THE PORTRAIT
It was night; the light from the candles shone brightly on the portrait.
Why was it that, in spite of my joyful state of mind caused by my
decision in regard to Hélène,--why should I feel so suddenly overcome
with sadness as soon as I beheld the austere face of my father? Never
had his sad and gloomy nature impressed me more powerfully. His high and
bare forehead was preëminent; the deep-set eyes, overshadowed by their
thick gray eyebrows, stared at me with piercing fixedness; the high
cheek-bones, the hollow cheeks, the proud and severe expression of the
mouth, even the dark colour of the vestments, hardly distinguishable
from the background,--all was as I had last seen it and produced the
same effect on me. I could see nothing but that pale face shining out of
the obscurity.
I knelt down and remained a long time in meditation.
When I raised my head something quite natural in itself frightened me so
badly that I shivered involuntarily. I fancied I saw, or rather I really
did see, something like a brilliant tear roll down the cheeks of the
portrait, and then fall in a cold drop on my hand, which was placed on
the frame.
No words can express my terror; I remained for some moments paralysed
with fright.
Then, overcoming this childish alarm, I went nearer to the portrait, and
discovered that the combined heat and moisture of the room had caused a
sort of dew to form on the canvas, which had been kept closed for such
a length of time. I smiled sadly at my fright, but the impression had
been so violent, that I could not get over my resentment. As I became
more calm, I seated myself before the portrait.
Little by little my long conversations with my father returned to my
mind; so did his cold-blooded maxims, and his doubts as to the reality
and duration of any earthly affection. As I had so recently felt my
heart expand and dilate with pleasure, so now I felt it contracting with
agony. The remembrance of my indifference, of my forgetfulness,
disgusted me with myself; but wishing to escape from the circle of these
bitter fancies, I attempted to consult my father mentally on the
decision. I had just arrived at the point of marrying Hélène. Still
thinking of that future which appeared so smiling and beautiful, I fixed
my eyes on that pale and mute visage, and wildly demanded of it an
answer to my questionings. I implored its approval of my resolution, but
its imperturbable and disdainfully sad smile froze my blood.
"I love Hélène with the deepest, purest love," I cried, extending my
hands towards the portrait. "I am not deceived as to my feelings; the
noble and generous resolution I have taken will certainly secure my own
and Hélène's happiness,--is it not true, my father?"
And I waited eagerly for an answer from these motionless features,
believing in that momentary hallucination that I would receive a sign of
affirmation.
But the white and wrinkled forehead bowed not; then I thought I could
hear from the most secret recesses of my heart the steady voice of my
father, saying:
"You loved me once with this profound, unchanging love; I have done more
for you than Hélène has, I have given you both life and fortune. And
it is in the enjoyment of that fortune I am forgotten! Poor child!"
Overcome with terror, I continued:
"But Hélène loves me sincerely, does she not, father?" And as I
steadfastly gazed on the motionless figure, whose silence so overpowered
me, I repeated in my anxiety:
"Do you not believe in her love? I am, then, mistaken in what I suppose
to be the love I bear to her, since you stare upon me thus, oh, my
father!"
"Did I not warn you against trusting in the admirations your fortune
would excite, and tell you never to trust to deceitful appearances?"
"But, great God! what deception can Hélène be capable of,--such a
noble and candid young girl, she who always loved you as a father and me
as a brother? Has she not given herself freely to me, confiding in my
love, careless of all the rest, and so absorbed by it that she has even
recklessly exposed her reputation--her sole treasure--to the evil tongue
of slander?"
Alas! pardon, oh, my father! Perhaps it was but a base and sordid
instinct of my own which I mistook for your answer. Doubtless, ashamed
to acknowledge my own baseness, I was willing to attribute to your
influence the vile, infernal thought, this first horrible doubt which
has come to trouble for ever the smiling and pure stream of my beliefs;
pardon, father, pardon once more, if in that moment when, overcome with
anguish, I asked you, "What reason can Hélène have for feigning love
for me?" my brutal selfishness answered, "Your fortune, for Hélène is
poor!"
