able to my first ap­peal, and I said, “Some days are hard to bear.”

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

“We touch at many points,” I replied. “Sure­ly we be­long to the small num­ber of hu­man be­ings born to the high­est joys and the deep­est sor­rows; whose feel­ing qual­ities vi­brate in uni­son and echo each oth­er in­ward­ly; whose sen­si­tive na­tures are in har­mo­ny with the prin­ci­ple of things. Put such be­ings among sur­round­ings where all is dis­cord and they suf­fer hor­ri­bly, just as their hap­pi­ness mounts to ex­al­ta­tion when they meet ideas, or feel­ings, or oth­er be­ings who are con­ge­nial to them. But there is still a third con­di­tion, where sor­rows are known on­ly to souls af­fect­ed by the same dis­tress; in this alone is the high­est fra­ter­nal com­pre­hen­sion. It may hap­pen that such souls find no out­let ei­ther for good or evil. Then the or­gan with­in us en­dowed with ex­pres­sion and mo­tion is ex­er­cised in a void, ex­pends its pas­sion with­out an ob­ject, ut­ters sounds with­out melody, and cries that are lost in soli­tude,--ter­ri­ble de­feat of a soul which re­volts against the inu­til­ity of noth­ing­ness. These are strug­gles in which our strength oozes away with­out re­straint, as blood from an in­ward wound. The sen­si­bil­ities flow to waste and the re­sult is a hor­ri­ble weak­en­ing of the soul; an in­de­scrib­able melan­choly for which the con­fes­sion­al it­self has no ears. Have I not ex­pressed our mu­tu­al suf­fer­ings?”

She shud­dered, and then with­out re­mov­ing her eyes from the set­ting sun, she said, “How is it that, young as you are, you know these things? 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 two rea­sons. In the first place she was pure as a child, and her thoughts wan­dered in­to no for­bid­den re­gions; in the next I amused the count and made a sop for that li­on with­out claws or mane. I found an ex­cuse for my vis­its which seemed plau­si­ble to ev­ery one. Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf pro­posed to teach me backgam­mon, and I ac­cept­ed; as I did so the count­ess was be­trayed in­to a look of com­pas­sion, which seemed to say, “You are fling­ing your­self in­to the jaws of the li­on.” If I did not un­der­stand this at the time, three days had not passed be­fore I knew what I had un­der­tak­en. My pa­tience, which noth­ing ex­hausts, the fruit of my mis­er­able child­hood, ripened un­der this last tri­al. The count was de­light­ed when he could jeer at me for not putting in prac­tice the prin­ci­ples or the rules he had ex­plained; if I re­flect­ed be­fore I played he com­plained of my slow­ness; if I played fast he was an­gry be­cause 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. It was like the tyran­ny of a school­mas­ter, the despo­tism of the rod, of which I can re­al­ly give you no idea un­less I com­pare my­self to Epicte­tus un­der the yoke of a ma­li­cious child. When we played for mon­ey his win­nings gave him the mean­est and most ab­ject de­light.

A word from his wife was enough to con­sole me, and it fre­quent­ly re­called him to a sense of po­lite­ness and good-​breed­ing. But be­fore long I fell in­to the fur­nace of an un­ex­pect­ed mis­ery. My mon­ey was dis­ap­pear­ing un­der these loss­es. Though the count was al­ways present dur­ing my vis­its un­til I left the house, which was some­times very late, I cher­ished the hope of find­ing some mo­ment when I might say a word that would reach my idol's heart; but to ob­tain that mo­ment, for which I watched and wait­ed with a hunter's painful pa­tience, I was forced to con­tin­ue these weary games, dur­ing which my feel­ings were lac­er­at­ed and my mon­ey lost. Still, there were mo­ments when we were silent, she and I, look­ing at the sun­light on the mead­ows, the clouds in a gray sky, the misty hills, or the quiv­er­ing of the moon on the sand­banks 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 hear the in­ward beat­ings of an af­fec­tion which sought its ob­ject. But the fact re­mained--with­out mon­ey, farewell to these evenings. I wrote to my moth­er to send me some. She scold­ed me and sent on­ly enough to last a week. Where could I get more? My life de­pend­ed on it. Thus it hap­pened that in the dawn of my first great hap­pi­ness I found the same suf­fer­ings that as­sailed me else­where; but in Paris, at col­lege, at school I evad­ed them by ab­sti­nence; there my pri­va­tions were neg­ative, at Frapesle they were ac­tive; so ac­tive that I was pos­sessed by the im­pulse to theft, by vi­sions of crime, fu­ri­ous des­per­ations which rend the soul and must be sub­dued un­der pain of los­ing our self-​re­spect. The mem­ory of what I suf­fered through my moth­er's par­si­mo­ny taught me that in­dul­gence for young men which one who has stood up­on the brink of the abyss and mea­sured its depths, with­out falling in­to them, must in­evitably feel. Though my own rec­ti­tude was strength­ened by those mo­ments when life opened and let me see the rocks and quick­sands be­neath the sur­face, I have nev­er known that ter­ri­ble thing called hu­man jus­tice draw its blade through the throat of a crim­inal with­out say­ing to my­self: “Pe­nal laws are made by men who have nev­er known mis­ery.”

