MADAME DE BRÉVANNES
The house in which M. de Brévannes occupied the first floor was
situated in the Rue Saint Florentin. Utterly indifferent to the
enjoyments or little comforts of a well-arranged home, he had simply
commanded the upholsterer who furnished them to see no expense spared;
and with this unrestricted permission before him, the tradesman employed
had done his best to produce the very _beau idéal_ of a furnished
lodging, that is to say, he had given to the residence of M. de
Brévannes the most chill, comfortless, and commonplace aspect
imaginable. Nothing that marked a taste, pursuit, or personal
convenience, was to be seen in the dreary chambers; not a portrait, a
picture,--not a vestige of the fine arts embellished the spacious rooms.
The only one exempted from the triste vulgarity that predominated over
the others was a small drawing-room especially appropriated to Bertha,
and in which she passed her entire days.
Spite of the advanced hour of the night, or rather morning, for it was
now four o'clock, it is into this very chamber we are about to introduce
the reader.
Although the continual absences of M. de Brévannes might well have
accustomed his gentle partner to them, yet Madame de Brévannes still
experienced too much anxiety on his account ever to retire to rest until
well assured of his safe return.
It was then four o'clock in the morning, and Bertha, seated in an
arm-chair, her clasped hands reposing on her lap, was mechanically
gazing on the expiring embers which flickered on the hearth. A lamp
placed on a small table beside her, on which lay a half open book, shone
full on the delicate features of the pensive wife, and cast a soft glow
upon the glossy bands of her rich chestnut hair, which, braided so as
merely to display the finely formed ear, with its roseate tip, was
plaited in with the luxuriant masses, ornamenting the back of her small
and classically shaped head.
The most striking characteristic of the lovely countenance of Bertha was
its look of almost angelic sweetness, and when she raised her beautiful,
large, blue eyes, it was impossible to resist their gentle influence.
Her somewhat serious mouth seemed rather intended to express the smile
of affection and universal benevolence than the noisy laugh of extreme
gaiety, while the meditative attitude in which she sat displayed to
advantage the graceful roundness of her long white throat.
Bertha wore a dress of light grey silk, whose subdued shade harmonised
admirably with the delicacy of her transparent complexion. On one side
of the fire-place stood a pianoforte loaded with music, and over the
mantel-piece were suspended two portraits of unequal sizes, representing
the father and mother of Bertha. A considerable number of plain black
frames, containing copper-plate engravings, the works of Pierre Raimond,
were hung around the small chamber, the walls of which were covered with
embossed red paper, that gave it an air of lightness and cheerfulness
very different from the rest of the apartments; and on the chimney-piece
stood an old enamelled clock and two small blue and white candlesticks
of Limoges enamel, which had once belonged to Bertha's mother, who had
received them from her husband as a wedding present.
A tear which had long hung suspended from the thick lashes of Bertha's
eyelid fell on her cheek like a liquid pearl. Her bosom heaved
convulsively--a sudden tremor seized her frame, while a deep flush
suffused her countenance, as again she sunk into her former gloomy
abstraction.
Let us briefly explain the cause both of Bertha's sadness and utter
dejection.
During her last residence in Lorraine, M. de Brévannes had bestowed the
most marked attention on one of the female attendants belonging to his
wife. The insolence displayed by the creature thus improperly
distinguished opened the eyes of Madame de Brévannes as to its real
cause, or, at least, infused into her mind such strong suspicions as to
call for the immediate dismissal of the guilty woman.
This trying circumstance had occurred a few days before the return of M.
de Brévannes to Paris, and had left a bitter feeling of injury in the
mind of Bertha, who, however she might previously have smarted under her
husband's infidelity, had never experienced a similar humiliation.
Four o'clock struck, and aroused Madame de Brévannes from her reverie.
Absorbed in her deep and painful meditation, she had taken no note of
the hours, and was surprised to find the night so completely gone.
At this moment a carriage stopped at the door, and Bertha began to
regret having sat up so late. Her husband had peremptorily forbidden her
ever awaiting his return. The servants, also, by his orders, retired to
rest whether their master were in or not. He usually entered by a small
side door, of which he alone had the key, but he was compelled to pass
through Bertha's sitting-room in order to reach one of the two
sleeping-apartments which communicated with it.
