VILLIERS, August 21st 18--.
For two days I have been trying to answer your letter, my dear
Valentine, but I am so uneasy, nervous and excited that I dare not
commit to paper my wild and troubled thoughts; I am still sane enough to
accuse myself of madness, but dread to prove it. Were I to write down
all the strange ideas that rush through my mind, and then read them
over, conviction of insanity would stare me in the face.
I was right when I told you it was a risk to accept such a wealth of
happiness; my sweet enchantment is disturbed by dark threatening
clouds--danger lurks in the air--the lightest word fills me with
uneasiness--a letter written in a strange hand--an unexpected visitor,
who leaves Raymond looking preoccupied--everything alarms me, and he
gently chides me and asks why I look so sad. I say because I am too
happy; but he thinks this a poor reason for my depression, and to divert
my thoughts he walks with me through the beautiful valleys and tells me
of his youth and the golden dreams of his early manhood, and assures me
that his dreams of happiness are realized beyond his most exalted
hopes--that he did not believe the angels would permit so perfect a
being as myself to dwell on earth--that to be loved by me for a day, for
an hour, he would willingly give up his life, and that such a sacrifice
was a small price for such a love. I dared not mar his happiness by
giving expression to my sad fears. His presence allays my apprehensions;
he has so much confidence in the future that I cannot help being
inspired with a portion of it; thus, when he is near me, I feel happy
and reassured, but if he leaves me for a moment I am beset by myriads of
terrible threatening phantoms. I accuse myself of having been imprudent
and cruel; I fear I have not, as you say, inspired two undying passions,
two life-long devotions, but exasperated two vindictive men. I well know
that M. de Monbert did not love me, and yet I fear his unjust
resentment. I recall Edgar's absurd breach of faith, and Edgar, whose
image had until now only seemed ridiculous, Edgar appears before my
troubled vision furious and threatening. I am haunted by a vague
remembrance: The day of my wedding, after the benediction, as we were
leaving the chapel, I was terribly frightened--in the silent gloom of
the immense church I heard a voice, an angry stifled voice, utter my
name ... the name I bore at Pont de l'Arche--Louise!... I quickly turned
around to see whence came this voice that could affect me so powerfully
at such a moment! I could discover no one.... Louise!... Many women are
called Louise, it is a common name--perhaps it was some father calling
his daughter, or some brother his sister. There was nothing remarkable
in the calling of this name, and yet it filled me with alarm. I recalled
Edgar's looks on that evening he was so angry with me; the rage gleaming
in his eyes; the violent contraction of his features, his voice terrible
and stifled like the voice in the church, and I was now convinced that
his love was full of haughty pride, selfishness and hatred. But I said
to myself, if it had been he, he would have followed me and looked in
our carriage--I would have seen him in the church, or on the portico
outside.... Besides, why should he have come?... he had given up seeing
me; he could easily have found me had he so desired; he knew where
Madame Taverneau's house was in Paris, and he knew that I lived with
her; if he had hoped to be received by me, he would have simply called
to pay a visit.... Finally, if he was at this early hour--six in the
morning--in the church, at so great a distance from where I live, it was
not to act as a spy upon me. The man who called Louise was not Edgar--it
could not have been Edgar. This reflection reassured me. I questioned
Raymond; he had seen no one, heard no one. I remembered that M. de
Meilhan was not in Paris, and tried to convince myself that it was
foolish to think of him any more. But yesterday I learned in a letter
from Madame Taverneau--who as yet knows nothing of my marriage or
departure from Paris, and will not know, until a year has elapsed, of
the fortune I have settled upon her--I learned that M. de Meilhan left
Havre and came direct to Paris. His mother did not tell him that I had
gone with her to bring him home. When she found that her own influence
was sufficient to detain him in France, she was silent as to my share in
the journey. I thank her for it, as I greatly prefer he should remain
ignorant of the foolish idea I had of sacrificing myself at his shrine
in order to make his mother happy. But what alarms me is that she keeps
him in Paris because she knows that he will learn the truth at
Richeport, and because she hopes that the gayeties around him will more
quickly make him forget this love that so interfered with her ambitious
projects. So Edgar _was_ in Paris the day of my wedding ... and perhaps
... but no, who could have told him anything? I lived three miles from
the parish where I was married.... It could not have been he ... and yet
I fear that man.... I remember with what bitterness and spite he spoke
to me of Raymond, in a letter, filled with unjust reproaches, that he
wrote me three days after my departure from Richeport. In this letter,
which I immediately burned, he told me that M. de Villiers was engaged
to be married to his cousin. O how wretched this information made me! It
had been broken off years ago, but M. de Villiers thought the engagement
still existed; he spoke of it as a tie that would prevent his friend
from indulging in any pretensions to my favor; and yet what malevolence
there was in his praise of him, what jealous fear in his insolent
security! How ingenuously he said: "Since I have no cause to fear him,
why do I hate him?" I now remember this hatred, and it frightens me.
