RAYMOND DE VILLIERS _to_ MME. LA VICOMTESSE DE BRAIMES,
Hotel of the Prefecture, Grenoble (Isere).
PARIS, July 30th 18--.
O day of bliss unutterable! I have found her, it is she! As you have
opened your heart to my sadness, madame, open it to my joy. Forget the
unhappy wretch who, a few days ago, abandoned himself to his grief, who
even yesterday bade an eternal farewell to hope. That unfortunate has
ceased to exist; in his place appears a young being intoxicated with
love, for whom life is full of delight and enchantment. How does it
happen that my soul, which should soar on hymns of joy, is filled with
gloomy forebodings? Is it because man is not made for great felicity, or
that happiness is naturally sad, nearer akin to tears than to laughter,
because it feels its fragility and instinctively dreads the approaching
expiation?
After having vainly searched for Mademoiselle de Chateaudun within the
walls of Rouen, M. de Monbert decided, on receipt of some new
information, to seek her among the old châteaux of Brittany. My sorrow,
feeding upon itself, counselled me not to accompany him. The fact is
that I could be of no earthly use in his search. Besides, I thought I
perceived that my presence embarrassed him. To tell the truth, we were a
constraint upon each other. Every sorrowful heart willingly believes
itself the centre of the universe, and will not admit the existence,
under heaven, of any other grief than its own. I let the Prince depart,
and set out alone for Paris. One last hope remained; I persuaded myself
that if Louise had not loved M. de Meilhan she would have left Richeport
at the same time that I did.
I got out at Pont de l'Arche, and prowled like a felon about the scenes
where happiness had come to me.
I wandered about for an hour, when I saw the letter-carrier coming to
the post-office for the letters to be delivered at the neighboring
châteaux. Paler and more tremulous than the silvery foliage of the
willows on the river shore, I questioned him and learned that Madame
Guérin was still at Richeport. I went away with death in my heart; in
the evening I reach Paris. Resolved to see no one in that city, and only
intending to pass a few days in solitude and silence, I sought no other
abode than the little room which I had occupied in less fortunate but
happier times. I wished to resume my old manner of living; but I had no
taste for anything. When one goes in pursuit of happiness, the way is
smiling and alluring, hope brightens the horizon; when we have clutched
it and then let it escape, everything becomes gloomy and disenchanted;
for it is a traveller whom we do not meet twice upon our road. I tried
to study, which only increased my weariness. What was the use of
knowledge and wisdom? Life was a closed book to me. I tried the poets,
who added to my sufferings, by translating them into their passionate
language. Thus, reason is baffled by the graceful apparition of a lovely
blonde, who glided across my existence like a gossamer over a clear sky,
and banished repose for ever from my heart! My eyes had scarcely rested
upon the angle of my dreams ere she took flight, leaving on my brow the
shadow of her wings! She was only a child, and that child had passed
over my destiny like a tempest! She rested for a moment in my life, like
a bird upon a branch, and my life was broken! In fact I lost all control
over myself. Young, free and rich, I was at a loss to know what to do.
What was to become of me? Turn where I would, I still saw nothing around
me but solitude and despair. During the day I mingled with the crowd and
wandered about the streets like a lost soul; returning at night
overcome, but not conquered by fatigue. Burning sleeplessness besieged
my pillow, and the little light no longer shone to comfort and encourage
me. I no longer heard, as before, a caressing voice speaking to me
through the trees of the garden. "Courage, friend! I watch and suffer
with thee." Finally, one night I saw the star peep forth and shine.
Although I had no heart for such fancies, still I felt young and joyous
again, on seeing it. As before, I gazed at it a long time. Was it the
same, that, for two years, I had seen burn and go out regularly at the
same hour? It might be doubted; but I did not doubt it for a moment,
because I took pleasure in believing it. I felt less isolated and gained
confidence, now that my star had not deserted me. I called it my martyr
when I spoke to it: "Whence comest thou? Hast thou too suffered? Hast
thou mourned my absence a little?" And, as before, I thought it answered
me in the silence of the night. Towards morning I slept, and in a dream,
I saw, as through a glass, Louise watching and working in a room as poor
as mine, by the light of the well-beloved ray. She looked pale and sad,
and from time to time stopped her work to gaze at the gleam of my lamp.
When I awoke, it was broad day; and I went out to kill time.
