being distinguished by the man who made fanatics of a whole province!
Leoni overwhelmed us with attentions and surrounded us with respectful
homage. My mother and I had become the leaders of society in the city.
We walked by his side at all the entertainments; he assisted us to
display the most insane splendor; he designed our dresses and invented
our fancy costumes; for he understood everything and at need would have
made our gowns and our turbans himself. By such means did he take
possession of the affections of the whole family. My aunt was the most
difficult conquest. She held out for a long while and distressed us by
her discouraging remarks.--Leoni was a man of evil habits, she said, a
frantic gambler, who won and lost the fortune of twenty families every
evening; he would devour ours in a single night. But Leoni undertook to
soften her, and succeeded by laying hold of her vanity, that lever which
he worked so vigorously while seeming only to touch it lightly. Soon
there were no obstacles left. My hand was promised him, with a dowry of
half a million. My aunt suggested that we should have more certain
information concerning the fortune and rank of this foreigner. Leoni
smiled and promised to furnish his patents of nobility and his title
deeds within three weeks. He treated the matter of the marriage contract
very lightly, but it was drawn with the utmost liberality toward him and
confidence in him. He seemed hardly to know what I was to bring him.
Monsieur Delpech, and, upon the strength of his assurance, all Leoni's
new friends, declared that he was four times richer than we were, and
that his marriage to me was a love-match. I readily allowed myself to be
persuaded. I had never been deceived, and I never thought of forgers and
blacklegs except as in the rags of poverty and the livery of
degradation.
A wave of painful emotion almost suffocated Juliette. She paused and
looked at me with a dazed expression.
"Poor child!" I said, "God should have protected you."
"Oh!" she rejoined, contracting her ebon eyebrows, "I used two terrible
words; may God forgive me! I have no hatred in my heart, and I do not
accuse Leoni of being a villain; no, no, for I do not blush for having
loved him. He is an unfortunate man whom we should pity. If you knew----
But I will tell you all."
"Go on with your story," I said to her; "Leoni is guilty enough; you
have no intention of accusing him more than he deserves."
Juliette resumed her narrative.
It is a fact that he loved me, loved me for myself; the sequel proved
that clearly enough. Do not shake your head, Bustamente. Leoni's is a
powerful body, animated by a vast mind; all the virtues and all the
vices, all the passions, holy and guilty alike, find a place in it at
the same time. No one has ever chosen to judge him impartially; he was
quite right in saying that I alone have known him and done him justice.
The language that he used to me was so novel to my ear that I was
intoxicated by it. Perhaps my absolute ignorance up to that time of
everything bordering on sentiment made that language seem more delicious
and more extraordinary to me than it would have seemed to a more
experienced girl. But I believe--and other women believed with me--that
no man on earth ever felt and expressed love like Leoni. Superior to
other men in evil and in good, he spoke another tongue, he had another
expression, he had also another heart. I have heard an Italian woman say
that a bouquet in Leoni's hand was more fragrant than in another man's,
and it was so with everything. He gave lustre to the simplest things and
rejuvenated the oldest. There was a prestige about him; I was neither
able nor desirous to escape its influence. I began to love him with all
my strength.
At this period I seemed to grow in my own eyes. Whether it was the work
of God, of Leoni, or of love, a vigorous mind developed and took
possession of my feeble body. Every day I felt a world of new thoughts
come to life within me. A word from Leoni gave birth to more sentiments
than all the frivolous talk I had heard all my life. He observed my
progress and was elated and proud over it. He sought to hasten it and
brought me books. My mother looked at the gilt covers, the vellum and
the pictures. She hardly glanced at the titles of the works which were
destined to play havoc with my head and my heart. They were beautiful
and pure books, almost all stories of women written by women:
_Valérie_, _Eugène de Rothelin_, _Mademoiselle de Clermont_,
_Delphine_. These touching and impassioned narratives, these glimpses of
what was to me an ideal world, elevated my mind, but they devoured it. I
became romantic, the most deplorable character that a woman can have.
VI
Three months had sufficed to bring about this metamorphosis. I was on
the eve of marrying Leoni. Of all the documents he had promised to
furnish, his certificate of birth and his patents of nobility alone had
come to hand. As for the proofs of his wealth, he had written for them
to another lawyer, and they had not arrived. He manifested extreme
irritation and regret at this delay, which caused a further postponement
of our wedding. One morning he came to our house with an air of
desperation. He showed us an unstamped letter, which he had just
received, he said, by a special messenger. This letter informed him that
his man of business was dead, and that his successor, having found his
papers in great disorder, had a difficult task before him to arrange
them, that he asked a further delay of one or two weeks before he could
furnish _his lordship_ with the documents he required. Leoni was frantic
at this mischance; he would die of impatience and disappointment, he
said, before the end of that frightful fortnight. He threw himself down
in a chair and burst into tears.
No, do not smile, Don Aleo, they were not pretended tears. I gave him my
hand to console him; I felt that it was wet with tears, and, moved by a
thrill of sympathy, I too began to sob.
My poor mother could not stand it. She ran, weeping, to seek my father
in his shop.--"It is hateful tyranny," she said, bringing him to where
we were. "See those two unhappy children! how can you refuse to make
them happy, when you see what they suffer? Do you want to kill your
daughter out of respect for an absurd formality? Won't those papers
arrive just as surely and be just as satisfactory after they have been
married a week? What are you afraid of? Do you take our dear Leoni for
an impostor? Can't you see that your insisting on having evidence of his
fortune is insulting to him and cruel to Juliette?"
My father, bewildered by these reproaches, and above all else by my
tears, swore that he had never dreamed of being so exacting, and that he
would do whatever I wished. He kissed me a thousand times and talked to
me as people talk to a child of six when they yield to his whims, to be
rid of his shrieks. My aunt appeared on the scene and talked less
tenderly. She even reproved me in a way that hurt me.--"A virtuous,
well-bred young woman," she said, "ought not to show so much impatience
to belong to a man."--"It's easy to see," said my mother, altogether out
of patience, "that you never had the chance to belong to one."--My
father could not endure any lack of consideration for his sister. He
leaned toward her view, and remarked that our despair was mere
childishness, that a week would soon pass. I was mortally wounded by the
suspicion that I was impatient, and I tried to restrain my tears; but
Leoni's exerted a magical influence over me, and I could not do it.
Thereupon he rose, with moist eyes and glowing cheeks, and with a smile
overflowing with hope and affection, went to my aunt, took her hands in
one of his, my father's in the other, and fell on his knees, beseeching
them not to stand in the way of his happiness any longer. His manner,
his tone, his expression had an irresistible power; moreover, it was the
first time that my aunt had ever seen a man at her feet. Every trace of
resistance was overcome. The banns were published, all the preliminary
formalities were gone through; our marriage was appointed for the
following week, regardless of the arrival of the papers.
The following day was Mardi Gras. Monsieur Delpech was to give a
magnificent party, and Leoni had asked us to dress in Turkish costumes;
he made a charming sketch in water-color, which our dress-makers copied
almost perfectly. Velvet, embroidered satin and cashmere were not
spared. But the quantity and beauty of our jewels were what assured us
an indisputable triumph over all the other costumes at the ball. Almost
all the contents of my father's shop were made use of; we had nets and
aigrettes of diamonds, bouquets beautifully mounted in stones of all
colors. My waist, and even my shoes, were embroidered with rare pearls;
a rope of pearls, of extraordinary beauty, served me as a girdle and
fell to my knees. We had great pipes and daggers studded with sapphires
and diamonds. My whole costume was worth at least a million.
Leoni accompanied us, dressed in a superb Turkish costume. He was so
handsome and so majestic in that garb that people stood on benches to
see him pass. My heart beat violently, I was filled to bursting with a
pride that was almost delirium. My own costume was, as you can imagine,
the last thing in my mind. Leoni's beauty, his success, his superiority
to all the others, the sort of worship that was paid him--and it was all
mine, all at my feet! that was enough to intoxicate an older brain than
mine. It was the last day of my splendor! By what a world of misery and
degradation have I paid for those empty triumphs!
My aunt, dressed as a Jewess, accompanied us, carrying fans and boxes of
perfume. Leoni, who was determined to win her friendship, had designed
her costume so artistically that he had almost given a touch of poetry
to her serious, wrinkled face. She, too, was intoxicated, poor Agathe!
Alas! what does a woman's common-sense amount to?
We had been there two or three hours. My mother was dancing and my aunt
gossiping with the superannuated females who compose what is called in
France the tapestry of a ball-room. Leoni was seated by my side and
talking to me in an undertone with a passion of which every word kindled
a spark in my blood. Suddenly his voice died on his lips; he became pale
as death, as if he had seen a ghost. I followed the direction of his
terrified glance and saw, a few steps away, a person the sight of whom
was distasteful to myself: it was a young man named Henryet, who had
made me an offer of marriage the year before. Although he was rich and
of an honorable family, my mother had not deemed him worthy of me, and
had dismissed him on the pretext of my extreme youth. But, at the
beginning of the following year, he had renewed his offer with much
persistence, and it had been currently reported in the city that he was
madly in love with me. I had not deigned to take any notice of him, and
my mother, who considered him too simple and too ordinary, had put an
end to his assiduities rather abruptly. He had manifested more grief
than anger, and had started immediately for Paris. Since then my aunt
and my young friends had reproached me somewhat for my indifference with
respect to him. He was, they said, a most excellent young man,
thoroughly educated, and of a noble character. These reproaches had
disgusted me. His unexpected appearance in the midst of the happiness I
was enjoying with Leoni was most unpleasant to me, and had the effect
upon me of a new reproof. I turned my face away and pretended not to
have seen him, but the strange glance he bestowed upon me did not escape
me. Leoni hastily grasped my arm, and asked me to come and take an ice
in the next room; he added that the heat was distressing to him and made
him nervous. I believed him, and thought that Henryet's glance expressed
nothing more than jealousy. We went into the gallery. There were few
people there, and I walked back and forth for some time, leaning on
Leoni's arm. He was agitated and preoccupied. I manifested some
uneasiness thereat, and he answered that it was not worth talking about;
that he simply did not feel perfectly well.
He was beginning to recover himself when I saw that Henryet had followed
us. I could not help showing my annoyance.
"Upon my word that man follows us like remorse," I whispered to Leoni.
"Is it really a man? I can almost believe that it is a soul in distress
returned from the other world."
"What man?" said Leoni, with a start. "What's his name? where is he?
what does he want of us? do you know him?"
I told him in a few words what had happened, and begged him not to seem
to notice Henryet's absurd actions. But Leoni did not reply; and I felt
his hand, which held mine, become cold as death. A convulsive shudder
passed through his body, and I thought that he was going to faint; but
it was all over in an instant.
"My nerves are horribly upset," he said. "I believe that I shall have to
go to bed; my head is on fire, and this turban weighs a hundred pounds."
"_O mon Dieu_!" said I, "if you go now, this night will seem
interminable to me, and the party stupid beyond endurance. Go into some
more retired room and try taking off your turban for a few moments; we
will ask for a few drops of ether to quiet your nerves."
"Yes, you are right, my dear, good Juliette, my angel. There's a boudoir
at the end of the gallery, where we probably shall be alone; a moment of
rest will cure me."
As he spoke, he led me hastily in the direction of the boudoir; he
seemed to fly rather than walk. I heard steps coming after us. I turned
and saw Henryet coming nearer and nearer and looking as if he were
pursuing us. I thought that he had gone mad. The terror which Leoni
could not hide put the finishing touch to the confusion of my ideas. A
superstitious fear took possession of me; my blood congealed as in a
nightmare; and it was impossible for me to take another step. At that
moment Henryet overtook us and laid a hand, which seemed to me metallic,
on Leoni's shoulder. Leoni stood still, as if struck by lightning, and
nodded his head affirmatively, as if he had divined a question or an
injunction in that terrifying silence. Thereupon Henryet walked away,
and I felt that I could move my feet once more. I had the strength to
follow Leoni into the boudoir, where I fell on an ottoman, as pale and
terror-stricken as he.
VII
He remained some time thus; then, suddenly collecting his strength, he
threw himself at my feet.
"Juliette," he said, "I am lost unless you love me to frenzy."
