The Colonel, meanwhile, with one shoulder leaning lightly against the side-post of the doorway between the ballroom and the cardroom, could laugh undetected under his ample moustache; it amused him to look on at the turmoil of the dance; he could see a hundred pretty heads turning about in obedience to the figures; he could read in some faces, as in those of the Countess and his friend Martial, the secrets of their agitation; and then, looking round, he wondered what connection there could be between the gloomy looks of the Comte de Soulanges, still seated on the sofa, and the plaintive expression of the fair unknown, on whose features the joys of hope and the anguish of involuntary dread were alternately legible. Montcornet stood like the king of the feast. In this moving picture he saw a complete presentment of the world, and he laughed at it as he found himself the object of inviting smiles from a hundred beautiful and elegant women. A Colonel of the Imperial Guard, a position equal to that of a Brigadier-General, was undoubtedly one of the best matches in the army.
It was now nearly midnight. The conversation, the gambling, the dancing, the flirtations, interests, petty rivalries, and scheming had all reached the pitch of ardor which makes a young man exclaim involuntarily, “A fine ball!”
“My sweet little angel,” said Madame de Lansac to the Countess, “you are now at an age when in my day I made many mistakes. Seeing you are just now enduring a thousand deaths, it occurred to me that I might give you some charitable advice. To go wrong at two-and-twenty means spoiling your future; is it not tearing the gown you must wear? My dear, it is not much later that we learn to go about in it without crumpling it. Go on, sweetheart, making clever enemies, and friends who have no sense of conduct, and you will see what a pleasant life you will some day be leading!”
“Oh, madame, it is very hard for a woman to be happy, do not you think?” the Countess eagerly exclaimed.
“My child, at your age you must learn to choose between pleasure and happiness. You want to marry Martial, who is not fool enough to make a good husband, nor passionate enough to remain a lover. He is in debt, my dear; he is the man to run through your fortune; still, that would be nothing if he could make you happy. — Do not you see how aged he is? The man must have been ill; he is making the most of what is left him. In three years he will be a wreck. Then he will be ambitious; perhaps he may succeed. I do not think so. — What is he? A man of intrigue, who may have the business faculty to perfection, and be able to gossip agreeably; but he is too presumptuous to have any sterling merit; he will not go far. Besides — only look at him. Is it not written on his brow that, at this very moment, what he sees in you is not a young and pretty woman, but the two million francs you possess? He does not love you, my dear; he is reckoning you up as if you were an investment. If you are bent on marrying, find an older man who has an assured position and is half-way on his career. A widow’s marriage ought not to be a trivial love affair. Is a mouse to be caught a second time in the same trap? A new alliance ought now to be a good speculation on your part, and in marrying again you ought at least to have a hope of being some day addressed as Madame la Marechale!”
As she spoke, both women naturally fixed their eyes on Colonel Montcornet’s handsome face.
“If you would rather play the delicate part of a flirt and not marry again,” the Duchess went on, with blunt good-nature; “well! my poor child, you, better than any woman, will know how to raise the storm-clouds and disperse them again. But, I beseech you, never make it your pleasure to disturb the peace of families, to destroy unions, and ruin the happiness of happy wives. I, my dear, have played that perilous game. Dear heaven! for a triumph of vanity some poor virtuous soul is murdered — for there really are virtuous women, child, — and we may make ourselves mortally hated. I learned, a little too late, that, as the Duc d’Albe once said, one salmon is worth a thousand frogs! A genuine affection certainly brings a thousand times more happiness than the transient passions we may inspire. — Well, I came here on purpose to preach to you; yes, you are the cause of my appearance in this house, which stinks of the lower class. Have I not just seen actors here? Formerly, my dear, we received them in our boudoir; but in the drawing-room — never! — Why do you look at me with so much amazement? Listen to me. If you want to play with men, do not try to wring the hearts of any but those whose life is not yet settled, who have no duties to fulfil; the others do not forgive us for the errors that have made them happy. Profit by this maxim, founded on my long experience. — That luckless Soulanges, for instance, whose head you have turned, whom you have intoxicated for these fifteen months past, God knows how! Do you know at what you have struck? — At his whole life. He has been married these two years; he is worshiped by a charming wife, whom he loves, but neglects; she lives in tears and embittered silence. Soulanges has had hours of remorse more terrible than his pleasure has been sweet. And you, you artful little thing, have deserted him. — Well, come and see your work.”