At the sight of her husband, Bertha rose to meet him, endeavouring, by a
forced smile, to deprecate the storm she dreaded and anticipated.
The contraction of M. de Brévannes' features indicated the evil
passions which at that moment possessed him. The few words spoken at
random by Madame Beauvoisis respecting his journey to Italy had awakened
within him a crowd of painful ideas, which he had been compelled to
restrain during the hall and supper; it was, therefore, with
considerable pleasure he promised himself a means of venting the wrath
and bitterness with which he was filled, by quarrelling with his wife
for sitting up for him.
"How is this, madam?" exclaimed he, as he entered; "four o'clock in the
morning, and you not yet retired to bed! May I inquire the meaning of
such strange conduct? Or is it that you may know at what hour I return
home? Am I, or am I not, master of my own actions? Is your inquisitorial
system to recommence the instant I set my foot in this place? Perhaps it
may be as well, since we are upon the subject, to go into it at full
length, in order that we may have no further occasion to revert to it
during the whole of the winter."
So saying, he threw himself abruptly into the chair Bertha had just
quitted, while she remained standing by the piano, utterly overcome with
surprise at this abrupt torrent of reproach.
"You know," answered she, timidly, "your wishes are at all times mine;
only tell me what you wish me to do, and rest assured of my implicit
obedience. Indeed, it was with no thought of watching your conduct that
I sat up so late; I was amusing myself by arranging this little
apartment, and that occupied me so deeply that, before I was aware of
it, I found it was one o'clock in the morning; then, fancying that you
would soon be home, I thought I would wait for you. I slept a little,
and so four o'clock struck before I was aware how the time had passed.
That is how I came to offend you, Charles;" then smiling sweetly, and
raising her lovely face towards her husband, she added, "And will you
not forgive me for having unintentionally done so?"
But this angelic mildness disarmed not M. de Brévannes.
"What folly is this?" exclaimed he; "you really waste, a vast many fine
words, madam, most unnecessarily. I am not arraigning your conduct as
though you had committed a crime, and it is more than absurd to put such
a construction upon what I did say; but of this be assured, I am not to
be cheated as to the real motive that kept you from your bed to-night.
Why not be candid, and admit that you chose to sit up that you might
satisfy yourself as to the precise hour and minute I came home? You will
oblige me, however, by not doing so again. I do not intend, I can tell
you, to allow a repetition of the scenes of last year, or that, either
by sullenness or assuming the air and appearance of a victim, you shall
presume to imply a censure upon whatever I may think proper to do or to
say."
"Oh, Charles! have I ever uttered one word?--except, indeed----"
"Upon my life," cried M. de Brévannes, interrupting his wife, "some
persons possess the happy art of making their looks, and even silence,
more expressive than words themselves."
"Alas, Charles, it is not always possible to prevent myself from being
sad!"
"And wherefore should you be so? Do you want for any thing?--are you not
elevated to a rank and station you never could have ventured to hope
for?--have I not done all that human ability admits for you?"
"Charles, you well know I am not unmindful of all your benefits; my only
regret is that I cannot better prove my gratitude to you."
"Yet all I require of you is simply to render my home agreeable to me,
and to put on a smiling look of happiness instead of perpetually
censuring my conduct by your melancholy and other affectations. If I
thought fit to indulge my inclinations by marrying you, it was because,
first, I was in love, and, secondly----"
"To have a wife submissive to your commands--I am perfectly sensible of
that. You preferred me to a richer bride, because gratitude for the
sacrifice you had made for me would necessarily render my duties still
more binding and sacred in my eyes; and I should have been extremely
sorry had you not so considered it, as it would have left me no means of
repaying you for your kindness. But let me assure you, Charles, that you
are greatly mistaken in ascribing my sadness (which is frequently
involuntary) to any desire on my part to criticise your actions, which
it becomes not me to question."
"But what is the meaning of this sadness?"
After a moment's hesitation, Bertha, with downcast eyes, replied,--
"There may be among your actions some that render me sad, without my
venturing to complain of them."
"Upon my word, you are too deep a casuist for me! Come now, I will
render the subject more clear, and disclose to you what your real
thoughts are, though you dare not own them even to yourself. Why,
instead of employing all these hypocritical circumlocutions, can you not
come boldly to the point, and candidly confess that jealousy is the
main-spring of your conduct?"
