RESOLUTION
The passion conceived by Madame de Hansfeld for M. de Morville had
considerably augmented since her last interview during the Opera ball.
This love was in the breast of Paula a singular mixture of noble and
exalted sentiments and gloomy, sinister ideas. She would have thought it
a degradation of the man she loved had she suffered him to break his
oath; while, at the same time, she resolved, if not to encourage, at
least to permit, Iris to carry on any plot she thought proper against
the life of her husband, in order that she might be at liberty to
espouse M. de Morville without his having in any manner broken his vow.
In vain did Paula seek to remain in ignorance of Iris's machinations,
the consequences of which she could but imperfectly make out. The very
violence of her reluctance, her shuddering apprehensions, and
anticipated remorse, all served to shew her the criminal part she was
taking in the affair, which had originated solely in her wild,
ungovernable passion. Yet, strange to say, had the revelations of Iris
but occurred some few months sooner, when the prince was still under the
influence of his passionate love for Paula--a love so strong, and yet so
clear-sighted, that it remained unshaken by the apparent evidences of
her guilt and foresaw her innocence:--if, therefore, we repeat, the
confessions of Iris had been made when the only obstacle that prevented
Paula from returning the prince's affection was the remembrance of
Raphael--of Raphael the hitherto lamented and adored--what would have
been the results?
Arnold would have learned the innocence of Paula, while she would have
become acquainted with the infamous deceit practised by Raphael.
The chances were all in favour of Madame de Hansfeld's returning the
love of the prince, who had proved his affection to be so genuine and
ardent; by unremitted assiduities he would have induced Paula to pardon
him for entertaining suspicions so injurious to her, and which had
caused him so much torture, both bodily and mentally, and Paula must ere
long have been constrained to admit, that only a passion as blind, as
all-absorbing as that of her husband could have enabled him to continue
that almost adoring love, in spite even of the horrible appearances
which proclaimed her a would be murderess.
Unfortunately it was not so; and the tardy and constrained confessions
of Iris were not made until M. de Hansfeld had transferred his
affections to Bertha, and Madame de Hansfeld had given her heart to M.
de Morville. This fatal position of affairs rendered the situation of
all concerned equally unendurable.
Madame de Hansfeld saw herself doomed to drag on a wearisome existence
beside a man who cared not for her, he even loved another, and his
heart, shut for ever against any warmer feeling for Paula than pity and
regret, could but coldly and feebly seek, by surrounding her with every
worldly enjoyment, to atone for those suspicions to which she had been
sacrificed. And while separated from the object of her new affection by
an insuperable obstacle, she saw, through the enchanting rays of love,
one young, handsome, and devoted, so passionately devoted as to have
been willing to sacrifice at her feet the two leading idols of his
life--_his mother and his promise_--and, amid all this, Paula had not
even the gratification of thinking that by devoting herself to her
duties she in the smallest degree contributed to the happiness of M. de
Hansfeld, who, on his side, finding in Bertha the most seductive union
of personal graces and perfect sweetness of character, gave himself up
without a struggle to the delights of a passion as pure and fervid as
that which now filled his breast, finding full excuse in the frigid
indifference Paula had ever evinced towards him.
Such was the situation of M. and Madame de Hansfeld at the moment when,
by way of conciliating M. de Brévannes, who had it in his power to
calumniate her so fearfully, Paula was about to receive both himself and
his wife at the Hôtel Lambert.
The infatuation of Paula had now reached a point that rendered it quite
impossible for her much longer to endure her present position. She had
named eight days to M. de Morville as the period for acquainting him
with her final resolution, because she trusted that ere then her future
destiny would be decided.
Either she would courageously accept the propositions of Iris, or her
own hand should take away her life if the project of the mulatto
appeared to her to require a too direct or too personal a co-operation.
Nothing is more strange, yet at the same time real, than the tiny
particles fraught with deadly sin, which, floating over the subdued
conscience, form at last a mass of guilt, startling and fearful to
contemplate.
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The result of Madame de Hansfeld's deep reverie was to summon Iris; the
ready messenger of evil came quickly at her call.