Part 6 (2/2)
”Yes, my darling,” said Roger, after a long silence, ”that is the great secret: I am married. But some day I hope we may form but one family. My wife has been given over ever since last March. I do not wish her dead; still, if it should please G.o.d to take her to Himself, I believe she will be happier in Paradise than in a world to whose griefs and pleasures she is equally indifferent.”
”How I hate that woman! How could she bear to make you unhappy? And yet it is to that unhappiness that I owe my happiness!”
Her tears suddenly ceased.
”Caroline, let us hope,” cried Roger. ”Do not be frightened by anything that priest may have said to you. Though my wife's confessor is a man to be feared for his power in the congregation, if he should try to blight our happiness I would find means--”
”What could you do?”
”We would go to Italy: I would fly--”
A shriek that rang out from the adjoining room made Roger start and Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille quake; but she rushed into the drawing-room, and there found Madame de Granville in a dead faint. When the Countess recovered her senses, she sighed deeply on finding herself supported by the Count and her rival, whom she instinctively pushed away with a gesture of contempt. Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille rose to withdraw.
”You are at home, madame,” said Granville, taking Caroline by the arm.
”Stay.”
The Judge took up his wife in his arms, carried her to the carriage, and got into it with her.
”Who is it that has brought you to the point of wis.h.i.+ng me dead, of resolving to fly?” asked the Countess, looking at her husband with grief mingled with indignation. ”Was I not young? you thought me pretty--what fault have you to find with me? Have I been false to you? Have I not been a virtuous and well-conducted wife? My heart has cherished no image but yours, my ears have listened to no other voice. What duty have I failed in? What have I ever denied you?”
”Happiness, madame,” said the Count severely. ”You know, madame, that there are two ways of serving G.o.d. Some Christians imagine that by going to church at fixed hours to say a _Paternoster_, by attending Ma.s.s regularly and avoiding sin, they may win heaven--but they, madame, will go to h.e.l.l; they have not loved G.o.d for himself, they have not wors.h.i.+ped Him as He chooses to be wors.h.i.+ped, they have made no sacrifice. Though mild in seeming, they are hard on their neighbors; they see the law, the letter, not the spirit.--This is how you have treated me, your earthly husband; you have sacrificed my happiness to your salvation; you were always absorbed in prayer when I came to you in gladness of heart; you wept when you should have cheered my toil; you have never tried to satisfy any demands I have made on you.”
”And if they were wicked,” cried the Countess hotly, ”was I to lose my soul to please you?”
”It is a sacrifice which another, a more loving woman, has dared to make,” said Granville coldly.
”Dear G.o.d!” she cried, bursting into tears, ”Thou hearest! Has he been worthy of the prayers and penance I have lived in, wearing myself out to atone for his sins and my own?--Of what avail is virtue?”
”To win Heaven, my dear. A woman cannot be at the same time the wife of a man and the spouse of Christ. That would be bigamy; she must choose between a husband and a nunnery. For the sake of future advantage you have stripped your soul of all the love, all the devotion, which G.o.d commands that you should have for me, you have cherished no feeling but hatred--”
”Have I not loved you?” she put in.
”No, madame.”
”Then what is love?” the Countess involuntarily inquired.
”Love, my dear,” replied Granville, with a sort of ironical surprise, ”you are incapable of understanding it. The cold sky of Normandy is not that of Spain. This difference of climate is no doubt the secret of our disaster.--To yield to our caprices, to guess them, to find pleasure in pain, to sacrifice the world's opinion, your pride, your religion even, and still regard these offerings as mere grains of incense burnt in honor of the idol--that is love--”
”The love of ballet-girls!” cried the Countess in horror. ”Such flames cannot last, and must soon leave nothing but ashes and cinders, regret or despair. A wife ought, in my opinion, to bring you true friends.h.i.+p, equable warmth--”
”You speak of warmth as negroes speak of ice,” retorted the Count, with a sardonic smile. ”Consider that the humblest daisy has more charms than the proudest and most gorgeous of the red hawthorns that attract us in spring by their strong scent and brilliant color.--At the same time,”
he went on, ”I will do you justice. You have kept so precisely in the straight path of imaginary duty prescribed by law, that only to make you understand wherein you have failed towards me, I should be obliged to enter into details which would offend your dignity, and instruct you in matters which would seem to you to undermine all morality.”
”And you dare to speak of morality when you have but just left the house where you have dissipated your children's fortune in debaucheries?”
cried the Countess, maddened by her husband's reticence.
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