by George Sand
“And if, to be pleasing to me,” she said with a smile, after listening most attentively, and without withdrawing her hand which I had taken through the bars, “if, in order to be preferred to M. de la Marche, it were necessary to acquire more wit, as you say, would you not try?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, after hesitating a moment; “perhaps I should be fool enough; for the power you have over me is more than I can understand; but it would be a sorry piece of cowardice and a great folly.”
“Why, Bernard?”
“Because a woman who could love a man, not for his honest heart, but for his pretty wit, would be hardly worth the pains I should have to take; at least so it seems to me.”
She remained silent in her turn, and then said to me as she pressed my hand:
“You have much more sense and wit than one might think. And since you force me to be quite frank with you, I will own that, as you now are and even should you never change, I have an esteem and an affection for you which will last as long as my life. Rest assured of that, Bernard, whatever I may say in a moment of anger. You know I have a quick temper—that runs in the family. The blood of the Mauprats will never flow as smoothly as other people’s. Have a care for my pride, then, you who know so well what pride is, and do not ever presume upon rights you have acquired. Affection cannot be commanded; it must be implored or inspired. Act so that I may always love you; never tell me that I am forced to love you.”
“That is reasonable enough,” I answered; “but why do you sometimes speak to me as if I were forced to obey you? Why, for instance, this evening did you forbid me to drink and order me to study?”
“Because if one cannot command affection which does not exist, one can at least command affection which does exist; and it is because I am sure yours exists that I commanded it.”
“Good!” I cried, in a transport of joy; “I have a right then to order yours also, since you have told me that it certainly exists…. Edmée, I order you to kiss me.”
“Let go, Bernard!” she cried; “you are breaking my arm. Look, you have scraped it against the bars.”
“Why have you intrenched yourself against me?” I said, putting my lips to the little scratch I had made on her arm. “Ah, woe is me! Confound the bars! Edmée, if you would only bend your head down I should be able to kiss you … kiss you as my sister. Edmée, what are you afraid of?”
“My good Bernard,” she replied, “in the world in which I live one does not kiss even a sister, and nowhere does one kiss in secret. I will kiss you every day before my father, if you like; but never here.”
“You will never kiss me!” I cried, relapsing into my usual passion. “What of your promise? What of my rights?”
“If we marry,” she said, in an embarrassed tone, “when you have received the education I implore you to receive, …”
“Death of my life! Is this a jest? Is there any question of marriage between us? None at all. I don’t want your fortune, as I have told you.”
“My fortune and yours are one,” she replied. “Bernard, between such near relations as we are, mine and thine are words without meaning. I should never suspect you of being mercenary. I know that you love me, that you will work to give me proof of this, and that a day will come when your love will no longer make me fear, because I shall be able to accept it in the face of heaven and earth.”
“If that is your idea,” 1 replied, completely drawn away from my wild passion by the new turn she was giving to my thoughts, “my position is very different; but, to tell you the truth, I must reflect on this; I had not realized that this was your meaning.”
“And how should I have meant otherwise?” she answered. “Is not a woman dishonoured by giving herself to a man who is not her husband? I do not wish to dishonour myself; and, since you love me, you would not wish it either. You would not do me an irreparable wrong. If such were your intention you would be my deadliest enemy.”
“Stay, Edmée, stay!” I answered. “I can tell you nothing about my intentions in regard to you, for I have never had any very definite. I have felt nothing but wild desires, nor have I ever thought of you without going mad. You wish me to marry you? But why—why?”
“Because a girl who respects herself cannot be any man’s except with the thought, with the intention, with the certainty of being his forever. Do you not know that?”
“There are so many things I do not know or have never thought of.”
“Education will teach you, Bernard, what you ought to think about the things which must concern you—about your position, your duties, your feelings. At present you see but dimly into your heart and conscience. And I, who am accustomed to question myself on all subjects and to discipline my life, how can I take for master a man governed by instinct and guided by chance?”
“For master! For husband! Yes, I understand that you cannot surrender your whole life to an animal such as myself … but that is what I have never asked of you. No, I tremble to think of it.”
