Indiana (Oxford World's Classics)

by George Sand

  As for Ralph, in his walks, he was attracted towards dark, enclosed places where the winds from the sea could not reach him, for the sight of the ocean had become distasteful to him, as well as the idea of crossing it again. In his heart’s memory, France had only an accursed place. It was there that unhappiness had brought him to the brink of despair, a man who was used to misfortune and bore his ills patiently. He tried with all his might to forget it, for however weary of life he was, he wanted to live as long as he would feel himself necessary. So he took care never to say one word connected with his stay in that country. What he would have given to tear its horrible memory away from Madame Delmare! But he had such a poor opinion of his own ability, he felt so clumsy and so lacking in eloquence, that he shunned her rather than tried to take her mind off it. In his excessive, sensitive reserve he continued to assume all the appearance of coldness and selfishness. He went far afield to suffer alone, and to see him determinedly combing the woods and mountains in pursuit of birds and insects, one would have said he was a naturalist hunter absorbed in his innocent passion and completely detached from the emotional interests all around him. And yet hunting and nature-study were only the pretexts with which he covered his long, bitter reveries.

  This conical island is split all round its base and conceals in the gaps deep gorges, where the pure waters of turbulent rivers flow. One of these gorges is called Bernica. It is a picturesque place, a kind of deep, narrow valley, hidden between two perpendicular walls of rock, whose surface is clothed with clumps of saxatile shrubs* and tufts of ferns.

  A stream flows in the groove formed by the junction of the two sides. At the point where they meet, it hurtles down into terrifying depths and at the spot where it falls, it forms a little pool surrounded by reeds and by a damp mist. Around its banks and at the edges of the trickle of water fed by the overflow from the pool, grow litchi, banana, and orange trees, whose dark, luxuriant green covers the interior walls of the gorge. It was there that Ralph retreated from the heat and from company. All his walks brought him back to this favourite spot. The fresh, monotonous sound of the waterfall lulled his melancholy to sleep. When his heart was troubled by his secret anguish so long harboured and so cruelly misunderstood, it was there that, in unseen tears, in silent laments, he expended his unused emotional energy and the pent up activity of his youth.

  To enable you to understand Ralph’s character, perhaps I should tell you that at least half his life had been passed in the heart of this ravine. It was there that, from his earliest childhood, he would come to strengthen his courage against the injustices of which he was a victim in his family. It was there that he would strive with all his might against the arbitrariness of his destiny, and that he had acquired the habit of stoicism to such an extent that it had become second nature to him. There too, in his adolescence, he had carried little Indiana on his shoulders. He had set her down on the river bank while he fished for camarous* in the clear water or tried to scale the cliff to look for birds’ nests.

  The only inhabitants of that solitude were the seagulls, the petrels, the coots, and the sea swallows. These seabirds could continually be seen flying up and down in the gorge, hovering overhead, or circling round, for, to rear their wild broods, they had chosen the holes and clefts in those inaccessible walls. Towards evening, they would collect in uneasy flocks and fill the echoing gorge with their fierce, raucous cries. Ralph liked to follow their majestic flights and listen to their melancholy voices. He pointed out to her the beautiful Madagascar teal with its orange breast and emerald back. He taught her to admire the flight of the red-winged tropic bird which is sometimes to be found on the island’s coasts and flies in a few hours from Mauritius to Rodrigues Island, where, after journeying up to five hundred miles across the sea, it returns every evening to sleep under the veloutier* which conceals its nestful of young. The black-backed gull, forerunner of storms, would also come and spread its tapering wings over these cliffs. And the queen of the sea, the magnificent frigate bird with its forked tail, its slate-coloured coat, and its finely chiselled beak, which alights so rarely that it seems as if the air is its natural habitat and perpetual motion its nature, would raise its cry of distress above all the others. These wild inhabitants had evidently become used to seeing the two children wandering around their dwellings, for they hardly deigned to take fright at their approach, and when Ralph reached the rock where they had just settled, they arose in black whirling clouds and alighted a few feet above him. Indiana would laugh at their twistings and turnings, and then carefully bring back in her rice-straw hat the eggs that Ralph had managed to steal for her and that often he had to fight bravely for against strong blows from the wings of the great amphibious birds.

  These memories crowded back into Ralph’s mind, but with extreme bitterness, for times had greatly changed and the little girl who had been his constant companion was no longer his special friend, or at least, no longer with all her heart as in the past. Although she returned his affectionate care and devotion, there was one point which stood in the way of trust between them, a memory on which all the emotions of their lives turned like a pivot. Ralph felt that he could not touch on it. On one day fraught with danger, he had dared to do so on a single occasion, and that courageous act had been to no purpose. To return to it now would have been cold-blooded barbarity and Ralph would have decided to forgive Raymon, the man for whom he had less esteem than anyone in the world, rather than add to Indiana’s sorrows by condemning him as he thought justice demanded.

