by George Sand
“Ah ! he suspects the truth !” muttered Monsieur de Lansac between his teeth, as if speaking to himself.
“I mean, monsieur le comte, that—madame la marquise—Catherine——”
“I understand ; go to bed.”
The two dark figures passed each other under the firs, and Bénédict saw his enemy approaching the house. As soon as he lost sight of him his resolution returned.
“As if I could allow this opportunity to pass!” he cried ; “ as if I could allow his foot to profane the threshold of that house, which contains my Valentine !”
He began to run, but the count had too great a start; he failed to overtake him before he had entered the château.
He entered mysteriously, alone, without lights, like a prince in search of adventures. He sprang lightly up the steps, passed through the peristyle, and ascended to the second floor; for this pretence of going to converse with his mother-in-law was simply a convenient scheme to avoid telling his valet the private reason for his eagerness. He had agreed with the countess that she should send for him as soon as his wife should consent to receive him. Madame de Raimbault, as we have seen, did not consult her daughter; she did not deem it necessary.
But, when Monsieur de Lansac was almost overtaken by Bénédict, whose pistol, still cocked, followed him in the shadow, the marchioness’s companion glided toward the expectant spouse as lightly as her tightly-corseted body and her sixty years would permit.
“Madame la marquise has a word to say to monsieur,” she said.
Thereupon Monsieur de Lansac turned in another direction and followed her. All this took place very quickly and in semi-darkness. Bénédict, after a fruitless search, was unable to discover by what infernal trickery his prey had escaped him once more.
Alone, in that immense house, where all the lights had purposely been extinguished, and the few servants who were not at the fête had been sent away on various pretexts, Bénédict wandered about at random, trying to recall his previous visit and to go toward the room which Valentine probably occupied. His mind was made up ; he would rescue her from her fate, either by killing her husband, or by killing herself. He had often gazed at Valentine’s window from out-of-doors; he had recognized it at night during the long vigils to which the light of her lamp bore witness; but how could he tell where it lay in that darkness and in his terrible agitation ?
He abandoned himself to chance. He knew simply that the room was on the second floor; he passed through a long corridor and paused to listen. At the farther end he spied a ray of light shining through a partly-open door, and it seemed to him that he could hear women’s voices whispering. That was the marchioness’s room. She had sent for her grandson-in-law to urge him to renounce the idea of enjoying that first night, and Catherine, who had been summoned to testify to her mistress’s indisposition, did her best to second Valentine’s wishes. But Monsieur de Lansac was not easily persuaded, and considered it most unseemly that all those women should already be interfering in the mysteries of his domestic life with their curiosity and their evil influence. He resisted with due courtesy, and swore upon his honor that he would obey Valentine’s verbal command to retire if delivered in person.
Bénédict, having crept noiselessly to the door, overheard the whole discussion, although it was carried on in undertones, for fear of attracting the attention of the countess, who would have wrecked the whole negotiation with a word.
“Will Valentine have the strength to give that command ? “ Bénédict asked himself. “Oh ! I will give her strength to do it!”
And he felt his way along toward another fainter ray of light which shone under a closed doo(. He put his ear to the crack: that was the room; he knew it by the beating of his heart and by Valentine’s faint breathing, which none but such a passionately loving man as he could possibly have detected and recognized.
He leaned against that door, breathless and panting, and imagined that it yielded to his weight; he pushed it, and it opened noiselessly.
“Great God!” thought Bénédict, always ready to imagine anything that could torment him, “can she be expecting him ?”
He stepped into the room ; the bed was so placed as to conceal the door from a person lying on it. A night lamp was burning in its ground glass globe. Was that really the right room ? He stepped forward. The curtains were half-down. Valentine, fully dressed, lay on her bed asleep ; her attitude was sufficiently eloquent of her terror. She was half-seated on the edge of the bed, with her feet on the floor; her head, yielding to fatigue,
had fallen on the pillow; her face was ghastly pale, and one could count the rapid pulsations of fever in the swollen veins of her neck and temples.
