by George Sand
Even within the many walls enclosing Paris, the small town returned to the attack on the unhappy household. Well-off families from Fontainebleau and Melun came to settle in the capital for the winter and brought with them the benefits of their provincial ways. Coteries grew up around Delmare and his wife, and everything humanly possible was attempted to make their respective positions worse. Their unhappiness was increased and their mutual obstinacy did not diminish.
Ralph had the good sense not to interfere in their differences. Madame Delmare had suspected him of embittering her husband against her, or at least of wanting to expel Raymon from her intimacy, but she soon recognized the injustice of her accusations. The Colonel’s complete peace of mind with respect to M. de Ramière was irrefutable evidence of her cousin’s silence. She then felt she wanted to thank him, but he carefully avoided all discussion of the matter. Whenever she was alone with him, he eluded her attempted explanations and pretended not to understand them. It was such a delicate subject that Madame Delmare was not bold enough to force Ralph to embark on it; she just tried by her loving concern and her delicate, affectionate attentions to make him understand how grateful she was. But Ralph seemed not to notice them and Indiana’s pride suffered from the proud generosity he showed her. She was afraid of playing the part of a guilty woman who begs for the indulgence of a strict witness. She again became cold and stiff with poor Ralph. It seemed to her that, in this matter, his behaviour accorded with his selfishness, that he was still fond of her although he no longer esteemed her, that he needed her company only as a pastime, that he did not want to give up habits that she had formed for him in her home or the attentions which she unwearingly lavished on him. Moreover, she thought he was disinclined to accuse her of wronging her husband or herself.
‘That’s just like his contempt for women,’ she thought. ‘In his eyes they are merely domestic animals, fit to keep a house in order, prepare meals, and serve tea. He doesn’t do them the honour of discussing things with them. Their faults can’t affect him, provided they’re not relevant to him personally and in no way disturb the material habits of his life. Ralph doesn’t need my heart. Provided my hands retain the skill of preparing his pudding and plucking the strings of my harp for him, what does it matter to him that I love another, that I suffer in silence, that I cannot patiently endure the yoke which is crushing me? I am his servant; he asks nothing more of me.’
XX
INDIANA no longer reproached Raymon. He defended himself so badly that she was afraid of finding him too guilty. There was one thing she feared much more than being deceived and that was being deserted. She could no longer do without believing in him, without hope of the future he had promised her; for the life she lived with M. Delmare and M. Ralph had become hateful to her and if she had not expected to be delivered soon from the domination of these two men, she too would have drowned herself. She often thought of it. She told herself that if Raymon treated her like Noun, her only remaining resource against escaping an unbearable future was to rejoin Noun. This grim thought followed her everywhere and she took pleasure in it.
Meanwhile the date fixed for their departure was drawing near. The Colonel did not seem to have any suspicion of the resistance his wife was contemplating. Every day he put some of his affairs in order; every day he freed himself from one of his debts; these preparations were looked at calmly by Madame Delmare, so sure was she of her own courage. She too, on her side, was preparing for the struggle against difficulties. She tried to gain support in advance from Madame de Carvajal. She told her of her dislike of the journey, and the old marchioness who, in all good faith, based great hopes of attracting clientèle to her salon on her niece’s beauty, declared that it was the Colonel’s duty to leave his wife in France. She said it would be barbaric to expose Madame Delmare to the fatigue and danger of an ocean crossing when, for a little while now, she had been in better health; in a word, it was for him to go and work at rebuilding his fortune, but Indiana should stay with her old aunt and look after her. At first M. Delmare thought these insinuations were the senseless ramblings of an old woman, but he was obliged to pay more attention when Madame de Carvajal made him understand clearly that that was the price of her inheritance. Although Delmare loved money like a man who had worked strenuously all his life to amass it, there was pride in his character. He pronounced his decision firmly and declared that his wife would accompany him whatever the risk. The Marchioness, who could not believe that money was not the absolute ruler of every sensible man, did not regard this reply as M. Delmare’s last word. She continued to encourage her niece’s resistance, proposing to cover it in the eyes of the world under the cloak of her responsibility. All the insensitivity of a mind corrupted by intrigue and ambition, all the hypocrisy of a heart warped by a show of piety, were needed for Madame de Carvajal to be able to close her eyes to the real reasons for Indiana’s rebellion. Her passion for M. de Ramière was a secret now only for her husband; but as Indiana had not yet given any scope for scandal, the secret was only passed around in whispers, and Madame de Carvajal had been confidentially told of it by more than twenty people. The silly old woman was flattered by it; all she wanted was that her niece should be in the forefront of society and Raymond’s love was an excellent start. Yet Madame de Carvajal’s character was not of the Regency type.* The Restoration had given minds of that sort an impetus towards virtue, and as decorous behaviour was required at court, the Marchioness hated nothing so much as scandal which ruins and destroys. Under Madame du Barry,* her principles would have been less rigid; under the Dauphin’s wife,* she became strait-laced. But all this was for outside show, for appearances. She kept her disapproval and her contempt for glaring misdemeanours, and before condemning an affair she always awaited its outcome. She was indulgent to infidelities committed in privacy indoors. She became Spanish again when passing judgement on passions obvious outside the shutters; in her eyes, guilt lay only with those which were displayed in the street in view of the passers-by. Indiana, passionate but chaste, in love but restrained, was a valuable object to show off and exploit. A woman like her could captivate the topmost brains of this hypocritical society and withstand the dangers of the most delicate missions. Excellent speculations could be attempted on the responsibility of so pure a soul and so ardent a temperament. Poor Indiana! Fortunately her fatal destiny surpassed all her expectations and dragged her into a path to wretchedness where the terrible protection of her aunt did not go in search of her.
