The Project Gutenberg Etext of Cosmopolis by Paul Bourget, v4

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Title: Cosmopolis, v4

Author: Paul Bourget

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COSMOPOLIS

By PAUL BOURGET

BOOK 4.

CHAPTER IX

LUCID ALBA

The doctor had diagnosed the case correctly. Dorsenne's ball had struck

Gorka below the wrist. Two centimetres more to the right or to the left,

and undoubtedly Boleslas would have been killed. He escaped with a

fracture of the forearm, which would confine him for a few days to his

room, and which would force him to submit for several weeks to the

annoyance of a sling. When he was taken home and his personal physician,

hastily summoned, made him a bandage and prescribed for the first few

days bed and rest, he experienced a new access of rage, which exceeded

the paroxysms of the day before and of that morning. All parts of his

soul, the noblest as well as the meanest, bled at once and caused him to

suffer with another agony than that occasioned by his wounded arm. Was

he satisfied in the desire, almost morbid, to figure in the eyes of those

who knew him as an extraordinary personage? He had hastened from Poland

through Europe as an avenger of his betrayed love, and he had begun by

missing his rival. Instead of provoking him immediately in the salon of

Villa Steno, he had waited, and another had had time to substitute

himself for the one he had wished to chastise. The other, whose death

would at least have given a tragical issue to the adventure, Boleslas had

scarcely touched. He had hoped in striking Dorsenne to execute at least

one traitor whom he considered as having trifled with the most sacred of

confidences. He had simply succeeded in giving that false friend

occasion to humiliate him bitterly, leaving out of the question that he

had rendered it impossible to fight again for many days. None of the

persons who had wronged him would be punished for some time, neither his

coarse and cowardly rival, nor his perfidious mistress, nor monstrous

Lydia Maitland, whose infamy he had just discovered. They were all happy

and triumphant, on that lovely, radiant May day, while he tossed on a bed

of pain, and it was proven too clearly to him that very afternoon by his

two seconds, the only visitors whom he had not denied admission, and who

came to see him about five o'clock. They came from the races of Tor di

Quinto, which had taken place that day.

All is well," began Cibo, "I will guarantee that no one has talked….

I have told you before, I am sure of my innkeeper, and we have paid the

witnesses and the coachman.

"Were Madame Steno and her daughter at the races?" interrupted Boleslas.

"Yes," replied the Roman, whom the abruptness of the question surprised

too much for him to evade it with his habitual diplomacy.

"With whom?" asked the wounded man.

"Alone, that time," replied Cibo, with an eagerness in which Boleslas

distinguished an intention to deceive him.

"And Madame Maitland?"

"She was there, too, with her husband," said Pietrapertosa, heedless of

Cibo's warning glances, "and all Rome besides," adding: "Do you know the

engagement of Ardea and little Hafner is public? They were all three

there, the betrothed and the father, and so happy! I vow, it was fine.

Cardinal Guerillot baptized pretty Fanny."

"And Dorsenne?" again questioned the invalid.

"He was there," said Cibo. "You will be vexed when I tell you of the

reply he dared to make us. We asked him how he had managed—nervous as

he is—to aim at you as he aimed, without trembling. For he did not

tremble. And guess what he replied? That he thought of a recipe of

Stendhal's—to recite from memory four Latin verses, before firing. 'And

might one know what you chose?' I asked of him. Thereupon he repeated:

'Tityre, tu patulae recubens.!"

"It is a case which recalls the word of Casal," interrupted

Pietrapertosa, "when that snob of a Figon recommended to us at the club

his varnish manufactured from a recipe of a valet of the Prince of Wales.

If the young man is not settled by us, I shall be sorry for him."

Although the two 'confreres' had repeated that mediocre pleasantry a

hundred times, they laughed at the top of their sonorous voices and

succeeded in entirely unnerving the injured man. He gave as a pretext

his need of rest to dismiss the fine fellows, of whose sympathy he was

assured, whom he had just found loyal and devoted, but who caused him

pain in conjuring up, in answer to his question, the images of all his

enemies. When one is suffering from a certain sort of pain, remarks like

those naively exchanged between the two Roman imitators of Casal are

intolerable to the hearer. One desires to be alone to feed upon, at

least in peace, the bitter food, the exasperating and inefficacious

rancor against people and against fate, with which Gorka at that moment

felt his heart to be so full. The presence of his former mistress at the

races, and on that afternoon, wounded him more cruelly than the rest. He

did not doubt that she knew through Maitland, himself, certainly informed

by Chapron, of the two duels and of his injury. It was on her account

that he had fought, and that very day she appeared in public, smiling,

coquetting, as if two years of passion had not united their lives, as if

he were to her merely a social acquaintance, a guest at her dinners and

her soirees. He knew her habits so well, and how eagerly, when she

loved, she drank in the presence of him she loved. No doubt she had an

appointment on the race-course with Maitland, as she had formerly had

with him, and the painter had gone thither when he should have cared for

his courageous, his noble brother-in-law, whom he had allowed to fight

for him! What a worthy lover the selfish and brutal American was of that

vile creature! The image of the happy couple tortured Boleslas with the

bitterest jealousy intermingled with disgust, and, by contrast, he

thought of his own wife, the proud and tender Maud whom he had lost.

He pictured to himself other illnesses when he had seen that beautiful

nurse by his bedside. He saw again the true glance with which that wife,

so shamefully betrayed, looked at him, the movements of her loyal hands,

which yielded to no one the care of waiting upon him. To-day she had

allowed him to go to a duel without seeing him. He had returned. She

had not even inquired as to his wound. The doctor had dressed it without

her presence, and all that he knew of her was what he learned from their

child. For he sent for Luc. He explained to him his broken arm, as had

been agreed upon with his friends, by a fall on the staircase, and little

Luc replied:

"When will you join us, then? Mamma says we leave for England this

evening or in the morning. All the trunks are almost ready."

