Madeleine, as we have said, on leaving the house of M. Pascal, went
directly to the home of Madame Dutertre, who was alone in her bedchamber
when the servant announced the marquise. Sophie, seated in an armchair,
seemed a prey to overwhelming despair. At the sight of her friend, she
raised her head quickly; her sad face, bathed in tears, was of a deadly
pallor.
"Take this, read it, and weep no longer," said Madeleine, tenderly,
handing her the deed signed by M. Pascal. "Was I wrong to tell you
yesterday to hope?"
"What is this paper?" asked Sophie Dutertre, in surprise, "explain it."
"Yours and your husband's deliverance--"
"Our deliverance?"
"M. Pascal has pledged himself to give your husband all the time needed
to pay the debt."
"Can it be true! No, no, such a happiness--Oh, it is impossible!"
"Read, then, and see for yourself, unbeliever."
Sophie rapidly looked over the deed; then, staring at the marquise, she
exclaimed:
"That seems like a miracle; I cannot believe my eyes. And how was it
done? My God, it must be magic!"
"Perhaps," replied Madeleine, smiling, "who knows?"
"Ah, forgive me, my friend!" cried Sophie, throwing her arms around the
neck of the marquise; "my surprise was so great that it paralysed my
gratitude. You have rescued us from ruin; we and our children owe you
everything,--happiness, safety, fortune! Oh, you are our guardian
angel!"
The expression of Sophie Dutertre's gratitude was sincere.
At the same time, the marquise observed a sort of constraint in the
gestures and gaze of her friend. Her countenance did not seem as serene
and radiant as she hoped to see it, at the announcement of such welcome
news.
Another grief evidently weighed upon Madame Dutertre, so, after a
moment's silence, Madeleine, who had been watching her closely, said:
"Sophie, you are hiding something from me; your sorrow is not at an
end."
"Can you think so, when, thanks to you, Madeleine, our future is as
bright, as assured, as yesterday it was desperate, when--"
"I tell you, my poor Sophie, you still suffer. Your face ought to be
radiant with joy, and yet you cannot disguise your grief."
"Could you believe me ungrateful?"
"I believe your poor heart is wounded, yes, and this wound is so deep
that it is not even ameliorated by the good news I brought you."
"Madeleine, I implore you, leave me; do not look at me that way! It
pains me. Do not question me, but believe, oh, I beseech you, believe
that never in all my life will I forget what we owe to you."
And with these words, Madame Dutertre hid her face in her hands and
burst into tears.
The marquise reflected for some minutes, and then said, with hesitation.
"Sophie, where is your husband?"
The young woman started, blushed, and turned pale by turns, and
exclaimed, impulsively, almost with fear:
"You wish to see him, then?"
"Yes."
"I do not know--if he is--this moment in the factory," replied Madame
Dutertre, stammering. "But if you wish it, if you insist upon it, I will
send for him, so that he may learn from you yourself all that we owe to
you."
The marquise shook her head sadly and replied:
"It is not to receive your husband's thanks that I desire to see him,
Sophie; it is only to say farewell to him as well as to you."
"Farewell?"
"This evening I leave Paris."
"You are going away!" cried Madame Dutertre, and her tone betrayed a
singular mingling of surprise, sadness, and joy.
Neither one of these emotions escaped the penetration of Madeleine. She
experienced at first a feeling of pain. Her eyes became moist; then,
overcoming her emotion, she said to her friend, smiling, and taking both
of Sophie's hands in her own:
"My poor Sophie, you are jealous."
"Madeleine!"
"You are jealous of me, confess it."
"I assure you--"
"Sophie, be frank; to deny it to me would make me think that you believe
that I have been intentionally coquetting with your husband, and God
knows I have never seen him but once, and in your presence--"
"Madeleine!" cried the young woman, with effusion, no longer able to
restrain her tears, "forgive me! This feeling is shameful and unworthy,
because I know the lofty nature of your heart, and at this time, too,
when you have come to save us--but if you only knew!"
"Yes, my good Sophie, if I knew, but I know nothing. Come now, make me
your confession to the end; perhaps it will give me a good idea."
"Madeleine, really I am ashamed; I would never dare."
