After my last tête-à-tête with Caroline I went less frequently to her
house, and never went there without my children. The season was
advancing; we were to stay in the country but a short time, and I took
them to walk with me in the woods every day. Sometimes Madame Ernest
went with us; I noticed that she was more friendly with me, that she was
in better spirits since I had ceased to pass so much time at Monsieur
Roquencourt’s. I concluded that she must have something against her
neighbors. But as she was as kind and attentive as always to me and my
children, and as her husband’s affection for me showed no diminution, I
asked them for nothing more.
I often noticed that Madame Ernest seemed to want to speak to me. I
could read faces well enough to feel sure that she had something to say
to me. But if that was so, what prevented her? When I was lost in
thought, I saw her scrutinize me furtively, then look at my children;
but she either said nothing or talked about things which could not
interest me.
One afternoon we all went into the forest of Vincennes together. I led
Henriette and Eugène by the hand, and Madame Ernest led her little son
and daughter. Night was approaching. As we entered a shaded path, Eugène
cried:
“Oh! I’m afraid of the spectre here!”
“Of the spectre?” I said, taking him in my arms. “Who has told you
anything about a spectre, my dear?”
“The nurse,” cried Madame Ernest’s little girl; “she says there’s a
spectre in our house, and that she’s seen it in the garden.”
“Your nurse is a silly creature, and so are you, mademoiselle,” said her
mother hastily; “I shall forbid her to talk to you about such things.”
“Oh! I have heard about it too,” said Henriette, “and the nurse declared
that she has seen, or heard, the spectre near the little summer-house.”
“Mon Dieu! what idiots those people are! And how can you repeat such
things, Henriette--such a sensible girl as you are?”
Madame Ernest seemed very much irritated that there had been any talk of
spectres. I began to laugh.
“Why, really,” I said, “it almost seems as if you took the thing
seriously. Do you imagine that I am going to run off as fast as I can
because these children say that there’s a spectre in your house?”
“No, of course not; but don’t you agree with me that it’s wrong to make
children timid by talking to them about such things?”
“That is the very reason why it is better to laugh with them than to be
angry. I am very sure that you are not afraid of the spectre,
Henriette, because you understand that there are no such things.”
“Oh! papa, I don’t know whether there are any such things, but I’m a
little bit afraid too. And the other night I woke up and thought I saw
something white going out of my room. Oh! I wanted to shriek; but I just
put my head under the bedclothes.”
“But, my dear love, you ought to find out first of all what you’re
afraid of. What is a spectre? Tell me.”
“It is--I don’t know, papa.”
“Oh! I know,” cried little Ernest, “a spectre is a ghost.”
“Indeed! and what is a ghost?”
“A spectre.”
“Bravo! you are quite capable of explaining the Apocalypse!”
“A spectre,” cried the little girl in her turn, “is a devil with a red
tail and green horns, that comes at night and pulls naughty little
children’s toes.”
That definition made Marguerite and me laugh; but I agreed that she
would do well to scold the nurse for telling the children such tales.
Young imaginations should never be terrified and darkened. The time when
things cease to look rose-colored to us comes quickly enough.
We returned to the house talking of spectres. I kissed my children, who
went off to bed; then I walked in the garden. It was a magnificent
evening and seemed to me to invite one to breathe the cool, moist air. I
soon found myself near the summer-house, which was not occupied. The
moon was shining on that part of the garden; but its light always
inclines one to melancholy. As I glanced at the clumps of trees about
me, I remembered the spectre of which we had been talking, and although
I am not a believer in ghosts, I realized that, by assisting one’s
imagination a little, it was easy to see behind that foliage ghostly
figures which moved with the faintest breeze.
I seated myself on a bench by the summer-house. The night was so soft
and still that I did not think of returning to the house. The image of
Caroline, the memory of Eugénie, presented themselves before my mind in
turn. I sighed as I reflected that I must fly from the first because she
loved me, and forget the other because she did not love me. But she was
the mother of my children. They had spoken of her again that day, and
had asked me if she would come home soon. I did not know what reply to
make. Ernest and his wife never mentioned Eugénie, and their silence
surprised and disquieted me. Not a word of her--nothing to tell me where
she was, what she was doing, or if she were still alive. She was so
changed, so ill, at Mont-d’Or! I would have liked to hear from her. I
could not love her, but she would never be indifferent to me.
In these reflections I forgot the time. A sound quite near me caused me
to raise my head. It was like a faint sigh. I saw nobody, so I stood up.