On the boulevard I met an old friend of my father's; he was refined,
cultivated and affectionate. He had come from our mountains, to which he
was already anxious to return, for in their valleys he had buried
himself. My dejected air and sorrowful countenance struck him. He gained
my confidence, and immediately guessed at my complaint. "What are you
doing here?" he asked; "it is an unwholesome place for grief. Return to
our mountains. Your native air will do you good. Come with me; I promise
you that your unhappiness will not hold out against the perfume of broom
and heather." Then he spoke with tender earnestness of my duties. He did
not conceal from me the obligations my fortune and the position left me
by my father, laid me under to the land where I was born; I had
neglected it too long, and the time had now come when I ought to occupy
myself seriously with its needs and interests. In short, he made me
blush for my useless days, and led me, gently and firmly, back to
reality. At night-fall I returned to my little chamber, not consoled but
stronger, and decided to set out on the morrow for the banks of the
Creuse. I did not expect to be cured, but it pleased me to mingle the
thought of Louise with the benefits that I could bestow, and to bring
down blessings upon the name which I had longed to offer her.
I immediately remarked on entering, that my little beacon shone with
unaccustomed brilliancy. It was no longer a thread of light gleaming
timidly through the foliage, but a whole window brightly illuminated,
and standing out against the surrounding darkness. Investigating the
cause of this phenomenon, I discovered that, during the day, the trees
had been felled in the garden, and peering out into the gloom, I
perceived, stretched along the ground, the trunk of the pine which, for
two years, had hid from me the room where burned the fraternal light.
Before departing, I should at least catch a glimpse of the mysterious
being, who, probably unconsciously, had occupied so many of my restless
thoughts. I could not control a sad smile at the thought of the
disenchantment that awaited me on the morrow. I passed in review the
faces which were likely to appear at that window, and as the absurd is
mixed with almost every situation in life, I declare that this
bewildering question occurred to me: "Suppose it should be Lady Penock?"
I slept little, and arose at day-break. I was restless without daring to
acknowledge to myself the cause. It would have mortified me to have to
confess that there was room beside my grief for a childish curiosity, a
poetical fancy. What is man's heart made of? He bemoans himself, wraps a
cere-cloth around him and prepares to die, and a flitting bird or a
shining light suffices to divert him. I watched the sun redden the
house-tops. Paris still slept; no sound broke the stillness of the
slumbering city, but the distant roll of the early carts over the
stones. I looked long at the dear garret, which I saw for the first time
in the eye of day. The window had neither shutter nor blind, but a
double rose-colored curtain hung before it, mingling its tint with that
of the rising sun. That window, with neither plants nor running vines to
ornament it, had an air of refinement that charmed me. The house itself
looked honest. I wrote several letters to shorten the slow hours which
wearied my patience. Every shutter that opened startled me, and sent the
blood quickly back to my heart. My reason revolted against suck
childishness; but in spite of it, something within me refused to laugh
at my folly.
After some hours, I caught a glimpse of a hand furtively drawing aside
the rose-colored curtains. That timid hand could only belong to a woman;
a man would have drawn them back unceremoniously. She must, likewise, be
a young woman; the shade of the curtains indicated it. Evidently, only a
young woman would put pink curtains before a garret-window. Whereupon I
recalled to mind the little room where I had bade adieu to Louise before
leaving Richeport. I lived over again the scene in that poetic nook;
again I saw Louise as she appeared to me at that last interview, pale,
agitated, shedding silent tears which she did not attempt to conceal.
At this remembrance my grief burst all bounds, and spent itself in
imprecations against Edgar and against myself. I sat a long time, with
my face buried in my hands, in mournful contemplation of an invisible
image. Ah! unhappy man, I exclaimed, in my despair, why did you leave
her? God offered you happiness and you refused it! She stood there,
before you, trembling, desperate, her eyes bathed in tears, awaiting but
one word to sink in your arms, and that word you refused to utter,
cowardly fleeing from her! It is now your turn to weep, unfortunate
wretch! Your life, which has but begun, is now ended, and you will not
even have the supreme consolation of melancholy regrets, for the sting
of remorse will for ever remain in your wound; you will be pursued to
your dying day by the phantom of a felicity which you would not seize!
When I raised my head, the garret-window had noiselessly opened, and
there, standing motionless in a flood of sunshine, her golden hair
lifted gently by the morning breeze, was Louise gazing at me.
Madame, try to imagine what I felt; as for me, I shall never be able to
give it expression. I tried to speak, and my voice died away on my lips;
I wished to stretch out my arms towards the celestial vision, they
seemed to be made of stone and glued to my side; I wished to rush to
her, my feet were nailed to the floor. However, she still stood there
smiling at me. Finally, after a desperate effort, I succeeded in
breaking the charm which bound me, and rushed from my room wild with
delight, mad with happiness. I was mad, that's the word. Holy madness!
cold reason should humble itself in the dust before thee! As quick as
thought, by some magic, I found myself before Louise's door. I had
recognised the house so long sought for before. I entered without a
question, guided alone by the perfume that ascended from the sanctuary;
I took Louise's hands in mine, and we stood gazing silently at each
other in an ecstasy of happiness fatally lost and miraculously
recovered; the ecstasy of two lovers, who, separated by a shipwreck,
believing each other dead, meet, radiant with love and life, upon the
same happy shore.
