WHEN Madame Pierson had spoken these words, she waited some time as though expecting a reply. As I remained overwhelmed with grief, she gently withdrew her hand, stepped back, waited a moment longer and then reentered the house.
I remained kneeling on the grass. I had been expecting what she said; my resolution was soon taken, and I decided to go away. I arose, my heart bleeding but firm. I looked at the house, at her window; I opened the garden gate and placed my lips on the lock as I passed out.
When I reached home, I told Larive to make what preparations were necessary as I would set out in the morning. The poor fellow was astonished, but I made him a sign to obey and ask no questions. He brought a large trunk and busied himself with preparations for departure.
It was five o'clock in the morning and day was beginning to break, when I asked myself where I was going. At that thought, which had not occurred to me before, I experienced a profound feeling of discouragement. I cast my eyes over the country, scanning the horizon. A sense of weakness took possession of me; I was exhausted with fatigue. I sat down in a chair and my ideas became confused; I bore my hand to my forehead and found it bathed in sweat. A violent fever made my limbs tremble; I could hardly reach my bed with Larive's assistance. My thoughts were so confused that I had no recollection of what had happened. The day passed; toward evening I heard the sound of instruments. It was the Sunday dance and I asked Larive to go and see if Madame Pierson was there. He did not find her; I sent him to her house. The blinds were closed, and a servant informed him that Madame Pierson and her aunt had gone to spend some days with a relative who lived at N——-, a small town some distance north. He handed me a letter that had been given him. It was conceived in the following terms:
"I have known you three months, and for one month have noticed that you feel for me what at your age is called love. I thought I detected on your part a resolution to conceal this from me and conquer yourself. I already esteemed you, this enhanced my respect. I do not reproach you for the past, nor for the weakness of your will.
"What you take for love is nothing more than desire. I am well aware that many women seek to arouse it; it would be better if they did not feel the necessity of pleasing those who approach them; but that vanity is a dangerous thing since I have done wrong in entertaining it with you.
"I am some years older than you and ask you not to try to see me again. It would be vain for you to try to forget the weakness of a moment; but what has passed between us can neither be repeated nor forgotten.
"I do not take leave of you without sorrow; I expect to be absent some time; if, when I return, I find that you have gone away, I will appreciate your action as the final evidence of your friendship and esteem.
THE fever confined me to my bed a week. When I was able to write I assured Madame Pierson that she would be obeyed, and that I would go away. I wrote in good faith, without any intention to deceive, but I was very far from keeping my promise. Before I had gone ten leagues I ordered the driver to stop, and I stepped out of the carriage. I began to walk along the road. I could not resist the temptation to look back at the village which was still visible in the distance. Finally, after a period of frightful irresolution, I felt that it was impossible for me to continue on my route, and rather than get into the carriage again, I would have died on the spot. I told the driver to turn around, and, instead of going to Paris as I had intended, I made straight for N——-, whither Madame Pierson had gone.
I arrived at ten in the night. As soon as I reached the inn I had a boy direct me to the house of her relatives, and, without reflecting what I was doing, at once made my way to the spot. A servant opened the door. I asked if Madame Pierson was there and directed him to tell her that some one wished to speak to her on the part of M. Desprez. That was the name of our village cure.
While the servant was executing my order I remained alone in a somber little court; as it was raining, I entered the hall and stood at the foot of the stairway which was not lighted. Madame Pierson soon arrived, preceding the servant; she descended rapidly, and did not see me in the darkness; I stepped up to her and touched her arm. She recoiled with terror and cried out:
"What do you wish of me?"
Her voice trembled so painfully, and when the servant appeared with a light, her face was so pale that I did not know what to think. Was it possible that my unexpected appearance could disturb her in such a manner? That reflection occurred to me, but I decided that it was merely a feeling of fright natural to a woman who is suddenly approached.
Nevertheless, she repeated her question in a firmer tone.
"You must permit me to see you once more," I replied. "I will go away, I will leave the country. You shall be obeyed, I swear it, and that beyond your real desire, for I will sell my father's house and go abroad; but that is only on condition that I am permitted to see you once more; otherwise I remain; you need fear nothing from me, but I am resolved on that."
She frowned and cast her eyes about her in a strange manner; then she replied, almost graciously:
"Come to-morrow during the day and I will see you." Then she left me.
The next day at noon I presented myself. I was introduced into a room with old hangings and antique furniture. I found her alone, seated on a sofa. I sat down before her.
"Madame," I began, "I come neither to speak of what I suffer, nor to deny that I love you. You have written me that what has passed between us can not be forgotten, and that is true; but you say that on that account we can not meet on the same footing as heretofore, and you are mistaken. I love you, but I have not offended you; nothing is changed in our relations since you do not love me. If I am permitted to see you, responsibility rests with me, and as far as your responsibility is concerned, my love for you should be sufficient guarantee."
She tried to interrupt me.
"Kindly allow me to finish what I have to say. No one knows better than I, that in spite of the respect I feel for you, and in spite of all the protestations by which I might bind myself, love is the stronger. I repeat I do not intend to deny what is in my heart; but you do not learn of that love to-day for the first time, and I ask you what has prevented me from declaring it up to the present time? The fear of losing you; I was afraid I would not be permitted to see you, and that is what has happened. Make a condition that the first word I shall speak, the first thought or gesture that shall seem to be inconsistent with the most profound respect, shall be the signal for the closing of your door; as I have been silent in the past, I will be silent in the future. You think that I have loved you for a month, when in fact I have loved you from the first day I met you. When you discovered it, you did not refuse to see me on that account. If you had at that time enough esteem for me to believe me incapable of offending you, why have you lost that esteem? That is what I have come to ask you. What have I done? I have bent my knee, but I have not said a word. What have I told you? What you already knew. I have been weak because I have suffered. It is true, madame, that I am twenty years of age and what I have seen of life has only disgusted me, I could use a stronger word; it is true that there is not at this hour on earth, either in the society of men or in solitude, a place, however small and insignificant, that I care to occupy. The space enclosed between the four walls of your garden is the only spot in the world where I live; you are the only human being who has made me love God. I had renounced everything before I knew you; why deprive me of the only ray of light that Providence has spared me? If it is on account of fear, what have I done to inspire it? If it is on account of pity, in what respect am I culpable? If it is on account of pity and because I suffer, you are mistaken in supposing that I can cure myself; it might have been done, perhaps, two months ago; but I preferred to see you and to suffer, and I do not repent, whatever may come of it. The only misfortune that can reach me, is losing you. Put me to the proof. If I ever feel that there is too much suffering for me in our bargain, I will go away; and you may be sure of it, since you send me away to-day, and I am ready to go. What risk do you run in giving me a month or two of the only happiness I will ever know?"
I waited her reply. She suddenly rose from her seat, then sat down again.Then a moment of silence ensued.
