D'Albert to rise so early, and what spur had impelled him to call upon
Rosette at as unseasonable an hour as if he had still been in love.--It
would appear as if it were a slight attack of secret, unconfessed
jealousy. To be sure he cared but little for Rosette, indeed he would
have been very glad to be rid of her,--but he preferred to leave her
voluntarily and not to be left by her, a thing which always inflicts a
deep wound on a man's pride, although his first flame may be utterly
extinct.--Théodore was such a well-favored cavalier that it was
difficult to view his appearance on the scene while a liaison was in
progress without apprehending what had in fact happened many times,
that is to say, that all eyes would turn in his direction and the
hearts follow the eyes; and, strangely enough, although he had taken
away many women, no lover had harbored the enduring resentment that
men usually feel for those who have supplanted them. There was in his
whole behavior such winning charm, such unaffected grace, a something
so gentle and so dignified, that even men were touched by it. D'Albert,
who had come to Rosette's room, intending to speak very sharply to
Théodore, if he should meet him there, was greatly surprised to find
that he did not feel the slightest sensation of anger in his presence,
and that he was inclined to receive with warmth the advances he made.
In half an hour's time, you would have said that they had been friends
from boyhood, and yet D'Albert felt in his inmost heart, that if
Rosette was destined ever to love, she would love that man, and he had
every reason to be jealous, for the future at least, for he did not
suspect anything at present. What would he have thought, had he seen
the fair creature in a white _peignoir_ gliding like a night-moth on a
moonbeam into the handsome youth's room, and coming out three or four
hours later with mysterious precautions? He might well, in very truth,
have deemed himself more unfortunate than he really was, for it is a
thing rarely seen that a pretty, lovelorn young woman comes forth from
the bedroom of a no less attractive young man, exactly the same as when
she went in.
Rosette listened to Théodore with much attention and as one listens to
a person one loves; but what he said was so entertaining and upon so
many different subjects, that her attention was perfectly natural and
easily explained. And so D'Albert took no offence at it. Théodore's
manner toward Rosette was courteous and friendly, but nothing more.
"What shall we do to-day, Théodore?" said Rosette, "suppose we go for a
row on the river? what do you think? or shall we hunt?"
"To hunt is less depressing than to glide over the water side by side
with some tired swan and thrust the water-lily leaves aside to right
and left,--don't you think so, D'Albert?"
"I think perhaps I should enjoy gliding down the river in the skiff
quite as much as racing madly in the trail of some poor beast; but
wherever you go, I will go; what we have to do now is to allow Madame
Rosette to rise and don a suitable costume."
Rosette made a sign of assent and rang for her maid to come and dress
her. The two young men left the room arm in arm, and it was easy to
guess, from seeing them on such good terms, that one was the titular
lover and the other the loved lover of the same person.
Soon everybody was ready. D'Albert and Théodore were already mounted
in the first court-yard, when Rosette, in a riding-habit, appeared at
the top of the steps. She had assumed with the costume, a sprightly,
resolute air that was immensely becoming to her; she leaped into the
saddle with her ordinary agility and gave her horse a smart blow with
her crop, so that he darted away like an arrow. D'Albert spurred after
her and soon overtook her. Théodore allowed them some little start,
being sure of catching them up whenever he chose. He seemed to be
waiting for something and turned back frequently toward the château.
"Théodore! Théodore! come on! are you riding a wooden horse?" cried
Rosette.
Théodore urged his horse to a gallop and diminished the distance
between him and Rosette, but did not join her.
He continued to look back at the château, which they were beginning
to lose sight of; a little cloud of dust, in the centre of which
something that they could not as yet distinguish was moving very
rapidly, appeared at the end of the road. In a few moments the cloud
reached Théodore's side, and, opening like the classic clouds of the
Iliad, disclosed the fresh and rosy face of the mysterious page.
"Come, Théodore, come!" cried Rosette again; "give your tortoise the
spur and join us."
Théodore gave his horse the rein, and in a second, the animal, who was
pawing and rearing impatiently, had passed D'Albert and Rosette by
several lengths.
"Who loves me follows me," said Théodore, leaping a fence four feet
high. "Well, well, _Monsieur le Poète_," he said, when he was on the
other side, "you don't jump? but they say your steed has wings."
"Faith, I prefer to ride around; I have only one head to break after
all; if I had several I would try," D'Albert replied with a smile.
