Adolphe

by Benjamin Constant

  Until then I had met in the Baron’s house only the men who made up his intimate circle. One day he suggested that I should stay for a grand reception he was giving in honour of his master’s birthday. ‘You will meet some of the most beautiful women in Poland,’ he said. ‘It is true that the woman you love will not be there, and I am sorry, but there are some women whom one only sees in their own homes.’ This expression was a painful one for me, and I remained silent, but I was secretly reproaching myself for not defending Ellenore who, had anyone insulted me in her presence, would have come so readily to my defence.

  It was a large gathering, and I was looked at with great interest. I could hear my father’s name, and those of Ellenore and Count P—, whispered all round me. People stopped talking as I approached and began again as I passed on. It was clear to me that my story was being related, and no doubt each was telling it in his own way. My position was intolerable, and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead. I blushed and went white again and again.

  The Baron noticed my embarrassment. He came up to me and renewed his attentions and kindnesses, took every opportunity to sing my praises, so that the power of his prestige forced the others to show me similar respect.

  After they had all gone M. de T— said to me: ‘I want to speak to you once again with complete frankness. Why are you willing to stay in a situation which you are finding painful? Who stands to gain by it? Do you think people don’t know what is going on between you and Ellenore? Everybody knows about your bitterness and your dissatisfaction with each other. You are doing yourself harm by your weakness and no less harm by your harshness, for, to complete the illogicality of it all, you are giving no happiness to this woman who is making you so unhappy.’

  I was still upset by the unpleasantness I had gone through. The Baron showed me a number of letters from my father which revealed that he was much more grieved than I had supposed. I was shaken. My irresolution was increased by the thought that I was prolonging Ellenore’s sufferings. And then, as though everything were conspiring against her, in the midst of my vacillations she herself brought me to a decision by her own violence. I had been away all day, the Baron had made me stay after the reception until far into the night. In front of M. de T — I was handed a letter from Ellenore. I saw in his eyes a kind of pity for my enslavement. Ellenore’s letter was full of bitter recriminations. ‘What!’ I thought, ‘Can’t I have one single day free? Can’t I breathe in peace for a single hour? She pursues me everywhere, like a slave who has to be brought back to her feet.’ And, my violence increasing with my feeling of powerlessness, I went on aloud: ‘Very well, I undertake to break with Ellenore. I will find the courage to tell her so myself, and you can let my father know in advance.’

  As I said these words I rushed away. I felt overcome by what I had said, and only half believed in the promise I had made.

  Ellenore was waiting impatiently. By a strange chance, while I had been away she had been told for the first time about M. de T—’s efforts to get me away from her. The things I had said, the jokes I had made, had all been reported to her. Once her suspicions were aroused she had linked together in her mind several circumstances which seemed to confirm them. My sudden friendship with a man I formerly never saw, and the close connexion between this man and my father seemed to her irrefutable proofs. Her anxiety had increased so rapidly in a few hours that I now found her fully convinced of what she called my perfidy.

  I had reached her with my mind made up to tell her everything. But when accused by her – can you believe it? – my only concern was to avoid the whole issue. I even denied, yes denied, that day what I had decided to declare on the morrow.

  It was late. I left her and hurried to bed to put an end to this long day, and when I was quite sure that it was really over I felt lightened, for the time being, of an immense burden.

  On the following day I did not get up until nearly noon, as though by putting off the beginning of our explanations I had put off the fateful moment.

  Ellenore had calmed down somewhat during the night, both because she had thought things over and because of what I had said the evening before. The air of confidence with which she discussed her own affairs made it all too clear that she regarded our lives as indissolubly united. Where could I find words with which to thrust her back into solitude?

  Time was flying with terrifying speed. Every minute made an explanation more imperative. Of the three days I had specified the second had already nearly gone. M. de T— expected me within two days at the very most. His letter to my father had been sent off, and I was about to break my promise without having made the slightest effort to keep it. I came and went, took Ellenore’s hand, began a sentence and broke off, watched the sun on its journey down to the horizon. Night fell once again and once again I procrastinated. One day was left; one hour would be enough.

  This day went by like the one before. I wrote to M. de T— asking for still more time and, as weak characters naturally do, I heaped reason upon reason in my letter to justify the delay and show that it did not in any way modify my determination, and that my connexion with Ellenore could from that very moment be regarded as broken for ever.

  Chapter Ten

  I FELT calmer for the next few days, having postponed indefinitely the necessity to act. This necessity no longer haunted me like a spectre and I thought I had plenty of time to prepare Ellenore. I meant to be kinder and more affectionate to her so as to preserve at any rate memories of friendship. My worry was quite different from what I had felt hitherto. I had implored Heaven for some insurmountable obstacle to come between Ellenore and me. This obstacle had now arisen and I looked upon Ellenore as a being I was about to lose. The tyranny I had so often found unbearable had ceased to have any terrors for me, for I felt freed in advance, and hence found more freedom in giving way to her still more, and felt none of that inner revolt which had formerly made me want to tear everything to pieces. All my impatience had gone, and in its place there was an unacknowledged desire to postpone the fateful moment.

