Read Ebook: The Marquis de Villemer by Sand George Keeler Ralph Translator

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Ebook has 1339 lines and 97936 words, and 27 pages

"No, Madame, no one has troubled me in that way. I do not believe in persecutions which are not at all encouraged."

"I think as you do, and I am satisfied with your manner of answering. Do you, then, fear nothing for yourself in the future?"

"I fear nothing at all."

"And will not this solitude of the heart make you sad or sullen?"

"I do not foresee it in any way. I am naturally cheerful, and I have preserved my command over myself in the midst of the most cruel tests. I have no dream of love in my head; I am not romantic. If I ever change I shall be very much astonished. That, Madame, is all I can tell you about myself. Will you take me such as I represent myself with confidence, since I can after all but give myself out for what I know myself to be?"

"Yes, I take you for what you are,--an excellent young woman, full of frankness and good-will. It remains to be seen whether you really have the little attainments that I require."

"What must I do?"

"Talk, in the first place; and upon that point I am already satisfied. And then you must read, and play a little music."

"Try me right away; and if the little I can do suits you--"

"Yes, yes," she said, putting a book into my hands, "do read; I want to be enchanted with you."

At the end of a page she took the book away from me, with the remark that my reading was perfect. Then came the music. There was a piano in the room. She asked me if I could read at sight. As that is about all I can do, I could satisfy her again on that point. Finally she told me that, knowing my writing and my style of composition, from letters of mine which Madame d'Arglade had shown her, she considered that I would be an excellent secretary, and she dismissed me, giving me her hand, and saying many kind things to me. I asked her for one day--to-morrow--in order to see some people here with whom we are acquainted, and she has given orders that I should be installed Saturday.--

Dear sister, I have just been interrupted. What a pleasant surprise! It is a note from Madame de Villemer,--a note of three lines, which I transcribe for you:--

"Permit me, dear child, to send you a trifle on account, for your sister's children, and a little dress for yourself. As you are fond of dress we must humor the weaknesses of those we like. It is arranged and understood that you are to have a hundred and fifty francs a month, and that I take upon myself to keep you in clothes."

How good and motherly that is,--is it not? I see that I shall love that woman with all my heart, and that I had not estimated her, at first sight, as highly as she deserved. She is more impulsive than I thought. The five hundred franc bill I enclose in this letter. Make haste! some wood in the cellar, some woollen petticoats for Lili, who needs them, and a chicken from time to time on that poor table. A little wine for you; your stomach is quite shattered, and it will take so little to restore it. The chimney must be repaired; it smokes atrociously: it is unbearable; it may weaken the children's eyes,--and those of my little girl are so beautiful!

Really, I am ashamed of the dress which is intended for me,--a dress of magnificent pearl-gray silk. Ah, how foolish I was to say that I liked to be well dressed! A dress for forty francs would have satisfied my ambition, and here I am attired in one worth two hundred, while my poor sister is repairing her rags. I do not know where to hide myself; but do not at least think that I am humiliated by receiving a present. I shall relieve my conscience of the burden of these kindnesses, my heart tells me. You see, Camille, everything succeeds with me as soon as I enter upon it. I light, the first thing, upon an excellent woman, I get more than I had agreed to take, and I am received and treated as a child whom it is desired to adopt and spoil. And then to think that you kept me back a whole six months, imposing an increase of privations upon yourself and tearing your hair at the idea of my working for you! Good sister, were you not then a bad mother? Ought not those dear treasures of children to have been considered above all things, and should they not have silenced even our own regard for each other? Ah! I was very much afraid of failure, nevertheless, I will confess to you now, when I took out of the house our last few louis for the expenses of my journey, at the risk of returning without having pleased this lady. God has been concerned in it, Camille; I prayed to him this morning with such confidence! I asked him so fervently to make me amiable, decorous, and persuasive. Now I am going to bed, for I am overcome with fatigue. I love you, my little sister, you know, more than anything else in the world, and much more than myself. Do not grieve about me then; I am just now the happiest girl that lives, and yet I am not with you and do not see our children as they sleep! You see, indeed, that there is no true happiness in selfishness, since, alone as I am, separated from all that I love, my heart beats with joy in spite of my tears, and I am going to thank God upon my knees before I fall asleep.

CAROLINE.

While Mlle de Saint-Geneix was writing to her sister, the Marchioness de Villemer was talking with the youngest of her sons in her little drawing-room in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The house was large and respectable; yet the Marchioness, formerly rich and now in very narrow circumstances,--we shall soon see why,--had of late occupied the second floor in order to turn the first to account.

