Letters of Two Brides

by Honoré de Balzac

  22

  FROM LOUISE TO FELIPE

  I am not happy with you. If you did not weep as you read Racine’s Berenice, if you did not see in it the most devastating of all tragedies, then you will never understand me, and we will never be one: we must break it off at once, we must never see each other again, you must forget me, for if you do not give me the answer I wish, I will forget you. You will become Monsieur le Baron de Macumer to me, or rather you will become nothing at all: in my eyes you will be like a man who never existed. Yesterday at Madame d’Espard’s I saw on your face a self-satisfied look that deeply displeased me. You seemed certain that you were loved. I was horrified by that complacency; at that moment I did not see in you the servant you claimed to be in your first letter. Far from being lost in meditation as a man who loves must be, you were finding witty words to say. This is not the behavior of a true believer, who perpetually prostrates himself before the divinity. If I am not a creature superior to all other women, if you do not see in me the source of your life, then I am less than a woman, for then I am only a woman. You roused my mistrust, Felipe: it growled loudly enough to drown out the voice of tenderness, and when I consider our past, I believe I have a right to be wary. Know this, my fine monsieur constitutional minister of Spain, I have deeply reflected on the sad lot of my sex. My innocence has held a torch in each hand, and it has never been burned. Listen well to what my youthful experience has taught me, which I here repeat. In every other domain, duplicity, faithlessness, and unfulfilled promises come up before judges, and those judges inflict punishments, but no such thing is true of love, which must be at once the victim, the accuser, the lawyer, the judge, and the executioner, for the most appalling betrayals and the most horrible crimes remain unknown, committed as they are between one soul and another, unwitnessed, and it is of course in the victim’s interest to say nothing. Love has its own legal code, its own vengeance; society has no part in it. I myself have resolved never to pardon a crime, and no crime is ever minor in matters of the heart. Yesterday you seemed a man confident of being loved. You would be wrong not to feel that confidence, but I would find your conduct criminal if that rid you of the innocent grace once given you by the anguish of uncertainty. I would have you neither timid nor self-assured. I would not have you fear you might lose my affection, for that would be an insult, but neither do I want you so secure that you take love for granted. Your mind must never be easier than my own. If you do not know the torment that a single doubt inflicts on the soul, be afraid that I might teach you. I delivered my soul up to you with one glance, and you read its meaning. You hold in your hands the purest sentiments ever born in a girl’s soul. Those studies and meditations I told you of enriched only my mind, but when one day my troubled heart seeks counsel from my intelligence, believe me, the girl will have something of the angel who knows all and can do all. I swear to you, Felipe, if you love me as I believe, and if you give me grounds to suspect the slightest weakening in the fear, obedience, respectful patience, and docile desire you told me of, if I one day see the slightest waning in the fine, first love that entered my soul from yours, then I will say nothing, I will not bore you with a letter, however dignified, proud, or angry, or simply scolding, like this one. I would say nothing, Felipe: you would simply find me sad, in the manner of those who feel death growing near, but I would not die without having left a horrible mark on you, without dishonoring in the most shameful way the one you once loved, without having planted eternal regrets in your heart, for you would see me become a creature lost in the eyes of men on this earth and forever cursed in the next life.

  Do not make me jealous, then, of another Louise, a Louise who was happy, a Louise devoutly loved, whose soul bloomed in a love without shadow, who, in Dante’s sublime words, enjoyed Senza brama, sicura richezza![35] Know that I have dug deep into his Inferno to un-earth the most painful of tortures, a fearsome emotional punishment to which I will add the eternal vengeance of God.

  By your conduct yesterday, then, you thrust the cold, cruel blade of suspicion into my heart. Do you understand? I doubted you, and it so tormented me that I never want to doubt again. If you find fealty to me too onerous, then abandon it: I will not be angry. Do I not know already that you are a man of great wit? Save all the flowers of your soul for me, let your eyes be dull in society, never hold yourself up for flattery, praise, or compliments. Come and see me burdened by hatred, withered by disregard, the object of a thousand slanders, come and tell me that women do not understand you, that they walk past you without even seeing you, that none could ever love you; you will then learn what the heart and the love of Louise hold for you. Our treasure must be so carefully buried that the entire world treads over it and suspects nothing. If you were handsome, no doubt I would never have accorded you a second glance, I would never have discovered in you the world of forces that make love bloom; and although we understand them no more than we know how the sun causes a flower to blossom or a fruit to ripen, there is nonetheless, among all those forces, one I know well, which enchants me. Your sublime face has its character, its language, its physiognomy for me alone. I alone have the power to transform you, to make of you the most adorable of all men, and so I do not want your mind to slip free of my possession: it must no more reveal itself to others than your eyes, your charming mouth, and your features must speak to them. It is my place alone to light the fires of your intelligence, just as I inflame your gaze. You must remain the somber, cold, gloomy, disdainful grandee that you were before. You were a wild, broken eminence, into whose ruins no one ventured; people contemplated you from a distance, and now here you are clearing easy little trails so that everyone can get in, and you are on your way to becoming an affable Parisian! Have you then forgotten my statement of purpose? Your high spirits expressed a little too clearly that you were in love. It took a glance from me to stop you revealing to the shrewdest, the most derisive, the wittiest salon of Paris that Armande-Louise-Marie de Chaulieu had transformed you into an amusing young man. I think you too great to introduce the slightest ruse into your love, but were you not as innocent with me as a child, I would pity you; and despite this first misstep, you remain an object of deep admiration for

