Jt X X J(_ p LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY RNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA f ■ u- \ ■•^: •V CO ^ ^ y ^ V-}' >^ V M M NJ V ^ V V V V V V V ^sr=: \ ^ ■ Y \ \ ^ V-^ —. ^ M an \^ M£) ^^: f UlfDRHU IIBMSY OF THE UmVERSITY OF 0UIF9RIIIH |i| ¥ ^^ 'ij^m^ O O i.^j - *• ^ = r=: ^^ffl 3 ..•*.*--:; -^^•.^ ^1 f ^ ' ^Jl A"^- vj£) ■'^^^^•: OF CUIFORKU LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CUIfOflHU i Ml ca »\ A /I i ^ 5 ^ 1^ ^% %. '/ 9S S.i -^^-::i /A/ l§? : TO Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/batrixOObalzrich THE COMEDY OF HUMAN LIFE By H. DE BALZAC SCENES FROM PRIVATE LIFE BEATRIX BALZAC'S NOVELS. Translated by Miss K. P. Wormeley. Already Published: PERE GORIOT. DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS. RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU. EUGENIE GRANDET. COUSIN PONS. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR. THE TAATO BROTHERS. THE ALKAHEST (La Recherche deTAbsolu). MODESTE MIGNON. THE MAGIC SKIN (La Peau de Chagrin). COUSIN BETTE. LOUIS LAMBERT. BUREAUCRACY (Les Employes). SERAPHITA. SONS OP THE SOIL (Les Paysans). FAME AND SORROW (Chat-qui-pelote). THE LILY OP THE VALLEY. URSULA. AN HISTORICAL MYSTERY. ALBERT SAVARUS. BALZAC : A MEMOIR. PIERRETTE. THE CHOUANS. LOST ILLUSIONS. A GREAT MAN OP THE PROVINCES IN PARIS. THE BROTHERHOOD OP CONSOLATION. THE VILLAGE RECTOR. MEMOIRS OP T'WO YOUNG MARRIED WOMEN. CATHERINE DE' MEDICI. LUCIEN DE RUBEMPRB. PERRAGUS, CHIEP OP THE DEVORANTS. A START IN LIPB. THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT. BEATRIX. DAUGHTER OP EVE. < ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, BOSTON. HON ORE DE BALZAC TRANSLATEr LY KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY BEATRIX ROBERTS BROTHERS 3 SOMERSET STREET BOSTON 1895 GIFT Of Copyright, 1895, By Roberts Brothers. All rights reserved. ®ntt)cr0ita PrM0: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. NOTE. It is somewhat remarkable that Balzac, dealing as he did with traits of character and the minute and daily circum- stances of life, has never been accused of representing actual persons in the two or three thousand portraits which he painted of human nature. In '' The Great Man of the Provinces in Paris " some like- nesses were imagined : Jules Janin in Etienne Lousteau, Armand Carrel in Michel Chrestien, and, possibly, Berryer in Daniel d' Arthez. But in the present volume, " Beatrix," hcN used the characteristics of certain persons, which were recog- nized and admitted at the time of publication. Mademoiselle des Touches (Camille Maupin) is George Sand in character, and the personal description of her, though applied by some to the famous Mademoiselle Georges, is easily recognized from Couture's drawing. Beatrix, Conti, and Claude Vignon are sketches of the Comtesse d'Agoult, Liszt, and the well-known critic Gustave Blanche. The opening scene of this volume, representing the manners and customs of the old Breton family, a social state existing no longer except in history, and the transition period of the vieille roche as it passed into the customs and ideas of the pres- ent century, is one of Balzac's remarkable and most famous pictures in the " Comedy of Human Life." K. P. W. 796230 CONTENTS. PAOB I. A Breton Town and Mansion .... 1 II. The Baron, his Wife, and Sister ... 18 III. Three Breton Silhouettes 36 IV. A Normal Evening 47 V. Calyste 61 VI. Biography of Camille Maupin .... 74 VII. Les Touches 97 VIII. La Marquise Beatrix Ill IX. A First Meeting 142 X. Drama 156 XI. Female Diplomacy 181 XII. Correspondence 200 XIIT. Duel between Women 220 XIV. An Excursion to Croisic 235 XV. CoNTi 260 XVI. Sickness unto Death 272 XVII. A Death: a Marriage 288 TO SARAH. In cloudless weather, on the shores of the Mediterranean, where lay in former times the noble empire of your name, sometimes the sea reveals beneath the shimmer of its waters an ocean flower, a masterpiece of Nature ; but the lace of its petals, rose, purple, bistre, violet, or gold, the freshness of its living filagree, the velvet of its tissue, wither instantly if thoughtless curiosity lays hold of it and brings it to the shore. Jn like manner the sunshine of publicity would hurt your pious modesty. Therefore, in dedicating to you this book, I must conceal a name which would otherwise be its pride. But, if I keep this semi-silence, your beautiful hands may bless it, your noble brow may dreamily bend over it, your eyes, filled with maternal love, may smile upon its pages, for you yourself are in them, in bodily presence, veiled. Like that pearl of the ocean flora, you shall stay upon the white untrodden sand where your fair life unfolds, diaphanous, to some discreet and friendly eyes, though hidden from all others by the wave. Would that I could lay at your feet a work in harmony with your perfection; but, since that is a thing impossible, I here appeal to one of your highest instincts, and offer you, to con- sole me, something you can protect, De Balzac. BEATRIX. I. A BRETON TOWN AND MANSION. France, especially in Brittany, still possesses certain towns completely outside of the movement which gives to the nineteenth century its peculiar characteristics. For lack of quick and regular communication with Paris, scarcely connected by wretched roads with the sub-prefecture, or the chief city of their own province, these towns regard the new civilization as a spectacle to be gazed at; it amazes them, but they never applaud it ; and, whether they fear it or scoff at it, they continue faithful to the old manners and customs which have come down to them. Whoso would travel as a moral archaeologist, observing men instead of stones, would find images of the time of Louis XV. in many a village of Provence, of the time of Louis XIV. in the depths of Poitou, and of still more ancient times in the towns of Brittany. Most of these towns have fallen from states of splendor never mentioned by historians, who are always more concerned with facts and dates than with the truer history of manners and customs. The tradition of this splendor still lives in the memory of 1 2 Beatrix, the people, — as in Brittany, where the native character 'allows np foFget^u)ness of things which concern its own land. Many of these towns were once the capi- tals of a IJttle feudal State, — a county or duchy con- quered by the crown' or divided among many heirs, if the male line failed. Disinherited from active life, these heads became arms ; and arms deprived of nour- ishment, wither and barely vegetate. For the last thirty years, however, these pictures of ancient times are beginning to fade and disappear. Modern industry, working for the masses, goes on de- stroying the creations of ancient art, the works of which were once as personal to the consumer as to the artisan. Nowadays we have products, we no longer have works. Public buildings, monuments of the past, count for much in the phenomena of retrospection ; but the monuments of modern industry are freestone quarries, saltpetre mines, cotton factories. A few more years and even these old cities will be trans- formed and seen no more except in the pages of this iconography. One of the towns in which may be found the most correct likeness of the feudal ages is Guerande. The name alone awakens a thousand memories in the minds of painters, artists, thinkers who have visited the slopes on which this splendid jewel of feudality lies proudly posed to command the flux and reflux of the tides and the dunes, — the summit, as it were, of a triangle, at the corners of which are two other jewels not less curious : Croisic, and the village of Batz. There are no towns after Guerande except Vitre in the centre of Brittany, and Avignon in the south of France, which Beatrix, 3 preserve so intact, to the very middle of our epoch, the type and form of the middle ages. Guerande is still encircled with its doughty walls ; its moats are full of water, its battlements entire, its loopholes unincumbered with vegetation ; even ivy has never cast its mantle over the towers, square or round. The town has three gates, where may be seen the rings of the portcullises ; it is entered by a drawbridge of iron-clamped wood, no longer raised but which could be raised at will. The mayoralty was blamed for hav- ing, in 1820, planted poplars along the banks of the moat to shade the promenade. It excused itself on the ground that the long and beautiful esplanade of the fortifications facing the dunes had been converted one hundred years earlier into a mall where the inhabitants took their pleasure beneath the elms. The houses of the old town have suffered no change ; and they have neither increased nor diminished. None have suffered upon their frontage from the hammer of the architect, the brush of the plasterer, nor have they staggered under the weight of added stories. All retain their primitive characteristics. Some rest on wooden columns which form arcades under which foot- passengers circulate, the floor planks bending beneath them, but never breaking. The houses of the merchants are small and low ; their fronts are veneered with slate. Wood, now decaying, counts for much in the carved material of the window-casings and the pillars, above which grotesque faces look down, while shapes of fantastic beasts climb up the angles, animated by that great thought of Art, which in those old days gave life to inanimate nature. These relics, resisting 4 Beatrix, change, present to the eye of painters those dusky tones and half-blurred features in which the artistic brush delights. The streets are what they were four hundred years ago, — with one exception : population no longer swarms there ; the social movement is now so dead that a traveller wishing to examine the town (as beau- tiful as a suit of antique armor) may walk alone, not without sadness, through a deserted street, where the mullioned windows are plastered up to avoid the win- dow-tax. This street ends at a postern, flanked with a wall of masonry, beyond which rises a bouquet of trees planted by the hands of Breton nature, one of the most luxuriant and fertile vegetations in France. A painter, a poet would sit there silently, to taste the quietude which reigns beneath the well-preserved arch of the postern, where no voice comes from the life of the peaceful city, and where the landscape is seen in its rich magnificence through the loop holes of the case- mates once occupied by halberdiers and archers, which are not unlike the sashes of some belvedere arranged for a point of view. It is impossible to walk about the place without thinking at every step of the habits and usages of long-past times ; the very stones tell of them ; the ideas of the middle ages are still there with all their ancient superstitions. If, by chance, a gendarme passes you, with his silver-laced hat, his presence is an anachronism against which your sense of fitness pro- tests ; but nothing is so rare as to meet a being or an object of the present time. There is even very little of the clothing of the day ; and that little the inhabi- Beatrix, 5 tants adapt in a way to their immutable customs, their unchangeable physiognomies. The public square is filled with Breton costumes, which artists flock to draw; these stand out in wonderful relief upon the scene around them. The whiteness of the linen worn by the paludiers (the name given to men who gather salt in the salt-marshes) contrasts vigorously with the blues and browns of the peasantry and the original and sacredly preserved jewelry of the women. These two classes, and that of the sailors in their jerkins and varnished leather caps are as distinct from one another as the castes of India, and still recognize the distance that parts them from the bourgeoisie, the nobility, and the clergy. AU lines are clearly marked ; there the revolutionary level found the masses too rugged and too hard to plane ; its instrument would have been notched, if not broken. The character of immutability which science gives to zoological species is found in Breton human nature. Even now, after the Revolution of 1830, Guerande is still a town apart, essentially Breton, fervently Catholic, silent, self-contained, — a place where modern ideas have little access. Its geographical position explains this phenomenon. The pretty town overlooks a salt-marsh, the product of which is called throughout Brittany the Guerande salt, to which many Bretons attribute the excellence of their butter and their sardines. It is connected with the rest of France by two roads only : that coming from Savenay, the arrondissement to which it belongs, which stops at Saint-Nazaire ; and a second road, loading from Vannes, which connects it with the Morbi- hiin. The arrondissement road establishes communi- 6 Beatrix, cation by land, and from Saint-Nazaire by water, with Nantes. The land road is used only by government ; the more rapid and more frequented way being by water from Saint-Nazaire. Now, between this village and Guerande is a distance of eighteen miles, which the mail-coach does not serve, and for good reason ; not three coach passengers a year would pass over it. These, and other obstacles, little fitted to encourage travellers, still exist. In the first place, government is slow in its proceedings ; and next, the inhabitants of the region put up readily enough with diflaculties which separate them from the rest of France. Guerande, therefore, being at the extreme end of the continent, leads nowhere, and no one comes there. Glad to be ignored, she thinks and cares about herself only. The immense product of her salt-marshes, which pays a tax of not less than a million to the Treasury, is chiefly managed at Croisic, a peninsular village which communicates with Guerande over quicksands which efface during the night the tracks made by day, and also by boats which cross the arm of the sea that makes the port of Croisic. This fascinating little town is therefore the Hercula- neum of feudality, less its winding sheet of lava. It is afoot, but not living ; it has no other ground of ex- istence except that it has not been demolished. If you reach Guerande from Croisic, after crossing a dreary landscape of salt-marshes, you will experience a strong sensation at sight of that vast fortification, which is still as good as ever. If you come to it by Saint- Nazaire, the picturesqueness of its position and the naive grace of its environs will please you no less. BSatrix* 7 The country immediately surrounding it is ravishing ; the hedges are full of flowers, honeysuckles, roses, box, and many enchanting plants. It is like an English garden, designed by some great architect. This rich, coy nature, so untrodden, with all the grace of a bunch of violets or a lily of the valley in the glade of a forest, is framed by an African desert banked by the ocean, — a desert without a tree, an herb, a bird ; where, on sunny days, the laboring paludiers^ clothed in white and scattered among those melancholy swamps where the salt is made, remind us of Arabs m their burrows. Thus Guerande bears no resemblance to any other place in France. The town produces somewhat the same effect upon the mind as a sleeping-draught upon the body. It is silent as Venice. There is no other public conveyance than the springless wagon of a car- rier who carries travellers, merchandise, and occasion- ally letters from Saint-Nazaire to Guerande and vice versa, Bernus, the carrier, was, in 1829, the factotum of this large community. He went and came when he pleased ; all the country knew him ; and he did the er- rands of all. The arrival of a carriage in Guerande, that of a lady or some' invalid going to Croisic for sea- bathing (thought to have greater virtue among those rocks than at Boulogne or Dieppe) is still %n immense event. The peasants come in on horseback, most of them with commodities for barter in sacks. They are induced to do so (and so are the paludiers) by the necessity of purchasing the jewels distinctive of their caste which are given to all Breton brides, and the white linen, or cloth for their clothing. 8 Beatrix. For a circuit ten miles round, Guerande is always GuERANDE, — the illustrious town where the famous treaty was signed in 1365, the key of the coast, w^hich may boast, not less than the village of Batz, of a splendor now lost in the night of time. The jewels, linen, cloth, ribbon, and hats are made elsewhere, but to those who buy them they are from Guerande and nowhere else. All artists, and even certain bourgeois, who come to Guerande feel, as they do at Venice, a desire (soon forgotten) to end their days amid its peace and silence, walking in fine weather along the beautiful mall which surrounds tlie town from gate to gate on the side toward the sea. Sometimes the image of this town arises, in the temple of memory; she enters, crowned with her towers, clasped with her girdle ; her flower-strewn robe floats onward, the golden mantle of her dunes enfolds her, the fragrant breath of her briony paths, filled with the flowers of each passing season, exhales at every step; she fills your mind, she calls to you like some enchanting woman whom you have met in other climes and whose presence still lingers in a fold of your heart. Near the church of Guerande stands a mansion which is to the town what the town is to the region, an exact image of the past, the symbol of a grand thing de- stroyed, — a poem, in short. This mansion belongs to the noblest family of the province ; to the du Guaisnics, who, in the times of the du Guesclins, were as superior to the latter in antiquity and fortune as the Trojans were to the Romans. The Guaisqlains (the name is also spelled in the olden timedu Glaicquin), from which comes du Guesclin, issued from the Guaisnics. BSatrix, 9 Old as the granite of Brittany, the Guaisnics are neither Frenchmen nor Gauls, — they are Bretons ; or, to be more exact, they are Celts. Formerly, they must have been Druids, gathering mistletoe in the sacred forests and sacrificing men upon their dolmens. Use- less to say what they were ! To-day this race, equal to the Rohans without having deigned to make themselves princes, a race which was powerful before the ancestors of Ungues Capet were ever heard of, this family, pure of all alloy, possesses two thousand francs a year, its mansion in Guerande, and the little castle of Guaisnic. All the lands belonging to the barony of Guaisnic, the first in Brittany, are pledged to farmers, and bring in sixty thousand francs a year, in spite of ignorant cul- ture. The du Guaisnics remain the owners of these lands although they receive none of the revenues, for the reason that for the last two hundred years they have been unable to pay off the money advanced upon them. They are in the position of the crown of France towards its engagistes (tenants of crown-lands) before the year 1789. Where and when could the barons obtain the million their farmers have advanced to them? Before 1789 the tenure of the fiefs subject to the castle of Guaisnic was still worth fifty thousand francs a year ; but a vote of the National Assembly suppressed the seigneurs' dues levied on inheritance. In such a situation this family — of absolutely no account in France, and which would be a subject of laughter in Paris, were it known there — is to Gudrande the whole of Brittany. In Guerande the Baron du Guaisnic is one of the great barons of France, a man above whom there is but one man, — tlie King of 10 'Beatrix, France, once elected ruler. To-day the name of da Guaisnic, full of Breton significances (the roots of which will be found explained in " The Chouans") has been subjected to the same alteration which disfigures that of du Guaisqlain. The tax-gatherer now writes the name, as do the rest of the world, du Guenic. At the end of a silent, damp, and gloomy lane may be seen the arch of a door, or rather gate, high enough and wide enough to admit a man on horseback, — a cir- cumstance which proves of itself that when this build- ing was erected carriages did not exist. The arch, supported by two jambs, is of granite. The gate, of oak, rugged as the bark of the tree itself, is studded with enormous nails placed in geometric figures. The arch is semicircular. On it are carved the arms of the Guaisnics as clean-cut and clear as though the sculp- tor had just laid down his chisel. This escutcheon would delight a lover of the heraldic art by a simplicity which proves the pride and the antiquity of the family. It is as it was in the days when the crusaders of the Christian world invented these symbols by which to recognize each other ; the Guaisnics have never had it quartered ; it is always itself, like that of the house of France, which connoisseurs find inescutcheoned in the shields of many of the old families. Here it is, such as you may see it still at Guerande : Gules, a hand proper gonfaloned ermine, with a sword argent in pale, and the terrible motto, Fac. Is not that a grand and noble thing? The circlet of a baronial coronet sur- mounts this simple escutcheon, the vertical lines of which, used in carving to represent gnles, are clear as ever. The artist has given I know not what Biatrix. 11 proud, chivalrous turn to the hand. With what vigor it holds the sword which served but recently the present family ! If you go to Guerande after reading this history you cannot fail to quiver when you see that blazon. Yes, the most confirmed republican would be moved by the fidelity, the nobleness, the grandeur hidden in the depths of that dark lane. The du Guaisnics did well yesterday, and they are ready to do well to-morrow. To DO is the motto of chivalry. '' You did well in the battle " was the praise of the Connetable par excel- lence^ the great du Guesclin who drove the English for a time from France. The depth of this carving, which has been protected from the weather by the projecting edges of the arch, is in keeping with the moral depth of the motto in the soul of this family. To those who know the Guaisnics this fact is touching. The gate when open gives a vista into a somewhat vast court-yard, on the right of which are the stables, on the left the kitchen and oflSces. The house is built of freestone from cellar to garret. The faqade on the court-yard has a portico with a double range of steps, the wall of which is covered with vestiges of carvings now effaced by time, but in which the eye of an anti- quary can still make out in the centre of the principal mass the Hand bearing the sword. The granite steps are now disjointed, grasses have forced their way with little flowers and mosses through the fissures between the stones which centuries have displaced without how- ever lessening their solidity. The door of the house must have had a charming character. As far as the relics of the old designs allow us to judge, it was done 12 Beatrix. by an artist of the great Venetian school of the thir- teenth century. Here is a mixture, still visible, of the Byzantine and the Saracenic. It is crowned with a circular pediment, now wreathed with vegetation, — a bouquet, rose, brown, yellow, or blue, according to the season. The door, of oak, nail-studded, gives entrance to a noble hall, at the end of which is another door, opening upon another portico which leads to the garden. This hall is marvellously well preserved. The pan- elled wainscot, about three feet high, is of chestnut. A magnificent Spanish leather with figures in relief, the gilding now peeled off or reddened, covers the walls. The ceiling is of wooden boards artistically joined and painted and gilded. The gold is scarcely noticeable ; it is in the same condition as that of the Cordova leather, but a few red flowers and the green foliage can still be distinguished. Perhaps a thorough cleaning might bring out paintings like those discovered on the plank ceilings of Tristan's house at Tours. If so, it would prove that those planks were placed or restored in the reign of Louis XI. The chimney-piece is enor- mous, of carved stone, and within it are gigantic and- irons in wrought-iron of precious workmanship. It could hold a cart-load of wood. The furniture of this hall is wholly of oak, each article bearing upon it the arms of the family. Three English guns equally suitable for chase or war, three sabres, two game-bags, the utensils of a huntsman and a fisherman hang from nails upon the wall. On one side is a dining-room, which connects with the kitchen by a door cut through a corner tower. Beatrix. ' 13 This tower corresponds in the design of the fagade toward the court-yard with another tower at the oppo- site corner, in which is a spiral staircase leading to the two upper stories. The dining-room is hung with tapestries of the fourteenth century ; the style and the orthography of the inscription on the banderols beneath each figure prove their age, but being, as they are, in the naive language of the fabliaux^ it is impossible to transcribe them here. These tapestries, w^ell preserved in those parts where light has scarcely penetrated, are framed in bands of oak now black as ebony. The ceiling has projecting rafters enriched with foliage which is varied for each rafter ; the space between them is filled with planks painted blue, on which twine garlands of golden flowers. Two old buffets face each other; on their shelves, rubbed with Breton persistency by Mariotte the cook, can be seen, as in the days when kings were as poor in 1200 as the du Guaisnics are in 1830, four old goblets, an ancient embossed soup-tureen, and two salt-cellars, all of silver ; also many pewter plates and many pitchers of gray and blue pottery, bearing ara- besque designs and the arms of the da Guaisnics, covered by hinged pewter lids. The chimney-piece is modernized. Its condition proves that the family has lived in this room for the last century. It is of carved stone in the style of the Louis XV. period, and is orna- mented with a mirror, let in to the back with a gilt beaded moulding. This anachronism, to which the family is indifferent, would grieve a poet. On the mantel-shelf, covered with red velvet, is a tall clock of tortoise-shell inlaid with brass, flanked on each side 14 Beatrix, with a silver candelabrum of singular design. A large square table, with solid legs, tills the centre of this room ; the chairs are of turned wood covered with tapestry. On a round table supported by a single leg made in the shape of a vine-shoot, which stands before a window looking into the garden, is a lamp of an odd kind. This lamp has a common glass globe, about the size of an ostrich egg, which is fastened into a candle- stick by a glass tube. Through a hole at the top of the globe issues a wick which passes through a sort of reed of brass, drawing the nut-oil held in the globe through its own length coiled like, a tape-worm in a surgeon's phial. The windows which look into the garden, like those that look upon the court-yard, are mullioned in stone with hexagonal leaded panes, and are draped by curtains, with heavy valances and stout cords, of an ancient stuff of crimson silk with gold reflections, called in former days either brocatelle or small brocade. On each of the two upper stories of the house there are but two rooms. The first is the bedroom of the head of the family, the second is that of the children. Guests were lodged in chambers beneath the roof. The servants slept above the kitchens and stables. The pointed roof, protected with lead at its angles and edges, has a noble pointed window on each side, one looking down upon the court-yard, the other on the garden. These windows, rising almost to the level of the roof, have slender, delicate casings, the carvings of which have crumbled under the salty vapors of the atmosphere. Above the arch of each window with its crossbars of stone, still grinds, as it turns, the vane of a noble. Beatrix, 15 Let us not forget a precious detail, full of na'ivetd, whicli will be of value in the eyes of an archaeologist. The tower in which tlie spiral staircase goes up is placed at the corner of a great gable wall in which there is no window. The staircase comes down to a little arched door, opening upon a gravelled yard which separates the house from the stables. This tower is repeated on the garden side by another of five sides, ending in a cupola in which is a bell-turret, instead of being roofed, like the sister- tower, with a pepper-pot. This is how those charming architects varied the symmetry of their sky-lines. These towers are connected on the level of the first upper floor by a stone gallery, supported by what we must call brackets, each ending in a grotesque human head. This gallery has a balus- trade of exquisite workmanship. From the gable above depends a stone dais like those that crown the statues of saints at the portal of churches. Can you not see a woman walking in the morning along this balcony and gazing over Guerande at the sunshine, wliere it gilds the sands and shimmers on the breast of Ocean? Do you not admire that gable wall flanked at its angles with those varied towers ? The opposite gable of the Guaisnic mansion adjoins the next house. The harmony so carefully sought by the architects of those days is maintained in the faqade looking on the court-yard by the tower which communicates between the dining-room and the kitchen, and is the same as the staircase tower, except that it stops at the first upper story and its summit is a small open dome, beneath which stands a now blackened statue of Saint Calyste. The garden is magnificent for so old a place. It 16 Beatrix* covers half an acre of ground, its walls are all espa- liered, and the space within is divided into squares for vegetables, bordered with cordons of fruit-trees, which the man-of-all-work, named Gasselin, takes care of in the intervals of grooming the horses. At the farther end of the garden is a grotto with a seat in it ; in the middle, a sun-dial ; the paths are gravelled. The fagade on the garden side has no towers corresponding to those on the court-yard ; but a slender spiral column rises from the ground to the roof, which must in former days have borne the banner of the family, for at its summit may still be seen an iron socket, from which a few weak plants are straggling. This detail, in har- mony with the vestiges of sculpture, proves to a prac- tised eye that the mansion was built by a Venetian architect. The graceful staff is like a signature re- vealing Venice, chivalry, and the exquisite delicacy of the thirteenth century. If any doubts remained on this point, a feature of the ornamentation would di:;'sipate them. The trefoils of the hotel du Guaisnic have four leaves instead of three. This difference plainly indi- cates the Venetian school depraved by its commerce with the East, where the semi-Saracenic architects, careless of the great catholic thought, give four leaves to clover, while Christian art is faithful to the Trinity. In this respect Venetian art became heretical. If this ancient dwelling attracts your imagination, you may perhaps ask yourself why such miracles of art are not renewed in the present day. Because to-day mansions are sold, pulled down, and the ground they stood on turned into streets. No one can be sure that 4;he next generation will possess the paternal dwelling ; Beatrix, 17 homes are no more than inns ; whereas in former times when a dwelling was built men worked, or thought they worked, for a family in perpetuity. Hence the grandeur of these houses. Faith in self, as well as faitii in God, did prodigies. As for the arrangement of the upper rooms they may be imagined after this description of the ground- floor, and after reading an account of the manners, cus- toms, and physiognomy of the family. For the last fifty years the du Guainics have received their friends in the two rooms just described, in which, as in the court-yard and the external accessories of the building, the spirit, grace, and candor of the old and noble Brit- tany still survives. Without the topography and de- scription of the town, and without this minute depicting of the house, the surprising figures of the family might be less understood. Therefore the frames have preceded the portraits. Every one is aware that things influence beings. There are public buildings whose effect is visible upon the persons living in their neighborhood. It would be difficult indeed to be irreligious in the shadow of a cathedral like that of Bourges. When the soul is everywhere reminded of its destiny by sur-' rounding images, it is less easy to fail of it. Such was the thought of our immediate grandfathers, aban- doned by a generation which was soon to have no signs and no distinctions, and whose manners and morals were to change every decade. If you do not now expect to find the Baron du Guaisnic sword in hand, all here written would be falsehood. 2 18 Beatrix, 11. THE BARON, HIS WIFE, AND SISTER. Early in the month of May, in the year 1836, the period when this scene opens, the family of Guenic (we follow henceforth the modern spelling) consisted of Monsieur and Madame du Guenic, Mademoiselle du Guenic the baron's elder sister, and an only son, aged twenty-one, named, after an ancient family usage, Gaudebert-Calyste-Louis. The father's name was Gaudebert-Calyste-Charles. Only the last name was ever varied. Saint Gaudebert and Saint Calyste were forever bound to protect the Guenics. The Baron du Guenic had started from Guerande the moment that La Vendee and Brittany took arms ; he fought through the war with Charette, with Cathe- lineau. La Rochejaquelein, d'Elbee, Bonchamps, and the Prince de Loudon. Before starting he had, with a prudence unique in revolutionary annals, sold his whole property of every kind to his elder and only sister. Mademoiselle Zephirine du Guenic. After the death of all those heroes of the West, the baron, pre- served by a miracle from ending as they did, refused to submit to Napoleon. He fought on till 1802, when being at last defeated and almost captured, he returned to Guerande, and from Guerande went to Croisic, whence he crossed to Ireland, faithful to the ancient Breton hatred for England. Beatrix, 19 The people of Gudrande feigned utter ignorance of the baron's existence. In tlie whole course of twenty years not a single indiscreet word was ever uttered. Mademoiselle du Guenic received the rents and sent them to her brother by fishermen. Monsieur du Guenic returned to Guerande in 1813, as quietly and simply as if he had merely passed a season at Nantes. During his stay in Dublin the old Breton, despite his fifty years, had fallen in love with a charming Irish woman, daughter of one of the noblest and poorest families of that unhappy kingdom. Fanny O'Brien was then twenty-one years old. The Baron du Guenic came over to France to obtain the documents necessary for his marriage, returned to Ireland, and, after about ten months (at the beginning of 1814), brought his wife to Guerande, where she gave him Calyste on the very day that Louis XVIII. landed at Calais, — a cir- cumstance which explains the young man's final name of Louis. The old and loyal Breton was now a man of seventy- three ; but his long-continued guerilla warfare with the Republic, his exile, the perils of his five crossings through a turbulent sea in open boats, had weighed upon his head, and he looked a hundred ; therefore, at no period had the chief of the house of Guenic been more in keeping with the worn-out grandeur of their dwelling, built in the days when a court reigned at Guerande. Monsieur de Guenic was a tall, straight, wiry, lean old man. His oval face was lined with innumerable wrinkles, which formed a net-work over his cheek-bones and above his eyebrows, giving to his face a resem- 20 Beatrix. blance to those choice old men whom Van Ostade, Rembrandt, Mieris, and Gerard Dow so loved to paint, in pictures which need a microscope to be fully appre- ciated. His countenance might be said to be sunken out of sight beneath those innumerable wrinkles, pro- duced by a life in the open air and by the habit of watching the country in the full light of the sun from the rising of that luminary to the sinking of it. Never- theless, to an observer enough remained of the im- perishable forms of the human face which appealed to the soul, even though the eye could see no more than a lifeless head. The firm outline of the face, the shape of the brow, the solemnity of the lines, the rigidity of the nose, the form of the bony structure which wounds alone had slightly altered, — all were signs of intre- pidity without calculation, faith without reserve, obedi- ence without discussion, fidelity without compromise, love without inconstancy. In him, the Breton granite was made man. The baron had no longer any teeth. His lips, once red, now violet, and backed by hard gums only (with which he ate the bread his wife took care to soften by folding it daily in a damp napkin), drew inward to the mouth with a sort of grin, which gave him an expres- sion both threatening and proud. His chin seemed to seek his nose ; but in that nose, humped in the middle, lay the signs of his energy and his Breton resistance. His skin, marbled with red blotches appearing through his wrinkles, showed a powerfully sanguine tempera- ment, fitted to resist fatigue and to preserve him, as no doubt it did, from apoplexy. The head was crowned with abundant hair, as white as silver, which fell in BSatrix. 21 curls upon his shoulders. The face, extinguished, as we have said, in part, lived through the glitter of the black eyes in their brown orbits, casting thence the last flames of a generous and loyal soul. The eyebrows and lashes had disappeared ; the skin, grown hard, could not unwrinkle. The difficulty of shaving had obliged the old man to let his beard grow, and the cut of it was fan-shaped. An artist would have admired beyond all else in this old lion of Brittany with his powerful shoulders and vigorous chest, the splendid hands of the soldier, — hands like those du Guesclin must have had, large, broad, hairy ; hands that once had clasped the sword never, like Joan of Arc, to relin- quish it until the royal standard floated in the cathe- dral of Rheims ; hands that were often bloody from the thorns and furze of the Socage ; hands which had pulled an oar in the Marais to surprise the Blues, or in the offing to signal Georges ; the hands of a gue- rilla, a cannoneer, a common soldier, a leader ; hands still white though the Bourbons of the Elder branch were again in exile. Looking at those hands atten- tively, one might have seen some recent marks attest- ing the fact that the Baron had recently joined Madame in La Vend^^e. To-day that fact may be admitted. These hands were a living commentary on the noble motto to which no Guenic had proved recreant: Fad Ilis forehead attracted attention by the golden tones of the temples, contrasting with the brown tints of the hard and narrow brow, which the falling off of the hair had somewhat broadened, giving still more majesty to that noble ruin. The countenance — a little material, 22 Beatrix. perhaps, but how could it be otherwise? — presented, like all the Breton faces grouped about the baron, a certain savagery, a stolid calm which resembled the impassibility of the Huguenots ; something, one might say, stupid, due perhaps to the utter repose which fol- lows extreme fatigue, in which the animal nature alone is visible. Thought was rare. It seemed to be an effort ; its seat was in the heart more than in the head ; it led to acts rather than ideas. But, examining that grand old man with sustained observation, one could penetrate the mystery of this strange contradiction to the spirit of the century. He had faiths, sentiments, inborn so to speak, which allowed him to dispense with thought. His duty, life had taught him. Institu- tions and religion thought for him. He reserved his mind, he and his kind, for action, not dissipating it on useless things which occupied the minds of other per- sons. He drew his thought from his heart like his sword from its scabbard, holding it aloft in his ermined hand, as on his scutcheon, shining with sincerity. That secret once penetrated, all is clear. We can comprehend the depth of convictions that are not thoughts, but living principles, — clear, distinct, down- right, and as immaculate as the ermine itself. We understand that sale made to his sister before the war ; which provided for all, and faced all, death, confisca- tion, exile. The beauty of the character of these two old people (for the sister lived only for and by the brother) cannot be understood to its full extent by the light of the selfish morals, the uncertain aims, and the inconstancy of this our epoch. An archangel, charged with the duty of penetrating to the inmost recesses of Biatrix. 23 their hearts could not have found one thought of per- sonal interest. In 1814, when the rector of Guerande suggested to the baron that he should go to Paris and claim his recompense from the triumphant Bourbons, the old sister, so saving and miserly for the household, cried out : — '* Oh, fy ! does my brother need to hold out his hand like a beggar? " ' ' It would be thought I served the king from inter- est," said the old man. ''Besides, it is for him to remember. Poor king ! he must be weary indeed of those who harass him. If he gave them all France in bits, they still would ask." This loyal servant, who had spent his life and means on Louis XVIII., received the rank of colonel, the cross of Saint-Louis, and a stipend of two thousand francs a year. '' The king did remember! " he said when the news reached him. No one undeceived him. The gift was really made by the Due de Feltre. But, as an act of gratitude to the king, the baron sustained a siege at Guerande against the forces of General Travot. He refused to surrender the fortress, and when it was absolutely necessary to evacuate it he escaped into the woods with a band of Chouans, who continued armed until the second restoration of the Bourbons. Guerande still treasures the memory of that siege. We must admit that the Baron du Guenic was illit- erate as a peasant. He could read, write, and do some little ciphering ; he knew the military art and heraldry, but, excepting always his prayer-book, he had not read 24 Beatrix. three volumes in the course of his life. His cloihing, which is not an insignificant point, was invariably the same ; it consisted of stout shoes, ribbed stockings, breeches of greenish velveteen, a cloth waistcoat, and a loose coat with a collar, from which hung the cross of Saint-Louis. A noble serenity now reigned upon that face where, for the last year or so, sleep, the forerunner of death, seemed to be preparing him for rest eternal. This constant somnolence, becoming daily more and more frequent, did not alarm either his wife, his blind sister, or his friends, whose medical knowledge was of the slightest. To them these solemn pauses of a life without reproach, but very weary, were naturally ex- plained : the baron had done his duty, that was all. In this ancient mansion the absorbing interests were the fortunes of the dispossessed Elder branch. The future of the exiled Bourbons, that of the Catholic religion, the influence of political innovations on Brittany were the exclusive topics of conversation in the baron's family. There was but one personal inter- est mingled with these most absorbing ones ; the at- tachment of all for the only son, for Calyste, the heir, the sole hope of the great name of the du Guenics. The old Vendean, the old Chouan, had, some years previously, a return of his own youth in order to train his son to those manly exercises which were proper for a gentleman liable to be summoned at any moment to take arms. No sooner was Calyste sixteen years of age than his father accompanied him to the marshes and the forest, teaching him through the pleasures of the chase the rudiments of war, preaching by example, indifferent to fatigue, firm in his saddle, sure of his BSatrix. 25 shot whatever the game might be, — deer, hare, or a bird on tlie wing, — intrepid in face of obstacles, bidding his son follow him into danger as though he had ten other sons to take Calyste's place. So, when the Duchesse de Berry landed in France to conquer back the kingdom for her son, the father judged it right to take his boy to join her, and put in practice the motto of their ancestors. The baron started in the dead of night, saying no word to his wife, who might perhaps have weakened him ; taking his son under fire as if to a fete, and Gasselin, his only vassal, who followed him joyfully. The three men of the family were absent six months without sending news of their whereabouts to the baroness, who never read the '' Quotidienne " without trembling from line to line, nor to his old blind sister, heroically erect, whose nerve never faltered for an instant as she heard that paper read. The three guns hanging to the walls had therefore seen service recently. The baron, who considered the enterprise useless, left the region before the affair of La Penissi^re, or the house of Guenic would probably have ended in that hecatomb. When, on a stormy night after parting from Madame, the father, son, and servant returned to the house in Gue'rande, they took their friends and the baroness and old Mademoiselle de Guenic by surprise, although tlie latter, by the exercise of senses with which the blind are gifted, recognized the steps of the three men in the little lane leading to the house. The baron looked round upon the circle of his anxious friends, who were seated beside the little table lighted by the antique lamp, and said in a tremulous voice, while 26 BeaU IX. Gasselin replaced the three guns and the sabres in their places, these words of feudal simplicity : — '' The barons did not all do their duty." Then, having kissed his wife and sister, he sat down in his old arm-chair and ordered supper to be brought for his son, for Gasselin, and for himself. Gasselin had thrown himself before Calyste on one occasion, to pro- tect him, and received the cut of a sabre on his shoulder ; but so simple a matter did it seem that even the women scarcely thanked him. The baron and his guests uttered neither curses nor complaints of their conquerors. Such silence is a trait of Breton charac- ter. In forty years no one ever heard a word of con- tumely from the baron's lips about his adversaries. It was for them to do their duty as he did his. This utter silence is the surest indication of an unalterable will. This last effort, the flash of an energy now waning, had caused the present weakness and somnolence of the old man. The fresh defeat and exile of the Bour- bons, as miraculously driven out as miraculously re- established, were to him a source of bitter sadness. About six o'clock in the evening of the day on which this history begins, the baron, who, according to ancient custom, had finished dining by four o'clock, fell asleep as usual while his wife was reading to him the " Quotidienne." His head rested against the back of the arm-chair which stood beside the fireplace on the garden side. ' | Near this gnarled trunk of an ancient tree, and in * front of the fireplace, the baroness, seated on one of the antique chairs, presented the type of those adorable Beatrix. 27 women who exist in P^ngland, Scotland, or Ireland only. There alone are born those milk-white creatures with golden hair the curls of which are wound by the hands of angels, for the light of heaven seems to rip- ple in their silken spirals swaying to the breeze. Fanny O'Brien was one of those sylphs, — strong in tenderness, invincible under misfortune, soft as the music of her voice, pure as the azure of her eyes, of a delicate, refined beauty, blessed with a skin that was silken to the touch and caressing to the eye, which neither painter's brush nor written word can picture. Beautiful still at forty-two years of age, many a man would have thought it happiness to marry her as he looked at the splendors of that autumn coloring, redun- dant in flowers and fruit, refreshed and refreshing with the dews of heaven. The baroness held the paper in a dimpled hand, the fingers of which curved slightly backward, their nails cut square like those of an antique statue. Half lying, without ill-grace or affectation, in her chair, her feet stretched out to warm them, she was dressed in a gown of black velvet, for the weather was now becom- ing chilly. The corsage, rising to the throat, moulded the splendid contour of the shoulders and the rich bosom which the suckling of her son had not deformed. Her hair was worn in ringlets^ after the English fashion, down her cheeks ; the rest was simply twisted to the crown of her head and lield there with a tortoise- shell comb. The color, not undecided in tone as other blond hair, sparkled to the light like a filagree of bur- nished gold. The baroness always braided the short locks curling on the nape of her neck — which are a 28 Beatrix. sign of race. This tiny braid, concealed in the mass of hair always carefully put up, allowed the eye to follow with delight the undulating line by which her neck was set upon her shoulders. This little detail will show the care which she gave to her person; it was her pride to rejoice the eyes of the old baron. What a charming, delicate attention ! When you see a woman display- ing in her own home the coquetry which most women spend on a single sentiment, believe me, that woman is as noble a mother as she is a wife ; she is the joy and the flower of the home ; she knows her obligations as a woman ; in her soul, in her tenderness, you will find her outward graces ; she is doing good in secret ; she worships, she adores without a calculation of return ; she loves her fellows, as she loves God, — for their, own sakes. And so one might fancy that the Virgin of paradise, under whose care she lived, had rewarded the chaste girlhood and the sacred life of the old man*s wife by surrounding her with a sort of halo which pre- served her beauty from the wrongs of time. The alterations of that beauty Plato would have glorified as the coming of new graces. Her skin, so milk-white once, had taken the warm and pearly tones which painters adore. Her broad and finely modelled brow caught lovingly the light which played on its polished surface. Her eyes, of a turquoise blue, shone with unequalled sweetness ; the soft lashes, and the slightly sunken temples inspired the spectator with I know not what mute melancholy. The nose, which was aquiline and thin, recalled the royal origin of the high-born woman. The pure lips, finely cut, wore happy smiles, brought there by loving-kindness inexhaustible. Her BSatrix, 29 teeth were small and white ; she had gained of late a slight embonpoint, but her delicate hips and slender waist were none the worse for it. The autumn of her beauty presented a few perennial flowers of her spring- tide among the richer blooms of summer. Her arms be- came more nobly rounded, her lustrous skin took a finer grain ; the outlines of her form gained plenitude. Lastly and best of all, her open countenance, serene and slightly rosy, the purity of her blue eyes, that a look too eager might have wounded, expressed illimitable sympathy, the tenderness of angels. At the other chimney-corner, in an arm-chair, the octogenarian sister, like in all points save clothes to her brother, sat listening to the reading of the newspaper and knitting stockings, a work for which sight is -needless. Both eyes had cataracts ; but she obsti- nately refused to submit to an operation, in spite of the entreaties of her sister-in-law. The secret reason of that obstinacy was known to herself only ; she de- clared it was want of courage ; but the truth was that she would not let her brother spend twenty-five louis for her benefit. That sum would have been so much the less for the good of the household. These two old persons brought out in fine relief the beauty of the baroness. Mademoiselle Zephirine, be- ing deprived of sight, was not aware of the changes which eighty years had wrought in her features. Her pale, hollow face, to which the fixedness of the white and sightless eyes gave almost the appearance of death, and three or four solitary and projecting teeth made menacing, was framed by a little hood of brown printed cotton, quilted like a petticoat, trimmed with a 30 Beatrix. cotton ruche, and tied beneath the chin by strings which were always a little rusty. She wore a cotillon^ or short skirt of coarse cloth, over a quilted petticoat (a positive mattress, in which were secreted double louis-d'ors), and pockets sewn to a belt which she un- fastened every night and put on every morning like a garment. Her body was encased in the casaquiii of Brittany, a species of spencer made of the same cloth as the cotillon^ adorned with a collarette of many pleats, the washing of which caused the only dispute she ever had with her sister-in-law, — her habit being to change it only once a week. From the large wadded sleeves of the casaquin issued two withered but still vigorous arms, at the ends of which flourished her hands, their brownish-red color making the white arms look like poplar-wood. These hands, hooked or contracted from the habit of knitting, might be called a stocking-machine incessantly at work ; the phenomenon would have been had they stopped. From time to time Mademoiselle du Guenic took a long knitting- needle which she kept in the bosom of her gown, and passed it between her hood and her hair to poke or scratch her white locks. A stranger would have laughed to see the careless manner in which she thrust back the needle without the slightest fear of wounding herself. She was straight as a steeple. Her erect and imposing carriage might pass for one of those coquetries of old age which prove that pride is a neces- sary passion of life. Her smile was gay. She, too, had done her duty. As soon as the baroness saw that her husband was asleep she stopped reading. A ray of sunshine. BSatrix. 81 stretcliing from one window to the other, divided by a Ijfoklen band the atniospliere of that old room and bur- nished the now black furniture. The light touched the carvings of the ceiling, danced on the time-worn chests, spread its shining cloth on the old oak table, enlivening the still, brown room, as Fanny's voice cast into the heart of her octogenarian blind sister a music Ik as luminous and as cheerful as that ray of sunlight. P Soon the ray took on the ruddy colors which, by in- P sensible gradations, sank into the melancholy tones of twilight. The baroness also sank into a deep medita- tion, one of those total silences which her sister-in-law had noticed for the last two weeks, trying to explain them to herself, but making no inquiry. The old woman studied the causes of this unusual pre-occupation, as blind persons, in whose soul sound lingers like a divin- ing echo, read books in which the pages are black and the letters white. Mademoiselle Zephirine, to whom the dark hour now meant nothing, continued to knit, and the silence at last became so deep that the clicking of her knitting-needles was plainly heard. " You have dropped the paper, sister, but you are not asleep," said the old woman, slyly. At this moment Mariotte came in to light the lamp, wliich she placed on a square table in front of the fire ; then she fetched her distaff, her ball of thread, and a small stool, on which she seated herself in the recess of a window and began as usual to spin. Gasselin was still busy about the offices ; he looked to the horses of the baron and Calyste, saw that the stable was in order for the night, and gave the two fine hunting- dogs their daily meal. The joyful barking of the 32 Beatrix. animals was the last noise that awakened the echoes slumbering among the darksome walls of the ancient house. The two dogs and the two horses were the only remaining vestiges of the splendors of its chivalry. An imaginative man seated on the steps of the portico and letting himself fall into the poesy of the still living images of that dwelling, might have quivered as he heard the baying of the hounds and the trampling of the neighing horses. Gasselin was one of those short, thick, squat little Bretons, with black hair and sun-browned faces, silent, slow, and obstinate as mules, but always following steadily the path marked out for them. He was forty- two years old, and had been twenty-five years in the household. Mademoiselle had hired him when he was fifteen, on hearing of the marriage and probable return of the baron. This retainer considered himself as part of the family; he had played with Calyste, he loved the horses and dogs of the house, and talked to them and petted them as though they were his own. He wore a blue linen jacket with little pockets flapping about his hips, waistcoat and trousers of the same material at all seasons, blue stockings, and stout hob- nailed shoes. When it was cold or rainy he put on a goat's-skin, after the fashion of his country. Mario tte, who was also over forty, was as a woman what Gasselin was as a man. No team could be bet- ter matched, — same complexion, same figure, same little eyes that were lively and black. It is difficult to understand why Gasselin and Mariotte had never mar- ried ; possibly it might have seemed immoral, they were so like brother and sister. Mariotte's wages Beatrix, 33 were ninety francs a year ; Gasselin's, three hundred. But thousands of francs offered to them elsewhere would not have induced either to leave the Guenic household. Both were under the orders of Made- moiselle, who, from the time of the war in La Vendee to tlie period of her brother's return, had ruled the house. When she learned that the baron was about to bring home a mistress, she had been moved to great emotion, believing that she must yield the seep- • tre of the household and abdicate in favor of the Baronne de Guenic, whose subject she was now com- pelled to be. Mademoiselle Zephirine was therefore agreeably surprised to find in Fanny O'Brien a young woman born to the highest rank, to whom the petty cares of a poor household were extremely distasteful, — one who, like other fine souls, would far have preferred to eat plain bread rather than the choicest food if she had to prepare it for herself ; a woman capable of accom- plishing all the duties, even the most painful, of humanity, strong under necessary privations, but with- out courage for commonplace avocations. When the baron begged his sister in his wife's name to continue in charge of the household, the old maid kissed the baroness like a sister ; she made a daughter of her, she adored her, overjoyed to be left in control of the liousehold, which she managed rigorously on a system of almost inconceivable economy, which was never relaxed except for some great occasion, such as the lying-in of her sister, and her nourishment, and all that concerned Calyste, the worshipped son of the wliole household. 