petticoat, betook himself to blasphemy and railed against Providence.
The Duchess grew angry at such times.
“My friend,” she said drily, “I do not understand why you decline to
believe in God, for it is impossible to believe in man. Hush, do not
talk like that. You have too great a nature to take up their Liberal
nonsense with its pretension to abolish God.”
Theological and political disputes acted like a cold douche on
Montriveau; he calmed down; he could not return to love when the Duchess
stirred up his wrath by suddenly setting him down a thousand miles away
from the boudoir, discussing theories of absolute monarchy, which she
defended to admiration. Few women venture to be democrats; the attitude
of democratic champion is scarcely compatible with tyrannous feminine
sway. But often, on the other hand, the General shook out his mane,
dropped politics with a leonine growling and lashing of the flanks, and
sprang upon his prey; he was no longer capable of carrying a heart and
brain at such variance for very far; he came back, terrible with love,
to his mistress. And she, if she felt the prick of fancy stimulated to
a dangerous point, knew that it was time to leave her boudoir; she came
out of the atmosphere surcharged with desires that she drew in with
her breath, sat down to the piano, and sang the most exquisite songs
of modern music, and so baffled the physical attraction which at times
showed her no mercy, though she was strong enough to fight it down.
At such times she was something sublime in Armand’s eyes; she was not
acting, she was genuine; the unhappy lover was convinced that she loved
him. Her egoistic resistance deluded him into a belief that she was a
pure and sainted woman; he resigned himself; he talked of Platonic love,
did this artillery officer!
When Mme de Langeais had played with religion sufficiently to suit her
own purposes, she played with it again for Armand’s benefit. She wanted
to bring him back to a Christian frame of mind; she brought out her
edition of _Le Genie du Christianisme_, adapted for the use of military
men. Montriveau chafed; his yoke was heavy. Oh! at that, possessed by
the spirit of contradiction, she dinned religion into his ears, to see
whether God might not rid her of this suitor, for the man’s persistence
was beginning to frighten her. And in any case she was glad to prolong
any quarrel, if it bade fair to keep the dispute on moral grounds for
an indefinite period; the material struggle which followed it was more
dangerous.
But if the time of her opposition on the ground of the marriage law
might be said to be the _epoque civile_ of this sentimental warfare, the
ensuing phase which might be taken to constitute the _epoque religieuse_
had also its crisis and consequent decline of severity.
Armand happening to come in very early one evening, found M. l’Abbe
Gondrand, the Duchess’s spiritual director, established in an armchair
by the fireside, looking as a spiritual director might be expected to
look while digesting his dinner and the charming sins of his penitent.
In the ecclesiastic’s bearing there was a stateliness befitting a
dignitary of the Church; and the episcopal violet hue already appeared
in his dress. At sight of his fresh, well-preserved complexion, smooth
forehead, and ascetic’s mouth, Montriveau’s countenance grew uncommonly
dark; he said not a word under the malicious scrutiny of the other’s
gaze, and greeted neither the lady nor the priest. The lover apart,
Montriveau was not wanting in tact; so a few glances exchanged with the
bishop-designate told him that here was the real forger of the Duchess’s
armory of scruples.
That an ambitious abbe should control the happiness of a man of
Montriveau’s temper, and by underhand ways! The thought burst in a
furious tide over his face, clenched his fists, and set him chafing and
pacing to and fro; but when he came back to his place intending to make
a scene, a single look from the Duchess was enough. He was quiet.
Any other woman would have been put out by her lover’s gloomy silence;
it was quite otherwise with Mme de Langeais. She continued her
conversation with M. de Gondrand on the necessity of re-establishing the
Church in its ancient splendour. And she talked brilliantly.
The Church, she maintained, ought to be a temporal as well as a
spiritual power, stating her case better than the Abbe had done, and
regretting that the Chamber of Peers, unlike the English House of Lords,
had no bench of bishops. Nevertheless, the Abbe rose, yielded his place
to the General, and took his leave, knowing that in Lent he could play a
return game. As for the Duchess, Montriveau’s behaviour had excited
her curiosity to such a pitch that she scarcely rose to return her
director’s low bow.