It seemed to me that I could distinguish, through the leaves, something
white running toward the other end of the garden. I remembered the
spectre. My curiosity was aroused; I walked to the path where I thought
that I had seen something; but I found nothing, and I decided to go to
my room; for it was late and everybody else had already retired, no
doubt.
I certainly did not believe in ghosts; but I recalled Madame Ernest’s
impatience when the children mentioned the subject, and I suspected that
there was some mystery at the bottom of it all. I determined to solve
it, for something told me that I was interested in it.
I went to bed, but I could not sleep. Tormented by my thoughts, I
decided to rise again, and I was about to open my window when it seemed
to me that I heard a noise at the end of the corridor, in my children’s
room. I opened my door very softly. At that instant a sort of white
shadow came out of the other room. I confess that my heart fluttered
slightly at first. I was on the point of rushing toward that mysterious
being; but I restrained myself and waited silently, without moving a
hair, to see what was the meaning of it all.
After closing the door of the children’s chamber, the shade stopped and
picked up a lantern; then it walked slowly toward me. It was a woman; I
could see that.--But I recognized her: it was Eugénie!
She walked very softly, apparently afraid of making a sound. Her white
dress, and the long muslin veil that was thrown back from her head, gave
her a sort of ethereal, unsubstantial aspect at a distance. I had no
doubt that she was the spectre that had frightened the nurse and
children.
Poor Eugénie! her face was almost as pale as her clothes. What a sad
expression in her eyes! what prostration in her whole person!--She
stopped; she was standing at the head of the stairs. She turned her face
toward the room she had just left, then looked in my direction. I
trembled lest she should see me; but no, I had no light and my room was
very dark. She made up her mind at last to go downstairs; I ran to my
window and saw the little lantern pass rapidly through the garden and
disappear near the summer-house.
So it was Eugénie who occupied that building, which was always carefully
closed; Ernest and Marguerite had given it to her so that she could
readily go to the house to see her children. So she was there--very near
me--had been there a long while perhaps, and I had no suspicion of it.
What was her object, her hope? Was it because of her children only that
she had concealed herself there?--But Ernest and his wife knew perfectly
well that I would not prevent her from seeing them.
I determined to learn the motive of Eugénie’s conduct, and the plans of
Marguerite and her husband. To that end, I must be careful not to let
them suspect that I had seen the pretended spectre; and I must try to
learn something more the next night.
The intervening time seemed terribly long to me. During the day, I
involuntarily walked toward the summer-house several times; but
everything was closed as usual. I noticed that the door, which was on
the side of the building toward the forest, was very conveniently
situated for anyone to go in and out of the garden unseen.
The night came at last. I kissed my children and they were taken to
their room. When I supposed that they were asleep, I bade my hosts
good-night and withdrew to my room, on the pretext that I had a violent
headache; but I had no sooner entered the room than I stole forth again
softly, without a light, and went to that occupied by my children. The
key was in the door; I went in, and sat down by my daughter’s bed to
wait until somebody should come; both she and her brother were sleeping
quietly.
At last, some time after everybody was in bed, I heard stealthy steps
outside. I instantly left my chair and hid behind the long window
curtains. I was hardly out of sight when the door was softly opened, and
Eugénie entered the chamber, carrying her little lantern, which she
carefully placed at the foot of her son’s cradle.
She threw her veil back over her shoulders, and, stealing forward on
tiptoe, leaned over Henriette’s bed and kissed her without waking her;
she did the same with Eugène, then sat down facing the children and
gazed long at them as they lay sleeping.
I dared not move; I hardly breathed; but Eugénie was almost facing me; I
could see her face and count her sighs. She put her handkerchief to her
eyes, which were filled with tears, and I heard broken sentences come
from her lips.
“Poor children! What an unhappy wretch I am! But I must deprive myself
of your caresses--you will never call me mother again. And he--he will
never more call me his Eugénie!--Oh! cruelly am I punished!”
Her sobs redoubled, and I had to summon all my courage to refrain from
flying to her, wiping away her tears and pressing her to my heart as of
old.
We remained in those respective positions for a long while. At last
Eugénie rose and seemed to be on the point of taking leave of her
children, when someone softly opened the door. Eugénie started back in
alarm; but she was reassured when she recognized Marguerite. The latter
carefully closed the door, then seated herself by Eugénie’s side; and
although they spoke in low tones, I did not lose a word of their
conversation.
“My husband is working; I did not feel like sleeping, and I thought that
I should find you here; so I came as quietly as possible. However,
there’s no light in Monsieur Blémont’s room, and I fancy that he has
long been asleep.--Well! still crying! You are making yourself
worse--you are very foolish.”
