CONCLUSION.
We reached our destination on an evening in December. The ground was
covered with snow, and the sun was setting in superbly shaded violet
clouds, but with an air of melancholy. I did not wish to interfere with
the first effusions of two lovers’ hearts, and so ordered Bernard to
precede me to the château. Besides, I needed the sole companionship of
my thoughts for the first few moments. It was not without a great
emotion that I again beheld the spot where I had lived centuries in the
space of three days.
I threw Baptiste the reins of my horse, and he proceeded towards the
stables, while I went in alone through one of the small doors of the
park.
This beautiful spot, stripped of its flowers and verdure, had now a
grander character. From the sombre pines, frosty showers fell upon my
head, and the branches of the old lindens, clad in ice formed delicate
arcades of crystal, above the arbor of the alleys. One might have
thought them the naves of a gigantic cathedral offering all the caprices
of an unknown and fantastic architecture. But I again found Spring in
the rotunda of the library. They had separated it from the contiguous
galleries by fitting the arches with glass windows, so as to make a sort
of temperate hothouse. The waters of the fountain still murmured amid
exotics that were even more beautiful than those I had seen before, and
this flowing water, whilst without all sources slept enchained in ice,
delighted alike the eye and ear.
It was with some difficulty that I decided to look at the Naiad. I found
her less beautiful than the memory left me of her whose form and
features she recalled. Then, gradually, I began to admire and love it,
as one cherishes a portrait which in general appearance and in some of
the features at least, resembles a beloved one. My feelings had been
contained and over excited for so long a time that I burst into tears
and, overwhelmed with emotion, remained seated on the spot where I had
beheld one whom I no longer hoped to see.
The sound of a silken robe caused me to raise my head, and I saw before
me a very tall and slender woman, but of most graceful mien, who
regarded me anxiously. For an instant I confounded her with my vision,
but the darkness which was rapidly advancing prevented me from clearly
distinguishing her face, and besides a woman in panniers and furbelows
so little resembles a nymph of the renaissance, that my illusions were
quickly dispelled, and I arose to salute her simply as a mortal.
She also bowed, hesitated for an instant to address me, then decided to
do so, and I trembled at the sound of her voice which penetrated to the
very core of my being. ’Twas the silvery voice, the voice without its
equal upon earth, of the divinity. And I was dumb and incapable of
replying. As when in the presence of my immortal nymph, I was too
bewildered to understand what she was saying.
She seemed greatly embarrassed by my silence, and I made an effort to
shake off this absurd stupor. She asked me if I were not M. Just
Nivières.
“Yes, madame,” I at last answered. “I beg of you to pardon my
preoccupation. I was a little indisposed, I was dozing.”
“No,” replied she with adorable sweetness, “you were weeping! That was
what drew me here from the gallery where I was awaiting the signal of my
brother’s arrival.”
“Your brother?”
“Yes, your friend, Bernard d’Aillane.”
“So you are Mademoiselle d’Aillane?”
“Félicie d’Aillane, and I dare affirm your friend also, although you do
not know me and I am seeing you for the first time. But the high opinion
my brother has of you and all that he has written about you have caused
me to feel a sincere interest in you. So it was with real sorrow and
anxiety that I heard you sobbing. _Mon dieu!_ I hope that you are not
grieving over any family affliction; if your worthy parents of whom I
have also heard so much good, were in trouble, you would not be here.”
“Thank God,” I replied, “I have no cause to distress myself about any of
those dear to me, and the personal grief that I experienced just now was
dispelled by the sound of your voice, by the sweet words you have
spoken. But how does it happen that having such a sister as you, Bernard
should never have mentioned it?”
“Bernard is absorbed by an affection of which I am not in the least
jealous, and that I very well understand, for madame is a tender sister
to me. But did you not come with him, and how is it that I find you here
alone and unannounced?”
“Bernard went on before me.”
“Ah! I understand. Well, let us leave them together a little longer;
they have so much to say to each other, and their attachment is so
noble, so fraternal, and of such long standing. But come by the fire in
the library, for it is rather chilly here.”
I saw that she did not think it proper to remain with me in the dark,
and I followed her regretfully. I feared to see her face, for her voice
deluded me into the belief that my immortal nymph was stopping to
converse in common language with me, on details that concerned the world
of the living.
There was a fire and light in the library, and I could then see her
features, which were marvelously beautiful and which in a vague fashion
recalled those that I had thought well fixed in my mind. But while
scrutinizing them as closely as politeness would permit, I realized that
the three images of the Naiad, the phantom and that of Mademoiselle
d’Aillane were so confused in my mind, that it was impossible for me to
separate them so as to render to each one the admiration that was its
due. It was the same type, of that I was very sure; but I could no
longer decide what constituted the difference, and I perceived with fear
this uncertainty of my memory in regard to the sublime apparition. I had
brooded over it too much. I had put too much faith in seeing it again.