That evening or to-morrow? So Maud was going to execute her threat. She

was going away forever, and without an explanation. He could not even

plead his cause once more to the woman who certainly would not respond to

another appeal, since she had found, in her outraged pride, the strength

to be severe, when he was in danger of death. In the face of that

evidence of the desertion of all connected with him, Boleslas suffered

one of those accesses of discouragement, deep, absolute, irremediable, in

which one longs to sleep forever. He asked himself: "Were I to try one

more step?" and he replied: "She will not!" when his valet entered with

word that the Countess desired to speak with him. His agitation was so

extreme that, for a second, he fancied it was with regard to Madame

Steno, and he was almost afraid to see his wife enter.

Without any doubt, the emotions undergone during the past few days had

been very great. He had, however, experienced none more violent, even

beneath the pistol raised by Dorsenne, than that of seeing advance to his

bed the embodiment of his remorse. Maud's face, in which ordinarily

glowed the beauty of a blood quickened by the English habits of fresh air

and daily exercise, showed undeniable traces of tears, of sadness, and of

insomnia. The pallor of the cheeks, the dark circles beneath the eyes,

the dryness of the lips and their bitter expression, the feverish

glitter, above all, in the eyes, related more eloquently than words the

terrible agony of which she was the victim. The past twenty-four hours

had acted upon her like certain long illnesses, in which it seems that

the very essence of the organism is altered. She was another person.

The rapid metamorphosis, so tragical and so striking, caused Boleslas to

forget his own anguish. He experienced nothing but one great regret when

the woman, so visibly bowed down by grief, was seated, and when he saw in

her eyes the look of implacable coldness, even through the fever, before

which he had recoiled the day before. But she was there, and her

unhoped-for presence was to the young man, even under the circumstances,

an infinite consolation. He, therefore, said, with an almost childish

grace, which he could assume when he desired to please:

"You recognized the fact that it would be too cruel of you to go away

without seeing me again. I should not have dared to ask it of you, and

yet it was the only pleasure I could have…. I thank you for having

given it to me."

"Do not thank me," replied Maud, shaking her head, "it is not on your

account that I am here. It is from duty…. Let me speak," she

continued, stopping by a gesture her husband's reply, "you can answer me

afterward…. Had it only been a question of you and of me, I repeat,

I should not have seen you again…. But, as I told you yesterday, we

have a son."

"Ah!" exclaimed Boleslas, sadly. "It is to make me still more wretched

that you have come…. You should remember, however, that I am in no

condition to discuss with you so cruel a question…. I thought I had

already said that I would not disregard your rights on condition that you

did not disregard mine."

"It is not of my rights that I wish to speak, nor of yours," interrupted

Maud, "but of his, the only ones of importance. When I left you

yesterday, I was suffering too severely to feel anything but my pain.

It was then that, in my mental agony, I recalled words repeated to me by

my father: 'When one suffers, he should look his grief in the face, and

it will always teach him something.' I was ashamed of my weakness, and I

looked my grief in the face. It taught me, first, to accept it as a just

punishment for having married against the advice and wishes of my

father."

"Ah, do not abjure our past!" cried the young man; "the past which has

remained so dear to me through all."

"No, I do not abjure it," replied Maud, "for it was on recurring to it—

it was on returning to my early impressions—that I could find not an

excuse, but an explanation of your conduct. I remembered what you

related to me of the misfortunes of your childhood and of your youth, and

how you had grown up between your father and your mother, passing six

months with one, six months with the other—not caring for, not being

able to judge either of them—forced to hide from one your feelings for

the other. I saw for the first time that your parents' separation had

the effect of saddening your heart at that epoch. It is that which

perverted your character…. And I read in advance Luc's history in

yours…. Listen, Boleslas! I speak to you as I would speak before God!

My first feeling when that thought presented itself to my mind was not to

resume life with you; such a life would be henceforth too bitter. No, it

was to say to myself, I will have my son to myself. He shall feel my

influence alone. I saw you set out this morning—set out to insult me

once more, to sacrifice me once more! If you had been truly repentant

would you have offered me that last affront? And when you returned—when

they informed me that you had a broken arm—I wished to tell the little

one myself that you were ill…. I saw how much he loved you,

I discovered what a place you already occupied in his heart, and I

comprehended that, even if the law gave him to me, as I know it would,

his childhood would be like yours, his youth like your youth."

"Then," she went on, with an accent in which emotion struggled through

her pride, "I did not feel justified in destroying the respect so deep,

the love so true, he bears you, and I have come to say to you: You have

wronged me greatly. You have killed within me something that will never

come to life again. I feel that for years I shall carry a weight on my

mind and on my heart at the thought that you could have betrayed me as

you have. But I feel that for our boy this separation on which I had

resolved is too perilous. I feel that I shall find in the certainty of

avoiding a moral danger for him the strength to continue a common

existence, and I will continue it. But human nature is human nature,

and that strength I can have only on one condition."

"And that is?" asked Boleslas. Maud's speech, for it was a speech

carefully reflected upon, every phrase of which had been weighed by that

scrupulous conscience, contrasted strongly in its lucid reasoning with

the state of nervous excitement in which he had lived for several days.