3 34 Beatrix. Though the two servants were accustomed to this stern regime, and no orders need ever have been given to them, for the interests of their masters were greater to their minds than their own, — were their own in fact, — Mademoiselle Zephirine insisted on looking after everything. Her attention being never dis- tracted, she knew, without going up to verify her knowledge, how large was the heap of nuts in the barn ; and how many oats remained in the bin without plunging her sinewy arm into the depths of it. She carried at the end of a string fastened to the belt of her casaquin, a boatswain's whistle, with which she w as wont to summon Mariotte by one, and Gasselin by two notes. Gasselin's greatest happiness was to cultivate the garden and produce fine fruits and vegetables. He had so little work to do that without this occupation he would certainly have felt lost. After he had groomed his horses in the morning, he polished the floors and cleaned the rooms on the ground-floor, then he went to his garden, where weed or damaging insect was never seen. Sometimes Gasselin was observed motion- less, bare-headed, under a burning sun, watching for a field-mouse or the terrible grub of the cockchafer; then, as soon as it was caught, he would rush with the joy of a child to show his masters the noxious beast that had occupied his mind for a week. He took pleasure in going to Croisic on fast-days, to purchase a fish to be had for less money there than at Guerande. Thus no household was ever more truly one, more united in interests, more bound together than this noble family sacredly devoted to its duty. Masters Beatrix, 35 and servants seemed made for one another. For twenty- five years there had been neither trouble nor discord. The only griefs were the petty aihnents of the little boy, the only terrors were caused by the events of 1814 and those of 1830. If the same things were in- variably done at the same hours, if the food was sub- jected to the regularity of times and seasons, this monotony, like that of Nature varied only by altera- tions of cloud and rain and sunshine, was sustained by the affection existing in the hearts of all, — the more fruitful, the more beneficent because it emanated from natural causes. 36 Beatrix, ill. THREE BRETON SILHOUETTES. When night had fairly fallen, Gasselin came into the hall and asked his master respectfully if he had further need of him. " You can go out, or go to bed, after prayers," re- plied the baron, waking up, " unless Madame or my sister — " The two ladies here made a sign of consent. Gasselin then knelt down, seeing that his masters rose to kneel upon their chairs ; Mariotte also knelt before her stool. Mademoiselle du Guenic then said the prayer aloud. After it was over, some one rapped at the door on the lane. Gasselin went to open it. " I dare say it is Monsieur le cure ; he usually 6omes first," said Mariotte. Every one now recognized the rector's foot on the resounding steps of the portico. He bowed respect- fully to the three occupants of the room, and addressed them in phrases of that unctuous civility which priests are accustomed to use. To the rather absent-minded greeting of the mistress of the house, he replied by an ecclesiastically inquisitive look. " Are you anxious or ill, Madame la baronne? " he asked. " Thank you, no," she replied. BSatrix, 37 Monsieur Grimont, a man of fifty, of middle height, lost in hi8 cassock, from which issued two stout shoes with silver buckles, exhibited above his bands a plump visage, and a generally white skin though yellow in spots. His hands were dimpled. His abbatial face had something of the Dutch burgomaster in the placid- ity of its complexion and its flesh tones, and of the Breton peasant in the straight black hair and the vivacity of the brown eyes, which preserved, neverthe- less, a priestly decorum. His gayety, that of a man whose conscience was calm and pure, admitted a joke. His manner had nothing uneasy or dogged about it, like that of many poor rectors whose existence or whose power is contested by their parishioners, and who instead of being, as Napoleon sublimely said, the moral leaders of the population and the natural justices of peace, are treated as enemies. Obser^^ng Monsieur Grimont as he marched through Guerande, the most irreligious of travellers would have recognized the sovereign of that Catholic town ; but this same sove- reign lowered his spiritual superiority before the feudal supremacy of the du Guenics. In their salon he was as a chaplain in his seigneur's house. In church, when he gave the benediction, his hand was always first stretched out toward the chapel belonging to the Gunnies, where their mailed hand and their device were carved upon the key-stone of the arch. '' I thought that Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel had already arrived," said the rector, sitting down, and taking the hand of the baroness to kiss it. " She is fretting unpunctual. Can it be that the fashion of dissipation is contagious? I see that Monsieur lo ciiovalier is again at Les Touches this evening." 38 Beatrix. *' Don't say anythiug about those visits before Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel," cried the old maid, eagerly. ''Ah! mademoiselle," remarked Mariotte, "you can't prevent the town from gossiping." " What do they say? " asked the baroness. " The young girls and the old women all say that he is in love with Mademoiselle des Touches." " A lad of Calyste's make is playing his proper part in making the women love him," said the baron. "Here comes Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel," said Mariotte. The gravel in the court-yard crackled under the dis- creet footsteps of the coming lady, who was accom- panied by a page supplied with a lantern. Seeing this lad, Mariotte removed her stool to the great hall for the purpose of talking with him by the gleam of his rush- light, which was burned at the cost of his rich and miserly mistress, thus economizing those of her own masters. This elderly demoiselle was a thin, dried-up old maid, yellow as the parchment of a Parliament record, wrinkled as a lake ruffled by the wind, with gray eyes, large prominent teeth, and the hands of a man. She was rather short, a little crooked, possibly hump- backed ; but no one had ever been inquisitive enough to ascertain the nature of her perfections or her im- perfections. Dressed in the same style as Mademoi- selle du Guenic, she stirred an enormous quantity of petticoats and linen whenever she wanted to find one or other of the two apertures of her gown through which she reached her pockets. The strangest jingling Beatrix, 39 of keys and money then echoed among her garments. She always wore, dangling from one side, the bunch of keys of a good housekeeper, and from the other her silver snuff-box, thimble, knitting-needles, and other implements that were also resonant. Instead of Made- moiselle Zephirine's wadded hood, she wore a green bonnet, in which she may have visited her melons, for it had passed, like them, from green to yellowish; as for its shape, our present fashions are just now bringing it back to Paris, after twenty years absence, under the name of Bibi. This bonnet was constructed under her own eye and by the hands of her nieces, out of green Florence silk bought at Guerande, and an old bonnet-shape, renewed every five years at Nantes, — for Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel allowed her bonnets the longevity of a legislature. Her nieces also made her gowns, cut by an immutable pattern. The old lady still used the cane with the short hook that all women carried in the early days of Marie-Antoinette. She belonged to the very highest nobility of Brittany. Her arms bore the ermine of its ancient dukes. In her and in her sister the illustrious Breton house of the Pen-Hoels ended. Her younger sister had married a Kergarouet, who, in spite of the deep disapproval of the whole region, added the name of Pen-Hoel to his own and called himself the Vicomte de Kergarouet- Pen-Hoel. " Heaven has punished him," said the old lady ; '* he has nothing but daughters, and the Kergarouet-Pen- Iloiil name will be wiped out." Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoiil possessed about seven thousand francs a year from the rental of lauds. 40 Beatrix. She had come into her property at thirty-six years of age, and managed it herself, inspecting it on horse- back, and displaying on all points the firmness of character which is noticeable in most deformed per- sons. Her avarice was admired by the whole country round, never meeting with the slightest disapproval. She kept one woman-servant and the page. Her yearly expenses, not including taxes, did not amount to over a thousand francs. Consequently, she was the object of the cajoleries of the Kergarouet-Pen-Hoels, who passed the winters at Nantes, and the summers at their estate on the banks of the Loire below I'lndret. She was supposed to be ready to leave her fortune and her savings to whichever of her nieces pleased her best. Every three months one or other of the four demoiselles de Kergarouet-Pen-Hoel, (the youngest of whom was twelve, and the eldest twenty years of age) came to spend a few days with her. A friend of Zephirine du Guenic, Jacqueline de Pen-Hoel, brought up to adore the Breton grandeur of the du Guenics, had formed, ever since the birth of Calyste, the plan of transmitting her property to the chevalier by marrying him to whichever of her nieces the Vicomtesse de Kergarouet-Pen-Hoel, their mother, would bestow upon him. She dreamed of buying back some of the best of the Guenic property from the farmer engagistes. When avarice has an object it ceases to be a vice ; it becomes a means of virtue ; its privations are a perpetual offering ; it has the grandeur of an intention beneath its meannesses. Perhaps Zephirine was in the secret of Jacqueline's intention. Perhaps even the baroness, whose whole soul was Beatrix. 41 occupied by love for her son and tenderness for bis father, may have guessed it as she saw with what wily perseverance Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel brought with her her favorite niece, Charlotte de Kergarouet, now sixteen years of age. The rector. Monsieur Gri- mont, was certainly in her confidence ; it was he who helped the old maid to invest her savings. But Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel might have had three hundred thousand francs in gold, she might have had ten times the landed property she actually possessed, and the du Guenics would never have allowed them- selves to pay her the slightest attention that the old woman could construe as looking to her fortune. From a feeling of truly Breton pride, Jacqueline de Pen-Hoel, glad of the supremacy accorded to her old friend Zephirine and the du Guenics, always showed herself honored by her relations with Madame du Guenic and her sister-in-law. She even went so far as to conceal the sort of sacrifice to which she con- sented every evening in allowing lier page to burn in the Guenic hall that singular gingerbread-colored candle called an oribus which is still used in certain parts of western France. Thus this rich old maid was nobility, pride, and grandeur personified. At the moment when you are reading this portrait of her, the Abbe Grimont has just indiscreetly revealed that on the evening when the old baron, the young chevalier, and Gasselin secretly departed to join Madame (to the terror of the baron- ess and the great joy of all Bretons) Mademoiselle de lV'n-Ho91 had given the baron ten thousand francs in gold, — an immense sacrifice, to which the abbe added 42 Beatrix, another ten thousand, a tithe collected by him,— charging the old hero to offer the whole, in the name of the Pen-Hoels and of the parish of Guerande, to the mother of Henri V. Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel treated Calyste as if she felt that her intentions gave her certain rights over him ; her plans seemed to authorize a supervision. Not that her ideas were strict in the matter of gallantry, for she had, in fact, the usual indulgence of the old women of the old school, but she held in horror the modern ways of revolutionary morals. Calyste, who might have gained in her estimation by a few ad- ventures with Breton girls, would have lost it considerably had she seen him entangled in what she called innovations. She might have disinterred a little gold to pay for the results of a love-affair, but if Calyste had driven a tilbury or talked of a visit to Paris she would have thought him dis- sipated, and declared him a spendthrift. Impossi- ble to say what she might not have done had she found him reading novels or an impious newspaper. To her, novel ideas meant the overthrow of succession of crops, ruin under the name of improvements and methods ; in short, mortgaged lands as the inevitable result of experiments. To her, prudence was the true method of making your fortune ; good management consisted in filling your granaries with wheat, rye, and flax, and waiting for a rise at the risk of being called a monopolist, and clinging to those grain-sacks obsti- nately. By singular chance she had often made lucky sales which confirmed her principles. She was thought to be maliciously clever, but in fact she was not BSatrix. 43 f quick willed ; on the other hfind, being as methodical :is ii Dutcliman, prudent as a cat, and persistent as a priest, those qualities in a region of routine like Brittany were, practically, the equivalent of intellect. '*Will Monsieur du Halga join us this evening?" asked Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, taking off her knitted mittens after the usual exchange of greetings. *' Yes, mademoiselle; I met him taking his dog to walk on the mall," replied the rector. *' Ha ! then our mouche will be lively to-night. Last evening we were only four." At the word mouche the rector rose and took from a drawer in one of the tall chests a small round basket made of fine osier, a pile of ivory counters yellow as a Turkish pipe after twenty years' usage, and a pack of cards as greasy as those of the custom-house officers at Saint-Nazaire, who change them only once in two weeks. These the abbe brought to the table, arrang- ing the proper number of counters before each player, and putting the basket in the centre of the table beside the lamp, with infantine eagerness, and the manner of a man accustomed to perform this little service. A knock at the outer gate given firmly in military fashion echoed through the stillness of the ancient mansion. Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoiirs page went gravely to open the door, and presently the long, lean, methodically clothed person of the Chevalier du Halga, former flag-captain to Admiral de Kergarouet, defined itself in black on the penumbra of the portico. *' Welcome, chevalier ! " cried Mademoiselle de Peii- Hoel. " The altar is raised," said the abb^. 44 Beatrix. The chevalier was a man in poor health, who wore flannel for his rheumatism, a black-silk skull-cap to protect his head from fog, and a spencer to guard ■ his precious chest from the sudden gusts which freshen the atmosphere of Guerande. He always went armed with a gold-headed cane to drive away the dogs who paid untimely court to a favorite little bitch who usually accompanied him. This man, fussy as a fine lady, worried by the slightest contretemps^ speaking low to spare his voice, had been in his early days one of the most intrepid and most competent officers of the old navy. He had won the confidence of de Suffren in the Indian Ocean, and the friendship of the Comte de Por- tenduere. His splendid conduct while flag-captain to Admiral Kergarouet was written in visible letters on his scarred face. To see him now no one would have imagined the voice that ruled the storm, the eye that compassed the sea, the courage, indomitable, of the Breton sailor. The chevalier never smoked, never swore ; he was gentle and tranquil as a girl, as much concerned about his little dog Thisbe and her caprices as though he were an elderly dowager. In this way he gave a high idea of his departed gallantry, but he never so much as alluded to the deeds of surpassing bravery which had astonished the doughty old admiral, Comte d'Estaing. Tliough his manner was that of an invalid, and he walked as if stepping on eggs and complained about the sharpness of the wind or the heat of the sun, or the dampness of the misty atmosphere, he exhibited a set of the whitest teeth in the reddest of gums, — a fact reassuring as to his maladies, which were, however, BSatrix. 45 rather expensive, consisting as they did of four daily meals of monastic amplitude. His bodily frame, like that of the baron, was bony, and indestructibly strong, and covered with a parchment glued to his bones as the skin of an Arab horse on the muscles which shine in the sun. His skin retained the tawny color it received in India, whence, however, he did not bring back either facts or ideas. He had emigrated with the rest of his friends, lost his property, and was now end- ing his days with the cross of Saint-Louis and a pen- sion of two thousand francs, as the legal reward of his services, paid from the fund of the Invalides de la Marine. The slight hypochondria which made him invent his imaginary ills is easily explained by his actual sufferings during the emigration. He served in the Russian navy until the day when the Emperor Alexander ordered him to be employed against France ; he then resigned and went to live at Odessa, near the Due de Richelieu, with whom he returned to France. It was the duke who obtained for this glorious relic of the old Breton navy the pension which enabled him to live. On the death of Louis XVIII. he returned to Guerande, and became, after a while, mayor of the city. The rector, tha chevalier, and Mademoiselle de Pen- Hoel had regularly passed their evenings for the last fifteen years at the hotel du Guunic, where the other noble personages of the town and neighborhood also came. It will readily be understood that the du Gu(5nic8 were at the head of the faubourg Saint-Ger- main of the old Breton province, where no member of 46 Beatrix. the new administration sent down by the new govern- ment was ever allowed to penetrate. For the last six years the rector coughed when he came to the crucial words, Domine, salvum fac regem. Politics were still at that point in Guerande. Beatrix, 47 IV. A NORMAL EVENING. Mouche i8 a game played with five cards dealt to each player, and one turned over. The turned-over card is trumps. At each round the player is at liberty to run his chances or to abstain from playing his card. If he abstains he loses nothing but his own stake, for as long as there are no forfeits in the basket each player puts in a trifling sum. If he plays and wins a trick he is paid pro rata to the stake; that is, if there are five sous in the basket, he wins one sou. The player who fails to win a trick is made mouche; he has to pay the whole stake, which swells the basket for the next game. Those who decline to play throw down their cards during the game; but their play is held to be null. The players can exchange their cards with the remainder of the pack, as in ecarte, but only by order of sequence, so that the first and second holders may, and sometimes do, absorb the remainder of the pack between them. The turned-over trump card belongs to the dealer, who is always the last; he has the right to exchange it for any card in his own hand. One powerful card is of more importance than all the rest; 4t is called Mistigris. Mistigris is the knave of clubs. 48 Beatrix, This game, simple as it is, is not lacking in inter- est. The cupidity natural to mankind develops in it; so does diplomatic wiliness ; also play of countenance. At the hotel du Guenic, each of the players took twenty counters, representing five sous ; which made the sum total of the stake for each game five far- things, a large amount in the eyes of this company. Supposing some extraordinary luck, fifty sous might be won, — more capital than any person in Gueraude spent in the course of any one day. Consequently Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel put into this game (the innocence of which is only surpassed in the nomen- clature of the Academy by that of La Bataille) a pas- sion corresponding to that of the hunters after big game. Mademoiselle Zephirine, who went shares in the game with the baroness, attached no less impor- tance to it. To put up one farthing for the chance of winning five, game after game, was to this con- firmed hoarder a mighty financial operation, into which she put as much mental action as the most eager speculator at the Bourse expends during the rise and fall of consols. By a certain diplomatic convention, dating from September, 1825, when Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel lost thirty-five sous, the game was to cease as soon as a person losing ten sous should express the wish to retire. Politeness did not allow the rest to give the retiring player the pain of seeing the game go on without him. But, as all passions have their Jesuit- ism, the chevalier and the baron, those wily politi- cians, had found a -means of eluding this charter. When all the players but one were anxious to continue Beatrix, 49 an exciting game, the daring sailor, du Halga, one of those rich fellows prodigal of costs they ^o not pay, would offer ten counters to Mademoiselle Zephirine or Mademoiselle Jacqueline, when either of them, or both of them, had lost their five sous, on condition of reimbursement in case they won. An old bachelor could allow himself such gallantries to the sex. The baron also offered ten counters to the old maids, but under the honest pretext of continuing the game. The miserly maidens accepted, not, however, without some pressing, as is the use and wont of maidens. But, before giving way to this vast prodigality the baron and the chevalier were required to have won; other- wise the offer would have been taken as an insult. Monche became a brilliant affair when a Demoiselle de Kergarouet was in transit with her aunt. We use the single name, for the Kergarouets had never been able to Induce any one to call them Kergarouet-Pen- Hoel, — not even their servants, although the latter had strict orders so to do. At these times the aunt held out to the niece as a signal treat the mouche at the du Guenics. The girl was ordered to look amiable, an easy thing to do in presence of the beautiful Calyste, whom the four Kergarouet young ladies all adored. Brought up in the midst of modern civilization, these young persons cared little for five sous a game, and on such occasions the stakes went higher. Those were evenings of great emotion to the old blind sister. The baroness would give her sundry hints by pressing her foot a certain number of times, according to the size of the stake it was safe to play. To play or not to play, if the basket were full, involved an inward 4 50 Beatrix, struggle, where cupidity fought with fear. If Charlotte de Kergarouet, who was usually called giddy, was lucky in her bold throws, her aunt on their return home (if she had not won herself), would be cold and disapproving, and lecture the girl: she had too much decision in her character ; a young person should never assert herself in presence of her betters ; her manner of taking the basket and beginning to play was really insolent ; the proper behavior of a young girl de- manded much more reserve and greater modesty; etc. It can easily be imagined that these games, carried on nightly for twenty years, were interrupted now and then by narratives of events in the town, or by discussions on public events. Sometimes the players would sit for half an hour, their cards held fan-shape on their stomachs, engaged in talking. If, as a result of these inattentions, a counter was missing from the basket, every one eagerly declared that he or she had put in their proper number. Usually the chevalier made up the deficiency, being accused by the rest of thinking so much of his buzzing ears, his chilly chest, and other symptoms of invalidism that he must have forgotten his stake. But no sooner did he supply the missing counter than Zephirine and Jacqueline were seized with remorse ; they imagined that, possibly, they themselves had forgotten their stake; they believed — they doubted — but, after all, the chevalier was rich enough to bear such a trifling misfortune. These dignified and noble personages had the delightful pet- tiness of suspecting each other. Mademoiselle do Pen-Hoel would almost invariably accuse the rector of cheating when he won the basket. Beatrix, 51 *'It is singular," he would reply, ^Hhat I never cheat except when I win the trick." Often the baron would forget where he was when the talk fell on the misfortunes of the royal house. Sometimes the evening ended in a manner that was quite unexpected to the players, who all counted on a certain gain. After a certain number of games and when the hour grew late, these excellent people would be forced to separate without either loss or gain, but not without emotion. On these sad evenings complaints were made of mouche itself; it was dull, it was long; the players accused their mouche as negroes stone the moon in the water when the weather is bad. On one occasion, after an arrival of the Vicomte and Vicom- tesse de Kergarouet, there was talk of whist and bos- ton being games of more interest than mouche. The baroness, who was bored by mouche^ encouraged the innovation, and all the company — but not without reluctance — adopted it. But it proved impossible to make them really understand the new games, which, on the departure of the Kergarouets, were voted head- splitters, algebraic problems, and intolerably difficult to play. All preferred their mouche^ their dear, agreeable vicuche. Mouche accordingly triumphed over modern games, as all ancient things have ever triumphed in Brittany oyer novelties. While the rector was dealing the cards the baroness was asking the Chevalier du Halga the same questions which she had asked him the evening before about his health. The chevalier made it a point of honor to have new ailments. Inquiries might be alike, but the nautical hero had singular advantages in the way of 52 Beatrix. replies. To-day it chanced that his ribs troubled him. But here's a remarkable thiug! never did the worthy chevalier complain of his wounds. The ills that were really the matter with him he expected, he knew them and he bore them ; but his fancied ailments, his headaches, the gnawings in his stomach, the buzzing in his ears, and a thousand other fads and symptoms made him horribly uneasy; he posed as incurable, — and not without reason, for doctors up to the present time have found no remedy for dis- eases that don't exist. ''Yesterday the trouble was, I believe, in your legs," said the rector. "It moves about," replied the chevalier. "Legs to ribs? " asked Mademoiselle Zephirine. ''Without stopping on the way?" said Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, smiling. The chevalier bowed gravely, making a negative gesture which was not a little droll, and proved to an observer that in his youth the sailor had been witty and loving and beloved. Perhaps his fossil life at Guerande hid many memories. When he stood, solemnly planted on his two heron-legs in the sun- shine on the mall, gazing at the sea or watching the gambols of his little dog, perhaps he was living again in some terrestrial paradise of a past that was rich in recollections. "So the old Due de Lenoncourt is dead," said the baron, remembering the paragraph of the "Quoti- dienne," where his wife had stopped reading. "Well, the first gentleman of the Bedchamber followed his master soon. I shall go next." Beatrix, 53 *'My dear, my dear! " said his wife, gently tapping the bony calloused hand of her husband. ''Let him say what he likes, sister," said Zephirine; "as long as I am above ground he can't be under it; I am the elder." A gay smile played on the old woman's lips. Whenever the baron made reflections of that kind, the players and the visitors present looked at each other with emotion, distressed by the sadness of the king of Guerande; and after they had left the house they would say, as they walked home: "Monsieur duGuenic was sad to-night. Did you notice how he slept?** And the next day the whole town would talk of the matter. "The Baron du Guenic fails," was a phrase that opened the conversation in many houses. "How is Thisbe? " asked Mademoiselle de Pen- Hoel of the chevalier, as soon as the cards were dealt. "The poor little thing is like her master," replied the chevalier; "she has some nervous trouble, she goes on three legs constantly. See, like this." In raising and crooking his arm to imitate the dog, the chevalier exposed his hand to his cunning neighbor, who wanted to see if he had Mistigris or the trump, — a first wile to which he succumbed. "Oh! " said the baroness, "the end of Monsieur le curd's nose is turning white; he has Mistigris." The pleasure of having Mistigris was so great to the rector — as it was to the other pla^^ers — that the poor piiest could not conceal it. In all human faces there is a spot where the secret emotions of the heart betray tlicmselves; and these companions, accustomed for years to observe each other, had ended by Iniding out 54 Beatrix, that spot on the rector's face: when he had Mistigris the tip of his nose grew pale. "You had company to-day," said the chevalier to Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel. ''Yes, a cousin of my brother-in-law. He surprised me by announcing the marriage of the Comtesse de KergarouSt, a Demoiselle de Fontaine." *'The daughter of ' Grand- Jacques, ' " cried the chevalier, who had lived with his admiral during his stay in Paris. "The countess is his heir; she has married an old ambassador. My visitor told me the strangest things about our neighbor. Mademoiselle des Touches, — so strange that I can't believe them. If they were true, Calyste would never be so constantly with her; he has too much good sense not to perceive such mon- strosities — " "Monstrosities?" said the baron, waked up by the word. The baroness and the rector exchanged looks. The cards were dealt; Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel had Mistigris! Impossible to continue the conversation! But she was glad to hide her joy under the excitement caused by her last word. "Your play, monsieur le baron," she said, with an air of importance. "My nephew is not one of those youths who like monstrosities," remarked Zephirine, taking out her knitting-needle and scratching her head. " Mistigris ! " cried Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, mak- ing no reply to her friend. The rector, who appeared to be well-informed in the Beatrix, 55 matter of Calyste and Mademoiselle des Touches, did not enter the lists. '* What does she do that is so extraordinary, Made- moiselle des Touches ? " asked the baron. *'She smokes," replied Mademoiselle de Pen-Ho3l. "That's very wholesome," said the chevalier. "About her property? " asked the baron. "Her property?" continued the old maid. "Oh, she is running through it." "The game is mine! " said the baroness. "See, I have king, queen, knave of trumps, Mistigris, and a king. We win the basket, sister." This victory, gained at one stroke, without playing a card, horrified Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, who ceased to concern herself about Calyste and Mademoiselle des Touches. By nine o'clock no one remained in the salon but the baroness and the rector. The four old people had gone to their beds. The chevalier, accord- ing to his usual custom, accompanied Mademoiselle de Pen-Hosl to her house in the Place de Guerande, making remarks as they went along on the cleverness of the last play, on the pleasures, more or less great, of the evening, on the joy with which Mademoiselle Zephirine engulfed her gains in those capacious pockets of hers, — for the old blind woman no longer repressed upon her face the visible signs of her feel- ings. Madame du Gudnic's evident preoccupation was the chief topic of conversation, however. The chevalier had remarked the abstraction of the beauti- ful Iiish woman. When they reached Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel's door-step, and her page had gone in, the old lady answered, confidentially, the remarks of 56 BSatrix. the chevalier on the strangely abstracted air of the baroness : — ''I know the cause. Calyste is lost unless we marry him promptly. He loves Mademoiselle des Touches, an actress ! " "In that case, send for Charlotte." *'I have sent; my sister will receive my letter to- morrow," replied Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, bowing to the chevalier. Imagine from this sketch of a normal evening the hubbub excited in Guerande homes by the arrival, the stay, the departure, or even the mere passage through the town, of a stranger. When no sounds echoed from the baron's chamber nor from that of his sister, the baroness looked at the rector, who was playing pensively with the counters. "I see that you begin to share my anxiety about Calyste," she said to him. "Did you notice Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel's dis- pleased looks to-night? " asked the rector. "Yes," replied the baroness. "She has, as I know, the best intentions about our dear Calyste; she loves him as though he were her son; his conduct in Vendee beside his father, the praises that Madame bestowed upon his devotion, have only increased her affection for him. She in- tends to execute a deed of gift by which she gives her whole property at her death to whichever of her nieces Calyste marries. I know that you have another and much richer marriage in Ireland for your dear Calyste ; but it is well to have two strings to your bow. In case your family will not take charge of Calyste 's Beatrix, 57 establishment, Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel's fortune is not to be despised. You can always find a match of seven thousand a year for the dear boy, but it is not often that you could come across the savings of forty years and landed property as well managed, built up, and kept in repair as that of Mademoiselle de I^en-HoSl. That ungodly woman, Mademoiselle des Touches, has come here to ruin many excellent things. Her life is now known." *'And what is it?" asked the mother. ''Oh! that of a trollop," replied the rector, — "a woman of questionable morals ; a writer for the stage ; frequenting theatres and actors ; squandering her for- tune among pamphleteers, painters, musicians, a devil- ish society, in short. She writes books herself, and has taken a false name by which she is better known, they tell me, than by her own. She seems to be a sort of circus woman who never enters a church except- to look at the pictures. She has spent quite a fortune in decorating Les Touches in a most improper fashion, making it a Mohammedan paradise where the houris are not women. There is more wine drunk there, they say, during the few weeks of her stay than the whole year round in Guerande. The Demoiselles Bougniol let their lodgings last year to men with beards, who were suspected of being Blues; they sang wicked songs which made those virtuous women blush and weep, and spent their time mostly at Les Touches. And this is the woman our dear Calyste adores! If that creature wanted to-night one of the infamous books in which the atheists of the present day scoff at holy things, Calyste would saddle his horse him- 58 Beatrix. self and gallop to Nantes for it. I am not sure that be would do as much for the Church. Moreover, this Breton woman is not a ro^^alist! If Calyste were again called upon to strike a blow for the cause, and Mademoiselle des Touches — the Sieur Camille Mau- pin, that is her other name, as I have just remembered — if she wanted to keep him with her the chevalier would let his old father go to the field without him." *'0h, no! " said the baroness. "I should not like to put him to the proof; you would suffer too much," replied the rector. ''All Guerande is turned upside down about Calyste' s pas- sion for this amphibious creature, who is neither man nor woman, who smokes like an hussar, writes like a journalist, and has at this very moment in her house the most venomous of all writers, — so the postmaster says, and he 's a juste-milieu man who reads the papers. They are even talking about her at Nantes. This morning the Kergarouet cousin, who wants to marry Charlotte to a man with sixty thousand francs a year, went to see Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, and filled her mind with tales about Mademoiselle des Touches which lasted seven hours. It is now striking a quar- ter to ten, and Calyste not home; he is at Les Touches, — perhaps he won't come in all night." The baroness listened to the rector, who was substi- tuting monologue for dialogue unconsciously as he looked at this lamb of his fold, on whose face could be read her anxiety. She colored and trembled. When the worthy man saw the tears in the beau- tiful eyes of the terrified mother, lie was moved to compassion. I BSatrix. 59 *'I will see Mademoiselle de Pen-Ho3i to-morrow," be said. " Don't be too uneasy. The harm may not be as great as they say it is. I will find out the truth. Mademoiselle Jacqueline has confidence in me. Be- sides, Calyste is our child, our pupil, — he will never let the devil inveigle him; neither will he trouble the peace of his family or destroy the plans we have made for his future. Therefore, don't weep; all is not lost, madame; one fault is not vice." **You are only informing me of details," said the baroness. "Was not I the first to notice the change in my Calyste? A mother keenly feels the shock of finding herself second in the heart of her son. She (•:umot be deceived. This crisis in a man's life is one of the trials of motherhood. I have prepared my- self for it, but I did not think it would come so soon. I hoped, at least, that Calyste would take into his heart some noble and beautiful being, — not a stage- player, a masquerader, a theatre woman, an author whose business it is to feign sentiments, a creature who will deceive him and make him unhappy! She has had adventures — " "With several men," said the rector. "And yet this impious creature was born in Brittany! She dishonors her land. I shall preach a sermon upon lii!r next Sunday." "Don't do that! " cried the baroness. "The peas- ants and the paludiers would be capable of rushing to I.es Touches. Calyste is worthy of his name; he is Breton; some dreadful thing might happen to him, for he would surely defend her as he would the Blessed Virgin." 60 Beatrix. ''It is now ten o'clock; I must bid you good-night,'* said the abbe, lighting the wick of his lantern, the glass of which was clear and the metal shining, which testified to the care his housekeeper bestowed on the household property. "Who could ever have told me, madame," he added, "that a young man brought up by you, trained by me to Christian ideas, a fervent Catholic, a child who has lived as a lamb without spot, would plunge into such mire?" "But is it certain?" said the mother. "How could any woman help loving Calyste ? " "What other proof is needed than her staying on at Les Touches. In all the twenty-four years since she came of age she has never stayed there so long as now; her visits to these parts, happily for us, were few and short." "A woman over forty years old!" exclaimed the baroness. "I have heard say in Ireland that a woman of this description is the most dangerous mistress a young man can have." "As to that, I have no knowledge," replied the rector, "and I shall die in my ignorance." "And I, too, alas! " said the baroness, naively. "I wish now that I had loved with love, so as to under- stand and counsel and comfort Calyste." The rector did not cross the clean little court-yard alone; the baroness accompanied him to the gate, hoping to hear Calyste' s step coming through the town. But she heard nothing except the heavy tread of the rector's cautious feet, which grew fainter in the distance, and finally ceased when the closing of the door of the parsonage echoed behind him. Biatrix, 61 V. CALYSTE. The poor mother returned to the salon deeply dis- tressed at finding that the whole town was aware of what she thought was known to her alone. She sat down, trimmed the wick of the lamp by cutting it with a pair of old scissors, took up once more the worsted-work she was doing, and awaited Calyste. The baroness fondly hoped to induce her son by this means to come home earlier and spend less time with Mademoiselle des Touches. Such calculations of maternal jealousy were wasted. Day after day, Calyste' s visits to Les Touches became more fre- quent, and every night he came in later. The night before the day of which we speak it was midnight when he returned. The baroness, lost in maternal meditation, was set- ting her stitches with the rapidity of one absorbed in thought while engaged in manual labor. Whoever had seen her bending to the light of the lamp beneath the quadruply centennial hangings of that ancient room would have admired the sublimity of the pic- ture. Fanny's skin was so transparent that it was possible to read the thoughts that crossed her brow beneath it. Piqued with a curiosity that often comes to a pure woman, slie asked herself what devilish 62 ^ Beatrix. secrets these daughters of Baal possessed to so charm men as to make them forgetful of mother, family," country, and self-interests. Sometimes she longed to meet this woman and judge her soberly for herself. Her mind measured to its full extent the evils which the innovating spirit of the age — described to her as so dangerous for young souls by the rector — would have upon her only child, until then so guileless ; as pure as an innocent girl, and beautiful with the same fresh beauty. Calyste, that splendid offspring of the oldest Breton race and the noblest Irish blood, had been nurtured by his mother with the utmost care. Until the moment when the baroness made over the training of him to the rector of Guerande, she was certain that no impure word, no evil thought had sullied the ears or entered the mind of her precious son. After nursing him at her bosom, giving him her own life twice, as it were, after guiding his footsteps as a little child, the mother had put him with all his virgin innocence into the hands of the pastor, who^ out of true reverence for the family, had promised to give him a thorough and Christian education. Calyste thenceforth received the instruction which the abbe himself had received at the Seminary. The baroness taught him English, and a teacher of mathematics was found, not without diffi= culty, among the employes at Saint-Nazaire. Calyste was therefore necessarily ignorant of modern litera- ture, and the advance and present progress of the sciences. His education had been limited to geog- raphy and the circumspect history of a young ladies* boarding-school, the Latin and Greek of seminaries. Beatrix. ' 63 the literature of the dead languages, and to a very restricted choice of French writers. When, at six- teen, he began what the Abbe Grimont called his philosophy, he was neither more nor less than what he was when Fanny placed him in the abbe's hands. The Church had proved as maternal as the mother. With- out being over-pious or ridiculous, the idolized young lad was a fervent Catholic. For this son, so noble, so innocent, the baroness desired to provide a happy life in obscurity. She expected to inherit some property, two or three thou- sand pounds sterling, from an aunt. This sum, joined to the small present fortune of the Guenics, might enable her to find a wife for Calyste, who would bring him twelve or even fifteen thousand francs a year. Charlotte de Kergarouet, with her aunt's fortune, a rich Irish girl, or any other good heiress would have suited the baroness, who seemed indifferent as to choice. She was ignorant of love, having never known it, and, like all the other persons grouped about her, she saw nothing in marriage but a means of fortune. Passion was an unknown thing to these Catholic souls, these old people exclusively concerned about salva- tion, God, the king, and their property. No one should be surprised, therefore, at the foreboding thoughts which accompanied the wounded feelings of the mother, who lived as much for the future interests of her son as by her love for him. If the young household would only listen to wisdom, she thought, the coming generation of the du Gut^nics, by endur- ing privations, and saving, as people do save in the provinces, would be able to buy back their estates 64 * ■ Beatrix. and recover, in the end, the lustre of wealth. The baroness prayed for a long old age that she might see the dawn of this prosperous era. Mademoiselle du Guenic had understood and fully adopted this hope which Mademoiselle des Touches now threatened to overthrow. The baroness heard midnight strike, with tears ; her mind conceived of many horrors during the next hour, for the clock struck one, and Calyste was still not at home. '*Will he stay there ? " she thought. ''It would be the first time. Poor child ! " At that moment Calyste' s step resounded in the lane. The poor mother, in whose heart rejoicing drove out anxiety, flew from the house to the gate and opened it for her boy. "Oh! " cried Calyste, in a grieved voice, "my dar- ling mother, why did you sit up for me? I have a pass-key and the tinder-box." "You know very well, my child, that I cannot sleep when you are out," she said, kissing him. When the baroness reached the salon, she looked at her son to discover, if possible, from the expression of his face the events of the evening. But he caused her, as usual, an emotion that frequency never weak- ened, — an emotion which all loving mothers feel at sight of a human masterpiece made by them; this sentiment blurs their sight and supersedes all others for the moment. Except for the black eyes, full of energy and the heat of the sun, which he derived from his father, Calyste in other respects resembled his mother; he BSatrix. 65 had her beautiful golden hair, her lovable mouth, the same curving fingers, the same soft, delicate, and purely white skin. Though slightly resembling a girl disguised as a man, his physical strength was hercu- lean. His muscles had the suppleness and vigor of steel springs, and the singularity of his black eyes and fair complexion was by no means without charm. His beard had not yet sprouted; this delay, it is said, is a promise of longevity. The chevalier was dressed in a short coat of black velvet like that of his mother's gown, trimmed with silver buttons, a blue foulard necktie, trousers of gray jean, and a becoming pair of gaiters. His white brow bore the signs of great fatigue, caused, to an observer's eye, by the weight of painful thoughts; but his mother, incapable of sup- posing that troubles could wring his heart, attributed his evident weariness to passing excitement. Calyste was as handsome as a Greek god, and handsome with- out conceit; in the first place, he had his mother's beauty constantly before him, and next, he cared very little for personal advantages which he found useless. ** Those beautiful pure cheeks," thought his mother, *' where the rich young blood is flowing, belong to another woman! she is the mistress of that innocent brow! Ah! passion will lead to many evils; it will tarnish the look of those eyes, moist as the eyes of an infant! '* This bitter thought wrung Fanny's heart and destroyed her pleasure. It may seem strange to those who calculate expenses tliat in a family of six persons compelled to live on 5 66 Beatrix, three thousand francs a year the son should have a coat and the mother a gown of velvet; but Fanny O'Brien had aunts and rich relations in London who recalled themselves to her remembrance by many presents. Several of her sisters, married to great wealth, took enough Interest in Calyste to wish to find him an heiress, knowing that he, like Fanny their exiled favorite, was noble and handsome. ''You stayed at Les Touches later than you did last night, my dear one," said the mother at last, in an agitated tone. "Yes, dear mother," he answered, offering no explanation. The curtness of this answer brought clouds to his mother's brow, and she resolved to postpone the ex- planation till the morrow. When mothers admit the anxieties which were now torturing the baroness, they tremble before their sons ; they feel instinctively the effect of the great emancipation that comes with love ; they perceive what that sentiment is about to take from them ; but they have, at the same time, a sense of joy in knowing that their sons are happy; con- flicting feelings battle in their hearts. Though the result may be the development of their sons into superior men, true mothers do not like this forced abdication; they would rather keep their children small and still requiring protection. Perhaps that is the secret of their predilection for feeble, deformed, or weak-minded offspring. "You are tired, dear child; go to bed," she said, repressing her tears. A mother who does not know all that her son is Beatrix. 67 doing thinks the worst; that is, if a mother loves as niiich and is as much beloved as Fanny. But perhaps all other mothers would have trembled now as she (lid. The patient care of twenty years might be ren- dered worthless. This human masterpiece of virtuous and noble and religious education, Calyste, might be destroyed; the happiness of his life, so long and carefully prepared for, might be forever ruined by this woman. The next day Calyste slept till mid-day, for his mother would not have him wakened. Mariotte served the spoiled child's breakfast in his bed. The inflex- ible and semi-conventual rules which regulated the hours for meals yielded to the caprices of the cheva- lier. If it became desirable to extract from Made- moiselle du Guenic her array of keys in order to obtain some necessary article of food outside of the meal hours, there was no other means of doing it than to make the pretext of its serving some fancy of Calyste. About one o'clock the baron, his wife, and Made- moiselle were seated in the salon, for they dined at three o'clock. The baroness was again reading the "Quotidienne" to her husband, who was always more awake before the dinner hour. As she finished a paragraph she heard the steps of her son on the upper floor, and she dropped the paper, saying: — ''Calyste must be going to dine again at Les Touches; he has dressed himself." ''He amuses himself, the dear boy," said the old sister, taking a silver whistle from her pocket and . whistling once. 68 Beatrix. Mariotte came through the tower and appeared at the door of communication which was hidden by a silken curtain like the other doors of the room. "What is it? " she said; ''anything wanted? " *' The chevalier dines at Les Touches; don't cook the fish." "But we are not sure as yet," said the baroness. "You seem annoyed, sister; I know it by the tone of your voice." "Monsieur Grimont has heard some very grave charges against Mademoiselle des Touches, who for the last year has so changed our dear Calyste." "Changed him, how? " asked the baron. "He reads all sorts of books." "Ah! ah! " exclaimed the baron, " so that 's why he has given up hunting and riding." "Her morals are very reprehensible, and she has taken a man's name," added Madame du Guenic. "A war name, I suppose," said the old man. "I was called 'I'lntime,' the Comte de Fontaine * Grand- Jacques,' the Marquis de Montauran the 'Gars.' I was the friend of Ferdinand, who never submitted, any more than I did. Ah ! those were the good times ; people shot each other, but what of that? we amused ourselves all the same, here and there." This war memory, pushing aside paternal anxiety, saddened Fanny for a moment. The rector's revela- tions, the want of confidence shown to her by Calyste, had kept her from sleeping. "Suppose Monsieur le chevalier does love Made- moiselle des Touches, where 's the harm?" said Mariotte. "She has thirty thousand francs a year and she is very handsome." Biatrix, 69 "What is that you say, Mariotte?" exclaimed the old baron. *'A Guenic marry a des Touches! The des Touches were not even grooms in the days when du Guesclin considered our alliance a signal honor." " A woman who takes a man's name, ^ Camille Maupin!" said the baroness. *'The Maupins are an old family," said the baron; "they bear: gules, three — " He stopped. "But she cannot be a Maupin and a des Touches both," he added. "She is called Maupin on the stage." "A des Touches could hardly be an actress," said the old man. "Really, Fanny, if I did not know you, I should think you were out of your head." "She writes plays, and books," continued the baroness. "Books? " said the baron, looking at his wife with an air of as much surprise as though she were tell- ing of a miracle. "I have heard that Mademoiselle Scud^ry and Madame de Sevigne wrote books, but it was not the best thing they did." "Are you going to dine at Les Touches, monsieur? " said Mariotte, when Calyste entered. "Probably," replied the young man. Mariotte was not inquisitive; she was part of the family ; and she left the room without waiting to hear what the baroness would say to her son. "Are you going again to Les Touches, my Calyste? " The baroness emphasized the my. " Les Touches is not a respectable or decent house. Its mistress leads an irregular life; she will corrupt our Calyste. Already Camille Maupin has made him read many 70 Beatrix. books; she has had adventures — You knew all that, my naughty child, and you never said one word to your best friends! " "The chevalier is discreet," said his father, — "a virtue of the olden time." "Too discreet," said the jealous mother, observing the red flush on her son's forehead. "My dear mother," said Calyste, kneeling down beside the baroness, " I did n't think it necessary to publish my defeat. Mademoiselle des Touches, or, if you choose to call her so, Camille Maupin, rejected my love more than eighteen months ago, during her last stay at Les Touches. She laughed at me, gently; saying she might very well be my mother; that a woman of forty committed a sort of crime against nature in loving a minor, and that she herself was incapable of such depravity. She made a thousand little jokes, which hurt me — for she is witty as an angel; but when she saw me weep hot tears she tried to comfort me, and offered me her friendship in the noblest manner. She has more heart than even talent; she is as generous as you are yourself. I am now her child. On her return here lately, hearing from her that she loves another, I have resigned my- self. Do not repeat the calumnies that have been said of her. Camille is an artist, she has genius, she leads one of those exceptional existences which cannot be judged like ordinary lives." "My child," said the religious Fanny, "nothing can excuse a woman for not conducting herself as the Church requires. She fails in her duty to God and to society by abjuring the gentle tenets of her sex. Beatrix, 7 1 A woman commits a sin in even going to a theatre; but to write the impieties that actors repeat, to roam about the world, first with an enemy to the Pope, and then with a musician, ah ! Calyste, you can never per- suade me that such actions are deeds of faith, hope, or charity. Her fortune was given her by God to do good, and what good does she do with hers? " Calyste sprang up suddenly and looked at his mother. "Mother,'* he said, "Camille is my friend; I can- not hear her spoken of in this way ; I would give my very life for her." *'Your life! " said the baroness, looking at her son, with startled eyes. " Your life is our life, the life of all of us." *'My nephew has just said many things I do not understand," said the old blind woman, turning toward him. ^' "Where did he learn them? " said the mother; "at Les Touches?'' "Yes, my darling mother; she found me ignorant as a carp, and she has taught me." "You knew the essential things when you learned the duties taught us by religion," replied the baroness. "Ah! this woman is fated to destroy your noble and sacred beliefs." The old maid rose, and solemnly stretched forth her hands toward her brother, who was dozing in his chair. "Calyste," she said, in a voice that came from her heart, "your father has never opened books, he speaks Breton, he fought for God and for the king. Educated 72 Beatrix. people did the evil, educated noblemen deserted their land, — be educated if you choose!" So saying, she sat down and began to knit with a rapidity which betrayed her inward emotion. ''My angel," said the mother, weeping, ''I foresee some evil coming down upon you in that house." "Who is making Fanny weep?" cried the old man, waking with a start at the sound of his wife's voice. He looked round upon his sister, his son, and the baroness. ''What is the matter?" he asked. "Nothing, my friend," replied his wife. "Mamma," said Calyste, whispering in his mother's ear, "it is impossible for me to explain myself just now ; but to-night you and I will talk of this. When you know all, you will bless Mademoiselle des Touches." "Mothers do not like to curse," replied the baroness. "I could not curse a woman who truly loved my Calyste." The young man bade adieu to his father and went out. The baron and his wife rose to see him pass through the court-yard, open the gate, and disappear. The baroness did not again take up the newspaper; she was too agitated. In this tranquil, untroubled life such a discussion was the equivalent of a quar- rel in other homes. Though somewhat calmed, her motherly uneasiness was not dispersed. Whither would such a friendship, which might claim the life of Calyste and destroy it, lead her boy? Bless Made- moiselle des Touches? how could that be? These questions were as momentous to her simple soul as the fury of revolutions to a statesman. Camille Beatrix. 73 Maupin was Revolution itself in that calm and placid home. ''I fear that woman will ruin him," she said, pick- ing up the paper. "My dear Faliny," said the old baron, with a jaunty air, ''you are too much of an angel to understand these things. Mademoiselle des Touches is, they say, as black as a crow, as strong as a Turk, and forty years old. Our dear Calyste was certain to fall in love with her. Of course he will tell certain honorable little lies to conceal his happiness. Let him alone to amuse himself with his first illusions." ''If it had been any other woman — " began the baroness. "But, my dear Fanny, if the woman were a saint she would not accept your son." The baroness again picked up the paper. "I will go and see her myself," added the baron, "and tell you all about her." This speech has no savor at the present moment. But after reading the biography of Camille Maupin you can then imagine the old baron entering the lists against that illustrious woman. 