by George Sand
One Sunday, Bénédict had driven his aunt and cousin to hear mass in the largest village in the valley. Athénaïs was coquettishly dressed and lovely. Her complexion had recovered all its splendor, her black eyes all their vivacity. A tall youth of five feet six, whom the reader has already met under the name of Pierre Blutty, had accosted the ladies from Grangeneuve, and had taken his seat on the same bench, beside Athénaïs. This was an outspoken manifestation of his intentions with respect to the lass, and Bénédict’s heedless attitude, as he leaned against a tree at some distance, was, in the eyes of all observers, an unequivocal indication of a rupture between his cousin and himself. Moret, Simonneau and many others had already entered the lists, but Pierre Blutty had received the warmest welcome.
When the cure entered the pulpit to deliver his sermon, and his cracked and trembling voice summoned all its strength to pronounce the names of Louise-Valentine de Raimbault and Norbert-Evariste de Lansac—the second and last publication of their banns having been posted that same day at the door of the mayor’s office—there was a sensation in the congregation, and Athénaïs exchanged a glance of malicious gratification with her new adorer; for Bénédict’s absurd passion for Mademoiselle de Raimbault was no secret to Pierre Blutty; Athénaïs, with her usual frivolity, had yielded to the temptation to speak ill of them with him, in order, perhaps, to encourage herself in her schemes of revenge. She even ventured to turn her head quietly to observe the effect of this publication on her cousin ; but the flush faded from her cheeks, and her triumph changed to sorrow when she saw Bénédict’s distorted features.
XIX
Louise, on learning of Monsieur de Lansac’s arrival, wrote a farewell letter to her sister, expressed to her in the warmest terms her gratitude for the affection she had shown her, and said that she would await at Paris the result of Monsieur de Lansac’s good intentions with respect to their future relations. She begged her not to approach the subject hastily, but to wait until her husband’s love should assure the triumph which she might well expect from it.
After sending this letter to Valentine by Athénaïs, who was going to inform the young countess of her approaching marriage to Pierre Blutty, Louise prepared for her journey. Alarmed by Bénédict’s gloomy air and almost brutal taciturnity, she dared not seek a final interview with him. But on the morning of the day fixed for her departure he went to her room and, lacking the strength to say a word to her, pressed her to his heart and burst into tears. She did not try to comfort him, and, as they could say nothing to each other to allay their mutual grief, they contented themselves with weeping together, swearing everlasting friendship. This leave-taking relieved Louise’s heart to some extent, but Bénédict, as he watched her go away, felt that his last hope of renewing his intercourse with Valentine had vanished.
Thereupon he gave way to despair. Of those women who had recently vied with one another in heaping attentions and affection upon him, not one remained; thenceforth he was alone in the world. His dreams, but now so bright and flattering, became dismal and painful. What would become of him ?
He was no longer willing to owe anything to the generosity of his relations; he realized fully that after the affront he had put upon their daughter he could not continue to live at their expense. As he had not enough money to live in Paris, and not enough courage, at so critical a moment, to earn his own living by hard work, there was nothing left for him to do but to retire to his cabin and one field, pending the time when he should recover his self-control sufficiently to decide upon something better.
So he had the interior of his cabin arranged as comfortably as his means permitted ; that was a matter of a few days. He hired an old woman to keep house for him, and took up his abode under his own roof, having taken leave of his relations with cordiality. Good Mère Lhéry felt all her resentment fade away, and kissed him with tears in her eyes. Honest Lhéry lost his temper, and tried to keep him at the farm by force; Athénaïs shut herself up in her room, where the violence of her emotion caused another hysterical attack. For Athénaïs was sensitive and impulsive. She had turned to Blutty only from spite and vanity; in the bottom of her heart she still loved Bénédict, and would have forgiven him if he had taken a step toward her.