Bénédict had barely time to step behind the back of the bed and squeeze between the curtain and the wall, when he heard De Lansac’s steps in the corridor.
He was coming in that direction ; in a moment he would enter the room. Bénédict still had his hand on his pistol. In that room his foe could not escape him ; he had but to raise his hand to strike him dead before he had even touched the linen of the marriage bed.
Valentine, suddenly awakened by the noise Bénédict made in concealing himself, uttered a faint exclamation and hastily sat erect; but, seeing nothing, she listened and heard her husband’s step. Thereupon, she rose to her feet and hurried to the door.
That movement nearly caused Bénédict to lose his head. He half emerged from his hiding-place to blow out that shameless, lying woman’s brains; but Valentine had no other purpose than to bolt her door.
Five minutes passed in absolute silence, to the great surprise of both Valentine and Bénédict, who had concealed himself again. Then someone tapped gently at the door. Valentine did not answer, but Bénédict, leaning out from behind the curtains, heard her hurried, uneven breathing. He saw her terror, her pale lips, her hands clutching the protecting bolt. “Courage, Valentine,” he was on the point of crying out, “there are two of us to sustain the assault!” when he heard Catherine’s voice.
“Open, mademoiselle,” she said; “don’t be afraid any more ; it’s I; and I am alone. Monsieur has gone; he yielded to madame la marquise’s arguments and to the prayer that he would go away, which I addressed to him in your name. Oh ! we made you out much sicker than you are, I trust,” the good woman added, as she entered the room and took Valentine in her arms. “In heaven’s name don’t take it into your head to be as badly off in reality as we boasted that you were !”
“Oh ! I felt as if I were dying just now,” replied Valentine, embracing her ; “ but I am better now; you have saved me for a few more hours. After that, may God protect me!”
“Oh! bless my soul, my dear child, what ideas you have !” said Catherine. “Come, go to sleep. I will pass the night by your bed.”
“No, Catherine, go and get some rest. I have kept you awake many nights now. Go, I say; I insist upon it. I am better; I shall sleep well. But lock me in and take the key, and don’t go to bed till the whole house is locked up.”
“Oh ! never fear. Hark, they are locking up already; don’t you hear the big door ?”
“Yes, it’s all right. Good-night, nurse, dear nurse !”
The nurse made some further objection to leaving her mistress ; she was afraid that Valentine might be worse during the night. She yielded at last, and left the room, locking the door behind her and taking the key.
“If you want anything,” she called from the corridor, “you must ring for me.”
“Yes, never fear; sleep soundly,” Valentine replied.
She bolted the door, then threw back her dishevelled hair and pressed her hands against her forehead, drawing a long breath like a person relieved of a burden; then she returned to her bed and sank upon it in a sitting posture, with the rigidity characteristic of illness and discouragement. Bénédict put out his head and was able to see her face. He could have shown himself to her without attracting her attention. With her arms hanging at her sides and her eyes fixed on the floor, she was
like a lifeless statue. Her faculties seemed exhausted, her heart cold and dead.
XXIII
Bénédict heard all the doors of the house closed and locked one after another. Little by little the footsteps of the servants receded from the ground floor; the reflection cast on the foliage by a few stray lamps disappeared ; only the sound of the instruments in the distance, and an occasional pistol shot, which it is customary in Berri to fire at weddings and baptisms as a sign of enjoyment, broke the silence at rare intervals. Bénédict was in a most extraordinary situation, of which he would never have dared to dream. That night—that ghastly night which he had expected to pass in the agony of impotent rage—had brought him and Valentine together! Monsieur de Lansac returned to his quarters alone, and Bénédict, the forsaken, who proposed to blow out his brains in a ditch, was locked into that room alone with Valentine ! He felt a sting of remorse for having denied his God, for having cursed the day of his birth. This unforeseen joy, coming so close upon the heels of thoughts of murder and suicide, took possession of him with such irresistible violence, that it did not occur to him to contemplate its terrible sequel. He did not admit to himself that, if he should be discovered in that place, Valentine was ruined ; he did not ask himself whether that unhoped-for conquest of an instant of joy would not render the necessity of dying even more hateful. He abandoned himself to the delirious excitement which such a triumph over destiny aroused in him. He pressed both hands against his breast to check its frantic palpitations. But just as he was on the point of betraying himself by his agitation, he paused, mastered by the dread of offending Valentine, by that respectful and chaste shyness which is the principal characteristic of true love.
