by George Sand
“What is the matter?”
“For the love of God, mademoiselle, come home,” said the good woman ; “ madame has asked for you twice already, and, when I told her that you had lain down on your bed, she told me to let her know as soon as you woke. I was worried then; and as I had seen you go out by the small gate, and as I know that you sometimes come to walk here in the evening, I came out to look for you. Oh ! mademoiselle, to think of going so far all by yourself! You did wrong ; you ought at least to have told me to go with you.”
Valentine kissed the old nurse, cast a sad and anxious glance at the bushes, and purposely dropped her handkerchief—the one she had lent to Bénédict on the occasion of their walk over the farm. When she returned to the house, her nurse looked everywhere for it, and observed that she must have lost it during her stroll.
Valentine found that her mother had been waiting for her for some minutes in her room. She expressed some surprise to find her fully dressed after passing two hours on her bed. Valentine replied that as she had had a headache, she had felt the need of fresh air, and that her nurse had given her her arm for a turn in the park.
Thereupon Madame de Raimbault entered upon a serious dissertation concerning matters of business. She informed her that she would leave to her the château and estate of Raimbault—the bare name having constituted substantially the whole of her father’s inheritance—the value of which, apart from her own fortune, formed a handsome marriage-portion. She asked her to do her the justice to acknowledge that she had been a faithful steward of her fortune, and to bear witness to all the world, so long as she lived, of her mother’s just treatment of her. She went into financial details which made of that maternal exhortation a genuine lawyer’s interview, and concluded her harangue by saying that, now that the law was about to make them strangers to each other, she hoped to find Valentine disposed to be considerate and attentive to her.
Valentine did not hear one-half of this long harangue. Her cheeks were pale, her downcast eyes were surrounded by purple rings, and from time to time a shiver ran through every limb. She kissed her mother’s hands sadly, and was preparing to go to bed, when her grandmother’s maid appeared and informed her with great solemnity of manner that the marchioness wished to see her in her apartments.
Valentine dragged herself to this additional ceremony. She found the old lady’s bedroom embellished with a sort of religious decoration. An altar had been made of a table covered with embroidered linen. Flowers arranged like church decorations were wound about a crucifix of guilloched gold. A missal bound in scarlet velvet lay upon the altar. A cushion awaited the pressure of Valentine’s knees, and the marchioness, seated in a theatrical pose in her great arm-chair, was making ready with childish satisfaction to play her little conventional comedy.
Valentine entered the room in silence, and, because her piety was genuine, she viewed these absurd preparations without emotion. The maid opened a door on the opposite side of the room, through which all the female servants of the château entered, with a humble and at the same time curious air. The marchioness ordered them to kneel and pray for the happiness of their young mistress ; then, having bade Valentine also to kneel, she rose, turned the pages of the missal, put on her spectacles, read a few verses of one of the Psalms, bleated a chant with her maid, and ended by laying her hands on Valentine’s head and giving her her blessing. Never was a simple, patriarchal ceremony more wretchedly burlesqued by an aged sinner of the time of La Du-barry.
As she kissed her granddaughter, she took—from the improvised altar itself—a case containing a pretty set of cameos, which she presented to her, and, blending devotion with frivolity, said to her almost in the same breath :
“May God give you the virtues of a good mother of a family, my child!—Here, my girl, is your grandmother’s little gift; you can wear them with half-dress.”
Valentine was in a fever all night, and did not sleep until morning. She was soon awakened by the sound of bells summoning the whole neighborhood to the chapel of the château. Catherine came to her room with a note which an old woman had given her for Mademoiselle de Raimbault. It contained only these few words in a trembling hand:
“Valentine, there is still time to say no.”
Valentine shuddered and burned the note. She tried to rise, but several times her strength failed her. She was seated, half-dressed, on a chair, when her mother appeared, reproved her for being so late, refused to believe that she was seriously ill, and informed her that several people were already awaiting her in the salon. She herself assisted her to complete her toilet, and when Valentine stood before her in her bridal dress, wonderfully beautiful, but as white as her veil, she insisted upon putting rouge on her cheeks. Valentine reflected that, perhaps, Bénédict would see her as she passed. She preferred that he should see her pallor, and, for the first time in her life, she resisted her mother’s wish.
She found in the salon a number of neighbors of secondary rank; for Madame de Raimbault, having determined that the wedding should be unattended by display, had invited only people of little consequence. They were to breakfast in the garden, and the peasants were to have their dance at the other end of the park, at the foot of the hill. Monsieur de Lansac soon appeared, dressed in black from head to foot, and with his buttonhole laden with foreign decorations. The wedding-party was taken in three carriages to the mayor’s office, which was in the neighboring village. The church ceremony was performed at the château.
Valentine, as she knelt before the altar, emerged for an instant from the species of torpor into which she had fallen. She said to herself that it was too late to withdraw, that men had forced her to make a pledge with God, and that it was no longer possible for her to choose between unhappiness and sacrifice. She prayed fervently, implored heaven to give her strength to keep the oaths which she determined to take with absolute sincerity, and, at the close of the ceremony, exhausted by the superhuman effort she had put forth to remain calm and tranquil, she withdrew to her room to take a little rest. Moved by a secret instinct of discretion and devotion, Catherine seated herself at the foot of her bed and did not leave her.
