“Married, madame?” said the journalist with a smile. “You remind me of a saying of Michaud’s — he was so witty! He was setting out for the Holy Land, and his friends were remonstrating with him, urging his age, and the perils of such an expedition. ‘And then,’ said one, ‘you are married.’ — ’Married!’ said he, ‘so little married.’”
Even the rigid Madame Piedefer could not repress a smile.
“I should not be surprised to see Monsieur de Clagny mounted on my pony to complete the escort,” said Dinah.
“Well, if the Public Prosecutor does not pursue us, you can get rid of this little fellow at Sancerre. Bianchon must, of course, have left something behind on his table — the notes for the first lecture of his course — and you can ask Gatien to go back to Anzy to fetch it.”
This simple little plot put Madame de la Baudraye into high spirits. From the road between Anzy to Sancerre, a glorious landscape frequently comes into view, of the noble stretches of the Loire, looking like a lake, and it was got over very pleasantly, for Dinah was happy in finding herself well understood. Love was discussed in theory, a subject allowing lovers in petto to take the measure, as it were, of each other’s heart. The journalist took a tone of refined corruption to prove that love obeys no law, that the character of the lovers gives infinite variety to its incidents, that the circumstances of social life add to the multiplicity of its manifestations, that in love all is possible and true, and that any given woman, after resisting every temptation and the seductions of the most passionate lover, may be carried off her feet in the course of a few hours by a fancy, an internal whirlwind of which God alone would ever know the secret!
“Why,” said he, “is not that the key to all the adventures we have talked over these three days past?”
For these three days, indeed, Dinah’s lively imagination had been full of the most insidious romances, and the conversation of the two Parisians had affected the woman as the most mischievous reading might have done. Lousteau watched the effects of this clever manoeuvre, to seize the moment when his prey, whose readiness to be caught was hidden under the abstraction caused by irresolution, should be quite dizzy.
Dinah wished to show La Baudraye to her two visitors, and the farce was duly played out of remembering the papers left by Bianchon in his room at Anzy. Gatien flew off at a gallop to obey his sovereign; Madame Piedefer went to do some shopping in Sancerre; and Dinah went on to Cosne alone with the two friends. Lousteau took his seat by the lady, Bianchon riding backwards. The two friends talked affectionately and with deep compassion for the fate of this choice nature so ill understood and in the midst of such vulgar surroundings. Bianchon served Lousteau well by making fun of the Public Prosecutor, of Monsieur Gravier, and of Gatien; there was a tone of such genuine contempt in his remarks, that Madame de la Baudraye dared not take the part of her adorers.
“I perfectly understand the position you have maintained,” said the doctor as they crossed the Loire. “You were inaccessible excepting to that brain-love which often leads to heart-love; and not one of those men, it is very certain, is capable of disguising what, at an early stage of life, is disgusting to the senses in the eyes of a refined woman. To you, now, love is indispensable.”
“Indispensable!” cried Dinah, looking curiously at the doctor. “Do you mean that you prescribe love to me?”
“If you go on living as you live now, in three years you will be hideous,” replied Bianchon in a dictatorial tone.
“Monsieur!” said Madame de la Baudraye, almost frightened.
“Forgive my friend,” said Lousteau, half jestingly. “He is always the medical man, and to him love is merely a question of hygiene. But he is quite disinterested — it is for your sake only that he speaks — as is evident, since he is starting in an hour — ”
At Cosne a little crowd gathered round the old repainted chaise, with the arms on the panels granted by Louis XIV. to the new La Baudraye. Gules, a pair of scales or; on a chief azure (color on color) three cross-crosslets argent. For supporters two greyhounds argent, collared azure, chained or. The ironical motto, Deo sic patet fides et hominibus, had been inflicted on the converted Calvinist by Hozier the satirical.
“Let us get out; they will come and find us,” said the Baroness, desiring her coachman to keep watch.
Dinah took Bianchon’s arm, and the doctor set off by the banks of the Loire at so rapid a pace that the journalist had to linger behind. The physician had explained by a single wink that he meant to do Lousteau a good turn.
