The next day, about two in the afternoon, Madame d’Espard, who had seen
and heard nothing of the princess for more than a month, went to see her
under the impulse of extreme curiosity. Nothing was ever more amusing
of its kind than the conversation of these two crafty adders during the
first half-hour of this visit.
Diane d’Uxelles cautiously avoided, as she would the wearing of a yellow
gown, all mention of d’Arthez. The marquise circled round and round that
topic like a Bedouin round a caravan. Diane amused herself; the marquise
fumed. Diane waited; she intended to utilize her friend and use her in
the chase. Of these two women, both so celebrated in the social world,
one was far stronger than the other. The princess rose by a head
above the marquise, and the marquise was inwardly conscious of that
superiority. In this, perhaps, lay the secret of their intimacy. The
weaker of the two crouched low in her false attachment, watching for the
hour, long awaited by feeble beings, of springing at the throat of the
stronger and leaving the mark of a joyful bite. Diane saw clear; but the
world was the dupe of the wile caresses of the two friends.
The instant that the princess perceived a direct question on the lips of
her friend, she said:--
“Ah! dearest, I owe you a most complete, immense, infinite, celestial
happiness.”
“What can you mean?”
“Have you forgotten what we ruminated three months ago in the little
garden, sitting on a bench in the sun, under the jasmine? Ah! there are
none but men of genius who know how to love! I apply to my grand Daniel
d’Arthez the Duke of Alba’s saying to Catherine de’ Medici: ‘The head of
a single salmon is worth all the frogs in the world.’”
“I am not surprised that I no longer see you,” said Madame d’Espard.
“Promise me, if you meet him, not to say to him one word about me, my
angel,” said the princess, taking her friend’s hand. “I am happy, oh!
happy beyond all expression; but you know that in society a word, a mere
jest can do much harm. One speech can kill, for they put such venom into
a single sentence! Ah! if you knew how I long that you might meet with
a love like this! Yes, it is a sweet, a precious triumph for women like
ourselves to end our woman’s life in this way; to rest in an ardent,
pure, devoted, complete and absolute love; above all, when we have
sought it long.”
“Why do you ask me to be faithful to my dearest friend?” said Madame
d’Espard. “Do you think me capable of playing you some villainous
trick?”
“When a woman possesses such a treasure the fear of losing it is so
strong that it naturally inspires a feeling of terror. I am absurd, I
know; forgive me, dear.”
A few moments later the marquise departed; as she watched her go the
princess said to herself:--
“How she will pluck me! But to save her the trouble of trying to get
Daniel away from here I’ll send him to her.”
At three o’clock, or a few moments after, d’Arthez arrived. In the midst
of some interesting topic on which he was discoursing eloquently, the
princess suddenly cut him short by laying her hand on his arm.
“Pardon me, my dear friend,” she said, interrupting him, “but I fear
I may forget a thing which seems a mere trifle but may be of great
importance. You have not set foot in Madame d’Espard’s salon since the
ever-blessed day when I met you there. Pray go at once; not for your
sake, nor by way of politeness, but for me. You may already have made
her an enemy of mine, if by chance she has discovered that since her
dinner you have scarcely left my house. Besides, my friend, I don’t like
to see you dropping your connection with society, and neglecting your
occupations and your work. I should again be strangely calumniated. What
would the world say? That I held you in leading-strings, absorbed you,
feared comparisons, and clung to my conquest knowing it to be my last!
Who will know that you are my friend, my only friend? If you love me
indeed, as you say you love me, you will make the world believe that
we are purely and simply brother and sister--Go on with what you were
saying.”
In his armor of tenderness, riveted by the knowledge of so many splendid
virtues, d’Arthez obeyed this behest on the following day and went
to see Madame d’Espard, who received him with charming coquetry. The
marquise took very good care not to say a single word to him about the
princess, but she asked him to dinner on a coming day.
On this occasion d’Arthez found a numerous company. The marquise
had invited Rastignac, Blondet, the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto, Maxime de
Trailles, the Marquis d’Esgrignon, the two brothers Vandenesse, du
Tillet, one of the richest bankers in Paris, the Baron de Nucingen,
Raoul Nathan, Lady Dudley, two very treacherous secretaries of embassies
and the Chevalier d’Espard, the wiliest person in this assemblage and
the chief instigator of his sister-in-law’s policy.