Bénédict could not tear himself away from the farm except by giving his word to return after Athénaïs was married. When he found himself alone in his silent house at night, with no companion save Perdreau, who was dozing between his feet, no sound save that made by the saucepan containing his supper, which emitted a shrill and plaintive note in front of the blazing sticks on the hearth, a feeling of depression and discouragement took possession of him. Solitude and poverty at twenty-two, after making the acquaintance of the arts and sciences, of hope and love—a melancholy conclusion in very truth !
Not that Bénédict was particularly alive to the advantages of wealth. He was at the age when one can best do without them ; but it is impossible to deny that the aspect of external objects exercises a direct influence on our thoughts, and in most cases determines the tinge of our temper for the moment. Now, the farm-house, with its disorder and its contrasts, was a paradise compared with Bénédict’s hermitage. The unplastered walls, the hearse-shaped serge bed, a few cooking utensils of copper and earthenware arranged on shelves, the flooring of limestone tiles, uneven and broken in a thousand places, the rough furniture, the faint grayish light which came in through four panes of glass, stained by sunshine and rain—all these were not calculated to give birth to gorgeous dreams. Bénédict fell into gloomy meditation. The landscape which he could see through his partly-open door, although picturesque and bold in outline, was no better adapted to impart a cheerful tinge to his thoughts. A gloomy ravine strewn with furze separated him from the steep winding road which uncoiled itself like a snake on the hillside opposite, and, plunging in among the dark-leaved holly and box, seemed to fall from the clouds, so steep was the pitch.
But, as Bénédict’s memory wandered back to the years which he had passed on that spot as a child, he gradually found a melancholy fascination in his retreat. Beneath that humble and insecure roof he had first seen the light; beside that hearth his mother had lulled him to sleep with a rustic ballad, or with the monotonous whirring of her spinning-wheel. At night he had watched his father come down that steep path, a grave and powerful peasant, with his axe over his shoulder and his oldest son behind him. Bénédict had also a vague remembrance of a sister younger than himself, whose cradle he had rocked, of some aged relations and old servants. But they had all crossed the threshold for the last time. They were all dead, and Bénédict hardly remembered the names which had formerly been familiar to his ear.
“O father I O mother!” he said to the ghosts who passed before him in his waking dreams, “ this is the very house which you built, the bed in which you slept, the field which your hands tilled. But your most valuable possession you did not hand down to me. Where are the simplicity of heart, the tranquillity of mind, the real fruits of labor ? If you wander about your former abode in search of the objects which were dear to you, you will pass me by unrecognized, for I am no longer the happy and pure-minded creature who went forth from your hands, and who should have profited by your exertions. Alas! education has corrupted my mind; vain longings, stupendous dreams have perverted my nature and wrecked my future. Resignation and patience, the cardinal virtues of the poor man—these, too, I have lost. I return to-day, like an outlaw, to live in this hovel of which you were innocently vain. To me this soil, made fruitful by the sweat of your brows, is like a place of exile; this, which was your treasure, is my last resource to-day.”
Then, as his thoughts reverted to Valentine, Bénédict asked himself with a bitter pang what he could have done for that girl, brought up in luxury as she had been ; what would have become of her if she had consented to come and bury herself with him in that rough and pitiable existence ; and he applauded himself for not even having tried to turn her aside from the path of duty.
A
nd yet he said to himself, also, that with the hope of a wife like Valentine to spur him on, he would have developed talent and ambition, and have made a career for himself. She would have stirred to life within him that active principle of energy which, as it was of no use to anyone, had become benumbed and paralyzed in his breast. She would have embellished poverty, or rather she would have banished it, for Bénédict could think of nothing which it was beyond his strength to do for Valentine.
And she had slipped from his grasp forever ! Bénédict relapsed into despair.
When he learned that Monsieur de Lansac had arrived at the château, that in three days Valentine would be married, he flew into such a savage fit of passion, that for a moment he believed that he was born to commit the greatest crimes. He had never allowed his mind to rest on the thought that Valentine might belong to another man than himself. He had become resigned to the thought of never possessing her, but to see that bliss fall to the lot of another, that was something which he could not yet believe to be possible. He had persisted in the belief that the most evident, the most inevitable, the most imminent element of his unhappiness would never come to pass, that Monsieur de Lansac would die, that Valentine herself would prefer to die when the moment arrived to contract that hateful tie. Bénédict had not said anything about it for fear of being taken for a madman ; but he had really counted upon some miracle, and, when no miracle occurred, he cursed God for suggesting the hope to him and for abandoning him; for man attributes everything to God in the great crises of his life. He always has a craving to believe in Him, whether to bless Him for his joys, or to accuse Him of responsibility for his errors.