At this cri­sis I hap­pened to find a trea­tise on backgam­mon in Mon­sieur de Ches­sel's li­brary, and I stud­ied it. My host was kind enough to give me a few lessons; less harsh­ly taught by the count I made good progress and ap­plied the rules and cal­cu­la­tions I knew by heart. With­in a few days I was able to beat Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf; but no soon­er had I done so and won his mon­ey for the first time than his tem­per be­came in­tol­er­able; his eyes glit­tered like those of tigers, his face shriv­elled, his brows knit as I nev­er saw brows knit be­fore or since. His com­plain­ings were those of a fret­ful child. Some­times he flung down the dice, quiv­ered with rage, bit the dice-​box, and said in­sult­ing things to me. Such vi­olence, how­ev­er, came to an end. When I had ac­quired enough mas­tery of the game I played it to suit me; I so man­aged that we were near­ly equal up to the last mo­ment; I al­lowed him to win the first half and made mat­ters even dur­ing the last half. The end of the world would have sur­prised him less than the rapid su­pe­ri­or­ity of his pupil; but he nev­er ad­mit­ted it. The un­vary­ing re­sult 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 last of the game be­cause by that time I lose my skill.”

The count­ess, who knew backgam­mon, un­der­stood my ma­noeu­vres from the first, and gave me those mute thanks which swell the heart of a young man; she grant­ed me the same look she gave to her chil­dren. From that ev­er-​blessed evening she al­ways looked at me when she spoke. I can­not ex­plain to you the con­di­tion I was in when I left her. My soul had an­ni­hi­lat­ed my body; it weighed noth­ing; I did not walk, I flew. That look I car­ried with­in me; it bathed me with light just as her last words, “Adieu, mon­sieur,” still sound­ed in my soul with the har­monies of “O fil­ii, o fil­ioe” in the paschal choir. I was born in­to a new life, I was some­thing to her! I slept on pur­ple and fine linen. Flames dart­ed be­fore my closed eye­lids, chas­ing each oth­er in the dark­ness like threads of fire in the ash­es of burned pa­per. In my dreams her voice be­came, though I can­not de­scribe it, pal­pa­ble, an at­mo­sphere of light and fra­grance wrap­ping me, a melody en­fold­ing my spir­it. On the mor­row her greet­ing ex­pressed the ful­ness of feel­ings that re­mained un­ut­tered, and from that mo­ment I was ini­ti­at­ed in­to the se­crets of her voice.

That day was to be one of the most de­ci­sive of my life. Af­ter din­ner we 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, and in place of grass, a car­pet of crimped moss­es, il­lu­mi­nat­ed by the set­ting sun and so dry that our feet slipped up­on it. I held Madeleine by the hand to keep her up. Madame de Mort­sauf was lead­ing Jacques. The count, who was in front, sud­den­ly turned round and strik­ing the earth 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 his wife. The repa­ra­tion was tardy, for the count­ess had turned pale; what wom­an would not have stag­gered as she did un­der the blow?

“But what de­light­ful scenes are waft­ed here, and what a view of the sun­set!” 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 great­est wealth is that of be­ing near you. Who would not pay a great cost for such a view?--all har­mo­ny to the eye, with that wind­ing riv­er where the soul may bathe among the ash-​trees and the alders. See the dif­fer­ence of taste! To you this spot of earth is a bar­ren waste; to me, it is par­adise.”

She thanked me with a look.

“Bu­col­ics!” ex­claimed the count, with a bit­ter look. “This is no life for 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 hear them ring­ing.”

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

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

We re­turned to Clochegourde, con­vers­ing by fits and starts. Once in the sa­lon an in­de­fin­able un­cer­tain­ty and dread took pos­ses­sion of us. The count flung him­self in­to an arm­chair, ab­sorbed in rever­ie, which his wife, who knew the symp­toms of his mal­ady and could fore­see an out­break, was care­ful not to in­ter­rupt. I al­so kept si­lence. As she gave me no hint to leave, per­haps she thought backgam­mon might di­vert the count's mind and qui­et those fa­tal ner­vous sus­cep­ti­bil­ities, the ex­cite­ments of which were killing him. Noth­ing was ev­er hard­er than to make him play that game, which, how­ev­er, he had a great de­sire to play. 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 grew sulky, bit­ter, in­sult­ing, and spoiled the talk by con­tra­dict­ing ev­ery­thing. If, warned by his ill-​hu­mor, I sug­gest­ed a game, he would dal­ly 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 af­fec­ta­tions like those of wom­en, which of­ten leave you in ig­no­rance of their re­al wish­es.

