Adolphe

by Benjamin Constant

  Yet I was not unhappy, for I told myself it was sweet to be loved, even possessively, and I felt I was doing her good. Her happiness was essential to me and I knew I was essential for her happiness.

  Moreover a vague notion, and in many ways a saddening one, that in the very nature of things this liaison could not last helped to calm me in my fits of weariness and impatience. Ellenore’s ties with Count P—, our difference in age and standing, my departure that various circumstances had postponed but which was imminent, were so many arguments in favour of my giving and receiving as much happiness as possible. I thought I was sure of the years, and so did not begrudge the days.

  Count P— returned. He very soon suspected my relationship with Ellenore, and each day his welcome was cooler and more sullen. I spoke strongly to Ellenore about the risks she was running and begged her to let me suspend my visits for a few days, pointing out that the future of her reputation, fortune, and children was at stake. She listened in silence for a long time, pale as death. At length she said:

  ‘Whatever happens you will be going away soon; don’t let us anticipate that moment and don’t worry about me. Let us save a few days and hours – days and hours are all I need. Some presentiment tells me, Adolphe, that I shall die in your arms.’

  And so we went on living as before: I always on edge, Ellenore always sad, and the Count taciturn and preoccupied. At last the expected letter arrived; my father ordered me home. I took the letter to Ellenore. ‘Already!’ she said when she had read it, ‘I didn’t think it would be so soon.’ Giving in to her tears she took my hand and said: ‘Adolphe, you see I cannot live without you. I don’t know what will happen to me in the future, but I do beg of you not to go yet. Find excuses for staying, ask your father to let you prolong your stay for six months. Is six months so very long?’ I wanted to break her determination, but she was crying so bitterly and trembling, and her face bore the marks of such heartbreaking suffering, that I could not go on. I fell at her feet, threw my arms round her, swore I loved her, and then went off to write to my father. And indeed I wrote under the impulse that Ellenore’s grief had inspired. I alleged a thousand reasons for this delay; I stressed the advisability of going on with some courses of study at D— that I had not been able to take at Göttingen. When I posted the letter I desperately wanted to get the consent I was asking for.

  That evening I went back to Ellenore. She was sitting on a sofa, Count P— was some distance away near the fireplace and the children were at the other end of the room, not playing, but wearing on their faces that puzzled look of children conscious of some upset the cause of which they cannot fathom. I signalled to Ellenore that I had done what she wanted. Her eyes lit up with joy but soon clouded over again. Not a word was spoken. The silence grew embarrassing for all three. ‘I am told, Sir,’ the Count said at last, ‘that you are ready to leave.’ I answered that I was not aware of it. ‘At your age,’ he went on, ‘it seems to me that one ought not to delay beginning on a career. But of course,’ he added, looking at Ellenore, ‘everybody here may not think as I do.’

  My father’s reply came with all speed. As I opened the letter I trembled at the thought of the grief a refusal would inflict upon Ellenore. I even felt that I would be as grief-stricken as she was; but as I read the consent he agreed to give, all the disadvantages of an extension to my stay suddenly leapt to my mind. ‘Six more months of embarrassment and constraint!’ I exclaimed to myself; ‘six months during which I shall be sinning against a man who has befriended me, exposing to danger a woman who loves me. I am running the risk of depriving her of the only situation in which she might be able to live in peace and with the respect of all. I am deceiving my father, and what for? So as not to have to face for one moment the prospect of a painful scene which is inevitable sooner or later. But aren’t we going through this pain every day, by slow degrees and drop by drop? I am doing nothing but harm to Ellenore, and my feeling for her, whatever it is, cannot satisfy her. I am sacrificing myself for her without any effect upon her happiness, and I myself am existing uselessly, with no independence, not a moment’s freedom, no chance of breathing in peace for a single hour.’ I was full of these reflections as I went in to Ellenore. She was alone. ‘I am staying six months longer,’ I said. ‘Your announcement sounds very bald.’ ‘Well, I admit I am very nervous about the consequences of this extension for both of us.’ ‘It seems to me that they can’t be so very unfortunate for you, at any rate.’ ‘You know perfectly well, Ellenore, that it is never for myself that I am most concerned.’ ‘It is hardly for other people’s happiness, either.’ The conversation had taken a stormy turn. Ellenore was hurt by my regrets in a situation in which she thought I ought to share her joy, whilst I was annoyed at the victory she had won over my earlier resolves. The scene became violent and we burst into mutual recriminations. Ellenore accused me of having deceived her, of having only a passing fancy for her, of having lost her the Count’s affection, of having cast her back into the dubious situation she had been trying to get out of all through her life. I was angry to see her using against me the things I had done solely out of obedience to her and fear of upsetting her, and so I complained of the constraint I was being subjected to, of my youth being wasted in inactivity, of the way she was tyrannizing over my every movement. But as I was speaking I saw her face suddenly wet with tears; I stopped, went back on my own words, retracted, explained. We embraced, but a first blow had been struck, a first frontier crossed. We had both said irreparable things; we might be able to stop talking, but not to forget. There are things which are not said for a very long time, but once they are said they are constantly repeated.