"O heaven! what does that mean?" I cried wildly, throwing my arms around
his neck.
"And you do not love me that way!" he continued, in an agony of despair.
"I am lost, am I not?"
"I love you with all the strength of my heart!" I cried, weeping. "What
must I do to save you?"
"Ah! you would never consent!" he replied, with a discouraged air. "I am
the most miserable of men; you are the only woman I have ever loved,
Juliette, and when I am on the point of possessing you, my heart, my
life, I lose you forever! I have no choice but to die."
"_Mon Dieu! mon Dieu_!" I cried; "can't you speak? can't you tell me
what you expect of me?"
"No, I cannot speak," he replied; "a ghastly secret, a frightful mystery
overhangs my whole life, and I can never disclose it to you. To love me,
to go with me, to comfort me, you would need to be more than a woman,
more than angel, perhaps!"
"To love you! to go with you!" I repeated. "Shall I not be your wife in
a few days? You have but a word to say; however great my sorrow and that
of my parents, I will follow you to the end of the world, if it is your
will."
"Is that true, O my Juliette?" he cried in a transport of joy; "you will
go with me? you will leave everything for me? Very well; if you love me
as much as that, I am saved! Let us go, let us go at once!"
"What! can you think of such a thing, Leoni? Are we married?" said I.
"We cannot marry," he replied shortly, in a firm voice.
I was stricken dumb.
"And if you will not love me, if you will not fly with me," he
continued, "I have but one course to take; that is, to kill myself."
He said this in such a determined tone that I shuddered from head to
foot.
"In heaven's name what is happening to us?" I said; "is this a dream?
Who can prevent our marrying, when everything is decided, when you have
my father's word?"
"A word from the man who is in love with you, and who is determined to
prevent you from being mine."
"I hate him and despise him!" I cried. "Where is he? I propose to make
him feel the shame of such cowardly persecution and such a detestable
vengeance. But how can he injure you, Leoni? are you not so far above
his attacks that with a word you can pulverize him? Are not your virtue
and your strength as pure and unassailable as gold? O heaven! I
understand; you are ruined! the papers you have been expecting bring
only bad news. Henryet knows it and threatens to tell my parents. His
conduct is infamous; but have no fear, my parents are kind, they adore
me; I will throw myself at their feet, I will threaten to go into a
convent; you can appeal to them again as you did yesterday and you will
persuade them, you may be sure. Am I not rich enough for two? My father
will not choose to condemn me to die of grief; my mother will intercede
for me. We three together shall be stronger than my aunt to argue with
him. Come, don't be distressed, Leoni, this cannot part us, it is
impossible. If my parents should prove to be as sordid as that, then I
would fly with you."
"Let us fly then at once," said Leoni with an air of profound gloom;
"for they will be inflexible. There is something in addition to my ruin,
something infernal, which I cannot tell you. Are you kind? Are you the
woman I have dreamed of and thought I had found in you? Are you capable
of heroism? Do you understand great things, boundless devotion? Tell me,
Juliette, tell me, are you simply an amiable, pretty woman from whom I
shall part with regret, or are you an angel whom God has sent to me to
save me from despair? Do you feel that there is something noble in
sacrificing yourself for one you love? Does not your heart swell at the
thought of holding in your hands a man's life and destiny and in
consecrating your whole being to him? Ah! if only we could change our
rôles! if I were in your place! With what joy, with what bliss I would
sacrifice to you all my affections, all my duties!"
"Enough, Leoni!" I replied, "you drive me wild with your words. Mercy,
mercy for my poor mother, for my poor father, for my honor! You wish to
ruin me----"
"Ah! you think of all those people!" he cried, "and not of me! You weigh
the sorrow of your parents, and you do not deign to put mine in the
balance! You do not love me!"
I hid my face in my hands, I appealed to God, I listened to Leoni's
sobs; I thought that I was going mad.
"Very well! you will have it so," I said, "and you have the power;
speak, tell me what you wish, and I must obey you; have you not my mind
and my will at your disposal?"
"We have very few minutes to lose," replied Leoni. "We must be away from
here in an hour, or your flight will have become impossible. There is a
vulture's eye hovering over us; but if you consent, we will find a way
to outwit him. Do you consent? do you consent?"
He pressed me frantically in his arms. Cries of agony escaped from his
breast. I answered yes without knowing what I was saying.
"Well, then, go back at once to the ball-room," he said, "and show no
excitement. If anybody questions you, say that you have been a little
indisposed; but don't let them take you home. Dance if you must. Above
all things, if Henryet speaks to you, don't irritate him; remember that
for another hour my fate is in his hands. An hour hence I will come back
in a domino. I will have this bit of ribbon in my hood. You will
recognize it, won't you? You will go with me, and above all else, you
will be calm, impassive. You must think of all this; do you feel that
you are strong enough?"
I rose and pressed my hands against my throbbing heart. My throat was on
fire, my cheeks were burning with fever. I was like a drunken man.
"Come, come," he said to me; with that he pushed me into the ball-room
and disappeared. My mother was looking for me. I could detect her
anxiety in the distance, and to avoid her questions I hurriedly accepted
an invitation to dance.
I danced, and I have no idea how I kept from falling when the dance was
at an end, I had made such a mighty effort to get through it. When I
returned to my place my mother was already on the floor, waltzing. She
had seen me dancing, so her mind was at rest, and she began to enjoy
herself once more. My aunt, instead of questioning me about my absence,
scolded me. I preferred that, for I was not called upon to answer and to
lie. One of my friends asked me with a terrified air what the matter was
with me and why I had such a distressed expression on my face. I
answered that I had just had a violent fit of coughing.--"You must
rest," she said, "and not dance any more."
But I had decided to avoid my mother's glance; I was afraid of her
anxiety, her affection and my remorse. I spied her handkerchief, which
she had left on the bench; I picked it up, put it to my face, and,
covering my mouth with it, devoured it with convulsive kisses. My friend
thought that I was coughing again, for I pretended to cough. I did not
know how to pass that fatal hour, barely half of which had dragged away.
My aunt noticed that I was very hoarse and said that she was going to
urge my mother to go home. I was terrified by that threat and instantly
accepted another invitation. When I was in the midst of the dancers, I
noticed that I had accepted an invitation to waltz. Like almost all
girls, I never waltzed; but, when I recognized in the man who already
had his arm about me the sinister face of Henryet, terror prevented my
refusing. He led me away and the rapid movement took away the last
remnant of my reasoning power. I asked myself if all that was taking
place about me were not a vision; if I were not lying in bed with the
fever, rather than whirling about in a waltz, like a mad woman, with a
man whom I held in horror. And then I remembered that Leoni would soon
come for me. I looked at my mother, who seemed to fly through the circle
of dancers, so light of foot and heart was she. I said to myself that it
was impossible, that I could not leave my mother thus. I felt that
Henryet was holding my very tight in his arms and that his eyes were
devouring my face, which was turned toward his. I came very near
shrieking and flying from him. But I remembered Leoni's words: "My fate
is in his hands for another hour." So I resigned myself. We stopped for
a moment. He spoke to me. I did not hear what he said, but answered with
a wild sort of smile. At that moment I felt something brush against my
bare arms and shoulders. I had no need to turn for I recognized the
almost imperceptible breathing of Leoni. I asked to be taken back to my
place. Another moment and Leoni, in a black domino, offered me his hand.
I went with him. We glided through the crowd, we escaped, by some
miracle, the jealous surveillance of Henryet and of my mother's eyes,
for she was looking for me again. The very audacity with which I left
the ball-room in the presence of five hundred witnesses, to fly with
Leoni, prevented my flight from being noticed. We passed through the
throng in the dressing-rooms. Some people who were getting their cloaks
recognized us and were astonished to see me going down the stairs
without my mother, but they also were going away and so would not report
what they had seen in the ball-room.
When we reached the courtyard, Leoni, dragging me behind him, rushed to
a side gate not used by carriages. We ran a short distance along a dark
street; the door of a post-chaise opened, Leoni lifted me in, wrapped me
in a huge fur cloak, pulled a travelling cap over my head, and in the
twinkling of an eye Monsieur Delpech's brilliantly lighted house, the
street and the city disappeared behind us.
We travelled twenty-four hours without once leaving the carriage. At
each relay-house, Leoni raised the window a little, put his arm outside,
tossed the postilions four times their pay, hurriedly withdrew his arm
and closed the window. I scarcely thought of complaining of fatigue or
hunger; my teeth were clenched, my nerves tense; I could neither shed a
tear nor say a word. Leoni seemed more disturbed by the fear of being
pursued than by my suffering and grief.
We halted near a château a short distance from the road. We rang at a
garden gate. A servant opened the gate after we had waited a long while.
It was two o'clock in the morning. When he finally appeared, grumbling,
he put his lantern to Leoni's face; he had no sooner recognized him than
he lost himself in apologies and led us to the house. It seemed deserted
and ill-kept. Nevertheless I was shown to a fairly comfortable chamber.
In a moment a fire was lighted, the bed prepared, and a woman came to
undress me. I had fallen into a sort of idiocy. The heat of the fire
revivified me somewhat, and I discovered that I was in a night-dress,
with my hair unbound, alone with Leoni; but he paid no attention to me;
he was busy packing in a box the magnificent costume, the pearls and
diamonds in which we were both arrayed a moment before. The jewels that
Leoni wore belonged for the most part to my father. My mother,
determined that his costume should not be less gorgeous than ours, had
taken them from the shop and lent them to him without saying anything
about it. When I saw all that wealth packed into a box, I was mortally
ashamed of the species of theft we had committed, and I thanked Leoni
for thinking about returning them to my father. I don't know what answer
he made; he told me that I had four hours to sleep and begged me to make
the best of them, without anxiety or grief. He kissed my bare feet and
left me. I had not the courage to go to bed; I slept in an arm-chair by
the fire. At six o'clock in the morning they came and woke me, brought
me some chocolate and men's clothes. I breakfasted and dressed myself
with resignation. Leoni came for me, and before daybreak we left that
mysterious house, of which I have never known the name or the precise
location or the owner; and the same is true of many other houses, some
handsome and some wretched, which were thrown open to us, in all
countries and at all hours, at the bare mention of Leoni's name.
As we rode on, Leoni recovered his usual serenity of manner and spoke to
me with all his former affection. Enslaved and bound to him by a blind
passion, I was an instrument whose every chord he played upon at will.
If he was pensive I became melancholy; if he was cheerful, I forgot all
my sorrows and all my remorse to smile at his jests; if he was
passionate, I forgot the weariness of my brain and the exhaustion caused
by weeping; I recovered strength enough to love him and to tell him of
my love.
VIII
We arrived at Geneva, where we remained only long enough to rest. We
soon travelled into the interior of Switzerland and there laid aside all
fear of pursuit and discovery. Ever since our departure, Leoni's only
thought had been to make his way with me to some peaceful rural retreat,
there to live on love and poetry in a never-ending tête à-tête. That
delicious dream was realized. We found in one of the valleys near Lago
Maggiore one of the most picturesque of chalets in a fascinating
situation. At a very small expense we had it arranged conveniently
inside, and we hired it at the beginning of April. We passed there six
months of intoxicating bliss, for which I shall thank God all my life,
although He has made me pay very dear for them. We were absolutely alone
and cut off from all relations with the world. We were served by a young
couple, good-humored, sturdy country people, who added to our
contentment by the spectacle of that which they enjoyed. The woman did
the housework and the cooking, the husband drove to pasture a cow and
two goats, which composed all our live stock, milked and made the
cheese. We rose early, and, when the weather was fine, breakfasted a
short distance from the house, in a pretty orchard, where the trees,
abandoned to the hand of nature, put forth dense branches in every
direction, less rich in fruit than in flowers and foliage. Then we went
out to drive in the valley or climbed some mountain. We gradually
adopted the habit of taking long excursions, and every day discovered
some new spot. Mountainous countries have the peculiar charm that one
can explore them for a long time before one becomes acquainted with all
their beauties and all their secrets. When we went on our longest
excursions, Joanne, our light-hearted major-domo, attended us with a
basket of provisions, and nothing could be more delightful than our
lunches on the grass. Leoni was easily satisfied except as to what he
called the refectory. At last, when we had found a little verdure-clad
shelf half-way down the slope of some deep gorge, sheltered from wind
and sun, with a lovely view, and a brook close at hand sweetened by
aromatic plants, he would himself arrange the repast on a white napkin
spread on the ground. He would send Joanne to pick strawberries and
plunge the wine into the cool water of the stream. He would light a
spirit lamp and cook fresh eggs. By the same process I used to make
excellent coffee after the cold meat and fruit. In this way we had
something of the enjoyments of civilization amid the romantic beauties
of the desert.
