"My good Justine, my dear friend,--I wept while reading your letter.
They were tears of joy and gratitude. How happy I am to find your
friendship as tender as it was on the day when we parted from one
another, fourteen years ago! That day lingers in my memory as one of the
saddest in my whole life. I had learned to know no mother but you, and
losing you was being left motherless for the second time. My good nurse,
you loved me so much that for me you had almost forgotten your good
husband and your dear children! But they recalled you, your first duty
was to them, and I saw from all your letters that they were making you
happy. It was they who paid you my debt, for I owed you a great deal;
and I have often thought that, if there is anything good or reasonable
in me, it is because I have been treated lovingly, gently, and
reasonably by her whom my childish eyes first learned to know. Now you
want to offer me your savings, you dear good soul! That is good and
motherly, like you, and on the part of your husband, who does not know
me, it is great and noble. I thank you tenderly, my kind friends, but I
need nothing. I am well provided for where I am, and I am as happy as I
can be away from my own dear family.
"I shall not give up the hope of going to see you, all the same. What
you tell me about the neat little room and the fine wild country gives
me a strong desire to know your village and your little household. I
cannot say when, in the course of my life, I shall find a fortnight of
liberty; but be assured that if I ever do find it, it shall be at the
disposal of my darling nurse, whom I embrace with all my heart."
While Caroline was giving herself up to this frank outburst of feeling,
the Duke, Gaëtan d'Aléria, in a splendid Turkish morning costume, was
conversing with his brother, the Marquis, from whom he was receiving a
morning call in his elegant apartments on the Rue de la Paix.
They had just been speaking of business matters, and a lively discussion
had arisen between the two brothers. "No, my friend," said the Duke, in
a firm tone, "I will be energetic this time: I refuse your signature;
you shall not pay my debts!"
"I will pay them," rejoined the Marquis, in a tone just as resolute. "It
must be done; I ought to do it. I had some hesitation, I will not deny,
before knowing the sum-total, and your pride need not suffer from the
scruples I felt. I was afraid of becoming involved beyond my ability;
but I know now that there will be enough left to maintain our mother
comfortably. I have, therefore, determined to save the honor of the
family, and you cannot stand in the way."
"I do stand in the way: you do not owe me this sacrifice; we do not bear
the same name."
"We are the sons of the same mother, and I do not want her to die of
grief and shame at seeing you insolvent."
"I have no more desire for such a disgrace than my mother has. I will
marry."
"For money? In my mother's eyes, and in mine, as well as in yours, my
brother, that would be worse still,--you know it perfectly well!"
"Well, then, I will accept a place."
"Worse, still worse!"
"No, there is nothing worse for me than the pain of ruining you."
"I shall not be ruined."
"And may I not know the whole amount of my debts?"
"It is of no use; enough that you have pledged your word that there is
none unknown to the notary, who has charge of the settlement. I have
only requested you to be so good as to look over some of these papers to
prove their correctness, if that be possible. You have verified them;
that is enough, the rest does not concern you."
The Duke crumpled the papers angrily, and strode about the room, unable
to find words for his mental distress. Then he lighted a cigar which he
did not smoke, threw himself into an armchair and became very pale. The
Marquis understood the suffering of his brother's pride, and perhaps of
his conscience.
"Calm yourself," he said. "I sympathize with your sorrow; but it is a
good sign, and I trust to the future. Forget this service, which I am
doing for my mother rather than for you; but do not forget that whatever
is left is henceforth hers. Consider that we may yet have the happiness
of keeping her with us a long while, and that she needs not necessarily
suffer. Farewell. I will see you again in an hour, to arrange the last
details."
"Yes, yes, leave me alone," replied the Duke; "you see that I cannot say
a word to you now."
As soon as the Marquis was gone the Duke rang, gave orders that no one
should be admitted, and began to pace the room as before, with desperate
agitation. In this hour, he was passing through the supreme and
inevitable crisis of his destiny. In none of his other disasters had he
seen so much of his own guilt or felt so much real concern.