He had been more pained by it than he would have been by passionate

reproaches. At the same time he had been moved by the reference to his

son's love for him, and he felt that if he did not become reconciled with

Maud at that moment his future domestic life would be ended. There was a

little of each sentiment in the few words he added to the anxiety of his

question. "Although you have spoken to me very severely, and although

you might have said the same thing in other terms, although, above all,

it is very painful to me to have you condemn my entire character on one

single error, I love you, I love my son, and I agree in advance to your

conditions. I esteem your character too much to doubt that they will be

reconcilable with my dignity. As for the duel of this morning," he

added, "you know very well that it was too late to withdraw without

dishonor."

"I should like your promise, first of all," replied Madame Gorka, who did

not answer his last remark, "that during the time in which you are

obliged to keep your room no one shall be admitted…. I could not bear

that creature in my house, nor any one who would speak to me or to you of

her."

"I promise," said the young man, who felt a flood of warmth enter his

soul at the first proof that the jealousy of the loving woman still

existed beneath the indignation of the wife. And he added, with a smile,

"That will not be a great sacrifice. And then?"

"Then?…. That the doctor will permit us to go to England. We will

leave orders for the management of things during our absence. We will go

this winter wherever you like, but not to this house; never again to this

city."

"That is a promise, too," said Boleslas, "and that will be no great

sacrifice either; and then?"

"And then," said she in a low voice, as if ashamed of herself. "You must

never write to her, you must never try to find out what has become of

her."

"I give you my word," replied Boleslas, taking her hand, and adding: "And

then?"

"There is no then," said she, withdrawing her hand, but gently. And she

began to realize herself her promise of pardon, for she rearranged the

pillows under the wounded man's head, while he resumed:

"Yes, my noble Maud, there is a then. It is that I shall prove to you

how much truth there was in my words of yesterday, in my assurance that

I love you in spite of my faults. It is the mother who returns to me

today. But I want my wife, my dear wife, and I shall win her back."

She made no reply. She experienced, on hearing him pronounce those last

words with a transfigured face, an emotion which did not vanish. She had

acquired, beneath the shock of her great sorrow, an intuition too deep of

her husband's nature, and that facility, which formerly charmed her by

rendering her anxious, now inspired her with horror. That man with the

mobile and complaisant conscience had already forgiven himself. It

sufficed him to conceive the plan of a reparation of years, and to

respect himself for it—as if that was really sufficient—for the

difficult task. At least during the eight days which lapsed between that

conversation and their departure he strictly observed the promise he had

given his wife. In vain did Cibo, Pietrapertosa, Hafner, Ardea try to

see him. When the train which bore them away steamed out he asked his

wife, with a pride that time justified by deeds:

"Are you satisfied with me?"

"I am satisfied that we have left Rome," said she, evasively, and it was

true in two senses of the word:

First of all, because she did not delude herself with regard to the

return of the moral energy of which Boleslas was so proud. She knew that

his variable will was at the mercy of the first sensation. Then, what

she had not confessed to her husband, the sorrow of a broken friendship

was joined in her to the sorrows of a betrayed wife. The sudden

discovery of the infamy of Alba's mother had not destroyed her strong

affection for the young girl, and during the entire week, busy with her

preparations for a final departure, she had not ceased to wonder

anxiously: "What will she think of my silence?…. What has her mother

told her?…. What has she divined?"

She had loved the "poor little soul," as she called the Contessina in her

pretty English term. She had devoted to her the friendship peculiar to

young women for young girls—a sentiment—very strong and yet very

delicate, which resembles, in its tenderness, the devotion of an elder

sister for a younger. There is in it a little naive protection and also

a little romantic and gracious melancholy. The elder friend is severe

and critical. She tries to assuage, while envying them, the excessive

enthusiasms of the younger. She receives, she provokes her confidence

with the touching gravity of a counsellor. The younger friend is curious

and admiring. She shows herself in all the truth of that graceful

awakening of thoughts and emotions which precede her own period before

marriage. And when there is, as was the case with Alba Steno, a certain

discord of soul between that younger friend and her mother, the affection

for the sister chosen becomes so deep that it can not be broken without

wounds on both sides. It was for that reason that, on leaving Rome,

faithful and noble Maud experienced at once a sense of relief and of

pain—of relief, because she was no longer exposed to the danger of an

explanation with Alba; of pain, because it was so bitter a thought for

her that she could never justify her heart to her friend, could never aid

her in emerging from the difficulties of her life, could, finally, never

love her openly as she had loved her secretly. She said to herself as

she saw the city disappear in the night with its curves and its lights:

"If she thinks badly of me, may she divine nothing! Who will now prevent

her from yielding herself up to her sentiment for that dangerous and

perfidious Dorsenne? Who will console her when she is sad? Who will

defend her against her mother? I was perhaps wrong in writing to the

woman, as I did, the letter, which might have been delivered to her in

her daughter's presence…. Ah, poor little soul!…. May God watch

over her!"

She turned, then, toward her son, whose hair she stroked, as if to

exorcise, by the evidence of present duty, the nostalgia which possessed

her at the thought of an affection sacrificed forever. Hers was a nature

too active, too habituated to the British virtue of self-control to

submit to the languor of vain emotions.

The two persons of whom her friendship, now impotent, had thought, were,

for various reasons, the two fatal instruments of the fate of the "poor

little soul," and the vague remorse which Maud herself felt with regard

to the terrible note sent to Madame Steno in the presence of the young

girl, was only too true. When the servant had given that letter to the

Countess, saying that Madame Gorka excused herself on account of

indisposition, Alba Steno's first impulse had been to enter her friend's

room.

"I will go to embrace her and to see if she has need of anything," she

said.

"Madame has forbidden any one to enter her room," replied the footman,

with embarrassment, and, at the same moment, Madame Steno, who had just

opened the note, said, in a voice which struck the young girl by its

change:

"Let us go; I do not feel well, either."