“Oh! madame, tears and regrets are my lot henceforth. I cannot expect
any other existence.”
“Who knows? you must not lose hope; if your husband could read the
depths of your heart, I believe that he would forgive you.”
“No, madame, for he would always remember my sin; nothing would make my
motives less blameworthy in his eyes. And yet, although I am very
guilty, I am less so perhaps than he thinks. You have understood me, for
women can understand one another. But a man! he sees only the crime,
without looking to see what might have driven a woman to forget her
duties. And yet, heaven is my witness that, if I had loved him less, I
should never have become guilty. If he should hear me say that, he would
smile with pity, with contempt; but you--you know that it is true.”
Eugénie laid her head on Marguerite’s shoulder, and sobbed more bitterly
than ever. For some minutes they said nothing. At last Eugénie
continued:
“I know that my jealousy did not justify me in becoming guilty; but, my
God! as if I knew what I was doing! I believed that I was forgotten,
deceived, betrayed, by a husband whom I adored. I had but one desire--to
repay a part of what he had made me suffer. ‘Play the flirt,’ I was
told, ‘and you will bring your husband back to your arms; men soon
become cold to a woman whom no one seems to desire to possess.’--I
believed that; or, rather, I believed that Henri had never loved me; and
then I tried to cease loving him. You know, madame, how jealous I was of
you. That ball at which you were--at which he danced with you--oh! that
ball fairly drove me mad. Before that, my jealousy had banished peace
from our household. Alas! it was never to return! I plunged into the
whirlpool of society; not that I was happy there; but I tried to forget,
and I was pleased to see that he was distressed by my conduct.
“Fatal blindness! I preferred his anger to his indifference! When I had
once sinned, I cannot attempt to tell you what took place within me; I
tried to deceive myself as to the enormity of my sin; I lived in a
never-ending whirl of dissipation, afraid to reflect, doing my utmost to
put Henri in the wrong, to convince myself that he had betrayed me a
hundred times, and, for all that, realizing perfectly that I had
destroyed my own peace of mind forever. When my husband learned the
truth, I did not stoop to try to obtain forgiveness by tears. No, I
preferred to try to deceive myself still.--Great heaven! what must he
have thought of my heart on reading the two letters that I wrote him! A
woman who detested him would not have written differently. But, as if I
were not already guilty enough, I tried still to make him believe that I
felt no repentance for what I had done. I continued to go into society.
‘He will know it,’ I said to myself; ‘he will think that I am happy
without him;’ and that thought strengthened me to hold myself in check
in the midst of the crowd and to affect a gayety which was so far from
my heart. But I knew nothing of his duel and his illness. Those two
things, which I learned at almost the same time, made it impossible for
me to put any further constraint on myself; it seemed to me that a
bandage fell from my eyes. The thought that I might have caused his
death terrified me. From that moment the world became hateful to me! I
realized the depth of my wrongdoing; when I knew you and heard what you
said, I found that I had suspected Henri unjustly, that he really loved
me when I believed that he was unfaithful to me. He loved me, and it was
by my own fault that I lost his love! Oh! madame, that thought is
killing me--and you expect me to cease weeping!”
“But why shouldn’t you consent to let us mention you to him, to let us
try to move him?”
“Oh, no! that is impossible; somebody else has tried it already, and to
no purpose, as I have told you. That young woman, Mademoiselle Caroline
Derbin, whom he met, I believe, at Mont-d’Or,--that young woman, who
thought that he was a bachelor at first, learned, I don’t know how, that
he was my husband; then, believing that it was he who had abandoned me,
she begged him, implored him, to return to me. I was near them, without
their knowing it, in the courtyard of the inn; I overheard all their
conversation. He was kind enough also to allow himself to be blamed for
wrongs of which he was not guilty; he did not try to disabuse her with
regard to me. But, when she begged him to return to me, I heard him say:
‘We are parted forever!’--Ah! those cruel words echoed in the depths of
my heart, and I cannot understand why they did not kill me, although I
had lost all hope of obtaining forgiveness.”
“There is nothing to prove that his answer to Mademoiselle Derbin
represents his opinion to-day. I told you how he had changed to his son,
poor little Eugène, whom he would hardly look at when he first came
here; now he seems as fond of him as of his daughter.”
“Oh! since I first sinned, I have known but one moment’s happiness--that
was when I learned that he no longer refused to take his son in his
arms! Poor child! because your mother was guilty, could your father
treat you as a stranger all your life? But I solemnly swear that I was
without reproach when my son was born, and Henri can safely take him in
his arms!”
