by George Sand
These scenes of silent and restrained passion took place in the pavilion in the park, to which she had sent her piano, and where Louise and Bénédict, after a time, passed every evening with her. During the summer evenings Valentine adopted the custom of having no light, so that Bénédict might not detect the violent emotion which often took possession of her. Bénédict would sing something from memory; then they would walk a little in the park or sit by the window, talking and inhaling the pleasant odor of the wet foliage after a shower, or they would go to look at the moon from the top of the hill. That life would have been delightful if it could have lasted, but Valentine knew full well, from the stings of remorse, that it had already lasted too long.
Louise did not leave them for an instant. This constant watch on Valentine seemed to her a duty, but that duty often became a heavy burden to her; for she realized that it was largely influenced by her own jealousy, and she suffered all the torture of a noble heart at strife with honorable sentiments.
One evening, when Bénédict seemed to her more animated than usual, his ardent glances and the tone of his voice when he spoke of Valentine caused her such pain that she withdrew, discouraged by her suffering and by the rôle she was playing. She went out to meditate alone in the park. Bénédict’s heart beat frantically when he saw that he was alone with Valentine. She tried to speak on indifferent subjects, but her voice trembled. Afraid of herself, she was silent for a few moments, then asked him to sing; but his voice produced a still more violent effect on her nerves, and she left the room, leaving him alone at the piano. Bénédict was piqued, and continued to sing. Meanwhile, Valentine had seated herself under the trees on the terrace, a few steps from the open window. Bénédict’s voice had a softer, more caressing sound, as it was borne to her ears by the fragrant evening breeze, amid the rustling leaves. All about her was fragrance and melody. She hid her face in her hands, and allowed her tears to flow, yielding to one of the most irresistible fascinations that ever woman faced. Bénédict ceased to sing, and she hardly noticed it, so completely under the spell was she. He walked to the window and saw her.
The salon was on the ground floor; he leaped through the window and sat down at her feet. As she did not speak, he feared that she was ill, and ventured gently to remove her hands. Then he saw her tears, and uttered a cry of surprise and triumph. Valentine, overwhelmed with shame, tried to hide her face against her lover’s breast. How happened it that their lips met ? Valentine tried to protect herself; Bénédict had not the strength of mind to obey. Before Louise had joined them, they had exchanged twenty oaths of love, twenty fervent kisses. Louise, where were you then ?
XXVIII
From that moment the danger became imminent. Bénédict was so happy that he was proud of his happiness, and began to despise danger. He scoffed at destiny, and said to himself that with Valentine’s love he could overcome all obstacles. The pride of triumph made him overbold ; he would not listen to Louise’s scruples. Moreover, he was free from the species of dependence upon her to which her nursing and her devotion had subjected him. Since he had completely recovered, Louise had been living at the farm, and at night they went separately to join Valentine at the pavilion. It happened several times that Louise arrived considerably later than he; sometimes, too, it happened that Louise could not go at all, and Bénédict passed long evenings alone with Valentine. The next day, when Louise questioned her sister, it was always easy to divine from her confusion the nature of the interview she had had with her lover ; for it was impossible that Valentine’s secret could be a secret to Louise any longer ; she was too much interested in detecting it not to have succeeded long before. Nothing more was lacking to her unhappiness, and it was intensified by the feeling that she was incapable of applying any remedy. Louise felt that her weakness would cause Valentine’s ruin. If she had had no other motive than her interest in her sister, she would not have hesitated to open her eyes to the perils of her situation; but, devoured by jealousy as she was, and retaining none the less all her pride, she preferred to imperil Valentine’s happiness rather than yield to a feeling which brought the blush of shame to her cheeks. There was some selfishness in her unselfishness.
She determined to return to Paris in order to put an end to the torture she was undergoing, without having fixed upon any plan to save her sister. She simply resolved to inform her of her approaching departure; and one evening, when Bénédict took his leave, instead of going down with him, she told Valentine that she wanted to speak with her a moment. Her words offended Bénédict; he was constantly beset by the idea that Louise, stung by remorse, desired to injure him in Valentine’s eyes. That idea served to embitter him still more against that generous and self-sacrificing woman, and made him bear the burden of gratitude to her grudgingly and angrily.