On the same day the marriage of Athénaïs Lhéry and Pierre Blutty was celebrated in a small hamlet in the valley, about two leagues from the château. There, too, the young bride was pale and depressed; less so than Valentine, but to a sufficient degree to worry her mother, who was much more affectionate than Madame de Raimbault, and to anger her spouse, who was much more outspoken and less polished than Monsieur de Lansac. It may be that Athénaïs presumed too far on the force of her irritation when she decided so hastily to marry a man whom she did not love. As a result perhaps of the spirit of contradiction commonly attributed to women, her affection for Bénédict reawoke at the very moment when it was too late to change her mind ; and, on returning from church, she regaled her husband with a very tiresome paroxysm of weeping. So Pierre Blutty characterized it when he complained of it to his friend Georges Simonneau.
Nevertheless, the wedding at the farm was much more largely attended, noisier and merrier than the one at the château. The Lhérys had at least sixty cousins and second cousins; the Bluttys were no less rich in relations, and the barn was not large enough to hold the guests.
In the afternoon, when the dancing half of the party had feasted sufficiently on fatted calf and game pie, they abandoned the gastronomic arena to the old people, and gathered on the greensward to open the ball. But the heat was extreme; there was little shade in that spot, and there was no very convenient place for dancing near the farm-house. Someone suggested that there was a very large tract of well-shaped level turf near the château, where five hundred people were dancing at that moment. The countryman is as fond of a crowd as the dandy. To enjoy himself thoroughly, he must have a lot of people about, feet stepping on his, elbows elbowing him, lungs absorbing the air he exhales; in every country in the world, in all ranks of society, that is pleasure.
Madame Lhéry welcomed the idea ea
gerly; she had spent enough money on her daughter’s dress to wish that people should see it side by side with Mademoiselle de Raimbault’s, and that the whole province should talk of its magnificence. She had obtained minute information concerning Valentine’s wedding costume. As it was to be such an unpretentious occasion, she was to wear only simple and tasteful ornaments. Madame Lhéry had loaded her daughter with laces and jewels, and, longing to exhibit her in all her glory, she proposed that they should join the festivities at the château, to which she and all her family were invited. Athénaïs remonstrated a little. She dreaded to see hovering about Valentine the pale and gloomy face of Bénédict which had distressed her so at the church on the preceding Sunday. But her mother’s obstinacy, the wish of her husband, who was not exempt from vanity, and perhaps, too, a little of that same vanity on her own account, overcame her reluctance. The carriages were made ready ; each horseman took his sister, his cousin or his fiancée en croupe. Athénaïs sighed profoundly as her new husband took his place in the wagon, reins in hand, in the seat which Bénédict had occupied so long and would never occupy again.
XXI
The dancing in the park at Raimbault was very lively. The peasants, for whose benefit arbors of foliage had been arranged, sang and drank and proclaimed the newly-married couple the handsomest, most fortunate and most honorable in the country. The countess, who was anything but popular, had been very lavish in her preparations for the festival, in order to have done at once, in a single day, with all the affability which another would have distributed throughout a lifetime. She had the most profound contempt for the canaille, and declared that, if you only gave them plenty to eat and drink, you could walk on their stomachs without a sign of revolt from them. And the saddest part of it is that Madame de Raimbault was not altogether wrong.
The Marquise de Raimbault was delighted with this opportunity to revive her popularity. She was not very susceptible to the hardships of the poor, but she was no more indifferent in that regard than in regard to the misfortunes of her friends; and, thanks to her fondness for gossip and her disposition to be familiar, she had acquired that reputation for kindness of heart which the poor award with so little reason, alas! to those who, although they do no good, at all events do no harm. As the two ladies passed, one after the other, the shrewd minds of the village whispered to one another under the foliage :
“That one despises us, but she entertains us; the other doesn’t entertain us, but she speaks to us.”
And they were content with both. The only one who was really loved was Valentine, because she did not confine herself to a friendly word and smile, to being generous to them and helping them, but shared their sorrows and their joys ; they felt that her kindness was not induced by any selfish interest, or by policy. They had seen her weep over their misfortunes; they had found in her heart genuine sympathy; they were more attached than men of coarse mould commonly are to those of higher station. Many of them knew the story of her intercourse with her sister at the farm, but they kept her secret so religiously that they hardly dared mention Louise’s name under their breaths.
Valentine walked from one table to another and strove to smile in answer to their good wishes, but their merriment vanished when she had passed, for they noticed that she seemed depressed and ill; they even went so far as to cast malevolent glances at Monsieur de Lansac.