  So Ralph said nothing and he even avoided her. Although they lived under the same roof, he had managed hardly ever to see her except at meal times, and yet, like a mysterious providence, he watched over her. He left the house only when the heat confined her to her hammock but, in the evening, when she had gone out, he would find a way of leaving Delmare on the verandah and go to wait for her at the foot of the cliffs where he knew she usually sat. He would stay there for hours on end, sometimes looking at her through the branches which were beginning to look white in the moonlight, but respecting the small space which separated them and not venturing to shorten by a moment her sad reverie. When she came down into the valley again, she always found him by the bank of a little stream which flowed alongside the path to the house. Some large, flat stones, surrounded by silvery ripples of water, served him as a seat. When Indiana’s white dress was visible on the bank, Ralph would get up in silence, offer her his arm, and bring her back to the house without saying a word to her, unless, more sad and depressed than usual, she herself began the conversation. Then, when he had left her, he would retire to his room and, before going to bed, would wait until everyone in the house was asleep. If Delmare raised his voice to scold her, Ralph, under the first pretext that occurred to him, would go to the Colonel and manage to calm him down or divert his thoughts without ever letting him suspect that that was his purpose. This house, as it were transparent compared to those in our climate, this continual necessity of always being in each other’s presence, forced the Colonel to exercise more restraint in his outbursts. The unavoidable person of Ralph, who, at the least sound, would come and place himself between Delmare and his wife, forced him to control himself, for he had enough self-respect to master his temper before that strict though silent censor. And so, to give vent to the bad mood which his business worries had intensified in him during the day, he would wait until bedtime had delivered him from his judge. But it was in vain; the hidden influence was keeping watch with him and at the first bitter word, at the first sound of a raised voice which would resound through the thin walls of his house, a sound of moving furniture, or of someone walking about, coming by chance from Ralph’s room, seemed to impose silence on him and tell him that Indiana’s discreet, patient, solicitous protector was not falling asleep.

  PART 4

  XXV

  Now, it so happened that the ministry of 8 August,* which caused so many upsets in France, dealt a hard blow to the security of Raymon’s position.
M. de Ramière was not one of those blindly vain individuals who were triumphant over one day’s victory. He had made politics the life-blood of all his thoughts, the basis of all his dreams of the future. He had flattered himself that the King, by pursuing a policy of shrewd concessions, would, for a long time to come, maintain the balance which assured the existence of the noble families. But the arrival on the scene of the Prince de Polignac* destroyed that hope. Raymon saw too far ahead, he was too well known in the new society, not to be on his guard against the momentary victory. He realized that his whole future was at risk with the monarchy’s and that his fortune, perhaps his life, was hanging by a thread.

  He found himself then in a delicate and embarrassing position. He was in honour bound, in spite of all the risks of such devotion, to devote himself to the family whose interests until then had been closely tied to his own.* In this matter, he could hardly deceive his conscience and the memory of his kinsfolk. But this new order, this tendency towards absolutism, shocked his prudence, his reason, and, he said, his deep convictions. It compromised his whole existence; it was worse than that, it made him look ridiculous, him, a famous publicist who had dared to promise so many times, in the name of the crown, justice for all and fidelity to the sworn agreement. Now, all the government did gave the lie officially to the young eclectic’s imprudent assertions. All the tranquil and lazy-minded, who, two days earlier, asked only to attach themselves to the constitutional monarchy, began to rush into the opposition and to treat the efforts of Raymon and his fellows as deceitful tricks. The most courteous accused them of lack of foresight and incapacity. Raymon felt that it was humiliating to be considered a dupe after playing such a brilliant part in the political game. Secretly he began to curse and despise that royalty which was debasing itself and dragging him down in its fall. He would have liked to be able to detach himself from it without shame before the hour of battle. For some time he made incredible mental efforts to win the confidence of both camps. The opposition groups of that period were not difficult about the admission of new adherents. These groups needed recruits and, thanks to the few credentials that were required, they enlisted a fair number. Moreover, they did not despise the support of great names and, every day, flattery which they skilfully slipped into their newspapers tended to detach the brightest jewels from the worn-out crown. Raymon was not duped by these demonstrations of esteem, but he did not reject them, convinced as he was of their usefulness. On the other hand, the champions of the monarchy showed more intolerance as their situation became more desperate. They drove from their ranks, thoughtlessly and without consideration, their most useful defenders. They soon began to show their displeasure and mistrust to Raymon. He, for his part, embarrassed, deeply attached to his reputation as the principal advantage he possessed in life, was very conveniently attacked by a bout of acute rheumatism, which forced him to give up every kind of work for the time being and retreat to the country with his mother.

  In this isolation, Raymon really suffered at finding himself discarded like a corpse amid the frenetic activity of a society on the brink of dissolution, at feeling prevented, as much by the embarrassment of choosing a colour* as by illness, from being enrolled under the warlike banners which were waving on all sides to summon the most obscure and incapable to the great fight. The acute pain of his illness, solitude, boredom, and fever imperceptibly gave his ideas a different direction. He wondered, perhaps for the first time, if society deserved all the care he had taken to please it, and, at seeing it so indifferent towards him, so forgetful of his talents and his glory, he passed judgement on society. Then he consoled himself for having been its dupe by assuring himself that he had only sought in it his personal well-being and had found it there, thanks to himself. Nothing confirms us in selfishness as much as reflection. From it Raymon drew the conclusion: as a social being, man needs two kinds of happiness, the happiness of public life and that of private life, social triumphs and family joys.