On this oc­ca­sion I pre­tend­ed a wild gai­ety to in­duce him to play. He com­plained of gid­di­ness which hin­dered him from cal­cu­lat­ing; his brain, he said, was squeezed in­to a vice; he heard nois­es, he was chok­ing; and there­upon he sighed heav­ily. At last, how­ev­er, he con­sent­ed to the game. Madame de Mort­sauf left us to put the chil­dren to bed and lead the house­hold in fam­ily prayers. All went well dur­ing her ab­sence; I al­lowed Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf to win, and his de­light seemed to put him be­side him­self. This sud­den change from a gloom that led him to make the dark­est pre­dic­tions to the wild joy of a drunk­en man, ex­pressed in a crazy laugh and with­out any ad­equate mo­tive, dis­tressed and alarmed me. I had nev­er seen him in quite so marked a parox­ysm. Our in­ti­ma­cy had borne fruits in the fact that he no longer re­strained him­self be­fore me. Day by day he had en­deav­ored to bring me un­der his tyran­ny, and ob­tain fresh food, as it were, for his evil tem­per; for it re­al­ly seems as though moral dis­eases were crea­tures with ap­petites and in­stincts, seek­ing to en­large the bound­aries of their em­pire as a landown­er seeks to in­crease his do­main.

Present­ly the count­ess came down, and sat close to the backgam­mon ta­ble, ap­par­ent­ly for bet­ter light on her em­broi­dery, though the anx­iety which led her to place her frame was ill-​con­cealed. A piece of fa­tal ill-​luck which I could not pre­vent changed the count's face; from gai­ety it fell to gloom, from pur­ple it be­came yel­low, and his eyes rolled. Then fol­lowed worse ill-​luck, which I could nei­ther avert nor re­pair. Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf made a fa­tal throw which de­cid­ed the game. In­stant­ly he sprang up, flung the ta­ble at me and the lamp on the floor, struck the chim­ney-​piece with his fist and jumped, for I can­not say he walked, about the room. The tor­rent of in­sults, im­pre­ca­tions, and in­co­her­ent words which rushed from his lips would have made an ob­serv­er think of the old tales of sa­tan­ic pos­ses­sion in the 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 the ter­race, where I slow­ly walked about, I heard his shouts and then his moans from the bed­room which ad­joined the din­ing-​room. Al­so I heard at in­ter­vals through that tem­pest of sound the voice of an an­gel, which rose like the song of a nightin­gale as the rain ceas­es. I walked about un­der the aca­cias in the loveli­est night of the month of Au­gust, wait­ing for the count­ess to join me. I knew she would come; her ges­ture promised it. For sev­er­al days an ex­pla­na­tion seemed to float be­tween us; a word would suf­fice to send it gush­ing from the spring, over­full, in our souls. What timid­ity had thus far de­layed a per­fect un­der­stand­ing be­tween us? Per­haps she loved, as I did, these quiv­er­ings of the spir­it which re­sem­bled emo­tions of fear and numbed the sen­si­bil­ities while we held our life un­ut­tered with­in us, hes­itat­ing to un­veil its se­crets with the mod­esty of the young girl be­fore the hus­band she loves. An hour passed. I was sit­ting on the brick balustrade when the sound of her foot­steps blend­ing with the un­du­lat­ing rip­ple of her flow­ing gown stirred the calm air of the night. These are sen­sa­tions to which the heart suf­fices not.

“Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf is sleep­ing,” she said. “When he is thus I give him an in­fu­sion of pop­pies, a cup of wa­ter in which a few pop­pies have been steeped; the at­tacks are so in­fre­quent that this sim­ple rem­edy nev­er los­es its ef­fect--Mon­sieur,” she con­tin­ued, chang­ing her tone and us­ing the most per­sua­sive in­flex­ion of her voice, “this most un­for­tu­nate ac­ci­dent has re­vealed to you a se­cret which has hith­er­to been sed­ulous­ly kept; promise me to bury the rec­ol­lec­tion of that scene. 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 the ef­fects of his many suf­fer­ings un­der the em­igra­tion,” she went on. “To-​mor­row he will en­tire­ly for­get all that he has said and done; you will find him kind and ex­cel­lent as ev­er.”

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

“I un­der­stand you,” she said, hasti­ly in­ter­rupt­ing me; “you are right. The count is as ner­vous as a fash­ion­able wom­an,” she added, as if to con­ceal the idea of mad­ness by soft­en­ing the word. “But he is on­ly so at in­ter­vals, once a year, when the weath­er is very hot. Ah, what evils 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 his coun­try--”

“I know,” I said, in­ter­rupt­ing in my turn to let her see that it was use­less to at­tempt to de­ceive me.