74 Beatrix. VI. BIOGRAPHY OF CAMILLE MAUPIN. The town of Guerande, which for two months past had seen Calyste, its flower and pride, going, morning or evening, often morning and evening, to Les Touches, concluded that Mademoiselle Felicite des Touches was passionately in love with the beautiful youth, and that she practised upon him all kinds of sorceries. More than one young girl and young wife asked herself by what right an old woman exercised so absolute an empire over that angel. When Calyste passed along the Grand' Rue to the Croisie gate many a regretful eye was fastened on him. It now becomes necessary to explain the rumors which hovered about the person whom Calyste was on his w^ay to see. These rumors, swelled by Breton gossip, envenomed by public ignorance, had reached the rector. The receiver of taxes, the juge de paix, the head of the Saint-Nazaire custom-house and other lettered persons had not reassured the abbe by relat- ing to him the strange and fantastic life of the female writer who concealed herself under the masculine name of Camille Maupin. She did not as yet eat little chil- dren, nor kill her slaves like Cleopatra, nor throw men into the river as the heroine of the Tour de Nesle was falsely accused of doing; but to the Abbe Grimont Beatrix. 75 this monstrous creature, a cross between a siren and an atheist, was an immoral combination of woman and philosopher who violated every social law in- vented to restrain or utilize the infirmities of woman- kind. Just as Clara Gazul is the female pseudonym of a distinguished male writer, George Sand the masculine pseudonym of a woman of genius, so Camille Maupin was the mask behind which was long hidden a charm- ing young woman, very well-born, a Breton, named Felicite des Touches, the person who was now causing such lively anxiety to the Baronne du Guenic and the excellent rector of Guerande. The Breton des Touches family has no connection with the family of the same name in Touraine, to which belongs the ambassador of the Regent, even more famous to-day for his writings than for his diplomatic talents. Camille Maupin, one of the few celebrated women of the nineteenth century, was long supposed to be a man, on account of the virility of her first writings. All the world now knows the two volumes of plays, not intended for representation on the stage, written after the manner of Shakespeare or Lopez de Vega, published in 1822, which made a sort of literary rev- olution when the great question of the classics and the romanticists palpitated on all sides, — in the news- papers, at the clubs, at the Academy, everywhere. Since then, Camille Maupin has written several plays and a novel, which have not belied the success obtained by her first publication — now, perhaps, too much for- gotten. To explain by what net-work of circum- stances the masculine incarnation of a young girl 76 Beatrix. was brought about, why Felicity des Touches became a man and an author, and why, more fortunate than Madame de Stael, she kept her freedom and was thus more excusable for her celebrity, would be to satisfy many curiosities and do justice to one of those abnor- mal beings who rise in humanity like monuments, and whose fame is promoted by its rarity, — for in twenty centuries we can count, at most, twenty famous women. Therefore, although in these pages she stands as a sec- ondary character, in consideration of the fact that she plays a great part in the literary history of our epoch, and that her influence over Calyste was great, no one, we think, will regret being made to pause before that figure rather longer than modern art permits. Mademoiselle Felicite des Touches became an orphan in 1793. Her property escaped confiscation by reason of the deaths of her father and brother. The first was killed on the 10th of August, at the threshold of the palace, among the defenders of the king, near whose person his rank as major of the guards of the gate had placed him. Her brother, one of the body-guard, was massacred at Les Carmes. Mademoiselle des Touches was two years old when her mother died, killed by grief, a few days after this second catas- trophe. When dying, Madame des Touches confided her daughter to her sister, a nun of Chelles. Madame de Faucombe, the nun, prudently took the orphan to Faucombe, a good-sized estate near Nantes, belong- ing to Madame des Touches, and there she settled with the little girl and three sisters of her convent. The populace of Nantes, during the last days of the Terror, tore down the chateau, seized the nuns and Beatrix, 77 Mademoiselle des Touches, and threw them into prison on a false charge of receiving emissaries of Pitt and Coburg. The 9th Thermidor released them. Felicite's aunt died of fear. Two of the sisters left France, and the third confided the little girl to her nearest relation, Monsieur de Faucombe, her maternal great- uncle, who lived in Nantes. Monsieur de Faucombe, an old man sixty years of age, had married a young woman to whom he left the management of his affairs. He busied himself .in archaeology, — a passion, or to speak more correctly, one of those manias which enable old men to fancy themselves still living. The education of his ward was therefore left to chance. Little cared-for by her uncle's wife, a young woman given over to the social pleasures of the imperial epoch, Felicite brought herself up as a boy. She kept company with Monsieur de Faucombe in his library; where she read everything it pleased her to read. She thus obtained a knowledge of life in theory, and had no innocence of mind, though virgin personally. Her intellect floated on the impurities of knowledge while her heart was pure. Her learning became extraordinary, the result of a passion for read- ing, sustained by a powerful memory. At eighteen years of age she was as well-informed on all topics as a young man entering a literary career has need to be in our day. Her prodigious reading controlled her passions far more than conventual life would have done; for there the imaginations of young girls run riot. A brain crammed with knowledge that was neither digested nor classed governed the heart and soul of the child. This depravity of the intellect, 78 Beatrix, without action upon the chastity of the body, would have amazed philosophers and observers, had any one in Nantes even suspected the powers of Mademoiselle des Touches. The result of all this was in a contrary direction to the cause. Felicite had no inclinations toward evil ; she conceived everything by thought, but abstained from deed. Old Faucombe was enchanted with her, and she helped him in his work, — writing three of his books, which the worthy old gentleman believed were his own; for his spiritual paternity was blind. Such mental labor, not agreeing with the developments of girlhood, had its effect. Felicite fell ill; her blood was overheated, and her chest seemed threatened with inflammation. The doctors ordered horseback exer- cise and the amusements of society. Mademoiselle des Touches became, in consequence, an admirable horsewoman, and recovered her health in a few months. At the age of eighteen she appeared in the world, where she produced so great a sensation that no one in Nantes called her anything else than "the beautiful Mademoiselle des Touches." Led to enter society by one of the imperishable sentiments in the heart of a woman, however superior she may be, the worship she inspired found her cold and unresponsive. Hurt by her aunt and her cousins, who ridiculed her studies and teased her about her unwillingness for society, which they attributed to a lack of the power of pleas- ing, Felicite resolved on making herself coquettish, gay, volatile, — a woman, in short. But she expected in return an exchange of ideas, seductions, and pleas- BSatrix. 79 ures in harmony with the elevation of her own mind and the extent of its knowledge. Instead of that, she was filled with disgust for the commonplaces of conver- sation, the silliness of gallantry; and more especially was she shocked by the supremacy of military men, to whom society made obeisance at that period. She had, not unnaturally, neglected the minor accomplish- ments. Finding herself inferior to the pretty dolls who played on the piano and made themselves agree- able by singing ballads, she determined to be a musi- cian. Retiring into her former solitude she set to work resolvedly, under the direction of the best mas- ter in the town. She was rich, and she sent for Steibelt when the time came to perfect herself. The astonished town still talks of this princely conduct. The stay of that master cost her twelve thousand francs. Later, when she went to Paris, she studied harmony and thorough-bass, and composed the music of two operas which have had great success, though the public has never been admitted to the secret of their authorship. Ostensibly these operas are by Conti, one of the most eminent musicians of our day ; but this circumstance belongs to the history of her heart, and will be mentioned later on. The mediocrity of the society of a provincial town wearied her so excessively, her imagination was so filled with grandiose ideas that although she returned to the salons to eclipse other women once more by her beauty, and enjoy her new triumph as a musician, she again deserted them ; and having proved her power to her cousins, and driven two lovers to despair, she re- turned to her books, her piano, the works of Beethoven, 80 Beatrix, and her old friend Faucombe. In 1812, when she was twenty-one years of age, the old archaeologist handed over to her his guardianship accounts. From that year, she took control of her fortune, which consisted of fifteen thousand francs a year, derived from Les Touches, the property of her father; twelve thousand a year from Faucombe (which, however, she increased one-third on renewing the leases); and a capital of three hundred thousand francs laid by during her minority by her guardian. Felicite acquired from her experience of provincial life, an understanding of money, and that strong ten- dency to administrative wisdom which enables the provinces to hold their own under the ascensional move- ment of capital toward Paris. She drew her three hundred thousand francs from the house of business where her guardian had placed them, and invested them on the Grand-livre at the very moment of the disasters of the retreat from Moscow. In this way, she increased her income by thirty thousand francs. All expenses paid, she found herself with fifty thou- sand francs a year to invest. At twenty-one years of age a girl with such force of will is the equal of a man of thirty. Her mind had taken a wide range; habits of criticism enabled her to judge soberly of men, and art, and things, and public questions. Henceforth she resolved to leave Nantes; but old Faucombe falling ill with his last illness, she, who had been both wife and daughter to him, remained to nurse him, with the devotion of an angel, for eighteen months, closing his eyes at the moment when Napo- leon was struggling with all Europe on the corpse of BUtrix, 81 France. Her removal to Paris was therefore still further postponed until the close of that crisis. As a Royalist, she hastened to be present at the return of the Bourbons to Paris. There the Grand- lieus, to whom she was related, received her as their guest; but the catastrophes of March 20 intervened, and her future was vague and uncertain. She was thus enabled to see with her own eyes that last image of the Empire, and behold the Grand Army when it came to the Champ de Mars, as to a Roman circus, to salute its Caesar before it went to its death at Waterloo. The great and noble soul of Fe'licite was stirred by that magic spectacle. The political com- motions, the glamour of that theatrical play of three months which history has called the Hundred Days, occupied her mind and preserved her from all personal emotions in the midst of a convulsion which dispersed the royalist society among whom she had intended to reside. The Grandlieus followed the Bourbons to Ghent, leaving their house to Mademoiselle des Touches. Felicite, who did not choose to take a sub- ordinate position, purchased for one hundred and thirty thousand francs one of the finest houses in the rue Mont Blanc, where she installed herself on the return of the Bourbons in 1815. The garden of t^is house is to-day worth two millions. Accustomed to control her own life. Felicity soon familiarized herself with ways of thought and action which are held to be exclusively the province of man. In 181 G she was twenty-five years old. She knew nothing of marriage; her conception of it was wholly that of thought; she judged it in its causes instead of 6 82 Beatrix. its effects, and saw only its objectionable side. Her superior mind refused to make the abdication by which a married woman begins tliat life ; she keenly felt the value of independence, and was conscious of disgust for the duties of maternity. It is necessary to give these details to explain the anomalies presented by the life of Camille Maupin. She had known neither father nor mother; she had been her own mistress from childhood ; her guardian was an old archaeologist. Chance had flung her into the regions of knowledge and of imagination, into the world of literature, instead of holding her within the rigid circle defined by the futile education given to women, and by maternal instructions as to dress, hypocritical propriety, and the hunting graces of their sex. Thus, long before she became celebrated, a glance might have told an observer that she had never played with dolls. Toward the close of the year 1817 Fe'licite des Touches began to perceive, not the fading of her beauty, but the beginning of a certain lassitude of body. She saw that a change would presently take place in her person as the result of her obstinate celibacy. She wanted to retain her youth and beauty, to which at that time she clung. Science warned her of the sentence pronounced by Nature upon all her creations, which perish as much by the misconception of her laws as by the abuse of them. The macerated face of her aunt returned to her memory and made her shudder. Placed between marriage and love, her desire was to keep her freedom; but she was now no longer indifferent to homage and the admiration that Beatrix. 83 surrounded her. She was, at the moment when this history begins, almost exactly what she was in 1817. Eighteen years had passed over her head and respected it. At forty she might have thought no more than twenty-five. Therefore to describe her in 1836 is to picture her as she was in 1817. Women who know the conditions of temperament and happiness in which a woman should live to resist the ravages of time will under- stand how and why Felicite des Touches enjoyed this great privilege as they study a portrait for which were reserved the brightest tints of Nature's palette, and the richest setting. Brittany presents a curious problem to be solved in the predominance of dark hair, brown eyes, and swarthy complexions in a region so near England that the atmospheric effects are almost identical. Does this problem belong to the great question of races ? to hitherto unobserved physical influences? Science may some day find the reason of this peculiarity, which ceases in the adjoining province of Normandy. Waiting its solution, this odd fact is there before our eyes ; fair complexions are rare in Brittany, where the women's eyes are as black and lively as those of Southern women; but instead of possessing the tall figures and swaying lines of Italy and Spain, they are usually short, close-knit, well set-up and firm, except in the higher classes which are crossed by their alliances. Mademoiselle des Touches, a true Breton, is of medium height, though she looks taller than she really is. This effect is produced by the character of her 84 Beatrix, face, which gives height to her form. She has that skin, olive by day and dazzling by candlelight, which distinguishes a beautiful Italian; you might, if you pleased, call it animated ivory. The light glides along a skin of that texture as on a polished surface ; it shines ; a violent emotion is necessary to bring the faintest color to the centre of the cheeks, where it dies away almost immediately. This peculiarity gives to her face the calm impassibility of the savage. The face, more long than oval, resembles that of some beautiful Isis in the Egyptian bas-reliefs; it has the purity of the heads of sphinxes, polished by the fire of the desert, kissed by a Coptic sun. The tones of the skin are in harmony with the faultless modelling of the head. The black and abundant hair descends in heavy masses beside the throat, like the coif of the statues at Memphis, and carries out magnificently the general severity of form. The forehead is full, broad, and swelling about the temples, illuminated by sur- faces which catch the light, and modelled like the brow of the hunting Diana, a powerful and determined brow, silent and self-contained. The arch of the eye- brows, vigorously drawn, surmounts a pair of eyes whose flame scintillates at times like that of a fixed star. The white of the eye is neither bluish, nor strewn with scarlet threads, nor is it purely white; it has the texture of horn, but the tone is warm. The pupil is surrounded by an orange circle; it is of bronze set in gold, but vivid gold and animated bronze. This pupil has depth; it is not underlaid, as in certain eyes, by a species of foil, which sends back the light and makes such eyes resemble those of Beatrix, 85 cats or tigers; it has not that terrible inflexibility which makes a sensitive person shudder; but this depth has in it something of the infinite, just as the external radiance of the eyes suggests the absolute. The glance of an observer may be lost in that soul, which gathers itself up and retires with as much rapidity as it gushed for a second into those velvet eyes. In moments of passion the eyes of Camille Mau- pin are sublime; the gold of her glance illuminates them and they flame. But in repose they are dull; the torpor of meditation often lends them an appear- ance of stupidity;^ in like manner, when the glow of the soul is absent the lines of the face are sad. The lashes of the eyelids are short, but thick and black as the tip of an ermine's tail; the eyelids are brown and strewn with red fibrils, which give them grace and strength, — two qualities which are seldom united in a woman. The circle round the eyes shows not the slightest blemish nor the smallest wrinkle. There, again, we find the granite of an Egyptian statue softened by the ages. But the line of the cheek-bones, though soft, is more pronounced than in other women and completes the character of strength which the face expresses. The nose, thin and straight, parts into two oblique nostrils, passionately dilated at times, and showing the transparent pink of their deli- cate lining. This nose is an admirable continuation of the forehead, with which it blends in a most deli- 1 George Sand says of herself, in " L'Histoire de Ma Vie," pub- lished long after the above was written : " The habit of meditation gave me fair bete (a stupid air). I say the word frankly, for all my life I liave been told this, and therefore it must be true." — Tr. 86 Beatrix. cious line. It is perfectly white from its spring to its tip, and the tip is endowed with a sort of mobility which does marvels if Camille is indignant, or an^ry, or rebellious. There, above all, as Talma once re- marked, is seen depicted the anger or the irony of great minds. The immobility of the human nostril indicates a certain barrenness of soul; never did the nose of a miser oscillate; it contracts like the lips; he locks up his face as he does his money. Camille's mouth, arching at the corners, is of a vivid red; blood abounds there, and supplies the living, thinking oxide which gives such seduction to the lips, reassuring the lover whom the gravity of that majes- tic face may have dismayed. The upper lip is thin, the furrow which unites it with the nose comes low, giving it a centre curve which emphasizes its natural disdain. Camille has little to do to express anger. This beautiful lip is supported by the strong red breadth of its lower mate, adorable in kindness, swell- ing with love, a lip like the outer petal of a pome- granate such as Phidias might have carved, and the color of which it has. The chin is firm and rather full; but it expresses resolution and fitly ends this profile, royal if not divine. It is necessary to add that the upper lip beneath the nose is lightly shaded by a chainning down. Nature would have made a blunder had she not cast that tender mist upon the face. The ears are delicately convoluted, — a sign of secret refinement. The bust is large, the waist slim and sufficiently rounded. The hips are not promi- nent, but very graceful; the line of the thighs is magnificent, recalling Bacchus rather than the Venus BSatrix, 87 Callipyge. There we may see the shadowy line of demarcation which separates nearly every woman of genius from her sex ; there such women are found to have a certain vague similitude to man; they have neither the suppleness nor the soft abandonment of those whom Nature destines for maternity; their gait is not broken by faltering motions. This obser- vation may be called bi-lateral; it has its counterpart in men, whose thighs are those of women when they are sly, cunning, false, and cowardly. Camille's neck, instead of curving inward at the nape, curves out in a line that unites the head to the shoulders without sinuosity, a most signal characteristic of force. The neck itself presents at certain moments an athletic magnificence. The spring of the arms from the shoulders, superb in outline, seems to be- long to a colossal woman. The arms are vigorously modelled, ending in wrists of English delicacy and charming hands, plump, dimpled, and adorned with rosy, almond-shaped nails ; these hands are of a white- ness which reveals that the body, so round, so firm, so well set-up, is of another complexion altogether than the face. The firm, cold carriage of the head is cor- rected by the mobility of the lips, their changing expression, and the artistic play of the nostrils. And yet, in spite of all these promises — hidden, perhaps, from the profane — the calm of that counte- nance has something, I know not what, that is vexa- tious. More sad, more serious than gracious, that face is marked by the melancholy of constant medi- tation. For this reason INIademoiselle des Touches listens more than she talks. She startles by her 88 Beatrix, silence and by that deep-reaching glance of intense fixity. No educated person could see her without thinking of Cleopatra, that dark little woman who almost changed the face of the world. But in Camille the natural animal is so complete, so self-sufficing, of a nature so leonine, that a man, however little of a Turk he may be, regrets the presence of so great a mind in such a body, and could wish that she were wholly woman. He fears to find the strange distor- tions of an abnormal soul. Do not cold analysis and matter-of-fact theory point to passions in such a woman? Does she judge, and not feel? Or, phe- nomenon still more terrible, does she not feel and judge at one and the same time? Able for all things through her brain, ought her course to be circumscribed by the limitations of other women? Has that intel- lectual strength weakened her heart? Has she no charm? Can she descend to those tender nothings by which a woman occupies, and soothes and interests the man she loves? Will she not cast aside a senti- ment when it no longer responds to some vision of infinitude which she grasps and contemplates in her soul? Who can scale the heights to which her eyes have risen? Yes, a man fears to find in such a woman something unattainable, unpossessable, uncon- querable. The woman of strong mind should remain a symbol; as a reality she must be feared. Camille Maupin is in some ways the living image of Schiller's Isis, seated in the darkness of the temple, at whose feet her priests find the dead bodies of the daring men who have consulted her. The adventures of her life declared to be true bv Biatrix. 89 the world, and which Camille has never disavowed, enforce the questions suggested by her personal ap- pearance. Perhaps she likes those calumnies. The nature of her beauty has not been without its influence on her fame; it has served it, just as her fortune and position have maintained her in society. If a sculptor desires to make a statue of Brittany let him take Mademoiselle des Touches for his model. That full-blooded, powerful temperament is the only nature capable of repelling the action of time. The constant nourishment of the pulp, so to speak, of that polished skin is an arm given to women by Nature to resist the invasion of wrinkles; in Camille's case it was aided by the calm impassibility of her features. In 1817 this charming young woman opened her house to artists, authors of renown, learned and scien- tiiic men, and publicists, — a society toward which her tastes led her. Her salon resembled that of Baron Gerard, where men of rank mingled with men of dis- tinction of all kinds, and the elite of Parisian women came. The parentage of Mademoiselle des Touches, and her fortune, increased by that of her aunt the nun, protected her in the attempt, always very difficult in Paris, to create a society. Her worldly independence was one reason of her success. Various ambitious mothers indulged the hope of inducing her to marry their sons, whose fortunes were out of proportion to the age of their escutcheons. Several peers of France, allured by the prospect of eighty thousand francs a year and a house magnificently appointed, took their womenkind, even the most fastidious and intractable, to visit her. The diplomatic world, always in search 90 Beatrix, of amusements of the intellect, came there and found enjoyment. Thus Mademoiselle des Touches, sur- rounded by so many forms of individual interests, was able to study the different comedies which pas- sion, covetousness, and ambition make the generality of men perform, — even those who are highest in the social scale. She saw, early in life, the world as it is; and she was fortunate enough not to fall early into absorbing love, which warps the mind and facul- ties of a woman and prevents her from judging soberly. Ordinarily a woman feels, enjoys, and judges, suc- cessively ; hence three distinct ages, the last of which coincides with the mournful period of old age. In Mademoiselle des Touches this order was reversed. Her youth was wrapped in the snows of knowledge and the ice of reflection. This transposition is, in truth, an additional explanation of the strangeness of her life and the nature of her talent. She observed men at an age when most women can see only one man; she despised what other women admired; she detected falsehood in the flatteries they accept as truths ; she laughed at things that made them serious. This contradiction of her life with that of others lasted long ; but it came to a terrible end ; she was destined to find in her soul a first love, young and fresh, at an age when women are summoned by Nature to renounce all love. Meantime, a first affair in which she was involved has always remained a secret from the world. Felicite, like other women, was induced to believe that beauty of body was that of soul. She fell in love with a Beatrix. 91 face, and learned, to her cost, the folly of a man of gallantry, who saw nothing in her but a mere woman. It was some time before she recovered from the dis- gust she felt at this episode. Her distress was per- ceived by a friend, a man, who consoled her without personal after-thought, or, at any rate, he concealed any such motive if he had it. In him Felicite be- lieved she found the heart and mind which were lack- ing to her former lover. He did, in truth, possess one of the most original minds of our age. He, too, wrote under a pseudonym, and his first publications were those of an adorer of Italy. Travel was the one form of education which Felicite lacked. A man of genius, a poet and a critic, he took Felicity to Italy in order to make known to her that country of all Art. This celebrated man, who is nameless, may be re- garded as the master and maker of ''Camille Maupin." He brought into order and shape the vast amount of knowledge already acquired by Felicite; increased it by study of the masterpieces with which Italy teems; gave her the frankness, freedom, and grace, epigram- matic, and intense, which is the character of his own talent (always rather fanciful as to form) which Camille Maupin modified by delicacy of sentiment and the softer terms of thought that are natural to a woman. He also roused in her a taste for German and English literature and made her learn both lan- guages while travelling. In Rome, in 1820, Felicity was deserted for an Italian. Without that misery she might never have been celebrated. Napoleon called misfortune the midwife of genius. This event filled Mademoiselle des Touches, and forever, with that con- 92 Beatrix. tempt for men which later was to make her so strong. Felicite died, Camille Maupin was born. She returned to Paris with Conti, the great musi- cian, for whom she wrote the librettos of two operas. But she had no more illusions, and she became, at heart, unknown to the world, a sort of female Don Juan, without debts and without conquests. Encour- aged by success, she published the two volumes of plays which at once placed the name of Camille Maupin in the list of illustrious anonymas. Next, she related her betrayed and deluded love in a short novel, one of the masterpieces of that period. This book, of a dangerous example, was classed with "Adolphe,"a dreadful lamentation, the counterpart of which is found in Camille 's work. The true secret of her literary metamorphosis and pseudonym has never been fully understood. Some delicate minds have thought it lay in a feminine desire to escape fame and remain obscure, while offering a man's name and work to criticism. In spite of any such desire, if she had it, her celeb- rity increased daily, partly through the influence of her salon, partly from her own wit, the correctness of her judgments, and the solid worth of her aq§uire- ments. She became an authority; her sayings were quoted ; she could no longer lay aside at will the func- tions with which Parisian society invested her. She came to be an acknowledged exception. The world bowed before the genius and position of this strange woman; it recognized and sanctioned her indepen- dence; women admired her mind, men her beauty. Iler conduct was regulated by all social conventions. Beatrix. 93 Her friendships seemed purely platonic. There was, moreover, nothing of the female author about her. Mademoiselle des Touches is charming as a woman of the world, — languid when she pleases, indolent, coquettish, concerned about her toilet, pleased with the airy nothings so seductive to women and to poets. She understands very well that after Madame de Stael there is no place in this century for a Sappho, and that Ninon could not exist in Pairs without grands seigneurs and a voluptuous court. She is the Ninon of the intellect ; she adores Art and artists ; she goes from the poet to the musician, from the sculptor to the prose-writer. Her heart is noble, endowed with a generosity that makes her a dupe ; so filled is she with pity for sorrow, — filled also with contempt for the prosperous. She has lived since 1830, the centre of a choice circle, surrounded by tried friends who love her tenderly and esteem each other. Far from the noisy fuss of Madame de Stael, far from political strifes, she jokes about Camille Maupin, that junior of George Sand (whom she calls her brother Cain), whose recent fame has now eclipsed her own. Made- moiselle des Touches admires her fortunate rival with angelic composure, feeling no jealousy and no secret vexation. Until the period when this history begins, she had led as happy a life as a woman strong enough to l)rotect herself can be supposed to live. From 1817 to 1834 she had come some five or six times to Les Touches. Her first stay was after her first disillusion in 1818. The house was uninhabitable, and she sent her man of business to Gudrande and took a lodging 94 Beatrix, for herself in the village. At that time she had no suspicion of her coming fame; she was sad, she saw no one; she, wanted, as it were, to contemplate herself after her great disaster. She wrote to Paris to have the furniture necessary for a residence at Les Touches sent down to her. It came by a vessel to Nantes, thence by small boats to Croisic, from which little place it was transported, not without difficulty, over the sands to Les Touches. Workmen came down from Paris, and before long she occupied Les Touches, which pleased her immensely. She wanted to medi- tate over the events of her life, like a cloistered nun. At the beginning of the winter she returned to Paris. The little town of Guerande was by this time roused to diabolical curiosity ; its whole talk was of the Asiatic luxury displayed at Les Touches. Her man of business gave orders after her departure that visitors should be admitted to view the house. They flocked from the village of Batz, from Croisic, and from Savenay, as well as from Guerande. This pub- lic curiosity brought in an enormous sum to the family of the porter and gardener, not less, in two years, than seventeen francs. After this, Mademoiselle des Touches did not revisit Les Touches for two years, not until her return from Italy. On that occasion she came by way of Croisic and was accompanied by Conti. It was some time before Guerande becan^e aware of her presence. Her subsequent apparitions at Les Touches excited com- paratively little interest. Her Parisian fame did not precede her; her man of business alone knew the secret of her writings and of her connection with the Beatrix. 95 celebrity of Camille Maupin. But ^,t the period of which we are now writing the contagion of the new ideas had made some progress in Guerande, and sev- eral persons knew of the dual form of Mademoiselle des Touches* existence. Letters came to the post- office, directed to Camille Maupin at Les Touches. In short, the veil was rent away. In a region so essentially Catholic, archaic, and full of prejudice, the singular life of this illustrious woman would of course cause rumors, some of which, as we have seen, had reached the ears of the Abb^ Grimont and alarmed him; such a life could never be comprehended in Guerande ; in fact, to every mind, it seemed unnatural and improper. Felicite, during her present stay, was not alone at Les Touches. She had a guest. That guest was Claude Vignon, a scornful and powerful writer who, though doing criticism only, has found means to give the public and literature the impression of a certain superiority. Mademoiselle des Touches had received this writer for the last seven years, as she had so many other authors, "journalists, artists, and men of the world. She knew his nerveless nature, his laziness, his utter penury, his indifference and disgust for all things, and yet by the way she was now conducting herself she seemed inclined to marry him. She ex- plained her conduct, incomprehensible to her friends, in various ways, — by ambition, by the dread she felt of a lonely old age ; she wanted to confide her future to a superior man, to whom her fortune would be a Htepping-stone, and thus increase her own importance in the literary world. k- 96 Beatrix. With these apparent intentions she had brought Claude Vignon from Paris to Les Touches, as an eagle bears away a kid in its talons, — to study him, and decide upon some positive course. But, in truth, she was misleading both Calyste and Claude ; she was not even thinking of marriage ; her heart was in the throes of the most violent convulsion that could agi- tate a soul as strong as hers. She found herself the dupe of her own mind; too late she saw life lighted by the sun of love, shining as love shines in a heart of twenty. Let us now see Camille's convent where this was happening. Beatrix. 97 VII. LES TOUCHES. A FEW hundred yards from Guerande the soil of Brittany comes to an end ; the salt-marshes and the sandy dunes begin. We descend into a desert of sand, which the sea has left for a margin between herself and earth, by a rugged road through a ravine that has never seen a carriage. This desert contains waste tracts, ponds of unequal size, round the shores of which the salt is made on muddy banks, and a little arm of the sea which separates the mainland from the island of Croisic. Geographically, Croisic is really a peninsula ; but as it holds to Brittany only by the beaches which connect it with the village of Batz (barren quick- sands very difficult to cross), it may be more correct to call it an island. At the point where the road from Croisic to Guerande turns off from the main road of terra firma^ stands a country-house, surrounded by a large garden, icmarkable for its trimmed and twisted pine-trees, some being trained to the shape of sun-shades, others, stripped of their branches, showing their reddened trunks in spots where the bark has peeled. These trees, victims of hurricanes, growing against wind and tide (for them the saying is literally true), prepare the mind for the strange and depressing sight of the 7 98 Beatrix. marshes and the dunes, which resemble a stiffened ocean. The house, fairly well built of a species of slaty stone with granite courses, has no architecture ; it presents to the eye a plain wall with windows at regular intervals. These windows have small leaded panes on the ground- floor and large panes on the upper floor. Above are the attics, which stretch the whole length of an enor- mously high pointed roof, with two gables and two large dormer windows on each side of it. Under the triangular point of each gable a circular window opens its cyclopic eye, westerly to the sea, easterly on Guerande. One facade of the house looks on the road to Guerande, the other on the desert at the end of which is Croisic ; beyond that little town is the open sea. A brook escapes through an opening in the park wall which skirts the road to Croisic, crosses the road, and is lost in the sands beyond it. The grayish tones of the house harmonize admirably with the scene it overlooks. The park is an oasis in the surrounding desert, at the entrance of which the traveller comes upon a mud-hut, where the custom- house oflicials lie in wait for him. This house without land (for the bulk of the estate is really in Guerande) derives an income from the marshes and a few outlying farms of over ten thousand francs a year. Such is the fief of Les Touches, from which the Revolution lopped its feudal rights. The paludiers, however, continue to call it "the chateau," and they would still say " seigneur " if the fief were not now in the female line. When Felicite set about restoring Les Touches, she was careful, artist that she is, not to change the deso- late exterior which gives the look of a prison to the Beatrix. 99 isolated structure. The sole change was at the gate, which she enlivened by two brick columns supporting an arch, beneath which carriages pass into the court-yard where she planted trees. The arrangement of the ground-floor is that of nearly all country houses built a hundred years ago. It was, evidently, erected on the ruins of some old castle formerly perched there. A large panelled entrance- hall has been turned by Felicite into a billiard-room ; from it opens an immense salon with six windows, and the dining-room. Tiie kitchen communicates with the dining-room through an office. Camille has displayed a noble simplicity in the arrangement of this floor, carefully avoiding all splendid decoration. The salon, painted gray, is furnished in old mahogany with green silk coverings. The furniture of the dining-room comprises four great buffets, also of mahogany, chairs covered with horsehair, and superb engravings by Audran in mahogany frames. The old staircase, of wood with heavy balusters, is covered all over with a green carpet. On the floor above are two suites of rooms separated by the staircase. Mademoiselle des Touches has taken for herself the one that looks toward the sea and the marshes, and arranged it with a small salon, a large chamber, and two cabinets, one for a dressing room, the other for a study and writing-room. The other suite, she has made into two separate apartments for guests, each with a bedroom, an antechamber, and a cabinet. The servants have rooms in the attic. The rooms for guests are furnished with what is strictly necessary, and no more. A certain fantastic luxury has been 100 Beatrix. reserved for her own apartment. In that sombre and melancholy habitation, looking out upon the sombre and melancholy landscape, she wanted the most fantas- tic creations of art that she could find. The little salon is hung with Gobelin tapestry, framed in marvellously carved oak. The windows are draped with the heavy silken hangings of a past age, a brocade shot with crimson and gold against green and yellow, gathered into mighty pleats and trimmed with fringes and cords and tassels worthy of a church. This salon contains a chest or cabinet, worth in these days seven or eight thousand francs, a carved ebony table, a secretary with many drawers, Inlaid with arabesques of ivory and bought in Venice, with other noble Gothic furniture. Here too are pictures and articles of choice workman- ship bought in 1818, at a time when no one suspected the ultimate value of such treasures. Her bedroom is of the period of Louis XV. and strictly exact to it. Here we see the carved wooden bedstead painted white, with the arched head-board surmounted by Cupids scattering flowers, and the canopy above it adorned with plumes ; the hangings of blue silk ; the Pompadour dressing-table with its laces and mirror ; together with bits of furniture of singular shape, — a '' duchesse," a chaise-longue, a stiff little sofa, — with window-curtains of silk, like that of the furniture, lined with pink satin, and caught back with silken ropes, and a carpet of Savonnerie; in short, we find here all those elegant, rich, sumptuous, and dainty things in the midst of which the women of the eigh- teenth century lived and made love. The study, entirely of the present day, presents, in Beatrix, 101 contrast with the Louis XV. gallantrieR;, « chAtfi^Ji^g^ collection of mahogany furniture; it te^en^bles d, boudoir ; the bookshelves are full, but the fascinating trivialities of a woman's existence encumber it ; in the midst of which an inquisitive eye perceives with uneasy surprise pistols, a narghile, a riding-whip, a hammock, a rifle, a man's blouse, tobacco, pipes, a knapsack, — a bizarre combination which paints Felicite. Every great soul, entering that room, would be struck with the peculiar beauty of the landscape which spreads its broad savanna beyond the park, the last vegetation on the continent. The melancholy squares of water, divided by little paths of white salt crust, along which the salt-makers pass (dressed in white) to rake up and gather the salt into mulons ; a space which the saline exhalations prevent all birds from crossing, stifling thus the efforts of botanic nature ; those sands where the eye is soothed only by one little hardy persistent plant bearing rosy flowers and the Chartreux pansy ; that lake of salt water, the sandy dunes, the view of Croisic, a miniature town afloat like Venice on the sea ; and, finally the mighty ocean tossing its foaming fringe upon the granite rocks as if the better to bring out their wierd formations — that sight uplifts the mind although it saddens it ; an effect produced at last by all that is sublime, creating a re- gretful yearning for things unknown and yet perceived by the soul on far-off heights. These wild and savage harmonies are for great spirits and great sorrows only. This desert scene, where at times the sun rays, reflected by the water, by the sands, whitened the 102 Beatrix, yillage of Batz and rippled on the roofs of Croisic with pitiless brilliancy, filled Camille's dreaming mind for days together. She seldom looked to the cool, refreshing scenes, the groves, the flowery meadows around Guerande. Her soul was struggling to endure a horrible inward anguish.^ No sooner did Calyste see the vanes of the two gables shooting up beyond the furze of the roadside and the distorted heads of the pines, than the air seemed lighter; Guerande was a prison to him; his life was at Les Touches. Who will not understand the attraction it presented to a youth in his position. A love like that of Cherubin, had flung him at the feet of a person who was a great and grand thing to him before he thought of her as a woman, and it had survived the repeated and inexplicable refusals of Felicite. This sentiment, which w^as more the need of loving than love itself, had not escaped the terrible power of Camille for analysis; hence, possibly, her rejection, — a generosity unperceived, of course, by Calyste. At Les Touches were displayed to the ravished eyes of the ignorant young countryman, the riches of a new world; he heard, as it were, another language, hitherto unknown to him and sonorous. He listened to the poetic sounds of the finest music, that surpass- ing music of the nineteenth century, in which melody and harmony blend or struggle on equal terms, — a music in which song and instrumentation have reached a hitherto unknown perfection. He saw before his eyes the works of modern painters, those of the French school, to-day the heir of Italy, Spain, and Flanders, Beatrix. 103 in which talent has become so common that hearts, weary of talent, are calling aloud for genius. He read there those works of imagination, those amazing creations of modern literature which produced their full effect upon his unused heart. In short, the great Nineteenth Century appeared to him, in all its collec- tive magnificence, its criticising spirit, its desires for renovation in all directions, and its vast efforts, nearly all of them on the scale of the giant who cradled the infancy of the century in his banners and sang to it hymns with a lullaby of cannon. Initiated by Felicite into the grandeur of all these things, which may, perhaps, escape the eyes of those who work them, Calyste gratified at Les Touches the taste for the glorious, powerful at his age, and that artless admiration, the first love of adolescence, which is always irritated by criticism. It is so natural that flame should rise! He listened to that charming Parisian raillery, that graceful satire which revealed to him French wit and the qualities of the French mind, and awakened in him a thousand ideas, which might have slumbered forever in the soft torpor of his family life. For him. Mademoiselle des Touches was the mother of his intellect. She was so kind to him; a woman is always adorable to a man in whom she inspires love, even when she seems not to share it. At the present time Felicite was giving him music- lessons. To him the grand apartments on the lower floor, and her private rooms above, so coquettish, so artistic, were vivified, were animated by a light, a spirit, a supernatural atmosphere, strange and unde- finable. The modern world with its poesy was sharply 104 Beatrix, coDtrasted with the dull and patriarchal world of Guerande, in the two systems brought face to face before him. On one side all the thousand develop- ments of Art, on the other the sameness of uncivilized Brittany. No one will therefore ask why the poor lad, bored like his mother with the pleasures of mouche^ quivered as he approached the house, and rang the bell, and crossed the court-yard. Such emotions, we may remark, do not assail a mature man, trained to the ups and downs of life, whom nothing surprises, being prepared for all. As the door opened, Calyste, hearing the sound of the piano, supposed that Camille was in the salon ; but when he entered the billiard-hall he no longer heard it. Camille, he thought, must be playing on a small upright piano brought by Conti from England and placed by her in her own little salon. He began to run up the stairs, where the thick carpet smothered the sound of his steps ; but he went more slowly as he neared the top, perceiving something unusual and extraordinary about the music. Felicite was playing for herself only; she was communing with her own being. Instead of entering the room, the young man sat down upon a Gothic seat covered with green velvet, which stood on the landing beneath a window artisti- cally framed in carved woods stained and varnished. Nothing was ever more mysteriously melancholy than Camille's improvisation; it seemed like the cry of a soul de profundis to God — from the depths of a grave! The heart of the young lover recognized the cry of despairing love, the prayer of a hidden plaint, BSatrix. 105 the groan of repressed affliction. Camille had varied, modified, and lengthened the introduction to the cava- tina: *'Mercy for thee, mercy for me! " which is nearly the whole of the fourth act of '^ Robert le Diable." She now suddenly sang the words in a heart-rending manner, and then as suddenly interrupted herself. Calyste entered, and saw the reason. Poor Camille Maupin! poor Felicite! She turned to him a face bathed with tears, took out her handkerchief and dried them, and said, simply, without affectation, ''Good- morning.'* She was beautiful as she sat there in her morning gown. On her head was one of those red chenille nets, much worn in those days, through which the coils of her black hair shone, escaping here and there. A short upper garment made like a Greek peplum gave to view a pair of cambric trousers with embroidered frills, and the prettiest of Turkish slip- pers, red and gold. ''What is the matter?" cried Calyste. "He has not returned," she replied, going to a win- dow and looking out upon the sands, the sea and the marshes. This answer explained all. Camille was awaiting Claude Vignon. "You are anxious about him?" asked Calyste. "Yes," she answered with a sadness the lad was too ignorant to analyze. He started to leave the room. "Where are you going?" she asked. "To find him," he replied. "Dear child! " she said, taking his hand and draw- ing him toward her with one of those moist glances k 106 Beatrix, which are to a youthful soul the best of recompenses. ''You are distracted! Where could you find him on that wide shore ? " "I will find him." "Your mother would be in mortal terror. Stay. Besides, I choose it," she said, making him sit down upon the sofa. "Don't pity me. The tears you see are the tears a woman likes to shed. We have a faculty that is not in man, — that of abandoning our- selves to our nervous nature and driving our feelings to an extreme. By imagining certain situations and encouraging the imagination we end in tears, and sometimes in serious states of illness or disorder. The fancies of women are not the action of the mind ; they are of the heart. You have come just in time; solitude is bad for me. I am not the dupe of his professed desire to go to Croisic and see the rocks and the dunes and the salt-marshes without me. He meant to leave us alone together; he is jealous, or, rather, he pretends jealousy, and you are young, you are handsome." "Why not have told me this before? What must I do? must I stay away?" asked Calyste, with difficulty restraining his tears, one of which rolled down his cheek and touched Felicite deeply. "You are an angel!" she cried. Then she gayly sang the "Stay! stay!" of Matilde in "Guillaume Tell," taking all gravity from that magnificent answer of the princess to her subject. "He only wants to make me think he loves me better than he really does," she said. "He knows how much I desire his happi- ness," she went on, looking attentively at Calyste. Beatrix. 107 *' Perhaps he feels humiliated to be inferior to me there. Perhaps he has suspicions about you and means to surprise us. But even if his only crime is to take his pleasure without me, and not to associate me with the ideas this new place gives him, is not that enough? Ah! I am no more loved by that great brain than I was by the musician, by the poet, by the soldier! Sterne is right; names signify much; mine is a bitter sarcasm. I shall die without finding in any man the love which fills my heart, the poesy that I have in my soul — " She stopped, her arms pendent, her head lying back on the cushions, her eyes, stupid with thought, fixed on a pattern of the carpet. The pain of great minds has something grandiose and imposing about it; it reveals a vast extent of soul which the thought of the spectator extends still farther. Such souls share the privileges of royalty whose affections belong to a people and so affect a world. '*Why did you reject my — " said Calyste; but he could not end his sentence. Camille's beautiful hand laid upon his eloquently interrupted him. *' Nature changed her laws in granting me a dozen years of youth beyond my due," she said. "I rejected your love from egotism. Sooner or later the differ- ence in our ages must have parted us. T am thirteen years older than he^ and even that is too much." *'You will be beautiful at sixty," cried Calyste, heroically. "God grant it," she answered, smiling. "Besides, dear child, I ivant to love. In spite of his cold heart, his lack of imagination, his cowardly indifference, and 108 Beatr cX. the envy which consumes him, I believe there is greatness behind those tatters ; I hope to galvanize that heart, to save him from himself, to attach him tome. Alas! alas! I have a clear-seeing mind, but a blind heart." She was terrible in her knowledge of herself. She suffered and analyzed her sufferings as Cuvier and Dapuytren explained to friends the fatal advance of their disease and the progress that death was making in their bodies. Camille Maupin knew the passion within her as those men of science knew their own anatomy. "I have brought him here to judge him, and he is already bored," she continued. "He pines for Paris, I tell him; the nostalgia of criticism is on him; he has no author to pluck, no system to undermine, no poet to drive to despair, and he dares not commit some debauch in this house which might lift for a moment the burden of his ennui. Alas I my love is not real enough, perhaps, to soothe his brain; I don't intoxicate him! Make him drunk at dinner to-night and I shall know if I am right. I will say I am ill, and stay in my own room." Calyste turned scarlet from his neck to his fore- head; even his ears were on fire. "Oh ! forgive me," she cried. "How can I heed- lessly deprave your girlish innocence! Forgive me, Calyste — " She paused. " There are some superb, consistent natures who say at a certain age: 'If 1 had my life to live over again, I would do the same things. ' I who do not think myself weak, I say, 'I would be a woman like your mother, Calyste.' To have Beatrix. 109 a Calyste, oh! what happiness! I could be a humble and submissive woman — And yet, I have done no harm except to myself. But alas! dear child, a woman cannot stand alone in society except it be in what is called a primitive state. Affections which are not in harmony with social or with natural laws, affections that are not obligatory, in short, escape us. Suffering for suffering, as well be useful where we can. What care I for those children of my cousin Faucombe? I have not seen them these twenty years, and they are married to merchants. You are my son, who have never cost me the miseries of motherhood; I shall eave you my fortune and make you happy — at least, so far as money can do so, dear treasure of beauty and grace that nothing should ever change or blast." **You would not take my love," said Calyste, "and I shall return your fortune to your heirs." '*Child!" answered Camille, in a guttural voice, letting the tears roll down her cheeks. ''Will noth- ing save me from myself? " she added, presently. ''You said you had a history to tell me, and a letter to — " said the generous youth, wishing to divert her thoughts from her grief; but she did not let him finish. "You are right to remind me of that. I will be an honest woman before all else. I will sacrifice no one — Yes, it was too late yesterday, but to-day we have time," she said, in a cheerful tone. "I will keep my promise; and while I tell you that history I will sit by the window and watch the road to the marshes." 110 Beatrix. Calyste arranged a great Gothic chair for her near the window, and opened one of the sashes. Camille Maupin, who shared the oriental taste of her illus- trious sister-author, took a magnificent Persian nar- ghile, given to her by an ambassador. She filled the nipple with patchouli, cleaned the hochettino^ per- fumed the goose- quill, which she attached to the mouthpiece and used only once, set fire to the yellow leaves, placing the vase with its long neck enamelled in blue and gold at some distance from her, and rang the bell for tea. "Will you have cigarettes? — Ah! I am always forgetting that you do not smoke. Purity such as yours is so rare ! The hand of Eve herself, fresh from the hand of her Maker, is alone innocent enough to stroke your cheek." Calyste colored ; sitting down on a stool at Camille's feet, he did not see the deep emotion that seemed for a moment to overcome her. Beatrix, 111 VIII. LA MARQUISE BEATRIX. " I PROMISED you this tale of the past, and here it is," said Camilie: ''The person from whom I received that letter yesterday, and who may be here to-morrow, is the Marquise de Rochefide. The old marquis (whose family is not as old as yours), after marrying his eldest daughter to a Portuguese grandee, was anxious to find an alliance among the higher nobility for his son, in order to obtain for him the peerage he had never been able to get for himself. The Comtesse de Montcornet told him of a young lady in the department of the Orne, a Mademoiselle Beatrix-Maximilienne-Rose de Casteran, the young- est daughter of the Marquis de Casteran, who wished to marry his two daughters without dow- ries in order to reserve his whole fortune for the Comte de Casteran, his son. The Casterans are, it seems, of the bluest blood. Beatrix, born and brought up at the chateau de Casteran, was twenty years old at the time of her marriage in 1828. She was remarkable for what you provincials call origi- nality, which is simply independence of ideas, enthu- siasm, a feeling for the beautiful, and a certain impulse and ardor toward the things of Art. You may be- lieve a poor woman who has allowed herself to bo 112 Beatrix. drawn along the same lines, there is nothing more dangerous for a woman. If she follows them, they lead her where you see me, and where the marquise came, — to the verge of abysses. Men alone have the staff on which to lean as they skirt those precipices, — a force which is lacking to most women, but which, if we do possess it, makes abnormal beings of us. Her old grandmother, the dowager de Casteran, was well pleased to see her marry a man to whom she was superior in every way. The Rochefides were equally satisfied with the Casterans, who connected them with the Verneuils, the d'Esgrignons, the Troisvilles, and gave them a peerage for their son in that last big batch of peers made by Charles X,, but revoked by the revolution of July. The first days of marriage are perilous for little minds as well as for great loves. Rochefide, being a fool, mistook his wife's ignorance for coldness ; he classed her among frigid, lymphatic women, and made that an excuse to return to his bachelor life, relying on the coldness of the marquise, her pride, and the thousand barriers that the life of a great lady sets up about a woman in Paris. You 'U know what I mean when you go there. People said to Rochefide : ' You are very lucky to possess a cold wife who will never have any but head passions. She will always be content if she can shine; her fancies are purely artistic, her desires will be satisfied if she can make a salon, and collect about her distinguished minds ; her debauches will be in music and her orgies literary.' Rochefide, however, is not an ordinary fool ; he has as much conceit and vanity as a clever man, which gives him a mean and squinting jealousy. Beatrix. 