Aided by Roger he will soon know all; he will discover that Irene de
Chateaudun and Louise Guérin are the same person, and then two furious
men will demand an explanation of my trifling with their feelings and
reproach me with the duplicity of my conduct.... Valentine, do you think
they could possibly act thus? Valentine! do you think these two men, who
have so shamefully insulted my memory, so grossly betrayed me and proved
themselves disgracefully faithless, would dare lay any claims to my
love? Alas! in spite of the absurdity of such a supposition, Heaven
knows they are fully capable of acting thus; men in love have such
relaxed morality, such elastic consciences!
Under pretext of imaginary ungovernable passions, they indulge, without
compunction, in falsehood, duplicity and the desecration of every
virtue!... and yet think a pure love can condone and survive such
unpardonable wrongs. They lightly weigh the tribute due to the
refinement of a woman's heart. Their devotion is characterized by a
singular variety. The loyal love of noble women is sacrificed to please
the whims of those unblushing creatures who pursue such men with
indelicate attentions and enslave them by flattering their inordinate
vanity, and they, to preserve their self-love unhurt, pierce and
mortally wound the generous hearts that live upon their affection and
revere their very names--these they strike without pity and without
remorse. And then when the tender love falls from these broken hearts,
like water from a shattered vase, never to be recovered, they are
astonished, uneasy, ... they have broken the heart filled with love, and
now, with stupid surprise and pretended innocence, they ask what has
become of the love!... they cowardly murdered it, and are indignant that
it dared to die beneath their cruel blows. But why dwell upon Edgar and
his anger and hatred, of Roger and his fury? Fate needs not these
terrible instruments to destroy our happiness; the slightest accident,
the most trifling imprudence can serve its cruelty; every thing will
assist it in taking vengeance upon a man revelling in too much love, too
much love. The cold north wind blowing at night upon his heated brow may
strike him with the chill of death; the bridge may perfidiously break
beneath his feet and cast him in the surging torrent below; a lofty
rock, shivered by the winter frost, may fall upon him and crush him to
atoms; his favorite horse may be frightened at a shadow and hurl him
over the threatening precipice ... that child playing in front of my
window might carelessly strike him on the temple with one of those
pebbles and kill him....
Oh! Valentine, I am not laboring under an illusion. I see danger; the
world revolts against pure, unalloyed happiness; society pursues it as
an offence; nature curses it because of its perfection; to her every
perfect thing seems a monstrosity not to be borne--directly she suspects
its existence, she gives the alarm and the elements unite in conspiring
against this happiness; the thunder-bolt is warned and holds itself in
readiness to burst over the radiant brow. With human beings all the evil
passions are simultaneously aroused: secret notice, unknown voices warn
the envious people of every nation that there is somewhere a great joy
to be disturbed; that in some corner of the earth two beings exist who
sought and found each other--two hearts that love with ideal equality
and intoxicating harmony.... Chance itself, that careless railer, is
overbearing and jealous towards them; it is angry with these two beings
who voluntarily sought and conscientiously chose each other without
waiting for it to confer happiness upon them--it discovers their names,
that never knows the name of any one, and pursues them with its
animosity; it recovers its sight in order to recognise and strike them.