"Let me beseech you not to refer to that."
"And why not? On the contrary, I consider it most advantageous to weigh
well our present position in all its relative bearings. And first, for
the grand question you long to propose, but dare not, have I, or have I
not, mistresses to occupy my time and thoughts? Now, that is the very
thing of which you ought either to be entirely ignorant, or, at least,
to feign ignorance. Such would be the conduct of a sensible woman,
instead of tormenting herself to death with ridiculous jealousy."
"Charles, is it for you to assert that we may reason ourselves out of
such a feeling as jealousy, no matter however unfounded, or whether the
object that excites it be worthy or otherwise?"
"Capital, indeed, madam! Then it seems you accuse me of being jealous?"
"Oh, no!--I accuse you not--that would be to imply that jealousy were a
crime, and Heaven knows I had need be indulgent towards a sentiment
under whose bitterest torments I have myself writhed."
"You are under a gross error, madam, if you suppose that we stand upon
equal grounds as regards the indulging such a passion as jealousy?
Whether I am faithful to you or not, in no degree affects your
consideration with society. But that I, who have sacrificed every thing
for you, should be exposed to fresh ridicule!--I tell you," continued M.
de Brévannes, rising from his chair, his teeth clenched, and his hands
compressed with rage,--"that at the very supposition I can no longer
command myself!" and as though unable to master the boiling rage which
shook his frame and inflamed every feature, he commenced rapidly pacing
the room.
"You speak truly, Charles," said Bertha, sorrowfully, "our jealousy is
not the same. Mine springs from my heart, yours from your pride; but it
matters not, and I respect it equally. Have you ever once heard me
complain of the seclusion in which I live? Except my father, whom you
permit me to visit twice a-week, and a few members of your own family it
is your pleasure I should receive, I live entirely alone. Oh, let me
hasten to thank you for granting me the happiness of communing with my
own thoughts undisturbed by the great and the gay!"
"Yet all this enjoyment does not prevent your finding the time long and
tedious; and every body knows the effects solitude and want of
occupation produce in the minds of females."
"But I am never unoccupied--never for an instant. You know how
passionately fond I am of music; then I draw, I read. As for the
solitude, your being more at home does not depend upon me."
While Madame de Brévannes was speaking, her husband had approached the
window, and mechanically opened the curtains drawn before it. He
observed on the other side of the street, on the first floor of the
house opposite his own, lights in the window corresponding to the one by
which he stood, and through the glass he could discern the outline of a
man attentively gazing from that window.
It was now nearly five o'clock in the morning, all was dark without, and
the street was perfectly deserted; what object of interest, then, could
the individual opposite have in thus keeping watch, unless it were to
reconnoiter the windows of Madame de Brévannes' apartment, doubtless
the only one throughout the house in which a light was burning at that
unusual hour?
One of those absurd suspicions which enter only into the brain of
jealous _deceivers_ (a class essentially distinct from that of jealous
_deceived_)--we repeat that a suspicion of the most absurd description
all at once entered the mind of M. de Brévannes, who, turning quickly
round towards his wife, and looking at her with angry glances and
threatening countenance, exclaimed,--
[Illustration 05: "Madam, I insist upon knowing wherefore that
light is burning in the opposite house."]
"Madam, I insist upon knowing wherefore that light is burning in the
opposite house?" then suddenly interrupting himself, to give way to a
suggestion equally ridiculous with his jealousy, he abruptly drew back
the curtain, opened the window, and went out upon the balcony, where he
took up his station with an air of proud defiance.
At this unexpected apparition, the curtains of the opposite windows were
hastily closed, the shadow disappeared, and almost immediately the light
was extinguished.
Madame de Brévannes, wholly ignorant of her husband's fury, and still
less able to comprehend his fancy for throwing open the windows in the
month of January, was advancing towards the balcony, when M. de
Brévannes turned sharply round, and, jerking the window-curtains back
to their places, exclaimed,--
"So, madam, it is thus, then, you occupy your leisure hours while
awaiting my return?"
"Indeed, Charles, I understand not what you mean."
"You do not? Ah, false woman, tell me why was the window of the first
floor in the house facing this lighted up just now?"
