Lelia

by George Sand

  villa sparkled with lights. But the gardens were not lit only by the reflection of the apartments. As we went away, you could bury yourself in a soft and mysterious darkness and rest from movement and noise at the bottom of these shadows where the sounds of the orchestra arrived soft and weak, often interrupted by puffs of wind loaded with perfumes. Green velvet rugs had been thrown and as forgotten on the lawns, so that we could sit there without creasing his garment; and, in a few places, bells of a clear and weak stamp were suspended from the trees and, at the slightest breath of air, sowed the foliage of

  uncertain notes or unsuccessful chords that we could have taken for the thin voices of sylphs awakened by swaying flowers where they were huddled.

  Bambuccj knew how important it is, when you want awaken pleasure in nervous souls, avoid all that can cause fatigue of the senses. Also, in the interior of rooms, the light was not too bright for the eyes delicate. The harmony was soft and without copper shards. The dances were slow and rare. We didn't allow young people people to form many quadrilles. Because in the conviction that man does not know what he wants or what he wants agrees, the philosophical Bambuccj had placed everywhere chamberlains who adjusted the dose of activity and rest of each. These people, skillful and skeptical observers deep, put a brake on the ardor of some so that it not run out too quickly, greedily laziness of others so that she was not too slow to wake up. They read in looks approaching satiety and they found a way to prevent it by making you change place and fun. They also guessed, in the concern of your walk, in the precipitation of your movements, the invasion or the development of a passion; and if they were planning something immediately scandalous result, they knew how to prevent it, either by getting drunk, or by improvising a fable unofficial that disgusted you with your lawsuits. But if they saw two experienced actors in the presence the plot, they spared nothing to engage and protect reports that could make couples light hours well matched.

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  And besides, nothing more noble and more frank than the

  matters of the heart which were being dealt with there. As a man of taste, Bambuccj had banished politics, gambling and diplomacy from his parties. He found that discussing state affairs, weaving conspiracies, ruin themselves, or conduct negotiations through the pleasures of the ball were things in the worst tone.

  The happy Bambuccj understood life much better. There had no popular cry, no subdued whisper that came to his ear, when he was having fun, the good prince! Any fierce advisor, any bad thinker augur was banished from his entertainment. He only wanted kind people, men of art, as they say

  today, fashionable women, complacent,

  many young people, some ugly women,

  only to bring out the beautiful, and ridiculous beings, just enough to entertain the rest of society.

  Most of the guests therefore belonged to this age where there are still illusions and to these intermediate classes which have enough taste to applaud and not enough wealth to disdained. It was the choir in the opera, it was part of the spectacle, a necessary part like the decorations and the supper.

  They did not suspect it, these good citizens; but they filled the role of extras in the salons of Bambuccj.

  They had, as actors, the profits from the party, that is to say, pleasure; but they did not have the honor.

  The honor was reserved for a small number, for a certain group selected epicureans whom the prince had at heart to dazzle and charm. These were really the assembly, the guests, the judges, the friends we treated; this noisy and ready crowd that we passed under their eyes did their best believing to act there only for his account, admirable discernment of the prince of 'Bambuccj!

  These people of distinction were, for the most part, able

  to compete in luxury and genius with il padron della casa.

  Bambuccj knew very well that he was not dealing with children; so he had the supreme honor of defeating them in inventions and delicacies of all kinds. If we had served in vermeil vases at the Marquis delle Pamocchie, Bambuccj spread out on the tables a table of pure gold. If the Jew Zacchario Page 127

  Pandolfi had shown his wife crowned with diamonds, Bambuccj used to put diamonds on his shoes mistress ; if the coat of Duke Almiri's pages was embroidered in gold, that of the footmen of the house of Bambuccj was embroidered of fine pearls. Worthy and touching emulation between enlightened sovereigns of intelligent nations!

  Do not be fooled. The task undertaken by the prince was not easy: it was a serious thing. He had dreamed there more one night before trying it. It was first necessary to surpass, in expenditure of money and spirit, all these worthy rivals. And then you had to manage to get them drunk so much fun that forgetting their pride wounded in defeat, they would have good faith to admit it. Well ! this huge business did not surprise Bambuccj's gigantic imagination; he is there threw, confident of victory, full of confidence in his resources and in heaven’s assistance, whom he had asked for nine days in advance, by the organ of his clergy, that he should not fall no rain during this memorable night.

  Among these high authorities to whom the whole province was served as a snack, the foreign Lélia occupied the front row.

  Since she had a lot of money, she always had a little family and a lot of consideration where it is was. Known by its beauty, its expenses and the singularity of her character, she was the object of the most ingenious

  attentions of the prince and his favorites.

  It was first introduced in one of the dazzling salons which were only the first degree of the progressive brilliance reserved to his eyes. Bambuccj's associates were instructed to stop there deftly new arrivals and nurturing their interest for a suitable time. Now it turned out that the young Greek prince Paolaggi entered at the same time as Lélia and that the chamberlains imagined nothing better to occupy them than to bring these two eminences together social, in the midst of a people of rich and noble of lower stage, intended to fill the interstices of the columns and the voids in the mosaic pavement.

