第25章
"'All this,monsieur,is not argument;it is the feeling of a soul made vast and hollow by seven years of suffering.Finally,must I make a horrible confession?I shall always feel at my bosom the lips of a child conceived in rapture and joy,and in the belief in happiness,of a child I nursed for seven months,that I shall bear in my womb all the days of my life.If other children should draw their nourishment from me,they would drink in tears mingling with the milk,and turning it sour.I seem a light thing,you regard me as a child--Ah yes!Ihave a child's memory,the memory which returns to us on the verge of the tomb.So,you see,there is not a situation in that beautiful life to which the world and my husband's love want to recall me,which is not a false position,which does not cover a snare or reveal a precipice down which I must fall,torn by pitiless rocks.For five years now I have been wandering in the sandy desert of the future without finding a place convenient to repent in,because my soul is possessed by true repentance.
"'Religion has its answers ready to all this,and I know them by heart.This suffering,these difficulties,are my punishment,she says,and God will give me strength to endure them.This,monsieur,is an argument to certain pious souls gifted with an energy which I have not.I have made my choice between this hell,where God does not forbid my blessing Him,and the hell that awaits me under Count Octave's roof.
"'One word more.If I were still a girl,with the experience I now have,my husband is the man I should choose;but that is the very reason of my refusal.I could not bear to blush before that man.What!
I should be always on my knees,he always standing upright;and if we were to exchange positions,I should scorn him!I will not be better treated by him in consequence of my sin.The angel who might venture under such circumstances on certain liberties which are permissible when both are equally blameless,is not on earth;he dwells in heaven!
Octave is full of delicate feeling,I know;but even in his soul (which,however generous,is a man's soul after all)there is no guarantee for the new life I should lead with him.
"'Come then,and tell me where I may find the solitude,the peace,the silence,so kindly to irreparable woes,which you promised me.'
"After making this copy of the letter to preserve it complete,I went to the Rue Payenne.Anxiety had conquered the power of opium.Octave was walking up and down his garden like a madman.
"'Answer that!'said I,giving him his wife's letter.'Try to reassure the modesty of experience.It is rather more difficult than conquering the modesty of ignorance,which curiosity helps to betray.'
"'She is mine!'cried the Count,whose face expressed joy as he went on reading the letter.
"He signed to me with his hand to leave him to himself.I understood that extreme happiness and extreme pain obey the same laws;I went in to receive Madame de Courteville and Amelie,who were to dine with the Count that day.However handsome Mademoiselle de Courteville might be,I felt,on seeing her once more,that love has three aspects,and that the women who can inspire us with perfect love are very rare.As Iinvoluntarily compared Amelie with Honorine,I found the erring wife more attractive than the pure girl.To Honorine's heart fidelity had not been a duty,but the inevitable;while Amelie would serenely pronounce the most solemn promises without knowing their purport or to what they bound her.The crushed,the dead woman,so to speak,the sinner to be reinstated,seemed to me sublime;she incited the special generosities of a man's nature;she demanded all the treasures of the heart,all the resources of strength;she filled his life and gave the zest of a conflict to happiness;whereas Amelie,chaste and confiding,would settle down into the sphere of peaceful motherhood,where the commonplace must be its poetry,and where my mind would find no struggle and no victory.
"Of the plains of Champagne and the snowy,storm-beaten but sublime Alps,what young man would choose the chalky,monotonous level?No;such comparisons are fatal and wrong on the threshold of the Mairie.
Alas!only the experience of life can teach us that marriage excludes passion,that a family cannot have its foundation on the tempests of love.After having dreamed of impossible love,with its infinite caprices,after having tasted the tormenting delights of the ideal,Isaw before me modest reality.Pity me,for what could be expected!At five-and-twenty I did not trust myself;but I took a manful resolution.
"I went back to the Count to announce the arrival of his relations,and I saw him grown young again in the reflected light of hope.
"'What ails you,Maurice?'said he,struck by my changed expression.
"'Monsieur le Comte----'
"'No longer Octave?You,to whom I shall owe my life,my happiness----'
"'My dear Octave,if you should succeed in bringing the Countess back to her duty,I have studied her well'--(he looked at me as Othello must have looked at Iago when Iago first contrived to insinuate a suspicion into the Moor's mind)--'she must never see me again;she must never know that Maurice was your secretary.Never mention my name to her,or all will be undone.You have got me an appointment as Maitre des Requetes--well,get me instead some diplomatic post abroad,a consulship,and do not think of my marrying Amelie.--Oh!do not be uneasy,'I added,seeing him draw himself up,'I will play my part to the end.'
"'Poor boy!'said he,taking my hand,which he pressed,while he kept back the tears that were starting to his eyes.
"'You gave me the gloves,'I said,laughing,'but I have not put them on;that is all.'