113 brutal when it comes to the surface, lurking and cowardly for six months, and murderous the seventh. He thought he was deceiving his wife, and yet he feared her, — two causes for tyranny when the day came on which the marquise let him see that she was charitably assuming indifference to his unfaithfulness. I analyze all this in order to explain her conduct. Beatrix had the keenest admiration for me; there is but one step, however, from admiration to jealousy. I have one of the most remarkable salons in Paris; she wished to make herself another; and in order to do so she attempted to draw away my circle. I don't know how to keep those who wish to leave me. She obtained the superficial people who are friends with every one from mere want of occupation, and whose object is to get out of a salon as soon as they have entered it ; but she did not have time to make herself a real society. In those days I thought her consumed with a desire for celebrity of one kind or another. Nevertheless, she has really much grandeur of soul, a regal pride, distinct ideas, and a marvellous facility for apprehending and understanding all things; she can talk metaphysics and music, theology and paint- ing. You will see her, as a'mature woman, what the rest of us saw her as a bride. And yet there is something of affectation about her in all this. She has too much the air of knowing abstruse things, — Chinese, Hebrew, hieroglyphics perhaps, or the papy- rus that they wrapped round mummies. Personally, Btiatrix is one of those blondes beside whom Eve the fair would seem a negress. She is slender and straight and white as a church taper ; her face is long 8 114 Beatrix, and pointed; the skin is capricious, to-day like cam- bric, to-morrow darkened with little speckles beneath its surface, as if her blood had left a deposit of dust there during the night. Her forehead is magnificent, though rather daring. The pupils of her eyes are pale sea-green, floating on their white balls under thin lashes and lazy eyelids. Her eyes have dark rings around them often ; her nose, which describes one-quarter of a circle, is pinched about the nostrils; very shrewd and clever, but supercilious. She has an Austrian mouth; the upper lip has more character than the lower, which drops disdainfully. Her pale cheeks have no color unless some very keen emotion moves her. Her chin is rather fat; mine is not thin, and perhaps I do wrong to tell you that women with fat chins are exacting in love. She has one of the most exquisite waists I ever saw; the shoulders are beauti- ful, but the bust has not developed as well, and the arms are thin. She has, however, an easy carriage and manner, which redeems all such defects and sets her beauties in full relief. Nature has given her that princess air which can never be acquired ; it becomes her, and reveals at sudden moments the woman of high birth. Without being faultlessly beautiful, or prettily pretty, she produces, when she chooses, in- effaceable impressions. She has only to put on a gown of cherry velvet with clouds of lace, and wreathe with roses that angelic hair of hers, which resembles floods of light, and she becomes divine. If, on some excuse or other, she could wear the costume of the time when women ha(i long, pointed bodices, rising, slim and slender, from voluminous brocaded skirts Biatrix. 115 with folds so heavy that they stood alone, and could hide her arms in those wadded sleeves with ruffles, from which the hand comes out like a pistil from a calyx, and could fling back the curls of her hair into the jewelled knot behind her head, Beatrix would hold her own victoriously with ideal beauties like that — " And Felicite showed Calyste a fine copy of a pic- ture by Mieris, in which was a woman robed in white satin, standing with a paper in her hand, and singing with a Brabangon seigneur, while a negro beside them poured golden Spanish wine into a goblet, and the old housekeeper in the background arranged some biscuits. *'Fair women, blondes," said Camille, ''have the advantage over us poor brown things of a precious diversity; there are a hundred ways for a blonde to charm, and only one for a brunette. Besides, blondes are more womanly; we are too like men, we French brunettes — Well, well! " she cried, "pray don't fall in love with Beatrix from the portrait I am making of her, like that prince, I forget his name, in the Arabian Nights. You would be too late, my dear boy." These words were said pointedly. The admiration depicted on the young man's face was more for the picture than for the painter whose faire was failing of its purpose. As she spoke. Felicity was employing all the resources of her eloquent physiognomy. "Blond as she is, however," she went on, "Beatrix has not the grace of her color; her lines are severe; she is elegant, but hard ; her face has a harsh contour, though at times it reveals a soul with Southern pas- 116 Beatrix, sions; an angel flashes out and then expires. Her eyes are thirsty. She looks best when seen full face; the profile has an air of being squeezed between two doors. You will see if 1 am mistaken. I will tell you now what made us intimate friends. For three years, from 1828 to 1831, Beatrix, while enjoying the last fetes of the Restoration, making the round of the salons, going to court, taking part in the fancy-balls of the filysee-Bourbon, was all the while judging men, and things, events, and life itself, from the height of her own thought. Her mind was busy. These first years of the bewilderment the world caused her pre- vented her heart from waking up. From 1830 to 1831 she spent the time of the revolutionary disturbance at her husband's country place, where she was bored like a saint in paradise. On her return to Pa'fis she became convinced, perhaps justly, that the revo^tion of July, in the minds of some persons purely political, would prove to be a moral revolution. The social class to which she belonged, not being able, during its unhoped-for triumph in the fifteen years of the Restoration to reconstruct itself, was about to go to pieces, bit by bit, under the battering-ram of the bourgeoisie. She heard the famous words of Mon- sieur Laine: 'Kings are departing! ' This convic- tion, I believe, was not without its influence on her conduct. She took an intellectual part in the new doctrines, which swarmed, during the three years suc- ceeding July, 1830, like gnats in the sunshine, and turned some female heads. But, like all nobles, Beatrix, while thinking these novel ideas superb, wanted always to protect the nobility. Finding be- Beatrix. 117 fore long that there was no place in this new regime for individual superiority, seeing thai the higher nobility were beginning once more the mute opposi- tion it had formerly made to Napoleon, — which was, in truth, its wisest course under an empire of deeds and facts, but which in an epoch of moral causes was equivalent to abdication, — she chose personal happi- ness rather than such eclipse. About the time we were all beginning to breathe again, Beatrix met at my house a man with whom I had expected to end my days, — Gennaro Conti, the great composer, a man of Neapolitan origin, though born in Marseilles. Conti has a brilliant mind; as a composer he has talent, though he will never attain to the first rank. Without Rossini, without Meyerbeer, he might perhaps have been taken for a man of genius. He has one advantage over those men, — he is in vocal music what Paganini is on the violin, Liszt on the piano, Taglioni in the ballet, and what the famous Garat was; at any rate he recalls that great singer to those who knew him. His is not a voice, my friend, it is a soul. When its song replies to certain ideas, cer- tain states of feeling difficult to describe in which a woman sometimes finds herself, that woman is lost. The marquise conceived the maddest passion for him, and took him from me. The act was provincial, I allow, but it was all fair play. She won my esteem and friendship by the way she behaved to me. She thought me a woman who was likely to defend her own; she did not know that to imc the most ridiculous thing in the world is such a struggle. She came to see me. That woman, proud as she is, was so in love 118 Beatrix. that she told me her secret and made me the arbiter of her destiny. She was really adorable, and she kept her place as woman and as marquise in my eyes. I must tell you, dear friend, that while women are some- times bad, they have hidden grandeurs in their souls that men can never appreciate. Well, as I seem to be making my last will and testament like a woman on the verge of old age, I shall tell you that I was ever faithful to Conti, and should have been till death, and yet I know him. His nature is charming, apparently, and detestable beneath its surface. He is a charlatan in matters of the heart. There are some men, like Nathan, of whom I have already spoken to you, who are charlatans externally, and yet honest. Such men lie to themselves. Mounted on their stilts they think they are on their feet, and perform their jugglery with a sort of innocence; their humbuggery is in their blood; they are born comedians, braggarts; extrava- gant in form as a Chinese vase; perhaps they even laugh at themselves. Their personality is generous; like Murat's kingly garments, it attracts danger. But Conti's duplicity will be known only to the women who love him. In his art he has that deep Italian jealousy which led the Carlone to murder Piola, and stuck a stiletto into Paesiello. That terrible envy lurks beneath the warmest comradeship. Conti has not the courage of his vice; he smiles at Meyerbeer and flatters him, when he fain would tear him to bits. He knows his weakness, and cultivates an appear- ance of sincerity; his vanity still further leads him to play at sentiments which are far indeed from his real heart. He represents himself as an artist who Beatrix, 119 receives his inspirations from heaven; Art is some- thing saintly and sacred to him; he is fanatic; he is sublime in his contempt for worldliness; his eloquence seems to come from the deepest convictions. He is a seer, a demon, a god, an angel. Calyste, although I warn you about him, you will be his dupe. That Southern nature, that impassioned artist is cold as a well-rope. Listen to him: the artist is a missionary. Art is a religion, which has its priests and ought to have its martyrs. Once started on that theme, Gennaro reaches the most dishevelled pathos that any German professor of philosophy ever spluttered to his audi- ence. You admire his convictions, but he has n*t any. Bearing his hearers to heaven on a song which seems a mysterious fluid shedding love, he casts an ecstatic glance upon them ; he is examining their enthusiasm ; he is asking himself: 'Am I really a god to them? ' and he is also thinking: *I ate too much maccaroni to-day.' He is insatiable of applause, and he wins it. He delights, he is beloved; he is admired whensoever he will. He owes his success more to his voice than to his talent as a composer, though he would rather be a man of genius like Rossini than a performer like Rubini. I had committed the folly of attaching my- self to him, and I was determined and resigned to deck this idol to the end. Conti, like a great many artists, is dainty in all his ways; he likes his ease, his enjoyments; he is always carefully, even ele- gantly dressed. I do respect his courage; he is brave ; bravery, they say, is the only virtue into which hypocrisy cannot enter. While we were travelling I saw his courage tested; he risked the life he loved; 120 Beatrix. and yet, strange contradiction! I have seen him, in Paris, commit what I call the cowardice of thought. My friend, all this was known to me. I said to the poor marquise: 'You don't know into what a gulf you are plunging. You are the Perseus of a poor Andromeda; you release me from my rock. If he loves you, so much the better! but I doubt it; he loves no one but himself.* Gennaro was transported to the seventh heaven of pride. I was not a mar- quise, I was not born a Casterau, and he forgot me in a day. I then gave myself the savage pleasure of probing that nature to the bottom. Certain of the result, I wanted to see the twistings and turnings Conti would perform. My dear child, I saw in one week actual horrors of sham sentiment, infamous buffooneries of feeling. I will not tell you about them; you shall see the man here in a day or two. He now knows that I know him, and he hates me accordingly. If he could stab me with safety to him- self I should n't be alive two seconds. I have never said one word of all this to Beatrix. The last and constant insult which Gennaro offers me is to suppose that I am capable of communicating my sad knowl- edge of him to her ; but he has no belief in the good feeling of any human being. Even now he is play- ing a part with me ; he is posing as a man who is wretched at having left me. You will find what I may call the most penetrating cordiality about him; he is winning ; he is chivalrous. To him, all women are madonnas. One must live with him long before we get behind the veil of this false chivalry and learn the invisible signs of his humbug. His tone of con- Beatrix. 121 viction about himself might almost deceive the Deity. You will be entrapped, my dear child, by his catlike manners, and you will never believe in the profound and rapid arithmetic of his inmost thought. But enough ; let us leave him. I pushed indifference so far as to receive them together in my house. This cir- cumstance kept that most perspicacious of all socie- ties, the great world of Paris, ignorant of the affair. Though intoxicated with pride, Gennaro was compelled to dissimulate; and he did it admirably. But violent passions will have their freedom at any cost. Before the end of the year, Beatrix whispered in my ear one evening: 'My dear Felicity, I start to-morrow for Italy with Conti.' I was not surprised; she regarded herself as united for life to Gennaro, and she suffered from the restraints imposed upon her; she escaped one evil by rushing into a greater. Conti was wild with happiness, — the happiness of vanity alone. ' That 's what it is to love truly,' he said to me. * How many women are there who could sacrifice their lives, their fortune, their reputation?' — * Yes, she loves you,' I replied, * but you do not love her.' He was furious, and made me a scene; he stormed, he declaimed, he depicted his love, declaring that he had never supposed it possible to love as much. I remained impassible, and lent him money for his journey, which, being unexpected, found him unprepared. Beatrix left a letter for her husband and started the next day for Italy. There she has remained two years; she has written to me several times, and her letters are enchant- ing. The poor child attaches herself to me as the only woman who will comprehend her. She says she 122 Beatrix. adores me. Want of money has compelled Gennaro to accept an offer to write a French opera ; he does not find in Italy the pecuniary gains which composers obtain in Paris. Here 's the letter I received yester- day from Beatrix. Take it and read it; you can now understand it, — that is, if it is possible, at your age, to analyze the things of the heart." So saying, she held out the letter to him. At this moment Claude Vignon entered the room. At his unexpected apparition Calyste and Felicite were both silent for a moment, — she from surprise, he from a vague uneasiness. The vast forehead, broad and high, of the new-comer, who was bald at the age of thirty-seven, now seemed darkened by annoyance. His firm, judicial mouth expressed a habit of chilling sarcasm. Claude Vignon is imposing, in spite of the precocious deteriorations of a face once magnificent, and now grown haggard. Between the ages of eigh- teen and twenty-five he strongly resembled the divine Raffaelle. But his nose, that feature of the human face that changes most, is growing to a point; the countenance is sinking into mysterious depressions, the outlines are thickening ; leaden tones predominate in the complexion, giving tokens of w^eariness, al- though the fatigues of this young man are not appar- ent; perhaps some bitter solitude has aged him, or the abuse of his gift of comprehension. He scrutinizes the thought of every one, yet without definite aim or system. The pickaxe of his criticism demolishes, it never constructs. Thus his lassitude is that of a mechanic, not of an architect. The eyes, of a pale blue, once very brilliant, are clouded now by some Beatrix. 123 hidden pain, or dulled by gloomy sadness. Excesses have laid dark tints above the eyelids; the temples have lost their freshness. The chin, of incomparable destinction, is getting doubled, but without dignity. His voice, never sonorous, is weakening; without being either hbarse or extinct, it touches the confines of hoarseness and extinction. The impassibility of that fine head, the fixity of that glance, cover irresolu- tion and weakness, which the keenly intelligent and sarcastic smile belies. The weakness lies wholly in action, not in thought; there are traces of an ency- clopedic comprehension on that brow, and in the habitual movement of a face that is childlike and splendid both. The man is tall, slightly bent already, like all those who bear the weight of a world of thought. Such long, tall bodies are never remarkable for continuous effort or creative activity. Charlemagne, Belisarius, and Constantine are noted exceptions to this rule. Certainly Claude Vignon presents a variety of mys- teries to be solved. In the first place, he is very simple and very wily. Though he falls into ex- cesses with the readiness of a courtesan, his powers of thought remain untouched. Yet his intellect, which is competent to criticise art, science, literature, and politics, is incompetent to guide his external life. Claude contemplates himself within the domain of his intellectual kingdom, and abandons his outer man with Diogenic indifference. Satisfied to penetrate all, to comprehend all by thought, he despises materialities; and yet, if it becomes a question of creating, doubt assails him; he sees obstacles, he is not inspired by 124 Beatrix. beauties, and while he is debating means, he sits with his arms pendent, accomplishing nothing. He is the Turk of the intellect made somnolent by meditation. Criticism is his opium; his harem of books to read disgusts him with real work. Indifferent to small things as well as great things, he is sometimes com- pelled, by the very weight of his head, to fall into a debauch, and abdicate for a few hours the fatal power of omnipotent analysis. He is far too preoccupied with the wrong side of genius, and Camille Maupin's desire to put him back on the right side is easily con- ceivable. The task was an attractive one. Claude Vignon thinks himself a great politician as well as a great writer; but this unpublished Macchiavelli laughs within himself at all ambitions; he knows what he can do; he has instinctively taken the measure of his future on his faculties; he sees his greatness, but he also sees obstacles, grows alarmed or disgusted, lets the time roll by, and does not go to work. Like Etienne Lousteau the feuilletonist, like Nathan the dramatic author, like Blondet, another journalist, he came from the ranks of the bourgeoisie, to which we owe the greater number of our writers. "Which way did you come?" asked Mademoiselle des Touches, coloring with either pleasure or surprise. "By the door," replied Claude Vignon, dryly. *'0h," she cried, shrugging her shoulders, "I am aware that you are not a man to climb in by a window." "Scaling a window is a badge of honor for a beloved woman." "Enough!" said Felicite. BSatrix. 125 "Am I in the way?" asked Claude. "Monsieur," said Calyste, artlessly, "this letter — " "Pray keep it; I ask no questions; at our age we understand such affairs," he answered, interrupting Calyste with a sardonic air. "But, monsieur," began Calyste, much provoked. "Calm yourself, young man; I have the utmost indulgence for sentiments." "My dear Calyste," said Camille, wishing to speak. "* Dear'?" said Vignon, interrupting her. "Claude is joking," said Camille, continuing her remarks to Calyste. "He is wrong to do it with you, who know nothing of Parisian ways." "I did not know that I was joking," said Claude Vignon, very gravely. "Which way did you come?" asked F^licite again. "I have been watching the road to Croisic for the last two hours." "Not all the time," replied Vignon. "You are too bad to jest in this way." "Am I jesting?" Calyste rose. "Why should you go so soon? You are certainly at your ease here," said Vignon. "Quite the contrary," replied the angry young Breton, to whom Camille Maupin stretched out a hand, which he took and kissed, dropping a tear upon it, after which he took his leave. "I should like to be that little young man," said the critic, sitting down, and taking one end of the hookah. "How he will love!" "Too much ; for then he will not be loved in return," 126 Beatrix. replied Mademoiselle des Touches. >' Madame de Rochefide is coming here," she added. ''You don't say so! " exclaimed Claude. "With Conti?" "She will stay here alone, but he accompanies her." "Have they quarrelled?" "No." "Play me a sonata of Beethoven's; I know nothing of the music he wrote for the piano." Claude began to fill the tube of the hookah with Turkish tobacco, all the while examining Camille much more attentively than she observed. A dreadful thought oppressed him ; he fancied he was being used for a blind by this woman. The situation was a novel one. Calyste went home thinking no longer of Beatrix de Rochefide and her letter; he was furious against Claude Vignon for what he considered the utmost indelicacy, and he pitied poor Felicite. How was it possible to be beloved by that sublime creature and not adore her on his knees, not believe her on the faith of a glance or a smile? He felt a desire to turn and rend that cold, pale spectre of a man. Ignorant he might be, as Felicite had told him, of the tricks of thought of the jesters of the press, but one thing he knew — Love was the human religion. When his mother saw him entering the court-yard she uttered an exclamation of joy, and Zephirine whistled for Mariotte. "Mariotte, the boy is coming! cook the fish!" "I see him, mademoiselle," replied the woman. Fanny, uneasy at the sadness she saw on her son's Beatrix. 127 brow, picked up her worsted- work ; the old aunt took out her knitting. The baron gave his arm-chair to his son and walked about the room, as if to stretch his legs before going out to take a turn in the garden. No Flemish or Dutch picture ever presented an interior in tones more mellow, peopled with faces and forms so harmoniously blending. The handsome young man in his black velvet coat, the mother, still so beautiful, and the aged brother and sister framed by that ancient hall, were a moving domestic harmony. Fanny would fain have questioned Calyste, but he had already pulled a letter from his pocket, — that letter of the Marquise Beatrix, which was, perhaps, destined to destroy the happiness of this noble family. As he unfolded it, Calyste's awakened imagination showed him the marquise dressed as Camille Maupiu had fancifully depicted her. From the Marquise de Rochefide to Mademoiselle des Touches, Genoa, July 2. I have not written to you since our stay in Florence, my dear friend, for Venice and Rome have absorbed my time, and, as you know, happiness occupies a large part of life; so far, we have neither of us dropped from its first level. I am a little fatigued; for when one has a soul not easy to blaser, the constant succes- sion of enjoyments naturally causes lassitude. Our friend has had magnificent triumphs at the Scala and the Fenice, and now at the San Carlo. Three Italian operas in two years ! You cannot say that love 128 Beatrix. has made him idle. We have been warmly received everywhere, — though I myself would have preferred solitude and silence. Surely that is the only suitable manner of life for women who have placed themselves in direct opposition to society ? I expected such a life ; but love, my dear friend, is a more exacting master than marriage, — however, it is sweet to obey him ; though I did ,not think I should have to see the world again, even by snatches, and the attentions I receive are so many stabs. I am no longer on a footing of equality with the highest rank of women ; and the more attentions are paid to me, the more my inferiority is made apparent. Gennaro could not comprehend this sensitiveness; but he has been so happy that it would ill become me not to have sacrificed my petty vanity to that great and noble thing, — the life of an artist. We women live by love, whereas men live by love and action; otherwise they would not be men. Still, there are great disadvantages for a woman in the position in which I have put myself. You have escaped them ; you con- tinue to be a person in the eyes of the world, which has no rights over you; you have your own free will, and I have lost mine. I am speaking now of the things of the heart, not those of social life, which I have utterly renounced. You can be coquettish and self- willed, and have all the graces of a woman who loves, a woman who can give or refuse her love as she pleases ; you have kept the right to have caprices, in the in- tei'ests even of your love. In short, to-day you still possess your right of feeling, while I, I have no longer any liberty of heart, which I think precious to exer- Beatrix. 129 cise in love, even though the love itself may be eternal. I have no right now to that privilege of quarrelling in jest to which so many women cling, and justly; for is it not the plummet line with which to sound the hearts of men? I have no threat at my command. I must draw my power henceforth from obedience, from unlimited gentleness; I must make myself imposing by the greatness of my love. I would rather die than leave Gennaro, and my pardon lies in the sanctity of my love. Between social dignity and my petty per- sonal dignity, I did right not to hesitate. If at times I have a few melancholy feelings, like clouds that pass through a clear blue sky, and to which all women like to yield themselves, I keep silence about them ; they might seem like regrets. Ah me! I have so fully understood the obligations of my position that I have armed myself with the utmost indulgence ; but so far, Gennaro has not alarmed my susceptible jealousy. I don't as yet see where that dear great genius may fail. Dear angel, I am like those pious souls who argue with their God, for are not you my Providence? do I not owe my happiness to you? You must never doubt, therefore, that you are constantly in my thoughts. I have seen Italy at last; seen it as you saw it, and as it ought to be seen, — lighted to our souls by love, as it is by its own bright sun and its masterpieces. I pity those w^ho, being moved to adoration at every step, have no hand to press, no heart in which to shed the exuberance of emotions which calm themselves when shared. These two years have been to me a lifetime, in which my memory has stored rich harvests. 9 130 Beatrix, Have you made plans, as I do, to stay forever at Chiavari, to buy a palazzo in Venice, a summer-house at Sorrento, a villa in Florence? All loving women dread society; but I, who am cast forever outside of it, ought I not to bury myself in some beautiful land- scape, on flowery slopes, facing the sea, or in a valley that equals a sea, like that of Fiesole? But alas! we are only poor artists, and want of money is bringing these two bohemians back to Paris. Gennaro does not want me to feel that I have lost my luxury, and he wishes to put his new work, a grand opera, into rehearsal at once. You will understand, of course, my dearest, that I cannot set foot in Paris. I could not, I would not, even if it costs me my love, meet one of those glances of women, or of men, which would make me think of murder or suicide. Yes, I could hack in pieces whoever insulted me with pity ; like Chateauneuf, who, in the time of Henri HI., I think, rode his horse at the Provost of Paris for a wrong of that kind, and trampled him under hoof. I write, therefore, to say that I shall soor pay you a visit at Les Touches. I want to stay there, in that Chartreuse, while awaiting the success of our Gen- naro' s opera. You see that I am bold with my bene- factress, my sister; but I prove, at any rate, that the greatest of obligations laid upon me has not led me, as it does so many people, to ingratitude. You have told me so much of the diflficulties of the land journey that I shall go to Croisic by water. This idea came to me on finding that there is a little Danish vessel now here, laden with marble, which is to touch at Croisic for a cargo of salt on its way back to the Bal- Beatrix. 131 tic. I shall thus escape the fatigue and the cost of the land journey. Dear Felicite, you are the only per- son with whom I could be alone without Conti. Will it not be some pleasure to have a woman with you who understands your heart as fully as you do hers? Adieu, a hlentot. The wind is favorable, and I set sail, wafting you a kiss. Beatrix. "Ah! she loves, too!" thought Calyste, folding the letter sadly. That sadness flowed to the heart of the mother as if some gleam had lighted up a gulf to her. The baron had gone out; Fanny went to the door of the tower and pushed the bolt, then she returned, and leaned upon the back of her boy's chair, like the sister of Dido in Guerin's picture, and said, — *'What is it, my Calyste? what makes you so sad? You promised to explain to me these visits to Les Touches ; I am to bless its mistress, — at least, you said so." *'Yes, indeed you will, dear mother," he replied. "She has shown me the insufTiciency of my education at an epoch when the nobles ought to possess a per- sonal value in order to give life to their rank. I was as far from the age we live in as Guerande is from Paris. She has been, as it were, the mother of my intellect." "I cannot bless her for that," said the baroness, with tears in her eyes. "Mamma! " cried Calyste, on whose forehead those hot tears fell, two pearls of sorrowful motherhood, 132 Beatrix "mamma, don't weep! Just now, when I wanted to do her a service, and search the country round, she said, ' It will make your mother so uneasy. ' " ''Did she say that? Then I can forgive her many things," replied Fanny. ''Felicite thinks only of my good," continued Calyste. "She often checks the lively, venturesome language of artists so as not to shake in me a faith which is, though she knows it not, unshakable. She has told me of the life in Paris of several young men of the highest nobility coming from their provinces, as I might do,— leaving families without fortune, but obtaining in Paris, by the power of their will and their intellect, a great career. I can do what the Baron de Rastignac, now a minister of State, has done. Felicite has taught me; I read with her; she gives me lessons on the piano; she is teaching me Italian; she has initiated me into a thousand social secrets, about which no one in Guerande knows anything at all. She could not give me the treasures of her love, but she has given me those of her vast intellect, her mind, her genius. She does not want to be a pleas- ure, but a light to me; she lessens not one of my faiths ; she herself has faith in the nobility, she loves Brittany, she — " "She has changed our Calyste," said his blind old aunt, interrupting him. "I do not understand one word he has been saying. You have a solid roof over your head, my good nephew; you have parents and relations who adore you, and faithful servants; you can marry some good little Breton girl, religious and accomplished, who will make you happy. Reserve Beatrix. 133 your ambitions for your eldest son, who may be four times as rich as you, if you choose to live tranquilly, thriftily, in obscurity, — but in the peace of God, — in order to release the burdens on your estate. It is all as simple as a Breton heart. You will be, not so rap- idly perhaps, but more solidly, a rich nobleman." *'Your aunt is right, my darling; she plans for your happiness with as much anxiety as I do myself. If I do not succeed in marrying you to my niece, Margaret, the daughter of your uncle. Lord Fitzwilliam, it is almost certain that Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel will leave her fortune to whichever of her nieces you may choose." **And besides, there 's a little gold to be found here," added the old aunt in a low voice, with a myste- rious glance about her. ''Marry ! at my age ! " he said, casting on his mother one of those looks which melt the arguments of mothers. ''Am I to live without my beautiful fond loves ? Must I never tremble or throb or fear or gasp, or lie beneath implacable looks and soften them ? Am I never to know beauty in its freedom, the fantasy of the soul, the clouds that course through the azure of happiness, which the breath of pleasure dissipates? Ah! shall I never wander in those sweet by-paths moist with dew; never stand beneath the drenching of a gutter and not know it rains, like those lovers seen by Diderot; never take, like the Due de Lorraine, a live coal in my hand? Are there no silken ladders for me, no rotten trellises to cling to and not fall? Shall I know nothing of woman but conjugal submis- sion ; nothing of love but the flame of its lamp-wick ? 134 Beatrix. Are my longings to be satisfied before they are roused? Must I live out my days deprived of that madness of the heart that makes a man and his power? Would you make me a married monk? No! I have eaten of the fruit of Parisian civilization. Do you not see that you have, by the ignorant morals of this family, prepared the fire that consumes me, that will consume me utterly, unless I can adore the divineness I see everywhere, — in those sands gleaming in the sun, in the green foliage, in all the women, beautiful, noble, elegant, pictured in the books and in the poems I have read with Camille ? Alas ! there is but one such woman in Guerande, and it is you, my mother! The birds of my beautiful dream, they come from Paris, they fly from the pages of Scott, of Byron, — Parisina, EflSe, Minna! yes, and that royal duchess, whom I saw on the moors among the furze and the ferns, whose very aspect sent the blood to my heart." The baroness saw these thoughts flaming in the eyes of her son, clearer, more beautiful, more living than art can tell to those who read them. She grasped them rapidly, flung to her as they were in glances like arrows from an upset quiver. Without having read Beaumarchais, she felt, as other women would have felt, that it would be a crime to marry Calyste. "Oh! my child! " she said, taking him in her arms, and kissing the beautiful hair that was still hers, "marry whom you will, and when you will, but be happy! My part in life is not to hamper you." Mariotte came to lay the table. Gasselin was out exercising Calyste' s horse, which the youth had not mounted for two months.. The three women, mother, BSatrlz: 135 aunt, and Mariotte, shared in the tender feminine wili- uess, which taught them to make much of Calyste when he dined at home. Breton plainness fought against Parisian luxury, now brought to the very doors of Guerande. Mariotte endeavored to wean her young master from the accomplished service of Camille Maupin's kitchen, just as his mother and aunt strove to hold him in the net of their tenderness and render all comparison impossible. ** There 's a salmon- trout for dinner. Monsieur Calyste, and snipe, and pancakes such as I know you can't get anywhere but here," said Mariotte, with a sly, triumphant 4ook as she smoothed the cloth, a cascade of snow. After dinner, when the old aunt had taken up her knitting, and the rector and Monsieur du Halga had arrived, allured by their precious mouche, Calyste went back to Les Touches on the pretext of returning the letter. Claude Vignon and Felicite were still at table. The great critic was something of a gourmand, and Felicite {)ampered the vice, knowing how indispensable a woman makes herself by such compliance. The dinner-table presented that rich and brilliant aspect which modern luxury, aided by the perfecting of han- dicrafts, now gives to its service. The poor and noble house of Guenic little knew with what an adversary it was endeavoring to compete, or what amount of for- tune was necessary to enter the lists against the silver- ware, the delicate porcelains, the beautiful linen, the silver-gilt service brought from Paris by Mademoiselle des Touches, and the science of her cook. Calyste 136 Beatrix, declined the liqueurs contained in one of those superb cases of precious woods, which are something like tabernacles. ''Here 's the letter," he said, with innocent ostenta- tion, looking at Claude, who was slowly sipping a glass of liqueur-des-iles, ''Well, what did you think of it?" asked Mademoi- selle des Touches, throwing the letter across the table to Vignon, who began to read it, taking up and put- ting down at intervals his little glass. "I thought — well, that Parisian women were very fortunate to have men of genius to adore who adore them." "Ah! you are still in your village," said Felicite, laughing. "What! you did not see that she loves him less, and — " "That is evident," said Claude Vignon, who had only read the first page. "Do people reason on their situation when they really love ; are they as shrewd as the marquise, as observing, as discriminating? Your dear Beatrix is held to Conti now by pride only ; she is condemned to love him quand meme." "Poor woman! " said Camille. Calyste's eyes were fixed on the table; he saw noth- ing about him. The beautiful woman in the fanciful dress described that morning by Felicite appeared to him crowned with light; she smiled to him, she waved her fan; the other hand, issuing from its ruflfle of lace, fell white and pure on the heavy folds of her crimson velvet robe. "She is just the thing for you," said Claude Vignon, smiling sardonically at Calyste. Beatrix, 137 The young man was deeply wounded by the words, and by the manner in which they were said. ** Don't put such ideas into Calyste's mind; you don't know how dangerous such jokes may prove to be," said Mademoiselle des Touches, hastily. *'I know Beatrix, and there is something too grandiose in her nature to allow her to change. Besides, Conti will be here." "Ha!" said Claude Vignon, satirically, "a slight touch of jealousy, hey?" ''Can you really think so? " said Camille, haughtily. ''You are more perspicacious than a mother," replied Claude Vignon, still sarcastically. "But it would be impossible," said Camille, looking at Calyste. "They are very well matched," remarked Vignon. "She is ten years older than he; and it is he who appears to be the girl — " "A girl, monsieur," said Calyste, waking from his revery, "who has been twice under fire in La Vendee! If the Cause had had twenty thousand more such girls — " "I was giving you some well-deserved praise, and that is easier than to give you a beard," remarked Vignon. "1 have a sword for those who wear their beards too long," cried Calyste. "And I am very good at an epigram," said the other, smiling. "We are Frenchmen; the affair can easily be arranged." Mademoiselle des Touches cast a supplicating look on Calyste, which calmed him instantly. 1B8 Beatrix. "Why," said Felicite, as if to break up the discus- sion, "do young men like my Calyste, begin by loving women of a certain age? " "I don't know any sentiment more artless or more generous," replied Vignon. "It is the natural conse- quence of the adorable qualities of youth. Besides, how would old women end if it were not for such love ? You are young and beautiful, and will be for twenty years to come, so I can speak of this matter before you," he added, with a keen look at Mademoiselle des Touches. "In the first place the semi-dowagers, to whom young men pay their fij-st court, know much better how to make love than younger wom-en. An adolescent youth is too like a young woman himself for a young woman to please him. Such a passion trenches on the fable of Narcissus. Besides that feel- ing of repugnance, there is, as I think, a mutual sense of inexperience which separates them. The reason why the hearts of young women are only understood by mature men, who conceal their cleverness under a passion real or feigned, is precisely the same (allow- ing for the difference of minds) as that which renders a woman of a certain age more adroit in attracting youth. A young man feels that he is sure to succeed with her, and the vanities of the woman are flattered by his suit. Besides, is n't it natural for youth to fling itself on fruits? The autumn of a woman's life offers many that are very toothsome, — those looks, for instance, bold, and yet reserved, bathed with the last rays of love, so warm, so sweet; that all-wise elegance of speech, those magnificent shoulders, so nobly developed, the full and undulating outline, the Beatrix. 139 dimpled hands, the hair so well arranged, so cared for, tliiit charming nape of the neck, where all the resources of art are displayed to exhibit the contrast between the hair and the flesh-tones, and to set in full relief the exuberance of life and love. Brunettes themselves are fair at such times, with the amber colors of matur- ity. Besides, such women reveal in their smiles and display in their words a knowledge of the world ; they know how to converse; they can call up the whole of social life to make a lover laugh; their dignity and their pride are stupendous ; or, in other moods, they can utter despairing cries which touch his soul, fare- wells of love which they take care to render useless, and only make to intensify his passion. Their devo- tions are absolute ; they listen to us ; they love us ; they catch, they cling to love as a man condemned to death clings to the veriest trifles of existence, — in short, love, absolute love, is known only through them. I think such women can never be forgotten by a man, any more than he can forget what is grand and sub- lime. A young woman has a thousand distractions; these women have none. No longer have they self- love, pettiness, or vanity ; their love — it is the Loire at its mouth, it is vast, it is swelled by all the illu- sions, all the affluents of life, and this is why — but my muse is dumb," he added, observing the ecstatic attitude of Mademoiselle des Touches, who was press- ing Calyste's hand with all her strength, perhaps to thank him for having been the occasion of such a moment, of such an eulogy, so lofty that she did not see the trap that it laid for her. During the rest of the evening Claude Vignon and 140 Beatrix. Felicite sparkled with wit and happy sayings; they told anecdotes, and described Parisian life to Calyste, who was charmed with Claude, for mind has immense seductions for persons who are all heart. ''I should n't be surprised to see the Marquise de Rochefide and Conti, who, of course, will accompany her, at the lanjcling-place to-morrow," said Claude Vignon, as the evening ended. "When I was at Croisic this afternoon, the fishermen were saying that they had seen a little vessel, Danish, Swedish, or Norwegian, in the offing." This speech brought a flush to the cheeks of the im- passible Camille. Again Madame du Guenic sat up till one o'clock that night, waiting for her son, unable to imagine why he should stay so late if Mademoiselle des Touches did not love him. "He must be in their way," said this adorable mother. "What were you talking about? " she asked, when at last he came in. "Oh, mother, I have never before spent such a delightful evening. Genius is a great, a sublime thing! Why didn't you: give me genius? With genius we can make our lives, we can choose among all women the woman to love, and she must be ours." "How handsome you are, my Calyste! " "Claude Vignon is handsome. Men of genius have luminous foreheads and eyes, through which the light- nings flash — but I, alas ! I know nothing — only to love." "They say that suffices, my angel," she said, kiss- ing him on the forehead. Beatrix, 141 "Do you believe it? " "They say so, but I have never known it." Calyste kissed his mother's hand as if it was a Sacred thing. "I will love you for all those that would have adored you," he said. "Dear child! perhaps it is a little bit your duty to do so, for you inherit my nature. But, Calyste, do not be unwise, imprudent ; try to love only noble women, if love you must." 142 Beatrix. IX. A FIRST MEETING. What young man full of abounding but restrained life and emotion would not have had the glorious idea of going to Croisic to see Madame de Rochefide land, and examine her incognito? Calyste greatly surprised his father and mother by going off in the morning without waiting for the mid-day breakfast. Heaven knows with what agility the young Breton's feet sped along. Some unknown vigor seemed lent to him ; he walked on air, gliding along by the walls of Les Touches that he might not be seen from the house. The adorable boy was ashamed of his ardor, and afraid of being laughed at ; Felicite and Vignon were so per- spicacious ! besides, in such cases young fellows fancy that their foreheads are transparent. He reached the shore, strengthened by a stone em- bankment, at the foot of which is a house where travellers can take shelter in storms of wind or rain. It is not always possible to cross the little arm of the sea which separates the landing-place of Guerande from Croisic ; the weather may be bad, or the boats not ready ; and during this time of waiting, it is necessary to put not only the passengers but their horses, donkeys,, baggage, and merchandise under cover. Calyste presently saw two boats coming over from Beatrix, 143 Croisic, laden with baggage, — trunks, packages, bags, and chests, — the shape and appearance of which proved to a native of these parts that such extraordinary articles must belong to travellers of distinction. In one of the boats was a young woman in a straw bonnet with a green veil, accompanied by a man. This boat was the first to arrive. Calyste trembled until on closer view he saw they were a maid and a man-servant. *' Are you going over to Croisic, Monsieur Calyste? " said one of the boatmen ; to whom he replied with a shake of the head, annoyed at being called by his name. He was captivated by the sight of a chest covered with tarred cloth on which were painted the words, Mme. la Marquise de Rochefide. The name shone before him like a talisman ; he fancied there was some- thing fateful in it. He knew in some mysterious way, which he could not doubt, that he should love that woman. Why? In the burning desert of his new and infinite desires, still vague and without an object, his fancy fastened with all its strength on the first woman that presented herself. Beatrix necessarily inherited the love which Camille had rejected. Calyste watched the landing of the luggage, casting from time to time a glance at Croisic, from which he hoped to see another boat put out to cross to the little promontory, and show him Beatrix, already to his thoughts what lieatrice was to Dante, a marble statue on which to hang his garlands and his flowers. He stood with arms folded, lost in meditation. Here is a fact worthy of remark, which, nevertheless, has never been remarked : we often subject ourselves to senti- ments by our own volition, — deliberately bind our- 144 Beatrix, selves, and create our own fate; chance has not as much to do with it as we believe. " 1 don't see any horses," said the maid sitting on a trunk. '•'- And I don't see any road," said the footman. ■ ''Horses have been here, though," replied the woman, pointing to the proofs of their presence. "Monsieur," she said, addressing Calyste, ''is this really the way to Guerande ? " " Yes," he replied, " are you expecting some one to meet you ? " " We were told that they would fetch us from Les Touches. If the}^ don't come," she added to the foot- man, " I don't know how Madame la marquise will manage to dress for dinner. You had better go and find Mademoiselle des Touches. Oh ! what a land of savages ! " Calyste had a vague idea of having blundered. "Is your mistress going to Les Touches?" he inquired. * ' She is there ; Mademoiselle came for her this morning at seven o'clock. Ah! here come the horses." Calyste started toward Guerande with the lightness and agility of a chamois, doubling like a hare that he might not return upon his tracks or meet any of the servants of Les Touches. He did, however, meet two of them on the narrow causeway of the marsh along which he went. " Shall I go in, or shall I not? " he thought when the pines of Les Touches came in sight. He was afraid ; and continued his way rather sulkily to Beatrix, 145 Guerande, where he finished his excursion on the mall and continued his reflections. '' She has no idea of my agitation," he said to himself. His capricious thoughts were so many grapnels which fastened his heart to the marquise. He had known none of these mysterious terrors and joys in his intercourse with Camille. Such vague emotions rise like poems in the untutored soul. Warmed by the first fires of imagination, souls like his have been known to pass through all phases of preparation and to reach in silence and solitude the very heights of love, without having met the object of so many efforts. Presently Calyste saw, coming toward him, the Chevalier du Halga and Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, who were walking together on the mall. He heard them say his name, and he slipped aside out of sight, but not out of hearing. The chevalier and the old maid, believing themselves alone, were talking aloud. "If Charlotte de Kergarouet comes," said the chevalier, '' keep her four or five months. How can you expect her to coquette with Calyste? She is never here long enough to undertake it. Whereas, if they see each other every day, those two children will fall in love, and you can marry them next winter. If you say two words about it to Charlotte she'll say four to Calyste, and a girl of sixteen can certainly carry off the prize from a woman of forty." Here the old people turned to retrace their steps and Calyste heard no more. But remembering what his mother had told him, he saw Mademoiselle de Pen- Hoel's intention, and, in the mood in which he then was, nothing could have been more fatal. The mere idea of a 10 146 Beatrix. girl thus imposed upon him sent him with greater ardor into his imaginary love. He had never had a fancy for Charlotte de Kergarouet, and he now felt repug- nance at the very thought of her. Calyste was quite unaffected by questions of fortune ; from infancy he had accustomed his life to the poverty and the restricted means of his father's house. A young man brought up as he had been, and now partially emancipated, was likely to consider sentiments only, and all his senti- ments, all his thought now belonged to the marquise. In presence of the portrait which Camille had drawn for him of her friend, what was that little Charlotte ? the companion of his childhood, whom he thought of as a sister. He did not go home till five in the afternoon. As he entered the hall his mother gave him, with a rather sad smile, the following letter from Mademoiselle des Touches : — My dear Calyste, — The beautiful marquise has come ; we count on you to help us celebrate her arrival. Claude, always sarcastic, declares that you will play Bice and that she will be Dante. It is for our honor as Bretons, and yours as a du Guenic to wel- come a Casteran. Come soon. Your friend, Camille Maupin. Come as you are, without ceremony ; otherwise you will put us to the blush. Calyste gave the letter to his mother and departed. "Who are the Casterans? " said Fanny to the baron. '' An old Norman family, allied to William the Con- Beatrix. 147 (]ueror," he replied. *' They hear on a shield tiered fessed azure, gules and sable, a horse rearing argent, shod with gold. That beautiful creature for whom the Gars was killed at Fougeres in 1800 was the daughter of a Casteran who made herself a nun, and became an abbess after tiie Due de Verneuil deserted her." ''And the Rochefides?" ''I don't know that name. I should have to see their blazon," he replied. The baroness was somewhat reassured on hearing that the Marquise de Rochefide was born of a noble family, but she felt that her son was now exposed to new seductions. Calyste as he walked along felt all sorts of violent and yet soft inward movements ; his throat was tight, his heart swelled, his brain was full, a fever possessed him. He tried to walk slowly, but some superior power hurried him. This impetuosity of the several senses excited by vague expectation is known to all young men. A subtile fire flames within their breasts and darts outwardly about them, like the rays of a nimbus around the heads of divine personages in works of religious art ; through it they see all Nature glorious, and woman radiant. Are they not then like those haloed saints, full of faith, hope, ardor, purity? The young Breton found the company assembled in the little salon of Camille's suite of rooms. It was then about six o'clock ; the sun, in setting, cast through the windows its ruddy light chequered by the trees ; the air was still ; twilight, beloved of women, was spread- ing through the room. " Here comes the future deputy of Brittany," said 148 Beatrix, Camille Maupin, smiling, as Calyste raised the tapestry portiere, — '' punctual as a king." "You recognized his step just now," said Claude to Felicite in a low voice. Calyste bowed low to the marquise, who returned the salutation with an inclination of her head ; he did not look at her; but he took the hand Claude Vignon held out to him and pressed it. "This is the celebrated man of whom we have talked so much, Gennaro Conti," said Camille, not re- plying to Claude Vignon's remark. She presented to Calyste a man of medium height, thin and slender, with chestnut hair, eyes that were al- most red, and a white skin, freckled here and there, whose head was so precisely the well-known head of Lord Byron (though rather better carried on his shoulders) that description is superfluous. Conti was rather proud of this resemblance. "lam fortunate," he said, "to meet Monsieur du Guenic during the one day that I spend at Les Touches." " It was for me to say that to you," replied Calyste, with a certain ease. " He is handsome as an angel," said the marquise in an under tone to Felicite. Standing between the sofa and the two ladies, Calyste heard the words confusedly. He seated him- self in an arm-chair and looked furtively toward the marquise. In the soft half-light he saw, reclining on a divan, as if a sculptor had placed it there, a white and serpentine shape which thrilled him. Without being aware of it, Felicite had done her friend a service; Biatrix, 149 the marquise was much superior to the unflattered portrait Camille had drawn of her the night before. Was it to do honor to the guest that Beatrix had wound into her hair those tufts of blue-bells that gave value to the pale tints of her creped curls, so arranged as to fall around her face and play upon the cheeks? The circle of her eyes, which showed fatigue, was of the purest mother-of-pearl, her skin was as dazzling as the eyes, and beneath its whiteness, delicate as the satiny lining of an egg, life abounded in the beautiful blue veins. The delicacy of the features was extreme ; the forehead seemed diaphanous. The head, so sweet and fragrant, admirably joined to a long neck of ex- quisite moulding, lent itself to many and most diverse expressions. The waist, which could be spanned by the hands, had a charming willowy ease ; the bare shoulders sparkled in the twilight like a white camellia. The throat, visible to the eye though covered with a transparent fichu, allowed the graceful outlines of the bosom to be seen with charming roguishness. A gown of white muslin, strewn with blue flowers, made with very large sleeves, a pointed body and no belt, shoes with strings crossed on the instep over Scotch thread stockings, showed a charming knowledge of the art of dress. Ear-rings of silver filagree, miracles of Genoese jewelry, destined no doubt to become the fashion, were in perfect harmony with the delightful flow of the soft curls starred with blue-bells. Calyste's eager eye took in these beauties at a glance, and carved them on his soul. The fair Beatrix and the dark Felicitd might have sat for those contrasting portraits in ^'keepsakes" which English 150 Beatrix, designers and engravers seek so persistently. Here were the force and the feebleness of womanhood in full development, a perfect antithesis. These two women could never be rivals; each had her own empire. Here was the delicate campanula, or the lily, beside the scarlet poppy; a turquoise near a ruby. In a moment, as it were, — at first sight, as the saying is, — Calyste was seized with a love which crowned the secret work of his hopes, his fears, his uncertainties. Mademoiselle des Touches had awakened his nature; Beatrix inflamed both his heart and thoughts. The young Breton suddenly felt within him a power to conquer all things, and yield to nothing that stood in his way. He looked at Conti with an envious, gloomy, savage rivalry he had never felt for Claude Vignon. He employed all his strength to control himself; but the inward tempest went down as soon as the eyes of Beatrix turned to him, and her soft voice sounded in his ear. Dinner was announced. "Calyste, give your arm to the marquise," said Mademoiselle des Touches, taking Conti with her right hand, and Claude Vignon with her left, and drawing back to let the marquise pass. The descent of that ancient staircase was to Calyste like the moment of going into battle for the first time. His heart failed him, he had nothing to say; a slight sweat pearled upon his forehead and wet his back; his arm trembled so much that as they reached the lowest step the marquise said to him: "Is anything the matter?" "Oh! " he replied, in a muffled tone, "I have never seen any woman so beautiful as you, except my mother, and I am not master of my emotions." Beatrix, 151 **But you have Camille Maupin before your eyes." "Ah! what a difference!" said Calyste, ingenu- ously. "Calyste," whispered Felicite, who was just behind him, "did I not tell you that you would forget me as if I had never existed? Sit there," she said aloud, "beside the marquise, on her right, and you, Claude, on her left. As for you, Gennaro, I retain you by me; we will keep a mutual eye on their coquetries." The peculiar accent which Camille gave to the last word struck Claude Vignon's ear, and he cast that sly but half-abstracted look upon Camille which always denoted in him the closest obseiTation. He never ceased to examine Mademoiselle des Touches through- out the dinner. ^'Coquetries! " replied the marquise, taking off her gloves, and showing her beautiful hands ; " the oppor- tunity is good, with a poet," and she motioned to Claude, "on one side, and poesy the other." At these words Conti turned and gave Calyste a look that was full of flattery. By artificial light, Beatrix seemed more beautiful than before. The white gleam of the candles laid a satiny lustre on her forehead, lighted the spangles of her eyes, and ran through her swaying curls, touching them here and there into gold. She threw back the thin gauze scarf she was wearing and disclosed her neck. Calyste then saw its beautiful nape, white as milk, and hollowed near the head, until its lines were lost toward the shoulders with soft and flowing sym- metry. This neck, so dissimilar to that of Camille, was the sign of a totally different character in Beatrix. 