  And so our life went on for four months of strained relationships, sometimes delightful, never completely open, in which some pleasure could still be found but from which all the charm had gone. Ellenore, however, grew no less attached to me. After our most violent quarrels she was just as anxious to see me and arranged the times of our meetings just as carefully as if ours were the most tender and peaceful union. I have often thought that my own behaviour helped to keep Ellenore in this frame of mind. Had I loved her as she loved me she would have been more controlled and considered the dangers she was flouting. But prudence was anathema to her because prudence came from me; she did not count the sacrifices she was making because she was bent on making me accept them; there was no time for her feelings towards me to cool because all her time and energy were devoted to maintaining her hold on me. The new date for my departure was drawing near, and the thought filled me with mingled pleasure and regret, like a man feels when he has to buy an infallible cure at the cost of a painful operation.

  One morning Ellenore wrote asking me to go and see her at once. ‘The Count,’ she said, ‘has forbidden me to see you: I refuse to obey this tyrannical order. I followed that man into exile, saved him from ruin, furthered all his interests. He can do without me now, but I cannot do without you.’ It is easy to imagine the arguments I used to dissuade her from a scheme that struck me as unthinkable. I mentioned public opinion. ‘Public opinion,’ she replied, ‘has never shown any justice to me. For ten years I have fulfilled all my obligations better than any wife, but that has not prevented public opinion from denying me my rightful position.’ I reminded her of her children. ‘My children also belong to M. de P—. He has recognized them and he will look after them. They will be only too fortunate to forget a mother who has nothing to share with them but her shame.’ I redoubled my entreaties. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘if I break with the Count, are you going to refuse to see me? Are you?’ she repeated, gripping my arm so roughly that I flinched. ‘No, of course not,’ I answered, ‘and the greater your misfortune the more devoted I shall be. But do consider…’ ‘Everything has been considered,’ she broke in; ‘but he is coming back, you must go now, and don’t come here again.’

  I spent the rest of that day in a state of unspeakable torment. Two days went by with no news of Ellenore. It was agony not to know her fate an
d agony not to see her, and I was astonished at the pain this deprivation inflicted upon me. Yet I hoped she would have given up a decision I feared so much on her behalf, and I was beginning to persuade myself that she had done so when a letter was handed to me by a woman. In it Ellenore asked me to go and see her on the third floor of a certain house in a certain street. I hurried there, still hoping that as she could not receive me at M. de P—’s house she had wanted to see me elsewhere for the last time. But I found her settling in for a long stay. She came up to me, looking both happy and nervous, and trying to read in my eyes what my impression was. ‘It is all broken off,’ she said, ‘and I am perfectly free. I have an income of my own of seventy-five louis, and that is enough for me. You are staying here six more weeks. When you go perhaps I can come to you, or perhaps you can come back and see me.’ And as though dreading a reply she plunged into a mass of detail about her plans. She tried all manner of ways to convince me that she was going to be happy, that she had given up nothing for me and that the course she had decided upon suited her apart altogether from me. She was clearly making a great effort and only half believing what she was saying, intoxicating herself with words so as not to hear mine, spinning out what she was saying so as to put off the moment when my objections would plunge her back into despair. I could not find it in me to raise a single one, but accepted her sacrifice with thanks, saying how happy it made me; I even went much further and assured her that I had always hoped that an irrevocable determination would make it my duty never to leave her. I ascribed my hesitations to delicacy over agreeing with what must mean her ruin. In a word, I had no other thought than to dispel from her mind any pain, fear, regret, or uncertainty about my feelings. While I was saying all this I was not contemplating anything beyond that object, and I was sincere in my promises.