When the weather was bad, as was often the case in the early spring, we
lighted a huge fire to keep the dampness from our little dwelling of
fir; we surrounded ourselves with screens which Leoni sawed out, put
together and painted with his own hand. We drank tea; and while he
smoked a long Turkish pipe I read to him. We called those our Flemish
days; while they were less exciting than the others, they were perhaps
even pleasanter. Leoni had an admirable talent for apportioning the time
so as to make life easy and agreeable. In the morning he would exert his
mind to lay out a scheme for the day and arrange our occupations for the
different hours; and when it was done he would come and submit it to me.
I always found it admirable, and we always adhered strictly to it. In
this way, ennui, which always pursues recluses and even lovers in their
tête-à-têtes, never came near us. Leoni knew all that must be avoided
and all that must be looked after to maintain mental tranquillity and
bodily well-being. He would give me directions in his adroitly
affectionate way; and, being as submissive to him as a slave to his
master, I never opposed a single one of his washes. He said, for
instance, that the exchange of thoughts between two people who love each
other is the sweetest thing imaginable, but that it may become the
greatest curse if it is abused. So he regulated the hours of our
interviews and the places where they were to be held. We worked all day;
I looked after the housekeeping; I prepared dainty dishes for him or
folded his linen with my own hands. He was extremely sensible of such
petty refinements of luxury, and found them doubly precious in our
little hermitage. He, on his side, provided for all our needs and
remedied all the inconveniences of our isolation. He had a little
knowledge of all sorts of trades; he did cabinet work, he put on locks,
he made partitions with wooden frames and painted paper panels, he
prevented chimneys from smoking, he grafted fruit trees, he diverted the
course of a stream, so that we had a supply of cool water near the
house. He was always busy about something useful, and he always did it
well. When these more important duties were performed, he painted in
water-colors, composed lovely landscapes from the sketches we had made
in our albums during our walks. Sometimes he wandered about the valley
alone, making verses, and hurried home to repeat them to me. He often
found me in the stable with my apron full of aromatic herbs of which the
goats were very fond. My two lovely pets ate from my lap. One was pure
white, without a speck: her name was _Snow_; she had a gentle,
melancholy air. The other was yellow like a chamois, with black beard
and legs. She was very young, with a wild, saucy face; we called her
_Doe_. The cow's name was _Daisy_. She was red, with black stripes
running transversely, like a tiger. She would put her head on my
shoulder; and when Leoni found me so, he called me his Virgin at the
Manger. He would toss me his album and dictate his verses, which were
almost always addressed to me. They were hymns of love and happiness
which seemed sublime to me, and which must have been sublime. I would
weep silently as I wrote them down; and when I had finished, "Well,"
Leoni would say, "do you think they are pretty bad?" At that I would
raise my tear-stained face to his; he would laugh and kiss me with the
keenest delight.
Then he would sit down on the sweet-smelling hay and read me poems in
other languages, which he translated with incredible rapidity and
accuracy. Meanwhile I was spinning in the half-light of the stable. One
must be familiar with the exquisite cleanliness of Swiss stables to
understand our choosing ours for our salon. It was traversed by a swift
mountain stream which washed it clean every moment, and which rejoiced
our ears with its gentle plashing. Tame pigeons drank at our feet, and
under the little arch through which the stream entered, saucy sparrows
hopped in to bathe and steal a few wisps of hay. It was the coolest spot
in warm days, when all the windows were open, and the warmest on cold
days, when the smallest cracks were stuffed with straw and furze. Leoni,
when tired of reading, would often fall asleep on the freshly-cut grass,
and I would leave my work to gaze at that beautiful face, which the
serenity of sleep made even nobler than before.
During these busy days we talked little, although almost always
together; we would exchange an occasional loving word or caress and
encourage each other in our work. But when the evening came, Leoni
became indolent in body and mentally active. Those were the hours when
he was most lovable, and he reserved them for the outpouring of our
affection. Fatigued, but not unpleasantly, by his day's work, he would
lie on the moss at my feet, in a lonely spot near the house, on the
slope of the mountain. From there we would behold the gorgeous sunset,
the melancholy fading away of the daylight, the grave and solemn coming
of the night. We knew the moment when all the stars would rise, and over
which peak each of them would begin to shine. Leoni was thoroughly
familiar with astronomy, but Joanne, too, knew that science of the
shepherds after his manner, and he gave the stars other names, often
more poetic and more expressive than ours. When Leoni had amused himself
sufficiently with his rustic pedantry, he would send him away to play
the _Ranz des Vaches_ on his reed-pipe at the foot of the mountain. The
shrill notes sounded indescribably sweet in the distance. Leoni would
fall into a reverie which resembled a trance; and then, when it was
quite dark, when the silence of the valley was no longer broken by aught
save the plaintive cry of some cliff-dwelling bird, when the fireflies
lighted their lamps in the grass about us and a soft breeze sighed
through the firs over our heads, Leoni would seem to wake suddenly from
a dream, as if to another life. His heart would take fire, his
passionate eloquence would overflow my heart. He would talk to the
skies, the wind, the echoes, to all nature with enthusiastic fervor; he
would take me in his arms and overwhelm me with delirious caresses; then
he would weep with love on my bosom, and, growing calmer, would talk to
me in the sweetest, most intoxicating words.
Oh! how could I have failed to love that unequalled man, in his good and
in his evil days? How lovable he was then! how beautiful! how becoming
the sunburn was to his manly face, and with what profound respect it
avoided the broad white forehead over the jet-black, eyebrows! How well
he knew how to love and to tell his love! What a genius he had for
arranging life and making it beautiful! How could I have failed to have
blind confidence in him? How could I have failed to accustom myself to
absolute submission to him? All that he did, all that he said, was good
and wise and noble. He was generous, sensitive, refined, heroic; he took
pleasure in relieving the destitution or the infirmities of the poor who
knocked at our door. One day he jumped into a stream, at the risk of his
life, to save a young shepherd; one night he wandered through the
snowdrifts, surrounded by the most awful dangers, to assist some
travellers who had lost their way and whose cries of distress we had
heard. Oh! how, how could I have distrusted Leoni? how could I have
conceived any dread of the future? Do not tell me again that I am
credulous and weak; the most strong-minded of women would have been
subjugated forever by those six months of love. As for myself, I was
absolutely enslaved; and my cruel remorse for having abandoned my
parents, the thought of their grief, grew fainter day by day, and,
finally, vanished almost entirely. Oh! how great was that man's power!
Juliette paused and fell into a melancholy reverie. A clock in the
distance struck twelve. I suggested that she should rest. "No," said
she, "if you are not tired of listening to me, I prefer to go on. I feel
that I have undertaken a task that will be very painful for my poor
heart, and that when I have finished I shall neither feel nor remember
anything for several days. I prefer to make the most of the strength I
have to-day."
"Yes, you are right, Juliette," I said. "Tear the steel from your
breast, and you will be better afterward. But tell me, my poor child,
how it was that Henryet's strange conduct at the ball and Leoni's craven
submission at a glance from him did not leave a suspicion, a fear in
your mind?"
"What could I fear?" replied Juliette. "I knew so little of the affairs
of life and the baseness of society that I utterly failed to understand
that mystery. Leoni had told me that there was a terrible secret. I
imagined a thousand romantic catastrophes. It was the fashion then in
books to introduce characters burdened by the most extraordinary and
improbable maledictions. Plays and novels alike teemed with sons of
headsmen, heroic spies, virtuous murderers and felons. One day I read
_Frederick Styndall_, another day, Cooper's _Spy_ fell into my hands.
Remember that I was a mere child, and that my mind was far behind my
heart in my passion. I fancied that society, being unjust and stupid,
had placed Leoni under its ban for some sublime imprudence, some
involuntary offence, or as the result of some savage prejudice. I will
even admit that my poor girlish brain found an additional attraction in
that impenetrable mystery, and that my woman's heart took fire at the
opportunity of adventuring its entire destiny to repair a noble and
poetic misfortune."
"Leoni probably detected that romantic tendency and played upon it?" I
said.
"Yes," she replied, "he did. But if he took so much trouble to deceive
me, it was because he loved me, because he was determined to have my
love at any price."
We were silent for a moment; then Juliette resumed her narrative.
IX
The winter came at last; we had made our plans to endure all its rigors
rather than abandon our dear retreat. Leoni told me that he had never
been so happy, that I was the only woman he had ever loved, that he was
ready to renounce the world in order to live and die in my arms. His
taste for dissipation, his passion for gambling--all had vanished,
forgotten forever. Oh! how grateful I was to see that man, who shone so
in society and was so flattered and courted, renounce without regret all
the intoxicating joys of a life of excitement and festivities, to shut
himself up with me in a cottage! And be sure, Don Aleo, that Leoni was
not deceiving me at that time. While it is true that he had very strong
reasons for keeping out of sight, it is none the less certain that he
was happy in his retreat, and that he loved me there. Could he have
feigned that perfect serenity during six whole months, unchanged for a
single day? And why should he not have loved me? I was young and fair, I
had left everything for him and I adored him. Understand, I am no longer
under any delusion as to his character; I know everything and I will
tell you the whole truth. His character is very ugly and very beautiful;
very vile and very grand; when one has not the strength to hate the man,
one must needs love him and become his victim.
But the winter began so fiercely that our residence in the valley became
extremely dangerous. In a few days the snow reached the level of our
chalet; it threatened to bury it and to cause our deaths by starvation.
Leoni insisted on remaining; he wanted to lay in a stock of provisions
and defy the enemy; but Joanne assured him that we should inevitably be
lost if we did not beat a retreat at once; that such a winter had not
been seen for ten years, and that when the thaw came the chalet would be
swept away like a feather by the avalanches, unless Saint Bernard and
Our Lady of the Snow-drifts should save it by a miracle.
"If I were alone," said Leoni, "I would wait for a miracle and laugh at
the snow-drifts; but I have no courage when you share my dangers. We
will go away to-morrow."
"We must do it," I said; "but where shall we go? I shall be recognized
and betrayed very soon; I shall be compelled by force to return to my
parents."
"There are a thousand ways of eluding men and laws," replied Leoni with
a smile; "we can surely find one; don't be alarmed; the whole world is
at our disposal."
"And where shall we begin?" I asked, forcing myself to smile too.
"I don't know yet," he replied, "but what does it matter? we shall be
together; where can we be unhappy?"
"Alas!" said I, "shall we ever be so happy as we have been here?"
"Do you want to stay here?"
"No," I replied, "we should be happy no longer; in presence of danger,
we should always be alarmed for each other."
We made preparations for our departure. Joanne passed the day clearing
the path by which we were to go. During the night I had a strange
experience, upon which I have feared, many times since then, to
meditate.
In the midst of a sound sleep I suddenly felt very cold and woke up. I
felt for Leoni at my side, but he was not there; his place was cold, and
the bedroom door was ajar, admitting a current of ice-cold air. I waited
a few moments, but, as Leoni did not return, I began to be alarmed, so I
rose and hastily dressed myself. Even then I waited before making up my
mind to go out, reluctant to allow myself to be governed by any mere
childish anxiety. But he did not appear; an invincible terror seized
upon me, and I went out, scantily clad, with the thermometer fifteen
degrees below freezing. I was afraid that Leoni might have gone to
assist some poor creatures who were lost in the snow, as had happened a
few nights before, and I was determined to follow and find him. I called
Joanne and his wife; they were sleeping so soundly that they did not
hear me. Thereupon, almost frantic with dread, I went to the edge of the
little palisaded platform which surrounded the chalet and saw a faint
light twinkling on the snow some distance away. I fancied that I
recognized the lantern that Leoni carried on his relief expeditions. I
ran toward it as rapidly as the snow would allow me, sinking in up to my
knees. I tried to call him, but the cold made my teeth chatter, and the
wind, which blew in my face, intercepted my voice. At last I came near
to the light and could see Leoni distinctly; he was standing on the spot
where I had first seen him, holding a spade. I approached still nearer,
the snow deadening the sound of my footsteps, and finally stood almost
beside him, unseen by him. The light was enclosed in its metal cylinder
and shone through a slit on the opposite side from me, directly upon
him.
