“What are you thinking of me?” he said after a moment’s silence. “Tell me frankly, without disguise.”
“You wish to acquire the right to speak to me of myself,” she said laughing.
“You do not answer me,” he went on after a slight pause. “Take care, silence is sometimes significant.”
“Do you think I cannot guess all that you would like to say to me? Good heavens! you have already said enough.”
“Oh, if we understand each other,” he replied, smiling, “I have obtained more than I dared hope for.”
She smiled in return so graciously that she seemed to accept the courteous struggle into which all men like to draw a woman. They persuaded themselves, half in jest, half in earnest, that they never could be more to each other than they were at that moment. The young man fancied, therefore, he might give reins to a passion that could have no future; the young woman felt she might smile upon it. Marie suddenly struck her foot against a stone and stumbled.
“Take my arm,” said her companion.
“It seems I must,” she replied; “you would be too proud if I refused; you would fancy I feared you.”
“Ah, mademoiselle,” he said, pressing her arm against his heart that she might feel the beating of it, “you flatter my pride by granting such a favor.”
“Well, the readiness with which I do so will cure your illusions.”
“Do you wish to save me from the danger of the emotions you cause?”
“Stop, stop!” she cried; “do not try to entangle me in such boudoir riddles. I don’t like to find the wit of fools in a man of your character. See! here we are beneath the glorious sky, in the open country; before us, above us, all is grand. You wish to tell me that I am beautiful, do you not? Well, your eyes have already told me so; besides, I know it; I am not a woman whom mere compliments can please. But perhaps you would like,” this with satirical emphasis, “to talk about your sentiments? Do you think me so simple as to believe that sudden sympathies are powerful enough to influence a whole life through the recollections of one morning?”
“Not the recollections of a morning,” he said, “but those of a beautiful woman who has shown herself generous.”
“You forget,” she retorted, laughing, “half my attractions, — a mysterious woman, with everything odd about her, name, rank, situation, freedom of thought and manners.”
“You are not mysterious to me!” he exclaimed. “I have fathomed you; there is nothing that could be added to your perfections except a little more faith in the love you inspire.”
“Ah, my poor child of eighteen, what can you know of love?” she said smiling. “Well, well, so be it!” she added, “it is a fair subject of conversation, like the weather when one pays a visit. You shall find that I have neither false modesty nor petty fears. I can hear the word love without blushing; it has been so often said to me without one echo of the heart that I think it quite unmeaning. I have met with it everywhere, in books, at the theatre, in society, — yes, everywhere, and never have I found in it even a semblance of its magnificent ideal.”
“Did you seek that ideal?”
“Yes.”
The word was said with such perfect ease and freedom that the young man made a gesture of surprise and looked at Marie fixedly, as if he had suddenly changed his opinion on her character and real position.
“Mademoiselle,” he said with ill-concealed devotion, “are you maid or wife, angel or devil?”
“All,” she replied, laughing. “Isn’t there something diabolic and also angelic in a young girl who has never loved, does not love, and perhaps will never love?”
“Do you think yourself happy thus?” he asked with a free and easy tone and manner, as though already he felt less respect for her.
“Oh, happy, no,” she replied. “When I think that I am alone, hampered by social conventions that make me deceitful, I envy the privileges of a man. But when I also reflect on the means which nature has bestowed on us women to catch and entangle you men in the invisible meshes of a power which you cannot resist, then the part assigned to me in the world is not displeasing to me. And then again, suddenly, it does seem very petty, and I feel that I should despise a man who allowed himself to be duped by such vulgar seductions. No sooner do I perceive our power and like it, than I know it to be horrible and I abhor it. Sometimes I feel within me that longing towards devotion which makes my sex so nobly beautiful; and then I feel a desire, which consumes me, for dominion and power. Perhaps it is the natural struggle of the good and the evil principle in which all creatures live here below. Angel or devil! you have expressed it. Ah! to-day is not the first time that I have recognized my double nature. But we women understand better than you men can do our own shortcomings. We have an instinct which shows us a perfection in all things to which, nevertheless, we fail to attain. But,” she added, sighing as she glanced at the sky; “that which enhances us in your eyes is — ”
“Is what?” he said.
