What young man full of abounding but restrained life and emotion would
not have had the glorious idea of going to Croisic to see Madame de
Rochefide land, and examine her incognito? Calyste greatly surprised his
father and mother by going off in the morning without waiting for the
mid-day breakfast. Heaven knows with what agility the young Breton’s
feet sped along. Some unknown vigor seemed lent to him; he walked on
air, gliding along by the walls of Les Touches that he might not be seen
from the house. The adorable boy was ashamed of his ardor, and afraid of
being laughed at; Felicite and Vignon were so perspicacious! besides, in
such cases young fellows fancy that their foreheads are transparent.
He reached the shore, strengthened by a stone embankment, at the foot of
which is a house where travellers can take shelter in storms of wind or
rain. It is not always possible to cross the little arm of the sea which
separates the landing-place of Guerande from Croisic; the weather may
be bad, or the boats not ready; and during this time of waiting, it
is necessary to put not only the passengers but their horses, donkeys,
baggages, and merchandise under cover.
Calyste presently saw two boats coming over from Croisic, laden with
baggage,--trunks, packages, bags, and chests,--the shape and appearance
of which proved to a native of these parts that such extraordinary
articles must belong to travellers of distinction. In one of the boats
was a young woman in a straw bonnet with a green veil, accompanied by a
man. This boat was the first to arrive. Calyste trembled until on closer
view he saw they were a maid and a man-servant.
“Are you going over to Croisic, Monsieur Calyste?” said one of the
boatmen; to whom he replied with a shake of the head, annoyed at being
called by his name.
He was captivated by the sight of a chest covered with tarred cloth on
which were painted the words, MME. LA MARQUISE DE ROCHEFIDE. The name
shone before him like a talisman; he fancied there was something fateful
in it. He knew in some mysterious way, which he could not doubt, that
he should love that woman. Why? In the burning desert of his new and
infinite desires, still vague and without an object, his fancy fastened
with all its strength on the first woman that presented herself. Beatrix
necessarily inherited the love which Camille had rejected.
Calyste watched the landing of the luggage, casting from time to time
a glance at Croisic, from which he hoped to see another boat put out
to cross to the little promontory, and show him Beatrix, already to his
eyes what Beatrice was to Dante, a marble statue on which to hang his
garlands and his flowers. He stood with arms folded, lost in meditation.
Here is a fact worthy of remark, which, nevertheless, has never
been remarked: we often subject ourselves to sentiments by our own
volition,--deliberately bind ourselves, and create our own fate; chance
has not as much to do with it as we believe.
“I don’t see any horses,” said the maid, sitting on a trunk.
“And I don’t see any road,” said the footman.
“Horses have been here, though,” replied the woman, pointing to the
proofs of their presence. “Monsieur,” she said, addressing Calyste, “is
this really the way to Guerande?”
“Yes,” he replied, “are you expecting some one to meet you?”
“We were told that they would fetch us from Les Touches. If they don’t
come,” she added to the footman, “I don’t know how Madame la marquise
will manage to dress for dinner. You had better go and find Mademoiselle
des Touches. Oh! what a land of savages!”
Calyste had a vague idea of having blundered.
“Is your mistress going to Les Touches?” he inquired.
“She is there; Mademoiselle came for her this morning at seven o’clock.
Ah! here come the horses.”
Calyste started toward Guerande with the lightness and agility of a
chamois, doubling like a hare that he might not return upon his tracks
or meet any of the servants of Les Touches. He did, however, meet two of
them on the narrow causeway of the marsh along which he went.
“Shall I go in, or shall I not?” he thought when the pines of Les
Touches came in sight. He was afraid; and continued his way rather
sulkily to Guerande, where he finished his excursion on the mall and
continued his reflections.
“She has no idea of my agitation,” he said to himself.
His capricious thoughts were so many grapnels which fastened his heart
to the marquise. He had known none of these mysterious terrors and joys
in his intercourse with Camille. Such vague emotions rise like poems in
the untutored soul. Warmed by the first fires of imagination, souls like
his have been known to pass through all phases of preparation and to
reach in silence and solitude the very heights of love, without having
met the object of so many efforts.
Presently Calyste saw, coming toward him, the Chevalier du Halga and
Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, who were walking together on the mall. He
heard them say his name, and he slipped aside out of sight, but not out
of hearing. The chevalier and the old maid, believing themselves alone,
were talking aloud.
“If Charlotte de Kergarouet comes,” said the chevalier, “keep her four
or five months. How can you expect her to coquette with Calyste? She is
never here long enough to undertake it. Whereas, if they see each other
every day, those two children will fall in love, and you can marry them
next winter. If you say two words about it to Charlotte she’ll say four
to Calyste, and a girl of sixteen can certainly carry off the prize from
a woman of forty.”