When dinner was well under way, Maxime de Trailles turned to d’Arthez
and said smiling:--
“You see a great deal, don’t you, of the Princesse de Cadignan?”
To this question d’Arthez responded by curtly nodding his head. Maxime
de Trailles was a “bravo” of the social order, without faith or law,
capable of everything, ruining the women who trusted him, compelling
them to pawn their diamonds to give him money, but covering this conduct
with a brilliant varnish; a man of charming manners and satanic mind.
He inspired all who knew him with equal contempt and fear; but as no
one was bold enough to show him any sentiments but those of the utmost
courtesy he saw nothing of this public opinion, or else he accepted and
shared the general dissimulation. He owed to the Comte de Marsay the
greatest degree of elevation to which he could attain. De Marsay,
whose knowledge of Maxime was of long-standing, judged him capable of
fulfilling certain secret and diplomatic functions which he confided to
him and of which de Trailles acquitted himself admirably. D’Arthez had
for some time past mingled sufficiently in political matters to know the
man for what he was, and he alone had sufficient strength and height of
character to express aloud what others thought or said in a whisper.
“Is it for her that you neglect the Chamber?” asked Baron de Nucingen in
his German accent.
“Ah! the princess is one of the most dangerous women a man can have
anything to do with. I owe to her the miseries of my marriage,”
exclaimed the Marquis d’Esgrignon.
“Dangerous?” said Madame d’Espard. “Don’t speak so of my nearest friend.
I have never seen or known anything in the princess that did not seem to
come from the noblest sentiments.”
“Let the marquis say what he thinks,” cried Rastignac. “When a man has
been thrown by a fine horse he thinks it has vices and he sells it.”
Piqued by these words, the Marquis d’Esgrignon looked at d’Arthez and
said:--
“Monsieur is not, I trust, on such terms with the princess that we
cannot speak freely of her?”
D’Arthez kept silence. D’Esgrignon, who was not wanting in cleverness,
replied to Rastignac’s speech with an apologetic portrait of the
princess, which put the whole table in good humor. As the jest was
extremely obscure to d’Arthez he leaned towards his neighbor, Madame de
Montcornet, and asked her, in a whisper, what it meant.
“Excepting yourself--judging by the excellent opinion you seem to have
of the princess--all the other guests are said to have been in her good
graces.”
“I can assure you that such an accusation is absolutely false,” said
Daniel.
“And yet, here is Monsieur d’Esgrignon of an old family of Alencon, who
completely ruined himself for her some twelve years ago, and, if all is
true, came very near going to the scaffold.”
“I know the particulars of that affair,” said d’Arthez. “Madame de
Cadignan went to Alencon to save Monsieur d’Esgrignon from a trial
before the court of assizes; and this is how he rewards her to-day!”
Madame de Montcornet looked at d’Arthez with a surprise and curiosity
that were almost stupid, then she turned her eyes on Madame d’Espard
with a look which seemed to say: “He is bewitched!”
During this short conversation Madame de Cadignan was protected by
Madame d’Espard, whose protection was like that of the lightning-rod
which draws the flash. When d’Arthez returned to the general
conversation Maxime de Trailles was saying:--
“With Diane, depravity is not an effect but a cause; perhaps she owes
that cause to her exquisite nature; she doesn’t invent, she makes no
effort, she offers you the choicest refinements as the inspiration of
a spontaneous and naive love; and it is absolutely impossible not to
believe her.”
This speech, which seemed to have been prepared for a man of d’Arthez’s
stamp, was so tremendous an arraignment that the company appeared to
accept it as a conclusion. No one said more; the princess was crushed.
D’Arthez looked straight at de Trailles and then at d’Esgrignon with a
sarcastic air, and said:--
“The greatest fault of that woman is that she has followed in the wake
of men. She squanders patrimonies as they do; she drives her lovers to
usurers; she pockets ‘dots’; she ruins orphans; she inspires, possibly
she commits, crimes, but--”
Never had the two men, whom d’Arthez was chiefly addressing, listened
to such plain talk. At that BUT the whole table was startled, every one
paused, fork in air, their eyes fixed alternately on the brave author
and on the assailants of the princess, awaiting the conclusion of that
horrible silence.
