by Eugène Sue
Though all this was very true and very well stated, it would have seemed too prearranged for a conversation, had there not been something else that surprised me more.
No doubt every one has felt the same inexplicable sensation. It is this: you feel, for the space of one or two seconds, that you have positively seen or heard already the things you are seeing or hearing, although you have the absolute certainty that the place you see or the person who speaks has never been seen or heard by you before.
The opinion that Madame de Pënâfiel had just expressed on Byron and Scott gave me this strange sensation. It was so like my own that it seemed the echo of my own thoughts. At first I was almost stupefied, but reflecting that, after all, it was but a simple and natural comparison between two minds that were diametrically opposed to one another, I continued calmly, for I was determined not to be influenced by my feelings, although Madame de Pënâfiel had been very eloquent, and really seemed to feel what she said.
“No doubt, madame, the genius of Byron is very saddening, and that of Scott very consoling, and one seems very superior to the other; but these despairs and consolations are quite superfluous nowadays, for at the present epoch nobody is distressed or pleased by such trifles.”
“How is that?” asked she.
“It appears, madame, that we no longer live in the age of imaginary joys and misfortune; we have come to the wise conclusion of substituting reality and material comfort for dreamy, foolish ideality and passion; so in all probability we are much nearer happiness than we ever have been before, for there is nothing more difficult, more impossible to realise, than the ideal, while, with a little common sense, every one can arrange for himself a comfortable existence according to his own taste.”
“Then, monsieur,” said Madame de Pënâfiel, with some show of impatience, “you deny the existence of passion? You say that in our day it does not exist?”
“I was mistaken, madame, if I said that, for there is still one passion remaining, and only one, and in this one passion all others are concentrated. Its influence is tremendous; it is the only one which, being well managed, carries any weight in society nowadays; it controls our customs so completely that, though we are still a thousand leagues away from the gracious ways of the great period of gallantry and pleasure, the passion that I speak of, madame, is able to change every salon of Paris into a Quaker meeting or an assemblage of American citizens.”
“How could that be?” said she.
“To be brief, madame, would you wish to see the strictest prudery reign in all conversation? Would you wish to hear endless invocations (by unmarried men, you understand) on the sanctity of marriage and the duty of married women? Would you wish to see the Utopia dreamed of by the sternest moralists realised?”
“For my part, I should like to see it once, just for a minute or two,” said Lord Falmouth, pretending to be alarmed at the idea, “but that would be sufficient; I should utter a protest if it were to last any longer.”
“Tell us what this passion is, monsieur,” said Madame de Pënâfiel, “this passion that can perform all these miracles, — what is it?”
“It is selfishness, or the passion for material comfort, madame; a passion that can be translated by a trivial and very significant word, — money.”
“And how will you utilise the excessive love of money in the development of this excessive and threatening virtue, of which you have drawn such an exaggerated picture that I am still quite overcome?” said Lord Falmouth.
“Just as they do in your country, monsieur, by punishing every infraction of duty by an enormous fine. How else can it be done? In our epoch of materialism we no longer fear anything except that which touches our daily life, our pocket; this being the case, the system of fines applied to the maintenance of good morals will certainly be the most powerful social lever of the period. For instance, imagine that a confirmed, inexorable moralist was determined to put a stop, suddenly and brutally, to those weaknesses that society pardons, — a man entirely devoted to his sense of duty, or, if you like it better, take a man who is very ugly, very tiresome, and consequently very envious of certain charming sins that he has never been lucky enough to commit, but that he is determined to exterminate, — suppose that this bloodthirsty moralist is a legislator, and that one day in the halls of state he discloses a most deplorable state of affairs, and then demands and obtains, after some discussion, from the majority, whom you can, without any great stretch of imagination, suppose to consist of men who are also very ugly, old, and tiresome, the passage of a bill organising a secret police, destined to ferret out and unmask every act that threatens private life; imagine that finally a law is promulgated, which punishes by a fine of fifty thousand francs the tender crime whose victims fill our tribunals, and that the fine shall be doubled in case of a second arrest. This fine is not to be offered in the shameful form of damages to the injured party, but employed, let us suppose, in the education of abandoned children, — so that the superfluous would help the necessitous.”