"Rest assured," she said, "it is not so."
I thought she was searching for words that would not appear too severe, and that she was anxious to avoid hurting me.
"One word," I said, rising, "one word, nothing more. I know who you are, and, if there is any compassion for me in your heart, I thank you; speak but one word, this moment decides my life."
She shook her head; I saw that she was hesitating.
"You think I can be cured?" I cried. "May God grant you that solace if you send me away—"
I looked out of the window at the horizon and felt in my soul such a frightful sensation of loneliness at the idea that I was going away, that my blood froze in my veins. She saw me standing before her, my eyes fixed on her, awaiting her reply; all of my life was hanging in suspense upon her lips.
"Very well," she said, "listen to me. This move of yours in coming to see me was an act of great imprudence; however, it is not necessary to assume that you have come here to see me; accept a commission that I will give you for a friend of my family. If you find that it is a little far, let it be the occasion of an absence which shall last as long as you choose, but which must not be too short. Although you said a moment ago," she added with a smile, "that a short trip would calm you. You will stop in the Vosges and you will go as far as Strasburg. Then in a month, or better, in two months you will return and report to me; I will see you again and give you further instructions."
THAT evening I received a letter from Madame Pierson, addressed to M. R.D., at Strasburg. Three weeks later my mission had been accomplished andI returned.
While absent, I had thought of nothing but her, and I despaired of ever forgetting her. Nevertheless, I determined to restrain my feelings in her presence; I had suffered too cruelly at the prospect of losing her, to run any further risks. My esteem for her rendered it impossible for me to suspect her sincerity, and I did not see, in her plan for getting me to leave the country, anything that resembled hypocrisy. In a word, I was firmly convinced that at the first word of love her door would be closed to me.
Upon my return, I found her thin and changed. Her habitual smile seemed to languish on her discolored lips. She told me that she had been suffering.
We did not speak of the past. She did not appear to wish to recall it and I had no desire to refer to it. We resumed our old relations of neighbors; yet there was something of constraint between us, a sort of conventional familiarity. It was as though we had said: "It was thus before, let it still be thus." She granted me her confidence, a concession that was not without its charms for me; but our conversation was colder, for the reason that our eyes expressed as much as our tongues. In all that we said there was more to be surmised than was actually spoken. We no longer endeavored to fathom each other's mind; there was not the same interest attaching to each word, to each sentiment; that curious analysis that characterized our past intercourse; she treated me with kindness, but I distrusted even that kindness; I walked with her in the garden, but no longer accompanied her outside of the premises; we no longer wandered through the woods and valleys; she opened the piano when we were alone; the sound of her voice no longer awakened in my heart those transports of joy which are like sobs that are inspired by hope. When I took leave of her, she gave me her hand, but I was conscious of the fact that it was lifeless; there was much effort in our familiar ease, many reflections in our lightest remarks, much sadness at the bottom of it all.
We felt that there was a third party between us: it was my love for her. My actions never betrayed it, but it appeared in my face: I lost my cheerfulness, my energy, and the color of health that once shone in my cheeks. At the end of one month, I no longer resembled my old self.
And yet in all our conversations I insisted on my disgust with the world, on my aversion to returning to it. I tried to make Madame Pierson feel that she had no reason to reproach herself for allowing me to see her; I depicted my past life in the most somber colors and gave her to understand that if she should refuse to allow me to see her, she would condemn me to a loneliness worse than death; I told her that I held society in abhorrence and the story of my life, as I recited it, proved my sincerity. So, I affected a cheerfulness that I was far from feeling, in order to show her that in permitting me to see her she had saved me from the most frightful misfortune; I thanked her, almost every time I went to see her that I might return in the evening or the following morning. "All my dreams of happiness," said I, "all my hopes, all my ambitions, are enclosed in the little corner of the earth where you dwell; outside of the air that you breathe there is no life for me."
She saw that I was suffering and could not help pitying me. My courage was pathetic, and her every word and gesture shed a sort of tender light over my devotion. She saw the struggle that was going on in me: my obedience flattered her pride, while my pallor awakened her charitable instinct. At times she appeared to be irritated, almost coquettish; she would say in a tone that was almost rebellious: "I shall not be here to-morrow, do not come on such and such a day." Then as I was going away sad, but resigned, she sweetened the cup of bitterness by adding: "I am not sure of it, come whenever you please;" or her adieu was more friendly than usual, her glance more tender.
"Rest assured that Providence has led me to you," I said. "If I had not met you, I might have relapsed into the irregular life I was leading before I knew you. God has sent you as an angel of light to draw me from the abyss. He has confided a sacred mission to you; who knows, if I should lose you, whither the sorrow that consumes me might lead me, the sad experience I have been through, the terrible combat between my youth and my ennui?"
That thought, sincere enough on my part, had great weight with a woman of lofty devotion whose soul was as pious as it was ardent. It was probably the only consideration that induced Madame Pierson to permit me to see her.
I was preparing to go to see her one day when some one knocked at my door and I saw Mercanson enter, that priest I had met in the garden on the occasion of my first visit. He began to make excuses that were as tiresome as himself for presuming to call on me without having made my acquaintance; I told him that I knew him very well as the nephew of our cure, and asked what I could do for him.
He turned uneasily from one side to another with an air of constraint, searching for phrases and fingering everything on the table before him as though at a loss what to say. Finally, he informed me that Madame Pierson was ill and that she had sent word to me by him that she would not be able to see me that day.
"Is she ill? Why, I left her late yesterday afternoon and she was very well at that time!"
He bowed.
"But," I continued, "if she is ill, why send word to me by a third party?She does not live so far away that a useless call would harm me."
The same response from Mercanson. I could not understand what this peculiar manner signified, much less why she had entrusted her mission to him.
"Very well," I said, "I shall see her to-morrow and she will explain what this means."
His hesitation continued.
"Madame Pierson has also told me—that I should inform you—in fact, I am requested to—"
"Well, what is it?" I cried, impatiently.
"Sir, you are becoming violent, I think Madame Pierson is seriously ill; she will not be able to see you this week."
Another bow, and he retired.
It was clear that his visit concealed some mystery: either Madame Pierson did not wish to see me, and I could not explain why,orMercanson had interfered on his own responsibility.
I waited until the following day and then presented myself at her door; the servant who met me said that her mistress was indeed very ill and could not see me; she refused to accept the money I offered her, and would not answer my questions.
As I was passing through the village on my return, I saw Mercanson; he was surrounded by a number of school children, his uncle's pupils. I stopped him in the midst of his harangue and asked if I could have a word with him.
He followed me aside; but now it was my turn to hesitate, for I was at a loss how to proceed to draw his secret from him.
"Sir," I finally said, "will you kindly inform me if what you told me yesterday was the truth, or was there some motive behind it? Moreover, as there is not a physician in the neighborhood who can be called, in case of necessity, it is important that I should know whether her condition is serious."
