Adolphe

by Benjamin Constant

  There was a sharp and violent tone in her voice which betokened firm determination rather than deep or touching emotion. For some time she had been showing irritation even while asking me for things, as though I had already refused them. She could make me do whatever she liked, but she knew that what I did was belied by what I thought. She would have liked to penetrate into the innermost shrine of my thoughts and break down the sullen resistance which angered her. I mentioned my circumstances, my father’s wishes, my own desire, I begged and stormed, but she was unshakeable. I tried to rekindle her generosity, just as though love were not the most self-centred of all passions, and consequently the least generous when flouted. I had the fantastic idea of trying to touch her heart by the unhappy plight I was in through remaining with her, but I only succeeded in exasperating her. I promised to go and see her in Poland, but she only read into my reserved and guarded promises my impatience to get away from her.

  The first year of our stay in Caden had come to an end without there being any change in our situation. Whenever Ellenore found me moody or depressed she began by being distressed, then took offence and by her recriminations dragged from me an admission of the weariness I would have liked to conceal. For my part, if Ellenore seemed to be happy I was annoyed to see her enjoying a state of affairs that was costing me my own happiness, and I upset her brief enjoyment by insinuations which enlightened her about my inner feelings. And so we took turns at attacking each other with indirect remarks, only to retreat afterwards into general protestations and vague self-justification, finally relapsing into silence. For we were each so perfectly aware of what the other was on the point of saying that we both kept quiet in order not to have to hear it. Sometimes one of us was ready to give way, but we missed the right moment for reconciliation. Our mistrustful and wounded hearts were no longer in harmony.

  I often wondered why I stayed on in such an irksome position, and told myself that it was because Ellenore would follow me if I ran away, and that would involve yet another sacrifice. But I decided that I must humour her one last time, for she could make no further demands on me once I had returned her to her own family circle. I was just about to suggest going with her to Poland when she received news that her father had died suddenly. He had made her his sole heir, but his will was contradicted by letters of a later date that some distant relations were threatening to use to their advantage. Although for a long time she had not had much to do with her father, Ellenore was grief-stricken by his death, and reproached herself for having abandoned him. Soon she put the blame for this on me. ‘You have made me fail in a sacred duty. Now nothing is involved except my money, and I will sacrifice that for you even more willingly. But I am certainly not going on my own to a country where I shall find nothing but enemies.’ ‘I have never sought,’ I answered, ‘to make you fail in any duty, but I confess that I should have liked you to deign to consider that I also was finding it painful to be failing in mine. I have not managed to get you to do me this much justice. Very well, I give in, Ellenore; your interests overrule every other consideration. We will set off together whenever you like.’

  And we did indeed set off. The things of interest on the journey and their novelty, with the efforts we made to keep ourselves under control, did from time to time bring back some remnants of affection. Our long familiarity with each other’s character and the varied circumstances we had come through together had given our every word, almost our every movement, memories which suddenly carried us back into the past and filled us with an involuntary tenderness as lightning flashes through the night but does not dispel it. We were living, so to speak, on a sort of memory of the heart, strong enough to make the thought of separation painful, but too weak for us to find satisfaction in being together. I indulged in these emotions as a relaxation from my normal tension. I would have liked to give Ellenore tokens of my love that would have made her happy, and indeed I sometimes went back to the language of love, but these emotions and this language resembled the pale and faded leaves which, like remains of funeral wreaths, grow listlessly on the branches of an uprooted tree.

  Chapter Seven

  As soon as she arrived Ellenore was granted permission to assume full enjoyment of the disputed estate on condition that she would not dispose of anything until the case had been settled. She took up residence in one of her father’s properties. My own father, who never broached any subject directly in his letters, confined himself to filling them with insinuations against my journey. For example: ‘You told me you were not going; you had developed at great length all your reasons for not going. Consequently I was perfectly sure you would go. I can only feel pity that with your spirit of independence you invariably do what you do not want to do. Not that I can pass judgement on a situation with which I am only partially acquainted. Until now you have been, as far as I could see, Ellenore’s protector, and in that relationship there was something chivalrous in your behaviour which did honour to your character, whatever the person to whom you were attached. But today your relationship is not the same at all; it is no longer you who are keeping her, but she you; you are living in her house, a stranger she is bringing into her family. I make no comment upon a position that is your own choice, but as it may have some drawbacks for you I would like to attenuate them as far as it lies within my power. I am writing a letter of recommendation to Baron T—, our minister in the country where you now are. I do not know whether it will suit you to use this recommendation, but there is no need to read into it anything more than a proof of my desire to help – not a threat to the independence you have always managed to defend so successfully against your father.’

