Part 18 (1/2)
The countess rose hastily and took Madeleine to the portico.
”That's marriage, my dear fellow,” remarked the count to me. ”Do you mean to imply by going off in that manner that I am talking nonsense?”
he cried to his wife, taking his son by the hand and going to the portico after her with a furious look in his eyes.
”On the contrary, Monsieur, you frightened me. Your words hurt me cruelly,” she added, in a hollow voice. ”If virtue does not consist in sacrificing everything to our children and our husband, what is virtue?”
”Sac-ri-ficing!” cried the count, making each syllable the blow of a sledge-hammer on the heart of his victim. ”What have you sacrificed to your children? What do you sacrifice to me? Speak! what means all this?
Answer. What is going on here? What did you mean by what you said?”
”Monsieur,” she replied, ”would you be satisfied to be loved for love of G.o.d, or to know your wife virtuous for virtue's sake?”
”Madame is right,” I said, interposing in a shaken voice which vibrated in two hearts; ”yes, the n.o.blest privilege conferred by reason is to attribute our virtues to the beings whose happiness is our work, and whom we render happy, not from policy, nor from duty, but from an inexhaustible and voluntary affection--”
A tear shone in Henriette's eyes.
”And, dear count,” I continued, ”if by chance a woman is involuntarily subjected to feelings other than those society imposes on her, you must admit that the more irresistible that feeling is, the more virtuous she is in smothering it, in sacrificing herself to her husband and children.
This theory is not applicable to me who unfortunately show an example to the contrary, nor to you whom it will never concern.”
”You have a n.o.ble soul, Felix,” said the count, slipping his arm, not ungracefully, round his wife's waist and drawing her towards him to say: ”Forgive a poor sick man, dear, who wants to be loved more than he deserves.”
”There are some hearts that are all generosity,” she said, resting her head upon his shoulder. The scene made her tremble to such a degree that her comb fell, her hair rolled down, and she turned pale. The count, holding her up, gave a sort of groan as he felt her fainting; he caught her in his arms as he might a child, and carried her to the sofa in the salon, where we all surrounded her. Henriette held my hand in hers as if to tell me that we two alone knew the secret of that scene, so simple in itself, so heart-rending to her.
”I do wrong,” she said to me in a low voice, when the count left the room to fetch a gla.s.s of orange-flower water. ”I have many wrongs to repent of towards you; I wished to fill you with despair when I ought to have received you mercifully. Dear, you are kindness itself, and I alone can appreciate it. Yes, I know there is a kindness prompted by pa.s.sion.
Men have various ways of being kind; some from contempt, others from impulse, from calculation, through indolence of nature; but you, my friend, you have been absolutely kind.”
”If that be so,” I replied, ”remember that all that is good or great in me comes through you. You know well that I am of your making.”
”That word is enough for any woman's happiness,” she said, as the count re-entered the room. ”I feel better,” she said, rising; ”I want air.”
We went down to the terrace, fragrant with the acacias which were still in bloom. She had taken my right arm, and pressed it against her heart, thus expressing her sad thoughts; but they were, she said, of a sadness dear to her. No doubt she would gladly have been alone with me; but her imagination, inexpert in women's wiles, did not suggest to her any way of sending her children and the count back to the house. We therefore talked on indifferent subjects, while she pondered a means of pouring a few last thoughts from her heart to mine.
”It is a long time since I have driven out,” she said, looking at the beauty of the evening. ”Monsieur, will you please order the carriage that I may take a turn?”
She knew that after evening prayer she could not speak with me, for the count was sure to want his backgammon. She might have returned to the warm and fragrant terrace after her husband had gone to bed, but she feared, perhaps, to trust herself beneath those shadows, or to walk by the bal.u.s.trade where our eyes could see the course of the Indre through the dear valley. As the silent and sombre vaults of a cathedral lift the soul to prayer, so leafy ways, lighted by the moon, perfumed with penetrating odors, alive with the murmuring noises of the spring-tide, stir the fibres and weaken the resolves of those who love. The country calms the old, but excites the young. We knew it well. Two strokes of the bell announced the hour of prayer. The countess s.h.i.+vered.
”Dear Henriette, are you ill?”
”There is no Henriette,” she said. ”Do not bring her back. She was capricious and exacting; now you have a friend whose courage has been strengthened by the words which heaven itself dictated to you. We will talk of this later. We must be punctual at prayers, for it is my day to lead them.”
As Madame de Mortsauf said the words in which she begged the help of G.o.d through all the adversities of life, a tone came into her voice which struck all present. Did she use her gift of second sight to foresee the terrible emotion she was about to endure through my forgetfulness of an engagement made with Arabella?
”We have time to make three kings before the horses are harnessed,” said the count, dragging me back to the salon. ”You can go and drive with my wife, and I'll go to bed.”
The game was stormy, like all others. The countess heard the count's voice either from her room or from Madeleine's.
”You show a strange hospitality,” she said, re-entering the salon.
I looked at her with amazement; I could not get accustomed to the change in her; formerly she would have been most careful not to protect me against the count; then it gladdened her that I should share her sufferings and bear them with patience for love of her.