to you when there is nothing to keep us apart, when a caress so
often takes the place of words, and words too are caresses? Ah,
well, no, love. There are some things that a woman cannot say when
she is face to face with the man she loves; at the bare thought of
them her voice fails her, and the blood goes back to her heart;
she has no strength, no intelligence left. It hurts me to feel
like this when you are near me, and it happens often. I feel that
my heart should be wholly sincere for you; that I should disguise
no thought, however transient, in my heart; and I love the sweet
carelessness, which suits me so well, too much to endure this
embarrassment and constraint any longer. So I will tell you about
my anguish--yes, it is anguish. Listen to me! do not begin with
the little ‘Tut, tut, tut,’ that you use to silence me, an
impertinence that I love, because anything from you pleases me.
Dear soul from heaven, wedded to mine, let me first tell you that
you have effaced all memory of the pain that once was crushing the
life out of me. I did not know what love was before I knew you.
Only the candor of your beautiful young life, only the purity of
that great soul of yours, could satisfy the requirements of an
exacting woman’s heart. Dear love, how very often I have thrilled
with joy to think that in these nine long, swift years, my
jealousy has not been once awakened. All the flowers of your soul
have been mine, all your thoughts. There has not been the faintest
cloud in our heaven; we have not known what sacrifice is; we have
always acted on the impulses of our hearts. I have known
happiness, infinite for a woman. Will the tears that drench this
sheet tell you all my gratitude? I could wish that I had knelt to
write the words!--Well, out of this felicity has arisen torture
more terrible than the pain of desertion. Dear, there are very
deep recesses in a woman’s heart; how deep in my own heart, I did
not know myself until to-day, as I did not know the whole extent
of love. The greatest misery which could overwhelm us is a light
burden compared with the mere thought of harm for him whom we
love. And how if we cause the harm, is it not enough to make one
die?... This is the thought that is weighing upon me. But
it brings in its train another thought that is heavier far, a
thought that tarnishes the glory of love, and slays it, and turns
it into a humiliation which sullies life as long as it lasts. You
are thirty years old; I am forty. What dread this difference in
age calls up in a woman who loves! It is possible that, first of
all unconsciously, afterwards in earnest, you have felt the
sacrifices that you have made by renouncing all in the world for
me. Perhaps you have thought of your future from the social point
of view, of the marriage which would, of course, increase your
fortune, and give you avowed happiness and children who would
inherit your wealth; perhaps you have thought of reappearing in
the world, and filling your place there honorably. And then, if
so, you must have repressed those thoughts, and felt glad to
sacrifice heiress and fortune and a fair future to me without my
knowledge. In your young man’s generosity, you must have resolved
to be faithful to the vows which bind us each to each in the sight
of God. My past pain has risen up before your mind, and the misery
from which you rescued me has been my protection. To owe your love
to your pity! The thought is even more painful to me than the fear
of spoiling your life for you. The man who can bring himself to
stab his mistress is very charitable if he gives her her deathblow
while she is happy and ignorant of evil, while illusions are in
full blossom.... Yes, death is preferable to the two thoughts
which have secretly saddened the hours for several days. To-day,
when you asked ‘What ails you?’ so tenderly, the sound of your
voice made me shiver. I thought that, after your wont, you were
reading my very soul, and I waited for your confidence to come,
thinking that my presentiments had come true, and that I had
guessed all that was going on in your mind. Then I began to think
over certain little things that you always do for me, and I
thought I could see in you the sort of affection by which a man
betrays a consciousness that his loyalty is becoming a burden. And
in that moment I paid very dear for my happiness. I felt that
Nature always demands the price for the treasure called love.
Briefly, has not fate separated us? Can you have said, ‘Sooner or
later I must leave poor Claire; why not separate in time?’ I read
that thought in the depths of your eyes, and went away to cry by
myself. Hiding my tears from you! the first tears that I have shed
for sorrow for these ten years; I am too proud to let you see
them, but I did not reproach you in the least.
