"For three months she has made me the happiest man living; such
happiness is worth the sacrifice of my life."
He did not go to bed, but rode about among the woods the whole of the
morning. In one of the pathways of the woods of Verrières he saw a man
mounted on a fine English horse, who called him immediately by his name
while he was still far off. It was Alphonse de Thémines. To a man in
Saint-Clair's state of mind solitude is particularly desirable, and this
encounter with Thémines changed his bad humour into a furious temper.
Thémines did not notice his mood, or perhaps took a wicked pleasure in
thwarting it. He talked and laughed and joked without noticing that he
did not receive any response. Saint-Clair soon tried to turn his horse
aside into a narrow track, hoping the bore would not follow him; but it
was of no use, bores do not leave their prey so easily. Thémines pulled
the bridle in the same direction, increased his horse's pace to keep by
Saint-Clair's side and complacently continued the conversation.
I have said that the path was a narrow one. The two horses could hardly
walk abreast. It was not, therefore, to be wondered at that even so good
a horseman as Thémines should graze against Saint-Clair's foot as he
walked along with him. This put the finishing touch to his anger, and he
could not contain himself any longer. He rose in his stirrups and struck
Thémines' horse sharply across the nose with his whip.
"What the devil is the matter with you, Auguste?" cried Thémines. "Why
do you strike my horse?"
"Why do you pursue me?" roared Saint-Clair.
"Have you lost your senses, Saint-Clair? You forget to whom you are
talking."
"I know quite well that I am talking to a puppy."
"Saint-Clair!... you must be mad, I think.... Listen to me. To-morrow
you will either apologise to me, or you will account for your insolent
conduct."
"To-morrow, then, sir--"
Thémines stopped his horse; Saint-Clair pushed his on, and very soon
disappeared among the trees.
He was calmer now. He was silly enough to believe in presentiments. He
felt sure he would be killed on the morrow, and that would be a suitable
ending to his condition. Only one more day of anxieties and torments to
endure. He went home and sent a note by his servant to Colonel Beaujeu.
He wrote several letters, after which he dined with a good appetite, and
was promptly at the little garden gate by 8.30.
* * * * *
"What is the matter with you to-day, Auguste?" said the Countess. "You
are unusually lively, and yet your gaiety does not move me to laugh.
Last night you were just a trifle dull, and I was the gay one! We have
changed parts to-day. I have a racking headache."
"Dear one, I admit it. Yes, I was very tedious yesterday, but to-day I
have been out, I took exercise, and I feel quite excited."
"On the other hand, I overslept myself this morning, and rose late. I
had bad dreams."
"Ah! dreams? Do you believe in dreams?"
"What nonsense!"
"I believe in them. I am sure that you had a dream which foretold some
tragic event."
"Good heavens! I never remember my dreams. Once I recollect ... that I
saw Massigny in my dream; so, you see, it was not very entertaining."
"Massigny! But I should have thought you would have been pleased at
seeing him again!"
"Poor Massigny!"
"Why 'poor Massigny'?"
"Please tell me, Auguste, what is wrong with you to-night. Your smile is
perfectly diabolic, and you seem to be making game of yourself."
"Ah! now you are treating me as badly as your old dowager friends treat
me."
"Yes, Auguste, you wear the same expression to-day that you put on
before people whom you do not like."
"That is unpardonable in me. Come, give me your hand."
He kissed her hand with ironical gallantry, and they gazed at each
other studiously for a minute. Saint-Clair was the first to drop his
eyes.
"How difficult it is," he exclaimed, "to live in this world without
being thought ill of! One ought really never to talk of anything but the
weather and hunting, or eagerly to discuss with your old friends the
reports of their benevolent societies."
He picked up a paper from the table near him.
"Come, here is your lace-cleaner's bill. Let us discuss that,
sweetheart; then you cannot say I am ill-tempered."
"Really, Auguste, you amaze me...."
"This handwriting puts me in mind of a letter I found this morning. I
must explain that I have fits of untidiness occasionally, and I was
arranging my papers. Well, then, I found a love-letter from a dressmaker
with whom I fell in love at sixteen. She had a trick of writing each
word most fantastically, and her style was equal to her writing. Well, I
was foolish enough then to be vexed that my mistress could not write as
well as Madame de Sévigné, and I left her abruptly. In reading over this
letter to-day I see that this dressmaker really did love me."
"Really! a woman whom you kept?"
"In line style on fifty francs a month. But I could not afford more, as
my guardian only allowed me a little money at a time, for he said that
youths who had money ruined themselves and others."
"What became of this woman?"
"How should I know?... Probably she died in a hospital."
"Auguste,... if that were true you would not speak so flippantly."
"Well, then, to tell you the truth, she is married to a respectable man,
and when I came of age I gave her a small dowry."
"How good of you!... But why do you try to make yourself out so evil?"
"Oh, I am good enough.... The more I think of it the more I persuade
myself that this woman really did care for me.... But on the other hand,
it is difficult to discern true feeling under such a ridiculous
expression of it."