Up to this time, in fact, he had squandered his own fortune with that
hardy recklessness which arises from the sense of injuring no one but
one's self. He had, so to speak, only made use of a right; then, half
without his own knowledge, by encroaching upon his mother's capital, he
had consumed it entirely, becoming gradually hardened to the disgrace of
throwing upon his brother the duty of maintaining her from his own
resources. Let us say all that we can in excuse of the Duke's conduct up
to this period. He had been fearfully spoiled; in his mother's heart a
very marked preference for him had existed; nature, too, had been
partial to him; taller, stronger, more elegant, more brilliant, and
apparently more active than his brother, and more demonstratively
affectionate from childhood, he had seemed to every one the better
endowed and the more amiable of the two. For a long while weakly and
taciturn, the Marquis had shown no fondness for anything but study; and
this taste, which in a plebeian would have seemed a great advantage, was
considered eccentric in a man of rank. This tendency was therefore
repressed rather than encouraged, and precisely on that account it
became a passion,--an absorbing, pent-up passion, which developed in the
young man's soul a quick, inward sensibility and an enthusiasm all the
more ardent from having been restrained. The Marquis was far more
affectionate than his brother, and yet passed for a man of cold nature,
while the Duke, always kindly and communicative, without loving any one
exclusively, had long passed for the very soul of warmth.
The Duke inherited from his father the impulsive temperament which had
proved so delusive, and during his childhood the wild freedom of his
ways had given the Marchioness some anxiety. We have mentioned already
that after the death of her second husband she had been very much
carried away by grief, and that for more than a year she had shrunk from
seeing her children. When this moral disease gave place to natural
feeling, her first effort was to clasp in her arms the son of the
husband whom she had loved. But the child, surprised and perhaps
terrified by the impetuosity of caresses which he had almost forgotten,
burst into tears without knowing why. It may have been the vague,
instinctive reproach of a nature chilled by neglect. The Duke, older
than he by three years, but more easily diverted, perceived nothing of
all this. He returned his mother's kisses, and the poor woman imagined
that he inherited her own warm heart, while the Marquis, she thought,
had the traits of his paternal grandfather, a man of letters, but not
quite sane. So the Duke was secretly preferred, though not more kindly
treated, for the Marchioness had a deep and almost religious sense of
justice; but he was petted more, since he alone, she believed,
appreciated the value of a caress.
Urbain (the Marquis) felt this partiality and suffered from it; but he
never allowed himself to complain, and perhaps, already putting a just
estimate upon his brother, he did not care to contend with him on such
frivolous grounds.
In the course of time, the Marchioness found out that she had been
greatly mistaken, and that sentiments should be judged by deeds rather
than by words; but the habit of spoiling her prodigal son had now become
fixed, and to this she soon added a tender pity for the bewildered
perversity which seemed to be leading the wilful youth to his own
destruction. This perversity, however, did not take its rise in an evil
heart. Vanity at first, and dissipation afterward, then the loss of
energy, and at last the tyranny of vice,--that, briefly, is the history
of this man, charming without real refinement, good without grandeur of
soul, sceptical without atheism. At the age when we are describing him,
there was in him an awful void in the place where his conscience should
have been, and yet it was a conscience rather absent than dead. There
would sometimes be returns of it, and struggles with it, fewer and
briefer indeed than they had been in his youth, but perhaps on that
account all the more desperate; and the one which was going on within
him at this time was so cruel that he laid his hand repeatedly upon one
of his splendid weapons, as if he were haunted by the spectre of
suicide; but he thought of his mother, pushed away the pistols and
locked them up, putting both hands to his head, in the fear that he was
becoming insane.
He had always looked upon money as nothing. His mother's noble
disinterested theories on the subject had made the way of false
reasoning easy to him. Nevertheless he understood that, in effecting his
mother's ruin, he had overstepped his right. He was astounded; he had
gone on up to the last, promising himself that he would stop before
reaching his brother's fortune, and then he had seriously encroached
upon it; but the truth is, that he had not done this knowingly; for,
from motives of delicacy, the Marquis had kept no accounts with him in
matters of detail, and would never have mentioned them at all, had it
not been for the necessity of preserving by an appeal to his honor the
little which was left. The Duke therefore did not feel himself guilty of
deliberate selfishness, and had reproached Urbain warmly and sincerely
for not having warned him sooner. He saw at last the abyss opened by his
lawless and reckless conduct; he was bitterly ashamed of having injured
his brother's prospects and of having no way to repair the harm, without
infringing upon certain rigid principles established by his mother and
his education.