I feel that we are too happy! Death stares us in the face! My soul
shudders with fear! On earth we are not allowed to taste of supreme
delight--pure, unalloyed happiness--to feel at once that ecstasy of soul
and delirium of passion--that pride of love and loftiness of a pure
conscience ... burning joys are only permitted to culpable love. When
two unfortunate beings, bound by detested ties, meet and mutually
recognise the ideals of their dreams, they are allowed to love each
other because they have met too late, because this immense joy, this
finding one's ideal, is poisoned by remorse and shame. Their criminal
happiness can remain undisturbed because it is criminal; it has the
conditions of life, frailty and misery; it bears the impress of sin,
therefore it belongs to a common humanity.... But find ideal bliss in a
legitimate union, find it in time to welcome it without shame and
cherish it without remorse; be happy as a lover and honored as a wife;
to experience the wild ardor of love and preserve the charming freshness
of purity--to delight in obeying the equitable law of the most
harmonious love by being alternately a slave and a queen; to call upon
him who calls upon you; seek him who seeks you; love him who loves
you--in a word, to be the idol of your idol!... it is too much, it
surpasses human happiness, it is stealing fire from heaven--it is, I
tell you, incurring the punishment of death!
In my enthusiasm I already stand upon the boundary of the true world---
I have a glimpse of paradise; earth recedes from my gaze; I understand
and expect death, because life has bid me a last farewell--the
exaltation that I feel belongs to the future of the blessed; it is a
triumphant dying--that final and supremely happy thought that tells me
my soul is about to take its flight.
Oh! merciful God! my brain is on fire! and why do I write you these
incoherent thoughts! Valentine, you see all excessive emotions are
alike; the delirium of joy resembles the frenzy of despair. Having
attained the summit of happiness, what do we see at our feet?... a
yawning abyss!... we have lost the steep path by which we so painfully
reached the top; once there, we have no means of gradually descending
the declivity ... from so great a height we cannot walk, we fall!
There is but one way of preserving happiness--abjure it--never welcome
it; sometimes it delights in visiting ungrateful people. Vainly do I
seek to reassure myself by expiation, by sacrifices; during these eight
days I have been lavishly giving gold in the neighborhood, I have
endowed all the children, fed the poor, enriched the hospitals; I would
willingly ruin myself by generous charity, by magnificent donations--I
would cheerfully give my entire fortune to obtain rest and peace for my
troubled mind.
Every morning I enter the empty church and fervently pray that God will
permit me by some great sacrifice to insure my happiness. I implore him
to inflict upon me hard trials, great humiliations, intense pain,
sufferings beyond any strength, but to have mercy upon my poor heart and
spare me Raymond ... to leave me a little longer Raymond, ...
Raymond and his love!
But these tears and prayers will be vain--Raymond himself, without
understanding his presentiments, instinctively feels that his end is
approaching. His purity of soul, his magnanimity, the unexampled
disinterestedness of his conduct, are indications--these sublime virtues
are symptoms of death--this generosity, this disinterestedness are tacit
adieux. Raymond possesses none of the weaknesses of men destined for a
long life; he has indulged in none of the wicked passions of the age--he
has kept himself apart, observing but not sharing the actions of men. He
regards life as if he were a pilgrim, and takes no part in any of its
turmoils--he has not bargained for any of its disenchantments; his great
pride, his life-long, unbending loyalty have concealed a mournful
secret; he has stood aloof because he was convinced of his untimely end.
He feels self-reliant because he will only have a short time to
struggle; he is joyous and proud, because he looks upon the victory as
already won ... I weep as I admire him.