“Sister,” said Louise, “the time has come when I must leave you. I cannot stay away from my boy any longer. You do not need me any more, and I am going to-morrow.”
“To-morrow!” cried Valentine, in dismay. “You are going to leave me, to leave me all alone, Louise ? Why, what will become of me ?”
“Aren’t you well again ? aren’t you happy and free, Valentine ? What good can your poor Louise do you now ?”
“O sister, dear sister !” said Valentine, throwing her arms about her. “You shall not leave me ! You have no idea of my unhappiness and the perils by which I am surrounded. If you leave me, I am lost.”
Louise sadly held her peace. The idea of listening to Valentine’s confession was mortally repugnant to her; and yet she dared not refuse. Valentine, her face flushed with shame, could not make up her mind to speak. Her sister’s cold and cruel silence caused her blood to stand still with fear. At last she overcame her repugnance, and said in a trembling tone :
“Well, Louise, won’t you stay with me, when I tell you that without you I am lost ?”
That word, twice repeated, bore in Louise’s ears a meaning which irritated her in spite of herself.
“Lost!” she retorted bitterly ; “ you say you are lost! Valentine ?”
“O sister!” said Valentine, hurt by the eagerness with which Louise seized upon the idea ; “God has protected me thus far. He is my witness that I have not voluntarily given way to any sentiment, taken any step inconsistent with my duty.”
This noble pride in herself, which Valentine was still entitled to feel, put the finishing touch to the bitterness of her who had once given way too blindly to her passions. Always easily wounded, because her past life was marred by an ineffaceable stain, she felt something very like hatred for Valentine’s superior virtue. For an instant, affection, compassion, generosity, all the nobler sentiments ceased to exist in her heart; she could think of no better way to avenge herself than to humiliate Valentine.
“What are you talking about then ?” she said harshly. “What danger are you exposed to ? I don’t understand what you mean.”
There was a sharp tone in her voice which hurt Valentine ; she had never seen her in this mood. She was silent a moment or two, and gazed at her in surprise. In the dim light of a candle which was burning on the piano at the end of the room, she fancied that she saw on her sister’s features an expression which she had never before seen on them. Her eyebrows were contracted, her lips bloodless and compressed; her stern, unfeeling eye was fastened pitilessly on Valentine’s face. Valentine, bewildered, involuntarily moved her chair away, and, trembling from head to foot, tried to find some explanation of the cold contempt with which her sister was treating her for the first time in her life. But she would have imagined every conceivable reason rather than the true one. Meek and pious as she was, she was inspired at that moment by all the heroism which the true spirit of religion imparts to women, and, throwing herself at her sister’s feet, she hid her face, streaming with tears, upon her knee.
“You are right in humiliating me thus,” she said ; “ I have deserved it, and fifteen years of virtue entitle you to rebuke my vain and imprudent youth. Scold me, despise me,
but have pity on my repentance and my fears. Protect me, Louise, save me ; you can do it, for you know all!”
“Hush !” cried Louise, overwhelmed by her sister’s behavior, and yielding instantly to the noble sentiments which formed the real foundation of her character ; “ rise, Valentine, my sister, my child ; do not kneel at my feet like this. I am the one who should be at your feet; I am the contemptible creature, who should ask you, you angel from heaven, to make my peace with God ! Alas! Valentine, I know your suffering only too well; but why confide it to me, miserable wretch that I am, who can afford you no protection, and who have no right to advise you ?”
“You can advise me and protect me, Louise,” replied Valentine, embracing her effusively. “Haven’t you the experience which gives strength and good sense ? That man must go away from here, or I must go myself. We must not see each other again, for every day it grows worse, and the return to God becomes harder and harder. Ah ! just now I was boasting ! I feel that my heart is very guilty.”
The bitter tears that Valentine shed broke Louise’s heart.