“ — that we are all struggling, more or less,” she answered, “against a thwarted destiny.”
“Mademoiselle, why should we part to-night?”
“Ah!” she replied, smiling at the passionate look which he gave her, “let us get into the carriage; the open air does not agree with us.”
Marie turned abruptly; the young man followed her, and pressed her arm with little respect, but in a manner that expressed his imperious admiration. She hastened her steps. Seeing that she wished to escape an importune declaration, he became the more ardent; being determined to win a first favor from this woman, he risked all and said, looking at her meaningly: —
“Shall I tell you a secret?”
“Yes, quickly, if it concerns you.”
“I am not in the service of the Republic. Where are you going? I shall follow you.”
At the words Marie trembled violently. She withdrew her arm and covered her face with both hands to hide either the flush or the pallor of her cheeks; then she suddenly uncovered her face and said in a voice of deep emotion: —
“Then you began as you would have ended, by deceiving me?”
“Yes,” he said.
At this answer she turned again from the carriage, which was now overtaking them, and began to almost run along the road.
“I thought,” he said, following her, “that the open air did not agree with you?”
“Oh! it has changed,” she replied in a grave tone, continuing to walk on, a prey to agitating thoughts.
“You do not answer me,” said the young man, his heart full of the soft expectation of coming pleasure.
“Oh!” she said, in a strained voice, “the tragedy begins.”
“What tragedy?” he asked.
She stopped short, looked at the young student from head to foot with a mingled expression of fear and curiosity; then she concealed her feelings that were agitating her under the mask of an impenetrable calmness, showing that for a girl of her age she had great experience of life.
“Who are you?” she said, — ”but I know already; when I first saw you I suspected it. You are the royalist leader whom they call the Gars. The ex-bishop of Autun was right in saying we should always believe in presentiments which give warning of evil.”
“What interest have you in knowing the Gars?”
“What interest has he in concealing himself from me who have already saved his life?” She began to laugh, but the merriment was forced. “I have wisely prevented you from saying that you love me. Let me tell you, monsieur, that I abhor you. I am republican, you are royalist; I would deliver you up if you were not under my protection, and if I had not already saved your life, and if — ” she stopped. These violent extremes of feeling and the inward struggle which she no longer attempted to conceal alarmed the young man, who tried, but in vain, to observe her calmly. “Let us part here at once, — I insist upon it; farewell!” she said. She turned hastily back, made a few steps, and then returned to him. “No, no,” she continued, “I have too gre
at an interest in knowing who you are. Hide nothing from me; tell me the truth. Who are you? for you are no more a pupil of the Ecole Polytechnique than you are eighteen years old.”
“I am a sailor, ready to leave the ocean and follow you wherever your imagination may lead you. If I have been so lucky as to rouse your curiosity in any particular I shall be very careful not to lessen it. Why mingle the serious affairs of real life with the life of the heart in which we are beginning to understand each other?”
“Our souls might have understood each other,” she said in a grave voice. “But I have no right to exact your confidence. You will never know the extent of your obligations to me; I shall not explain them.”
They walked a few steps in silence.
“My life does interest you,” said the young man.
“Monsieur, I implore you, tell me your name or else be silent. You are a child,” she added, with an impatient movement of her shoulders, “and I feel a pity for you.”
The obstinacy with which she insisted on knowing his name made the pretended sailor hesitate between prudence and love. The vexation of a desired woman is powerfully attractive; her anger, like her submission, is imperious; many are the fibres she touches in a man’s heart, penetrating and subjugating it. Was this scene only another aspect of Mademoiselle de Verneuil’s coquetry? In spite of his sudden passion the unnamed lover had the strength to distrust a woman thus bent on forcing from him a secret of life and death.
“Why has my rash indiscretion, which sought to give a future to our present meeting, destroyed the happiness of it?” he said, taking her hand, which she left in his unconsciously.
Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who seemed to be in real distress, was silent.
“How have I displeased you?” he said. “What can I do to soothe you?”
“Tell me your name.”
