by George Sand
‘I know you possess the gift of praising people, but don’t hope to arouse my vanity. It’s affection I need, not homage. I must be loved absolutely, eternally, unreservedly. You must be ready to sacrifice everything for me, fortune, reputation, duty, business affairs, principles, family, everything, Monsieur, because I would put the same devotion on the scales and I want yours to equal mine. You must see that you can’t give me that sort of love.’
It was not the first time that Raymon saw a woman take love seriously, although, fortunately for society, such cases are rare; but he knew that promises of love are not binding on a man’s honour, again fortunately for society. Sometimes, too, the woman who had demanded these solemn pledges from him was the first to break them. So he was not frightened by Madame Delmare’s demands, or rather, he did not think of the past or of the future. He was carried away by the irresistible charm of this frail, passionate woman, so weak in body but so strong in heart and mind. She was so beautiful, so animated, so impressive, as she laid down her rules that he stayed, as it were spellbound, at her knees.
‘I swear to be yours body and soul,’ he said. ‘I dedicate my life to you, I devote my blood to you, I abandon my will to you. Take everything, everything is at your disposal, my fortune, my honour, my conscience, my thoughts, my whole being.’
‘Be quiet, here’s my cousin,’ said Indiana agitatedly.
And indeed the phlegmatic Ralph Brown came in quite calmly and said he was very surprised and happy to see his cousin, whom he had not expected. Then he asked to be allowed to kiss her to show his gratitude and, leaning towards her, slowly and methodically, he kissed her on the lips according to the custom of the natives of their country.
Raymon turned pale with anger, and Ralph had barely left the room to give some orders when he went up to Indiana and wanted to wipe out the trace of that impertinent kiss. But Madame Delmare repulsed him calmly, saying:
‘Remember you have a long way to go to repair your wrongs towards me if you want me to believe in you.’
Raymon did not appreciate how tactful this refusal was; in it he saw only a refusal and became angry with Sir Ralph. Some moments later, he noticed that when Ralph spoke quietly to Indiana, he said ‘tu’, and Raymon nearly took the reserve which convention imposed on Ralph at other times for the prudence of a happy lover. But he was soon ashamed of his insulting suspicions as he met the pure look in Indiana’s eyes.
In the evening, Raymon deployed his intellectual gifts. There was a large company and they listened to him. He could not escape from the importance his talents bestowed on him. He talked a lot, and if Indiana had been vain she would have had her first taste of happiness in listening to him. But, on the contrary, her straightforward, upright mind took fright at Raymon’s superiority. She fought against the magic power he exercised on those around him, a kind of magnetic influence given by heaven or hell to some men, a partial and ephemeral sovereignty, so real that no ordinary person can resist its ascendancy, so fleeting that no trace survives them and after their deaths we are surprised at the reputations they had in their lifetime.
There were many moments when Indiana felt fascinated by so much brilliance, but she immediately told herself sadly that it was not glory but happiness she was thirsting for. She wondered in alarm if this man, for whom life had so many different aspects, would be able to devote all his heart to her, sacrifice to her all his ambitions. And now that, with so much ability and skill, so much ardour and so much coolness, he was defending purely speculative doctrines entirely alien to their love, she took fright at being of so little account in his life while he was everything in hers. Terrified, she told herself that for him she was a three-day whim, but for her he had been the dream of a lifetime.
When he gave her his arm to leave the drawing-room, he slipped a few words of love into her ear, but she replied sadly:
‘You’re very clever!’
Raymon understood this reproach and spent all the next day at Madame Delmare’s feet. The other guests, busy with the hunt, left them in complete liberty.
Raymon was eloquent; Indiana had so great a need to believe him that half his eloquence would have been enough. Women of France, you do not know what a Creole is like. No doubt you would have been convinced less easily, for you are not the one who is being deceived and betrayed!