Yet this error was less serious than that of having wronged his own
mother; but it did not appear so to the Duke. It had always seemed to
him that whatever belonged to his mother was his own, while in dealing
with his brother his pride kept up the distinction of _meum_ and _tuum._
Besides,--should it not be admitted?--while there was no wicked dislike
between the two brothers so differently constituted, there was at least
a want of confidence and sympathy. The life of the one was a continual
protest against that of the other. Urbain had made a silent but powerful
effort that the voice of nature within him might be also that of
friendship. Gaëtan had made no such effort; trusting to the freedom
from malice which characterized him, he had felt a liberty to rail at
the austerity of the Marquis. They were then together most of the time,
upon a footing of blame delicately restrained by the one, and of
ridicule manifested in easy revolt by the other.
"Very well," exclaimed the Duke, seeing the Marquis return. "It is an
accomplished fact then? I see by your face that you have been signing."
"Yes, brother," replied Urbain; "it is all arranged, and there is left
for you besides an income of twelve thousand francs, which I did not
allow them to use in the liquidation."
"Left for me?" rejoined Gaëtan, looking him in the face. "No! you are
deceived, there is nothing left for me; but, after having cleared me of
debt, you are yourself making me an allowance."
"Well, yes," replied the Marquis, "since you must also learn, sooner or
later, that you are not at liberty to dispose of the principal."
The Duke, who had not yet decided upon anything, wrung his hands with
violence and fell back upon his mute opposition. The Marquis made an
effort to conquer his habitual reserve, seated himself near Gaëtan, and
taking in his own the clenched hands which seemed hesitating to extend
themselves to him, "My friend," said he, "you are too haughty with me.
Would you not have done for me what I am doing for you?"
The Duke felt his pride breaking down. He burst into tears. "No!" said
he, pressing his brother's hand feelingly, "I never should have known
how to do it. I never could have done it, for my destiny is to injure
others, and I shall never have the happiness of saving any one."
"You will at least admit that it is a happiness," replied Urbain. "Then
consider yourself doing me a kindness, and give me back your friendship
which seems to be vanishing under this grievance."
"Urbain," cried the Duke, "you speak of my friendship. Now would be the
time to thank you with all manner of protestations, but I will not do
it; I will never fall so low as to take refuge in hypocrisy. Do you
know, brother, that I have never liked you very well?"
"I know it, and I account for it by our differing tastes and
dispositions; but has not the time now come to like each other better?"
"Ah! it is an awful time for that,--the hour of your triumph and of my
disgrace. Tell me that, but for my mother, you would have let me
succumb. Yes, you must tell me that, and then I may forgive you for what
you are doing."
"Have I not already said so?"
"Tell me so again! You hesitate? It is then a question of the family
honor?"
"Yes, it is that precisely, the family honor is in question."
"And you do not expect me to love you to-day more than on any other
day?"
"I know," rejoined the Marquis, sadly, "that personally I am not made to
be loved."
The Duke felt himself completely conquered; he threw himself into his
brother's arms. "Come!" he cried, "forgive me. You are a better man than
I. I respect you, admire you, I almost worship you; I know, I feel that
you are my best friend. My God! what is there that I can do for you? Do
you love any woman? Shall I kill her husband? Do you want me to go to
China and find some precious manuscript, in some pagoda, risking the
_cangue_, and other pleasant things?"
"You think of nothing but a discharge of obligations, Gaëtan. If you
would only love me a little, I should be already paid a hundred times
over."
"Well, then, I do love you with all my heart," replied the Duke,
embracing him violently; "and you see I am weeping like a child. Look
here! Give me a little esteem in return; I will reform. I am still
young. Why, the deuce take it all, at thirty-six one can't have been
ruined altogether! A fellow is only a little used up. I will turn over a
new leaf,--all the more because that is needed in my case. Well, then,
so much the better! I will renew my youth, my health. I will go and pass
the summer with you and my mother in the country; I will tell you
stories; I will make you laugh again. Come! help me lay my plans,
support me, lift me up, console me; for, after all, I don't know where I
am, and I feel very unhappy."
The Marquis had already noticed, without appearing to do so, the
disappearance of the weapons which had been in sight an hour before. He
had also read in his brother's face the fearful crisis through which he
had passed. He knew furthermore that Gaëtan's moral courage would only
bear a certain amount of strain. "Dress yourself now," he said, "and
come to breakfast with me. We will chat; we will build air-castles. Who
knows but I may convince you that, in certain cases, we begin to be rich
on the very day we become poor?"