She stopped, laid one hand light­ly on my brow, and looked at me. “Who has sent you here,” she said, “in­to this home? Has God sent me help, a true friend­ship to sup­port me?” She paused, then added, as she laid her hand firm­ly up­on mine, “For you are good and gen­er­ous--” She raised her eyes to heav­en, as if to in­voke some in­vis­ible tes­ti­mo­ny to con­firm her thought, and then let them rest up­on me. Elec­tri­fied by the look, which cast a soul in­to my soul, I was guilty, judg­ing by so­cial laws, of a want of tact, though in cer­tain na­tures such in­del­ica­cy re­al­ly means a brave de­sire to meet dan­ger, to avert a blow, to ar­rest an evil be­fore it hap­pens; of­ten­er still, an abrupt call up­on a heart, a blow giv­en to learn if it re­sounds in uni­son with ours. Many thoughts rose like gleams with­in my mind and bade me wash out the stain that blot­ted my con­science at this mo­ment when I was seek­ing a com­plete un­der­stand­ing.

“Be­fore we say more,” I said in a voice shak­en by the throb­bings of my heart, 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 she in­stant­ly re­moved. She looked at me haugh­ti­ly, with the glance of a wom­an who knows her­self too ex­alt­ed for in­sult to reach her. “Be silent; 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 from your act.”

“You are more piti­less than God him­self,” I said, forc­ing back the tears 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 now if on­ly for the first, the last, the on­ly time in your life.”

“Speak, then,” she said; “speak, or you will think I dare not hear you.”

Feel­ing that this was the turn­ing mo­ment of our lives, I spoke to her in the tone that com­mands at­ten­tion; I told her that all wom­en whom I had ev­er seen were noth­ing to me; but when I met her, I, whose life was 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; that nev­er heart of man had been so filled with the pas­sion which no be­ing can 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 in­tol­er­able pain. “It con­cerns my life, my whole be­ing, my in­ward self; it con­tains a se­cret you must know or I must die in de­spair. It al­so con­cerns you, who, un­awares, are the la­dy in whose hand is the crown promised to the vic­tor in the tour­na­ment!”

Then I re­lat­ed to her my child­hood and youth, not as I have told it to you, judged from a dis­tance, but in the lan­guage of a young man whose wounds are still bleed­ing. My voice was like the axe of a woods­man in the for­est. At ev­ery word the dead years fell with echo­ing sound, bristling with their an­guish like branch­es robbed of their fo­liage. I de­scribed to her in fever­ish lan­guage many cru­el de­tails which I have here 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 alive be­neath the snow of these Alps, piled high­er and high­er by per­pet­ual win­ter. When, bowed down by the weight of these re­mem­bered suf­fer­ings, re­lat­ed as with the live coal of Isa­iah, I await­ed the re­ply of the wom­an who lis­tened with a bowed head, she il­lu­mined the dark­ness with a look, she quick­ened the worlds ter­res­tri­al and di­vine with a sin­gle sen­tence.

“We have had the same child­hood!” she said, turn­ing to me a face on which the ha­lo of the mar­tyrs shone.

Af­ter a pause, in which our souls were wed­ded in the one con­sol­ing thought, “I am not alone in suf­fer­ing,” the count­ess told me, in the voice she kept for her lit­tle ones, how un­wel­come she was as a girl when sons were want­ed. She showed me how her trou­bles as a daugh­ter bound to her moth­er's side dif­fered from those of a boy cast out up­on the world of school and col­lege life. My des­olate ne­glect seemed to me a par­adise com­pared to that con­tact with a mill­stone un­der which her soul was ground un­til the day when her good aunt, her true moth­er, had saved her from this mis­ery, the ev­er-​re­cur­ring pain of which she now re­lat­ed to me; mis­ery caused some­times by in­ces­sant fault­find­ing, al­ways in­tol­er­able to high-​strung na­tures which do not shrink be­fore death it­self but die be­neath the sword of Damo­cles; some­times by the crush­ing of gen­er­ous im­puls­es be­neath an icy hand, by the cold re­buf­fal of her kiss­es, by a stern com­mand of si­lence, first im­posed and then as of­ten blamed; by in­ward tears that dared not flow but stayed with­in the heart; in short, by all the bit­ter­ness and tyran­ny of con­vent rule, hid­den to the eyes of the world un­der the ap­pear­ance of an ex­alt­ed moth­er­ly de­vo­tion. She grat­ified her moth­er's van­ity be­fore strangers, but she dear­ly paid in pri­vate for this homage. When, be­liev­ing that by obe­di­ence and gen­tle­ness she had soft­ened her moth­er's heart, she opened hers, the tyrant on­ly armed her­self with the girl's con­fi­dence. No spy was ev­er more traitorous and base. All the plea­sures of girl­hood, even her fete days, were dear­ly pur­chased, for she was scold­ed for her gai­ety as much as for her faults. No teach­ing and no train­ing for her po­si­tion had been giv­en in love, al­ways with sar­cas­tic irony. She was not an­gry against her moth­er; in fact she blamed her­self for feel­ing more ter­ror than love for her. “Per­haps,” she said, dear an­gel, “these sever­ities were need­ful; they had cer­tain­ly pre­pared her for her present life.” As I lis­tened it seemed to me that the harp of Job, from which I had drawn such sav­age sounds, now touched by the Chris­tian fin­gers gave forth the lita­nies of the Vir­gin at the foot of the cross.

