Part 6 (1/2)
According to village custom, vespers were said soon after ma.s.s. Coming out of church Madame de Chessel naturally proposed to her neighbors to pa.s.s the intermediate time at Frapesle instead of crossing the Indre and the meadows twice in the great heat. The offer was accepted. Monsieur de Chessel gave his arm to the d.u.c.h.ess, Madame de Chessel took that of the count. I offered mine to the countess, and felt, for the first time, that beautiful arm against my side. As we walked from the church to Frapesle by the woods of Sache, where the light, filtering down through the foliage, made those pretty patterns on the path which seem like painted silk, such sensations of pride, such ideas took possession of me that my heart beat violently.
”What is the matter?” she said, after walking a little way in a silence I dared not break. ”Your heart beats too fast--”
”I have heard of your good fortune,” I replied, ”and, like all others who love truly, I am beset with vague fears. Will your new dignities change you and lessen your friends.h.i.+p?”
”Change me!” she said; ”oh, fie! Another such idea and I shall--not despise you, but forget you forever.”
I looked at her with an ecstasy which should have been contagious.
”We profit by the new laws which we have neither brought about nor demanded,” she said; ”but we are neither place-hunters nor beggars; besides, as you know very well, neither Monsieur de Mortsauf nor I can leave Clochegourde. By my advice he has declined the command to which his rank ent.i.tled him at the Maison Rouge. We are quite content that my father should have the place. This forced modesty,” she added with some bitterness, ”has already been of service to our son. The king, to whose household my father is appointed, said very graciously that he would show Jacques the favor we were not willing to accept. Jacques'
education, which must now be thought of, is already being discussed.
He will be the representative of two houses, the Lenoncourt and the Mortsauf families. I can have no ambition except for him, and therefore my anxieties seem to have increased. Not only must Jacques live, but he must be made worthy of his name; two necessities which, as you know, conflict. And then, later, what friend will keep him safe for me in Paris, where all things are pitfalls for the soul and dangers for the body? My friend,” she said, in a broken voice, ”who could not see upon your brow and in your eyes that you are one who will inhabit heights?
Be some day the guardian and sponsor of our boy. Go to Paris; if your father and brother will not second you, our family, above all my mother, who has a genius for the management of life, will help you. Profit by our influence; you will never be without support in whatever career you choose; put the strength of your desires into a n.o.ble ambition--”
”I understand you,” I said, interrupting her; ”ambition is to be my mistress. I have no need of that to be wholly yours. No, I will not be rewarded for my obedience here by receiving favors there. I will go; I will make my own way; I will rise alone. From you I would accept everything, from others nothing.”
”Child!” she murmured, ill-concealing a smile of pleasure.
”Besides, I have taken my vows,” I went on. ”Thinking over our situation I am resolved to bind myself to you by ties that never can be broken.”
She trembled slightly and stopped short to look at me.
”What do you mean?” she asked, letting the couples who preceded us walk on, and keeping the children at her side.
”This,” I said; ”but first tell me frankly how you wish me to love you.”
”Love me as my aunt loved me; I gave you her rights when I permitted you to call me by the name which she chose for her own among my others.”
”Then I am to love without hope and with an absolute devotion. Well, yes; I will do for you what some men do for G.o.d. I shall feel that you have asked it. I will enter a seminary and make myself a priest, and then I will educate your son. Jacques shall be myself in his own form; political conceptions, thoughts, energy, patience, I will give him all.
In that way I shall live near to you, and my love, enclosed in religion as a silver image in a crystal shrine, can never be suspected of evil.
You will not have to fear the undisciplined pa.s.sions which grasp a man and by which already I have allowed myself to be vanquished. I will consume my own being in the flame, and I will love you with a purified love.”
She turned pale and said, hurrying her words: ”Felix, do not put yourself in bonds that might prove an obstacle to our happiness. I should die of grief for having caused a suicide like that. Child, do you think despairing love a life's vocation? Wait for life's trials before you judge of life; I command it. Marry neither the Church nor a woman; marry not at all,--I forbid it. Remain free. You are twenty-one years old--My G.o.d! can I have mistaken him? I thought two months sufficed to know some souls.”
”What hope have you?” I cried, with fire in my eyes.
”My friend, accept our help, rise in life, make your way and your fortune and you shall know my hope. And,” she added, as if she were whispering a secret, ”never release the hand you are holding at this moment.”
She bent to my ear as she said these words which proved her deep solicitude for my future.
”Madeleine!” I exclaimed ”never!”
We were close to a wooden gate which opened into the park of Frapesle; I still seem to see its ruined posts overgrown with climbing plants and briers and mosses. Suddenly an idea, that of the count's death, flashed through my brain, and I said, ”I understand you.”
”I am glad of it,” she answered in a tone which made me know I had supposed her capable of a thought that could never be hers.
Her purity drew tears of admiration from my eyes which the selfishness of pa.s.sion made bitter indeed. My mind reacted and I felt that she did not love me enough even to wish for liberty. So long as love recoils from a crime it seems to have its limits, and love should be infinite. A spasm shook my heart.
”She does not love me,” I thought.
To hide what was in my soul I stooped over Madeleine and kissed her hair.
”I am afraid of your mother,” I said to the countess presently, to renew the conversation.