“And yet, Bernard, you must think of it. Think of it frequently, and when you have done so you will realize the necessity of following my advice, and of bringing your mind into harmony with the new life upon which you have entered since quitting Roche-Mauprat. When you have perceived this necessity you must tell me, and then we will make several necessary resolutions.”
She withdrew her hand from mine quickly, and I fancy she bade me good-night; but this I did not hear. I stood buried in my thoughts, and when I raised my head to speak to her she was no longer there. I went into the chapel, but she had returned to her room by an upper gallery which communicated with her apartments.
I went back into the garden, walked far into the park, and remained there all night. This conversation with Edmée had opened a new world to me. Hitherto I had not ceased to be the Roche-Mauprat man, nor had I ever contemplated that it was possible or desirable to cease to be so. Except for some habits which had changed with circumstances, I had never moved out of the narrow circle of my old thoughts. I felt annoyed that these new surroundings of mine should have any real power over me, and I secretly braced my will so that I should not be humbled. Such was my perseverance and strength of character that I believed nothing would ever have driven me from my intrenchment of obstinacy, had not Edmée’s influence been brought to bear upon me. The vulgar comforts of life, the satisfactions of luxury, had no attraction for me beyond their novelty. Bodily repose was a burden to me, and the calm that reigned in this house, so full of order and silence, would have been unbearable, had not Edmée’s presence and the tumult of my own desires communicated to it some of my disorder, and peopled it with some of my visions. Never for a single moment had I desired to become the head of this house, the possessor of this property; and it was with genuine pleasure that I had just heard Edmée do justice to my disinterestedness. The thought of coupling two ends so entirely distinct as my passion and my interests was still more repugnant to me. I roamed about the park a prey to a thousand doubts, and then wandered into the open country unconsciously. It was a glorious night. The full moon was pouring down floods of soft light upon the ploughed lands, all parched by the heat of the sun. Thirsty plants were straightening their bowed stems—each leaf seemed to be drinking in through all its pores all the dewy freshness of the night. I, too, began to feel a soothing influence at work. My heart was still beating violently, but regularly. I was filled with a vague hope; the image of Edmée floated before me on the paths through the meadows, and no longer stirred the wild agonies and frenzied desires which had been devouring me since the night I first beheld her.
I was crossing a spot where the green stretches of pasture were here and there broken by clumps of young trees. Huge oxen with almost white skins were lying in the short grass, motionless, as if plunged in peaceful thought. Hills sloped gently up to the horizon, and their velvety contours seemed to ripple in the bright rays of the moon. For the first time in my life I realized something of the voluptuous beauty and divine effluence of t
he night. I felt the magic touch of some unknown bliss. It seemed that for the first time in my life I was looking on moon and meadows and hills. I remembered hearing Edmée say that nothing our eyes can behold is more lovely than Nature; and I was astonished that I had never felt this before. Now and then I was on the point of throwing myself on my knees and praying to God: but I feared that I should not know how to speak to Him, and that I might offend Him by praying badly. Shall I confess to you a singular fancy that came upon me, a childish revelation, as it were, of poetic love from out of the chaos of my ignorance? The moon was lighting up everything so plainly that I could distinguish the tiniest flowers in the grass. A little meadow daisy seemed to me so beautiful with its golden calyx full of diamonds of dew and its white collaret fringed with purple, that I plucked it, and covered it with kisses, and cried in a sort of delirious intoxication:
“It is you, Edmée! Yes, it is you! Ah, you no longer shun me!”
But what was my confusion when, on rising, I found there had been a witness of my folly. Patience was standing before me.
I was so angry at having been surprised in such a fit of extravagance that, from a remnant of the Hamstringer instinct, I immediately felt for a knife in my belt; but neither belt nor knife was there. My silk waistcoat with its pocket reminded me that I was doomed to cut no more throats. Patience smiled.
“Well, well! What is the matter?” said the anchorite, in a calm and kindly tone. “Do you imagine that I don’t know perfectly well how things stand? I am not so simple but that I can reason; I am not so old but that I can see. Who is it that makes the branches of my yew shake whenever the holy maiden is sitting at my door? Who is it that follows us like a young wolf with measured steps through the copse when I take the lovely child to her father? And what harm is there in it? You are both young; you are both handsome; you are of the same family; and, if you chose, you might become a noble and honest man as she is a noble and honest girl.”