  His mother, who looked after him assiduously, fell dangerously ill. It was his turn to forget his ills and take care of her, but his strength was not adequate. Ardent, passionate souls acquire enduring, miraculous health in dangerous days, but placid indolent souls do not endow the body with supernatural bouts of strength. Although Raymon was a good son, as these words are understood in society, he succumbed physically under the weight of fatigue. Stretched out on his bed of pain, having at his bedside only paid servants or, occasionally, friends impatient to return to the excitement of social life, he began to think of Indiana; he sincerely regretted her, for at this time she would have been a great help to him. He recalled the dutiful care he had seen her take of her old, bad-tempered husband and he imagined the soothing attentions and the comforts which she would have had the skill to lavish on her lover.

  ‘If I had accepted her sacrifice,’ he thought, ‘she would be dishonoured, but what would that matter to me in my present plight? Abandoned by a frivolous, selfish society, I would not be alone. The woman scornfully rejected by everyone would be lovingly at my feet. She would weep over my suffering; she would know how to alleviate it. Why did I turn that woman away? She loved me so much that she would have been able to console herself for the insults of others by spreading some happiness over my domestic life.’

  He resolved to get married when he was better and he went over in his mind the names and faces that had struck him in the salons of the two sections of society.* Charming visions passed through his dreams, hair piled with flowers, snow-white shoulders wrapped in swansdown, supple bodices encased in muslin or satin; these attractive phantoms fluttered their gauze wings beneath Raymon’s heavy, burning gaze, but he had seen these peris* only in the perfumed whirlwind of the ballroom. When he woke up, he wondered if their rosy lips had other smiles than those of coquetry, if their white hands could dress the wounds of grief, if their subtle, brilliant minds could descend to the painful task of consoling and entertaining an invalid laden with worries. Raymon was a man with a clear head and, more than other men, he mistrusted feminine coquetry; more than others, he hated selfishness because he knew that there was nothing to be gained there for his own happiness. And then Raymon found it as difficult to choose a wife as to choose a political colour. The same reasons imposed deliberation and prudence. He belonged to an aristocratic, exclusive family which would not tolerate a misalliance, but nevertheless, wealth was to be found with certainty only in plebeian families. According to all appearances, that class was going to rise on the ruins of the other, and to remain in the forefront of public life one had to be the son-in-law of an industrialist or a stockbroker. So Raymon thought it was wise to wait and see which way the wind would blow before embarking on a course of action that would decide his whole future.

  These practical reflections showed him clearly the coldness of heart that presides over marriages of convenience, and the hope of having one day a companion worthy of his love only entered by chance into his prospects of happiness. Meanwhile his illness might be a long one and the hope of better days does not wipe out the acute feeling of present pain. He returned to the painful thought of his blindness on the day he had refused to elope with Madame Delmare and he cursed himself for having so little understood his own real interests.

  Meanwhile, he received the letter that Indiana wrote to him from Bourbon Island. The grim, inflexible strength she retained, in the midst of misfortunes which ought to have broken her spirit, made a strong impression on Raymon.

  ‘I judged her wrongly,’ he thought. ‘She truly loved me; she loves me still. For me she would have been capable of those heroic efforts which I thought were beyond a woman’s strength. And now I would perhaps only have to say a word to attract her, like an irresistible magnet, from one end of the world to the other. If six months, perhaps eight months, were not needed to achieve that aim, I would like to try!’

  He fell asleep with this thought in his mind, but he was soon woken up by a great bustle in the room next door. He got up with difficulty,
put on a dressing-gown, and dragged himself to his mother’s room. She was very ill indeed.

  Towards morning, she recovered enough strength to talk to him. She had no illusion about the short space of time that remained to her to live; she was concerned about her son’s future.

  ‘You are losing your best friend,’ she said. ‘May heaven replace her with a companion worthy of you. But be prudent, Raymon, and don’t risk the peace of your whole life for an ambitious day-dream. I only knew one woman, alas, whom I would like to have called my daughter, but heaven had disposed of her. But listen, my son. M. Delmare is old and broken. Who knows if that long journey has not exhausted what strength remained to him? Respect his wife’s honour as long as he is alive; but if, as I believe, he is called to follow soon after me to the grave, remember that there is still one woman in the world who loves you almost as much as your mother has loved you.’

  In the evening, Madame de Ramière died in her son’s arms. Raymon’s grief was bitter and deep. In the face of such a loss, there could be neither false emotion nor cold scheming. His mother was really necessary to him; with her he lost all the moral well-being of his life. On her pale brow and lifeless eyes he shed tears of despair; he cursed his destiny; he wept, too, for Indiana. He called God to account for the happiness He owed him; he reproached Him for treating him like any other man and snatching everything away from him at once. Then he doubted the existence of this God who chastised him. He preferred to deny Him rather than submit to His decrees. He lost all his illusions and all his perception of the realities of his life, and he went back to his bed of fever and suffering, broken like a fallen king, like a cursed angel.