"Well, dear mother," said the Marquis, "are you satisfied with your new companion? Your people have told me that she has arrived."

"My dear child," answered the Marchioness, "I have but one word to say of her, and that is that she has bewitched me."

"Really? Tell me about it."

"Upon my word, I am not too sure that I dare. I am afraid of turning your head in advance."

"Fear nothing," was the sorrowful reply of the Marquis, whom his mother had tried to win into a smile; "even if I were so easy to inflame, I know too well what I owe to the dignity of your house and to the repose of your life."

"Yes, yes, my friend; I know too that I can be at ease upon a question of honor and delicacy, when it is with you that I have to do; I can also tell you that the little D'Arglade has found for me a pearl, a diamond, and that, to commence with, this phoenix has led me into follies."

The Marchioness gave an account of her interview with Caroline, and described her thus: "She is neither tall nor short, she is well formed, has pretty little feet, the hands of a child, abundant light blond hair, a complexion of lilies and roses, perfect features, pearly teeth, a decided little nose, large sea-green eyes, which look straight at you unflinchingly, without dreaminess, without false timidity, with a candor and a confidence which please and engage; nothing of a provincial, she has manners which are excellent because they do not seem to be manners at all; much taste and gentility in the poverty of her attire; in a word, all that I feared and yet nothing that I feared, that is, beauty which inspired me with distrust and none of the affectations and pretensions which would have justified that distrust; and more, a voice and pronunciation which make real music of her reading, sterling talent as a musician, and, above all that, every indication of mind, sense, discretion, and good-nature: to such an extent that, interested and carried away by her devotion to a poor family to which I see plainly she is sacrificing herself, I forgot my projects of economy, and have engaged to give her the eyes out of my head."

"Has she been bargaining with you?" demanded the Marquis.

"Quite the contrary, she was satisfied to take what I had determined to give her."

"In that case you did well, mother, and I am glad that you have at last a companion worthy of you. You have kept too long that hungry and sleepy old maid who worried you, and when you have a chance to replace her by a treasure, you would do very wrong to count the cost."

"Yes," replied the Marchioness, "that's what your brother also says; neither he nor you care to count the cost, my dear children, and I fear I have been too hasty in the satisfaction which I have just given myself."

"That satisfaction was necessary to you," said the Marquis with spirit, "and you ought the less to reproach yourself with it since you have yielded to your need of performing a good action."

"I acknowledge it, but I was wrong perhaps," replied the Marchioness, with a careworn expression; "one has not always the right to be charitable."

"Ah! my mother," cried the son, with a mingling of indignation and sadness, "when you are forced to deny yourself the joy of giving alms, the injury that I have done will be very great!"

"The injury! you? what injury?" rejoined the mother, astonished and troubled; "you have never done an injury, my dear son."

"Pardon me," said the Marquis, greatly moved. "I was to blame the day I engaged, out of respect to you, to pay my brother's debts."

"Hush!" cried the Marchioness, turning pale. "Let us not speak of that, we would not understand each other." She extended her hands to the Marquis to lessen the involuntary bitterness of this answer. The Marquis kissed his mother's hands and retired shortly afterward.

The next day, Caroline de Saint-Geneix went out to mail with her own hands the registered letter which she sent to her sister, and to see some people from the remotest part of her province with whom she kept up her acquaintance. These were old friends of her family, whom she did not succeed in meeting, and she left her name without giving her address, as she no longer had a home which she could consider her own. She felt a species of sadness to think of herself thus lost and dependent in a strange house; but she did not indulge in long reflections upon her destiny. In addition to the fact that she refused once for all to nourish in herself the least unnerving melancholy, she was not at all a timid character, and any test, howsoever unpleasant, did not set her at variance with life. There was in her organization an astonishing vitality, an ardent activity, which was all the more remarkable because it arose from great tranquillity of mind and from a singular absence of thought about herself. This character, which is exceptional enough, will develop and explain itself as much as we can make it do so, by the events of the following narrative; but the reader must necessarily remember, what all the world knows, that no one can explain completely and set in an exact light the character of another. Every individual has in the depth of his being a mystery of power or of weakness which he himself can as little reveal as he can understand. Analysis should seem satisfactory when it comes near to truth, but it could not seize the truth in the fact without leaving some phase of the eternal problem of the soul incomplete or obscure.

It was with a mingled feeling of sadness and joy that Caroline, sometimes on foot and sometimes in an omnibus, traversed all alone the great city of Paris, where she had been reared in ease, and which she had left ruined and broken as to her future, in the very flower of her life. Let us recount in a few words, once for all, the grave, yet simple events of which she has given some outlines to the Marchioness de Villemer.