1 52 Beatrix. Calyste found much trouble in pretending to eat; nervous motions within him deprived him of appetite. Like other young men, his nature was in the throes and convulsions which precede love, and carve it indelibly on the soul. At his age, the ardor of the heart, restrained by moral ardor, leads to an inward conflict, which explains the long and respectful hesi- tations, the tender debatings, the absence of all calcu- lation, characteristic of young men whose hearts and lives are pure. Studying, though furtively, so as not to attract the notice of Conti, the various details which made the marquise so purely beautiful, Calyste became, before long, oppressed by a sense of her majesty; he felt himself dwarfed by the hauteur of certain of her glances, by the imposing expression of a face that was wholly aristocratic, by a sort of pride which women know how to express in slight motions, turns of the head, and slow gestures, effects less plastic and less studied than we think. The false situation in which Beatrix had placed herself compelled her to watch her own behavior, and to keep herself imposing without being ridiculously so. Women of the great world know how to succeed in this, which proves a fatal reef to vulgar women. The expression of Felicite's eyes made Beatrix aware of the inward adoration she inspired in the youth beside her, and also that it would be most unworthy on her part to encourage it. She therefore took occasion now and then to give him a few repres- sive glances, which fell upon his heart like an avalanche of snow. The unfortunate young fellow turned on Felicite a look in which she could read the tears he was Beatrix, 153 suppressing by superhuman efforts. She asked him in a friendly tone why he was eating nothing. The ques- tion piqued him, and he began to force himself to eat and to take part in the conversation. But whatever he did, Madame de Rochefide paid little attention to him. Mademoiselle des Touches having started the topic of her journey to Italy she re- lated, very wittily, many of its incidents, which made Claude Vignon, Conti, and Felicite laugh. " Ah ! " thought Calyste, ** how far such a woman is from me ! Will she ever deign to notice me?" MademoiBcUe des Touches was struck with the ex- pression she now saw on Calyste's face, and tried to con- sole him with a look of sympathy. Claude Vignon intercepted that look. From that moment the great critic expanded into gayety that overflowed in sarcasm. He maintained to Beatrix that love existed only by desire ; that most women deceived themselves in loving ; that they loved for reasons often unknown to men and to themselves ; that they wanted to deceive themselves, and that the best among them were artful. " Keep to books, and don't criticise our lives," said Camille, glancing at him imperiously. The dinner ceased to be gay. Claude Vignon's sar- casm had made the two women pensive. Calyste was conscious of pain in the midst of the happiness he found in looking at Beatrix. Conti looked into the eyes of the marquise to guess her thoughts. When dinner was over Mademoiselle des Touches took t^alyste's arm, gave the other two men to the mar- quise, and let them pass before her, that she might be alone with the young Breton for a moment. 154 Beatrix. " My dear Calyste," she said, '' you are acting in a manner that embarrasses the marquise ; she may be delighted with your admiration, but she cannot accept it. Pray control yourself." " She was hard to me, she will never care for me," said Calyste, " and if she does not I shall die." ''Die! you! My dear Calyste, you are a child. Would you have died for me ? " "You have made yourself my friend," he answered. After the talk that follows coffee, Vignon asked Conti to sing something. Mademoiselle des Touches sat^down to the piano. Together she and Gennaro sang the Dunque il mio bene tu mia sarai, the last duet of Zingarelli's " Romeo e Giulietta," one of the most pathetic pages of modern music. The passage Di tantl palpiti expresses love in all its grandeur. Calyste, sitting in the same arm-chair in which Felicite had told him the history of the marquise, listened in rapt devotion. Beatrix and Vignon were on either side of the piano. Conti's sublime voice knew well how to blend with that of Felicite. Both had often sung this piece ; they knew its resources, and they put their whole mar- vellous gift into bringing them out. The music was at this moment what its creator intended, a poem of divine melancholy, the farewell of two swans to life. When it was over, all present were under the influence of feelings such as cannot express themselves by vulgar applause. "Ah! music is the first of arts!" exclaimed the marquise. " Camille thinks youth and beauty the first of poesies," said Claude Vignon. Mademoiselle des Touches looked at Claude with Beatrix. 155 vague uneasiness. Beatrix, not seeing Calyste, turned her head as if to know what effect the music had pro- duced upon him, less by way of interest in him than for the gratification of Conti ; she saw a white face bathed in tears. At the sight, and as if some sudden pain had seized her, she turned back quickly and looked at Gennaro. Not only had Music arisen before the eyes of Calyste, touching him with her divine wand until he stood in presence of Creation from which she rent the veil, but he was dumfounded by Conti's genius. In spite of what Camille had told him of the musician's character, he now believed in the beauty of the soul, in the heart that expressed such love. How could he, Calyste, rival such an artist? What woman would ever cease to adore such genius ? That voice entered the soul like another soul. The poor lad was overwhelmed by its poesy, and his own despair. He felt himself of no account. This ingen- uous admission of his nothingness could be read upon his face mingled with his admiration. He did not observe the gesture with which Beatrix, attracted to Calyste by the contagion of a true feeling, called Felicite's attention to him. " Oh ! the adorable heart ! " cried Camille. " Conti, you will never obtain applause of one-half the value of that child's homage. Let us sing this trio. Beatrix, my dear, come." When the marquise, Camille, and Conti had arranged themselves at the piano, Calyste rose softly, without at- tracting their attention, and flung himself on one of the sofas in the bedroom, the door of which stood open, where he sat with liis lieiid in his IkiiuIb, plunged in meditation. 156 Beatrix, DRAMA. "What is it, my child?" said Claude Vignon, who had slipped silently into the bedroom after Calyste, and now took him by the hand. *' You love ; you think you are disdained ; but it is not so. The field will be free to you in a few days and you will reign — beloved by more than one." '•'• Loved ! " cried Calyste, springing up, and beckon- ing Claude into the library, '' Who loves me here? " " Camille," replied Claude. '^ Camille loves me ? And you ! — what of you ? " •'I ? " answered Claude, ''I — " He stopped ; sat down on a sofa and rested his head with weary sadness on a cushion. " I am tired of life, but I have not the courage to quit it," he went on, after a short silence. '' I wish I were mistaken in what I have just told you ; but for the last few days more than one vivid light has come into my mind. I did not wander about the marshes for my pleasure ; no, upon my soul I did not ! The bitterness of my words when I returned and found you with Camille were the result of wounded feeling. I intend to have an explanation with her soon. Two minds as clear-sighted as hers and mine cannot deceive each other. Between two such professional duellists the combat cannot last long. Therefore I may as well Beatrix, 157 tell you now that I shall leave Les Touches ; yes, to- morrow perhaps, with Conti. After we are gone strange things will happen here. I shall regret not witnessing conflicts of passion of a kind so rare in France, and so dramatic. You are very young to enter such dangerous lists ; you interest me ; were it not for the profound disgust I feel for women, I would stay and help you play this game. It is difficult ; you may lose it ; you have to do with two extraordinary women, and you feel too much for one to use the other judiciously. Beatrix is dogged by nature ; Camille has grandeur. Probably you will be wrecked between those reefs, drawn upon them by the waves of passion. Beware ! *' Calyste's stupefaction on hearing these words en- abled Claude to say them without interruption and leave the young Breton, who remained like a traveller among the Alps to whom a guide has shown the depth of some abyss by flinging a stone into it. To hear from the lips of Claude himself that Camille loved him, at the very moment when he felt that he loved Beatrix for life, was a weight too heavy for his untried soul to bear. Goaded by an immense regret which now filled all the past, overwhelmed with a sight of his position between Beatrix whom he loved and Camille whom he had ceased to love, the poor boy sat despair- ing and undecided, lost in thought. He sought in vain for the reasons which had made F^licite reject his love and bring Claude Vignon from Paris to oppose it. Every now and then the voice of Beatrix came fresh and pure to his ears from the little salon ; a savage desire to rush in and carry her off seized him at such 158 Beatrix, moments. What would become of him ? What must he do? Could he come to Les Touches? If Camille loved him how could he come there to adore Beatrix? He saw no solution to these difficulties. Insensibly to him silence now reigned in the house ; he heard, but without noticing, the opening and shut- ting of doors. Then suddenly midnight sounded on the clock of the adjoining bedroom, and the voices of Claude and Camille roused him fully from his torpid contemplation of the future. Before he could rise and show himself, he heard the following terrible words in the voice of Claude Vignon. ' * You came to Paris last year desperately in love with Calyste," Claude was saying to Felicite, "but you were horrified at the thought of the consequences of such a passion at your age ; it would lead you to a gulf, to hell, to suicide perhaps. Love cannot exist unless it thinks itself eternal, and you saw not far before you a horrible parting ; old age you knew would end the glorious poem soon. You thought of "Adolphe," that dreadful finale of the loves of Madame de Stael and Benjamin Constant, who, how- ever, were nearer of an age than you and Calyste. Then you took me, as soldiers use fascines to build entrenchments between the enemy and themselves. You brought me to Les Touches to mask your real feel- ings and leave you safe to follow your own secret adora- tion. The scheme was grand and ignoble both ; but to carry it out you should have chosen either a common man or one so preoccupied by noble thoughts that you could easily deceive him. You thought me simple and easy to mislead as a man of genius. I am not a man Beatrix, 159 of genius, I am a man of talent, and as such I have divined you. When I made that eulogy yesterday on women of your age, explaining to you why Calyste had ioved you, do you suppose I took to myself your ravished, fascinated, dazzling glance? Had I not read into your soul? The eyes were turned on me, but the heart was throbbing for Calyste. You have never been loved, my poor Maupin, and you never will be after rejecting the beautiful fruit which chance has offered to you at the portals of that hell of woman, the lock of which is the numeral 50 ! " '* Why has love fled me? " she said in a low voice. '' Tell me, you who know all." '' Because you are not lovable," he answered. '' You do not bend to love ; love must bend to you. You may perhaps have yielded to some follies of youth, but there was no youth in your heart; your mind has too much depth ; you have never been naive and artless, and you cannot begin to be so now. Your charm comes from mystery ; it is abstract, not active. Your strength repulses men of strength who fear a struggle. Your power may please young souls, like that of Calyste, which like to be protected ; though, even them it wearies in the long run. You are grand, and you are sublime ; bear with the consequence of those two qualities — they fatigue." '' What a sentence ! " cried Camille. *' Am I not a woman? Do you think me an anomaly? " ** Possibly," said Claude. "We will see!" said the woman, stung to the quick. "Farewell, my dear Camille; I leave to-morrow. 160 Beatrix. I am not angry with you, my dear; I think you the greatest of women, but if I continued to serve you as a screen, or a shield," said Claude, with two signifi- cant inflections of his voice, ''you would despise me. We can part now without pain or remorse ; we have neither happiness to regret nor hopes betrayed. To you, as with some few but rare men of genius, love is not what Nature made it, — an imperious need, to the satisfaction of which she attaches great and passing joys, which die. You see love such as Chris- tianity has created it, — an ideal kingdom, full of noble sentiments, of grand weaknesses, poesies, spiritual sensations, devotions of moral fragrance, entrancing harmonies, placed high above all vulgar coarseness, to which two creatures as one angel fly on the wings of pleasure. This is what I hoped to share; I thought I held in you a key to that door, closed to so many, by which we may advance toward the infinite. You were there already. In this you have misled me. I return to my misery, — to my vast prison of Paris. Such a deception as this, had it come to me earlier in life, would have made me flee from existence; to-day it puts into my soul a disen- chantment which will plunge me forever into an awful solitude. I am without the faith which helped the Fathers to people theirs with sacred images. It is to this, my dear Camille, to this that the superiority of our mind has brought us; we may, both of us, sing that dreadful hymn which a poet has put into the mouth of Moses speaking to the Almighty : ' Lord God, Thou hast made me powerful and solitary. ' " At this moment Calyste appeared. Beatrix, 161 "I ought not to leave you ignorant that I am here," he said. Mademoiselle des Touches showed the utmost fear; a sudden flush colored her impassible face with tints of fire. During this strange scene she was more beautiful than at any other moment of her life. *'We thought you gone, Calyste," said Claude. *'But this involuntary indiscretion on both sides will do no harm; perhaps, indeed, you may be more at your ease at Les Touches by knowing Felicite as she is. Her silence shows me I am not mistaken as to the part she meant me to play. As I told you before, she loves you, but it is for yourself, not for herself, — a sentiment that few women are able to conceive and practise; few among them know the voluptuous pleas- ure of sufferings born of longing, — that is one of the magnificent passions reserved for man. But she is in some sense a man," he added, sardonically. "Your love for Beatrix will make her suffer and make her happy too." Tears were in the eyes of Mademoiselle des Touches, who was unable to look either at the terrible Vignon or the ingenuous Calyste. She was frightened at being understood; she had supposed it impossible for a man, however keen his perception, to perceive a delicacy so self-immolating, a heroism so lofty as her own. Her evident humiliation at this unveilinp: of her grandeur made Calyste share the emotion of the woman he had held so high, and now beheld so stricken down. He threw himself, from an irresistible impulse, at her feet, and kissed her hands, laying liis face, covered with tears, upon them. > 11 162 Beatrix. ''Claude," she said, "do not abandon me, or what will become of me? " "What have you to fear?" replied the critic. "Calyste has fallen in love at first sight with the marquise; you cannot find a better barrier between you than that. This passion of his is worth more to you than I. Yesterday there might have been some danger for you and for him; to-day you can take a maternal interest in him," he said, with a mocking smile, "and be proud of his triumphs." Mademoiselle des Touches looked at Calyste, who had raised his head abruptly at these words. Claude Vignon enjoyed, for his sole vengeance, the sight of their confusion. "You yourself have driven him to Madame de Rochefide," continued Claude, "and he is now under the spell. You have dug your own grave. Had you confided in me, you would have escaped the sufferings that await you." "Sufferings!" cried Camille Maupin, taking Ca- lyste' s head in her hands, and kissing his hair, on which her tears fell plentifully. "No, Calyste; forget what you have heard; I count for nothing in all this." She rose and stood erect before the two men, subdu- ing both with the lightning of her eyes, from which her soul shone out. "While Claude was speaking," she said, "I con- ceived the beauty and the grandeur of love without hope; it is the sentiment that brings us,nearest God. Do not love me, Calyste; but I will love you as no woman will ! " It was the cry of a wounded eagle seeking its eyry. Beatrix. 163 Claude himself knelt down, took Camille's hand, and kissed it. *' Leave us now, Calyste," she said; *'it is late, and your mother will be uneasy." Calyste returned to Guerande with lagging steps, turning again and again, to see the light from the windows of the room in which was Beatrix. He was surprised himself to find how little pity he felt for Camille. But presently he felt once more the agita- tions of that scene, the tears she had left upon his hair; he suffered with her suffering ; he fancied he heard the moans of that noble woman, so beloved, so desired but a few short days before. When he opened the door of his paternal home, where total silence reigned, he saw his mother through the window, as she sat sewing by the light of the curiously constructed lamp while she awaited him. Tears moistened the lad*s eyes as he looked at her. *'What has happened?" cried Fanny, seeing his emotion, which filled her with horrible anxiety. For all answer, Calyste took his mother in his arms, and kissed her on her cheeks, her forehead and hair, with one of those passionate effusions of feeling that comfort mothers, and fill them with the subtle "flames of the life they have given. *'It is you I love, you! " cried Calyste, — *'you, who live for me; you, whom I long to render happy! '' "But you are not yourself, my child," said the baroness, looking at him attentively. *'What has happened to you?" ''Camilla loves me, but I love her no longer," he answered. 164 Beatrix. The next day, Calyste told Gasselin to watch the road to Saint-Nazaire, and let him know if the car- riage of Mademoiselle des Touches passed over it. Gasselin brought word that the carriage had passed. "How many persons were in it?" asked Calyste. ''Four, — two ladies and two gentlemen." "Then saddle my horse and my father's." Gasselin departed. ''Why, nephew, what mischief is in you now? " said his Aunt Zephirine. "Let the boy amuse himself, sister," cried the baron. "Yesterday he was dull as an owl; to-day he is gay as a lark." " Did you tell him that our dear Charlotte was to arrive to-day ? " said Zephirine, turning to her sis- ter-in-law. "No," replied the baroness. "I thought xDcrhaps he was going to meet her," said Mademoiselle du Guenic, slyly. "If Charlotte is to stay three months with her aunt, he will have plenty of opportunities to see her," said his mother. "Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel wants me to marry Charlotte, to save me from perdition," said Calyste, laughing. "I was on the mall when she and the Chevalier du Halga were talking about it. She can't see that it would be greater perdition for me to marry at my age — " "It is written above," said the old maid, interrupt- ing Calyste, "that I shall not die tranquil or happy. I wanted to see our family continued, and some, at least, of the estates bought back ; but it is not to be. Beatrix, 1 65 Whnt can you, my fine nephew, put in the scale against such duties? Is it that actress at Les Touches?'* ''What?" said the baron; "how can Mademoiselle des Touches hinder Calyste's marriage, when it be- comes necessary for us to make it? I shall go and see her." ''I assure you, father," said Calyste, ''that Felicite will never be an obstacle to my marriage." Gasselin appeared with the horses. "Where are you going, chevalier?" said his father. "To Saint-Nazaire." "Ha, ha! and when is the marriage to be?" said the baron, believing that Calyste was really in a hurry to see Charlotte de Kergarouet. "It is high time I was a grandfather. Spare the horses," he continued, as he went on the portico with Fanny to see Calyste mount; "remember that they have more than thirty miles to go." Calyste started with a tender farewell to his mother. "Dear treasure!" she said, as she saw him lower his head to ride through the gateway. "God keep him!" replied the baron; "for we cannot replace him." The words made the baroness shudder. • "My nephew does not love Charlotte enough to ride to Saint-Nazaire after her," said the old blind woman to Mariotte, who was clearing the breakfast-table. "No; but a fine lady, a marquise, has come to Les Touches, and I '11 warrant he *8 after her; that 's the way at his age," said Mariotte. 166 Beatrix, "They '11 kill him," said Mademoiselle du Guenic. "That won't kill him, mademoiselle; quite the contrary," replied Mariotte, who seemed to be pleased with Calyste's behavior. The young fellow started at a great pace, until Gasselin asked him if he was trying to catch the boat, which, of course, was not at all his desire. He had no wish to see either Conti or Claude again ; but he did expect to be invited to drive back with the ladies, leaving Gasselin to lead his horse. He was gay as a bird, thinking to himself, — ^'' She has just passed here; her eyes saw those trees ! — What a lovely road ! " he said to Gasselin. "Ah! monsieur, Brittany is the most beautiful country in all the world," replied the Breton. "Where could you find such flowers in the hedges, and nice cool roads that wind about like these ? " "Nowhere, Gasselin." ^' Tiensf here comes the coach from Nazaire," cried Gasselin presently. "Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel and her niece will be in it. Let us hide," said Calyste. "Hide! are you crazy, monsieur? Why, we are on the moor ! " The coach, which was coming up the sandy hill above Saint-Nazaire, was full, and, much to the astonishment of Calyste, there were no signs of Charlotte. "We had to leave Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, her sister and niece; they are dreadfully worried; but all my seats were engaged by the custom-house," said the conductor to Gasselin. Beatrix, 167 ''I am lost! " thought Calyste; *'they will meet me down there." When Calyste reached the little esplanade which surrounds the church of Saint-Nazaire, and from which is seen Paimboeuf and the magnificent Mouthy of the Loire as they struggle with the sea, he found Camille and the marquise waving their handkerchiefs as a last adieu to two passengers on the deck of the departing steamer. Beati-ix was charming as she stood there, her features softened by the shadow of a rice-straw hat, on which were tufts and knots of scarlet ribbon. She wore a muslin gown with a pat- tern of flowers, and was leaning with one well-gloved hand on a slender parasol. Nothing is finer to the eye than a woman poised on a rock like a statue on its pedestal. Conti could see Calyste from the vessel as he approached Camille. *'l thought," said the young man, 'Hhat you would probably come back alone." '*You have done right, Calyste," she replied, press- ing his hand. Beatrix turned round, saw her young lover, and gave him the most imperious look in her repertory. A smile, which the marquise detected on the elo- quent lips of Mademoiselle des Touches, made her aware of the vulgarity of such conduct, worthy only of a bourgeoise. She then said to Calyste, smiling, — ''Are you not guilty of a slight impertinence in supposing that I should bore Camille, if left alone with her?" *'My dear, one man to two widows is none too 168 Beatrix, much," said Mademoiselle des Touches, taking Calyste's arm, and leaving Beatrix to watch the vessel till it disappeared. At this moment Calyste heard the approaching voices of Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, the Vicomtesse de Kergarouet, Charlotte, and Gasselin, who were all talking at once, like so many magpies. The old maid was questioning Gasselin as to what had brought him and his master to Saint-Nazaire; the carriage of Mademoiselle des Touches had already caught her eye. Before the young Breton could get out of sight, Char- lotte had seen him. ''Why, there's Calyste!" she exclaimed eagerly. "Go and offer them seats in my carriage," said Camille to Calyste; "the maid can sit with the coach- man. I saw those ladies lose their places in the mail- coach." Calyste, who could not help himself, carried the message. As soon as Madame de Kergarouet learned that the offer came from the celebrated Camille Maupin, and that the Marquise de Rochefide was of the party, she was much surprised at the objections raised by her elder sister, who refused positively to profit by what she called the devil's carryall. At Nantes, which boasted of more civilization than Guerande, Camille was read and admired; she was thought to be the muse of Brittany and an honor to the region. The absolution granted to her in Paris by society, by fashion, was there justified by her great fortune and her early successes in Nantes, which claimed the honor of having been, if not her birthplace, at least her cradle. The viscountess, Beatrix. 169 therefore, eager to see her, dragged her old sister for- ward, paying no attention to her jeremiads. ''Good-morning, Calyste," said Charlotte. *'0h! good-morning, Charlotte," replied Calyste, not offering his arm. Both were confused ; she by his coldness, he by his cruelty, as they walked up the sort of ravine, which is called in Saint-Nazaire a street, following the two sisters in silence. In a moment the little girl of six- teen saw her castle in Spain, built and furnished with romantic hopes, a heap of ruins. She and Calyste had played together so much in childhood, she was so bound up with him, as it were, that she had quietly supposed her future unassailable; she arrived now, swept along by thoughtless happiness, like a circling bird darting down upon a wheat-field, and lo! she was stopped in her flight, unable to imagine the obstacle. ''What is the matter, Calyste?" she said, taking his hand. "Nothing," replied the young man,- releasing him- self with cruel haste as he remembered the projects of his aunt and her friend. Tears came into Charlotte's eyes. She looked at the handsome Calyste without ill-humor; but a first spasm of jealousy seized her, and she felt the dreadful madness of rivalry when she came in sight of the two Parisian women, and suspected the cause of his coldness- Charlotte de Kergarouet was a girl of ordinary height, and commonplace coloring; she had a little round face, made lively by a pair of black eyes which sparkled with cleverness, abundant brown hair, a 170 Beatrix. round waist, a flat back, thin arms, and the curt, decided manner of a provincial girl, who did not want to be taken for a little goose. She was the petted child of the family on account of the preference her aunt showed for her. At this moment she was wrapped in a mantle of Scotch merino in large plaids, lined with green silk, which she had worn on the boat. Her travelling-dress, of some common stuff, chastely made with a chemisette body and a pleated collar, was fated to appear, even to her own eyes, horrible in comparison with the fresh toilets of Beatrix and Camille. She was painfully aware of stockings soiled among the rocks as she jumped from the boat, of shabby leather shoes, chosen for the purpose of not spoiling better ones on the journey, — a fixed principle in the manners and customs of provincials. As for the Vicomtesse de Kergarouet, she might stand as the type of a provincial woman. Tall, hard, withered, full of pretensions, which did not show themselves until they were mortified, talking much, and catching, by dint of talking (as one cannons at billiards), a few ideas, which gave her the reputation of wit, endeavoring to humiliate Parisians, whenever she met them, with an assumption of country wisdom and patronage, humbling herself to be exalted and furious at being left upon her knees; fishing, as the English say, for compliments, which she never caught; dressed in clothes that were exaggerated in style, and yet ill cared for; mistaking want of good manners for dignity, and trying to embarrass others by paying no attention to them ; refusing what she desired in order to have it offered again, and to seem to yield only to BUtrix, 171 entreaty; concerned about matters that others have done with, and surprised at not being in the fashion ; and finally, unable to get through an hour without reference to Nantes, the tigers of Nantes, matters of social life in Nantes, complaints of Nantes, criticism of Nantes, and taking as personalities the remarks she forced out of absent-minded or wearied listeners. Her manners, language, and ideas had, more or less, descended to her four daughters. To know Camille Maupin and Madame de Rochefide would be for her a future, and the topic of a hundred conversations. Consequently, she advanced toward the church as if she meant to take it by assault, waving her handker- chief, unfolded for the purpose of displaying the heavy corners of domestic embroidery, and trimmed with flimsy lace. Her gait was tolerably bold and cavalier, which, however, was of no consequence in a woman forty-seven years of age. *' Monsieur le chevalier," she said to Camille and Beatrix, pointing to Calyste, who was mournfully following with Charlotte, ''has conveyed to me your friendly proposal, but we fear — my sister, my daugh- ter, and myself — to inconvenience you." ''Sister, I shall not put these ladies to inconven- ience," said Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, sharply; "I can very well find a horse in Saint-Nazaire to take me home." Camille and Beatrix exchanged an oblique glance, which Calyste intercepted, and that glance sufficed to annihilate all the memories of his childhood, all his beliefs in the Kergarouets and Pen-Hoels, and to put an end forever to the projects of the three families. 172 Beatrix. •■'We can very well put five in the carriage," replied Mademoiselle des Touches, on whom Jaqueline turned her back, "even if we were inconvenienced, which cannot be the case, with your slender figures. Be- sides, I should enjoy the pleasure of doing a little service to Calyste's friends. Your maid, madame, will find a seat by the coachman, and your luggage, if you have any, can go behind the carriage ; I have no footman with me." The viscountess was overwhelming in thanks, and complained that her sister Jacqueline had been in such a hurry to see her niece that she would not give her time to come properly in her own carriage with post- horses, though, to be sure, the post-road was not only longer, but more expensive; she herself was obliged to return almost immediately to Nantes, where she had left three other little kittens, who were anxiously awaiting her. Here she put her arm round Charlotte's neck. Charlotte, in reply, raised her eyes to »her mother with the air of a little victim, which gave an impression to onlookers that the viscountess bored her four daughters prodigiously by dragging them on the scene very much as Corporal Trim produces his cap in "Tristram Shandy." ''You are a fortunate mother and — " began Camille, stopping short as she remembered that Beatrix must have parted from her son when she left her husband's house. "Oh, yes! " said the viscountess; "if I have the mis- fortune of spending my life in the country, and, above ail, at Nantes, I have at least the consolation of being adored by my children. Have you children?" she said to Camille. Biatrix, 173 "I am Mademoiselle des Touches," replied Camille. "Madame i^ the Marquise de Roehefide." "Then I must pity you for not knowing the greatest happiness that there is for us poor, simple women — is not that so, madame? " said the viscountess, turning to Beatrix. "But you, mademoiselle, have so many compensations." The tears came into Madame de Rochefide*s eyes, iuid she turned away toward the parapet to hide them. Calyste followed her. "Madame," said Camille, in a low voice to the viscountess, "are you not aware that the marquise is separated from her husband ? She has not seen her son for two years, and does not know when she will see him." "You don't say so! " said Madame de Kergarouet. "Poor lady! is she legally separated?" "No, by mutual consent," replied Camille. "Ah, well! I understand that," said the viscountess boldly. Old Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, furious at being thus dragged into the enemy's camp, had retreated to a short distance with her dear Charlotte. Calyste, after looking about him to make sure that no one could see him, seized the hand of the marquise, kissed it, and left a tear upon it. Beatrix turned round, her tears dried by anger; she was about to utter some terrible word, but it died upon her lips as she saw the grief on the angelic face of the youth, as deeply touched by her present sorrow as she was herself. "Good heavens, Calyste!" said Camille in his ear, as he returned with Madame de Roehefide, "are you 174 Beatrix. to have that for a mother-in-law, and the little one for a wife ? " "Because her aunt is rich," replied Calyste, sarcas- tically. The whole party now moved toward the inn, and the viscountess felt herself obliged to make Camille a speech on the savages of Saint-Nazaire. ''I love Brittany, madame," replied Camille, gravely. ''I was born at Guerande." Calyste could not help admiring Mademoiselle des Touches, who, by the tone of her voice, the tran- quillity of her look, and her quiet manner, put him at his ease, in spite of the terrible declarations of the preceding night. She seemed, however, a little fatigued; her eyes were enlarged by dark circles round them, showing that she had not slept; but the brow dominated the inward storm with cold placidity. "What queens!" he said to Charlotte, calling her attentioij to the marquise and Camille as he gave the girl his arm, to Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoers great satisfaction. "What an idea your mother has had," said the old maid, taking her niece's other arm, "to put herself in the company of that reprobate woman ! " "Oh, aunt, a woman who is the glory of Brittany! '* "The shame, my dear. Mind that you don't fawn upon her in that way. " "Mademoiselle Charlotte is right," said Calyste; "you are not just." "Oh, you!" replied Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, "she has bewitched you." Beatrix, 175 (( I regard her," said Calyste, ''with the same friendship that I feel for you." ''Since when have the du Guenics taken to telling lies?" asked the old maid. "Since the Pen-Hoels have grown deaf," replied Calyste. "Are not you in love with her? " demanded the old maid. "I have been, but I am so no longer," he said. "Bad boy! then why have you given us such anx- iety ? I know very well that love is only foolishness ; there is nothing solid but marriage," she remarked, looking at Charlotte. Charlotte, somewhat reassured, hoped to recover" her advantages by recalling the memories of child- hood. She leaned affectionately on Calyste's arm, who resolved in his own mind to have a clear explanation wijth the little heiress. "Ah! what fun we shall have at mouche^ Calyste! " she said ; "what good laughs we used to have over it! " The horses were now put in ; Camille placed Madame de Kergarouet and Charlotte on the back seat. Jacqueline having disappeared, she herself, with the marquise, sat forward. Calyste was, of course, obliged to relinquish the pleasure on which he had counted, of driving back with Camille and Beatrix, but he rode beside the carriage all the way ; the horses, being tired with the journey, went slowly enough to allow him to keep his eyes on Beatrix. History must lose the curious conversation that went on between these four persons whom accident had so strangely united in this carriage, for it is im- 176 Beatrix, possible to report the hundred and more versions which went the round of Nantes on the remarks, replies, and witticisms which the viscountess heard from the lips of the celebrated Camille Maupin herself. She was, however, very careful not to repeat, not even to comprehend, the actual replies made by Mademoiselle des Touches to her absurd questions about Camille' s authorship, — a penance to which all authors are sub- jected, and which often make them expiate the few and rare pleasures that they win. "How do you write your books? " she began. "Much as you do your worsted- work or knitting," replied Camille. "But where do you find those deep reflections, those seductive pictures ? " "Where you find the witty things you say, madame; there is nothing so easy as to write books, provided you will — " "Ah! does it depend wholly on the will? I should n't have thought it. Which of your composi- tions do you prefer ? " "I find it difficult to prefer any of my little kittens." "I see you are blasee on compliments; there is really nothing new that one can say." "I assure you, madame, that I am very sensible to the form which you give to yours." The viscountess, anxious not to seem to neglect the marquise, remarked, looking at Beatrix with a meaning air, — "I shall never forget this journey made between Wit and Beauty." "You flatter me, madame," said the marquise. Beatrix. 177 laughing. *'I assure you that my wit is but a smaK matter, not to be mentioned by the side of genius; l>esides, I think I have not said much as yet." Charlotte, who keenly felt her mother's absurdity, looked at her, endeavoring to stop its course; but Madame de Kergarouet went bravely on in her tilt with the satirical Parisians. Calyste, who was trotting slowly beside the car- riage, could only see the faces of the two ladies on the front seat, and his eyes expressed, from time to time, rather painful thoughts. Forced, by her posi- tion, to let herself be looked at, Beatrix constantly avoided meeting the young man's eyes, and practised a manoeuvre most exasperating to lovers ; she held her shawl crossed and her hands crossed over it, appar- ently plunged in the deepest meditation. At a part of the road which is shaded, dewy, and verdant as a forest glade, where the wheels of the carriage scarcely sounded, and the breeze brought down balsamic odors and waved the branches above their heads, Camille called Madame de Rochefide's attention to the harmonies of the place, and pressed her knee to make her look at Calyste. "How well he rides! " she said. '*0h! Calyste does everything well," said Charlotte. *'He rides like an Englishman," said the marquise, indifferently. ''His mother is Irish, — an O'Brien," continued Charlotte, who thought herself insulted by such in- difference. Camille and the marquise drove through Gudrande with the viscountess and her daughter, to the great 12 178 Beatrix, astonishment of the inhabitants of the town. They left the mother and daughter at the end of the lane leading to the Guenic mansion, where a crowd came near gathering, attracted by so unusual a sight. Calyste had ridden on to announce the arrival of the company to his mother and aunt, who expected them to dinner, that meal having been postponed till four o'clock. Then he returned to the gate to give his arm to the two ladies, and bid Camille and Beatrix adieu. He kissed the hand of Felicite, hoping thereby to be able to do the same to that of the marquise ; but she still kept her arms crossed resolutely, and he cast moist glances of entreaty at her uselessly. ''You little ninny! " whispered Camille, lightly touching his ear with a kiss that was full of friendship. "Quite true," thought Calyste to himself as the carriage drove away. "I am forgetting her advice — but I shall always forget it, I 'm afraid." Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel (who had intrepidly returned to Guerande on the back of a hired horse), the Vicomtesse de Kergarouet, and Charlotte found dinner ready, and were treated with the utmost cor- diality, if luxury were lacking, by the du Guenics. Mademoiselle Zephirine had ordered the best wine to be brought from the cellar, and Mariotte had sur- passed herself in her Breton dishes. The viscountess, proud of her trip with the illus- trious Camille Maupin, endeavored to explain to the assembled company the present condition of modern literature, and Camille's place in it. But the literary Beatrix, 179 topic met the fate of whist; neither the du Gunnies, nor the abbe, nor the Chevalier du Halga understood one word of it. The rector and the chevalier had arrived in time for the liqueurs at dessert. As soon as Mariotte, assisted by Gasselin and Madame de Kergarouet's maid, had cleared the table, there was a general and enthusiastic cry for mouche, Joy appeared to reign in the household. All sup- posed Calyste to be free of his late entanglement, and almost as good as man-ied to the little Charlotte. The young man alone kept silence. For the first time in his life he had instituted comparisons between his life-long friends and the two elegant women, witty, accomplished, and tasteful, who, at the present mo- ment, must be laughing heartily at the provincial mother and daughter, judging by the look he inter- cepted between them. He was seeking in vain for some excuse to leave liis family on this occasion, and go up as usual to Les Touches, when Madame de Kergarouet mentioned that she regretted not having accepted Mademoiselle des Touches' offer of her carriage for the return journey to Saint-Nazaire, which, for the sake of her three other "dear kittens," she felt compelled to make on the following day. Fanny, who alone saw her son's uneasiness, and the little hold which Charlotte's coquetries and her mother's attentions were gaining on him, came to his aid. *' Madame," she said to the viscountess, **you will, I think, be very uncomfortable in the carrier's vehicle, and especially at having to start so early in the morn- 180 Beatrix. ing. You would certainly have done better to take the offer made to you by Mademoiselle des Touches. But it is not too late to do so now. Calyste, go up to Les Touches and arrange the matter; but don't be long; return to us soon." "It won't take me ten minutes," cried Calyste, kissing his mother violently as she followed him to the door. Beatrix. 181 XI. FEMALE DIPLOMACY. Calyste ran with the lightness of a young fawn to Les Touches and reached the portico just as Camille and Beatrix were leaving the grand salon after their dinner. He had the sense to offer his arm to Felicite. '' So you have abandoned your viscountess and her daughter for us," she said, pressing his arm ; ''we are able now to understand the full mer^t of that sacrifice." ' ' Are these Kergarouets related to the Portendueres, and to old Admiral de Kergarouet, whose widow married Charles de Vandenesse?" asked Madame de Rochefide, " The viscountess is the admiral's great*niece," re- plied Camille. '' Well, she 's a charming girl," said Beatrix, placing herself gracefully in a Gothic chair. " She will just do for you. Monsieur du Guenic." ''The marriage will never take place," said Camille hastily. Mortified by the cold, calm air with which the mar- quise seemed to consider the Breton girl as the only creature fit to mate him, Calyste remained speechless and even mindless. 182 Beatrix, '' Why so, Camille? " asked Madame de Kochefide. " Really, my dear," said Camille, seeing Calyste's despair, '' you are not generous ; did I advise Conti to marry ? " Beatrix looked at her friend with a surprise that was mingled with indefinable suspicions. Calyste, unable to understand Camille's motive, but feeling that she came to his assistance and seeing in her cheeks that faint spot of color which he knew to mean the presence of some violent emotion, went up to her rather awkwardly and took her hand. But she left him and seated herself carelessly at the piano, like a woman so sure of her friend and lover that she can afford to leave him with another woman. She played variations, improvising them as she played, on certain themes chosen, unconsciously to herself, by the impulse of her mind ; they were melancholy in the extreme. Beatrix seemed to listen to the music, but she was really observing Calyste, who, much too young and artless for the part which Camille was intending him to play, remained in rapt adoration before his real idol. After about an hour, during which time Camille con- tinued to play, Beatrix rose and retired to her apart- ments. Camille at once took Calyste into her chamber and closed the door, fearing to be overheard ; for women have an amazing instinct of distrust. *'My child," she said, ''if you want to succeed with Beatrix, you must seem to love me still, or you will fail. You are a child ; you know nothing of women ; all you know is how to love. Now loving and making one's self beloved are two very different things. If you go your own way you will fall into horrible suf- Beatrix. 183 fering, and I wish to see you happy. If you rouse, not the pride, but the self-will, the obstinacy which is a strong feature in her character, she is capable of going off at any moment to Paris and rejoining Conti ; and what will you do then? " *'I shall love her." " You won't see her again." ''Oh! yes, I shall," he said. *'How?" " I shall follow her." *' Why, you are as poor as Job, my dear boy." *' My father, Gasselin, and I lived for three months in Vendue on one hundred and fifty francs, marching night and day." ''Calyste," said Mademoiselle des Touches, "now listen to me. I know that you have too much candor to play a part, too much honesty to deceive ; and I don't want to corrupt such a nature as yours. Yet deception is the only way by which you can win Beatrix ; I take it therefore upon myself. In a week from now she shall love you." "Is it possible? " he said clasping his hands. *' Yes," replied Camille, " but it will be necessary to overcome certain pledges which she has made to her- self. I will do that for you. You must not interfere in the rather arduouiB task I shall undertake. The marquise has a true aristocratic delicacy of perception ; she is keenly distrustful ; no hunter could meet with game more wary or more difficult to capture. You are wholly unable to cope with her ; will you promise me a blind obedience?" *' What must I do? " replied the youth. 184 Beatrix. "Very little," said Camille. *'Come here every day and devote yourself to me. Come to ray rooms ; avoid Beatrix if you meet her. We will stay together till four o'clock ; you shall employ the time in study, and I in smoking. It will be hard for you not to see her, but I will find you a number of interesting books. You have read nothing as yet of George Sand. I will send one of my people this very evening to Nantes to buy her works and those of other authors whom you ought to know. The evenings we will all spend to- gether, and I permit you to make love to me if you can — it will be for the best." ''I know, Camille, that your affection for me is great and so rare that it makes me wish I had never met Beatrix," he replied with simple good faith ; " but I don't see what you hope from all this." " I hope to make her love you." " Good heavens ! it cannot be possible! " he cried, again clasping his hands toward Camille, who was greatly moved on seeing the joy that she gave him at her own expense. ''Now listen to me carefully," she said. "If you break the agreement between us, if you have — not a long conversation — but a mere exchange of words with the marquise in private, if you let her question you, if you fail in the silent part I ask you to play, which is certainly not a very difficult one, I do assure you," she said in a serious tone, "you will lose her forever. " " I don't understand the meaning of what you are saying to me," cried Calyste, looking at Camille with ad6rable naivete. Beatrix. 185 *' If you did understand it, you would n't be the noble and beautiful Calyste that you are," she replied, taking his hand and kissing it. Calyste then did what he had never before done ; he took Camille round the waist and kissed her gently, not with love but with tenderness, as he kissed his mother. Mademoiselle des Touches did not restrain her tears. *' Go now," she said, '* my child ; and tell your vis- countess that my carriage is at her command." Calyste wanted to stay longer, but he was forced to obey her imperious and imperative gesture. He went home gayly ; he believed that in a week the beautiful Beatrix would love him. The players at mouche found him once more the Calyste they had missed for the last two months. Charlotte attributed this change to herself. Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel was charming to him. The Abbe Grimont endeavored to make out what was passing in the mother's mind. The Chevalier du Halga rubbed his hands. The two old maids were as lively as lizards. The viscountess lost one hundred sous by accumulated moiiches^ which so excited the cupidity of Zephirine that she regretted not being able to see the cards, and even spoke sharply to her sister-in-law, who acted as the proxy of her eyes. The party lasted till eleven o'clock. There were two defections, the barou and the chevalier, who went to sleep in their respective chairs. Mariotte had made galettes of buckwheat, the baroness produced a tea- caddy. The illustrious house of du Guenic served a little supper before the departure of its guests, consist- 1 86 Beatrix, ing of fresh butter, fruits, and cream, in addition to Mariotte's cakes ; for which festal event issued from their wrappings a silver teapot and some beautiful old English china sent to the baroness by her aunts. This appearance of modern splendor in the ancient hall, together with the exquisite grace of its mistress, brought up like a true Irish lady to make and pour out tea (that mighty affair to Englishwomen), had some- thing charming about them. The most exquisite luxury could never have attained to the simple, modest, noble effect produced by this sentiment of joyful hospitality. A few moments after Calyste's departure from Les Touches, Beatrix, who had heard him go, returned to Camille, whom she found with humid eyes lying back on her sofa. "What is it, Felicite?" asked the marquise. "I am forty years old, and I love him!" said Mademoiselle des Touches, with dreadful tones of anguish in her voice, her eyes becoming hard and brilliant. "If you knew, Beatrix, the tears I have shed over the lost years of my youth! To be loved out of pity! to know that one owes one's happiness only to perpetual care, to the slyness of cats, to traps laid for innocence and all the youthful virtues — oh, it is infamous! If it were not that one finds absolution in the magnitude of love, in the power of happiness, in the certainty of being forever above all other women in his memory, the first to carve on that young heart the ineffaceble happiness of an abso- lute devotion, I would :— yes, if he asked it, — I would fling myself into the sea. Sometimes I find myself Beatrix, 187 wishing that he would ask it; it would then be an oblation, not a suicide. Ah, Beatrix, by coming here you have, unconsciously, set me a hard task. I know it will be difficult to keep him against you ; but you love Conti, you are noble and generous, you will not deceive me; on the contrary, you will help me to retain my Calyste's love. I expected the impres- sion you would make upon him, but I have not com- mitted the mistake of seeming jealous; that would only have added fuel to the flame. On the contrary, before you came, I described you in such glowing colors that you hardly realize the portrait, although you are, it seems to me, more beautiful than ever." This vehement elegy, in which truth was mingled with deception, completely duped the marquise. Claude Vignon had told Conti ,the reasons for his departure, and Beatrix was, of course, informed of them. She determined therefore to behave with gen- erosity and give the cold shoulder to Calyste ; but at the same instant there came into her soul that quiver of joy which vibrates in the heart of every woman when she finds herself beloved. The love a woman inspires in any man's heart is flattery without hypoc- risy, and it is impossible for some women to forego it; but when that man belongs to a friend, his homage gives more than pleasure, — it gives delight. Beatrix sat down beside her friend and began to coax her prettily. ''You have not a white hair," she said; ''you have n't even a wrinkle; your temples are just as fresh as ever; whereas I know more than one woman of thirty who is obliged to cover hers. Look, dear," 188 Beatrix, she added, lifting her curls, "see what that journey to Italy has cost me." H^er temples showed an almost imperceptible with- ering of the texture of the delicate skin. She raised her sleeves and showed Camille the same slight with- ering of the wrists, where the transparent tissue suf- fered the blue network of swollen veins to be visible, and three deep lines made a bracelet of wrinkles. " There, my dear, are two spots which — as a certain writer ferreting for the miseries of women, has said — never lie," she continued. "One must needs have suffered to know the truth of his observation. Hap- pily for us, most men know nothing about it; they don't read us like that dreadful author." "Your letter told me all," replied Camille; "happi- ness ignores everything but itself. You boasted too much of yours to be really happy. Truth is deaf, dumb, and blind where love really is. Consequently, seeing very plainly that you have your reasons for abandoning Conti, I have feared to have you here. My dear, Calyste is an angel ; he is as good as he is beautiful; his innocent heart will not resist your eyes; already he admires you too much not to love you at the first encouragment ; your coldness can alone preserve him to me. I confess to you, with the cowardice of true passion, that if he were taken from me I should die. That dreadful book of Benjamin Constant, 'Adolphe,' tells us only of Adolphe's sor- rows; but what about those of the woman, hey? The man did not observe them enough to describe them ; and what woman would dare to reveal them? They would dishonor her sex, humiliate its virtues, and Beatrix. 189 pass into vice. Ah! I measure the abyss before me by my fears, by these sufferings that are those of hell. But, Beatrix, I will tell you this: in case I am abandoned, my choice is made." '* What is it? " cried Beatrix, with an eagerness that made Camille shudder. The two friends looked at each other with the keen attention of Venetian inquisitors; their souls clashed in that rapid glance, and struck fire like flints. The marquise lowered her eyes. ** After man, there is nought but God," said the celebrated woman. "God is the Unknown. I shall fling myself into that as into some vast abyss. Calyste has sworn to me that he admires you only as he would a picture; but alas! you are but twenty- eight, in the full magnificence of your beauty. The struggle thus begins between him and me by false- hood. But I have one support; happily I know a means to keep him true to me, and I shall triumph." '*What means? " *' That is my secret, dear. Let me have the benefits of my age. If Claude Vignon, as Conti has doubtless told you, flings me back into the gulf, 1, who had climbed to a rock which I thought inaccessible, — I will at least gather the pale and fragile, but delight- ful flowers that grow in its depths." Madame de Rochefide was moulded like wax in those able hands. Camille felt an almost savage pleasure in thus entrapping her rival in her toils. She sent her to bed that night piqued by curiosity, floating between jealousy and generosity, but most assuredly with her mind full of the beautiful Calyste. 