  This Greek prince had the most beautiful profile than ever ancient sculpture reproduced. He was tanned like Othello, Page 128

  for there was Moorish blood in his family, and his black eyes shone wildly, its waist was slender like the oriental palm. There was cedar, Arabian horse, Bedouin and gazelle. All the women were crazy about it.

  He approached Lélia gracefully and kissed her hand, even though he saw her for the first time. He was a man who had manners of his own; women forgave him

  a lot of originalities, having regard to the warmth of the blood Asian that ran through its veins.

  He spoke little to her, but with such a harmonious voice and a so poetic style, with so penetrating looks and a brow inspired, that Lélia stopped five minutes to observe it like a prodigy. Then she thought of something else.

  When Count Ascanio entered, the chamberlains did look for Bambuccj. Ascanio was the happiest of men; nothing shocked him, everyone loved him, he loved

  everybody. Lélia, who knew the secret of her philanthropy, only saw him with horror. As soon as she saw him, her forehead took on a cloud so dark that the chamberlains frightened had recourse to the owner himself to dispel it.

  "Is this what embarrasses you?" tells them Bambuccj to low voice, throwing his eagle eye on Lélia. You do not not see that the loveliest of men is unbearable to the most atrabilaire of women? Where would the merit be, where would the genius, where would be the greatness of Lélia, if Ascanio succeeded in to be right ? If he could prove to him that everything is fine in the world, what would she spend her time on? Know then, clumsy, how happy he is for some

  organizations that the world is full of vices and vices. And hurry to rid Lélia of this charming epicurean, because he doesn't understand that it would be better to kill Lélia than to console her. "

  The chamberlains went gently to pray to Ascanio de kindly dispel the melancholy that spread over the beautiful Paolaggi forehead. Ascanio, convinced that he would become useful, began to triumph. He was a fero
cious good man, who did not lived only from the torture of others; he spent his life at their prove that they were happy, so as not to grant them Page 129

  of interest, and when he had taken away the sweetness of believing themselves interesting, they hated him more than if he had beheaded them.

  Bambuccj offered his arm to Lélia and led her in the Egyptian living room. She admired the decoration, politely criticized some details of style and yet finally fill with joy the scholar Bambuccj, declaring to him that she had seen nothing of better. Right now Paolaggi, who got rid of d'Ascanio, the happy man, reappeared near Lélia. He had

  dressed in a costume from ancient times. Leaning against a jasper sphinx it was the most remarkable accident of the painting and Lélia could not see it without experiencing the same feeling of admiration that a beautiful statue would have inspired him or a beautiful site.

  As she naively shared her impressions with Bambuccj, this one engorges himself like a father to whom one boasts his son. It is not that he had the slightest affection for the Greek prince; but the young prince was handsome, adorned with a great effect in the Egyptian room: Bambuccj considered it like a precious piece of furniture he would have rented for the evening.

  So he began to assert his Greek prince. But as, in spite of the most established superiority, it is very difficult to guard against inadvertence in the tumult of a party whose we are very careful, he involuntarily looked at the statue of Osiris and therefore two similar ideas coming to intersect unfortunately in his brain it was impossible for him to to separate.

  "Yes," he said, "it's a beautiful statue ... I mean it's a distinguished man. He speaks Chinese like French, and French like Arabic. The carnelians you see at his ears are invaluable, as are the

  malachites encrusted on the feet ... And then it's a head of fire, a brain on which the sun dropped its devouring influence ... It is a head which nobody has copy and that I paid a thousand ECU to one of these English thieves who explore Egypt… Have you read his poem to Délia and his sonnets to Zamora in the manner of Petrarch? ... I do not could assure that the body is absolutely identical, but the Page 130

  basalt is so similar and the proportions agree if

  well… "

  When Bambuccj noticed his imbroglio, he stayed short.

  But by turning the head in terror towards Lélia, it took again courage seeing that she was not listening to him and that she was walking away quickly.

  11

  Pulchérie

  Everyone hurried to the Moorish living room and the masters of ceremony could not contain the disorder. A young lord claimed to have recognized, under a blue domino heaven, the Zinzolina, the most famous courtesan in the world, who for a year had mysteriously disappeared from the country. Each wanted to make sure of the event: those who didn't known the Zinzolina were honored to see this woman if praised; those who had seen it wanted to see it again. But the blue domino, supple and elusive ghost, disappeared skillfully in the middle of the crowd to reappear in a another room, where the crowd was still chasing him. Anyone who had a sky-blue domino was assiduously followed and questioned; and, when the real fugitive was recognized, a cry of emotion resounded throughout the palace. But he was escaping before we would have noticed the existence of the Zinzolina under this float satin hood and under this velvet mask. He ends up reach the gardens. Then the crowd rushed into the gardens; the the uproar was immense; they spread in the thickets. The lovers took advantage of it to escape the eye of the jealous.

  The orchestra played in the empty and sonorous walls. of the ugly or jealous women took sky blue dominoes to find lovers or to experience theirs. It was a great noise, a big laugh, a big anxiety.