Athénaïs and her wedding-party dropped into the midst of the festivities, and there was an instant change in the aspect of affairs. Her elegant costume and her husband’s affable bearing attracted all eyes. The dancing, which was beginning to flag, became animated once more. Valentine, having embraced her young friend, retired again with her nurse. Madame de Raimbault, being intensely bored, went to her room to rest; Monsieur de Lansac, who always had important letters to write, even on his wedding-day, went to prepare his day’s mail. The Lhéry party was left in possession of the field, and the people who had come to see Valentine dance remained to see Athénaïs dance.
It was growing dark. Athénaïs, fatigued by dancing, had sat down to take some refreshment. The Chevalier de Trigaud, Joseph his majordomo, Simonneau, Moret, and several others who had danced with the bride, had gathered about her at the same table, and were overwhelming her with their attentions. Athénaïs had been so lovely while dancing, her absurdly gorgeous costume was so becoming to her, her husband was gazing at her with such an amorous gleam in his black eye, that she began to be more cheerful and to be reconciled to her wedding-day. The Chevalier de Trigaud, who was moderately drunk, made complimentary remarks in the style of Dorat, which made her laugh and blush at the same time. Little by little the group about her, enlivened by a bottle or two of a light white wine of the province, by the dance, by the bride’s lovely eyes, by the occasion and by custom, began to address to her some of those equivocal remarks which are enigmatical at first and end by becoming indecent.
Athénaïs, who realized that she was pretty, saw that she was admired, and did not in the least understand what they said, except that they envied and congratulated her husband, strove to keep upon her lips the smile which enhanced her loveliness, and was even beginning to reply with a sort of coquettish shyness to Pierre Blutty’s burning glances, when a person came silently and sat down in the vacant place at her left. Athénaïs, involuntarily stirred by the imperceptible rustling of her dress, turned, stifled a cry of alarm and turned pale: it was Bénédict.
It was Bénédict, even paler than she, but grave, cold and ironical. He had wandered about the woods like a hunted man all day long. When evening came, losing all hope of calming himself by fatigue, he had determined to watch Valentine’s wedding festival, to listen to the ribaldry of the peasants, to hear the signal for the newly-married pair to withdraw to the nuptial chamber, and to cure himself by dint of wrath, pity and disgust.
“If my love survives all this,” he said to himself, “ it must be because there is no remedy for it.”
And, to be prepared for any emergency, he had loaded the pistols which he carried in his pocket.
He had not expected to find this other wedding-party there, and this bride. He had been watching Athénaïs for several minutes. Her merriment aroused his most profound contempt, and he determined to place himself in the very centre of the mortifications he had come there to defy, by taking a seat beside her.
Bénédict, who was by nature peevish and cynical, one of those discontented, grumbling creatures who have little patience with the absurdities and caprices of society, always declared—it was one of his paradoxes—that there could be no more monstrous impropriety, no more scandalous custom than the publicity given to the marriage ceremony. He had never seen, without a feeling of pity, a poor girl amid the hurly-burly of the wedding festival, almost always with some shrinking love concealed in her heart, and compelled to run the gauntlet of insolent attentions and impertinent glances in order to reach the arms of her husband, already defiled by the wanton imaginations of all the men in the crowd. He also pitied the poor young man whose love was placarded at the door of the mayor’s office and in the church, and who was compelled to abandon his fiancée’s spotless robe to the vulgarities of the town and the surrounding country. He considered that love was profaned by taking from it the veil of mystery. He would have liked to encompass the woman with so much respect that no one would know the object of her choice, and that people would be afraid of offending her by naming him to her.
“How,” he would say, “do you expect your wives to have pure morals when you publicly do violence to their modesty; when you bring them unsullied into the midst of the multitude, and say to them, calling the multitude to witness: ‘You belong to this man, you are a virgin no longer ?’ And the crowd claps its hands, laughing exultantly, jeers at the blushes of the husband and wife, and pursues them, even in the seclusion of the nuptial chamber, with its obscene shouts and songs ! The barbarians of the new world had more decent marriage rites. At the festival of the sun, they brought to the temple a man and a woman
—virgins both. The multitude, grave and silent, prostrated themselves, blessed the god who created love, and, with all the solemnity of love, physical and divine, the mystery of generation was performed before the altar. That ingenuous ceremony, which disgusts you, was more chaste than your marriages. You have so offended modesty, so neglected love, so degraded woman, that you have fallen to the point of insulting woman, love and modesty.”
When he saw Bénédict seated beside his wife, Pierre Blutty, who knew of Athénaïs’s fondness for her cousin, cast a threatening glance at them. His friends exchanged glances of similar import with him. They all hated Bénédict for his superior parts, of which they believed him to be vain. The merry chatter flagged for an instant, but the Chevalier de Trigaud, who esteemed him highly, gave him a cordial greeting, and offered him the bottle with a trembling hand. Bénédict bore himself with a calm and indifferent air which led Athénaïs to think that he had determined to make the best of it; she timidly offered him some attentions, which he received respectfully and without apparent ill-humor.
Little by little the conversation resumed its free and indelicate tone, with the manifest intention on the part of Blutty and his friends of giving it a turn that would be offensive to Bénédict. He at once detected that intention, and armed himself with the contemptuous tranquillity which his features seemed naturally to express.