He stood irresolute, his heart overflowing with agonizing joy and impatience, and was about to take some decisive step, when she rang, and in a moment Catherine appeared.
“Dear nurse,” said Valentine, “you didn’t give me my potion.”
“Ah! your portion!” said the good woman. “I thought that you would not need to take it to-day. I will go to prepare it.”
“No, that would take too long. Just dissolve a little opium in some orange-flower water.”
“But that may do you harm.”
“No; opium can never injure me in the state I am in now.”
“I don’t know anything about it. You are no doctor; would you like me to go and ask madame la marquise ?”
“Oh! for heaven’s sake, don’t do that. Don’t you be afraid. Here, give me the bottle ; I know the dose.”
“Oh ! you put in twice too much.”
“No, I tell you ; since I am free to sleep at last, I propose to make the most of it. While I am asleep, I shall not have to think.”
Catherine sadly shook her head as she diluted a strong dose of opium, which Valentine took in several swallows while she undressed; and, when she was wrapped in her peignoir, she dismissed her nurse once more and went to bed.
Bénédict, crouching in his hiding-place, had not dared to move hand or foot. But the fear of being discovered by the nurse was much less painful than that which he felt when he was alone with Valentine. After a terrible battle with himself, he ventured to raise the curtain gently. The rustling of the silk did not wake Valentine ; the opium was doing its work already. However, Bénédict fancied that she partly opened her eyes. He was frightened and dropped the curtain, the fringe of which caught on a bronze candlestick which stood on the light stand, and dragged it noisily to the floor. Valentine started, but did not come out of her lethargy. Thereupon, Bénédict stood beside her, with even greater liberty to gaze at her than on the day when he adored her reflection in the water. Alone at her feet in the solemn silence of the night, protected by that artificial slumber which it was not in his power to interrupt, he fancied that he was fulfilling a supernatural destiny. He had naught to fear from her anger. He could drink his fill of the happiness of gazing at her, without being disturbed in his enjoyment; he could speak to her unheard, tell her of his great love, of his agony, without putting to flight that faint, mysterious smile which played about her half-parted lips. He could put his lips to hers with no fear of being repelled by her. But the certainty of impunity did not embolden him to that point. For Valentine was the object of an almost divine adoration in his heart, and she needed no exterior protection against him. He was her safeguard and defender against himself. He knelt beside her, and contented himself with taking her hand as it hung over the edge of the bed, holding it in his, examining with admiration its whiteness and the fineness of the skin, and putting his trembling lips to it. That hand bore the wedding ring, the first link of a burdensome and indissoluble chain. Bénédict might have taken it off and destroyed it, but his heart had recurred to gentler sentiments. He determined to respect everything about Valentine, even the emblem of her duty.
For in that ecstasy of rapture he speedily forgot everything. He deemed himself as fortunate and as sure of the future as in the happy days at the farm; he imagined that the night would never end, that Valentine would never wake, and that he would live out his eternity of happiness in that room.
For a long time that blissful contemplation was without danger ; the very angels are less pure than the heart of a man of twenty when he loves passionately; but he trembled when Valentine, excited by one of those happy dreams to which opium gives birth, leaned gently toward him and feebly pressed his hand, murmuring indistinct words. Bénédict trembled and moved away from the bed, afraid of himself.
“Oh! Bénédict!” said Valentine slowly, in a faint voice, “Bénédict, was it you who married me to-day ? I thought that it was somebody else. Tell me that it was really you!”