Here the old people turned to retrace their steps and Calyste heard no
more. But remembering what his mother had told him, he saw Mademoiselle
de Pen-Hoel’s intention, and, in the mood in which he then was, nothing
could have been more fatal. The mere idea of a girl thus imposed upon
him sent him with greater ardor into his imaginary love. He had never
had a fancy for Charlotte de Kergarouet, and he now felt repugnance at
the very thought of her. Calyste was quite unaffected by questions of
fortune; from infancy he had accustomed his life to the poverty and the
restricted means of his father’s house. A young man brought up as he had
been, and now partially emancipated, was likely to consider sentiments
only, and all his sentiments, all his thought now belonged to the
marquise. In presence of the portrait which Camille had drawn for him
of her friend, what was that little Charlotte? the companion of his
childhood, whom he thought of as a sister.
He did not go home till five in the afternoon. As he entered the hall
his mother gave him, with a rather sad smile, the following letter from
Mademoiselle des Touches:--
My dear Calyste,--The beautiful marquise has come; we count on you
to help us celebrate her arrival. Claude, always sarcastic,
declares that you will play Bice and that she will be Dante. It is
for our honor as Bretons, and yours as a du Guenic to welcome a
Casteran. Come soon.
Your friend, Camille Maupin.
Come as you are, without ceremony; otherwise you will put us to
the blush.
Calyste gave the letter to his mother and departed.
“Who are the Casterans?” said Fanny to the baron.
“An old Norman family, allied to William the Conqueror,” he replied.
“They bear on a shield tierce fessed azure, gules and sable, a horse
rearing argent, shod with gold. That beautiful creature for whom the
Gars was killed at Fougeres in 1800 was the daughter of a Casteran
who made herself a nun, and became an abbess after the Duc de Verneuil
deserted her.”
“And the Rochefides?”
“I don’t know that name. I should have to see the blazon,” he replied.
The baroness was somewhat reassured on hearing that the Marquise de
Rochefide was born of a noble family, but she felt that her son was now
exposed to new seductions.
Calyste as he walked along felt all sorts of violent and yet soft inward
movements; his throat was tight, his heart swelled, his brain was full,
a fever possessed him. He tried to walk slowly, but some superior power
hurried him. This impetuosity of the several senses excited by vague
expectation is known to all young men. A subtle fire flames within their
breasts and darts outwardly about them, like the rays of a nimbus around
the heads of divine personages in works of religious art; through it
they see all Nature glorious, and woman radiant. Are they not then like
those haloed saints, full of faith, hope, ardor, purity?
The young Breton found the company assembled in the little salon of
Camille’s suite of rooms. It was then about six o’clock; the sun, in
setting, cast through the windows its ruddy light chequered by the
trees; the air was still; twilight, beloved of women, was spreading
through the room.
“Here comes the future deputy of Brittany,” said Camille Maupin,
smiling, as Calyste raised the tapestry portiere,--“punctual as a king.”
“You recognized his step just now,” said Claude to Felicite in a low
voice.
Calyste bowed low to the marquise, who returned the salutation with an
inclination of her head; he did not look at her; but he took the hand
Claude Vignon held out to him and pressed it.
“This is the celebrated man of whom we have talked so much, Gennaro
Conti,” said Camille, not replying to Claude Vignon’s remark.
She presented to Calyste a man of medium height, thin and slender, with
chestnut hair, eyes that were almost red, and a white skin, freckled
here and there, whose head was so precisely the well-known head of Lord
Byron (though rather better carried on his shoulders) that description
is superfluous. Conti was rather proud of this resemblance.
“I am fortunate,” he said, “to meet Monsieur du Guenic during the one
day that I spend at Les Touches.”
“It was for me to say that to you,” replied Calyste, with a certain
ease.
“He is handsome as an angel,” said the marquise in an under tone to
Felicite.
Standing between the sofa and the two ladies, Calyste heard the words
confusedly. He seated himself in an arm-chair and looked furtively
toward the marquise. In the soft half-light he saw, reclining on a
divan, as if a sculptor had placed it there, a white and serpentine
shape which thrilled him. Without being aware of it, Felicite had done
her friend a service; the marquise was much superior to the unflattered
portrait Camille had drawn of her the night before. Was it to do
honor to the guest that Beatrix had wound into her hair those tufts of
blue-bells that gave value to the pale tints of her creped curls, so
arranged as to fall around her face and play upon the cheeks? The circle
of her eyes, which showed fatigue, was of the purest mother-of-pearl,
her skin was as dazzling as the eyes, and beneath its whiteness,
delicate as the satiny lining of an egg, life abounded in the beautiful
blue veins. The delicacy of the features was extreme; the forehead
seemed diaphanous. The head, so sweet and fragrant, admirably joined to
a long neck of exquisite moulding, lent itself to many and most diverse
expressions. The waist, which could be spanned by the hands, had a
charming willowy ease; the bare shoulders sparkled in the twilight like
a white camellia. The throat, visible to the eye though covered with a
transparent fichu, allowed the graceful outlines of the bosom to be
seen with charming roguishness. A gown of white muslin, strewn with blue
flowers, made with very large sleeves, a pointed body and no belt, shoes
with strings crossed on the instep over Scotch thread stockings, showed
a charming knowledge of the art of dress. Ear-rings of silver filagree,
miracles of Genoese jewelry, destined no doubt to become the fashion,
were in perfect harmony with the delightful flow of the soft curls
starred with blue-bells.