  Louise de Chaulieu

  23

  FROM FELIPE TO LOUISE

  When God sees our misdeeds, he also sees our remorse: you are right, my dear mistress. I sensed that I had displeased you, but I could not discern the cause; now you have explained it, and you have given me new reasons to adore you. Your jealousy, a jealousy in the manner of the God of Israel, has filled me with happiness. There is nothing more holy nor more sacred than jealousy. Oh my beautiful guardian angel, jealousy is the sentinel that never sleeps; it is to love what pain is to man, a warning that must be heeded. Be jealous of your servant, Louise: the more you strike him, the more he will humbly, obediently, happily lick the stick whose every blow shows him how much he means to you. But alas, my love, if you have not seen them, will it be God who rewards me for my attempts to overcome my timidity, to master the talents you thought I lacked? Yes, I did indeed seek to show you myself as I was before I fell in love. In Madrid there were those who took a certain pleasure in my conversation, and I wanted you too to see my true worth. Is that vanity? You have punished it well. Your last glance left me trembling as I never trembled before, not even when I saw the French forces advancing on Cadiz, my life endangered by one treacherous sentence on my master’s lips. I searched for the cause of your unhappiness, and I found nothing; I despaired of that disharmony in our souls, for I must act according to your will, think through your thoughts, see by your eyes, revel in your pleasure and feel your pain as plainly as I feel cold and heat. To me, the very soul of wrongness and anguish was that lack of concurrence in the life of our hearts, which you have made so beautiful. “I have displeased her!” I said to myself a thousand times, like a madman. My beautiful, noble Louise, if anything could heighten my absolute devotion for you, and my unshakable faith in your holy consc
ience, it would be the philosophy laid out in your letter, which has entered my heart like a new light. You have told me my own sentiments, you have explained things once tangled and confused in my mind. Oh! if this is how you punish, what must it be when you reward? But once you accepted me as your servant, I had nothing more to wish for. You have given me a life I never dared think might be mine: I have a cause, my breath is not pointless, my strength has some purpose, if only to suffer for you. I have said it before, and I repeat it now: You will forever find me just what I was when I offered myself to you as a humble, lowly servant! Yes, even were you lost and dishonored as you say you might be, my tenderness would only grow the greater from your voluntary sorrows! I would clean your wounds, I would heal them, my prayers would convince God that you are innocent, that your wrongs are the crimes of others. . . . Have I not said that I bear for you in my heart the diverse sentiments of a father, a mother, a sister, and a brother? That I am above all else a family for you, everything and nothing, as you wish? But was it not you who imprisoned so many hearts in a lover’s heart? Forgive me, then, if I am sometimes more a lover than a father or brother, and know that behind the lover there is still a brother and a father. If you could read what I have in my heart when I see you beautiful and glowing, serene and admired in your coach on the Champs-Élysées or in your box and the theater! . . . Ah! if you only knew how selfless is my pride when I hear words of acclaim summoned forth by your beauty, your bearing, how I love the strangers admiring you! When you chance to give me a nod, and so bring a bloom to my soul, I am at once humble and proud, I go on my way as if blessed by God Himself, I joyously return to my rooms, and my joy leaves a long, shining trail inside me; it shimmers in the clouds of smoke from my cigarette, and shows me that the blood simmering in my veins is entirely yours. Do you not understand how deeply you are loved? Once I have seen you I go back to my study, whose Saracen splendor is eclipsed by your portrait the moment I press the latch that conceals it from the world’s prying eyes; I lose myself in an unstoppable contemplation of that image, and I write poems of joy. From the height of the heavens I spy the course of an entire life I dare hope might be mine! Have you, in the silence of the nights or through the tumult of the world around you, sometimes heard a voice in your dear, beloved little ear? Are you not aware of the thousand prayers addressed to you? I have so long contemplated you in silence that I have discovered why your every feature is as it is, its correspondence with the perfections of your soul, and I write you sonnets in Spanish inspired by that unity, sonnets you have never seen, for my verse is too unworthy of the subject, and I dare not send them to you. My heart is so wholly absorbed in yours that I cannot go one moment without thinking of you, and if ever you ceased to animate my life as you do, there would be torment inside me. Do you now understand, Louise, how I suffer to find myself, most unintentionally, a cause of displeasure for you, and to have no idea why? That beautiful double life had come to an end, and I felt an icy cold in my heart. Finding no explanation for that discord, I concluded that I was no longer loved; very sadly, though still happy, I became once more a mere servant—but then your letter arrived and filled me with joy. Oh! always scold me exactly like that.