“What is the matter with you, my friend?”
“Why, I cannot stomach that Abbe of yours.”
“Why did you not take a book?” she asked, careless whether the Abbe,
then closing the door, heard her or no.
The General paused, for the gesture which accompanied the Duchess’s
speech further increased the exceeding insolence of her words.
“My dear Antoinette, thank you for giving love precedence of the Church;
but, for pity’s sake, allow me to ask one question.”
“Oh! you are questioning me! I am quite willing. You are my friend, are
you not? I certainly can open the bottom of my heart to you; you will
see only one image there.”
“Do you talk about our love to that man?”
“He is my confessor.”
“Does he know that I love you?”
“M. de Montriveau, you cannot claim, I think, to penetrate the secrets
of the confessional?”
“Does that man know all about our quarrels and my love for you?”
“That man, monsieur; say God!”
“God again! _I_ ought to be alone in your heart. But leave God alone
where He is, for the love of God and me. Madame, you _shall not_ go to
confession again, or----”
“Or?” she repeated sweetly.
“Or I will never come back here.”
“Then go, Armand. Good-bye, good-bye forever.”
She rose and went to her boudoir without so much as a glance at Armand,
as he stood with his hand on the back of a chair. How long he stood
there motionless he himself never knew. The soul within has the
mysterious power of expanding as of contracting space.
He opened the door of the boudoir. It was dark within. A faint voice was
raised to say sharply:
“I did not ring. What made you come in without orders? Go away,
Suzette.”
“Then you are ill,” exclaimed Montriveau.
“Stand up, monsieur, and go out of the room for a minute at any rate,”
she said, ringing the bell.
“Mme la Duchesse rang for lights?” said the footman, coming in with the
candles. When the lovers were alone together, Mme de Langeais still lay
on her couch; she was just as silent and motionless as if Montriveau had
not been there.
“Dear, I was wrong,” he began, a note of pain and a sublime kindness in
his voice. “Indeed, I would not have you without religion----”
“It is fortunate that you can recognise the necessity of a conscience,”
she said in a hard voice, without looking at him. “I thank you in God’s
name.”
The General was broken down by her harshness; this woman seemed as
if she could be at will a sister or a stranger to him. He made one
despairing stride towards the door. He would leave her forever without
another word. He was wretched; and the Duchess was laughing within
herself over mental anguish far more cruel than the old judicial
torture. But as for going away, it was not in his power to do it. In any
sort of crisis, a woman is, as it were, bursting with a certain quantity
of things to say; so long as she has not delivered herself of them,
she experiences the sensation which we are apt to feel at the sight of
something incomplete. Mme de Langeais had not said all that was in her
mind. She took up her parable and said:
“We have not the same convictions, General, I am pained to think. It
would be dreadful if a woman could not believe in a religion which
permits us to love beyond the grave. I set Christian sentiments aside;
you cannot understand them. Let me simply speak to you of expediency.
Would you forbid a woman at court the table of the Lord when it is
customary to take the sacrament at Easter? People must certainly do
something for their party. The Liberals, whatever they may wish to do,
will never destroy the religious instinct. Religion will always be
a political necessity. Would you undertake to govern a nation of
logic-choppers? Napoleon was afraid to try; he persecuted ideologists.
If you want to keep people from reasoning, you must give them something
to feel. So let us accept the Roman Catholic Church with all its
consequences. And if we would have France go to mass, ought we not to
begin by going ourselves? Religion, you see, Armand, is a bond uniting
all the conservative principles which enable the rich to live in
tranquillity. Religion and the rights of property are intimately
connected. It is certainly a finer thing to lead a nation by ideas of
morality than by fear of the scaffold, as in the time of the Terror--the
one method by which your odious Revolution could enforce obedience.