Calyste’s eager eye took in these beauties at a glance, and carved them
on his soul. The fair Beatrix and the dark Felicite might have sat for
those contrasting portraits in “keepsakes” which English designers and
engravers seek so persistently. Here were the force and the feebleness
of womanhood in full development, a perfect antithesis. These two women
could never be rivals; each had her own empire. Here was the delicate
campanula, or the lily, beside the scarlet poppy; a turquoise near
a ruby. In a moment, as it were,--at first sight, as the saying
is,--Calyste was seized with a love which crowned the secret work of
his hopes, his fears, his uncertainties. Mademoiselle des Touches had
awakened his nature; Beatrix inflamed both his heart and thoughts. The
young Breton suddenly felt within him a power to conquer all things,
and yield to nothing that stood in his way. He looked at Conti with an
envious, gloomy, savage rivalry he had never felt for Claude Vignon.
He employed all his strength to control himself; but the inward tempest
went down as soon as the eyes of Beatrix turned to him, and her soft
voice sounded in his ear. Dinner was announced.
“Calyste, give your arm to the marquise,” said Mademoiselle des Touches,
taking Conti with her right hand, and Claude Vignon with her left, and
drawing back to let the marquise pass.
The descent of that ancient staircase was to Calyste like the moment
of going into battle for the first time. His heart failed him, he had
nothing to say; a slight sweat pearled upon his forehead and wet his
back; his arm trembled so much that as they reached the lowest step the
marquise said to him: “Is anything the matter?”
“Oh!” he replied, in a muffled tone, “I have never seen any woman so
beautiful as you, except my mother, and I am not master of my emotions.”
“But you have Camille Maupin before your eyes.”
“Ah! what a difference!” said Calyste, ingenuously.
“Calyste,” whispered Felicite, who was just behind him, “did I not tell
you that you would forget me as if I had never existed? Sit there,” she
said aloud, “beside the marquise, on her right, and you, Claude, on her
left. As for you, Gennaro, I retain you by me; we will keep a mutual eye
on their coquetries.”
The peculiar accept which Camille gave to the last word struck Claude
Vignon’s ear, and he cast that sly but half-abstracted look upon Camille
which always denoted in him the closest observation. He never ceased to
examine Mademoiselle des Touches throughout the dinner.
“Coquetries!” replied the marquis, taking off her gloves, and showing
her beautiful hands; “the opportunity is good, with a poet,” and she
motioned to Claude, “on one side, and poesy the other.”
At these words Conti turned and gave Calyste a look that was full of
flattery.
By artificial light, Beatrix seemed more beautiful than before. The
white gleam of the candles laid a satiny lustre on her forehead, lighted
the spangles of her eyes, and ran through her swaying curls, touching
them here and there into gold. She threw back the thin gauze scarf she
was wearing and disclosed her neck. Calyste then saw its beautiful nape,
white as milk, and hollowed near the head, until its lines were lost
toward the shoulders with soft and flowing symmetry. This neck, so
dissimilar to that of Camille, was the sign of a totally different
character in Beatrix.
Calyste found much trouble in pretending to eat; nervous motions within
him deprived him of appetite. Like other young men, his nature was in
the throes and convulsions which precede love, and carve it indelibly on
the soul. At his age, the ardor of the heart, restrained by moral ardor,
leads to an inward conflict, which explains the long and respectful
hesitations, the tender debatings, the absence of all calculation,
characteristic of young men whose hearts and lives are pure. Studying,
though furtively, so as not to attract the notice of Conti, the various
details which made the marquise so purely beautiful, Calyste became,
before long, oppressed by a sense of her majesty; he felt himself
dwarfed by the hauteur of certain of her glances, by the imposing
expression of a face that was wholly aristocratic, by a sort of pride
which women know how to express in slight motions, turns of the head,
and slow gestures, effects less plastic and less studied than we think.
