MADAME:--If you should find in these hastily written lines expressions
of severity that might wound you in one of your tenderest affections, I
beg you to ascribe them to the serious interest with which you have
inspired me for a person whom I do do not know. Madame, the case is
serious, and the comedy, performed for the gratification of childish
vanity, might, if prolonged, end in a tragedy. Let Mademoiselle de
Chateaudun know immediately that her peace of mind, her whole future is
at stake. You have not a day, not an hour, not an instant to lose in
exerting your influence. I answer for nothing; haste, O haste! Your
position, your high intelligence, your good sense give you, necessarily,
the authority of an elder sister or a mother over Mademoiselle de
Chateaudun; exercise it if you would save that reckless girl. If she
acts from caprice, nothing can justify it; if she is playing a game it
is a cruel one, with ruin in the end; if she is subjecting M. de Monbert
to a trial, it has lasted long enough.
I accompanied M. de Monbert to Rouen; I lived in daily, hourly
intercourse with him, and had ample opportunities for studying his
character; he is a wounded lion. Never having had the honor of meeting
Mademoiselle de Chateaudun, I cannot tell whether the Prince is the man
to suit her; Mademoiselle de Chateaudun alone can decide so delicate a
question. But I do assert that M. de Monbert is not the man to be
trifled with, and whatever decision Mademoiselle de Chateaudun may come
to, it is her duty and due to her dignity to put an end to his suspense.
If she must strike, let her strike quickly, and not show herself more
pitiless than the executioner, who, at least, puts a speedy end to his
victim's misery. M. de Monbert, a gentleman in the highest acceptation
of the word, would not be what he now is, if he had been treated with
the consideration that his sincere distress so worthy of pity, his true
love so worthy of respect, commanded. Let her not deceive herself; she
has awakened, not one of those idle loves born in a Parisian atmosphere,
which die as they have lived, without a struggle or a heart-break, but a
strong and deep passion that if trifled with may destroy her. I
acknowledge that there is something absurd in a prince on the eve of
marrying a young and beautiful heiress finding himself deserted by his
fiancée with her millions; but when one has seen the comic hero of this
little play, the scene changes. The smile fades from the lips; the jest
is silent; terror follows in the footsteps of gayety, and the foolish
freak of the lovely fugitive assumes the formidable proportions of a
frightful drama. M. de Monbert is not what he is generally supposed to
be, what I supposed him before seeing him after ten years' separation.
His blood has been inflamed by torrid suns; he has preserved, in a
measure, the manners and fierce passions of the distant peoples that he
has visited; he hides it all under the polish of grace and elegance;
affable and ready for anything, one would never suspect, to see him, the
fierce and turbulent passions warring in his breast; he is like those
wells in India, which he told me of this morning; they are surrounded by
flowers and luxuriant foliage; go down into one of them and you will
quickly return pale and horror-stricken. Madame, I assure you that this
man suffers everything that it is possible to suffer here below. I watch
his despair; it terrifies me. Wounded love and pride do not alone prey
upon him; he is aware that Mademoiselle de Chateaudun may believe him
guilty of serious errors; he demands to be allowed to justify himself in
her eyes; he is exasperated by the consciousness of his unrecognised
innocence. Condemn him, if you will, but at least let him be heard in
his own defence. I have seen him writhe in agony and give way to groans
of rage and despair. When calm, he is more terrible to contemplate; his
silence is the pause before a tempest. Yesterday, on returning,
discouraged, after a whole day spent in fruitless search, he took my
hand and raised it abruptly to his eyes. "Raymond," said he, "I have
never wept," and my hand was wet. If you love Mademoiselle de
Chateaudun, if her future happiness is dear to you, if her heart can
only be touched through you, warn her, madame, warn her immediately;
tell her plainly what she has to expect; time presses.
It is a question of nothing less than anticipating an irreparable
misfortune. There is but one step from love to hate; hate which takes
revenge is still love. Tell this child that she is playing with thunder;
tell her the thunder mutters, and will soon burst over her head. If
Mademoiselle de Chateaudun should have a new love for her excuse, if she
has broken her faith to give it to another, unhappy, thrice unhappy she!
M. de Monbert has a quick eye and a practised hand; mourning would
follow swiftly in the wake of her rejoicing, and Mademoiselle de
Chateaudun might order her widow's weeds and her bridal robes at the
same time.