“_But_,” said d’Arthez, with sarcastic airiness, “Madame la Princesse
de Cadignan has one advantage over men: when they have put themselves in
danger for her sake, she saves them, and says no harm of any one. Among
the multitude, why shouldn’t there be one woman who amuses herself with
men as men amuse themselves with women? Why not allow the fair sex to
take, from time to time, its revenge?”
“Genius is stronger than wit,” said Blondet to Nathan.
This broadside of sarcasms was in fact the discharge of a battery of
cannons against a platoon of musketry. When coffee was served, Blondet
and Nathan went up to d’Arthez with an eagerness no one else dared to
imitate, so unable were the rest of the company to show the admiration
his conduct inspired from the fear of making two powerful enemies.
“This is not the first time we have seen that your character equals your
talent in grandeur,” said Blondet. “You behaved just now more like a
demi-god than a man. Not to have been carried away by your heart or
your imagination, not to have taken up the defence of a beloved woman--a
fault they were enticing you to commit, because it would have given
those men of society eaten up with jealousy of your literary fame a
triumph over you--ah! give me leave to say you have attained the height
of private statesmanship.”
“Yes, you are a statesman,” said Nathan. “It is as clever as it is
difficult to avenge a woman without defending her.”
“The princess is one of those heroines of the legitimist party, and
it is the duty of all men of honor to protect her quand meme,” replied
d’Arthez, coldly. “What she has done for the cause of her masters would
excuse all follies.”
“He keeps his own counsel!” said Nathan to Blondet.
“Precisely as if the princess were worth it,” said Rastignac, joining
the other two.
D’Arthez went to the princess, who was awaiting him with the keenest
anxiety. The result of this experiment, which Diane had herself brought
about, might be fatal to her. For the first time in her life this woman
suffered in her heart. She knew not what she should do in case d’Arthez
believed the world which spoke the truth, instead of believing her who
lied; for never had so noble a nature, so complete a man, a soul so
pure, a conscience so ingenuous come beneath her hand. Though she had
told him cruel lies she was driven to do so by the desire of knowing a
true love. That love--she felt it dawning in her heart; yes, she loved
d’Arthez; and now she was condemned forever to deceive him! She must
henceforth remain to him the actress who had played that comedy to blind
his eyes.
When she heard Daniel’s step in the dining-room a violent commotion, a
shudder which reached to her very vitals came over her. That convulsion,
never felt during all the years of her adventurous existence, told her
that she had staked her happiness on this issue. Her eyes, gazing
into space, took in the whole of d’Arthez’s person; their light poured
through his flesh, she read his soul; suspicion had not so much as
touched him with its bat’s-wing. The terrible emotion of that fear then
came to its reaction; joy almost stifled her; for there is no human
being who is not more able to endure grief than to bear extreme
felicity.
“Daniel, they have calumniated me, and you have avenged me!” she cried,
rising, and opening her arms to him.
In the profound amazement caused by these words, the roots of which were
utterly unknown to him, Daniel allowed his hand to be taken between her
beautiful hands, as the princess kissed him sacredly on the forehead.
“But,” he said, “how could you know--”
“Oh! illustrious ninny! do you not see that I love you fondly?”
Since that day nothing has been said of the Princess de Cadignan, nor
of d’Arthez. The princess has inherited some fortune from her mother and
she spends all her summers in a villa on the lake of Geneva, where the
great writer joins her. She returns to Paris for a few months in winter.