The woman, so haughty, so accustomed to bend all to her will, was indeed

trembling in a very pitiful manner beneath the insult of those phrases

which drove her, Caterina Steno, away with such ignominy. She paled to

the roots of her fair hair, her face was distorted, and for the first and

last time Alba saw her form tremble. It was only for a few moments.

At the foot of the staircase energy gained the mastery in that courageous

character, created for the shock of strong emotions and for instantaneous

action. But rapid as had been that passage, it had sufficed to

disconcert the young girl. For not a moment did she doubt that the note

was the cause of that extraordinary metamorphosis in the Countess's

aspect and attitude. The fact that Maud would not receive her, her

friend, in her room was not less strange. What was happening? What did

the letter contain? What were they hiding from her? If she had, the day

before, felt the "needle in the heart" only on divining a scene of

violent explanation between her mother and Boleslas Gorka, how would she

have been agonized to ascertain the state into which the few lines of

Boleslas's wife had cast that mother! The anonymous denunciation

recurred to her, and with it all the suspicion she had in vain rejected.

The mother was unaware that for months there was taking place in her

daughter a moral drama of which that scene formed a decisive episode,

she was too shrewd not to understand that her emotion had been very

imprudent, and that she must explain it. Moreover, the rupture with Maud

was irreparable, and it was necessary that Alba should be included in it.

The mother, at once so guilty and so loving, so blind and so considerate,

had no sooner foreseen the necessity than her decision was made, and a

false explanation invented:

"Guess what Maud has just written me?" said she, brusquely, to her

daughter, when they were seated side by side in their carriage. God,

what balm the simple phrase introduced into Alba's heart! Her mother was

about to show her the note! Her joy was short-lived! The note remained

where the Countess had slipped it, after having nervously folded it, in

the opening in her glove. And she continued: "She accuses me of being

the cause of a duel between her husband and Florent Chapron, and she

quarrels with me by letter, without seeing me, without speaking to me!"

"Boleslas Gorka has fought a duel with Florent Chapron?" repeated the

young girl.

"Yes," replied her mother. "I knew that through Hafner. I did not speak

of it to you in order not to worry you with regard to Maud, and I have

only awaited her so long to cheer her up in case I should have found her

uneasy, and this is how she rewards me for my friendship! It seems that

Gorka took offence at some remark of Chapron's about Poles, one of those

innocent remarks made daily on any nation—the Italians, the French, the

English, the Germans, the Jews—and which mean nothing…. I repeated

the remark in jest to Gorka!…. I leave you to judge…. Is it my

fault if, instead of laughing at it, he insulted poor Florent, and if the

absurd encounter resulted from it? And Maud, who writes me that she will

never pardon me, that I am a false friend, that I did it expressly to

exasperate her husband…. Ah, let her watch her husband, let her lock

him up, if he is mad! And I, who have received them as I have, I, who

have made their position for them in Rome, I, who had no other thought

than for her just now!…. You hear," she added, pressing her daughter's

hand with a fervor which was at least sincere, if her words were

untruthful, "I forbid you seeing her again or writing to her. If she

does not offer me an apology for her insulting note, I no longer wish to

know her. One is foolish to be so kind!"

For the first time, while listening to that speech, Alba was convinced

that her mother was deceiving her. Since suspicion had entered her heart

with regard to her mother, the object until then of such admiration and

affection, she had passed through many stages of mistrust. To talk with

the Countess was always to dissipate them. That was because Madame

Steno, apart from her amorous immorality, was of a frank and truthful

nature.

It was indeed a customary and known weakness of Florent's to repeat those

witticisms which abound in national epigrams, as mediocre as they are

iniquitous. Alba could recall at least twenty circumstances when the

excellent man had uttered such jests at which a sensitive person might

take offence. She would not have thought it utterly impossible that a

duel between Gorka and Chapron might have been provoked by an incident of

that order. But Chapron was the brother-in-law of Maitland, of the new

friend with whom Madame Steno had become infatuated during the absence of

the Polish Count, and what a brother-in-law! He of whom Dorsenne said:

"He would set Rome on fire to cook an egg for his sister's husband."

When Madame Steno announced that duel to her daughter, an invincible and

immediate deduction possessed the poor child—Florent was fighting for

his brother-in-law. And on account of whom, if not of Madame Steno? The

thought would not, however, have possessed her a second in the face of

the very plausible explanation made by the Countess, if Alba had not had

in her heart a certain proof that her mother was not telling the truth.

The young girl loved Maud as much as she was loved by her. She knew the

sensibility of her faithful and, delicate friend, as that friend knew

hers. For Maud to write her mother a letter which produced an immediate

rupture, there must have been some grave reason.

Another material proof was soon joined to that moral proof. Granted the

character and the habits of the Countess, since she had not shown Maud's

letter to her daughter there and then, it was because the letter was not

fit to be shown. But she heard on the following day only the description

of the duel, related by Maitland to Madame Steno, the savage aggression

of Gorka against Dorsenne, the composure of the latter and the issue,

relatively harmless, of the two duels.

"You see," said her mother to her, "I was right in saying that Gorka is

mad!…. It seems he has had a fit of insanity since the duel, and that

they prevent him from seeing any one…. Can you now comprehend how Maud

could blame me for what is hereditary in the Gorka family?"

Such was indeed the story which the Venetian and her friends, Hafner,

Ardea, and others, circulated throughout Rome in order to diminish the

scandal. The accusation of madness is very common to women who have

goaded to excess man's passion, and who then wish to avoid all blame for

the deeds or words of that man. In this case, Boleslas's fury and his

two incomprehensible duels, fifteen minutes apart, justified the story.