I saw then that he had shovelled away the snow and dug into the earth;
he was up to his knees in a hole he had made.
This strange occupation, at such an hour and in such severe weather,
gave me an absurd fright. Leoni seemed to be in extraordinary haste.
From time to time he glanced uneasily about; I crouched behind a rock
for I was terrified by the expression of his face. It seemed to me that
he would kill me if he should find me there. All the fanciful, foolish
stories I had read, all the strange conjectures I had made concerning
his secret, recurred to my mind; I believed that he had come there to
dig up a corpse, and I almost fainted. I was somewhat reassured when I
saw him, after digging a little longer, take a box from the hole. He
scrutinized it closely, looked to see if the lock had been forced, then
placed it on the edge of the hole and began to throw back the earth and
snow, taking little pains to conceal the traces of his operation.
When I saw that he was ready to return to the house with his box, I was
terribly afraid that he would discover my imprudent curiosity, and I
fled as swiftly as I could. I made haste to throw my wet clothes into a
corner and go back to bed, resolved to pretend to be fast asleep when he
returned; but I had plenty of time to recover from my emotion, for it
was more than half an hour before he reappeared.
I lost myself in conjectures concerning that mysterious box, which must
have been buried on the mountain since our arrival, and was destined to
accompany us, either as a talisman of safety or as an instrument of
death. It seemed to me unlikely that it contained money; for it was of
considerable size and yet Leoni had lifted it with one hand and without
apparent effort. Perhaps it contained papers upon which his very
existence depended. What impressed me most strongly was the idea that I
had seen the box before; but it was impossible for me to remember when
or where. This time its shape and color were engraved on my memory as if
by a sort of fatal necessity. I had it before my eyes all night, and in
my dreams I saw a multitude of strange objects come out of it: sometimes
cards cut into curious shapes, sometimes bloody weapons; sometimes
flowers, feathers and jewels; and sometimes bones, snakes, bits of gold,
iron chains and anklets.
I was very careful not to question Leoni or to let him suspect my
discovery. He had often said to me that on the day that I discovered his
secret all would be at an end between us; and although he thanked me on
his knees for believing blindly in him, he often gave me to understand
that the slightest curiosity on my part would be distasteful to him. We
started the next morning on mules, and travelled by post from the
nearest town all the way to Venice.
There we alighted at one of those mysterious houses which Leoni seemed
to have at his disposal in all countries. This one was dark, dilapidated
and hidden away, as it were, in a deserted quarter of the city. He told
me that it belonged to a friend of his who was absent; he begged me to
try to put up with it for a day or two, adding that there were important
reasons why he could not show himself in the city at once, but that, in
twenty-four hours at the latest, I should be provided with suitable
lodgings and should have no reason to complain of life in his native
place.
We had just breakfasted in a cold, damp room, when a shabbily dressed
man, with a disagreeable face and a sickly complexion, made his
appearance, observing that Leoni had sent for him.
"Yes, yes, my dear Thaddeus," Leoni replied, hastily leaving the table;
"I am glad to see you; let us go into another room and not bore madame
with business matters."
An hour later Leoni came and kissed me; he seemed excited, but
satisfied, as if he had won a victory.
"I must leave you for a few hours," he said; "I am going to have your
new home made ready; we shall sleep there to-morrow night."
X
He was away all day. The next day he went out early. He seemed very
busy; but he was in a more cheerful mood than I had yet seen him. That
gave me courage to endure the tedium of another twelve hours and
dispelled the melancholy impression that cold and silent house produced
upon me. In the afternoon I tried to distract my thoughts by going over
it; it was very old; some remnants of antiquated furniture, tattered
hangings, and several pictures half consumed by rats attracted my
attention; but an object even more interesting to me turned my thoughts
in another direction.
As I entered the room where Leoni had slept, I saw the famous box on the
floor; it was open and entirely empty. An enormous weight was lifted
from my mind. The unknown dragon confined in that box had taken flight!
the terrible destiny which it had seemed to me to forebode no longer
weighed upon us!--"Well, well," I said to myself with a smile,
"Pandora's box is empty; hope has remained behind for me."
As I was about to leave the room, I placed my foot on a small bit of
cotton wool which had been left lying on the floor with some crumpled
tissue paper. I felt something hard and stooped mechanically to pick it
up. My fingers felt the same hard substance through the cotton, and on
pulling it apart I found a pin made of several large diamonds, which I
at once recognized as belonging to my father, and which I had worn on
the evening of the last ball, to fasten a scarf on my shoulder. This
incident made such an impression on me that I thought no more of the box
or of Leoni's secret. I was conscious of nothing but a vague feeling of
uneasiness concerning the jewels I had carried with me in my flight, and
to which I had not since given even a thought, supposing that Leoni had
sent them back at once. The possibility that that had not been done was
horrible to me; and as soon as Leoni returned I asked him ingenuously:
"My dear, you didn't forget to send back my father's diamonds after we
left Brussels, did you?"
Leoni looked at me with a strange expression. He seemed to be trying to
read in the lowest depths of my soul.
"Why don't you answer?" I said; "what is there so surprising in my
question?"
"What the devil does it mean?" he replied calmly.
"It means that I went into your room to-day, and found this on your
floor. Thereupon I feared that, in the excitement of our flight and the
confusion of our travels, you might have forgotten to send back the
other jewels. For my own part, I hardly reminded you of it; my brain was
in such a whirl."
As I concluded, I handed him the pin. I spoke so naturally and was so
far from dreaming of suspecting him, that he saw it at once; and, taking
the pin with the utmost calmness, he said:
"_Parbleu_! I don't know what this means. Where did you find it? Are you
sure that it belonged to your father and was not left behind here by the
people who occupied the house before us?"
"Oh! yes," said I, "here is an almost imperceptible mark near the
fastening; it's my father's private mark. With a magnifying-glass you
can see his cipher."
"Very good," he replied; "then the pin must have been left in one of our
trunks, and I suppose I dropped it this morning when shaking some of my
clothes. Luckily it's the only piece of jewelry we brought away by
accident; all the rest was placed in charge of a reliable man and
addressed to Delpech, who must have turned it over to your family. I
don't believe that it is worth while to return this; it would excite
your mother's grief anew for very little money."
"It is worth at least ten thousand francs," I said.
"Very well, keep it until you have an opportunity to send it back. By
the way, are you ready? are the trunks locked? There is a gondola at the
door and your house is waiting impatiently for you; supper is already
served."
Half an hour later we stopped at the door of a magnificent palace. The
stairways were covered with amaranth-colored carpets; the white marble
rails with flowering orange-trees, in midwinter, and with light statues
which seemed to lean over to salute us. The concierge and four servants
came forward to assist us to disembark. Leoni took a candlestick from
one of them and raised it so that I could read on the cornice of the
peristyle, in silver letters on an azure ground: _Palazzo Leoni_.
"O my love," I cried, "you did not deceive us? You are rich and of noble
birth and I am in your house!"
[Illustration: _LEONI TAKES JULIETTE TO HIS
PALACE._
_Leoni took a candlestick * * * and raised it so that I could read on
the cornice of the peristyle, in silver letters, on an azure ground_:
Palazzo Leoni.
"_O my love," I cried, "you did not deceive us? You are rich and of
noble birth, and I am in your house!_"]
I went all over the palace with childlike delight. It was one of the
finest in all Venice. The furniture and the hangings, fairly glistening
with newness, had been copied from antique models, so that the paintings
on the ceilings and the old-fashioned architecture harmonized perfectly
with the new accessories. The luxury that we bourgeois and people of the
North affect is so paltry, so vulgar, so slovenly, that I had never
dreamed of such elegance. I walked through the vast galleries as through
an enchanted palace; all the objects about me were of strange shapes, of
unfamiliar aspect; I wondered if I were dreaming, or if I were really
the mistress and queen of all those marvellous things. Moreover, that
feudal magnificence was a fresh source of enchantment to me. I had never
realized the pleasure or the advantage of being noble. In France people
no longer know what it is, in Belgium they have never known. Here in
Italy the few remaining nobles are still proud and fond of display; the
palaces are not demolished, but are allowed to crumble away. Between
those walls laden with trophies and escutcheons, beneath those ceilings
on which the armorial bearings of the family were painted, face to face
with Leoni's ancestors painted by Titian and Veronese, some grave and
stern in their long cloaks, others elegant and gracious in their black
satin doublets, I understood that pride of rank which may be so
attractive and so becoming when it does not adorn a fool. All this
illustrious environment was so suited to Leoni that it would be
impossible for me, even to-day, to think of him as a plebeian. He was
the fitting descendant of those men with black beards and alabaster
hands, of the type that Van Dyck has immortalized. He had their
eagle-like profile, their delicate and refined features, their tall
stature, their eyes, at once mocking and kindly. If those portraits
could have walked they would have walked as he did; if they had spoken,
they would have had his voice.
"Can it be," I said, throwing my arms about him, "that it was you, my
lord, Signor Leone Leoni, who were in that chalet among the goats and
hens the other day, with a pickaxe over your shoulder and a blouse on
your back? Was it you that lived that life for six months, with a
nameless, witless girl, who has no other merit than her love for you?
And you mean to keep me with you, you will love me always, and tell me
so every morning, as at the chalet? Oh, it is a too exalted and too
happy lot for me; I had not aspired so high, and it terrifies me at the
same time that it intoxicates me."
"Do not be frightened," he said, with a smile, "be my companion and my
queen forever. Now, come to supper; I have two guests to present to you.
Arrange your hair and make yourself pretty; and when I call you my wife,
don't open your eyes as if you were surprised."
We found an exquisite supper served on a table sparkling with porcelain,
glass and plate. The two guests were presented to me with due solemnity;
they were Venetians both, with attractive faces and refined manners,
and, although very inferior to Leoni, they resembled him somewhat in
their pronunciation and in the quality of their minds. I asked him in an
undertone if they were kinsmen of his.
"Yes," he replied aloud, with a laugh, "they are my cousins."
"Of course," added one of them, who was addressed as the marquis, "we
are all cousins."
The next day, instead of two guests, there were four or five different
ones at each meal. In less than a week our house was inundated with
intimate friends. These assiduous guests consumed many sweet hours that
I might have passed alone with Leoni, but had to share with them all.
But Leoni, after his long exile, seemed overjoyed to see his friends
once more and to lead a gayer life. I could form no wish opposed to his,
and I was happy to see him enjoying himself. To be sure, the society of
those men was delightful. They were all young and refined, jovial or
intelligent, amiable or entertaining. They had excellent manners, and
most of them were men of talent. Every morning we had music; in the
afternoon we went on the water; after dinner we went to the theatre;
and, on returning home, had supper and cards. I did not enjoy looking on
at this last amusement, in which enormous sums changed hands every
night. Leoni had given me permission to retire after supper, and I never
failed. Little by little the number of our acquaintances increased so
that I was bored and fatigued by them; but I said nothing about it.
Leoni still seemed enchanted by this dissipated life. All the dandies of
all nations who were then in Venice met by appointment at our house to
drink and gamble and sing. The best singers from the theatres came often
to mingle their voices with our instruments and with Leoni's voice,
which was neither less beautiful nor less skilfully managed than theirs.
Despite the fascination of this society, I felt more and more the
longing for repose. To be sure, we still had some pleasant hours
tête-à-tête from time to time. The dandies did not come every day,
but the regular habitués consisted of a dozen or more men who formed
the nucleus of our dinner-parties. Leoni was so fond of them that I
could not help feeling some affection for them. They were the ones who
enlivened the whole table by their superiority in every respect to the
others. Those men were really remarkable, and seemed in some sense
reflections of Leoni. They had that sort of family resemblance, that
conformity of ideas and language which had impressed me the first day.