“Yes, you are right. I ought not to be so selfish as to bind your
long and brilliant career to my so-soon out-worn life.... And
yet--how if I have been mistaken? How if I have taken your love
melancholy for a deliberation? Oh, my love, do not leave me in
suspense; punish this jealous wife of yours, but give her back the
sense of her love and yours; the whole woman lies in that--that
consciousness sanctifies everything.
“Since your mother came, since you paid a visit to Mlle. de
Rodiere, I have been gnawed by doubts dishonoring to us both. Make
me suffer for this, but do not deceive me; I want to know
everything that your mother said and that you think! If you have
hesitated between some alternative and me, I give you back your
liberty.... I will not let you know what happens to me; I will
not shed tears for you to see; only--I will not see you again....
Ah! I cannot go on, my heart is breaking..................
I have been sitting benumbed and stupid for some moments. Dear love,
I do not find that any feeling of pride rises against you; you are so
kind-hearted, so open; you would find it impossible to hurt me or
to deceive me; and you will tell me the truth, however cruel it may
be. Do you wish me to encourage your confession? Well, then, heart
of mine, I shall find comfort in a woman’s thought. Has not the
youth of your being been mine, your sensitive, wholly gracious,
beautiful, and delicate youth? No woman shall find henceforth the
Gaston whom I have known, nor the delicious happiness that he has
given me.... No; you will never love again as you have loved,
as you love me now; no, I shall never have a rival, it is
impossible. There will be no bitterness in my memories of our
love, and I shall think of nothing else. It is out of your power
to enchant any woman henceforth by the childish provocations, the
charming ways of a young heart, the soul’s winning charm, the
body’s grace, the swift communion of rapture, the whole divine
cortege of young love, in fine.
“Oh, you are a man now, you will obey your destiny, weighing and
considering all things. You will have cares, and anxieties, and
ambitions, and concerns that will rob _her_ of the unchanging
smile that made your lips fair for me. The tones that were always
so sweet for me will be troubled at times; and your eyes that
lighted up with radiance from heaven at the sight of me, will
often be lustreless for _her_. And besides, as it is impossible to
love you as I love you, you will never care for that woman as you
have cared for me. She will never keep a constant watch over
herself as I have done; she will never study your happiness at
every moment with an intuition which has never failed me. Ah, yes,
the man, the heart and soul, which I shall have known will exist
no longer. I shall bury him deep in my memory, that I may have the
joy of him still; I shall live happy in that fair past life of
ours, a life hidden from all but our inmost selves.
“Dear treasure of mine, if all the while no least thought of
liberty has risen in your mind, if my love is no burden on you, if
my fears are chimerical, if I am still your Eve--the one woman in
the world for you--come to me as soon as you have read this
letter, come quickly! Ah, in one moment I will love you more than
I have ever loved you, I think, in these nine years. After
enduring the needless torture of these doubts of which I am
accusing myself, every added day of love, yes, every single day,
will be a whole lifetime of bliss. So speak, and speak openly; do
not deceive me, it would be a crime. Tell me, do you wish for your
liberty? Have you thought of all that a man’s life means? Is there
any regret in your mind? That _I_ should cause you a regret! I
should die of it. I have said it: I love you enough to set your
happiness above mine, your life before my own. Leave on one side,
if you can, the wealth of memories of our nine years’ happiness,
that they may not influence your decision, but speak! I submit
myself to you as to God, the one Consoler who remains if you
forsake me.”
When Mme. de Beauseant knew that her letter was in M. de Nueil’s hands,
she sank in such utter prostration, the over-pressure of many thoughts
so numbed her faculties, that she seemed almost drowsy. At any rate, she
was suffering from a pain not always proportioned in its intensity to
a woman’s strength; pain which women alone know. And while the unhappy
Marquise awaited her doom, M. de Nueil, reading her letter, felt that he
was “in a very difficult position,” to use the expression that young men
apply to a crisis of this kind.