Raymon did not worry about what was to become of her. This love-affair had already reached the ultimate degree of distaste and boredom. To be boring is to descend as far down as possible in the heart of one’s beloved. Fortunately for the last days of her illusion, Indiana did not yet suspect it.
One morning, on returning from a ball, he found Madame Delmare in his room. She had gone there at midnight; for five long hours she had been waiting for him. It was at the coldest time of the year. She had been there, without a fire, suffering from cold and anxiety with the melancholy patience that the course of her life had taught her. She looked up when she saw him come in and Raymon, stunned with amazement, could see no expression of annoyance or reproach on her pale face.
‘I was waiting for you,’ she said gently. ‘Since you hadn’t come to see me for three days and meanwhile things have happened that you ought to be informed of without delay, I left home last night to come and tell you about them.’
‘You’ve been unbelievably imprudent!’ said Raymon, carefully closing the door behind him. ‘And my servants know you’re here! They’ve just told me.’
‘I made no secret of my presence,’ she replied coldly, ‘and, as for the word you use, I think it ill-chosen.’
‘I said imprudent; I ought to have said insane.’
‘I would have said courageous. But it doesn’t matter. Listen to me. M. Delmare intends to leave for Bordeaux in three days, and from there for the colonies. It was agreed between us that you would save me from
violence if he used any. There’s no doubt that he will, for I told him my decision yesterday evening and I was locked in my room. I escaped by a window. Look, my hands are bloodstained. At this moment they may be looking for me. But Ralph is at Bellerive and he won’t be able to say where I am. I’ve decided to stay in hiding till M. Delmare has made up his mind to leave me behind. Have you thought of securing a refuge for me, of making preparations for my escape? It’s such a long time since I’ve been able to see you alone that I don’t know what stage your preparations have reached. But one day, when I expressed doubts about your resolution, you told me you couldn’t conceive of love without trust. You pointed out that you had never doubted me; you showed me I was unjust, and then I was afraid of being below your level if I didn’t abandon these childish suspicions and the innumerable feminine demands that degrade commonplace love-affairs. I bore with resignation the shortness of your visits, the constraint of our interviews, the eagerness with which you seemed to avoid any open expression of feeling between us; I kept my trust in you. Heaven is my witness that anxiety and terror gnawed at my heart. I repulsed them as criminal thoughts. Today I have come to seek the reward for my faith. The moment has come. Tell me, do you accept my sacrifices?’
The crisis was so urgent that Raymon no longer had the courage to pretend. Desperate, furious at seeing himself caught in his own snares, he lost his head and let himself go in brutal, coarse language.
‘You’re mad,’ he cried, throwing himself into a chair. ‘Where have you dreamed about love? In what novel written for ladies’ maids have you studied society, I ask you?’
Then he stopped, realizing he had been far too rough and trying to think how to tell her these things in other words and send her away without insulting her.
But she was calm like someone prepared to hear anything.
‘Go on,’ she said crossing her arms over her heart which gradually ceased to throb so violently. ‘I’m listening to you. No doubt you’ve more than that to tell me.’
‘Yet another effort of the imagination, yet another love scene,’ thought Raymon.
And springing to his feet, he cried:
‘Never, never will I accept such sacrifices. When I told you I’d have the strength, I boasted, Indiana, or rather I maligned myself, for only a coward can agree to dishonour the woman he loves. In your ignorance of life, you didn’t understand the seriousness of such a plan, and I, in my despair at the thought of losing you, I didn’t want to give it careful thought
‘Careful thought is coming back to you pretty quickly!’ she said, withdrawing her hand which he wanted to take.
‘Indiana,’ he went on, ‘don’t you see that you impose dishonour on me while reserving heroism for yourself, and that you are condemning me because I want to remain worthy of your love? Could you still love me, ignorant and naive woman that you are, if I sacrificed your life to my pleasures, your reputation to my own interests?’
‘You’re saying very contradictory things,’ said Indiana. ‘If, by staying at your side, I make you happy, what do you fear from public opinion? Do you care about it more than you do for me?’
‘Oh, it’s not for my own sake that I care about it, Indiana! . . .’