  I stifled the thoughts that this kind of style inspired. The estate where I was living with Ellenore was quite near Warsaw, so I went into the city and saw Baron T—. He welcomed me kindly, asked the reason for my stay in Poland and what my plans were. I was not too sure how to answer. After a few minutes of embarrassed conversation he said: ‘I am going to be frank with you. I know the motives that have brought you to this country – your father has written to me. I might even say that I sympathize with them, for indeed there is no man alive who has not once in his life been torn between desire to break off an unsuitable affair and fear of hurting a woman he once loved. In their inexperience young men greatly exaggerate the difficulties of such a situation; they like to believe in the genuinenesss of all those exhibitions of grief which the weak and passionate sex uses as a substitute for all the weapons of strength and reason. The heart is wounded, but self-esteem is flattered, and a young man who in all good faith thinks he is yielding to the despair of which he is the cause is in reality only sacrificing himself to the illusions of his own vanity. Not one of the passionate women of whom the world is full has not protested that she would die if abandoned, but every single one of them is still alive and has found consolation.’ I made as if to interrupt. ‘Forgive me, my young friend,’ he went on, ‘if I am not expressing myself with sufficient tact, but the good reports I have had of you, the talents you clearly possess and the career you ought to take up, lay upon me an obligation to hold nothing back. I can read your soul in spite of you and better than you can yourself; you are no longer in love with the woman who is dominating you and dragging you in her wake, for if you still were you would not have come to see me. You knew your father had written to me and it was easy for you to foresee what I had to say to you; you have not been sorry to hear from my mouth arguments you are constantly going over in your own mind, and always fruitlessly. Ellenore’s reputation is far from being spotless…’ ‘Please let us put an end to a pointless conversation,’ I broke in. ‘Ellenore’s early years may have been shaped by unhappy circumstances, and deceptive appearances may give rise to harsh judgements. But I have known her for three years now, and a loftier soul, a nobler character, and a purer and more generous heart cannot be found on this earth.’ ‘That may well be,’ he replied, ‘but public opinion does not go into fine distinctions of that kind. The facts are cle
ar and public property. Do you think that by preventing my referring to them you can destroy them? Look here, in this world we must know what we want. You are not going to marry Ellenore?’ ‘No, I don’t think so,’ I exclaimed, ‘she has never wanted that herself.’ ‘Then what do you propose to do? She is ten years older than you, and you are twenty-six; you will look after her another ten years and she will be old whilst you will have reached the prime of life with nothing satisfying either begun or finished. You will be given up to boredom and she to ill-temper; each day you will find her less attractive and each day she will find you more necessary. And the total result of your illustrious birth, brilliant fortune, and superior intellect will be your vegetating somewhere in Poland, forgotten by your friends, lost to fame and tormented by a woman who will never be pleased with you, whatever you do. I will add only one word more and we will never again refer to this embarrasing subject. All careers are open to you: literature, the army, administration, and you can aspire to the most brilliant of marriages, you are born to succeed in any direction, but you must bear in mind that between you and all kinds of success there is an insuperable obstacle, and this obstacle is Ellenore.’ ‘Sir,’ I answered, ‘I felt I owed it to you to hear you in silence, but I also owe it to myself to declare that you have not shaken me. I must repeat that nobody can judge Ellenore but myself; nobody else fully recognizes the genuineness of her feelings and the depth of her emotions. As long as she needs me I shall stay by her side. No success could console me for leaving her in misery, and if I had to confine my whole career to rendering her assistance, upholding her in her tribulations, surrounding her with my protecting love against the injustices of prejudiced public opinion, I should not think I had spent my life in vain.’

  I went out as I finished this speech. But who can explain what instability made the sentiment that was dictating it perish before I had even finished saying the words? I deliberately set out to return on foot so as to put off the moment of seeing this very Ellenore I had just been defending, and I hurried through the town in my eagerness to be alone.

  When I reached open country I slackened my pace, and countless thoughts crowded in upon me. The fateful words: ‘Between you and all kinds of success there is an insuperable obstacle, and this obstacle is Ellenore,’ echoed all round me. I looked back long and wistfully over the time that had gone by, never to return, recalling the hopes of my youth, the confidence with which I had once thought I could command the future, the praises that greeted my earliest ventures, the dawning of a reputation I had seen brighten and then fade away. I went over the names of many of my fellow students whom I had treated with lofty disdain but who, simply by sticking to work and living a regular life, had now left me far behind on the road to fortune, prestige and glory, and my own inaction weighed heavily on me. As misers conjure up in the treasures they have amassed all the goods those treasures could buy, so I saw in Ellenore deprivation of all the successes I might have expected. It was not just one career I mourned; as I had never tried any career I mourned them all. Never having put my talents to the test, I imagined they were limitless and cursed them because of it, wishing nature had made me weak and commonplace, and spared me at any rate the remorse that comes from deliberate self-abasement. Any praise or approval of my intelligence or knowledge seemed an unbearable reproach, like hearing admiration for the powerful arms of an athlete chained down in a dungeon. Whenever I made a bid to regain my courage and tell myself that the time for action was not yet past, the vision of Ellenore rose up before me like a ghost and thrust me back into the void. I fell into fits of rage against her, but in some oddly confused way these rages did nothing to lessen my terror at the thought of hurting her.