When it became known in the city that the Palazzetto Doria was strictly

closed, that Maud Gorka received no one, and finally that she was taking

away her husband in the manner which resembled a flight, no doubt

remained of the young man's wrecked reason.

Two persons profited very handsomely by the gossiping, the origin of

which was a mystery. One was the innkeeper of the 'Tempo Perso', whose

simple 'bettola' became, during those few days, a veritable place of

pilgrimage, and who sold a quantity of wine and numbers of fresh eggs.

The other was Dorsenne's publisher, of whom the Roman booksellers ordered

several hundred volumes.

"If I had had that duel in Paris," said the novelist to Mademoiselle

Steno, relating to her the unforeseen result, "I should perhaps have at

length known the intoxication of the thirtieth edition."

It was a few days after the departure of the Gorkas that he jested thus,

at a large dinner of twenty-four covers, given at Villa Steno in honor of

Peppino Ardea and Fanny Hafner. Reestablished in the Countess's favor

since his duel, he had again become a frequenter of her house, so much

the more assiduous as the increasing melancholy of Alba interested him

greatly. The enigma of the young girl's character redoubled that

interest at each visit in such a degree that, notwithstanding the heat,

already beginning, of the dangerous Roman summer, he constantly deferred

his return to Paris until the morrow. What had she guessed in

consequence of the encounter, the details of which she had asked of him

with an emotion scarcely hidden in her eyes of a blue as clear, as

transparent, as impenetrable at the same time, as the water of certain

Alpine lakes at the foot of the glaciers. He thought he was doing right

in corroborating the story of Boleslas Gorka's madness, which he knew

better than any one else to be false. But was it not the surest means of

exempting Madame Steno from connection with the affair? Why had he seen

Alba's beautiful eyes veiled with a sadness inexplicable, as if he had

just given her another blow? He did not know that since the day on which

the word insanity had been uttered before her relative to Maud's husband,

the Contessina was the victim of a reasoning as simple as irrefutable.

"If Boleslas be mad, as they say," said Alba, "why does Maud, whom I know

to be so just and who loves me so dearly, attribute to my mother the

responsibility of this duel, to the point of breaking with me thus, and

of leaving without a line of explanation?…. No…. There is something

else."…. The nature of the "something else" the young girl

comprehended, on recalling her mother's face during the perusal of Maud's

letter. During the ten days following that scene, she saw constantly

before her that face, and the fear imprinted upon those features

ordinarily so calm, so haughty! Ah, poor little soul, indeed, who could

not succeed in banishing this fixed idea "My mother is not a good woman."

Idea! So much the more terrible, as Alba had no longer the ignorance of

a young girl, if she had the innocence. Accustomed to the conversations,

at times very bold, of the Countess's salon, enlightened by the reading

of novels chanced upon, the words lover and mistress had for her a

signification of physical intimacy such that it was an almost intolerable

torture for her to associate them with the relations of her mother, first

toward Gorka, then toward Maitland. That torture she had undergone

during the entire dinner, at the conclusion of which Dorsenne essayed to

chat gayly with her. She sat beside the painter, and the man's very

breath, his gestures, the sound of his voice, his manner of eating and of

drinking, the knowledge of his very proximity, had caused her such keen

suffering that it was impossible for her to take anything but large

glasses of iced water. Several times during that dinner, prolonged amid

the sparkle of magnificent silver and Venetian crystal, amid the perfume

of flowers and the gleam of jewels, she had seen Maitland's eyes fixed

upon the Countess with an expression which almost caused her to cry out,

so clearly did her instinct divine its impassioned sensuality, and once

she thought she saw her mother respond to it.

She felt with appalling clearness that which before she had uncertainly

experienced, the immodest character of that mother's beauty. With the

pearls in her fair hair, with neck and arms bare in a corsage the

delicate green tint of which showed to advantage the incomparable

splendor of her skin, with her dewy lips, with her voluptuous eyes shaded

by their long lashes, the dogaresse looked in the centre of that table

like an empress and like a courtesan. She resembled the Caterina

Cornaro, the gallant queen of the island of Cypress, painted by Titian,

and whose name she worthily bore. For years Alba had been so proud of

the ray of seduction cast forth by the Countess, so proud of those

statuesque arms, of the superb carriage, of the face which defied the

passage of time, of the bloom of opulent life the glorious creature

displayed. During that dinner she was almost ashamed of it.

She had been pained to see Madame Maitland seated a few paces farther on,

with brow and lips contracted as if by thoughts of bitterness. She

wondered: Does Lydia suspect them, too? But was it possible that her

mother, whom she knew to be so generous, so magnanimous, so kind, could

have that smile of sovereign tranquillity with such secrets in her heart?

Was it possible that she could have betrayed Maud for months and months

with the same light of joy in her eyes?

"Come," said Julien, stopping himself suddenly in the midst of a speech,

in which he had related two or three literary anecdotes. "Instead of

listening to your friend Dorsenne, little Countess, you are following

several blue devils flying through the room."

"They would fly, in any case," replied Alba, who, pointing to Fanny

Hafner and Prince d'Ardea seated on a couch, continued: "Has what I told

you a few weeks since been realized? You do not know all the irony of

it. You have not assisted, as I did the day before yesterday, at the

poor girl's baptism."

"It is true," replied Julien, "you were godmother. I dreamed of Leo

Thirteenth as godfather, with a princess of the house of Bourbon as

godmother. Hafner's triumph would have been complete!"

"He had to content himself with his ambassador and your servant," replied

Alba with a faint smile, which was speedily converted into an expression

of bitterness. "Are you satisfied with your pupil?" she added. "I am

progressing…. I laugh—when I wish to weep…. But you yourself would

not have laughed had you seen the fervor of charming Fanny. She was the

picture of blissful faith. Do not scoff at her."