"Why, it was you!" she said at last, pointing to my room with a charming
gesture.
"Why, it was you!" I exclaimed in my turn, eagerly glancing at a little
brass lamp which I had observed on a table covered with screens, boxes
of colors and porcelain palettes.
"You were the little light!"
"You were my evening star!"
And we both began to recite the poem of those two years of our lives,
and we found that we told the same story. Louise began my sentences and
I finished hers. In disclosing our heart secrets and the mysterious
sympathy that had existed between us for two years, we interrupted each
other with expressions of astonishment and admiration. We paused time
and time again to gaze at each other and press each other's hands, as if
to assure ourselves that we were awake and it was not all a dream. And
every moment this gay and charming refrain broke in upon our ecstasy:
"So you were the brother and friend of my poverty!"
"So you were the sister and companion of my solitude!"
We finally approached in our recollections, through many windings, our
meeting upon the banks of the Seine, under the shades of Richeport.
"What seems sad to me," she said with touching grace, "is that after
having loved me without knowing me, you should have left me as soon as
you did know me. You only worshipped your idle fancies, and, had I loved
you then," she continued, "I should have been forced to be jealous of
this little lamp."
I told her what inexorable necessity compelled me to leave Richeport and
her. Louise listened with a pensive and charming air; but when I came to
speak of Edgar's love, she burst out laughing and began to relate, in
the gayest manner, some story or other about Turks, which I failed to
understand.
"M. de Meilhan loves you, does he not?" I asked finally, with a vague
feeling of uneasiness.
"Yes, yes," she cried, "he loves me to--madness!"
"He loves you, since he is jealous."
"Yes, yes," she cried again, "jealous as a--Mussulman." and then she
began to laugh again.
"Why," I again asked, "if you did not love him, did you stay at
Richeport two or three days after I left?"
"Because I expected you to return," she replied, laying aside her
childish gayety and becoming grave and serious.
I told her of my love. I was sincere, and therefore should have been
eloquent. I saw her eyes fill with tears, which were not this time tears
of sorrow. I unfolded to her my whole life; all that I had hoped for,
longed for, suffered down to the very hour when she appeared to me as
the enchanting realization of my youthful dreams.
"You ask me," she said, "to share your destiny, and you do not know who
I am, whence I come, or whither I go."
"You mistake, I know you," I cried; "you are as noble as you are
beautiful; you come from heaven, and you will return to it. Bear me with
you on your wings."
"Sir, all that is very vague," she answered, smilingly.
"Listen," said I. "It is true that I do not know who you are; but I
know, I feel that falsehood has never profaned those lips, nor perverted
the brightness of those eyes. Here is my hand; it is the hand of a
gentleman. Take it without fear or hesitation, that is all I ask."
"M. de Villiers, it is well," she said placing her little hand in mine.
"And now," she added, "do you wish to know my life?"
"No," I replied, "you can tell me of it when you have given it to me."
"But--"
"I have seen you," said I; "you can tell me nothing. I feel that there
is a mystery in your existence, but I also feel that that mystery is
honorable, that you could only conceal a treasure."
At these words an indefinable smile played around her lips.
"At least," she cried, "you know certainly that I am poor?"
"Yes," I answered, "but you have shown yourself worthy of fortune, and
I, on my part, hope that I have proved myself not altogether unworthy of
poverty."
The day glided imperceptibly by, enlivened with tender communings. I
examined in all its details the room which my thoughts had so often
visited. It required considerable self-control to repress the
inclination to carry to my lips the little lamp which had brought me
more delight than Aladdin's ever could have done. I spoke of you,
madame, mingling your image with my happiness in order to complete it. I
told Louise how you would love her, that she would love you too; she
replied that she loved you already. At evening we parted, and our joyous
lamps burned throughout the night.
In the midst of my bliss, I do not forget, madame, the interests that
are dear to you. Have you written to Mademoiselle de Chateaudun as I
begged you to do? Have you written with firmness? Have you told your
young friend that her peace and future are at stake? Have you pointed
out to her the storm ready to burst over her head? When I left M. de
Monbert he was gloomy and irritated. Let Mademoiselle Chateaudun take
care!
Accept the expression of my respectful homage.