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  "Let them do it," said Bambuccj to his chamberlains breathless. They are having fun themselves: well! so much the better for you, rest. "

  This moment of madness and curiosity had given physiognomy something bitter and obstinate, which is not in the habits of civilized nature. Lélia, who believed so attentively spy on the smallest oscillations of life on this dying world; Lélia, who consulted at all times, the pulse of the dying man and was surprised to find him sometimes if vigorous and immediately so weak, noticed I don't know what strange in the disposition of the spirits during that night; and, lost, forgotten in the crowd, she too began to walk gardens to observe physiological accidents closely on this corpse of society which groans and which sings and which, like an old flirtatious woman spears herself on her deathbed.

  After walking for a long time, crossed a lot of disheveled groups and passed in the midst of a feverish joy and without charm, she sat tired in a secluded place

  that were shaded by cedars from China. Lélia felt oppressed. She looked at the sky: the stars shone above of his head; but towards the horizon they were hidden under a thick strip of clouds. Lélia was suffering. Finally she saw a pale light gliding over the trees: it was a flash; and she explained the uneasiness she felt because the storm was causing her always a physical ailment, a nervous worry, a brain irritation; I do not know what finally that all women, if not all men, felt it.

  So he took one of those sudden despair that often take hold of us without apparent reason, but who are still the effect of an inner evil long brooding in the silence of the mind. Boredom, horrible boredom, took her by the throat.

  She felt so discouraged, so misplaced in life, that she

  dropped on the grass and surrendered to these childish tears which are the dreadful expression of a complete abandonment of the strength and human pride. Lélia was stronger in appearance that no creature of its sex. Never since she was Lélia, nobody had surprised the secrets of his soul on his impassive face; we never saw a tear of

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  pain or tenderness on his colorless cheek and without crease.

  She hated the pity of others and, in her most in great distress, she kept the instinct to shirk it. She hid his head in his velvet coat; and, far from world, far from the light, nestled in the tall grass of a abandoned corner of the garden, she spread her suffering in tears vain and cowardly. There was something scary in the pain of this woman so beautiful and so adorned, lying there, rolled up on herself, languid and terrible in her pain, like an injured lioness who sees her wound bleed and licks it roaring.

  Suddenly a hand was placed on his bare arm, a hand hot and humid like the breath of that stormy night. She flinched; and, ashamed, irritated to be surprised in this moment of weakness where no one had ever seen her, she leaps by a sudden reaction of courage and rose to his full height before the reckless. It was the blue domino of the ball, the courtesan Zinzolina.

  Lélia gave a great cry; then, seeking in his voice the tone the most severe, she says:

  "I recognized you, you are my sister ...

  - And if I take off my mask, Lélia, answered the courtesan, you also will not cry out: Shame and infamy on you?

  - Ah! I also recognize your voice, resumed Lélia. Tu es Pulchery ...

  - I'm your sister, said the courtesan, revealing herself, daughter of your father and mother. Don't you have a word of affection for her?

  - O my always beautiful sister! said Lélia, save me, save save me from life, save me from despair; bring me some tenderness, tell me that you love me, that you remember our heyday, you are my family, my blood, my only good on earth! "

  They kissed, both crying. Pulchérie

  was passionate in her joy, Lélia was sad in hers; Page 133

  they looked at each other with wet eyes and touched each other with astonished hands. They never came back to find each other still beautiful, to admire, to love each other and, as different they were, to recognize themselves.

  Lélia suddenly remembered that her sister was defiled. this that she would have forgiven any other human creature did so blush in the person of his sister; it was a leftover involuntary of this insurmountable power of vanity which is called honor.

  She dropped her hands that she had put in those of Pulchérie and remained motionless, an
nihilated by I don't know what again discouraged, pale, the body folded in half and the gaze fixed on the dark green where the reflection of lightning.

  Pulchérie was frightened by this bleak attitude and the smile bitter and frozen that wandered stupidly on his lips. Forgetting the degradation where the world had condemned her, she felt sorry for Lélia, so much the pain restores the equality between the existences.

  "So this is how you are!" she said gently and the tone in which a mother would console her afflicted child. I have spent long years away from my sister and when I find, it's on the ground, like a worn out garment which nobody no longer wants, smothering her cries with the braids of her hair and ripping her breast with her nails. You were like that when I surprised you, Lélia; and now you’re even worse, for you wept, and appeared dead; you lived by suffering, and now you no longer live by anything. This is where you are reduced, Lélia! Oh my God ! what were you used for all those brilliant gifts that made you so proud! Where did you leads this path that you had taken with so much hope and trust ? What abyss of doom have you fallen into, you who claimed to put your feet on our heads? Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I told you that pride would lose you!

  - Pride! said Lélia, who felt hurt in the part more irritable of his soul. It’s good for you to talk about this, poor lost! Which was lost the most in this desert, you or me?

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  - I don't know, Lélia, said Pulchérie with sadness. I have well walked in this life, I am still young, still beautiful; I have suffered a lot, but I'm not tired yet, I haven't again said: My God, that's enough! instead of you, Lélia ...

  - You are right, said Lélia with abatement, I have everything exhausted…

  - Everything except pleasure! Said the courtesan, laughing with a laugh bacchante who suddenly changed her from head to toe.