It no longer appeared to me save through a cloud.
And then, after several moments, I forgot my anguish in the sole
contemplation of Mademoiselle d’Aillane, beautiful as the purest and
most elegant of Diana’s nymphs, and as frankly affectionate with me as a
child who confides in a sympathetic face. There was, so to speak, a
shining purity about her, an adorable expansion of heart without the
least thought of coquetry; and no trace whatever of the always rather
reserved manners that a young girl of quality was in the habit of
observing when conversing with a _bourgeois_. It seemed as if I were a
relative, a friend of her childhood with whom she was renewing her
acquaintance after a separation of several years. Her limpid gaze was
not at all like the concentrated fire of Madame d’Ionis. It was a serene
light like that of the stars. Impressionable and nervous as I had become
in consequence of so many exciting vigils, I felt rejuvenated, rested,
and deliciously refreshed under this benign influence. She conversed
without art, and without pretention, but with a natural distinction and
clearness of judgment which evinced a moral education far above what was
then regarded as sufficient for women of her rank. She had none of their
prejudices, and it was with angelic good faith and even with a certain
generous childish enthusiasm that she accepted the conquests of the
philosophical mind that was drawing us, without our knowledge, towards a
new era.
But above all she possessed an irresistible charm of sweetness, and I at
once succumbed to its influence without a struggle. Without remembering
that in the secrecy of my soul, I had pronounced a sort of monastic vow
which consecrated me to the worship of an impalpable ideal.
She spoke openly of the joys and sorrows of her family, of the part that
I had played in the events of these latter days, and of the gratitude
that she considered she owed me for the way in which I had spoken to
Bernard of her father’s honor.
“Since you know all these things then, you ought to appreciate all it
has cost me to take sides against you.”
“I know everything,” said she, “even about the duel that you came near
having with my brother. _Hélas!_ he was entirely in the wrong, but he is
of a nature that rises after committing a mistake, and his esteem for
you dates from that time. My father, whose affairs have kept him in
Paris all this time, will soon be here, and longs to tell you that
henceforth he looks on you as one of his own children. You will like
him, I am sure; he is a man of superior mind and of corresponding
character.”
As she spoke thus, the noise of a carriage and the barking of dogs
without caused her to start from her chair.
“It is he!” she cried, “I will wager it is he who is coming! Come with
me to meet him.”
I followed her, much excited. She had put the candlestick in my hand and
had run before me, so slight and lissome was she, that no sculptor could
have conceived a purer ideal of nymph or goddess. I was already
accustomed to seeing this ideal creature, costumed in the fashion of the
day. Besides her toilette was of an exquisite taste and simplicity. I
fancied I could even trace a symbolical resemblance in the color of her
changeable silk dress, which was creamy white, with shadows of delicate
green.
“Here is M. Nivières,” said she, presenting me to her father, when she
had joyfully embraced him.
“Ah, ah!” he replied in a tone that seemed strange to me, and that would
have troubled me, had he not at once come towards me, stretching out
both hands with a cordiality no less surprising, “do not be astonished
at my pleasure in seeing you, you are the friend of my son, consequently
my own, and I know your value through him.”
Madame d’Ionis and Bernard now ran forward; I found Caroline beautified
by happiness. Some moments afterwards we all met again at the table,
with the abbé Lamyre, who had arrived that morning, and the good
Zéphyrine, who had closed the eyes of the dowager d’Ionis several weeks
before, and who wore mourning like everyone else in the house. The
d’Aillanes not being related to the d’Ionis, except by marriage, could
dispense with a formality that would have seemed only an act of
hypocrisy on their part.
The supper was not lively. They were forced to abstain from gayety and
expansiveness before the servants, and Madame d’Ionis realized so well
the exigencies of her situation, that she restrained herself without
effort and kept her guests up to the same pitch. The hardest person to
silence was the abbé Lamyre; he could not resist his habit of humming
two or three couplets, in the style of a philosophical _résumé_, during
the conversation.
Notwithstanding this sort of constraint, joy and love were in the air of
this household, where no one could reasonably regret M. d’Ionis, and
where the contracted ideas, and shallowness of the dowager’s heart had
left a very small vacancy. We inhaled a perfume of hope and of delicate
tenderness which penetrated my very soul, and which I wondered did not
sadden me—I, who was betrothed to eternal solitude.