All my wrath had vanished as I listened to Patience speaking of Edmée. I had such a vast longing to talk about her that I would even have been willing to have heard evil spoken of her, for the sole pleasure of hearing her name pronounced. I continued my walk by the side of Patience. The old man was tramping through the dew with bare feet. It should be mentioned, however, that his feet had long been unacquainted with any covering and had attained a degree of callosity that rendered them proof against anything. His only garments were a pair of blue canvas breeches which, in the absence of braces, hung loosely from his hips, and a coarse shirt. He could not endure any constraint in his clothes; and his skin, hardened by exposure, was sensitive to neither heat nor cold. Even when over eighty he was accustomed to go bareheaded in the broiling sun and with half-open shirt in the winter blasts. Since Edmée had seen to his wants he had attained a certain cleanliness. Nevertheless, in the disorder of his toilet and his hatred of everything that passed the bounds of the strictest necessity (though he could not have been charged with immodesty, which had always been odious to him), the cynic of the old days was still apparent. His beard was shining like silver. His bald skull was so polished that the moon was reflected in it as in water. He walked slowly, with his hands behind his back and his head raised, like a man who is surveying his empire. But most frequently his glances were thrown skywards, and he interrupted his conversation to point to the starry vault and exclaim:
“Look at that; look how beautiful it is!”
He is the only peasant I have ever known to admire the sky; or, at least, he is the only one I have ever seen who was conscious of his admiration.
“Why, Master Patience,” I said to him, “do you think I might be an honest man if I chose? Do you think then that I am not one already?”
“Oh, do not be angry,” he answered. “Patience is privileged to say anything. Is he not the fool of the château?”
“On the contrary, Edmée maintains that you are its sage.”
“Does the holy child of God say that? Well, if she believes so, I will try to act as a wise man, and give you some good advice, Master Bernard Mauprat. Will you accept it?”
“It seems to me that in this place every one takes upon himself to give advice. Never mind, I am listening.”
“You are in love with your cousin, are you not?”
“You are very bold to ask such a question.”
“It is not a question; it is a fact. Well, my advice is this: make your cousin love you, and become her husband.”
“And why do you take this interest in me, Master Patience?”
“Because I know you deserve it.”
“Who told you so? The abbé?”
“No.”
“Edmée?”
“Partly. And yet she is certainly not very much in love with you. But it is your own fault,”
“How so, Patience?”
“Because she wants you to become clever; and you—you would rather not. Oh, if I were only your age; yes, I, poor Patience; and if I were able, without feeling stifled, to shut myself up in a room for only two hours a day; and if all those I met were anxious to teach me; if they said to me, ‘Patience, this is what was done yesterday; Patience, this is what will be done to-morrow.’ But, enough! I have to find out everything myself, and there is so much that I shall die of old age before finding out a tenth part of what I should like to know. But, listen: I have yet another reason for wishing you to marry Edmée.”
“What is that, good Monsieur Patience?”
“This La Marche is not the right man for her. I have told her so—yes, I have; and himself too, and the abbé, and everybody. He is not a man, that thing. He smells as sweet as a whole flower-garden; but I prefer the tiniest sprig of wild thyme.”
“Faith! I have but little love for him myself. But if my cousin likes him, what then, Patience?”