She was the daughter of a gentleman of Lower Brittany, settled in the neighborhood of Blois, and of a Mlle de Grajac, a native of Velay. Caroline hardly knew her mother. Madame de Saint-Geneix died the third year of her marriage in giving birth to Camille, having exacted a promise from Justine Lanion to spend several years with the motherless children.

Justine Lanion--Peyraque, by marriage--was a robust and honest peasant-woman of Velay, who consented to remain eight years with M. de Saint-Geneix. She had been Caroline's nurse, and had afterward returned to her own family, whence she was soon called back to give the milk of her second child to the second daughter of her "dear lady." Thanks to this faithful creature, Caroline and Camille knew the care and tenderness of a second mother; still, Justine could not forget her husband and her own children. She had, at last, to return to her province, and M. de Saint-Geneix took his daughters to Paris, where they were brought up in one of the convents then in fashion.

As he was not rich enough to live in Paris, he rented temporary apartments there, to which he went twice a year for the Easter Holidays and his daughters' vacations. These were also the worthy man's vacations. He practised economy the rest of the year that he might refuse nothing to his children in those days of patriarchal merry-making. Then their time was absorbed wholly in strolls, concerts, visiting the museums, excursions to the royal palaces or dinners, ruinous in their expense,--veritable pleasurings of a life, full of simple, paternal affection, indeed, but as imprudent as it well could be. The good man idolized his daughters, who were both very beautiful and as good as they were beautiful. It was a pleasant fancy with him to see them going out for a walk, dressed with perfect taste, looking fresher than their dresses and ribbons new from the shop; to display their beauty in the light and sunshine of Paris, that brilliant city, where he had few acquaintances, to be sure, but where the slightest notice of some casual passer-by seemed more important than any amount of provincial admiration. To make Parisians, real Parisian ladies, of these two charming girls was the dream of his life. He would have spent his whole fortune to accomplish this; and--he did so spend it.

This infatuated desire to taste the delights of life in Paris is a species of fatality which had, a few years ago, taken possession not only of the well-to-do people of the provinces, but of whole classes. Every great foreign nobleman, also, howsoever little his cultivation, rushed wildly to Paris, like a school-boy in vacation time, tore himself away from its attractions with bitter regret, and passed the rest of the year at home in devising measures to obtain the passport giving him leave to return. Even to-day, if it were not for the severity of laws which condemn Russians to Russia, and Poles to Poland, immense fortunes would vie with one another in their eagerness to come and be swallowed up in the pleasures of Paris.

The two young ladies each profited very differently by their elegant education. Camille, the younger and the prettier of the two,--which is saying a great deal,--entered heartily into the giddy tastes of her father, whom she resembled in face and in character. She was passionately fond of luxury, and it had never occurred to her that her life could ever become unhappy. Mild and loving, but not very intelligent, she became merely an accomplished young lady in the matters of style, dress, and manners. Returning to the convent at the close of her vacations, she passed three months languishing regretfully, the next three working a little in order to please her sister, who would otherwise find fault with her; and the rest of the term in dreaming about her father's return and the pleasures it would bring.

Caroline, on the other hand, was more like her mother, who had been a woman of seriousness and energy. Yet she was usually cheerful, and more demonstrative even than her sister in the hearty enjoyment of their freedom. She showed herself more eager to make the most of dress, of their walks and their sightseeing, but she relished all in a different way. She was far more intellectual than Camille, with no creative genius for Art indeed, but yet deeply sensitive to all its true manifestations. She was born appreciative; that is, she could express the unspoken thought of another with brilliancy and refinement. She repeated poetry or read music with a surprising mastery of both. She spoke little, but always well, yet with a strange precision, as if her ideas were all drawn from within. But whenever she received suggestions from outside sources,--from books, music, or the stage,--she gave the written thought a new radiance. She seemed to be the necessary instrument of genius; within the limits of interpretation, this gift of hers might have been genius itself, had it received its full development.

But this it never received. Caroline had commenced her education at ten years of age; at seventeen it was wholly broken off. This is the way it happened: M. de Saint-Geneix having an income of only twelve thousand francs, and yet dreaming of a future for his daughters worthy of their attractions, had entangled himself with pitiable ingenuousness in speculations which were to quadruple his property, and which engulfed it in instant ruin.