It was true that since my intimacy with Bernard I had made rapid strides
towards recovery. His character was so enterprising that, in spite of
myself, he had snatched me from my mournful reflections; and in
possessing himself of my secret he had also released me from the fatal
influence which was drawing me to a separation from all other ties.
“A secret without a confidant is a mortal illness,” he had said, and he
had listened to all my vagaries, without appearing to perceive my
madness; sometimes he had seemed to share it, sometimes he had
skillfully suggested doubts that had won me over to his way of thinking.
I had come to think, a greater part of the time, that were it not for
the inexplicable fact of the ring, my imagination alone was responsible
for all my fantastic adventures.
I found in M. d’Aillane all the superiority of heart and mind that his
children had spoken of. He evinced a sympathy for me, to which I
responded with all my soul.
We separated as late as possible. As for myself, when twelve o’clock
struck and Madame d’Ionis gave the signal for a general good evening, I
experienced a sensation of grief as if I had fallen from delicious
dreams into sombre reality. I had for so long a time reversed the order
of life, regarding it as a dream, and dreams as waking, that the dread
of being again alone was actually a terrible shock, and thoroughly
unnerved me.
I certainly did not as yet wish to admit that I could love another; but
it was certain that without thinking myself in love with Mademoiselle
d’Aillane, I had an extraordinarily friendly feeling for her. I had
observed her very carefully when she was not addressing me, and the more
familiar I grew with her beauty, which was of an uncommon order, the
more I was assured that I again experienced the same sensations awakened
by the adorable phantom; only this was a gentler fascination and
imparted a wonderful sense of spiritual bliss. That clear countenance
inspired absolute confidence and a sentiment of tranquil ardor
resembling faith.
Bernard, who had no more idea of going to sleep than myself, talked with
me until two o’clock in the morning. We had lodged in the same room, no
longer “_la chambre aux dames_” nor even the one where I had been ill,
but a pretty apartment decorated in the style of Boucher, with the
rosiest and gayest of designs. There had been no more question of the
green ladies than if we had never heard them mentioned. While Bernard
was talking to me about his dear Caroline, he asked me what opinion I
had formed of his dear Félicie. At first I did not know how to answer
him. I feared to say too much or too little. I evaded the question by
asking him, in my turn, why he had spoken to me so little of her.
“Is it possible,” I said, “that you like her less than she likes you?”
“I would be a strange animal,” he replied, “if I did not adore my
sister. But you were so taken up with certain ideas, that you would not
even have listened to my praises of her. And then, situated as we were
at that time, my sister and myself, it would not have looked very well
for me to appear as if I were proposing her to you.”
“And how could you have had the appearance of doing me such an honor.”
“Ah! because a singular fact exists that I have been many times on the
point of mentioning to you and that you must have certainly already
remarked, the surprising resemblance between Félicie and the nymph of
Jean Goujon whom you were so much in love with as to bestow its features
upon your phantom.”
“Then I was not mistaken,” I exclaimed, “mademoiselle is a beautiful
counterpart of this statue.”
“Beautiful! thank you for her. But you see that you are impressed by
this resemblance; and that is the reason why I refrained from mentioning
it beforehand.”
“I understand, you feared suggesting pretensions—that I cannot indulge
in.”
“I feared to be the means of your falling in love with a young person
who could not aspire to a union with yourself; and that is all I feared.
As long as the state of Madame d’Ionis’ fortune is not known, we must
consider ourselves poor. Your father and mine fear that her husband has
left nothing, and that in appointing her universal legatee, he has only
made her the victim of a bad joke. In that case we will never accept the
little fortune that she wishes to give up to us, and to which our rights
may be disputed, as you well know. I shall marry her all the same, since
we love each other, but I will not allow her to bestow the smallest
piece of property upon me in this contract. Then, my sister, without any
dowry whatever—for my wife will not be rich enough to give her one, and
Félicie will never permit her to inconvenience herself on her account—is
resolved to become a nun.”
“A nun, she? Never! Bernard, you must never consent to such a
sacrifice.”
“Why not, my dear friend?” said he, with a feeling of sadness and pride
that I could well understand. “My sister has been brought up with this
idea, and she has always shown a taste for seclusion.”
“You mustn’t think of such a thing! It is impossible for one so
accomplished not to condescend to constitute the happiness of some
honest man; it is still more impossible that no such honest man should
be found who would beg her to bestow this happiness upon him!”
