Part 8 (1/2)
”Then, Blanche,” said the count, laughing, ”I must pay you for it.”
He offered her his arm and took her to the first courtyard, where stood an open carriage which her father had sent her, and for which the count had purchased two English horses. The old huntsman had prepared the surprise while Jacques was taking his lesson. We got into the carriage, and went to see where the new avenue entered the main road towards Chinon. As we returned, the countess said to me in an anxious tone, ”I am too happy; to me happiness is like an illness,--it overwhelms me; I fear it may vanish like a dream.”
I loved her too pa.s.sionately not to feel jealous,--I who could give her nothing! In my rage against myself I longed for some means of dying for her. She asked me to tell her the thoughts that filled my eyes, and I told her honestly. She was more touched than by all her presents; then taking me to the portico, she poured comfort into my heart. ”Love me as my aunt loved me,” she said, ”and that will be giving me your life; and if I take it, must I not ever be grateful to you?
”It was time I finished my tapestry,” she added as we re-entered the salon, where I kissed her hand as if to renew my vows. ”Perhaps you do not know, Felix, why I began so formidable a piece of work. Men find the occupations of life a great resource against troubles; the management of affairs distracts their mind; but we poor women have no support within ourselves against our sorrows. To be able to smile before my children and my husband when my heart was heavy I felt the need of controlling my inward sufferings by some physical exercise. In this way I escaped the depression which is apt to follow a great strain upon the moral strength, and likewise all outbursts of excitement. The mere action of lifting my arm regularly as I drew the st.i.tches rocked my thoughts and gave to my spirit when the tempest raged a monotonous ebb and flow which seemed to regulate its emotions. To every st.i.tch I confided my secrets,--you understand me, do you not? Well, while doing my last chair I have thought much, too much, of you, dear friend. What you have put into your bouquets I have said in my embroidery.”
The dinner was lovely. Jacques, like all children when you take notice of them, jumped into my arms when he saw the flowers I had arranged for him as a garland. His mother pretended to be jealous; ah, Natalie, you should have seen the charming grace with which the dear child offered them to her. In the afternoon we played a game of backgammon, I alone against Monsieur and Madame de Mortsauf, and the count was charming.
They accompanied me along the road to Frapesle in the twilight of a tranquil evening, one of those harmonious evenings when our feelings gain in depth what they lose in vivacity. It was a day of days in this poor woman's life; a spot of brightness which often comforted her thoughts in painful hours.
Soon, however, the riding lessons became a subject of contention. The countess justly feared the count's harsh reprimands to his son. Jacques grew thin, dark circles surrounded his sweet blue eyes; rather than trouble his mother, he suffered in silence. I advised him to tell his father he was tired when the count's temper was violent; but that expedient proved unavailing, and it became necessary to subst.i.tute the old huntsman as a teacher in place of the father, who could with difficulty be induced to resign his pupil. Angry reproaches and contentions began once more; the count found a text for his continual complaints in the base ingrat.i.tude of women; he flung the carriage, horses, and liveries in his wife's face twenty times a day. At last a circ.u.mstance occurred on which a man with his nature and his disease naturally fastened eagerly. The cost of the buildings at the Ca.s.sine and the Rhetoriere proved to be half as much again as the estimate.
This news was unfortunately given in the first instance to Monsieur de Mortsauf instead of to his wife. It was the ground of a quarrel, which began mildly but grew more and more embittered until it seemed as though the count's madness, lulled for a short time, was demanding its arrearages from the poor wife.
That day I had started from Frapesle at half-past ten to search for flowers with Madeleine. The child had brought the two vases to the portico, and I was wandering about the gardens and adjoining meadows gathering the autumn flowers, so beautiful, but too rare. Returning from my final quest, I could not find my little lieutenant with her white cape and broad pink sash; but I heard cries within the house, and Madeleine presently came running out.
”The general,” she said, crying (the term with her was an expression of dislike), ”the general is scolding mamma; go and defend her.”
I sprang up the steps of the portico and reached the salon without being seen by either the count or his wife. Hearing the madman's sharp cries I first shut all the doors, then I returned and found Henriette as white as her dress.
”Never marry, Felix,” said the count as soon as he saw me; ”a woman is led by the devil; the most virtuous of them would invent evil if it did not exist; they are all vile.”
Then followed arguments without beginning or end. Harking back to the old troubles, Monsieur de Mortsauf repeated the nonsense of the peasantry against the new system of farming. He declared that if he had had the management of Clochegourde he should be twice as rich as he now was. He shouted these complaints and insults, he swore, he sprang around the room knocking against the furniture and displacing it; then in the middle of a sentence he stopped short, complained that his very marrow was on fire, his brains melting away like his money, his wife had ruined him! The countess smiled and looked upward.
”Yes, Blanche,” he cried, ”you are my executioner; you are killing me; I am in your way; you want to get rid of me; you are monster of hypocrisy.
She is smiling! Do you know why she smiles, Felix?”
I kept silence and looked down.
”That woman,” he continued, answering his own question, ”denies me all happiness; she is no more to me than she is to you, and yet she pretends to be my wife! She bears my name and fulfils none of the duties which all laws, human and divine, impose upon her; she lies to G.o.d and man.
She obliges me to go long distances, hoping to wear me out and make me leave her to herself; I am displeasing to her, she hates me; she puts all her art into keeping me away from her; she has made me mad through the privations she imposes on me--for everything flies to my poor head; she is killing me by degrees, and she thinks herself a saint and takes the sacrament every month!”
The countess was weeping bitterly, humiliated by the degradation of the man, to whom she kept saying for all answer, ”Monsieur! monsieur!
monsieur!”
Though the count's words made me blush, more for him than for Henriette, they stirred my heart violently, for they appealed to the sense of chast.i.ty and delicacy which is indeed the very warp and woof of first love.
”She is virgin at my expense,” cried the count.
At these words the countess cried out, ”Monsieur!”
”What do you mean with your imperious 'Monsieur!'” he shouted. ”Am I not your master? Must I teach you that I am?”
He came towards her, thrusting forward his white wolf's head, now hideous, for his yellow eyes had a savage expression which made him look like a wild beast rus.h.i.+ng out of a wood. Henriette slid from her chair to the ground to avoid a blow, which however was not given; she lay at full length on the floor and lost consciousness, completely exhausted.
The count was like a murderer who feels the blood of his victim spurting in his face; he stopped short, bewildered. I took the poor woman in my arms, and the count let me take her, as though he felt unworthy to touch her; but he went before me to open the door of her bedroom next the salon,--a sacred room I had never entered. I put the countess on her feet and held her for a moment in one arm, pa.s.sing the other round her waist, while Monsieur de Mortsauf took the eider-down coverlet from the bed; then together we lifted her and laid her, still dressed, on the bed. When she came to herself she motioned to us to unfasten her belt.
Monsieur de Mortsauf found a pair of scissors, and cut through it; I made her breathe salts, and she opened her eyes. The count left the room, more ashamed than sorry. Two hours pa.s.sed in perfect silence.
Henriette's hand lay in mine; she pressed it to mine, but could not speak. From time to time she opened her eyes as if to tell me by a look that she wished to be still and silent; then suddenly, for an instant, there seemed a change; she rose on her elbow and whispered, ”Unhappy man!--ah! if you did but know--”