Very pale, and as if dazed by some powerful shock, he came one day to Paris for his daughters. He took them to his little manor-house with no explanation whatever, and complaining only of a slight fever. He lay there ill for three months, and then died of grief, confessing his ruin to his two future sons-in-law; for at the appearance of the young ladies at Blois, many suitors presented themselves, and two of them had been accepted.

The gentleman betrothed to Camille was a civil officer, a respectable man, who was sincerely fond of her, and married her in spite of everything. Caroline was engaged to a gentleman of property. He reasoned more selfishly, plead the opposition of his family, and withdrew his pretensions. Caroline was brave. Her weaker sister would have died of grief; but she was not the one deserted. Weakness exacts respect oftener than energy. Moral courage is something invisible, and it breaks down silently. Killing a soul too leaves no trace. Therefore the strong are always buffeted, and the weak are buoyed up always.

Fortunately for Caroline, her love had not been intense. Her heart, which was naturally affectionate, had begun to feel some confidence and sympathy; but the mysterious grief and the increasing illness of her father very soon took such strong possession of her mind that she could not permit herself to dwell much upon her own happiness. The love of a noble young woman is a flower which opens in the sunshine of hope; but all hopefulness on her own account was overshadowed by the feeling that her father's life was swiftly gliding away. She saw in her betrothed only a friend who would share with her the duty of weeping. Toward him she felt gratitude and esteem; but grief stood in the way of elation and enthusiasm. Passion had not had time to blossom.

Caroline was then rather bruised than broken by desertion. Her love for her father was so great, and she mourned him so deeply, that the ruin of her own future prospects seemed to her but a secondary grief. Though she was not at all indignant, yet she was sensible of the injury, and while she revenged herself only by forgetting, she preserved toward men a certain vague resentment, which kept her from believing in love and from listening to the flatteries addressed to her beauty up to the age at which we now find her, cured, courageous, and sincerely believing herself proof against all attraction.

It is unnecessary to recount the events of the years which we have just made her pass over. All the world knows that the loss of a fortune, small or great, does not become an accomplished fact visibly from one day to the next. Settlements with creditors are attempted, a belief that something may be saved from the wreck is entertained, a series of uncertainties is passed through, of astonishments, hopes deferred, up to the day when, seeing all efforts fruitless, the situation, good or bad, is finally accepted. Camille was prostrated by this disaster, in which, to the last moment, she refused to believe; but she was well married and did not suffer any real hardship. Caroline, with more foresight, was apparently less affected by the positive destitution which necessarily fell upon her. Her brother-in-law would not entertain the thought of their parting, and generously made her share the competence of his family; but she understood perfectly that her support was gone, and her pride increased on that account. Feeling that her sister lacked activity and a sense of order, and seeing moreover that she would be subject from year to year to the suffering and cares of maternity, Caroline became the housekeeper, the nurse of the children, in short, the first maid-servant of the little household, and into the austere duties of this self-sacrifice she contrived to work so much grace, good sense, and cheerfulness, that all was pleasant around her and she rendered more good offices than she received. Then came the illness of her brother-in-law, his death, the discovery of old debts which he had concealed, intending to pay them off, gradually and easily, out of his salary; in short, the embarrassment, anxiety, and trouble of Camille, and, at last, the utter despondency and misery of the young widow.

We have seen that, for some time, Caroline had been hesitating between the fear of leaving her sister alone and the desire to assist her by some direct effort. There was, indeed, one wealthy gentleman, neither young nor very gracious, who considered her a model housewife, and made her an offer of marriage. Caroline felt, at first vaguely but afterwards with sufficient clearness, that Camille wished her to sacrifice herself. She then determined that she would indeed make the sacrifice, but in a different way. She asked nothing better than to give up her freedom, her independence, her time, her life; but to demand the offering up of herself, soul and body, to procure a little more comfort for the family,--this was too much. She pardoned in the mother her selfishness as a sister, and without appearing to see it, she decided upon the course which we have seen her take. She left Camille in a poor little country home, rented in the neighborhood of Blois, and set out for Paris, where we know she was kindly welcomed by Madame de Villemer, whose history we have now also briefly to relate.

Every family has its sore spot, every fortune its open wound out of which its life-blood and the very security of its existence may ebb away. The noble family of Villemer had its skeleton in the wild misdoings of the eldest son of the Marchioness. The first husband of the Marchioness had been the Duke d'Al?ria, a haughty Spaniard, with a terrible disposition, who had made her as unhappy as she could be, but who, after five stormy years, had left her an ample fortune, and a son handsome, good-humored, and intelligent, though destined to become thoroughly sceptical, royally prodigal, and miserably profligate.

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