"No one loves me then, as no one follows me," said Théodore, bringing
the arched corners of his mouth even lower than usual. The little page
looked up at him reproachfully with his great blue eyes, and drove his
heels into his horse's sides.
The horse gave a tremendous leap.
"Yes! some one," said the child from the other side of the fence.
Rosette cast a strange glance at the boy and blushed up to her eyes;
then, with a furious blow of the crop on the mare's neck, she leaped
the barrier of green apple wood that barred the path.
"Do you think that I don't love you, Théodore?"
The child darted an oblique, stealthy glance at her and rode up to
Théodore.
D'Albert was in the middle of the path--and saw nothing of all this;
for, from time immemorial, it has been the privilege of fathers,
husbands and lovers to see nothing.
"Isnabel," said Théodore, "you are mad, and so are you, Rosette! You
didn't take enough start for your jump, Isnabel, and you, Rosette,
just missed catching your dress on the posts.--You might have killed
yourself."
"What difference would it make?" rejoined Rosette, in such a
melancholy, despairing tone that Isnabel forgave her for having leaped
the barrier.
They rode on for some distance and reached the crossroads where the
huntsmen and the pack were to meet them. Six arched paths, cut through
the dense forest, met at a little stone tower with six sides, on
each of which was carved the name of the road that ended there. The
trees rose so high that they seemed to be trying to spin the woolly,
fleecy clouds that a brisk breeze carried hither and thither over their
towering tops; tall, thick grass and impenetrable thickets provided
hiding-places and strongholds for the game, and the hunt promised to
be a successful one. It was a true forest of an earlier age, with
oaks more than a hundred years old, such trees as we never see, now
that we no longer plant trees and have not the patience to wait for
those that are planted to grow;--a hereditary forest, planted by
great-grandfathers for fathers, by fathers for grandsons, with paths
of enormous width, the obelisk surmounted by a ball, the rock-work
fountain, the inevitable pool, and the keepers with powdered wigs,
yellow leather breeches and sky-blue coats;--one of those dense,
dark forests in which the white, glossy coats of Wouvermans' great
horses stand out in bold relief, and the flaring mouths of the hunting
horns _à la Dampierre_ that Parrocel loves to paint on the backs of
his huntsmen.--A multitude of dogs' tails, shaped like crescents or
reaping-hooks, waved frantically about in a dusty cloud. The signal
was given, the dogs, straining at their leashes, were uncoupled, and
the hunt began.--We shall not undertake to describe with precision
the detours and doublings of the stag through the forest;--we do not
even feel sure whether it was a stag seven years old, and, despite
our investigations on that point, we have not been able to satisfy
ourselves--which is really distressing.--Nevertheless we can but think
that in such a forest, so venerable, so dark, so seignorial, there
could be none but seven-year stags, and we do not see why the one after
which the four principal characters in this romance were galloping on
horses of different colors, and _non passibus æquis_, should not have
been such a one.
The stag ran, like the true stag that he was, and some fifty dogs or
more that followed at his heels were no slight spur to his natural
swiftness of foot. The pace was so fleet that only an occasional bark
could be heard.
Théodore, being the best mounted and the best rider, kept on the heels
of the pack with incredible zeal. D'Albert was close behind him.
Rosette and the little page Isnabel followed, falling farther and
farther behind.
The interval was soon so great that they could not hope to join their
companions.
"Suppose we stop for a moment and let our horses take breath," said
Rosette. "The hunt is going toward the pond and I know a crossroad by
which we can reach there as soon as they do."
Isnabel drew in his little mountain pony, who put down his head, shook
his forelock down over his eyes and began to paw the gravel with his
hoofs.
The little creature presented a most striking contrast to Rosette's
mare; he was as black as night, she as white as white satin; his mane
and tail were bristly and unkempt; her mane was tied with blue ribbons
and her tail combed and curled. She looked like a unicorn, he like a
spaniel.
There was the same marked difference between the riders as between
their steeds.--Rosette's hair was as black as Isnabel's was fair; her
eyebrows were very clearly marked and very prominent; those of the
page were hardly darker than his skin and resembled the down on a
peach.--The coloring of the one was as brilliant and enduring as the
light at noonday; the other had the transparent blushing hue of early
dawn.
"Suppose we try now to overtake the hunt?" said Isnabel; "the horses
have had time to recover their breath."