There was an indefinable air of subtlety and distinction, which was
lacking even in the most distinguished of the others. Their glances were
more penetrating, their replies more prompt, their self-possession more
lordly, their reckless extravagance in better taste. Each one of them
exerted a sort of moral authority over a portion of the new-comers. They
acted as their models and guides, at first in small matters, afterward
in greater ones. Leoni was the soul of the whole body, the superior
chief who was the mentor of that brilliant masculine coterie, in style,
tone, dissipation and extravagance.
This species of empire pleased him, and I was not surprised at it. I had
seen him reign even more openly at Brussels, and I had shared his pride
and his glory; but our happy life at the chalet had taught me the secret
of purer, more private joys. I regretted that life, and could not
refrain from saying so.
"And so do I," said he. "I regret those months of pure delight, superior
to all the empty vanities of society; but God did not choose to change
the succession of the seasons for us. There is no eternal happiness any
more than there is perpetual spring. It is a law of nature which we
cannot escape. Be sure that everything is ordered for the best in this
wicked world. The strength of a man's heart is no greater than the
duration of the blessings of life. Let us submit; let us bend our necks.
The flowers droop, wither and are born again every year. The human heart
can renew itself like a flower, when it knows its own strength and does
not bloom to the bursting point. Six months of unalloyed felicity was a
tremendous allowance, my dear; we should have died of too much happiness
if that had continued, or else we should have abused it. Destiny bids us
come down from our ethereal peaks and breathe a less pure atmosphere in
cities. Let us bow to the necessity and believe that it is well for us.
When the fine weather returns again, we will return to our mountains. We
shall be the more eager to find there all the pleasures of which we are
deprived here; we shall better appreciate the value of our peaceful
privacy; and that season of love and delight, which the hardships of the
winter would have spoiled for us, will come again even lovelier than
last year."
"Oh, yes," said I, embracing him, "we will return to Switzerland! How
good you are to want to do it and to promise me that you will! But tell
me, Leoni, can we not live more simply and more by ourselves here? We
see each other now only through the fumes of punch; we speak to each
other only amid songs and laughter. Why have we so many friends? Are we
not enough for each other?"
"Why, Juliette," he replied, "angels are children, and you are both. You
do not know that love is the function of the noblest faculties of the
mind, and that we must take care of those faculties as of the apple of
one's eye. You do not know, little girl, what your own heart is. Dear,
sensitive, confiding creature that you are, you believe that it is an
inexhaustible fountain of love; but the sun itself is not eternal. You
do not know that the heart becomes tired like the body, and that it must
be treated with the same care. Trust to me, Juliette; let me keep the
sacred fire alight in your heart. It is my interest to preserve your
love, to prevent you from squandering it too rapidly. All women are like
you; they are in such a hurry to love that they suddenly cease to love,
and do not know why."
"Bad boy," I said, "are these the things you said to me in the evenings
on the mountain? Did you urge me not to love you too much? did you think
that I was capable of becoming weary of loving you?"
"No, my angel," Leoni replied, kissing my hands, "nor do I think it now.
But listen to my experience: external things exert upon our most secret
feelings an influence against which the strongest contend in vain. In
our valley, surrounded by pure air, by natural perfumes and melodies, we
might well be and were certain to be all love, all poesy, all
enthusiasm: but remember that, even while we were there, I was sparing
of that enthusiasm, which is so easy to lose, so impossible to find
again when it is lost; remember our rainy days, when I was more or less
harsh with you in forcing you to keep your mind occupied, in order to
save you from reflection and the melancholy which is its inevitable
consequence. Be sure that too frequent examination of oneself and others
is the most dangerous of occupations. We must shake off the selfish
craving which impels us to be forever searching our hearts and the
hearts of those who love us, like a foolish husbandman who exhausts the
soil by dint of calling on it to produce beyond its capacity. We must
know how to be unemotional and frivolous at times; such periods of
distraction are dangerous only to weak and indolent hearts. An ardent
heart ought to seek them in order not to consume itself; it is always
rich enough. A word, a glance, is sufficient to send a thrill through it
in the midst of the eddying whirl which carries it away, and to bring it
back more ardent and more loving to the consciousness of its passion.
Here, you see, we must have excitement and variety; these great palaces
are beautiful, but they are melancholy. The sea moss clings to their
feet, and the limpid water in which they are reflected is often laden
with vapors which fall in tears. This magnificence is severe, and these
marks of nobility which please you are simply a long succession of
epitaphs and tombs which we must decorate with flowers. We must fill
with living beings this echoing mansion, where your footsteps would
frighten you if you were alone; we must throw money from the window to
this populace which has no other bed than the ice-covered parapets of
the bridges, so that the spectacle of its misery may not make us sad
amid our well-being. Allow yourself to be cheered by our laughter and
lulled to sleep by our songs; be good and do not worry; I will undertake
to arrange your life and make it pleasant to you, even if I am unable to
make it intoxicating. Be my wife and my mistress at Venice; you shall be
my angel and my nymph again among the glaciers of Switzerland."
XI
By such speeches he allayed my anxiety and led me, fascinated and
confiding, to the brink of the abyss. I thanked him lovingly for the
trouble he took to persuade me, when he could make me obey with a sign.
We embraced affectionately and returned to the salon where our friends
awaited us to part us.
However, as the days succeeded one another, Leoni did not take the same
trouble to reconcile me to them. He paid less attention to my growing
discontent, and when I mentioned it to him, he argued with me less
gently. One day indeed he was short with me and bitter; I saw that I
offended him; I determined to complain no more; but I began to suffer
really and to be genuinely unhappy. I waited with resignation until
Leoni snatched a few moments to come to me. To be sure he was so kind
and loving at those times that I deemed myself foolish and cowardly to
have suffered so. My courage and my confidence would revive for a few
days; but those days of encouragement became more and more infrequent.
Leoni, seeing that I was meek and submissive, still treated me with
consideration; but he no longer noticed my melancholy. Ennui devoured
me, Venice became hateful to me; its canals, its gondolas, its sky,
everything about it was distasteful. During the nights of card-playing I
wandered alone on the terrace at the top of the house; I shed bitter
tears; I recalled my home, my heedless youth, my kind, foolish mother,
my poor father, so loving and so good-natured, and even my aunt, with
her petty worries and her long sermons. It seemed to me that I was
really homesick, that I longed to fly, to go home and throw myself at my
parents' feet, to forget Leoni forever. But if a window opened below me,
if Leoni, weary of the game and the heat, came out on the balcony to
breathe the fresh air from the canal, I would lean over the rail to look
at him, and my heart would beat as during the first days of my passion,
when he crossed the threshold of my father's house; if the moon shone
upon him and enabled me to distinguish that noble figure beneath the
rich fancy costume that he always wore in his own palace, I would thrill
with pride and pleasure as on the evening that he led me into that
ball-room from which we went forth never to return; if his melodious
voice, murmuring a measure from some song, rebounded from the resonant
marbles of Venice and rose to my ears, I would feel the tears flowing
down my cheeks, as on those evenings among the mountains when he sang me
a ballad composed for me in the morning.
A few words which I overheard from the mouth of one of his friends
increased my depression and my disgust to an intolerable degree. Among
Leoni's twelve intimate associates, the Vicomte de Chalm, who called
himself an _émigré_ Frenchman, was the one whose attentions were most
offensive to me. He was the oldest of them all, and perhaps the
cleverest; but underneath his exquisite manners I detected a sort of
cynicism which often revolted me. He was satirical, cold-blooded and
insolent; furthermore, he was a man without morals and without heart;
but I knew nothing of that, and he displeased me, apart from that. One
evening when I was on the balcony, hidden from him by the silk curtains,
I heard him say to the Venetian marquis: "Why, where's Juliette?"--That
mode of speaking of me brought the blood to my cheeks; I kept perfectly
still and listened.--"I don't know," the Venetian replied. "Why, are you
so much in love with her?"--"Not too much," was the reply, "but
enough."--"And Leoni?"--"Leoni will turn her over to me one of these
days."--"What! his own wife?"--"Nonsense, marquis! are you mad?" replied
the viscount; "she is a girl he seduced at Brussels; when he has had
enough of her, and that will be before long, I will gladly take charge
of her. If you want her next after me, marquis, put your name
down."--"Many thanks," replied the marquis; "I know how you deprave
women, and I should be afraid to succeed you."
I heard no more; I leaned over the balustrade half-dead, and, hiding my
face in my shawl, wept with rage and shame.
That same night I called Leoni into my room, and demanded satisfaction
for the way I was treated by his friends. He took the insult with a
coolness which dealt my heart a mortal blow.--"You are a little fool,"
he said to me; "you don't know what men are; their thoughts are
indiscreet and their words still more so; the rakes are the best of
them. A strong woman should laugh at their airs instead of losing her
temper."
I fell upon a chair and burst into tears, crying;--"O mother! mother!
how low has your daughter fallen!"
Leoni exerted himself to soothe me, and succeeded only too quickly. He
knelt at my feet, kissed my hands and my arms, implored me to treat with
scorn a foolish remark and to think of nothing but him and his love.
"Alas!" said I, "what am I to think when your friends flatter themselves
that they can pick me up as they do your old pipes when you want them no
longer."
"Juliette," he replied, "wounded pride makes you bitter and unjust. I
have been a libertine, as you know; I have often told you of my youthful
disorders; but I thought that I had purified myself in the air of our
valley. My friends are still living the life that I used to lead; they
know nothing of the six months we passed in Switzerland; they could
never understand them. But ought you to misinterpret and forget them?"
I begged his pardon, I shed sweeter tears on his brow and his beautiful
hair; I strove to forget the uncomfortable impression I had received. I
flattered myself moreover that he would make his friends understand that
I was not a kept mistress and that they must respect me; but he either
did not choose to do it or did not think of it, for on the next and
following days I saw that Monsieur de Chalm's eyes followed me and
solicited me with revolting insolence.
I was in despair, but I did not know which way to turn to avoid the
evils into which I had plunged. I was too proud to be happy, and loved
Leoni too dearly to leave him.
One evening I had gone into the salon to get a book I had left on the
piano. Leoni was surrounded by a select party of his friends; they were
grouped around the tea table at the end of the room, which was dimly
lighted, and did not notice my presence. The viscount seemed to be in
one of his wickedest teasing moods.
"Baron Leone de Leoni," he said in a dry, mocking voice, "do you know,
my dear fellow, that you are getting in very deep?"
"What do you mean?" rejoined Leoni, "I have no debts at Venice yet."
"But you soon will have."
"I hope so," retorted Leoni with the utmost tranquillity.
"_Vive Dieu_!" said the viscount, "you are the first of men when it
comes to ruining yourself; half a million in three months! do you know
that's running a very pretty rig?"
Surprise had nailed me to my place; motionless and holding my breath, I
awaited the end of this strange conversation.
"Half a million?" echoed the Venetian marquis indifferently.
"Yes," said Chalm, "Thaddeus the Jew advanced him five hundred thousand
francs at the beginning of the winter."
"That's doing very well," said the marquis. "Have you paid the rent of
your ancestral palace, Leoni?"
"_Parbleu_! yes, in advance," said Chalm; "would they have let it to him
otherwise?"
"What do you expect to do when you have nothing left?" queried another
of Leoni's trusty friends.
"Run in debt," replied Leoni with imperturbable tranquillity.
"That's easier than to find Jews who will leave you at peace for three
months," said the viscount. "What will you do when your creditors take
you by the collar."
"I will take a pretty little boat," replied Leoni with a smile.
"Good! and go to Trieste?"
"No, that is too near; to Palermo, I have never been there."
"But when you arrive anywhere," said the marquis, "you must cut
something of a figure for a few days."
"Providence will provide for that," said Leoni, "she is the mother of
the audacious."
"But not of the indolent," said Chalm, "and I know nobody on earth more
indolent than you. What the devil did you do in Switzerland with your
infanta for six months?"
"Silence on that subject!" retorted Leoni; "I loved her, and I'll throw
my glass at the head of any man who sees anything to laugh at in that."
"Leoni, you drink too much," observed another of his friends.
"Perhaps so, but I have said what I have said."