He protested that Madame Pierson was ill, but that he knew nothing more, except that she had sent for him and asked him to notify me as he had done. While talking, we had walked down the road some distance and had now reached a deserted spot. Seeing that neither strategy nor entreaty would serve my purpose, I suddenly turned and seized him by the arms.
"What does this mean, sir? You intend to resort to violence?" he cried.
"No, but I intend to make you tell me what you know."
"Sir, I am afraid of no one, and I have told you what you ought to know."
"You have told me what you think I ought to know, but not what you know.Madame Pierson is not sick, I am sure of it."
"How do you know?"
"The servant told me so. Why has she closed her door against me, and why did she send you to tell me of it?"
Mercanson saw a peasant passing.
"Pierre!" he cried, calling him by name, "wait a moment, I wish to speak with you."
The peasant approached; that was all he wanted, thinking I would not dare use violence in the presence of a third party. I let go of him, but so roughly that he staggered back and fell against a tree. He clenched his fist and turned away without a word.
For three weeks I suffered terribly. Three times a day I called at Madame Pierson's and was each time refused admittance. I received one letter from her; she said that my assiduity was causing talk in the village and begged me to call less frequently. Not a word about Mercanson or her illness.
This precaution on her part was so unnatural and contrasted so strongly with her former proud indifference in matters of this kind, that at first I could hardly believe it. Not knowing what else to say, I replied that there was no desire in my heart but obedience to her wishes. But in spite of me, the words I used did not conceal the bitterness I felt.
I purposely delayed going to see her even when permitted to do so, and no longer sent to inquire about her condition, as I wished to have her know that I did not believe in her illness. I did not know why she kept me at a distance; but I was so miserably unhappy that, at times, I thought seriously of putting an end to a life that had become insupportable. I was accustomed to spend entire days in the woods, and one day I happened to encounter her there.
I hardly had the courage to ask for an explanation; she did not reply frankly and I did not recur to the subject, I could only count the days I was obliged to pass without seeing her, and live in the hope of a visit. All the time I was strongly tempted to throw myself at her feet, and tell her of my despair. I knew that she would not be insensible to it, and that she would at least express her pity; but her severity and the abrupt manner of her departure recalled me to my senses; I trembled lest I should lose her, and I would rather die than expose myself to that danger.
Thus, denied the solace of confession of my sorrow, my health began to give way. My feet lagged on the way to her house; I felt that I was exhausting the source of tears, and each visit cost me added sorrow; I was torn with the thought that I ought not to see her.
On her part there was neither the same tone nor the same ease as of old; she spoke of going away on a tour; she pretended to confess to me her longing to get away, leaving me more dead than alive after her cruel words. If surprised by a natural impulse of sympathy, she immediately checked herself and relapsed into her accustomed coldness. Upon one occasion, I could not restrain my tears; I saw her turn pale. As I was going, she said to me at the door:
"To-morrow, I am going to St. Luce, a neighboring village, and it is too far to go on foot. Be here with your horse early in the morning, if you have nothing to do, and go with me."
I was on hand promptly, as may readily be imagined. I had slept over that word with transports of joy; but, upon leaving my house, I experienced a feeling of deep dejection. In restoring me to the privilege I had formerly enjoyed of accompanying her on her missions about the country, she had clearly been guilty of a cruel caprice if she did not love me. She knew how I was suffering; why abuse my courage unless she had changed her mind?
This reflection had a strange influence on me. When she mounted her horse my heart beat violently as I took her foot; I do not know whether it was desire or anger. "If she is touched," I said to myself, "why this reserve? If she is a coquette, why so much liberty?"
Such are men. At my first word she saw that a change had taken place in me. I did not speak to her but kept to the other side of the road. When we reached the valley she appeared at ease and only turned her head from time to time to see if I was following her; but when we came to the forest and our horses' hoofs resounded against the rocks that lined the road, I saw that she was trembling. She stopped as though to wait for me, as I was some distance in the rear; when I had overtaken her, she set out on a gallop. We soon reached the foot of the mountain and were compelled to slacken our pace. I then made my way to her side; our heads were bowed; the time had come, I took her hand.
"Brigitte," I said, "are you weary of my complaints? Since I have been reinstated in your favor, since I have been allowed to see you every day and every evening, I have asked myself if I have been importunate. During the last two months, while strength and hope have been failing me, have I said a word of that fatal love which is consuming me? Raise your head and answer me. Do you not see that I suffer and that my nights are given to weeping? Have you not met in the forest an unfortunate wretch, sitting in solitary dejection with his hands pressed to his forehead? Have you not seen tears on these bushes? Look at me, look at these mountains; do you realize that I love you? They know it, they are my witnesses; these rocks and these trees know my secret. Why lead me before them? Am I not wretched enough? Do I fail in courage? Have I obeyed you? To what tests, what tortures am I subjected, and for what crime? If you do not love me, what are you doing here?"
"Let us return," she said, "let us retrace our steps."
I seized her horse's bridle.
"No," I replied, "for I have spoken. If we return, I lose you, I realize it; I know in advance what you will say. You have been pleased to try my patience, you have set my sorrow at defiance, perhaps that you might have the right to drive me from your presence; you have become tired of that sorrowful lover who suffered without complaint and who drank with resignation the bitter chalice of your disdain! You knew that, alone with you in the presence of these trees, in the midst of this solitude where my love had its birth, I could not be silent! You wish to be offended. Very well, madame, I lose you! I have wept and I have suffered, I have too long nourished in my heart a pitiless love that devours me. You have been cruel!"
As she was about to leap from her saddle, I seized her in my arms and pressed my lips to hers. She turned pale, her eyes closed, her bridle slipped from her hand and she fell to the ground.
"God be praised!" I cried, "she loves me!" She had returned my kiss.
I leaped to the ground and hastened to her side. She was extended on the ground. I raised her, she opened her eyes, and shuddered with terror; she pushed my arm aside, and burst into tears.
I stood near the roadside; I looked at her as she leaned against a tree, as beautiful as the day, her long hair falling over her shoulders, her hands twitching and trembling, her cheeks suffused with color, brilliant with purple and with pearls.
"Do not come near me!" she cried, "not a step!"
"Oh! my love," I said, "fear nothing; if I have offended you, you know how to punish me. I was angry and I gave way to my grief; treat me as you choose, you may go away now, you may send me away! I know that you love me, Brigitte, and you are safer here than a king in his palace."
As I spoke these words, Madame Pierson fixed her humid eyes on mine; I saw the happiness of my life come to me in the flash of those orbs. I crossed the road and knelt before her. How little he loves, who can recall the words he uses when he confesses that love!