“And do you believe, monsieur,” cried the marquise, “that the ignoble fear of paying a given sum would render the majority of men less attentive, less devoted to women?”
“I believe it so firmly, madame, that I can give you an excellent sketch of the two very different aspects of a salon, filled with the same persons, on the day before and the day after the promulgation of such a law.
“The day before you would see all the men smiling, expansive, charming, using their softest tones and tenderest looks to prove by every grace of look and accent the amorous principles of such logic as this: ‘Whatever is pleasant is right.’
‘Discretion is the only virtue.’
‘Your heart was not consulted when they gave you your tyrant.’ ‘There are certain feelings that are inevitably sympathetic.’
‘Your soul longs for its twin sister, take my soul.’ (This piece of a soul, by the way, has enormous moustaches, or side-whiskers.) ‘When it has reached a certain stage, guilty love becomes a sacred duty,’ etc. I will excuse you, madame, from hearing a variety of other excellent reasonings, which generally do not deceive those that hear them, any more than those that give utterance to them.
“But on the evening after the promulgation of this terrible law, when there would be danger of the fine, what a difference! As all those pretty paradoxes of night before last might end, after all, in the payment of a heavy sum, and as that sum would reduce by just so much the luxury and comfort which are the necessities of an essentially material life, while love is only a delightful superfluity, you would see all the men suddenly become serious, pompous, dignified, frightened at the slightest attempt at conversation from a woman, if she was at all removed from the rest of the company; prudish and scared as schoolgirls before their head teacher, you would hear them cry out aloud so that every one could hear them, and in their most solemn voice, the voice that they use when they make political speeches, refuse requests, and later scold their wives and children with: ‘After all, good morals are the foundation of society.’ ‘We must draw the line somewhere!’ ‘There are some duties that a gallant man ought to respect.’ ‘I had a mother once.’ ‘I shall be a father some day.” There is no real pleasure except in the satisfaction of conscience,’ etc. For I will spare you, madame, a quantity of other formulas more or less moral, which, as soon as the question of a fine came up, might be translated thus: ‘Ladies, I know that you are all as charming as possible; but I love my opera box, my house, my table, my stable, my gaming, my journey to the summer resorts or to Italy, my pictures, my bric-à-brac; shall I risk all of these for a few moments of felicity, as rare as it is intoxicating? No!”’
“It is infamous,” said the marquise; “out of a hundred men, not one would answer in this way.”
“Permit me, madame, to be of an absolutely opposite opinion. I believe the men of our day are pitilessly attached to material comfort, and willing to sacrifice everything else to it, and, more than all the rest, that which is
called love.”
“You believe that?” said Madame de Pënâfiel with profound astonishment. “You believe that? And how old might you be, monsieur?”
The question was so strange and so impolite, besides being so difficult to answer without being extremely ridiculous, that I bowed respectfully and said at haphazard:
“My star was so favourable, madame la marquise, that I was born the day before your birthday.”
Madame de Pënâfiel drew herself up with a haughty expression of impatience, and said, in a lofty way, “I was speaking in earnest, monsieur.”
“And it is in all seriousness, madame, that I have the honour of answering; the question that you were so kind as to ask is too flattering a proof of your interest to allow me to answer it in any other way.”
“But how do you know my age?” she asked me, with surprise and curiosity.
“It will be many long years from now, madame, before this secret need give you any uneasiness, and, by that time, I hope that I shall have been so long in your good graces that I shall have forgotten all about it.”
At this very instant a terrible sneeze, ail the more sonorous from having been restrained, was heard in the direction of the young stranger, who, as Lord Falmouth had predicted, had been turning over the pages of the same album for the last hour, in profound silence. The noise caused Madame de Pënâfiel to start with surprise, and she turned her head quickly, when, to her great consternation, she saw M. de Stroll. But she made such profound and gracious excuses to the young baron for her apparent neglect of him, that he found her conduct quite natural, and seemed rather pleased to have sneezed so loud.
It was now late, and I left.