“We lived in the same sphere be­fore we met in this,” I said; “you com­ing 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 made for­ev­er. No pow­er can break the heavy chain to which a wom­an is fas­tened by this ring of gold--the em­blem of a wife's pu­ri­ty.”

We knew we were twins of one womb; she nev­er dreamed of a half-​con­fi­dence be­tween broth­ers of the same blood. Af­ter a short sigh, nat­ural to pure hearts when they first open to each oth­er, she told me of her first mar­ried life, her de­cep­tions and dis­il­lu­sions, the re­birth of her child­hood's mis­ery. Like me, she had suf­fered un­der tri­fles; mighty to souls whose limpid sub­stance quiv­ers to the least shock, as a lake quiv­ers on the sur­face and to its ut­most depths when a stone is flung in­to it. When she mar­ried she pos­sessed some girl­ish sav­ings; a lit­tle gold, the fruit of hap­py hours and re­pressed fan­cies. These, in a mo­ment when they were need­ed, she gave to her hus­band, not telling him they were gifts and sav­ings of her own. He took no ac­count of them, and nev­er re­gard­ed him­self her debtor. She did not even ob­tain the glance of thanks that would have paid for all. Ah! how she went from tri­al to tri­al! Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf ha­bit­ual­ly ne­glect­ed to give her mon­ey for the house­hold. When, af­ter a strug­gle with her timid­ity, she asked him for it, he seemed sur­prised and nev­er once spared her the mor­ti­fi­ca­tion of pe­ti­tion­ing for ne­ces­si­ties. What ter­ror filled her mind when the re­al na­ture of the ru­ined man's dis­ease was re­vealed to her, and she quailed un­der the first out­break of his mad anger! What bit­ter re­flec­tions she had made be­fore she brought her­self to ad­mit that her hus­band was a wreck! What hor­ri­ble calami­ties had come of her bear­ing chil­dren! What an­guish she felt at the sight of those in­fants born al­most dead! With what courage had she said in her heart: “I will breathe the breath of life in­to them; I will bear them anew day by day!” Then con­ceive the bit­ter­ness of find­ing her great­est ob­sta­cle in the heart and hand from which a wife should draw her great­est suc­cor! She saw the un­told dis­as­ter that threat­ened him. As each dif­fi­cul­ty was con­quered, new deserts opened be­fore her, un­til the day when she thor­ough­ly un­der­stood her hus­band's con­di­tion, the con­sti­tu­tion of her chil­dren, and the char­ac­ter of the neigh­bor­hood in which she lived; a day when (like the child tak­en by Napoleon from a ten­der home) she taught her feet to tram­ple through mud and snow, she trained her nerves to bul­lets and all her be­ing to the pas­sive obe­di­ence of a sol­dier.

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

“You would have to live here many months,” she said, in con­clu­sion, “to un­der­stand what dif­fi­cul­ties I have met with in im­prov­ing Clochegourde; what per­sua­sions I have had to use to make him do a thing which was most im­por­tant to his in­ter­ests. You can­not imag­ine the child­ish glee he has shown when any­thing that I ad­vised was not at once suc­cess­ful. All that turned out well he claimed for him­self. Yes, I need an in­fi­nite pa­tience to bear his com­plaints when I am half-​ex­haust­ed in the ef­fort to amuse his weary hours, to sweet­en his life and smooth the paths which he him­self has strewn with stones. The re­ward he gives me is that aw­ful cry: 'Let me die, life is a bur­den to me!' When vis­itors are here and he en­joys them, he for­gets his gloom and is cour­te­ous and po­lite. You ask me why he can­not be so to his fam­ily. I can­not ex­plain that want of loy­al­ty in a man who is tru­ly chival­rous. He is quite ca­pa­ble of rid­ing at full speed to Paris to buy 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. I would it were re­versed; I need noth­ing for my­self, but the wants of the house­hold are many. In my strong de­sire to make him hap­py, and not re­flect­ing that I might be a moth­er, I be­gan my mar­ried life by let­ting him treat me as a vic­tim, I, who at that time by us­ing a few ca­ress­es could have led him like a child--but I was un­able to play a part I should have thought dis­grace­ful. Now, how­ev­er, the wel­fare of my 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 him and gov­ern him?”