IF I were a jeweler, and had in my stock a pearl necklace that I wished to give a friend, it seems to me I would take great pleasure in placing it about her neck with my own hands; but if I were that friend, I would rather die than snatch the necklace from the jeweler's hand. I have seen many men hasten to give themselves to the woman they love, but I have always done the contrary, not through calculation, but through natural instinct. The woman who loves a little and resists does not love enough, and she who loves enough and resists knows that she is not sincerely loved.
Madame Pierson gave evidence of more confidence in me, confessing that she loved me when she had never shown it in her actions. The respect I felt for her inspired me with such joy that her face looked to me like a blossomed flower. At times, she would abandon herself to an impulse of sudden gaiety and then suddenly check herself, treating me like a child, and then looking at me with eyes filled with tears; indulging in a thousand pleasantries, as a pretext for a more familiar word or caress, then quitting me to go aside and abandon herself to reverie. Is there a more beautiful sight? When she returned she would find me waiting for her in some spot where I had remained watching her.
"Oh! my friend!" I said. "Heaven itself rejoices to see how you are loved."
Yet I could neither conceal the violence of my desires, nor the pain I endured struggling against them. One evening, I told her that I had just learned of the loss of an important case, which would involve a considerable change in my affairs.
"How is it," she asked, "that you make this announcement and smile at the same time?"
"There is a certain maxim of a Persian poet," I replied, "'He who is loved by a beautiful woman is sheltered from every blow.'"
Madame Pierson made no reply; all that evening she was even more cheerful than usual. When we played cards with her aunt and I lost, she was merciless in her scorn, saying that I knew nothing of the game, and betting against me with so much success that she won all I had in my purse. When the old lady retired, she stepped out on the balcony and I followed her in silence.
The night was beautiful; the moon was setting and the stars shone brightly in a field of deep azure. Not a breath of wind stirred the trees; the air was warm and laden with the perfume of spring.
She was leaning on her elbow, her eyes in the heavens; I leaned over her and watched her as she dreamed. Then I raised my own eyes; a voluptuous melancholy seized us both. We breathed together, the warm perfume wafted to us from the garden; we followed, in its lingering course, the pale light of the moon which glinted through the chestnut-trees. I thought of a certain day when I had looked up at the broad expanse of heaven with despair; I trembled at the recollection of that hour; life was so rich now! I felt a hymn of praise rising up in my heart. I surrounded the form of my dear beloved with my arm; she gently turned her head; her eyes were bathed in tears. Her body yielded, as does the rose, her open lips fell on mine, and the universe was forgotten.
ETERNAL angel of happy nights, who will utter thy silence? A kiss! mysterious vintage that flows from the lips as from a stainless chalice! Intoxication of the senses! O voluptuous pleasure! Yes, like God, thou art immortal! Sublime exaltation of the creature, universal communion of beings, thrice sacred pleasure, what have they sung who have celebrated thy praise? They have called thee transitory, O thou who dost create! And they have said that thy passing beams have illumined their fugitive life. Words that are as feeble as the dying breath! Words of a sensual brute who is astonished that he should live for an hour, and who mistakes the rays of the eternal lamp for the spark which is struck from the flint.
O love! thou principle of life! precious flame over which all nature, like a careful vestal, incessantly watches in the temple of God! Center of all, by whom all exists! The spirit of destruction would itself die, blowing at thy flame! I am not astonished that thy name should be blasphemed, for they do not know who thou art, they who think they have seen thy face because they have opened their eyes; and when thou findest thy true prophets, united on earth with a kiss, thou closest their eyes lest they look upon the face of perfect joy.
But your first delights, languishing smiles, first stammering utterance of love, you who can be seen, who are you? Are you less in God's sight than all the rest, beautiful cherubim who soar in the alcove, and who bring to this world man awakened from the dream divine! Ah! dear children of pleasure, how your mother loves you! It is you, curious prattlers, who behold the first mysteries, touches, trembling yet chaste, glances that are already insatiable, who begin to trace on the heart, as a tentative sketch, the ineffaceable image of cherished beauty! O royalty! O conquest! It is you who make lovers. And thou, true diadem, thou, serenity of happiness! First glance bent on life, first return of happiness to the many little things of life which are seen only through the medium of joy, first steps made by nature in the direction of the well-beloved! Who will paint you? What human word will ever express thy slightest caress?
He who, in the freshness of his youth, has taken leave of an adored woman; he who has walked through the streets without hearing the voices of those who speak to him; he who has sat in a lonely spot, laughing and weeping without knowing why; he who has placed his hands to his face in order to breathe the perfume that still clings to them; he who has suddenly forgotten what he had been doing on earth; he who has spoken to the trees along the route and to the birds in their flight; finally, he who in the midst of men has acted the madman, and then has fallen on his knees and thanked God for it; he will die without complaint: he has known the joy of love.
I MUST now recite what happened to my love, and the change that took place in me. What reason can I give for it? None, except as I repeat the story and as I say: "It is the truth."
For two days, neither more nor less, I was Madame Pierson's lover. One fine night, I set out and traversed the road that led to her house. I was feeling so well in body and soul, that I leaped for joy and extended my arms to heaven. I found her at the top of the stairway, leaning on the railing, a lighted candle beside her. She was waiting for me and when she saw me ran to meet me.
She showed me how she had changed her coiffure which had displeased me, and told me how she had passed the day arranging her hair to suit my taste; how she had taken down a villainous black picture frame that had offended my eye; how she had renewed the flowers; she recounted all she had done since she had known me, how she had seen me suffer and how she had suffered herself; how she had thought of leaving the country, of fleeing from her love; how she had employed every precaution against me; how she had sought advice from her aunt, from Mercanson and from the cure; how she had vowed to herself that she would die rather than yield, and how all that had been dissipated by a single word of mine, a glance, an incident; and with every confession, a kiss. She said that whatever I saw in her room that pleased my taste, whatever bagatelle on her table attracted my attention, she would give me; that whatever she did in the future, in the morning, in the evening, at any hour, I should regulate as I pleased; that the judgments of the world did not concern her; that if she had appeared to care for them, it was only to send me away; but that she wished to be happy and close her ears; that she was thirty years of age and had not long to be loved by me. "And you will love me a long time? Are those fine words with which you have beguiled me, true?" And then, loving reproaches because I had been late in coming to her; that she had put on her slippers in order that I might see her foot but that she was no longer beautiful; that she could wish she were; that she was, at fifteen. She went here and there, silly with love, crimson with joy; and she did not know what to imagine, what to say or do, in order to give herself and all that she had.
I was lying on the sofa; I felt, at every word she spoke, a bad hour of my past life slipping away from me. I watched the star of love rising in my sky, and it seemed to me I was like a tree filled with sap that shakes off its dry leaves in order to attire itself in new foliage.
She sat down at the piano and told me she was going to play an air by Stradella. I love more than all else, sacred music, and that morceau which she sang for me a number of times, gave me great pleasure.