The old lady took Madame de Vaudremont’s hand, and they rose.
“There,” said Madame de Lansac, and her eyes showed her the stranger, sitting pale and tremulous under the glare of the candles, “that is my grandniece, the Comtesse de Soulanges; to-day she yielded at last to my persuasion, and consented to leave the sorrowful room, where the sight of her child gives her but little consolation. You see her? You think her charming? Then imagine, dear Beauty, what she must have been when happiness and love shed their glory on that face now blighted.”
The Countess looked away in silence, and seemed lost in sad reflections.
The Duchess led her to the door into the card-room; then, after looking round the room as if in search of some one — ”And there is Soulanges!” she said in deep tones.
The Countess shuddered as she saw, in the least brilliantly lighted corner, the pale, set face of Soulanges stretched in an easy-chair. The indifference of his attitude and the rigidity of his brow betrayed his suffering. The players passed him to and fro, without paying any more attention to him than if he had been dead. The picture of the wife in tears, and the dejected, morose husband, separated in the midst of this festivity like the two halves of a tree blasted by lightning, had perhaps a prophetic significance for the Countess. She dreaded lest she here saw an image of the revenges the future might have in store for her. Her heart was not yet so dried up that the feeling and generosity were entirely excluded, and she pressed the Duchess’ hand, while thanking her by one of those smiles which have a certain childlike grace.
“My dear child,” the old lady said in her ear, “remember henceforth that we are just as capable of repelling a man’s attentions as of attracting them.”
“She is yours if you are not a simpleton.” These words were whispered into Colonel Montcornet’s ear by Madame de Lansac, while the handsome Countess was still absorbed in compassion at the sight of Soulanges, for she still loved him truly enough to wish to restore him to happiness, and was promising herself in her own mind that she would exert the irresistible power her charms still had over him to make him return to his wife.
“Oh! I will talk to him!” said she to Madame de Lansac.
“Do nothing of the kind, my dear!” cried the old lady, as she went back to her armchair. “Choose a good husband, and shut your door to my nephew. Believe me, my child, a wife cannot accept her husband’s heart as the gift of another woman; she is a hundred times happier in the belief that she has reconquered it. By bringing my niece here I believe I have given her an excellent chance of regaining her husband’s affection. All the assistance I need of you is to play the Colonel.” She pointed to the Baron’s friend, and the Countess smiled.
“Well, madame, do you at last know the name of the unknown?” asked Martial, with an air of pique, to the Countess when he saw her alone.
“Yes,” said Madame de Vaudremont, looking him in the face.
Her features expressed as much roguery as fun. The smile which gave life to her lips and cheeks, the liquid brightness of her eyes, were like the will-o’-the-w
isp which leads travelers astray. Martial, who believed that she still loved him, assumed the coquetting graces in which a man is so ready to lull himself in the presence of the woman he loves. He said with a fatuous air:
“And will you be annoyed with me if I seem to attach great importance to your telling me that name?”
“Will you be annoyed with me,” answered Madame de Vaudremont, “if a remnant of affection prevents my telling you; and if I forbid you to make the smallest advances to that young lady? It would be at the risk of your life perhaps.”
“To lose your good graces, madame, would be worse than to lose my life.”