“If it con­cerned my­self on­ly I should not at­tempt ei­ther to over­come the dogged si­lence with which for days to­geth­er he meets my ar­gu­ments, nor to an­swer his ir­ra­tional re­marks, his child­ish rea­sons. I have no courage against weak­ness, any more than I have against child­hood; they may strike me as they will, I can­not re­sist. Per­haps I might meet strength with strength, but I am pow­er­less against those I pity. If I were re­quired to co­erce Madeleine in some mat­ter that would save her life, I should die with her. Pity re­lax­es all my fi­bres and un­strings my nerves. So it is that the vi­olent shocks of the last ten years have bro­ken me down; my feel­ings, so of­ten bat­tered, are numb at times; noth­ing can re­vive them; even the courage with which I once faced my trou­bles be­gins to fail me. Yes, some­times I am beat­en. For want of rest--I mean re­pose--and sea-​baths by which to re­cov­er my ner­vous strength, 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 take your chil­dren and go to the seashore.”

“In the first place, Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf would think he were lost if I left him. Though he will not ad­mit his con­di­tion he is well aware of it. He is both sane and mad, two na­tures in one man, a con­tra­dic­tion which ex­plains many an ir­ra­tional ac­tion. Be­sides this, he would have good rea­son for ob­ject­ing. Noth­ing would go right here if I were ab­sent. You may have seen in me the moth­er of a fam­ily watch­ful to pro­tect her young from the hawk that is hov­er­ing over them; a weighty task, in­deed, but hard­er still are the cares im­posed up­on me by Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf, whose con­stant cry, as he fol­lows me about is, 'Where is Madame?' I am Jacques' tu­tor and Madeleine's gov­erness; but that is not all, I am bailiff and stew­ard too. You will un­der­stand what that means when you come to see, as you will, that the work­ing of an es­tate in these parts is the most fa­tigu­ing of all em­ploy­ments. We get small re­turns in mon­ey; the farms are cul­ti­vat­ed on shares, a sys­tem which needs the clos­est su­per­vi­sion. We are obliged our­selves to sell our own pro­duce, our cat­tle and har­vests of all kinds. Our com­peti­tors in the mar­kets are our own farm­ers, who meet con­sumers in the wine-​shops and de­ter­mine prices by sell­ing first. I should weary you if I ex­plained the many dif­fi­cul­ties of agri­cul­ture in this re­gion. No mat­ter what care I give to it, I can­not al­ways pre­vent our ten­ants from putting our ma­nure up­on their ground, I can­not be ev­er on the 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 the dif­fi­cul­ty you have seen me have in per­suad­ing him to at­tend to busi­ness, you can un­der­stand the bur­den that is on my shoul­ders, and the im­pos­si­bil­ity of my lay­ing it down for a sin­gle day. If I were ab­sent we should be ru­ined. No one would obey Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf. In the first place his or­ders are con­flict­ing; then no one likes him; he finds in­ces­sant fault, and he is very dom­ineer­ing. More­over, like all men of fee­ble mind, he lis­tens too read­ily to his in­fe­ri­ors. If I left the house not a ser­vant would be in it in a week's time. So you see I am at­tached to Clochegourde as those lead­en fi­nals are to our roof. I have no re­serves with you. The whole coun­try-​side is still ig­no­rant of the se­crets of this house, but you know them, you have seen them. Say noth­ing but what is kind and friend­ly, and you shall have my es­teem --my grat­itude,” she added in a soft­er voice. “On those terms you are wel­come at Clochegourde, where you will find friends.”

“Ah!” I ex­claimed, “I see that I have nev­er re­al­ly suf­fered, while you--”

