Volume Ii Part 47 (1/2)
”Take care, monsieur! I am married now!”
”You are married! Who, then, is the unhappy wretch who has given you his name? an idiot or a knave--it must be one or the other!”
Thelenie bit savagely at the head of her crop, but she tried in vain to recover her usual self-possession.
”Come, madame,” continued Paul, ”tell me why you came here. Tell me at once and let us hasten to put an end to an interview which, I trust, will never be repeated.”
”Monsieur, I came--your infernal dog is the cause of my coming. If he hadn't thrown himself at me--at my horse--not long ago, to defend a little boy who was throwing stones at me, I shouldn't have tried to find out to whom he belonged.”
”Doubtless Ami recognized you, madame; he has a better memory than you; he always recognizes my friends, and my enemies as well.”
”What! is this that great gaunt creature that you used to have? He has grown so big and strong! I confess that I didn't recognize him; I thought at first that he belonged to a lady who foolishly took sides with the little good-for-nothing.”
”So you are Madame de Belleville, are you?” cried Paul, to whom Honorine had described her adventure with the handsome equestrian.
”To be sure! does that surprise you?”
”Nothing could astonish me on your part.”
”Yes, monsieur, I have married Monsieur de Belleville, a very worthy man, a young man--in good society. I have nearly forty thousand francs a year, I have my own carriage, and not long ago we bought a beautiful estate in Ch.e.l.les.”
”What! you were not afraid to buy a house in this neighborhood?”
”Pray, monsieur, why should I be afraid of this neighborhood? Please tell me what I have to dread here?”
”Oh! nothing! such a woman as you never feels remorse.”
”Remorse! because I left you when I had ceased to love you! Ha! ha!
Really, monsieur, anyone can see that you no longer go into society, that you live like a wolf! You seem to have forgotten entirely what is a daily occurrence in society. Two people form a liaison, they adore each other for a while; but there comes a day when one of them ceases to love the other, and then----”
”And then, madame, that one says so frankly, and does not continue to feign love for the man she is deceiving.”
”Mon Dieu! messieurs, if we were always perfectly frank with you, you would cut a sorry figure too often! I believe that most men would rather be deceived than know what there is in the bottom of our hearts; and they are wise! for they would make such painful discoveries!”
”A truce to your jests, madame! If you had done nothing more than deceive me, than feign a love which you no longer felt, when no sacrifice was too great for me to give you pleasure, when I balked at nothing to prove my love for you, I should have no reproaches for you!
Indeed, I should be very foolish to complain, for your conduct would have differed in no respect from that of those women who pride themselves on paying for every benefaction by an infidelity.--Don't be alarmed; that was not my reason for becoming a hermit!--But you were more than unfaithful to me--you were cowardly, inhuman. In order to conceal from me the ident.i.ty of your real lover, you had the cunning to make me suspect, accuse, insult a young man who was not thinking of you, but whom, by some fatality, or rather by means of some perfidious scheme prepared beforehand, I found alone with you when I was seeking your lover. When you heard me, in my blind jealousy, accuse and challenge Comte Adhemar de Hautmont, you could with a word have put an end to my error. You had only to say to me: 'It is not this gentleman who is your rival, but Beauregard, your dear friend Beauregard, your intimate, inseparable friend!' Far from that, you did your utmost to make my misunderstanding complete! Nor did Comte Adhemar, when I insulted him, try to undeceive me; he had received one of those affronts which a gallant man does not forgive; he demanded prompt, immediate satisfaction, and I, for my part, wanted nothing better than to fight.
You saw us go out together, without seconds, without attendants, from that fatal house at Couberon, where I found the count with you. You saw us both, frantic with rage, armed with pistols; you knew that we were going to fight, and you did not try to prevent that fatal duel; yes, fatal, in very truth, for I was unfortunate enough to be the victor. The ill-fated Adhemar, mortally wounded, told me the whole truth.
”He had received an urgent invitation from you to come to your country house at Couberon; but it had never occurred to him to make love to you, for he loved another woman, he had a child, a daughter whom he adored; his death was certain to drive to despair a young woman to whom he expected soon to be married! Those two beloved beings had no one but him to depend upon; he was on the point of naming them to me, of telling me his last wishes, when death closed his lips; and he left no paper, no sign to enable me to discover those unfortunate creatures whose lives I had wrecked! Thanks to you, to your atrocious treachery, I had killed a young man who had done me no wrong; and with the same shot I deprived a child of its father, a mother of her husband!--That, madame, that is what I have never forgiven myself: that I became a criminal for you--for a Thelenie!”
”Monsieur!”
”Hush, wretched creature! and since you have had the audacity to return to this neighborhood to live, go to a spot close by, in the ravine near the Noisy road; it was there that Adhemar and I fought on leaving your house. It was there that the unfortunate man fell, dying, at my feet.
Poor fellow! with his last breath he forgave me; he gave me his hand; but those two poor creatures whom he loved so dearly, and with whom he begged me to replace him--that woman and that child; he was on the point of telling me their names, and where I could find them; but he could not! To no purpose did I resort to the most minute and painful search; I discovered nothing; I could never learn the whereabouts of those two, to whom I would gladly have offered my whole fortune, in compensation for the injury I had done them.
”Then I was overwhelmed with shame; I conceived a horror of that society, where, under the mask of love and friends.h.i.+p, I had found nothing but falseness and perfidy. But I wished to be able to weep over my victim's grave, to be where I could go every day to beg his forgiveness for that terrible mistake which has left me a prey to everlasting remorse. That is why I bought this estate. I returned to this part of the country, not to cut a dash and give great parties, but to be near the unfortunate Adhemar's grave.”