The viscount didn't take up this species of challenge, and the marquis
made haste to change the conversation.
"Why, in God's name, aren't you playing?" he asked Leoni.
"_Ventre-Dieu_! I play every day to oblige you, although I detest
gambling; you will make a fool of me with your cards and your dice, and
your pockets like the cask of the Danaides, and your insatiable hands!
You are nothing but a parcel of fools, the whole of you. When you have
made a hit, instead of taking a rest and enjoying life like true
sybarites, you keep at it until you have spoiled your luck."
"Luck, luck!" said the marquis, "everyone knows what luck is."
"Many thanks!" said Leoni, "I no longer care to know; I was too
thoroughly currycombed at Paris. When I think that there is one man,
whom may God in his mercy consign to all the devils----!"
"Well?" said the viscount.
"A man," said the marquis, "of whom we must rid ourselves at any cost,
if we wish to enjoy liberty again on this earth. But, patience, there
are two of us against him."
"Never fear," said Leoni, "I have not so far forgotten the old customs
of the country that I don't know how to clear my path of the man who
stands in my way. Except for my devil of a love-affair, which filled my
brain, I had a fine chance in Brussels."
"You?" said the marquis; "you never did anything in that line, and you
will never have the courage."
"Courage?" cried Leoni, half-rising, with flashing eyes.
"No extravagance," replied the marquis, with that horrifying sang-froid
which they all had. "Let us understand each other. You have courage to
kill a bear or a wild boar, but you have too many sentimental and
philosophical ideas in your head to kill a man."
"That may be," said Leoni, resuming his seat, "but I am not sure."
"You don't mean to play at Palermo, then?" said the viscount.
"To the devil with your gambling! If I could get up a passion for
something--hunting, or a horse, or an olive-skinned Calabrian--I would
go next summer, and shut myself up in the Abruzzi and pass a few more
months forgetting you all."
"Rekindle your passion for Juliette," said the viscount, with a sneer.
"I will not rekindle my passion for Juliette," replied Leoni, angrily,
"but I will strike you if you mention her name again."
"We must make him drink some tea," said the viscount, "he's dead drunk."
"Come, come, Leoni," cried the marquis, grasping his arm, "you treat us
horribly to-night. What's the matter with you, in God's name? Are we no
longer friends? do you doubt us? Speak."
"No, I don't doubt you," said Leoni; "you have given me back as much as
I took from you. I know what you are worth; good and bad, I judge you
all, without prejudice or prepossession."
"Ah! I should like to hear your judgment!" said the viscount, between
his teeth.
"Come, come! more punch! more punch!" cried the other guests. "There's
no possibility of any more fun unless we drink Chalm and Leoni under the
table. They have reached the stage of nervous spasms; let's put them in
a trance."
"Yes, my friends, my very dear friends!" cried Leoni, "punch!
friendship! life--a jolly life! The deuce take the cards! they are what
make me ugly. Here's to drunkenness! Here's to the ladies! Here's to
sloth, tobacco, music and money! Here's to the young maids and old
countesses! Here's to the devil! Here's to love! Here's to all that
makes one live! Everything is good when one is well enough constituted
to make the most of it and enjoy it."
They all rose, shouting a drinking song. I fled; I ran upstairs with the
frenzy of one who thinks herself pursued, and fell in a swoon on my
bedroom floor.
XII
The next morning they found me lying on the floor, as stiff and cold as
a corpse; I had brain fever. I believe that Leoni was attentive to me;
it seemed to me that I saw him frequently at my bedside, but I had only
a vague memory of it. After three days I was out of danger. Then Leoni
came from time to time to inquire for me, and to pass part of the
afternoon with me. He left the palace every evening at six o'clock, and
did not return until next morning. That fact I learned later.
Of all that I had heard I had clearly understood but one thing, which
was the cause of my despair: it was that Leoni no longer loved me. Until
then I had always refused to believe it, although his conduct should
have made it clear to me. I resolved to contribute no farther to his
ruin, and not to abuse a remnant of compassion and generosity which led
him to continue to show me some consideration. I sent for him as soon as
I felt strong enough to endure the interview, and told him what I had
heard him say about me in the midst of the revel; I kept silence as to
all the rest. I could not see clearly in that confused mass of infamous
things which the remarks of his friends had caused me to suspect; I did
not choose to understand them. Moreover, I was ready to consent to
everything: to desertion, despair and death.
I told him that I had decided to go away in a week, and that I would
accept nothing from him thenceforth. I had kept my father's pin; by
selling it I could obtain much more than I needed to return to Brussels.
The courage with which I spoke, and which the fever doubtless assisted,
dealt Leoni an unexpected blow. He said nothing, but paced the floor
excitedly; then he began to sob and cry, and fell, gasping for breath,
on a chair. Dismayed by his apparent condition, I left my reclining
chair in spite of myself, and went to him with an air of solicitude.
Thereupon he seized me in his arms and, pressing me frantically to his
breast, cried:
"No, no! you shall not leave me; I will never consent to it; if your
pride, perfectly just and legitimate as it is, will not let you yield, I
will lie at your feet, across this doorway, and I will kill myself if
you step over me. No, you shall not go, for I love you passionately; you
are the only woman in the world whom I have ever been able to respect
and admire after possessing her for six months. What I said was
nonsense, and an infamous lie; you do not know, Juliette, oh! you do not
know all my misfortunes! you do not know to what I am condemned by the
society of a coterie of abandoned men, to what I am impelled by a soul
of brass, fire, gold and mud, which I received from heaven and hell in
concert! If you will not love me any longer, then I will live no longer.
What have I not done, what have I not sacrificed, what faculties have I
not debased, to retain my hold upon this execrable life, made execrable
by them! What mocking demon is confined in my brain to make me still
find attraction in this life at times, and shatter the most sacred ties
to plunge into it still deeper? Ah! it is time to have done with it.
Since I was born, I have known but one really beautiful, really pure
time, and that was when I possessed and adored you. That purged me of
all my wickedness, and I should have remained in the chalet under the
snow; I should have died at peace with you, with God and with myself,
whereas here I am ruined in your eyes and my own. Juliette, Juliette!
mercy, pardon! I feel that my heart will break if you abandon me. I am
young still; I want to live, to be happy, and I never shall be, except
with you. Will you punish me with death for a blasphemous word that
escaped my lips when I was intoxicated? Do you believe what I said? can
you believe it? Oh! how I suffer! how I have suffered for a fortnight! I
have secrets which burn my vitals; if only I could tell them to
you!--but you would never be able to listen to the end."
"I know them," I cried; "and if you loved me, I would care nothing for
all the rest."
"You know them!" he exclaimed with an air of bewilderment; "you know
them? What do you know?"
"I know that you are ruined, that this palace is not yours, that you
have squandered an enormous sum in three months; I know that you have
become accustomed to this adventurous life and these dissipated habits.
I do not know how you reconstruct your fortune so quickly or how you
throw it away; I fancy that gambling is your ruin and your resource; I
believe that you have about you a deplorable circle of friends, and that
you are struggling against shockingly bad advice; I believe that you are
on the brink of a precipice, but that you can still avoid it."
"Well, yes, that is all true," he cried; "you know everything! and you
will forgive me?"
"If I had not lost your love," I replied, "I should not consider it a
loss to leave this palace, this luxury and this society, all of which
are hateful to me. However poor we may be, we can always live as we
lived in our chalet--there, or somewhere else, if you are tired of
Switzerland. If you still loved me, you would not be ruined; for you
would think neither of gambling nor of intemperance, nor of any of the
passions which you commemorated in an infernal toast; if you loved me,
you would pay what you owe with what you have left, and we would go and
bury ourselves and love each other in some secluded spot where I would
quickly forget what I have learned, where I would never remind you of
it, where I could not suffer because of it--if you loved me!"
"Oh! I do love you, I do love you!" he cried; "let us go! let us fly,
save me! Be my benefactress, my angel, as you have always been! Come,
and forgive me!"
He threw himself at my feet and all that the most fervent passion can
dictate, he said to me with so much warmth that I believed it--and I
shall always believe it. Leoni deceived me, degraded me, and loved me at
the same time.
One day, to evade the keen reproaches that I heaped upon him, he tried
to rehabilitate the passion of gambling.
"Gambling," he said, with the specious eloquence which had only too much
power over me, "is a passion much more energetic than love. More
fruitful in terrible dramas, it is more intoxicating, more heroic in the
acts which combine to attain its end. I must say it, alas! that while
that end is vile in appearance, the ardor is irresistible, the audacity
is sublime, the sacrifices are blind and unlimited. You must know,
Juliette, that women never inspire such passions. Gold has a power
superior to theirs. In strength, in courage, in devotion, in
perseverance, love, compared with the gambler's stake, is only a feeble
child whose efforts are deserving of pity. How many men have you seen
sacrifice to a mistress that inestimable treasure, that priceless
necessity, that condition of existence without which we feel that
existence is unendurable--_honor_? I have known very few whose devotion
goes beyond the sacrifice of life. Every day the gambler sacrifices his
honor and lives on. The gambler is keen, he is stoical, he takes his
triumph coolly, he takes his downfall coolly; he passes in a few hours
from the lowest ranks of society to the highest; in a few hours more he
goes down again to his starting-point, and all without change of
attitude or expression. In a few hours, without leaving the spot to
which his demon chains him, he incurs all the vicissitudes of life, he
passes through all the phases of fortune which represent the different
social conditions. By turns king and beggar, he climbs the long ladder
at a single stride, always calm, always self-controlled, always
sustained by his sturdy ambition, always spurred on by the intense
thirst that consumes him. What will he be an hour hence? prince or
slave? How will he come forth from that den? stripped naked or bent
beneath the weight of gold? What does it matter? He will return
to-morrow to remake his fortune, to lose it or to triple it. The one
thing impossible for him is repose; he is like the storm bird that
cannot live without raging winds and an angry sea. He is accused of
loving gold! he loves it so little that he throws it away by the
handful. That gift of hell is powerless to benefit him or satisfy his
craving. He is no sooner rich than he is in great haste to be ruined in
order to enjoy that nerve-racking, terrible emotion without which life
is tasteless to him. What is gold in his eyes? Less in itself than
grains of sand in yours. But gold is to him an emblem of the blessings
and the evils which he seeks and defies. Gold is his plaything, his
enemy, his God, his dream, his demon, his mistress, his poesy: it is the
ghost which haunts him, which he attacks, grasps, and then allows to
escape, that he may have the pleasure of renewing the struggle and of
engaging once more in a hand-to-hand conflict with destiny. It is
magnificent, I tell you! It is absurd, to be sure, and should be
condemned, because energy thus employed is of no advantage to society,
because the man who expends his strength for such an end robs his
fellow-men of all the good he might have done, them with less
selfishness; but when you condemn him, do not despise him, ye
narrow-minded creatures who are capable of neither good nor evil; do not
gaze with dismay at the colossus of will-power, struggling thus on a
tempestuous sea for the sole purpose of exerting his strength and
forcing the sea back. His selfishness leads him into the midst of
fatigues and dangers, as yours binds you down to patient, hard-working
occupations. How many men in the whole world can you think of who work
for their country without thinking of themselves? He voluntarily
isolates himself, sets himself apart; he stakes his present, his repose,
his honor. He dooms himself to suffering, to fatigue. Deplore his error
if you will, but do not compare yourself with him, in the pride of your
heart, in order to glorify yourself at his expense. Let his fatal
example serve simply to console you for your own harmless nullity."
"O heaven!" I replied, "upon what sophistries your heart feeds, or else
how weak my mind must be! What! the gambler is not despicable, you say?
O Leoni, why, having so much strength of mind, have you not employed it
in overcoming yourself in the interest of your fellow-men?"