“You have been attracted by Etienne,” said Bianchon to Dinah; “he has appealed strongly to your imagination; last night we were talking about you. — He loves you. But he is frivolous, and difficult to hold; his poverty compels him to live in Paris, while everything condemns you to live at Sancerre. — Take a lofty view of life. Make Lousteau your friend; do not ask too much of him; he will come three times a year to spend a few days with you, and you will owe to him your beauty, happiness, and fortune. Monsieur de la Baudraye may live to be a hundred; but he might die in a few days if he should leave off the flannel winding-sheet in which he swathes himself. So run no risks, be prudent both of you. — Say not a work — I have read your heart.”
Madame de la Baudraye was defenceless under this serried attack, and in the presence of a man who spoke at once as a doctor, a confessor, and confidential friend.
“Indeed!” said she. “Can you suppose that any woman would care to compete with a journalist’s mistresses? — Monsieur Lousteau strikes me as agreeable and witty; but he is blase, etc., etc. — — ”
Dinah had turned back, and was obliged to check the flow of words by which she tried to disguise her intentions; for Etienne, who seemed to be studying progress in Cosne, was coming to meet them.
“Believe me,” said Bianchon, “what he wants is to be truly loved; and if he alters his course of life, it will be to the benefit of his talent.”
Dinah’s coachman hurried up breathlessly to say that the diligence had come in, and they walked on quickly, Madame de la Baudraye between the two men.
“Good-bye, my children!” said Bianchon, before they got into the town, “you have my blessing!”
He released Madame de la Baudraye’s hand from his arm, and allowed Lousteau to draw it into his, with a tender look, as he pressed it to his heart. What a difference to Dinah! Etienne’s arm thrilled her deeply. Bianchon’s had not stirred her in the least. She and the journalist exchanged one of those glowing looks that are more than an avowal.
“Only provincial women wear muslin gowns in these days,” thought Lousteau to himself, “the only stuff which shows every crease. This woman, who has chosen me for her lover, will make a fuss over her frock! If she had but put on a foulard skirt, I should be happy. — What is the meaning of these difficulties — — ”
While Lousteau was wondering whether Dinah had put on a muslin gown on purpose to protect herself by an insuperable obstacle, Bianchon, with the help of the coachman, was seeing his luggage piled on the diligence. Finally, he came to take leave of Dinah, who was excessively friendly with him.
“Go home, Madame la Baronne, leave me here — Gatien will be coming,” he added in an undertone. “It is getting late,” said he aloud. “Good-bye!”
“Good-bye — great man!” cried Lousteau, shaking hands with Bianchon.
When the journalist and Madame de la Baudraye, side by side in the rickety old chaise, had recrossed the Loire, they both were unready to speak. In these circumstances, the first words that break the silence are full of terrible meaning.
“Do you know how much I love you?” said the journalist point blank.
Victory might gratify Lousteau, but defeat could cause him no grief. This indifference was the secret of his audacity. He took Madame de la Baudraye’s hand as he spoke these decisive words, and pressed it in both his; but Dinah gently released it.
“Yes, I am as good as an actress or a grisette,” she said in a voice that trembled
, though she spoke lightly. “But can you suppose that a woman who, in spite of her absurdities, has some intelligence, will have reserved the best treasures of her heart for a man who will regard her merely as a transient pleasure? — I am not surprised to hear from your lips the words which so many men have said to me — but — — ”
The coachman turned round.
“Here comes Monsieur Gatien,” said he.
“I love you, I will have you, you shall be mine, for I have never felt for any woman the passion I have for you!” said Lousteau in her ear.
“In spite of my will, perhaps?” said she, with a smile.
“At least you must seem to have been assaulted to save my honor,” said the Parisian, to whom the fatal immaculateness of clean muslin suggested a ridiculous notion.
Before Gatien had reached the end of the bridge, the outrageous journalist had crumpled up Madame de la Baudraye’s muslin dress to such an effect that she was absolutely not presentable.
“Oh, monsieur!” she exclaimed in dignified reproof.
“You defied me,” said the Parisian.