What I had heard caused me such intense pleasure that I cannot describe
it; I had to lean against the window; for joy often takes away all our
strength. Luckily Marguerite continued the conversation; they did not
hear the movement that I was unable to restrain.
“What makes me hope that Monsieur Blémont may yet forgive you, madame,
is the pains that he has taken to conceal your wrongdoing. Nobody knows
anything about it; he alone has incurred all the blame.”
“Oh! he has done that for the honor of his name, for his children; but
do not infer from that that he will forgive me. Henri loved me too
dearly--and I wrecked his life! No, I entreat you again, never speak to
him about me! Let him forget me--but let him love his children! Is not
that all that I can ask? Thanks to your kindness--to your compassion for
me--I can at least see him. Hidden in the summer-house which you have
given me, I can look into the garden through a hole in the shutters.
Henri often walks there; sometimes I hear his voice, I see him with his
children.--Then--oh! madame, such joy and such agony as I feel!--Had I
not a place between my children and him?--And I can never occupy it
again!”
“Poor Eugénie! Calm yourself, for heaven’s sake.”
“Oh, yes! I must restrain my sobs, for I don’t want to disturb my
children’s sleep. I can kiss them every night; that is my sole
consolation; but they do not call me their mother any more. Oh! madame,
it is ghastly never to hear that name!”
“You could come to see them if you chose. You could send for them to
come to you. Monsieur Blémont has never had any idea of depriving you of
their caresses.”
“No, I am no longer worthy of them. Besides, they will grow up. What can
you reply to children who ask you why you do not live with their father?
It is much better that they should not see me; that they should forget
their mother!”
After another interval, filled only by Eugénie’s subdued moans, she
continued:
“Alas! my heart is torn by still another pang. You have guessed it--you
who can read my heart so well, who are so kind to me, and whom I
misunderstood and blamed for so long!”
“Hush!” said Marguerite, embracing her; “haven’t I forbidden you to
mention that again? But I have some good news for you: for some days
Monsieur Blémont has been to see Mademoiselle Derbin much less
frequently; he passes less time with her.”
“He goes there less? Is it possible? Oh! I no longer have any right to
be jealous, madame, I know; I have no claim to his heart; and yet I
cannot reconcile myself to the thought that he loves another. And this
Caroline is so lovely; and then she loves him--I am perfectly sure of
that.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Oh! women are never mistaken about such things, you know. I discovered
it at Mont-d’Or; I was certain of it when I overheard their conversation
on the evening that he left. To be sure, she begged him to come back to
me; but her voice trembled, she could hardly restrain her tears. In
short, she spoke to him as one speaks to a person whom one loves, even
when one is trying to pretend to hate him. Poor Caroline! she had
thought that he was free and a bachelor. She had abandoned herself
without fear to the pleasure of loving him.”
“Very well; but now when she knows perfectly well that he is married,
and above all, when she thinks that it was he who deserted you, why does
she bring her uncle here to Saint-Mandé, and settle down within two
steps of us? Why does she invite Monsieur Blémont to come to see her? Is
that the way for a woman to act with a man whom she is determined not to
love, whom she is trying to forget? I confess that that has not given
me a very favorable opinion of that young lady, and Monsieur Blémont
must have noticed more than once that I don’t like her, although I don’t
know her.”
“What can you expect? She still loves him--she longed to see him again.
But if only he might not love her! Since I have seen him every day,
since, thanks to you, I have been living so near him, I have indulged in
illusions; I have fancied sometimes that I still reigned in his heart;
and the awakening is very bitter!--No, I am nothing more than a stranger
now; I can never recover the place that I once filled in his heart.
Others must have his love.”
“Why forbid us to speak to him of you sometimes?”
“Oh! never, never, I implore you! My children speak of me to him; I
often hear them ask about their mother. If he is deaf to their voices,
do you think that he will be moved by yours? Wait until he himself--but
he will never ask what has become of me!”
“I cannot believe that he has entirely forgotten you.--But it is late;
you must go; it is time for you to be in bed.”
Marguerite took the light, while Eugénie went to look at her children
and kiss them once more. But Marguerite led her away and they both left
the room, closing the door with great caution.
I listened to their footsteps for a few seconds, until I could no longer
hear them. Then I left my hiding-place, and I too kissed my children,
but with a keener delight than usual; and, taking equal precautions to
make no noise, I returned to my room. The conversation that I had
overheard was engraved on my memory, and my course was already resolved
upon, my plan of action formed.