This, madame, is all that I have to say. The foolish rapture with which
my last letter teemed is not worth speaking of. A broken hope, crushed,
extinguished; a happiness vanished ere fully seen! During the four days
that I was at Richeport, I began to remark the existence between M. de
Meilhan and myself of a sullen, secret, unavowed but real irritation,
when a letter from M. de Monbert solved the enigma by convincing me that
I was in the way under that roof. Fool, why did I not see it myself and
sooner? Blind that I was, not to perceive from the first that this young
man loved that woman! Why did I not instantly divine that this young
poet could not live unscathed near so much beauty, grace and sweetness?
Did I think, unhappy man that I am, that she was only fair to me; that I
alone had eyes to admire her, a heart to worship and understand her?
Yes, I did think it; I believed blindly that she bloomed for me alone;
that she had not existed before our meeting; that no look, save mine,
had ever rested upon her; that she was, in fact, my creation; that I
had formed her of my thoughts, and vivified her with the fire of my
dreams. Even now, when we are parted for ever, I believe, that if God
ever created two beings for each other, we are those two beings, and if
every soul has a sister spirit, her soul is the sister spirit of mine.
M. de Meilhan loves her; who would not love her? But what he loves in
her is visible beauty: the slope of her shoulders, the perfection of her
contours. His love could not withstand a pencil-stroke which might
destroy the harmony of the whole. Beautiful as she is, he would desert
her for the first canvas or the first statue he might encounter. Her
rivals already people the galleries of the Louvre; the museums of the
world are filled with them. Edgar feels but one deep and true love; the
love of Art, so deep that it excludes or absorbs all others in his
heart. A fine prospect alone charms him, if it recalls a landscape of
Ruysdael or of Paul Huet, and he prefers to the loveliest model, her
portrait, provided it bears the signature of Ingres or Scheffer. He
loves this woman as an artist; he has made her the delight of his eyes;
she would have been the joy of my whole life. Besides, Edgar does not
possess any of the social virtues. He is whimsical by nature, hostile to
the proprieties, an enemy to every well-beaten track. His mind is always
at war with his heart; his sincerest inspirations have the scoffing
accompaniment of Don Juan's romance. No, he cannot make the happiness of
this Louise so long sought for, so long hoped for, found, alas! to be
irremediably lost. Louise deceives herself if she thinks otherwise. But
she does not think so. What is so agonizing in the necessity that
separates us, is the conviction that such a separation blasts two
destinies, silently united. I do not repine at the loss of my own
happiness alone, but above all, over that of this noble creature. I am
convinced that when we met, we recognised each other; she mentally
exclaimed, "It is he!" when I told myself, "It is she!" When I went to
bid her farewell, a long, eternal farewell, I found her pale, sad; the
tears rolled, unchecked, down her cheeks. She loves me, I know it; I
feel it; and still I must depart! she wept and I was forced to be
silent! One single word would have opened Paradise to us, and that word
I could not utter! Farewell, sweet dream, vanished for ever! And thou,
stern and stupid honor, I curse thee while I serve thee, and execrate
while I sacrifice all to thee. Ah! do not think that I am resigned; do
not believe that pride can ever fill up the abyss into which I have
voluntarily cast myself; do not hope that some day I shall find
self-satisfaction as a recompense for my abnegation. There are moments
when I hate myself and rebel against my own imbecility. Why depart? What
is Edgar to me? still less, what interest have I in his love episodes? I
love; I feel myself loved in return; what have I to do with anything
else?
Contempt for my cowardly virtue is the only price that I have received
for my sacrifice, and I twit myself with this thought of Pascal: "Man is
neither an angel nor a brute, and the misfortune is that when he wishes
to make himself an angel, he becomes a brute!" Be silent, my heart! At
least it shall never be said that the descendant of a race of cavaliers
entered his friend's house to rob him of his happiness.
I am sad, madame. The bright ray seen for a moment, has but made the
darkness into which I have fallen, more black and sombre; I am
unutterably sad! What is to become of me? Where shall I drag out my
weary days? I do not know. Everything wearies and bores me, or rather
all things are indifferent to me. I think I will travel. Wherever I go,
your image will accompany me, consoling me, if I can be consoled. At
first I thought that I would carry you my heart to comfort; but my
unhappiness is dear to me, and I do not wish to be cured of it.
I press M. de Braimes's hand, and clasp your charming children warmly to
my heart.