"And where did the ceremony take place?" asked Dorsenne, obeying the

almost suppliant injunction.

"In the chapel of the Dames du Cenacle."

"I know the place," replied the novelist, "one of the most beautiful

corners of Rome! It is in the old Palais Piancini, a large mansion

almost opposite the 'Calcographie Royale', where they sell those

fantastic etchings of the great Piranese, those dungeons and those ruins

of so intense a poesy! It is the Gaya of stone. There is a garden on

the terrace. And to ascend to the chapel one follows a winding

staircase, an incline without steps, and one meets nuns in violet gowns,

with faces so delicate in the white framework of their bonnets. In

short, an ideal retreat for one of my heroines. My old friend Montfanon

took me there. As we ascended to that tower, six weeks ago, we heard the

shrill voices of ten little girls, singing: 'Questo cuor tu la vedrai'.

It was a procession of catechists, going in the opposite direction, with

tapers which flickered dimly in the remnant of daylight…. It was

exquisite…. But, now permit me to laugh at the thought of Montfanon's

choler when I relate to him this baptism. If I knew where to find the

old leaguer! But he has been hiding since our duel. He is in some

retreat doing penance. As I have already told you, the world for him has

not stirred since Francois de Guise. He only admits the alms of the

Protestants and the Jews. When Monseigneur Guerillot tells him of

Fanny's religious aspirations, he raves immoderately. Were she to cast

herself to the lions, like Saint Blandine, he would still cry out

'sacrilege.'"

"He did not see her the day before yesterday," said Alba, "nor the

expression upon her face when she recited the Credo. I do not believe in

mysticism, you know, and I have moments of doubt. There are times when

I can no longer believe in anything, life seems to me so wretched and

sad…. But I shall never forget that expression. She saw God!….

Several women were present with very touching faces, and there were many

devotees…. The Cardinal is very venerable…. All were by Fanny's

side, like saints around the Madonna in the early paintings which you

have taught me to like, and when the baptism had been gone through, guess

what she said to me: 'Come, let us pray for my dear father, and for his

conversion.' Is not such blindness melancholy."

"The fact is," said Dorsenne again, jocosely, "that in the father's

dictionary the word has another meaning: Conversion, feminine

substantive, means to him income…. But let us reason a little,

Countess. Why do you think it sad that the daughter should see her

father's character in her own light?…. You should, on the contrary,

rejoice at it…. And why do you find it melancholy that this adorable

saint should be the daughter of a thief?…. How I wish that you were

really my pupil, and that it would not be too absurd to give you here,

in this corner of the hall, a lesson in intellectuality!…. I would say

to you, when you see one of those anomalies which renders you indignant,

think of the causes. It is so easy. Although Protestant, Fanny is of

Jewish origin—that is to say, the descendant of a persecuted race—which

in consequence has developed by the side of the inherent defects of a

proscribed people the corresponding virtues, the devotion, the abnegation

of the woman who feels that she is the grace of a threatened hearth, the

sweet flower which perfumes the sombre prison."

"It is all beautiful and true," replied Alba, very seriously. She had

hung upon Dorsenne's lips while he spoke, with the instinctive taste for

ideas of that order which proved her veritable origin. "But you do not

mention the sorrow. This is what one can not do—look upon as a

tapestry, as a picture, as an object; the creature who has not asked to

live and who suffers. You, who have feeling, what is your theory when

you weep?"

"I can very clearly foresee the day on which Fanny will feel her

misfortune," continued the young girl. "I do not know when she will

begin to judge her father, but that she already begins to judge Ardea,

alas, I am only too sure…. Watch her at this moment, I pray you."

Dorsenne indeed looked at the couple. Fanny was listening to the Prince,

but with a trace of suffering upon her beautiful face, so pure in outline

that the nobleness in it was ideal.

He was laughing at some anecdote which he thought excellent, and which

clashed with the sense of delicacy of the person to whom he was

addressing himself. They were no longer the couple who, in the early

days of their betrothal, had given to Julien the sentiment of a complete

illusion on the part of the young girl for her future husband.

"You are right, Contessina," said he, "the decrystallization has

commenced. It is a little too soon."

"Yes, it is too soon," replied Alba. "And yet it is too late. Would you

believe that there are times when I ask myself if it would not be my duty

to tell her the truth about her marriage, such as I know it, with the

story of the weak man, the forced sale, and of the bargaining of Ardea?"

"You will not do it," said Dorsenne. "Moreover, why? This one or

another, the man who marries her will only want her money, rest assured.

It is necessary that the millions be paid for here below, it is one of

their ransoms…. But I shall cause you to be scolded by your mother,

for I am monopolizing you, and I have still two calls to pay this

evening."

"Well, postpone them," said Alba. "I beseech you, do not go."

"I must," replied Julien. "It is the last Wednesday of old Duchess

Pietrapertosa, and after her grandson's recent kindness—"

"She is so ugly," said Alba, "will you sacrifice me to her?"

"Then there is my compatriot, who goes away tomorrow and of whom I must

take leave this evening, Madame de Sauve, with whom you met me at the

museum …. You will not say she is ugly, will you?"

"No," responded Alba, dreamily, "she is very pretty."…. She had another

prayer upon her lips, which she did not formulate. Then, with a

beseeching glance: "Return, at least. Promise me that you will return

after your two visits. They will be over in an hour and a half. It will

not be midnight. You know some do not ever come before one and sometimes

two o'clock. You will return?"

"If possible, yes. But at any rate, we shall meet to-morrow, at the

studio, to see the portrait."

"Then, adieu," said the young girl, in a low voice.