  Chapter Five

  It was not difficult to foresee the effect in society of the separation of Ellenore and Count P—. In a single moment Ellenore lost the fruit of ten years’ devotion and loyalty, and no distinction was made between her and all the other women of her class who shamelessly indulge in a thousand successive affairs. For leaving her children she was regarded as an unnatural mother, and women of unimpeachable reputation repeated with relish that neglect of the one virtue essential to their sex soon spread to all the others. At the same time people pitied her so as not to forgo the pleasure of blaming me. My conduct was seen as that of a seducer, lacking in all sense of gratitude, who had violated the laws of hospitality and, to satisfy a passing whim, had sacrificed the peace of two people, one of whom he should have treated with respect and the other with consideration. A few of my father’s friends made serious representations, others, less straightforward, made their displeasure felt by devious insinuations. Younger men, however, were delighted with the skill with which I had supplanted the Count and, with numerous witticisms that I tried in vain to discourage, congratulated me on my conquest and undertook to imitate me. I cannot describe how both this harsh criticism and humiliating praise hurt me. I am convinced that if I had really loved Ellenore I should have turned public opinion in our favour, for such is the strength of a true feeling that false interpretations and artificial conventions fall silent when it speaks. But I was an ordinary weak man, both grateful and enslaved, not driven by any motive power from the heart. And so I hedged in confusion, tried to cut conversations short, and if they went on ended them with sharp words that made it clear I was in a mood to pick a quarrel. Indeed I would much rather have fought people than have answered their questions.

  Ellenore soon realized that opinion was turning against her. Two of M. de P—’s women relatives, whom he had forced to be friendly with her, now broke off the connexion with the greatest possible ostentation, delighted to give vent to the spite they had had to conceal for so long beneath the austere principles of morality. Men still saw her, but there crept into their tone a certain familiarity which showed that she no longer had an influential protector behind her, nor was vindicated by an almost official union. Some of them came because, after all, they had known her for years, others because she was still attractive and her recent frailty had given them aspirations they made no effort to disguise. They all found reasons for their connexion with her, which meant that each of them thought the connexion needed some justification. And so the unfortunate Ellenore found herself sunk down for ever into the position she had spent her life trying to rise out of. Everything conspired to bruise her soul and wound her pride. Being dropped by some seemed a proof of their contempt, being taken up by others a sign of some insulting hope. Solitude made her miserable, social life made her ashamed. No doubt I should have consoled her by clasping her to my heart and saying: ‘Let us live only for one another and forget people who do not wish to know us, let us be happy in our respect for each other and our love alone!’ And indeed I tried to do so, but when it comes to reviving a dying love what is the good of determination aroused by a sense of duty?

  Neither Ellenore nor I was frank with the other. She dared not confide her worries to me, for they were the outcome of a sacrifice she knew very well I had never asked of her. I had accepted that sacrifice, and I dared not complain of a misfortune I had foreseen but had not had the strength to forestall. And so we never mentioned the only thing always in our minds. We lavished caresses upon each other and talked of love, but we talked of love for fear of talking about something else.

  The moment some secret exists between two loving hearts, the moment one of them can decide to conceal one single thought from the other, the spell is broken and the bliss destroyed. Anger, injustice, even wandering affections can be put right again, but dissimulation brings into love a foreign element which perverts and withers it even in its own eyes.

  By a strange inconsistency, while I was most indignantly repudiating the slightest insinuation against Ellenore, my general conversation was helping to do her harm. I had submitted to her will, but at the same time developed a horror of the domination of women. I was constantly inveighing against their fickleness, their tyranny, their exacting exhibitions of grief. I made a display of the harshest principles, and the very man who could not stand up against a tear, who gave in before melancholy silence, whose absences were haunted by the vision of the pain he had caused, showed himself scornful and merciless in everything he said. All my direct praises of Ellenore could not dispel the impression such talk produced. People detested me and pitied her, but they did not respect her. They criticized her for not having inspired in her lover more consideration for her sex and more respect for the ties of love.

  One of Ellenore’s regular visitors, who since her break with Count P— had shown the strongest passion for her, was so tactless in his pursuit of her that she was obliged to refuse to see him again. This man then indulged in insulting jokes about her which I felt I could not let pass. We fought, and I wounded him seriously and was wounded myself. I could never describe the mingled anxiety, terror, gratitude, and love on Ellenore’s face when she saw me after this incident. In spite of my entreaties she took up her abode with me and never left me for a moment until my recovery, reading to me by day and sitting up with me most of the night. She watched my slightest movement and anticipated my every wish, and her resourceful kindness sharpened her intelligence and doubled her strength. Over and over again she assured me that she would never have survived me, and I was overcome by affection and torn by remorse. I wished I could have found in myself the wherewithal to reward such faithful and tender attachment, and I called upon memories, imagination, and even reason and sense of duty, but all in vain. The difficulty of the situation and certainty that the future would separate us, and possibly some kind of revolt against a tie I could not break, were tormenting me. I blamed myself for the very ingratitude I was striving to hide from her. I was hurt when she appeared to question a love so necessary to her, but no less hurt when she appeared to believe in it. I felt she was a better person than I was and despised myself for being unworthy of her. It is a dreadful m
isfortune not to be loved when we are in love, but it is a very great one to be loved passionately when we have ceased to love. I had risked my life for Ellenore, but I would have given it a thousand times over to make her happy without me.