"Apparently, because I have misunderstood life," he replied in a bitter,
ironical tone. "Because, instead of appearing on a sumptuously appointed
stage, I appeared in an open-air theatre; because, instead of spending
my time declaiming specious moral apothegms on the stage of society and
playing heroic rôles, I amused myself by performing feats of strength
and risking my life on a tight-rope, in order to give full play to the
strength of my muscles. And even that comparison amounts to nothing: the
tight-rope dancer has his vanity as well as the tragedian or the
philanthropic orator. The gambler has none; he is neither admired nor
applauded nor envied. His triumphs are so short-lived and so hazardous
that it is hardly worth while to speak of them. On the other hand,
society condemns him, the common herd despises him, especially on the
days when he has lost. All his charlatanism consists in showing a bold
front, in falling manfully before a group of selfish creatures who do
not even look at him, they are so engrossed by their own mental
struggles! If in his swift hours of good luck he finds some enjoyment in
gratifying the commonplace vanities of luxury, it is a very brief
tribute that he pays to human weaknesses. Ere long he will go and
sacrifice remorselessly those childish joys of an instant to the
devouring activity of his mind, to that infernal fever which does not
permit him to live for one whole day as other men live. Vanity in him!
Why, he has not the time for it, he has something else to do! Has he not
his heart to torture, his brain to overturn, his blood to drink, his
flesh to torment, his gold to lose, his life to endanger, to
reconstruct, to pull down, to wrench, to tear in pieces, to risk
altogether, to reconquer, bit by bit, to put in his purse, to toss on
the table every moment? Ask the sailor if he can live on shore, the bird
if he can do without his wings, man's heart if it can do without
emotions. The gambler then is not criminal in himself; it is always his
social position that makes him so, his family, whom he ruins or
dishonors. But suppose him to be like me, alone in the world, without
attachments, without kindred near enough in degree to be taken into
account, free, thrown on his own resources, satiated or deceived in
love, as I have so often been, and you will pity his error, you will
regret for his sake that he was born with a sanguine and vain rather
than with a bilious and reserved temperament. How do you argue that the
gambler is in the same category as brigands and filibusters? Ask
governments why they derive a part of their revenues from such a
shameful source? They alone are guilty of offering those terrible
temptations to restlessness, those deplorable resources to despair. But
although love of gambling is not in itself so degrading as the majority
of other passions, it is the most dangerous of all, the keenest, the
most irresistible, and attended by the most wretched consequences. It is
almost impossible for the gambler not to dishonor himself for a few
years. As for myself," he added, with a gloomier manner and in a less
vibrant voice, "after enduring for a long time this life of torture and
convulsions with the chivalrous heroism which was the foundation of my
character, I allowed myself to be corrupted at last; that is to say, my
strength being gradually exhausted by this constant conflict, I lost the
stoical courage with which I had accepted reverses, endured the
privations of ghastly poverty, recommenced the building of my fortune,
sometimes with a single sou, waited, hoped, advanced warily and step by
step, sacrificing a whole month to repair the losses of a single day.
Such was my life for a long while. But at last, weary of suffering, I
began to seek outside of my own will, outside of my virtue,--for it must
be admitted that the gambler has a virtue of his own,--the means of
regaining more quickly what I had lost; I borrowed and from that moment
I was lost myself. At first a man suffers cruelly when he finds himself
in an indelicate position; but eventually he gets used to it, as to
everything else, becomes numb and indifferent. I did as all gamblers and
spendthrifts do; I became dangerous and harmful to my friends. I heaped
upon their heads the evils which I had for a long time bravely borne on
my own. It was very culpable; I risked my own honor, then the honor and
the lives of my nearest and dearest, as I had risked my money. There is
this that is horrible about gambling, that it gives you none of those
lessons which it is impossible to forget. It is always there, beckoning
to you! That inexhaustible pile of gold is always before your eyes. It
follows you about, it coaxes you, it bids you hope, and sometimes it
keeps its promises, restores your courage, re-establishes your credit,
seems to postpone dishonor again; but dishonor is consummated the moment
that honor is voluntarily put in peril."
Here Leoni hung his head and relapsed into moody silence; the confession
that perhaps he had intended to make to me died on his lips. I saw by
his shame and his depression that it was quite useless to expose the
sophistical arguments of his disordered brain; his conscience had
already undertaken that task.
"Listen to me," he said, when we were reconciled. "To-morrow I close the
house to all my friends and go to Milan, where I have to collect a
considerable sum that is still due me. While I am gone, take good care
of yourself, get well, arrange all the claims of our creditors, and make
preparations for our departure. In a week, or a fortnight at most, I
will return and pay our debts, take you away, and live with you wherever
you choose, forever."
I believed all he said; I consented to everything. He went away and the
house was closed. I did not wait until I was entirely well before I set
at work to put everything in order and to inspect the tradesmen's bills.
I hoped that Leoni would write me on arriving at Milan as he had
promised. It was more than a week before I heard from him. He wrote me
at last that he was sure of collecting much more money than he owed, but
that he would be obliged to remain away three weeks instead of two. I
resigned myself to wait. At the end of three weeks another letter
informed me that he was compelled to wait for his money until the end of
the month. I was discouraged. Alone in that vast palace, where, in order
to avoid the insolent attentions of Leoni's boon-companions, I was
obliged to conceal myself, to lower my curtains and sustain a sort of
siege, consumed with anxiety, ill and weak, abandoned to the blackest
thoughts and to all the remorse which the sting of unhappiness arouses,
I was tempted many times to put an end to my miserable life.
But I was not at the end of my sufferings.
XIII
One morning, when I thought that I was alone in the great salon, where I
sat with an open book on my knees, never thinking of glancing at it, I
heard a noise near me, and throwing off my lethargy, I saw the hateful
face of Vicomte de Chalm. I uttered an exclamation, and was about to
turn him out of doors, when he apologized profusely with an air that was
at once respectful and ironical, and I was at a loss for a reply. He
said that he had forced my door by virtue of the authority contained in
a letter from Leoni, who had specially instructed him to come to inquire
about my health and report to him. I put no faith in this pretext, and
was on the point of telling him so. He gave me no time, however, but
began to talk himself with such impudent self-possession, that it would
have been impossible for me to turn him out unless by calling my
servants. He had resolved to take no hints.
"I see, madame," he said to me, with a hypocritical air of friendly
interest, "that you are aware of the baron's unfortunate position. Be
assured that my slender resources are at his disposal; unluckily they
amount to very little in the way of satisfying the prodigality of such a
magnificent character. What consoles me is that he is brave,
enterprising and ingenious. He has rebuilt his fortune several times; he
will do it again. But you will have to suffer, madame; you who are so
young and delicate, so worthy of a happier lot! It is on your account
that I am profoundly distressed by Leoni's follies, and by all those he
has still to commit before he obtains what he needs. Poverty is a
horrible thing at your age, and when one has always lived in luxury----"
I interrupted him abruptly, for I fancied that I could see what he was
coming to with his insulting compassion. I did not yet realize that
creature's baseness.
Divining my suspicion, he made haste to destroy it. He gave me to
understand, with all the courtesy that his cold and cunning tongue could
command, that he considered himself too old and too poor to offer me his
support, but that an immensely wealthy young English lord, whom he had
introduced to me and who had called on me several times, entrusted to
him the honorable mission of tempting me by magnificent promises. I had
not the strength to reply to that insult. I was so weak and so
prostrated that I began to weep, without speaking. The infamous Chalm
thought that I was wavering, and, in order to hasten my decision,
informed me that Leoni would not return to Venice, that he was fast
bound at the feet of Princess Zagorolo, and that he had given him full
power to conclude this affair with me.
Indignation at last restored the presence of mind which I needed to
overwhelm that man with contempt and obloquy. But he soon recovered from
his confusion.
"I see, madame," he said, "that your youth and innocence have been
cruelly abused, and I am incapable of returning hatred for hatred, for
you misunderstand me, and therefore accuse me, whereas I know and esteem
you. I will listen to your reproaches and your insults with all the
stoicism which genuine devotion should have at its command, and then I
will tell you into what an abyss you have fallen and from what depths of
degradation I desire to rescue you."
He said this with such emphasis and so calmly that my credulous nature
was in a measure subjugated. For an instant I thought that I had,
perhaps, misjudged a sincere friend in the mental disturbance caused by
my misfortunes. Fascinated by the impudent serenity of his features, I
forgot the disgusting words I had heard him use, and I gave him time to
speak. He saw that he must make the most of that moment of hesitation
and weakness, and he made haste to give me information concerning Leoni
that bore the stamp of hateful truth.
"I admire," he said, "the way in which your easily persuaded and
confiding heart has clung so long to such a character. It is true that
nature has endowed him with irresistible fascinations, and that he is
extraordinarily skilful in concealing his villainy and assuming the
outward appearance of loyalty. All the cities in Europe know him for a
delightful rake. Only a very few persons in Italy know that he is
capable of any villainy to gratify his innumerable whims. To-day you
will see him take Lovelace for his model, to-morrow the shepherd Fido.
As he is something of a poet, he is capable of receiving all sorts of
impressions, of understanding and mimicking all the virtues, of studying
and playing all varieties of rôles. He believes that he really feels
all that he imitates, and sometimes he identifies himself so thoroughly
with the character he has chosen, that he feels its passions and grasps
its grandeur. But, as he is vile and corrupt at bottom, as there is
nothing in him save affectation and caprice, vice suddenly springs to
life in his blood, the tedium of his hypocrisy drives him into habits
directly contrary to those which seemed natural to him. They who have
seen him only in one of his deceptive disguises are amazed and think he
has gone mad; they who know that it is his nature to be true in nothing,
smile and wait quietly for some fresh invention."
Although this shocking portrait revolted me so that I was almost
suffocated, yet it seemed to me that I saw in it some shafts of blinding
light. I was struck dumb, my nerves contracted. I looked at Chalm with a
terror-stricken expression; he congratulated himself on his success and
continued:
"This revelation of his character surprises you; if you had had more
experience, my dear lady, you would know that such a character is very
common in the world. To have it to perfection, one must have a very
superior mind; and the reason that many fools do not assume it is that
they are incapable of sustaining it. You will notice that a vain man of
moderate parts will almost always shut himself up in a sort of obstinacy
which he deems peculiar to himself and which consoles him for another's
success. He will admit that he is less brilliant, but will claim that he
is more reliable and more useful. The world is inhabited by none but
intolerable idiots and dangerous madmen. Everything considered, I prefer
the latter; I have prudence enough to protect myself from them and
tolerance enough to be amused by them. It is much better to laugh with a
spiteful buffoon than to yawn with a tiresome virtuous man. That is why
you have seen me living on intimate terms with a man whom I neither like
nor esteem. Moreover I was attracted to this house by your amiable
manners, by your angelic sweetness; I felt a fatherly affection for you.
Young Lord Edwards, who from his window saw that you passed many hours
motionless and pensive on your balcony, confided to me the violent
passion he has conceived for you. I introduced him here, frankly and
earnestly hoping that you would remain no longer in the painful and
humiliating position in which Leoni's desertion left you; I knew that
Lord Edwards had a heart worthy of yours, and that he would make your
life happy and honorable. I have come to-day to renew my efforts and to
avow his love, which you have not chosen to understand."
I bit my handkerchief in my indignation; but, absorbed by one fixed
idea, I rose and said to him with emphasis:
"You claim that Leoni has authorized you to make me these infamous
propositions: prove it! yes, monsieur, prove it!"
And I shook his arm with convulsive force.
"_Parbleu_! my dear girl," the villain retorted with his hateful
sang-froid, "it's very easy to prove. But how is it that you don't
understand it? Leoni no longer loves you; he has another mistress."
"Prove it!" I repeated, thoroughly exasperated.
"In a moment, in a moment," said he. "Leoni is in great need of money,
and there are some women of a certain age whose countenance may be
advantageous."
"Prove to me all that you say," I cried, "or I turn you out of the house
instantly."
"Very well," he replied, not at all disconcerted; "but let us make a
bargain: if I have lied to you, I will leave the house and never put my
foot inside it again; but if I told you the truth when I said that Leoni
has authorized me to speak to you about Lord Edwards, you will allow me
to come again this evening with him."
As he spoke he took from his pocket a letter, on the envelope of which I
recognized Leoni's handwriting.
"Yes!" I cried, carried away by the irresistible desire to know my fate;
"yes, I promise."