Since that fatal day, constantly tormented by an incessant and absorbing
idea, for ever tortured by doubt,--that two-bladed sword which wounds
both him who wields it, and him against whom it is raised,--I have
persistently sought, and, to my sorrow, generally believed myself to
have discovered, the most infamous motives hidden under the most
innocent appearances, the most odious projects under the most expansive
and generous devotion. I have very often, alas! pitilessly killed with
a word the tenderest and sweetest enthusiasms; but never, O God! never
can I forget the grievous, heartrending shock with which scepticism tore
out from my heart its sacred and primal faith.
From that instant, it was as though a funereal crêpe was banded over my
eyes, disfiguring everything I looked at. Hélène's face, so candid and
pure, now seemed filled with falseness and cupidity. The blackest plot
was unfolded to my view: my aunt's carelessness was a base calculation;
that letter, drawing her attention to the rumours in circulation, was a
part of the scheme; then, with a cruel pride, I applauded myself for
having been so clever as to discover and overturn this shameless compact
into which they had all entered against me; they had taken me, then, for
their dupe.
Then, by a swift and inexplicable reaction, all my love was turned to
hatred and despite; the tenderest effusions appeared to me as
disgraceful pretences. Oh, shame! Oh, grief! my execrable doubting went
so far as to disbelieve in the childish affection that Hélène had
demonstrated when in the convent; and in my secret heart I even dared to
accuse Madame de Verteuil and her daughter with being the accomplices of
Hélène and her mother, and to have invented that episode in order to
blind me the more surely.
Certainly the supposition of so base a deception was odious and stupid;
it was horrible and incredible to be thus possessed with doubt when
barely twenty-three years old; when, in all my life so far, no bitter
experiences, no past deceptions justified me in such scepticism!
Alas! it was a sorry benefit, for one cannot deny that, when clothed in
such a cuirass of doubt, and armed with such wise distrust, one braves
with impunity the falsehoods and deceits of the world. But, as the steel
corselet, while protecting you from the enemy's sword, renders you
insensible to the warmth of a friendly hand, so unbelief, that iron
armour, so cold and polished, protects you from the deceitfulness of a
scoundrel, but makes you, alas! impenetrable to the ineffable belief in
pure affection.
Since now I can analyse and get to the root of the influences,
instincts, or natural organisation, which were the causes of this sudden
germination and development in my mind of the distrust henceforth to be
the centre around which all my thoughts were to gravitate, no matter in
how apparently indubitable a position I might be, I can remember my
father telling me frequently: "I am glad to see that you distrust your
own motives. When we can distrust ourselves, we can defy others, and in
this there is great wisdom."
Then, by a singular contrast, my mother, blinded by maternal pride,
which sublime egotism is to women what personality is to men, after
vainly attempting to work me up to a fit of self-glorification, would
say, sadly: "My poor, dear child, I am in despair when I see how little
confidence you have in yourself; by dint of distrusting yourself, you
will lose your belief in others, and that will be a terrible
misfortune."
Now I am certain that my insurmountable self-distrust was one of the
principal causes of my doubting others; having no faith in the opinions
people professed to have of me, for they seemed false and exaggerated, I
consequently was always on the watch for some interested or underhand
reason for their admiration of me. What confirmed me in this opinion is,
that I have never found more persistent, more imperturbable believers
than among foolish and vain people. The want of intelligence of the fool
prevents him from observing, reflecting, or comparing, while the
conceited man's self-satisfaction never permits him to doubt as to the
certain and prodigious effect he is sure of producing.
To return to my projects of a union with Hélène: from the day that
doubt entered my mind, my plans were for ever changed.
I passed a sleepless and unhappy night.
The next day I was weak enough to avoid my aunt and Hélène; I mounted
my horse early in the morning, and went to one of my farms, where I
spent the whole day.
I returned home late in the evening, and, pretending to be excessively
tired, I did not appear in the salon.
On entering my room, I saw on my study-table these words in Hélène's
handwriting (they were in a book which she had returned me): "My mother
has told me all. I will be at the pavilion of the pyramid to-morrow
morning at nine o'clock. Meet me there. Ah, how much you must have
suffered!"
Though in my state of mind such an interview would be painful and
distasteful, I could not very well avoid it, therefore I resolved to go.