“That is enough about ourselves, now let us come to your matters.--When
you had gone, I determined to ascertain how Madame Blémont was behaving.
But she appeared in society very little; and yet--for you know how just
the world is--people pitied her, praised her highly, and blamed you for
deserting her. One night she came to a large party where I was. Her
costume was as elaborate as ever; but I thought that she had lost color,
that she had greatly changed. I fancied that her gayety was forced, and
I noticed that she relapsed constantly into a gloomy reverie, from which
she emerged with difficulty. You know what sentiments Madame Blémont
aroused in my breast. I was the only person in the world who looked at
her with a more than severe expression, and I am convinced that she felt
that I was the only one to whom you had confided your misfortunes; so
that my presence always produced a magical effect upon her; she ceased
to talk, and it seemed to me that in my presence she dared not even
pretend to be light-hearted.
“Bélan came to that same party with his wife and his mother-in-law. I do
not know whether it was from malice or from stupidity, but on seeing me,
he said to me:
“‘Well! so poor Blémont was nearly killed! He was knocked down in the
Bois de Boulogne by some people riding. I heard about it from a young
man who helped to pick him up.’
“Your wife happened to be standing behind us. I glanced at her and found
that her eyes were fastened upon mine with an expression which I could
not interpret. They seemed to implore me to listen to her. At once I
turned my back and left the party. The next morning, at seven o’clock,
your wife was at my house.”
“At your house?”
“Imagine my surprise when she entered my study, trembling and hardly
able to stand.--‘Monsieur,’ she said, ‘I am convinced that you know of
all my wrongdoing toward Monsieur Blémont; I have read in your eyes the
contempt which you feel for me, and it has required much courage for me
to venture to call upon you; but what I heard last night has made it
impossible for me to enjoy a moment’s rest. Monsieur Blémont was hurt in
the Bois de Boulogne by some people on horseback. I remember very well
that I passed him; can it be that I was unconsciously the cause of that
accident? Have I that crime also to reproach myself with? Can it be that
Monsieur Blémont has not recovered? For heaven’s sake, take pity on my
anxiety and conceal nothing from me.’
“I told your wife how the accident happened. She could not doubt that
she was the original cause of it. She listened to me without a word;
she seemed utterly crushed. I felt bound to take advantage of that
opportunity to tell her of the repulsion that you felt for your son, of
your intention not to see him; and I concluded by handing her the
memorandum book which you had left with me and which contained her
portrait. When she saw it, a cry of despair escaped her, and she fell
unconscious to the floor. Marguerite came and I placed her in her care.
She will finish the story now.”
“Mon Dieu! I have little to add,” said Marguerite. “I found the poor
woman unconscious; I did what I could for her, but when she came to
herself she was in the most horrible state of despair. She desired to
die, she tried to end her own life. She called upon you and her
children, and gave herself the most odious names. Ah! I am sure that if
you had seen her then, you would have had pity on her; for my own part,
as I saw that she had an attack of fever, and that her mind wandered at
times, I would not let her go home alone, but I went with her; then I
sent and asked my husband’s permission to stay with her until she was
better, and he consented.”
“Oh! what a kind heart you have, madame! you forgot the way that she
treated you.”
“Oh! I forgot that long ago, I promise you. In this world we must forget
much, I think, and forgive often. Madame Blémont, in her lucid
intervals, looked at me and pressed my hand without speaking. When she
was really better, she thanked me for taking care of her, as if what I
had done was not the most natural thing in the world; she asked me to
forgive her for the evil opinion she had had of me. Oh! I forgave her
with all my heart. She confessed that I had always made her very
jealous, and I scolded her for suspecting you; I told her that you used
to come to my little room solely to talk to us about her, and she wept
as she listened to me. But she wept much harder when she told me about
her wrongdoing; and I too shed tears while she was telling her story,
for I saw that she had always loved you, and that, except for her insane
jealousy, her anger, and the bad advice she received----”
“Well, madame?”
“Well, she told me that she regretted having refused you your daughter,
and, notwithstanding the grief it would cause her to part with her, she
had decided to comply with your slightest wish. She begged me to take
charge of little Henriette until she returned. You can imagine that I
consented. She also recommended your son to me--yes, your son, and she
repeated the words several times. She told me that she was going to live
in retirement, and to turn her back on society forever.”
“And in fact,” said Ernest, “she did abandon altogether the sort of life
she had been leading formerly; she lived in the most complete solitude.
But I learned a few days ago that she had gone to Mont-d’Or to take the
waters, because her physician had prescribed that journey, her health
being much impaired.--That is what has happened, my dear Henri. In
telling you this story, we have not tried to move you by dwelling upon
your wife’s repentance, although we believe it to be sincere. We know
that her fault is not one a husband can forget, especially when he loved
his wife as you did yours; but, even without forgetting, one sometimes
forgives; and there are many guiltier women in the world. We cannot help
pitying Madame Blémont, and sighing over the future of your children.”