By this time he had all but yielded to his mother’s importunities and
to the attractions of Mlle. de la Rodiere, a somewhat insignificant,
pink-and-white young person, as straight as a poplar. It is true that,
in accordance with the rules laid down for marriageable young ladies,
she scarcely opened her mouth, but her rent-roll of forty thousand
livres spoke quite sufficiently for her. Mme. de Nueil, with a mother’s
sincere affection, tried to entangle her son in virtuous courses. She
called his attention to the fact that it was a flattering distinction
to be preferred by Mlle. de la Rodiere, who had refused so many great
matches; it was quite time, she urged, that he should think of his
future, such a good opportunity might not repeat itself, some day
he would have eighty thousand livres of income from land; money made
everything bearable; if Mme. de Beauseant loved him for his own
sake, she ought to be the first to urge him to marry. In short, the
well-intentioned mother forgot no arguments which the feminine intellect
can bring to bear upon the masculine mind, and by these means she had
brought her son into a wavering condition.
Mme. de Beauseant’s letter arrived just as Gaston’s love of her was
holding out against the temptations of a settled life conformable to
received ideas. That letter decided the day. He made up his mind to
break off with the Marquise and to marry.
“One must live a man’s life,” said he to himself.
Then followed some inkling of the pain that this decision would give to
Mme. de Beauseant. The man’s vanity and the lover’s conscience further
exaggerated this pain, and a sincere pity for her seized upon him.
All at once the immensity of the misery became apparent to him, and he
thought it necessary and charitable to deaden the deadly blow. He
hoped to bring Mme. de Beauseant to a calm frame of mind by gradually
reconciling her to the idea of separation; while Mlle. de la Rodiere,
always like a shadowy third between them, should be sacrificed to her at
first, only to be imposed upon her later. His marriage should take place
later, in obedience to Mme. de Beauseant’s expressed wish. He went so
far as to enlist the Marquise’s nobleness and pride and all the great
qualities of her nature to help him to succeed in this compassionate
design. He would write a letter at once to allay her suspicions. _A
letter!_ For a woman with the most exquisite feminine perception, as
well as the intuition of passionate love, a letter in itself was a
sentence of death.
So when Jacques came and brought Mme. de Beauseant a sheet of paper
folded in a triangle, she trembled, poor woman, like a snared swallow. A
mysterious sensation of physical cold spread from head to foot, wrapping
her about in an icy winding sheet. If he did not rush to her feet, if he
did not come to her in tears, and pale, and like a lover, she knew that
all was lost. And yet, so many hopes are there in the heart of a woman
who loves, that she is only slain by stab after stab, and loves on till
the last drop of life-blood drains away.
“Does madame need anything?” Jacques asked gently, as he went away.
“No,” she said.
“Poor fellow!” she thought, brushing a tear from her eyes, “he guesses
my feelings, servant though he is!”
She read: “My beloved, you are inventing idle terrors for yourself...”
The Marquise gazed at the words, and a thick mist spread before her
eyes. A voice in her heart cried, “He lies!”--Then she glanced down the
page with the clairvoyant eagerness of passion, and read these words at
the foot, “_Nothing has been decided as yet..._” Turning to the
other side with convulsive quickness, she saw the mind of the writer
distinctly through the intricacies of the wording; this was no
spontaneous outburst of love. She crushed it in her fingers, twisted it,
tore it with her teeth, flung it in the fire, and cried aloud, “Ah! base
that he is! I was his, and he had ceased to love me!”
She sank half dead upon the couch.
M. de Nueil went out as soon as he had written his letter. When he came
back, Jacques met him on the threshold with a note. “Madame la Marquise
has left the chateau,” said the man.
M. de Nueil, in amazement, broke the seal and read:--
“MADAME,--If I could cease to love you, to take the chances of
becoming an ordinary man which you hold out to me, you must admit
that I should thoroughly deserve my fate. No, I shall not do as
you bid me; the oath of fidelity which I swear to you shall only
be absolved by death. Ah! take my life, unless indeed you do not
fear to carry a remorse all through your own...”