But his rage became even fiercer when, as he was prowling about the park one day, he saw Valentine walking with Monsieur de Lansac. The secretary of Embassy was attentive, courtly, almost triumphant. Poor Valentine was pale and downcast, but her face wore a sweet and resigned expression. She forced herself to smile at her fiancé’s honeyed words.
So it was a fact, that man was there ! He was going to marry Valentine ! Bénédict hid his face in his hands, and passed twelve hours in a ditch, absorbed by a sort of stupefied despair.
For her part, the poor girl submitted to her fate with passive and silent resignation. Her love for Bénédict had made such swift progress that she had been compelled to admit the truth to herself; but, between the consciousness of her sin and the determination to abandon herself to it, there was a long distance to travel, especially as Bénédict was no longer there to destroy with a glance the whole result of a day of good resolutions. Valentine was pious; she confided herself to God’s care, and awaited Monsieur de Lansac with the hope that she should feel once more what she believed that she had previously felt for him.
But, as soon as he appeared, she realized how far removed the blind and indulgent good-will which she had accorded him was from genuine affection. He seemed to her to have lost all the charm with which her imagination had endowed him for an instant. She felt dull and bored in his company. She listened to him with a distraught air, and replied only as a matter of courtesy. He was much disturbed at first, but when he found that the preparations for the marriage went forward none the less briskly, and that Valentine did not seem inclined to make the slightest opposition, he was readily consoled for a caprice which he did not try to fathom, and pretended not to see.
Valentine’s repugnance increased from hour to hour, however. She was pious, even devout, by education and conviction. She shut herself up to pray for hours at a time, always hoping to find in meditation and devout fervor the power which she lacked to return to a sense of duty. But these meditations in seclusion fatigued her brain more and more, and intensified the influence which Bénédict possessed over her heart. She came forth more exhausted, more agitated than ever. Her mother was surprised by her depression, became seriously angry with her, and accused her of trying to poison that moment which is always so sweet, she said, to a mother’s heart. It is certain that all these annoyances were terribly wearisome to Madame de Raimbault. She had determined, in order to diminish their force, that the nuptials should take place quietly and simply in the country. She was in great haste to have done with them, and to be free to return to society, where Valentine’s presence had always been extraordinarily embarrassing to her.
Bénédict conceived a thousand absurd plans. The last, upon which he determined, and which restored his tranquillity to some extent, was to see Valentine once before she went out of his life forever; for he almost believed that he should no longer love her when she had submitted to Monsieur de Lansac’s embraces. He hoped that Valentine would soothe him with kindly and comforting words, or would cure him by prudishly denying his request.
He wrote to her:
“Mademoiselle:
“I am your friend in life and death, as you know. You once called me your brother; you imprinted on my brow a sacred proof of your esteem and confidence; you led me to hope, at that moment, that I should find in you an adviser and a support in the difficult crises of my life. I am horribly unhappy. I long to see you for an instant, to ask you, who are so strong and so far above me, for a little courage. It is impossible for you to refuse me this favor. I know your generosity, your contempt for foolish conventionalities and for danger when it is a question of doing good. I saw you with Louise ; I know what you can do. In the name of an affection as pure and holy as hers, I beg you, on my knees, to walk this evening to the end of the field.
“BENÉDICT.”