But Gatien now rode up with the vehemence of a duped lover. To regain a little of Madame de la Baudraye’s esteem, Lousteau did his best to hide the tumbled dress from Gatien’s eyes by leaning out of the chaise to speak to him from Dinah’s side.
“Go back to our inn,” said he, “there is still time; the diligence does not start for half an hour. The papers are on the table of the room Bianchon was in; he wants them particularly, for he will be lost without his notes for the lecture.”
“Pray go, Gatien,” said Dinah to her young adorer, with an imperious glance. And the boy thus commanded turned his horse and was off with a loose rein.
“Go quickly to La Baudraye,” cried Lousteau to the coachman. “Madame is not well — Your mother only will know the secret of my trick,” added he, taking his seat by Dinah.
“You call such infamous conduct a trick?” cried Madame de la Baudraye, swallowing down a few tears that dried up with the fire of outraged pride.
She leaned back in the corner of the chaise, crossed her arms, and gazed out at the Loire and the landscape, at anything rather than at Lousteau. The journalist put on his most ingratiating tone, and talked till they reached La Baudraye, where Dinah fled indoors, trying not to be seen by any one. In her agitation she threw herself on a sofa and burst into tears.
“If I am an object of horror to you, of aversion or scorn, I will go,” said Lousteau, who had followed her. And he threw himself at her feet.
It was at this crisis that Madame Piedefer came in, saying to her daughter:
“What is the matter? What has happened?”
“Give your daughter another dress at once,” said the audacious Parisian in the prim old lady’s ear.
Hearing the mad gallop of Gatien’s horse, Madame de la Baudraye fled to her bedroom, followed by her mother.
“There are no papers at the inn,” said Gatien to Lousteau, who went out to meet him.
“And you found none at the Chateau d’Anzy either?” replied Lousteau.
“You have been making a fool of me,” said Gatien, in a cold, set voice.
“Quite so,” replied Lousteau. “Madame de la Baudraye was greatly annoyed by your choosing to follow her without being invited. Believe me, to bore a woman is a bad way of courting her. Dinah has played you a trick, and you have given her a laugh; it is more than any of you has done in these thirteen years past. You owe that success to Bianchon, for your cousin was the author of the Farce of the ‘Manuscript.’ — Will the horse get over it?” asked Lousteau with a laugh, while Gatien was wondering whether to be angry or not.
“The horse!” said Gatien.
At this moment Madame de la Baudraye came in, dressed in a velvet gown, and accompanied by her mother, who shot angry flashes at Lousteau. It would have been too rash for Dinah to seem cold or severe to Lousteau in Gatien’s presence; and Etienne, taking advantage of this, offered his arm to the supposed Lucretia; however, she declined it.
“Do you mean to cast off a man who has vowed to live for you?” said he, walking close beside her. “I shall stop at Sancerre and go home to-morrow.”
“Are you coming, mamma?” said Madame de la Baudraye to Madame Piedefer, thus avoiding a reply to the direct challenge by which Lousteau was forcing her to a decision.
Lousteau handed the mother into the chaise, he helped Madame de la Baudraye by gently taking her arm, and he and Gatien took the front seat, leaving the saddle horse at La Baudraye.
“You have changed your gown,” said Gatien, blunderingly, to Dinah.
“Madame la Baronne was chilled by the cool air off the river,” replied Lousteau. “Bianchon advised her to put on a warm dress.”
Dinah turned as red as a poppy, and Madame Piedefer assumed a stern expression.
“Poor Bianchon! he is on the road to Paris. A noble soul!” said Lousteau.
“Oh, yes!” cried Madame de la Baudraye, “he is high-minded, full of delicate feeling — — ”
“We were in such good spirits when we set out,” said Lousteau; “now you are overdone, and you speak to me so bitterly — why? Are you not accustomed to being told how handsome and how clever you are? For my part, I say boldly, before Gatien, I give up Paris; I mean to stay at Sancerre and swell the number of your cavalieri serventi. I feel so young again in my native district; I have quite forgotten Paris and all its wickedness, and its bores, and its wearisome pleasures. — Yes, my life seems in a way purified.”