‘So it’s for mine? I’ve foreseen your scruples and, to rid you of all remorse, I’ve taken the initiative. I haven’t waited for you to come and snatch me away from my home; I haven’t even consulted you before stepping outside the threshold of my house for ever. That decisive step has been taken and your conscience can’t reproach you with it. At this moment, Raymon, I am dishonoured. In your absence, I counted by this clock the hours that consummated my shame. And now, although daybreak finds my brow as pure as it was yesterday, I’m a lost woman in public opinion. Yesterday, there was still compassion for me in women’s hearts; today there will be nothing but contempt. I weighed all that up before taking action.’
‘Abominable woman’s foresight!’ thought Raymon.
And then, struggling against her as against a bailiff who had come to seize his furniture, he said in a caressing, fatherly tone:
‘You’re exaggerating to yourself the importance of the step you’ve taken. No, my dear, all is not lost because of one blunder. I’ll order my servants to say nothing . . .’
‘Will you order mine to say nothing? They’re probably looking for me anxiously at this very moment. And my husband, do you think he’ll quietly keep the secret? Do you think he’ll be willing to have me back tomorrow when I’ve spent a whole night under your roof? Do you advise me to go back to throw myself at his feet and ask him, as a token of his mercy, to be so good as to put back on my neck the chain that has destroyed my life and blighted my youth? Would you consent, without regret, to the woman you loved so much being returned to the sway of another, when you are master of her fate, when you can keep her in your arms for the rest of your life, when she is there in your power, offering to stay there for ever? Would you have no reluctance, would you not be afraid to give her back straight away to that implacable master who is waiting for her, perhaps only to kill her?’
A sudden thought crossed Raymon’s mind. The moment had arrived to conquer her feminine pride or it never would. She had come to offer him all the sacrifices he did not want and she stood there in front of him haughtily confident that she ran the risk of no other dangers than those she had foreseen. Raymon thought of a way of getting rid of her unwelcome devotion and of gaining something from it. He was too good a friend of Delmare’s, he owed too much consideration to the Colonel’s trust in him, to rob him of his wife; he must content himself with seducing her.
‘You are right, my Indiana,’ he exclaimed eagerly. ‘You bring me back to myself. You revive my ardour which had been frozen by the thought of your dangers and the fear of hurting you. Forgive my childish concern and try to understand all the affection and genuine love contained in it. But your sweet voice makes all my blood tingle, your passionate words pour fire into my veins; forgive me, forgive me for being able to think of anything other than the ineffable moment when I shall possess you. Let me forget all the dangers that beset us and thank you on my knees for the happiness you bring me. Let me live completely in this blissful hour that I am spending at your feet and which all my blood would not pay for. Let him come then to snatch you from my ardent embrace, that stupid husband who locks you up and falls asleep in his coarse brutality. Let him come and drag you from my arms, you, my beloved, my life! Henceforth you no longer belong to him; you are my lover, my companion, my mistress . . .’
While speaking in this way, Raymon grew more and more excited, as he usually did when pleading the cause of his passions. The situation was heady, romantic; it was filled with dangers. Raymon, like a true descendant of a race of valiant knights, loved risk. Every sound he heard in the street seemed to him to be the arrival of the husband coming to claim his wife and his rival’s blood. To seek the raptures of love in the exciting emotions of such a situation was a pleasure worthy of Raymon. For a quarter of an hour he loved Madame Delmare passionately; he lavished on her the seductions of a burning eloquence. His language was powerful, his behaviour sincere—this man whose ardent spirit treated love as an agreeable accomplishment. He enacted passion so well that he deceived himself. Shame on that foolish woman! With delight she let herself be taken in by these deceptive protestations. She felt happy; she was radiant with hope and joy. She forgave everything, she nearly accorded everything.
But Raymon lost his own cause by being in too much of a hurry. If he had used his skill to prolong for another twenty-four hours the situation in which Indiana had ventured to put herself at risk, she might have been his. But the day was breaking bright and crimson; it was casting floods of light into the room and the sounds from outside were increasing every moment. Raymon cast a glance at the clock, which showed seven o’clock.
‘It’s time to make an end of the matter,’ he thought. ‘Delmare might arrive at any moment, and before that I must make her decide to go home voluntarily.�
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He became more pressing and less affectionate. His pale lips betrayed the torment of an impatience more domineering than tactful. There was a certain abruptness, almost anger, in his kisses. Indiana took fright. A good angel spread its wings over that wavering, troubled heart. She recovered herself and repulsed the cold selfish attacks of vice.
‘Leave me,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to give out of weakness what I want to be able to grant out of love or gratitude. You don’t need proofs of my affection; my presence here is proof enough and I bring the future with me. But let me keep all the strength of my conscience to fight against the powerful obstacles that still separate us. I need stoicism and calm.’
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Raymon angrily. He was not listening to her and was furious at her resistance.
And, completely losing his head, hurt and annoyed, he pushed her away roughly, walked up and down the room, his heart heavy and his head on fire. He took up a water jug and gulped down a large glass of water, which suddenly calmed his agitation and cooled his love. Then, looking at her ironically, he said:
‘Come, Madame, it’s time for you to leave.’
At last a ray of light enlightened Indiana and laid Raymon’s heart bare before her.
‘You’re right,’ she said.
And she made her way to the door.
‘But take your cloak and your boa,’ he said, stopping her.