I was waiting for my carriage in one of the entrance salons, when Lord Falmouth and M. de Stroll came to find their servants.
“Well,” said Lord Falmouth to me, “what do you think of Madame de Pënâfiel?”
Whether from false shame at having to acknowledge myself already under the spell, or from pure dissimulation, I answered, pleasantly: “Madame de Pënâfiel appears to be extremely unassuming in manners, she possesses a candid mind devoid of all pretentiousness, an enchanting personality, and has an innocent way of saying just what she thinks.”
“Upon my word,” replied Lord Falmouth, with his grave irony, “your judgment is a true one, as true as that we are now standing at noonday in the middle of a thick forest listening to the songs of the birds.” Then he added, seriously: “The most infernal thing about her is her falseness. I am quite sure that she does not believe a word of all she said to us about Scott and Byron, for she has about as much heart as that,” said he, striking with his cane the base of a colossal Japanese vase filled with flowers that he was standing near; “or rather,” he said, taking from the vase a beautiful crimson camellia, and holding it up to me; “she resembles this flower, — colour and brilliance, nothing more; no more soul than this flower has perfume. After all, though, when she wants to, she can talk very charmingly. But people say you should hear her when one of her guests has just left, — how she can take them to pieces! One of these days we will play at that game; you shall go out and I will stay behind, then I will tell you all that she has said about you, and you shall do as much sometime for me.”
Just then our carriages came up. Lord Falmouth went off to the club to make a night of it; after a moment’s hesitation as to accompanying him, I decided to go home.
In spite of Lord Falmouth’s opinion and what I myself had said about Madame de Pënâfiel, I had quite agreed with her, and what she said about Byron had made a deep impression on me; for I thought that I detected hidden under this discussion, the signs of mental anguish and heartfelt loneliness, and this gave me much to reflect upon, because I believed I had perceived something of her true character, which was absolutely in opposition to all that they said about Madame de Pënâfiel.
CHAPTER XVIII.
ON WHAT THE WORLD SAID AND ON COQUETRY.
THERE IS NOTHING more difficult, not to say impossible, than to successfully defend in society a poor young woman, who is so unfortunate as not only to occupy a prominent position both as to name and fortune, but who is beautiful both in face and figure, has a remarkable mind, is talented and extremely well informed.
When once she has unchained the world’s wrath; on account of this insolent reunion of advantages, her every action, the best as well as the most unimportant, her virtues, her graces, all are criticised with the most artistic perfidy, and people are only lenient in regard to her defects.
There is nothing more saddening than to observe the contrary effect of this persistent belittling. If the woman against whom such unanimous hatred is shown is the mistress of a splendid home, every one is eager to go there, no effort is too great to gain admittance to her circle of friends. Is she considered too fast? What does it matter? All the mothers take their daughters to call on her, no doubt in order to return good for the evil that they themselves have done, and to show that they pay no attention to the scandals they themselves have spread abroad.
These remarks are spoken apropos of Madame de Pënâfiel, whom I began to see quite frequently, and very soon saw every day.
As it usually happens, I found her totally different from the descriptions that had been given me. She had been described as haughty and imperious, I had found her only dignified; ironical and scornful, I had never seen her so except towards low-lived persons, who well deserved such treatment; unkind and hateful, she had seemed to me kind and pitiful; fantastic, capricious, and morose, I had seen her sad, but very rarely.
Now this marked dissimilarity between what I heard and what I saw, ought it to be credited to the deep dissimulation with which Madame de Pënâfiel was accused? I do not know.
I do not know even if I was in love with Madame de Pënâfiel, but I felt for her, as I became more and more intimate, a very lively interest, caused as much by her fascination, her mind, by the simplicity with which she admitted certain defects, as by the persistent way that she was continually attacked, a persistence that had cost me many violent discussions.
It is not without a certain amount of vainglory that I recall this circumstance, for nothing is more frequent than the cowardly way that we join the backbiters, when they tear our absent friends to pieces.
Besides, I had begun to discover the falseness of the many absurdities that at first I had given credence to.