"Just now?--the window?--in the opposite house?" repeated Bertha, with
increasing surprise.
"Oh, you feign astonishment admirably, madam; but it will not do. Just
this minute, some person opposite was attentively watching your window,
but disappeared the instant I presented myself."
"Very probably, Charles. I know nothing about it: but why do you tell me
of so trifling a circumstance?"
"Why?"
"Yes, I ask you again, why?"
"Because, doubtless there is a mutually good understanding between
yourself and this person opposite, and that some disgraceful intrigue is
carried on by means of signal-lights in your respective windows. I cease
now to feel the smallest astonishment at your having kept watch
to-night, instead of retiring to rest."
To an accusation so abrupt, so brutal, and so utterly incomprehensible,
Bertha found it impossible to frame any reply: but, clasping her hands,
she raised her eyes to heaven.
"All those tragedy airs are no answers to my question," cried M. de
Brévannes, more and more excited; "and I ask you again, madam, why that
light burned in the window directly facing yours; and wherefore that man
gazed so attentively over here?"
"How is it possible I can know?" cried Bertha.
"Ah, madam, this is not replying, but meanly equivocating."
"But what other answer can I give?"
"Have a care! have a care!" exclaimed M. de Brévannes, almost foaming
with rage, "do not imagine me fool enough to be duped by your hypocrisy.
I have seen what I state with my own eyes. I am not blind, whatever you
may think. I insist upon knowing who lives opposite to us?"
"For Heaven's sake, Charles, how should I know? We have only been here
since yesterday morning----"
Interrupting his wife with increased fury, and violently striking his
forehead, M. de Brévannes exclaimed,--
"I have it! Now, I remember, a post-chaise arrived almost at the same
time we did, and stopped before the opposite house. We are
followed--perhaps, even from Lorraine. Oh, I am sure--quite, quite sure,
some disgraceful mystery is attached to all these circumstances; but
depend upon it, wretched creature! that I will discover it, and drag the
infamous participators to the shame and ignominy they deserve."
So much brutality and insult, expressed in a tone and manner so
undeserved, stung Bertha to the quick. Spite of her quietness and
habitual resignation, her self-pride, her delicacy, seemed outraged;
and, with a firm and dignified manner, she said to her husband,--
"You are wrong, Charles, to speak to me thus. You may exhaust my
patience, and force me to say things that, for the sake of your
self-respect, I would fain be silent upon."
"Oh! oh! what! threats, too?"
"No, Charles, I utter no threats; but it is scarcely generous in you,
who have given me so many just causes of complaint and sorrow, to accuse
me, and treat me thus ignominiously, only from an absurd suspicion."
"Upon my word, madam, you are coming out quite a new character, as well
as with language."
"Charles, I am weary of suffering your unjust reproaches in silence,
when I might myself prefer against you causes of complaint,
unfortunately too well founded."
"Better, and better, I protest!"
"You tell me, Charles, that I ought to shut my eyes to your conduct. I
have always done so; but is it my fault if the account of your
irregularities has reached my ears, even amid the solitude in which I
live? Is it not the voice of public report, and the insolence of the
wretched creature I drove from my house a week ago, that----"
"Not another word, madam!"
"Pardon me, Charles, but I must and will speak. I wish not to presume
upon the position my devotion to my duties had obtained for me, I merely
desire that you should respect it. I am willing to shut my eyes on
errors so low, so degrading, that they are beneath my anger; but I will
not suffer you thus unjustly to trample me in the dust."
"Upon my word, madam, your audacity confounds me. You, doubtless, wish
me to understand, that four years of fidelity and respect for your
duties have fully repaid all obligation to me, and that now you are free
to act as you think proper. Is it possible that you can have effaced
from your memory all I have done for you and yours; that I took you from
absolute beggary; that your father exists upon my generosity; and that I
have even carried my goodness so far as to have once offered to allow
him to reside under my roof?"
"I have never forgotten, Charles, that you raised me from the poverty
you speak of; and this recollection is the more meritorious on my part,
as the poverty you allude to had no terrors for me: on the contrary, I
neither felt nor heeded them, and ere I gave you, as a rich man, my
heart, I had, perhaps, as many scruples to get over as you were obliged
to vanquish, ere you could make up your mind to bestow your affections
upon a poor girl like me."