Alas! am I to regard with sorrow and fear these noble qualities--these
seductive traits that won my love? Is it because he deserves to be loved
more than any being on earth has ever been loved, that I tremble for
him! Valentine, does not such an excess of happiness excite your pity?
Ever since early this morning, I have been suffering torment--Raymond
left me for a few hours--he went to Guéret; one of his cousins returning
from the waters of Néris was to pass through there at ten o'clock, and
requested him to meet her at the hotel. Nothing is more natural, and I
have no reason to be alarmed--yet this short absence disturbs me as much
as if it were to last years--it makes me sad--it is the first time we
have been separated so long a time during these eight blissful days.
Ah! how I love him, and how heavy hangs time on my hands during his
absence!
One thought comforts me in my present state of exaltation; I am unequal
to any great misfortune.... A fatal piece of news, a painful sight, a
false alarm ... a certain dreaded name mingled with one that I
adore--ah! a false report, although immediately contradicted, would
kill me on the spot--I could not live the two minutes it would require
to hear the denial--the truth happily demonstrated. This thought
consoles me--if my happiness is to end, I shall die with it.
Valentine, it is two o'clock! Oh! why does Raymond not return? My heart
sinks--my hand trembles so that I can scarcely hold the pen--my eyes
grow dim.... What can detain him? He left at eight, and should have
returned long ago. I know well that the relative he went to see might
have been delayed on the road--she may have mistaken the time, women are
so ignorant about travelling--they never understand the timetables.
All this tells me I am wrong to be uneasy--and yet ... I shudder at
every sound.... his horse is so fiery.... I am astonished that Raymond
did not let me read his relative's letter; he said he had left it on his
table ... but I looked on the table and it was not there. I wished to
read the letter so as to find out the exact time he was to be at Guéret,
and then I could tell when to expect him home.
But this relative is the mother of the girl he was to have married....
perhaps she still loves him.... is she with her mother?... Ah! what an
absurd idea! I am so uneasy that I divert my mind by being jealous--to
avoid thinking of possible dangers, I conjure up impossible ones.... Oh!
my God! it is not his love I doubt ... his love equals mine--it is the
intensity of his love that frightens me--it is in this love so pure, so
perfect, so divine--in this complete happiness that the danger lies. Is
it not sinful to idolize one of God's creatures, when this adoration is
due to God alone--to devote one's whole existence to a human being, for
his sake to forget everything else? This is the sin before Heaven ...
Oh! if I could only see him, and once more hear his voice! That blessed
voice I love so much! How miserable I am!... What agony I suffer!... I
stifle ... my brain whirls--my mind is so confused that I cannot think
... this torture is worse than death ... And then if he should suddenly
appear before me, what joy!... Oh! I don't wish him to enter the room
at once--I would like one minute to prepare myself for the happiness of
seeing him ... one single moment.... If he were to abruptly enter, I
would become frantic with joy as I embraced him!
My dear Valentine, what a torment is love!... It is utterly impossible
for me to support another hour of this agitation. I am sure I have a
fever--I shiver with cold--I burn--my brain is on fire....
As I write this to you, seated at the window, I eagerly watch the long
avenue by which he must return.... I write a word ... a whole line so as
to give him time to approach, hoping I will see him coming when I raise
my eyes--.... After writing each line I look again.... nothing appears
in the distance; I see neither his horse nor the cloud of dust that
would announce his approach. The clock strikes! three o'clock!...
Valentine! it is fearful ... hope deserts me ... all is lost ... I feel
myself dying ... Instinct tells me that some dreadful tragedy, ruinous
to me, is now enacting on this earth.... Ah! my heart breaks ... I
suffer torture.... Raymond! Raymond! Valentine! my mother! help!...
help!... I see a horse rushing up the avenue ... but it is not Raymond's
... ah! it _is_ his ... but ... I don't see Raymond ... the saddle is
empty ... God!
This unfinished letter of the Comtesse de Villiers to Madame de Braimes
bore neither address nor signature.