Dinah allowed Lousteau to talk without even looking at him; but at last there was a moment when this serpent’s rhodomontade was really so inspired by the effort he made to affect passion in phrases and ideas of which the meaning, though hidden from Gatien, found a loud response in Dinah’s heart, that she raised her eyes to his. This look seemed to crown Lousteau’s joy; his wit flowed more freely, and at last he made Madame de la Baudraye laugh. When, under circumstances which so seriously compromise her pride, a woman has been made to laugh, she is finally committed.
As they drove in by the spacious graveled forecourt, with its lawn in the middle, and the large vases filled with flowers which so well set off the facade of Anzy, the journalist was saying:
“When women love, they forgive everything, even our crimes; when they do not love, they cannot forgive anything — not even our virtues. — Do you forgive me,” he added in Madame de la Baudraye’s ear, and pressing her arm to his heart with tender emphasis. And Dinah could not help smiling.
All through dinner, and for the rest of the evening, Etienne was in the most delightful spirits, inexhaustibly cheerful; but while thus giving vent to his intoxication, he now and then fell into the dreamy abstraction of a man who seems rapt in his own happiness.
After coffee had been served, Madame de la Baudraye and her mother left the men to wander about the gardens. Monsieur Gravier then remarked to Monsieur de Clagny:
“Did you observe that Madame de la Baudraye, after going out in a muslin gown came home in a velvet?”
“As she got into the carriage at Cosne, the muslin dress caught on a brass nail and was torn all the way down,” replied Lousteau.
“Oh!” exclaimed Gatien, stricken to the heart by hearing two such different explanations.
The journalist, who understood, took Gatien by the arm and pressed it as a hint to him to be silent. A few minutes later Etienne left Dinah’s three adorers and took possession of little La Baudraye. Then Gatien was cross-questioned as to the events of the day. Monsieur Gravier and Monsieur de Clagny were dismayed to hear that on the return from Cosne Lousteau had been alone with Dinah, and even more so on hearing the two versions explaining the lady’s change of dress. And the three discomfited gentlemen were in a very awkward position for the rest of the evening.
Next day each, on various business, was obliged to leave Anzy; Dinah remained with her mother, Lousteau, and her husband. The annoyance vented by the three victims gave rise to an organized r
ebellion in Sancerre. The surrender of the Muse of Le Berry, of the Nivernais, and of Morvan was the cause of a perfect hue and cry of slander, evil report, and various guesses in which the story of the muslin gown held a prominent place. No dress Dinah had ever worn had been so much commented on, or was half as interesting to the girls, who could not conceive what the connection might be, that made the married women laugh, between love and a muslin gown.
The Presidente Boirouge, furious at her son’s discomfiture, forgot the praise she had lavished on the poem of Paquita, and fulminated terrific condemnation on the woman who could publish such a disgraceful work.
“The wretched woman commits every crime she writes about,” said she. “Perhaps she will come to the same end as her heroine!”
Dinah’s fate among the good folks of Sancerre was like that of Marechal Soult in the opposition newspapers; as long as he is minister he lost the battle of Toulouse; whenever he is out of the Government he won it! While she was virtuous, Dinah was a match for Camille de Maupin, a rival of the most famous women; but as soon as she was happy, she was an unhappy creature.
Monsieur de Clagny was her valiant champion; he went several times to the Chateau d’Anzy to acquire the right to contradict the rumors current as to the woman he still faithfully adored, even in her fall; and he maintained that she and Lousteau were engaged together on some great work. But the lawyer was laughed to scorn.
The month of October was lovely; autumn is the finest season in the valley of the Loire; but in 1836 it was unusually glorious. Nature seemed to aid and abet Dinah, who, as Bianchon had predicted, gradually developed a heart-felt passion. In one month she was an altered woman. She was surprised to find in herself so many inert and dormant qualities, hitherto in abeyance. To her Lousteau seemed an angel; for heart-love, the crowning need of a great nature, had made a new woman of her. Dinah was alive! She had found an outlet for her powers, she saw undreamed-of vistas in the future — in short, she was happy, happy without alarms or hindrances. The vast castle, the gardens, the park, the forest, favored love.
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 412