“I do not say that such may not be the case. That is a question that the
future will solve, and should Madame d’Ionis have some money, I would
not put any obstacles in the way of her giving my sister a dowry, modest
but sufficient for the simplicity of her tastes. Only, we know nothing
as yet, and in any case it would come with very bad grace from me, to
say to you, ‘I have a charming sister, who embodies your ideal.’ That
would have been as much as to say, ‘Think about it.’ It would have been
throwing a girl at your head who was much too proud ever to consent to
enter any family richer than her own, by means of a young poet’s
exaltation. Now, what I then thought, I still think, and I beg of you
seriously my dear friend, not to lay too much stress upon my sister’s
resemblance to the Naiad.”
I was silent for a moment; then feeling, in spite of myself, that this
warning troubled me more than I could have believed, I said with brusque
sincerity:
“Why then, my dear Bernard, did you bring me here?”
“Because I thought my sister had left. She was to have rejoined my
father at Tours, and he was not expected here for a fortnight. Events
have frustrated my plans. I am none the less easy on my sister’s
account, knowing what kind of a man you are.”
“Are you as easy on my account, Bernard?” said I, in a reproachful tone.
“Yes,” he replied, with some emotion, “I am easy because you have
sufficient strength of mind to say to yourself, this: A girl of heart
and of worth has a right to be sued for by a man whose heart is free,
and she would not feel much flattered some day to discover that she only
owed this distinction to a chance resemblance.”
I so well understood this answer that I added no more, and I resolved
not to look too much at Mademoiselle d’Aillane, lest I should deceive
myself. I even determined to go away, lest I should end by being too
much disturbed by this fatal resemblance, and my fears were justified on
the following day.
I felt that I was falling frantically in love with Mademoiselle
d’Aillane, that the vision of the Naiad was fading in her presence, and
that Bernard perceived the fact with anxiety.
I took my leave, pretending that my father had only allowed me
twenty-four hours liberty. I had decided to open my heart to my parents,
and to ask their permission to offer my soul and life to Mademoiselle
d’Aillane. I did so, with the greatest sincerity. The recital of my past
sufferings made my father laugh and my mother weep. However, when I had
thoroughly described the state of despair, into which at times I had
fallen, and which had made me contemplate the idea of suicide with a
species of rapture, my father grew serious again, and cried, while he
looked at my mother:
“So, here is a child who has been a victim of monomania under our very
eyes, and we never suspected it! And you thought, _mamie_, that he was
hiding his flame for the beautiful d’Ionis who is so thoroughly alive,
while he was wasting away for the beautiful d’Ionis who is dead, if it
so be that she ever lived! Truly strange things come to pass in poets’
brains, and I was perfectly right to mistrust this devilish poetry from
the very first. Well, let us give thanks to the beautiful d’Aillane who
resembles the Naiad and who has cured our madman. We must marry him at
any cost, and we must ask for her at once, before it is known whether
she will have a dowry, for should such be the case she will consider
herself too grand a lady to marry a lawyer. Why the deuce didn’t Madame
d’Ionis confide the case of the liquidation to me? We would know how to
act better than this old Parisian lawyer, who won’t get through with it
in six months. Do they ever really work in Paris? They mix themselves up
in politics and neglect their business.”
The following day, my father and I returned to Ionis. Our request was
submitted to M. d’Aillane, who began by embracing me, after which he
gave his hand to my father and said, with an air of thoroughly chivalric
frankness:
“Yes, _and thank you_!”
I threw myself again into his arms and he added:
“Wait, however, until my daughter consents, for above all I desire her
happiness. As to myself, I give her to you without knowing whether she
will be rich enough for you; for if she should be, I have decided that
you are noble enough for her. You are incurring every risk. _Eh bien,
mordieu!_ I wish to do as much and not fall behind the example you set
me. You have no ambition for money, and for my part I have no prejudices
in favor of nobility. So we both agree. I have your word and you have
mine. Only I insist upon my daughter deciding the matter. And my dear M.
Nivières, you must allow your son to pay his own addresses, for his love
is so recent, that it depends upon him to prove its sincerity. As to his
character and his talents, with those we are familiar, and there can be
no objections on that score.”
I was thus allowed to become a constant visitor at the château d’Ionis,
and this was, as regards the past, the happiest time of my life. I
loved, under the ordinary conditions of life, a being above the ordinary
region of life, an angel of goodness, of sweetness, of intelligence and
of ideal beauty.
She did not leave me without hope and freely expressed her esteem and
sympathy for me, but when I spoke of love, she seemed doubtful.
“Do not deceive yourself,” said she, “have you never loved, before you
met me, and more than you loved me, a certain lady whose name my brother
has refused to tell me?”
One day she said to me:
“Do you not wear on your finger, a certain ring that you regard as a
talisman, and if I were to ask you to throw it into the fountain, would
you obey me?”