He made no reply, and they walked some distance in silence. Suddenly Mademoiselle de Verneuil stopped short, like one who has come to some serious determination.
“Monsieur le Marquis de Montauran,” she said, with dignity, but without being able to conceal entirely the nervous trembling of her features, “I desire to do you a great service, whatever it may cost me. We part here. The coach and its escort are necessary for your protection, and you must continue your journey in it. Fear nothing from the Republicans; they are men of honor, and I shall give the adjutant certain orders which he will faithfully execute. As for me, I shall return on foot to Alencon with my maid, and take a few of the soldiers with me. Listen to what I say, for your life depends on it. If, before you reach a place of safety, you meet that odious man you saw in my company at the inn, escape at once, for he will instantly betray you. As for me, — ” she paused, “as for me, I fling myself back into the miseries of life. Farewell, monsieur, may you be happy; farewell.”
She made a sign to Captain Merle, who was just then reaching the brow of the hill behind her. The marquis was taken unawares by her sudden action.
“Stop!” he cried, in a tone of despair that was well acted.
This singular caprice of a girl for whom he would at that instant have thrown away his life so surprised him that he invented, on the spur of the moment, a fatal fiction by which to hide his name and satisfy the curiosity of his companion.
“You have almost guessed the truth,” he said. “I am an emigre, condemned to death, and my name is Vicomte de Bauvan. Love of my country has brought me back to France to join my brother. I hope to be taken off the list of emigres through the influence of Madame de Beauharnais, now the wife of the First Consul; but if I fail in this, I mean to die on the soil of my native land, fighting beside my friend Montauran. I am now on my way secretly, by means of a passport he has sent me, to learn if any of my property in Brittany is still unconfiscated.”
While the young man spoke Mademoiselle de Verneuil examined him with a penetrating eye. She tried at first to doubt his words, but being by nature confiding and trustful, she slowly regained an expression of serenity, and said eagerly, “Monsieur, are you telling me the exact truth?”
“Yes, the exact truth,” replied the young man, who seemed to have no conscience in his dealings with women.
Mademoiselle de Verneuil gave a deep sigh, like a person who returns to life.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, “I am very happy.”
“Then you hate that poor Montauran?”
“No,” she said; “but I could not make you understand my meaning. I was not willing that you should meet the dangers from which I will try to protect him, — since he is your friend.”
“Who told you that Montauran was in danger?”
“Ah, monsieur, even if I had not come from Paris, where his enterprise is the one thing talked of, the commandant at Alencon said enough to show his danger.”
“Then let me ask you how you expect to save him from it.”
“Suppose I do not choose to answer,” she replied, with the haughty air that women often assume to hide an emotion. “What right have you to know my secrets?”
“The right of a man who loves you.”
“Already?” she said. “No, you do not love me. I am only an object of passing gallantry to you, — that is all. I am clear-sighted; did I not penetrate your disguise at once? A woman who knows anything of good society could not be misled, in these days, by a pupil of the Polytechnique who uses choice language, and conceals as little as you do the manners of a grand seigneur under the mask of a Republican. There is a trifle of powder left in your hair, and a fragrance of nobility clings to you which a woman of the world cannot fail to detect. Therefore, fearing that the man whom you saw accompanying me, who has all the shrewdness of a woman, might make the same discovery, I sent him away. Monsieur, let me tell you that a true Republican officer just from the Polytechnique would not have made love to me as you have done, and would not have taken me for a pretty adventuress. Allow me, Monsieur de Bauvan, to preach you a little sermon from a woman’s point of view. Are you too juvenile to know that of all the creatures of my sex the most difficult to subdue is that same adventuress, — she whose price is ticketed and who is weary of pleasure. That sort of woman requires, they tell me, constant seduction; she yields only to her own caprices; any attempt to please her argues, I should suppose, great conceit on the part of a man. But let us put aside that class of women, among whom you have been good enough to rank me; you ought to understand that a young woman, handsome, brilliant, and of noble birth (for, I suppose, you will grant me those advantages), does not sell herself, and can only be won by the man who loves her in one way. You understand me? If she loves him and is willing to commit a folly, she must be justified by great and heroic reasons. Forgive me this logic, rare in my sex; but for the sake of your happiness, — and my own,” she added, dropping her head, — ”I will not allow either of us to deceive the other, nor will I permit you to think that Mademoiselle de Verneuil, angel or devil, maid or wife, is capable of being seduced by commonplace gallantry.”