“My dear friends,” I said, taking a hand of each, “when I went away two
years ago, your only wish was that I should forget a guilty wife; you
had witnessed my despair, the tortures of my heart, and then you were
perhaps more angry than I with the author of all my woes. To-day, the
sight of Eugénie in tears, of her remorse, which I am quite willing to
believe is sincere, has moved you, has touched you to the heart. You
would like to induce me to forgive her; but do not hope for it. Although
two years of absence have partly cicatrized the wounds in my heart, do
not believe that it can ever forget the blow which was dealt it. Even if
I should forgive her who destroyed my happiness, that happiness would
not be revived, her presence would always be painful to me, I could
never hold her in my arms without remembering that another also had
enjoyed her caresses; such an existence would be a constant torment; I
will not condemn myself to it. I cannot give my daughter a mother at
that price; I think that I have done enough by maintaining her honor.
Let us never return to this subject. As for little Eugène, I will do my
duty. If I have not a father’s heart for him, it is because I must have
some enlightenment to banish from my heart the suspicions which have
found their way thither. Ah! I am greatly to be pitied for not daring to
love the child whom I called my son.”
Ernest and Marguerite looked at each other sadly, but could find nothing
to reply. I rose, thinking of Pettermann, whom I had left in the cab.
“Your house strikes me as a charming place; can you give me a room
here?” I asked Ernest.
“It is all ready, and it has been waiting for you a fortnight.”
“Very good; but I don’t need Pettermann here; have I my apartment in
Paris still?”
“Yes, I would not give it up on the last rent day, because I expected
you.”
“In that case Pettermann can go there; and I, as you consent, will board
with you; I shall go to Paris as little as possible.”
Pettermann was still sitting in the cab which was waiting in front of
the house. I told him that he was to return to my apartment in Paris, to
take up his quarters there, and to be always ready to bring what I
needed to Saint-Mandé. Pettermann bowed, and drove away, saying:
“I am very glad that I didn’t have to get out of the carriage.”
Ernest and Marguerite showed me to the room which they had set apart for
me. It looked on the garden, and I found it very much to my liking,
especially when they pointed out to me, opposite my room, the room in
which Henriette and her brother slept; I was very glad to be able to
kiss my daughter as soon as I woke, and without disturbing anyone.
It only remained to show me the property. That was a joy for a landed
proprietor, and Ernest and his wife were enchanted to do it. The house
was not large, but it was pleasant and convenient. Moreover, Ernest was
a genuine poet; he had no ambition; he would have been bored to death in
a palace, and he agreed with Socrates. As for Marguerite, she fancied
herself in a château, and she was never tired of saying, “our property.”
But she would add at once: “When I used to live in my little room under
the eaves, I hardly expected that I should have a house of my own some
day.”
“A person is worthy of having a house of her own, madame, when it does
not make her forget that she once lived under the eaves,” I would
rejoin.
Only the garden remained to be inspected. It was quite large, and at the
farther end there was an iron gate leading into Vincennes forest. At
the end of the wall I saw a small summer house with two windows, one of
which looked into the forest; they were both secured by shutters.
“What do you do with this summer-house?” I asked Ernest.
“I expect--I intend it for a study.”
“True, it will be a quiet place for you to work in.”
“But it isn’t arranged for that yet,” said Marguerite; “and as we have
spent a great deal of money on our estate already, we shall wait a while
before furnishing the summer-house; shan’t we, husband?”
“Yes, wife.”
Ernest smiled as he said that, and so did I, for Madame Ernest
emphasized the word _husband_, which she uttered every instant, as if to
make up for the time when she dared not say it.
I took my daughter by the hand to walk about the garden. Henriette was
seven years old; she was not very large, but her wit and good sense
amazed me. All the evening I kept her talking; her answers delighted me,
for they denoted no less sense than goodness of heart. I could not tire
of looking at her and of listening to her. More than once I had been
terribly bored in a fashionable assemblage, but I was very sure that I
should never be bored with my daughter.
The days passed quickly at Ernest’s house. Painting, reading, walks with
my daughter, occupied the time. In the evening we talked; a few friends
and neighbors dropped in, but informally and without dressing; the men
in their jackets or blouses, the women in their aprons. That is the
proper way to live in the country. Those who carry to the fields the
fashion and the etiquette of the city will never know the true pleasures
of country life.
I had been a fortnight at Saint-Mandé, and I had not once been tempted
to go to Paris. Pettermann brought me all that I desired and did my
errands with exactness. I always asked him if anybody had called,
although I never expected visitors. In society no one knew that I had
returned from my travels. Monsieur Roquencourt and his niece did not
know my address in Paris, and even if they had known it, I could not
expect a visit from them. Doubtless Caroline had ceased to think of me.
She did well. For my part, I confess that I very often thought of her,
and sometimes I regretted that I had given her her portrait. But a smile
or a word from my daughter banished such ideas.