V
The Marquis conducted his brother to the Bois de Boulogne, which at that
period was not a splendid English garden, but a charming grove of dreamy
shade. It was one of the first days of April; the weather was
magnificent; the thickets were covered with violets, and a thousand
foolish tomtits were chattering around the first buds, while the
citron-hued butterflies of those early beautiful days seemed, by their
form, their color, and their undecided flight, like new leaves
fluttering gently in the wind.
The Marquis was ordinarily thought to take his meals at home. In
reality, he did not take his meals at all, using those terms after the
manner of generous livers. He had a few very simple dishes served up,
and he swallowed them hastily, without raising his eyes from the book at
his side. That frugal habit agreed very well with the rule of strict
economy which he was now about to adopt; for, in order that his mother's
table might continue to be carefully and abundantly served, it was
necessary that his own should not in the future be allowed the least
superfluity.
Not only anxious to conceal this fact from his brother, but fearing,
also, to sadden him by the usual austerity of his mode of life, the
Marquis led him to a pavilion in the Bois and ordered a comfortable
repast, saying to himself that he would buy so many books the less, and
frequent the public libraries by necessity, neither more nor less than a
needy scholar. He felt himself in no way saddened or appalled by a
succession of little sacrifices. He did not think even of his delicate
health, which demanded a certain amount of comforts in his sedentary
life. He was happy at having finally broken down the cold barrier
between himself and Gaëtan, and also at the prospect of gaining his
confidence and affection. The Duke, who was still pale and nervously
thoughtful, began to yield himself up more and more to the influence of
the spring air which entered freely through the open window. The meal
restored the equilibrium of his faculties, for he was of a robust
nature, that could not endure privation; and his mother, who had certain
pretensions of alliance to the ex-royal family, was in the habit of
saying, somewhat vainly, that the Duke had the fine appetite of the
Bourbons.
In the course of an hour the Duke was charming in his manner toward his
brother; that is, he was with him, for the first time in his life, as
amiable and as much at his ease as he was with everybody else. These two
men had sometimes perhaps divined more or less of each other, but a
thorough understanding had never been reached; and, surely, they had
never questioned each other openly. The Marquis had been restrained by
discretion; the Duke by indifference. Now the Duke felt a real need to
know the man who had just rescued his honor and made him certain of his
future. He questioned the Marquis with a freedom which had never before
had place between them.
"Explain your happiness to me," he said, "for you are really happy; at
least, I have never heard you complain."
The Marquis made a reply which astonished him greatly. "I cannot explain
to you my courage," he said, "except by my devotion to my mother and by
my love for study, since, as for happiness, I never had it and never
shall have it. That, perhaps, is not what I should say to allure you to
a quiet and retired life; but I would commit a crime not to be sincere
with you; and besides, I shall never make myself a pretender to virtue,
though you have slightly accused me of that eccentricity."
"It is true; I was very wrong; I see it now. But how and why are you
unhappy, my poor brother? Can you tell me?"
"I cannot tell you, but I will confide in you. I have loved!"
"You? you have loved a woman? When was that?"
"It is now a long time ago, and I loved her a long time."
"And you do not love her any more?"
"She is dead."
"She was a married woman?"
"Precisely, and her husband is yet living. You will permit me to conceal
her name."
"There is no need whatever to mention that; but you will conquer this
feeling, will you not?"
"I do not positively know. Up to the present time I have not succeeded
at all."
"She has not been dead long?"
"Three years."
"She loved you then very much?"
"No."
"How, no?"
"She loved me as much as a woman can love who ought not and will not
break with her husband."
"Bah! that's no reason; on the contrary, obstacles stimulate passion."
"And they wear it out. She was weary with deceiving, and consequently of
suffering. It was only the fear of driving me to despair that hindered
her from breaking with me. I was greatly wanting in courage. She died a
suffering death,--and through my fault!"
"But no, O no! You imagine that to torment yourself."
"I imagine nothing, and my grief is without resource, as my fault is
without excuse. You shall see. There came one of those paroxysms of
passion in which we wish, in spite of God and men, to appropriate
forever the object of our love. She bore me a son whom I saved,
concealed, and who still lives; but she, not wishing to give a foothold
to suspicion, made her appearance in society the day after her delivery.
There she seemed still beautiful, and full of her wonted animation; she
spoke and walked, notwithstanding the fever which was devouring her:
twenty-four hours afterwards she was a corpse. Nothing was ever known.
She passed for the most rigid person--"
"I know who it was,--Madame de G----."
"Yes, you alone in the whole world possess the secret."