The priest and the king--that means you, and me, and the Princess
my neighbour; and, in a word, the interests of all honest people
personified. There, my friend, just be so good as to belong to your
party, you that might be its Scylla if you had the slightest ambition
that way. I know nothing about politics myself; I argue from my own
feelings; but still I know enough to guess that society would
be overturned if people were always calling its foundations in
question----”
“If that is how your Court and your Government think, I am sorry for
you,” broke in Montriveau. “The Restoration, madam, ought to say, like
Catherine de Medici, when she heard that the battle of Dreux was lost,
‘Very well; now we will go to the meeting-house.’ Now 1815 was your
battle of Dreux. Like the royal power of those days, you won in
fact, while you lost in right. Political Protestantism has gained an
ascendancy over people’s minds. If you have no mind to issue your Edict
of Nantes; or if, when it is issued, you publish a Revocation; if you
should one day be accused and convicted of repudiating the Charter,
which is simply a pledge given to maintain the interests established
under the Republic, then the Revolution will rise again, terrible in her
strength, and strike but a single blow. It will not be the Revolution
that will go into exile; she is the very soil of France. Men die, but
people’s interests do not die. ... Eh, great Heavens! what are France
and the crown and rightful sovereigns, and the whole world besides, to
us? Idle words compared with my happiness. Let them reign or be hurled
from the throne, little do I care. Where am I now?”
“In the Duchesse de Langeais’ boudoir, my friend.”
“No, no. No more of the Duchess, no more of Langeais; I am with my dear
Antoinette.”
“Will you do me the pleasure to stay where you are,” she said, laughing
and pushing him back, gently however.
“So you have never loved me,” he retorted, and anger flashed in
lightning from his eyes.
“No, dear”; but the “No” was equivalent to “Yes.”
“I am a great ass,” he said, kissing her hands. The terrible queen was a
woman once more.--“Antoinette,” he went on, laying his head on her feet,
“you are too chastely tender to speak of our happiness to anyone in this
world.”
“Oh!” she cried, rising to her feet with a swift, graceful spring,
“you are a great simpleton.” And without another word she fled into the
drawing-room.
“What is it now?” wondered the General, little knowing that the touch of
his burning forehead had sent a swift electric thrill through her from
foot to head.
In hot wrath he followed her to the drawing-room, only to hear divinely
sweet chords. The Duchess was at the piano. If the man of science or the
poet can at once enjoy and comprehend, bringing his intelligence to bear
upon his enjoyment without loss of delight, he is conscious that the
alphabet and phraseology of music are but cunning instruments for
the composer, like the wood and copper wire under the hands of the
executant. For the poet and the man of science there is a music existing
apart, underlying the double expression of this language of the spirit
and senses. _Andiamo mio ben_ can draw tears of joy or pitying laughter
at the will of the singer; and not unfrequently one here and there in
the world, some girl unable to live and bear the heavy burden of an
unguessed pain, some man whose soul vibrates with the throb of passion,
may take up a musical theme, and lo! heaven is opened for them, or they
find a language for themselves in some sublime melody, some song lost to
the world.
The General was listening now to such a song; a mysterious music unknown
to all other ears, as the solitary plaint of some mateless bird dying
alone in a virgin forest.
“Great Heavens! what are you playing there?” he asked in an unsteady
voice.
“The prelude of a ballad, called, I believe, _Fleuve du Tage_.”
“I did not know that there was such music in a piano,” he returned.
“Ah!” she said, and for the first time she looked at him as a woman
looks at the man she loves, “nor do you know, my friend, that I love
you, and that you cause me horrible suffering; and that I feel that I
must utter my cry of pain without putting it too plainly into words. If
I did not, I should yield----But you see nothing.”
“And you will not make me happy!”
“Armand, I should die of sorrow the next day.”
The General turned abruptly from her and went. But out in the street he
brushed away the tears that he would not let fall.
The religious phase lasted for three months. At the end of that time the
Duchess grew weary of vain repetitions; the Deity, bound hand and foot,
was delivered up to her lover. Possibly she may have feared that by
sheer dint of talking of eternity she might perpetuate his love in this
world and the next. For her own sake, it must be believed that no man
had touched her heart, or her conduct would be inexcusable. She was
young; the time when men and women feel that they cannot afford to lose
time or to quibble over their joys was still far off. She, no doubt, was
on the verge not of first love, but of her first experience of the bliss
of love. And from inexperience, for want of the painful lessons which
would have taught her to value the treasure poured out at her feet, she
was playing with it. Knowing nothing of the glory and rapture of the
light, she was fain to stay in the shadow.