"Come on!" replied the pretty Amazon, and they galloped away through a
narrow transverse path leading to the pool; the two horses ran neck and
neck and filled the whole path.
On Isnabel's side, a gnarled and twisted tree stretched out a huge
branch like an arm, and seemed to shake its fist at the riders.--The
child did not see it.
"Look out!" cried Rosette, "lean forward on your saddle! you will be
unhorsed."
The warning came too late; the branch struck Isnabel in the middle of
the body. The violence of the blow caused him to lose his stirrups,
and, as his horse galloped on and the branch was too stout to bend, he
was brushed from his saddle and thrown rudely back.
The child fainted on the spot.--Rosette, terribly frightened, leaped
from her horse and knelt beside the page, who gave no sign of life.
His cap had fallen off and his lovely, rippling fair hair lay spread
about over the gravel in every direction.--His little open palms looked
as if they were made of wax, they were so devoid of color. Rosette
knelt beside him and tried to restore him to consciousness.--She had
no salts or flask with her and her embarrassment was great. At last
she discovered a deep rut in which the rain-water had collected and
clarified; she dipped her fingers in it, to the great alarm of a little
toad that was the naiad of that stream, and shook a few drops on the
young page's blue-veined temples.--He did not seem to feel them, and
the pearls of water rolled down his white cheeks as a sylph's tears
roll down the leaf of a lily. Rosette, thinking that his clothes
might distress him, unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his doublet and
opened his shirt to give his lungs freer play.--Thereupon Rosette saw
something that would have been the most agreeable of surprises to a
man, but that seemed very far from affording her any pleasure--for her
brows contracted and her upper lip trembled slightly;--she saw a snowy
white breast, which was as yet undeveloped, but which made the fairest
promises and already fulfilled many of them; a smooth and rounded
breast, as white as ivory, and in the language of the Ronsardists,
delicious to look at, more delicious to kiss.
[Illustration: Chapter VII--_Rosette, thinking that his clothes might
distress him, unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his doublet and opened his
shirt to give his lungs freer play.--Thereupon Rosette saw something
that would have been the most agreeable of surprises to a man, but that
seemed very far from affording her any pleasure_----]
"A woman!" she exclaimed, "a woman! ah! Théodore!"
Isnabel--for we will continue to call him by that name, although it
was not his--began to show some signs of life and languidly raised
his long eyelashes; he was not wounded in any way, he was simply
stunned.--He soon sat up and, with Rosette's assistance, was able to
stand and remount his horse, which had stopped as soon as he felt that
his rider was gone.
They rode slowly to the pool, where they found the remainder of
the hunting party. Rosette in a few words told Théodore what had
happened.--He changed color several times during her recital, and
throughout the rest of the ride he kept his horse close beside
Isnabel's.
They returned to the château betimes; the day that had begun so
joyously, had a decidedly melancholy ending.
Rosette was in a meditative mood and D'Albert seemed as deeply
engrossed in his reflections. The reader will soon learn what had given
rise to them.
VIII
No, my dear Silvio, I have not forgotten you; I am not one of those
who go through life without a backward glance; my past follows me and
encroaches upon my present, and almost upon my future; your friendship
is one of the sunlit spots that stand out most clearly on the blue
horizon of my later years; often, from the peak on which I stand, I
turn to gaze upon it with a feeling of ineffable melancholy.
Oh! what lovely weather it was!--how angelically pure we were!--Our
feet hardly touched the ground, we had wings on our shoulders, as it
were, our desires carried us away and the fair halo of youth around our
foreheads trembled in the breeze of spring.
Do you remember the little island covered with poplars at the spot
where the river forms a little arm?--To reach it we had to cross
a long, very narrow plank that bent in the middle, with a strange
sensation; an excellent bridge for goats and little used, in fact,
except by them: it was a delightful spot.--Short, thick grass where
the forget-me-not opened its pretty little blue twinkling eye, a path,
as yellow as nankeen, that served as a belt for the green robe of the
islet and encircled its waist, the constantly moving shadow of aspens
and poplars, were not the least charms of that paradise;--there were
great pieces of linen that the women stretched out to whiten in the
dew;--one would have said they were square patches of snow.--And the
little dark, sun-burned girl whose great wild eyes sparkled so brightly
under her long locks, and who ran after the goats, threatening them
with her osier switch when they were on the point of walking on the
linen she was watching--do you remember her?--And the sulphur-colored
butterflies, with their irregular, hesitating flight, and the
kingfisher we tried so many times to catch, that had its nest in the
clump of alders; and the banks sloping to the river, with the steps
roughly hewn in the rock, with their posts and stakes, all green at
the bottom and almost always closed by a hedge of plants and branches?