190 Beatrix. ' "She will be enchanted to deceive me," thought Camille, as she kissed her good-night. Then, when she was alone, the author, the con- structor of dramas, gave place to the woman, and she burst into tears. Filling her hookah with tobacco soaked in opium, she spent the greater part of the night in smoking, dulling thus the sufferings of her soul, and seeing through the clouds about her the beautiful young head of her late lover. "What a glorious book to write, if I were only to express my pain!" she said to herself. "But it is written already; Sappho lived before me. And Sappho was young. A fine and touching heroine truly, a woman of forty! Ah! my poor Camille, smoke your hookah; you haven't even the resource of making a poem of your misery — that's the last drop of anguish in your cup! " The next morning Calyste came before mid-day and slipped upstairs, as he was told, into Camille's own room, where he found the books. Felicite sat before the window, smoking, contemplating in turn the marshes, the sea, and Calyste, to whom she now and then said a few words about Beatrix. At one time, seeing the marquise strolling about the garden, she raised a curtain in a way to attract her attention, and also to throw a band of light across Calyste*s book. "To-day, my child, I shall ask you to stay to din° ner; but you must refuse, with a glance at the mar- quise, which will show her how much you regret not staying." When the three actors met in the salon, and this comedy was played, Calyste felt for a moment his BUtrix, 191 equivocal position, and the glance that he cast on Beatrix was far more expressive than Felicite ex- pected. Beatrix had dressed herself charmingly. ''What a bewitching toilet, my dearest! " said Camille, when Calyste had departed. These manoeuvres lasted six days, during which time many conversations, into which Camille Maupin put all her ability, took place, unknown to Calyste, between herself and the marquise. They were like the preliminaries of a duel between the two women, — a duel without truce, in which the assault was made on both sides with snares, feints, false generosities,. de- ceitful confessions, crafty confidences, by which one hid and the other bared her love; and in which the sharp steel of Camille' s treacherous words entered the heart of her friend, and left its poison there. Beatrix at last took offence at what she thought Camille's distrust; she considered it out of place between them. At the same time she was enchanted to find the great writer a victim to the pettiness of her sex, and she resolved to enjoy the pleasure of showing her where her greatness ended, and how even she could be humiliated. " My dear, what is to be the excuse to-day for Mon- sieur du Gu^uic's not dining with us?" she asked, looking maliciously at her friend. ''Monday you said we had engagements; Tuesday the dinner was poor; Wednesday you were afraid his mother would be angry; Thursday you wanted to take a walk with me; and yesterday you simply dismissed him without a reason. To-day I shall have my way, and 1 mean that he shall stay." i92 Beatrix. "Already, my dear! " said Camille, with cutting irony. The marquise blushed. "Stay, Monsieur du Guenic," said Camille, in the tone of a queen. Beatrix became cold and hard, contradictory in tone, epigrammatic, and almost rude to Calyste, whom Felicite sent home to play mouche with Charlotte de Kergarouet. ^''She is not dangerous at any rate," said Beatrix, sarcastically. Young lovers are like hungry men; kitchen odors will not appease their hunger; they think too much of what is coming to care for the means that bring it. As Calyste walked back to Guerande, his soul was full of Beatrix ; he paid no heed to the profound feminine cleverness which Felicite was displaying on his behalf. During this week the marquise had only written once to Conti, a symptom of indifference which had not escaped the watchful eyes of Camille, who imparted it to Calyste. All Calyste 's life was concen- trated in the short moment of the day during which he was allowed to see the marquise. This drop of water, far from allaying his thirst, only redoubled it. The magic promise, "Beatrix shall love you," made by Camille, was the talisman with which he strove to restrain the fiery ardor of his passion. But he knew not how to consume the time; he could not sleep, and spent the hours of the night in reading; every even- ing he brought back with him, as Mariotte remarked, cartloads of books. His aunt called down maledictions on the head of Mademoiselle des Touches ; bUt his mother, who had gone on several occasions to his room on seeing his Biatrix. 193 light burning far into the night, knew by this time the secret of his conduct. Though for her love was a sealed book, and she was even unaware of her own ignorance, Fanny rose through maternal tenderness into certain ideas of it; but the depths of such senti- ment being dark and obscured by clouds to her mind, she was shocked at the state in which she saw him ; the solitary uncomprehended desire of his soul, which was evidently consuming him, simply terrified her. Calyste had but one thought; Beatrix was always before him. In the evenings, while cards were being played, his abstraction resembled his father's somno- lence. Finding him so different from what he was w^en he loved Camille, the baroness became aware, with a sort of horror, of the symptoms of real love, — a species of possession which had seized upon her son, — a love unknown within the walls of that old mansion. Feverish irritability, a constant absorption in thought, made Calyste almost doltish. Often he would sit for hours with his eyes fixed on some figure in the tapestry. One morning his mother implored him to give up Les Touches, and leave the two women forever. "Not go to Les Touches! " he cried. "Oh! yes, yes, go! do not look so, my darling!" she cried, kissing him on the eyes that had flashed such flames. Under these circumstances Calyste often came near losing the fruit of Camille's plot through the Breton fury of his love, of which he was ceasing to be the master. Finally, he swore to himself, in spite of his 13 194 Beatrix. promise to Felicite, to see Beatrix, and speak to her. He wanted to read lier eyes, to bathe in their light, to examine every detail of her dress, breathe its per- fume, listen to the music of her voice, watch the graceful composition of her movements, embrace at a glance the whole figure, and study her as a general studies the field where he means to win a decisive battle. He willed as lovers will ; he was grasped by desires which closed his ears and darkened his intel- lect, and threw him into an unnatural state in which he was conscious of neither obstacles, nor distances, nor the existence even of his own body. One morning he resolved to go to Les Touches at an earlier hour than that agreed upon, and endeavor to meet Beatrix in the garden. He knew she walked there daily before breakfast. Mademoiselle des Touches and the marquise had gone, as it happened, to see the ?iiarshes and the little bay with its margin of fine sand, where the sea penetrates and lies like a lake in the midst of the dunes. They had just returned, and were walking up a garden path beside the lawn, conversing as they walked. "If the scenery pleases you," said Camille, "we must take Calyste and make a trip to Croisic. There are splendid rocks there, cascades of granite, little bays with natural basins, charmingly unexpected and capricious things, besides the sea itself, with its store of marble fragments, — a world of amusement. Also you will see women making fuel with cow-dung, which they nail against the walls of their houses to dry in the sun, after which they pile it up as we do peat in Paris." Beatrix 195 "What! will yon really risk Calyste?" cried the marquise, laughing, in a tone which proved that Camille's ruse had answered its purpose. *'Ah, my dear," she replied, ''if you did but know the angelic soul of that dear child, you would under- stand me. In him, mere beauty is nothing; one must enter that pure heart, which is amazed at every step it takes into the kingdom of love.- What faith! what grace! what innocence! The ancients were right enough in the worship they paid to sacred beauty. Some traveller, I forget who, relates that when wild horses lose their leader they choose the handsomest horse in the herd for his successor. Beauty, my dear, is the genius of things ; it is the ensign which Nature hoists over her most precious creations^; it is the truest of symbols as it is the greatest of accidents. Did any one ever suppose that angels could be de- formed? are they not necessarily a combination of grace and strength? What is it that makes us stand for hours before some picture in Italy, where genius has striven through years of toil to realize but one of those accidents of Nature ? Come, call up your sense of the truth of things and answer me; is it not the Idea of Beauty which our souls associate with moral grandeur? Well, Calyste is one of those dreams, those visions, realized. He has the regal power of a lion, tranquilly unsuspicious of its royalty. When he feels at his ease, he is witty; and I love his girlish timidity. My soul rests in his heart away from all corruptions, all ideas of knowledge, literature, the world, society, politics, — those useless accessories under which we stifle happiness. I am what I have 196 Beatrix, never been, — a child ! I am sure of him, but I like to play at jealousy ; he likes it too. Besides, that is part of my secret." Beatrix walked on pensively, in silence. Camille endured unspeakable martyrdom, and she cast a side- long glance at her companion which looked like flame. "Ah, my dear; but yoit are happy," said Beatrix presently, laying her hand on Camille's arm like a woman wearied out with some inward struggle. "Yes, happy indeed! " replied Felicite, with savage bitterness. The two women dropped upon a bench from a sense of exhaustion. No creature of her sex was ever played upon like an instrument with more Macchia- vellian penetration than the marquise throughout this week. "Yes, you are happy, but II " she said, — "to know of Conti's infidelities, and have to bear them ! " "Why not leave him?" said Camille, seeing the hour had come to strike a decisive blow. "Can I?" "Oh! poor boy!" Both were gazing into a clump of trees with a stupe- fied air. Camille rose. "I will go and hasten breakfast; my walk has given me an appetite," she said. "Our conversation has taken away mine," remarked Beatrix. The marquise in her morning dress was outlined in white against the dark greens of the foliage. Calyste, Beatrix, 197 who had slipped through the salon into the garden, took a path, along which he sauntered as though he were meeting her by accident. Beatrix could not restrain a slight quiver as he approached her. "Madame, in what way did I displease you yester- day?" he said, after the first commonplace sentences had been exchanged. **But you have neither pleased me nor displeased me," she said, in a gentle voice. The tone, air, and manner in which the marquise said these words encouraged Calyste. ''Am I so indifferent to you? " he said in a troubled voice, as the tears came into his eyes. ''Ought we not to be indifferent to each other?" replied the marquise. "Have we not, each of us, another, and a binding attachment?" "Oh! " cried Calyste, "if you mean Camille, I did love her, but I love her no longer." "Then why are you shut up together every morn- ing?" she said, with a treacherous smile. "I don't suppose that Camille, in spite of her passion for tobacco, prefers her cigar to you, or that you, in your admiration for female authors, spend four hours a day in reading their romances." "So then you know — " began the guileless young Breton, his face glowing with the happiness of being face to face alone with his idol. "Calyste!" cried Camille, angrily, suddenly ap- pearing and interrupting him. She took his arm and drew him away to some distance. "Calyste, is this what you promised me ? " Beatrix heard these words of reproach as Made- 198 Beatrix, moiselle des Touches disappeared toward the house, taking Calyste with her. She was stupefied by the young man's assertion, and could not comprehend it; she was not as strong as Claude Vignon. In truth, the part being played by Camille Maupin, as shocking as it was grand, is one of those wicked grandeurs which women only practise when driven to extremity. By it their hearts are broken; in it the feelings of their sex are lost to them; it begins an abnegation which ends by either plunging them to hell, or lifting them to heaven. During breakfast, which Calyste was invited to share, the marquise, whose sentiments could be noble and generous, made a sudden return upon herself, resolving to stifle the germs of love which were rising in her heart. She was neither cold nor hard to Calyste, but gently indifferent, — a course which tor- tured him. Felicite brought forward a proposition that they should make, on the next day but one, an excursion into the curious and interesting country lying between Les Touches, Croisic, and the village of Batz. She begged Calyste to employ himself on the morrow in hiring a boat and sailors to take them across the little bay, undertaking herself to provide horses and provisions, and all else that was necessary for a party of pleasure, in which there was to be no fatigue. Beatrix stopped the matter short, however, by saying that she did not wish to make excursions round the country. Calyste' s face, which had beamed with delight at the prospect, was suddenly over- clouded. "What are you afraid of, my dear? " asked Camille. Beatrix, 199 "My position is so delicate I do not wish to com- promise — I will not say my reputation, but my hap- piness," she said, meaningly, with a glance at the young Breton. '*You know very well how suspicious Conti can be; if he knew — " ''Who will tell him?" ''He is coming back here to fetch me," said Beatrix. Calyste turned pale. In spite of all that Camille could urge, in spite of Calyste' s entreaties, Madame de Rochefide remained inflexible, and showed what Camille had called her obstinacy. Calyste left Les Touches the victim of one of those depressions of love which threaten, in certain men, to turn into madness. He began to revolve in his njind some decided means of coming to an explanation with Beatrix. 200 Beatrix, XII. CORRESPONDENCE. When Calyste reached home, he did not leave his room until dinner time ; and after dinner he went back to it. At ten o'clock his mother, uneasy at his ab- sence, went to look for him, and found him writing in the midst of a pile of blotted and half-torn paper. He was writing to Beatrix, for distrust of Camille had come into his mind. The air and manner of the mar- quise during their brief interview in the garden had singularly encouraged him. No first love-letter ever was or ever will be, as may readily be supposed, a brilliant effort of the mind. In all young men not tainted by corruption such a letter is written. with gushings from the heart, too overflow- ing, too multifarious not to be the essence, the elixir of many other letters begun, rejected, and rewritten. Here is the one that Calyste finally composed and which he read aloud to his poor, astonished mother. To her the old mansion seemed to have taken fire; this love of her son flamed up in it like the glare of a conflagration. Calyste to Madame la Marquise de Rochefide. Madame, — I loved you when you were to me but a dream; judge, therefore, of the force my love ac- Beatrix. 201 quired when I saw you. The dream was far surpassed by the reality. It is my grief and my misfortune to have nothing to say to you that you do not know already of your beauty and your charm; and yet, perhaps, they have awakened in no other heart so deep a sentiment as they have in me. In so many ways you are beautiful ; I have studied you so much while thinking of you day and night that I have penetrated the mysteries of your being, the secrets of your heart, and your delicacy, so little appreciated. Have you ever been loved, understood, adored as you deserve to be ? Let me tell you now that there is not a trait in your nature which my heart does not interpret ; your pride is understood by mine ; the grandeur of your glance, the grace of your bearing, the distinction of your movements, — all things about your person are in har- mony with the thoughts, the hopes, the desires hidden in the depths of your soul ; it is because I have divined them all that I think myself worthy o^ your notice. If I had not become, within the last few days, another yourself, I could not speak to you of myself ; this letter, indeed, relates far more to you than it does to me. Beatrix, in order to write to you, I have silenced my youth, I have laid aside myself, I have aged my thoughts, — or, rather, it is you who have aged them, by this week of dreadful sufferings caused, innocently indeed, by you. Do not think me one of those common lovers at whom I have heard you laugh so justly. What merit is there in loving a young and beautiful and wise k 202 BSatrix, and noble woman Alas! I have no merit! What can I be to you? A child, attracted by effulgence of beauty and by moral grandeur, as the insects are attracted to the light. You cannot do otherwise than tread upon the flowers of my soul; they are there at your feet, and all my happiness consists in your stepping on them. Absolute devotion, unbounded faith, love unquench- able, — all these treasures of a true and tender heart are nothing, nothing! they serve only to love with, they cannot win the love we crave. Sometimes I do not understand why a worship so ardent does not warm its idol ; and when I meet your eye, so cold, so stern, I turn to ice within me. Your disdain, that is the acting force between us, not my worship. Why? You cannot hate me as much as I love you ; why, then, does the weaker feeling rule the stronger? I loved Felicite with all the powers of my heart ; yet I forgot her in a day, in a moment, when I saw you. She was my error ; you are my truth. You have, unknowingly, destroyed my happiness, and yet you owe me nothing in return. I loved Camille without hope, and I have no hope from you ; nothing is changed but my divinity. I was a pagan ; I am now a Christian, that is all — Except this: you have taught me that to love is the greatest of all joys ; the joy of being loved comes later. According to Camille, it is not loving to love for a short time only; the love that does not grow from day to day, from hour to hour, is a mere wretched passion. In order to grow, love must not see its end; and she saw the end of ours, the setting of Beatrix, 203 our sun of love. When I beheld you, I understood her words, which, until then, I had disputed with all my youth, with all the ardor of my desires, with the des- potic sternness of twenty years. That grand and noble Camille mingled her tears with mine, and yet she firmly rejected the love she saw must end. Therefore I am free to love you here on earth and in the heaven above us, as we love God. If you loved me, you would have no such arguments as Camille used to overthrow my love. We are both young ; we could fly on equal wing across our sunny heaven, not fearing storms as that grand eagle feared them. But ah! what am I saying? my thoughts have car- ried me beyond the humility of my real hopes. Be- lieve, believe in the submission, the patience, the mute adoration which I only ask you not to wound uselessly. I know, Beatrix, that you cannot love me without the loss of your self-esteem ; therefore I ask for no return. Camille once said there was some hidden fatality in names, a propos of hers. That fatality I felt for myself on the jetty of Guerande, when I read on the shores of the ocean your name. Yes, you will pass through my life as Beatrice passed through that of Dante. My heart will be a pedestal for that white statue, cold, distant, jealous, and oppressive. It is forbidden to you to love me; I know that. You will suffer a thousand deaths, you will be betrayed, humiliated, unhappy; but you have in you a devil's pride, which binds you to that column you have once embraced, — you are like Samson, you will perish by holding to it. But this I have not divined ; my love 204 Beatrix, is too blind for that; Camille has told it to me. It is not my mind that speaks to you of this, it is hers. I have no mind with which to reason when I think of you; blood gushes from my heart, and its hot wave darkens my intellect, weakens my strength, paralyzes my tongue, and bends my knees. I can only adore you, whatever you may do to me. Camille calls your resolution obstinacy; I defend you, and I call it virtue. You are only the more beautiful because of it. I know my destiny, and the pride of a Breton can rise to the height of the woman who makes her pride a virtue. Therefore, dear Beatrix, be kind, be consoling to me. When victims were selected, they crowned them with flowers ; so do you to me ; you owe me the flowers of pity, the music of my sacrifice. Am I not a proof of your grandeur? Will you not rise to the level of my disdained love, — disdained in spite of its sin- cerity, in spite of its immortal passion? Ask Camille how I behaved to her after the day she told me, on her return to Les Touches, that she loved Claude Vignon. I was mute ; I suffered in silence. Well, for you I will show even greater strength, — I will bury my feelings in my heart, if you will not drive me to despair, if you will only understand my heroism. A single word of praise from you is enough to make me bear the pains of martyrdom. But if you persist in this cold silence, this deadly disdain, you will make me think you fear me. Ah, Beatrix, be with me what you are, — charming, witty, gay, and tender. Talk to me of Conti, as Camille has Beatrix. 205 talked to me of Claude. I have no other spirit in my soul, no other genius but that of love; nothing is there that can make you fear me; I will be in your presence as if I loved you not. Can you reject so humble a prayer? — the prayer of a child who only asks that his Light shall lighten him, that his Sun may warm him. He whom you love can be with you at all times, but I, poor Calyste! have so few days in which to see you; you will soon be freed from me. Therefore I may return to Les Touches to-morrow, may I not? You will not refuse my arm for that excursion ? We shall go together to Croisic and to Batz ? If you do not go I shall take it for an answer, — Calyste will understand it! There were four more pages of the same sort in close, fine writing, wherein Calyste explained the sort of threat conveyed in the last words, and related his youth and life ; but the tale was chiefly told in exclamatory phrases, with many of those points and dashes of which modern literature is so prodigal when it comes to crucial passages, — as though they were planks offered to the reader's imagination, to help him' across crevasses. The rest of this artless letter was merely repetition. But if it was not likely to touch Madame de Rochefide, and would very slightly interest the admirers of strong emotions, it made the mother weep, as she said to her son, in her tender voice, — **My child, you are not happy." This tumultuous poem of sentiments which had arisen like a storm in Calyste's heart, terrified the 206 Beatrix, baroness; for the first time in her life she read a love-letter. Calyste was standing in deep perplexity ; how could he send that letter? He followed his mother back into the salon with the letter in his pocket and burn- ing in his heart like fire. The Chevalier du Halga was still there, and the last deal of a lively mouche was going on. Charlotte de Kergarouet, in despair at Calyste' s indifference, was paying attention to his father as a means of promoting her marriage. Calyste wandered hither and thither like a butterfly which had flown into the room by mistake. At last, when mouche was over, he drew the Chevalier du Halga into the great salon, from which he sent away Made- moiselle de Pen-Hoel's page and Mariotte. "What does he want of the chevalier?" said old Zephirine, addressing her friend Jacqueline. "Calyste strikes me as half-crazy," replied Made- moiselle de Pen-Hoel. "He pays Charlotte no more attention than if she were a paludiere." Remembering that the Chevalier du Halga had the reputation of having navigated in his youth the waters of gallantry, it came into Calyste' s head to consult him. "What is the best way to send a letter secretly to one's mistress?" he said to the old gentleman in a whisper. "WeH, you can slip it into the hand of her maid with a louis or two underneath it ; for sooner or later the maid will find out the secret, and it is just as well to let her into it at once," replied the chevalier, on whose face was the gleam of a smile. "But, on the whole, it is best to give the letter yourself." Beatrix. 207 "A louis or two! " exclaimed Calyste. He snatched up his hat and ran to Les Touches, where he appeared like an apparition in the little salon, guided thither by the voices of Camille and Beatrix. They were sitting on the sofa together, apparently on the best of terms. Calyste, with the headlong impulse of love, flung himself heedlessly on the sofa beside the marquise, took her hand, and slipped the letter within it. He did this so rapidly that Felicity, watchful as she was, did not perceive it. Calyste's heart was tingling with an emotion half sweet, half painful, as he felt the hand of Beatrix press his own, and saw her, without interrupting her words, or seeming in the least disconcerted, slip the letter into her glove. "You fling yourself on a woman's dress without mercy," she said, laughing. "Calyste is a boy who is wanting in common- sense," said Felicity, not sparing him an open rebuke. Calyste rose, took Camille's hand, and kissed it. Then he went to the piano and ran his finger-nail over the notes, making them all sound at once, like a rapid scale. This exuberance of joy surprised Camille, and made her thoughtful ; she signed to Calyste to come to her. "What is the matter with you?" she whispered in his ear. "Nothing," he replied. "There is something between them," thought Made- moiselle des Touches. The marquise was impenetrable. Camille tried to 208 Beatrix, make Calyste talk, hoping that his artless mind would betray itself; but the youth excused himself on the ground that his mother expected him, and he left Les Touches at eleven o'clock, — not, however, without having faced the fire of a piercing glance from Camille, to whom that excuse was made for the first time. After the agitations of a wakeful night filled with visions of Beatrix, and after going a score of times through the chief street of Guerande for the purpose of meeting the answer to his letter, which did not come, Calyste finally received the following reply, which the marquise's waiting-woman, entering the hotel du Guenic, presented to him. He carried it to the garden, and there, in the grotto, he read as fol- lows : — Madame de Rochefide to Calyste, You are a noble child, but you are only a child., You are bound to Camille, who adores you. You would not find in me either the perfections that dis- tinguish her or the happiness that she can give you. Whatever you may think, she is young and I am old ; her heart is full of treasures, mine is empty ; she has for you a devotion you ill appreciate; she is unselfish ; she lives only for and in you. I, on the other hand, am full of doubts ; I should drag you down to a weari- some life, without grandeur of any kind, — a life ruined by my own conduct. Camille is free; she can go and come as she will; I am a slave. You forget that I love and am beloved. The situa- tion in which I have placed myself forbids my accept- Beatrix, 209 ing homage. That a man should love me, or say he loves me, is an insult. To turn to another would be to place myself at the level of the lowest of my sex. You, who are young and full of delicacy, how can you oblige me to say these things, which rend my heart as they issue from it? I preferred the scandal of an irreparable deed to the shame of constant deception ; my own loss of station to a loss of honesty. In the eyes of many persons whose esteem I value, I am still worthy; but if I permitted another man to love me, I should fall in- deed. The world is indulgent to those whose con- stancy covers, as with a mantle, the irregularity of their happiness ; but it is pitiless to vice. You see I feel neither disdain nor anger; I am answering your letter frankly and with simplicity. You are young; you are ignorant of the world; you are carried away by fancy ; you are incapable, like all whose lives are pure, of making the reflections which evil suggests. But I will go still further. Were I destined to be the most humiliated of women, were I forced to hide fearful sorrows, were I betrayed, abandoned, — which, thank God, is wholly impossible, — no one in this world would see me more. Yes, I believe I should find courage to kill a man who, seeing me in that situation, should talk to me of love. You now know my mind to its depths. Perhaps I ought to thank you for having written to me. After receiving your letter, and, above all, after making you this reply, I could be at my ease with you in Camille's house, I could act out my natural self, and be what 14 210 Beatrix. you ask of me ; but I hardly need speak to you of the bitter ridicule that would overwhelm me if my eyes or my manner ceased to express the sentiments of which you complain. A second robbery from Camille would be a proof of her want of power which no woman could twice forgive. Even if I loved you, if I were blind to all else, if I forgot all else, I should still see Camille ! Her love for you is a barrier too high to be overleaped by any power, even by the wings of an angel; none but a devil would fail to recoil before such treachery. In this, my dear Calyste, are many motives which delicate and noble women keep to themselves, of which you men know nothing; nor could you understand them, even though you were all as like our sex as you yourself appear to be at this moment. My child, you have a mother who has shown you what you ought to be in life. She is pure and spot- less ; she fulfils her destiny nobly ; what I have heard of her has filled my eyes with tears, and in the depths of my heart I envy her. I, too, might have been what she is ! Calyste, that is the woman your wife should be, and such should be her life. I will never send you back, in jest, as I have done, to that little Char- lotte, who would weary you to death ; but I do com- mend you to some divine young girl who is worthy of your love. If I were yours, your life would be blighted. You would have given me your whole existence, and I — you see, I am frank — I should have taken it ; I should have gone with you. Heaven knows where, far from the world ! But I should have made you most unhappy ; BSatrix. 211 for I am jealous. I see lions lurking in the path, and monsters in drops of water. I am made wretched by trifles that most women put up with; inexorable thoughts — from my heart, not yours — would poison our existence and destroy my life. If a man, after ten years' happiness, were not as respectful and as delicate as he was to me at first, I should resent the change ; it would abase me in my own eyes ! Such a lover could not believe in the Amadis and the Cyrus of my dreams. To-day true love is but a dream, not a reality. I see in yours only the joy of a desire the end of which is, as yet, unperceived by you. For myself, I am not forty years old; I have not bent my pride beneath the yoke of experience, — in short, I am a woman, too young to be anything but odious. I will not answer for my temper; my grace and charm are all external. Perhaps I have not yet suffered enough to have the indulgent manners and the absolute tenderness which come to us from cruel disappointments. Happiness has its insolence, and I, I fear, am insolent. Camille will be always your devoted slave; I should be an unreasonable tyrant. Besides, Camille was brought to you by your guardian angel, at the turning point of your life, to show you the career you ought to follow, — a cai-eer in which you cannot fail. I know Felicite! her tenderness is inexhaustible; she may ignore the graces of our sex, but she pos- sesses that fruitful strength, that genius for constancy, that noble intrepidity which makes us willing to accept the rest. She will marry you to some young girl, no matter what she suffers. She will find you a free 212 Beatrix, Beatrix — if it is Beatrix indeed who answers to your desires in a wife, and to your dreams ; she will smooth all the difficulties in your way. The sale of a single acre of her ground in Paris would free your property in Brittany ; she will make you her heir ; are you not already her son by adoption? Alas ! what could I do for your happiness ? Noth- ing. Do not betray that infinite love which contents itself with the duties of motherhood. Ah ! I think her very fortunate, my Camille! she can well afford to forgive your feeling for poor Beatrix ; women of her age are indulgent to such fancies. When they are sure of being loved, they will pardon a passing infi- delity ; in fact, it is often one of their keenest pleas- ures to triumph over a younger rival. Camille is above such women, and that remark does not refer to her; but I make it to ease your mind. I have studied Camille closely ; she is, to my eyes, one of the greatest women of our age. She has mind and she has goodness, — two qualities almost irreconcilable in woman; she is generous and simple, — two other grandeurs seldom found together in our sex. 1 have seen in the depths of her soul such treas- ures that the beautiful line of Dante on eternal happi- ness, which I heard her interpreting to you the other day, ^^ Senza brama sicura ricchezza^" seems as if made for her. She has talked to me of her career; she has related her life, showing me how love, that object of our prayers, our dreams, has ever eluded her. I replied that she seemed to me an instance of the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of uniting in one person two great glories. Beatrix, 213 You, Calyste, are one of the angelic souls whose mate it seems impossible to find; but Camille will obtain for you, even if she dies in doing so, the hand of some young girl with whom you can make a happy home. For myself, I hold out to you a friendly hand, and I count, not on your heart, but on your mind, to make you in future a brother to me, as I shall be a sister to you ; and I desire that this letter may terminate a correspondence which, between Les Touches and Guerande, is rather absurd. BiATRIX DE CaSTERAN. The baroness, stirred to the depths of her soul by the strange exhibitions and the rapid changes of her boy* 8 emotions, could no longer sit quietly at her work in the ancient hall. After looking at Calyste from time to time, she finally rose and came to him in a manner that was humble, and yet bold; she wanted him to grant a favor which she felt she had a right to demand. "Well?" she said, trembling, and looking at the letter, but not directly asking for it. Calyste read it aloud to her. And these two noble souls, so simple, so guileless, saw nothing in that wily and ti'eacherous epistle of the malice or the snares which the mai'quise had written into it. "She is a noble woman, a grand woman! " said the baroness, with moistened eyes. '*I will pray to God for her. I did not know that a woman could abandon her husband and child, and yet preserve a soul so virtuous. She is indeed worthy of pardon." 214 Beatrix. "Have I not every reason to adore her?" cried Calyste. "But where will this love lead you?" said the baroness. Ah, my child, how dangerous are women with noble sentiments ! There is less to fear in those who are bad! Marry Charlotte de Kergarouet and release two-thirds of the estate. By selling a few farms. Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel can bestow that grand result upon you in the marriage contract, and she will also help you, with her experience, to make the most of your property. You will be able to leave your children a great name, and a fine estate." "Forget Beatrix! " said Calyste, in a muffled voice, with his eyes on the ground. He left the baroness, and went up to his own room to write an answer to the marquise. Madame du Guenic, whose heart retained every word of Madame de Rochefide's letter, felt the need of some help in comprehending it more clearly, and also the grounds of Calyste' s hope. At this hour the Chevalier du Halga was always to be seen taking his dog for a walk on the mall. The baroness, certain of finding him there, put on her bonnet and shawl and went out. The sight of the Baronne du Guenic walking in Guerande elsewhere than to church, or on the two pretty roads selected as promenades on fete days, accompanied by the baron and Mademoiselle de Pen- Hoel, was an event so remarkable that two hours later, throughout the whole town, people accosted each other with the remark, — "Madame du Guenic went out to-day; did you meet her?" Beatrix. 215 As soon as this amazing news reached the ears of Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, she said to her niece, — *' Something very extraordinary is happening at the du Guenics." "Calyste is madly in love with that beautiful Marquise de Rochefide," said Charlotte. ''I ought to leave Gu^rande and return to Nantes." The Chevalier du Halga, much sui-prised at being sought by the baroness, released the chain of his little dog, aware that he could not divide himself between the two interests. "Chevalier," began the baroness, *'you used to practise gallantry ? " Here the Chevalier du Halga straightened himself up with an air that was not a little vain. Madame du Guenic, without naming her son or the marquise, repeated, as nearly as possible, the love-letter, and asked the chevalier to explain to her the meaning of such an answer. Du Halga snuffed the air and stroked his chin; he listened attentively; he made grimaces; and finally, he looked fixedly at the baroness with a knowing air, as he said, — "When thoroughbred horses want to leap a bai-rier, they go up to reconnoitre it, and smell it over. Calyste is a lucky dog I " *'0h, hush!" she cried. "I'm mute. Ah! in the olden time I knew all about it," said the old chevalier, striking an attitude. *'The weather was fine, the breeze nor*east. TudieuJ how the ' Belle-Poule * kept close to the wind that day when — Oh!" he cried, interrupting himself, *'we shall have a change of weather; my ears are buzzing, 216 Beatrix. and I feel the pain in my ribs! You know, don't you, tliat the battle of the ' Belle-Poule ' was so famous that women wore head-dresses ' a la Belle-Poule.* Madame de Kergarouet was the first to come to the opera in that head-dress, and I said to her : ' Madame, you are dressed for conquest.' The speech was repeated from box to box all through the house." The baroness listened pleasantly to the old hero, who, faithful to the laws of gallantry, escorted her to the alley of her house, neglecting Thisbe. The secret of Thisbe' s existence had once escaped him. Thisbe was the granddaughter of a delightful Thisbe, the pet of Madame I'Amirale de Kergarouet, first wife of the Comte de Kergarouet, the chevalier's com- manding officer. The present Thisbe was eighteen years old. The baroness ran up to Calyste's room. He was absent ; she saw a letter, not sealed, but addressed to Madame de Rochefide, lying on the table. An invin- cible curiosity compelled the anxious mother to read it. This act of indiscretion was cruelly punished. The letter revealed to her the depths of the gulf into which his passion was hurling Calyste. Calyste to Madame la Marquise de Rochefide, What care I for the race of the du Guenics in these days, Beatrix? what, is their name to me? My name is Beatrix; the happiness of Beatrix is my happiness; her life is my life, and all my fortune is in her heart. Our estates have been mortgaged these two hundred years, and so they may remain for two hundred more ; Beatrix^ 217 our farmers have charge of them; no one can take them from us. To see you, to love you, — that is my property, my object, my religion ! You talk to me of marrying ! the very thought con- vulses my heart. Is there another Beatrix? I will marry no one but you; I will wait for you twenty years, if need be. I am young, and you will be ever beautiful. My mother is a saint. I do not blame her, but she has never loved. I know now what she has lost, and what sacrifices she has made. You have taught me, Beatrix, to love her better; she is in my heart with you, and no other can ever be there ; she is your only rival, — is not this to say that you reign in that heart supreme? Therefore your arguments have ao force upon my mind. As for Camille, you need only say the word, or give me a mere sign, and I will ask her to tell you herself that I do not love her. She is the mother of my intellect; nothing more, nothing less. From the moment that I first saw you she became to me a sister, a friend, a comrade, what you will of that kind; but we have no rights other than those of friendship upon each other. I took her for a woman until I saw you. You have proved to me that Camille is a man ; she swims, hunts, smokes, drinks, rides on horseback, writes and analyzes hearts and books ; she has no weaknesses ; she marches on in all her strength; her motions even have no resemblance to your graceful movements, to your step, airy as the flight of a bird. Neither has she your voice of love, your tender eyes, your gracious manner; she is Camille Maupin; there is nothing of the woman about her, 218 Beatrix. whereas in you are all the things of womanhood that I love. It has seemed to me, from the first moment when I saw you, that you were mine. You will laugh at that fancy, but it has grown and is growing. It seems to me unnatural, anomalous that we should be apart. You are my soul, my life ; I cannot live where you are not! Let me love you ! Let us fly ! let us go into some country where you know no one, where only God and I can reach your heart! My mother, who loves you, might some day follow us. Ireland is full of castles ; my mother's family will lend us one. Ah, Beatrix, let us go ! A boat, a few sailors, and we are there, before any one can know we have fled this world you fear so much. You have never been loved. I feel it as I re-read your letter, in which I fancy I can see that if the reasons you bring forward did not exist, you would let yourself be loved by me. Beatrix, a sacred love wipes out the past. Yes, I love you so truly that I could wish you doubly shamed if so my love might prove itself by holding you a saint! You call my love an insult. Oh, Beatrix, you do not think it so ! The love of noble youth — and you have called me that — would honor a queen. There- fore, to-morrow let us walk as lovers, hand in hand, among the rocks and beside the sea; your step upon the sands of my old Brittany will bless them anew to me ! Give me this day of happiness ; and that passing alms, unremembered, alas! by you, will be eternal riches to your Calyste. Beatrix. 219 The baroness let fall the letter, without reading all of it. She knelt upon a chair and made a mental prayer to God to save her Calyste's reason, to put his madness, his error far away from him; to lead him from the path in which she now beheld him. ''What are you doing, mother?" said Calyste, entering the room. ''I am praying to God for you," she answered, sim- ply, turning her tearful eyes upon him. ''I have com- mitted the sin of reading that letter. My Calyste is mad!" "A sweet madness!" said the young man, kissing her. "I wish I could see that woman," she sighed. "Mamma," said Calyste, "we shall take a boat to- moiTow and cross to Croisic. If you are on the jetty you can see her." So saying, he sealed his letter and departed for Lea Touches. That which, above all, terrified the baroness was to see a sentiment attaining, by the force of its own Instinct, to the clear-sightedness of practised experi- ence. Calyste's letter to Beatrix was such as the Chevalier du Halga, with his knowledge of the world, might have dictated. 220 Beatrix, xm. DUEL BETWEEN WOMEN. Perhaps one of the greatest enjoyments that small minds or inferior natures can obtain is that of deceiv- ing a great soul, and laying snares for it. Beatrix knew herself far beneath Camille Maupin. This infe- riority lay not only in that collection of mental and moral qualities which we call talent^ but in the things of the heart called passion. At the moment when Calyste was hurrying to Les Touches with the impetuosity of a first love borne on the wings of hope, the marquise was feeling a keen delight in knowing herself the object of the first love of so charming a young man. She did not go so far as to wish herself a sharer in the sentiment, but she thought it heroism on her part to repress the capriccio^ as the Italians say. She thought she was equalling Camille' s devotion, and told herself, moreover, that she was sacrificing herself to her friend. The vanities peculiar to Frenchwomen, which constitute the cele- brated coquetry of which she was so signal an in- stance, were flattered and deeply satisfied by Calyste's love. Assailed by such powerful seduction, she was resisting it, and her virtues sang in her soul a concert of praise and self -approval. BSatrix. 221 The two women were half-sitting, half lying, in apparent indolence on the divan of the little salon, so filled with harmony and the fragrance of flowers. The windows were open, for the north wind had ceased to blow. A soothing southerly breeze was ruffling the surface of the salt lake before them, and the sun was glittering on the sands of the shore. Their souls were as deeply agitated as the nature before them was tran- quil, and the heat within was not less ardent. Bruised by the working of the machinery which she herself had set in motion, Camille was compelled to keep watch for her safety, fearing the amazing cleverness of the friendly enemy, or, rather, the inim- ical friend she had allowed within her borders. To guard her own secrets and maintain herself aloof, she had taken of late to contemplations of nature; she cheated the aching of her own heart by seeking a meaning in the world around her, finding God in that desert of heaven and earth. When an unbeliever once perceives the presence of God, he flings himself unre- servedly into Catholicism, which, viewed as a system, is complete. That morning Camille' s brow had worn the halo of thoughts bom of these researches during a night- time of painful struggle. Calyste was ever before her like a celestial image. The beautiful youth, to whom she had secretly devoted herself, had become to her a guardian angel. Was it not he who led her into those loftier regions, where suffering ceased beneath the weight of incommensurable infinity? and now a certain air of triumph about Beatrix disturbed her. No woman gains an advantage over another without 222 Biatrix. allowing it to be felt, however much she may deny having taken it. Nothing was ever more strange in its course than the dumb, moral struggle which was going on between these two women, each hiding from the other a secret, — each believing herself generous through hidden sacrifices. Calyste arrived, holding the letter between his hand and his glove, ready to slip it at some convenient moment into the hand of Beatrix. Camille, whom the subtle change in the manner of her friend had not escaped, seemed not to watch her, but did watch her in a mirror at the moment when Calyste was just enter- ing the room. That is always a crucial moment for women. The cleverest as well as the silliest of them, the frankest as the shrewdest, are seldom able to keep their secret; it bursts from them, at any rate, to the eyes of another woman. Too much reserve or too little ; a free and luminous look ; the mysterious lower- ing of eyelids, — all betray, at that sudden moment, the sentiment which is the most difficult of all to hide; for real indifference has something so radically cold about it that it can never be simulated. Women have a genius for shades, — shades of detail, shades of character; they know them all. There are times when their eyes take in a rival from head to foot; they can guess the slightest movement of a foot beneath a gown, the almost imperceptible motion of the waist; they know the significance of things which, to a man, seem insignificant. Two women observing each other play one of the choicest scenes of comedy that the world can show. ''Calyste has committed some folly," thought BUtrix. 223 Camille, perceiving in each of her guests that indefin- able air of persons who have a mutual understanding. There was no longer either stiffness or pretended indifference on the part of Beatrix; she now regarded Calyste as her own property. Calyste was even more transparent; he colored, as guilty people, or happy people color. He announced that he had come to make arrangements for the excursion on the following day. **Then you really intend to go, my dear?" said Camille, interrogatively. "Yes," said Beatrix. *'How did you know it, Calyste?" asked Made- moiselle des Touches. ''I came here to find out," replied Calyste, on a look flashed at him by Madame de Rochefide, who did not wish Camille to gain the slightest inkling of their correspondence. ''They have an agreement together," thought Camille, who caught the look in the powerful sweep of her eye. Under the pressure of that thought a hoiTible dis- composure overspread her face and frightened Beatrix. "What is the matter, my dear? " she cried. *' Nothing. Well, then, Calyste, send my horses and yours across to Croisic, so that we may drive home by way of Batz. We will breakfast at Croisic, and get home in time for dinner. You must take charge of the boat arrangements. Let us start by half-past eight. You will see some fine sights, Beatrix, and one very strange one; you will see Cambremer, a man who does penance on a rock for 224 Beatrix. having wilfully killed his son. Oh! you are in a primitive land, among a primitive race of people, where men are moved by other sentiments than those of ordinary mortals. Calyste shall tell you the tale ; it is a drama of the seashore." She went into her bedroom, for she was stifling. Calyste gave his letter to Beatrix and followed Camille. ''Calyste, you are loved, T think; but you are hiding something from me; you have done some foolish thing." "Loved! " he exclaimed, dropping into a chair. Camille looked into the next room; Beatrix had disappeared. The fact was odd. Women do not usually leave a room which contains the man they admire, unless they have either the certainty of seeing him again, or spmething better still. Mademoiselle des Touches said to herself : — " Can he have given her a letter? " I But she thought the innocent Breton incapable of such boldness. "If you have disobeyed me, all will be lost, through your own fault," she said to him very gravely. "Go, now, and make your preparations for to-morrow." She made a gesture which Calyste did not venture to resist. As he walked toward Croisic, to engage the boat- men, fears came into Calyste' s mind. Camille' s. speech foreshadowed something fatal, and he believed in the second sight of her maternal affection. When he returned, four hours later, very tired, and expecting to dine at Les Touches, he found Camille' s maid Bdatrix, 225 keeping watch over the door, to tell him that neither her mistress nor the marquise could receive him that evening. Calyste, much surprised, wished to ques- tion her, but she bade him hastily good-night and closed the door. Six o'clock was striking on the steeple of Guerande as Calyste entered his own house, where Mariotte gave him his belated dinner; after which, he played mouche in gloomy meditation. These alternations of joy and gloom, happiness and unhappiness, the extinction of hopes succeeding the apparent certainty of being loved, bruised and wounded the young soul which had flown so high on outstretched wings that the fall was dreadful. ''Does anything trouble you, my Calyste? " said his mother. "Nothing," he replied, looking at her with eyes from which the light of the soul and the fire of love were withdrawn. It is not hope, but despair, which gives the measure of our ambitions. The finest poems of hope are sung in secret, but grief appears without a veil. "Calyste, you are not nice," said Charlotte, after vainly attempting upon him those little provincial witcheries which degenerate usually into teasing. "I am tired," he said, rising, and bidding the com- pany good-night. " Calyste is much changed," remarked Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel. ''We haven't beautiful dresses trimmed with lace; we don't shake our sleeves like this, or twist our bodies like that; we don't know how to give sidelong 16 226 Beatrix. glances, and turn our eyes," said Charlotte, mimick- ing the air, and attitude, and the glances of the mar- quise. " We have n't that head voice, nor the interest- ing little cough, heu I heu ! which sounds like the sigh of a spook; we have the misfortune of being healthy and robust, and of loving our friends without coquetry ; and when we look at them, we don't pretend to stick a dart into them, or to watch them slyly; we can't bend our heads like a weeping willow, just to look the more interesting when we raise them — this way." Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel could not help laughing at her niece's gesture; but neither the chevalier nor the baron paid any heed to this truly provincial satire against Paris. " But the Marquise de Rochefide is a very handsome woman," said the old maid. *^My dear," said the baroness to her husband, "I happen to know that she is going over to Croisic to- morrow. Let us walk on the jetty ; I should like to see her." While Calyste was racking his brains to imagine what could have closed the doors of Les Touches to him, a scene was passing between Camille and Beatrix which was to have its influence on the events of the morrow. Calyste' 8 last letter had stirred in Madame de Rochefide' s heart emotions hitherto unknown to it. Women are not often the object of a love so young, guileless, sincere, and unconditional as that of this youth, this child. Beatrix had loved more than she had been loved. After being all her life a slave, she suddenly felt an inexplicable desire to be a tyrant Beatrix. 227 But, in the midst of her pleasure, as she read and re-read the letter, she was pierced through and through with a cruel idea. What were Calyste and Camille doing together ever since Claude Vignon's departure? If, as Calyste said, he did not love Camille, and if Camille knew it, how did they employ their mornings, and why were they alone together ? Memory suddenly flashed into her mind, in answer to these questions, certain speeches of Camille ; a grinning devil seemed to show her, as in a magic mirror, the portrait of that heroic woman, with certain gestures, certain aspects, which suddenly enlightened her. What! instead of being her equal, was she crushed by Felicite? instead of over-reaching her, was she being over-reached herself? was she only a toy, a pleasure, which Camille was giving to her child, whom she loved with an extraordinary passion that was free from all vulgarity? To a woman like Beatrix this thought came like a thunder-clap. She went over in her mind minutely the history of the past week. In a moment the part which Camille was playing, and her own, unrolled themselves to their fullest extent before her eyes ; she felt horribly belittled. In her fury of jealous anger, she fancied she could see in Camille's conduct an intention of vengeance against Conti. Was the hidden wrath of the past two years really acting upon the present moment? Once on the path of these doubts and suppositions, Beatrix did not pause. She walked up and down her room, driven to rapid motion by the impetuous move- ments of her soul, sitting down now and then, and 228 Beatrix. trying to decide upon a course, but unable to do so. And thus she remained, a prey to indecision until the dinner hour, when she rose hastily, and went downstairs without dressing. No sooner did Camille see her, than she felt that a crisis had come. Beatrix, in her morning gown, with a chilling air and a taci- turn manner, indicated to an observer as keen as Maupin the coming hostilities of an embittered heart. Camille instantly left the room and gave the order which so astonished Calyste ; she feared that he might arrive in the midst of the quarrel, and she determined to be alone, without witnesses, in fighting this duel of deception on both sides. Beatrix, without an auxil- iary, would infallibly succumb. Camille well knew the barrenness of that soul, the pettiness of that pride, to which she had justly applied the epithet of obstinate. The dinner was gloomy. Camille was gentle and kind; she felt herself the superior being. Beatrix was hard and cutting ; she felt she was being managed like a child. During dinner the battle began with glances, gestures, half-spoken sentences, — not enough to enlighten the servants, but enough to prepare an observer for the coming storm. When the time to go upstairs came, Camille offered her arm maliciously to Beatrix, who pretended not to see it, and sprang up the stairway alone. When coffee had been served Mademoiselle des Touches said to the footman, "You may go,'* — a brief sentence, which served as a signal for the combat. "The novels you make, my dear, are more danger- ous than those you write," said the marquise. BSatrix. 