"Come, what are you afraid of, since I am going away? I am going away
this evening."
"Wait, it is that which wounds me and provokes me with myself. Your
departure distresses me. I had hoped to see you here every day, for a
long time, perhaps, and yet--"
"And yet my departure will deliver you from a cruel apprehension, will
it not? But it is very simple, my good Sophie. What have you to reproach
yourself for? Since this morning, before seeing you, I had resolved to
depart."
"Yes, you say that, brave and generous as you always are."
"Sophie, I have not lied; I repeat to you that this morning, before
seeing you, my departure was arranged; but, I beseech you, tell me what
causes have aroused your jealousy? That is perhaps important for the
tranquillity of your future!"
"Ah, well, yesterday evening Charles returned home worn out with fatigue
and worry, and alarmed at the prompt measures threatened by M. Pascal.
Notwithstanding these terrible afflictions, he spent the whole time
talking of you. Then, I confess, the first suspicion entered my mind as
to what degree you controlled his thought. Charles went to bed; I
remained quietly seated by his pillow. Soon he fell asleep, exhausted by
the painful events of the day. At the end of a few minutes, his sleep,
at first tranquil, seemed disturbed; two or three times your name passed
his lips, then his features would contract painfully, and he would
murmur, as if oppressed by remorse, 'Forgive me, Sophie--forgive--and my
children--oh, Sophie.' Then he uttered some unintelligible words, and
his repose was no longer broken. That is all that has happened,
Madeleine, your name was only uttered by my husband during his sleep,
and yet I cannot tell you the frightful evil all this has done me; in
vain I tried to learn the cause of this impression, so deep and so
sudden, for Charles had seen you but once, and then hardly a quarter of
an hour. No doubt you are beautiful, oh, very beautiful. I cannot be
compared with you, I know, yet Charles has always loved me until now."
And the young woman wept bitterly.
"Poor, dear Sophie!" said the marquise with tenderness, "calm your
fears; he loves you, and will always love you, and you will soon make
him forget me."
Madame Dutertre sighed and shook her head sadly. Madeleine continued:
"Believe me, Sophie; it will depend on you to make me forgotten, as it
was entirely your own fault that your husband ever thought of me a
single instant."
"What do you mean?"
"Just now I provoked your confidence by assuring you that, doubtless,
some happy result to you and your husband would be the consequence of
it. I was not mistaken."
"Explain, if you please."
"Let us see now. Imagine, dear Sophie, that you are in a confessional,"
replied Madeleine, smiling, "yes, in the confessional of that great fat
abbé, Jolivet, you know, the chaplain of the boarding-school, who put
such strange questions to us when we were young girls. So, since that
time I have often asked myself why there were not abbesses to confess
young girls; but as, without being an abbess, I am a woman," added the
marquise, smiling again, "I am going to risk some questions which would
have been very tempting to our old confessor. Now, tell me, and do not
blush, your husband married you for love, did he not?"
"Alas! yes."
"Well, you need not groan at such a charming recollection."
"Ah, Madeleine, the sadder the present is, the more certain memories
tear our hearts."
"The present and the future will all be what you would like to have it.
But, answer me, during the first two or three years of your marriage,
you loved each other as lovers, did you not? You understand me?"
The young woman looked downwards and blushed.
"Then by degrees, without any diminution of love, that passionate
tenderness gave place to a calmer sentiment, that your love for your
children has filled with charm and sweetness; and, finally, the two
lovers were only two friends united by the dearest and most sacred
duties. Is that true?"
"That is true, Madeleine, and if I must say it, sometimes I have
regretted these days of first youth and love; but I reproached myself
for these regrets, with the thought that perhaps they were incompatible
with the serious duties imposed by motherhood."
"Poor Sophie! But, tell me, this coolness, or rather this transformation
of married lovers to friends, if you choose, was not sudden, was it? It
came insensibly and almost without your perceiving it."
"Practically, yes; but how do you know?"