"Ah! Do not be so sure. Does not our mother herself suspect it?"
"Our mother suspects nothing."
The Duke was silent for a moment, then he said with a sigh, "My poor
brother, this child that is living, and that you probably cherish--"
"Certainly."
"And I have ruined him too."
"What matter? If he has the means of learning to work, of being a man,
it will be all that I desire for him. I can never recognize him openly,
and for some years I do not wish to have him near me. He is very frail;
I am having him brought up in the country, at the house of some
peasants. He must get the physical strength which I have always lacked,
and whose absence has, perhaps, induced in me the want of moral force.
Then, too, at the last hour, from an imprudent word of the physician, M.
de G---- gained a suspicion of the truth. It would not do to have about
me a child whose age should coincide with the time which has intervened
since that sad event. Do you not see, Gaëtan, I am not, I cannot be,
happy!"
"Is it then that passion which keeps you from marrying!"
"I shall never marry; I have sworn it."
"Very well, now you must think of it."
"And _you_ preach marriage to me!"
"Yes, indeed, why not? Marriage is not, as you suppose, the object of my
scorn! I proclaimed that antipathy to relieve myself of the trouble of
finding a wife at the age when I might have chosen one. Since I have
been ruined the thing has become more conditional. My mother would never
have allowed me to accept a fortune without a name, and having nothing
now but my name, I can no longer aspire to anything but fortune. You
know that, wholly detestable as I am, I have never wanted to wound my
mother by going counter to her opinions. I have therefore seen my
chances rapidly decrease, and at this moment I should put the worst sort
of estimate upon any young lady or widow, whatsoever her wealth or
birth, who would have me. I should persuade myself that, to accept a
good-for-nothing like me, she must have some very dark motive. But,
Urbain, your position is altogether different; I have lessened your
fortune, perhaps made you poor. That, however, takes nothing from your
personal merit; on the contrary, it should make it greater in the eyes
of every one knowing the cause of your meagre fortune. It is nothing
more than probable that some pure young woman, of noble family and with
a fortune, should be inspired with esteem and affection for you. It
seems to me even that all you will have to do is but to wish such a
thing, and to show yourself."
"No, I do not know how to show myself, except to my own disadvantage.
Society paralyzes me, and my reputation as a scholar injures more than
it serves me. Society does not understand why a man born for society
does not prefer it above all things. Besides, you see, I cannot want to
love; my heart is too dark and heavy."
"Why, then, do you mourn so long a woman who did not know how to be
happy with your affection?"
"Because I loved her. In her it was perhaps my own passion that I loved.
I am not of those lively natures which bloom again at each new season.
Things take a terrible hold of me."
"You read too much, you reflect too much."
"Perhaps I do; come to the country, brother, as you have promised to do;
you shall assist me; you will benefit me greatly. Will you come? I have
a real need of a friend, and I have none. A silent passion has absorbed
my life; your affection will rejuvenate me."
The Duke was greatly moved by the frank and tender confidence of his
brother. He had expected lessons, counsels, consolations, which would
have made him play the part of the weak, in the presence of the strong
man; on the contrary, it was of him that Urbain asked for strength and
pity. Whether this came from an actual need of the Marquis or from an
exalted delicacy, the Duke was too intelligent not to be struck by the
change. He assured him, therefore, of a lively affection, a tender
solicitude; and after having spent the whole afternoon talking and
walking in the grove, the two brothers took a carriage and returned
together to dine with their mother.
For some days the Marchioness had been secretly very ill at ease. She
had feared the resistance of Urbain when he should learn the whole
amount of his brother's debts. However great her esteem for her younger
son, she had not foreseen to what lengths his disinterestedness would
go. Not having received his usual visit on that morning, she became
seriously troubled, when, just before the hour of dinner, she saw her
two sons arrive. She observed in the face of each such a calm expression
of confidence and affection as led her at first to divine what had
passed between them; then, however, in the presence of a visitor who was
slow to depart, she could not question them, and finally she received
the dreadful impression that she had been deceived and that neither the
one nor the other was fully aware of the situation.
But when they were at last at table, she remarked that they addressed
each other in the familiar and endearing _thee_ and _thou_, she
understood all, and the presence of Caroline and the servants hindering
her from expressing her emotion, she concealed her joy in an affectation
of extreme cheerfulness, while great tears fell upon her faded cheeks.