How smooth and clear the water was! how the golden gravel glistened
at the bottom! and how pleasant it was to sit on the bank and dabble
our toes in the stream! The water-lily, with its golden flowers
unfolding gracefully, seemed like green hairs floating on the gleaming
back of some nymph in the bath.--The sky gazed at its reflection in
that mirror with azure smiles and transparent rifts of pearl-gray
of most bewitching beauty, and at every hour in the day there were
turquoise blues, golden yellows, fleecy whites and flickering shades
in inexhaustible variety.--How I loved those flocks of ducks with the
emerald necks that sailed incessantly from bank to bank and caused an
occasional wrinkle on that glassy surface!
And how well adapted we were to be the figures in that landscape!--how
attached we became to those sweet, restful scenes, and how easily we
harmonized ourselves with them! Springtime without, youth within, the
sun on the turf, a smile on the lips, snow-white blossoms on all the
bushes, fair illusions blooming in our minds, a modest flush upon our
cheeks and on the eglantine, poetry singing in our hearts, invisible
birds humming among the trees, bright light, cooing doves, perfumes, a
thousand confused murmurs, the beating of the heart, the water stirring
a pebble, a wisp of grass or a thought springing up, a drop of water
rolling down the side of a flower, a tear flowing from beneath an
eyelid, a sigh of love, the rustling of a leaf;--what evenings we have
passed there, walking slowly, so near the edge that we often had one
foot in the water and the other on land!
Alas!--that lasted a very short time, in my case at least; for you,
while acquiring the knowledge of a man, were able to retain the
innocence of a child.--The seed of corruption that was within me
developed very rapidly, and the gangrene pitilessly devoured all that
was pure and saintlike about me. The only good that remained was my
friendship for you.
I am accustomed to conceal nothing from you--neither acts nor thoughts.
I have laid bare before you the most secret fibres of my heart; however
strange, absurd, eccentric the movements of my mind, I must needs
describe them to you; but, in truth, my sensations for some time past
have been so strange that I hardly dare confess them to myself. I
told you at some time that I was afraid that by dint of seeking the
beautiful and straining every nerve to attain it, I should fall into
the impossible or the horrible.--I have almost reached that point;
when, then, shall I get clear of all these currents that cross and
recross one another and drag me to right and left; when will the deck
of my vessel cease to tremble under my feet and to be swept by the
waves of every storm? where shall I find a haven in which I can cast
anchor, and an immovable rock out of reach of the waves, whereon I can
dry myself and wring the spray from my hair?
You know how ardently I have sought physical beauty, what importance I
attach to physical form, and what affection I have conceived for the
visible world; it must be because I am too corrupt and too _blasé_
to believe in moral beauty, and to pursue it with any constancy.--I
have completely lost the power to distinguish between good and evil,
and, by force of depravity, I have almost reverted to the ignorance
of the savage and the child. In fact, nothing seems praiseworthy or
blameworthy to me, and the most extraordinary actions surprise me but
little. My conscience is a deaf mute. Adultery seems to me the most
innocent thing in the world; I find it quite natural that a girl should
prostitute her person; it seems to me that I would betray my friends
without the slightest remorse, and I should not have the slightest
scruple in kicking over a precipice people who annoyed me, if I were
walking on the brink with them.--I could witness the most atrocious
scenes with indifference, and there is something that is not unpleasant
to me in the sufferings and woes of humanity.--I have the same
sensation of acrimonious, bitter joy when some great disaster falls on
the world, that one feels when one takes revenge for an old insult.
O world, what hast thou done to me that I should hate thee so? Who has
so filled me with gall against thee? what did I expect from thee that
I should bear thee such rancor for having deceived me? what high hope
didst thou disappoint? what eaglet's wings didst thou clip?--What doors
shouldst thou have opened that have remained closed, and which of us
two has failed the other?
Nothing touches me, nothing moves me;--I no longer feel, when I hear
the story of a heroic action, the sublime shudder that used to run over
me from head to foot.--Indeed, it all seems to me a little foolish.--No
accent is deep enough to tighten the relaxed fibres of my heart and
make them vibrate:--I look upon the tears of my fellow-mortals with the
same eye that I look upon the rain, unless they are of a particularly
beautiful water and the light is reflected prettily in them and they
are flowing down a lovely cheek.--Dumb animals are almost the only
creatures for which I have a slight remnant of compassion. I would
allow a peasant or a servant to be soundly whipped, but I could not
stand by and see the same treatment inflicted on a horse or dog in my
presence; and yet I am not evil-minded, I have never injured anybody
on earth and I probably never shall; but that is due rather to my
nonchalance and my sovereign contempt for all those people whom I do
not like, which does not permit me to interest myself even to the
extent of injuring them.--I abhor the whole world in bulk, and there
are only one or two in the whole lot whom I deem worthy to be hated
specially.--To hate a person is to be as much disturbed about him as
if you loved him;--it is to set him apart, to distinguish him from
the common herd; it is to be in a state of violent excitement because
of him; it is to think of him by day and dream of him by night; it
is to bite at your pillow and gnash your teeth as you think that he
exists; what more do you do for any one you love? Would you take the
same amount of trouble to please a mistress that you take to ruin an
enemy?--I doubt it--in order to hate one person intensely, one must
be in love with some other person. Every great hatred serves as a
counterpoise to a great love: and whom could I hate, when I love nobody?
My hatred is, like my love, a confused, general sentiment that seeks to
apply itself to some object and cannot; I have within me a treasure of
hatred and love which I don't know what to do with, and which weighs
horribly upon me. If I can find no place to bestow one or the other
or both of them, I shall burst and break apart, like a bag filled too
full of money, which rips at the seams and spills its contents.--Oh!
if I could detest some one, if one of the stupid men with whom I live
would insult me in such a way as to make my old viper's blood boil in
my frozen veins, and force me out of this dull drowsiness in which I am
stagnating; if thou, old witch with the palsied head, wouldst bite me
in the cheek with thy rat's teeth and infect me with thy venom and thy
madness; if some one's death could be my life;--if the last heart-beat
of an enemy writhing under my foot could send a delicious thrill
through my hair, and the odor of his blood smell sweeter to my thirsty
nostrils than the aroma of flowers, oh! how gladly would I renounce
love, and how happy I would deem myself!
Deadly embraces, tiger-bites, the hug of a boa-constrictor, an
elephant's foot placed upon a breast that is crushed and flattened
beneath it, the poisoned tail of the scorpion, the milky juice of the
Euphorbia, the curved kris of the Javanese, blades that gleam at night
and extinguish their gleam in blood--I call upon you now, it is you who
shall replace for me the leafless roses, the moist kisses and the warm
embrace of love!
I love nothing, as I have said, but alas! I am afraid of loving
something.--It would be a hundred thousand times better to hate than
to have such a love!--I have found the type of beauty that I have so
long dreamed of.--I have found the body of my phantom; I have seen it,
it has spoken to me, I have touched its hand, it exists; it is not a
chimera. I knew that I could not be mistaken and that my presentiments
never lied.--Yes, Silvio, lam living beside the dream of my life;--my
chamber is here, its chamber is there; I can see from here the curtain
trembling at its window, and the light of its lamp. Its shadow has just
passed across the curtain: in an hour we shall sup together.
Those lovely Turkish eyelashes, that clear, profound gaze, that warm
hue of pale amber, that long glossy black hair, that nose, of proud and
delicate shape, those joints and extremities, supple and slender after
the manner of Palmegiani, the graceful curves and the pure oval contour
that give such an air of aristocratic refinement to a face--all that
I longed for and would have been overjoyed to find distributed among
five or six persons, I have found united in a single person!
The thing that I adore most fervently among all earthly things is a
lovely hand.--If you could see the hand of my dream! such perfection!
such dazzling whiteness! such soft skin! such penetrating moisture! the
ends of the fingers so admirably tapered! the half-moon of the nails
so clearly marked! such polish and such brilliant color! you would say
they were the inner petals of a rose;--Anne of Austria's hands, so
vaunted and famous, were no more than the hands of a turkey-keeper or
scullery-maid compared with these.--And then what grace, what art in
the slightest movements of the hand! how gracefully the little finger
bends and stays a little apart from its tall brothers!--The thought of
that hand drives me mad and makes my lips quiver and burn.--I close my
eyes to avoid looking at it; but with its delicate fingers it seizes my
eyelashes and raises the lids, causing countless visions of ivory and
snow to pass before me.