XIII
WHEN Sir Ralph returned from the hunt and, as usual, took Madame Delmare’s pulse as he greeted her, Raymon, who was watching him closely, noticed a faint expression of surprise and pleasure on his calm features. And then, obeying some kind of inner compulsion, the eyes of the two men met and Sir Ralph’s light eyes, fixed like an owl’s on Raymon’s dark ones, made the latter lower his involuntarily. For the rest of the day, in spite of his apparent imperturbability, the baronet’s face, when he was with Madame Delmare, had a kind of attentive look, something that one might have called interest or concern, if his features had been capable of revealing any specific feeling. But Raymon tried in vain to discover if there was fear or hope in Sir Ralph’s thoughts; they were impenetrable.
Suddenly, as he was standing a few steps behind Madame Delmare’s chair, he heard Ralph say to her quietly,
‘It would be a good idea, cousin, for you to go riding tomorrow.’
‘But you know that, for the moment, I’ve no horse,’ she replied.
‘We’ll find one for you. Would you like to follow the hunt with us?’
Madame Delmare sought different pretexts to excuse herself from going. Raymon realized that she preferred to stay with him, but he thought he noticed, too, that her cousin was unusually insistent on preventing her from doing so. Then, leaving the group he was with, he came up to her and added his entreaties to Sir Ralph’s. He felt annoyed with Madame Delmare’s interfering chaperon, and resolved to disturb his surveillance.
‘If you’ll agree to follow the hunt, Madame,’ he said to Indiana, ‘you’ll encourage me to follow your example. I don’t care much for hunting, but to have the happiness of riding with you . . .’
‘In that case, I’ll go,’ Indiana replied without thinking.
She exchanged a look of mutual understanding with Raymon but, however fleeting it was, Ralph saw it pass, and during the whole evening Raymon could not look at her or say a word to her without it coming to the eyes or ears of M. Brown. A feeling of dislike, almost of jealousy, then arose in Raymon’s heart. By what right was this cousin, this friend of the family, setting himself up as a schoolmaster to the woman he loved? He swore that Sir Ralph would regret it and looked for an opportunity to annoy him without compromising Madame Delmare, but it was impossible. Sir Ralph did the honours of his house with cold, dignified courtesy, which gave no scope for epigrams or contradictions.
The next day, before the hunting horn had been sounded, Raymon saw his host’s solemn face come into his room. There was something in his demeanour even stiffer than usual, and Raymon felt his heart beat with the wish and hope for a provocation. But it was simply a question of a saddle-horse that Raymon had brought to Bellerive and that he had expressed the intention of selling. In five minutes, the sale was agreed; Sir Ralph made no difficulties about the price and took out of his pocket a handful of money which he counted out onto the mantelpiece in a peculiarly cold manner, not deigning to pay attention to Raymon’s protestations that there was no need to be so punctilious. Then, as Sir Ralph was going away, he came back into the room and said:
‘Monsieur, from today, the horse is mine.’
Then Raymon thought he saw that Ralph’s purpose was to prevent him from going to the hunt, and he stated rather drily that he was not intending to follow the hunt on foot.
‘Monsieur,’ Sir Ralph replied with a slight trace of affectation, ‘I am too conversant with the laws of hospitality . . .’
And he withdrew.
As he came down the porch steps, Raymon saw Madame Delmare in riding-habit, playing cheerfully with Ophelia, who was tearing her cambric handkerchief. Her cheeks had regain
ed a faint crimson hue, her eyes shone with a long lost brilliance. She had become pretty again already; the curls of her black hair escaped from her little hat; this made her look charming and the cloth habit, buttoned up from top to bottorn, outlined her slender, graceful figure. To my mind, the main charm of Creole women is the extreme delicacy of their features and their slight physique, which leave them for a long time with the attractiveness of childhood. Indiana, laughing and playful, now seemed no more than fourteen.
Raymon, struck by her charm, had a feeling of triumph and paid her the least trite compliment he could think of.
‘You were anxious about my health,’ she said to him quietly; ‘don’t you see that I want to live?’
He was able to reply only with a happy, grateful look. Sir Ralph himself was bringing his cousin’s horse; Raymon recognized the one he had just sold.
