first by the Count’s look of suffering and dejection, she had become
more so on seeing her rival’s beauty, and the corruption of society
had gripped her heart. As she crossed the Pont Royal she threw away the
desecrated hair at the back of the diamond, given to her once as a token
of the purest affection. She wept as she remembered the bitter grief to
which she had so long been a victim, and shuddered more than once as she
reflected that the duty of a woman, who wishes for peace in her home,
compels her to bury sufferings so keen as hers at the bottom of her
heart, and without a complaint.
“Alas!” thought she, “what can women do when they do not love? What is
the fount of their indulgence? I cannot believe that, as my aunt tells
me, reason is all-sufficient to maintain them in such devotion.”
She was still sighing when her man-servant let down the handsome
carriage-step down which she flew into the hall of her house. She rushed
precipitately upstairs, and when she reached her room was startled by
seeing her husband sitting by the fire.
“How long is it, my dear, since you have gone to balls without telling
me beforehand?” he asked in a broken voice. “You must know that a woman
is always out of place without her husband. You compromised yourself
strangely by remaining in the dark corner where you had ensconced
yourself.”
“Oh, my dear, good Leon,” said she in a coaxing tone, “I could not
resist the happiness of seeing you without your seeing me. My aunt took
me to this ball, and I was very happy there!”
This speech disarmed the Count’s looks of their assumed severity, for
he had been blaming himself while dreading his wife’s return, no doubt
fully informed at the ball of an infidelity he had hoped to hide from
her; and, as is the way of lovers conscious of their guilt, he tried, by
being the first to find fault, to escape her just anger. Happy in seeing
her husband smile, and in finding him at this hour in a room whither
of late he had come more rarely, the Countess looked at him so tenderly
that she blushed and cast down her eyes. Her clemency enraptured
Soulanges all the more, because this scene followed on the misery he had
endured at the ball. He seized his wife’s hand and kissed it gratefully.
Is not gratitude often a part of love?
“Hortense, what is that on your finger that has hurt my lip so much?”
asked he, laughing.
“It is my diamond which you said you had lost, and which I have found.”
General Montcornet did not marry Madame de Vaudremont, in spite of the
mutual understanding in which they had lived for a few minutes, for she
was one of the victims of the terrible fire which sealed the fame of
the ball given by the Austrian ambassador on the occasion of Napoleon’s
marriage with the daughter of the Emperor Joseph II.
JULY, 1829.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Bonaparte, Napoleon
The Vendetta
The Gondreville Mystery
Colonel Chabert
The Seamy Side of History
A Woman of Thirty
Gondreville, Malin, Comte de
The Gondreville Mystery
A Start in Life
The Member for Arcis
Keller, Francois
Cesar Birotteau
Eugenie Grandet
The Government Clerks
The Member for Arcis
Keller, Madame Francois
The Member for Arcis
The Thirteen
La Roche-Hugon, Martial de
The Peasantry
A Daughter of Eve
The Member for Arcis
The Middle Classes
Cousin Betty
Montcornet, Marechal, Comte de
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Peasantry
A Man of Business
Cousin Betty
Murat, Joachim, Prince
The Vendetta
The Gondreville Mystery
Colonel Chabert
The Country Doctor
Soulanges, Comte Leon de
The Peasantry
Soulanges, Comtesse Hortense de
The Thirteen
The Peasantry