The false situation in which Beatrix had placed herself compelled her
to watch her own behavior, and to keep herself imposing without being
ridiculously so. Women of the great world know how to succeed in this,
which proves a fatal reef to vulgar women.
The expression of Felicite’s eyes made Beatrix aware of the inward
adoration she inspired in the youth beside her, and also that it
would be most unworthy on her part to encourage it. She therefore took
occasion now and then to give him a few repressive glances, which fell
upon his heart like an avalanche of snow. The unfortunate young fellow
turned on Felicite a look in which she could read the tears he was
suppressing by superhuman efforts. She asked him in a friendly tone why
he was eating nothing. The question piqued him, and he began to force
himself to eat and to take part in the conversation.
But whatever he did, Madame de Rochefide paid little attention to him.
Mademoiselle des Touches having started the topic of her journey to
Italy she related, very wittily, many of its incidents, which made
Claude Vignon, Conti, and Felicite laugh.
“Ah!” thought Calyste, “how far such a woman is from me! Will she ever
deign to notice me?”
Mademoiselle des Touches was struck with the expression she now saw on
Calyste’s face, and tried to console him with a look of sympathy. Claude
Vignon intercepted that look. From that moment the great critic expanded
into gaiety that overflowed in sarcasm. He maintained to Beatrix that
love existed only by desire; that most women deceived themselves in
loving; that they loved for reasons unknown to men and to themselves;
that they wanted to deceive themselves, and that the best among them
were artful.
“Keep to books, and don’t criticise our lives,” said Camille, glancing
at him imperiously.
The dinner ceased to be gay. Claude Vignon’s sarcasm had made the
two women pensive. Calyste was conscious of pain in the midst of the
happiness he found in looking at Beatrix. Conti looked into the eyes of
the marquise to guess her thoughts. When dinner was over Mademoiselle
des Touches took Calyste’s arm, gave the other two men to the marquise,
and let them pass before her, that she might be alone with the young
Breton for a moment.
“My dear Calyste,” she said, “you are acting in a manner that
embarrasses the marquise; she may be delighted with your admiration, but
she cannot accept it. Pray control yourself.”
“She was hard to me, she will never care for me,” said Calyste, “and if
she does not I shall die.”
“Die! you! My dear Calyste, you are a child. Would you have died for
me?”
“You have made yourself my friend,” he answered.
After the talk that follows coffee, Vignon asked Conti to sing
something. Mademoiselle des Touches sat down to the piano. Together she
and Gennaro sang the _Dunque il mio bene tu mia sarai_, the last duet
of Zingarelli’s “Romeo e Giulietta,” one of the most pathetic pages of
modern music. The passage _Di tanti palpiti_ expresses love in all its
grandeur. Calyste, sitting in the same arm-chair in which Felicite had
told him the history of the marquise, listened in rapt devotion. Beatrix
and Vignon were on either side of the piano. Conti’s sublime voice knew
well how to blend with that of Felicite. Both had often sung this piece;
they knew its resources, and they put their whole marvellous gift
into bringing them out. The music was at this moment what its creator
intended, a poem of divine melancholy, the farewell of two swans to
life. When it was over, all present were under the influence of feelings
such as cannot express themselves by vulgar applause.
“Ah! music is the first of arts!” exclaimed the marquise.
“Camille thinks youth and beauty the first of poesies,” said Claude
Vignon.
Mademoiselle des Touches looked at Claude with vague uneasiness.
Beatrix, not seeing Calyste, turned her head as if to know what effect
the music had produced upon him, less by way of interest in him than for
the gratification of Conti; she saw a white face bathed in tears. At
the sight, and as if some sudden pain had seized her, she turned back
quickly and looked at Gennaro. Not only had Music arisen before the eyes
of Calyste, touching him with her divine wand until he stood in presence
of Creation from which she rent the veil, but he was dumfounded by
Conti’s genius. In spite of what Camille had told him of the musician’s
character, he now believed in the beauty of the soul, in the heart that
expressed such love. How could he, Calyste, rival such as an artist?
What woman could ever cease to adore such genius? That voice entered the
soul like another soul. The poor lad was overwhelmed by poesy, and his
own despair. He felt himself of no account. This ingenuous admission of
his nothingness could be read upon his face mingled with his admiration.
He did not observe the gesture with which Beatrix, attracted to Calyste
by the contagion of a true feeling, called Felicite’s attention to him.
“Oh! the adorable heart!” cried Camille. “Conti, you will never obtain
applause of one-half the value of that child’s homage. Let us sing this
trio. Beatrix, my dear, come.”
When the marquise, Camille, and Conti had arranged themselves at the
piano, Calyste rose softly, without attracting their attention, and
flung himself on one of the sofas in the bedroom, the door of which
stood open, where he sat with his head in his hands, plunged in
meditation.