"You ought to have shown me your letter. I should not have been
jealous.... We women have finer tact than you, and we can tell at a
glance, from the style of a letter, whether the writer is sincere, or
feigning a passion he does not really feel."
"But what a number of times you have allowed yourself to be taken in by
fools and rogues!"
As he spoke he looked at the Etruscan vase with a threatening glance, to
which his voice responded, but Mathilde went on without noticing
anything.
"Come, now, all you men wish to pose as Don Juans. You fancy you are
making dupes when often you have encountered only Doña Juana, who is
much more cunning than yourselves."
"I perceive that with your superior wit you ladies scent out rakes in
every place. I doubt not also that our friend Massigny, who was both a
stupid and a coxcomb, became, when dead, spotless and a martyr."
"Massigny? He was not a fool; then too there are silly women to be
found. I must tell you a story about Massigny. But surely have I not
told it you already?"
"Never," replied Saint-Clair tremblingly.
"Massigny fell in love with me after his return from Italy. My husband
knew him and introduced him to me as a man of taste and culture. Those
two were just made for each other. Massigny was most attentive to me
from the first; he gave me some water-colour sketches which he had
bought from Schroth, as his own paintings, and talked of music and art
in the most divertingly superior manner. One day he sent me an
incredibly ridiculous letter. He said, among other things, that I was
the best woman in Paris; therefore he wished to be my lover. I showed
the letter to my cousin Julie. We were then both very silly, and we
resolved to play him a trick. One evening we had several visitors, among
them being Massigny. My cousin said to me, 'I am going to read you a
declaration of love which I received this morning.' She took the letter
and read it amidst peals of laughter.... Poor Massigny!..."
Saint-Clair fell on his knees uttering a cry of joy. He seized the
Countess's hand and covered it with tears and kisses. Mathilde was
surprised beyond measure, and thought at first he had gone mad.
Saint-Clair could only murmur, "Forgive me! forgive me!" When he rose to
his feet he was radiant; he was happier than on the day when Mathilde
had said to him for the first time, "I love you."
"I am the guiltiest and most stupid of men," he cried; "for two days I
have misjudged you ... and never given you a chance to clear
yourself...."
"You suspected me?... And of what?"
"Oh! idiot that I was!... they told me you had loved Massigny, and--"
"Massigny!" and she began to laugh; then soon quickly growing more
earnest, "Auguste," she said, "how could you be so foolish as to harbour
such suspicions, and so hypocritical as to hide them from me?"
Her eyes filled with tears.
"I implore you to forgive me."
"Of course I forgive you, beloved ... but let me first swear...."
"Oh! I believe you, I believe you; do not say any more about it."
"But in Heaven's name what put such an improbable notion in your head?"
"Nothing, nothing in the world except my accursed temper ... and ...
would you believe it? that Etruscan vase which I knew Massigny had given
you."
The Countess clasped her hands together in amazement, and then she burst
into shouts of laughter.
"My Etruscan vase! my Etruscan vase!"
Saint-Clair was obliged to join in the laughter himself, although great
tears rolled down his cheeks. He seized Mathilde in his arms. "I will
not let you go," he said, "until you pardon me."
"Yes, I forgive you, though you are so foolish," she replied, kissing
him tenderly. "You make me very happy to-day; it is the first time I
have seen you shed tears, and I thought that you could not weep."
Then she struggled from his embrace, and, snatching the Etruscan vase,
broke it into a thousand pieces on the floor. It was a valuable and
unique work, painted in three colours, and represented the fight between
a Lapithe and a Centaur.
For several hours Saint-Clair was the happiest and the most ashamed of
men.
* * * * *
"Well," said Roquantin to Colonel Beaujeu, when he met him in the
evening at Tortoni's, "is this news true?"
"Too true, my friend," answered the Colonel sadly.
"Tell me, how did it come about?"
"Oh! just as it should. Saint-Clair began by telling me he was in the
wrong, but that he wished to draw Thémines' fire before begging his
pardon. I could do no other than accede. Thémines wished to draw lots
who should fire first. Saint-Clair insisted that Thémines should.
Thémines fired; and I saw Saint-Clair turn round once and then fall
stone dead. I have often remarked, in the case of soldiers when they
have been shot, this strange turning round which precedes death."
"How very extraordinary!" said Roquantin. "But Thémines, what did he
do?"
"Oh, what is usual on these occasions: he threw his pistol on the ground
remorsefully, with such force that he broke the hammer. It was an
English pistol of Manton's. I don't believe there is a gun-maker in
Paris who could make such another."
* * * * *
The Countess shut herself up in her country house for three whole years
without seeing anyone; winter and summer, there she lived, hardly going
out of her room. She was waited upon by a mulatto woman who knew of the
attachment between Saint-Clair and herself. She scarcely spoke a word to
her day after day. At the end of three years her cousin Julie returned
from a long voyage. She forced her way into the house and found poor
Mathilde thin and pale, the very ghost of the beautiful and fascinating
woman she had left behind. By degrees she persuaded her to come out of
her solitude, and took her to Hyères. The Countess languished there for
three or four months, and then died of consumption brought on by her
grief--so said Dr. M----, who attended her.
1830.