There was another person of whom I often thought, although Ernest and
his wife never mentioned her. I continually saw her, changed and pale as
I had seen her at Mont-d’Or; and at night, in the woods or in the
garden, I fancied that I still saw sometimes that white spectre, the
sight of which had caused me to fly so hurriedly from the hotel at which
I was living.
How could I forget Eugénie? Did not my daughter talk to me every day
about her mother? Did she not constantly ask me if she would come home
soon? I tried in vain to avoid that subject, Henriette recurred to it
again and again; I dared not tell her that she made me unhappy by
speaking to me of her mother; but could I hope ever to enjoy perfect
happiness? Was there not always someone whose presence would prevent me
from forgetting the past?
Poor child! it was not his fault that his mother was guilty. That was
what I said to myself every day as I looked at him; but in spite of
that, I could not conquer my feelings and conceal the depression which
his presence caused me. I did not hate him, and I felt that I should
love him if I dared think that he was my son; but those cruel suspicions
hurt me more than the certainty of the worst, for then I could have made
up my mind with respect to Eugène, whereas now I did not know what
course to pursue.
The poor boy had never seen a smile on my face for him; so that he
always held aloof from me, and never came near me except when his sister
brought him. Sometimes, as I walked in the garden, I saw Eugène in the
distance playing with Ernest’s children. Then I would stop, and,
standing behind a hedge, would watch him for a long while. I passed
hours in that way. He did not see me and abandoned himself without
restraint to the natural gayety of his age, which my presence seemed
always to hold in check. He feared me, no doubt, and he would never love
me. Often that thought distressed me; at such times I was seized with a
wild longing to run to him and to embrace him, to overwhelm him with
caresses, for I said to myself: “Suppose he were my son?” but soon the
painful thought would return, my heart would turn to ice, and I would
hurry away from the child’s neighborhood.
My daughter noticed that I did not caress her brother as I did her; for
a child of seven makes her own little observations, and children notice
more than we think. Henriette, who considered herself a woman beside her
brother, because she was four years older than he, seemed to have taken
little Eugène under her protection; she told him what games to play,
scolded him, or rewarded him; in short, she played the little mamma with
him. But when I called Henriette, I did not call Eugène; when I took her
on my knee, I did not take her brother. Having observed all this, she
said to me one morning as I had my arms about her:
“Tell me, papa, don’t you love my brother? You never kiss him, you never
speak to him; but he is a nice little fellow. He loves you too, my
brother does; so why don’t you take him in your arms?”
“My dear love, because we don’t treat a boy as we do a girl.”
“Ah! don’t people kiss little boys?”
“Very seldom.”
“But, papa, Monsieur Ernest kisses his little boy as often as he does
his daughter.”
I did not know what to reply; children often embarrass us when we try to
conceal things from them. Mademoiselle Henriette, seeing that I did not
know what to say to her, exclaimed:
“Oh! if you didn’t love my brother, that would be very naughty!”
To avoid my daughter’s remarks and questions, I determined to kiss her
less frequently during the day. However, as I desired to make up to
myself for my abstinence, I always went into the children’s chamber when
I rose. They were still asleep when I went in. Eugène’s cradle was by a
window, and Henriette’s little bed at the other end of the room,
surrounded by curtains, which I put aside with great care in order not
to wake her. I never went to the cradle, but I left the room softly and
noiselessly when I had kissed my daughter.
I had been doing this for several days. Henriette said no more to me
about her brother, but glanced furtively at me with a mischievous
expression; it seemed that schemes were already brewing in that little
head.
One morning I went as usual to the children’s room; I drew the curtains
partly aside and kissed my daughter, and I was about to steal away on
tiptoe when I heard a burst of laughter behind me; I turned and saw
Henriette in her nightgown, crouching behind a chair; she came from her
hiding-place, and began to hop and dance about the room, saying:
“I knew that I would make you kiss my brother.”
I looked at her in surprise, then hastily pushed aside the curtains of
her bed; it was her brother who was lying there; she had put her little
cap on his head, and his face was turned to the wall. He was the one
whom I had kissed, as his sister had put him in her place. I was deeply
moved. At that moment Eugène’s little voice was heard; he called out
without moving or turning:
“Can I move now, sister?”
“Yes, yes, it’s all over,” Henriette replied.
“What? What does he mean by that?” I asked.
“Oh, papa, he wasn’t asleep, he was only making believe; I turned his
face to the wall and I said to him: ‘if you move, if you turn your head,
papa will know you, and he won’t kiss you.’--He was very good, you see,
he didn’t move at all.”
I could hold out no longer; I took Eugène in my arms and covered him
with kisses, as well as his sister, crying:
“After this you will both receive the same caresses from me; my heart
shall know no difference between you; you shall be alike my children.
Ah! it is better to love a stranger than to run the risk of spurning my
son from my arms.”