Madame Delmare had seen him try it out the previous day in the castle courtyard. ‘What! Is M. de Ramière then kind enough to lend me his horse?’ she said with surprise.
‘Didn’t you admire this animal’s beauty and docility yesterday?’ Sir Ralph asked her. ‘It’s yours from today. I’m sorry, my dear, that I couldn’t give it you sooner.’
‘You’re becoming facetious, cousin,’ said Madame Delmare. ‘I don’t understand this joke at all. Whom am I to thank? M. de Ramière, who agrees to lend me his horse, or you, who perhaps asked him to do so?’
‘You must thank your cousin,’ said M. Delmare. ‘He bought this horse for you and is making you a present of him.’
‘Is that so, my dear Ralph?’ asked Madame Delmare, stroking the pretty creature with the happiness of a little girl receiving her first jewellery.
‘Didn’t we agree that I’d give you a horse in exchange for the chair-cover you’re embroidering for me? Go on, mount, don’t be afraid. I’ve observed his character and I tried him out again this morning.’
Indiana threw her arms round Sir Ralph’s neck and then leapt on to the horse, boldly making him canter about.
All this family scene took place in a corner of the courtyard under Raymon’s eyes. He felt extremely annoyed when he saw this pair’s simple trusting affection expressed in front of him, for he loved passionately and perhaps had not even one whole day in which to make Indiana his own.
‘How happy I am!’ she said, calling him to her side in the avenue. ‘It looks as if my kind Ralph has guessed the present which could please me most. And you, Raymon, aren’t you happy too to see the horse you used to ride pass into my hands? Oh, I’ll love him more than all the others. What name did you give him? Tell me; I don’t want to take away from him the name you gave him . . .’
‘If there’s a happy man here, it’s your cousin, who gives you presents and whom you kiss so gladly,’ replied Raymon.
‘Really, could you be jealous of our friendship and his hearty kisses?’ she said, laughing.
‘Jealous, perhaps, Indiana; I don’t know. But when that young, pink-cheeked cousin places his lips on yours, when he takes you in his arms to lift you on to the horse which he gives you and I sell you, I confess I suffer. No, Madame, I’m not happy to see you mistress of the horse I loved. I can well appreciate being happy to give it to you, but to play the part of a dealer to provide another with the means of pleasing you, that’s a humiliation skilfully arranged by Sir Ralph. If I didn’t think he wasn’t aware of his own cleverness, I’d like to avenge myself.’
‘Oh, for shame! This jealousy is unbecoming! How can you envy our family intimacy, you who, for me, ought to be outside daily life and create an enchanted world inhabited only by you? I’m already not pleased with you, Raymon! I think there’s something like wounded pride in this feeling of irritation with my poor cousin. You seem to be more jealous of the slight preference I show him in public than of the exclusive secret affection I might have for another.’
‘Forgive me, forgive me, Indiana. I’m in the wrong. I’m not worthy of you, you angel of gentleness and kindness, but I suffered cruelly from the rights which this man seemed to assume.’
‘Assume! Him, Raymon! You don’t know, then, what secret gratitude binds us to him. You don’t know, then, that his mother was my mother’s sister, that we were born in the same valley, that as a teenager he protected my earliest years, that he has been my only support, my only teacher, my only companion on Bourbon Island, that he has followed me everywhere, that he left the country I left to come and live in the one I live in, that, in a word, he’s the only being who’s fond of me and takes an interest in my life!’
‘A curse on him! Everything you’re telling me, Indiana, adds poison to the wound. So that Englishman’s fond of you! Do you know how I love you?’
‘Oh, let’s not make comparisons. If the same kind of affection were to turn you into rivals, I ought to prefer the older one. But don’t be afraid, Raymon, that I’ll ever ask you to love me the way Ralph does.’
‘Well, please do explain him to me; for who could see through his stony mask?’
‘Must I pay tribute to my cousin, myself?’ she said with a smile. ‘I must admit I’m reluctant to paint his picture. I’m so fond of him that I’d like to flatter him. Such as he is, I’m afraid you won’t think him handsome enough. So try to help me. Now, what do you think of him?’