Thus when I knew her well enough to speak confidentially, I told her frankly that her presence at that fatal race, where M. de Merteuil had been killed, had appeared strange to every one.
With a surprised look she asked me why?
I told her that, as M. dé Merteuil and M. de Senneterre were both her intimate friends, her devoted admirers indeed —
But without giving me time to finish, she exclaimed that it was an outrageous falsehood, that she received M. de Merteuil and M. de Senneterre only on her days of reception; that she hardly ever saw them in the morning; that she was ignorant of the danger they ran.
Knowing nothing of their wager, she went to the race as she had gone to many another, and only was prevented remaining until the finish because she was cold.
In reply, I told her of the rumour and the public opinion in consequence of it, which was as follows: “She had known both Messieurs de Merteuil and de Senneterre to be in love with her, having inexcusably encouraged their rival attentions; she was thus responsible for this murderous challenge, and her careless departure from the ground before the end of the race had given as much offence as her presence on the race-course; finally, her appearing that night in a conspicuous box at the Opéra was the height of disdainful heartlessness.”
Madame de Pënâfiel could not at first believe these miserable stories; when I had convinced her she was greatly distressed, and asked me how it was that well-bred persons could be so stupid or so blind as to think that a woman of her position and breeding could play such a part To this I answered that good society resigned itself with most Christia
n humility, and, forgetting all the experience that the world had taught it, was willing to descend to the most stupid and commonplace credulity, the moment there was any question of believing a slander.
I then told her the story of Ismaël. She said that she had in fact noticed and admired, as an artist might have done, his characteristic costume, and that for an instant she had been afraid of seeing the unfortunate man thrown from his horse. But when it came to the rest of the tale, and the conviction of the public that she had asked to have Ismaël presented to her, she burst out laughing and told me how she had said at the Opéra to M. de Cernay, who it seems was quite provoked, “Nothing nowadays is more vulgar than these Chasseurs and Heiduques; when you have shown off your lion sufficiently, and have had all the benefit you care for in parading him as a contrast to yourself, you can send him to me, and I will have him sit behind my carriage with a valet de pied; it will be very original and something new.”
“Very well, madame,” said I, laughing too, “here is the rest of the story: While Messieurs de Merteuil and de Senneterre were risking their lives to please you, with perfect indifference to their rash struggle, whose object you knew, you had no eyes for anything but the Turk, your admiration was expressed in a thousand signs and transports that were almost frenzied. When that evening you appeared at the Opéra, after the death of one of your devoted admirers, your first thought was to beg M. de Cernay to present Ismael to you finally, taking the advice of your friends and wishing to escape the deep impression that this savage foreigner had made, you had the resolution to leave town suddenly, and take refuge way off in Brittany.”
Madame de Pënâfiel asked me if it were not M. de Cernay who had started these false and slanderous reports. As I attempted to elude this question, though there was no reason why I should protect the count, she said, after an instant’s reflection:
“Confession for confession. M. de Cernay, after having paid me some attention, ended by making me an offer of marriage, which was not accepted any more than a declaration of love would have been. For as I had no desire to do a foolish thing, I could not think seriously of committing such an irreparable mistake. As M. de Cernay had no more reason to be vain of my refusal than I had to be vain of his offer, the secret was scrupulously kept between us; now that he calumniates me it shall be a secret no longer; use it as you see fit and ‘give your authority,’ as my venerable friend, Arthur Young, would say. Now as to this hurried journey to Brittany, you may have noticed at the Opéra that night that I spoke rather sharply to that poor Cornelia, my lady companion. I had told her the day before that I meant to start for the country. She began to make a thousand objections, on the weather, the cold, etc., and ended by making me angry, because if the weather was good enough for me it was good enough for her. Now, it was not absolutely to escape the terrible Turk that I was going away, but simply to pay a last visit to the woman who had nursed me. She was ill and believed herself dying unless I would come to see her, which she thought was the only thing that would restore her to health. As I am very much attached to this excellent creature, I started off, and what is very strange is that now she is perfectly well again, so I am not at all sorry that I was courageous enough to undertake such a tiresome journey in midwinter.”