It was his own letter, written to the Marquise as she set out for Geneva
nine years before. At the foot of it Claire de Bourgogne had written,
“Monsieur, you are free.”
M. de Nueil went to his mother at Manerville. In less than three weeks
he married Mlle. Stephanie de la Rodiere.
If this commonplace story of real life ended here, it would be to some
extent a sort of mystification. The first man you meet can tell you a
better. But the widespread fame of the catastrophe (for, unhappily, this
is a true tale), and all the memories which it may arouse in those who
have known the divine delights of infinite passion, and lost them
by their own deed, or through the cruelty of fate,--these things may
perhaps shelter the story from criticism.
Mme. la Marquise de Beauseant never left Valleroy after her parting from
M. de Nueil. After his marriage she still continued to live there, for
some inscrutable woman’s reason; any woman is at liberty to assign
the one which most appeals to her. Claire de Bourgogne lived in such
complete retirement that none of the servants, save Jacques and her own
woman, ever saw their mistress. She required absolute silence all about
her, and only left her room to go to the chapel on the Valleroy estate,
whither a neighboring priest came to say mass every morning.
The Comte de Nueil sank a few days after his marriage into something
like conjugal apathy, which might be interpreted to mean happiness or
unhappiness equally easily.
“My son is perfectly happy,” his mother said everywhere.
Mme. Gaston de Nueil, like a great many young women, was a rather
colorless character, sweet and passive. A month after her marriage she
had expectations of becoming a mother. All this was quite in accordance
with ordinary views. M. de Nueil was very nice to her; but two months
after his separation from the Marquise, he grew notably thoughtful and
abstracted. But then he always had been serious, his mother said.
After seven months of this tepid happiness, a little thing occurred, one
of those seemingly small matters which imply such great development of
thought and such widespread trouble of the soul, that only the bare fact
can be recorded; the interpretation of it must be left to the fancy of
each individual mind. One day, when M. de Nueil had been shooting over
the lands of Manerville and Valleroy, he crossed Mme. de Beauseant’s
park on his way home, summoned Jacques, and when the man came, asked
him, “Whether the Marquise was as fond of game as ever?”
Jacques answering in the affirmative, Gaston offered him a good round
sum (accompanied by plenty of specious reasoning) for a very little
service. Would he set aside for the Marquise the game that the Count
would bring? It seemed to Jacques to be a matter of no great importance
whether the partridge on which his mistress dined had been shot by
her keeper or by M. de Nueil, especially since the latter particularly
wished that the Marquise should know nothing about it.
“It was killed on her land,” said the Count, and for some days Jacques
lent himself to the harmless deceit. Day after day M. de Nueil went
shooting, and came back at dinner-time with an empty bag. A whole week
went by in this way. Gaston grew bold enough to write a long letter
to the Marquise, and had it conveyed to her. It was returned to him
unopened. The Marquise’s servant brought it back about nightfall. The
Count, sitting in the drawing-room listening, while his wife at the
piano mangled a _Caprice_ of Herold’s, suddenly sprang up and rushed
out to the Marquise, as if he were flying to an assignation. He dashed
through a well-known gap into the park, and went slowly along the
avenues, stopping now and again for a little to still the loud beating
of his heart. Smothered sounds as he came nearer the chateau told him
that the servants must be at supper, and he went straight to Mme. de
Beauseant’s room.
Mme. de Beauseant never left her bedroom. M. de Nueil could gain the
doorway without making the slightest sound. There, by the light of two
wax candles, he saw the thin, white Marquise in a great armchair; her
head was bowed, her hands hung listlessly, her eyes gazing fixedly at
some object which she did not seem to see. Her whole attitude spoke of
hopeless pain. There was a vague something like hope in her bearing,
but it was impossible to say whither Claire de Bourgogne was
looking--forwards to the tomb or backwards into the past. Perhaps M.
de Nueil’s tears glittered in the deep shadows; perhaps his breathing
sounded faintly; perhaps unconsciously he trembled, or again it may have
been impossible that he should stand there, his presence unfelt by that
quick sense which grows to be an instinct, the glory, the delight, the
proof of perfect love. However it was, Mme. de Beauseant slowly turned
her face towards the doorway, and beheld her lover of bygone days. Then
Gaston de Nueil came forward a few paces.