CHAPTER X

COMMON MISERY

The Contessina's disposition was too different from her mother's for the

mother to comprehend that heart, the more contracted in proportion as it

was touched, while emotion was synonymous with expansion in the opulent

and impulsive Venetian. That evening she had not even observed Alba's

dreaminess, Dorsenne once gone, and it required that Hafner should call

her attention to it. To the scheming Baron, if the novelist was

attentive to the young girl it was certainly with the object of capturing

a considerable dowry. Julien's income of twenty-five thousand francs

meant independence. The two hundred and fifty thousand francs which Alba

would have at her mother's death was a very large fortune. So Hafner

thought he would deserve the name of "old friend," by taking Madame Steno

aside and saying to her:

"Do you not think Alba has been a little strange for several days!"

"She has always been so," replied the Countess. "Young people are like

that nowadays; there is no more youth."

"Do you not think," continued the Baron, "that perhaps there is another

cause for that sadness—some interest in some one, for example?"

"Alba?" exclaimed the mother. "For whom?"

"For Dorsenne," returned Hafner, lowering his voice; "he just left five

minutes ago, and you see she is no longer interested in anything nor in

any one."

"Ah, I should be very much pleased," said Madame Steno, laughing. "He is

a handsome fellow; he has talent, fortune. He is the grand-nephew of a

hero, which is equivalent to nobility, in my opinion. But Alba has no

thought of it, I assure you. She would have told me; she tells me

everything. We are two friends, almost two comrades, and she knows I

shall leave her perfectly free to choose…. No, my old friend,

I understand my daughter. Neither Dorsenne nor any one else interests

her, unfortunately. I sometimes fear she will go into a decline, like

her cousin Andryana Navagero, whom she resembles…. But I must cheer

her up. It will not take long."

"A Dorsenne for a son-in-law!" said Hafner to himself, as he watched the

Countess walk toward Alba through the scattered groups of her guests, and

he shook his head, turning his eyes with satisfaction upon his future

son-in-law. "That is what comes of not watching one's children closely.

One fancies one understands them until some folly opens one's eyes!….

And, it is too late!…. Well, I have warned her, and it is no affair of

mine!"

In spite of Fanny's observed and increasing vexation Ardea amused himself

by relating to her anecdotes, more or less true, of the goings-on in the

Vatican. He thus attempted to abate a Catholic enthusiasm at which he

was already offended. His sense of the ridiculous and that of his social

interest made him perceive how absurd it would be to go into clerical

society after having taken for a wife a millionaire converted the day

before. To be just, it must be added that the Countess's dry champagne

was not altogether irresponsible for the persistency with which he teased

his betrothed. It was not the first time he had indulged in the semi-

intoxication which had been one of the sins of his youth, a sin less rare

in the southern climates than the modesty of the North imagines.

"You come opportunely, Contessina," said he, when Mademoiselle Steno had

seated herself upon the couch beside them. "Your friend is scandalized

by a little story I have just told her…. The one of the noble guard

who used the telephone of the Vatican this winter to appoint rendezvous

with Guilia Rezzonico without awakening the jealousy of Ugolino…. But

it is nothing. I have almost quarrelled with Fanny for having revealed

to her that the Holy Father repeated his benediction in Chapel Sixtine,

with a singing master, like a prima donna…."

"I have already told you that I do not like those jests," said Fanny,

with visible irritation, which her patience, however, governed. "If you

desire to continue them, I will leave you to converse with Alba."

"Since you see that you annoy her," said the latter to the Prince,

"change the subject."

"Ah, Contessina," replied Peppino, shaking his head, "you support her

already. What will it be later? Well, I apologize for my innocent

epigrams on His Holiness in his dressing-gown. And," he continued,

laughing, "it is a pity, for I have still two or three entertaining

stories, notably one about a coffer filled with gold pieces, which a

faithful bequeathed to the Pope. And that poor, dear man was about to

count them when the coffer slipped from his hand, and there was the

entire treasure on the floor, and the Pope and a cardinal on all fours

were scrambling for the napoleons, when a servant entered…. Tableau!

….I assure you that good Pius IX would be the first to laugh with us at

all the Vatican jokes. He is not so much 'alla mano'. But he is a holy

man just the same. Do not think I do not render him justice. Only, the

holy man is a man, and a good old man. That is what you do not wish to

see."

"Where are you going?" said Alba to Fanny, who had risen as she had

threatened to do.

"To talk with my father, to whom I have several words to say."

"I warned you to change the subject," said Alba, when she and the Prince

were alone. Ardea, somewhat abashed, shrugged his shoulders and laughed:

"You will confess that the situation is quite piquant, little

Countess…. You will see she will forbid me to go to the Quirinal….

Only one thing will be lacking, and it is that Papa Hafner should

discover religious scruples which would prevent him from greeting the

King…. But Fanny must be appeased!"

"My God!" said Alba to herself, seeing the young man rise in his turn.

"I believe he is intoxicated. What a pity!"

As have almost all revolutions of that order, the work of Christianity,

accomplished for years, in Fanny had for its principle an example.

The death of a friend, the sublime death of a true believer, ended by

determining her faith. She saw the dying woman receive the sacrament,

and the ineffable joy of the benediction upon the face of the sufferer of

twenty lighted up by ecstasy. She heard her say, with a smile of

conviction:

"I go to ask you of Our Lord, Jesus Christ."

How could she have resisted such a cry and such a sight?

