I
On a certain cool, rainy evening in autumn, in a small château in Brie,
three pensive individuals were gravely occupied in watching the wood
burn on the hearth and the hands of the clock move slowly around the
dial. Two of these silent guests seemed to give way unreservedly to the
vague ennui that weighed upon them; but the third gave signs of open
rebellion: he fidgeted about on his seat, stifled half audibly divers
melancholy yawns, and tapped the snapping sticks with the tongs, with a
manifest intention of resisting the common enemy.
This person, who was much older than the other two, was the master of
the house, Colonel Delmare, an old warrior on half-pay, once a very
handsome man, now over-corpulent, with a bald head, gray moustache and
awe-inspiring eye; an excellent master before whom everybody trembled,
wife, servants, horses and dogs.
At last he left his chair, evidently vexed because he did not know how
to break the silence, and began to walk heavily up and down the whole
length of the salon, without laying aside for an instant the rigidity
which characterizes all the movements of an ex-soldier, resting his
weight on his loins and turning the whole body at once, with the
unfailing self-satisfaction peculiar to the man of show and the model
officer.
But the glorious days had passed, when Lieutenant Delmare inhaled
triumph with the air of the camps; the retired officer, forgotten now by
an ungrateful country, was condemned to undergo all the consequences of
marriage. He was the husband of a young and pretty wife, the proprietor
of a commodious manor with its appurtenances, and, furthermore, a
manufacturer who had been fortunate in his undertakings; in consequence
whereof the colonel was ill-humored, especially on the evening in
question; for it was very damp, and the colonel had rheumatism.
He paced gravely up and down his old salon, furnished in the style of
Louis XV., halting sometimes before a door surmounted by nude Cupids in
fresco, who led in chains of flowers well-bred fawns and good-natured
wild boars; sometimes before a panel overladen with paltry,
over-elaborated sculpture, whose tortuous vagaries and endless
intertwining the eye would have wearied itself to no purpose in
attempting to follow. But these vague and fleeting distractions did not
prevent the colonel, whenever he turned about, from casting a keen and
searching glance at the two companions of his silent vigil, resting upon
them alternately that watchful eye which for three years past had been
standing guard over a fragile and priceless treasure, his wife.
For his wife was nineteen years of age; and if you had seen her buried
under the mantel of that huge fire-place of white marble inlaid with
burnished copper; if you had seen her, slender, pale, depressed, with
her elbow resting on her knee, a mere child in that ancient household,
beside that old husband, like a flower of yesterday that had bloomed in
a gothic vase, you would have pitied Colonel Delmare's wife, and the
colonel even more perhaps than his wife.
The third occupant of this lonely house was also sitting under the same
mantel, at the other end of the burning log. He was a man in all the
strength and all the bloom of youth, whose glowing cheeks, abundant
golden hair and full whiskers presented a striking contrast to the
grizzly hair, weather-beaten complexion and harsh countenance of the
master of the house; but the least _artistic_ of men would none the less
have preferred Monsieur Delmare's harsh and stern expression to the
younger man's regular but insipid features. The bloated face carved in
relief on the sheet of iron that formed the back of the fire-place, with
its eye fixed constantly on the burning logs, was less monotonous
perhaps than the pink and white fair-haired character in this narrative,
absorbed in like contemplation. However, his strong and supple figure,
the clean-cut outline of his brown eyebrows, the polished whiteness of
his forehead, the tranquil expression of his limpid eyes, the beauty of
his hands, and even the rigorously correct elegance of his hunting
costume, would have caused him to be considered a very comely _cavalier_
in the eyes of any woman who had conceived a passion for the so-called
_philosophic_ tastes of another century. But perhaps Monsieur Delmare's
young and timid wife had never as yet examined a man with her eyes;
perhaps there was an entire absence of sympathy between that pale and
unhappy woman and that sound sleeper and hearty eater. Certain it is
that the conjugal Argus wearied his hawklike eye without detecting a
glance, a breath, a palpitation, between these two very dissimilar
beings. Thereupon, being assured that he had not the slightest pretext
for jealousy to occupy his mind, he relapsed into a state of depression
more profound than before, and abruptly plunged his hands into his
pockets.
The only cheerful and attractive face in the group was that of a
beautiful hunting dog, of the large breed of pointers, whose head was
resting on the knees of the younger man. She was remarkable by reason of
her long body, her powerful hairy legs, her muzzle, slender as a fox's,
and her intelligent face, covered with disheveled hair, through which
two great tawny eyes shone like topazes. Those dog's eyes, so fierce and
threatening during the chase, had at that moment an indefinable
expression of affectionate melancholy; and when her master, the object
of that instinctive love, sometimes so superior to the deliberate
affection of man, ran his fingers through the beautiful creature's silky
silver locks, her eyes sparkled with pleasure, while her long tail swept
the hearth in regular cadence, and scattered the ashes over the inlaid
floor.
It was a fitting subject for Rembrandt's brush, that interior, dimly
lighted by the fire on the hearth. At intervals fugitive white gleams
lighted up the room and the faces, then, changing to the red tint of the
embers, gradually died away; the gloom of the salon varying as the
fitful gleams grew more or less dull. Each time that Monsieur Delmare
passed in front of the fire, he suddenly appeared, like a ghost, then
vanished in the mysterious depths of the salon. Strips of gilding stood
forth in the light now and then on the oval frames, adorned with wreaths
and medallions and fillets of wood, on furniture, inlaid with ebony and
copper, and even on the jagged cornices of the wainscoting. But when a
brand went out, resigning its brilliancy to some other blazing point,
the objects which had been in the light a moment before withdrew into
the shadow, and other projections stood forth from the obscurity. Thus
one could have grasped in due time all the details of the picture, from
the console supported by three huge gilded tritons, to the frescoed
ceiling, representing a sky studded with stars and clouds, and to the
heavy hangings of crimson damask, with long tassels, which shimmered
like satin, their ample folds seeming to sway back and forth as they
reflected the flickering light.