XX
Valentine loved Bénédict; she could not refuse his request. There is so much innocence and purity in a first love that it hardly suspects the dangers which lurk within it. Valentine refused to consider the causes of Bénédict’s unhappiness. She saw that he was unhappy, and she would have imagined the most impossible misfortunes rather than admit to herself what it was that overwhelmed him. There are paths so misleading and such a labyrinth of folds in the purest conscience ! How could a woman who, having an impressionable heart, was forced into the rough and pitiless path of impossible duties, resist the necessity of compromising with them at every instant ? Valentine readily found excuses for believing that Bénédict was the victim of some misfortune of which she knew nothing. Louise had often said of late that the young man distressed her by his melancholy and his heedlessness with respect to the future. She had also told her that it would soon be necessary for him to leave the Lhéry family, and Valentine persuaded herself that, having been cast adrift without means and without friends, he might really need her advice and assistance.
It was quite a difficult matter to escape from the house on the very eve of her wedding, beset as she was by Monsieur de Lansac’s courtesies and petty attentions. She succeeded, however, by telling her nurse to say that she had lain down, if anyone should ask for her; and in order to lose no time, and to make it impossible to reconsider a resolution which was beginning to frighten her, she walked rapidly across the field. The moon was then full, and objects could be seen as distinctly as in broad daylight.
She found Bénédict standing with his arms folded across his breast, so absolutely motionless that she was terrified. As he did not step forward to meet her, she thought for a moment that it was not he, and was on the point of turning back. Then he came toward her. His face was so changed, his voice so faint, that Valentine, overwhelmed by her own sorrows and by those of which she could see the traces in him, could not restrain her tears, and was obliged to sit down.
It was all over with Bénédict’s resolutions. He had come to that place, determined to follow religiously the course he had marked out in his note. He intended to talk with Valentine of his separation from the Lhérys, of his uncertainty with respect to the choice of a profession, of his isolation, of all the pretexts farthest removed from his real purpose. That purpose was to see Valentine, to hear the sound of her voice, to find in her feelings toward him courage to live or to die. He expected to find her serious and reserved, armed with a full consciousness of her duties. I
ndeed, he almost expected not to see her at all.
When he spied her on the farther side of the field, hastening toward him at the top of her speed ; when she sank upon the turf, breathless and overwhelmed with emotion; when her grief found expression, despite her efforts, in tears—Bénédict believed that he was dreaming. Oh ! that was not compassion merely, it was love! A wave of delirious joy swept over him. Once more he forgot both his own unhappiness and Valentine’s, both yesterday and the morrow, to see naught but Valentine, who was by his side, alone with him, Valentine who loved him, and who no longer concealed it from him.
He threw himself on his knees before her; he kissed her feet passionately. It was too severe a trial for Valentine. She felt all her blood congeal in her veins; a mist passed over her eyes. As the fatigue caused by running made the task of concealing her tears even more painful, she fell, pale as death and almost unconscious, into Bénédict’s arms.
Their interview was long and tempestuous. They did not attempt to deceive each other as to the nature of the sentiment they felt; they did not seek to avoid the danger of yielding to the most ardent emotions. Bénédict covered Valentine’s clothes and hands with tears and kisses. Valentine hid her burning face on Bénédict’s shoulder. But they were twenty years old; they were in love for the first time, and Valentine’s honor was safe on Bénédict’s breast. He dared not even utter the word love, which frightens love itself. His lips dared do no more than breathe upon his mistress’s lovely hair. First love hardly knows that there exists a greater joy than that of knowing oneself to be loved. Bénédict was the most timid of lovers and the happiest of men.
They parted without making any plans, without deciding upon anything. In those two hours of rapture and oblivion, they had exchanged only a few words concerning their situation, when the clear note of the château clock fell faintly on their ears in the silence of the fields. Valentine counted ten almost inaudible strokes, and suddenly remembered her mother, her fiancé, the morrow. But how could she leave Bénédict ? what could she say to comfort him ? where find the strength of mind to abandon him at such a moment ? The appearance of a woman a short distance away extorted an exclamation of alarm from her. Bénédict slunk hurriedly into the shrubbery, but Valentine almost instantly recognized in the bright moonlight her nurse Catherine, who was anxiously searching for her. It would have been an easy matter to avoid her glances, but she felt that she ought not to do it; so she walked toward her and asked, as she clung trembling to her arm :