  Ellenore noticed that I was more affectionate and demonstrative, and she became less bitter herself. I welcomed conversations I had previously avoided and appreciated her loving words which so recently had irritated me, for now that each time might be the last they had become precious.

  One evening we had separated after a more than usually delightful talk. The secret I kept locked in my heart made me sad but not excessively so. The very uncertainty of the date of the separation I had been wishing for helped to keep the thought of it out of my mind. In the middle of the night I heard an unusual noise going on in the house, but it suddenly stopped, and I dismissed it from my mind. In the morning, however, I thought about it again, and wondering what the reason was I made for Ellenore’s room. To my utter astonishment I was told that for the past twelve hours she had been in a raging fever, that a doctor sent for by her servants had declared her life in danger, and that she had strictly forbidden my being informed or allowed to go to her.

  I tried to insist. The doctor himself came out to impress upon me the necessity of not exciting her in any way. He did not know the reason for the order she had given, but put it down to her desire not to alarm me. I anxiously tried to find out from the servants what could have plunged her so suddenly into such a dangerous condition. After leaving me on the previous evening, I was told, she received a letter brought from Warsaw by a man on horseback, and as soon as she opened it and read it she fainted. On regaining consciousness she flung herself upon her bed and refused to utter a word. One of her maids, worried by her agitated condition, stayed in the room without her knowing, and towards midnight saw her overcome by a fit of trembling which shook the bed. The maid wanted to send for me, but Ellenore forbade this with a kind of terror so violent that nobody dared disobey. A doctor was sent for, but Ellenore refused, and was still refusing, to answer him. All night long she uttered disconnected words that nobody could understand, and often she clapped her handkerchief to her m
outh as though to prevent herself from speaking.

  While I was being told all this another woman who had remained near Ellenore ran out panic-stricken. Ellenore seemed to have lost the use of her senses. She could not see anything round her. Sometimes she uttered piercing screams and repeated my name; then, horrified, would make a gesture as if asking for something hateful to be kept from her.

  I went in. At the foot of the bed I saw two letters. One was mine to Baron T—, the other was from him to Ellenore. The meaning of the terrible mystery was all too clear. All my efforts to gain the time I wanted for our last farewells had worked against the unhappy woman I had hoped to shield. She had read in my own hand my promises to leave her, promises dictated only by the desire to stay with her a little longer and which the very strength of that desire had made me reiterate and enlarge upon in countless ways. M. de T—’s dispassionate eye had easily read between the lines of these reiterated protestations the irresolution I was disguising and the shifts of my own uncertainty, but he had had the cruelty to calculate that Ellenore would take all that for an irrevocable decree. I went up to her. She gazed at me with unseeing eyes. I spoke to her and she shuddered. ‘What is that noise?’ she asked. ‘It is the voice that has hurt me.’ The doctor noticed that my presence was intensifying her delirium, and he urged me to withdraw. How can I describe what I went through for three long hours? At last the doctor came out. Ellenore had fallen into a heavy sleep. He did not give up hope of saving her life provided the fever had abated when she woke.

  She slept for a long time. When I heard that she had awakened I wrote her a note asking her to see me. She sent a message that I could go in. I wanted to speak, but she cut me short. ‘Don’t let me hear a single hard word from you,’ she said. ‘I shall never ask for anything again, nor oppose anything; but that voice I have loved so much, that voice which used to echo in my heart, don’t let it pierce my heart now. Adolphe, Adolphe, I have lacked self-control, I may have offended you, but you don’t know what I have suffered, and please God you never will!’

  She became extremely distressed. She put her forehead against my hand, and it felt burning hot. Her face was twisted in terrible suffering. ‘In Heaven’s name, listen, dearest Ellenore,’ I cried. ‘Yes, I am guilty; that letter…’ She shuddered and tried to move away, but I held her fast. ‘In my weakness and distress,’ I went on, ‘I may have given in momentarily to inexorable pressure, but have you not a thousand proofs that I am incapable of wanting anything that comes between us? I have been discontented, unhappy, unfair, but possibly, by the excessive violence with which you have fought to curb my wayward imagination, you have strengthened what were only passing inclinations which I now despise. But can you question my deep affection? Are not our souls linked by countless ties that nothing can break? Is not all the past shared between us? Can we look back over the last three years and not revive impressions we have shared, pleasures we have enjoyed, troubles we have been through together? Ellenore, let us begin a new chapter this very day, let us remember the hours of joy and love.’ She looked at me for some time with doubt in her eyes. ‘Your father,’ she said at length, ‘your duties, your family, what is expected of you… ’ ‘Possibly,’ I answered, ‘some day, some time…’ But she noticed my hesitation. ‘Oh, God!’ she cried, ‘why did he revive my hopes only to snatch them away again? Adolphe, I do thank you for your efforts, which have done me good, and all the more so because they will not cost you any sacrifice, I hope. But don’t let us talk about the future, I beg of you. Don’t reproach yourself, whatever happens. You have been good to me. I wanted the impossible. Love was my whole life, but it could not be yours. Now look after me for a few days longer.’ The tears flowed from her eyes, her breathing became less laboured and she rested her head on my shoulder. ‘This,’ she said, ‘is where I always wanted to die.’ I held her close to my heart and once again renounced all my plans and disavowed my insensate cruelties.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘you must be free and happy.’ ‘How can I be if you are unhappy?’ ‘I shall not be unhappy for long, you will not have to go on pitying me for long.’ I thrust aside fears I tried to think were illusory. ‘No, no, dear Adolphe, when you have been calling upon death for a long time Heaven sends, when the hour comes, a kind of infallible presentiment warning you that your prayer is heard.’ I swore I would never leave her. ‘That is what I always hoped for, and now I am sure.’