One would have said, from the immobility of the two figures in bold
relief before the fire, that they feared to disturb the immobility of
the scene; that they had been turned to stone where they sat, like the
heroes of a fairy tale, and that the slightest word or movement would
bring the walls of an imaginary city crumbling about their ears. And the
dark-browed master, who alone broke the silence and the shadow with his
regular tread, seemed a magician who held them under a spell.
At last the dog, having obtained a smile from her master, yielded to the
magnetic power which the eye of man exerts over that of the lower
animals. She uttered a low whine of timid affection and placed her fore
paws on her beloved's shoulders with inimitable ease and grace of
movement.
"Down, Ophelia, down!"
And the young man reproved the docile creature sternly in English,
whereupon she crawled toward Madame Delmare, shamefaced and repentant,
as if to implore her protection. But Madame Delmare did not emerge from
her reverie, and allowed Ophelia's head to rest on her two white hands,
as they lay clasped on her knee, without bestowing a caress upon her.
"Has that dog taken up her quarters in the salon for good?" said the
colonel, secretly well-pleased to find a pretext for an outburst of
ill-humor, to pass the time. "Be off to your kennel, Ophelia! Come, out
with you, you stupid beast!"
If anyone had been watching Madame Delmare closely he could have
divined, in that trivial and commonplace incident of her private life,
the painful secret of her whole existence. An imperceptible shudder ran
over her body, and her hands, in which she unconsciously held the
favorite animal's head, closed nervously around her rough, hairy neck,
as if to detain her and protect her. Whereupon Monsieur Delmare, drawing
his hunting-crop from the pocket of his jacket, walked with a
threatening air toward poor Ophelia, who crouched at his feet, closing
her eyes, and whining with grief and fear in anticipation. Madame
Delmare became even paler than usual; her bosom heaved convulsively,
and, turning her great blue eyes upon her husband with an indescribable
expression of terror, she said:
"In pity's name, monsieur, do not kill her!"
These few words gave the colonel a shock. A feeling of chagrin took the
place of his angry impulse.
"That, madame, is a reproof which I understand very well," he said, "and
which you have never spared me since the day that I killed your spaniel
in a moment of passion while hunting. He was a great loss, was he not? A
dog that was forever forcing the hunting and rushing after the game!
Whose patience would he not have exhausted? Indeed, you were not nearly
so fond of him until he was dead; before that you paid little attention
to him; but now that he gives you a pretext for blaming me--"
"Have I ever reproached you?" said Madame Delmare in the gentle tone
which we adopt from a generous impulse with those we love, and from
self-esteem with those whom we do not love.
"I did not say that you had," rejoined the colonel in a half-paternal,
half-conjugal tone; "but the tears of some women contain bitterer
reproaches than the fiercest imprecations of others. _Morbleu!_ madame,
you know perfectly well that I hate to see people weeping about me."
"I do not think that you ever see me weep."
"Even so! don't I constantly see you with red eyes? On my word, that's
even worse!"
During this conjugal colloquy the young man had risen and put Ophelia
out of the room with the greatest tranquillity; then he returned to his
seat opposite Madame Delmare after lighting a candle and placing it on
the chimney-piece.
This act, dictated purely by chance, exerted a sudden influence upon
Monsieur Delmare's frame of mind. As soon as the light of the candle,
which was more uniform and steadier than that of the fire, fell upon his
wife, he observed the symptoms of suffering and general prostration
which were manifest that evening in her whole person: in her weary
attitude, in the long brown hair falling over her emaciated cheeks and
in the purple rings beneath her dull, inflamed eyes. He took several
turns up and down the room, then returned to his wife and, suddenly
changing his tone:
"How do you feel to-day, Indiana?" he said, with the stupidity of a man
whose heart and temperament are rarely in accord.
"About as usual, thank you," she replied, with no sign of surprise or
displeasure.
"'As usual' is no answer at all, or rather it's a woman's answer; a
Norman answer, that means neither yes nor no, neither well nor ill."
"Very good; I am neither well nor ill."
"I say that you lie," he retorted with renewed roughness; "I know that
you are not well; you have told Sir Ralph here that you are not. Tell
me, isn't that the truth? Did she not tell you so, Monsieur Ralph?"
"She did," replied the phlegmatic individual addressed, paying no heed
to the reproachful glance which Indiana bestowed upon him.
At that moment a fourth person entered the room: it was the factotum of
the household, formerly a sergeant in Monsieur Delmare's regiment.
He explained briefly to Monsieur Delmare that he had his reasons for
believing that charcoal thieves had been in the park the last few nights
at the same hour, and that he had come to ask for a gun to take with him
in making his nightly round before locking the gates. Monsieur Delmare,
scenting powder in the adventure, at once took down his fowling-piece,
gave Lelièvre another, and started to leave the room.
"What!" said Madame Delmare in dismay, "you would kill a poor peasant on
account of a few bags of charcoal?"
"I will shoot down like a dog," retorted Delmare, irritated by this
remonstrance, "any man whom I find prowling around my premises at night.
If you knew the law, madame, you would know that it authorizes me to do
it."
"It is a horrible law," said Indiana, warmly. But she quickly repressed
this impulse and added in a lower tone: "But your rheumatism? You forget
that it rains, and that you will suffer for it to-morrow if you go out
to-night."
"You are terribly afraid that you will have to nurse your old husband,"
replied Delmare, impatiently opening the door.
And he left the room, still muttering about his age and his wife.