Caroline and the Marquis perceived these tears at the same moment, and
her troubled look seemed to ask of him whether the Marchioness was
concealing joy or suffering. The Marquis quieted her solicitude by the
same means in which it had been conveyed; and the Duke, detecting this
mute, rapid dialogue, smiled with a sort of good-natured malice. Neither
Caroline nor the Marquis paid attention to this smile. There was too
much good faith in their mutual sympathy. Caroline still held to her
dislike and distrust of the Duke. She continued to grudge him the power
of being so amiable and of appearing so good. She thought indeed that
Madame de D---- had slightly exaggerated his waywardness; but feeling,
in spite of herself, a vague fear, she avoided seeing him, and even in
his presence forced herself to forget his face. When the dessert was
brought in and the servants had retired, the conversation became a
little more intimate. Caroline asked timidly of the Marchioness if she
did not think the clock was slow.
"No, no, not yet, dear child," kindly replied the old lady.
Caroline understood that she was to remain till they left the table.
"So, my good friends," said the Marchioness, addressing her sons, "you
breakfasted together in the Bois?"
"Like Orestes and Pylades," answered the Duke, "and you could n't
imagine, dear mother, how fine it all was. And then I made a delightful
discovery there, namely, that I have a charming brother. O, the word
seems frivolous to you when applied to him; very well, I at least do not
understand it in its trivial sense. The charm of the understanding is
occasionally the charm of the heart, and my brother has them both."
The Marchioness smiled again, but she soon became thoughtful; a cloud
passed athwart her mind. "Gaëtan should be pained to receive his
brother's sacrifice," she thought; "he takes it too lightly; perhaps he
has lost his pride. Heavens! that would be fatal to him."
Urbain saw this cloud and hastened to dissipate it. "For my part," he
said, addressing his mother cheerfully and tenderly, "I will not say in
return that my brother is more charming than I am, for that is too
apparent; but I will say that I have also made a discovery, which is
that he has admirable and serious depths in his nature, and an
unalterable respect for all that is true. Yes," he added, in instinctive
reply to the profoundly astonished look of Caroline, "there is in him a
veritable candor which no one suspects, and which I have never before
fully appreciated."
"My children," said the Marchioness, "it does me good to hear you speak
thus of each other; you touch my pride in the most sensitive place, and
I am really led to believe that you are both right."
"As far as it concerns me," rejoined the Duke, "you think so because you
are the best of mothers; but you are blind. I am good for nothing at
all, and the sad smile of Mlle de Saint-Geneix says plainly enough that
you and my brother are both deceiving yourselves."
"What! I smiled!" cried Caroline, in stupefaction; "have I looked sad?
I could take my oath that I have not raised my eyes from this decanter,
and that I have been meditating profoundly upon the qualities of
crown-glass."
"Do not fancy we believe," returned Gaëtan, "that your thoughts are
always absorbed by household cares. I believe that they are frequently
elevated far above the region of decanters, and that you judge of men
and things from a very high stand-point."
"I allow myself to judge no one, your Grace."
"So much the worse for those who are not worth the exercise of your
judgment. They could but gain by knowing it, however severe it might be.
I myself, for instance, like to be judged by women. From their mouths I
like a frank condemnation better than the silence of disdain or of
mistrust. I regard women as the only beings really capable of
appreciating our failings or our good qualities."
"But, Madame de Villemer," said Caroline to the Marchioness in a
distressed manner which was sportively assumed, "please tell his Grace
the Duke that I have not the honor of knowing him at all, and that I am
not here to continue in my head the portraits of La Bruyère."
"Dear child," replied the Marchioness, "you are here to be a sort of
adopted daughter, to whom everything is permitted, because we are aware
of your fine discretion and your perfect modesty. Do not hesitate
therefore to answer my son, and do not be disturbed by his friendly
attempt to tease you. He knows as well as I do who you are, and he will
never be wanting in the respect which is your due."
"This time, mother, I accept the compliment," said the Duke, in a tone
of entire frankness. "I have the profoundest respect for every pure,
generous, and devoted woman, and consequently for Mlle de Saint-Geneix
in particular."
Caroline did not blush, or stammer the thanks of a prude governess. She
looked the Duke squarely in the eyes, saw that he was not at all mocking
her, and answered him with kindness,--
"Why, then, your Grace, having so generous an opinion of me, do you
suppose that I permit myself to have a bad one of you?"
"O, I have my reasons," answered the Duke; "I will tell them to you when
you know me better."