Armand was just beginning to understand this strange situation; he put
his hope in the first word spoken by nature. Every evening, as he came
away from Mme de Langeais’, he told himself that no woman would accept
the tenderest, most delicate proofs of a man’s love during seven months,
nor yield passively to the slighter demands of passion, only to cheat
love at the last. He was waiting patiently for the sun to gain power,
not doubting but that he should receive the earliest fruits. The married
woman’s hesitations and the religious scruples he could quite well
understand. He even rejoiced over those battles. He mistook the
Duchess’s heartless coquetry for modesty; and he would not have had her
otherwise. So he had loved to see her devising obstacles; was he not
gradually triumphing over them? Did not every victory won swell the
meagre sum of lovers’ intimacies long denied, and at last conceded with
every sign of love? Still, he had had such leisure to taste the full
sweetness of every small successive conquest on which a lover feeds
his love, that these had come to be matters of use and wont. So far as
obstacles went, there were none now save his own awe of her; nothing
else left between him and his desire save the whims of her who allowed
him to call her Antoinette. So he made up his mind to demand more, to
demand all. Embarrassed like a young lover who cannot dare to believe
that his idol can stoop so low, he hesitated for a long time. He passed
through the experience of terrible reactions within himself. A set
purpose was annihilated by a word, and definite resolves died within him
on the threshold. He despised himself for his weakness, and still his
desire remained unuttered. Nevertheless, one evening, after sitting
in gloomy melancholy, he brought out a fierce demand for his illegally
legitimate rights. The Duchess had not to wait for her bond-slave’s
request to guess his desire. When was a man’s desire a secret? And have
not women an intuitive knowledge of the meaning of certain changes of
countenance?
“What! you wish to be my friend no longer?” she broke in at the first
words, and a divine red surging like new blood under the transparent
skin, lent brightness to her eyes. “As a reward for my generosity, you
would dishonor me? Just reflect a little. I myself have thought much
over this; and I think always for us _both_. There is such a thing as
a woman’s loyalty, and we can no more fail in it than you can fail in
honour. _I_ cannot blind myself. If I am yours, how, in any sense, can
I be M. de Langeais’ wife? Can you require the sacrifice of my position,
my rank, my whole life in return for a doubtful love that could not wait
patiently for seven months? What! already you would rob me of my right
to dispose of myself? No, no; you must not talk like this again. No, not
another word. I will not, I cannot listen to you.”
Mme de Langeais raised both hands to her head to push back the tufted
curls from her hot forehead; she seemed very much excited.
“You come to a weak woman with your purpose definitely planned out. You
say--‘For a certain length of time she will talk to me of her husband,
then of God, and then of the inevitable consequences. But I will use
and abuse the ascendancy I shall gain over her; I will make myself
indispensable; all the bonds of habit, all the misconstructions of
outsiders, will make for me; and at length, when our _liaison_ is taken
for granted by all the world, I shall be this woman’s master.’--Now, be
frank; these are your thoughts! Oh! you calculate, and you say that you
love. Shame on you! You are enamoured? Ah! that I well believe! You
wish to possess me, to have me for your mistress, that is all! Very well
then, No! The _Duchesse de Langeais_ will not descend so far. Simple
_bourgeoises_ may be the victims of your treachery--I, never! Nothing
gives me assurance of your love. You speak of my beauty; I may lose
every trace of it in six months, like the dear Princess, my neighbour.
You are captivated by my wit, my grace. Great Heavens! you would soon
grow used to them and to the pleasures of possession. Have not the
little concessions that I was weak enough to make come to be a matter of
course in the last few months? Some day, when ruin comes, you will give
me no reason for the change in you beyond a curt, ‘I have ceased to
care for you.’--Then, rank and fortune and honour and all that was the
Duchesse de Langeais will be swallowed up in one disappointed hope.