“Mademoiselle,” said the marquis, whose surprise, though he concealed it, was extreme, and who at once became a man of the great world, “I entreat you to believe that I take you to be a very noble person, full of the highest sentiments, or — a charming girl, as you please.”
“I don’t ask all that,” she said, laughing. “Allow me to keep my incognito. My mask is better than yours, and it pleases me to wear it, — if only to discover whether those who talk to me of love are sincere. Therefore, beware of me! Monsieur,” she cried, catching his arm vehemently, “listen to me; if you were able to prove that your love is true, nothing, no human power, could part us. Yes, I would fain unite myself to the noble destiny of some great man, and marry a vast ambition, glorious hopes! Noble hearts are never faithless, for constancy is in their fibre; I should be forever loved, forever happy, — I would make my body a stepping-stone by which to raise the man who loved me; I would sacrifice all things to him, bear all things from him, and love him forever, — even if he ceased to love me. I hav
e never before dared to confess to another heart the secrets of mine, nor the passionate enthusiasms which exhaust me; but I tell you something of them now because, as soon as I have seen you in safety, we shall part forever.”
“Part? never!” he cried, electrified by the tones of that vigorous soul which seemed to be fighting against some overwhelming thought.
“Are you free?” she said, with a haughty glance which subdued him.
“Free! yes, except for the sentence of death which hangs over me.”
She added presently, in a voice full of bitter feeling: “If all this were not a dream, a glorious life might indeed be ours. But I have been talking folly; let us beware of committing any. When I think of all you would have to be before you could rate me at my proper value I doubt everything — ”
“I doubt nothing if you will only grant me — ”
“Hush!” she cried, hearing a note of true passion in his voice, “the open air is decidedly disagreeing with us; let us return to the coach.”
That vehicle soon came up; they took their places and drove on several miles in total silence. Both had matter for reflection, but henceforth their eyes no longer feared to meet. Each now seemed to have an equal interest in observing the other, and in mutually hiding important secrets; but for all that they were drawn together by one and the same impulse, which now, as a result of this interview, assumed the dimensions of a passion. They recognized in each other qualities which promised to heighten all the pleasures to be derived from either their contest or their union. Perhaps both of them, living a life of adventure, had reached the singular moral condition in which, either from weariness or in defiance of fate, the mind rejects serious reflection and flings itself on chance in pursuing an enterprise precisely because the issues of chance are unknown, and the interest of expecting them vivid. The moral nature, like the physical nature, has its abysses into which strong souls love to plunge, risking their future as gamblers risk their fortune. Mademoiselle de Verneuil and the young marquis had obtained a revelation of each other’s minds as a consequence of this interview, and their intercourse thus took rapid strides, for the sympathy of their souls succeeded to that of their senses. Besides, the more they felt fatally drawn to each other, the more eager they were to study the secret action of their minds. The so-called Vicomte de Bauvan, surprised at the seriousness of the strange girl’s ideas, asked himself how she could possibly combine such acquired knowledge of life with so much youth and freshness. He thought he discovered an extreme desire to appear chaste in the modesty and reserve of her attitudes. He suspected her of playing a part; he questioned the nature of his own pleasure; and ended by choosing to consider her a clever actress. He was right; Mademoiselle de Verneuil, like other women of the world, grew the more reserved the more she felt the warmth of her own feelings, assuming with perfect naturalness the appearance of prudery, beneath which such women veil their desires. They all wish to offer themselves as virgins on love’s altar; and if they are not so, the deception they seek to practise is at least a homage which they pay to their lovers. These thoughts passed rapidly through the mind of the young man and gratified him. In fact, for both, this mutual examination was an advance in their intercourse, and the lover soon came to that phase of passion in which a man finds in the defects of his mistress a reason for loving her the more.
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 950