"Well, but why not now?" said the Marchioness; "it would be the
preferable way."
"So be it," rejoined the Duke. "It is an anecdote. I will tell it. Day
before yesterday I was alone in your drawing-room, waiting for you,
mother mine. I was musing in a corner, and finding myself comfortably
seated upon one of your little sofas,--I had that morning been training
an unruly horse and was as tired as an ox,--I was meditating upon the
destiny of cappadine seats in general, as Mlle de Saint-Geneix was just
meditating upon that of crown-glass, and I said to myself, 'How
astonished these sofas and easy-chairs would be to find themselves in a
stable or in a cattle-shed! And how troubled those beautiful ladies in
robes of satin who are coming here directly would certainly be, if in
the place of these luxurious seats they should find nothing but
litter!'"
"But your revery hasn't common sense in it," said the Marchioness,
laughing.
"That's true," rejoined the Duke. "Those were the thoughts of a man
slightly intoxicated."
"What do you say, my son?"
"Nothing very improper, dear mother. I came home hungry, weak, bruised,
already intoxicated with the open air. You know that water does not
agree with me. I cannot slake my thirst, and in making the attempt I got
fuddled,--that 's all. You know too that it lasts me but a quarter of an
hour at most, and that I have sense enough to keep myself quiet the
necessary time. That is why, instead of coming to kiss your hand during
your dessert, I slipped into the drawing-room, there to recover my
senses."
"Come, come," said the Marchioness, "slip over this confusion of your
senses, and let us have the point of your story."
"But that's just what I am coming to," rejoined the Duke, "as you shall
see."
As he took up again the thread of his discourse with more or less
difficulty, Caroline could see that the Duke was in exactly the same
state of mind as that of which he was telling, and that his mother's
heady wines had probably for some moments been responsible for his
prolixity. Very soon, however, he overcame the slight disorder of his
ideas, and continued with a grace which was really perfect.
"I was a little absent-minded, I will confess, but not at all besotted.
On the contrary, I had poetical visions. From the litter scattered on
the floor by my imagination, I saw a thousand odd figures arise. They
were all women, some attired as for an old-fashioned court ball, others
as for a Flemish peasant festival; the former embarrassed by contact of
their crinoline and laces with the fresh straw, which impeded their
steps and wounded their feet; the latter in short dresses, shod in great
wooden shoes, which tramped lustily over the litter, while their wearers
laughed till their mouths were opened wellnigh from ear to ear, at the
odd appearance of the others.
"With regard to this side of the picture, it was, as the canvases of
Rubens have been called, the festival of flesh. Large hands, red cheeks,
powerful shoulders, very prominent noses upon blooming faces, still with
admirable eyes, and a sort of cappadine attraction like your sofas and
easy-chairs, which had undergone this magic transformation. I cannot
otherwise explain to myself the point of departure of my hallucination.
"These splendid, great strapping women abandoned themselves entirely to
a light-hearted joy; jumped up a foot in the air and came down again, to
make the pendants of the candelabra vibrate, some of them rolling upon
the straw, and getting up again with empty wheat-ears tangled in their
hair of reddened gold. Opposite these the princesses of the fan
attempted a stately dance without being able to accomplish it. The
straws arrayed themselves against their furbelows, the heat of the
atmosphere caused the paint to fall off, the powder trickled down upon
their shoulders, and left the meagreness of their visages confessed; a
mortal anguish was depicted in their expressive eyes. Evidently they
feared the shining of the sun upon their counterfeit charms, and saw
with fury the reality of life ready to triumph over them."
"Well, well, my son," said the Marchioness, "where are you wandering,
and what signifies all this? Have you undertaken the panegyric of
viragos?"
"I have undertaken nothing at all," replied the Duke; "I relate; I am
inventing nothing. I was under the empire of that vision, and I have no
idea into what reflections it would have led me, if I had not heard a
woman singing close by me--"
Gaëtan sang very pleasantly the rustic words of which he had faithfully
retained the air, and Caroline began to laugh, remembering that she had
sung that refrain of her province before perceiving the Duke in the
drawing-room.