"Really, what extreme condescension on your part to accept the hand,
spite of my obnoxious 40,000 livres per annum!"
"As for your taunt of my father being maintained by your bounty! 'tis
the first time you have uttered it--it shall be the last. For nearly the
last twelvemonth, my poor father's sight has become so weakened, that he
has been compelled to relinquish the labour by which he had hitherto
supported himself; by dint of prayers and entreaties, I prevailed on him
to accept a small annuity, he consented to receive it."
"In order not to be outdone by you in condescension, acting, no doubt,
upon that principle, M. Raimond has also vouchsafed to honour me by
accepting the means of living comfortably, instead of dying in an
hospital."
"Say, rather, that my father was desirous of sparing your vanity by not
going into an hospital. According to his notions, there would have been
no dishonour in accepting such an asylum: old, infirm, unable to
maintain himself, as he had hitherto done, by the work of his own hands,
he would, without any feeling of degradation, have availed himself of
the refuge public charity offers to the honest but unfortunate sufferer.
However----"
"You would say that, since I so ill appreciate the great kindness of
your respectable parent, he will no longer afford me the extreme
happiness of maintaining him any longer, but will punish me by going and
establishing himself in the hospital?"
"Most assuredly; for, certainly, I will not conceal from him the remarks
you have made."
As she uttered these last words, the voice of Bertha, which, until then,
had been firm and collected, began to falter; her powers of endurance
were exhausted. She had for some time restrained the swelling tears
which nearly choked her; but she could no longer retain her
self-command,--she sank back into her chair, and, covering her face with
her hands, wept bitterly.
M. de Brévannes was hard-hearted, selfish, and proud, yet he possessed
considerable intelligence; and spite of the sarcasms on the singular
principles of Bertha's father, with regard to the favours of the rich,
he was perfectly well aware, that reasonable or otherwise, the
conviction of his wife and Pierre Raimond on this subject was deep and
sincere. His jokes had merely been a species of cruel sport.
The grief of Bertha touched him the more, as he remembered the recent
wrongs he had done her, and all the humiliating things he had said to
her rose in mental array; and he could not conceal from himself, that
his conduct was by no means what it should he. The more she appeared
dependent on him, the more incumbent was it on him to spare her
delicacy, and not load her with coarse and cruel reproaches. And, if the
whole truth must be told, we would endeavour to lay open one of the
thousand hidden folds of the human heart, or rather of human
organisation, and induce the reader to believe in one of those sudden
brutal rekindlings of passion peculiar to man alone; and that, too,
after the most bitter, degrading, and insulting recriminations.
Bertha, overwhelmed by the painful emotions produced by the late cruel
scene, had fallen back into her chair. As she sat with drooping head,
her beautifully formed shoulders, white and polished as ivory, yet
tinged with the warm flush of her recently excited feelings, suddenly
fixed the attention of M. de Brévannes.
As is frequently the case, he had a thousand times forgotten the lovely
being he called his wife for creatures unworthy of a comparison with
her, even as regarded the mere matter of beauty. Since the scene to
which Bertha had alluded, when speaking of the _femme-de-chambre_ she
had been compelled to dismiss, the married pair had observed a mixture
of coldness and restraint towards each other; but the love of Bertha for
her husband had received its death-blow.
At the sight of his wife's deep distress, M. de Brévannes, by one of
those gross ideas inherent in the minds of such men, imagined, that by
complimenting the poor victim of his brutality, upon the power and
brilliancy of her beauty, she would readily pardon him his late
unfeeling conduct; he, therefore, silently approached his weeping wife,
and, throwing his arm around her waist, exclaimed,--
"Come, my pretty Bertha, be a good girl--give me a kiss--and let's be
friends."
It is impossible to depict the expression of mingled disgust, shame, and
profound grief, exhibited in the countenance of the suffering wife; she,
however, hastily freed herself from the hold of M. de Brévannes, and
rising, exclaimed,--
"Surely I might have been spared this last insult! It is, however, one I
neither can nor will endure." And with these words Bertha rushed into
her chamber, doubly locking the door after her.
We shall not attempt to paint the rage of M. de Brévannes, or the
mingled wrath and hatred with which he pursued his unfortunate wife.