第23章

There is none but God who can understand me.No man,not Saint Augustine himself,the tenderest of the Fathers of the Church,could enter into the scruples of my conscience,which are to me as the circles of Dante's hell,whence there is no escape.Another than my husband,a different man,however unworthy of the offering,has had all my love.No,he has not had it,for he did not take it;I gave it him as a mother gives her child a wonderful toy,which it breaks.For me there never could be two loves.In some natures love can never be on trial;it is,or it is not.When it comes,when it rises up,it is complete.--Well,that life of eighteen months was to me a life of eighteen years;I threw into it all the faculties of my being,which were not impoverished by their effusiveness;they were exhausted by that delusive intimacy in which I alone was genuine.For me the cup of happiness is not drained,nor empty;and nothing can refill it,for it is broken.I am out of the fray;I have no weapons left.Having thus utterly abandoned myself,what am I?--the leavings of a feast.I had but one name bestowed on me,Honorine,as I had but one heart.My husband had the young girl,a worthless lover had the woman--there is nothing left!--Then let myself be loved!that is the great idea you mean to utter to me.Oh!but I still am something,and I rebel at the idea of being a prostitute!Yes,by the light of the conflagration Isaw clearly;and I tell you--well,I could imagine surrendering to another man's love,but to Octave's?--No,never.'

"'Ah!you love him,'I said.

"'I esteem him,respect him,venerate him;he never has done me the smallest hurt;he is kind,he is tender;but I can never more love him.However,'she went on,'let us talk no more of this.Discussion makes everything small.I will express my notions on this subject in writing to you,for at this moment they are suffocating me;I am feverish,my feet are standing in the ashes of my Paraclete.All that I see,these things which I believed I had earned by my labor,now remind me of everything I wish to forget.Ah!I must fly from hence as I fled from my home.'

"'Where will you go?'I asked.'Can a woman exist unprotected?At thirty,in all the glory of your beauty,rich in powers of which you have no suspicion,full of tenderness to be bestowed,are you prepared to live in the wilderness where I could hide you?--Be quite easy.The Count,who for nine years has never allowed himself to be seen here,will never go there without your permission.You have his sublime devotion of nine years as a guarantee for your tranquillity.You may therefore discuss the future in perfect confidence with my uncle and me.My uncle has as much influence as a Minister of State.So compose yourself;do not exaggerate your misfortune.A priest whose hair has grown white in the exercise of his functions is not a boy;you will be understood by him to whom every passion has been confided for nearly fifty years now,and who weighs in his hands the ponderous heart of kings and princes.If he is stern under his stole,in the presence of your flowers he will be as tender as they are,and as indulgent as his Divine Master.'

"I left the Countess at midnight;she was apparently calm,but depressed,and had some secret purpose which no perspicacity could guess.I found the Count a few paces off,in the Rue Saint-Maur.Drawn by an irresistible attraction,he had quitted the spot on the Boulevards where we had agreed to meet.

"'What a night my poor child will go through!'he exclaimed,when Ihad finished my account of the scene that had just taken place.

'Supposing I were to go to her!'he added;'supposing she were to see me suddenly?'

"'At this moment she is capable of throwing herself out of the window,'I replied.'The Countess is one of those Lucretias who could not survive any violence,even if it were done by a man into whose arms she could throw herself.'

"'You are young,'he answered;'you do not know that in a soul tossed by such dreadful alternatives the will is like waters of a lake lashed by a tempest;the wind changes every instant,and the waves are driven now to one shore,now to the other.During this night the chances are quite as great that on seeing me Honorine might rush into my arms as that she would throw herself out of the window.'

"'And you would accept the equal chances,'said I.

"'Well,come,'said he,'I have at home,to enable me to wait till to-morrow,a dose of opium which Desplein prepared for me to send me to sleep without any risk!'

"Next day at noon Gobain brought me a letter,telling me that the Countess had gone to bed at six,worn out with fatigue,and that,having taken a soothing draught prepared by the chemist,she had now fallen asleep.

"This is her letter,of which I kept a copy--for you,mademoiselle,"said the Consul,addressing Camille,"know all the resources of art,the tricks of style,and the efforts made in their compositions by writers who do not lack skill;but you will acknowledge that literature could never find such language in its assumed pathos;there is nothing so terrible as truth.Here is the letter written by this woman,or rather by this anguish:--"'MONSIEUR MAURICE,--