D’Arthez is never seen except in the Chamber. His writings are becoming
exceedingly rare. Is this a conclusion? Yes, for people of sense; no,
for persons who want to know everything.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Ajuda-Pinto, Marquis Miguel d’
Father Goriot
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Beatrix
Arthez, Daniel d’
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Letters of Two Brides
The Member for Arcis
Bianchon, Horace
Father Goriot
The Atheist’s Mass
Cesar Birotteau
The Commission in Lunacy
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Bachelor’s Establishment
The Government Clerks
Pierrette
A Study of Woman
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Honorine
The Seamy Side of History
The Magic Skin
A Second Home
A Prince of Bohemia
Letters of Two Brides
The Muse of the Department
The Imaginary Mistress
The Middle Classes
Cousin Betty
The Country Parson
In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
Another Study of Woman
La Grande Breteche
Blondet, Emile
Jealousies of a Country Town
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Modeste Mignon
Another Study of Woman
A Daughter of Eve
The Firm of Nucingen
The Peasantry
Blondet, Virginie
Jealousies of a Country Town
The Peasantry
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Another Study of Woman
The Member for Arcis
A Daughter of Eve
Cadignan, Prince de
Modeste Mignon
Chrestien, Michel
A Bachelor’s Establishment
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Cinq-Cygne, Laurence, Comtesse (afterwards Marquise de)
The Gondreville Mystery
The Seamy Side of History
The Member for Arcis
Dudley, Lady Arabella
The Lily of the Valley
The Ball at Sceaux
The Magic Skin
A Daughter of Eve
Letters of Two Brides
Esgrignon, Victurnien, Comte (then Marquis d’)
Jealousies of a Country Town
Letters of Two Brides
A Man of Business
Cousin Betty
Espard, Chevalier d’
The Commission in Lunacy
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Espard, Jeanne-Clementine-Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, Marquise d’
The Commission in Lunacy
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Letters of Two Brides
Another Study of Woman
The Gondreville Mystery
A Daughter of Eve
Beatrix
Galathionne, Prince and Princess (both not in each story)
The Middle Classes
Father Goriot
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Daughter of Eve
Beatrix
Giraud, Leon
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Bachelor’s Establishment
The Unconscious Humorists
Marsay, Henri de
The Thirteen
The Unconscious Humorists
Another Study of Woman
The Lily of the Valley
Father Goriot
Jealousies of a Country Town
Ursule Mirouet
A Marriage Settlement
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Letters of Two Brides
The Ball at Sceaux
Modest Mignon
The Gondreville Mystery
A Daughter of Eve
Maufrigneuse, Duc de
A Start in Life
A Bachelor’s Establishment
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de
Modeste Mignon
Jealousies of a Country Town
The Muse of the Department
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Letters of Two Brides
Another Study of Woman
The Gondreville Mystery
The Member for Arcis
Maufrigneuse, Georges de
The Gondreville Mystery
Beatrix
The Member for Arcis
Mirbel, Madame de
Letters of Two Brides
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Nathan, Raoul
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
A Daughter of Eve
Letters of Two Brides
The Seamy Side of History
The Muse of the Department
A Prince of Bohemia
A Man of Business
The Unconscious Humorists
Navarreins, Duc de
A Bachelor’s Establishment
Colonel Chabert
The Muse of the Department
The Thirteen
Jealousies of a Country Town
The Peasantry
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Country Parson
The Magic Skin
The Gondreville Mystery
Cousin Betty
Nucingen, Baron Frederic de
The Firm of Nucingen
Father Goriot
Pierrette
Cesar Birotteau
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Another Study of Woman
A Man of Business
Cousin Betty
The Muse of the Department
The Unconscious Humorists
Rastignac, Eugene de
Father Goriot
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Ball at Sceaux
The Interdiction
A Study of Woman
Another Study of Woman
The Magic Skin
A Daughter of Eve
The Gondreville Mystery
The Firm of Nucingen
Cousin Betty
The Member for Arcis
The Unconscious Humorists
Rochefide, Marquise de
Beatrix
A Daughter of Eve
Sarrasine
A Prince of Bohemia
Tillet, Ferdinand du
Cesar Birotteau
The Firm of Nucingen
The Middle Classes
A Bachelor’s Establishment
Pierrette
Melmoth Reconciled
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Daughter of Eve
The Member for Arcis
Cousin Betty
The Unconscious Humorists
Toby (Joby, Paddy)
The Firm of Nucingen
Trailles, Comte Maxime de
Cesar Birotteau
Father Goriot
Gobseck
Ursule Mirouet
A Man of Business
The Member for Arcis
Cousin Betty
The Member for Arcis
Beatrix
The Unconscious Humorists
Vandenesse, Comte Felix de
The Lily of the Valley
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Cesar Birotteau
Letters of Two Brides
A Start in Life
The Marriage Settlement
Another Study of Woman
The Gondreville Mystery
A Daughter of Eve