  It was one of those winter days when the sun seems to cast a dismal light over the greyish countryside, as though looking down in pity upon a world it has ceased to warm. Ellenore suggested we might go out. ‘It is very cold,’ I said. ‘Never mind, I should like to go for a walk with you.’ She took my arm and we went on for a long time without saying a word, she walking with difficulty and leaning heavily upon me. ‘Shall we stop for a moment?’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘it is so pleasant to feel your support once again.’ We relapsed into silence. The sky was clear, but the trees were bare; there was not a breath of wind and no bird cleaved the still air. Everything was motionless, and the only sound to be heard was of the frozen grass being crunched beneath our feet. ‘How calm it all is!’ said Ellenore. ‘Look how resigned nature is! Shouldn’t our hearts learn resignation too?’ She sat upon a boulder, then dropped on to her knees and buried her head in her hands. I heard a few whispered words and realized she was praying. At length she rose and said: ‘Let us go home. I have got cold and I am afraid of being ill. Don’t say anything. I am not capable of taking it in.’

  From that day onwards Ellenore was visibly weakening and fading away. I called in all the doctors I could find. Some pronounced that she was incurably stricken, others lulled me with false hopes, but nature, dark and inscrutable, carried on her inexorable work with an invisible hand. Sometimes Ellenore seemed to be recovering, and then it was as if the iron hand weighing down upon her had been lifted. She raised her drooping head, her cheeks took on a little more colour and her eyes lit up; and then suddenly the deceptive improvement was wiped out by the cruel trick of some unknown power, the cause of which no doctor’s art could discover. And so I watched her slowly moving towards her end; I saw the warning signs of death stamp themselves upon her noble and expressive features. I saw, and what a humiliating and dreadful sight it was, that proud, forceful character of hers suffer a thousand confused and incoherent transformations through bodily pain as though at this awful moment her soul, crushed by her physical being, was changing its shape in countless ways in order to adapt itself the less painfully to the dissolution of her body.

  One sentiment alone never varied in her, and that was her feeling for me. She was too weak to be able to say much, but she looked at me in silence and at these times I had the impression that she was begging me to give her life, which I could no longer do. I was afraid of exciting her unduly, and invented pretexts for going out, when I wandered from one to another of the places where I had been with her, weeping at the sight of stones, beneath trees, in the presence of all the things which brought back memories of her.

  It was not the mere heartache of love, but a deeper and more desolate emotion, for love so identifies itself with the beloved that even in its despair there is a certain charm. Love struggles against reality, the keenness of its desire makes it overrate its strength and uplifts it in the midst of woe. But my grief was dismal and solitary. I did not hope to die with Ellenore, but was going to live on without her in the wilderness of this world, in which I had so often wanted to be an independent traveller. I had crushed the one who loved me, broken this heart which like a twin soul had been unfailingly devoted to mine in tireless affection, and already I was overcome by loneliness. Ellenore was still alive but already past sharing my confidences; I was already alone in the world and no longer living in that atmosphere of love with which she had surrounded me, and the very air I breathed seemed harsher, the faces of the men I met seemed more unconcerned. All nature seemed to be telling me that soon I should cease to be loved, and for ever.

  E
llenore’s peril suddenly became more imminent, and unmistakable symptoms proclaimed that her end was near. She was warned of this by a priest of her own faith. She asked me to bring her a box containing a quantity of papers, had some of them burned in her presence, but appeared to be looking for one which she could not find and was in great distress. I begged her to give up the search which was upsetting her so much and during which she fainted twice. ‘Very well,’ she answered, ‘but, dear Adolphe, do not refuse me one request. You will find somewhere among my papers a letter addressed to you. Burn it unread, I do beseech you in the name of our love, in the name of these last moments which you have made easier for me.’ I promised, and she grew calmer. ‘And now leave me to devote myself to my religious duties,’ she said. ‘I have many sins to atone for – perhaps my love for you has been a sin, but I could not believe that if it made you happy.’