  A child who has tripped and fallen says to his mother “Forgive me!” as he stands up, concealing his pain. Yes, he seeks her pardon for having upset her. I am that child. I have not changed, I offer you the key to my character with the submission of a slave, but, dear Louise, I will never lose my footing again. Take care that the chain binding me to you, which you hold in your hand, is always so taut that one single movement conveys your every wish to him who will always be

  your slave,

  Felipe

  24

  FROM LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENÉE DE L’ESTORADE

  October 1824

  My dear friend, you who in the space of two months married a poor wretch and made yourself his mother, you know nothing of the terrible twists and turns of the drama played out in the depths of the human heart, a drama called love, in which everything can turn tragic at a moment’s notice, in which death lurks behind one single glance, one thoughtless answer. I still had one final test in store for Felipe—a cruel test, but a decisive one. I wanted to know if I was loved all the same, to use the Royalists’ (and so why not the Catholics’?) great, sublime phrase.[36] He spent an entire night walking with me under the lindens at the end of our garden, and I saw not so much as the shadow of a second thought cross his face. I was even more loved the next day than the day before, and so far as he knew every bit as chaste, every bit as fine, every bit as pure; he earned nothing from it. Oh! he is a true Spaniard, a genuine Abencerrage. He scaled my wall for a chance to kiss the hand extended into the shadows from my balcony, at the risk of falling and injuring himself, but how many young men would do just the same? That’s nothing at all: Christians endure the most horrific martyrdoms in hopes of a place in paradise.

  The evening before last, then, I went to the king’s future ambassador to the Spanish court, my very honored father, and said to him with a smile, “Monsieur, a small circle of friends has heard tell that you plan to marry your dear Armande to an ambassador’s nephew; that ambassador has long wished for and sought that alliance, and so bequeaths his vast fortune and titles to the happy couple in the marriage contract, with an advance of one hundred thousand livres per year, writing off the bride’s eight hundred thousand franc dowry. Your daughter weeps at the prospect, but she bows down before the irresistible force of your majestic fatherly authority. Certain slanderers maintain that your daughter is concealing a venal and ambitious soul behind her tears. This evening we will be at the Opéra, in the box of the nobles, and Monsieur le Baron de Macumer will come in.”

  “So he won’t . . . ?” my father answered with a sly smile, as if admiring my stratagem.

  “Father, you’re confusing Clarissa Harlowe with Figaro!” I said, giving him a look of pity and disdain. “When you see me remove my right glove, you will denounce that impertinent rumor and express deep offense.”

  “I may rest easy on the subject of your future: you no more have the mind of a girl than Joan of Arc had the heart of a woman. You will be happy, you will love no one, and you will allow yourself to be loved!”

  I let out a great laugh.

  “What is it, my little coquette?” he asked.

  “I tremble for the interests of my country. . .” and, seeing that he didn’t understand me, I added, “. . . in Madrid!”

  “Incredible how little this nun fears her father after only a year,” he said to the duchess. “Armande fears nothing,” my mother replied, looking at me.

  “What do you mean?” I asked her.

  “Why, you’re not even afraid of the damp night air, when you know it can give you rheumatism,” she said, casting me another glance.

  “Ah, but the afternoons are so warm,” I answered.

  The duchess lowered her eyes.

  “It’s high time we married her off,” said my father, “and I hope it will be before I go away.”

  “It will be, if you will allow it,” I answered simply.

  Two hours later, my mother and I were sitting with the Duchess of Maufrigneuse and Madame d’Espard, like four roses lined up along the balustrade. I had chosen a place to one side, showing the crowd only one shoulder, able to see without being seen in that large box, which occupies one of the two bays cut out in the back of the theater, between two columns. Macumer came in, stood stock-still, and clapped his opera glass to his eyes so as to look at me unseen. At the first intermission we were visited by a man I call the King of the Roués, a young man of feminine beauty: Count Henri de Marsay walked in with an epigram in his eyes and a smile on his lips, his face aglow with merriment. He first complimented my mother, then Madame d’Espard, the Duchess de Maufrigneuse, Count d’Esgrignon, and Monsieur de Canalis; he then turned to me.

  “I don’t know,” he said, “if I am the first to congratulate you on an event that will earn you a good d
eal of envy.”

  “Ah! you must mean a marriage,” I said. “Do you need a girl fresh from the convent to inform you that the marriages people talk about never come to pass?”

  Monsieur de Marsay bent toward Macumer’s ear, and from the movements of his lips I easily made out what he was saying: “Baron, you may be in love with this little coquette, who has used you, but since this is a question of marriage, not a simple affair, I believe it’s best to know what’s what.”