"Yes," she said when she had finished, "but you are very much mistaken, the air is mine, and I have made you believe it was Stradella's."
"It is yours?"
"Yes, and I told you it was by Stradella, in order to see what you would say of it. I never play my own music, when I happen to compose any; but I wanted to try it with you, and you see it has succeeded, since you were deceived."
What a monstrous machine is man! What could be more innocent? A bright child might have adopted that ruse to surprise his teacher. She laughed heartily the while, but I felt a strange coldness as though a cloud had settled on me; my countenance changed.
"What is the matter?" she asked. "Are you ill?"
"It is nothing; play that air again."
While she was playing, I walked up and down the room; I passed my hand over my forehead as though to brush away the fog, I stamped my foot, shrugged my shoulders at my own madness; finally, I sat down on a cushion which had fallen to the floor; she came to me. The more I struggled with the spirit of darkness which had seized me, the thicker the night that gathered around my head.
"Verily," I said, "you lie so well? What! that air is yours? Is it possible you can lie so fluently?"
She looked at me with an air of astonishment.
"What is it?" she asked.
Unspeakable anxiety was depicted on her face. Surely she could not believe me fool enough to reproach her for such a harmless bit of pleasantry; she did not see anything serious in that sadness which I felt; but the more trifling the cause, the greater the surprise. At first she thought I, too, must be joking; but when she saw me growing paler every moment, as though about to faint, she stood with open lips and bent body, looking like a statue.
"God of Heaven!" she cried, "is it possible?"
You smile, perhaps, reader, at this page; I, who write it, still shudder as I think of it. Misfortunes have their symptoms as well as diseases, and there is nothing so terrible at sea as a little black point on the horizon.
However, my dear Brigitte drew a little round table into the center of the room and brought out some supper. She had prepared it herself and I did not drink a drop that was not first borne to her lips. The blue light of day, piercing through the curtains, illumined her charming face and tender eyes; she was tired and allowed her head to fall on my shoulder with a thousand terms of endearment.
I could not struggle against such charming abandon, and my heart expanded with joy; I believed I had rid myself of the bad dream that had just tormented me, and I begged her pardon for giving way to a sudden impulse which I, myself, did not understand.
"My friend," I said from the bottom of my heart, "I am very sorry that I unjustly reproached you for a piece of innocent badinage; but if you love me, never lie to me, even in the smallest matter, for a lie is an abomination to me and I can not endure it."
I told her I would remain until she was asleep. I saw her close her beautiful eyes, and heard her murmur something in her sleep as I bent over and kissed her adieu. Then I went away with a tranquil heart, promising myself that I would henceforth enjoy my happiness and allow nothing to disturb it.
But the next day Brigitte said to me, as though by chance:
"I have a large book in which I have written my thoughts, everything that has occurred to my mind, and I want you to see what I said of you the first day I met you."
We read together what concerned me, to which we added a hundred foolish comments, after which I began to turn the leaves in a mechanical way. A phrase, written in capital letters caught my eye on one of the pages I was turning; I distinctly saw some words that were insignificant enough and I was about to read the rest when Brigitte stopped me and said:
"Do not read that."
I threw the book on the table.
"Why, certainly not," I said, "I did not think what I was doing."
"Do you still take things seriously?" she asked, smiling, doubtless seeing my malady coming on again; "take the book, I want you to read it."
The book lay on the table within easy reach, and I did not take my eyes from it. I seemed to hear a voice whispering in my ear, and I thought I saw, grimacing before me, with his glacial smile, and dry face, Desgenais. "What are you doing here, Desgenais?" I asked, as if I really saw him. He looked as he did that evening, when he leaned over my table and unfolded to me his catechism of vice.
I kept my eyes on the book and I felt vaguely stirring in my memory some forgotten words of the past. The spirit of doubt hanging over my head had injected into my veins a drop of poison; the vapor mounted to my head and I staggered like a drunken man. What secret was Brigitte concealing from me? I knew very well that I had only to bend over and open the book; but at what place? How could I recognize the leaf on which my eye had chanced to fall?
My pride, moreover, would not permit me to take the book; was it indeed pride? "O God!" I said to myself with a frightful sense of sadness, "is the past a specter? and can it come out of its tomb? Ah! wretch that I am, can I never love?"
All my ideas of contempt for women, all the phrases of mocking fatuity which I had repeated as a schoolboy his lesson, suddenly came to my mind; and strange to say, while formerly I did not believe in making a parade of them, now it seemed that they were real or at least that they had been.
I had known Madame Pierson four months, but I knew nothing of her past life and had never questioned her about it. I had yielded to my love for her with confidence and without reservation. I found a sort of pleasure in taking her just as she was, for just what she seemed, while suspicion and jealousy are so foreign to my nature that I was more surprised at feeling them toward Brigitte than she was in discovering them in me. Never, in my first love, nor in the affairs of daily life have I been distrustful, but on the contrary, bold and frank, suspecting nothing. I had to see my mistress betray me before my eyes before I would believe that she could deceive me. Desgenais himself, while preaching to me after his manner, joked me about the ease with which I could be duped. The story of my life was an incontestable proof that I was credulous rather than suspicious; and when the words in that book suddenly struck me, it seemed to me I felt a new being within me, a sort of unknown self; my reason revolted against the feeling, and I did not dare ask whither all that was leading me.
But the suffering I had endured, the memory of the perfidy that I had witnessed, the frightful cure I had imposed on myself, the opinions of my friends, the corrupt life I had led, the sad truths I had learned, all those that I had unconsciously surmised during my sad experience, finally, debauchery, contempt of love, abuse of everything, that is what I had in my heart although I did not suspect it; and at the moment when life and hope were again being born within me, all these furies that were growing numb with time, seized me by the throat and cried out that they were there.
I bent over and opened the book, then immediately closed it and threw it on the table. Brigitte was looking at me; in her beautiful eyes there was neither wounded pride nor anger; there was nothing but tender solicitude as if I were ill.
"Do you think I have secrets?" she asked, embracing me.
"No," I replied, "I know nothing except that you are beautiful and that I would die, loving you."
When I returned home to dinner I said to Larive:
"Who is that Madame Pierson?"
He looked at me in astonishment.
"You have lived here many years," I continued; "you ought to know better than I. What do they say of her here? What do they think of her in the village? What kind of a life did she lead before I knew her? Whom did she receive as her friends?"
"In faith, sir, I have never seen her do otherwise than she does every day, that is to say, walk in the valley, play piquet with her aunt, and visit the poor. The peasants call her Brigitte la Rose; I have never heard a word against her except that she goes through the woods alone at all hours of the day and night; but that is when engaged in charitable work. She is the ministering angel in the valley. As for those she receives, there are only the cure and M. de Dalens, during vacation."
"Who is this M. de Dalens?"
"He owns the chateau at the foot of the mountain on the other side; he only comes here for the chase."
"Is he young?"
"Yes."
"Is he related to Madame Pierson?"
"No, he was a friend of her husband."
"Has her husband been dead long?"
"Five years on All-Saints' day. He was a worthy man."
"And has this M. de Dalens paid court?"
"To the widow? In faith—to tell the truth—" he stopped, embarrassed.
"Well, will you answer me?"
"Some say so and some do not—I know nothing and have seen nothing."
"And you just told me that they do not talk about her in the country?"
"That is all they have said, and I supposed you knew that."
"In a word, yes or no?"
"Yes, sir, I think so, at least."
I arose from the table and walked down the road; Mercanson was there. I expected he would try to avoid me; on the contrary he approached me.
"Sir," he said, "you exhibited signs of anger which it does not become a man of my character to resent. I wish to express my regret that I was charged to communicate a message which appeared so unwelcome."
I returned his compliment, supposing he would leave me at once; but he walked along at my side.
"Dalens! Dalens!" I repeated, between my teeth, "who will tell me about Dalens?" For Larive had told me nothing except what a valet might learn. From whom had he learned it? From some servant or peasant. I must have some witness who had seen Dalens with Madame Pierson and who knew all about their relations. I could not get that Dalens out of my head, and not being able to talk to any one else, I asked Mercanson about him.
If Mercanson was not a bad man, he was either a fool or very shrewd, I have never known which; it is certain that he had reason to hate me and that he treated me as meanly as possible. Madame Pierson, who had the greatest friendship for the cure, had almost come to think equally well of the nephew. He was proud of it, and consequently jealous. It is not love alone that inspires jealousy; a favor, a kind word, a smile from a beautiful mouth, may arouse some people to jealous rage.
Mercanson appeared to be astonished. I was somewhat astonished myself; but who knows his own mind?
At his first words, I saw that the priest understood what I wanted to know and had decided not to satisfy me.
"How does it happen that you have known Madame Pierson so long and so intimately, I think so, at least, and have not met M. de Dalens? But, doubtless, you have some reason unknown to me for inquiring about him to-day. All I can say is that, as far as I know, he is an honest man, kind and charitable; he was, like you, very intimate with Madame Pierson; he is fond of hunting and entertains handsomely. He and Madame Pierson were accustomed to devote much of their time to music. He punctually attended to his works of charity and, when in the country, accompanied that lady on her visits, just as you do. His family enjoys an excellent reputation at Paris; I used to find him with Madame Pierson whenever I called; his manners were excellent. As for the rest, I speak truly and frankly, as becomes me when it concerns persons of his merit. I believe that he only comes here for the chase; he was a friend of her husband; he is said to be rich and very generous; but I know nothing about it except that—"
With what tortured phrases was this dull tormentor teasing me. I was ashamed to listen to him, yet dared not to ask a single question or interrupt his vile insinuations. I was alone on the promenade; the poisoned arrow of suspicion had entered my heart. I did not know whether I felt more of anger or of sorrow. The confidence with which I had abandoned myself to my love for Brigitte, had been so sweet and so natural that I could not bring myself to believe that so much happiness had been built upon an illusion. That sentiment of credulity, which had attracted me to her, seemed a proof that she was worthy. Was it possible that these four months of happiness were but a dream?
But, after all, I thought that woman has yielded too easily. Was there not deception in that pretended anxiety to have me leave the country? Is she not just like all the rest? Yes, that is the way they all do; they attempt to escape in order to know the happiness of being pursued: it is the feminine instinct. Was it not she who confessed her love by her own act, at the very moment I had decided that she would never be mine? Did she not accept my arm, the first day I met her? If that Dalens has been her lover, he probably is still; there are certain liaisons that have neither beginning nor end; when chance ordains a meeting, it is resumed; when parted, it is forgotten. If that man comes here this summer, she will probably see him without breaking with me. Who is that aunt, what mysterious life is this that has charity for its cloak, this liberty that cares nothing for opinion? May they not be adventurers, these two women with their little house, their prudence and their caution which enables them to impose on people so easily? Assuredly, for all I know, I have fallen into an affair of gallantry when I thought I was engaged in a romance. But what can I do? There is no one here who can help me except the priest, who does not care to tell me what he knows, and his uncle who will say still less. Who will save me? How can I learn the truth?
Thus spoke jealousy; thus, forgetting so many tears and all that I had suffered, I had come, at the end of two days, to a point where I was tormenting myself with the idea that Brigitte had yielded too easily. Thus, like all who doubt, I brushed aside sentiment and reason to dispute with facts, to attach myself to the letter and dissect my love.
While absorbed in these reflections, I was slowly approaching MadamePierson's.
I found gate open, and as I entered the garden, I saw a light in the kitchen. I thought of questioning the servant, I stepped to the window.
A feeling of horror rooted me to the spot. The servant was an old woman, thin and wrinkled and habitually bent over, a common deformity in people who have worked in the fields. I found her shaking a cooking utensil over a filthy sink. A dirty candle fluttered in her trembling hand; about her were pots, kettles and dishes, the remains of dinner that a dog sniffed at, from time to time, as though ashamed; a warm, nauseating odor emanated from the reeking walls. When the old woman caught sight of me, she smiled in a confidential way; she had seen me take leave of her mistress.
I shuddered as I thought what I had come to seek in a spot so well suited to my ignoble purpose. I fled from that old woman as from jealousy personified, and as though the stench of her dishes had come from my heart.
Brigitte was at the window watering her well-beloved flowers; a child of one of her neighbors was lying in a cradle at her side and she was gently rocking it with her disengaged hand; the child's mouth was full of bonbons, and in gurgling eloquence it was addressing an incomprehensible apostrophe to its nurse. I sat down near her and kissed the child on its fat cheeks, as though to imbibe some of its innocence. Brigitte accorded me a timid greeting; she could see her troubled image in my eyes. For my part, I avoided her glance; the more I admired her beauty and her air of candor, the more I was convinced that such a woman was either an angel or a monster of perfidy; I forced myself to recall each one of Mercanson's words, and I confronted, so to speak, the man's insinuations with her presence and her face. "She is very beautiful," I said to myself, "and very dangerous if she knows how to deceive; but I will fathom her and I will sound her heart; and she shall know who I am."
"My dear," I said after a long silence, "I have just given a piece of advice to a friend who consulted me. He is an honest young man, and he writes me that a woman he loves has another lover. He asks me what he ought to do."
"What reply did you make?"
"Two questions: Is she pretty? Do you love her? If you love her, forget her; if she is pretty and you do not love her, keep her for your pleasure; there will always be time to leave her, if it is merely a matter of beauty, and one is worth as much as another."
Hearing me speak thus, Brigitte put down the child she was holding; she sat down at the other end of the room. There was no light in the room; the moon, which was shining on the spot where she had been standing, threw a shadow over the sofa on which she was now seated. The words I had uttered were so heartless, so cruel, that I was dazed, myself, and my heart was filled with bitterness. The child in its cradle began to cry. Then all three of us were silent while a cloud passed over the moon.
A servant entered the room with a light and carried the child away. I arose, Brigitte also; but she suddenly placed her hand on her heart and fell to the floor.
I hastened to her side; she had not lost consciousness and begged me not to call any one. She explained that she was subject to violent palpitation of the heart and had been troubled by fainting spells from her youth; that there was no danger and no remedy. I kneeled beside her; she sweetly opened her arms; I raised her head and placed it on my shoulder.
"Ah! my friend," she said, "I pity you."
"Listen to me," I whispered in her ear, "I am a wretched fool, but I can keep nothing on my heart. Who is this M. de Dalens who lives on the mountain and comes to see you?"
She appeared astonished to hear me mention that name.
"Dalens?" she replied. "He was my husband's friend."
She looked at me as though to say: "Why do you ask?" It seemed to me that her face wore a grieved expression. I bit my lips. "If she wants to deceive me," I thought, "I was foolish to question her."
Brigitte arose with difficulty; she took her fan and began to walk up and down the room.
She was breathing hard; I had wounded her. She was absorbed in thought and we exchanged two or three glances that were almost cold. She stepped to her desk, opened it, drew out a package of letters tied together with a ribbon, and threw it at my feet without a word.
But I was looking neither at her nor her letters; I had just thrown a stone into the abyss and was listening for the echoes. For the first time, offended pride was depicted on Brigitte's face. There was no longer either anxiety or pity in her eyes and, just as I had come to feel myself other than I had ever been, so I saw in her a woman I did not know.
"Read that," she said finally. I stepped up to her and took her hand.
"Read that, read that!" she repeated in freezing tones.
I took the letters. At that moment I felt so persuaded of her innocence that I was seized with remorse.
"You remind me," she said, "that I owe you the story of my life; sit down and you shall learn it. You will open these drawers and you will read all that I have written and all that has been written to me."
She sat down and motioned me to a chair. I saw that she found it difficult to speak. She was pale as death, her voice constrained, her throat swollen.
"Brigitte! Brigitte!" I cried, "in the name of Heaven, do not speak! God is my witness I was not born such as you see me; during my life I have been neither suspicious nor distrustful, I have been undone, my heart has been seared by the treachery of others. A frightful experience has led me to the very brink of the precipice, and for a year I have seen nothing but evil here below. God is my witness that up to this day I did not believe myself capable of playing the ignoble role I have assumed, the meanest role of all, that of a jealous lover. God is my witness that I love you and that you are the only one in the world who can cure me of the past. I have had to do, up to this time, with women who deceived me, or who were unworthy of love. I have led the life of a libertine; I bear on my heart certain marks that will never be effaced. Is it my fault if calumny, if base suggestion, to-day planted in a heart whose fibers were still trembling with pain and prompt to assimilate all that resembles sorrow, has driven me to despair? I have just heard the name of a man I have never met, of whose existence I was ignorant; I have been given to understand that there has been between you and him a certain intimacy, which proves nothing; I do not intend to question you; I have suffered from it, I have confessed to you and I have done you an irreparable wrong. But rather than consent to what you propose, I will throw it all in the fire. Ah! my friend, do not degrade me; do not attempt to justify yourself, do not punish me for suffering. How could I, in the bottom of my heart, suspect you of deceiving me? No, you are beautiful and you are true; a single glance of yours, Brigitte, tells me more than words could utter, and I am content. If you knew what horrors, what monstrous deceit, the child who stands before you has seen! If you knew how he had been treated, how they have mocked at all that is good, how they have taken pains to teach him all that leads to doubt, to jealousy, to despair! Alas! alas! my dear mistress, if you knew whom you love! Do not reproach me but rather pity me; I must forget that other beings than you exist. Who can know through what frightful trials, through what pitiless suffering I have passed! I did not expect this, I did not anticipate this moment. Since you have become mine, I realize what I have done; I have felt, in kissing you, that my lips were not, like yours, unsullied. In the name of Heaven, help me live! God made me a better man than the one you see before you."
Brigitte held out her hands and caressed me tenderly. She begged me to tell her all that had led to this sad scene. I spoke of what I had learned from Larive but did not dare confess that I had interviewed Mercanson. She insisted that I listen to her explanation. M. de Dalens had loved her; but he was a man of frivolous disposition, dissipated and inconstant, she had given him to understand that, not wishing to remarry, she could only request that he drop the role of suitor, and he had yielded to her wishes with good grace; but his visits had become more rare since that time, until now they had ceased altogether. She drew from the bundle a certain letter which she showed me, the date of which was recent; I could not help blushing as I found in it the confirmation of all she had said; she assured me that she pardoned me, and exacted a promise that in the future I would promptly tell her of any cause I might have to suspect her. Our treaty was sealed with a kiss, and when I left her we had both forgotten that M. de Dalens ever existed.
A KIND of stagnant inertia, tempered with bitter joy, is characteristic of debauchery. It is the sequence of a life of caprice, where nothing is regulated according to the needs of the body, but everything according to the fantasy of the mind and one must be always ready to obey the behests of the other. Youth and will can resist excess; but nature silently avenges herself, and the day when she decides to repair her forces, the will struggles to retard her work and abuses her anew.
Finding about him, then, all the objects that were able to tempt him the evening before, the man who is incapable of enjoying them, looks down at them with a smile of disgust. At the same time, the objects which excite his desire are never attained with sangfroid; all that the debauchee loves, he takes violent possession of; his life is a fever; his organs, in order to search the depths of joy, are forced to avail themselves of the stimulant of fermented liquors, and sleepless nights; in the days of ennui and of idleness, he feels more keenly than other men the disparity between his impotence and his temptations, and, in order to resist the latter, pride must come to his aid and make him believe that he disdains them. It is thus he spits on all the feasts and pleasures of his life, and that between an ardent thirst and a profound satiety a feeling of tranquil vanity leads him to his death.
Although I was no longer a debauchee it came to pass that my body suddenly remembered that it had been. It is easy to understand why I had not felt the effects of it sooner. While mourning my father's death, every other thought was crowded from my mind. Then a passionate love succeeded; while I was alone, ennui had nothing to struggle for. Sad or gay, fair or foul, what matters it to him who is alone?
As zinc, that demi-metal, drawn from the blue vein where it lies sleeping, attracts to itself a ray of light when placed near a piece of green leather, thus Brigitte's kisses gradually awakened in my heart what had been buried there. At her side I perceived what I really was.
There were days when I felt such a strange sensation in the mornings, that it is impossible for me to define it. I awakened without a motive, feeling like a man who has spent the night in eating and drinking to the point of exhaustion. All external sensations caused me insupportable fatigue, all well-known objects of daily life repelled and annoyed me; if I spoke, it was in ridicule of what others thought or of what I thought myself. Then, extended on the bed, as though incapable of motion, I dismissed all thought of undertaking whatever had been agreed upon the evening before; I recalled all the tender and loving things I had said to my mistress during my better moments, and was not satisfied until I had spoiled and poisoned those memories of happy days. "Can you not forget all that?" Brigitte would sadly inquire, "if there are two different men in you, do you not, when the bad rouses himself, forget to humor the good?"
The patience with which Brigitte opposed those vagaries only served to excite my sinister gaiety. Strange that man who suffers wishes to make her, whom he loves, suffer! To lose control of oneself, is that not the worst of evils? Is there anything more cruel for a woman than to hear a man turn to derision all there is that is sacred and mysterious? Yet she did not flee from me; she remained at my side while in my savage humor, I insulted love and allowed insane ravings to escape from lips that were still moist with her kisses.
On such days, contrary to my usual inclination, I liked to talk of Paris and speak of my life of debauchery as the most commendable thing in the world. "You are nothing but a saint," I would laughingly observe; "you do not understand what I say. There is nothing like those careless ones who make love without believing in it." Was that not the same as saying that I did not believe in it?
"Very well," Brigitte replied, "teach me how to please you always. I am perhaps as pretty as those mistresses whom you mourn; if I have not their skill to divert you, I beg that you will instruct me. Act as though you did not love me and let me love you without saying anything about it. If I am devoted to religion, I am also devoted to love. What can I do to make you believe it?"
Then she would stand before the mirror arraying herself as though for a ball, affecting a coquetry that she was far from feeling, trying to adopt my tone, laughing and skipping about the room. "Am I to your taste?" she would ask. "Which one of your mistresses do I resemble? Am I beautiful enough to make you forget that any one can believe in love? Have I a sufficiently careless air to suit you?" Then in the midst of that factitious joy, she would turn her back and I could see her shudder until the flowers she had placed in her hair trembled. I threw myself at her feet.
"Stop!" I cried, "you resemble only too closely, that which you try to imitate, that which my mouth has been so vile as to conjure up before you. Lay aside those flowers and that dress. Let us wash away such mimicry with a sincere tear; do not remind me that I am but a prodigal son; I remember the past too well."
But even this repentance was cruel as it proved to her that the fantoms in my heart were full of reality. In yielding to an impulse of horror, I merely gave her to understand that her resignation and her desire to please me only served to call up an impure image.
And it was true; I reached her side transported with joy, swearing that I would regret my past life; on my knees, I protested my respect for her; then a gesture, a word, a trick of turning as she approached me, recalled to my mind the fact that such and such a woman had made that gesture, had used that word, had that same trick of turning.
Poor devoted soul! What didst thou suffer in seeing me turn pale before thee, in seeing my arms fall as though lifeless at my side! When the kiss died on my lips, and the full glance of love, that pure ray of God's light, fled from my eyes like an arrow turned by the wind! Ah! Brigitte! what diamonds trickled from thin eyes! What treasures of charity didst thou exhaust with patient hand! How pitiful thy love!
For a long time, good and bad days succeeded each other almost regularly; I showed myself alternately cruel and scornful, tender and devoted, insensible and haughty, repentant and submissive. The face of Desgenais which had at first appeared to me, as though to warn me whither I was drifting, was now constantly before me. On my days of doubt and coldness, I conversed, so to speak, with him, often when I had offended Brigitte by some cruel mockery I said to myself: "If he were in my place he would do as I do!"
And then, at other times, when putting on my hat to go to see Brigitte, I would look in my glass and say: "What is there so terrible about it, anyway? I have, after all, a pretty mistress; she has given herself to a libertine, let her take me for what I am." I reached her side with a smile on my lips, I sank into a chair with an air of deliberate insolence; then I saw Brigitte approach, her large eyes filled with tenderness and anxiety; I seized her little hands in mine and lost myself in an infinite dream.
How name a thing that is nameless? Was I good or bad? Was I distrustful or a fool? It is useless to reflect on it; it happened thus.
One of our neighbors was a young woman by the name of Madame Daniel, she possessed some beauty, and still more coquetry; she was poor but tried to pass for rich; she would come to see us after dinner and always played a heavy game against us, although her losses embarrassed her; she sang but had no voice. In the solitude of that unknown village, where an unkind fate had buried her, she was consumed with an uncontrollable passion for pleasure. She talked of nothing but Paris, where she visited two or three times a year; she pretended to keep up with the fashions; my dear Brigitte assisted her as best she could, while smiling with pity. Her husband was employed by the government; he, once a year, would take her to the house of the chief of his department where, attired in her best, the little woman danced to her heart's content. She would return with shining eyes and tired body; she would come to us to tell of her prowess, and her success in assaulting the masculine heart. The rest of the time she read novels, never taking the trouble to look after her household affairs, which were not always in the best condition.
Every time I saw her I laughed at her, finding nothing so ridiculous as the high life she thought she was leading; I would interrupt her description of a ball to inquire about her husband and her father-in-law, both of whom she detested, the one because he was her husband, and the other because he was only a peasant; in short, we were always disputing on some subject.
In my evil moments, I thought of paying court to that woman just for the sake of annoying Brigitte.
"You see," I said, "how perfectly Madame Daniel understands life! In her present sprightly humor could one desire a more charming mistress?"
I then paid her the most extravagant compliments; her senseless chatting I described as unrestraint tempered by finesse, her pretentious exaggerations as a natural desire to please; was it her fault that she was poor? At least, she thought of nothing but pleasure and confessed it freely; she did not preach sermons herself, nor did she listen to them from others; I went so far as to tell Brigitte that she ought to adopt her as a model, and that she was just the kind of woman to please me.
Poor Madame Daniel discovered signs of melancholy in Brigitte's eyes. She was a strange creature, as good and sincere, when you could get finery out of her head, as she was stupid when absorbed in such frivolous affairs. On occasions, she could be both good and stupid. One fine day when they were walking together, she threw herself into Brigitte's arms and told her that she had noticed that I was beginning to pay court to her, and that I had made certain proposals to her, the meaning of which was not doubtful; but she knew that I was another's lover, and as for her, whatever might happen, she would die rather than destroy the happiness of a friend. Brigitte thanked her, and Madame Daniel, having set her conscience at ease, considered it no sin to render me desolate by languishing glances.
In the evening when she had gone, Brigitte, in a severe tone, told me what had happened; she begged me to spare her such affronts in the future.
"Not that I attach any importance to such pleasantries," she said, "but if you have any love for me, it seems to me it is useless to inform a third party that there are times when you have not."