Part 9 (1/2)
That sadness flowed to the heart of the mother as if some gleam had lighted up a gulf to her. The baron had gone out; f.a.n.n.y went to the door of the tower and pushed the bolt, then she returned, and leaned upon the back of her boy's chair, like the sister of Dido in Guerin's picture, and said,--
”What is it, my Calyste? what makes you so sad? You promised to explain to me these visits to Les Touches; I am to bless its mistress,--at least, you said so.”
”Yes, indeed you will, dear mother,” he replied. ”She has shown me the insufficiency of my education at an epoch when the n.o.bles ought to possess a personal value in order to give life to their rank. I was as far from the age we live in as Guerande is from Paris. She has been, as it were, the mother of my intellect.”
”I cannot bless her for that,” said the baroness, with tears in her eyes.
”Mamma!” cried Calyste, on whose forehead those hot tears fell, two pearls of sorrowful motherhood, ”mamma, don't weep! Just now, when I wanted to do her a service, and search the country round, she said, 'It will make your mother so uneasy.'”
”Did she say that? Then I can forgive her many things,” replied f.a.n.n.y.
”Felicite thinks only of my good,” continued Calyste. ”She often checks the lively, venturesome language of artists so as not to shake me in a faith which is, though she knows it not, unshakable. She has told me of the life in Paris of several young men of the highest n.o.bility coming from their provinces, as I might do,--leaving families without fortune, but obtaining in Paris, by the power of their will and their intellect, a great career. I can do what the Baron de Rastignac, now a minister of State, has done. Felicite has taught me; I read with her; she gives me lessons on the piano; she is teaching me Italian; she has initiated me into a thousand social secrets, about which no one in Guerande knows anything at all. She could not give me the treasures of her love, but she has given me those of her vast intellect, her mind, her genius. She does not want to be a pleasure, but a light to me; she lessens not one of my faiths; she herself has faith in the n.o.bility, she loves Brittany, she--”
”She has changed our Calyste,” said his blind old aunt, interrupting him. ”I do not understand one word he has been saying. You have a solid roof over your head, my good nephew; you have parents and relations who adore you, and faithful servants; you can marry some good little Breton girl, religious and accomplished, who will make you happy. Reserve your ambitions for your eldest son, who may be four times as rich as you, if you choose to live tranquilly, thriftily, in obscurity,--but in the peace of G.o.d,--in order to release the burdens on your estate. It is all as simple as a Breton heart. You will be, not so rapidly perhaps, but more solidly, a rich n.o.bleman.”
”Your aunt is right, my darling; she plans for your happiness with as much anxiety as I do myself. If I do not succeed in marrying you to my niece, Margaret, the daughter of your uncle, Lord Fitzwilliam, it is almost certain that Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel will leave her fortune to whichever of her nieces you may choose.”
”And besides, there's a little gold to be found here,” added the old aunt in a low voice, with a mysterious glance about her.
”Marry! at my age!” he said, casting on his mother one of those looks which melt the arguments of mothers. ”Am I to live without my beautiful fond loves? Must I never tremble or throb or fear or gasp, or lie beneath implacable looks and soften them? Am I never to know beauty in its freedom, the fantasy of the soul, the clouds that course through the azure of happiness, which the breath of pleasure dissipates? Ah! shall I never wander in those sweet by-paths moist with dew; never stand beneath the drenching of a gutter and not know it rains, like those lovers seen by Diderot; never take, like the Duc de Lorraine, a live coal in my hand? Are there no silken ladders for me, no rotten trellises to cling to and not fall? Shall I know nothing of woman but conjugal submission; nothing of love but the flame of its lamp-wick? Are my longings to be satisfied before they are roused? Must I live out my days deprived of that madness of the heart that makes a man and his power? Would you make me a married monk? No! I have eaten of the fruit of Parisian civilization. Do you not see that you have, by the ignorant morals of this family, prepared the fire that consumes me, that _will_ consume me utterly, unless I can adore the divineness I see everywhere,--in those sands gleaming in the sun, in the green foliage, in all the women, beautiful, n.o.ble, elegant, pictured in the books and in the poems I have read with Camille? Alas! there is but one such woman in Guerande, and it is you, my mother! The birds of my beautiful dream, they come from Paris, they fly from the pages of Scott, of Byron,--Parisina, Effie, Minna! yes, and that royal d.u.c.h.ess, whom I saw on the moors among the furze and the ferns, whose very aspect sent the blood to my heart.”
The baroness saw these thoughts flaming in the eyes of her son, clearer, more beautiful, more living than art can tell to those who read them.
She grasped them rapidly, flung to her as they were in glances like arrows from an upset quiver. Without having read Beaumarchais, she felt, as other women would have felt, that it would be a crime to marry Calyste.
”Oh! my child!” she said, taking him in her arms, and kissing the beautiful hair that was still hers, ”marry whom you will, and when you will, but be happy! My part in life is not to hamper you.”
Mariotte came to lay the table. Ga.s.selin was out exercising Calyste's horse, which the youth had not mounted for two months. The three women, mother, aunt, and Mariotte, shared in the tender feminine wiliness, which taught them to make much of Calyste when he dined at home. Breton plainness fought against Parisian luxury, now brought to the very doors of Guerande. Mariotte endeavored to wean her young master from the accomplished service of Camille Maupin's kitchen, just as his mother and aunt strove to hold him in the net of their tenderness and render all comparison impossible.
”There's a salmon-trout for dinner, Monsieur Calyste, and snipe, and pancakes such as I know you can't get anywhere but here,” said Mariotte, with a sly, triumphant look as she smoothed the cloth, a cascade of snow.
After dinner, when the old aunt had taken up her knitting, and the rector and Monsieur du Halga had arrived, allured by their precious _mouche_, Calyste went back to Les Touches on the pretext of returning the letter.
Claude Vignon and Felicite were still at table. The great critic was something of a gourmand, and Felicite pampered the vice, knowing how indispensable a woman makes herself by such compliance. The dinner-table presented that rich and brilliant aspect which modern luxury, aided by the perfecting of handicrafts, now gives to its service. The poor and n.o.ble house of Guenic little knew with what an adversary it was attempting to compete, or what amount of fortune was necessary to enter the lists against the silverware, the delicate porcelain, the beautiful linen, the silver-gilt service brought from Paris by Mademoiselle des Touches, and the science of her cook. Calyste declined the liqueurs contained in one of those superb cases of precious woods, which are something like tabernacles.
”Here's the letter,” he said, with innocent ostentation, looking at Claude, who was slowly sipping a gla.s.s of _liqueur-des-iles_.
”Well, what did you think of it?” asked Mademoiselle des Touches, throwing the letter across the table to Vignon, who began to read it, taking up and putting down at intervals his little gla.s.s.
”I thought--well, that Parisian women were very fortunate to have men of genius to adore who adore them.”
”Ah! you are still in your village,” said Felicite, laughing. ”What! did you not see that she loves him less, and--”
”That is evident,” said Claude Vignon, who had only read the first page.
”Do people reason on their situation when they really love; are they as shrewd as the marquise, as observing, as discriminating? Your dear Beatrix is held to Conti now by pride only; she is condemned to love him _quand meme_.”
”Poor woman!” said Camille.
Calyste's eyes were fixed on the table; he saw nothing about him. The beautiful woman in the fanciful dress described that morning by Felicite appeared to him crowned with light; she smiled to him, she waved her fan; the other hand, issuing from its ruffle of lace, fell white and pure on the heavy folds of her crimson velvet robe.
”She is just the thing for you,” said Claude Vignon, smiling sardonically at Calyste.