“Alas!” she said, pale and dismayed, “then it is really as bad as I feared ! You, too, are unhappy forever !”
“Forever ?” echoed Valentine, in alarm. “With the determination to be cured, and with God’s help——”
“One is never cured !” rejoined Louise, in a gloomy tone, clasping her hands over her sad and desolate heart.
Then she rose and paced the floor excitedly, halting now and then in front of Valentine to speak to her in a broken voice.
“Why ask me for advice—me of all people? Who am I, to comfort and cure ? What! you come to me for the heroism which conquers the passions, and the virtues which keep society intact; to me, unhappy wretch, whom passion has withered and whom society has cursed and cast out ? Where, pray, should I go for what is not in me, in order to give it to you ? Apply to the women whom the world esteems ; apply to your mother! She is irreproachable. No one was able to say positively whether my lover was or was not hers at the same time. She was so prudent! And when my father, her husband, killed that man who had betrayed his friendship, she clapped her hands ; and the world saw how she triumphed, she had so much strength of character and pride ! Those are the women who can overcome a passion or be cured of it!”
Valentine, horrified by what she had heard, tried to interrupt her; but, impelled by a sort of frenzy, she continued :
“Women like me succumb and are ruined forever! Women like you, Valentine, must pray and fight; they must seek strength in themselves, not ask it of others. Advice! advice! What advice could I give you which you could not perfectly well give yourself ? Strength to follow it is what you must find. Do you think that I am stronger than you ? No, Valentine, I am not. You know very well what my life has been, with what unconquerable passions I was born; you know to what they led me!”
“Hush, Louise,” cried Valentine, throwing her arms about her with a pained expression; “cease to slander yourself so. What woman was ever nobler and stronger than you in her downfall ? Are you to be blamed forever for a sin committed at the age of ignorance and weakness ? Alas! you were only a child ! and since then you have been sublime; you have compelled the esteem of everyone who has a noble heart. You cannot deny that you know what virtue is ?”
“In heaven’s name, do not learn it at the same cost,” rejoined Louise; “abandoned to my own devices from childhood, deprived of the help of religion and of a mother’s love and protection, left in charge of our grandmother, who is so frivolous and so utterly devoid of modesty, I was certain to go from bad to worse. Yes, that would have happened but for the terrible heartrending lessons that I learned from fate. My lover sacrificed by my father ; my father himself, overwhelmed by grief and shame because of my sin, seeking and finding death on the battlefield within a few days; and I, banished, ignominiously driven out of my father’s house, and reduced to the necessity of dragging my wretchedness from place to place, with my child starving to death in my arms ! Ah ! Valentine, that is a ghastly fate !”
It was the first time that Louise had ever spoken thus openly of her misfortunes. Excited by the impending painful crisis, she yielded to the melancholy satisfaction of pitying herself, and she forgot Valentine’s sorrows and the help which it was her duty to give her. But her outcries of remorse and despair produced more effect than the most eloquent remonstrances. By placing before Valentine’s eyes the picture of the misery to which the passions may lead, she terrified her beyond words. Valentine felt that she was on the brink of the abyss into which her sister had fallen.
“You are right,” she cried, “it is a ghastly fate, and to bear it with courage and virtue one must be you ; my soul, being weaker, would be irrevocably lost. But do you help me to be brave, Louise ; help me to send Bénédict away.”
As she uttered that name a slight noise behind her caused her to turn her head. They both gave a piercing shriek when they saw Bénédict standing behind them, like a ghost.
“You mentioned my name, madame,” he said, with that profound calmness which often led people astray as to his real feelings.
Valentine tried to smile. Louise did not share her error.
“Where were you, pray, that you heard so distinctly ?” she asked.
“I was very near, mademoiselle,” he replied, with a mocking glance.
“That is at least very strange,” said Valentine, severely. “My sister told you, I believe, that she wished to speak to me in private, and yet you remained near enough to listen, it appears ?”