The marquis slowly unfolded the letter and handed it to me. I read:
"MY DEAR VISCOUNT,
"Although you often cause me fits of anger in which I would gladly
strangle you, I believe that you are really my friend and that your
offers of service are sincere. However, I will not take advantage of
them. I have something better than that, and my affairs are going on
famously once more. The only thing that embarrasses me and frightens me
is Juliette. You are right: the moment that she knows, she will upset my
plans. But what am I to do? I have the most idiotic and invincible
attachment for her. Her despair takes away all my strength. I cannot see
her weep without falling at her feet. You think that she will allow
herself to be corrupted? No, you do not know her; she will never allow
herself to be persuaded by greed. But anger? you say. Yes, that is more
probable. What woman is there who will not do from anger what she would
not do for love? Juliette is proud, I have become perfectly certain of
that lately. If you tell her a little ill of me, if you give her to
understand that I am unfaithful--perhaps!--But, great God! I cannot
think of it without feeling as if my heart were being torn to
pieces.--Try: if she yields, I will despise her and forget her; if she
resists--why, then we will see. Whatever the result of your efforts, I
have either a great calamity to dread or a great heartache to endure."
"Now," said the marquis when I had finished reading, "I am going to
fetch Lord Edwards."
I hid my face in my hands and sat for a long time without moving or
speaking. Then I suddenly hid the hateful letter in my bosom and rang
violently.
"Let my maid pack a portmanteau in five minutes," I said to the servant,
"and tell Beppo to bring the gondola."
"What do you mean to do, my dear child?" said the astonished viscount;
"where do you propose to go?"
"To Lord Edwards, of course," I retorted with a bitter irony of which he
did not understand the meaning. "Go and tell him," I added; "say that
you have earned your pay and that I am flying to him."
He began to understand that I was frantic with rage and was jeering at
him. He paused, uncertain what to do. I left the salon without another
word, and went to put on my travelling dress. I came down again,
attended by my maid, who carried the portmanteau. As I was stepping into
the gondola, I felt that a trembling hand caught my cloak and held me
back; I turned and saw Chalm, greatly disturbed and alarmed.
"Where in heaven's name are you going?" he said in an altered voice.
I was triumphant to have destroyed his sang-froid, the sang-froid of a
villain, at last.
"I am going to Milan," I said, "and I am going to make you lose the two
or three hundred sequins Lord Edwards has promised you."
"One moment," shouted the viscount furiously, "give me the letter or you
shall not go."
"Beppo!" I cried, wild with anger and terror, darting toward the
gondolier, "save me from this ruffian, he is breaking my arm!"
All Leoni's servants, finding me a mild mistress, were devoted to me.
Beppo, a silent, resolute fellow, seized me about the waist and lifted
me from the stairs. At the same time he pushed against the lowest step
with his foot, and the gondola shot out into the canal just as he
deposited me on the seat with marvellous dexterity and strength. Chalm
was very near being dragged into the water. He disappeared, after giving
me a look which was a vow of everlasting hatred and implacable revenge.
XIV
I reached Milan after travelling night and day without giving myself
time to rest or reflect. I alighted at the inn which Leoni had given me
as his address, and asked for him; they looked at me in amazement.
"He does not live here," the clerk replied. "He came here when he
arrived and hired a small room where he put his luggage; but he only
comes here in the morning to get his letters and be shaved; then he goes
away."
"But where are his lodgings?" I asked.
I saw that the man looked at me with curiosity and uncertainty, and,
whether from a feeling of respect or of compassion, could not make up
his mind to reply. I was discreet enough not to insist, and bade them
take me to the room Leoni had hired.
"If you know where he can be found at this time of day," I said to the
clerk, "send for him and say that his sister has arrived."
In about an hour Leoni appeared and held out his arms to embrace me.
"Wait a moment," I said, drawing back, "if you have deceived me
hitherto, do not add another crime to those you have already committed
against me. Here, look at this letter; did you write it? If somebody has
imitated your handwriting, tell me quickly, for I hope that it is so,
and I am suffocating."
Leoni glanced at the letter and turned as pale as death.
"_Mon Dieu_!" I cried, "I hoped that I had been deceived! I came to you,
almost certain of finding that you knew nothing of this infamy. I said
to myself: 'He has done much that is bad, he has deceived me before;
but, in spite of everything, he loves me. If it is true that I am an
annoyance to him and that I stand in his way, he would have told me so
when I felt the courage to leave him, barely a month ago; whereas he
threw himself at my feet and implored me to remain. If he is ambitious
and a schemer, he would not have kept me, for I have no fortune, and my
love is of no advantage to him in any way. Why should he complain of my
importunity now? He has but a word to say to send me away. He knows that
I am proud; he need not fear my prayers or my reproaches. Why should he
wish to degrade me?'"
I could not continue; a flood of tears choked my voice and arrested my
words.
"Why should I wish to degrade you?" cried Leoni beside himself with
emotion; "to spare my tattered conscience another cause for remorse! You
cannot understand that, Juliette. It is easy to see that you have never
committed a crime!"
He paused; I sank into a chair and we faced each other, equally
overcome.
"Poor angel!" he cried at last, "did you deserve to be the companion and
victim of such a knave as I am? What did you do to God before you were
born, unfortunate child, that he should throw you into the arms of a
villain who is killing you with shame and despair? Poor Juliette! poor
Juliette!"
And in his turn he shed a torrent of tears.
"Very well," I said; "I came to hear your justification or my sentence.
You are guilty, I forgive you and I go."
"Never say that again!" he cried vehemently. "Strike that word out of
our interviews forever. When you intend to leave me, make your escape
adroitly, so that I cannot prevent you; but so long as a drop of blood
is left in my veins, I will not consent to it. You are my wife, you are
my wife, you belong to me and I love you. I can kill you with grief, but
I cannot let you go."
"I will accept the grief and death," I said, "if you tell me that you
still love me."
"Yes, I love you, I love you!" he cried, with his usual transports. "I
love no one but you, and I never shall be able to love any other!"
"Wretch! you lie," I said to him. "You have been paying court to the
Princess Zagarolo."
"True, but I detest her."
"What!" I cried, in utter amazement. "Why do you follow her then? What
shameful secrets are hidden beneath all these riddles? Chalm tried to
persuade me that a vile ambition bound you to that woman; that she was
old--that she paid you. Ah! what things you make me say!"
"Do not believe these calumnies," said Leoni, "the princess is young and
beautiful; I am in love with her."
"Very well," I said, with a profound sigh, "I would rather have you
unfaithful than dishonored. Love her, love her dearly, for she is rich
and you are poor! If you love her dearly, wealth and poverty will be
mere words between you. I loved you so, and, although I had nothing to
live on but what you gave me, I did not blush on that account; now, I
should debase myself and I should be unendurable to you. So let me go.
Your obstinacy in keeping me here, just to kill me by torture, is both
foolish and cruel."
"That is true," said Leoni, gloomily. "Go! I am a villain to try to
prevent you."
He left the room with an air of desperation. I threw myself on my knees,
I prayed to heaven to give me strength, I invoked the memory of my
mother, and I rose to make once more my brief preparations for
departure.
When my portmanteau was locked, I ordered post-horses for the same
evening, and threw myself on the bed to wait. I was so overdone by
fatigue and so prostrated by despair, that I felt, as I fell asleep,
something resembling the peace of the grave.
After an hour's sleep, I was aroused by Leoni's passionate kisses.
"It is of no use for you to think of going away," he said; "it is beyond
my strength. I have sent away your horses and had your trunk unpacked. I
have been out walking alone in the country, and I have done my utmost to
force myself to give you up. I resolved not to bid you adieu. I went to
the princess's and tried to persuade myself that I loved her; I hate her
and I love you. You must stay."
These constant agitations weakened my mind as well as my body. I began
to lose the faculty of reasoning; evil and good, esteem and contempt
became vague sounds, words which I no longer cared to understand, and
which frightened me as much as if they were interminable columns of
figures which I was told to add. Leoni had thenceforth more than a moral
influence over me; he had a magnetic power which I could not escape. His
glance, his voice, his tears acted on my nerves no less than on my
heart. I was simply a machine turned any way at his pleasure.
I forgave him. I abandoned myself to his caresses; I promised him
whatever he chose. He told me that the Princess Zagarolo, being a widow,
had thought of marrying him; that the brief and trivial fancy he had had
for her had made her believe in his love; that she had foolishly
compromised herself for him; and that he must either spare her pride and
cut loose from her gradually, or have trouble with the whole family.
"If it were simply a matter of fighting with all her brothers, cousins
and uncles," he said, "I should worry very little about it; but they
will act as great noblemen, denounce me as a _carbonaro_, and have me
thrown into prison, where I may have to wait ten years before the
authorities will deign to look into my case."
I listened to all these absurd fables with the credulity of a child.
Leoni had never taken any part in politics, but I was still fond of
persuading myself that all that was problematical in his life was
connected with some great enterprise of that kind. I consented to pass
for his sister in the hotel, to go out seldom, and never with him--in
short, to leave him absolutely at liberty to leave me at any moment at a
nod from the princess.
XV
That life was perfectly frightful, but I endured it. The tortures of
jealousy had been unknown to me hitherto; now they awoke, and I
exhausted them all. I spared Leoni the tedium of combating them; indeed
I had not enough strength left to express them. I resolved to allow
myself to die in silence; I felt sick enough to hope for death. Ennui
consumed me at Milan, even more than at Venice; I suffered more, and had
less distraction. Leoni lived openly with the Princess Zagarolo. He
passed the evening in her box at the play, or at some ball with her. He
made his escape to come to see me for an instant, then returned to sup
with her, and did not come back to the hotel until six o'clock in the
morning. He went to bed utterly exhausted and often in ill-humor. He
rose at noon, taciturn and distraught, and went to drive with his
mistress. I often saw them pass. Leoni when with her had the same
discreetly triumphant air, the same coquettish bearing, the same fond
and happy expression that he once had with me; now I had only his
complaints and a narrative of his vexations. To be sure, I preferred to
have him come to me careworn and disgusted by his slavery, to being
tranquil and indifferent, as sometimes happened. It seemed at those
times that he had forgotten the love he had once had for me and that
which I still had for him. He found it altogether natural to confide to
me the details of his intimacy with another, and did not perceive that
the smile on my face as I listened to him was a mute convulsion of pain.
One evening, at sunset, I was coming out of the cathedral, where I had
prayed fervently to God to call me back to him and to accept my
sufferings in expiation of my faults. I walked slowly through the
magnificent portal and leaned from time to time against a pillar, for I
was very weak. A slow fever was consuming me. The excitement of prayer
and the atmosphere of the church had bathed me in a cold perspiration. I
resembled a spectre risen from the sepulchral vaults of the edifice to
look once more upon the last rays of the sun. A man who had been
following me for some time, without attracting my attention
particularly, spoke to me, and I turned, without surprise or alarm, with
the apathy of a dying woman. I recognized Henryet.
Instantly, the memory of my home and my family awoke in me with a
violent throb. I forgot that young man's strange behavior towards me,
the terrible power that he wielded over Leoni, his former love, which I
had welcomed so coldly, and the detestation I had felt for him
afterward. I thought only of my father and mother, and eagerly offering
him my hand, I overwhelmed him with questions. He was in no hurry to
reply, although he seemed touched by my emotion and my eagerness.
"Are you alone here?" he said to me; "can I talk to you without exposing
you to any danger?"
"I am alone; no one here knows me or pays any attention to me. Let us
sit down on this stone bench, for I am not well; and, for the love of
heaven, tell me about my parents! It is a whole year since I have heard
their names."
"Your parents!" said Henryet sadly; "there is one of them who no longer
weeps for you."
"My father is dead!" I cried, rising. Henryet did not reply. I fell
back, utterly crushed, on the bench, and said under my breath: "My God,
who wilt soon reunite us, bid him forgive me!"
"Your mother," said Henryet, "was ill a long while. Then she tried to
find relief in society; but she had lost her beauty with much weeping,
and could find no consolation there."
"My father dead," I said, clasping my nerveless hands, "my mother aged
and heart-broken! What of my aunt?"
"Your aunt tries to console your mother by proving that you do not
deserve her regrets; but your mother will not listen to her and fades
more and more every day in solitude and weariness. And you, madame?"
Henryet uttered these last three words in a chilling tone, in which,
however, I could detect compassion beneath the apparent contempt.