229 "They have one advantage, however," replied Camille, lighting a cigarette. *' What is that? " asked Beatrix. "They are unpublished, my angel." "Is the one in which you are putting me to be turned into a book ? " "I 've no fancy for the role of CEdipus; I know you have the wit and beauty of a sphinx, but don't pro- pound conundrums. Speak out, plainly, my dear Beatrix." "When, in order to make a man happy, amuse him, please him, and save him from ennui, we allow the devil to help us — " "That man would reproach us later for our efforts on his behalf, and would think them prompted by the genius of depravity," said Camille, taking the cigar- ette from her lips to interrupt her friend. "He forgets the love which carried us away, and is our sole justification — but that *s the way of men, they are all unjust and ungrateful," continued Beatrix. "Women among themselves know each other; they know how proud and noble their own minds are, and, let us frankly say so, how virtuous! But, Camille, I have just recognized the truth of certain criticisms upon your nature, of which you have sometimes com- plained. My dear, you have something of the man about you; you behave like a man; nothing restrains you; if you haven't all a man's advantages, you have a man's spirit in all your ways; and you share his contempt for women. I have no reason, my dear, to be satisfied with you, and I am too frank to hide my dissatisfaction. No one has ever given or ever will 230 BUtrix, give, perhaps, so crael a wound to my heart as that from which I am now suffering. If you are not a woman in love, you are one in vengeance. It takes a woman of genius to discover the most sensitive spot of all in another woman's delicacy. I am talking now of Calyste, and the trickery, my dear, — that is the word, — trickery^ — you have employed against me. To what depths have you descended, Camille Maupin! and why?" "More and more sphinx-like! " said Camille, smiling. "You want me to fling myself at Calyste' s head; but I am still too young for that sort of thing. To me, love is sacred ; love is love with all its emotions, jealousies, and despotisms. I am not an author; it is impossible for me to see ideas where the heart feels sentiments." "You think yourself capable of loving foolishly!" said Camille. "Make yourself easy on that score; you still have plenty of sense. My dear, you calum- niate yourself ; I assure you that your nature is cold enough to enable your head to judge of every action of your heart." The marquise colored high; she darted a look of hatred, a venomous look, at Camille, and found, with- out searching, the sharpest arrows in her quiver. Camille smoked composedly as she listened to a furious tirade, which rang with such cutting insults that we do not reproduce it here. Beatrix, irritated by the calmness of her adversary, condescended even to per- sonalities on Camille' s age. "Is that all?" said Felicity, when Beatrix paused, Biatriz, 281 hating a cloud of smoke exhale from her lips. ''Do you love Calyste? " *'No; of course not." "So much the better," replied Camille. "I do love him — far too much for my peace of mind. He may, perhaps, have had a passing fancy for you; for you are, you know, enchantingly fair, while I am as black as a crow ; you are slim and willowy, while I have a portly dignity; in short, you are young ! — that 's the final word, and you have not spared it to me. You have abused your advantages as a woman against me. I have done my best to prevent what has now hap- pened. However little of a woman you may think me, I am woman enough, my dear, not to allow a rival to ti'iumph over me unless I choose to help her." (This remark, made in apparently the most innocent man- ner, cut the marquise to the heart). ''You take me for a very silly person if you believe all that Calyste tries to make you think of me. I am neither so great nor so small; I am a woman, and very much of a woman. Come, put off your grand airs, and give me your hand I " continued Camille, taking Madame de Rochefide's hand. "You do not love Calyste, you say; that is true, is it not? Don't be angry, there- fore; be hard, and cold, and stern to him to-morrow; he will end by submitting to his fate, especially after certain little reproaches which I mean to make to him. Still, Calyste is a Breton, and very persistent; if he should continue to pay court to you, tell me frankly, and I will lend you my little country house near Paris, where you will find all the comforts of life, and where Conti can come out and see you. You 232 Beatrix. said just now that Calyste calumniated me. Good heavens! what of that? The purest love lies twenty times a day; its deceptions only prove its strength." Camille's face wore an air of such superb disdain that the marquise grew fearful and anxious. She knew not how to answer. Camille dealt her a last blow. "I am more confiding and less bitter than you," she said. ''I don't suspect you of attempting to cover by a quarrel a secret injury, which would compromise my very life. You know me; I shall never survive the loss of Calyste, but I must lose him sooner or later. Still, Calyste loves me now ; of that I am sure. " "Here is what he answered to a letter of mine, urging him to be true to you," said Beatrix, holding out Calyste 's last letter. Camille took it and read it; but as she read it, her eyes filled with tears; and presently she wept as women weep in their bitterest sorrows. "My God! " she said, "how he loves her! I shall die without being understood — or loved," she added. She sat for a few moments with her head leaning against the shoulder of her companion ; her grief was genuine; she felt to the very core of her being the same terrible blow which the Baronne du Guenic had received in reading that letter. "Do you love him?" she said, straightening herself up, and looking fixedly at Beatrix. "Have you that infinite worship for him which triumphs over all pains, survives contempt, betrayal, the certainty that he will never love you? Do you love him for himself, and for the very joy of loving him? " B6atrix 233 **Dear friend, "'said the marquise, tenderly, ''be happy, be at peace; 1 will leave this place to-morrow." "No, do not go; he loves you, I see that. Well, I love him so much that I could not endure to see him wretched and unhappy. Still, I had formed plans for him, projects; but if he loves you, all is over." *'And I love him, Camille," said the marquise, with a sort of naivete^ and coloring. ''You love him, and yet you cast him off! " cried Camille. "Ah! that is not loving; you do not love him." "I don't know what fresh virtue he has roused in me, but certainly he has made me ashamed of my own self," said Beatrix. "I would I were virtuous and free, that I might give him something better than the dregs of a heart and the weight of my chains. I do not want a hampered destiny either for him or for myself." "Cold brain!" exclaimed Camille, with a sort of horror. " To love and calculate ! " " Call it what you like," said Beatrix, "but I will not spoil his life, or hang like a millstone round his neck, to become an eternal regret to him. If I cannot be his wife, I shall not be his mistress. He has — you will laugh at me? No? Well, then, he has purified me." Camille cast on Beatrix the most sullen, savage look that female jealousy ever cast upon a rival. "On that ground, I believed I stood alone," she said. "Beatrix, those words of yours must separate us forever; we are no longer friends. Here begins a terrible conflict between us. I tell you now: you will either succumb or fly." 234 Beatrix. So saying, Camille bounded into her room, after showing her face, which was that of a maddened lioness, to the astonished Beatrix. Then she raised the portiere and looked in again. *'Do you intend to go to Croisic to-morrow," she asked. *' Certainly," replied the marquise, proudly. "I shall not fly, and I shall not succumb." ''I play above board," replied Camille; "I shall write to Conti." Beatrix became as white as the gauze of her scarf. "We are staking our lives on this game," she re- plied, not knowing what to say or do. The violent passions roused by this scene between the two women calmed down during the night. Both argued with their own minds and returned to those treacher- ously temporizing courses which are so attractive to the majority of women, — an excellent system between men and women, but fatally unsafe among women alone. In the midst of this tumult of their souls Mademoiselle des Touches had listened to that great Voice whose counsels subdue "the strongest will; Beatrix heard only the promptings of worldly wis- dom ; she feared the contempt of society. Thus Felicite's last deception succeeded; Calyste's blunder was repaired, but a fresh indiscretion might be fatal to him. Beatrix, 235 XIV. AN EXCURSION TO CROISIC. It was now the end of August, and the sky was magnificently clear. Near the horizon the sea had taken, as it is wont to do in southern climes, a tint of molten silver ; on the shore it rippled in tiny waves. A sort of glowing vapor, an effect of the rays of the sun falling plumb upon the sands, produced an atmos- phere like that of the tropics. The salt shone up like bunches of white violets on the surface of the marsh. The patient paludiers, dressed in white to resist the action of the sun, had been from early morning at their posts, armed with long rakes. Some were lean«- ing on the low mud-walls that divided the different holdings, whence they watched the process of this natural chemistry, known to them from childhood. Others were playing with their wives and children. Those green dragons, otherwise called custom-house officers, were tranquilly smoking their pipes. There was something foreign, perhaps oriental, about the scene ; *at any rate a Parisian suddenly trans- ported thither would never have supposed himself in France. The baron and baroness, who had made a pretext of coming to see how the salt harvest throve, were on the jetty, admiring the silent landscape, whore the sea alone soundetl the moan of her waves at regular 236 ' Beatrix. intervals, where boats and vessels tracked a vast ex- panse, and the girdle of green earth richly cultivated, pi-oduced an effect that was all the more charming be- cause so rare on the desolate shores of ocean. '^ Well, my friends, I wanted to see the marshes of Guerande once more before I die," said the baron to the paludiers^ who had gathered about the entrance of the marshes to salute him. " Can a Guenic die?" said one of them. Just then the party from Les Touches arrived through the narrow pathway. The marquise walked first alone ; Calyste and Camille followed arm-in-arm. Gasselin brought up the rear. '' There are my father and mother," said the young man to Camille. The marquise stopped short. Madame du Guenic felt the most violent repulsion at the appearance of Beatrix, although the latter was dressed to much ad- vantage. A Leghorn hat with wide brims and a wreath of blue-bells, her crimped hair fluffy beneath it, a gown of some gray woollen stuff, and a blue sash with floating ends gave her the air of a princess dis- guised as a milkmaid. " She has no heart," thought the baroness. '' Mademoiselle," said Calyste to Camille, '' this is Madame du Guenic, and this is my father." Then he said turning to the baron and baroness, " Mademoiselle des Touches, and Madame la Marquise de Rochefide, nee de Casteran, father." The baron bowed to Mademoiselle des Touches, who made a respectful bow, full of gratitude, to the baroness. Beatrix. 237 " That one," thought Fanny, ** really loves my boy ; she seems to thank me for bringing him into the world." **I suppose you have come to see, as I have, whether the harvest is a good one. But I believe you have better reasons for doing so than I," said the baron to Camille. *' You have property here, 1 think, mademoiselle." '* Mademoiselle is the largest of all the owners," said one of the paludiers who were grouped about them, '* and may God preserve her to us, for she 's a good lady." The two parties bowed and separated. ** No one would suppose Mademoiselle des Touches to be more than thirty," said the baron to his wife. '* She is very handsome. And Calyste prefers that haggard Parisian marquise to a sound Breton girl ! " *^I fear he does," replied the baroness. A boat was waiting at the steps of the jetty, where the party embarked without a smile. The marquise was cold and dignified. Camille had lectured Calyste on his disobedience, explaining to him clearly how matters stood. Calyste, a prey to black despair, was casting glances at Beatrix in which anger and love struggled for the mastery. Not a word was said by any of them during the short passage from the jetty of Guerande to the extreme end of the port of Croisic, the point where the boats discharge the salt, whicli the peasant-women then bear away on their heads in huge earthen jars after the fashion of caryatides. These women go barefooted with very short petticoats. Many of them let the kerchiefs which cover their bosoms fly carelessly open. Some wear only shifts, 238 Beatrix. and are the more dignified ; for the less clothing a woman wears, the more nobly modest is her bearing. The little Danish vessel had just finished lading, there- fore the landing of the two handsome ladies excited much curiosity among the female salt-carriers ; and as much to avoid their remarks as to serve Calyste, Camille sprang forward toward the rocks, leaving him to follow with Beatrix, while Gasselin put a distance of some two hundred steps between himself and his master. The peninsula of Croisic is flanked on the sea side by granite rocks the shapes of which are so strangely fantastic that they can only be appreciated by travellers who are in a position to compare them with other great spectacles of primeval Nature. Perhaps the rocks of Croisic have the same advantage over sights of that kind as that accorded to the road to the Grande Chartreuse over all other narrow valleys. Neither the coasts of Corsica, where the granite bulwark is split into strange reefs, nor those of Sardinia, where Nature is dedicated to grandiose and terrible effects, nor even the basaltic rocks of .the northern seas can show a character so unique and so complete. Fancy has here amused itself by composing interminable arabesques where the most fantastic figures wind and twine. All forms are here. The imagination is at last fatigued by this vast gallery of abnormal shapes, where in stormy weather the sea makes rough assaults which have ended in polishing all ruggedness. You will find under a naturally vaulted roof, of a boldness imitated from afar by Brunelleschi (for the greatest efforts of art are always the timid copying of effects of nature), a rocky hollow polished like a Beatrix. 289 marble bath-tub and floored with fine white sand, in whicli is four feet of tepid water where you can bathe without danger. You walk on, admiring the cool little coves sheltered by great portals; roughly carved, it is true, but majestic, like the Pitti palace, that other imitation of the whims of Nature. Curious fea- tures are innumerable; nothing is lacking that the wildest imagination could invent or desire. There even exists a thing so rare on the rocky shores of ocean that this may be the solitary instance of it, — a large bush of box. This bush, the greatest curiosity of Croisic, where trees have never grown, is three miles distant from the harbor, on the point of rocks that runs out farthest into the sea. On this granite prom- ontory, which rises to a height that neither the waves nor the spray can touch, even in the wildest weather, and faces southerly, diluvian caprice has constructed a hollow basin, which projects about four feet. Into this basin, or clef-t, chance, possibly man, has con- veyed enough vegetable earth for the growth of a box- plant, compact, well-nourished, and sown, no doubt, by birds. The shape of the roots would indicate to a botanist an existence of at least three hundred years. Above it the rock has been broken off abruptly. The natural convulsion which did this, the traces of which are ineffaceably written here, must have carried away the broken fragments of the granite I know not where. The sea rushes in, meeting no reefs, to the foot of this cliff, which rises to a height of some four or five hundred feet; at its base lie several scattered rocks, just reaching the surface at high water, and describing 240 Beatrix. a semi-circle. It requires some nerve and resolution to climb to the summit ^of this little Gibraltar, the shape of which is nearly round, and from which a sudden gust of wind might precipitate the rash gazer into the sea, or, still more to be feared, upon the rocks. This gigantic sentinel resembles the look-out towers of old castles, from which the inhabitants could look the country over and foresee attacks. Thence we see the clock towers and the arid fields of Croisic, with the sandy dunes, which injure cultivation, and stretch as far as Batz. A few old men declare that in days long past a fortress occupied the spot. The sardine- fishers have given the rock, which can be seen far out at sea, a name ; but it is useless to write it here, its Breton consonants being as diflScult to pronounce as to remember. Calyste led Beatrix to this point, whence the view is magnificent, and where the natural sculpture of the granite is even more imposing to the spectator than the mass of the huge breastwork when seen from the sandy road which skirts the shore. Is it necessary to explain why Camille had rushed away alone? Like some wounded wild animal, she longed for solitude, and went on and on, threading her way among the fissures and caves and little peaks of nature's fortress. Not to be hampered in climbing by women's clothing, she wore trousers with frilled edges, a short blouse, a peaked cap, and, by way of staff, she carried a riding-whip, for Camille has always had a certain vanity in her strength and her agility. Thus arrayed, she looked far handsomer than Beatrix. She wore also a little shawl of crimson Beatrix. 241 China crape, crossed on her bosom and tied behind, as they dress a child. For some time Beatrix and Calyste saw her flitting before them over the peaks and chasms like a ghost or vision ; she was trying to still her inward sufferings by confronting some imag- inary peril. She was the first to reach the rock in which the box- bush grew. There she sat down in the shade of a granite projection, and was lost in thought. What could a woman like herself do with old age, having already drunk the cup of fame which all great talents, too eager to sip slowly the stupid pleasures of vanity, quaff at a single draught? She has since admitted that it was here — at this moment, and on this spot — that one of those singular reflections suggested by a mere nothing, by one of those chance accidents that seem nonsense to common minds, but which, to noble souls, do sometimes open vast depths of thought, decided her to take the extraordinary step by which she was to part forever from social life. She drew from her pocket a little box, in which she had put, in case of thirst, some strawberry lozenges ; she now ate several; and as she did so, the thought crossed her mind that the strawberries, which existed no longer, lived nevertheless in their qualities. Was it not so with ourselves? The ocean before her was an image of the infinite. No great spirit can face the infinite, admitting the immortality of the soul, without the conviction of a future of holiness. The thought filled her mind. How petty then seemed the part that she was playing! there was no real greatness in giving Beatrix to Calyste! So thinking, she felt the earthly IC 242 Beatrix. woman die within her, and the true woman, the noble and angelic being, veiled until now by flesh, arose in her place. Her great mind, her knowledge, her attain- ments, her false loves had brought her face to face with what ? Ah ! who would have thought it ? — with the bounteous mother, the comforter of troubled spirits, with the Roman Church, ever kind to repentance, poetic to poets, childlike with children, and yet so profound, so full of mystery to anxious, restless minds that they can burrow there and satisfy all longings, all questionings, all hopjes. She cast her eyes, as it were, upon the strangely devious way — like the tortuous rocky path before her — over which her love for Calyste had led her. Ah ! Calyste was indeed a messenger from heaven, her divine conduc- tor! She had stifled her earthly love, and a divine love had come of it. After walking for some distance in silence, Calyste could not refrain, on a remark of Beatrix about the grandeur of the ocean, so unlike the smiling beauty of the Mediterranean, from comparing in depth, purity, extent, unchanging and eternal duration, that ocean with his love. ''It is met by a rock! " said Beatrix, laughing. ''When you speak thus," he answered, with a sub- lime look, "I hear you, I see you, and I can summon to my aid the patience of the angels; but when I am alone, you would pity me if you could see me then. My mother weeps for my suffering." "Listen to me, Calyste; we must put an end to all this," said the marquise, gazing down upon the sandy road. "Perhaps we have now reached the only propi- Beatrix. 243 tious place to say these things, for never in my life did I see nature more in keeping with my thoughts. I have seen Italy, where all things tell of love ; I have seen Switzerland, where all is cool and fresh, and tells of happiness, — the happiness of labor; where the verdure, the tranquil waters, the smiling slopes, are oppressed by the snow- topped Alps ; but I have never seen anything that so depicts the burning barrenness of my life as that little arid plain down there, dried by the salt sea winds, corroded by the spray, where a fruitless agriculture tries to struggle against the will of that great ocean. There, Calyste, you have an image of this Beatrix. Don't cling to it. I love you, but I will never be yours in any way whatever, for I have the sense of my inward desolation. Ah ! you do not know how cruel I am to myself in speaking thus to you. No, you shall never see your idol diminished ; she shall never fall from the height at which you have placed her. I now have a horror of any love which disregards the world and religion. I shall remain in my present bonds ; I shall be that sandy plain we see before us, without fruit or flowers or verdure." " But if you are abandoned ? " said Calyste. ''Then I should beg my pardon of the man I have offended. I will never run the risk of taking a happi- ness I know would quickly end." ''End!" cried Calyste. The marquise stopped the passionate speech into which her lover was about to launch, by repeating the word *'End! " in a tone that silenced him. This opposition roused in the young man one of those mute inward furies known only to those who 244 Beatrix. love without hope. They walked on several hundred stej^s in total silence, looking neither at the sea, nor the rocks, nor the plain of Croisic. ''I would make you happy," said Calyste. ''All men begin by promising that," she answered, "and they end by abandonment and disgust. I have no reproach to cast on him to whom I sliall be faithful. He made me no promises ; I went to him ; but my only means of lessening my fault is to make it eternal." ''Say rather, madame, that you feel no love for me. I, who love you, I know that love cannot argue ; it is itself; it sees nothing else. There is no sacrifice I will not make to you ; command it, and I will do the impossible. He who despised his mistress for fling- ing her glove among the lions, and ordering him to bring it back to her, did not love ! He denied your right to test our hearts, and to yield yourselves only to our utmost devotion. I will sacrifice to you my family, my name, my future." "But what an insult in that word ' sacrifice ' ! " she said, in reproachful tones, which made poor Calyste feel the folly of his speech. None but women who truly love, or inborn coquettes, know how to use a word as a point from which to make a spring. "You are right," said Calyste, letting fall a tear; "that word can only be said of the cruel struggles which you ask of me." "Hush!" said Beatrix, struck by an answer in which, for the first time, Calyste had really made her feel his love. "I have done wrong enough; tempt me no more. " Beatrix. 245 At this moment they had reached the base of the rock on which grew the plant of box. Calyste felt a thrill of delight as he helped the marquise to climb the steep ascent to the summit, which she wished to reach. To the poor lad it was a precious privilege to hold her up, to make her lean upon him, to feel her tremble; she had need of him. This unlooked-for pleasure turned his head; he saw nought else but Beatrix, and he clasped her round the waist. "What! " she said, with an imposing air. *'Will you never be mine?" he demanded, in a voice that was choked by the tumult of his blood. "Never, my friend," she replied. "I can only be to you a Beatrix, — a dream. But is not that a sweet and tender thing? We shall have no bitterness, no grief, no repentance." "Will you return to Conti?" "I must." "You shall never belong to any man!" cried Calyste, pushing her from him with frenzied violence. He listened for her fall, intending to spring after her, but he heard only a muffled sound, the tearing of some stuff, and then the thud of a body falling on the ground. Instead of being flung head foremost down the precipice, Beatrix had only slipped some eight or ten feet into the cavity where box-bush grew ; but she might from there have rolled down into the sea if her gown had not caught upon a point" of rock, and by tearing slowly lowered the weight of her body upon the bush. Mademoiselle des Touches, who saw the scene, was unable in her horror to cry out, but she signed to Gas- 246 Beatrix. selin to come. Calyste was leaning forward with an expression of savage curiosity ; he saw the position in which Beatrix lay, and he shuddered. Her lips moved, — she seemed to be praying ; in fact, she thought she was about to die, for she felt the bush beginning to give way. With the agility which dan- ger gives to youth, Calyste slid down to the ledge below the bush, where he was able to grasp the mar- quise and hold her, although at the risk of their both sliding down into the sea. As he held her, he saw that she had fainted ; but in that aerial spot he could fancy her all his, and his first emotion was that of pleasure. "Open your eyes," he said, "and forgive me; we will die together." "Die?" she said, opening her eyes and unclosing her pallid lips. Calyste welcomed that word with a kiss, and felt the marquise tremble under it convulsively, with pas- sionate joy. At that instant Gasselin's hob-nailed shoes sounded on the rock above them. The old Breton was followed by Camille, and together they sought for some means of saving the lovers. "There's but one way, mademoiselle," said Gas- selin. "I must slide down there, and they can climb on my shoulders, and you must pull them up." "And you?" said Camille. The man seemed surprised that he should be con- sidered in presence of the danger to his young master. "You must go to Croisic and fetch a ladder," said Camille. Beatrix asked in a feeble voice to be laid down, and Beatrix, 247 C'lUyste placed her on the narrow space between the bush and its background of rock. *'I saw you, Calyste," said Camille from above. "Whether Beatrix lives or dies, remember that this must be an accident." ''She will hate me," he said, with moistened eyes. "She will adore you," replied Camille. *'But this puts an end to our excursion. We must get her back to Les Touches. Had she been killed, Calyste, what would have become of you ? " "I should have followed her." "And your mother?" Then, after a pause, she added, feebly, "and me?" Calyste was deadly pale; he stood with his back against the granite motionless and silent. Gasselin soon returned from one of the little farms scattered through the neighborhood, bearing a ladder which he had borrowed. By this time Beatrix had recovered a little strength. The ladder being placed, she was able, by the help of Gasselin, who lowered Camille's red shawl till she could grasp it, to reach the round top of the rock, where the Breton took her in his arms and carried her to the shore as though she were an infant. "I should not have said no to death — but suffer- ing! " she murmured to F^licite, in a feeble voice. The weakness, in fact the complete prostration, of the marquise obliged Camille to have her taken to the farmhouse from which the ladder had been borrowed. Calyste, Gasselin, and Camille took off what clothes they could spare and laid them on the ladder, making a sort of litter on which they carried Beatrix. The 248' Beatrix, farmers gave her a bed. Gasselin then went to the place where the carriage was awaiting them, and, taking one of the horses, rode to Croisic to obtain a doctor, telling the boatman to row to the landing-place that was nearest to the farmhouse. Calyste, sitting on a stool, answered only by motions of the head, and rare monosyllables when spoken to; Cam ille's uneasiness, roused for Beatrix, was still further excited by Calyste' s unnatural condi- tion. When the physician arrived, and Beatrix was bled, she felt better, began to talk, and consented to embark; so that by five o'clock they reached the jetty at Guerande, whence she was carried to Les Touches. The news of the accident had already spread through that lonely and almost uninhabited region with in- credible rapidity. Calyste passed the night at Les Touches, sitting at the foot of Beatrix's bed, in company with Camille. The doctor from Guerande had assured them that on the following day a little stiffness would be all that remained of the accident. Across the despair of Calyste 's heart there came a gleam of joy. He was there, at her feet; he could watch her sleeping or waking; he might study her pallid face and all its expressions. Camille smiled bitterly as her keen mind recognized in Calyste the symptoms of a passion such as man can feel but once, — a passion which dyes his soul and his faculties by mingling with the foun- tain of his life at a period when neither thoughts nor cares distract or oppose the inward working of this emotion. She saw that Calj^ste would never, could never see the real woman that was in Beatrix. Beatrix. 249 And with what guileless innocence the young Breton allowed his thoughts to be read! When he saw the beautiful green eyes of the sick woman turned to him, expressing a mixture of love, confusion, and even mischief, he colored, and turned away his head. "Did I not say truly, Calyste, that you men prom- ised happiness, and ended by flinging us dojvn a precipice?" When he heard this little jest, said in sweet, caressing tones which betrayed a change of heart in Beatrix, Calyste knelt down, took her moist hand which she yielded to him, and kissed it humbly. "You have the right to reject my love forever," he said, '' and I, I have no right to say one word to you." ''Ah!" cried Camille, seeing the expression on Beatrix's face and comparing it with that obtained by her diplomacy, '' love has a wit of its own, wiser than that of all the world ! Take your composing-draught, my dear friend, and go to sleep." That night, spent by Calyste beside Mademoiselle des Touches, who read a book of theological mysticism while Calyste read " Indiana," — the first work of Camille's celebrated rival, in which is the captivating image of a young man loving with idolatry and devo- tion, with mysterious tranquillity and for all his life, a woman placed in the same false position as Beatrix (a book which had a fatal influence upon him), — that night left ineffaceable marks upon the heart of the poor young fellow, whom Felicite soothed with the assurance that unless a woman were a monster she must be flat- tered in all her vanities by being the object of such a crime. 250 Beatrix, " You would never have flung me into the water," said Camille, brushing away a tear. Toward morning, Calyste, worn-out with emotion, fell asleep in his arm-chair ; and the marquise in her turn, watched his charming face, paled by his feelings and his vigil of love. She heard him murmur her name as he slept. *' He loves while sleeping," she said to Camille. " We must send him home," said Felicite, waking him. No one was anxious at the hotel du Guenic, for Mademoiselle des Touches had written a line to the baroness telling her of the accident. Calyste returned to dinner at Les Touches and found Beatrix up and dressed, but pale, feeble, and languid. No longer was there any harshness in her words or any coldness in her looks. After this evening, filled with music by Camille, who went to her piano to leave Calyste free to take and press the hands of Beatrix (though both were unable to speak), no storms occurred at Les Touches. Felicite completely effaced herself. Cold, fragile, thin, hard women like Madame de Rochefide, women whose necks turn in a manner to give them a vague resemblance to the feline race, have souls of the same pale tint as their light eyes, green or gray ; and to melt them, to fuse those blocks of stone it needs a thunderbolt. To Beatrix, Calyste's fury of love and his mad action came as the thunderbolt that nought resists, which changes all natures, even the most stubborn. She felt herself inwardly humbled ; a true, pure love bathed her heart with its soft and limpid warmth. She breathed a sweet and genial at- Beatrix, 251 mosphere of feelings hitherto unknown to her, by which she felt herself magnified, elevated ; in fact she rose into that heaven where Bretons throughout all time have placed the Woman. She relished with de- light the respectful adoration of the youth, whose hap- piness cost her little, for a gesture, a look, a word was enough to satisfy him. The value which Calyste's heart gave to these trifles touched her exceedingly ; to hold her gloved hand was more to that young angel than the possession of her whole person to the man who ought to have been faithful to her. What a contrast between them ! Few women could resist such constant deification. Beatrix felt herself sure of being obeyed and under- stood. She might have asked Calyste to risk his life for the slightest of her caprices, and he would never have reflected for a moment. This consciousness gave her a certain noble and imposing air. She saw love on the side of its grandeur ; and her heart sought for some foothold on which she might remain forever the loftiest of women in the eyes of her young lover, over whom she now wished her power to be eternal. Her coquetries became the' more persistent because she felt within herself a certain weakness. She played the invalid for a whole week with charming hypocrisy. Again and again she walked about the velvet turf which lay between the house and garden leaning on Calyste's arm in languid dependence. ** Ah ! my dear, you are taking him a long journey in a small space," said Mademoiselle des Touches one day. Before the excursion to Croisic, the two women were 252 Beatrix, discoursing one evening about love, and laughing at the different ways that men adopted to declare it; admitting to themselves that the cleverest men, and naturally the least loving, did not like to wander in the labyrinths of sentimentality and went straight to the point, — in which perhaps they were right ; for the re- sult was that those who loved most deeply and reserv- edly were, for a time at least, ill-treated. " They go to work like La Fontaine, when he wanted to enter the Academy," said Camille. Madame de Rochefide had unbounded power to re- strain Calyste within the limits where she meant to keep him ; it sufficed her to remind him by a look or gesture of his horrible violence on the rocks. The eyes of her poor victim would fill with tears, he was silent, swallowing down his prayers, his arguments, his sufferings with a heroism that would certainly have touched any other woman. She finally brought him by her infernal coquetry to such a pass that he went one day to Camille imploring her advice. Beatrix, armed with Calyste' s own letter, quoted the passage in which he said that to love was the first happiness, that of being loved came later; and she used that axiom to restrain his passion to the limits of respectful idolatry, which pleased her well. She liked to feel her soul caressed by those sweet hymns of praise and adoration which nature suggests to youth ; in them is so much artless art ; such innocent seduction is in their cries, their prayers, their excla- mations, their pledges of themselves in the promissory notes which they offer on the future; to all of which Beatrix was very careful to give no definite answer. Beatrix. 253 Yes, she heard him; but she doubted! Love was not yet the question; what he asked of her was permission to love. In fact, that was all that the poor lad really asked for; his mind still clung to the strongest side of love, the spiritual side. But the woman who is firmest in words is often the feeblest in action. It is strange that Calyste, having seen the progress his suit had made by pushing Beatrix into •the sea, did not continue to urge it violently. But love in young men is so ecstatic and religious that their inmost desire is to win its fruition through moral conviction. In that is the sublimity of their love. Nevertheless the day came when the Breton, driven to desperation, complained to Camille of Beatrix's conduct. *'l meant to cure you by making you quickly under- stand her," replied Mademoiselle des Touches; "but you have spoiled all. Ten days ago you were her master ; to-day, my poor boy, you are her slave. You will never have the strength now to do as I advise." "What ought I to do?" "Quarrel with her on the ground of her hardness. A woman is always over-excited when she discusses; let her be angry and ill-treat you, and then stay away ; do not return to Les Touches till she herself recalls you." In all extreme illness there is a moment when the patient is willing to accept the cruellest remedy and submits to the most horrible operation. Calyste had reached that point. He listened to Camille's advice and stayed at home two whole days ; but on the third he was scratching at Beatrix's door to let her know that he and Camille were waiting breakfast for her. 254 Beatrix. "Another chancie lost!" Camille said to him when she saw him re-appear so weakly. During his two days' absence, Beatrix had frequently looked through the window which opens on the road to Guerande. When Camille found her doing so, she talked of the effect produced by the gorse along the roadway, the golden blooms of which were dazzling in the September sunshine. The marquise kept Camille and Calyste waiting long for breakfast ; and the delay would have been signifi- cant to any eyes but those of Calyste, for when she did appear, her dress showed an evident intention to fascinate him and prevent another absence. After breakfast she went to walk with him in the garden and filled his simple heart with joy by expressing a wish to go again to that rock where she had so nearly perished. *'Will you go with me alone?" asked Calyste, in a troubled voice. ''If I refused to do so," she replied, "I should give you reason to suppose I thought you dangerous. Alas ! as I have told you again and again I belong to another, and I must be his only ; I chose him knowing nothing of love. The fault was great, and bitter is my punishment." When she talked thus, her eyes moist with the scanty tears shed by that class of women, Calyste was filled with a compassion that reduced his fiery ardor; he adored her then as he did a Madonna. We have no more right to require different characters to be alike in the expression of feelings than we have to expect the same fruits from different trees. Beatrix Beatrix. 255 was at this moment undergoing an inward stniggle; she hesitated between herself and Calyste, — between the world she still hoped to re-enter, and the young happiness offered to her; between a second and an unpardonable love, and social rehabilitation. She began, therefore, to listen, without even acted dis- pleasure, to the talk of the youth's blind passion; she allowed his soft pity to soothe her. Several times she had been moved to tears as she listened to Calyste's promises; and she suffered him to commis- erate her for being bound to an evil genius, a man as false as Conti. More than once she related to him the misery and anguish she had gone through in Italy, when she first became aware that she was not alone in Conti's heart. On this subject Camille had fully informed Calyste and given him several lectures on it, by which he profited. *'I," he said, "will love you only, you absolutely. I have no triumphs of art, no applause of crowds stirred by my genius to offer you ; my only talent is to love you; my honor, my pride are in your perfections. No other woman can have merit in my eyes ; you have no odious rivalry to fear. You are misconceived and wronged, but I know you, and for every misconcep- tion, for every wrong, 1 will make you feel my com- prehension day by day." She listened to such speeches with bowed head, allowing him to kiss her hands, and admitting silently but gracefully that she was indeed an angel misunder- stood. *'I am too humiliated," she would say; **my past has robbed the future of all security." 256 Beatrix. It was a glorious day for Calyste when, arriving at Les Touches at seven in the morning, he saw from afar Beatrix at a window watching for him, and wearing the same straw hat she had worn on the memorable day of their first excursion. For a moment he was daz- zled and giddy. These little things of passion mag- nify the world itself. It may be that only French- women possess the art of such scenic effects; they owe it to the grace of their minds ; they know how to put into sentiment as much of the picturesque as the particular sentiment can bear without a loss of vigor or of force. Ah ! how lightly she rested on Calyste's arm ! Together they left Les Touches by the garden-gate which opens on the dunes. Beatrix thought the sands delightful ; she spied the hardy little plants with rose- colored flowers that grew there, and she gathered a quantity to mix with the Chartreux pansies which also grow in that arid desert, dividing them significantly with Calyste, to whom those flowers and their foliage were to be henceforth an eternal and dreadful relic. " We'll add a bit of box," she said smiling. They sat some time together on the jetty, and Calyste, while waiting for the boat to come over, told her of his juvenile act on the day of her arrival. " I knew of your little escapade," she said, '* and it was the cause of my sternness to you that first night." During their walk Madame de Rochefide had the lightly jesting tone of a woman who loves, together with a certain tenderness and abandonment of manner. Calyste had reason to think himself beloved. But Beatrix. 267 when, wandering along the shore beneath the rocks, they came upon one of those charming creeks where the waves deposit the most extraordinary mosaic of brilliant pebbles, and they played there like children gathering the prettiest, when Calyste at the summit of happiness asked her plainly to fly with him to Ireland, she resumed her dignified and distant air, asked for his arm, and continued their walk in silence to what she called her Tarpeian rock. " My friend," she said, mounting with slow steps the magnificent block of granite of which she was mak- ing for herself a pedestal, '' I have not the courage to conceal what you are to me. For ten years I have had no happiness comparable to that which we have just enjoyed together, searching for shells among those rocks, exchanging pebbles of which I shall make a necklace more precious far to me than if it were made of the finest diamonds. I have been once more a little girl, a child, such as I was at fourteen or sixteen — when I was worthy of you. The love that I have had the happiness to inspire in your heart has raised me in my own eyes. Understand those words to their magical extent. You have made me the proudest and happiest of my sex, and you will live longer in my remembrance, perhaps, than I in yours." At this moment they reached the summit of the rock, whence they saw the vast ocean on one side and Brittany on the other, with its golden isles, its feudal towers, and its gorse. Never did any woman stand on a finer scene to make a great avowal. ** But," she continued, ** I do not belong to myself; I am more bound by my own will than I was by the 17 258 Beatrix. law. You must be punished for my misdeed, but be satisfied to know that we suffer together. Dante nev6r saw his Beatrice again ; Petrarch never possessed his Laura. Such disasters fall on none but noble souls. But, if I should be abandoned, if I fall lower yet into shame and ignominy, if your Beatrix is cruelly misjudged by the world she loathes, if indeed she is the lowest of women, — then, my child, my adored child," she said, taking his hand, '' to you she will still be first of all ; you will know that she rises to heaven as she leans on you; but then, my friend," she added, giving him an intoxicating look, " then if you wish to cast her down do not fail of your blow ; after your love, death ! " Calyste clasped her round the waist and pressed her to his heart. As if to confirm her words Madame de Rochefide laid a tender, timid kiss upon his brow. Then they turned and walked slowly back ; talking together like those who have a perfect comprehension of each other, — she, thinking she had gained a truce, he not doubting of his happiness ; and both deceived. Calyste, from what Camille had told him, was confident that Conti would be enchanted to find an opportunity to part from Beatrix; Beatrix, yielding herself up to the vagueness of her position, looked to chance to arrange the future. They reached Les Touches in the most delightful of all states of mind, entering by the garden gate, the key of which Calyste had taken with him. It was nearly six o'clock. The luscious odors, the warm atmosphere, the burnished rays of the evening sun were all in har- mony with their feelings and their tender talk. Their Beatrix. 259 steps were taken in unison, — the gait of all lovers, — their movements told of the union of their thoughts. The silence that reigned about Les Touches was so profound that the noise which Calyste made in opening and shutting the gate must have echoed through the garden. As the two had said all to each other that could be said, and as their day's excursion, so filled with emotion, had physically tired them, they walked slowly, saying nothing. Suddenly, at the turn of a path, Beatrix was seized with a horrible trembling, with that contagious horror which is caused by the sight of a snake, and which Calyste felt before he saw the cause of it. On a bench, beneath the branches of a weeping ash, sat Conti, talking with Camille Maupin. 260 Beatrix. XV. CONTI. The inward and convulsive trembling of the mar- quise was more apparent than she wished it to be ; a tragic drama developed at that moment in the souls of all present. " You did not expect me so soon, I fancy," said Conti, offering his arm to Beatrix. The marquise could not avoid dropping Calyste's arm and taking that of Conti. This ignoble transit, imperiously demanded, so dishonoring to the new love, overwhelmed Calyste who threw himself on the bench beside Camille, after exchanging the coldest of saluta- tions with his rival. He was torn by conflicting emotions. Strong in the thought that Beatrix loved him, he wanted at first to fling himself upon Conti and tell him that Beatrix was his ; but the violent trembling of the woman betraying how she suffered — for she had really paid the penalty of her faults in that one moment — affected him so deeply that he was dumb, struck like her with a sense of some implacable necessity. Madame de Rochefide and Conti passed in front of the seat where Calyste had dropped beside Camille, and as she passed, the marquise looked at Camille, giving her one of those terrible glances in which Beatrix. 261 women have the art of saying all things. She avoided the eyes of Calyste and turned her attention to Conti, who appeared to be jesting with her. **What will they say to each other?" Calyste asked of Camille. ''Dear child, you don't know as yet the terrible rights which an extinguished love still gives to a man over a woman. Beatrix could not refuse to take his arm. He is, no doubt, joking her about her new love ; he must have guessed it from your attitudes and the manner in which you approached us." '* Joking her! " cried the impetuous youth, starting up. "Be calm," said Camille, "or you will lose the last chances that remain to you. If he wounds her self- love, she will crush him like a worm under her foot. But he is too astute for that; he will manage her with greater cleverness. He will seem not even to sup- pose that the proud Madame de Rochefide could betray him ; she could never be guilty of such depravity as loving a man for the sake of his beauty. He will represent you to her as a child ambitious to have a marquise in love with him, and to make himself the arbiter of the fate of two women. In short, he will lire a broadside of malicious insinuations. Beatrix will then be forced to parry with false assertions and denials, which he will simply make use of to become once more her master." "Ah!" cried Calyste, "he does not love her. I would leave her free. True love means a choice made anew at every moment, confirmed from day to day. The morrow justifies the past, and swells the treasury 262 Beatrix, of our pleasures. Ah! why did he not stay awiy a little longer? A few days more and he would not have found her. What brought him back ? " ''The jest of a journalist," replied Camille. "His opera, on the success of which he counted, has fallen flat. Some journalist, probably Claude Vignon, re- marked in the foyer: 'It is hard to lose fame and mistress at the same moment, ' and the speech cut him in all his vanities. Love based on petty sentiments is always pitiless. I have questioned him ; but who can fathom a nature so false and so deceiving? He appeared to be weary of his troubles and his love, — in short, disgusted with life. He regrets having allied himself so publicly with the marquise, and made me, in speaking of his past happiness, a melancholy poem, which was somewhat too clever to be true. I think he hoped to worm out of me the secret of your love, in the midst of the joy he expected his flatteries to cause me." "What else?" said Calyste, watching Beatrix and Conti, who were now coming towards them; but he listened no longer to Camille' s words. In talking with Conti, Camille had held herself pru- dently on the defensive; she had betrayed neither Calyste' s secret nor that of Beatrix. The great artist was capable of treachery to every one, and Mademoi- selle des Touches warned Calyste to distrust him. "My dear friend," she said, "this is by far the most critical moment for you. You need caution and a sort of cleverness you do not possess ; I am afraid you will let yourself be tricked by the most wily man I have ever known, and I can do nothing to help you." Beatrix. 263 The bell announced dinner. Conti offered his arm to Camille; Calyste gave his to Beatrix. Camille drew back to let the marquise pass, but the latter had found a moment in which to look at Calyste, and im- press upon him, by putting her finger on her lips, the absolute necessity of discretion. k Conti was extremely gay during the dinner; per- haps this was only one way of probing Madame de Rochefide, who played her part extremely ill. If her conduct had been mere coquetry, she might have deceived even Conti; but her new love was real, and it betrayed her. The wily musician, far from adding to her embarrassment, pretended not to have per- ceived it. At dessert, he brought the conversation round to women, and lauded the nobility of their sentiments. Many a woman, he said, who might have been willing to abandon a man in prosperity, would sacrifice all to him in misfortune. Women had the advantage over men in constancy; nothing ever detached them from their first lover, to whom they clung as a matter of honor, unless he wounded them; they felt that a second love was unworthy of them, and so forth. His ethics were of the highest order; shedding incense on the altar where he knew that one heart at least, pierced by many a blow, was bleeding. Camille and Beatrix alone understood the bitterness of the sarcasms shot forth in the guise of eulogy. At times they both flushed scarlet, but they w^ere forced to control themselves. When dinner was over, they took each other by the arm to return to Camille's salon, and, as if by mutual consent, they turned aside into the great salon, where they could be alone for an instant in the darkness. 264 Beatrix. "It i8 dreadful to let Conti ride over me rough- shod; and yet I can't defend myself," said Beatrix, in a low voice. "The galley-slave is always a slave to his chain-companion. I am lost; I must needs return to my galleys! And it is you, Camille, who have cast me there! Ah! you brought him back a day too soon, or a day too late. I recognize your infernal talent as author. Well, your revenge is complete, the finale perfect ! " "I may have told you that I would write to Conti, but to do it was another matter," cried Camille. "I am incapable of such baseness. But you are un- happy, and I forgive the suspicion." "What will become of Calyste? " said the marquise, with naive self-conceit. "Then Conti carries you off, does he?" asked Camille. "Ah! you think you triumph! " cried Beatrix. Anger distorted her handsome face as she said those bitter words to Camille, who was trying to hide her satisfaction under a false expression of sympathy. Unfortunately, the sparkle in her eyes belied the sad- ness of her face, and Beatrix was learned in such deceptions. When, a few moments later, the two women were seated under a strong light on that divan- where for the last three weeks so many comedies had been played, and where the secret tragedy of many thwarted passions had begun, they examined each other for the last time, and felt they were forever parted by an undying hatred. "Calyste remains to you," said Beatrix, looking into Camille's eyes; "but I am fixed in his heart, and no woman can ever drive me out of it." Beatrix. 265 B Camille replied, with an inimitable tone of irony that struck the marquise to the heart, in the famous words of Mazarin's niece to Louis XIV., — "You reign, you love, and you depart! " Neither Camille nor Beatrix was conscious during this sharp and bitter scene of the absence of Conti and Calyste. The composer had remained at table with his rival, begging him to keep him company in finishing a bottle of champagne. " We have something to say to each other, " added Conti, to prevent all refusal on the part of Calyste. Placed as they both were, it was impossible for the young Breton to refuse this challenge. "My dear friend," said the composer, in his most caressing voice, as soon as the poor lad had drunk a couple of glasses of champagne, *'we are both good fellows, and we can speak to each other frankly. I have not come here suspiciously. Beatrix loves me," — this with a gesture of the utmost self-conceit — *'but the truth is, I have ceased to love her. I am not here to carry her away with me, but to break off our relations, and to leave her the honors of the rup- ture. You are young; you don't yet know how use- ful it is to appear to be the victim when you are really . the executioner. Young men spit fire and flame ; they leave a woman with noise and fury; they often de- spise her, and they make her hate them. But wise men do as I am doing; they get themselve.s dismissed, assuming a mortified air, which leav^ regret in the woman's heart and also a sense of her superiority. You don't yet know, luckily for^^you, how hampered men often are in their careerMby the rash promises 266 Beatrix. which women are silly enough to accept when gallantry obliges us to make nooses to catch our happiness. We swear eternal faithfulness, and declare that we desire to pass our lives with them, and seem to await a husband's death . impatiently. Let him die, and there are some provincial women obtuse or silly or malicious enough to say: 'Here am I, free at last.' The spent ball suddenly comes to life again, and falls plumb in the midst of our finest triumphs or our most carefully planned happiness. I have seen that you love Beatrix. I leave her therefore in a position where she loses nothing of her precious majesty; she will certainly coquet with you, if only to tease and annoy that angel of a Camille Maupin. Well, my dear fellow, take her, love her, you '11 do me a great service ; I want her to turn against me. I have been afraid of her pride and her virtue. Perhaps, in spite of my approval of the matter, it may take some time to effect this chassez-croissez. On such occasions the wisest plan is to take no step at all. I did, just now, as we walked about the lawn, attempt to let her see that I knew all, and was ready to congratulate her on her new happiness. Well, she was furious! At this moment I am desperately in love with the youngest and handsomest of our prima-donnas, . Mademoiselle Falcon of the Grand Opera. I think of marrying her ; yes, I have got as far as that. When you come to Paris you will see that I have changed a marquise for a queen." Calyste, whose candid face revealed his satisfac- tion, admitted his love for Beatrix, which was all that Conti wanted to discover. There is no man 'in the Beatrix, 267 world, however blase or depraved he may be, whose love will not flame up again the moment he sees it threatened by a rival. He may wish to leave a woman, but he will never willingly let her leave him. When a pair of lovers get to this extremity, both the man and the woman strive for priority of action, so deep is the wound to their vanity. Questioned by the composer, Calyste related all that had happened during the last three weeks at Les Touches, delighted to find that Conti, who concealed his fury under an appearance of charming good-humor, took it all in good part. *'Come, let us go upstairs," said the latter. "Women are so distrustful; those two will wonder how we can sit here together without tearing each other's hair out; they are even capable of coming down to listen. I '11 serve you faithfully, my dear boy. You '11 see me rough and jealous with the marquise; I shall seem to suspect her; there's no better way to drive a woman to betray you. You will be happy, and I shall be free. Seem to pity that angel for belonging to a man without delicacy ; show her a tear — for you can weep, you are still young. I, alas! can weep no more; and that's a great advan- tage lost." Calyste and Conti went up to Camille's salon. The composer, begged by his young rival to sing, gave them that greatest of musical masterpieces viewed as execution, the famous ''^Fria che spunti V aurora^" which Rubiui himself never attempted without trem- bling, and which had often been Conti's triumph. Never was his singing more extraordinary than on 268 BSatrix. this occasion, when so many feelings were contending in his breast. Calyste was in ecstasy. As Conti sang the first words of the cavatina, he looked intently at the marquise, giving to those words a cruel signifi- cation which was fully understood. Camille, who accompanied him, guessed the order thus conveyed, which bowed the head of the luckless Beatrix. She looked at Calyste, and felt sure that the youth had fallen into some trap in spite of her advice. This conviction became certainty when the evidently happy Breton came up to bid Beatrix good-night, kissing her hand, and pressing it with a little air of happy confidence. By the time Calyste had reached Guerande, the ser- vants were packing Conti' s travelling-carriage, and "by dawn," as the song had said, the composer was carrying Beatrix away with Camille 's horses to the first relay. The morning twilight enabled Madame de Rochefide to see Guerande, its towers, whitened by the dawn, shining out upon the still dark sky. Melancholy thoughts possessed her; she was leaving there one of the sweetest flowers of all her life, — a pure love, such as a young girl dreams of; the only true love she had ever known or was ever to conceive of. The woman of the world obeyed the laws of the world; she sacrificed love to their demands just as many women sacrifice it to religion or to duty. Some- times mere pride can rise in acts as high as virtue. Read thus, this history is that of many women. The next morning Calyste went to Les Touches about mid-day. When he reached the spot from which, the day before, he had seen Beatrix watching Beatrix. 