I shall have children to bear witness to my shame, and----” With an
involuntary gesture she interrupted herself, and continued: “But I am
too good-natured to explain all this to you when you know it better than
I. Come! let us stay as we are. I am only too fortunate in that I can
still break these bonds which you think so strong. Is there anything so
very heroic in coming to the Hotel de Langeais to spend an evening
with a woman whose prattle amuses you?--a woman whom you take for a
plaything? Why, half a dozen young coxcombs come here just as regularly
every afternoon between three and five. They, too, are very generous, I
am to suppose? I make fun of them; they stand my petulance and insolence
pretty quietly, and make me laugh; but as for you, I give all the
treasures of my soul to you, and you wish to ruin me, you try my
patience in endless ways. Hush, that will do, that will do,” she
continued, seeing that he was about to speak, “you have no heart,
no soul, no delicacy. I know what you want to tell me. Very well,
then--yes. I would rather you should take me for a cold, insensible
woman, with no devotion in her composition, no heart even, than be
taken by everybody else for a vulgar person, and be condemned to your
so-called pleasures, of which you would most certainly tire, and to
everlasting punishment for it afterwards. Your selfish love is not worth
so many sacrifices....”
The words give but a very inadequate idea of the discourse which the
Duchess trilled out with the quick volubility of a bird-organ. Nor,
truly, was there anything to prevent her from talking on for some time
to come, for poor Armand’s only reply to the torrent of flute notes was
a silence filled with cruelly painful thoughts. He was just beginning to
see that this woman was playing with him; he divined instinctively
that a devoted love, a responsive love, does not reason and count
the consequences in this way. Then, as he heard her reproach him with
detestable motives, he felt something like shame as he remembered that
unconsciously he had made those very calculations. With angelic honesty
of purpose, he looked within, and self-examination found nothing but
selfishness in all his thoughts and motives, in the answers which he
framed and could not utter. He was self-convicted. In his despair
he longed to fling himself from the window. The egoism of it was
intolerable.
What indeed can a man say when a woman will not believe in love?--Let me
prove how much I love you.--The _I_ is always there.
The heroes of the boudoir, in such circumstances, can follow the example
of the primitive logician who preceded the Pyrrhonists and denied
movement. Montriveau was not equal to this feat. With all his audacity,
he lacked this precise kind which never deserts an adept in the formulas
of feminine algebra. If so many women, and even the best of women, fall
a prey to a kind of expert to whom the vulgar give a grosser name, it is
perhaps because the said experts are great _provers_, and love, in spite
of its delicious poetry of sentiment, requires a little more geometry
than people are wont to think.
Now the Duchess and Montriveau were alike in this--they were both
equally unversed in love lore. The lady’s knowledge of theory was but
scanty; in practice she knew nothing whatever; she felt nothing, and
reflected over everything. Montriveau had had but little experience, was
absolutely ignorant of theory, and felt too much to reflect at all. Both
therefore were enduring the consequences of the singular situation.
At that supreme moment the myriad thoughts in his mind might have
been reduced to the formula--“Submit to be mine----” words which seem
horribly selfish to a woman for whom they awaken no memories, recall no
ideas. Something nevertheless he must say. And what was more, though her
barbed shafts had set his blood tingling, though the short phrases that
she discharged at him one by one were very keen and sharp and cold, he
must control himself lest he should lose all by an outbreak of anger.
“Mme la Duchesse, I am in despair that God should have invented no way
for a woman to confirm the gift of her heart save by adding the gift of
her person. The high value which you yourself put upon the gift teaches
me that I cannot attach less importance to it. If you have given me
your inmost self and your whole heart, as you tell me, what can the rest
matter? And besides, if my happiness means so painful a sacrifice, let
us say no more about it. But you must pardon a man of spirit if he feels
humiliated at being taken for a spaniel.”
The tone in which the last remark was uttered might perhaps have
frightened another woman; but when the wearer of a petticoat has allowed
herself to be addressed as a Divinity, and thereby set herself above all
other mortals, no power on earth can be so haughty.