“Martial,” said the Countess severely, “she is Madame de Soulanges. Her husband would blow your brains out — if, indeed, you have any — — ”
“Ha! ha!” laughed the coxcomb. “What! the Colonel can leave the man in peace who has robbed him of your love, and then would fight for his wife! What a subversion of principles! — I beg of you to allow me to dance with the little lady. You will then be able to judge how little love that heart of ice could feel for you; for, if the Colonel disapproves of my dancing with his wife after allowing me to — — ”
“But she loves her husband.”
“A still further obstacle that I shall have the pleasure of conquering.”
“But she is married.”
“A whimsical objection!”
“Ah!” said the Countess, with a bitter smile, “you punish us alike for our faults and our repentance!”
“Do not be angry!” exclaimed Martial eagerly. “Oh, forgive me, I beseech you. There, I will think no more of Madame de Soulanges.”
“You deserve that I should send you to her.”
“I am off then,” said the Baron, laughing, “and I shall return more devoted to you than ever. You will see that the prettiest woman in the world cannot capture the heart that is yours.”
“That is to say, that you want to win Colonel Montcornet’s horse?”
“Ah! Traitor!” said he, threatening his friend with his finger. The Colonel smiled and joined them; the Baron gave him the seat near the Countess, saying to her with a sardonic accent:
“Here, madame, is a man who boasted that he could win your good graces in one evening.”
He went away, thinking himself clever to have piqued the Countess’ pride and done Montcornet an ill turn; but, in spite of his habitual keenness, he had not appreciated the irony underlying Madame de Vaudremont’s speech, and did not perceive that she had come as far to meet his friend as his friend towards her, though both were unconscious of it.
At that moment when the lawyer went fluttering up to the candelabrum by which Madame de Soulanges sat, pale, timid, and apparently alive only in her eyes, her husband came to the door of the ballroom, his eyes flashing with anger. The old Duchess, watchful of everything, flew to her nephew, begged him to give her his arm and find her carriage, affecting to be mortally bored, and hoping thus to prevent a vexatious outbreak. Before going she fired a singular glance of intelligence at her niece, indicating the enterprising knight who was about to address her, and this signal seemed to say, “There he is, avenge yourself!”
Madame de Vaudremont caught these looks of the aunt and niece; a sudden light dawned on her mind; she was frightened lest she was the dupe of this old woman, so cunning and so practised in intrigue.
“That perfidious Duchess,” said she to herself, “has perhaps been amusing herself by preaching morality to me while playing me some spiteful trick of her own.”
At this thought Madame de Vaudremont’s pride was perhaps more roused than her curiosity to disentangle the thread of this intrigue. In the absorption of mind to which she was a prey she was no longer mistress of herself. The Colonel, interpreting to his own advantage the embarrassment evident in the Countess’ manner and speech, became more ardent and pressing. The old blase diplomates, amusing themselves by watching the play of faces, had never found so many intrigues at once to watch or guess at. The passions agitating the two couples were to be seen with variations at every step in the crowded rooms, and reflected with different shades in other countenances. The spectacle of so many vivid passions, of all these lovers’ quarrels, these pleasing revenges, these cruel favors, these flaming glances, of all this ardent life diffused around them, only made them feel their impotence more keenly.
At last the Baron had found a seat by Madame de Soulanges. His eyes stole a long look at her neck, as fresh as dew and as fragrant as field flowers. He admired close at hand the beauty which had amazed him from afar. He could see a small, well-shod foot, and measure with his eye a slender and graceful shape. At that time women wore their sash tied close under the bosom, in imitation of Greek statues, a pitiless fashion for those whose bust was faulty. As he cast furtive glances at the Countess’ figure, Martial was enchanted with its perfection.
“You have not danced once this evening, madame,” said he in soft and flattering tones. “Not, I should suppose, for lack of a partner?”
“I never go to parties; I am quite unknown,” replied Madame de Soulanges coldly, not having understood the look by which her aunt had just conveyed to her that she was to attract the Baron.
Martial, to give himself countenance, twisted the diamond he wore on his left hand; the rainbow fires of the gem seemed to flash a sudden light on the young Countess’ mind; she blushed and looked at the Baron with an undefinable expression.