“Your cousin does not like him. She thinks he is a good man; she thinks him genuine. She is mistaken; he deceives her, as he deceives everybody. Yes, I know: he is a man who has not any of this (and Patience put his hand to his heart). He is a man who is always proclaiming: ‘In me behold the champion of virtue, the champion of the unfortunate, the champion of all the wise men and friends of the human race, etc., etc.’ While I— Patience—I know that he lets poor folk die of hunger at the gates of his château. I know that if any one said to him, ‘Give up your castle and eat black bread, give up your lands and become a soldier, and then there will be no more misery in the world, the human race—as you call it—will be saved,’ his real self would answer, ‘Thanks, I am lord of my lands, and I am not yet tired of my castle.’ Oh! I know them so well, these sham paragons. How different from Edmée! You do not know that. You love her because she is as beautiful as the daisy in the meadows, while I—I love her because she is good as the moon that sheds light on all. She is a girl who gives away everything that she has; who would not wear a jewel, because with the gold in a ring a man could be kept alive for a year. And if she finds a foot-sore child by the road-side, she takes off her shoes and gives them to him, and goes on her way barefooted. Then, look you, hers is a heart that never swerves. If to-morrow the village of Sainte-Sévère were to go to her in a body and say: ‘Young lady, you have lived long enough in the lap of wealth, give us what you have, and take your turn at work ‘—’ That is but fair, my good friends,’ she would reply, and with a glad heart she would go and tend the flocks in the fields. Her mother was the same. I knew her mother when she was quite young, young as herself; and I knew yours too. Oh, yes. She was a lady with a noble mind, charitable and just to all. And you take after her, they say.”
“Alas! no,” I answered, deeply touched by these words of Patience. “I know neither charity nor justice.”
“You have not been able to practise them yet, but they are written in your heart. I can read them there. People call me a sorcerer, and so I am in a measure. I know a man directly I see him. Do you remember what you said to me one day on the heath at Valide? You were with Sylvain and I with Marcasse. You to
ld me that an honest man avenges his wrongs himself. And, by-the-bye, Monsieur Mauprat, if you are not satisfied with the apologies I made you at Gazeau Tower, you must say so. See, there is no one near; and, old as I am, I have still a fist as good as yours. We can exchange a few healthy blows—that is Nature’s way. And, though I do not approve of it, I never refuse satisfaction to any one who demands it. There are some men, I know, who would die of mortification if they did not have their revenge: and it has taken me—yes, the man you see before you—more than fifty years to forget an insult I once received … and even now, whenever I think of it, my hatred of the nobles springs up again, and I hold it a crime to have let my heart forgive some of them.”
“I am fully satisfied, Master Patience; and in truth I now feel nothing but affection for you.”
“Ah, that comes of my scratching your back. Youth is ever generous. Come, Mauprat, take courage. Follow the abbé’s advice; he is a good man. Try to please your cousin; she is a star in the firmament. Find out truth; love the people; hate those who hate them; be ready to sacrifice yourself for them…. Yes, one word more—listen. I know what I am saying—become the people’s friend.”
“Is the people, then, better than the nobility, Patience? Come now, honestly, since you are a wise man, tell me the truth.”
“Ay, we are worth more than the nobles, because they trample us under foot, and we let them. But we shall not always bear this, perhaps. No; you will have to know it sooner or later, and I may as well tell you now. You see yonder stars? They will never change. Ten thousand years hence they will be in the same place and be giving forth as much light as to-day; but within the next hundred years, maybe within less, there will be many a change on this earth. Take the word of a man who has an eye for the truth of things, and does not let himself be led astray by the fine airs of the great. The poor have suffered enough; they will turn upon the rich, and their castles will fall and their lands be carved up. I shall not see it; but you will. There will be ten cottages in the place of this park, and ten families will live on its revenue. There will no longer be servants or masters, or villein or lord. Some nobles will cry aloud and yield only to force, as your uncles would do if they were alive, and as M. de la Marche will do in spite of all his fine talk. Others will sacrifice themselves generously, like Edmée, and like yourself, if you listen to wisdom. And in that hour it will be well for Edmée that her husband is a man and not a mere fop. It will be well for Bernard Mauprat that he knows how to drive a plough or kill the game which the good God has sent to feed his family; for old Patience will then be lying under the grass in the churchyard, unable to return the services which Edmée has done him. Do not laugh at what I say, young man; it is the voice of God that is speaking. Look at the heavens. The stars live in peace, and nothing disturbs their eternal order. The great do not devour the small, and none fling themselves upon their neighbours. Now, a day will come when the same order will reign among men. The wicked will be swept away by the breath of the Lord. Strengthen your legs, Seigneur Mauprat, that you may stand firm to support Edmée. It is Patience that warns you; Patience who wishes you naught but good. But there will come others who wish you ill, and the good must make themselves strong.”