The Duke continued: "Then I arose, and my vision was completely
dissipated. There was no more straw upon the floor; the plump chairs and
sofas with wooden legs were no longer girls in wooden shoes from the
poultry yard; the slender candelabra, with their bulging ornaments, were
no longer thin women in hoop-petticoats. I was quite alone in the
lighted apartment, and had completely come to my senses; but I heard the
singing of a village air in a style altogether rustic and true and
charming, with a freshness of voice, too, of which mine certainly can
give you no idea. 'What!' cried I to myself, 'a peasant, a peasant girl
in the drawing-room of my mother!' I kept still, hardly breathing, and
the peasant girl appeared. She passed before me twice without seeing me,
walking quickly and almost touching me with her dress of pearl-gray
silk."
"Ah, that," said the Marchioness,--"that then was Caroline?"
"It was somebody unknown," rejoined the Duke; "a singular peasant girl,
you will agree, for she was dressed like a modest person, and of the
best society. About her head she wore nothing but the glory of her own
yellow hair, and she showed neither her arms nor her shoulders; but I
saw her neck of snow, and her nice little hand, and feet too, for she
did not have on wooden shoes."
Caroline, a little annoyed at the description of her person by this
veteran Lovelace, looked toward the Marquis as if in protest. She was
surprised to find a certain anxiety expressed in his face, and he
avoided her look with a slight contraction of his brows.
The Duke, from whom nothing escaped, proceeded: "This adorable
apparition struck me all the more that it recalled to my eyes the two
types of my dispelled vision; that is, she preserved all that made the
merit of the one or the other: nobleness of bearing and freshness of
manners, delicacy of features, and the glow of health. She was a queen
and a shepherdess in the same person."
"That is a picture which does not flatter," said the Marchioness, "but
which, exposed face to face with its original, lacks perhaps a lightness
of touch. Ah, my son, may you not again be a little--over-excited?"
"You ordered me to speak," rejoined the Duke. "If I speak too much, make
me keep still."
"No," was the quick remark of Caroline, who observed a queer,
half-suspicious look upon the face of the Marquis, and who was anxious
that nothing vague should be left about her first interview with the
Duke. "I do not recognize the original of the picture, and I wait for
his Grace the Duke to make her speak a little."
"I have a good memory and I shall invent nothing," rejoined he. "Carried
away by a sudden, irresistible sympathy, I spoke to this young lady from
the country. Her voice, her look, her neat, frank replies, her air of
goodness, of real innocence,--the innocence of the heart,--won me to
such a degree that I told her of my esteem and respect at the end of
five minutes as if I had known her all my life, and I felt myself
jealous of her esteem as if she had been my own sister. Is that the
truth this time, Mlle de Saint-Geneix?"
"I know nothing of your private sentiments, your Grace," replied
Caroline; "but you seemed to me so affable that it never crossed my mind
you could be tender in your cups, and that I was very grateful for your
kindness. I see now that I must put a lower estimate upon it, and that
there was a trifle of irony in the whole."
"And in what do you see that, if you please?"
"In the exaggerated praise with which you seem to try to excite my
vanity; but I protest against it, your Grace, and perhaps it would have
been more generous in you not to have commenced the attack upon a person
so inoffensive and of so humble a quality as I am."
"Come now," said the Duke, turning toward his brother, who appeared to
be thinking upon an entirely different subject, and who, nevertheless,
heard everything, as if in his own despite; "she persists in suspecting
me and in regarding my respect as an injury. Come now, Marquis, you have
been telling her naughty things of me?"
"That is not a habit of mine," answered the Marquis, with the gentleness
of truth.
"Well, then," continued the Duke, "I know who has ruined me in the
opinion of Mlle de Saint-Geneix. It is an old lady whose gray hairs are
turning to a slaty blue, and whose hands are so thin that her rings have
to be hunted up in the sweepings every morning. She talked about me to
Mlle de Saint-Geneix for a quarter of an hour the other evening, and
when I sought again the kindly look which had made my heart young, I did
not find it, and I do not find it now. You see. Marquis, there is no
other way. Ah! but why are you so silent? You commenced my eulogy, and
Mlle de Saint-Geneix seems to have confidence in you. If you would just
commence again."
"My children," said the Marchioness, "you can resume the discussion
another time. I have to dress, and I want to say something to you before
any one comes to interrupt us. The clock is perhaps a few minutes slow."
"I think, indeed, that it is very slow," observed Caroline, rising; and,
leaving the Duke and the Marquis to help their mother to her apartment,
the young lady went quickly to the drawing-room. She expected to find
visitors there, for the dinner had been prolonged a little more than
usual; but no one had yet arrived, and, instead of tripping lightly
about, singing as she went, she seated herself thoughtfully by the fire.