‘Forgive me if I’m hurting you, but his face suggests a complete nonentity. Yet there’s good sense and sound information in what he says when he deigns to speak. But he does so with such difficulty and lack of emotion that nobody profits from his knowledge, his manner of speaking puts you off so much and is so tedious. And then there’s something commonplace and laboured about his ideas that is not compensated for by clear, logical expression. I think his mind is imbued with all the ideas that others have given him, and is too apathetic and mediocre to have any of his own. He’s just got what it takes to be looked on in society as a serious-minded man. His solemnity constitutes three-quarters of his merit, his carefree attitude does the rest.’
‘There is some truth in that portrait,’ replied Indiana, ‘but there’s also prejudice. You boldly hit on doubts that I wouldn’t dare acknowledge, I who have known Ralph ever since I was born. It’s true his great failing is often to see things through the eyes of others, but that’s the fault of his education, not of his intelligence. You think that, but for his education, he’d be a complete nonentity. I think, without it, he would have been less so. I must tell you a detail of his life which will explain his character to you. He had the misfortune to have a brother whom his parents openly preferred to him. This brother had all the brilliant qualities which he lacks. He learned easily; he was talented in all the arts; he had a sparkling wit; though his features were less regular than Ralph’s, his face was more expressive. He was affectionate, eager, active; in a word, he was lovable. Ralph, on the contrary, was awkward, melancholy, undemonstrative; he loved solitude, learned with difficulty, and didn’t show off what little he knew. When his parents saw he was so different from his older brother, they treated him badly; they did even worse; they humiliated him. Then, though he was but a child, his character became gloomy and withdrawn; an unconquerable shyness paralysed all his faculties. His parents had succeeded in making him hate and despise himself. He became disheartened with life, and from the age of fifteen he was attacked by spleen, a completely physical ailment under the foggy skies of England, a completely moral one under the life-giving skies of Bourbon Island. He has often told me that one day he left home, intending to throw himself into the sea, but as he sat on the shore, gathering his thoughts together on the point of carrying out his plan, he saw me coming towards him in the arms of the negress who had been my wet-nurse. I was then five years old. They say I was pretty and I showed a predilection shared by no one else for my taciturn cousin. It’s true he was considerate of me and obliged me in ways I was not used to in my father’s house. We were both unhappy and already we understood each other. He taught me his father’s language, I lisped my father’s to him. This mixture of S
panish and English was perhaps the expression of Ralph’s character. When I put my arms round his neck, I noticed he cried and, without understanding why, I began to cry too. Then he pressed me to his heart, and he has told me since, swore to live for me, a neglected if not hated child, to whom at least his friendship would do some good, and his life be of some use. So I was the first and only attachment of his sad life. From that day, we hardly ever left each other. We would spend our days freely and healthily in the mountain solitudes. But perhaps these tales of our childhood bore you and you prefer to gallop and rejoin the hunt.’
‘Crazy girl!’ exclaimed Raymon, holding back the bridle of the horse Madame Delmare was riding.
‘Well, to continue,’ she went on. ‘Edmond Brown, Ralph’s older brother, died at the age of twenty. His mother died herself, of grief, and his father was inconsolable. Ralph would have liked to comfort him in his sorrow, but the coldness with which M. Brown received his first attempts further increased his natural shyness. He spent whole, sad, silent hours with this grief-stricken old man, not daring to say one word or show any sign of affection, for he was so afraid of offering inappropriate or inadequate consolation. His father accused him of lack of feeling and Edmond’s death left poor Ralph more unhappy and misunderstood than ever. I was his only consolation.’
‘I can’t pity him, whatever you say,’ Raymon interrupted. ‘But there’s something in his life and in yours that I don’t understand: it’s that he didn’t marry you.’
‘I’ll give you a very good reason for that,’ she continued. ‘When I was of marriageable age, Ralph, who was ten years older than me (which is a huge difference in our climate where women’s childhood is so short), Ralph was already married.’
‘Is Sir Ralph a widower? I’ve never heard talk of his wife.’