“No, no!” she ex­claimed, with a smile, that smile of all re­signed wom­en which might melt a gran­ite rock. “Do not be as­ton­ished at my frank con­fi­dence; it shows you life as it is, not as your imag­ina­tion pic­tures it. We all have our de­fects and our good qual­ities. If I had mar­ried a spendthrift he would have ru­ined me. If I had giv­en my­self to an ar­dent and plea­sure-​lov­ing young man, per­haps I could not have re­tained him; he might have left me, and I should have died of jeal­ousy. For I am jeal­ous!” she said, in a tone of ex­cite­ment, which was like the thun­der­clap of a pass­ing storm. “But Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf loves me as much as he is ca­pa­ble of lov­ing; all that his heart con­tains of af­fec­tion he pours at my feet, like the Mag­dalen's cup of oint­ment. Be­lieve me, a life of love is an ex­cep­tion to the laws of this earth; all flow­ers fade; great joys and emo­tions have a mor­row of evil--if a mor­row at all. Re­al life is a life of an­guish; its im­age is in that net­tle grow­ing there at the foot of the wall,--no sun can reach 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 for many a grief. More­over, wom­en who are nat­ural­ly moth­ers live and love far more through sac­ri­fices than through plea­sures. Here I draw up­on my­self the storms I fear may break up­on my chil­dren or my peo­ple; and in do­ing so I feel a some­thing I can­not ex­plain, which gives me se­cret courage. The res­ig­na­tion of the night car­ries me through the day that fol­lows. God does not leave me com­fort­less. Time was when the con­di­tion of my chil­dren filled me with de­spair; to-​day as they ad­vance in life they grow health­ier and stronger. And then, af­ter all, our home is im­proved and beau­ti­fied, our means are im­prov­ing al­so. Who knows 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 their hands, lead­ing com­fort­ed to Him the be­ings who cursed their lives, they, they have turned their sor­rows in­to joy. If my suf­fer­ings bring about 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 on our rocks. Now, sure­ly, we shall taste it to­geth­er; sure­ly we may ad­mire its won­ders, the sweet­ness of af­fec­tion it has poured in­to our souls, that in­ward sap which re­vives the sear­ing leaves--Good God! do you not un­der­stand me?” I cried, falling in­to the mys­ti­cal lan­guage to which our re­li­gious train­ing had ac­cus­tomed us. “See the paths by which we have ap­proached each oth­er; what mag­net led us through that ocean of bit­ter­ness to these springs of run­ning wa­ter, flow­ing at the foot of those hills above the shin­ing sands and be­tween their green and flow­ery mead­ows? Have we not fol­lowed the same star? We stand be­fore the cra­dle of a di­vine child whose joy­ous car­ol will re­new the world for us, teach us through hap­pi­ness a love of life, give to our nights their long-​lost sleep, and to the days their glad­ness. What hand is this that year by year has tied new cords be­tween us? Are we not more than broth­er and sis­ter? That which heav­en has joined we must not keep asun­der. The suf­fer­ings you re­veal are the seeds scat­tered by the sow­er for the har­vest al­ready ripen­ing in the sun­shine. Shall we not gath­er it sheaf by sheaf? What strength is in me that I dare ad­dress you thus! An­swer, or I will nev­er again re­cross that riv­er!”

“You have spared me the word _love_,” she said, in a stern voice, “but you have spo­ken of a sen­ti­ment of which I know noth­ing and which is not per­mit­ted to me. You are a child; and again I par­don you, but for the last time. En­deav­or to un­der­stand, Mon­sieur, that my heart is, as it were, in­tox­icat­ed with moth­er­hood. I love Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf nei­ther from so­cial du­ty nor from a cal­cu­lat­ed de­sire to win eter­nal bless­ings, but from an ir­re­sistible feel­ing which fas­tens all the fi­bres of my heart up­on him. Was my mar­riage a mis­take? My sym­pa­thy for mis­for­tune led to it. It is the part of wom­en to heal the woes caused by the march of events, to com­fort those who rush in­to the breach and re­turn wound­ed. How shall I make you un­der­stand me? I have felt a self­ish plea­sure in see­ing that you amused him; is not that pure 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 whom I strive to shed a heal­ing dew and the light of my own soul with­out with­draw­ing or adul­ter­at­ing a sin­gle par­ti­cle? Do not em­bit­ter the moth­er's milk! though as a wife I am in­vul­ner­able, you must nev­er again speak thus to me. If you do not re­spect this com­mand, sim­ple as it is, the door of this house will be closed to you. I be­lieved in pure friend­ship, in a vol­un­tary broth­er­hood, more re­al, I thought, than the broth­er­hood of blood. I was mis­tak­en. I want­ed a friend who was not a judge, a friend who would lis­ten to me in those mo­ments of weak­ness when re­proof is killing, a sa­cred friend from whom I should have 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 I should find a soul that would be mine, as the priest is the soul of all; a heart in which to pour my trou­bles when they del­uged mine, a friend to hear my cries when if I con­tin­ued to smoth­er them they would stran­gle me. Could I but have this friend, my life, so pre­cious to these chil­dren, might be pro­longed un­til Jacques had grown to man­hood. But that is self­ish! The Lau­ra of Pe­trar­ch can­not be lived again. I must die at my post, like a sol­dier, friend­less. My con­fes­sor is harsh, aus­tere, and--my aunt is dead.”