The very day after that death she asked of her father permission to be

baptized, which request drew from the Baron a reply too significant not

to be repeated here:

"Undoubtedly," had replied the surprising man, who instead of a heart,

had a Bourse list on which all was tariffed, even God, "undoubtedly I am

touched, very deeply touched, and very happy to see that religious

matters preoccupy you to such a degree. To the people it is a necessary

curb, and to us it accords with a certain rank, a certain society, a

certain deportment. I think that a person called like you to live in

Austria and in Italy should be a Catholic. However, it is necessary to

remember that you might marry some one of another faith. Do not object.

I am your father. I can foresee all. I know you will marry only

according to the dictates of your heart. Wait then until it has spoken,

to settle the question…. If you love a Catholic, you will then have

occasion to pay a compliment to your betrothed by adopting his faith, of

which he will be very sensible…. From now until then, I shall not

prevent you from following ceremonies which please you. Those of the

Roman liturgy are, assuredly, among the best; I myself attended Saint

Peter's at the time of the pontifical government…. The taste, the

magnificence, the music, all moved me…. But to take a definite,

irreparable step, I repeat, you must wait. Your actual condition of a

Protestant has the grand sentiment of being more neutral, less defined."

What words to listen to by a heart already touched by the attraction of

'grace and by the nostalgia of eternal life! But the heart was that of a

young girl very pure and very tender. To judge her father was to her

impossible, and the Baron's firmness had convinced her that she must obey

his wishes and pray that he be enlightened. She therefore waited,

hoping, sustained and directed meanwhile by Cardinal Guerillot, who later

on was to baptize her and to obtain for her the favor of approaching the

holy table for the first time at the Pope's mass. That prelate, one of

the noblest figures of which the French bishopric has had cause to be

proud, since Monseigneur Pie, was one of those grand Christians for whom

the hand of God is as visible in the direction of human beings as it is

invisible to doubtful souls. When Fanny, already devoted to her

charities, confided in him the serious troubles of her mind and the

discord which had arisen between her and her father on the so essential

point of her baptism, the Cardinal replied:

"Have faith in God. He will give you a sign when your time has come."

And he uttered those words with an accent whose conviction had filled the

young girl with a certainty which had never left her.

In spite of his seventy years, and of the experiences of the confession,

in spite of the disenchanting struggle with the freemasonry of his French

diocese, which had caused his exile to Rome, the venerable man looked at

Fanny's marriage from a supernatural standpoint. Many priests are thus

capable of a naivete which, on careful analysis, is often in the right.

But at the moment the antithesis between the authentic reality and that

which they believe, constitutes an irony almost absurd. When he had

baptized Fanny, the old Bishop of Clermont was possessed by a joy so deep

that he said to her, to express to her the more delicately the tender

respect of his friendship:

"I can now say as did Saint Monica after the baptism of Saint Augustine:

'Cur hic sim, nescio; jam consumpta spe hujus saeculi'. I do not know

why I remain here below. All my hope of the age is consummated. And

like her I can add—the only thing which made me desire to remain awhile

was to see you a Catholic before dying. The traveller, who has tarried,

has now nothing to do but to go. He has gathered the last and the

prettiest flower."….

Noble and faithful apostle, who was indeed to go so shortly after,

meriting what they said of him, that which the African bishop said of his

mother: "That religious soul was at length absolved from her body."….

He did not anticipate that he would pay dearly for that realization of

his last wish! He did not foresee that she whom he ingenuously termed

his most beautiful flower was to become to him the principal cause of

bitter sorrow. Poor, grand Cardinal! It was the final trial of his

life, the supremely bitter drop in his chalice, to assist at the

disenchantment which followed so closely upon the blissful intoxication

of his gentle neophyte's first initiation. To whom, if not to him,

should she have gone to ask counsel, in all the tormenting doubts which

she at once began to have in her feelings with regard to her fiance?

It was, therefore, that on the day following the evening on which

imprudent Ardea had jested so persistently upon a subject sacred to her

that she rang at the door of the apartment which Monseigneur Guerillot

occupied in the large mansion on Rue des Quatre-Fontaines. There was no

question of incriminating the spirit of those pleasantries, nor of

relating her humiliating observations on the Prince's intoxication. No.

She wished to ease her mind, on which rested a shade of sorrow. At the

time of her betrothal, she had fancied she loved Ardea, for the emotion

of her religious life at length freed had inspired her with gratitude for

him who was, however, only the pretext of that exemption. She trembled

to-day, not only at not loving him any more, but at hating him, and above

all she felt herself a prey to that repugnance for the useless cares of

the world, to that lassitude of transitory hopes, to that nostalgia of

repose in God, undeniable signs of true vocations.

At the thought that she might, if she survived her father and she

remained free, retire to the 'Dames du Cenacle,' she felt at her

approaching marriage an inward repugnance, which augmented still more the

proof of her future husband's deplorable character. Had she the right to

form such bonds with such feelings? Would it be honorable to break,

without further developments, the betrothal which had been between her

and her father the condition of her baptism? She was already there,

after so few days! And her wound was deeper after the night on which the

Prince had, uttered his careless jests.

"It is permitted you to withdraw," replied Monsieur Guerillot, "but you

are not permitted to lack charity in your judgment."

There was within Fanny too much sincerity, her faith was too simple and

too deep for her not to follow out that advice to the letter, and she

conformed to it in deeds as well as in intentions. For, before taking a

walk in the afternoon with Alba, she took the greatest care to remove all

traces which the little scene of the day before could have left in her

friend's mind. Her efforts went very far. She would ask pardon of her

fiance…. Pardon! For what? For having been wounded by him, wounded

to the depths of her sensibility? She felt that the charity of judgment

recommended by the pious Cardinal was a difficult virtue. It exercises a

discipline of the entire heart, sometimes irreconcilable with the

clearness of the intelligence. Alba looked at her friend with a glance

full of an astonishment, almost sorrowful, and she embraced her, saying: