This news was
unfortunately given in the first
instance to Monsieur de
Mortsauf instead of to his wife. It was the ground of a quarrel, which
began
mildly but grew more and more embittered until it seemed as
though the count's
madness, lulled for a short time, was demanding its
arrearages from the poor wife.
That day I had started from Frapesle at half-past ten to search for
flowers with Madeleine. The child had brought the two vases to the
portico, and I was wandering about the gardens and adjoining meadows
gathering the autumn flowers, so beautiful, but too rare. Returning
from my final quest, I could not find my little
lieutenant with her
white cape and broad pink sash; but I heard cries within the house,
and Madeleine
presently came
running out.
"The general," she said, crying (the term with her was an expression
of dislike), "the general is scolding mamma; go and defend her."
I
sprang up the steps of the portico and reached the salon without
being seen by either the count or his wife. Hearing the madman's sharp
cries I first shut all the doors, then I returned and found Henriette
as white as her dress.
"Never marry, Felix," said the count as soon as he saw me; "a woman is
led by the devil; the most
virtuous of them would
invent evil if it
did not exist; they are all vile."
Then followed arguments without
beginning or end. Harking back to the
old troubles, Monsieur de Mortsauf
repeated the
nonsense of the
peasantry against the new
system of farming. He declared that if he
had had the
management of Clochegourde he should be twice as rich as
he now was. He shouted these complaints and insults, he swore, he
sprang around the room knocking against the furniture and displacing
it; then in the middle of a
sentence he stopped short, complained that
his very
marrow was on fire, his brains melting away like his money,
his wife had ruined him! The
countess smiled and looked upward.
"Yes, Blanche," he cried, "you are my executioner; you are killing me;
I am in your way; you want to get rid of me; you are
monster of
hypocrisy. She is smiling! Do you know why she smiles, Felix?"
I kept silence and looked down.
"That woman," he continued, answering his own question, "denies me all
happiness; she is no more to me than she is to you, and yet she
pretends to be my wife! She bears my name and fulfils none of the
duties which all laws, human and
divine,
impose upon her; she lies to
God and man. She obliges me to go long distances, hoping to wear me
out and make me leave her to herself; I am displeasing to her, she
hates me; she puts all her art into keeping me away from her; she has
made me mad through the privations she
imposes on me--for everything
flies to my poor head; she is killing me by degrees, and she thinks
herself a saint and takes the sacrament every month!"
The
countess was
weepingbitterly, humiliated by the
degradation of
the man, to whom she kept
saying for all answer, "Monsieur!
monsieur!
monsieur!"
Though the count's words made me blush, more for him than for
Henriette, they stirred my heart
violently, for they appealed to the
sense of chastity and
delicacy which is indeed the very warp and woof
of first love.
"She is
virgin at my expense," cried the count.
At these words the
countess cried out, "Monsieur!"
"What do you mean with your
imperious 'Monsieur!'" he shouted. "Am I
not your master? Must I teach you that I am?"
He came towards her, thrusting forward his white wolf's head, now
hideous, for his yellow eyes had a
savage expression which made him
look like a wild beast rushing out of a wood. Henriette slid from her
chair to the ground to avoid a blow, which however was not given; she
lay at full length on the floor and lost
consciousness, completely
exhausted. The count was like a
murderer who feels the blood of his
victim spurting in his face; he stopped short, bewildered. I took the
poor woman in my arms, and the count let me take her, as though he
felt
unworthy to touch her; but he went before me to open the door of
her bedroom next the salon,--a
sacred room I had never entered. I put
the
countess on her feet and held her for a moment in one arm, passing
the other round her waist, while Monsieur de Mortsauf took the eider-
down
coverlet from the bed; then together we lifted her and laid her,
still dressed, on the bed. When she came to herself she motioned to us
to unfasten her belt. Monsieur de Mortsauf found a pair of scissors,
and cut through it; I made her
breathe salts, and she opened her eyes.
The count left the room, more
ashamed than sorry. Two hours passed in
perfect silence. Henriette's hand lay in mine; she pressed it to mine,
but could not speak. From time to time she opened her eyes as if to
tell me by a look that she wished to be still and silent; then
suddenly, for an
instant, there seemed a change; she rose on her elbow
and whispered, "Unhappy man!--ah! if you did but know--"
She fell back upon the pillow. The
remembrance of her past sufferings,
joined to the present shock, threw her again into the nervous
convulsions I had just calmed by the
magnetism of love,--a power then
unknown to me, but which I used
instinctively. I held her with gentle
force, and she gave me a look which made me weep. When the nervous
motions ceased I smoothed her disordered hair, the first and only time
that I ever touched it; then I again took her hand and sat looking at
the room, all brown and gray, at the bed with its simple chintz
curtains, at the
toilet table draped in a fashion now discarded, at
the
commonplace sofa with its quilted
mattress. What
poetry I could
read in that room! What renunciations of
luxury for herself; the only
luxury being its spotless
cleanliness. Sacred cell of a married nun,
filled with holy
resignation; its sole adornments were the crucifix of
her bed, and above it the
portrait of her aunt; then, on each side of
the holy water basin, two drawings of the children made by herself,
with locks of their hair when they were little. What a
retreat for a
woman whose appearance in the great world of fashion would have made
the handsomest of her sex jealous! Such was the
chamber where the
daughter of an
illustrious family wept out her days,
sunken at this
moment in
anguish, and denying herself the love that might have
comforted her. Hidden, irreparable woe! Tears of the
victim for her
slayer, tears of the slayer for his
victim! When the children and
waiting-woman came at length into the room I left it. The count was
waiting for me; he seemed to seek me as a mediating power between
himself and his wife. He caught my hands, exclaiming, "Stay, stay with
us, Felix!"
"Unfortunately," I said, "Monsieur de Chessel has a party, and my
absence would cause remark. But after dinner I will return."
He left the house when I did, and took me to the lower gate without
speaking; then he accompanied me to Frapesle,
seeming not to know what
he was doing. At last I said to him, "For heaven's sake, Monsieur le
comte, let her manage your affairs if it pleases her, and don't
torment her."
"I have not long to live," he said
gravely; "she will not suffer long
through me; my head is giving way."
He left me in a spasm of
involuntary self-pity. After dinner I
returned for news of Madame de Mortsauf, who was already better. If
such were the joys of marriage, if such scenes were
frequent, how
could she
survive them long? What slow, unpunished murder was this?
During that day I understood the tortures by which the count was
wearing out his wife. Before what
tribunal can we arraign such crimes?
These thoughts stunned me; I could say nothing to Henriette by word of
mouth, but I spent the night in
writing to her. Of the three or four
letters that I wrote I have kept only the
beginning of one, with which
I was not satisfied. Here it is, for though it seems to me to express
nothing, and to speak too much of myself when I ought only to have
thought of her, it will serve to show you the state my soul was in:--
To Madame de Mortsauf:
How many things I had to say to you when I reached the house! I
thought of them on the way, but I forgot them in your presence.
Yes, when I see you, dear Henriette, I find my thoughts no longer
in keeping with the light from your soul which heightens your
beauty; then, too, the happiness of being near you is so ineffable
as to efface all other feelings. Each time we meet I am born into
a broader life; I am like the traveller who climbs a rock and sees
before him a new
horizon. Each time you talk with me I add new
treasures to my treasury. There lies, I think, the secret of long
and inexhaustible affections. I can only speak to you of yourself
when away from you. In your presence I am too dazzled to see, too