“Yes, it was I, it was I!” said Bénédict, beside himself with excitement, as he pressed to his wildly beating heart that soft hand which sought his.
Valentine, half awake, sat up in bed, with eyelids parted, and gazed at him with expressionless eyes, wandering uncertainly in the vague land of dreams. There was an expression of something like terror in her features; then she closed her eyes, and smiled as her head fell back on the pillow.
“It was you whom I loved,” she said ; “ but how did they ever allow it ?”
She spoke so low and her articulation was so indistinct that her words fell upon Bénédict’s ears like the angelic murmur one hears in dreams.
“O my beloved!” he cried, leaning over, “tell me that again, tell me again, and let me die of joy at your feet!”
But Valentine pushed him away.
“Leave me !” she said.
And her words became unintelligible.
Bénédict thought that he could understand that she took him for Monsieur de Lansac. He called himself by name again and again, and Valentine, hovering between reality and illusion, now waking, now falling asleep, innocently revealed all her secrets to him. At one time she fancied that Monsieur de Lansac was pursuing her, with drawn sword; she threw herself on Bénédict’s breast, and exclaimed as she put her arms about his neck:
“Let us both die !”
“Oh! you are right,” he cried. “Be mine and let us die !”
He placed his pistols on the table and strained Valentine’s inert and supple body to his heart. But again she said to him:
“Leave me, my friend ; I am dying of fatigue ; let me sleep.”
She rested her head on Bénédict’s shoulder, and he dared not move for fear of disturbing her. It was such great joy to him to see her sleeping in his arms ! He had already forgotten that there could be any greater joy.
“Sleep, sleep, my life!” he whispered, touching her forehead gently with his lips. “Sleep, my angel! Doubtless you can see the Virgin in heaven; and she smiles upon you, for she protects you. I promise you we shall be united there !”
He could not resist the temptation to unfasten gently her lace cap, and allow that magnificent fair hair, at which he had gazed lovingly so many times, to fall in waves about them both. How silky and fragrant it was ! How its cool touch kindled fever and de
lirious excitement in his veins ! A score of times he bit Valentine’s sheets and his own hands, to cast himself loose from the frenzy of his joy by the sensation of physical pain. Seated on the edge of that bed, whose fine, perfumed linen made him quiver from head to foot, he suddenly fell on his knees, seeking to recover his self-control, and confined himself to gazing at her. Chastely he drew about her the embroidered lawn which protected her pure and untroubled bosom ; he even threw the curtain partly over her face, so that he could no longer see her, and could thereby muster courage to go away. But Valentine, with the longing for air which one feels in sleep, pushed the curtain away, and, moving nearer to him, seemed to invite his caresses with an artless and trustful air. He raised her thick tresses and filled his mouth with them to prevent himself from crying out; he wept with love and frenzy. At last, in a moment of indescribable anguish, he bit the round, white shoulder which she uncovered before him. He bit it cruelly, and she woke, but with no indication of suffering. When he saw her sit up in bed again, gaze at him more closely, and pass her hand over him to make sure that he was not a ghost, Bénédict, who was kneeling beside her in a sort of stupor, thought that he was lost. His blood, which was boiling madly in his veins, stood still; he turned as pale as death, and said to her, not knowing what he said:
“Forgive me, Valentine ; I shall die if you do not take pity on me.”
“Pity on you !” she said, in the loud, sharp tone of the somnambulist; “what is the matter with you ? Are you ill ? Come to my arms as you did just now; come. Weren’t you happy ?”
“O Valentine !” cried Bénédict, fairly beside himself, “do you mean it ? do you recognize me ? do you know who I am ?”
“Yes,” she said, letting her head fall drowsily on his shoulder; “ my dear nurse !”
“No ! no I Bénédict! Bénédict! Do you understand ? the man who loves you more than life! Bénédict !”
And he shook her to wake her, but that was impossible. He could arouse in her only the ardor born of dreams. But this time her dream was so vivid that he was deceived.