269 for him at the window he saw Camille, who instantly ran down to him. She met him at the foot of the staircase and told the cruel truth in one word, — ^'Gone!" ''Beatrix?" asked Calyste, thunderstruck. "You have been duped by Conti; you told me nothing, and I could do nothing for you." She led the poor fellow to her little salon, where he flung himself on the divan where he had so often seen the marquise, and burst into tears. Felicitd smoked her hookah and said nothing, knowing well that no words or thoughts are capable of arresting the first anguish of such pain, which is always deaf and dumb. Calyste, unable even to think, much less to choose a course, sat there all day in a state of complete tor- pidity. Just before dinner was served, Camille tried to say a few words, after begging him, very earnestly, to listen to her. "Friend," she said, "you caused me the bitterest suffering, and I had not, like you, a beautiful young life before me in which to heal myself. For me, life has no longer any spring, nor my soul a love. So, to find consolation, I have had to look above. Here, in this room, the day before Beatrix came here, I drew you her portrait; I did not do her injustice, or you might have thought me jealous. T wanted you to know her as she is, for that would have kept you safe. Listen now to the full truth. Madame de Rochefide is wholly unworthy of you. The scandal of her fall was not necessary; she did the thing deliberately in order to play a part in the eyes of society. She is one of those women who prefer the celebrity of a 270 Beatrix. scandal to tranquil happiness ; they fly in the face of society to obtain the fatal alms of a rebuke; they desire to be talked about at any cost. Beatrix was eaten up with vanity. Her fortune and her wit had not given her the feminine royalty that she craved; they had not enabled her to reign supreme over a salon. She then bethought herself of seeking the celebrity of the Duchesse de Langeais and the Vicom- tesse de Beauseant. But the world, after all, is just; it gives the homage of its interest to real feelings only. Beatrix playing comedy was judged to be a second-rate actress. There was no reason whatever for her flight; the sword of Damocles was not sus- pended over her head; she is neither sincere, nor loving, nor tender; if she were, would she have gone away with Conti this morning? " Camille talked long and eloquently; but this last effort to open Calyste's eyes was useless, and she said no more when he expressed to her by a gesture his absolute belief in Beatrix. She forced him to come down into the dining-room and sit there while she dined ; though he himself was unable to swallow food. It is only during extreme youth that these contractions of the bodily functions occur. Later, the organs have acquired, as it were, fixed habits, and are hardened. The reaction of the mental and moral system upon the physical is not enough to produce a mortal illness unless the physical system retains its primitive purity. A man resists the violent grief that kills a youth, less by the greater weakness of his affections than by the greater strength of his organs. Beatrix. 271 Therefore Mademoiselle des Touches was greatly alarmed by the calm, resigned attitude which Calyste took after his first burst of tears had subsided. Before he left her, he asked permission to go into Beatrix's bedroom, where he had seen her on the night of her illness, and there he laid his head on the pillow where hers had lain. "I am committing follies," he. said, grasping Camille's hand, and bidding her good-night in deep dejection. He returned home, found the usual company at mouche^ and passed the remainder of the evening sit- ting beside his mother. The rector, the Chevalier du Halga, and Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel all knew of Madame de Roche fide* s departure, and were rejoicing in it. Calyste would now return to them; and all three watched him cautiously, observing his taci- turnity. No one in that old manor-house was capable of imagining the result of a first love, the love of youth in a heart so simple and so true as that of Calyste. 272 Beatrix, XVI. SICKNESS UNTO DEATH. For several days Calyste went regularly to Les Touches. He paced round and round the lawn, where he had sometimes walked with Beatrix on his arm. He often went to Croisic to stand upon that fateful rock, or lie for hours in the bush of box; for, by studying the footholds on the sides of the fissure, he had found a means of getting up and down. These solitary trips, his silence, his gravity, made his mother very anxious. After about two weeks, during which time this conduct, like that of a caged animal, lasted, this poor lover, caged in his despair, ceased to cross the bay; he had scarcely strength enough to drag himself along the road from Guerande to the spot where he had seen Beatrix watching from her window. The family, delighted at the departure of ''those Parisians," to use a term of the provinces, saw nothing fatal or diseased about the lad. The two old maids and the rector, pursuing their scheme, had kept Charlotte de Kergarouet, who nightly played off her little coquetries on Calyste, obtaining in return nothing better than advice in playing mouche. During these long evenings, Calyste sat between his mother and the little Breton girl, observed by the rector and Charlotte's aunt, who discussed his greater or less Beatrix, 273 depression as they walked home together. Their simple minds mistook the lethargic indifference of the hapless youth for submission to their plans. One I'vening when Calyste, wearied out, went off suddenly to bed, the players dropped their cards upon the table and looked at each other as the young man closed the door of his chamber. One and all had listened to the sound of his receding steps with anxiety. "Something is the matter with Calyste," said the baroness, wiping her eyes. '* Nothing is the matter," replied Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel; *'but you should marry him at once." *'Do you believe that marriage would divert his mind ? " asked the chevalier. Charlotte looked reprovingly at Monsieur du Halga, whom she now began to think ill-mannered, depraved, immoral, without religion, and very ridiculous about his dog, — opinions which her aunt, defending the old sailor, combated. ''I shall lecture Calyste to-morrow morning," said the baron, whom the others had thought asleep. ''I do not wish to go out of this world without seeing my grandson, a little pink and white Guenic with a Breton cap on his head." '^Calyste doesn't say a word," said old Zephirine, ''and there's no making out what's the matter with him. He doesn't eat; I don't see what he lives on. If he gets his meals at Les Touches, the devil's kitchen doesn't nourish him." **IIe is in love," said the chevalier, risking that opinion very timidly. 18 274 Beatrix. "Come, come, old gray-beard, you Ve forgotten to put in your stake ! " cried Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel. ''When you begin to think of your young days you forget everything." ''Come to breakfast to-morrow," said old Zephirine to her friend Jacqueline; "my brother will have had a talk with hie son, and we can settle the matter finally, fine iiail, you know, drives out another." "Not among Bretons," said the chevalier. The next day Calyste saw Charlotte, as she arrived dressed with unusual care, just after the baron had given him, in the dining-room, a discourse on matri- mony, to which he could make no answer. He now knew the ignorance of his father and mother and all their friends ; he had gathered the fruits of the tree of knowledge, and knew himself to be as much isolated as if he did not speak the family language. He merely requested his father to give him a few days* grace. The old baron rubbed his hands with joy, and gave fresh life to the baroness by whispering in her ear what he called the good news. Breakfast was gay; Charlotte, to whom the baron had given a hint, was sparkling. After the meal was over, Calyste went cut upon the portico leading to the garden, followed by Charlotte; he gave her his arm and led her to the grotto. Their parents and friends were at the window, looking at them with a species of tenderness. Presently Charlotte, uneasy at her suitor's silence, looked back and saw them, which gave her an opportunity of beginning the conversation by saying to Calyste, — "They are watching us." Beatrix, 275 "They cannot hear us," he replied. "True; but they see us." "Let us sit down, Charlotte," replied Calyste, gently taking her hand. "Is it true that your banner used formerly to float from that twisted column?" asked Charlotte, with a sense that the house was already hers ; how comfort- able she should be there! what a happy sort of life! "You will make some changes inside the house, won't you, Calyste?" she said. "I shall not have time, my dear Charlotte," said the young man, taking her hands and kissing them. "I am going now to tell you my secret. I love too well a person whom you have seen, and who loves me, to be able to make the happiness of any other woman; though I know that from our childhood you and I have been destined for each other by our friends." "But she is married, Calyste." "I shall wait," replied the young man. "And I, too," said Charlotte, her eyes filling with tears. "You cannot long love a woman like that, who, they say, has gone off with a singer — " "Marry, my dear Charlotte," said Calyste, interrup- ting her. "With the fortune your aunt intends to give you, which is enormous for Brittany, you can choose some better man than I. You could marry a titled man. I have brought you here, not to tell you what you already knew, but to entreat you, in the name of our childish friendship, to take this rupture upon yourself, and say that you have rejected me. Say that you do not wish to marry a man whose heart 276 Beatrix. is not free; and thus I shall be spared at least the sense that I have done you public wrong. You do not know, Charlotte, how heavy a burden life now is to me. I cannot bear the slightest struggle; I am weakened like a man whose vital spark is gone, whose soul has left him. If it were not for the grief I should cause my mother, I would have flung myself before now into the sea; I have not returned to the rocks at Croisic since the day that temptation became almost irresistible. Do not speak of this to any one. Good- bye, Charlotte." He took the young girl's head and kissed her hair; then he left the garden by the postern-gate and fled to Les Touches, where he stayed near Camille till past midnight. On returning home, at one in the morning, he found his mother awaiting him with her worsted- work. He entered softly, clasped her hand in his, and said, — "Is Charlotte gone?" "She goes to-morrow, with her aunt, in despair, both of them," answered the baroness. "Come to Ireland with me, my Calyste." "Many a time I have thought of flying there — " "Ah! " cried the baroness. "With Beatrix," he added. Some days after Charlotte's departure, Calyste joined the Chevalier du Halga in his daily promenade on the mall with his little dog. They sat down in the sun- shine on a bench, where the young man's eyes could wander from the vanes of Les Touches to the rocks of Croisic, against which the waves were playing and dashing their white foam. Calyste was thin and Beatrix, 277 pale; his strength was diminishing, and he was con- scious at times of little shudders at regular intervals, denoting fever. His eyes, surrounded by dark circles, had that singular brilliancy which a fixed idea gives to the eyes of hermits and solitary souls, or the ardor of contest to those of the strong fighters of our present civilization. The chevalier was the only person with whom he could exchange a few ideas. He had divined in that old man an apostle of his own religion; he recognized in his soul the vestiges of an eternal love. *'Have you loved many women in your life?" he asked him on the second occasion, when, as seamen say, they sailed in company along the mall. "Only one," replied Du Halga. "Was she free?" "No," exclaimed the chevalier. "Ah! how I suf- fered ! She was the wife of my best friend, my pro- tector, my chief — but we loved each other so ! " "Did she love you?" said Calyste. "Passionately," replied the chevalier, with a fer- vency not usual with him. "You were happy?" "Until her death; she died at the age of forty- nine, during the emigration, at St. Petersburg, the climate of which killed her. She must be very cold in her coffin. I have often thought of going there to fetch her, and lay her in our dear Brittany, near to me! But she lies in my heart." The chevalier brushed away his tears. Calyste took his hand and pressed it. "I care for this little dog more than for life itself," said the old man, pointing to Thisbe. "The little 278 Beatrix. darling is precisely like the one she held on her knees and stroked with her beautiful hands. I never look at Thisbe but what I see the hands of Madame TAmirale." "Did you see Madame de Rochefide?" asked Calyste. "No," replied the chevalier. "It is sixty-eight years since I have looked at any woman with attention — except your mother, who has something of Madame TAmirale's complexion." Three days later, the chevalier said to Calyste, on the mall, — "My child, I have a hundred and forty louis laid by. When you know where Madame de Rochefide is, come and get them and follow her." Calyste thanked the old man, whose existence he envied. But now, from day to day, he grew morose ; he seemed to love no one; all things hurt him; he was gentle and kind to his mother only. The baroness watched with ever increasing anxiety the progress of his madness ; she alone was able, by force of prayer and entreaty, to make him swallow food. Toward the end of October the sick lad ceased to go even to the mall in search of the chevalier, who now came vainly to the house to tempt him out with the coaxing wisdom of an old man. "We can talk of Madame de Rochefide," he would say. "I '11 tell you my first adventure." "Your son is very ill," he said privately to the baroness, on the day he became convinced that all such efforts were useless. Calyste replied to questions about his health that he Beatrix. 279 wrs perfectly well ; but like all young victims of mel- ancholy, he took pleasure in the thought of death. He no longer left the house, but sat in the garden on a bench, wanning himself in the pale and tepid sun- shine, alone with his one thought, and avoiding all companionship. Soon after the day when Calyste ceased to go even to Les Touches, Felicite requested the rector of Gue- rande to come and see her. The assiduity with which the Abbe Grimont called every morning at Les Touches, and sometimes dined there, became the great topic of the town ; it was talked of all over the region, and even reached Nantes. Nevertheless, the rector never missed a single evening at the hotel du Gueuic, where desolation reigned. Masters and servants were all afflicted at Calyste's increasing weakness, though none of them thought him in dan- ger; how could it ever enter the minds of these good people that youth might die of love ? Even the chev- alier had no example of such a death among his memo- ries of life and travel. They attributed Calyste's thinness to want of food. His mother implored him to eat. Calyste endeavored to conquer his repugnance in order to comfort her; but nourishment taken against his will served only to increase the slow fever which was now consuming the beautiful young life. During the last days of October the cherished child of the house could no longer mount the stairs to his chamber, and his bed was placed in the lower hall, where he was surrounded at all hours by his family. They sent at last for the Gu^rande physician, who broke the fever with quinine and reduced it in a few 280 Beatrix. days, ordering Calyste to take exercise, and find something to amuse him. The baron, on this, came out of his apathy and recovered a little of his old strength; he grew younger as his son seemed to age. AV ith Calyste, Gasselin, and his two fine dogs, he started for the forest, and for some days all three hunted. Calyste obeyed his father and went where he was told, from forest to forest, visiting friends and acqaintances in the neighboring chateaus. But the youth had no spirit or gayety ; nothing brought a smile to his face ; his livid and contracted features betrayed an utterly passive being. The baron, worn out at last by fatigue consequent on this spasm of exertion, was forced to return home, bringing Calyste in a state of exhaustion almost equal to his own. For several days after their return both father and son were so dangerously ill that the family were forced to send, at the request of the Guerande physician himself, for two of the best doctors in Nantes. The baron had received a fatal shock on realizing the change now so visible in Calyste. With that lucidity of mind which nature gives to the dying, he trembled at the thought that his race was about to perish. He said no word, but he clasped his hands and prayed to God as he sat in his chair, from which his weakness now prevented him from rising. The father's face was turned toward the bed where the son lay, and he looked at him almost incessantly. At the least motion Calyste made, a singular commotion stirred within him, as if the flame of his own life were flickering. The baroness no longer left the room where Zephirine sat knitting in the chimney-corner in Beatrix. 281 horrible uneasiness. Demands were made upon the old woman for wood, father and son both suffering from the cold, and for supplies and provisions, so that, finally, not being agile enough to supply these wants, she had given her precious keys to Mariotte. But she insisted on knowing everything; she questioned Mariotte and her sister-in-law incessantly, asking in a low voice to be told, over and over again, the state of her brother and nephew. One night, when father and son were dozing. Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel told her that she must resign herself to the death of her brother, whose pallid face was now the color of wax. The old woman dropped her knitting, fumbled in her pocket for a while, and at length drew out an old chaplet of black wood, on which she began to pray with a fervor which gave to her old and withered face a splendor so vigorous that the other old woman imi- tated her friend, and then all present, on a sign from the rector, joined in the spiritual uplifting of Mademoiselle du Guenic. "Alas! I prayed to God," said the baroness, remem- bering her prayer after reading the fatal letter written by Calyste, "and he did not hear me." "Perhaps it would be well," said the rector, "if we begged Mademoiselle des Touches to come and see Calyste." "She!" cried old Zephirine, "the author of all our misery! she who has turned him from his family, who has taken him from us, led him to read impious books, taught him an heretical language ! Let her be accursed, and may God never pardon her! She has destroyed the du Gunnies! " m 282 Be'atrix. "She may perhaps restore them," said the rector, in a gentle voice. "Mademoiselle des Touches is a saintly woman; I am her surety for that. She has none but good intentions to Calyste. May she only be enabled to carry them out." " Let me know the day when she sets foot in this house, that I may go out of it," cried the old woman passionately. "She has killed both father and son. Do you think I don't hear death in Calyste's voice? he is so feeble now that he has barely strength to whisper." It was at this moment that the three doctors arrived. They plied Calyste with questions; but as for his father, the examination was short; they were surprised that he still lived on. The Guerande doctor calmly told the baroness that as to Calyste, it would probably be best to take him to Paris and consult the most experienced physicians, for it would cost over a hun- dred louis to bring one down. "People die of something, but not of love," said Mademoiselle de Pen-HoeL "Alas! whatever be the cause, Calyste is dying," said the baroness. " I see all the symptoms of con- sumption, that most horrible disease of my country, about him." "Calyste dying! " said the baron, opening his eyes, from which rolled two large tears which slowly made their way, delayed by wrinkles, along his cheeks, — the only tears he had probably ever shed in all his life. Suddenly he rose to his feet, walked the few steps to his son's bedside, took his hand, and looked earnestly at him. - Beatrix, 283 *'What 18 it you want, father?" said Calyste. "That you should live! " cried the baron. "1 cannot live without Beatrix," replied Calyste. The old man dropped into a chair. **0h! where could we get the hundred louis to bring doctors from Paris? There is still time," cried the baroness. "A hundred louis!*' cried Zephirine; *'will that save him ? " Without waiting for her sister-in-law's reply, the old maid ran her hands through the placket-holes of her gown, unfastened the petticoat beneath it, which gave forth a heavy sound as it dropped to the floor. She knew so well the places where she had sewn in her louis that she now ripped them out with the rapidity of magic. The gold pieces rang as they fell, one by one, into her lap. The old Pen-Hoel gazed at this performance in stupefied amazement. "But they '11 see you ! " she whispered in her friend's ear. "Thirty-seven," answered Zephirine, continuing to count. "Every one will know how much you have." "Forty-two." "Double louis! all new! How did you get them, you who can't see clearly?" "I felt them. Here 's one hundred and four louts,** cried Zephirine. "Is that enough?" "What is all this?" asked the Chevalier du Halga, who now came in, unable to understand the attitude of his old blind friend, holding out her petticoat which was full of gold coins. 284 Beatrix, Mademoiselle Pen-Hoel explained. "I knew it," said the chevalier, "and I have come to bring a hundred and forty louis which I have been holding at Calyste's disposition, as he knows very well." The chevalier drew the rouleaux from his pocket and showed them. Mariotte, seeing such wealth, sent Gasselin to lock the doors. "Gold will not give him health," said the baroness, weeping. "But it can take him to Paris, where he can find her. Come, Calyste." "Yes," cried Calyste, springing up, "I will go." "He will live," said the baron, in a shaking voice; "and I can die — send for the rector! " The words cast terror on all present. Calyste, seeing the mortal paleness on his father's face, for the old man was exhausted by the cruel emotions of the scene, came to his father's side. The rector, after hearing the report of the doctors, had gone to Made- moiselle des Touches, intending to bring her back with him to Calyste, for in proportion as the worthy man had formerly detested her, he now admired her, and protected her as a shepherd protects the most precious of his flock. When the news of the baron's approaching end be- came known in Guerande, a crowd gathered in the street and lane; the peasants, the paludiers, and the servants knelt in the court-yard while the rector admin- istered the last sacraments to the old Breton warrior. The whole town was agitated by the news that the father was dying beside his half-dying son. The Beatrix. 285 probable extinction of this old Breton race was felt to be a public calamity. The solemn ceremony affected Calyste deeply. His filial sorrow silenced for a moment the anguish of his love. During the last hour of the glorious old de- fender of the monarchy, he knelt beside him, watch- ing the coming on of death. The old man died in his chair in presence of the assembled family. *'I die faithful to God and his religion," he said. "My God! as the reward of my efforts grant that Calyste may live ! " ''I shall live, father; and I will obey you," said the young man. *'If you wish to make my death as happy as Fanny has made my life, swear to me to maiTy." *'I promise it, father." It was a touching sight to see Calyste, or rather his shadow, leaning on the arm of the old Chevalier du Halga — a spectre leading a shade — and following the baron's coffin as chief mourner. The church and the little square were crowded with the country people coming in to the funeral from a circuit of thirty miles. But the baroness and Z^phirine soon saw that, in spite of his intention to obey his father's wishes, Calyste was falling back into a condition of fatal stupor. On the day when the family put on their mourning, the baroness took her son to a bench in the garden and questioned him closely. Calyste answered gently and submissively, but his answers only proved to her the despair of his soul. *' Mother," he said, "there is no life in me. What 286 Beatrix, I eat does not feed me ; the air that enters my lungs does not refresh me; the sun feels cold; it seems to you to light that front of the house, and show you the old carvings bathed in its beams, but to me it is all a blur, a mist. If Beatrix were here, it would be dazzling. There is but one only thing left in this world that keeps its shape and color to my eyes, — this flower, this foliage," he added, drawing from his breast the withered bunch the marquise had give him at Croisic. The baroness dared not say more. Her son's answer seemed to her more indicative of madness than his silence of grief. She saw no hope, no light in the darkness that surrounded them. The baron's last hours and death had prevented the rector from bringing Mademoiselle des Touches to Calyste, as he seemed bent on doing, for reasons which he did not reveal. But on this day, while mother and son still sat on the garden bench, Calyste quivered all over on perceiving Felicite through the opposite windows of the court-yard and garden. She reminded him of Beatrix, and his life revived. It was therefore to Camille that the poor stricken mother owed the first motion of joy that lightened her mourning. "Well, Calyste," said Mademoiselle des Touches, when they met, "I want you to go to Paris with me. We will find Beatrix," she added in a low voice. The pale, thin face of the youth flushed red, and a smile brightened his features. ''Let us go," he said. "We shall save him," said Mademoiselle des Beatrix. 287 Touches to the mother, who pressed her hands and wept for joy. A week after the baron's funeral, Mademoiselle des Touches, the Baronne du Gu^nic and Calyste started for Paris, leaving the household in charge of old Zephirine. 288 Beatria;. XVII. A DEATH : A MARRIAGE. Felicit:6's tender love was preparing for Calyste a prosperous future. Being allied to the family of Grandlieu, the ducal branch of which was ending in five daughters for lack of a male heir, she had written to the Duchesse de Grandlieu, describing Calyste and giving his history, and also stating certain intentions of her own, which were as follows : She had lately sold her house in the rue du Mont-Blanc, for which a party of speculators had given her two millions five hundred thousand francs. Her man of business had since purchased for her a charming new house in the rue de Bourbon for seven hundred thousand francs ; one million she intended to devote to the recovery of the du Guenic estates, and the rest of her fortune she desired to settle upon Sabine de Grandlieu. Felicite had long known the plans of the duke and duchess as to the settlement of their five daughters : the youngest was to marry the Vicomte de Grandlieu, the heir to their ducal title ; Clotilde-Frederique, the second daughter, desired to remain unmarried, in memory of a man she had deeply loved, Lucien de Rubempre, while, at the same time, she did not wish to become a nun like her eldest sister ; two of the remaining sisters were already mar- ried, and the youngest but one, the pretty Sabine, just twent}^ years old, was the only disposable daughter Beatrix. 289 left. It was Sabine on whom F^licite resolved to lay the burden of curing Calyste's passion for Beatrix. During the journey to Paris Mademoiselle des Touches revealed to the baroness these arrangements. The new house in the rue de Bourbon was being deco- rated, and she intended it for tlie home of Sabine and Calyste if her plans succeeded. The party had been invited to stay at the h6tel de Grandlieu, where the baroness was received with all the distinction due to her rank as the wife of a du Guenic and the daughter of a British peer. Mademoi- selle des Touches urged Calyste to see Paris, while she herself made the necessary inquiries about Beatrix (who had disappeared from the world, and was travel- ling abroad), and she took care to throw him into the midst of diversions and amusements of all kinds. The season for balls and fetes was just beginning, and the duchess and her daughters did the honors of Paris to the young Breton, who was insensibly diverted from his own thoughts by the movement and life of the great city. He found some resemblance of mind between* Madame de Rochefide and Sabine de Grandlieu, who was certainly one of the handsomest and most charm- ing girls in Parisian society, and this fancied likeness made him give to her coquetries a willing attention which no other woman could possibly have obtained from him. Sabine herself was greatly pleased with Calyste, and matters went so well that during the winter of 1837 the young Baron du Guenic, whose youth and health had returned to him, listened without repugnance to his mother when she reminded him of the promise made to his dying father and proposed to 19 290 Beatrix. him a marriage with Sabine de Grandlieii. Still, while agreeing to fulfil his promise, he concealed within his soul an indifference to all things, of which the baroness alone was aware, but which she trusted would be con- quered by the pleasures of a happy home. On the day when the Grandlieu family and the baron- ess, accompanied by her relations who came from Eng- land for this occasion, assembled in the grand salon of the hotel de Grandlieu to sign the marriage contract, and Leopold Hannequin, the family notary, explained the preliminaries of that contract before reading it, Calyste, on whose forehead every one present might have noticed clouds, suddenly and curtly refused to accept the benefactions offered him by Mademoiselle des Touches. Did he still count on Felicite's devotion to recover Beatrix? In the midst of the embarrassment and stupefaction of the assembled families, Sabine de Grandieu entered the room and gave him a letter, ex- plaining that Mademoiselle des Touches had requested her to give it to him on this occasion. Calyste turned away, from the company to the em- brasure of a window and read as follows ; — Camille Mawpin to Calyste. Calyste, before I enter my convent cell I am per- mitted to cast a look upon the world I am now to leave for a life of prayer and solitude. That look is to you, who have been the whole world to me in these last months. My voice will reach you, if my calculations do not miscarry, at the moment of a ceremony I am unable to take part in. B4atrix. 291 On the day wbeu you stand before the altar giving your hand and name to a young and charming girl who can love you openly before earth and heaven, I shall be before another altar in a convent at Nantes betrothed forever to him who will neither fail nor betray me. But I do not write to sadden you, — only to entreat you not to hinder by false delicacy the service I have wished to do you since we first met. Do not contest my rights so dearly bought. If love is suflfering, ah ! I have loved you indeed, my Calyste. But feel no remorse ; the only happiness I have known in life I owe to you ; the pangs were caused by my own self. Make me compensation, then, for all those pangs, those sorrows, by causing me an everlasting joy. Let the poor Camille, who is no longer, still be something in the material comfort you enjoy. Dear, let me be like the fragrance of flowers in your life, mingling myself with it unseen and not importunate. To you, Calyste, I shall owe my eternal happiness; will you not acoept a few paltry and fleeting benefits from me ? Surely you will not be wanting in generos- ity ? Do you not see in this the last message of a re- nounced love? Calyste, the world without you had nothing more for me ; you made it the most awful of solitudes ; and you have thus brought Camille Maup?n, the unbeliever, the writer of books, which I am soon to repudiate solemnly — you have cast her, daring and pei-verted, bound hand and foot, before God. I am to-day what I might have been, what I was born to be, — innocent, and a child. I have washed my robes in the tears of repentance; I can come 292 Beatrix. before the altar whither my guardian angel, my beloved Calyste, has led me. With what tender com- fort I give you that name, which the step I now take sanctifies. I love you without self-seeking, as a mother' loves her son, as the Church loves her children. I can pray for you and for yours without one thought or wish except for your happiness. Ah ! if you only knew the sublime tranquillity in which 1 live, now that I have risen in thought above all petty earthly inter- ests, and how precious is the thought of doing (as your noble motto says) our duty, you would enter your beautiful new life with unfaltering step and never a glance behind you or about you. Above all, my earnest prayer to you is that you be faithful to your- self and to those belonging to you. Dear, society, in which you are to live, cannot exist without the religion of duty, and you will terribly mistake it, as I mistook it, if you allow yourself to yield to passion and to fancy, as I did. Woman is the equal of man only in making her life a continual offering, as that of man is a perpetual action ; my life has been, on the contrary, one long egotism. It may be that God placed you, toward evening, by the door of my house, as a messenger from himself, bearing my punishment and my pardon. Heed this confession of a woman to whom fame has been like a pharos, warning her of the only true path. Be wise, be noble ; sacrifice your fancy to your duties, as head of your race, as husband, as father. Raise the fallen standard of the old du Guenics; show to this century of irreligion and want of principle what a gentleman is in all his grandeur and his honor. Dear child of my soul, let me play the part of a mother Beatrix. 293 to you ; your own mother will not be jealous of this voice from a tomb, these hands uplifted to heaven, imploring blessings on you. To-day, more than ever, does rank and nobility need fortune. Calyste, accept a part of mine, and make a worthy use of it. It is not a gift; it is a trust I place in your hands. I have thought more of your children and of your old Breton house than of you in offering you the profits which time has brought to my property in Paris. "Let us now sign the contract," said the young baron, returning to the assembled company. The Abb^ Grimont, to whom the honor of the con- version of this celebrated woman was attributed, became, soon after, vicar-general of the diocese. The following week, after the marriage ceremony, which, according to the custom of many families of the faubourg Saint-Germain, was celebrated at seven in the morning at the church of Saint Thomas d'Aquin, Calyste and Sabine got into their pretty travelling- carriage, amid the tears, embraces, and congratula- tions of a score of friends, collected under the awning of the hotel de Grandlieu. The congratulations came from the four witnesses, and the men present; the tears were in the eyes of the Duchesse de Grandlieu and her daughter Clotilde, who both trembled under the weight of the same thought, — '*She is launched upon the sea of life! Poor Sabine ! at the mercy of a man who does not marry entirely of his own free will." Marriage is not wholly made up of pleasures, — as fugitive in that relation as in all others; it Involves 29J: Beatrix. compatibility of temper, physical sympathies, har- monies of character, which make of that social neces- sity an eternal problem. Marriageable daughters, as well as mothers, know the terms as well as the dangers of this lottery ; and that is why women weep at a wedding while men smile ; men believe that they risk nothing, while women know, or very nearly know, what they risk. In another carriage, which preceded the married pair, was the Baronne du Guenic, to whom the duchess had said at parting, — "You are a mother, though you have only had one son ; try to take my place to my dear Sabine. " On the box of the bridal carriage sat a chasseur^ who acted as courier, and in the rumble were two waiting-maids. The four postilions dressed in their finest uniforms, for each carriage was drawn by four horses, appeared with bouquets on their breasts and ribbons on their hats, which the Due de Grandlieu had the utmost difficulty in making them relinquish, even by bribing them with money. The French pos- tilion is eminently intelligent, but he likes his fun. These fellows took their bribes and replaced their ribbons at the barrier "Well, good-bye, Sabine," said the duchess; "re- member your promise ; write to me often. Calyste, I say nothing more to you, but you understand me." Clotilde, leaning on the youngest sister Athenais, who was smiling to the Vicomte de Grandlieu, cast a reflecting look through her tears at the bride, and followed the carriage with her eyes as it disappeared to the clacking of four whips, more noisy than the Beatrix, 295 shots of a pistol gallery. In a few minutes the gay convoy had reached the esplanade of the Invalides, the barrier of Passy by the quay of the Pont d'lena, and were fairly on the high-road to Brittany. Is it not a singular thing that the artisans of Switzerland and Germany, and the great families of France and England should, one and all, follow the custom of setting out 'on a journey after the marriage ceremony? The great people shut themselves in a box which rolls along; the little people gayly tramp the roads, sitting down in the woods, banqueting at the inns, as long as their joy, or rather their money lasts. A moralist is puzzled to decide on which side is the finer sense of modesty, — that which hides from the public eye and inaugurates the domestic hearth and bed in private, as do the worthy burghers of all lands, or that which withdraws from the family and exhibits itself publicly on the high-roads and in face of strangers. One would think that delicate souls might desire solitude and seek to escape both the world and their family. The love which begins a marriage is a pearl, a diamond, a jewel cut by the choicest of arts, a treasure to bury in the depths of the soul. Who can relate a honeymoon, unless it be the bride? How many women reading this history will admit to themselves that this period of uncertain duration is the forecast of conjugal life? The first three letters of Sabine to her mother will depict a situation not sur- prising to some young brides and to many old women. All those who find themselves the sick-nurses, so to speak, of a husband's heart, do not, as Sabine did, 296 Beatrix. discover this at once. But young girls of the faubourg Saint-Germain, if intelligent, are women in mind. Before marriage, they have received from their mothers and the world they live in the baptism of good man= ners; though women of rank, anxious to hand down their traditions, do not always see the bearing of their own lessons when they say to their daughters: "That is a motion that must not be made;" ''Never laugh at such things;" ''No lady ever flings herself on a sofa; she sits down quietly;" "Pray give up such detestable ways;" "My dear, that is a thing which is never done," etc. Many bourgeois critics unjustly deny the inno- cence and virtue of young girls who, like Sabine, are truly virgin at heart, improved by the training of their minds, by the habit of noble bearing, by natural good taste, while, from the age of sixteen, they have learned how to use their opera-glasses. Sabine was a girl of this school, which was also that of Mademoiselle de Chaulieu. This inborn sense of the fitness of things, these gifts of race made Sabine de Grandlieu as inter- esting a young woman as the heroine of the "Memoirs of two young Married Women." Her letters to her mother during the honeymoon, of which we here give three or four, will show the qualities of her mind and temperament. GuERANDE, April, 1838. To Madame la Duchesse de Grandlieu : Dear Mamma, — You will understand why I did not write to you during the journey, — our wits are then like wheels. Here I am, for the last two days, in Beatrix, 207 the depths of Brittany, at the h6tel du Gu^nic, — a house as covered with carving as a sandal-wood box. In spite of the affectionate devotion of Calyste's family, I feel a keen desire to fly to you, to tell you many things which can only be trusted to a mother. Calyste married, dear mamma, with a great sorrow in his heart. We all knew that, and you did not hide from me the difficulties of my position; but alas! they are greater than you thought. Ah! my dear mother, what experience we acquire in the short space of a few days — I might even say a few hours ! All your counsels have proved fruitless ; you will see why from one sentence : I love Calyste as if he were not my husband, — that is to say, if I were man-ied to another, and were travelling with Calyste, I should love Calyste and hate my husband. Now think of a man beloved so completely, invol- untarily, absolutely, and all the other adverbs you may choose to employ, and you will see that my ser- vitude is established in spite of your good advice. You told me to be grand, noble, dignified, and self- respecting in order to obtain from Calyste the feelings that are never subject to the chances and . changes of life, — esteem, honor, and the considera- tion which sanctifies a woman in the bosom of her family. I remember how you blamed, I dare say justly, the young women of the present day, who, under pretext of living happily with their husbands, begin by compliance, flattery, familiarity, an abandonment, you called it, a little too wanton (a word I did not fully understand), all of which, if I must believe you, are 298 Beatrix, relays that lead rapidly to indifiference and possibly to contempt. ''Remember that you are a Grandlieu! ** yes, I remember that yon told me all that — But oh! that advice, filled with the maternal elo- quence of a female Daedalus has had the fate of all things mythological. Dear, beloved mother, could you ever have supposed it possible that I should begin by the catastrophe which, according to you, ends the honeymoon of the young women of the present day ? When Calyste and I were fairly alone in the travel- ling carriage, we felt rather foolish in each other's company, understanding the importance of the first word, the first look ; and we both, bewildered by the solemnity, looked out of our respective windows. It became so ridiculous that when we reached the barrier monsieur began, in a rather troubled tone of voice, a set discourse, prepared, no doubt, like other improvi- sations, to which I listened with a beating heart, and which I take the liberty of here abridging. "My dear Sabine," he said, "I want you to be happy, and, above all, do I wish you to be happy in your own way. Therefore, in the situation in which we are, instead of deceiving ourselves mutually about our characters and our feelings by noble compliances, let us endeavor to be to each other at once what we should be years hence. Think always that you have a friend and a brother in me, as I shall feel I have a sister and a friend in you." Though it was all said with the utmost delicacy, I found nothing in this first conjugal love-speech which responded to the feelings in my soul, and I remained pensive after replying that I was animated by the same Beatrix. . 299 sentiments. After this declaration of our rights to mutual coldness, we talked of weather, relays, and scenery in the most charming manner, — I with rather a forced little laugh, he absent-mindedly. At last, as we were leaving Versailles, I turned to Calyste — whom I called my dear Calyste, and he called me my dear Sabine — and asked him plainly to tell me the events which had led him to the point of death, and to which I was aware that I owed the happiness of being his wife. He hesitated long. In fact, my request gave rise to a little argument oetween us, which lasted through three relays, — I endeavoring to maintain the part of an obstinate girl, and trying to sulk; he debating within himself the question which the newspapers used to put to Charles X. : *'Must the king yield or not?'* At last, after passing Verneuil, and exchanging oaths enough to satisfy three dynas- ties never to reproach him for his folly, and never to treat him coldly, etc., etc., he related to me his love for Madame de Rochefide. "I do not wish," he said, in conclusion, "to have any secrets between us." Poor, dear Calyste, it seems, was ignorant that his friend. Mademoiselle des Touches, and you had thought it right to tell me the truth. Well, mother, — for I can tell all to a mother as tender as you, — I was deeply hurt by perceiving that he had yielded less to my request than to his own desire to talk of that strange passion. Do you blame me, darling mother, for having wished to reconnoitre the extent of the grief, the open wound of the heart of which you warned me? " 300 . Beatrix. So, eight hours after receiving the rector's blessing at Saint-Thomas d'Aquin, your Sabine was in the rather false position of a young wife listening to a confidence, from the very lips of her husband, of his misplaced love for an unworthy rival. Yes, there I was, in the drama of a young woman learning, officially, as it were, that she owed her marriage to the disdainful rejection of an old and faded beauty ! Still, I gained what I sought. ''What was that?" you will ask. Ah! mother dear, I have seen too much of love going on around me not to know how to put a little of it into practice. Well, Calyste ended the poem of his miseries with the warnjest protestations of an absolute forgetting of what he called his madness. All kinds of affirmations have to be signed, you know. The happy unhappy one took my hand, car- ried it to his lips, and, after that, he kept it for a long time clasped in his own. A declaration followed. That one seemed to me more comformable than the first to the demands of our new condition, though our lips said never a word. Perhaps I owed it to the vigorous indignation I felt and showed at the bad taste of a woman foolish enough not to love my beau- tiful, my glorious Calyste. They are calling me to play a game of cards, which I do not yet understand. I will finish my letter to- morrow. To leave you at this moment to make a fifth at mouche (that is the name of the game) can only 1)6 done in the depths of Brittany — Adieu. Your Sabine. Beatrix. 301 Gu6rande, May, 1838. I TAKE up my Odyssey. On the third day your children no longer used the ceremonious ''you;" they thee'd and thou'd each other like lovers. My mother- in-law, enchanted to see us so happy, is trying to take your place to me, dear mother, and, as often happens when people play a part to efface other memories, she has been so charming that she is, almost^ you to me. I think she has guessed the heroism of my conduct, for at the beginning of our journey she tried to hide her anxiety with such care that it was visible from excessive precaution. When I saw the towers of Guerande rising in the distance, I whispered in the ear of your son-in-law, "Have you really forgotten her?' My husband, now become my angel^ can't know anything, I think, about sincere and simple love, for the words made him wild with happiness. Still, I think the desire to put Ma- dame de Rochefide forever out of his mind led me too far. But how could I help it? I love, and I am half a Portuguese, — for I am much more like you, mamma, than like my father. Calyste accepts all from me as spoilt children accept things, they think it their right; he is an only child, I remember that. But, between ourselves, I will not give my daughter (if I have any daughters) to an only son. I see a variety of tyrants in an only son. So, mamma, we have rather inverted our parts, and I am the devoted half of the pair. There are dangers, I know, in devotion, though we profit by it; we lose our dignity, for one thing. I feel bound to tell you of the wreck of that semi-virtue. Dignity, after all, is 302 Beatrix. only a screen set up before pride, behind which we rage as we please; but how could I help it? you were not here, and I saw a gulf opening before me. Had I remained upon my dignity, I should have won only the cold joys (or pains) of a sort of brotherhood which would soon have drifted into indifference. What sort of future might that have led to? My devotion has, I know, made me Calyste's slave; but shall I regret it? We shall see. As for the present, I am delighted with it. I love Calyste; I love him absolutely, with the folly of a mother, who thinks that all her son may do is right, even if he tyrannizes a trifle over her. Gu^RANDE, May 15th. Up to the present moment, dear mamma, I find mar- riage a delightful affair. I can spend all my tender- ness on the noblest of men whom a foolish woman disdained for a fiddler, — for that woman evidently was a fool, and a cold fool, the worst kind! I, in my legitimate love, am charitable ; I am curing his wounds while I lay my heart open to incurable ones. Yes, the more I love Calyste, the more I feel that I should die of grief if our present happiness ever ceased. I must tell you how the whole family and the circle which meets at the hotel du Guenic adore me. They are all personages born under tapestries of the highest warp ; in fact, they seem to have stepped from those old tapestries as if to prove that the impossible may exist. Some day, when we are alone together, I will describe to you my Aunt Zephirine, Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, the Chevalier du Halga, the Demoiselles BSatrix, 303 de Kergarouet, and others. They all, even to the two servants, Gasselin and Mariotte (whom I wish they would let me take to Paris), regard me as an angel sent from heaven; they tremble when I speak. Dear people ! they ought to be preserved under glass. My mother-in-law has solemnly installed us in the apartments formerly occupied by herself and her late husband. The scene was touching. She said to us, — *'I spent my whole mamed life, a happy woman, in these rooms ; may the omen be a happy one for you, my children." She has taken Calyste's fonner room for hers. Saintly soul ! she seems intent on laying off her mem- ories and all her conjugal dignities to invest us with them. The province of Brittany, this town, this family of ancient morals and ancient customs has, in spite of certain absurdities which strike the eye of a frivolous Parisian girl, something inexplicable, some- thing grandiose even in its trifles, which can only be defined by the word sacred. All the tenants of the vast domains of the house of Guenic, bought back, as you know, by Mademoiselle des Touches (whom we are going to visit in her con- vent), have been in a body to pay their respects to us. These worthy people, in their holiday costumes, ex- pressing their genuine joy in the fact that Calyste has now become really and truly their master, made me understand Brittany, the feudal system and old France. The whole scene was a festival I can't describe to you in writing, but I will tell you about it when we meet. The terms of the leases have been proposed by the fjars 304 Beatrix. themselves. We shall sign them, after making a tour of inspection round the estates, which have been mortgaged away from us for one hundred and fifty years! Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel told me that the gars have reckoned up the revenues and estimated the rentals with a veracity and justice Parisians would never believe. We start in three days on horseback for this trip. I will write you on my return, dear mother. I shall have nothing more to tell you about myself, for my happiness is at its height — and how can that be told ? I shall write you only what you know already, and that is, how I love you. Nantes, June, 1838. Having now played the role of a chatelaine, adored by her vassals as if the revolutions of 1789 and 1830 had lowered no banners; and after rides through for- ests, and halts at farmhouses, dinners on oaken tables, covered with centenary linen, bending under Homeric viands served on antediluvian dishes; after drinking the choicest wines in goblets to volleys of musketry, accompanied by cries of " Long live the Guenics ! " till I was deafened ; after balls, where the only orches- tra was a bagpipe, blown by a man for ten hours ; and after bouquets, and young brides who wanted us to bless them, and downright weariness, which made me find in my bed a sleep I never knew before, with delightful awakenings when love shone radiant as the sun pouring in upon me, and scintillating with a million of flies, all buzzing in the Breton dialect! — in short, after a most grotesque residence in the BSatrix. 305 Cbdteau du Gu^nic, where the windows are gates and the cows graze peacefully on the grass in the halls (which castle we have sworn to repair and to inhabit for a while every year to the wild acclamations of the clan du Guenic, a gars of which bore high our banner) — ouf ! I am at Nantes. But oh ! what a day was that when we arrived at the old castle! The rector came out, mother, with all his clergy, crowned with flowers, to receive us and bless us, expressing such joy, — the tears are in my eyes as I think of it. And my noble Calyste! who played his part of seigneur like a personage in Walter Scott! My lord received his tenants' homage as if he were back in the thirteenth century. I heard the girls and the women saying to each other, *' Oh, what a beautiful seigneur we have!" for all the world like an opera chorus. The old men talked of Calyste 's resemblance to the former Guenics whom they had known in their youth. Ah! noble, sublime Brittany I land of belief and faith! But progress has got its eye upon it; bridges are being built, roads made, ideas are, coming, and then farewell to the sublime ! rhe peasants will certainly not be as free and proud as I have now seen them, when progress has proved to them that they are Calyste*s equals — if, indeed, they could ever be got to believe it. After this poem of our pacific Restoration had been sung, and the contracts and leases signed, we left that ravishing land, all flowery, gay, solemn, lonely by turns, and came here to kneel with our happiness at the feet of her who gave it to us. Calyste and I both felt the need of thanking the 20 306 Beatrix. sister of the Visitation. In memory of her he has quartered his own arms with those of Des Touches, which are: party couped, tranche and taille or and sinople, on the latter two eagles argent. He means to take one of the eagles argent for his own supporter and put this motto in its beak : Souviegne-vous, Yesterday we went to the convent of the ladies of the Visitation, to which we were taken by the Abbe Grimont, a friend of the du Guenic family, who told us that your dear Felicite, mamma, was indeed a saint. She could not very well be anything else to him, for her conversion, which was thought to be his doing, has led to his appointment as vicar-general of the diocese. Mademoiselle des Touches declined to re- ceive Calyste, and would only see me. I found her slightly changed, thinner and paler; but she seemed much pleased at my visit. "Tell Calyste," she said, in a low voice, "that it is a matter of conscience with me not to see him, for I am permitted to do so. I prefer not to buy that hap- piness by months of suffering. Ah, you do not know what it costs me to reply to the question, ' Of what are you thinking?' Certainly the mother of the novices has no conception of the number and extent of the ideas which are rushing through my mind when she asks that question. Sometimes I am seeing Italy or Paris, with all its sights; always thinking, how- ever, of Calyste, who is " — she said this in that poetic way you know and admire so much — "who is the sun of memory to me. I found," she continued, "that I was too old to be received among the Carmelites, and I have entered the order of Saint-FranQois de Sales Beatrix, 307 solely because he said, ' I will bare your heads instead of your feet/ — objecting, as he did, to austerities which mortified the body only. It is, in truth, the head that sins. The saintly bishop was right to make his rule austere toward the intellect, and terrible against the will. That is what I sought; for my head was the guilty part of me. It deceived me as to my heart until I reached that fatal age of forty, when, for a few brief moments, we are forty times happier than young women, and then, speedily, fifty times more unhappy. But, my child, tell me," she asked, ceasing with visible satisfaction to speak of herself, '*are you happy?" "You see me under all the enchantments of love and happiness," I answered. *'Calyste is as good and simple as he is noble and beautiful," she said, gravely. *'I have made you my heiress in more things than property ; you now possess the double ideal of which I dreamed. I rejoice in what I have done," she continued, after a pause. ''But, my child, make no mistake; do yourself no wrong. You have easily won happiness; you have only to stretch out your hand to take it, and it is yours ; but be careful to preserve it. If you had come here solely to carry away with you the counsels that my knowledge of your husband alone can give you, the journey would be well repaid. Calyste is moved at this moment by a communicated passion, but you have not inspired it. To make your happiness lasting, try, my dear child, to give him something of his former emotions. In the interests of both of you, be capri- • clous, be coquettish ; to tell you the truth, you must 308 Beatrix, be. I am not advising any odious scheming, or petty tyranny; this that I tell you is the science of a woman's life. Between usury and prodigality, my child, is economy. Study, therefore, to acquire honor- ably a certain empire over Calyste. These are the last words on earthly interests that I shall ever utter, and I have kept them to say as we .part; for there are times when I tremble in my conscience lest to save Calyste I may have sacrificed you. Bind him to you, firmly, give him children, let him respect their mother in you — and," she added in a low and trembling voice, ''manage, if you can, that he shall never again see Beatrix." That name plunged us both into a sort of stupor; we looked into each other's eyes, exchanging a vague uneasiness. " Do you return to Guerande ? " she asked me. ''Yes," I said. "Never go to Les Touches. I did wrong to give him that property." "Why?" I asked. "Child!" she answered, "Les Touches for you is Bluebeard's chamber. There is nothing so dangerous as to wake a sleeping passion.'* I have given you, dear mamma, the substance, or at any rate, the meaning of our conversation. If Made- moiselle des Touches made me talk to her freely, she also gave me much to think of ; and all the more be- cause, in the delight of this trip, and the charm of these relations with my Calyste, I had well-nigh for- gotten the serious situation of which I spoke to you in my first letter. , BSatrix. 309 But oh! mother, it is impossible for me to follow these counsels. I cannot put an appearance of oppo- sition or caprice into my love; it would falsify it. Calyste will do with me what he pleases. According to your theory, the more I am a woman the more I make myself his toy ; for I am, and I know it, horribly weak in my happiness; I cannot resist a single glance of my lord. But no ! I do not abandon myself to love ; I only cling to it, as a mother presses her infant to her breast, fearing some evil. Calyste, rich and married to the most beautiful woman in Paris, retains a sadness in his soul which nothing dissipates, — not even the birth of a son at Guerande, in 1839, to the great joy of Zephirine du Guenic. Beatrix lives still in the depths of his heart, and it is impossible to foresee what disasters might result should he again meet with Madame de Rochefide. THE END. * i lOAN DEPT. u lactaate Stamped below, or i=^ Renewed books atesub^ectto^^^" ::r LIBRARK LD 2lA-50m-li;62 Uoiversity Dr^N> •^. ^1^ ^ YB 54492 <H<kH<kr I V " ^ " ' '^^■<S''^^^^^^^^ I C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES WW s ' ^^.5 'UFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERS!^- ""' '^UIFORNIA .>• .r1^> i ^# '^ I IfOdllll IIBRJRY Of THE UmURSITl' <)f CMIfOHKI* -^se .-kkkkW yL: