Part 6 (2/2)
”There is no Cardinal Vilquin that I know of in history,” thought Ernest, as he walked back to Havre for the night mail to Paris.
Naturally he questioned the postmaster about the Vilquin family, and learned that it possessed an enormous fortune. Monsieur Vilquin had a son and two daughters, one of whom was married to Monsieur Althor, junior. Prudence kept La Briere from seeming anxious about the Vilquins; the postmaster was already looking at him slyly.
”Is there there any one staying with them at the present moment,” he asked, ”besides the family?”
”The d'Herouville family is there just now. They do talk of a marriage between the young duke and the remaining Mademoiselle Vilquin.”
”Ha!” thought Ernest; ”there was a celebrated Cardinal d'Herouville under the Valois, and a terrible marshal whom they made a duke in the time of Henri IV.”
Ernest returned to Paris having seen enough of Modeste to dream of her, and to think that, whether she were rich or whether she were poor, if she had a n.o.ble soul he would like to make her Madame de La Briere; and so thinking, he resolved to continue the correspondence.
Ah! you poor women of France, try to remain hidden if you can; try to weave the least little romance about your lives in the midst of a civilization which posts in the public streets the hours when the coaches arrive and depart; which counts all letters and stamps them twice over, first with the hour when they are thrown into the boxes, and next with that of their delivery; which numbers the houses, prints the tax of every tenant on a metal register at the doors (after verifying its particulars), and will soon possess one vast register of every inch of its territory down to the smallest parcel of land, and the most insignificant features of it,--a giant work ordained by a giant. Try, imprudent young ladies, to escape not only the eye of the police, but the incessant chatter which takes place in a country town about the veriest trifles,--how many dishes the prefect has at his dessert, how many slices of melon are left at the door of some small householder,--which strains its ear to catch the c.h.i.n.k of the gold a thrifty man lays by, and spends its evenings in calculating the incomes of the village and the town and the department. It was mere chance that enabled Modeste to escape discovery through Ernest's reconnoitring expedition,--a step which he already regretted; but what Parisian can allow himself to be the dupe of a little country girl? Incapable of being duped! that horrid maxim is the dissolvent of all n.o.ble sentiments in man.
We can readily guess the struggle of feeling to which this honest young fellow fell a prey when we read the letter that he now indited, in which every stroke of the flail which scourged his conscience will be found to have left its trace.
This is what Modeste read a few days later, as she sat by her window on a fine summer's day:--
Mademoiselle,--Without hypocrisy or evasion, _yes_, if I had been certain that you possessed an immense fortune I should have acted differently. Why? I have searched for the reason; here it is. We have within us an inborn feeling, inordinately developed by social life, which drives us to the pursuit and to the possession of happiness. Most men confound happiness with the means that lead to it; money in their eyes is the chief element of happiness. I should, therefore, have endeavored to win you, prompted by that social sentiment which has in all ages made wealth a religion. At least, I think I should. It is not to be expected of a man still young that he can have the wisdom to subst.i.tute sound sense for the pleasure of the senses; within sight of a prey the brutal instincts hidden in the heart of man drive him on. Instead of that lesson, I should have sent you compliments and flatteries. Should I have kept my own esteem in so doing? I doubt it. Mademoiselle, in such a case success brings absolution; but happiness? That is another thing. Should I have distrusted my wife had I won her in that way? Most a.s.suredly I should. Your advance on me would sooner or later have come between us. Your husband, however grand your fancy may make him, would have ended by reproaching you for having abased him. You, yourself, might have come, sooner or later, to despise him. The strong man forgives, but the poet whines. Such, mademoiselle, is the answer which my honesty compels me to make to you.
And now, listen to me. You have the triumph of forcing me to reflect deeply,--first on you, whom I do not sufficiently know; next, on myself, of whom I knew too little. You have had the power to stir up many of the evil thoughts which crouched in my heart, as in all hearts; but from them something good and generous has come forth, and I salute you with my most fervent benedictions, just as at sea we salute the lighthouse which shows the rocks on which we were about to perish. Here is my confession, for I would not lose your esteem nor my own for all the treasures of earth.
I wished to know who you are. I have just returned from Havre, where I saw Francoise Cochet, and followed her to Ingouville. You are as beautiful as the woman of a poet's dream; but I do not know if you are Mademoiselle Vilquin concealed under Mademoiselle d'Herouville, or Mademoiselle d'Herouville hidden under Mademoiselle Vilquin. Though all is fair in war, I blushed at such spying and stopped short in my inquiries. You have roused my curiosity; forgive me for being somewhat of a woman; it is, I believe, the privilege of a poet.
Now that I have laid bare my heart and allowed you to read it, you will believe in the sincerity of what I am about to add. Though the glimpse I had of you was all too rapid, it has sufficed to modify my opinion of your conduct. You are a poet and a poem, even more than you are a woman. Yes, there is in you something more precious than beauty; you are the beautiful Ideal of art, of fancy. The step you took, blamable as it would be in an ordinary young girl, allotted to an every-day destiny, has another aspect if endowed with the nature which I now attribute to you. Among the crowd of beings flung by fate into the social life of this planet to make up a generation there are exceptional souls. If your letter is the outcome of long poetic reveries on the fate which conventions bring to women, if, constrained by the impulse of a lofty and intelligent mind, you have wished to understand the life of a man to whom you attribute the gift of genius, to the end that you may create a friends.h.i.+p withdrawn from the ordinary relations of life, with a soul in communion with your own, disregarding thus the ordinary trammels of your s.e.x,--then, a.s.suredly, you are an exception. The law which rightly limits the actions of the crowd is too limited for you. But in that case, the remark in my first letter returns in greater force,--you have done too much or not enough.
Accept once more my thanks for the service you have rendered me, that of compelling me to sound my heart. You have corrected in me the false idea, only too common in France, that marriage should be a means of fortune. While I struggled with my conscience a sacred voice spoke to me. I swore solemnly to make my fortune myself, and not be led by motives of cupidity in choosing the companion of my life. I have also reproached myself for the blamable curiosity you have excited in me. You have not six millions. There is no concealment possible in Havre for a young lady who possesses such a fortune; you would be discovered at once by the pack of hounds of great families whom I see in Paris on the hunt after heiresses, and who have already sent one, the grand equerry, the young duke, among the Vilquins. Therefore, believe me, the sentiments I have now expressed are fixed in my mind as a rule of life, from which I have abstracted all influences of romance or of actual fact. Prove to me, therefore, that you have one of those souls which may be forgiven for its disobedience to the common law, by perceiving and comprehending the spirit of this letter as you did that of my first letter. If you are destined to a middle-cla.s.s life, obey the iron law which holds society together. Lifted in mind above other women, I admire you; but if you seek to obey an impulse which you ought to repress, I pity you. The all-wise moral of that great domestic epic ”Clarissa Harlowe” is that legitimate and honorable love led the poor victim to her ruin because it was conceived, developed, and pursued beyond the boundaries of family restraint.
The family, however cruel and even foolish it may be, is in the right against the Lovelaces. The family is Society. Believe me, the glory of a young girl, of a woman, must always be that of repressing her most ardent impulses within the narrow sphere of conventions. If I had a daughter able to become a Madame de Stael I should wish her dead at fifteen. Can you imagine a daughter of yours flaunting on the stage of fame, exhibiting herself to win the plaudits of a crowd, and not suffer anguish at the thought? No matter to what heights a woman can rise by the inward poetry of her soul, she must sacrifice the outer signs of superiority on the altar of her home. Her impulse, her genius, her aspirations toward Good, the whole poem of a young girl's being, should belong to the man she accepts and the children whom she brings into the world. I think I perceive in you a secret desire to widen the narrow circle of the life to which all women are condemned, and to put love and pa.s.sion into marriage. Ah! it is a lovely dream! it is not impossible; it is difficult, but if realized, may it not be to the despair of souls--forgive me the hackneyed word--”incompris”?
If you seek a platonic friends.h.i.+p it will be to your sorrow in after years. If your letter was a jest, discontinue it. Perhaps this little romance is to end here--is it? It has not been without fruit. My sense of duty is aroused, and you, on your side, will have learned something of Society. Turn your thoughts to real life; throw the enthusiasms you have culled from literature into the virtues of your s.e.x.
Adieu, mademoiselle. Do me the honor to grant me your esteem.
Having seen you, or one whom I believe to be you, I have known that your letter was simply natural; a flower so lovely turns to the sun--of poetry. Yes, love poetry as you love flowers, music, the grandeur of the sea, the beauties of nature; love them as an adornment of the soul, but remember what I have had the honor of telling you as to the nature of poets. Be cautious not to marry, as you say, a dunce, but seek the partner whom G.o.d has made for you. There are souls, believe me, who are fit to appreciate you, and to make you happy. If I were rich, if you were poor, I would lay my heart and my fortunes at your feet; for I believe your soul to be full of riches and of loyalty; to you I could confide my life and my honor in absolute security.
Once more, adieu, adieu, fairest daughter of Eve the fair.
The reading of this letter, swallowed like a drop of water in the desert, lifted the mountain which weighed heavily on Modeste's heart: then she saw the mistake she had made in arranging her plan, and repaired it by giving Francoise some envelopes directed to herself, in which the maid could put the letters which came from Paris and drop them again into the box. Modeste resolved to receive the postman herself on the steps of the Chalet at the hour when he made his delivery.
As to the feelings that this reply, in which the n.o.ble heart of poor La Briere beat beneath the brilliant phantom of Ca.n.a.lis, excited in Modeste, they were as multifarious and confused as the waves which rushed to die along the sh.o.r.e while with her eyes fixed on the wide ocean she gave herself up to the joy of having (if we dare say so) harpooned an angelic soul in the Parisian Gulf, of having divined that hearts of price might still be found in harmony with genius, and, above all, for having followed the magic voice of intuition.
A vast interest was now about to animate her life. The wires of her cage were broken: the bolts and bars of the pretty Chalet--where were they?
Her thoughts took wings.
”Oh, father!” she cried, looking out to the horizon. ”Come back and make us rich and happy.”
The answer which Ernest de La Briere received some five days later will tell the reader more than any elaborate disquisition of ours.
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