“Certainly not,” I exclaimed, “I will never part with it, for it was you
who gave it to me.”
“I, what do you mean by that?”
“Yes, it was you, do not try to conceal it any longer. It was you who
enacted the role of the green lady to please Madame d’Ionis, who wished
through you to pronounce her own ruin, and who thought she had found in
me the person ‘worthy of belief,’ whose testimony her husband required.
It was you who, yielding to her idea, appeared before me in fantastical
guise, and prescribed my duty in conformity with your delicacy and pride
of soul.”
“Well, yes, it was I!” she said. “It was I who came near destroying your
reason, and who repented bitterly on learning too late, how much you had
suffered from this romantic adventure. Once before they had tried you in
a ghost scene, with which I had nothing to do. When they saw how brave
you were, more courageous than the abbé Lamyre, upon whom Caroline had
played a similar trick, to amuse herself, they thought they could treat
you to an apparition, in which there would be nothing very terrifying. I
happened to be here, secretly, as the dowager d’Ionis would not
willingly have suffered my presence. Caroline, struck with my
resemblance to the nymph of the fountain, conceived the idea of
arranging my hair and dressing me in a similar style so that I should
deliver my oracle in due form. Although the dictum was not such as she
desired, it was nevertheless one that you have obeyed religiously, in
not forgetting the care of our honor for a single moment. I left the
next morning, and they kept me in ignorance of the fact that you had
been seriously ill here, owing to this apparition. After your quarrel
with Bernard, I was at Angers, and it was I who sent you the ring that I
caused you to find in your room. This episode was due to Madame d’Ionis,
who had two very old rings exactly alike, and who had previously
arranged everything to carry out the romance. It was she who took it
away from you during your fever, fearing that you should be too much
excited by this appearance of reality, and preferring that you should
think it all a dream.”
“And I never thought so, never! But how did it happen that you regained
possession of this ring that was not your own?”
“Caroline had given it to me,” said she, blushing, “because I thought it
pretty.”
Then she hastened to add:
“When Bernard had won your confidence, I learned at last by what sad
experiences and virtuous deeds you deserved to again behold the green
lady. I then resolved to be your sister and your friend, in order to
repair by the devotion of a life-time, an act of imprudence into which I
had allowed myself to be drawn, and thus to compensate for the trouble I
had caused you. I never expected to please you as much by daylight, as
by the light of the moon. Well, since such is the case, know that you
have not been the only unhappy one, and that”——
“Go on,” I exclaimed, falling at her feet.
“Well, well,” said she, blushing still more, and lowering her voice,
although we were alone by the fountain, “know that I have been punished
for my temerity. On that day I was but a merry, unthinking child, my
part came very easily to me; and my _two sisters_, Bernard, and the abbé
Lamyre, who were listening behind these rocks, thought that I displayed
a gravity of which they would not have deemed me capable. The truth was
that in looking at you, and listening to you, I was suddenly seized with
an indescribable vertigo. To begin with, I imagined that I was really
dead. Destined for the cloister, I spoke to you as a being already set
apart from the world of the living. I lost myself in my part, and I felt
that I was becoming interested in you. You addressed me with a passion
that penetrated my very soul. If you could see my face, I also could see
yours—and when I reentered my convent, I feared the vows that I was
about to assume, and I felt that while I had tampered with your liberty,
I had yielded and lost my own.”
As she spoke thus to me, she grew animated. The shrinking modesty of her
first avowal had given place to a burst of enthusiastic confidence, she
entwined my head in her beautiful, long, supple arms and kissed my
forehead saying:
“I had promised you solemnly that you should see me again, and I was
broken-hearted when I made it, for I feared I could never keep it; and
still, something divine, a voice from heaven whispered in my ear—‘Hope,
for thou lovest!’”
We were united the following month. The settlement of the affairs of
Madame d’Ionis (who had now become Madame d’Aillane) was not yet
terminated, when the Revolution broke out, which put an end to all
contesting on the part of her husband’s creditors, until a new order of
things should be established. After the “Terror,” she found herself in
easy circumstances, but not wealthy; I then had the joy and pride of
being the sole support of my wife. The beautiful château d’Ionis was
sold, and the grounds cut up. Some peasants, blinded by a stupid
patriotism, had broken the fountain, taking it for the bathing-place of
a queen.
One day they brought me the head and an arm of the Naiad, which I bought
of the mutilator and which I still preserve religiously. But what no one
had been able to destroy, was my domestic happiness; and what had
withstood, and will continue to withstand all political tempests,
unchangeable and pure, is my love for the most beautiful and best of
women.
FINIS.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.