  Exhausted by these bitter emotions, my soul suddenly tried to find refuge in opposite ones. A few words dropped casually by Baron T— about the possibility of my finding happiness and tranquillity in marriage helped to build up in my mind the ideal wife. I mused on the peace, the honourable position, and even independence such an outcome would provide, for the fetters with which I had been hampered for so long made me a thousand times more dependent than an official, accepted union could ever have done. I imagined my father’s joy; I felt a keen impatience to resume my rightful place in my own country and among my equals; I saw myself balancing austere and irreproachable behaviour against all the things alleged about me by the coldly or frivolously spiteful and all the criticisms heaped upon me by Ellenore.

  ‘She continually accuses me of being hard, ungrateful, pitiless. Ah, if Heaven had vouchsafed me a partner whom social conventions had allowed me to acknowledge and my father would not have been ashamed to accept as a daughter, I should have been a thousand times happier in making her happy. These feelings of mine are now being disparaged because they are hurt and suffering. These feelings are being peremptorily ordered to manifest themselves in demonstrations which my heart refuses to concede to scenes and threats, how lovely it would be to indulge them with a woman I loved and who shared with me a regular and respected way of life! What have I not done for Ellenore? For her I left my country and family, for her I have inflicted grief upon my aged father who even now is sorrowing far away, for her I am living in this place where my youth is flying by in solitude, without fame, honour, or pleasure. Are not all these sacrifices, made without duty or love, a proof of what love and duty could make me do? If I am so afraid of the sorrow of a woman who only dominates me by her sorrow, what care I should give to removing every affliction, every pain from the life of the woman I could openly devote myself to, without regrets or reservations! How different I should appear from what I am now! How swiftly I should see the end of this bitterness which I am now being blamed for because its origin is unknown! How grateful I should be to Heaven and how well disposed towards men!’

  So I told myself; my eyes filled with tears as a thousand memories flooded back into my soul. My relationship with Ellenore had poisoned all these memories for me. Everything that reminded me of my childhood, the scenes amongst which my earliest years had been spent, the companions in my first games, the elderly relations who had lavished upon me the first tokens of their interest, all these things wounded and tortured me, and I was forced to thrust aside the most delectable visions and natural aspirations as if they were guilty thoughts. On the other hand the wife suddenly conjured up by my imagination fitted into all these visions and made all such wishes permissible; she was identified with all my duties, pleasures, tastes, she linked my present life with that phase of my youth when hope opened out before me such a vast prospect, that period from which Ellenore separated me like a chasm. The minutest details and tiniest things came back clearly into my mind: I could see the ancient castle where I had lived with my father, the surrounding woods and the river lapping against its walls, the mountains closing its horizon, and all these things seemed so real, so intensely alive that they made me tremble almost unbearably, and among them my imagination placed a young and innocent creature adorning them, animating them with hope. I wandered on, lost in this reverie and still with no plan in mind, not telling myself I must break with Ellenore, not even having anything more than a dim and confused impression of reality, and like a man broken by trouble, consoled in sleep by a dream, but foreseeing that the dream must have an end. Suddenly I saw Ellenore’s house which I had been unconsciously approaching. I stopped short and then took another turning, glad to put off the moment of hearing her voice again.

  Daylight was waning, the sky was still, the countryside was becoming deserted. Men were giving up their toil and were leaving nature to herself. Gradually my thoughts took on a more serious and portentous tone. In the ever deepening shades of night, in the great silence which enveloped me, broken only by an occasional distant sound, my agitation was succeeded by a calmer and more solemn frame of mind. I cast my eyes round the greyish horizon whose boundaries had faded from sight, and that in itself gave me a sense of limitless space. It was a long time since I had felt anything of the kind. Having been cont
inually taken up in exclusively personal reflections, with my eyes always trained upon my own situation, I had become unfamiliar with general ideas; only concerned with Ellenore and myself – with Ellenore who inspired only pity mingled with weariness and with myself for whom I had ceased to have any respect – I had shrunk, as it were, into a new kind of self-centredness, one without courage, discontented and humiliated. And so it was with self-congratulation that I awoke once again to thoughts of another order and found I still had the ability to forget myself and devote my mind to impersonal meditation: my soul seemed to be emerging from a long and shameful abasement.