"One more question, Sophie, dear. In the period of your early love, you
and you husband were, I am certain of it, very anxious to please each
other. Never could a toilet be fresh or pretty enough. You heightened by
painstaking and agreeableness every charm you possessed; indeed, your
only thought was to please your husband, to captivate him always, and to
keep him always in love. Your Charles, no doubt, preferred some delicate
perfume, and your beautiful hair, your garments, exhaled that sweet
odour, which, in time of absence, materialises, so to speak, the memory
of a beloved woman."
"That is true; we adored the odour of the violet and the iris. That
perfume always recalls to me the happy days of our past."
"You see plainly, then. As to your husband, I do not doubt, he vied
with you in the care and elegance and taste of the most trifling details
of his toilet. In short, both of you, ardent and passionate, guarded
with strictest attention all the delights of your young love. But, alas!
from the bosom of this happiness, so easily, so naturally, issued by
degrees habit,--that fatal precursor of familiarity, lack of ceremony,
neglect of self, habit!--all the more dangerous because it resembles,
even so as to be mistaken for it, a sweet and intimate confidence. So,
one says: 'I am sure of being loved, what need of this constant care and
painstaking? What are these trifles to true love?' So, my good Sophie,
there came a day when, entirely absorbed by your tenderness for your
children, you no longer occupied yourself in finding out if your hair
were arranged becomingly, in a style suited to your pretty face, if your
dress hung well or badly from your graceful waist, if your little foot
were coquettishly dressed in the morning. Your husband, on his part,
absorbed in his work as you were by the cares of maternity, neglected
himself, too. Unconsciously, your eyes grew accustomed to the change,
scarcely perceiving it; as in the same way, so to speak, people never
see each other grow old when they live continually together. And it is
true, dear Sophie, that if at this moment you should evoke, by memory,
the care, the elegance, and the charms with which you and your husband
surrounded yourselves in the beautiful time of your courtship, you would
be startled with surprise in comparing the present with the past."
"It is only too true, Madeleine," replied Sophie, throwing a sad,
embarrassed look on her careless attire and disordered hair. "Yes, by
degrees I have forgotten the art, or, rather, the desire to please my
husband. Alas! it is now too late to repent!"
"Too late!" exclaimed the marquise. "Too late! With your twenty-five
years, that attractive face, too late! With that enchanting figure, that
magnificent hair, those pearly teeth, those large, tender eyes, that
hand of a duchess, and those feet of a child, too late! Let me be your
tirewoman for a half-hour, Sophie, and you will see if it is too late to
make your husband as passionately in love with you as he ever was."
"Ah, Madeline, you are the only one in the world to give hope to those
who have none; nevertheless, the truth of your words frightens me. Alas,
alas! You are right. Charles loves me no longer."
"He loves you as much and perhaps even more than in the past, poor
foolish child, because you are the wife whose fidelity has been tested,
the tender mother of his children; but you are no longer the infatuating
mistress of the past, nor has he that tender, passionate love for you he
felt in the first days of your wedded bliss. What I say to you, my good
Sophie, may be a little harsh, but the good God knows what he has made
us. He has created us of immaterial essence. Neither are we all matter,
but neither are we all mind. It is true, believe me, that there is
something divine in pleasure, but we must guard it, purify it, idealise
it. Now, pray pardon this excessive management on my part, as you see
that a little appreciation of the sensuous is not too much to awaken a
nature benumbed by habit, or else the seductive mistress always has an
advantage over the wife; for, after all, Sophie, why should the duties
of wife and mother be incompatible with the charms and enticements of
the mistress? Why should the father, the husband, not be a charming
lover? Yes, my good Sophie, I am going, in a few words, with my usual
bluntness, to sum up your position and mine: your husband loves you, but
desires you no longer; he does not love me, and he desires me."
Then the marquise, laughing immoderately, added:
"Is it not strange that I, a young lady, alas! with no experience in the
question,--for I am like a gourmand without a stomach, who presumes to
talk of good cheer,--is it not strange that I should be giving a lesson
to a married woman?"
"Ah, Madeleine," exclaimed Sophie, with effusion, "you have saved us
twice to-day, because what my husband feels for you he might have felt
for a woman less generous than yourself; and then think of my sorrow, my
tears! Oh, you are right, you are right. Charles must see again and find
again in his wife the beloved mistress of the past."
The conversation of the two friends was interrupted by the arrival of
Antonine.