“Do you like dancing?” asked the Provencal, to reopen the conversation.
“Yes, very much, monsieur.”
At this strange reply their eyes met. The young man, surprised by the earnest accent, which aroused a vague hope in his heart, had suddenly questioned the lady’s eyes.
“Then, madame, am I not overbold in offering myself to be your partner for the next quadrille?”
Artless confusion colored the Countess’ white cheeks.
“But, monsieur, I have already refused one partner — a military man — — ”
“Was it that tall cavalry colonel whom you see over there?”
“Precisely so.”
“Oh! he is a friend of mine; feel no alarm. Will you grant me the favor I dare hope for?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
Her tone betrayed an emotion so new and so deep that the lawyer’s world-worn soul was touched. He was overcome by shyness like a schoolboy’s, lost his confidence, and his southern brain caught fire; he tried to talk, but his phrases struck him as graceless in comparison with Madame de Soulanges’ bright and subtle replies. It was lucky for him that the quadrille was forming. Standing by his beautiful partner, he felt more at ease. To many men dancing is a phase of being; they think that they can more powerfully influence the heart of woman by displaying the graces of their bodies than by their intellect. Martial wished, no doubt, at this moment to put forth all his most effective seductions, to judge by the pretentiousness of his movements and gestures.
He led his conquest to the quadrille in which the most brilliant women in the room made it a point of chimerical importance to dance in preference to any other. While the orchestra played the introductory bars to the first figure, the Baron felt it an incredible gratification to his pride to perceive, as he reviewed the ladies forming the lines of that formidable square, that Madame de Soulanges’ dress might challenge that even of Madame de Vaudremont, who, by a chance not perhaps unsought, was standing with Montcornet vis-a-vis to himself and the lady in blue. All eyes were for a moment turned on Madame de Soulanges; a flattering murmur showed that she was the subject of every man’s conversation with his partner. Looks of admiration and envy centered on her, with so much eagerness that the young creature, abashed by a triumph she seemed to disclaim, modestly looked down, blushed, and was all the more charming. When she raised her white eyelids it was to look at her ravished partner as though she wished to transfer the glory of this admiration to him, and to say that she cared more for his than for all the rest. She threw her innocence into her vanity; or rather sh
e seemed to give herself up to the guileless admiration which is the beginning of love, with the good faith found only in youthful hearts. As she danced, the lookers-on might easily believe that she displayed her grace for Martial alone; and though she was modest, and new to the trickery of the ballroom, she knew as well as the most accomplished coquette how to raise her eyes to his at the right moment and drop their lids with assumed modesty.
When the movement of a new figure, invented by a dancer named Trenis, and named after him, brought Martial face to face with the Colonel — ”I have won your horse,” said he, laughing.
“Yes, but you have lost eighty thousand francs a year!” retorted Montcornet, glancing at Madame de Vaudremont.
“What do I care?” replied Martial. “Madame de Soulanges is worth millions!”
At the end of the quadrille more than one whisper was poured into more than one ear. The less pretty women made moral speeches to their partners, commenting on the budding liaison between Martial and the Comtesse de Soulanges. The handsomest wondered at her easy surrender. The men could not understand such luck as the Baron’s, not regarding him as particularly fascinating. A few indulgent women said it was not fair to judge the Countess too hastily; young wives would be in a very hapless plight if an expressive look or a few graceful dancing steps were enough to compromise a woman.
Martial alone knew the extent of his happiness. During the last figure, when the ladies had to form the moulinet, his fingers clasped those of the Countess, and he fancied that, through the thin perfumed kid of her gloves, the young wife’s grasp responded to his amorous appeal.
“Madame,” said he, as the quadrille ended, “do not go back to the odious corner where you have been burying your face and your dress until now. Is admiration the only benefit you can obtain from the jewels that adorn your white neck and beautifully dressed hair? Come and take a turn through the rooms to enjoy the scene and yourself.”
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 122