“He once said ‘thou.’” She folded her arms and dared not read another
word; great tears gathered in her eyes.
“Is he dead?” asked Nanon.
“If he were, he could not write,” said Eugenie.
She then read the whole letter, which was as follows:
My dear Cousin,--You will, I am sure, hear with pleasure of the
success of my enterprise. You brought me luck; I have come back
rich, and I have followed the advice of my uncle, whose death,
together with that of my aunt, I have just learned from Monsieur
des Grassins. The death of parents is in the course of nature, and
we must succeed them. I trust you are by this time consoled.
Nothing can resist time, as I am well aware. Yes, my dear cousin,
the day of illusions is, unfortunately, gone for me. How could it
be otherwise? Travelling through many lands, I have reflected upon
life. I was a child when I went away,--I have come back a man.
To-day, I think of many I did not dream of then. You are free, my
dear cousin, and I am free still. Nothing apparently hinders the
realization of our early hopes; but my nature is too loyal to hide
from you the situation in which I find myself. I have not
forgotten our relations; I have always remembered, throughout my
long wanderings, the little wooden seat--
Eugenie rose as if she were sitting on live coals, and went away and sat
down on the stone steps of the court.
--the little wooden seat where we vowed to love each other
forever, the passage, the gray hall, my attic chamber, and the
night when, by your delicate kindness, you made my future easier
to me. Yes, these recollections sustained my courage; I said in my
heart that you were thinking of me at the hour we had agreed upon.
Have you always looked at the clouds at nine o’clock? Yes, I am
sure of it. I cannot betray so true a friendship,--no, I must not
deceive you. An alliance has been proposed to me which satisfies
all my ideas of matrimony. Love in marriage is a delusion. My
present experience warns me that in marrying we are bound to obey
all social laws and meet the conventional demands of the world.
Now, between you and me there are differences which might affect
your future, my dear cousin, even more than they would mine. I
will not here speak of your customs and inclinations, your
education, nor yet of your habits, none of which are in keeping
with Parisian life, or with the future which I have marked out for
myself. My intention is to keep my household on a stately footing,
to receive much company,--in short, to live in the world; and I
think I remember that you love a quiet and tranquil life. I will
be frank, and make you the judge of my situation; you have the
right to understand it and to judge it.
I possess at the present moment an income of eighty thousand
francs. This fortune enables me to marry into the family of
Aubrion, whose heiress, a young girl nineteen years of age, brings
me a title, a place of gentleman-of-the-bed-chamber to His
Majesty, and a very brilliant position. I will admit to you, my
dear cousin, that I do not love Mademoiselle d’Aubrion; but in
marrying her I secure to my children a social rank whose
advantages will one day be incalculable: monarchical principles
are daily coming more and more into favor. Thus in course of time
my son, when he becomes Marquis d’Aubrion, having, as he then will
have, an entailed estate with a rental of forty thousand francs a
year, can obtain any position in the State which he may think
proper to select. We owe ourselves to our children.
You see, my cousin, with what good faith I lay the state of my
heart, my hopes, and my fortune before you. Possibly, after seven
years’ separation, you have yourself forgotten our youthful loves;
but I have never forgotten either your kindness or my own words. I
remember all, even words that were lightly uttered,--words by
which a man less conscientious than I, with a heart less youthful
and less upright, would scarcely feel himself bound. In telling
you that the marriage I propose to make is solely one of
convenience, that I still remember our childish love, am I not
putting myself entirely in your hands and making you the mistress
of my fate? am I not telling you that if I must renounce my social
ambitions, I shall willingly content myself with the pure and
simple happiness of which you have shown me so sweet an image?
“Tan, ta, ta--tan, ta, ti,” sang Charles Grandet to the air of _Non piu
andrai_, as he signed himself,--
Your devoted cousin, Charles.
“Thunder! that’s doing it handsomely!” he said, as he looked about him
for the cheque; having found it, he added the words:--
P.S.--I enclose a cheque on the des Grassins bank for eight
thousand francs to your order, payable in gold, which includes the
capital and interest of the sum you were kind enough to lend me. I
am expecting a case from Bordeaux which contains a few things
which you must allow me to offer you as a mark of my unceasing
gratitude. You can send my dressing-case by the diligence to the
hotel d’Aubrion, rue Hillerin-Bertin.
“By the diligence!” said Eugenie. “A thing for which I would have laid
down my life!”
Terrible and utter disaster! The ship went down, leaving not a spar, not
a plank, on a vast ocean of hope! Some women when they see themselves
abandoned will try to tear their lover from the arms of a rival, they
will kill her, and rush to the ends of the earth,--to the scaffold, to
their tomb. That, no doubt, is fine; the motive of the crime is a great
passion, which awes even human justice. Other women bow their heads
and suffer in silence; they go their way dying, resigned, weeping,
forgiving, praying, and recollecting, till they draw their last breath.
This is love,--true love, the love of angels, the proud love which lives
upon its anguish and dies of it. Such was Eugenie’s love after she had
read that dreadful letter. She raised her eyes to heaven, thinking of
the last words uttered by her dying mother, who, with the prescience
of death, had looked into the future with clear and penetrating eyes:
Eugenie, remembering that prophetic death, that prophetic life, measured
with one glance her own destiny. Nothing was left for her; she could
only unfold her wings, stretch upward to the skies, and live in prayer
until the day of her deliverance.
“My mother was right,” she said, weeping. “Suffer--and die!”