“If you come any further, sir,” exclaimed the Marquise, growing paler,
“I shall fling myself out of the window!”
She sprang to the window, flung it open, and stood with one foot on
the ledge, her hand upon the iron balustrade, her face turned towards
Gaston.
“Go out! go out!” she cried, “or I will throw myself over.”
At that dreadful cry the servants began to stir, and M. de Nueil fled
like a criminal.
When he reached his home again he wrote a few lines and gave them to his
own man, telling him to give the letter himself into Mme. de Beauseant’s
hands, and to say that it was a matter of life and death for his master.
The messenger went. M. de Nueil went back to the drawing-room where his
wife was still murdering the _Caprice_, and sat down to wait till the
answer came. An hour later, when the _Caprice_ had come to an end, and
the husband and wife sat in silence on opposite sides of the hearth,
the man came back from Valleroy and gave his master his own letter,
unopened.
M. de Nueil went into a small room beyond the drawing-room, where he had
left his rifle, and shot himself.
The swift and fatal ending of the drama, contrary as it is to all the
habits of young France, is only what might have been expected. Those who
have closely observed, or known for themselves by delicious experience,
all that is meant by the perfect union of two beings, will understand
Gaston de Nueil’s suicide perfectly well. A woman does not bend and form
herself in a day to the caprices of passion. The pleasure of loving,
like some rare flower, needs the most careful ingenuity of culture.
Time alone, and two souls attuned each to each, can discover all its
resources, and call into being all the tender and delicate delights for
which we are steeped in a thousand superstitions, imagining them to be
inherent in the heart that lavishes them upon us. It is this wonderful
response of one nature to another, this religious belief, this certainty
of finding peculiar or excessive happiness in the presence of one we
love, that accounts in part for perdurable attachments and long-lived
passion. If a woman possesses the genius of her sex, love never comes to
be a matter of use and wont. She brings all her heart and brain to love,
clothes her tenderness in forms so varied, there is such art in her
most natural moments, or so much nature in her art, that in absence
her memory is almost as potent as her presence. All other women are as
shadows compared with her. Not until we have lost or known the dread of
losing a love so vast and glorious, do we prize it at its just worth.
And if a man who has once possessed this love shuts himself out from it
by his own act and deed, and sinks to some loveless marriage; if by some
incident, hidden in the obscurity of married life, the woman with whom
he hoped to know the same felicity makes it clear that it will never
be revived for him; if, with the sweetness of divine love still on his
lips, he has dealt a deadly wound to _her_, his wife in truth, whom he
forsook for a social chimera,--then he must either die or take refuge
in a materialistic, selfish, and heartless philosophy, from which
impassioned souls shrink in horror.
As for Mme. de Beauseant, she doubtless did not imagine that her
friend’s despair could drive him to suicide, when he had drunk deep of
love for nine years. Possibly she may have thought that she alone was
to suffer. At any rate, she did quite rightly to refuse the most
humiliating of all positions; a wife may stoop for weighty social
reasons to a kind of compromise which a mistress is bound to hold in
abhorrence, for in the purity of her passion lies all its justification.
ANGOULEME, September 1832.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Beauseant, Marquis and Comte de
Father Goriot
An Episode under the Terror
Beauseant, Marquise de
Letters of Two Brides
Beauseant, Vicomte de
Father Goriot
Beauseant, Vicomtesse de
Father Goriot
Albert Savarus
Champignelles, De
The Seamy Side of History
Jacques (M. de Beauseant’s butler)
Father Goriot
Nueil, Gaston de
The Deserted Woman
Albert Savarus