Bénédict had never seen Valentine angry with him ; he was dazed for a moment, and was on the point of abandoning his bold project. But, as it was a critical and decisive moment for him, he put a bold face upon it, and, maintaining in his expression and his manner that serious firmness which gave him so much power over the minds of others, he said:
“It is quite useless to conceal the truth ; I have been sitting behind this curtain, and have not lost a word of your conversation. I might have listened to still more, and have left the room, unseen, by the same window by which I came in. But I was so interested in the subject of your discussion——”
He paused, seeing that Valentine had become paler than her neckerchief, and had sunk into a chair with an air of consternation. He longed to throw himself at her feet, to weep on her hands; but he realized too fully the necessity of overcoming the excitement of the two women by his own self-possession and firmness.
“I was so interested in your discussion,” he continued, “that I thought that it was my right to return and take part in it. Whether I did wrong, the future will decide. Meanwhile, let us try to be stronger than our destiny. Louise, you have no reason to blush on account of what you have said in my presence. You cannot forget that you have often accused yourself in similar terms to me, and I am tempted to believe that there is some coquetry in your virtuous humility, you know so well what the effect of it must be on those who, like myself, revere you for the trials you have gone through.”
As he spoke, he took Louise’s hand as she leaned over her sister with her arms about her; then he led her gently and affectionately toward a chair at some little distance, and, when he had seated her in it, he tenderly put her hand to his lips, then took possession of the chair from which he had ousted her, turned his back, and paid no further attention to her.
“Valentine !” he said in a deep, grave tone.
It was the first time that he had ventured to call her by her name in the presence of a third person. Valentine started, removed her hands with which she had concealed her face, and bestowed a cold and offended glance upon him. But he repeated her name with an authoritative gentleness, and love shone so brightly in his eyes that Valentine hid her face again in order not to see him.
“Valentine,” he said, “do not try upon me these puerile pretences which are said to be the main reliance of your sex; we cannot deceive each other any more. Look at this scar! I shall carry it to the grave ! It is the seal and the
symbol of my love for you. You cannot believe that I will consent to ruin you; that is too silly an error for you to fall into. Do not think of such a thing, Valentine.”
He took her hands in his. Cowed by his air of resolution, she allowed him to retain them, and gazed at him with a frightened expression.
“Do not hide your face from me,” he said, “and do not be afraid to look at the spectre whom you drew back from the tomb ! You would have it so, madame ! It is your own fault that I stand before you to-day an object of terror and aversion. But listen, my Valentine, my all-powerful mistress, I love you too well to vex you. Say a word and I return to the shroud from which you drew me forth.”
With that he took a pistol from his pocket and showed it her.
“You see,” he continued, “it is the same one, the very same. Its gallant service did not injure it; it is a faithful friend and always at your orders. Speak, send me away, it is always ready.—Oh ! don’t be afraid,” he cried mockingly, as the two women, pale with terror, recoiled shrieking; “ don’t be afraid that I will commit the impropriety of killing myself before your eyes; I know too well how much consideration must be shown to a woman’s nerves.”
“This is a horrible scene,” cried Louise, in the utmost distress ; “ you want to kill Valentine.”
“You may scold me in a moment, mademoiselle,” he replied shortly, with a haughty air; “I am speaking to Valentine now, and I have not finished.”
He uncocked his pistol and put it in his pocket.
“You see, madame,” he continued, addressing Valentine, “ it is entirely on your account that I am still alive, not for your pleasure, but for my own. My pleasures are and always will be very modest. I ask nothing which you could not grant without remorse to one for whom you felt only the purest friendship. Consult your memory and your conscience ; have you found him very audacious and very dangerous, this Bénédict, who has but one passion in the world. That passion is you. You cannot hope that he will ever have another, for he is already old in heart and in experience. The man who has loved you will never love another woman, for, after all, this Bénédict, whom you propose to spurn, is no brute ! What! you love me enough to be afraid of me, and you despise me enough to hope to resign me to the idea of losing you ! Oh! what madness! No, no! I will not lose you so long as I have a breath of life, I swear by heaven and by hell! I will see you ; I will be your friend, your brother, or may God damn me forever if——”