Part 35 (1/2)
A point on which I felt no less concern was to know how far I might believe in the love which she declared she had had for me from the very beginning of our acquaintance. Here she betrayed a little confusion, as if, in her invincible pride, she regretted having revealed a secret she had so jealously guarded. It was the abbe who undertook to confess for her. He a.s.sured me that at that time he had frequently scolded Edmee for her affection for ”the young savage.” As an objection to this, I told him of the conversation between Edmee and himself which I had overheard one evening in the park. This I repeated with that great accuracy of memory I possess. However, he replied:
”That very evening, if you had followed us a little further under the trees, you might have overheard a dispute that would have completely rea.s.sured you, and have explained how, from being repugnant (I may almost say odious) to me, as you then were, you became at first endurable, and gradually very dear.”
”You must tell me,” I exclaimed, ”who worked the miracle.”
”One word will explain it,” he answered; ”Edmee loved you. When she had confessed this to me, she covered her face with her hands and remained for a moment as if overwhelmed with shame and vexation; then suddenly she raised her head and exclaimed:
”'Well, since you wish to know the absolute truth, I love him! Yes, I love him! I am smitten with him, as you say. It is not my fault; why should I blush at it? I cannot help it; it is the work of fate. I have never loved M. de la Marche; I merely feel a friends.h.i.+p for him. For Bernard I have a very different feeling--a feeling so strong, so varied, so full of unrest, of hatred, of fear, of pity, of anger, of tenderness, that I understand nothing about it, and no longer try to understand anything.'”
”'Oh, woman, woman!' I exclaimed, clasping my hands in bewilderment, 'thou art a mystery, an abyss, and he who thinks to know thee is totally mad!'
”'As many times as you like, abbe,' she answered, with a firmness in which there were signs of annoyance and confusion, 'it is all the same to me. On this point I have lectured myself more than you have lectured all your flocks in your whole life. I know that Bernard is a bear, a badger, as Mademoiselle Leblanc calls him, a savage, a boor, and anything else you like. There is nothing more s.h.a.ggy, more p.r.i.c.kly, more cunning, more malicious than Bernard. He is an animal who scarcely knows how to sign his name; he is a coa.r.s.e brute who thinks he can break me in like one of the jades of Varenne. But he makes a great mistake; I will die rather than ever be his, unless he becomes civilized enough to marry me. But one might as well expect a miracle. I try to improve him, without daring to hope. However, whether he forces me to kill myself or to turn nun, whether he remains as he is or becomes worse, it will be none the less true that I love him. My dear abbe, you know that it must be costing me something to make this confession; and, when my affection for you brings me as a penitent to your feet and to your bosom, you should not humiliate me by your expressions of surprise and your exorcisms! Consider the matter now; examine, discuss, decide! Consider the matter now; examine, discuss, decide! The evil is--I love him. The symptoms are--I think of none but him, I see none but him; and I could eat no dinner this evening because he had not come back. I find him handsomer than any man in the world. When he says that he loves me, I can see, I can feel that it is true; I feel displeased, and at the same time delighted. M. de la Marche seems insipid and prim since I have known Bernard. Bernard alone seems as proud, as pa.s.sionate, as bold as myself--and as weak as myself; for he cries like a child when I vex him, and here I am crying, too, as I think of him.'”
”Dear abbe,” I said, throwing myself on his neck, ”let me embrace you till I have crushed your life out for remembering all this.”
”The abbe is drawing the long bow,” said Edmee archly.
”What!” I exclaimed, pressing her hands as if I would break them. ”You have made me suffer for seven years, and now you repent a few words that console me . . .”
”In any case do not regret the past,” she said. ”Ah, with you such as you were in those days, we should have been ruined if I had not been able to think and decide for both of us. Good G.o.d! what would have become of us by now? You would have had far more to suffer from my sternness and pride; for you would have offended me from the very first day of our union, and I should have had to punish you by running away or killing myself, or killing you--for we are given to killing in our family; it is a natural habit. One thing is certain, and that is that you would have been a detestable husband; you would have made me blush for your ignorance; you would have wanted to rule me, and we should have fallen foul of each other; that would have driven my father to despair, and, as you know, my father had to be considered before everything. I might, perhaps, have risked my own fate lightly enough, if I had been alone in the world, for I have a strain of rashness in my nature; but it was essential that my father should remain happy, and tranquil, and respected. He had brought me up in happiness and independence, and I should never have forgiven myself if I had deprived his old age of the blessings he had lavished on my whole life. Do not think that I am full of virtues and n.o.ble qualities, as the abbe pretends; I love, that is all; but I love strongly, exclusively, steadfastly. I sacrificed you to my father, my poor Bernard; and Heaven, who would have cursed us if I had sacrificed my father, rewards us to-day by giving us to each other, tried and not found wanting. As you grew greater in my eyes I felt that I could wait, because I knew I had to love you long, and I was not afraid of seeing my pa.s.sion vanish before it was satisfied, as do the pa.s.sions of feeble souls. We were two exceptional characters; our loves had to be heroic; the beaten track would have led both of us to ruin.”
x.x.x
We returned to Sainte-Severe at the expiration of Edmee's period of mourning. This was the time that had been fixed for our marriage. When we had quitted the province where we had both experienced so many bitter mortifications and such grievous trials, we had imagined that we should never feel any inclination to return. Yet, so powerful are the recollections of childhood and the ties of family life that, even in the heart of an enchanted land which could not arouse painful memories, we had quickly begun to regret our gloomy, wild Varenne, and sighed for the old oaks in the park. We returned, then, with a sense of profound yet solemn joy. Edmee's first care was to gather the beautiful flowers in the garden and to kneel by her father's grave and arrange them on it. We kissed the hallowed ground, and there made a vow to strive unceasingly to leave a name as worthy of respect and veneration as his. He had frequently carried this ambition to the verge of weakness, but it was a n.o.ble weakness, a sacred vanity.
Our marriage was celebrated in the village chapel, and the festivities were confined to the family; none but Arthur, the abbe, Marca.s.se, and Patience sat down to our modest banquet. What need had we of the outside world to behold our happiness? They might have believed, perhaps, that they were doing us an honour by covering the blots on our escutcheon with their august presence. We were enough to be happy and merry among ourselves. Our hearts were filled with as much affection as they could hold. We were too proud to ask more from any one, too pleased with one another to yearn for greater pleasure. Patience returned to his sober, retired life, resumed the duties of ”great judge” and ”treasurer” on certain days of the week. Marca.s.se remained with me until his death, which happened towards the end of the French Revolution. I trust I did my best to repay his fidelity by an unreserved friends.h.i.+p and an intimacy that nothing could disturb.
Arthur, who had sacrificed a year of his life to us, could not bring himself to abjure the love of his country, and his desire to contribute to its progress by offering it the fruits of his learning and the results of his investigations; he returned to Philadelphia, where I paid him a visit after I was left a widower.
I will not describe my years of happiness with my n.o.ble wife; such years beggar description. One could not resign one's self to living after losing them, if one did not make strenuous efforts to avoid recalling them too often. She gave me six children; four of these are still alive, and all honourably settled in life. I have lived for them, in obedience to Edmee's dying command. You must forgive me for not speaking further of this loss, which I suffered only ten years ago. I feel it now as keenly as on the first day, and I do not seek to find consolation for it, but to make myself worthy of rejoining the holy comrade of my life in a better world after I have completed my period of probation in this.