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

“It is the first com­mu­nion of love,” I said. “Yes, I am now a shar­er of your sor­rows. I am unit­ed to your soul as our souls are unit­ed to Christ in the sacra­ment. To love, even with­out hope, is hap­pi­ness. Ah! what wom­an on earth could give me a joy equal to that of re­ceiv­ing your tears! I ac­cept the con­tract which must end in suf­fer­ing to my­self. I give my­self to you with no ul­te­ri­or thought. I will be to you 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 the bonds which bind us to­geth­er.”

“Yes,” I said; “but the less you grant the more ev­idence of pos­ses­sion I ought to have.”

“You be­gin by dis­trust­ing me,” she replied, with an ex­pres­sion of melan­choly doubt.

“No, I speak from pure hap­pi­ness. Lis­ten; give me a name by which no one calls you; a name to be ours on­ly, like the feel­ing which unites us.”

“That is much to ask,” she said, “but I will show you that I am not pet­ty. Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf calls me Blanche. One on­ly per­son, the one I have most loved, my dear aunt, called me Hen­ri­ette. I will be Hen­ri­ette once more, to you.”

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

“Are you not un­wise, my friend, to rush at a bound to the ex­tremes of friend­ship? You have drained the cup, of­fered in all sin­cer­ity, at a draught. It is true that a re­al feel­ing is nev­er piece­meal; it must be whole, or it does not ex­ist. Mon­sieur de Mort­sauf,” she added af­ter a short si­lence, “is above all things loy­al and brave. Per­haps for my sake you will for­get what he said to you to-​day; if he has for­got­ten it to-​mor­row, I will my­self tell him what oc­curred. Do not come to Clochegourde 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 wish to un­do the wrong he did, and he will like you all the bet­ter for treat­ing 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 tone of com­mand which proved to me that she had tak­en pos­ses­sion of my soul, “It is late; we will part.”

I wished to kiss her hand; she hes­itat­ed, then gave it to me, and said in a voice of en­treaty: “Nev­er take it un­less I give it to you; leave me my free­dom; if not, I shall be sim­ply a thing of yours, and that ought not to be.”

“Adieu,” I said.

I went out by the lit­tle gate of the low­er ter­race, which she opened for me. Just as she was about to close it she opened it again and of­fered me her hand, say­ing: “You have been tru­ly good to me this evening; you have com­fort­ed my whole fu­ture; take it, my friend, take it.”

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

“Oh, my Hen­ri­ette!” I cried, “to you I pledge the purest love that ev­er shone up­on this earth.”

I turned at ev­ery step as I re­gained Frapesle. In­ef­fa­ble con­tent­ment filled my mind. A way was open for the de­vo­tion that swells in all youth­ful hearts and which in mine had been so long in­ert. Like the priest who by one solemn step en­ters a new life, my vows were tak­en; I was con­se­crat­ed. A sim­ple “Yes” had bound me to keep my love with­in my soul and nev­er to abuse our friend­ship by lead­ing this wom­an step by step to love. All no­ble feel­ings were awak­ened with­in me, and I heard the mur­mur of their voic­es. Be­fore con­fin­ing my­self with­in the nar­row walls 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 the sim­ple tones of that in­gen­uous con­fi­dence, I gath­ered in the air the em­ana­tions of that soul which hence­forth must ev­er seek me. How grand that wom­an seemed to me, with her ab­so­lute for­get­ful­ness of self, her re­li­gion of mer­cy to wound­ed hearts, fee­ble or suf­fer­ing, her de­clared al­le­giance to her le­gal yoke. She was there, serene up­on her pyre of saint 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 mys­te­ri­ous sig­nif­icance which made her to my eyes sub­lime. Per­haps she longed that 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 each oth­er light and mo­tion. This thought lift­ed me to ethe­re­al re­gions. I en­tered once more the heav­en of my for­mer vi­sions; I found a mean­ing for the mis­eries of my child­hood in the il­lim­itable hap­pi­ness to which they had led me.

Spir­its quenched by tears, hearts mis­un­der­stood, saint­ly Claris­sa Har­lowes for­got­ten or ig­nored, chil­dren ne­glect­ed, ex­iles in­no­cent of wrong, all ye who en­ter life through bar­ren ways, on whom men's faces ev­ery­where look cold­ly, to whom ears close and hearts are shut, cease your com­plaints! You alone can know the in­fini­tude of joy held in that mo­ment when one heart opens to you, one ear lis­tens, one look an­swers yours. A sin­gle day ef­faces all past evil. Sor­row, de­spon­den­cy, de­spair, and melan­choly, passed but not for­got­ten, are links by which the 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; she ex­plains those for­mer griefs as pay­ment claimed by des­tiny for joys eter­nal, which she brings to us on the day our souls are wed­ded. The an­gels alone can ut­ter the new name by which that sa­cred love is called, and none but wom­en, dear mar­tyrs, tru­ly know what Madame de Mort­sauf now be­came to me--to me, poor and des­olate.